Barfi! has released, going strong at the box office too, and the reactions have been quite good so far. Though the critics liked it but most of them were not very impressed. Click here for all the reviews and the average rating. And there have been some interesting reactions too – from a glorious one by Rangan to self-reflective piece by Jai Arjun Singh.
But the point of this post is to find out where we draw the line for homage, inspiration and plagiarism. It seems Anurag Basu lifted many scenes from various films. If it was some other filmmaker, it would have been easy to say that it was all homage. And more so because “Charlie Chaplin” can be counted as a a genre now. But Basu has quite a history – Murder, Saaya, Life In A Metro. Having said that, as i wrote in this post earlier, i would like to reiterate that i still like his direction and he has a visual flair.
To start the homage, inspired or plagiarised debate, first watch the following videos.
- Starting with this clip from Kikujiro. Seems like the art director/AD was told to even get a similar nail and place it in the same way.
Tip – Arun venugopal
Tanqeed has put a post with all the other scenes/videos which are currently being discussed. We are putting the same videos here too.
- Remember this funny sliding door scene from Barfi!
Now watch this clip from Chaplin’s The Adventurer.
Homage?
- The mother-daughter scene from “The Notebook” which almost every critic has mentioned.
- But it would be too far fetched to say that even the climax is copied because it’s quite a generic scene.
- Two sequences from Singing In the Rain – the nose one and the doll sequence. from 1:50 onward.
- Another scene from Chaplin’s City Lights.
But many have pointed out that there was a poster of Chaplin in one of the scenes. I guess that makes it a homage. Right?
- The ladder scene from Buster Keaton film was obvious. But there’s another bit. In the first 5 second.
- The bicycle chase scene in the narrow lanes and the act of tapping the windows reminds you of Jackie Chan. Does it?
- And Rajeev Masand has mentioned in his review that the kidnapping subplot seems to be inspired from Gone Baby Gone. Agree?
Anything else? Looking at all these scenes i am sure that there are more scenes from here and there for which we have not been able to trace the original. So is it all original till we find the source?
Also, anyone seen the Korean film Oasis? Enlighten us.
So where do you put Anurag Basu’s B! now – H, I or P?
Or should we go back to Godard – “Its not where you take things from, its where you take them to”?
UPDATE – 24th September, 2012
Finally, an interview of Anurag Basu where he opens up about the plagiarism charges. Anuradha Sengupta has interviewed Basu for her show, Beautiful People. And good on her part that she didn’t let him skip the questions (10:11 onwards – Life In A Metro and Barfi!).
And we sincerely thank her for giving credit to our blog (at 10:50).
She also talks to him about Barfi’s success, Kites’ failure, his filmmaking style, how it’s democratic or not, trigger point of the film and other such topics. Do watch.
UPDATE – Now, finally the source of clock scene too.
via Kuldeep Patel.
F.i.g.h.t C.l.u.b 