OCTOPUSSY, Dir John Glen
Octopussy is a famous James Bond film made in 1983 and was the thirteenth in the James Bond series and sixth of Roger Moore as the MI6 agent code named 007. The film was shot in many parts of the world, with much of shooting being carried out in the historic Indian city of Udaipur located in the State of Rajasthan.
In the plot of the film, James Bond follows the principal villain, Khan to his palace in India and spies on a nefarious nexus between him and a Russian general, who are involved in smuggling of many valuable treasures. During the course of his espionage activities James Bond also infiltrates a floating palace and befriends Octopussy, potrayed by Maud Adams, a wealthy businesswoman, smuggler and associate of Khan. She also leads a cult called Octopus, based on which the movie is named.
There are two interesting facets of the shooting locales of the movie, viz, firstly the choice of a city far away from Delhi depicting Delhi, with very little resemblance to actual Delhi and secondly the two buildings chosen in Udaipur which are in reality 5 star hotels in heritage exotic palaces and depict the homes of Khan, the villain and Octopussy, Maud Adams.
As regards the first aspect, I feel that New Delhi being more known internationally by virtue of being the capital city, would have been the primary reason for Udaipur being depicted as New Delhi rather than Udaipur itself, which is a much smaller city.
As regards the second aspect, and more relevant to the fieldwork, a plausible explanation for the choice of heritage hotels being depicted as residences, is the grandeur, style and requirement of an exotic touch, which is typical of Bond films. Overall, many in the world associate India as the land of mystique, snake charmers, magnificent palaces, colorful dresses and of course beautiful people. Thus, the makers of the film must have homed on to India and Udaipur as a predominant location for making of the film.
The shooting in Udaipur has been primarily carried out in the two beautiful locations of Jag Mandir and Lake Palace, both of which are floating palaces constructed in the 18th century. These grand palaces were residences of royal princes and princesses, which have been converted to hotels on account of commercial reasons and the difficulties of maintaining such huge palaces by individuals in the present day. Some of its guests of the hotels include Lord Curzon, Vivien Leigh, Queen Elizabeth, the Shah of Iran and US First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy.
The hotel companies have done a splendid work of furnishing the palaces in luxury while retaining the traditional royal aspects. Thus, these were a perfect combination of modernity and traditional pomp which served beautifully as the luxurious homes of Khan and Octopussy, thus serving the purpose of a grand bond film.
Khan arriving at jag mandir, clip shows exterior and interior exotic decor and architecture
Shaurya Kang ,3035812385
This reads mainly as a film analysis rather than a fieldwork report. Were you in Rajasthan for this fieldwork assignment? The assignment requires the conducting of actual fieldwork and in making analytical observations and documentation. If you have not visited the site/s to inform your analysis, then the discussion here is mainly based on secondary observations and/or sources. What first-hand insights do you have with regard to the actual sites of Jag Mandir and Lake Palace and their representations in the film? How do the ways in which these sites are filmed and framed contribute to the narrative plot besides the scene setting? Though it is not the objective of the assignment but even if your intention is to conduct the fieldwork through online and treat real life visits and photographs of the site by others in relation to the film, you should clarify that this is your method and acknowledges the sources of your photographs. At present it is unclear who conducted the fieldwork and who are the authors of the photographs and why you choose these photographs from these websites/authors (if that is the case).