The animation blog Cartoon Brew, for the better part of a year now has been singing the praises of Sita Sings the Blues, a full-length animated movie made single-handedly by indie comic artist Nina Paley. It depicts stories of love and betrayal between Prince Rama and his wife Sita from the Indian epic Ramayana, interwoven with the personal story of Paley’s long-distance breakup with her husband. Along the way there are three Indians doing a voice-over, Creature Comforts-style, debating the finer details of Sita’s story (was she or wasn’t she wearing jewellery when she was abducted?) These seemingly unrelated themes are woven together using 1920’s songs sung by jazz singer Annette Hanshaw. Apparently the movie works, and surprisingly well.
Here’s a trailer, featuring the voice-overs and lots of trippy artwork:
I say “apparently”, because this movie is in distribution limbo and is unable to be seen by anyone. The Annette Hanshaw performances are in the public domain; not so the actual songs. (It’s exactly the same silliness that keeps a song as old as “Happy Birthday”—written in 1893!—under copyright.) Paley (or the film’s distributors) would have to fork out almost a quarter of a million dollars to secure the rights to use these songs in her movie; an insurmountable amount for a tiny indie film during a recession.
Enter the 500-lb gorilla, Roger Ebert, who published a lengthy rave about the movie on his blog. Ebert enjoyed it so much he invited Paley and her movie to appear at his personal film festival in April. (BTW, whether or not you like Ebert’s actual movie critiques, his blog articles are superb, and features the most interesting, civilized and well-written commentaries by readers I’ve ever read … this blog’s readers excepted! 🙂 )
Since the Ebert post, Nina Paley has revealed her distribution plan for Sita Sings the Blues. Basically she will place Sita in the public domain, by uploading the film on archive.org and various mirror sites, and calling them “promotional copies”. Promotional copies of a work are exempt from most song licence fees. Paley will not make any money directly from her movie. Instead, she hopes to earn money by “donations, commissions, grants, patrons, speaking fees”. Sounds an awful lot like the life of artists before the rise of the rights-owning mega-corporations.
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David "Prefers The Ramayana Over The Bhagavad-Gita" Barker says:
December 30, 2008 at 10:03 am (UTC 0)
The review is completely un-Ebert-like. But the movie sounds (and looks) sweet. I hope you can snag a promotional copy for review purposes. I also would like to review it. InkWay. InkWay.
Ebert can be very non-objective (sic) in his reviews. Paley is from his hometown and is the daughter of a mayor so perhaps that alone explains his ardour, but I hope not. When the movie about Iris Murdoch came out a few years back, he trashed it on his TV review show because he was a fan of her books and hated seeing her portrayed in her decline into Alzheimer’s, no matter that the movie might actually have been good (Don’t know, never saw it, never read Iris Murdoch).
Laura says:
December 30, 2008 at 11:32 am (UTC 0)
I hear you about Ebert—I don’t always agree with his formal reviews, or sometimes even think they’re particularly interestingly-written. However, I’ll give him credit: He usually states his prejudices, political leanings and other biases right up front—which is a lot more honest than most other critics. Most critics would like you to believe they’re being strictly objective, but that isn’t really possible if the review is to be anything more than a recap of the plot.
I enjoy his blog a lot more than his reviews, because it’s personal, heartfelt and occasionally silly (though his most recent post must’ve been written when he was in a particularly bleak mood.