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Soothing the Bruise (1980). Courtesy of the artist and Lux, London.Halfway through Betzy Bromberg’s 16mm short film Soothing the Bruise (1980), a woman strolls a busy New York street wearing a pink-and-black, block-striped sweater; tight, pink, leopard-print jeans; pink socks; and a red heel to the zippy tune of Plastic Bertrand’s “Ça Plane Pour Moi.” She appears again later, with a friend who pulls teasingly at the clothes in front of the camera. They are young, beautiful, happy; the city street is their catwalk. In Bromberg’s early-career trilogy of 16mm works—Soothing the Bruise succeeds Petit Mal (1977) and the perfectly named Ciao Bella or Fuck Me Dead (1978)—the city is at once scuzzy and decadent, a playground for women seeking liberation. Skipping between locales, subjects, and music genres from Genesis to Annette Hanshaw, the films have an urban buoyancy that exudes the buzz of life everywhere the filmmaker looks.

Sketchy welcomes back Nafeeza Hussain to discuss Nina Paley’s 2009 animated feature “Sita Sings The Blues” featuring the lovely voice of Annette Hanshaw. Enjoy!

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The post Sketchy Episode 155 – ‘Sita Sings The Blues’ appeared first on Sound On Sight.

Adaptation and appropriation are important subtexts to Nina Paley’s award-winning animated epic, Sita Sings the Blues. Paley herself became a cause célèbre among Fair Use activists seeking reforms to copyright law during her struggle to secure rights to jazz vocalist Annette Hanshaw’s recordings. With this video essay, I look at how Paley took inspiration from both the tragic story of Sita in the Ramayana and Annette Hanshaw's bittersweet torch songs to deal with her own breakup>>> - Kevin B. Lee...

Adaptation and appropriation are important subtexts to Nina Paley’s award-winning animated epic, Sita Sings the Blues. Paley herself became a cause célèbre among Fair Use activists seeking reforms to copyright law during her struggle to secure rights to jazz vocalist Annette Hanshaw’s recordings. With this video essay, I look at how Paley took inspiration from both the tragic story of Sita in the Ramayana and Annette Hanshaw's bittersweet torch songs to deal with her own breakup>>> - Kevin B. Lee...

(In Alphabetical order)

Meek’s Cutoff

Directed by Kelly Reichardt

Kelly Reichardt had a stellar if hushed 2000s, and then she commenced the current decade with a film that is already beginning to feel like an unsung modern classic. Meek’s Cutoff is one of those exhilarating instances in which a marriage of disparate styles produces something tricky to imagine, but perfect to behold: a period piece set in mid-1800’s Oregon, shot in academy ratio and classically beautiful for it, but with Reichardt’s signature severe naturalism. The result is so stark and understated that it begins to feel graceful, weirdly epic. A small caravan of settlers (featuring Michelle Williams and a once again devout Paul Dano) hires a guide, big-talking Stephen Meek, to help them navigate the Oregon Trail. As the terrain grows less forgiving and water evermore scarce, the settlers begin to wonder if the route Meek...

Sita Sings The Blues is an 82 minute animated film by Nina Paley, whose animation experience prior to this was apparently a 4 minute short film. Paley is an American woman who became aware of the Ramayana story when she was visiting her husband who was posted on a work assignment in India.

As a white girl, raised in a Western country, my own familiarity with the Ramayana – one of India’s great epic tales – is pretty limited. Coming to the story late, and having to rely on mainstream Hindi films and occasional books that make passing reference to the story – I only really know the basics: Ravana, the bad guy with ten heads, kidnapped Sita, the virtuous wife of Rama, the hero of the tale. Rama, with the help of Hanuman, rescued Sita, but doubted her purity having been in Ravana’s custody for so long, and he asked her to...

American cartoonist Nina Paley has one of the hottest indie movies around, Sita Sings the Blues (rating: 86), her animated retelling of the classic Hindi story called the Ramayana, set to the jazz songs of 1920's torch singer Annette Hanshaw. Released for free on the internet in 2008, it zoomed up many critics' best-of lists in 2009, and is finally receiving limited release in some independent theaters this year. I asked her a few questions about the movie and her support of Free Culture -- a method of distribution that she has come to embrace as a way of life. What was it like to offer your own take on the Ramayana? Obviously, the film itself shows how you came to discover the text, as you draw parallels between Sita's story and your own. But some cultural critics were agitated by...

Animator Nina Paley has placed her entire feature film Sita Sings the Blues online for viewing. That’s it embedded above in really good quality on YouTube, which sounds like an oxymoron, but it’s not. It’s extremely crisp looking so that the incredibly eye-catching animation really grabs you.

Paley’s situation with her film has been a big story in 2009, particularly in the past month or so. Here’s the deal: Paley crafted the film — which combines her own personal story of her painful divorce with the ancient Indian story of Sita and Rama, two gods who try to exist as human beings — around songs sung by Annette Hanshaw, a jazz singer who was popular in the ’20s.

However, in trying to clear the copyrights to the composition of those songs, Paley ran into a big problem: Namely that the copyright holders wanted Paley to pay $50,000 to include them in the film.

Sita Sings the Blues is exactly what it claims to be: the greatest break-up story ever told. This story is based on the Indian tradition of the Ramayana intermixed with writer/director/producer/animator Nina Paley’s own painful divorce, and the end result is just fantastic. The Ramayana is the story of Sita and her husband Rama, the favored son of the king. Unfortunately for Rama, one of the king’s wives wants her son to rule, so she uses the boon the king promised her to get Rama sent away to the forest for 14 years. Sita, ever the faithful wife, insists on going with him despite the dangers.

While Sita and Rama are enjoying their time in the forest together, she is stolen away by Ravana, a creepy guy with several heads. Ravana gives her two months to agree to sleep with him, or else he will…well,...

My god, can we please put this recession-wrought year out of its (and our) misery? Not that 2009 didn't have its pleasures, especially when it came to film, as it was a fruitful year for the cinema. My own New Year's resolution for 2010—again, when it comes to film—is about the same as it was last year. I'm going to strive to be progressive, pragmatic and curatorial as a critic, innovative as a distributor, and motivated enough to write and direct a second feature. I thought it might be fun to ask fellow members of the film community to share their own pledges for 2010, and was excited that less than 24 hours' notice yielded responses from over 40 filmmakers, critics, distributors, publicists, and other noteworthy voices. Be safe tonight, friends... Nah, screw that. Get into some trouble, try something radical, and let's shake things up in the new year.

Continued reading New...

Chicago – The DVD Round-Up has traveled the globe this week to bring you a diverse slate of under-the-radar titles received in the HollywoodChicago.com offices this holiday season. With so many major releases this time of year, it’s hard to cover everything, but we wanted to make sure you knew these were out there in case you have a gift card burning a hole in your pocket.

One quick note: We don’t usually inject opinion into the DVD Round-Up. It’s a recurring column merely designed for informational purposes regarding some lower profile titles new on shelves. We’d like to make a rare exception for “Sita Sings the Blues,” a simply wonderful animated film that we only wish we had more time to spotlight but that we wanted to make sure you knew was available before the end of the year. Don’t just go rent it.

By Christopher Stipp

The Archives, Right Here

I was able to sit down for a couple of years and pump out a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right Here for free.

Check out my new column, This Week In Trailers, at SlashFilm.com and follow me on Twitter under the name: Stipp

Sita Sings the Blues - Quick Review

Sooooo….this is awkward.

I want to start off by making clear my stance on this DVD is that you should buy it. Go right out and purchase it any which way you can.

My second point is that not only is this a movie the venerable Roger Ebert reviewed glowingly on his blog a year ago but you can go on the film’s website and watch it for free.

Like Roger, I didn’t really have a strong passion...

True, the once neglected art of animation has undergone a rebirth in both artistry and popularity. Yet having escaped one blind alley, it seems headed into another one: The dumbing-down of stories out of preference for meaningless nonstop action. Classic animated features were models of three-act stories: Recall "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" or "The Lion King." The characters were embedded in stories that made sense and involved making decisions based on values. Now too many stories end in brain-numbing battles, often starring heroes the age of the younger audience members. Here is no food for growth and for the imagination, just brainless kinetic behavior.

The year saw more animated films intended instead for adults, and a film like "Waltz with Bashir" used the freedom of the form to show matters unthinkable in a live action feature. Several of these films were true crossovers, truly freed from the demographic vise.

DVDs may be sooner or later drummed out of existence -- by online downloads, at first, I'd guess, reducing movie "releases" to nothing more than press announcements of availability -- but for now they're still "things" you can buy or rent, physical manifestations of the art form, not just the opportunity for access. In the process, they're continuing as our default B-movie distribution stream, offering up indies and foreign films and unforeseen archivals that had a snowball's hellbound chance at finding theatrical screentime. These are still not eligible for any year-end toasts, absurdly enough, and so here's my list of the best of the year's straight-to-digi-vid, for which the only qualification is being entirely overlooked, this year or ever, by our theatrical distribution wimps, and being new to U.S. home video of any stripe.

15. "Absurdistan"

(Veit Helmer, Germany/Russia/Azerbaijan, 2008)

A bawdy Caucasus folktale, Helmer's nutty yarn visits a...

DVD Playhouse—December 2009

By

Allen Gardner

Public Enemies (Universal) Johnny Depp portrays legendary Depression-era bank robber John Dillinger in co- writer/director Michael Mann’s take on America’s first “Public Enemy Number One.” Like many big studio releases today, Public Enemies has it all: A-list talent before and behind the camera, but lacks a heart or soul that allows its audience to connect with it. Film plays out like a “true crime” TV show with re-enactments of famous events cast with top actors and shot by the best technicians in the business, with little, if any, character or story development to hold it together in between. A real disappointment from one of our finest filmmakers and finest actors. The lone standout: the great character actor Stephen Lang as a hard-eyed lawman who’s seen a lot, but manages to retain a tiny piece of his heart. For a better take on the same subject,...

For a time, the behind-the-scenes story of Nina Paley’s animated feature Sita Sings The Blues was drawing more attention than the story in the movie. Hand-crafted by Paley over the course of half-a-decade, the colorful, minimalist Sita became a festival favorite in 2008, but languished because Paley couldn’t afford to license the songs of ’20s jazz singer Annette Hanshaw for a theatrical or DVD release. Paley bargained the fees down, paid them, and then earlier this year put Sita online for free, while selling Sita merchandise and asking for donations to pay down her debt. Now, with the ...

In a discussion last week with Mike Gold, I mentioned I had a film his wife would love to see, and he'd get a kick out of it too. And, since it's available via Creative Commons, I can share it with you as well.

Sita Sings The Blues is a bit of a find, and it's a bit tricky to find as well. Created by cartoonist Nina Paley, and featuring the songs of Annette Hanshaw, it's an award-winning retelling of the Ramayana in four different animation styles. Sita is a goddess/princess/woman utterly devoted to her husband Rama, the god/prince/man, and they just can't quite make thier marriage work. You can't see it in theaters, but you can download it, or you can buy a limited edition DVD. (Why it's a limited edition is a loooooong story.)

It's 82 minutes long and worth every second. Watch it.

When faced with copyright lemons, Sita Sings the Blues creator Nina Paley made some delicious lemonade. Since Sita uses songs in the film by Annette Hanshaw that are copyrighted, and as an indie filmmaker she can't afford to purchase the rights to them, her hands were tied when it came to distribution. So she came up with a plan that worked with (and around) the copyright issues so the movie's admirers could see the lovely film for themselves. Read a more detailed explanation of the issue here at Question Copyright. [Edited to add: Nina explains on her blog and in the comment section below: "Sita Sings the Blues is 100% legal. I am free to release it commercially, which is why the film is gaining a number of commercial distributors in addition to its free sharing/audience distribution, which is also legal, and wonderful." Read the full explanation here.]

Not only is her beautiful film available to watch online for free, it was also briefly available on PBS last March in for lucky viewers in NYC.

But now Paley has gone a step further with it comes to using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license that is really cool for creative types -- you can download her source files...

The success of Slumdog Millionaire, despite our reservations about it, has got us thinking about romance in film. We look to another Westerner's spin on Indian romance, Nina Paley's Sita Sings the Blues. The animated feature, which is now available for free online, weaves an ancient Indian epic with a modern day break-up story, all with a soundtrack of vintage Annette Hanshaw. Then we look at Roman Holiday ...