Bollywood meets Hollywood

As continuation of the Jane Austen kick I’m on, I watched Bride & Prejudice, thanks to an unexpected television fortuity (it popped up on cable). I hadn’t realized it was going to be a Bollywood production. So, yeah, there were Hindi costumes and singing and dancing.

Overall, I liked the singing and dancing–the singing less than the dancing–and I found the insight into Indian culture with their attitudes towards arranged marriages interesting. But it was . . . odd. I’m not sure if my Midwestern American film sensibilities are quite ready for Bollywood does Jane Austen.

   


Writing Stuff

New Words:
500 on “A Thread of Silk” with some editing/rewriting.

Ran into a bit of awkwardness, plot-wise, and I’m mulling how to handle it. It comes down to the old LARP dilemma. I need to incorporate travel into the story because my protag is journeying from point A to point B. But:
– There’s no other purpose for the traveling bit other than to get her to point B, which makes it ungodly dull.
– As problematic as it is, there’s no getting around my protag being at point A and needing to get to point B. I can’t bring antag. and protag. together anywhere but at point B.
– I could make the journey interesting, but that would require adding an extraneous scene (possibly several), and I’m trying to keep this story tight.
– Another reason to avoid a traveling scene is that my protag is riding a horse. Not only will I exhaust my limited knowledge of Heian Era Japanese horsemanship in the first few paragraphs, but I’ll inevitably give the horse a personality if my protag spends any amount of “onscreen” time with her mount–since horses have them, and I can’t imagine anyone sitting on a horse without chatting to and otherwise interacting with it. But I don’t want to create another character to worry about. As is, I got annoyed with the servants in the opening scene, and they had an important raison d’Γͺtre. At my first opportunity, I dumped them.

Hrmph.

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
4,904 / 7,500
(65.4%)

Club 100 For Writers
      4

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7 Responses to Bollywood meets Hollywood

  1. time_shark says:

    For a good “Bollywood” introduction, I highly recommened “Monsoon Wedding”…

  2. hmm, i remember Farshad saying he liked this version better than the hollywood remake.

  3. miafedup says:

    I haven’t Bollywood yet. Not sure I’m ready for it either…

    Have you seen The Remains of the Day?

    If not, it’s a Merchant-Ivory and very much in the same vein of these flicks you are watching. I think you might like! πŸ™‚

  4. puskunk says:

    Isn’t that kind of a half Bollywood, half US thing? I remember hearing about it when it came out. Don’t they sing in English?

  5. harmonyfb says:

    But it was . . . odd.

    Aw, but you’ve got to love “No life, without wife” – I bounced around singing that for days after I saw the movie. πŸ™‚

  6. gardenwaltz says:

    i have heard that there is a bollywood remake of Fight Club. i have got to see this.

  7. nmsunbear says:

    If you watch “Lost,” seeing Sayid dancing is worth the ticket price all by itself.

    Saw this with a friend. I loved it, but she seemed a little overwhelmed. πŸ™‚

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