Bollywood Adaptations of Shakespeare: An Analysis of Vishal Bhardwaj’s Trilogy

Abstract

Outside Great Britain Shakespeare allegedly shares his longest history of engagement with India, the former British colony where his plays were largely used for overtly political purposes. Initially adapted for the stage in order to introduce English education into the subcontinent and impart traditional Western values to the natives, Shakespeare’s theatrical works have then continued to affect Indian culture, even after India gained independence in 1947. Today, the playwright still represents a fertile source for both Indian theatre and cinema, the latter being a cultural area in which his plays have been involved for about a century. In this regard, considering the growing interest in Shakespearean themes within Mumbai-based film industry, several scholars have recently investigated the category of “Bollywood Shakespeare,” which has become a field of academic studies especially after the advent of director Vishal Bhardwaj. His Bollywood trilogy, which explores the violence of modern-day Indian society through Shakespeare, is the main focus of my dissertation. After two introductory chapters, respectively on Shakespeare’s presence in colonial and postcolonial India and on the origins and development of the Indian film industry, I analyse Bhardwaj’s Maqbool (2003), Omkara (2006), and Haider (2014) by comparing and contrasting them with the original Shakespearean tragedies: Macbeth, Othello, and Hamlet. For each film, I devote my attention to some peculiarities in context and characters; moreover, for each tragedy I take one meaningful scene into account and examine it from a cinematic point of view.