i don't have a single film i like for any reason related to appropriation at all. I think every film should be viewed individually therefore i have no other opinion on it and will not be able to think of an example. This is why we didn't go with it in the first place when we discussed it with lucy.
if we have to do appropriation then i'm screwed cos i don't believe in it, especially as a reason to archive a film. Just because they have the same base stroy line, they are not the same. Like pocahontas and avatar - there's now way u can compare them both even though they are exactly the same story and i wouldn't want to archive either of them just because they happen to have the same story as another film.
as far as i'm concerned every film should be judged on it's own merit and nothing should be archived just because it has parts of something else in it.
this could be a healthy discussion on it's own but as it stands it's for a project about why we think certain films should be archived becuase of the relevance of the appropriation in them, where as i belive nothing should be archived for this reason, i never even see appropriation in films, it goes against everything i believe as a film maker
what do u suggest now?
-Rob
It's not so much about the fact that these films appropriate, it's more about the ways in which these film appropriates. What we want to preserve are films which have brilliant and interesting use of appropriation. Kill Bill for example is the simple revenge story which appropriates techniques, music, props, costumes, characters etc. from the films that Tarantino grew up watching & in doing so, pays homage to them. In the same way, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas appropriate many stories, locations, key objects and some of the action scenes from 1930s-40s film serials & saturday matinees which they grew up with and pay homage to them. It's not really ripping off or re-making as much as it is referencing all the while being thoroughly entertaining films in their own right.
ReplyDeleteAppropriation in these cases is like a celebration of their favourite films. It's like cutting different sentences from different books and pasting them in a new and very readable order. Even Banksy appropriates from previously published images.
But these arguments seem to fall at the hurdle that you don't believe that films should be archived for these reasons.
Can it be said that there are no more original ideas?
Maybe for a twist, you can argue against our appropriation archiving at the end and explain why, because these are good points you are making.
-Ben
basically i don't believe that the way in which a film appropriates something is worthy of note in more than anything other a conversation that friends have whilst watching a film - it is not something that can be qunatified in a way that can be used to judge a film, and therefore definitely does not count as reasons why a film should be archived! This project is to help us analyse why we feel certain films should be archived for the future and i strongly believe that just because a film has elements of another film in it, this has no bearing on whether or not it should be archived, otherwise it would be grounds to archive every film.
ReplyDeletemaybe i should simply offer counter arguments as to why the films u all choose shouldn't be archived, or maybe i will agree and can say why, but generally speaking i don't think appropriation, whether it be what is or how it was appropriated, is relevant to the archive worthiness of a film. To me all i hear when I'm reading what you've put is that 'so what if certain films have elements of others? they should be judged as stories told on their own, and in their own right - especially when it comes to the material side of things, for example, so the jock has a big 4x4, it is a stereotype, not an appropriation. So what if u use the same kind of angle techniques in one film as another of the same genre, maybe it just suits that genre!? I think what you're talking about is 'style over content.' So what if some films are alike in style, obviously one has to come before the other so is it really something to be judged on? As for scripts, the same stories have been told by man over and over for generations, you can't even attempt to start delving into what story was appropriated from wot - pocahontas and avatar are perfect examples. In fact, maybe that is what I will do - I will use my example of how pocahontas and avatar should both be archived for their own individual merit and not because avatar is basically the future version of pocahontas' past...
-Rob
appripriation in general is not a good enough reason to archive films because of 2 reasons : first of all there is a neurological and philosophical condition known as 'apperception' which is where everything that we perceive is done so in context of everything we have perceived before, meaning that technically, every single film has appropriated in way or another from every single film that has come before it. But then we have the second reason it shouldn't be used : appropriation on purpose, as in when someone actively appropriates something from another film for a particular purpose or reason, now this only works if the viewer has seen the original frilm or films, and therefore any film that is archived for this reason, would have to be archived along with each of the original films involved in order to provide the context for the appropriation. At this point we are no longer archiving films because of their individual merits but are now archiving groups of films for the elements that join them together as a group in which case it becomes something entirely different to archiving a film because you think it is worth keeping for future generations to watch. It seems like only a subtle difference but it's actually quite a big one - it's like saying 'let's keep all sports cars because they are all similar or share concepts, instead of just keeping bugatti veyron because it was a landmark design.
ReplyDelete-Rob
The kind of appropriation I'm interested in is not like the sport car argument. The sport car argument is mainly valid for genre pieces, what I'm talking about is a female warrior wearing a jumpsuit from 'Game of Death', fighting another female warrior (from 'Lady Snowblood') with a sword from 'Samurai Reincarnation', with blood-fountains from 'Sanjuro' with the music from 'Death Rides a Horse'.
ReplyDeleteIt's like a car with a bugatti engine with ferrari wheels with a rolls-royce grille and aston martin breaks. All these different elements put together and made into something beautiful.
These films also don't pretend to be anything other than what they are. Homage after Homage after Homage.
They make it clear that they appropriate too.
-Ben
perhaps, but unless u have seen the other films then none of it matters. Also, the veyron is also homage after homage, it is the culmination of all automotive design before it, it is in fact more of an example appropriation than kill bill is as that only has a handful of elements, a car like the veyron has hundreds.
ReplyDeletepoint is, when i watched kill bill the only thing i noticed was bruce lee's jumpsuit, and that wasn't exactly a big deal, so none of it meant anything to me. The film's not bad but it shouldn't be archived just because he used loads of elements from other films, if it was marked as a straight 'homage' and archived as a straight 'homage' then maybe, same with a parody perhaps, but archiving it just for appropriating a bunch of stuff seems pointless to me.
-Rob
Kill Bill has hundreds! There are websites dedicated to all the different appropriations
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/user/KillBillreference
http://www.tarantino.info/wiki/index.php/Kill_Bill_References_Guide
-Ben
ok so perhaps it does have hundreds and not a handful but that only proves my point, I knew of 1 so surely if it is to be archived for this reason then every on eof those hundreds of films should be too in order for the significance to be noted?
ReplyDelete-Rob
Maybe, for the points you are making, you would like a better example, like 'The Matrix' which appropriates from (in particular) philosophical theories of Rene Descartes. Or the original 'Scarface' which appropriates from the life and crimes of Al Capone. They are in the Top Ten.
ReplyDelete-Ben