Most forms of art borrow from what's gone before so this is no big deal. Painting, literature, poetry and cinema all exist as a progression from what has gone before. Sure, some are absolute plagiarisations but others exist as homage to the originals and are better for it e.g. T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land.
Some examples of cinematic homage are Woody Allen films, Star Wars, and horror films.
In the news recently due to the release of his 'new' film and visit to New Zealand (and boy what a sycophantic media fest that was) is Quentin Tarantino, master of the 'homage' himself.
He is a talented director and film-maker and I do like two of his films - Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction but the heavy handed rip-offs he undertakes have less to do with homage and more to do with outright lazy copying.
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It's worth the effort to see how exact the copies are. I draw your attention to the dance scene in Pulp Fiction vs the same in Fellini's 8 and a half.
It annoys me that people younger than myself (much younger) rave on about how wonderful this guy is without having seen or having any idea of the films that he plagiarises. Homage done right treats the original work with respect and retains some of the original intention and sentiment. Tarantino 'borrows', frame for frame in some instances, from earlier films and doesn't give a toss about that films plot or theme but uses the images for stylistic effect.
The sooner that cinema-goers see through this the better - but, that's never going to happen.
(Oh, by the way I do recognise the irony in borrowing the image and the links in this Post. I'm paying 'homage').
3 comments:
All witty comments are welcome.
A Virtualbozo, when you come up with one you are welcome to add it.
No hurry .....
Stop squabbling boys. Robert should be out looking for that bee thing and Peter should be getting his links working properly. I wish The Wine Guy and Bin Hire would post more.
I just discovered this post and blog from a Google search on Tarantino.
Well bloody done! I live in the UK and for years have had to put up with my pub mates going on about Tarantino and his 'brilliance'. My old man was a film buff and I grew up with his stories about the great British, Japanese, Russian, French, Italian, German and American directors who created true art. He took me to see a lot of the best, in 'art cinemas. This was before TV streaming. I was gob smacked. There is and was so much good stuff out there but the money people repress it because it's above the medium IQ level where the money is to be made.
Tarantino stole a lot of scenes, themes and characterisation from these yet he gets away with it. My mates don't understand and pooh-pooh me when I mention it. Bastards - no sorry, they're my mates but just don't understand. They didn't have a good old dad like mine to show the way.
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