Dharma and Violence in Mumbai

Authors

  • David Mason Rhodes College

Abstract

Cluster: Asian Shakespeares on Screen: Two Films in Perspective

Edited by Alexa Huang

Maqbool not only reimagines Macbeth as a struggle for power within the hierarchy of organized crime in Mumbai, but it also reiterates the religious conflict of Shakespeare's own England. The film's use of dharma, a concept embodied in the insidious plotting of two corrupt, Hindu police officers, offers a colloquial counterpart to Shakespeare's sense of Fate. These policemen promote a "balance" of power between Muslim gangsters by circumscribing and insidiously directing the violence that the film's gangsters inflict on one another. By the end, the cause of the violence is obscured by the wretched assurance that maintaining a "balance" between forces assures an interminable cycle of violence.

Author Biography

David Mason, Rhodes College

David V. Mason is Assistant Professor of Theatre at Rhodes College. He is a former Fulbright-Hays Fellow and the author of Theatre and Religion on Krishna's Stage (2009) and articles on Sanskrit drama, theater, and religion that have appeared in New Literary History, Theatre Research International, and the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism.

ssue Cover text: B&L, Vol. 4, No. 2, 2009. Image: Two dancers from a still from The Banquet pose with their faces close together.

Downloads

Published

2009-05-01

Issue

Vol. 4 No. 2 (2009): Spring/Summer

Section

Articles