The debate continues on 26 years after the release of the film.
Most filmmakers who choose real-life personalities as fodder for their movies ultimately turn around and deny their source material. Who wants to get into trouble and, worse, pay up huge amounts to the family and kin of the biographical subject?
That is understandable. But why did Mani Ratnam deny remaking The Godfather in Nayakan? Mani Ratnam’s gangster epic Nayakan has the unique distinction of being selected by Time magazine among its Top 100 films of all times.
It’s all about the genre
Mani has maintained, “I don’t see how the theory that Nayakan is my version of The Godfather, gained credence. It’s easy to classify films in simple categories. Nayakan and The Godfather belong to the gangster genre. There’s no similarity to The Godfather. Nayakan was rooted to the Tamil culture and inspired by a character here. The Godfather was rooted in the Italian Mafioso culture. And if you look at the famous scream that Kamal Haasan lets out after his son’s death in Nayakan you’ll realise that there’s a similar sequence in Godfather Part 3, which came much after Nayakan.”
Same-same, but different
But the film’s leading man Haasan, who shot to immortal fame as the Tamil gangster in Mumbai, begs to defer. He says, “Nayakan was definitely inspired by The Godfather. In fact, we were so conscious of our source material that we made deliberate efforts to make my character dissimilar to Marlon Brando in terms of the walk, the talk and attitude… Hence the efforts to bring in a true-life Tamil gangster in Mumbai… But Brando and The Godfather loomed large over Nayakan.”
The actor says he admires Ram Gopal Varma for maintaining throughout the making of Sarkar that it was his tribute to The Godfather. “Though again, another real-life character was brought in here as a role model for Bachchan saab’s role. That again, was a safety valve. It was like denying the source material to avoid charges of excessive inspiration from an eminently inspirational source (The Godfather).”
Revisiting the Hollywood epic
Haasan goes on to reveal that a lot of ideas derived from The Godfather couldn’t be used in Nayakan. “So we used it in my other Tamil tribute to The Godfather, which was Thevar Magan. In terms of ambience and setting, Thevar Magan turned out to be closer to The Godfather than Nayakan.”
So the question again: Why did Ratnam deny the roots for his Nayakan? In fact, this isn’t the only Ratnam movie to derive its creative energy from a foreign source. Yuva was borrowed from Amores Perros. And Dil Se seemed in some ways a homage to The French Lieutenant’s Woman.
There’s no harm in being inspired. But shouldn’t a filmmaker accept and acknowledge the source of his inspiration?
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