While at the DVD shop, recently, I happened to chance upon a film called The Miracle Worker. A black and white film which is the inspiration for the film Black. After having watched Black twice and having loved it, I was pretty intrigued to pick up this film and watch it. Obviously at the back of my mind was the fact that I am constantly going to compare the film.
It usually happens. When you’ve watched one version you generally don’t tend to like the other. But in this case, you kind of tended to appreciate our own version, Black, a little more. The Miracle Worker too is a story of a little girl who is born blind and deaf. She lives like an animal without any understanding of life. She wants to talk like her parents and relatives but is incapable. Her mother is the one who wants her daughter to have a normal life. As normal as she can and the father doesn’t agree. They eventually agree to call on a teacher who has prior experience with such kids. In this case it is a lady teacher who herself used to be blind and had to operated on nine times before she managed to see.
And this of course is her first student. In the case of The Miracle Worker the similarities are only till the child takes her first step. Sanjay Leela Bhansali has gone a step forward and narrated her story till the age of 40. But the similarities are more than inspired. The dining table scene with the teacher struggling to teach the little girl manners is from the original version. However in the original version, the scene is pretty long. It actually extends from breakfast uptil dinner time. It is more realistic and the fight more exhausting.
The teacher then decides alienate the student from her family and tries to teach her words. When she returns back to her family she tries to behave in the same unruly way. Followed then by the fountain scene, where she finally realises that everything has a name and that she can learn with the aid of her teacher. This is where the film ends. But in the case of Black, Sanjay Leela Bhansali has taken the film not just a step ahead but far ahead. Makers who do want to be inspired with foreign films, should take a pointers or two from the above two films.