sita sings the blues

February 03, 2009

sita sings the blues

Sita is singing the blues because her man done her wrong. We all know the feeling. One day you’re flying high, completing an independent animated feature you’ve been working on tirelessly for years, writing and animating every frame yourself, and then the next moment your award-winning film is in copyright lock-down over fees for music written more than 60 years ago. Well that isn’t exactly Sita’s problem, but that is the dilemma of animator Nina Paley with her fantastic new feature film, Sita Sings the Blues.
Layering several versions of the Hindu Sanskrit epic of Ramayana, Paley offers us a gorgeous visual collage of contemporary and ancient imagery centering on the girl done wrong. Sita is the wife of Rama, the avatar of Vishnu, whose virtue is challenged after she is kidnapped by an enemy of Rama’s. After rescuing Sita, Rama questions her purity. She passes a trial by fire, but is sent packing when Rama’s subjects can not respect his decision to allow her to return to his royal household. Annette Hanshaw is the silent film star and singer whose music provides one of the charming narratives of Sita Sings the Blues. Her bluesy torch songs add a 1920's twist to the Sita chapter of the Ramayana. A third layer to Sita's predicament in the movie is the telling of filmmaker Paley's autobiographical tale. Paley was quite suddenly dumped via email by her husband, while he was working in India - a part of India very close to the area that the Ramayarna legend took place - so a natural collision of the stories blossomed.

The lock-down copyright part of this saga is a little more difficult to explain. Due to an arbitrary and labyrinthine net of copyright protection in this country, music rights are prohibitively expensive, and as a result sometimes impossible to secure. All the years of woman-hours animating and developing this film were not as costly as the opening price that the Annette Hanshaw songs demanded. Continued negotiations have somewhat lowered the costs, but the bargaining continues. Similar to the RIAA's hostile takeover of the the music industry and its royalty formulas, US copyright laws are built to protect a few select individuals, and these are not the creative playas, if you get my drift. Until this issue is settled, Sita Sings the Blues is without a distribution contract.

Citing the Creative Commons argument, many people are advocating to enlarge the platform for copyright use. Nina Paley is taking these issues to the streets, gathering attention to her copyright nightmare and pushing for changes to be made to the laws. Sita Sings the Blues will be shown this Wednesday Feb 4th, at 92Y in Tribeca, 200 Hudson street, 8PM, with the filmmaker present. WNET in the NYC area will also broadcast Sita Sings the Blues on March 7, 2009, on channel 13.

Posted by DJ Trouble on February 03, 2009 at 08:47 AM in Film | Permalink

Comments

Wow...epic copyright extensions really lead to some ridiculously sad situations like this one where everybody loses. I doubt that anybody who wrote those songs for Annette Hanshaw is still alive to reap the potential benefits of their use in Sita Sings the Blues. But people who had nothing to do with the creative process are somehow given the power to demand an obscene amount of money that makes (legal) distribution impossible.

Shouldn't the music publishers work out a royalty-sharing agreement that encourages distribution and actually gives them a chance to benefit financially? Don't they want to generate interest in these songs that would otherwise just collect mold in their catalog? Sadly, this branch of the music industry is a sinking ship, and they're taking Annette Hanshaw down with 'em

Posted by: Jason | February 03, 2009 at 08:07 PM

Fans of Nina Paley (like me) have been watching her build this film bit by bit for years. It's been a real struggle. I hope you can get her on to spin a few disks, Trouble.

Posted by: Webhamster Henry | February 04, 2009 at 12:01 AM

Sita Sings the Blues will be screening at Montclair State University on March 24 (filmmaker present). It's free and open to the public.

Posted by: Nancy | February 05, 2009 at 10:23 PM