Skip to main content

Sita Sings The Blues, Opening Credit Track, Hindu Cosmology and Sita in Space


A lesson in Hindu Cosmology from the opening credit track of Nina Paley's wonderful film "Sita Sings the Blues"

Song and artist: Sita in Space by Todd Michaelsen (most of the original music for the film is by him)

The stuck gramophone song is Moanin’ Low in the voice of  1920's Jazz legend Annette Hanshaw. [original song at youtube]

Also, in that credit track, the people who know their Bollywood would surely recognize 'jaadoo signature tune for E.T. ' by Rajesh Roshan for Hindi film of year 2000 'Koi...Mil Gaya'. [check it out the tune at youtube]

'Sita Sings The Blues' beautifully re-tells the story of Sita from the ancient Hindu epic(s) of Ramayan and, in a parallel narrative, tells a personal story from the life of this film's creator. Of couse the story from Ramayan is the same: Sita is kidnapped by demon king Ravan. Sita sings (in the lovable microphone voice of Annette Hanshaw) for her husband Ram. Ram fights Ravan and (with some local monkey help) rescues Sita. But on returning to the Kingdom of Ayodhaya, Sita is asked to give proof of her love, piety and devotion for her husband Lord Ram. Sita has to prove to everyone that she is still pure. [In the end she goes down into earth, Mother Earth]

'Sita Sings The Blues' tells this story in the most magnificent and quirky animated way.

And to think that this miracle of a film would not have been available to all for viewing because of copyright issues.

The News as of 2008-12-03 was:
After pouring three years of her life into making the film, and having great success with audiences at festival screenings, she now can't distribute it, because of music licensing issues: the film uses songs recorded in the late 1920's by singer Annette Hanshaw, and although the recordings are out of copyright, the compositions themselves are still restricted. That means if you want to make a film using these songs from the 1920s, you have to pay money — a lot of money (around $50,000.00).
Read more about the films struggle with copyright at questioncopyright.org

And now after much efforts on part of its maker and supporters, Sita Sings The Blues is available for free

Download or Watch the entire film at archive.org or better still (in more formats and sizes) at Cutting The Chai

-0-

Sita Sings the Blues by Nina Paley is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.sitasingstheblues.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.sitasingstheblues.com/license.html.

-0-
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

I always like to hear back :)
However, irrelevant comments and irrelevant links will not be published. Needless to say, same goes for abusive comment and spam. Leaving back links related to the topic is encouraged. I know it can be tempting but try not to leave your email ids, phone nos and CVs in the comment.

Popular posts from this blog

Famous Old Faces of Doordarshan

Some people recall the faces and some people recall the names. Here are images of some of the famous readers and presenters of Doordarshan down the years. If you recognize any of them, leave a comment. [ Update 1 : Most of the faces now have names thanks to helpful comments by olio-gallimaufry ] [ Update 2 : Included image of one of the earliest presenters, Gopal Kaul. Send in generously from personal collection by son, Ashutosh Kaul. Sept, 2010.] [ Major Update 3: Got a tip-off about a documentary about the famous faces of Doordarshan from the makers   of     “The Golden Trail , DD@50 :Special feature on Golden Jubilee of Doordarshan ” from which these caps were taken. I managed to catch the incredible documentary and am adding some more faces/name and part of the docu here. New ones can be found after the image of  Narotam Puri. 30th Oct, 2010]  Pratima Puri. Believed to be the first Doordarshan reader.
175 comments
Read more

All about Taro Ek Dragon Ka Beta

Hawa mithee tu aa ja, purab se Tufaan tu aa jaa re paschim se Chali aa, jaldi aa jaldi aa tu aasmaan se ~Title song from Cartoon Series Taro Ek Dragon Ka Beta Japanese cartoon series from the late 70’s Taro the Dragon Boy ( orginal story by Miyoko Matsutani ) was shown on Indian national television - Doordarshan, in mid nineties with the Hindi title: Taro Ek Dragon Ka Beta . Due to this one serial, a generation of Indians was introduced to the wonders of Japanese animation. Although it may not seem to be a great series in itself( when compared to the new age sleek animation of these days) , showing of Taro the Dragon Boy was the true precursor to the coming of Pokemons, Inuyashas, Samurai Jacks and Dragon Ball Zs. In India, the series is mostly remembered for its title track Hawa mithee tu aa ja written by Gulzar and brilliantly composed music by Vishal Bhardwaj. In 1966, Taro, the Son of Dragon with the original Japanese title of ...
66 comments
Read more

Space City Sigma, 1989

A strange new deadly creature has sneaked aboard the ship. The latest maneuver of  Zakhakoo to take down Commander Tara and his city, the last hurdle to his plans of adding earth to his galactic kingdom and the universe. This time he sent a small Blob, strangely, much resembling a stinky wet Upla , a throbbing pack of  cow-dung . The Blob is given to jumps onto its unsuspecting victims and sucks the life force out of them. Soon, this 'death-on-contact-with-skin' creature starts making victims out of helpless citizens of the Space City who have no clue about the nature of these new deaths. As the word slowly spreads,there is mayhem, in this mayhem the Blob zeros in on what could be its most prized victim - Shakti. As a doors open (automatically, woosh -pause- woosh ), Shakti walks in only to be attacked slyly by the Blob. In the manner of its previous killings, this time too, Blob goes for the face, sticking to ...
56 comments
Read more