Pelecanos wrote:
"When Joel Coen and I discussed the issue, he admitted the
connection, but pointed to hip-hop as another modern art
that, like film, processes direct and indirect influences
into a new kind of whole. Sampling beats, though, isn't quite
the same as lifting entire storylines from novels, so I don't
exactly agree that Hammett's non-credit should be so easily
dismissed. But I do understand his position, and his
point."
After sampled artists became aware of the value of their
samples -- after Van Halen leased a guitar sample for Tone
Loc's huge hit Wild Thing for a small flat rate,Gilbert
O'Sullivan's estate won a settlement from Biz Markie and the
Turtles from De La Soul, among other cases -- they began to
demand and get credit and remuneration. Not saying a lot of
uncredited sampling doesn't still go on, but the booklet of
just about every hip hop CD is filled with little print
listing the core samples. So Coen's free, uncredited sampling
analogy doesn't really hold up as precedent, although it
probably did at the time of Miller's Crossing's
release.
Don't get me wrong, I love Miller's Crossing, but the Hammett
liftings
(homage if you're feeling generous) are pretty obvious. As a
matter of fact, they are even more blatant than some
Tarantino gets criticized for. Sure, Tarantino obviously saw
City on Fire before he made Reservoir Dogs (and he admits
it), but he took a small part at the end of that film and
used it as the foundation for a whole new film, scratching
and mixing it with bits and pieces from numerous other films,
including The Killing, Les Doulous, etc. I think the sampling
analogy applies pretty well to Tarantino. He draws from
numerous sources, uses turntable/editing-table wizardry to
combine them in such a way as to create a new work; sure,
it's fun to catch all of the references/samples, but there is
an original eye ordering them.
The Coens tend to draw on one source at a time -- Cain in
Blood Simple, Hammett in Miller's Crossing, Chandler in Big
Lebowski -- and give us their take on him. And frankly,
that's what I like about them, their dialogs with past
masters. And unlike De Palma's wholesale aping of Hitchcock
(and occasionally someone else, say Eisenstein's Odessa Steps
sequence), the Coens keep up their side of the
conversation.
Mark
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