Filmmakers of Bollywood inspired by Shakespeare
William Shakespeare’s “Romeo & Juliet” seems to have made a strong inspiration for most of the Bollywood flicks nowadays. One of the most recent examples of the adaptation would be Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s colourful yet violent love saga, “Goliyon ki Rasleela: Ram-Leela”. In the movie starring Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone, the filmmaker has given an altogether modern twist to Shakespeare’s adaptation. This clearly shows that the relevance of the tragic love story of 15th century has not been lost yet but the modern interpretation of the Bard’s play has been taken well by the audience.
Shakespeare happens to be the one of the most revered inspirations in Bollywood as plethora of filmmakers have tried their best to adapt the 15th century love tragedy. Since “Romeo & Juliet” is based upon two lovers who hail from feuding clans, thus Bollywood has incorporated the same storyline numerous times.
Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s film highlights the violent enmity brewing amongst two respective clans based in a village in Gujarat for over 500 years. Tensions start erupting when a love starts blossoming between a girl and a boy belonging to these clans. Towards the initial few weeks of the release, there were nationwide protests as some religious groups wanted the filmmaker to change the title of the movie considering it to be offensive to Lord Ram.
Sanjay Leela Bhansali has always been inspired by literary works. His film “Saawariya” was said to be inspired from Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s story, “White Nights” and “Devdas” was inspired by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s novel of the same name.
