March 25, 2007
Once Upon a Time in a Cage
Arcade Fire meet Sergio Leone. Both benefit.
Hat-tip Three O’Clock in the Morning. Incidentally, emawkc is soliciting comments on the “art” (if any there is) of the mash-up. Opine there or here, if you wish.
comments
Good find, John.
damn, that’s good.
What a blasphemy! Take one of the greatest endings of the greatest films ever made, erase one of the most poignant scores ever created, kill one of the most successful marriages of editing and music, and superimpose your own mediocre music to create a piece of utter crap. Postmodernism at its very best.
or there’s that.
Yes, it is a bit adulterous. Morricone’s music is vital, and to this film in particular, as the music was composed before the film was shot. Watching this video made me squirm a bit.
I have to agree with Faruk. While I’m wary of criticizing any art because of the form – as there have certainly been some great mashups made, pieces in which their respective sums are greater than their parts – boy, do I hate mashups. This, like almost every other mashup I’ve seen, is no more art than saying “Hey, The Wizard of Oz lines up with Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ pretty well.”
It’s not that it’s so unapologetically derivative – which I think is great – it’s that it’s so lazily so.
Faruk, I owe you. You saved me a world of pain. You watched it so I wouldn’t have to.
Well, setting aside your intent, let’s just say you watched it. And now I don’t have to.
Thereby sparing me and innocent bystanders the effects of my savage indignation.
Sheila, I encourage you to watch it and decide for yourself.
This is not done lazily. It is definitely done minimalisticly, but the scene selection and editing, music selection and syncing are definitely not sloppy.
Well, I am a mellow, fifty year old guy in real life, but I like donning my “Modernist Avenger” clothes when I comment on the posts at Clusterflock. My apologies if I offend(ed) anyone. Uhm, where was I, ah yes, tampering with someone else’s artwork to put your shallow individualism forward and prove to the world that you have something to say. This is a tired exercise of a postmodernist banality, and the results couldn’t be less authentic. For a while it was fun going along with this juvenile drivel, tolerating this newfound freedom, this new egalitarianism, but it has become a dictatorship of relativism. We now live in a state of unending adolescence where entertainment capacity of the “artwork” is the only measure of its value. “Once Upon a Time in a Cage.” is a good example of this phenomenon. The original version—that final showdown scene—is nearly 9 minutes long and it really is a masterpiece of filmmaking. And this is the film (along with Sam Peckinpah’s Wild Bunch) to end all the Western films. It is considered a milestone in cinema. So why tamper with the original, why vandalize it and create a bastardized version of it? How can we be so sure of ourselves that our version will improve upon the original? Are we adding anything to history of art by reworking the original? Where do we get the right to mutilate the original art anyway? What happened to our responsibility to the history of art? And how about ethics? Do any of you really find it ethically correct to steal someone else’s artwork, cut it up, reassemble it and present it as your own work?
Here is the original scene if any one wants to compare it with the bastardized version:
So, I’ve never seen the original film and don’t know if this “mashup” (don’t they call these things montages?) brutalized a perfect masterpiece. I know Sergio Leone’s work barely well enough to respect it. With that caveat out of the way, this piece doesn’t even really do justice to the music it chose NOT to cut up. It’s a music video that relies on the viewer understanding or at least intuiting content that wasn’t intended in the original music overlaid.
Joshua- while I agree with your sentiment that this mashup isn’t what I would call art, it’s also in a different class than the Wizard of Oz/Dark Side of the Moon phenomenon. The Dark Side of Oz happened back before iMovie allowed us to try any fool mix our stoner brains threw out into the ether. Not that I want to defend the Dark Side of Oz as “art”… I just wanted to remark that it feels more of a cultural anomaly than deliberately editing an older film down to fit a newly released song on an already pretty superb album.
No offense, Faruk, at least on my front. I will, however, respectfully disagree as a mellow twenty-seven year old postmodern. Personally, I don’t see any reason to appeal to modernist sensibilities as the artistic aesthetic. Warhol was on to something (much to my dismay and Sheila’s amusement), I think. Copyright is a modernist invention which stems from capitalism and authenticity is a sham. Monsignor Darcy was all too correct when he said “sometimes not posing is the greatest pose of all.”
Even early Enlightenment felt what Warhol hint at, just one tour through the Vatican museum and you will find all sorts of sculptures which Michelangelo “rehashed” into his little “premodern banality.” What was it called…the Sistine Chapel, I believe?
“High art” is a fiction crafted by the Modernist conception that “the ideal” is better than “real.” And this is a fiction I, personally, can do better without.
If the premodern conception was childish according to the modernist sensibilities, then the modernists were teenagers who needed to grow up. Granted this, however, I am fully able to admit that postmodernism is the twenty-something who still has a thing or two to learn. But, hell, he must have learned something during those self-centered, overly-assured days.
And I couldn’t disagree with you more about the music.
I don’t mean to be flip, Faruk. I am just trying to play in the same key, as it were.
Although I strongly identify with Faruk’s Modernist sympathies, I think I end up having a different take on this mashup, or all mashups in general.
And, like Mary, I haven’t seen the original film, so I can’t comment from that standpoint, although it is clear from what is left of it in the montage that the original footage must be stunning. (The close up of the jacket being dropped, filmed from ground level, was spectaular.)
I think for me, it’s a simple form of playfulness. Someone sat down with the technology we have at hand and said: what can I do with this, and this is what they came up with. I doubt the creator set out to better the original in either instance. I found the juxtaposition amusing and entertaining, which is what I, and I think most people, have come to expect from youtube.
Will I be happy if culture stops there? Gets rid of the great ‘perfect’ modern works? Hell no.
But I take no offense at the combination of sources to make new things.
I encourage it in fact.
I mean, wasn’t it a dadaist who put a moustache on the Mona Lisa?
Just to clarify, I don’t like this particular m-on-ta-shup-age (can’t decide). I don’t think all of them are bad… this one just doesn’t float my boat.
I’m impressed and a bit taken aback by the quantity and quality of the comments here. I’ll weigh in a bit. Apologies in advance for the length of the response.
First of all: My saying “Both benefit,” in retrospect, is surely arguable in one sense. A better way to phrase it would be something like: this allows us to see these originally disparate works in a different way–a kind of reciprocal refraction takes place. That refraction does no disservice to the originals–it’s akin to looking through old window panes at trees outside the house. The trees remain intact, we know, no matter how warped the glass makes them appear.
Which brings me to this passage from a comment by Faruk:
So why tamper with the original, why vandalize it and create a bastardized version of it? How can we be so sure of ourselves that our version will improve upon the original? Are we adding anything to history of art by reworking the original? Where do we get the right to mutilate the original art anyway? What happened to our responsibility to the history of art? And how about ethics? Do any of you really find it ethically correct to steal someone else’s artwork, cut it up, reassemble it and present it as your own work?
One sorta snarky rebuttal: By this logic, Arcade Fire could make the same argument, that the forced marriage of its art with Leone’s images does its song a disservice.
By way of a more responsible response, Andrew, above, said much of what I would say, but I’ll go further back than High Modernism or even the Sistine Chapel and say that in its essence the history of the arts as we have it is, basically, mash-up. Whatever else one might think of Harold Bloom, his theory of poetic influence is an acknowledgment of this. Bloom argues for a gradual diminishing of art as a result of this, but I’d respectfully say that “different” is not necessarily the same as “worse.”
Think, for example, of the thread of Western epic tradition that runs from Homer to Virgil to Dante to Milton to Joyce. These works are clearly related to each other and conscious of their predecessors, sometimes (as with Virgil to Homer) so much so that in places it becomes parodic in nature; yet only the most absolute in their definitions would say that these works are not “original.”
All art is representation; “original art” is something of a oxymoron (with the possible exception of Cezanne–and even with him, the originality lies not in subject matter but in the manner in which he depicts his subjects). In the case of the little old mash-up I linked to, I think of it as being analogous to Tom Stoppard’s play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, which cuts and pastes lots and lots of Hamlet into it. Shakespeare’s play remains intact nonetheless. No harm, no foul. In fact, I’d argue, while Shakespeare himself cares about as much about R&G as Hamlet does, Stoppard’s focusing on them has the effect of, at the very least, helping this reader to see them as rounder characters than they are in Hamlet. So when I return to that play, they remain dupes, but I feel more sympathy for them: they are dupes of a world they want to be part of but are essentially innocent of, no matter what Hamlet himself might think. In short: I’d claim that at its best, “mash-up” creates not a parasitic relationship between/among its components, but a (potentially) symbiotic one.
The concept of imitatio / emulatio predates Homer. Artists have always been inspried by others and felt challenged to improve on works from the past. But I cringed when I read the statement, “Copyright is a modernist invention which stems from capitalism” (oh, those 6th century modernist monks!) Andrew, do you really believe copyright exists only with regard to monetary interest? The day you create something and watch someone else take it up as his own, you might have a different view. This debate extends far beyond modernism and postmodernism–it gets at the heart of what it means to create.
I’ve gone out of my way not to watch the clip in question, because I’m more interested in the ideas being expressed here than in how they might apply to a single work. I will say that I understand Faruk’s frustration with what seems to be a never-ending stream of works by people who are essentially playing around (as Deron aptly describes it), but expecting the rest of us to take their playing seriously as art. And why? Because they think they’ve worked hard on it, as if that is enough. One thing modernists and postmodernists agree on is that, once the art is in the world, the artist’s intent becomes irrelevant–it is what it is. It’s up to the world to determine its artistic merit–the artist already had his chance.
It’s’ not so much that I want to deny the value of ownership and attribution, so much as retool the ideas of copyright which is definitely a invention of capitalism.
Early authors, and I am thinking of early philosophical and theological texts since is what I have study most, have no qualms about lifting sections from other texts, using quotations and robbing meters without even a footnote and (sure as hell) no royalties.
The only reasons things like copyright are a question is because it is no longer the independently wealthy publishing since it is no longer the independently wealthy who are educated. And contemporary education is a product of the modern capitalist system. This is not bad (although the education might be) any more than it is for starving artists to eat.
I want my starving artists to eat.
I simply think that “copyright” as it is understood in its capitalistic context is antiquated. I want artists to eat without the paranoia of getting robbed. And, frankly, I am not sure what that looks like.
Also, I have had people plagiarize things from me, but that is not the point. This mash-up here is not plagiarism, but is exactly the sort of thing that might infringe copyright which I, begging the artist’s pardon (truly and earnestly), think is asinine.
Lastly, I, too, am more concerned with the ideas themselves than the clip at hand.
I don’t see much of any understanding about copyright these days–and certaibly no undertanding of the fact that copyright law was developed not in order to limit access to works of the mind but to foster such things and to secure the ground for their wide presentation.
And even if we are talking about ownership–how might we hope to argue that the notion of property doesn’t exist before Capitalism allows it? A lion will guard its kill, and a person who owns only a bowl and a blanket usually doesn’t want to see it stolen. I can imagine a scene in which blind Homer arrives at the gates of a town, hopeful of food and drink–only to hear his poem being recited, faintly, beyond the locked door, by another. To live requires work. So perhaps this Homer will have to turn to weaving baskets, and what would have been will not then come to be.
Andrew, I think I know what you’re getting at, but it seems to me you’re using the broad term “copyright” to address specific problems within copyright law as it is applied, not the concept of copyright itself (which has existed for centuries, and which, in this country, is protected by the US Constitution). I believe the role of copyright ownership as it applies to the very big businesses of publishing, film production, etc. is in desperate need of revision. If that’s what you think, then by all means, I’m with you. But if you really believe, as you’ve re-stated, that copyright itself is “definitely an invention of capitalism,” I’d be curious to know how you’ve arrived at this perspective. I’ve both taught and consulted on copyright for years, and I’ve never come across anyone who seriously holds that view.
Okay, I hope I’m not making a monkey of myself here — I confess that right now I’m just skimming posts and commentary — but I wonder whether Andrew isn’t speaking of that aspect of copyright pertaining to the granting of a limited monopoly to ‘publish’ — that is, to disseminate in some fashion or other? This sense of ‘copyright’ I would certainly link to the origins of capital economy — the Stationers Company and all that. Though related, obviously, it is, however, distinct from the ‘copyright’ inherent in a kind of natural-law understanding of property rights. “I made it. I own it” (or “assert the moral right to be identified as the author of this work”).
My apologies if this was in fact made clear above. But I thought it might help to point out the distinction I drew.
Okay, I really should not be jumping into this now because I’ll probably have to jump out shortly . . .
but (you knew it was coming, yes?), I’m thinking that what is at issue here has more to do, say, with an artist’s right to control interpretive use. I’m thinking of the obvious example of how Samuel Beckett (and, later, his estate) terrorized anyone who wanted to stage a Beckett production that differed to any significant degree from concepts and details one might infer from stage directions as Beckett wrote them.
I realize the example is somewhat off-kilter — to my knowledge Sergio Leone has not insisted that his films be shown only with their original soundtracks, but I hope my point is relevant.
Sheila, your point is certainly relevant to me. The issue of interpretive use–of determining the point where ownership ends–is a fascinating one. The Beckett example is perfect, and it illustrates my point: Beckett’s concern (and the subsequent concern of his loony ancestors) is not one of commerce, but of a sense of wanting to control what they see as the artistic integrity of his work. I don’t think that level of control is right or even feasible–but, right or wrong, it is not an act that was born of capitalism.
Hmm. The Beckett example may be better than I’d thought at first blush. Beckett’s efforts to control the presentation of his created work, while stemming not from a desire to rake in maximum profit, it’s true, could only be enforced by means of the licensing apparatus that was constructed in England back ’round the seventeenth century — constructed very much to benefit the Stationers and only incidentally the “content providers“.
In Beckett’s case a means of ensuring that no publication/production not duly licensed by a body representing distributors was put to use in the interest of a creator’s desire to control aesthetic intent. Not, as you note, feasible nor even desirable — but useful, perhaps, by way of example with respect to thinking about the rights of creators and the rights of publishers/disseminators.
They both benefit at least this much: that movie is going on my Netflix queue and I’m picking up Neon Bible (if that what it’s from) soon.
Wow, I’m honestly excited that such a debate would come following a simple posting of my Leone/Arcade Fire edit (though I’m not sure how much it actually influenced the discussion since half the folks here refused to watch it.)
“Do any of you really find it ethically correct to steal someone else’s artwork, cut it up, reassemble it and present it as your own work?”
I certainly didn’t present this as my own work. If you watched the video, then end credits the work to Sergio Leone and Arcade fire… I simply edited it.
And I didn’t steal anything. Leone’s masterpiece is $7.99 at Target.
I agree that a huge majority of “mashups” earn that title… sound and imagery literally mashed together to form a 3 minute mudpie. I wouldn’t have made this video if my intentions weren’t to honor both the incredible music and film. I was simply showing my appreciation for both.
Bastardized? Apologese to Leone.
Arcade Fire actually loves it.