Depicting colonial and post-colonial attitudes to imperialism in film: A passage to India

Abstract

Má bakalá ská práce se snaží osv tlit zp soby, jakými filmová tvorba ovliv uje naše vnímání historických, politických, kulturních a spole enských událostí, které se odehrály v minulosti. Filmy, jakožto sou ást populární kultury, jsou p íkladem celistvého a ve ejn p ístupného zp sobu reprezentace naší minulosti. Jistým fenoménem 20. století je skupina film zachycujících p íb hy dob dávno minulých - život v Britském impériu, úskalí kolonizace a lidské p íb hy zachycující st et kultur. Má práce se zam uje na koloniální a post-koloniální aspekty t chto zobrazení v britském filmu, respektive ve filmové adaptaci románu E.M.Forstera Cesta do Indie britského režiséra Davida Leana, která je jedním z nejznám jších film s koloniální tématikou v rámci celého anglicky mluvícího sv ta.

With regard to the novel I would like to conclude this analysis of David Lean's film pointing out that his A Passage to India as an adaptation is a personal interpretation of the literary work, and therefore is unable to correspond with other interpretations and to satisfy the expectation of all viewers familiar with the film. Looking for an explanation of what happened in the caves Lean decided it to be a hallucination of a haunted mind and had to restructure the preceding events of the plot and picture Adela as muddle-headed 'young girl fresh from England' coming to terms with her own repressed sexuality in order to be able to reach this conclusion. Some hold it against him that he falsified the protagonists and manipulated them in his own way to produce a more flattering picture of the British, however, I believe that most of the modifications he has undertaken were to serve the purpose of making a logically coherent story, not to express his own or current political attitudes. As in the case of all adaptations, the choice of actors, depiction of setting and focus on details as a part of interpretation must necessarily lead into certain modification.