The moral side of movies

I just watched Life of Brian, a Monty Python film.

(Monty Python is the name of a popular, off beat and hilarious British TV show from the 70’s that was famous for its madcap, irreverent humour. The Python cast later started making films. Needless to add, copies of the films are rare.)

I nearly died laughing – the film is stomach-achingly funny.

What probably also helped the laughter escape my throat so freely was the knowledge that the DVD was pirated and therefore cheap. Like the hundreds of others that I’ve watched.

I know that’s against the law. But these are the alternatives. 1. DVD libraries - too expensive (Rs. 100 to 150 for a day versus Rs. 80 - the cost of a pirated DVD). Plus they are mostly stocked with bad Hollywood movies and insane Bollywood movies. 2. I could pick up original DVDs on trips abroad – but the economy has taken care of my ‘in-any-case-too-few’ trips. 3. Local movie channels – a viable option if you’re willing to wait for a time span of say, eternity.

I’m not the only one who ‘s never taken the alternatives above seriously. Almost everybody I know watches pirated DVDs.

Isn’t there a moral dilemma involved here? Honestly, no.

In a country like India we break the law all the time. We bribe cops and officials, we break every traffic rule there is, we buy movie tickets in black, we buy smuggled electronic gadgets, we were using iPhones in India long before they came in here officially, parents pay donations to schools for their children’s admissions, engineering and medical colleges practically run on these donations, cops pay off someone higher up in order to be posted in lucrative circles where the bribe money is substantial.

Our elders advice us, ‘Get the job done and move on even if it means paying someone off. Why do you waste your time thinking about these things, you idiot?’

Part of the reason there’s no guilt attached to buying pirated DVDs (or downloading movies from the Net) is that we’re Indian and we somehow believe that the law is meant to be bent at convenience. The other reason is if you don’t, you’re going to miss out on truly inspiring art, glittering gems from the masters - Kurosawa, Tarkovsky, Vittorio De Sica, Truffaut, Godard, Fellini, Eisenstein, Bergman, Kubrik, Werner Herzog, Fassbinder, Louis Malle, Pasolini, Wong Kar Wai, Majidi, Makmalbaf, Abbas Kirostami, Emir Kusturica, Almodovar …. And so many other lesser known but generously talented directors from all around the world.

It will take a lot of moral fibre to say no to that.