Iliad, Bollywood-ishtyle

[toujours_nigel]

or, there's a meme going around that involves (re)casting your fandom: this has the most comprehensive links.

Being as how I'm a sheep, and this is an amazing idea, I've followed suit. Also, I'm being alphabetical, because I'm bad at organising, mkay.

So, er,


































Also, should you be unfamiliar with these actors, and wish to learn about them,

Achilles: Milind Soman

Agamemnon: Sanjay Dutt

Ajax: Salman Khan

Andromache: Konkona Sen Sharma

Cassandra: Kangana Ranaut

Clytemnestra: Sushmita Sen

Hector: Chandan Roy Sanyal

Hecuba: Shabana Azmi

Helen: Kareena Kapoor

Menelaus: Saif Ali Khan

Odysseus: Shahrukh Khan

Paris: Kunal Kapoor

Patroclus: John Abraham

Penelope: Tabu

Priam: Naseeruddin Shah

Comments

[dhobikikutti]

Sush for Clytemnestra is PERFECT!

(You already know my feelings about Kereena, so I guess I should just be glad you didn't stick Aish in there.)

Also SRK as Odysseus makes me LOL. He's such a ham! I would prefer someone more like, say, Ajay Devgan, who does stretched out and silent with grief really well.

[toujours_nigel]

Sushmita would be a brilliant Clytemnestra. I was wondering about Raveena, but I keep thinking of all the terrible films she's done with Govinda. blechh

SRK is terribly OTT, but he's also done things like Anjaam and Chak De! and he's good as long as he can't play himself. Besides, Odysseus doesn't have to be grieving at all, in either of the epics, no? He's all sparkly-eyes and manipulative.

Kareena I cannot stand either. (This is why she's Helen.)

[jjhunter]

"[...] Odysseus doesn't have to be grieving at all, in either of the epics, no? He's all sparkly-eyes and manipulative."

Er, not quite. A man who spends almost ten years trapped on an island, yearning for his homeland doesn't strike me as quite the same 'sparkly-eye[d]' Odysseus of the Illiad. He's in a situation where all his wiles avail him naught, and his patron goddess appears to have abandoned him.

In fact, the Odyssey is pretty specific about Odysseus' emotional state every single day he stays on Calypso's island: endless tears streaming down his face as he stands his daily lonely vigil by the sea, facing the direction of Ithaca.

[toujours_nigel]

er, sorry, I meant more Iliad's Odysseus.

And even the man in the Odyssey, before and after his interlude with Calypso, is very definitely the trickster manipulating his surroundings to full effect, no?

[vehemently]

Oh holy shit that's Mikhail from Kaminey as Hector. That's versatility! I can totally see him taking off his helmet and putting it on the floor because it was scaring the baby.

(Also, having just seen Dhoom, I have John Abraham in my head as a [younger] Agamemnon: he's got that reptilian ego thing going on. I'm sure he's played nice characters since then, but, rowr.)

[vehemently]

(Here via dhobikikutti, by the way.)

[toujours_nigel]

huh. I see what you mean re: John Abraham. He'd be a lovely Agamemnon circa getting tossed out by Aegisthus and Thyestes.

And Roy Sanyal is intense and curly and a theatre-person, and... uh. I'm rather irrationally fannish about him.

[copracat]

Odysseus: Shahrukh Khan

Yes. Exactly.

[toujours_nigel]

Ah, someone who agrees. Brilliant!

[kore]

It makes SO MUCH sense. (Also here via http://dhobikikutti.dreamwidth.org/82368.html?format=light.)

[toujours_nigel]

:)

[jjhunter]

Perhaps I am biased by my love for these particular characters, but your castings for Penelope, Cassandra, and Priam have slotted neatly into my vague mental impressions of those characters and redefined them. Priam as weighed by his years; Penelope as pensive and lacking the coy, supremely confident sexuality of her cousin Helen; and Cassandra as glorious, posed between vulnerable/delicate and quiet strength.

In contrast, Milind Soman as Achilles is pretty hot, but he doesn't 'click' quite as perfectly for me; he won't become my dominant mental picture.

Anyway, as a die-hard Classics nerd and Homer fan I have so much love for this project. Part of what made the movie 'Troy' so horrible for me (well, besides the whole 'Sword of Troy' biz--whiskey tango foxtrot?!) was the historically inaccurate casting. Newsflash, Hollywood: historical/mythological Troy is in Turkey. And it's pretty obvious where the 'Greeks' are from. From whence the pasty European actors? The whole movie was whitewashing on an epic scale.

[toujours_nigel]

Thank you.

I'm iffy on Achilles myself, but Milind Soman fit in better than, say, Hrithik Roshan.

And Troy, quite apart from how terribly it skewered the story, is horrible to me because of Paris and Helen and Patroclus and... yeah, everyone. And Menelaus is red-haired, and Achilles is golden-haired, but for love of Dionysos, why so pale?

[wingstodust]

Duuuuuuuude imagining Illiad as a Bollywood move is the most fantastic thing evar!

I linked your post on my book blog =D

[toujours_nigel]

:)

Thank you.

[esperante]

Ooh! I likes this cast! Now if only someone (Vishal Bhardwaj!) would make this movie... :D

[toujours_nigel]

oh, a Bhardwaj Iliad. To die for.

[esperante]

A family/neighbouring village feud, UP-ishtyle. It would be brilliant!

(Wandered on to this post via dhobikikutti. :) Hello!)

[toujours_nigel]

Hullo!

It could work rather brilliantly, given how terrifying clan feuds can get regarding unsuitable marriages and elopements.

Zamindarni runs away with unsuitable younger son of a neighbouring village's zamindar.

Gather the men, dig out the old rifles, send someone to dig up that rather brilliant stripling who uses razors on other men's throats better than his own barely-there beard!

er, I'll stop getting carried away, now.

[esperante]

Oh, no, please keep going! :D
This looks like it could be a solid paisa-vasool story... and it's definitely more interesting to me than all the Greek dudes, heh.

[toujours_nigel]

I am verra tempted, gah. Let us see.

[linkspam_mod]

Your post has been included in a Linkspam roundup

[toujours_nigel]

thank you.

[kore]

I LOVE all I've seen so far, but this is very possibly the best idea EVER.

[toujours_nigel]

Thank you. :D