The Tripod

Media Credit: www.sitasingstheblues.com [Click to enlarge]

Nina Paley's debut feature-length animated film Sita Sings the Blues is an awesome retelling of the Ramayana depicting the life of Rama and his wife, Sita. Paley created the animation for the film in her Manhattan apartment using Flash Player. The film's soundtrack revolves around original scores by Tod Michaelsen and the 1920s love scorned blues of Annette Hanshaw. Paley parallels her own modern day heartbreak with Sita's devotion to her husband and lord, complimented by Annette Hanshaw's stirring vocals. The same easy agreement between film and music has not been the case for the legal status or religious controversy surrounding the film.

The abandonment that Sita suffers by her husband, the lord Rama, was largely influenced by events in Paley's own life.

Inspiration struck while Paley was married and working as a cartoonist. She traveled to India to live with her husband, who was consulting in Trivandrum. She claims this was her first encounter with the epic Ramayana, where she became familiar with Sita's lament, which would soon, and unexpectedly, mirror her own. During this period, Paley traveled to New York City on business, where she received an e-mail from her husband requesting that she not return. Following the trauma of her divorce, she was introduced to the recordings of Annette Hanshaw, whose song "Mean to Me," Paley claims, became her "theme."

Paley's first approach to the Ramayana was in her 2003 film Trial by Fire, based on the sixth book of the Ramayana, the Yuddha Kanda. She focused on Sita's character, and featured Hanshaw's music. Though audiences found themselves enchanted by the animation and artistry, their enjoyment was restricted by a lack of understanding and contact with the Ramayana. This obstacle encouraged Paley to expand the project into a feature film.

However, Paley faced a legal obstacle in securing permission to use Hanshaw's music. Originally, Hanshaw's material was set to enter public domain in the 1980s. However, the arrangement was amended and the date of free access was postponed. As a result, Paley embarked on a pioneering and potentially unrewarding journey, releasing it under the free distribution model. The film's success and artistic purity benefited from Paley's dissociation from commercial and financial incentives. Paley has become an activist in the arts world, speaking against the use of laws that bottle creations in pay-only containers. Sita is completely free to the public under the free distribution model. This means that anyone can view, download, distribute, or profit from her film. This model is still being developed with information about "living culture" housed at questioncopyright.com and questioncopyright.org. Paley recalls first coming across her own experiences with copyright infringement in her career as a cartoonist. She chose not to sue the culprits, lacking the resources, and disenchanted with a copyright model that compensated publishers before artists.

Paley stated in one interview, "I am taking ideas that are already there, that have been around for thousands of years, 80 years, and only a few years, but these are ideas that are just out in the world, and I synthesize them. But this whole, like, 'This is my original idea, I own this,' is a bit much."

Paley was present at the IFC Theatre in Manhattan to offer the audience a live discussion after the film. The audience applauded her creativity and willingness to share it free of charge. She went in-depth about the complex legal wrangling required for the film's release, speaking candidly on the complications and abuses inherent to the cross-weaves of law and art.

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