Bhaktisiddhanta Clip Controversy Continues

BY: DEVAVISION PRODUCTIONS


Feb 07, USA (SUN) — After the clip of Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Saraswati Thakura was anonymously leaked to the public, we have received several enquires as to the validity of the clip. The following is a letter that Devavision Productions received recently. The letter is followed by a response by the crew at Devavision:

*****

Everyone has already seen the movie of BSST recently downloadable from internet?

Here is the the translation of letter from Devarsi Narada prabhu from Croatia posted on one of the Croatian PAMHO conferences. It sounds convincing to me. So here are His analysis of this movie.Sorry for lenght of the letter.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

1. Intensity of motion is not the same when people are passing by in front of the altar and the motion of the hand of BSST , (in first old black and white movies ,motions of characters etc,are usualy faster than normal) .This is visible on the shots where people are passing in front of the altar,but immediately in the next shot we have opposite effect,the motion of the hand of BSST is even slightly slowed down.

2. The right hand is thicker .

3. Movements are unnatural(top of the head is moving only left and right ,like Krsnas in BBT picture book in Syamantaka jewel story. Only Maharaj"s jaw is ,opening like in south park cartoons. Rest of the body is" dead unmovable",like left hand or eyes,etc ,because this is just a photograph.

4.Maharaja is lifting his hand 2 times and is making identical movements with fingers (you can count ,at first 1,2,3,4 than pause ,than 1,2,3) at second time the same as first time ,but after 1,2,3,4 shaking of fingers it does not repeat 1,2,3 but hand is pointing towards the book. So ,the person who has created these motions by computer did not even make the endevour , at least not to copy the already created motion . Movement of the head is similar.

5.Fingers and nails of the right hand are unnaturally illuminated.

6.Fingers ,before lifting of the right hand have certain position (photograph), and after putting down , fingers are positioned in imposibly exact identical position like before (again photos -pay atention to the space between fingers ,first and second time).

AND NOW !

IRREFUTABLE EVIDENCE THAT THIS MOVIE IS COMPUTER FABRICATED .

7.Those flickering spots ,threaded lines ,flashing ,darkening etc ,which are typical of old movies are repeating in exactly same order. For example ,while movie is showing the temple ,exactly in 3 frames the black line is appearing across the monitor ,and then in the right corner 2 thin lines are appearing and white spots around the middle of monitor.Exactly in the same order ,this 'spottiness' is appearing during presentation of BSST .

For this 7-th point I have spent lots of time , but this is crucial point ( if better computer program was used it could 'throw' this spottiness randomly and not in exact order like here , and our cheater could spend more endevour about first 6 points.

Is anyone still in the doubt ? If you say yes ,than I suggest you to visit the ISKCON center Split (croatia) .There, in the donation basket you will find the picture of whole altar including the Param-para ,and now pay atention to the picture of BhaktiSidhanta Sarasvati . Does it look familiar? Have you already seen this picture in some movie ?

The explanation follows;

8.Picture of the head is taken from one famous photograph of BSST,but is added to another body for which I can not ascertain, it is from BSST or not because it is much younger ,than from the original picture from where Maharaja's head is taken.

Am I sure that this is the same picture of the head ? Yes. 100%.Such great "clone photos" of the head in detail , the hair style ,eye-look,beard ,whiskers,glasses etc ,.It can't happen by chance .

But the author has taken only the head ? Because of two reasons. First . -this is an ideal picture to manipulate ,because there is the beard and those movements of the mouth (only bottom jaw) would be very false if that muscle of the mouth is visible . Second - to take the same picture ,after all it would create doubt and was better to take a mixture of the two .

9 .Fingers on both hands are painted ( this hands could be taken from the photo also ,but the point is that the fingers are not the same as fingers on hand which is moving in the film). At one point while hand is lifting ,the picture is transforming into real movie clip. This you can notice by examaning frame by frame ,and then this transformation point is noticable which, as a rule, usually becoming misty in such efects(like in case of velocity of motion) . This effect is not unusual ,if you have seen, for example, The Lord of the rings part 3.when the elephant with giantic foot is flattening the horseman into a "pancake". Or when the huge rock ,thrown by catapult is breaking through the tower wall and squashing many warriors. In this examples you can see this effect.

Press pause and go frame by frame and you will see this mistyness, in two pictures maximum, because from the third picture the eye can see this change more clearly. You will ,as in our movie of BSST ,see this transformation from painting into reality and vice versa. If you have hard to follow all of this,i'l give you the most simple argument (although argument point 7 is enough ,and there is no need for another one).

10. I'm ready to give up My life if somebody can defeat all of this arguments.!!

So, why i'm stresing so much to clear out this case ? Unswer is that ,such a kind of manipulation is very dangerous. Soon you could see made movie of Srila Prabhupada ,for example ,in which He says something that is never heard before, or so .You could see ,technicaly flawless movements,voice identical,tape original ,etc. This could create problems.

To create such "special effects" now days is posible .As is it almoust the rule in Kali Yuga that things are getting missused , so you could expect such a kind of manipulation as well. I remember once, in summer camp in Pula (croatia), when H.H Jayapataka Maharaja has said that, just in that time is found and published on the internet the photographs of human skeletons 5 meters long, and then one devotee took the courage and interrupted Maharaja and has admited that he himself is the autor of those false photographs and that this was his joke. There are few examples of this category ,which happened within our society.

So please forgive me ,but cheaters must be desclosed.I think that false promotion should be stoped . I would like if this arguments in regard of this movie would be posible to forward to our brothers Gaudiya Math ,Krsna Caitanya mission etc, as well.

So please forgive me for expressing my "anger".

ys Devarsi

RESPONSE FROM DEVAVISION

Hare krsna! We are happy to receive your inquiry about the documentary, The Universal Teacher.

From the content of your e-mail it seems that you have already drawn your conclusions. "A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still." So what shall we say to you?

Indeed, "real" is a matter of perspective in the relativity of the Absloute. Calculation and detailed analysis in most cases lead to disbelief and eventually to atheism. This is certainly true when one analyzes the "reality" of the Deity, or in this case the film clip. By such analysis one cannot understand how Krsna is present in that form.

When Devavision first received the images of Saraswati Thakura, the images looked real to us. We chose the images that were the most clear and not ravaged by time to be used in the documentary.

In any case, before you make your final judgment, you may want to view the documentary in its entirety. Instead of analyzing a third generation pirated version of the clip from the internet, you can get a much better resolution from the DVD directly.

Hoping this meets you well.

The Editors



Homepage


| The Sun | News | Editorials | Features | Sun Blogs | Classifieds | Events | Recipes | PodCasts |

| About | Submit an Article | Contact Us | Advertise | HareKrsna.com |

Copyright 2005, HareKrsna.com. All rights reserved.