the bard in bollywood: shakespearean adaptation in post-independence hindi cinema

The Bard in Bollywood:Shakespearean Adaptation in Post-Independence Hindi Cinema

DEFINING THE TERM “BARD”:

• In his own lifetime, Shakespeare was described as an “upstart crow.” “The Bard of Avon” was not a term he would have known.

• “Bardolatry” coined by Irish playwright, George Bernard Shaw in 1901, to describe the excessive adulation of Shakespeare. From “Bard of Avon” and the Greek “latria” or “worship.”

• “Consider now if they asked us. Will you give up your Indian Empire or your Shakespeare, you English.…Should not we be forced to answer: Indian Empire or no Indian Empire; we cannot do without our Shakespeare. Indian Empire will go, at any rate some day; but this Shakespeare does not go, he lasts forever with us; we cannot give up our Shakespeare”—Thomas Carlyle 1840s.

The Bard in Bollywood:Shakespearean Adaptation in Post-Independence Hindi Cinema

DEFINING THE TERM “BOLLYWOOD”:

• “A name for the Indian popular film industry, based in Bombay. Origin 1970s. Blend of Bombay and Hollywood.”—OED 2005

• “Bollywood is not just a cinema but a more diffuse cultural conglomeration involving a range of distribution and consumption activities from websites to music cassettes, from cable to radio”—Ashish Rajyadhaksha 2005.

• A kind of “Epico-Mythico-Tragico-Comico-Super-Sexy-High-Masala-Art”—Salman Rushdie 1995.

The Bard in Bollywood:Shakespearean Adaptation in Post-Independence Hindi Cinema

Dir. James Ivory, 1965

THE POST- INDEPENDENCE PHASE

Dir. Gulzar, 1982

THE NATIONALIST PHASE

Dir. Vishal Bhardwaj, 2005

THE LOCAL-AS-GLOBAL PHASE