I've never had a particular problem with stealing, as long as
there is
good taste in what is stolen and it is used well in its new
context.
(I'll leave aside the whole Borges/Pierre Menard debate over
whether one
author really could recreate what another had written.)
This reminds me of the controversy over Quentin Tarantino's
films. Now,
even his fans (of which I am one) openly acknowledge that
there are few,
if any, original shots in Tarantino's films, that his artform
is
collage, collecting images from hundreds of different films
and
intercutting them into something new; part of the fun is
catching the
references. However, some have claimed he went even further
with
Reservoir Dogs, that it was a wholesale rip-off of Ringo
Lam's City on
Fire. There was even a short film made about it, titled
something like,
Who Do You Think You're Fooling? which juxtaposes images from
the two
films in an attempt to discredit Tarantino. I haven't seen
that short
yet, but I would imagine it looks pretty damning, there are
numerous
repeated shots and storylines, just enough to fill a short
film.
However, the long films are very different.
As I said, I'm a fan; I've seen Reservoir Dogs uncounted
times and trade
sighted minutia with friends (did you ever notice what is
under the
plastic sheets in the warehouse? Coffins, each a different
color, just
like the thieves names). So when I heard about the accusation
I ordered
a copy of City on Fire. I'd seen a number of Hong Kong films,
but not
this one. It stars Chow Yun-Fat as an undercover cop
infiltrating a
gang planning a jewelry heist; it is mostly about his torn
loyalties
between a corrupt police bureaucracy and his criminal
partners, one in
particular who becomes a good friend. Although there is a
very brief
bit in the opening heist that appears in Reservoir Dogs, I
kept waiting
for the commonalities. They didn't come until the last ten
minutes, the
heist and aftermath in a warehouse ending in a three-way
standoff.
City on Fire shows the heist, Reservoir Dogs doesn't.
Tarantino's film
is concerned with the aftermath; Ringo Lam's is about the
planning and
preparation. Sure, Tarantino stole his plot outline from the
film, even
admits to having the movie poster on his wall, but he did
something
completely different with it. I saw one interview in which
they asked
Ringo Lam his opinion. He had no problem with it, saw that
they were
very different movies (plus he had to be aware that the
controversy
promoted more sales of his film). And he shouldn't have a
problem,
Tarantino stole no more from him than he, and Hong Kong films
in
general, have stolen from US films.
Mark
ps -- As far as Ringo Lam goes, judge him by his great HK
films
(especially Full Contact), not the awful Maximum Risk he
wrestled over
with Van Damme; remember, John Woo's first US film was also a
bad Van
Damme film, Hard Target.
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