Shakespeare in Indian Cinema: Call for Papers

By Dilip -

Naseeruddin Shah, the actor, once claimed that “The roots may look lost but every big story in the Hindi film industry is from Shakespeare.” It might not be as simple as that but what Shah was pointing out was to the fact that there are many references to Shakespeare’s plays in Hindi film. Not just Hindi but Indian cinema reveals an adaptation and appropriation of the Bard of Avon. There are themes and devices so commonly found in Shakespeare’s plays in Indian films, such as twins separated at birth, cross dressing characters, star-crossed lovers, characters falling in love with messengers, the wise fool, the tamed Shrew and the mousetrap device.

Sally Bayley: The Shakespeare tragedy that truly speaks to us now

Shakespeare plays have been translated and adapted into many Indian languages. They have been performed in English and in indigenous performative forms like the jatra, nautanki and classical dance forms like Kathakali, as well. His plays have been adapted and appropriated in Indian cinema: Maqbool, Haider, Othello, Angoor, Shylock, Sairaat, Branti Bilaash, Hamlet, Gundamma Katha, Dil Bole Hadippa (a loose adaptation of Twelfth Night), Veeram to name just a few. There are films which use a scene, a dialogue, a reference to his plays, maybe a reference to a character and work them wonderfully into the context of the film.

Issue 99 (Sep-Oct 2021) of Muse India invites essays (not exceeding 2,500 words) on adaptations of Shakespeare in Indian cinema. We are most interested in essays that deal not just with Hindi film adaptations but cinema in all Indian languages. We are also interested in the way the Bard and his works are contextualized and re-contextualized in Indian cinema 

https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/7598723/shakespeare-indian-cinema

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