“Shakespeare Wallah” - James Ivory (1965)

Shakespeare Wallah (1965) was the second feature film of the emerging Merchant-Ivory production team (Ismail Merchant as producer, and James Ivory as director), whose initial goal was to produce English-language films in India.  Their first film, The Householder (1963), sensitively portrayed romance in an Indian cultural context, and Shakespeare Wallah presented a more expansive social scope of these issues.  Both films were in my view outstanding, although the latter film was a bigger commercial success.

Like The Householder, this second Merchant-Ivory production was considerably assisted by the support and counsel of Indian cinematic master Satyajit Ray, who also again loaned his great cinematographer, Subrata Mitra, to the production team [1]. And Ray again also composed the haunting musical score, which subtly and crucially contributes to the film’s melancholy theme.  In fact all the production values are superb, including Amit Bose’s editing.

In addition, as with most of the top Merchant-Ivory productions, including The Householder, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s scriptwriting was a key ingredient (although on this occasion, James Ivory was co-credited with Ms. Jhabvala for both the story and the screenplay).

The story of Shakespeare Wallah revolves around the activities of an English family’s theatrical troupe which travels around India giving stage performances of Shakespeare’s plays. It is inspired by the real-life experiences of the Kendal family, whom Ivory met while making The Householder and whose “Shakespeareana” theatrical company toured throughout India for several decades [2].  What is shown in the film is a fictionalized account, but the separation between fiction and reality is blurred in this instance by the fact that many of the principal roles in the film are taken by members of the Kendal family and their associates:

• Shashi Kapoor (who also starred in The Householder) plays the role of Sanju, a wealthy playboy.  As a youth, Kapoor had toured with his father’s touring theatrical and after meeting and marrying the Kendal family's daughter, Jennifer, toured with the Shakespeareana company, too.
• James Kendal, the leader of Shakespeareana and the father of Jennifer Kendal, plays as Tony Buckingham, who is similarly the leader of the acting troupe shown in the film.
• Laura Liddell Kendal, the wife of James and the mothere of Jennifer, plays a corresponding role as Mrs. Carla Buckingham.
• Felicity Kendal, the Kendals’ younger daughter, plays the role of the Buckinghams' daughter, Lizzie.
• Madhur Jaffrey, who was not connected with the Kendals but who was instrumental in introducing Ivory and Merchant to each other [3] and later became famous as a travel and food writer, plays the role of Bollywood actress Manjula.
• Jennifer Kendal, the older daughter of James and Laura Kendall as well as the real-life wife of Shashi Kapoor, has a small role as Mrs. Bowen, the English proprietress of a hotel in India.  Like her sister Felicity, she went on to have an acting career of her own, for example appearing in Satyajit Ray’s The Home and the World (1984).
• Utpal Dutt, who later became a famous actor, writer, and director, was early on a performer for the Kendals’ Shakespeareana.  He plays the role of a maharaja in the film.

The main features of the story concern the cultural face-off between East and West, as represented by English and Indian cultures [4].  This is reflected in two spheres: the declining fortunes and narrowing horizons of the Buckinghams’ theatrical company and the romantic relationship between Sanju and Lizzie.

Most commentators have focused on the first of these two spheres [4], which shows the high-minded Buckinghams trying to deliver the wonders and majesty of Shakespeare to various elements of Indian society that are willing to financially support their performances.  This ranges from special performances before the privileged classes, such as landlords and maharajas, to auditorium-filled shows presented at schools and colleges where English is taught. But times are changing in postcolonial India, and Shakespeare is less and less revered as a cultural icon, as popular interests shift to Bollywood movies and sporting events.  While the British may have often been imperious and patronizing in colonial times, the Buckinghams find themselves forced by their declining income into humiliating supplications for chances to put on extra shows to cover their expenses.  They had come to India decades earlier as idealistic adventurers, but now they are starting to wonder if they shouldn’t return to the world they know – their ancestral home in England.

The irony here, of course, is that the once-dominant English, as represented by the Buckinghams, almost have to grovel and beg in order to present the opportunities for cultural enlightenment to their Indian audiences. Their only real supporters are the upperclass landlords, who put on airs of aping the  English in order to demonstrate what they feel is their innate superiority, but who are themselves without a future. Nevertheless, Tony Buckingham is philosophical about all that is happening and tries to adjust to a changing world. It’s just that he is reluctant to abandon the idealistic vision that he had in his youth.  On the other hand his daughter Lizzie has grown up in India and sees it as her home.  She has no close connections in England and no desire to go "back" there – and besides, she is in love.

Lizzie has fallen in love with a young Indian, who is equally attracted to her.  The two come from different cultures, though, and again it is East confronting West.  I think many viewers see the first sphere – the declining fortunes of the Shakespeare wallahs ('wallah' meaning ‘specialists’, in Hindi) – as the main story of the film. The nascent love affair between Lizzie and Sanju is then viewed as a reflection or subtext of that main theme.  However, I look it the other way around.  To me the love story offers the main theme, and the theatrical company’s struggles is a reflective backdrop.

The story is told in roughly four main sections.

1.  Introducing the Shakespeare wallahs

The opening section introduces the Buckinghams theatrical company and how they live.  They visit a maharajah, who wines and dines them prior to their “command performance” presented just to him.  Then they head off in their two crowded vehicles for their next scheduled appointment.  On the way, one of their cars breaks down, and they are stopped for some time before being rescued by a wealthy passerby, Sanju.  He takes them to his estate, where they all camp out in their tents, as is their frugal custom, on his lawn.  Sanju is immediately attracted to Lizzie Buckingham, and he strikes up some flirtatious conversations with her.  He promises to come and view Lizzie’s next stage performance, but he punts and instead goes to watch a Bollywood film shoot in the countryside, where they are filming a pretty actress, Manjula, dancing to lip-sync music.  From the outset Manjula shows herself to be a vain, self-centered poseur, but she and Sanju are shown to have a close relationship.

2.  Sanju and Lizzie
The next section portrays the developing relationship between Sanju and Lizzie.  Sanju is sincerely romantically attracted to Lizzie, but it is also clear that he has an established romantic relationship with Manjula.  Anyway, in between scenes showing the ongoing financial struggles of Tony Buckingham to keep his company afloat, Sanju continues to woo Lizzie.  He becomes enthusiastic about the seriousness of her theater work and contrasts it with what he sees as the triviality and shallow nature of Manjula’s Bollywood films.  Finally he and Lizzie go for a walk down a wooded path, and they kiss passionately (an act that was not permitted to be shown by Indian government censors of Indian films at that time).

3. Manjula intervenes
Manjula’s mute servant reports to her in sign language that she has seen Sanju and Lizzie embracing, and Manjula decides to take immediate action.  She gets Lizzie almost coercively dragged to her apartment and informs the girl that Sanju belongs to her – though he sometimes flirts with other girls, he always comes back to her.

Later Sanju takes Manjula to see the Buckinghams perform Shakespeare’s Othello, but the vain Manjula intentionally makes such a scene with the usual Bollywood-obsessed autograph hounds that it disrupts the stage performance.  Sanju angrily tells Manjula to leave without him, but the damage has been done, and the relationship between Lizzie and Sanju appears lost.

But the thing is, Lizzie loves Sanju, and when he comes to apologize to her for what happened at the stage performance, she cannot help forgiving him.  They then spend the night together, and their relationship is firmer than ever.

4.  Cultural breakdown
Seeing that relationship between their daughter and an Indian playboy, Tony and Clara Buckingham are concerned about their daughter’s future and decide to urge her to go back to England with them. 

Meanwhile Sanju comes to watch Lizzie rehearse at an auditorium, and when he tries to kiss her during a break, he finds himself bothered by the noise and lack of privacy. Shortly thereafter when it is Lizzie this time who is approached by a couple of autograph seekers, Sanju gets angry with people approaching his “property”. Later during an actual performance of the stage company, the uncouth whistling at Lizzie by crude male audience members makes Sanju so angry that he starts a fistfight, and the show has to be suspended. 

Afterwards, Lizzie lovingly attends to him, but Sanju tells her he doesn’t like her public lifestyle. He says that his izzat was offended, and that, he claims, is fundamental to who he is.  Izzat (from ‘izza’ in Arabic) is a deep sense of honor and revenge that pervades the male gender in India and Pakistan, and it runs across the Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh communities. Although he really has a passion for Lizzie, he cannot overcome his egotistical feelings of pride, dignity, and honor that has been infused in him by the senseless and pernicious notion of izzat.  If she is to be his love, then he demands that she be his property and must be kept in line with his izzat.

She then embraces him and movingly tells him, in the most touching scene in the film, that she would give up anything for him, including her way of life, if he asks her. Sanju stiffens slightly and says nothing, and with that Lizzie senses that his love is not unconditional.

The final scene shows Lizzie getting ready to depart alone on a boat to England.  As she looks out from the deck, she sadly, but resignedly, remembers Sanju and their tender moments.

Though there is indeed the larger backdrop of how English and Indian cultures try to interoperate, to me, the real issue in this film is love.  Love involves an unconditional embrace and sense of oneness with one’s beloved.  There are inevitably many things about one’s beloved that one doesn’t know or understand – or even approve of.  But if one is truly in love, it doesn’t matter, one loves one’s beloved unconditionally.  This is what Lizzie did.  And this is what Sanju did not.

Tony and Clara Buckingham had come to India on an adventure, without really knowing what to expect.  Now they had given up, and they convinced their daughter to give up, too.  But it shouldn’t be that way, and those final melancholy moments of Shakespeare Wallah hit home to us. They remind us of the beautiful possibilities of love – a universal feeling of compassion that can transcend any cultural boundaries. Indeed, some of the purest loves arise when two people from different cultures embrace each other unconditionally. Their backgrounds are so different that all attempts to come to specific terms with them are abandoned, and love rules.  This is what Lizzie had done, and we are left with the sadness that such a wonderful opportunity with Sanju was lost.

★★★★

Notes:

1. Marie Seton, Portrait of a Director: Satyajit Ray,  (1971), Indiana University Press, p. 291.
2. Sean Axmaker, “Shakespeare Wallah (1966)”, Turner Classic Movies, (4 May 2004).
3. Mel Gussow, "Telling Secrets That Worked For a Gambling Life in Films", New York Times,  (2 January 2003).
4. Parmita Kapadia, “Bollywood Battles the Bard: the Evolving Relationship Between Film and Theater in Shakespeare Wallah”, in Bollywood Shakespeares, Craig Dionne and Parmita Kapadia (eds.) (2014), pp. 45-60.

James Ivory

Films of James Ivory:

• The Householder - James Ivory (1963)  
• Shakespeare Wallah - James Ivory (1965) 

“The Householder” - James Ivory (1963)

Sometimes an epiphanous moment can elevate what was otherwise merely a good film to the level of greatness. So it was, with a scene near the close, for The Householder (1963), a contemporary domestic drama set in Delhi. The film tells the story of how a young man and woman, brought together in an arranged marriage, try to come to terms with being on their own in the big city. I will come to that epiphany-inducing scene later.

This work is notable for being the first collaboration of the famed Merchant-Ivory production team, whose eclectic background comprised

• James Ivory, an American-born film director who originally started making documentaries.
• Ismail Merchant, an Indian Muslim film producer. 
• Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, a woman novelist of German Jewish parentage who was born Ruth Prawer, but who took on her husband’s name when she married Parsi Indian architect Cyrus Jhabvala and moved to India in 1951.

At this point Merchant and Ivory, who had first met in 1959, were just starting out, and they were looking for a suitable script to make their first feature film together.  They enlisted actress Leela Naidu for one project, but their financial backers did not like their film script and dropped the project.  Then Ms. Naidu suggested to Merchant and Ivory that they try making a film of a novel that she liked, The Householder; and so they approached the novel’s author, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, which was the initiation of their long partnership [1].

Actually this initial Merchant-Ivory outing bears more similarities to Satyajit Ray’s cinematic work than it does to later Merchant-Ivory offerings – and no wonder.  Satyajit Ray, who was already more experienced and established than the fledgling Ivory-Merchant team, was a major contributor and influence on the film’s production.  Ray essentially acted as a mentor for Ivory and Merchant, loaning them his cameraman, Subrata Mitra, as well as some of his stock actors. In addition, Ray, who was an accomplished musician and composer, took charge of the music production and enlisted the services of famed sarod musician Ali Akbar Khan. In the end, Ray also re-edited the final version of the film.  So the Satyajit-Ray feel to The Householder is certainly no accident, and we might consider Ray to be a contributing auteur.

Above and beyond these valuable production values, though, is what I think is the most important virtue of this film: the sensitive acting on the part of the principal characters.  To this end, Ivory was fortunate to have at his disposal some experienced acting talent, notably:

• Shashi Kapoor, who plays the young husband, Prem Sagar.  Shashi Kapoor came from an almost dynastic Indian cinema family, which included his acclaimed brother, actor-director Raj Kapoor.
• Leela Naidu plays Indu, Prem’s wife.  In 1954 at the age of fourteen, she had been crowned  Femina Miss India – the Indian candidate for the Miss Universe contest – and had been listed by Vogue magazine as one of the ten most beautiful women in the world [1].
• In addition there were several supporting players who were well-established and long-serving actors in Indian cinema and who added dramatic emphasis to their roles:
• Durga Khote, who plays Prem's domineering mother,
• Achla Sachdev, who plays the landlord’s wife, Mrs. Saigal, and
• Harindranath Chattopadhyay, who plays Prem’s self-serving senior colleague, Mr. Channa.

The most important elements of all, though, were the performances of Kapoor and Naidu. They make this film what it is.  Note that the contrast between the acting styles of these performers is what makes this film particularly effective. While the older performers (such as Khote, Sachdev, and Chattopadhyay) are emphatic and theatrical, the younger leads (Kapoor and Naidu) are subtly withdrawn and more sensitive. As the characters played by Kapoor and Naidu find themselves dominated in situations in which they don’t know how to react, they often remain silent – but they express themselves by subtle glances and expressions to which the viewer increasingly becomes attuned.  I believe that it is this delicate dimension of expression, as manipulated by Ivory and the performers, that makes the film outstanding.

At the outset, the viewer is presented with verses 87 and 89 from Chapter VI of The Laws of Manu (Manusmrti) that reflect ancient Vedic wisdom dating back some 3,000 years concerning the four ordained stages of a man’s life [2]:               

“The student, the householder, the hermit, and the ascetic, these constitute four separate orders, which all spring from the order of householders.” (verse 87)

“And in accordance with the precepts of the Veda and of the Smriti, the householder is declared to be superior to all of them; for he supports the other three.” (verse 89)

The story begins with Prem (Shashi Kapoor) and Indu (Leela Naidu) attending the wedding of one of Prem’s colleague’s brothers.  As Prem looks at the groom, on whose sullen brow appears to rest the heavy weight of Indian tradition associated with his arranged marriage, Prem reflects on his own experience of an arranged marriage over the past year, and he lapses into an extended flashback that constitutes the bulk of the film.

Prem is shown as a junior teacher at a small urban college.  He is barely able to control his unruly students, and he is intimidated by the college’s domineering principal, Mr. Khanna, who is often accompanied by the sycophantic senior teacher, Mr. Channa. At home, Prem gets no comfort from his new wife, whom he did not apparently choose and whom he barely knows. He is frustrated to see his idle wife, who has no domestic skills, laze about all day, while he is busy working for his miserably low salary of 180 rupees per month.

For her part, Indu is bored, and she, like Prem, looks back on her teenage years when she could frolic about with her friends and have all her needs catered for.  When Prem and Indu attend a faculty tea party hosted by Mr.  and Mrs. Khanna, Prem is humiliated in front of his colleagues to see his wife uncouthly gorging herself on sweets at the table, while the other ladies look on disapprovingly. 

Prem’s dissatisfaction is getting clearly laid out.  He frets about having no money.  He is insecure about his job.  And he gets no satisfaction from his wife, who is like a stranger to him.   Much of the ensuing focalization of the film is centered on Prem and his frustrations in these areas.

Soon Prem is faced with a further problem – he learns that Indu is pregnant.  When he complains that he cannot afford another mouth to feed, Indu becomes angry and says she will return home to her family.  So as a householder Prem is unable to manage all the circumstances around him – his professional life at the college, his finances, and his wife.  To help deal with the latter problem, he sends a message for his mother in his remote home town to come to live with them in Delhi during his wife’s pregnancy.

As soon as Prem’s mother (Durga Khote) shows up, however, things become worse. The mother is possessive about Prem and highly critical of her new daughter-in-law’s domestic capabilities. Soon Prem is unsuccessfully trying to serve as a neutral moderator between the two feuding ladies. Hoping to mollify Indu, he buys her a nice saree, but when he arrives home, he discovers that she had become fed up, packed her bags, and left for her parent’s home.

Weeks go by, and despite their past quarreling, Prem realizes that he misses his absent wife.  He prepares a letter to her (it’s not clear whether he actually sends it):

“Why did you go away?  What hurt did I do that you had to go away from me?  When are you coming back?  Already you have been gone three weeks."

Bewildered by how to cope with his new life, Prem seeks counsel from friends concerning how to get a pay raise and how to deal with married life.  An older, married pal, Raj, tells him you have to be tough with women.  But this advice doesn’t suit Prem’s more sympathetic temperament.  On the other hand, his teaching colleague, Sohanlal, is kindly but seems spineless.       

Prem encounters a youthful American spiritual tourist, Ernest (Ernest Castaldo) who has come to India on his personal “journey to the East” in search of enlightenment. Ernest’s enthusiasm for everything mystical is puzzling to Prem, who is trying to deal with the world’s more down-to-earth problems. When Prem speaks to Ernest about how he misses his wife, Ernest gushes that “everything is Maya”, and therefore dismissible. 

This part of the film is weak because of the ludicrously histrionic characterizations of Ernest and his associates presented as naive spiritual seekers. On the other hand, when you think about it, it offers up an intriguing "double-distancing" on the part of the narrative witness.  The film (as I saw it) is presented here in English [3], so we have a Western audience seeing a situation from the perspective of an Indian native.  Now to a native Indian, the sight of American spiritual tourists must be at least as exotic as a mystical “Easterner” might appear to a Western viewer.  So the filmmakers have put the Western viewer metaphorically into the Easterner’s frame, so to speak, by showing in this respect the spiritual seekers not at all realistically, but as outlandish caricatures that convey how bizarre they must appear to an Indian.  Perhaps this double distancing (i.e. the displaced, extra perspective of the narrative witness) arose from the unusual eclecticism of the filmmakers [4].

Eventually Sohanlal introduces Prem to his spiritual guide, a genuine Hindu Swami (Pahadi Sanyal). Prem, perhaps inspired by Ernest, is swept away by the Swami’s calm spirituality and vows to become his loyal disciple.  But the Swami tells him that at this stage of his life, he should  attend to his duties as a householder. He can seek enlightenment with the Swami later.

When Prem comes back to his apartment, he discovers to his delight that Indu has returned. He quickly agrees to arrange to have his meddlesome mother return to her own family. Things appear to be improving. But he still has his wretched material circumstances to deal with.  On Raj’s suggestion, he composes letters to give to his principal, Mr. Khanna (asking for a pay raise) and to his landlord, Mr. Saigal (asking for a modest rent reduction). 

But like all his past efforts, he bungles these operations, and they all come to nothing.  He returns home disconsolate, telling Indu that it is all hopeless and that noone cares.  All his frustrations as a householder catch up with him, and he cannot hide his sadness from Indu.

But then there comes that wonderful moment.  Indu smiles and says to him,

“What does it matter? We will manage. . . .

You’re crying.  What is there to cry?  So let them all go. 
I am here.  You are here.  Don’t do it.  

Just once let me see you smile, . . . ., only once. 

There!   You are happy. 

Say it.  Say, 'I’m happy'.  

Of course, you are,   
and I also. “

With that beautiful moment, Prem’s life as a householder is redeemed, and so is the film. The Swami’s advice was wise. We see how the householder can get his or her own glimpse of nirvana . . . . through love.
★★★★

Notes:

1. “Leela Naidu”, Wikipedia (6/4/2015).
2. “The Laws of Manu”, George Bühler, translator, Internet Sacred Tex Archive,  (Sacred Books of the East, Volume 25). 
3. There were actually two separate versions of the film made, one in English and one in Hindi.
4. Indeed, consider the following East-West combinations of the filmmakers:
• Ivory (a Protestant American) and Merchant (an Indian Muslim), besides being lifelong professional collaborators, were also "life partners".
• Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, a German Jew, was married to an Indian Parsi.
• Shashi Kapoor (an Indian) was married to a Jennifer Kendal (a British actress).
• Leela Naidu’s father was an Indian physicist, and her mother was a Swiss-French journalist.