Should heroes change with the time or remain sacrosanct, immutable?
When nothing is sacrosanct any more, not even in movieland, changes that do not happen are significant.
By ET Bureau | Updated:
When nothing is sacrosanct any more, not even in movieland, changes that do not happen are significant. The new avatars of supersleuths and superheros, instead of standing as immutable standards, have been changing to suit modern mores and perhaps also new audience expectations.
So we have a pugnacious Sherlock and a brooding Dark Knight, in sync with the current zeitgeist of flawed if not fallen icons. James Bond as a craggy, battlescarred spy may have a certain savoir faire, and even a caped crusader’s masked face may hide many secrets but the clean-cut Clark Kent always found it difficult to dissemble.
It is not surprising then that he remains square jawed and resolute as ever in the latest Superman movie. As it is, the newest version has chosen to ignore all the other films which have expanded on the original story and stick to the main theme of the Man of Steel’s beginnings; it has embraced change only inasmuch as the lady love’s hair colour.
Lois Lane going gingerhaired instead of Lana Lang could be dismissed as a minor quibble for the buffs to mull over, but the fact that this Superman (despite being played by an English actor) remains a definite doppelganger of Christopher Reeve, may herald a return to the classic genre as far as superhero tales go.
The West has had to depend on fictional characters and comic books for their fare of heroes whereas India’s rich repertoire of heroic tales are largely anchored to holy shibboleths. The countless, unchanged retellings of the Ramayana have not lessened the public’s love for the tale.
This could be why, in India, many interpretations or contemporary reworkings of the great epics have been essayed on stage and in print, but a mainstream cinematic retelling and even recasting has not been attempted.
So we have a pugnacious Sherlock and a brooding Dark Knight, in sync with the current zeitgeist of flawed if not fallen icons. James Bond as a craggy, battlescarred spy may have a certain savoir faire, and even a caped crusader’s masked face may hide many secrets but the clean-cut Clark Kent always found it difficult to dissemble.
It is not surprising then that he remains square jawed and resolute as ever in the latest Superman movie. As it is, the newest version has chosen to ignore all the other films which have expanded on the original story and stick to the main theme of the Man of Steel’s beginnings; it has embraced change only inasmuch as the lady love’s hair colour.
Lois Lane going gingerhaired instead of Lana Lang could be dismissed as a minor quibble for the buffs to mull over, but the fact that this Superman (despite being played by an English actor) remains a definite doppelganger of Christopher Reeve, may herald a return to the classic genre as far as superhero tales go.
The West has had to depend on fictional characters and comic books for their fare of heroes whereas India’s rich repertoire of heroic tales are largely anchored to holy shibboleths. The countless, unchanged retellings of the Ramayana have not lessened the public’s love for the tale.
This could be why, in India, many interpretations or contemporary reworkings of the great epics have been essayed on stage and in print, but a mainstream cinematic retelling and even recasting has not been attempted.
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