Copy Pasting Copy Paste

"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research."

I read this quote today on a friend's facebook status. when i started to write this blog, i googled the phrase, and found this:

The quote "If you copy from one author, it's plagiarism. If you copy from two, it's research." has been attributed to playwright, raconteur  and entrepreneur Wilson Mizner. The exact wording to which you allude has been widely attributed to comedian Steven Wright. Did he plagiarize Mizner?

it was an interesting example of fate stepping forward and stealing my punch line.

you see, when i saw the quote, it managed to provide a pithy summary of why i had decided to name my blog "copy paste material." the decision had come a year of being a journalist, and three years before that of being a student at LUMS.

what i had come to see was that in both cases, one needed to essentially plagiarise in order to be credible.

as a student, i often felt that i had read and seen enough to hold certain views. but in order to be taken seriously, i had to present it in light of what others had said or done.

as a journalist, i was starting out as a copywriter on the international desk. so yeah, i covered three wars - i'm a regular robert fisk. anyhows, being on the international desk meant sitting around, reading the wires, and - wait for it - copy pasting them into your story.

in both cases, the mark of quality was demonstrated by, amongst other things, a variety and depth of sources. in fact, an out right copy-paste was inacceptable. but reframing et al the stuff constituted quality.

hence the title - copy paste material.

why do i bring up this now?

i read a blog recently, which ended thus:

"undeniably, and unfortunately, there is a little bit of Zardari in all of us."

which reminded me of this:

"Asif Ali Zardari did what every Pakistani does – he looked at how the game was being played, sought out its soft spots, and then cut it to pieces. Its why he’s here. He does what all of us do. It maybe at a different scale, but it’s the same scene.

You have to admit - we all have a little Zardari within us."

yesterday, i came across this:

Every time I bribed a policeman, ignored the traffic signals, sent gifts to judges, made phone-calls to those in power to seek favors, I kept this in mind. Every time I willfully weakened the justice system for my benefit, I knew what I was doing. I knew exactly what kind of crop I was sowing. Some other people did too, but I don’t want to name any names.

a sort of like this, i wondered:

"Every day, as we break red lights and jostle with vehicular madness, as we consume tainted water and questionable food, as we bribe and barter, we live in existence where the possibility of the consequences of our actions can not hope to be considered, because perhaps we know of no other way."

now if you are getting my flow, i suppose there are two ways i can go with this. i can get all egoistical, and claim that people are copy-pasting my ideas. or i can face up to what i believe myself - that these are signs of people waking up to the massive contradictions that lie within us.

moreover, i could make sense of the 'copy-pasting' being employed in academia and journalism - because in a society overflowing with ideas, their repetitions and their regurgitations, the only way of making sense, the only skill is one of bringing together references that your audience can relate to in order to create a narrative, or an opinion that makes sense.

a part of me wanted to believe that i was being plagiarized, but it would be egoistical folly. surely i was not the first person to realise that pakistanis can often be in denial about themselves, that change lies within us all. moreover, a lot of my own blogs have been basically copy-pastes of my wife's ideas and thoughts. so it would be hypocritical.

but what provides irrefutable evidence of the fact that all these are original works is when you step back and read all of them in their context. the second link for example, works the same motifs i used to examine afridi into a haunting account of the sialkot lynching. i doubt if he/she had ever even come across what i had written. the reason both ideas work is that they allow their readers to make sense of their society using examples of their own experiences - the bribing, the bartering, the wheeling and dealing.

to get a much better example than all of this, take a look at this magnificent video. umar sharif, in about a few minutes, weaves together references from silent-era Hollywood to post-Cold War geopolitics, from one style of qawwali to the next, from one generation of sub-continental romancing styles to an eerily prescient version of another (i am referring to the line about giving out phone numbers.)

(thanks to tazeen for the link)

and it gets even more interesting. there is for example an indian version of this song currently out:



according to twitter user @Mehmal, both songs are versions of an older song, known as "Launda Badnam Hua, Nasiban Tere Liye." an indian website meanwhile says that the song was a "famous Bhojpuri song "Launda badnam hua naseeban tere liye", which was sung by Rani Bala"

Soon enough you come to realise that there might not be anything original in the world. so what?

each idea flows from somewhere, and flows on to somewhere else. attributing your sources is always great, but you can't very well put footonotes in a song or a movie.

the whole point is to make what ever you do your own. you're going to be copy-pasting whether you like it or not, whether you realise it or not. but you do have the choice of making it in your own style, in your own image.

Yeh Lolly-Lolly Kya Hai?

My latest post over at sasti masti is a behemoth. but rather tasteful, and it foretells of a post coming soon here.

i would have posted it here, but the videos have to be embedded in a different way, and, well, fuck that.

Bombay Talkies

(This is my latest blog over at sastimasti. I have posted it here, although the videos have not been embedded, and i'm too tired having battled with wordpress to repeat the process here. so it would be best if you just went over to http://sastimasti.wordpress.com/2010/03/27/bombay-talkies/ and read it there. thanks :)

as i have mentioned previously, i am not a film buff per se. yes i like movies, but i don't have refined taste in them. so when in class our professors say something like "ah, the pathos employed by haneke through the mis-en-scene" i am sometimes compelled to say "yes, but what about the mis-en-scene in the sex scene in the titanic?

the few occasions that i do know about a film, i tend to argue quite passionately, to make up for the intellectual shame felt otherwise. one such argument was about whether the film Amelie was exploitative or not. we both ended up arguing that the director had exoticized paris. he felt i liked that because the subject was paris, i replied that i believe films need to exoticize, because they need to be fantasies, they need to be wondrous.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oubWmUJjZPE]

there is one particular filmmaker who, among many, does this to such a unique, signatory, marvelous manner. and one of his films has come under criticism for exoticsing a country quite used to it. here is wes anderson's take on an indian funeral. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vYoCDKoK_w] (if the link is not working, try here)

the entire time, everything is in shades of white - flowers, clothes, smoke, rickshaws... now i love this film, and i love what some call it its exoticism of india. the politically correct part of me may concede that, but you have to watch a film. it mocks the western habit of coming to india to find 'themselves' and it presents india in a quirky, fantastical way that is true to those three americans' naive yet earnest take on india.

but a far better defense for this artistic liberty by the director was provided by an indian, who said that the fantastic mr. fox exoticises the forest, because animals don't talk, and they don't dress in clothes, and wes anderson was totally exploiting the forest and being all oriental about it. so i guess we can accept that exoticism is ok.

of course the liberal arts education section of our audience will ruffle their bob marley hair, and rub their che guevara beards, and log out of jstor and protest - no, it's dehumanizing, and like haven't you read Said? ok forget it then.

the beauty about wes anderson films is that even if you come across one randomly, you know its his. the look, the feel, the scale, the intricacy and the music. even though he never repeats, you hear a song and you think damn, this song is meant to be in a wes anderson film. i heard one such song in darjeeling limited, the movie posted above, and it was a completely desi song. and i thought 'wtf? how did the bastard get a song made that's totally desi and yet perfect for him?' [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkcVyNw-USA]

(if this link is not working, try here)

after some investigations, i discovered that it was from a film whose credit sequence was wes anderson's favorite sequence, evuh! without further ado, [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wMuYl_-ig8&feature=related]

now people will tell you that this film, bombay talkies by ismail merchant, is a 'realistic' movie, completely different from normal hindi movies - it even has kissing scenes! but in fact, this film retains the elements of melodrama, song and dance, bizarre sequences, action comedy romance etc in equal measures. the only thing done differently here is that while the elements of the content remain same, the form with which they are shown is either improved, satirized or both. it is a bollywood film made in a different cinematic language perhaps, but it tells the same story. IMP: this review contains spoilers. there is a link to a site where you can stream the film for free near the end of this post. so if you haven't seen it yet it might be a good idea to do so before you read on. but even if you don't it doesn't give too much away and you can still enjoy it whenever you do see.

but don't be fooled into thinking that the language is that of western cinema. in 1970, the new york times had reviewed this film, the review article adorned with the sarcastic by-line: 'Famous, Rich ... Nice Looking' the NYT enjoyed the film's whimsical scenes, but cringed at its drama. The reviewer wrote

"Bombay Talkie," however, persists in switching back and forth between this quite cheerful satire and the quite seriously intended, awkwardly defined emotional conflicts involving the novelist, the actor, the actor's unhappy wife and his best friend. I assume that this conflict between comedy and melodrama is meant to be its own metaphor, for contemporary India, for Indian movies, even for love. Though tactful, the metaphor is mixed.

Almost 40 years later, a renowned indian critic, filmi geek panned the movie as well. the complaint was its attitude, which

seemed to treat India (and Indian films) with a certain condescension that I found both offensive and inappropriate.

Filmi Geek was upset that the foreign audiences would look at the film's depiction of indian spirituality with mirth, with pity, writing that the female lead's Lucia's unease towards the religious scene is displayed not as "Look at Lucia, too inflexible to adapt to a different culture," but "look at this adorable weird little Indian spirituality, too primitive for a civilized person like Lucia."

those fears were confirmed before they were written, as the NYT felt the scene involving Lucia with the spiritual guru displayed Lucia becoming "restless, however, with the swami's little lectures about his social successes in Los Angeles, and her idea of recreation is something more than being allowed to fetch the swami's lost Ping-Pong balls"

of course, what both reviews betray are their writers political, intellectual and aesthetic bends. moreover, the tragedy is that such a gorgeous film is dissected only at the level of story and characters.

but even there, the two have missed out on something vital. if this film plays any politics, it is to denounce all strands of it. every character, every ideology is savaged in this film with equal determination. both Lucia and the swami she goes to are mocked, one for her naive assumption that somehow india would provide them some ready made spiritual answers, the other for having commercialized spiritual beliefs for misfit tourists like Lucia. and as for Filmi Geek's concerns about the attitude, here is what i have to argue - yes they are poking fun, but its not the oriental attitude of a foreigner finding the natives crude and pitiful but rather the insiders who are intimate with their own arts and culture, poking fun at what they know well. to prove my point, have a look at this

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqCjoFjIC34]

more importantly, the film retains the element of the bollywood film. there are several scenes where music being played within the scene, such as on a radio, is used to score the characters dancing and driving the story forward. stylistically, its worlds apart from the pantomime of the traditional musical, but it is serving the same purpose. and when the time does arrive for the blow-out bollywood song-and-dance, the number that comes on screen is far ahead of anything else that has ever been conceived. look at it yourself. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzC3GQn_TC0]

the film has some absolutely brilliantly shot scenes - in particular is a staircase shot that is repeated twice in the film. once its comic, the other time its tragic and both are done in such a magnificent way. what triumphs in each of these scenes, as well as the rest of the film, is the sound design. desi films rarely have such an accomplished use of sound. perhaps one of the best examples is when Lucia meets Vikram, the hero, and both of them hit it off. their eager conversation is heard as the camera shows us the face of Vikram's wife - its a superb scene, and it works because of the use of sound. another great part is the last shot, where the camera is too far to make out the actions of the servant, yet the sound of his tray shaking with his shivers conveys to us all that we need to know.

but from a pakistani perspective, the height of enjoyment is a chance to watch zia moheyuddin on screen. probably one of the most famous names in pakistan, few people under 30 have actually seen him do the thing he is famed for - acting. the word in the theater circle is that moheyuddin is an extremely demanding task-master - in french, he is an a**hole. well in this film, he is the ultimate bitch. i have rarely seen such a snide, bitter, witty character as Moheyuddin here. his looks and gait go form resentful brooding to cynical whimsy. and his obvious contrast with the pin-up looks of shashi kapoor accentuates his character even further.

*since i wrote this, my wife and i have had an almighty debate over Zia Moheyuddin's character in this film. for her, his obsessiveness and passion represents the most human characteristics of love. i argued that his love was 'fake' as his final act of vengeance was based on vikram's taunts, suggesting that his envy of vikram was greater than his love for Lucia. in response, she argued that it is illogical to separate the two feelings, or to ascribe ideals of truth and fake to love. i think we can safely say that the film's characters are great, and its tragedy is of a greek or shakespearian level. which means that people like the NYT columnist can find that to be melodramatic, but anyone well versed in the arts of the desi might not.*

you can watch the darjeeling limited online, and you can do the same for bombay talkies as well.

but before we leave, here is something i call conspiracy critiques. despite my disavowal for politics, i am pakistani and i can't run away from how i think. take a look at the following scenes (especially part two), and then ask yourself if this is not a metaphor for both india and pakistan's political history with western alliances, and how the fallout from those have affected pakistan's behaviour. remember also, that the jasmine is our national flower.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpP5fOLfcTE&feature=channel]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hHPBg6XEzU]

Pakistani Sex Scene

nothing works better on the internet than a title with sex in it. i have experimented several times with this idea of using popular words in blog posts, and they always work like a charm.

this time though, it's not exactly a gimmick. this short film explicitly attempts to talk about sex on the pakistani screen. but the conversation itself is a strange one. so before anything else, have a look at the video itself.


Pakistani Sex Scene from karachikhatmal on Vimeo.
This is the third film of my Masters degree. this time around the rules were that the entire film had to be shot in one, continuous take - with no edits or cuts in between.

here is a link to my reflections on the film

http://sastimasti.wordpress.com/2010/03/17/pakistani-sex-scene/

thus, everyone is familiar with the ubiquitous cinematic convention of the hero and heroine in a tight embrace, their lips edging towards one another, their breathing hot and heavy - and just when the hero lunges forward, the heroine turns away her face.

foiled again!

but in an increasingly sexualized world, those cultural conventions are being stretched in our part of the world for some time now and the logic of suggesting without showing has been radically transformed. one example being the song referenced in the film - Pyar Di Ganderi. i mean, come on!

this song wraps itself around the pillars of showing & suggesting, and pole dances on them. and the visual interpretation of this Naseebo Lal song by Khusbo really leaves you wondering if there is anything left to suggest.



but if we start to blame the song here, then we are really missing the point. its not about the song, or the dancer - it's about the society. too often art is blamed for creating immorality within society. what people fail to appreciate that art's purpose is to act as a mirror, as well as a guide. when we see ourselves in the mirror held up by art, we are able to break and change what we are. and then, we are able to form new thoughts and ideas, guided by the spirit of art.

whew... that got a bit heavy there.

my point was that the song and these attitudes of suggestiveness reflect our own society. the crucial thing here is the relationship between shame and lust -  each seems to inform the other. this is because we get ashamed of something when our morals condemn it, but our desires don't. but if we keep reacting to shame by suppressing our desires, our lust continues to grow. and so we try and keep that in check through shame... and the cycle continues.

this was where my original idea finally arrived at. i wanted to show the irony of how an average pakistani male can be so sexualized and yet feel ashamed of that sexual lust. thus one of the earliest drafts of a script had envisioned the scene where the man would rush into the shower straight after the act.

i was unsure of where else to go from there though. i wanted to say something about the woman, but couldn't find any thing suitably authentic without being melodramatic. so i turned to the woman in my life - my wife. she was the one who came up with the aftermath of that scene, specifically because she realised that the casualty from this conflict between shame and lust is intimacy.

it made a lovely resonance with my own ideas. i have always felt that taking an interest in pakistani politics is futile. because everything in pakistan is extremely politicized, from choice of hospital to etiquette of urdu grammar, but the politics themselves follow a depressingly familiar, monotonous pattern. and just like we have politics everywhere other than in politics itself, we seem to have sex everywhere, other than in sex itself.

thus the film's body took shape.

it begins with a man who attacks his food with relish and passion, which he eats alone before entering the house. at home, he rejects the meal his wife had brought for the two of them to share. while she is away, he turns to watch an overtly sexual song, but switches to the news (which is always about politics :) ) when she comes back. he then leads her to the bedroom, and the camera doesn't show what happens. but he soon rushes out, covered in shame rather than lust, and washes it off in the shower. the woman is alone, bereft of all passion, or even motivation to clear up the room. she tries to eat, perhaps to partake in that pleasure her husband had alone, but she can't bring herself to do it.

but then came the actual shoot. and let me tell you, doing a single-take is probably the hardest thing to do. it works well in  a live situation, but in a narrative it really wears down on your flow. and i think this is where the film's greatest challenge arose - it was not conceived as a single shot. it was conceived as a story that was then tacked onto a single shot. and so the story's pace and pivots did not account for the demands made by the single shot. this issue was further compounded by the fact that i am someone whose strength as a filmmaker lies within the edit. to be stripped of all editing abilities was something i was distinctly uncomfortable with, and so i didn't take to the idea of a single-take at all.

i made that even more challenging with my decision to have both actors only visible from the waist down. it was meant to further accentuate the ubiquity of this situation (so that it was a man and a woman, rather than this person and that person) as well as play up the idea of how everything about sex itself is so shrouded. and to make matters worse, i did away with all dialogue - there are only two grunts and one sigh which make up the entire film's dialogue. keeping all of that in mind, the actors did a wonderful job. their only tools were their lower bodies and yet they managed to convey their roles admirably. it could've been better though had i rehearsed with them, but then that is how student projects, and my own laziness, goes.

the day before i began my edit, i came across a bizarre and wonderful thing. in my audio-vision class, our professor made us watch an entire film, which was highly unusual since we always watch clips instead. it was 87 minutes of overwhelming cinema - its disturbing how difficult it is to view despite its stellar beauty. the film was called  Koyaanisqatsi. Check out this stunning single take shot from the film - i can't believe this is real.



what influenced me with regards to this film was its soundtrack. check out the trailer below, and listen to the initial chanting, or just go up to 1:48 in the above clip.



i was convinced - i needed to score my film. but i wanted it to be haunting, and preferably bereft of lyrics because they could get too distracting, and impose their own meaning on the film. my wife suggested i check out rohail hyatt's work, and that was where i chose the song, Jaag Musafir.

when i had started the audio editing, i realised that the youtube page for the song also had an explanation for the lyrics and the song's message, which i later put on at the end of the film.

looking back at the choice of the song i have mixed emotions. on one hand i feel that it didn't help with regard to its intended purpose - which was to give life to the parts of the film where the one-shot parameters had left it dragging.

but then again, i was astounded by the happy coincidence that the song i had chosen had taken on the irony and cynicism of my views, and injected it with hope for salvation, for this wretched cycle to be broken. while my other two films were made with a sort of flippancy towards "messages" and "big ideas" this one was taking these things on. and i think that the song really challenged the sincerity of the film.

at the end, i feel that the critique of the film, and its ideas, were a lot more powerful than the actual film itself. still, i am happy with it, especially because of the visual style i managed to achieve with the editing. i didn't want to look like yet another student film, and while the camera lets that down, the lack of annoying sound jumps and the boldness of the scene's colors and boundaries take it beyond completely amateur stuff.

please let me know what you think of the film.