Author Topic: 1990s US Bracket: Verdicts  (Read 712438 times)

sdedalus

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Re: 1990s US Bracket commentary
« Reply #190 on: March 18, 2008, 03:26:01 PM »
Is that an example of over-reference that makes the moment generic?  Or just an example of a Hawksian homage/borrowing/theft that works?

I don't know.  I never thought of Hawks as a "borrower", so I don't really know what you're talking about.
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karlwinslow

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Re: 1990s US Bracket commentary
« Reply #191 on: March 18, 2008, 03:55:39 PM »
i don't think so :)

clearly.  but we don't pay you to think.

skjerva

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Re: 1990s US Bracket commentary
« Reply #192 on: March 18, 2008, 05:53:56 PM »
i don't think so :)

clearly.  but we don't pay you to think.

that doesn't matter, i'm planning on putting ads on the bottom of each of my posts, i'm currently in negotiations!
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pixote

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Re: 1990s US Bracket commentary
« Reply #193 on: March 18, 2008, 11:40:46 PM »
I never thought of Hawks as a "borrower", so I don't really know what you're talking about.

I tend to see Hawks' whole career that way — a director who is constantly borrowing and reinventing (that's key) elements from past films, whether by other directors (Maltese Falcon to The Big Sleep and Casablanca to To Have and Have Not are the obvious examples) or by himself (Rio Bravo to El Dorado to Rio Lobo).

He's very open about this kind of "stealing" in interviews (that's his word for it), prone to say things like:

Quote from: Howard Hawks
And if a director has a story that he likes and he tells it, very often he looks at the picture and says, "I could do that better if I did it again," so I'd do it again.  I'll keep on doing them, in a different way.  I'm not a damn bit interested in whether somebody thinks [El Dorado] is a copy of [Rio Bravo], because the copy made more money than the original, and I was very pleased with it.

He's the best.

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pixote

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Re: 1990s US Bracket commentary
« Reply #194 on: March 18, 2008, 11:56:14 PM »
More examples of Hawksian borrowing:

Ooh, another filmje I need to see.

pixote
face

Flight of the Conchords

Or, wait, maybe those were Tarantinoesque.

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facedad

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Re: 1990s US Bracket commentary
« Reply #195 on: March 18, 2008, 11:57:19 PM »
More examples of Hawksian borrowing:

Ooh, another filmje I need to see.

pixote
face

Flight of the Conchords

Or, wait, maybe those were Tarantinoesque.

pixote
the first one was Hawksian, the second one Tarantino (vintage Reservoir Dogs).
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sdedalus

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Re: 1990s US Bracket commentary
« Reply #196 on: March 19, 2008, 01:16:12 AM »
I never thought of Hawks as a "borrower", so I don't really know what you're talking about.

I tend to see Hawks' whole career that way — a director who is constantly borrowing and reinventing (that's key) elements from past films, whether by other directors (Maltese Falcon to The Big Sleep and Casablanca to To Have and Have Not are the obvious examples) or by himself (Rio Bravo to El Dorado to Rio Lobo).

He's very open about this kind of "stealing" in interviews (that's his word for it), prone to say things like:

Quote from: Howard Hawks
And if a director has a story that he likes and he tells it, very often he looks at the picture and says, "I could do that better if I did it again," so I'd do it again.  I'll keep on doing them, in a different way.  I'm not a damn bit interested in whether somebody thinks [El Dorado] is a copy of [Rio Bravo], because the copy made more money than the original, and I was very pleased with it.

He's the best.

pixote

I'm with you on the second type of borrowing, for sure, it's one of the strongest arguments for him as an auteur.  But his working within (and reworking) genres is hardly the kind of thing Tarantino is accused of.  Sure, Casablanca and To Have have the same general premise (Bogart persuaded to join WW2) but that's about it.  If anything, the Hawks film is a response to the previous work (as is the case with Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep and High Noon and Rio Bravo).  Tarantino's not being charged with responding to previous works, but lifting parts of them wholesale into his own films.
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facedad

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Re: 1990s US Bracket commentary
« Reply #197 on: March 19, 2008, 01:17:53 AM »
I never thought of Hawks as a "borrower", so I don't really know what you're talking about.

I tend to see Hawks' whole career that way — a director who is constantly borrowing and reinventing (that's key) elements from past films, whether by other directors (Maltese Falcon to The Big Sleep and Casablanca to To Have and Have Not are the obvious examples) or by himself (Rio Bravo to El Dorado to Rio Lobo).

He's very open about this kind of "stealing" in interviews (that's his word for it), prone to say things like:

Quote from: Howard Hawks
And if a director has a story that he likes and he tells it, very often he looks at the picture and says, "I could do that better if I did it again," so I'd do it again.  I'll keep on doing them, in a different way.  I'm not a damn bit interested in whether somebody thinks [El Dorado] is a copy of [Rio Bravo], because the copy made more money than the original, and I was very pleased with it.

He's the best.

pixote

I'm with you on the second type of borrowing, for sure, it's one of the strongest arguments for him as an auteur.  But his working within (and reworking) genres is hardly the kind of thing Tarantino is accused of.  Sure, Casablanca and To Have have the same general premise (Bogart persuaded to join WW2) but that's about it.  If anything, the Hawks film is a response to the previous work (as is the case with Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep and High Noon and Rio Bravo).  Tarantino's not being charged with responding to previous works, but lifting parts of them wholesale into his own films.
That's exactly my argument. However, I'd say that since Reservoir Dogs he seems to have made progress towards responding.
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pixote

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Re: 1990s US Bracket commentary
« Reply #198 on: March 19, 2008, 01:21:22 AM »
The end of RD is ripped pretty much straight from Ringo Lam's City On Fire, for one.
Ah, thank you. It was killing me.

Is that an example of over-reference that makes the moment generic?  Or just an example of a Hawksian homage/borrowing/theft that works?

Bumped.

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sdedalus

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Re: 1990s US Bracket commentary
« Reply #199 on: March 19, 2008, 01:22:16 AM »
It seems to me Tarantino's content to play within genre, not to play with it.  Thus the films where he mashes genres together are the most interesting to me (Kill Bill and From Dusk Til Dawn, and to a lesser extent, Pulp Fiction).
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