Extending the Filmic Canon
The Banquet and Maqbool
Abstract
Cluster: Asian Shakespeares on Screen: Two Films in Perspective
Edited by Alexa Huang
The Banquet (dir. Feng Xiaogang, 2006) deploys a filmic method that, despite assertions to the contrary, is deeply read both in playing conventions and in the textual debates of Shakespeare's work. No less powerfully suggested is the film's awareness of its status as the latest in a long line of Shakespearean cinematic realizations. The outlines of the drama and the key players, for instance, are invariably doubly rephrased. Arguably taking energy from its contemporary surroundings, Maqbool (dir. Vishal Bhardwaj, 2003), too, is conscious, at least in part, of functioning as a remake. Allusions to the titular protagonist inheriting "Bollywood" and the fact that the Lady Macbeth figure is a type of frustrated actress, make logistical sense within the parameters of a film that openly confesses to being inspired by Macbeth. Central to the film's effect are the ways in which the traditional exercises of fatherhood are elaborated as the primary means through which power is transferred. Elsewhere, musical interludes in which a public woman's voice plays out the male protagonist's inner compulsions demonstrate the extent to which Maqbool pushes at some of the play's gendered preoccupations.