ABSTRACT
Within many popular Indian films, the narrative is often interrupted by a series of song sequences with varying relationships, if any, to the narrative. The sound of a voiceover and song lyrics interrupt, reorder, and question the visual text’s depiction of romance and intimacy and also serve to foreshadow the film’s violent conclusion. Within the 2006 film Omkara, the relationships between the narrative and the film’s music are especially rich because its director, Vishal Bhardwaj, also composed the film’s songs. The song sequences in Omkara punctuate significant dramatic points in the narrative, which sets Shakespeare’s tragedy Othello in contemporary rural northern India where gangs of outlaws collaborate with local politicians to enforce order and security. When writing on music’s role onscreen, remember that sound can often reinforce the visual text’s version of narrative but sometimes may go against it – especially when it fails to connect directly to any sense of space and location within the visual text.
