Indian Cinema: A History of Repetition

This chapter examines examples of postmodern aesthetics in contemporary Bollywood cinema by looking more specifically at a particular kind of filmmaking that has emerged prolifically over recent years: the Bollywood remake. Drawing upon various theoretical work on textual adaptation — including issues of textual fidelity that continue to plague the Bollywood remake's critical reception — the chapter considers how remaking has emerged as a platform for innovation and creative translation in Bollywood. It also explores how the diverse methods of remaking that Bollywood employs (intertextuality, cross-cultural borrowing, aesthetic and narrative appropriation, pastiche and parody) allow it to experiment with and innovate in its filmmaking practices. The chapter discusses and compares Bollywood remakes produced within the post-millennium decade in order to highlight a new phenomenon of remaking that is symptomatic of the recent impact of postmodernism, globalisation, modernisation and internationalisation in Indian cinema.