Music reading response 2

Vishal Bhardwaj Amy Rodgers

Shakespeare Bulletin, Volume 34, Number 3, Fall 2016, pp. 500-504 (Review)

Published by Johns Hopkins University Press DOI:

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https://doi.org/10.1353/shb.2016.0041

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Vishal Bhardwaj Maqbool. 2003. Dir. Vishal Bhardwaj. India. Kaleidoscope Entertainment, Vishal Bhardwaj Pictures; Omkara. 2006. Dir. Vishal Bhardwaj. India. Shema- roo Entertainment; Haider. 2014. Dir. Vishal Bhardwaj. India. VB Pictures.

Amy Rodgers, Mount Holyoke College

Director, screenwriter, composer, ghazal accompanist, playback singer, and former professional cricket player, Vishal Bhardwaj is Hindi cin- ema’s Renaissance man. Best known in the anglophone world as one of Shakespeare’s most provocative interpreters, he has no background or stated interest in Western theater, no early predilection for visual art. Having moved to Mumbai to compose film scores, Bhardwaj’s interest in filmmaking was piqued after seeing Krzstof Kieś lowski’s The Decalogue (1989) at a film festival. Given Bhardwaj’s refreshingly irreverent com- mentary on the Bard (“Shakespeare [is] not all that boring as I used to think” [qtd. in Kumar, n. pag.), one might infer that he simply stumbled onto Shakespeare. Unlike Western directors who labor under the Author’s weighty sign (and the subset of those who exist in an Oedipal or Henri- cian anxiety of influence),1 Bhardwaj seems unburdened by the Shake- spearean texts and theatrical tradition: “I think the West hasn’t come out of Shakespeare’s shadow. I have no such hangovers” (qtd. in Kumar, n.pag.). But despite being “scared” of Shakespeare as a schoolboy, there is an affinity between Renaissance England’s most renowned playwright and the Bijnor-born filmmaker, who, according to one interview, used to learn his school lessons in meter ( Joshi, n. pag.).

If the term “auteur” is most commonly used to refer to directors whose idiosyncratic style indelibly marks their films, Bhardwaj is more acoustic auteur than virtuoso of mise-en-scène. In terms of the latter, Bhardwaj is better understood in terms of masala, in that he is a master compositor. Upon first encountering Macbeth in Charles and Mary Lamb’s 1807 Tales from Shakespeare (itself an adaptation), Bhardwaj states that “[s]uddenly Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood came rushing back” (Bhardwaj 1). In addition to Kieś lowski and Kurosawa (he has also cited Emir Kusturica’s influ- ence) (Rangan, n. pag.). Bhardwaj pulls from American directors as well, including Quentin Tarantino and Francis Ford Coppola. His first Shake- speare film, Maqbool (2003) follows a typical bhai or gangster narrative and demonstrates Coppola’s Godfather trilogy’s influence; Bhardwaj calls these films “like gospel” for him (qtd. in Iyer, n. pag.). Abbaji/Duncan, the crime syndicate’s leader and Maqbool’s adoptive father, speaks in a Brandoesque rasp and mimics Don Corleone’s understated facial expres-

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sions and gestures. Similar to Coppola’s juxtaposition of Christian rites of passage (Michael’s marriage in Sicily and an infant’s baptism) with brutality (Sonny’s murder and Michael’s “settling all family business” via a series of assassinations), Bhardwaj sets moments of bloodletting and their repressed return against the illuminated backdrops of ideological sanctu- aries. Abbaji’s murder is set in the albescent gauze of his and Nimmi’s/ Lady Macbeth’s bedroom, and later, Kaka’s/Banquo’s body is carried into Abbaji’s memorial rites where Maqbool and his confederates kneel swathed in white mourning garb. Set in Bhardwaj’s home state of Uttar Pradesh, Omkara (2006) is more visually influenced by Tarantino (and by extension Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai): much of the dialogue between men occurs in cars or trains as if to underscore the inexorably itinerant nature of the organized crime henchman’s existence,2 and the Tyagi Hostel, in which the confrontation scene between Omkara and Raghunath (Dolly/Desdemona’s father) takes place, is a ringer for the Reservoir Dogs (1992) warehouse.

However, the heart of Bhardwaj’s auteurship resides in his role as composer. Bhardwaj composes all his film scores and writes music and script simultaneously (Singh, n. pag.). While a number of Shakespearean adaptations use soundtracks to great effect, in Bhardwaj’s films, music functions as affective catalyst and distinct character. Dialogue tends to- wards minimalism; instead, Bhardwaj relies heavily on extradiegetic and intradiegetic instrumental and vocal music to express narrative turbulence and convey the labyrinthine complexity of human relationships. Omkara, the most musically rich adaptation, begins with a three-minute title sequence set against faintly visible images of what appear to be ancient scenes of combat. Bhardwaj’s score—a pulsing undulation of strings and percussion—keeps the scene from inertia and sets up the narrative’s the- matic armature of sensuality and emotional superflux. Later, Bhardwaj uses the meditative lament “O Saathi Re” as a prophetic counterpoint to a scene depicting an early, playful feud between the lovers, Omkara and Dolly. With lyrics by Bhardwaj’s longtime collaborator Gulzar, the song ominously pleads “O dearest, wish the day never ends!” while the couple play-fight and frolic in an otherwise-deserted landscape. At other times, Bhardwaj’s music provides insight into a character’s interior. Although de- void of monologues, Maqbool features a “Maqbool theme,” a melancholy string melody that functions much as the Juliet theme does in Prokofiev’s 1935 Romeo and Juliet: in both cases, the theme recurs at moments where these characters find themselves at a crossroads. Unlike Shakespeare’s play, in which the murder of Duncan functions as blind space, as if regicide is

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too terrible to represent, Bhardwaj crafts an exquisitely tense three-minute murder scene. Beginning with a long shot of Maqbool framed by a court- yard archway, Bhardwaj chooses a lighter, meditative flute version of the main theme to accompany Maqbool’s deliberate, trancelike movements towards the murder site. His steps are intercut with rapid flashbacks of events that have led up to this moment—the veiled prophecy, Abbaji kissing Nimmi’s feet, Nimmi’s goading. Entering the bedroom, Maqbool meets Nimmi’s eyes and screws a silencer onto a semiautomatic pistol, and the score switches to a rapid, staccato percussion that accelerates as he raises the gun, turns his head away, and shoots Abbaji. A brief silence ensues, punctuated only by the diegetic sound of the storm outside, echoing, perhaps, the “thunder and lightning” with which Shakespeare’s play begins. Suddenly, a discordant piano note punctuates a moment of horror—Abbaji’s eyes open and fix upon Maqbool. As Abbaji grabs at the bed canopy and attempts to rise, the piano gibbers cacophonously, and Abbaji slides to the floor, dead. The flute melody returns; having chosen his direction, Maqbool can only occupy the self he has created. Whereas Shakespeare crafts disjointed rhythms before and after Duncan’s murder by interspersing standard iambic lines with imperfect ones (these passages are rife with eleven-foot headless lines and feminine endings), Bhardwaj creates them through a different rhythmic register—the score.

As much Shakespearean composer as filmmaker, Bhardwaj offers a much-needed connection between Shakespearean adaptation studies (currently dominated by literature-to-film case studies) and other non- linguistic forms of adaptation, such as music and dance. However, I want to point out another, and, at this historical juncture, equally significant feature of Bhardwaj’s auteurism: his ability to comment simultaneously upon Shakespeare’s long and often problematic lineage (particularly outside the West), and its political future. I have yet to mention Haider (2014), an adaptation of Hamlet and the third film in Bhardwaj’s Shake- speare series. In many ways, Haider is an anomaly. It relies more on dialogue and less on music, and the directorial influences legible in the earlier two films have nearly vanished (with the exception of Haider’s hiding the handgun with which he intends to kill Khurram/Claudius behind a toilet tank—perhaps another gesture to Coppola’s avenging son). Most significantly, Bhardwaj shifts from a focus on Shakespeare to India’s material realities and history. While Maqbool and Omkara use their contemporary settings as backdrops for their Shakespearean narratives— that is, Shakespeare comes first and setting second—Haider foregrounds its cultural context (the 1990s Kashmir conflict), a move that pushes

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Shakespeare into the penumbra of history. In doing so, Bhardwaj recasts Hamlet as a political narrative rather than a subjective and psychological one. Haider’s self-division is ideological rather than Oedipal, his identity bifurcated between his father’s sympathy with Pakistani separatists and his uncle’s and mother’s political commitments to the Indian National Congress. If Denmark becomes a prison for Hamlet, Kashmir actually is one, as Haider occupies a world of curfews, random military raids and arrests, and missing persons. Among them is Haider’s father, and in the film’s first half, Haider is haunted by a different kind of ghost: the ques- tion of whether his father is alive or dead. When Bhardwaj portrays him standing with a group of people holding pictures of their missing loved ones, Haider stands in for any mourning family awaiting news about a parent, child, or friend after the Bosnian War, 9/11, or Boko Haram. In this moment, it’s difficult to think of Shakespeare and the grand humanist tradition associated with his works; rather, one cannot help but imagine the thousands of unrecognized casualties of the twenty-first century’s incessant battles over land, resources, and ideological dominance, par- ticularly those that the West has largely ignored. If political Shakespeare has been around for a while, Haider offers a model for what a politically radical cinematic Shakespeare might look like, and in doing so, suggests that Bhardwaj may have as much to teach the Bard as the Bard has taught him.

Notes

1See Peter Donaldson’s wonderful reading of Branagh’s relation to Olivier via their respective Henry V films in “Taking on Shakespeare: Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V” in Shakespeare Quarterly 42.1 (Spring 1991): 60–71.

2This phenomenon also occurs with regularity in Martin Scorsese’s gangster films, particularly Goodfellas (1990) and The Departed (2006).

Works Cited

Bhardwaj, Vishal. Maqbool: The Original Screenplay. Uttar Pradesh: Harper Col- lins India, 2014. Print.

Iyer, Meena. “An offer he couldn’t refuse.” The Times of India. 17 Sept. 2004. Web. 15 Oct. 2015.

Joshi, Namrata. “Krzysztof…in Meerut.” Outlook. 31 Aug. 2009. Web. 24 Oct. 2015.

Kumar, Anuj. “‘If I Am Not a Leftist, I Am Not an Artist.’” The Hindu. 15 Oct. 2014. Web. 22 Oct. 2015.

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Rangan, Bharadwaj. Dispatches From the Wall Corner: A Journey Through Indian Cinema. Chennai, Bangalore, New Delhi: Tranquebar Press, 2014. Ebook. 17 Oct. 2015.

Singh, Hameet. “‘Kashmir is the Hamlet of my film,’ says Vishal Bhardwaj on Haider.” The Indian Express. 5 Oct. 2014. Web. 24 Oct. 2015.

n Julie Taymor

Titus. 1999. Dir. Julie Taymor. Italy, USA, UK. Overseas Filmgroup and Clear Blue Sky Productions; The Tempest. 2010. Dir. Julie Taymor. USA. Touchstone Pictures.

Niamh J. O’Leary, Xavier University

Describing the closing credits of The Tempest, Jonathan Bate borrows Wagner’s term, Gesamtkunstwerk, to praise Julie Taymor: “In the hands of a master director at the height of her magical powers, this is a total work of art” (“Enter Ariel” 11). This declaration of Taymor as a Shakespearean auteur is richly merited, and her feature film adaptations bear the proof.

After studying in Paris, America, and Indonesia, Taymor first turned toward Shakespeare in 1986, directing The Tempest at the Theater for a New Audience (TFNA) in New York (Blumenthal 34). Six years later, she directed Titus Andronicus there.1 Both of her Shakespeare films derive fairly directly from these stage productions. She chose Titus (1999) as her first feature film despite its lesser-known status. By the time Taymor was filming The Tempest (2010), one of Shakespeare’s best-known texts, she had crafted her reputation through Frida (2002), and had wrestled with recent legends in her Beatles homage, Across the Universe (2007). Impor- tantly, she developed a cinematic signature originating in her theater work that made each film uniquely hers.

In her introduction to the published screenplay of The Tempest, Taymor articulates the guiding principle of her cinematic vision:

Revealing the mechanics of the theater creates its own alchemy, its rough magic, and the audience willingly plays “make-believe.” In cinema, how- ever, where one can actually film on real locations and create seemingly naturalistic events, the temptation is to throw away the artifice and go for the literal reality. There is something inherently sad about this. Even in fantasy cinema the audience expects the worlds that are created to feel “real,” or at least plausible, and it is not required of viewers that they fill in the blanks or suspend their disbelief. (“Rough Magic” 14)