Ramanujan is a 2014 biographical film based on the life of Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan. The film, written and directed by Gnana Rajasekaran, was shot back to back in the Tamil and English languages. The film was produced by the independent Indian production house Camphor Cinema, ventured by Srivatsan Nadathur, Sushant Desai, Sharanyan Nadathur, Sindhu Rajasekaran. The cast consists of Indian and British film, stage and screen personalities. It marks the Tamil debut of Abhinay Vaddi, the grandson of veteran actors Gemini Ganesan and Savitri, as the protagonist. Featuring an ensemble cast of Suhasini Maniratnam, Bhama, Kevin McGowan, Abbas Mirza, Nizhalgal Ravi, Michael Lieber, amongst others in supporting roles, the film was set in the early 1900s, tracing the life of Ramanujan, and shot across five different locations, across India and England, which includes Kumbakonam, Namakkal, Chennai, London and Cambridge. The film features, music and background score composed by Ramesh Vinayagam, cinematography handled by Sunny Joseph and editing done by B. Lenin. Ramanujan received Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Film in 2013, although the film had released a year later. The film was released worldwide on 11 July 2014, across India and United Kingdom. It was released simultaneously in Tamil and English languages.
Plot Set in the early 1900s, the film traces the life of the prodigious math genius Srinivasa Ramanujan from the time he was a young Tamil Brahmin to his years in England, where he attended Cambridge University during World War I. The film follows his relationships with his mother Komalatammal, his wife Janaki, and his collaborator Professor G. H. Hardy. The film also showcases how Indian society viewed a mathematician of such great stature.
Cast
Production
Casting
Gnana Rajasekaran looked for an actor who would physically resemble Ramanujan and signed Abhinay Vaddi, who is the grandson of veteran Tamil actor Gemini Ganesan, for the main role. Michael Lieber was signed to play Edensor Littlewood. Lieber confessed he had no knowledge of Ramanujan, when he signed the film, and went as far as to meet Béla Bollobás, who worked with Littlewood personally, for his research work. He found it difficult to speak the Tamil lines, but appreciated it later on, "I would be lying if I said that the task of learning Tamil was not daunting at first, but once I got the hang of it I was able to appreciate what a beautiful language it is. There were many different ways of learning the Tamil lines; some used audio tapes, prompting, flash cards, or word boards. I learnt the meaning of the words and memorised chunks of dialogue." Similarly, Kevin McGowan, who was signed for the role of G. H. Hardy, was unfamiliar with the story of Ramanujan. The film also stars Bhama, Suhasini Maniratnam, Abbas and Richard Walsh amongst others. Sunny Joseph, best known for his high-profile Malayalam works with directors Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Shaji N. Karun, was signed as cinematographer.
Filming The film has been shot in the five main locations of Ramanujan's life, Kumbakonam, Namakkal, Chennai, London and Cambridge. The first two schedules were shot in India while the third was done in England, where they took the permission of Cambridge University to shoot. The task to create a script in multiple languages was described by Sindhu Rajasekaran as "quite a chore. Roxane de Rouen and I are working with Gnana Rajasekaran, the director of ‘Ramanujan,’ to make the characters speak words that make them real. No, you wouldn't find roadside urchins who speak in Queen's English here; people would speak what comes to them naturally: Tamil, English, Indian English, even Tamenglish. What a delight it is to live in this world where languages are not borders, but an element to experiment with..."
Music
The film's soundtrack and score were composed by Ramesh Vinayakam. The music consisted of classical and orchestral pieces, recorded by the GermanPops Orchestra, whereas the songs being related to mathematical terms. The soundtrack album of Ramanujan, which features eight tracks, including four songs and four instrumentals, was released at the Suryan FM radio station in Chennai on 13 June 2014 to positive reviews from critics.
Release The official trailer of the film was released on 16 June 2014. On 9 July 2014, the producers of Ramanujan arranged a special screening at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, receiving an invitation from the president Pranab Mukherjee. The film was simultaneously released in India and United Kingdom in Tamil and English languages on 11 July 2014. After the film's theatrical run, the makers released the VCD and DVD formats of the film in late 2014, which featured the making video, behind-the-scenes featurette, and deleted scenes from the film.
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