KAHIHI

Whenever I’m actually in a houseboat, say in Alleppy or in Malwan (only one houseboat so far owned by one city corporator, Rajan Sarmalkar), I can’t stop myself thinking about David Lean and his Ryan’s Daughter, a 1970 movie, shot on the sea shore of Ireland; why not in Alleppy and its backwaters, the nature’s extravaganza?

Ryan’s Daughter was a big flop in many countries, and consequently in India as well. Or at least it seemed so on the backdrop of unfathomable success of two of his earlier movies - Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Dr. Zhivago (1965).
(image courtesy: Terryballard, Wikipedia)

David Lean was a strange amalgam of rough nature and a creative mind. The two extremes nurtured inside him quite comfortably.

He used to hate India, however, later married an Indian woman, Leena Velinkar, a high-brow lady moving in political circles of Delhi. He would choose a vast backdrop, like say, Sahara desert as in Lawrence of Arabia, and throw a lanky, fleshless Peter-O-Toole alone to act, or rather parch or burn there. Peter-O-Toole, when the shoot was over, complained to Leena Velinkar saying, “Your husband had decided to kill me in the deserts”. So merciless was Lean.

In Ryan’s Daughter, Lean chose a place called Dingle Peninsula on the Ireland coast. The distant village was one Killary. We too have one in the same name and famous for the earthquakes, but far away from the sea.

The Irish married woman had an affair with a British army officer at the time of First World War. She had to leave the village as the villagers do not approve the affair and the suspicion arisen due to the ammunition stock hidden.

Such a simple plot! But that reminds me of as many waves have reached the Killary village in Ireland.

Sarah Miles, her husband Robert Mitchum, and lover Christopher Jones in the movie wore the Lilliputian appearance, ditto like Peter-O-Toole in Lawrence of Arabia, opposite sea front defying the limits of skyline.

It is Lean’s favourite game. Juxtapose opposites, the ultimate opposites that the super panavision camera available in his times would cover.

Perhaps, Sarah Miles was chosen for the same reason.

Twice, the wife of Robert Bolt (The Man for all Seasons), Lean’s favourite screen playwright, spoke fetid mouthed language. Bolt had Madame Bovary, a novel by Gustav Flaubert, in his mind for screen but after discussion with Lean he loosely adapted it.

Ramesh Sippy directed Hindi movie, Sagar, was loosely adapted from the story of Ryan’s Daughter. As Ryan’s Daughter was a commercial disaster, many did not know the roots of Sagar. The village idiot (Liliput) whom the heroine of Sagar kisses in the end is a cut-and-paste shot from Ryan’s Daughter. Sagar retrieved image of Dimple Kapadia (30) having two daughters to a teenage heroine from where she had given up acting. It won 4 Filmfare awards including that for cinematography. The village idiot missed it and went to the parallel hero.

Hero worshipping!

The team of Ryan’s Daughter and also the director had to face every kind of difficulty.

Alec Guinness, Marlon Brando, Peter-O-Toole, George C. Scott, Anthony Hopkins, Richard Burton, Richard Harris and Paul Scofield were all considered for different roles but had to back out for different reasons. To add to further woes the selected star cast kept on fighting and abusing each other.

Robert Mitchum during the making of the film clashed with Lean and famously said, "Working with David Lean is like constructing the Taj Mahal out of toothpicks."

There were two silver linings about Ryan’s Daughter though. John Mills, for the role of village idiot, won a kiss planted on lips by Sarah Miles and Academy Award for best actor in a supporting role (our Liliput was privileged only with Dimple’s kiss) and Freddie Young for best cinematography, Sarah Miles being nominated for best actress in a leading role and a nomination for sound, inter alia.

MGM spent one million pounds in 70s to reconstruct the forlorn village of Killary to save it from storms. The poor villagers worked as extras. The face of the village changed since then and it has become famous as a tourist spot reviving the economy, and the township around, Dingle Peninsula.

When I feel or read about the earthquakes in Maharashtra, as it happens often, I remember Killari earthquake. Our Killari village in Maharashtra where the worst earthquake that hit India in last seventy years killing ten thousand people in Sept, 1993 which had been well nigh condemned, is waiting for redevelopment for more than one and half decade and for reviving economy after that.