From Birnamwood to Bollywood: Maqbool and the Shakespearean Bandwagon

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to understand the appearance and disappearance of Shakespeare in the culture industry and appreciate the malleable cultural resources that Shakespeare has to offer. The article recognizes the potential of adaptive transformation of a literary text that critically engages both with the original and with the different social And cultural circumstances of the new productions. In particular. It looks at the adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth and the niche-marketing of Maqbool in a Jamesonian 'late Capitalist ‘milieu. On the one hand, the adaptation can be viewed as a cannibalization of Shakespeare in which the Scottish legend of regicide becomes parallel to the power grappling in the Mumbai underworld. On the other hand, the film adaptation can be seen as an intellectual participation in a critical discourse that blurs the distinction between 'High culture' and 'low culture'. The paper argues that vishal Bhardwaj's clever and creative adaptation of the original plot has given Shakespeare both topical and tropical coloring, but goes on to question the validity of such an Endeavour.