Will Barfi! be disqualified from the Oscar race?
The film might
find passing the originality test of the Academy Awards jury next to
impossible. Is there still any hope for it to win a trophy? Read on to find
out…
Insiders say that when Mani Ratnam’s Nayagan starring
Kamal Hassan was sent as India’s official entry to the Oscars in 1987, it was
disqualified by the jury and did not make it to the nominations for Best
Foreign Language Film because one scene in the film had uncanny
similarities to the classic Hollywood flick The Godfather.
But some believe that cannot have been the only reason.
This makes us wonder if Barfi which clearly has copied several scenes from
classics like Singin’ In The
Rain (1957) and
Charlie Chaplin’s short The Adventurer (1917), should be sent for the Academy
Awards, considering there is a big chance that it will not make it to the
nominations.
Irrfan Khan has been quite vocal about
how the Ranbir Kapoor-Priyanka Chopra-Ileana D’Cruz starrer is the wrong
choice, for the same reason. “How can Barfi! stand a chance of making it to the
nomination list of Oscars? In spite of knowing that few scenes from Barfi! have
been copied, our film federation chose it over original. Only original films
should be sent to the Oscars,” said Irrfan in an interview.
And Irrfan is probably right. The Academy Awards
selection committee in India has chosen Barfi! as this year’s official entry from
India, but it stands a great chance of being thrown out at the start because of
the plagiarism charges that have already been heard dogging it. The negative
buzz back in India won’t help it either.
What could probably save the movie is a written
clarification at the beginning which says ‘Inspired from classics like Singing
In The Rain, Charlie Chaplin’s The Adventurer and City Lights and The Notebook‘
or ‘A tribute to great cinema made by legends like Charlie Chaplin, Gene Kelly and
Nick Casavetes, which inspired me to make Barfi! –Anurag Basu’.
But there are several more copied scenes, including from Mr Bean’s Holiday, Back To School, The Goonies, and more. So how many
clarifications will UTV Motion Pictures manage to put in? And even if it is
done, there is no guarantee that the film will pass the jury’s originality
test.
On the other hand, there is still some hope for the film.
Michel Hazanavicius’ The Artist,
which won the award for Best Picture this year is said to be inspired from
several sources. The breakfast table montage in the movie was clearly lifted
from Citizen Kane and the music took inspiration from Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. In fact, The Artist is said to be a remake of the 1954
musical A Star Is Born,
directed by George Cukor.
Leaving the objective principles of fair selection aside,
if the jury believes that the artistic inspirations ofBarfi! are appropriate and the end product is
marvellous, these copied elements may be condoned.Barfi! is definitely walking on thin ice.
Perhaps that coveted statuette can save it from breaking through and drowning.
