It's been a while since my last post, but being a grad student can make one lose track of time. There's a lot happening in the world of Shakespeare and Bollywood what with Issaq (directed by Manish Tiwari) being released earlier this year and Ram Leela (directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali) being released this month and Vishal Bhardwaj beginning work on his third Shakespearean adaptation (of Hamlet) also this month. There's also Bollywood Shakespeare, edited by Craig Dionne and Parmita Kapadia, the first academic volume on the topic, to look out for later this year.
Too much stimulation for a budding researcher...and then there was all that indecision about what to write.
Since this is only my second post, I thought I'd write a little about how Shakespeare came to be part of Bollywood in the first place. There were three main ways in which the Bard slowly permeated the Hindi film Industry - through the Parsi Theatre Tradition, through Hollywood, and through the literary absorption of Shakespeare after the English Education Act of 1835.
The Parsi Theatre tradition dominated the beginnings of the Hindi film industry from the silent era up to about the mid 1950s. Shakespeare was one of the many sources from which isolated scenes, themes, characters or plots were borrowed and merged with other isolated scenes, themes, characters or plots from European, Persian and Sanskrit sources in the Parsi Theatre tradition. Bollywood is still known to follow this tradition of mash-ups from various sources and perhaps this is the reason that Shakespeare has been ingested by film audiences, especially Bollywood fans, often without the realisation that what they are watching is Shakespeare. Most of these films were based on successful contemporary stage productions which merged Western theatrical traditions with traditional narrative and cinematic techniques. Dil Farosh (1927), for example, thought to be the earliest Indian Shakespearean film, was based on a popular stage adaptation of The Merchant of Venice.
The Hollywood influence has also resulted in the absorption of Shakespeare into the Hindi film industry, though not usually with very successful results. One of the best known Shakespearean films in India, Kishore Sahu's 1954 Hamlet, was a shot-by-shot imitation of Olivier's 1948 Hamlet. The 1947 Romeo and Juliet starring Nargis as Juliet, was a copy of the Hollywood version with Norma Shearer and the Hindi Cleopatra in 1950 was a copy of Cecil B. De Mille's film. In recent years, the Rani Mukherjee starrer Dil Bole Hadippa! (2009) was a loose copy of She's the Man (2006) based on Twelfth Night, starring Amanda Bynes. Sanjay Leela Bhansali has also claimed that his Ram Leela (2013) owes more to Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet (1996) than to Shakespeare.
After the introduction of English medium education in India in 1835, Shakespeare gained importance as a literary figure, especially in the wake of the Bengal Renaissance, and was translated into several vernacular languages in India. The Bengali Bhranti Bilas in 1963, based on Vidyasagar's Bengali prose translation of The Comedy of Errors, directed by Manu Sen starring Bengali superstar Uttam Kumar, incidentally, is the first filmed adaptation of The Comedy of Errors in the world. This is also the film which indirectly led to the making of Angoor (1982). The literary prominence that Shakespeare gained, however, led to more Indian Shakespearean films being made in the Art film/Parallel Cinema genre than in the commercial film sphere. Commercial film makers were wary of films adapted from Shakespeare; Vishal Bhardwaj had problems finding funding for Maqbool (2004). The unprecedented success of Maqbool and Omkara (2006) has recently brought Shakespeare back into Bollywood.
So, these were the ways in which Shakespeare was brought into the Hindi film industry, intentionally and unintentionally, and remains very much a part of it today.
Too much stimulation for a budding researcher...and then there was all that indecision about what to write.
Since this is only my second post, I thought I'd write a little about how Shakespeare came to be part of Bollywood in the first place. There were three main ways in which the Bard slowly permeated the Hindi film Industry - through the Parsi Theatre Tradition, through Hollywood, and through the literary absorption of Shakespeare after the English Education Act of 1835.
The Parsi Theatre tradition dominated the beginnings of the Hindi film industry from the silent era up to about the mid 1950s. Shakespeare was one of the many sources from which isolated scenes, themes, characters or plots were borrowed and merged with other isolated scenes, themes, characters or plots from European, Persian and Sanskrit sources in the Parsi Theatre tradition. Bollywood is still known to follow this tradition of mash-ups from various sources and perhaps this is the reason that Shakespeare has been ingested by film audiences, especially Bollywood fans, often without the realisation that what they are watching is Shakespeare. Most of these films were based on successful contemporary stage productions which merged Western theatrical traditions with traditional narrative and cinematic techniques. Dil Farosh (1927), for example, thought to be the earliest Indian Shakespearean film, was based on a popular stage adaptation of The Merchant of Venice.
The Hollywood influence has also resulted in the absorption of Shakespeare into the Hindi film industry, though not usually with very successful results. One of the best known Shakespearean films in India, Kishore Sahu's 1954 Hamlet, was a shot-by-shot imitation of Olivier's 1948 Hamlet. The 1947 Romeo and Juliet starring Nargis as Juliet, was a copy of the Hollywood version with Norma Shearer and the Hindi Cleopatra in 1950 was a copy of Cecil B. De Mille's film. In recent years, the Rani Mukherjee starrer Dil Bole Hadippa! (2009) was a loose copy of She's the Man (2006) based on Twelfth Night, starring Amanda Bynes. Sanjay Leela Bhansali has also claimed that his Ram Leela (2013) owes more to Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet (1996) than to Shakespeare.
After the introduction of English medium education in India in 1835, Shakespeare gained importance as a literary figure, especially in the wake of the Bengal Renaissance, and was translated into several vernacular languages in India. The Bengali Bhranti Bilas in 1963, based on Vidyasagar's Bengali prose translation of The Comedy of Errors, directed by Manu Sen starring Bengali superstar Uttam Kumar, incidentally, is the first filmed adaptation of The Comedy of Errors in the world. This is also the film which indirectly led to the making of Angoor (1982). The literary prominence that Shakespeare gained, however, led to more Indian Shakespearean films being made in the Art film/Parallel Cinema genre than in the commercial film sphere. Commercial film makers were wary of films adapted from Shakespeare; Vishal Bhardwaj had problems finding funding for Maqbool (2004). The unprecedented success of Maqbool and Omkara (2006) has recently brought Shakespeare back into Bollywood.
So, these were the ways in which Shakespeare was brought into the Hindi film industry, intentionally and unintentionally, and remains very much a part of it today.
