Intertextuality of Film Remakes of Devdas

Abstract

The screen adaptation of the novella Devdas by Saratchandra Chattopadhyay is an important landmark in early Indian cinema. A prominent film, screened in four Indian languages (Bengali, Hindi, Telugu and Tamil), it seems to offer a novel vision of romantic love and romanticism. This article critiques the fanciful interpretations of the film provided by some postmodern academics in the field of comparative literature. It endeavours to place the film both as text and cinematic work into a broader perspective based on the study of intertextuality of three renditions: Raghavaiah’s Devdas (Telugu, 1953), Bimal Roy’s Devdas (Hindi, 1955) and Bhansali’s Devdas (Hindi, 2002). Grounded in cultural theory and Indian performative aesthetics coupled with moving image analysis, this study highlights the underlying, deep-rooted romanticism embedded in Indian philosophical and aesthetic traditions of devotion between atma (individual soul) and paramatma (absolute soul), personifying Paro/Chandramukhi as atma and Devdas as paramatma. This article, part of a larger project on de-Westernising media studies, makes a critical intervention in current South Asian Studies by aiming to provide a novel theoretical framework to which the philosophical and traditional tenets grounding the novella of Devdas can be anchored.