Introduction

The film adaptation has been there since the birth of cinema, but academic research on adaptation has gained sophistication in the 1960s due to the making of significant theoretical writings on the relationship between film and literature (Dean), and in the past three decades, scholars have focused seriously on adaptation theory (Chung, 2002). In the contemporary creative industry, adaptation plays a crucial part. Especially film adaptation is a driving force in the modern-day creative industries among different types of adaptation (Perdikaki, 2018). Along with the great development in film industries, different forms of artwork have been filmed as films through different adaptation methods; hence there is a great ongoing discussion in the contemporary world regarding the appropriate framework for adaptation studies. Simultaneously, with changing times, contextual considerations also play an important role in films that eventually have a bearing on the final product. Such considerations relate to the overall socio-political and cultural context. In the discipline of adaptations, translation has also been considered as an area with great potential for methodological and theoretical transferability (Perdikaki, 2017).

Translation theories offer a similar premise to analyze the adaptations of literary text into cinema (Leitch, 2008). Irrespective of the distinctions between the fields that contain the transmission of a text to another medium versus the transformation of a text into another language, both fields are comparable in many ways. Which elements distinct an inter-semiotic translation from an original text? To what extent the source text is added, elaborated, omitted, and interpreted by the translator? How much has the reception of original work influenced the role of the translator as an interpreter, reader, and re-creator? Before considered as an adaptation, original new work, or version, to what degree originality it contained? Mentioned above are the questions involved in the domain of translation studies (Yau 2016). Moreover, the same queries are applicable in film adaptation studies.

Similarly, criticizing a film by measuring its faithfulness to original text shows an insufficient understanding of the adaptation. An analysis based on the differences between the two mediums is also inadequate (Rascaroli 2008). Therefore, to fully understand the adaptation process, there should be concerns about why, how and within what context the adapted product is reproduced.

The study would overcome the research gap mentioned above by using and validating an adaptation model which is deployed from translation studies having much relevance with adaptation. Application of this model to the adaptation of Saadat Hasan’s “Thanda Gosht” (Cold Meat) and “Peshawar Se Lahore Tak” (from Peshawar to Lahore) in Manto (Sarmad Khoosat, 2015) would bring more potentiality in generalizing the applicability of the translation model in adaptation. While analyzing film adaption through the context of postmodernism would explore different viewpoints and contextualization of the product. The nature of the research gap appears to be methodological as well as theoretical. Therefore, the researcher would try to incorporate and bridge all the perspectives on adaptation studies from scholars of different fields, i.e., literary, film and culture.

Adaptation is a debatable topic in academia for a long time due to its multidisciplinary nature. Scholars from different disciplines, i.e., Literary studies, film studies, and cultural studies, have approached adaptation with different theoretical and methodological tools that enriched the knowledge pool of adaptation studies (Chan & Stam 2012). Literary scholars in their adaptation work barely discuss film techniques like voyeurism, visual pleasure, or spectator identification; on the other hand, scholars from the film fraternity try to ignore how the original authors’ larger work is related to single adapted text and where it stands (Radulovich, 2015). Hence a struggle for power over textual priority initiate debates in adaptation discourse, as literary scholars give privilege to novel/literary text over film/drama/visual medium while film scholars argue in favour of watching movies as a separate subject (Hutcheon, 2012). Moreover, Cultural scholars claim that contextual and cultural elements greatly influence the style and approach of the adapted film (Ramière 2006). Over the years, the relationship between literature, film and culture has grown and evolved into great complexities.

During the early period of the adaptation debate, most of the work was related to evaluation. In the analysis of earlier studies, the work of literature was compared to its adapted film to evaluate “true Fidelity” to the book (Ásgeirsson 2009). Moreover, adapted films were studied based on whether they kept close by the mood and all the storyline of the book. i.e., the transformation of literary text into film text with the help of film language, e.g. the dialogues or montages, evaluating the exact cinematic expression as good as its literary model (Bortolotti & Hutcheon 2007). On the other hand, several scholars from film studies have claimed that adaptation study based on fidelity criticism is arguable and inadequate (Leitch, 2003). The film is a representation of a subjective understanding of a filmmaker which he/she attains from the literary source (Rascaroli), while fidelity issue also overlooks the probability of seeing the cinematic adaptation as critical interpretations and as intertextual work of literary text that expands and enhance the reading of literature (Dovey 2012). The Fidelity approach is also problematic because literary work is an open structure and could be reworked by limitless context, which is seen by means of changing grids of interpretation (Stam). Filmmakers sometimes get inspired or adapt the works of predecessors or their contemporaries, and often, films refer to other films (Allen). As intertextuality characterizes literary work in modern culture, which shows the survival and transformation of a text through various reincarnations of popular culture (Sanders 2015). Therefore, studies of film adaptation offer a rich academic analysis of such unexamined possibilities of cultural influences on cinematic adaptations. There are a bunch of critical issues related to the cultural study of literary work that is barely addressed in film adaptation studies (Cho 2005). Adaptation studies, at the beginning of the 21st centenary, starts to look upon the range of choices and options available to adapters and to include elements of creativity. Simultaneously theories in translation studies also gain the ground of the view that adaptation involves reinterpretation and rewriting (Aragay, 2005; Hutcheon, 2013; Venuti, 2007). Based on these theories, scholars argued that adaptation is like translation as there is a distinction between optional shifts and obligatory in both fields (Van den Broeck, 2014; Aragay, 2005; Hutcheon, 2013). Just like theoretical methods in translations studies, film adaptation studies also emphasize the consideration of the concepts, i.e., “the original” and “fidelity”, and the effects of historical, social, and cultural elements involved in the reformation process (Munday, 2013). Moreover, translation of a text to film medium, also known as creative transposition, appropriation, or imitation, is a synonyms for translations (Sanders). Adaptation and translation are both the process of rearranging text, reconstituting it, and transposing it for the sake that it gets fit to the new medium.

The study builds on the theoretical insights in Translation, Adaptation and cultural studies that are mentioned above and adopts interpretative towards adaptation as recontextualization. This concept is coined by (Elliott 2014) as “contextual textualism” that emphasizes the methods in which contexts inform on texts instead of merely on how they are constructed. The adaptation studies need to investigate the “why” and “how” of adaptation. In other words, the study of adaptation should investigate the text-in-context approach (Elliott, 2014; Murrary, 2012). Therefore, to fully understand the adaptation process, there should be concerns about why, how and within what context the adapted product is reproduced. Moreover, analyzing film adaptation through the lens of postmodernism would explore the context and reasons for the adaptation shifts. As over the last three decades, postmodern cinema represents characteristics of popular culture through its various expressions and is a crucial dimension of society and media culture, postmodernism has greatly influenced today’s filmmaking due to its experimental, subversive, and diverse aesthetic representation.

In the 1980s and 1990s, postmodern cinema emerged as a strong creative force in filmmaking, which helped in shaping the convergence of consumerism, technology, and media culture. Unlike the traditions of modernist culture, which were based on the values of industrial society, enlightenment and belief in historical progress. Films of postmodernism usually consist of random violence, images of chaos, disjointed narratives, dark views of human situations, hero’s death, dystopia, and more emphasis on technique over content (Easmin, 2014).

Postmodern directors such as Quentin Tarantino, Woody Allen, Robert Altman, John Waters, Coen Brothers, Mike Figgis, and Oliver Stone made films that departed from conventional motifs and formulas of Hollywood and are highly subversive and original that introduce the studio system. In these movies, cultural radicalism is merely connected with political radicalism; moreover, harsh criticism of social values could also be visible. Movies of postmodernism produce a very popular mood of cynicism, uncertainty, fear, and anxiety that is an essential part of general society (Zohdi, & Oroskhan, 2015).

In the light of parallel developments in translation and adaptation and postmodernism theories, these disciplines provide the methodological tools and theoretical insights for an organized analysis of adaption. Therefore, studies of film adaptation offer a rich academic analysis of such unexamined possibilities of cultural influences on cinematic adaptations. There are a bunch of critical issues related to the cultural study of literary work that is barely addressed in film adaptation studies (Cho). The present study aims to examine the adaptation of Saadat Hasan’s “Thanda Gosht” (Cold Meat) and “Peshawar Se Lahore Tak” (From Peshawar to Lahore) in Manto (Sarmad Khoosat, 2015) through the cultural lens of postmodernism.

The study employed Mixed-Methods Sequential Explanatory Design for the research. The Design consists of two distinct phases: quantitative followed by qualitative (Creswell, Plano Clark, et al.). It combines quantitative and qualitative methods that complement each other and allow for more robust analysis, taking advantage of the strengths of each (Green, Caracelli, and Graham2011 ; Miles and Huberman; Green and Caracelli; Tashakkori and Teddlie). The full picture is always more meaningful than each of the components (Creswell). The quantitative approach in this study is used to measure the frequency of various adaptation shifts that prevailed in the film. This section of the study deals with descriptive statistics to identify the shifts in the adaptation process. These quantifications of shifts are the starting point for qualitative analysis of the data. Research following a qualitative approach is exploratory and seeks to explain ‘how’ and ‘why’ a particular phenomenon, or behaviour, operates as it does in a particular context.

In this study, data and theory are intertwined, and the literature related to translation, adaption and culture studies contributes to the development of the research tool for the examination of adaption. The formation of the categories of the adaptation model is also deducted from theory. The quantitative part of the study is adapted by Leuven-Zwart’s model of translation shifts. The model and its categories are adjusted to the requirement of this study to fit the audio-visual data at hand. Moreover, these modifications helped in the observation of description and interpretation of adaptation shifts. The second component is qualitative in nature that investigated the contextual reason (Postmodernism) that explained the occurring of adaptation shifts. The qualitative or interpretative part of the study is used to explain the adaptation shifts, which would be identified in the descriptive categories. This process employed the analysis of film through the lens of postmodernism and looked for the elements/characteristics of postmodernism that may pertain to the adaptation shifts in the film.

Quantitative Component of Methodology

Van Leuven-Zwart’s taxonomy of translation shifts model used in the present study emerges from the conjoined theoretical viewpoints in adaptation and narratology studies (Genette 1980, Andrew, Chatman, and Bordwell1984 ). The component is quantitative in nature which deals with the analysis of source text and its film adaptation and quantifies and/or count the adaptation shifts. The model is comprised of four different categories. i.e., narrative techniques, plot structure, setting and characterization.

The researchers analyzed the adaptation shifts of two short stories featured in Manto, “Peshawar Se Lahore Tak” (From Peshawar to Lahore) and “Thanda Gosht” (Cold Meat). The researcher also explained the adaptation shifts (Modulation, Modification and Mutation) that occurred in each descriptive category and their sub-categories, i.e., Plot Structure, Narrative Technique (Temporal Sequence & Presentation), Characterization and Setting (Temporal & Spatial). Moreover, postmodern elements in the film and the adaptation shifts enabled by postmodernism are also discussed as follow.

Table 2. Adaptation Shifts

As mentioned in table 4.1, adaptation shifts in plot structure are much in number than characterization and narrative technique shifts. Meanwhile, adaptation shifts in the setting category are very few and lowest in numbers than all other descriptive categories.

Adaptation Shifts

In the section, researcher focuses on the descriptive categories of the adaptation shifts, i.e., plot structure, characterization, narrative techniques and setting. In the analysis, the most prominent examples are highlighted that emerged in the adaptation process. Similarly, a detailed summary is also discussed in respective tables. The quantitative findings of the adaptation shift and the emerging pattern are then further explained through the lens of postmodernism.

Plot Structure

“Peshawar se Lahore Tak” presents maximum shifts in plot structure, i.e.,15; While “Thanda Gosht” features 13 shifts. The greatest plot structure shifts across the corpus belong to excision (a sub-category of mutation). In other words, most adaptations excised or removed the elements of the story plots. Modulation shift and, particularly, Simplification shift (a sub-category of modulation) is the second most frequent category in plot structure shifts.

As discussed earlier, simplification in plot structure indicates downplaying and underemphasis on plot aspects. There are an equal number of shifts in addition (a sub-category of mutation) and alteration (a sub-category of modification) that show an adequate amount of addition and changes occurring in the plot of stories. Amplification (one of the sub-categories of modulation shift) features the least frequency in the analysis of adaptations. Briefly, events tended to be simplified or excised rather than added, altered, or amplified.

Adaptation Shifts in Plot Structure

There were several shifts in the adaptation of Peshawar Se Lahore Tk. The majority of them were from the mutation category. i.e., Addition and Excision. There were some events in the source text which are excised in the film. For instance, the encounter of the ticket checker and Javaid in train and the meeting of Javaid with the girl at the railway stop. An event is also absent when the train had to stop due to a buffalo that was standing on the railway track. On the other hand, some event was added in the adaptation which includes Javaid bringing food for the girl at Lala Musa junction. In the adaptation process, minor alterations (Sub-category of Modification) also occurs. The incident of a girl asking for cigarettes and apples from Javaid were reshuffled. Similarly, the scene of Javaid’s imagination was also altered and amplified. There were also some instances where the detail of the girl’s appearance was simplified and underplayed.

Plot Adaptation Shifts in “Peshawar Se Lahore Tak”

Adaptation of “Thanda Gosht” presents a total of 13 shifts in plot structure. The majority of the shifts occurred in the Mutation category, while the single adaptation shift featured in alteration (Sub-category of Modification) and simplification (a sub-category of modulation). In the film, numerous additions were featured in plot structure, including symbolism like melting of ghee, mixing hand in menaced meat, Kalwant drinking milk and putting food to Ishwar’s mouth. On the other hand, several excisions also occurred in the adapted product. The intimates and fondling scenes present in the source text were removed in the movie; similarly, the conversation between Kalwant and Ishwar was also exceeded. Moreover, seducing actions of Kalwant Kaur was simplified and underplayed in the movie. Lastly, the frustrated and angry response of Kalwant towards Ishwar was also altered in the plot structure shift.

Plot Adaptation Shifts in “Thanda Gosht”

There are a total of 10 adaptation shifts for

narrative techniques. “Thanda Gosht” presents 7 shifts.

Moreover, In Peshawar Se Lahore Tek the number of adaptation shifts are 3, as shown in the table below.

The range of shifts in the narrative technique category is almost half from plot structure. The majority of the shifts features in presentation despite temporal sequence. In other words, adaptation shifts in Manto tend to manipulate the way of storytelling rather than changing the order of events that take place in the source text. In the adaptation, emphasis were placed on both monstration and narration. Nevertheless, finds shows that the premise of the film adaption focuses majorly on visuals.

Narrative Technique Adaptation Shifts

Peshawar se Lahore Tek presents next to maximum shifts in narrative technique, i.e., 9. The majority of the shifts are featured in the presentation aspect of the film. Dialogues were excised from the adapted product while a song “Kiya Hoga” by Ali Sethi and Zeb Bangash is added in the film. Similarly, Narrative instances, including the conversations between the girl and Javaid, Imagination and stalking and the scenes where Javaid bought edibles for the girls, are visually represented without dialogues. Moreover, the event where Javaid came to know about the profession of the girl that she is a queen was symbolically presented by “Ghungroo” (anklet). On the contrary, there were only two shifts that occurred in the temporal aspect of the narrative

technique. The duration of Javaid’s imagination was reduced in the film. Likewise, the order and sequence of things the girl asked from Javaid, including fruits and cigarettes, was changed in the final adapted product.

Narrative Technique Adaptation Shifts in “Peshawar Se Lahore Tak

There are maximum shifts that appeared in the narrative technique of “Thada Gosht”. All the shifts featured in the presentation aspect of adaptation. The highest number of shifts were occurred in mutation, i.e., 8. Just like Peshawar Se Lahore Tek, dialogues are excised, and the song “Mahram Dilaan da Mahi” by Meesha Shafi is added in the film. Some scenes were also added in the film to symbolically present intimate and sexual events. Those instances include melting ghee on the pan, exotically drinking milk and putting food in the mouth. Similarly, the scenes of menaced meat and fume of hermal’ herb were also added in the film to represent motives of seduction. Most of the events were visually displayed without using dialogues. A single shift featured in modulation wherein the climax of the “Thanda Gosht” Ishwar narratively describes the incident of robbery and raping a dead girl.

Narrative Technique Adaptation Shifts in “Thanda Gosht”

According to the finding, the shifts observed

across the corpus related to characterization are 12 in

number. Peshawar se Lahore Tek and Thanda Gosht presents 6 shifts each, as shown in the table

Table 4.

: Adaptation Shifts in Characterization

Peshawar Se Lahore Tek featured 6 adaptation shifts in characterization. Each category, i.e., Modulation, Modification, Mutation, employs equal shifts. In the source text, there are characters of ticket checker and fat passenger in the train that is excised in the film. Similarly, the event where Javaid imagines a joyful moment with the girl of their married life is dramatized. On the contrary, the physical appearance and portrayal of the girls were simplified. Moreover, the conversation part of Javaid and the girl is also underplayed in the film.

Peshawar Se Lahore Tek featured 6 adaptation shifts in characterization. Each category, i.e., Modulation, Modification, Mutation, employs equal shifts. In the source text, there are characters of ticket checker and fat passenger in the train that is excised in the film. Similarly, the event where Javaid imagines a joyful moment with the girl of their married life is dramatized. On the contrary, the physical appearance and portrayal of the girls were simplified. Moreover, the conversation part of Javaid and the girl is also underplayed in the film.

Characterization Adaptation Shifts in “Peshawar Se Lahore Tak”

Characterization Adaptation Shifts in “Thanda Gosht”

According to the findings, the setting presents the lowest adaptation shifts in the examined film adaptations. There is only 1 shift that occurred across the corpus. Peshawar Se Lahore Tek only featured one shift each; on the other hand, all other analyzed adaptations retained their shifts of setting, as shown in the table below.

Table 5. Postmodern Elements

There is only one addition presented in the adaptation of Peshawar Se Lahore Tek, which employed in Spatial aspect of the story in which the names and signboards of railways stations were presented in the film. Except for this adaptation shift, all other features of the setting category remained the same. While “Thanda Gosht” features no shifts in setting. The order of events and time of source text is retained in the adaptation.

Analysis of Postmodern Shifts Within Descriptive Categories

In the section, the researcher focuses on the postmodern elements, which enables descriptive categories of the adaptation shifts, i.e., plot structure, characterization, narrative techniques and setting. In the analysis, descriptions of postmodern scenes is highlighted that happened in the adaptation process. Similarly, a detailed summary is also discussed in respective tables

As mentioned in the table, Postmodern elements in “Thanda Gosht” are the highest in number, i.e., six appeared in the narrative technique, while “Peshawar Se Lahore Tak” contains four postmodern elements featured in narrative technique, plot structure and characterization.

Postmodern Elements

Peshawar Se Lahore Tek contains four postmodern elements, i.e., Mixing of reality and fiction, Irony/ Unpredictably, symbolism and Portrayal of Femme Fatale that permits adaptation shifts in the film. These postmodern adaptation shifts featured in Plot structure as modulation & mutation and in narrative technique as modulation while in characterization as modulation.

Short Story 2: “Thanda Gosht”

“Thanda Gosht” presents a maximum number of postmodern elements than other adapted texts, i.e., six including symbolism and Portrayal of Femme Fatale that permits adaptation shifts in the film. These postmodern adaptation shifts featured in narrative technique (presentation) as modification and modulation.

Data Trustworthiness/ Inter-Coder Reliability Test

In order to ensure credibility, reliability and validity in the finding of the research study, the researcher implied inter-coder reliability test/Researcher triangulation technique and calculated four of the most popular reliability coefficients for nominal data: percent agreement, Scott’s Pi, Cohen’s Kappa, and Krippendorff’s Alpha through ReCal2 (“Reliability Calculator for 2 coders”) which is an online utility that computes intercoder/interrater reliability coefficients for nominal data coded by two coders in order to gain the trustworthy and objective results.

Consequently, the data was entered in ReCal2 after coding was completed. 15% of coding sheets were rechecked by stratified random sampling and examined the errors of data entry. Of the 34 entries of data of 7 categories,5 entries were wrongly added. The accuracy rate of Plot Structure, Narrative Technique, Characterization, Setting and Postmodern elements is 96.92%, 95.82%,98.4% ,100%, and 75% respectively.

The present study is inspired by the idea of a multi-layered process involved in translation and adaptation. With the developments of the adaptation studies in different forms and fields, adaptation as translation also appeared to be an area with great potential for methodological and theoretical transferability (Perdikaki, 2017). Put differently, analyzing adaptation with a translation-derived perspective could be helpful to understand adaptation shifts. Similarly, just an analysis, based on the differences between the two mediums, is inadequate (Rascaroli). Therefore, to fully understand the adaptation process, there should be concern about why, how and within what context the adapted product reproduces.

The study showed that translation and adaptation are interrelated; hence the method of analysis could be used in both types of studies. The present study gained its aim by using and validating a model that draws affinities from Adaptation, Translation, Narratology and Cultural Studies. The model consists of two components. The first component (comparative/descriptive component) provides a systematic classification of adaptation shifts, while the second component (interpretative component) tries to explain the adaptation shifts by the reference to contextual factors of postmodernism.

Findings also showed that the adaptation shifts seem to be mostly dependent on the agents’ creativity rather than the difference between the mediums. As mentioned earlier adapter’s reinterpretation and resourcefulness of the source text enables incorporation of the adaptation shifts in the film. For example, Sarmad Khoosat used the song as a narrative device in the adaptation of the stories “Thanda Gosht” and “Peshawar se Lahore Tak”. These results seem to be the nexus of forces that influence the adaptation process as a creative practice in the broader socio-cultural system. Although not all the shifts were capitalized by postmodernism, there were mentionable shifts in the analyzed cases that were enabled by postmodern elements. Put differently, the adaptation of short stories is somehow postmodern in nature as the postmodern elements and narrative treatment of “Thanda Gosht” and “Peshawar Se Lahore Tak” made them postmodern adaptations.

Findings verified the interplay of adapter’s re-interpretative, re-creative touch and social circumstances of a particular era. The present study sheds light on several inter-relations of adaptation shifts and culture bearings through the lens of postmodernism; hence it could be a starting point to link translation and adaptation patterns with cultural and social relevance. As argued earlier, the hermeneutic approach used for adaptation analysis in the present study could also offer an outlook for observing the involvement of interconnections at different phases of movie production. It also highlights the intertwined relations applicable in creative industries. However, there are some limitations of the study as well. The study focused on the adaptation of two short stories from a specific genre, the movie Manto (Sarmad Khoosat, 2015). Therefore, the generalizability of the results is limited. However, the framework for adaptation analysis applied and validated here has the potential to be used for different movie genres. Moreover, the study is limited to the conceptual aspects and elements of postmodern films, while the technical aspects, also referred to as “mise-en-scène”, were barely touched in the study that could be insightful for future research on postmodernism.

To conclude, there are various variables involved in the recontextualizing process of adaptation which is difficult to examined simultaneously. Though the systematic approach for the analysis of adaptation used and validated in the present study would be helpful for the movie industry to select the content that is appropriate for and applicable to adaptation. It also offers practical a tool for the adaptation of a literary text to a screen. Particularly, in the 21st century, where the major focus is on “popular adaptations, novel to film adaptations (novelizations), television adaptations, video games, […] novel to musical adaptations” (Cartmell, 2012), which can possibly expand to adaptations in “oral storytelling, radio, television, and hypermedia” (Leitch, 2012).