julia, fearless nadia and shakespeare

LL's comment on the last post exploring Vishal's next directorial venture preempted this post by a few several seconds. Vishal's next is most assuredly based on the life of Mary Evans aka Fearless Nadia. Moreoever, there's evidence that Gulzar's working on the lyrics for the film. This puts to rest any questions about whether this was to be the songless film that Vishal has talked about in the past.

In other news, the Big B seems to have let the cat out of the bag as far as Vishal's next (and final?) edition in his Shakespeare trilogy (Douglas Adams had a trilogy in five parts, so don't get slimy with me about semantics). At a screening of Rituparno Ghosh's The Last Lear at The Times BFI 51st London Film Festival, he noted that he was going to be part of Vishal's adaptation of King Lear: He also added that the film will be out in 2008 and the script is currently being worked on and will get over by the end of this year. Vishal is denying this for the moment. Given that he's currently working on Julia (and maintaining a silence about the details), one can conclude that the Big B collaboration might be the next film on his plate:

[...] rumour mills are rife that Vishal Bhardwaj's next production will be based on King Lear. But he says no. "This time it won't be Shakespeare. I can do other things too," said Vishal, who was at the South Asian Film Festival with wife and singer Rekha. "I'm ready with another script and the shooting will begin shortly," he said.

Things are getting a bit too Lear-y here, although it might just be fortuitous coincidence; after all Ghosh' film, based on the late Utpal Dutt's play Aajker Shahjahan, merely appears to reference Shakespeare; an adaptation of the play would do more than that. Just like Macbeth (the source for Maqbool), there's a Kurosawa adaptation to savour.

One wonders if Vishal's ever going to attack Julius Caesar, since he's voiced that thought before.