Abstract
The never-ending contemporaneity of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth is established by the experimental adaptations of the play that have transcended time and space. The filmic adaptations, in particular, have recontextualized the original dramatic text in several innovative ways. This paper sets out to analyse from certain postmodern angles the creative and innovative adaptation of a classic literary text from a Scottish setting to two completely different Indian settings (geographically, culturally and politically) and also from 16th century Scotland, United Kingdom to two different time periods in India – Maqbool (director Vishal Bhardwaj, 2003) being a reimagination of Macbeth set in the 21st century underworld of Mumbai, India and Veeram (director Jayaraj, 2016) being an attempt to link the play with 13th century Kerala, India. The transmutations occur at multiple levels and this lends new interpretations to the text in two entirely different temporal and spatial contexts, though both of these adaptations are Indian.
Highlights
The contemporaneity of Shakespeare in the 21st century is evinced perhaps most remarkably in the adaptations of his works in contemporary films
The differences in treatment lie in one being a North Indian perspective and the other a South Indian one, one partaking of the elements of a mainstream Bollywood film while the other belonging more to the realm of the Indian regional cinema, one being set in modern Indian
The fact that two culturally and cinematically different products have been created from Shakespeare’s Macbeth in the 21st century in India allows one to conclude that does Macbeth continue to be relevant in the realm of adaptations and that it holds the potential for generating many such culturally diverse cinematic products (India itself with all its cultural diversity affords many more such possibilities in filmic experimentations with Macbeth owing to the several different points of view that such a diversity allows for)
Summary
The contemporaneity of Shakespeare in the 21st century is evinced perhaps most remarkably in the adaptations of his works in contemporary films. Filmic adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays have cut across the borders of space and time, changing the face of adaptations as well as Shakespeare, the institution. Several poststructural and postmodernist experiments have been conducted on Shakespearean drama over the years, in the process of its translation into films and other media. Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1990) is one of the best-known parodies of Shakespeare’s plays where two minor characters from. Indian decentrings of Macbeth: postmodern creativity in filmic adaptations
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