Posts by philipmatthews
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Earlier today I put to you the first example that came to mind - De Palma referring to the puschair scene in Battleship Potemkin during a shootout in The Untouchables. But this is the equivalent of a literary allusion, not of a direct quotation, of the lifting verbatim of a whole sentence - that would be De Palma splicing in the film the sequence from Potemkin (and when that happens, you most certainly have to state it), or working off the same script for a significant enough length of time.
It's actually a question of definition. Some have called this use of the Potemkin scene in The Untouchables, and De Palma's extensive use of Hitchcock throughout his career, plagiarism. I wouldn't -- citing Robin Wood above -- and it seems that you wouldn't either. What that tells us is that there are ways in which plagiarism is subjective.
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You asked whether in order for it to be plagiarism the source had to be unacknowledged - that's what I was referring to.
The question was rhetorical following the example of Geoff Dyer.
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Actually, Brion Gysin. But often attributed to Burroughs.
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Craig: You should read Robin Wood's section on De Palma and Hitchcock in his seminal Hollywood From Vietnam to Reagan. I think the 1986 edition is online through Google Books. Makes a strong case for De Palma transforming his Hitchcock appropriations into something quite distinct. You'll have to navigate a lot of Freudian language.
Giovanni: I am "clear" on the standard definition of plagiarism. I was merely pointing out that there are cases we might otherwise define as plagiarism -- according to that standard definition -- that have not been identified as such. And I would hope they are not identified as such.
Danielle: I'd have to watch Rushmore again -- and Full Metal Jacket again -- to see how close those shots are. But we could fill up a thread as long as Copyright Must Change -- heaven forbid -- with examples of words, shots and themes in films that are strongly reminiscent of words, shots and themes in other, earlier films (if you get a chance, look at the piece on Taxi Driver that I linked to in my blog). That is one of the things I like about cinema and all through my career as a reviewer I was interested in tracking some of those sources and parallels. I'd never call it plagiarism; I guess I'm just interested in why writing -- especially fiction writing -- is seen as and treated differently. Part of me wonders if writing has to -- and will -- catch up. What did William Burroughs say (in a slightly different context)? "Writing is 50 years behind painting."
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The idea of the Mint Chicks doing "Crush" and Shayne Carter doing "The Slide" does it for me.
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I spotted both of those almost immediately, despite having no real musical skills - I wonder how the producer and band didn't, but I guess its the effect of repetition.
Same for me with "Shakermaker" by Oasis and the Coca-Cola song "I'd like to teach the world to sing". But Oasis' career has been one long pastiche-take ..
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But why would anyone believe them? All but a few tradespeople cut corners. They just hope not to get caught.
You think we need a Target episode on historical writers? Hidden cameras in the offices of Jenny Pattrick and Deborah Challinor?
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And as a cinemaphile, I don't think I'm the only person who liked Brian De Palma's Obsession a lot more when it was called Vertigo. Sorry, but when you're lifting whole set ups and sequences you're not paying a homage. You're a lazy fucking hack, who should actually use his not inconsiderable talent for something more demanding than ripping off Hitchcock.
This is a bit reductive, isn't it? There are bits of Vertigo in Basic Instinct, David Fincher's The Game, Chris Marker's La Jetee and Terry Gilliam's La Jetee remake 12 Monkeys. There are bits of The Searchers in Star Wars, Taxi Driver and Inglourious Basterds. There are Godard shots in Taxi Driver. There are Bresson shots and themes all through Paul Schrader -- especially American Gigolo. There are Wizard of Oz influences in everything from Star Wars to Wild at Heart. And so on and so on. It's how film works. And it's not like De Palma was trying to rip off something obscure or disguise his sources -- he was in a conversation with the most acclaimed film by the 20th century's best-known director.
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Yes, let's display our dull ignorance of the specific nature of the medium of writing! Let us assimilate it to other media totally different in process! Let us ignore the generally prevalent standards of an autonomous community of creators in favour of a particularly stupid yay me-ism!
But those are interesting points he raises. Why authorship is so sacred now -- it once had no real meaning. Why do notions of plagiarism exist in writing but not in visual art or film-making? Film-makers borrow and reference, but they are seldom considered to plagiarise. Why is "found" poetry not plagiarism (cf the current Andrew Motion debate)? And so on.
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Matt,
The Gang of Four re-recording was mostly about business, I think. This from Simon Reynolds' review in Slate in 2005:
Yet the motivation for Gang of Four rerecording their songs also has a mundane, pragmatic aspect. "Covering" their own songs is a canny way of honoring and reactivating their legacy while ensuring that any benefits accrue to them. A straightforward repackaging of the old recordings, such as a compilation or box set, would only serve to enrich EMI, their original record company in the United Kingdom. And that's something Gang of Four didn't want to happen. "We have never made any money at all from record sales with EMI and still have unrecouped advances," King wrote in an e-mail. "So we didn't want them to benefit as they did nothing to support us." As for their original American record company, Warner Bros., King claims that they deleted Entertainment!—easily one of the 50 most powerful and influential rock albums of all time—in 1993 and only rereleased it in 2005 in response to Gang of Four's having become a fashionable reference point. Rerecording the songs—something that contracts typically allow artists to do after 20 years—puts Gang of Four in a strong bargaining position for negotiating a new deal with superior royalty rates. "It is our way of reasserting ownership of our own material," says King.