Does anybody credit his or her sources anymore?
I have been spending some of my free time soaking up classic movies on the Turner Classic Movie channel (or is it a network, and if so, what is the difference, because I know there probably is one) and honest to God, if you name a movie, television program, catch phrase, or joke that was purportedly written in the last forty years, I can probably tell you the original source. Oh yes, I know. We're all paying homage. Well, homage is all right if you do so with grace, talent, complement, and credit to your source (see: The Office; The Hours; The Birdcage), but is that truly the way most of this re-writing and re-working is re-happening?
I thought the movie Babel nigh on perfect, but nowhere did I read in the writer (Guillermo Arriga)'s blurb a word about Before the Rain (written by Milch Manchevski), and nowhere was any credit or even any idea of 'borrowing' suggested. The situation comedy, Men in Trees, which is also derivative, is a story of a female relationship expert/writer who dashes off to a predominantly male community, with a weekly voice over by the protagonist herself. Shortly on the heels of this program (which I like especially for the outdoor shots), comes a sitcom called My Boys. In this show, a female sportswriter dwells in a predominantly male community and, once a week, there is a voiceover of the same style and input as the voice of Men in Trees. My daughter tells me there is a third program just released of almost identical thematic content. And what about Ugly Betty vs: The Devil Wears Prada? Or Wedding Bells and its recent predecessor? I am too irritated to go on (and aren't you feeling fortunate?). And please don't tell me about the no-such-thing-as-an-original-idea, because here are a few titles and programs that scream originality, and I can name them off the top of my head with barely a scratch:
Codco
Being John Malkovich
Mulholland Drive
Adaptation
The Milagro Beanfield War
Twin Peaks
American Beauty
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Ally McBeal (not my favourite, but fair is fair, and Sex in the City wouldn't exist without this predecessor)
The list is obviously much longer, and not all of the scripts were written by David Lynch and Charlie Kaufman. And it isn't as if all the stories have to be unique -- but the voice does, the speaker behind the words, the eyes behind the vision, and that's where my argument lies.
Apart from this small diatribe, Chris Rock's new movie is being praised as his best writing and directing achievement, compared by at least one critic to a younger Woody Allen accomplishment.
Speaking of short men with small appendages and enormous egos, I saw Woody Allen last night (also on the Turner Classic Movie Network) -- speaking of derivative and outright stealing from Ingmar Bergman -- in an interview with Dick Cavett. Woody Allen was thirty-five, so the year was 1970. (Thank you IMDB.) When I was a kid I had such admiration for Dick Cavett. Who else had the power to intimidate Lester Maddox off the stage, mid-segment, not a gun or slingshot in sight, using only words? But watching Woody Allen and Dick Cavett, together (and apart, as logic would have it) made me feel icky...these two '70s swingers -- sordid, sexist, and smarmily sickening. Worse, neither was half as intelligent as I had once believed and, worse again, how pretentious must I have been to have found their masturbatory pawing in any way attractive, and, worse worse worse, funny? No wonder so many women marched in the streets -- gaslight, anyone? -- in the 1970s. And where was Mia Farrow's head? (We clearly know where Woody -- if you'll pardon the pun -- had his.) I read her lyrical, haunting, sweet, candid autobiography, and I shudder to think she fell for that dickhead the same way I might have. If he passes for either art or entertainment, I'd rather shove a large kidney stone through my left scar-tissued ureter.
Anyway, I admit that this is a bit of a rant, but really, enough is enough. If you want to write for television or for the movies or for the Ladies Home Journal, trust yourself: find your own language, your own viewpoint, your own anger, your own truth, your own humour, your own words, and always credit your source/s. Otherwise, do what I do and write a blog. And speaking of Dick Cavett and cybernetic journals, I have a new name for them: Blogs: Where Celebrities Go After They Die.
Or, as my mother said whenever my feelings got hurt, "Darling, consider the source."
<:^)
Archived Saturday, March 17, 2007
