Haider and Hamlet

Vishal Bhardwaj, a filmmaker and composer of Bollywood scores, has achieved considerable popular and critical success worldwide with his two adaptations of Shakespeare, Maqbool (Macbeth) and Omkara (Othello). Both films are very different from those postcolonial adaptations that tend to "talk back" to Shakespeare; instead, Bhardwaj represents the strain of a transcultural adaptation of Shakespeare whose beginnings lay in the nineteenth-century Parsi theater's first forays into indigenizing Shakespearean plays for local audiences. With Maqbool, Bhardwaj creates a film that is unique among those few global cinematic adaptations of Shakespeare that have successfully indigenized Macbeth at the level of setting, plot, language, and generic conventions without diluting the complex issues raised by Shakespeare's play.

Borrowers and Lenders: The Journal of Shakespeare and Appropriation

Abstract This essay argues that Omkara (dir. Vishal Bhardwaj, 2006) foregrounds contemporary gender concerns in modern, small-town India, primarily through the film's reformulation of the three female roles in Othello. Billo/Bianca, played by a glamorous, contemporary, female star, gets her own romance and two popular and raunchy song-and-dance tracks in Omkara. These dance tracks are a peculiar mixture of traditional folk Nautanki and identifiable Bollywood masala "item numbers," whose layered lyrics have been penned by Gulzar, a well-known poet, lyricist, scriptwriter, and ex-film-director who closely collaborates with Bhardwaj. The essay argues for the recognition of the songs in Omkara as a parallel narrative that intertwines with and intersects the central narrative of the plot, inflecting it with a range of cultural and social intertexts, along with a dash of metatextual flavor. The article examines how the two song-and-dance sequences by Billo/Bianca in the film use the familiar tropes of the "courtesan" figure of Hindi films and draw upon traditional folk-theater — reflecting both its local poetry and its vulgarity — to evoke a new kind of verbal and visual "realism" that intertwines Bollywood glamor with local histories.

Historical context 'undermines the transcendent significance traditionally accorded to the literary text.' (Sinfield and Dollimore 6) Shakespeare's plays have proved themselves 'timeless' (Barry 176) in the way they are read and enjoyed in our own times and through our own manners. However, it is interesting the way the classic period pieces of sole European soil have made their immense influence in the veteran film industry of India, Bollywood. Bollywood has been an inseparable part of the cultural thread of India and has witnessed severe political upheavals. Shakespeare play also significantly enough couldn't ensure that culture cannot 'transcend the material forces and relations of production. Culture is not simply a reflection of the economic and political system, but nor can it be independent of it.' (Sinfield and Dollimore 8) This paper seeks to address the particular enmeshment of history and culture in the reflection of Shakespeare over Bollywood movies.

The ESSE Messenger, 2016

The present article seeks to provide a comprehensive annotated guide to the publications related to the field of Shakespeare on Screen for the period 2002-16. Conceived as an update to two articles previously published in The European English Messenger, its entries have been classified and annotated in four categories: the first section includes a list of bibliographies, filmographies and databases; the second features monographs and collections of essays focusing exclusively or substantially on the subject whereas the third deals with representative journals and specific journal issues. Published screenplays and other works on the making of the films are listed in the fourth section. A thoroughly revised, expanded and updated versión was published in the French journal Cahiers Élisabéthains in a special issue on Shakespeare on screen in the digital era (2021).

2017

From its Renaissance in the 1980s, Shakespeare film and television adaptation has become a more accessible and prolific bridge between contemporary audiences and Shakespeare’s work as a playwright. With the turn of the millennium, they have increased both in their number and difference from their predecessors, since the first adaptations in the 1930s, but so has changed our perspective as 21st century audience towards Shakespeare and the theatre of his time as cultural emblems. In the last twenty years, a new wave of Shakespearean adaptations has been responding to the audience’s needs in the form of film and television by providing us with some of the more ‘divergent’, experimental, and original adaptations of Shakespeare, and bringing the plays to life once again. By looking at and comparing three examples of Shakespeare film adaptations produced after the year 2000 — Caesar Must Die (2012), Private Romeo (2011), and Omkara (2006) — and analysing their approach to race, gender, sexuality and some of the performative aspects in the plays and films such as space, text and characters, this study will try to explore and document how more recent and less popularized by western media Shakespeare adaptations have been addressing and subverting the original texts, but also responding and establishing a dialogue with 21st century aesthetics, and ethical and socio-political issues.

Where is Adaptation? Mapping cultures, texts, and contexts, 2018

This chapter foregrounds transculturation as a cultural practice performed through adaptation with reference to Vishal Bhardwaj’s Maqbool, a 2003 adaptation of Macbeth set in Mumbai that doubles as a gangster film. Thematically, two aspects inform processes of cultural recontextualization in Bhardwaj’s film: the Hindi film industry’s fascination with the Muslim-dominated Mumbai underworld, and the trope of corruption. The ways these intersecting themes undergird the transculturation of Macbeth in India make Bhardwaj’s work a particularly interesting case of Shakespearean adaptation. The thematic anchor of this chapter is the trope of corruption as my arguments are based on two senses of the word: corruption as dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, such as that involving bribery; and corruption as a synonym of intertextuality and intermediality, a “mashup” of an “original” or “source” text.

Cinematic adaptations of novels are nothing new. And Shakespeare have been quite a favourite when it came to such adaptations. While his plays written for 16 th century Elizabethan era, have been adapted a large number of time, they continue to inspire newer works of adaptation pointing to the timeless nature of his works. The Bard refuses to be limited by time and space. Even non-western literary circles have been influenced by Shakespeare to a great extent. Be it literature, theatre or cinematic adaptations, his works have influenced every genre of creative undertakings. Bollywood is no exception. While earlier his influence went unacknowledged, in recent times, directors have started paying tribute to the maestro through their works. Shakespeare continues to be about high culture and sophistication and Indian film

Shakespeare has been performed extensively in varied ways, expressed through multiple cultures of India. From folkloric presentations to the contemporary theatre,

On 23 April, 1616, a man died, but with his death a legacy was born; one which proved so essential not only to the development of drama and literature, but to language, to thoughts and ideas. To how we profess our love to each other, and to how we express our grief; his influence pervades so much in our lives, because his work has become so timeless in its ability to touch upon human nature. We are talking of no one else other than the Father of English Drama William Shakespeare. This year marks the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death; an event which has brought an appreciation to all edges of the cultural sphere. From television to film, theatre to classic music; the simple breadth and variety of the events being held in his honour speak to magnitiude of his influence. Born in Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire in 1564, Shakespeare wrote 38 plays, 154 sonnets and many other poems before his death in 1616. We all bow in reverence to the bard of Avon. I am very happy to share the fact that the November 2016 issue of Daath Voyage was appreciated by the world of Academia from all over the world for its richness and versatility; the credit for which goes to the entire team of Daath Voyage. We encourage writings from both experienced professors as well as young scholars. In this endeavour we hope to carry the torch of research as well as writing forward. Warm regards to our esteemed Board of Advisors and Review Editors for their tiresome efforts in reviewing the articles very sincerely and enriching each and every article with their valuable remarks resulting in the shaping up of this issue. I am also grateful to my revered contributors who have made this issue an enriching reality. Happy Reading! Saikat Banerjee