The inspiration from lecture today led me to a very interesting discovery.
The program that we watched, "Copyright Criminals" made a lot of bells go off
in my head, not only for Remix and Hip Hop culture, but also for all articles of
Popular Culture. The video that I am posting below is all about Quentin Tarantino's
remarkable film Kill Bill Volume 1. The five-minute clip posts a montage of Kill Bill's
clips, shots, action sequences, and famous phrases and then juxtaposes them with
EVERY possible reference. The pattern of references is bizarre, and considers that
Tarantino could have purposely remixed his well-studied resources. The references
that he uses are of previous Samurai films, Westerns, and action clips; Tarantino also
remixes his own material by using characters in his other films, and similar character
responses from other movies in general.
What I am wondering is: was Tarantino hoping that his audience would notice these
obvious remixes? Although some of the material is seemingly difficult to trace back
because of the wide variety of sources, the similarities still reamin...remarkable!
Kill Bill is a favourite to many of Tarantino's fans, but does the film lose a sense of
aura because we are now aware of every influence of his work?
Or, should we respect his work more because it takes what has already been deemed
a "complete project" and just adds to it (such as DJ's and music producers do).
Essentially he is creating something new and renown, and it is possible that by
combining SO many other sources in his remix film, that he is making those
small parts better all together, and cascading them in a way to highlight their
importance in his work as a whole.
When dealing with the medium of film, it is difficult to find originality, because
so much has already been done; however, aspects of film such as genre, famous
actors, true-to-life motifs, and soundtracks including previously recorded songs
are also aspects of remix and copies. As Adorno would agree with, we are giving the
audience what they already know and want. We are easily able to measure the success
of what popular culture produces, so why not make small improvements to blind
the viewers in order to gain success?
Here's the link to the video on youtube, however the sound fails to work.
I believe it is also available on tmblr, if that's more helpful!
Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5_cWAOGI3k&feature=fvst
I think you bring forward a really great point. The issue our generation (and younger) has to face is the fact that we might not realize when watching a flick, there are certain themes, referents, satirical remarks that originated elsewhere, or are influenced from a much earlier time we may not be familiar with. (I.e. The film La Haine’s main character Vincent Cassel uses Travis Bickle’s phrase from Taxi Driver and imitates the action while looking in the mirror “You talkin’ to me?”. If someone has never seen Taxi Driver they might assume that popular phrase originated from La Haine)
ReplyDeleteThough certain comedic entertainment or critical cultural commentary (i.e. south park) uses jokes, or pokes fun of things throughout history our generation still finds many things funny, though we are unaware of where they came from. Many rap and hip hop songs use very intelligent remarks or phrases to be critical about politics throughout history, its almost like certain songs are history lessons, yet younger generations only like the song for the beat, because they are unaware of the depth of the lyrics. As the generations grow forward, originality will be impossible to trace!