An unmatched legacy in Sinhala cinema
Dr. Lester James Peries celebrated his 95th birthday yesterday, Saturday, April 5.
Today as he quietly rests in retirement, as a tribute to this Sri Lankan filmmaker who crafted an unsurpassable legacy on celluloid we can dwell on what LJP has presented as his official biographical account covering his entire body of work in the form of an oral narrative made into a textual record titled ‘Lester by Lester, as told to Kumar de Silva’.
The book which is a Vijitha Yapa Publication was launched as a limited edition issue in April 2007 and is a collector’s item since every copy bears LJP’s signature. On turning each page the film lover will be captivated by the words that narrate a film legend’s life in the world of cinema, to recreate the days and events that charted his path to become who he is today, a word renowned filmmaker from Sri Lanka who stands to be the only Sri Lankan so far to be honoured by the French government as Commander in the Order of Arts Letters (Commandeur dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres).
In the personal note by LJP to the reader, he reveals that the publication is one of passion and devotion on the part of the biographer, well-known media personality, TV broadcaster and author Kumar de Silva.
The book presents 20 chapters, and each chapter is titled with the name of the film it deals with. Each chapter is thus something of a ‘director’s cut’ in words, – a private rendition of the film in aspects that were beyond the scope of being recorded on camera.
What the reader discovers first is where it all began, ‘Rekawa’; which was titled in English as ‘The Line of Destiny’. In this opening chapter LJP shares–“Deep down my feeling for cinema was not so much for documentaries, as for fiction. It is difficult to say where the stories come from. This story came from a whole lot of associations. It may have been a simple story where I could embody a great deal of village life and the things that happen in a village like a puppet show, a masked devil dance, or a stilt walker coming to the village.”
Budgeted back then at Rs.150,000/- the story of the ‘Gamperaliya’ film project is one that will surely enthral readers when Lester relates how the locations were selected and the acting talents of the late greats of the Sinhala stage and screen Henry Jayasena and Trilicia Goonewardena were cultivated and harnessed. How the bestselling Sinhala romance novel ‘Golu Hadawatha’ made it to the big screen, how LJP devised the narrative from text to visuals, and how renowned leftist Bernard Soysa had helped save the film from being brutally contorted with suggested deletions of scenes by the authorities of the Ceylon Theatres is all stated in black and white.
This book, is a practitioner’s account of how filmmakers work between film theory, the politics in society and institutions and actual onset work; taking a film project from concept to reality, or from script to celluloid.
A Sinhala translation of this book is being done by Athula Samarakoon, the current Head of the Department of Fine Arts of the University of Peradeniya, and will be launched in July this year as a Samaranayake Publication,
Happy 95th Birthday and may you be blessed with good health Commandeur Lester James Peries !!!