681 Frances Ha

[rwiggum]

The intertextuality adds nothing to the moments in question

See, I agree, but I'm not of the opinion that it necessarily should. It works as a moment on its own, within the context of the film. It may be fair to say that Baumbach "stole" the moment, but I also don't think that it matters. Filmmakers are constantly lifting from other filmmakers, directly referencing moments or just recreating them wholesale. PT Anderson lifted the pool tracking shot in Boogie Nights from I Am Cuba, but I don't think he should have to mention that film every time he talks about that shot.

Once a sequence is placed into a new film, I should HOPE that the director would be more interested in discussing how that moment fits emotionally into their own film, because that tells me that it was a conscious thematic choice. If they only ever talked about how that moment was taken from another film, THEN it would start ringing as hollow to me. I think that's what separates good filmmakers from film students who write extended Tarantino "homages" into their films, more to show reverence to the films they love than consider why that moment belongs in their film.

Just like the "Love and Hate" monologue in Do The Right Thing takes on its own significance apart from Night of the Hunter, Baumbach makes the Mauvais Sang sequence his own, and while it certainly comes off as a loving nod to Carax's film, it can have a life outside of it as well, without making Noah Baumbach a hack thief.

[zedz]

Just like the "Love and Hate" monologue in Do The Right Thing takes on its own significance apart from Night of the Hunter, Baumbach makes the Mauvais Sang sequence his own, and while it certainly comes off as a loving nod to Carax's film, it can have a life outside of it as well, without making Noah Baumbach a hack thief.

I think you're reading an awful lot into this, and I don't see any relevant comparison to the scene in Do the Right Thing, which carries a lot of thematic heft as a moment of (ironic?) cultural appropriation, gives the original scene a radical twist, and is even plausible as a character moment, since Radio Raheem may well have picked up the speech from a TV screening of Night of the Hunter, or from somebody who had seen the film.

But how do you think Baumbach "makes the Mauvais Sang sequence his own" - apart from casting his girlfriend in it? And what makes his nod "loving"?

[matrixschmatrix]

Ah yes, Greta Gerwig, who wrote, created and starred in this project, but who clearly got the job only because she was the director's girlfriend...

[zedz]

Hey, I wasn't the one who claimed that Baumbach made the sequence "his own"!

[matrixschmatrix]

Haha, touché

[knives]

Well there's a difference between combating that idea and making an insulting toward someone who is much more than just a director's girlfriend.

[zedz]

Well, if somebody - anybody, at this point! - can tell me what Baumbach adds to the sequence apart from simply restaging it with Gerwig, that somehow miraculously makes it his own and not at all a lazy lift, then this conversation can proceed.

Gerwig is his girlfriend, right? And he does cast her in place of Lavant, right? There's no need to get all white knight-ish on your high horse for that statement of fact.

[matrixschmatrix]

Well, he (or Gerwig, really) adds an entirely different context, which changes the whole emotional effect of the sequence- I'm not really sure of why, in the year of our lord 2013, we're having an extended argument about the validity of lifting sequences.

Also, don't be disingenuous- referring to Baumbach 'casting his girlfriend' does bear a clear implication that she's most germane as his girlfriend and not for her own talents or personality.

[swo17]

Didn't Gerwig originally start out as director of the film, with Baumbach later taking over? In which case he didn't technically even cast her.

[zedz]

Well, he (or Gerwig, really) adds an entirely different context, which changes the whole emotional effect of the sequence- I'm not really sure of why, in the year of our lord 2013, we're having an extended argument about the validity of lifting sequences.

If you actually read what I've written in this thread, you'll see that I've already spoken about the validity of lifting sequences, and have said that such borrowings can be very great indeed, or completely mediocre. What's more, I've set out just why I find this specific instance to be problematic, and all I'm asking is that one of its supporters actually make a counter-argument in favour of it. Your argument has two blunt prongs that do nobody any favours: the latter one ("why are we having this argument in 2013") is specious, amounting to "some filmic borrowings are valid, ergo this one is valid" and the first one ("it's different because it's different!") is just the same non-answer I've been trying to progress past. You really can't articulate anything substantive about how the sequence works differently in this film?

And as I said above, I'm not the person who asserted that Baumbach was the creative force behind the sequence. I was specifically responding to a post that claimed that he "made it his own," and I just want to know why people think that. I agree that he creates a different context for the sequence, and doing it with Gerwig is the most visible part of that (hence 'casting his girlfriend' - which might be flippant, but is basically true - and if your argument is that Gerwig is the true auteur of the sequence and film, that's something you'll need to take up with the original poster I was responding to. I'm only interested in that distinction if it forms the basis of an actual argument about the virtues of the sequence). But - duh! - any borrowing, from the most sublime to the most base, recontextualizes the original at its bare minimum. That tells us nothing about why one borrowing might be genius and another might be mediocre.

[matrixschmatrix]

I think my issue is that your quibble with it as a borrowing seems to imply that a borrowing needs to justify itself particularly, beyond that it was a moment that worked within the movie in the way that it was intended- a moment in which the character achieved a brief liberation from her otherwise-constant state of slowly falling apart that lasts the majority of the movie, and where the audience gets to share in the joy of that liberation. I don't think the fact that it was a borrowing or the intertextuality derived from that fact adds anything in particular, not at least in my viewing, but I also don't see that it needs to. It doesn't feel like something dropped in from another film without justification, and I don't really see why it needs to justify itself past that point.

Which, as far as I can tell, is what rwiggum was saying. To me, you seem to be implying that a borrowed moment has to achieve something above and beyond merely fitting into the movie and working within the context that the movie has created, and I don't know why that should be inherently true.

[zedz]

Okay, this is more like a conversation. Thanks. To clarify, my position was that the specific context of that sequence representing a privileged moment for the character and film (exactly what you're saying about the audience "sharing the joy") placed more of an onus on the filmmakers to deliver something special. And for me they not only failed to do that, but really jarred me out of the film by coming up with something second hand (and, in its execution, I'd argue second-rate) at the crucial moment. For me, it's not about borrowings having to go 'above and beyond' - little thrown-away referential moments can be perfectly delightful - but more about thatspecific moment in the film, whether old, new, borrowed or blue, having to do so. Actually, if Baumbach and Gerwig's version of the scene had been as sharp as Carax and Lavant's - even if it were just about identical - I would probably have been much more kindly disposed towards it. The discipline that would have required would have added an interesting and positive element, at least.

[matrixschmatrix]

Well, at that point, the issue becomes less about the borrowing and more about how well the moment itself worked, which to me, was 'very well' without breaking with what we've seen of the character Gerwig created and the style of the movie she's in- it's not about her being a fantastic dancer, necessarily, but the degree to which she's feeling the freedom of her body and the joy of dancing, and giving you an idea of why dancing as a thing means so much to her.

[Black Hat]

I'm not sure where exactly in the film Frances shows anything remotely close to that kind of energy, freedom or exuberance. For most of the film she's plodding around like one of those boring big fishes in an aquarium. Even if she did, dancing like that on a downtown Manhattan street to Modern Love in 2013 is so out of place that it reeks of I really loved that scene I can finally use it in one of my movies.

[rwiggum]

Well, he (or Gerwig, really) adds an entirely different context, which changes the whole emotional effect of the sequence- I'm not really sure of why, in the year of our lord 2013, we're having an extended argument about the validity of lifting sequences.

If you actually read what I've written in this thread, you'll see that I've already spoken about the validity of lifting sequences, and have said that such borrowings can be very great indeed, or completely mediocre. What's more, I've set out just why I find this specific instance to be problematic, and all I'm asking is that one of its supporters actually make a counter-argument in favour of it. Your argument has two blunt prongs that do nobody any favours: the latter one ("why are we having this argument in 2013") is specious, amounting to "some filmic borrowings are valid, ergo this one is valid" and the first one ("it's different because it's different!") is just the same non-answer I've been trying to progress past. You really can't articulate anything substantive about how the sequence works differently in this film?

And as I said above, I'm not the person who asserted that Baumbach was the creative force behind the sequence. I was specifically responding to a post that claimed that he "made it his own," and I just want to know why people think that. I agree that he creates a different context for the sequence, and doing it with Gerwig is the most visible part of that (hence 'casting his girlfriend' - which might be flippant, but is basically true - and if your argument is that Gerwig is the true auteur of the sequence and film, that's something you'll need to take up with the original poster I was responding to. I'm only interested in that distinction if it forms the basis of an actual argument about the virtues of the sequence). But - duh! - any borrowing, from the most sublime to the most base, recontextualizes the original at its bare minimum. That tells us nothing about why one borrowing might be genius and another might be mediocre.

Very simply, he made it his own because it held emotional weight in the film without needing prior knowledge of the original work. It's as simple as that. He doesn't have to have done it better, it doesn't have to have changed cinema in any real way, just something that you could watch and not feel like "hey, this feels like a reference I don't get."

And ultimately, whether or not a moment references another film is irrelevant. If it works in the film, then it's valid. And for me, and a lot of people who saw that film, that moment worked.

[zedz]

Well to me that seems very much like an "ignorance is bliss" argument. It worked for you because you thought it was a cool sequence and didn't realise that he'd borrowed it from somewhere else? Is that correct? And it didn't work for me because, knowing it was borrowed from somewhere else, all I could see was a second-rate imitation? That sounds fair enough in terms of our individual responses, but I think it's a dubious escape clause for an author: plagiarism only exists if somebody notices it? You get to take credit for an idea as long as nobody can figure out whence you borrowed it?

[rwiggum]

I'm not sure where exactly in the film Frances shows anything remotely close to that kind of energy, freedom or exuberance. For most of the film she's plodding around like one of those boring big fishes in an aquarium. Even if she did, dancing like that on a downtown Manhattan street to Modern Love in 2013 is so out of place that it reeks of I really loved that scene I can finally use it in one of my movies.

But that's the point I think matrixschmatrix is trying to make. It's meant to stand out as a moment in the film where Frances is feeling free and unburdened, even if for a fleeting moment. It's a very childish, exuberant happiness that is by it's very nature fleeting, and it's that unreachable, temporary joy that Frances is constantly grabbing at throughout the film. It isn't until

Spoiler

her constant attempts to mainline joy lead her to be penniless, friendless and living in her old dorm that she re-evaluates her approach, ultimately finding a more constant, mature source of happiness rooted in self-worth rather than hoping other people make you happy. It's the feeling that she can give something to Sophie, rather than just always taking happiness away.

There's a reason that the Modern Love sequence is in the middle of the film and not at the end. The big triumphant character moment in this film isn't a character sprinting and dancing down a New York City street, it's her moving into a modest apartment paid for with her modest secretary job.

[matrixschmatrix]

Well to me that seems very much like an "ignorance is bliss" argument. It worked for you because you thought it was a cool sequence and didn't realise that he'd borrowed it from somewhere else? Is that correct? And it didn't work for me because, knowing it was borrowed from somewhere else, all I could see was a second-rate imitation?

Well, that's not just a matter of if you know it was borrowed from elsewhere, but how recognizing it as a lift affects you- I don't think that the idea that lifts entail special scrutiny is a universal one.

[rwiggum]

Well to me that seems very much like an "ignorance is bliss" argument. It worked for you because you thought it was a cool sequence and didn't realise that he'd borrowed it from somewhere else? Is that correct? And it didn't work for me because, knowing it was borrowed from somewhere else, all I could see was a second-rate imitation? That sounds fair enough in terms of our individual responses, but I think it's a dubious escape clause for an author: plagiarism only exists if somebody notices it? You get to take credit for an idea as long as nobody can figure out whence you borrowed it?

What makes this plagarism? Why isn't the pool tracking shot in Boogie Nights plagiarism? Why isn't the final shot of Goodfellas plagiarism? The train station shootout in The Untouchables? All of these are lifted directly from other films without referencing them directly, and most of them were lost on the mass market audience. (The latter two are fairly identifiable to film students, but the first was taken from a film relatively few have seen.)

As the old Godard quote goes, "It's not where you take it from, but where you take it to." Honestly, off the top of my head, I can't think of any time I've ever been outraged by a filmmaker lifting scenes from other films. If it's a good film, then it's a good film. Hell, look at A Fistful of Dollars. That's a case where the film was unarguably plagiarized, but at the same time, it gave us A Fistful Of Dollars.

I understand that the moment didn't work for you, it would be impossible and downright stupid for me to argue that. But your assertion that the scene is without merit because it didn't work for you irks me. As matrixschmatrix and myself have pointed out above the scene has real thematic reason for being there. Where it came from shouldn't matter.

[feckless boy]

As the old Godard quote goes, "It's not where you take it from, but where you take it to."

For me, that is exactly the point - Baumbach didn't take that sequence anywhere.

[Roger Ryan]

...That sounds fair enough in terms of our individual responses, but I think it's a dubious escape clause for an author: plagiarism only exists if somebody notices it? You get to take credit for an idea as long as nobody can figure out whence you borrowed it?

This reminds me of the scene in THE SQUID AND THE WHALE where the Jesse Eisenberg character pretends he wrote Pink Floyd's "Hey You" when he performs it at the high school talent show! Of course, the character is based on Baumbach himself during his teen years and, according to him, there was a real-life incident where he claimed he wrote The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes". That either of those rock radio station staples would not be immediately recognized by high school students circa 1980 astounds me, but it does say something about Baumbach and appropriation, doesn't it?

[zedz]

Well to me that seems very much like an "ignorance is bliss" argument. It worked for you because you thought it was a cool sequence and didn't realise that he'd borrowed it from somewhere else? Is that correct? And it didn't work for me because, knowing it was borrowed from somewhere else, all I could see was a second-rate imitation? That sounds fair enough in terms of our individual responses, but I think it's a dubious escape clause for an author: plagiarism only exists if somebody notices it? You get to take credit for an idea as long as nobody can figure out whence you borrowed it?

What makes this plagarism? Why isn't the pool tracking shot in Boogie Nights plagiarism? Why isn't the final shot of Goodfellas plagiarism? The train station shootout in The Untouchables? All of these are lifted directly from other films without referencing them directly, and most of them were lost on the mass market audience. (The latter two are fairly identifiable to film students, but the first was taken from a film relatively few have seen.)

As the old Godard quote goes, "It's not where you take it from, but where you take it to." Honestly, off the top of my head, I can't think of any time I've ever been outraged by a filmmaker lifting scenes from other films. If it's a good film, then it's a good film. Hell, look at A Fistful of Dollars. That's a case where the film was unarguably plagiarized, but at the same time, it gave us A Fistful Of Dollars.

I understand that the moment didn't work for you, it would be impossible and downright stupid for me to argue that. But your assertion that the scene is without merit because it didn't work for you irks me. As matrixschmatrix and myself have pointed out above the scene has real thematic reason for being there. Where it came from shouldn't matter.

You might want to ease off on the hyperbole. I don't know how many times I have to direct people back to my opening statement about how wonderful and fruitful artistic borrowing can be! I never said this scene was "without merit," my outrage nads have suffered nary a tickle, and I didn't call this instance of borrowing plagiarism - though "what makes this [or anything else] plagiarism?" is, I think, an interesting, but different, question - I was extrapolating from this instance, where it seems like not knowing something was borrowed made a big difference to how people received it, to more general issues.

Really, this particular borrowing is of very little interest to me except insofar as it can shed light on how this kind of homage works and how it's received by audiences, and it seems to me a really excellent example for exploring that due to various factors:
1) the lift is extremely bold and extremely blatant (so there's no room for "did they really steal this, or did they coincidentally come up with the same idea?" quibbles);
2) the lift is relatively obscure, but not particularly obscure (so there will be clear audience demarcations between those who notice it and those who don't);
3) both segments are prominent, stand-alone sequences within their films (easy to analyse; minimal immediate context to take into account);
4) the copy is very clearly technically and performance-wise inferior to the original (so one obvious justification for re-doing the scene is removed);
5) the filmmakers have both acknowledged the lift, fudged that acknowledgement, or claimed creative credit for it, depending on what interview you read (so you can't rely on their attitude to cue your response).

I have no problem understanding people's initial reaction to the scene, when they might have thought it was just another free-wheeling Baumbach and Gerwig-conceived scene to add to the rest in the film, but I really find it intriguing that learning it was lifted wholesale from somewhere else seems to make no difference whatsoever to your appreciation of it. Is that fact really of no artistic / aesthetic consequence?

I always thought Big Star's 'Holocaust' was a great song, and rather unusual in mood for a mid-70s production. Hearing 'Mrs Lennon' for the first time didn't change any of that, but it definitely knocked the song down several pegs because it was such a direct lift. I actually prefer James Brown's 'Hot' to David Bowie's 'Fame' because, hey, it's James Brown, and he does that kind of stuff way, way better in his sleep than Bowie ever could, but I could never rank it up with the best of Brown's output because he stole it lock, stock and barrel. Of course, I heard the Bowie first in that instance, but if I hadn't I can't believe that discovering the plagiarism wouldn't have lowered Brown's (terrific) single in my estimation. For me, that's just the way this works.

In terms of film examples, imagine seeing Van Sant's Psycho without any knowledge of Hitchcock's film, or even knowing that it was a remake. (N.B. I'm one of those lunatics who thinks Van Sant's Psycho is a fine art experiment.) Would subsequently learning that really have no impact on how you assessed Van Sant's film? I guess the same principle applies to remakes in general: what significance should "not doing it as well as earlier version X" have on how we evaluate version Y?

[matrixschmatrix]

I think rwiggum and I are most or less on the same page, where if a lift can be disguised well enough that it fits into the broader structure without feeling awkwardly pasted in, than it doesn't seem like much of an issue- in the same way that the similarities between He's My Guy and My Sweet Lord don't really have any impact on my appreciation for the latter.

Though I think, if one assumes that we're discussing specifically lifts that do the original less well (which I don't think is entirely fair in the case of Frances Ha) the more apt comparison would be something like Will Smith's Men In Black song, which lifted the entire hook from Forget Me Nots, and surrounded it with a bunch of tepid garbage. In that case, the lift does bother me, but mostly because it feels like it takes something lovely and turns it into crap- if I liked the Will Smith song, I would be ok with the lift, so it's not really an issue of the ethics of borrowing.

[zedz]

Well, I definitely agree with you about the "rapping over an inferior cover version of another song" examples - and that's actually a good analogy for my response to the Frances Ha scene - though I guess there can be examples of that which actually work. At this point I'd probably rather listen to 'Call It What You Want,' for all its clunkiness, than a zillionth repeat of 'Smells Like Teen Spirit.'

I take your point about 'My Sweet Lord', but I don't think that kind of (litigable) familial resemblance is at all analogous to what we're talking about in these two film sequences.

[Gregory]

At this point I'd probably rather listen to 'Call It What You Want,' for all its clunkiness, than a zillionth repeat of 'Smells Like Teen Spirit.'

"Call It What You Want," while not a great track, is so clearly original, and the sample so incidental, that it would not have mattered whether they had sampled "Smells Like Teen Spirit" or "More Than a Feeling." And I think there is an important distinction expressed in the (absurdly long) title of a great, extremely underappreciated album by a band with close ties to the artists behind "Call It What You Want," coincidentally or not:

"The Boy Bands Have Won, and All the Copyists and the Tribute Bands and the TV Talent Show Producers Have Won, If We Allow Our Culture to Be Shaped by Mimicry, Whether From Lack of Ideas or From Exaggerated Respect. You Should Never Try to Freeze Culture. What You Can Do Is Recycle That Culture. Take Your Older Brother's Hand-Me-Down Jacket and Re-Style It, Re-Fashion It to the Point Where It Becomes Your Own. But Don't Just Regurgitate Creative History, or Hold Art and Music and Literature as Fixed, Untouchable and Kept Under Glass. The People Who Try to 'Guard' Any Particular Form of Music Are, Like the Copyists and Manufactured Bands, Doing It the Worst Disservice, Because the Only Thing That You Can Do to Music That Will Damage It Is Not Change It, Not Make It Your Own. Because Then It Dies, Then It's Over, Then It's Done, and the Boy Bands Have Won"

The idea is to avoid regurgitating something or "freezing" it in time out of purported respect for it when doing an homage and instead to refashion it and make it one's own.