Gunga Din is an adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s poem of the same name. This marks the first time in class that we’ve watched something adapted from a poem, and much like a comic book, it’s the opposite of adapting from a novel. Whereas with a novel a screenwriter has to condense the story, with shorter works like comics, and even more-so poems, the writer is almost forced to appropriate rather than simply adapt.
That’s my fancy new film word, appropriate, which we learned in class. It basically means taking the idea and using it to convey intentions that didn’t exist in the original text.
And while the original poem almost unarguably has political undertones, the movie almost inherently takes on more meaning because of it’s length and range.
Some of the themes that were explored were friendship, marriage, masculinity, racial intolerance, and true courage (one of the central themes of the poem). We also have what I can only imagine is one of the earliest examples of a bromantic comedy.
The titular character, Gunga Din, is portrayed as a minor character at first, which is to be expected given the time period. To have a movie with an Indian main character in 1939 would have been controversial, if not commercial suicide.
Nevertheless, Gunga Din in the movie is actually more of a hero than he is in the poem, which I can only assume is to make up for the fact that he really isn’t of much importance till we’re through most of the movie. Inserting the poem was a nice touch, but it didn’t really makeup for the fact that Gunga Din just wasn’t really about Gunga Din.
Another text that was said to have influenced the film was Kipling’s short story collection Soldiers Three. I mention this, but I really can’t speak much to it because I haven’t read it. Still, I think it’s interesting that the writer’s looked to Kipling’s other works rather than to outside sources.
In closing, the best part of the film was painted Sam Jaffe. What a riot.
birthofthedrool 