Bollywood Film Analysis

When one thinks of Bollywood films, William Shakespeare is the last person to come to mind. In fact, for many, Shakespeare wouldn’t come to mind at all. Singing and dancing with elaborate costumes and complex storylines, Bollywood films seem to have nothing in common with the Western portrayal of Shakespeare’s plays. Until recently, the themes of the most beloved plays, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, A Comedy of Errors, to name a few, have been adapted and recreated in Bollywood films without any mention of Shakespeare’s influence.

Although Shakespeare’s works deal with timeless themes, adaptations made throughout the centuries ensured their longevity. Every high school student knows the film versions of Romeo and Juliet produced in 1968, 1996, and newly in 2013. The need to remake the film every generation or so is to make it palatable to their senses. The context has to be relevant and not seem outdated.

Shakespeare’s works have been relevant to India since the colonial era. In some cases, the plays were not tampered with, and performed as they were meant to have been. In the Indian caste system, Shakespeare’s works were not to be enjoyed by the whole of India. The wealthy, the well-connected, and the British were the audience of choice. However, Shakespeare’s works were popularized without credit given as the themes had universal appeal. In the last decade, Bollywood films have credited Shakespeare in “full reinterpretations that bring the Bard’s plotlines into a new, uniquely Indian context (Kayfil)”. Both a borrower and lender, Shakespeare’s works have given Bollywood more material for the masses over the last 100 years of Indian film.

Shakespeare’s Arrival in India

Long before the colonization of India by the Britis...

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...ded from Shakespeare's words, it became far more readily available for translation into all manner of languages and cultural texts.(Lainer)”, in a Hamlet adaptation in the 1950s, a scene was added that showed Ophelia’s love for Hamlet in a flashback with full complement of music and dance. Of course, costumes, names, and places needed to be Indianized for audiences.

Bollywood is a heady emotional mix of song and dance and story. Bollywood is the term used for movies that come out of Bombay, India. Bollywood films are mostly comprised of romantic or comedic elements, and usually have music and elaborate dance elements. Usually the films don’t have anything of explicit sexual nature but its very common to find violence, cursing, and murder. Majority of the time they're set in India, with the main religions playing a role, characters can be Hindu, Sikh, or Muslim.