Why do you think Peter Brooks changed this aspect of the epic poem in his film?
Or is it because there is more to the epic poem that was left out of this text?
Saturday, November 14, 2009
The Mahabharata ?'s
The film altered a little bit from the text when it came to Arjuna's son, Abhimanya, going into the circular array. In the movie he tells the others that he heard his father telling his mother, while he was in her womb, how to get into the array. Though he didn't hear how to get out. Abhimanya was begging the elders to let him go in so they could follow. He desperately wanted to help in the war, though they thought he was too young. In the book, the elders were urging him to go in, so they could follow him in for battle.
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I would guess that the change was done more for dramatic effect. In such a situation as the book describes, where a young person is being egged on to do something by his elders, we have Abhimanya becoming a pawn to those who know more than he. However, when his choices becomes one of active rebellion against the wishes of the elders, we have a much more Western hero. Our culture is enamored with those who march to the beat of their own drums. Eastern cultures, on the other hand, put much greater faith in the will of the majority.
ReplyDeleteI think it was done so that it would fit into what he was doing for the film. I believe it would have been hard to keep everything the same in the film as the book. Maybe he was making it stricter when it came to the characters age and wanted to make it more realistic by not wanting young people to go to war. Overall, I think it would be nearly impossible to keep everything exactly the same as the text because of time constraints so I think that scene was just a casualty of the circumstances.
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