The Blurred Line Between Loving Homage & Hackish Rip-Offery

[Adam]

All this recent DePalma talk's got me thinking about a lot of my favorite filmmakers and the general approach they take to carving out their own, unique artistic identity. DePalma's a perfect example of a prominent director who conventional wisdom says had trouble getting out of the way of his titanic influences. balmakboor argued that De Palma didn't merely copy and paste stuff from Rear Window or Vertigo into his work, but rather "made careful inclusions and omissions and alterations that changed or even inverted the meaning of Hitchcock's narrative." I don't necessarily see that, though. To me, it's obvious he didn't immediately forge an individual distinctiveness because he (probably consciously & unconsciously) got too bogged down in Hitchcock, whatever his intentions of doing so were. It's not even that I find it especially offensive in DePalma's thrillers, (in fact, I'm a pretty big fan of most of the films he gets the most flak for in this regard) it's just that it is distracting and it can sorta take you out of "the moment." I think if you go and watch Blow Out or even Carrie, it's easy to see that that's where he's at the top of his game. He still takes inspiration from Hitch, but he distills that inspiration and re-conceptualizes it in his own brand

But I mean, it's a really fine line, right? It's okay in my book for directors to give nods to their heroes, sure, but they've also gotta bring something original to the table. Like, I'm a fan of Paul Thomas Anderson, but there are still many cringe-inducingly winking moments in Magnolia & Boogie Nights (easily my 2 least favorite of his) that are just so dang distracting to me because of his constant aping of Scorsese or Altman. Or like the I Am Cuba woman. I can almost forgive that in those films, though, because they're pretty enjoyable enough in their own right to make the references feel like less of a crutch. But, again, then there's stuff like De Palma's early movies that so meticulously rip off Hitchcock, it gets to a level where it's just hard to watch for me. It feels like the fleeting homage is the whole point and that's just lame. Even worse than all that, though, are more egregious examples like when Tarantino just out-and-out steals the whole American Boy needle in the chest story and shoves it into Pulp Fiction. And then that becomes this modern classic scene when, in reality, QT didn't come up with it. He blatantly stole it from a relatively obscure movie and, yeah, he's quick to acknowledge it when someone calls him on it, but it still feels wrong to me

So where do you draw the line?

[balmakboor]

Good thread idea. I'll just start out by saying that I didn't argue that De Palma goes well beyond merely copying Hitchcock. I said that Robin Wood argued it. One would have to lay hands on the book I referenced to possibly be swayed toward this idea.

[balmakboor]

That adrenaline needle to the chest thing came from American Boy? The Scorsese movie? Cool.

I don't draw the line anywhere. People draw things from the world around them all the time and drop them into their fiction works. In Tarantino's case, other movies are the world around him. And his references are often so obscure that only hardcore movie geeks will pick up on them. In this case, the worst thing that will happen is more people will try to take a look at Scorsese's forgotten film.

In general, if it works it works. Your mentioning of Hitchcock homages in De Palma seems to be aimed at the quick little things like, "Oooh, he found another way to include a shower murder in one of him movies." And yeah, that can be distracting. I really find the Odessa Steps bit in The Untouchables to be distracting. When I mentioned Robin Wood, I was talking about much more sophisticated ways in which some of De Palma's films converse with Hitchcock's. Another example is how The Fury is a re-imagining of North by Northwest.

I wish someday Wood would create a blog and post some of these things, but he is an old, pre-Internet generation critic and may even be fearful of it. I was helping an 70+ year old author post comments to a message board and he mentioned it was just to much trouble to try to write what he wanted in that little form field. Then I realized he didn't know how to copy and paste something from his word processor into a form field. He does now.

[transmogrifier]

Your opinion of Boogie Nights and Magnolia is so flawed, it negates the point of your thread.

[Adam]

*cough* lamebloatedselfindulgentoverbl ownmesses thattakethemselveswaytooseriou sly *cough*

[Eleven]

*cough* lamebloatedselfindulgentoverbl ownmesses thattakethemselveswaytooseriou sly *cough*

So which PTA movies are you talking about again?

[Pop Trash]

*cough* lamebloatedselfindulgentoverbl ownmesses thattakethemselveswaytooseriou sly *cough*

Agree with this in regards to Magnolia, but Boogie Nights is just too dang enjoyable to be dismissed like this.

[BuffaloWilder]

Doomsday.

Doomsday.

Dooms-fucking-day.

[ledfloyd]

i have no problem with what QT lifted from American Boy. he took a scene that was related through dialogue and visualized it. he also built a story around it giving it very real dramatic weight that is absent from the original. it's a perfect example of what an artist can do with an idea gotten from somewhere else.

[Kurosawa Fan]

*cough* lamebloatedselfindulgentoverbl ownmesses thattakethemselveswaytooseriou sly *cough*

Yeah, this does not apply to Boogie Nights. Not in the slightest.

[Bosco B Thug]

So which PTA movies are you talking about again?

Yeah, this was my sentiment as well.

Don't have much to add to the discussion - I am very much due for a De Palma reevaluation - but usually the specific examples of creative lifting I hear don't bother me too much. Haven't developed why not.

[Adam]

Hard Eight, B
Boogie Nights, C
Magnolia, C
Punch-Drunk Love, A
Ther Will Be Blood, A-

Doomsday.

Yeah, good call, and the funny thing about it is that Marshall is almost like the anti-DePalma in a sense. While DePalma got his Hitch fellating outta the way early and moved on to better things, Marshall came out of the gate with two pretty great, original(ish) movies and then completely regressed into full-on reference mode. And I even think calling Doomsday a rip-off of stuff like Escape From NY or The Road Warrior is too kind. It's more like if those "Epic/Date/Scary Movie" guys made something called '80s Cult Movie. That said, though, Rhona Mitra is still a total fox in that flick and you can never take that away from her

[Eleven]

Naw, I like There Will Be Blood, Boogie Nights, and Hard Eight quite well. Lukewarm on the other two.

And I don't think I'd ever really describe a PTA film as a "mess."

[Adam]

Well, I think both Magnolia & Boogie Nights are pretty big, sprawling messes

But they're admirable messes, for what that's worth

[number8]

Re: adrenaline shot...

Taking a real life event and then visualizing it into a story is ripping off, now? What?

[Adam]

Well, yeah, it's a real-life event, but it's lifted beat-for-beat out of a documentary. So it would be like if in the next QT movie he had a guy walk on a tightrope across two huge skyscrapers. I mean, really, that scene is just such a direct play-by-play copy of the story in American Boy, it's distracting, you know? Plus, it feels even more dishonest to me because most people who watch Pulp Fiction will never have heard of American Boy and so they assume Tarantino came up with it. And of course, that's not the only blatant, distracting reference to other fairly obscure films in Pulp Fiction. I guess they kinda add up for me pretty quickly. And it gets old fast

[BuffaloWilder]

Yeah, good call, and the funny thing about it is that Marshall is almost like the anti-DePalma in a sense. While DePalma got his Hitch fellating outta the way early and moved on to better things, Marshall came out of the gate with two pretty great, original(ish) movies and then completely regressed into full-on reference mode. And I even think calling Doomsday a rip-off of stuff like Escape From NY or The Road Warrior is too kind. It's more like if those "Epic/Date/Scary Movie" guys made something called '80s Cult Movie.

That was my impression, as well - it's funny, because even his references to these two movies seem kind of off-the-mark, like he'd seen a different movie than everyone else had. Neither of the films he's trying to "pay tribute to" were schlocky shockfest films in any way, yet that seems to be the overwhelming impression he's trying to give the film. I mean, he's got a guy tied up to the front of a bizarre vehicle, sure - but, he's in S&M gear, and he's whooping and yelling for "more pain, yeah!" So, it ends up feeling like something from - if anything - Death Race 2000, more than it does anything in Mad Max 2.

[Grouchy]

I didn't know that about American Boy, but I can't see anything wrong with it. I mean, this is a guy in a documentary talking about something that supposedly actually happened. It's not a scene from a fictional movie that QT plagiarized or anything. It's only distracting if you've seen the documentary. And if, like me, if you haven't seen it, knowing this afterwards makes me want to check it out.

I think a homage only becomes a problem when it's not used to make the film better in any way. That sounds a bit ambiguous, but it's really quite easy to notice. Doomsday, like you guys have noted, really doesn't benefit from openly referencing better post-apocalyptic movies. Kill Bill, however, takes an obscure eyepatch character from a Swedish sexploitation movie called Thriller and expands it into a unique personality. The inspiration clearly made the movie better in that case.

[DavidSeven]

Does your opinion of the scene change if Tarantino actually heard the true story from a buddy in a bar rather than an obscure documentary? I don't really see the difference for the reason that ledfloyd already articulated.

I guess my opinion of the general issue is how seemlessly the filmmaker can integrate his homage or mimmickry of another director into his overall piece. Tarantino and P.T. Anderson generally do this quite well, I think. In fact, most directors do. De Palma might be the only who I feel makes his "homages" the object of the scene/film to the detriment of the overall film (see The Untouchables/Odessa Steps and any of his thrillers/Hitchcock).

[ledfloyd]

Plus, it feels even more dishonest to me because most people who watch Pulp Fiction will never have heard of American Boy and so they assume Tarantino came up with it.

do you want it to call attention to itself as an homage? that would bother me. the fact that he fits it so seamlessly into the narrative is, i think, a testament to his craft. it fits and benefits the story. if it was 'hey, look, this is an homage' and didn't fit naturally into the narrative that would be clunky and would annoy me.

the magic marker, the dictionary, the snapping and "stabbing motion" things are very blatantly letting those who are in the know what he's referencing. if he was trying to plagiarize it i don't think he would've been so obvious.

another thing, he is adding to and visualizing a verbal story. which is very different than say, depalma's odessa steps homage in untouchables. not that i have a problem with that either.

for those who haven't seen it, here is the relevant clip of american boy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEY58KF62eE

[Adam]

It's not plagiarism, no, but if you read the rest of my post that you quoted, you'll see why I'm not a fan of it. Like I say, it's the rough equivalent of his next movie featuring a supporting character who's an eccentric frenchman that walks a high wire stretched between two skyscrapers. Maybe that's not stealing, per se, but I bet it'd bother you. I mean, I do appreciate the fact that Tarantino adds his own je ne sais quoi to the American Boy story and brings it to life. And it's not like I don't enjoy Pulp Fiction, it's just, again, that scene's distracting to me and it's not like this the only example of this sorta thing in QT's oeuvre

I made this thread in part to see where people came down on what constitutes rip-offery and I'm happy people have a different take on that than I do. But, you know, I do totally disagree

[ledfloyd]

Like I say, it's the rough equivalent of his next movie featuring a supporting character who's an eccentric frenchman that walks a high wire stretched between two skyscrapers. Maybe that's not stealing, per se, but I bet it'd bother you.

that's true, but i think there's a difference between basing one scene on your film on one scene in another film and basing your entire film on an entire other film.

[Ezee E]

Heh, it's funny watching Lady Snowblood after Kill Bill with shots ripped off down to the exact framing.

[Pop Trash]

The American Boy thing doesn't bother me that much, since Tarantino visualized it so well. It's like adapting a short story for film. Has Scorsese ever said anything about it? Does it bother him?

Also, Steve Prince looks so junked out in that doc. Jesus Christ, he's like a vampire.

[Pop Trash]

Boogie Nights, C
Punch-Drunk Love, A
Ther Will Be Blood, A-

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