Vishal Bhardwaj

Director, screenwriter, composer, ghazal accompanist, playback singer, and former professional cricket player, Vishal Bhardwaj is Hindi cinema’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 Kieślowski’s The Decalogue (1989) at a film festival. Given Bhardwaj’s refreshingly irreverent commentary 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 Henrician anxiety of influence),¹ Bhardwaj seems unburdened by the Shakespearean 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 Kieślowski and Kurosawa (he has also cited Emir Kusturica’s influence) (Rangan, n. pag.). Bhardwaj pulls from American directors as well, including Quentin Tarantino and Francis Ford Coppola. His first Shakespeare 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 expressions 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 sanctuaries. 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 towards 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...