Will Heavily Inspired/Copied Barfi be frowned upon by Academy?

Ranbir Kapoor's highly acclaimed Barfi has been selected as the official entry for best Foreign language movie. Barfi was selected by the jury of 22 members and the decision has been received with mixed opinions because of its heavy inspiration and direct copy from movies such as Charlie Chaplin's Adventurer, City Lights, Singin the Rain, Notebook, Buster Keaton's Cops. The music soundtrack and green/warm tones picturization style made famous in Amelie was also noticed in Barfi. Even though Barfi may be a new experience for Indian audience. However, many expressed concerns that the Academy award committee may see Indian movies in negative light if we are bold enough to send such a heavily inspired/copied movie back to Hollywood. Check out the following link for detailed account of copied scenes. Some of the links are provided below as well.

Nomination List

This year's Oscar entry from India was highly competitive with a large number of commercially successful and critically reviewed movies made it to the initial short-list. Of course, Hindi got a lot more attention that it deserved with 11 nominations with only 6 nominations from rest of India. The films released between October 1, 2011 and September 30, 2012 were considered for the nominations. Listed are other worthy movies that were in contention, including Kahaani, Eega, Vazhakku Enn 18/9 to name a few.

• 7aum Arivu (Tamil)

• Vazhakku Enn 18/9 (Tamil) 

• Kahaani (Hindi)

• Paan Singh Tomar (Hindi)

• Gangs of Wasseypur (Hindi)

• The Dirty Picture (Hindi)

• Ferrari Ki Sawaari (Hindi)

• Barfi (Hindi) 

• Arjun – The Warrior Prince (Hindi)

• Gattu (Hindi)

• Jalpari (Hindi)

• Heroine (Hindi)

• Eega (Telugu)

• Akashaninthe Niram (Malayalam)

• Deool (Marathi)

• Veer Hamirji – Somnath Ni Sakhate (Gujarati)

• Anhey Ghore Da Daan (Punjabi) 

Example of Copied/Inspired Scenes