— homages to real people : pt. I [artists] —
personal preferences ahead. but feel free to use them as a guidebook.
intro: loose thoughts
i'm sitting by a rainy window in richardson, vietnamese coffee in hand and too much caffeine in my veins, and i'm musing. films have such great potential. weinberg thought the golden age of film was gone, so much so that he described himself as a drunk doctor arriving at the scene of a car accident, trying to repair the damage. "well, he's dead," says the doctor, "but i'll see what i can do."
weinberg is right in some ways, but just because the golden age is gone doesn't mean the potential is gone. maybe there's even another golden age on the way. i want to be part of that.
it requires taking a step back and asking, first, what is cinema? then, what can cinema be?
leitch says that the production of any text is the result of an intertextual process — all rhetorical artworks are related to those that came before (191). art is inheritance. it is the product of one's generation and one's choices. and one must inevitably make those choices in light of one's generation. hats off to emma koenig for showing me what i'm up against.
i get a sense that the most important pursuit in art-making is that of humility. God, keep pride far from my heart.
i hope homage is always part of my films. i've watched homages happen for years. the earliest film-to-film references i remember came from films like madagascar, which references castaway. it makes me incredibly happy to see interdisciplinary homages, like ferris bueller's use of seurat's pointillism to illustrate cameron's character development (cinema tips its hat to painting), or jack johnson's "inaudible melodies" which advises eisenstein to relax (music tips its hat to cinema).
i'll spend an afternoon writing about homage because it is important to me. homage is a tool to ensure humility, to honor the artists who paved the way before me and made my art possible. there's no such thing as original art, or we would be gods.
body one : homage as reference
vampire weekend's ezra koenig, in the gleeful "cape cod kwassa kwassa," sings "this feels so unnatural / peter gabriel too." the reference, far from parodic or satirical, appears to be a respectful nod to an artist who influenced the 1984-born lyricist. in fact, gabriel went on to cover vampire's song in a three-way collaboration with hot chip, and vampire turned around to cover "solsbury hill." in "cape cod" lyrics we have a lovely wink from one musician to another who came before him.
but not more than that, really. does the reference enhance vampire's art itself? koenig describes "cape cod" as the result of his trip to india via london and his musings on the connections between those cultures (eliscu). peter gabriel? not really the crux of the picture. in fact, simon reynolds is among those who theorize that there is no crux to the picture here or in any of vampire's pre-2010 lyrics. he writes, "vampire weekend songs often seem like short stories where everything's been erased EXCEPT for every third paragraph or – at the extreme – EXCEPT for every twenty-third line. or maybe they're just extremely condensed screenplays" (reynolds). so vampire can take advantage of their pre-existing lyrical style to pay homage to another artist.
speaking of screenplays, let's move on.
body two : homage as structural device
the nolan brothers. undoubtedly they themselves will be the subjects of homage before long, if not already. two great artists who know that to produce great art, one must look to great artists.
inception uses the penrose stairs, a joint production of m. c. escher and lionel and roger penrose (which i call an artistic work due to its generic ambiguity [ernst]), as a structural device. the nolan brothers, long-time aficionados of creativity in the psychological realm (following, memento), struck gold with this visual representation of the paradoxical nature of inception's dream world.
the use of the penrose stairs concept is not merely a nod to escher, penrose, and penrose. it absolutely is this, but it is also much more — the concept enhances the viewer's understanding of how paradox functions in the film's dream world. as joseph gordon-levitt and ellen page walk up the stairs, only to find themselves at the bottom, the viewer has a visual anchor for this complex idea. the nolan brothers repeatedly include brilliant visual anchors such as these, which is why they can reach general audiences with films that involve sophisticated concepts (tattoos in memento, the hole in the folded paper in interstellar). thus, this homage not only pays tribute to escher, penrose, and penrose, but it also illustrates the profound importance of their art by employing it as a structural device in inception.
body three: implications on future work
i am intrigued by the countless forms of homage. lyrics and visualization are just two; i've seen characters named after artists, paintings of musicians, and even animated characters named after the musicians who voice them. while so far all homages appear to boil down to these two categories, this is obviously primitive study, and further research may reveal more.
in my films, i am interested in two questions related to homage, regardless of category.
firstly, to whom should one pay homage?
second, how, in terms of media, can homage function in cinema?
paying homage is not really a question of duty or responsibility, but, as i said, one of humility. to establish oneself as the sole creator of a work — well, we saw what happened with welles and citizen kane. all art is adaptation.
thus, in most instances i cannot imagine "owing" homage to a specific artist, for if i did owe homage, it would be to an endless list of artists unknown to me. rather, homage is a gesture of personal gratitude. and i am thankful to many people for very many things. i expect that some of my homages will be surprises.
intro: loose thoughts
i'm sitting by a rainy window in richardson, vietnamese coffee in hand and too much caffeine in my veins, and i'm musing. films have such great potential. weinberg thought the golden age of film was gone, so much so that he described himself as a drunk doctor arriving at the scene of a car accident, trying to repair the damage. "well, he's dead," says the doctor, "but i'll see what i can do."
weinberg is right in some ways, but just because the golden age is gone doesn't mean the potential is gone. maybe there's even another golden age on the way. i want to be part of that.
it requires taking a step back and asking, first, what is cinema? then, what can cinema be?
leitch says that the production of any text is the result of an intertextual process — all rhetorical artworks are related to those that came before (191). art is inheritance. it is the product of one's generation and one's choices. and one must inevitably make those choices in light of one's generation. hats off to emma koenig for showing me what i'm up against.
i get a sense that the most important pursuit in art-making is that of humility. God, keep pride far from my heart.
i hope homage is always part of my films. i've watched homages happen for years. the earliest film-to-film references i remember came from films like madagascar, which references castaway. it makes me incredibly happy to see interdisciplinary homages, like ferris bueller's use of seurat's pointillism to illustrate cameron's character development (cinema tips its hat to painting), or jack johnson's "inaudible melodies" which advises eisenstein to relax (music tips its hat to cinema).
i'll spend an afternoon writing about homage because it is important to me. homage is a tool to ensure humility, to honor the artists who paved the way before me and made my art possible. there's no such thing as original art, or we would be gods.
body one : homage as reference
vampire weekend's ezra koenig, in the gleeful "cape cod kwassa kwassa," sings "this feels so unnatural / peter gabriel too." the reference, far from parodic or satirical, appears to be a respectful nod to an artist who influenced the 1984-born lyricist. in fact, gabriel went on to cover vampire's song in a three-way collaboration with hot chip, and vampire turned around to cover "solsbury hill." in "cape cod" lyrics we have a lovely wink from one musician to another who came before him.
but not more than that, really. does the reference enhance vampire's art itself? koenig describes "cape cod" as the result of his trip to india via london and his musings on the connections between those cultures (eliscu). peter gabriel? not really the crux of the picture. in fact, simon reynolds is among those who theorize that there is no crux to the picture here or in any of vampire's pre-2010 lyrics. he writes, "vampire weekend songs often seem like short stories where everything's been erased EXCEPT for every third paragraph or – at the extreme – EXCEPT for every twenty-third line. or maybe they're just extremely condensed screenplays" (reynolds). so vampire can take advantage of their pre-existing lyrical style to pay homage to another artist.
speaking of screenplays, let's move on.
body two : homage as structural device
the nolan brothers. undoubtedly they themselves will be the subjects of homage before long, if not already. two great artists who know that to produce great art, one must look to great artists.
inception uses the penrose stairs, a joint production of m. c. escher and lionel and roger penrose (which i call an artistic work due to its generic ambiguity [ernst]), as a structural device. the nolan brothers, long-time aficionados of creativity in the psychological realm (following, memento), struck gold with this visual representation of the paradoxical nature of inception's dream world.
the use of the penrose stairs concept is not merely a nod to escher, penrose, and penrose. it absolutely is this, but it is also much more — the concept enhances the viewer's understanding of how paradox functions in the film's dream world. as joseph gordon-levitt and ellen page walk up the stairs, only to find themselves at the bottom, the viewer has a visual anchor for this complex idea. the nolan brothers repeatedly include brilliant visual anchors such as these, which is why they can reach general audiences with films that involve sophisticated concepts (tattoos in memento, the hole in the folded paper in interstellar). thus, this homage not only pays tribute to escher, penrose, and penrose, but it also illustrates the profound importance of their art by employing it as a structural device in inception.
body three: implications on future work
i am intrigued by the countless forms of homage. lyrics and visualization are just two; i've seen characters named after artists, paintings of musicians, and even animated characters named after the musicians who voice them. while so far all homages appear to boil down to these two categories, this is obviously primitive study, and further research may reveal more.
in my films, i am interested in two questions related to homage, regardless of category.
firstly, to whom should one pay homage?
second, how, in terms of media, can homage function in cinema?
paying homage is not really a question of duty or responsibility, but, as i said, one of humility. to establish oneself as the sole creator of a work — well, we saw what happened with welles and citizen kane. all art is adaptation.
thus, in most instances i cannot imagine "owing" homage to a specific artist, for if i did owe homage, it would be to an endless list of artists unknown to me. rather, homage is a gesture of personal gratitude. and i am thankful to many people for very many things. i expect that some of my homages will be surprises.
i do owe thanks to the nolan brothers; christopher was the first director i ever followed and i have read every one of jonathan's scripts. one of my characters is named nolan. another is named elliot after elliot grove, author of the handbook that will guide me through filmmaking, and someone whose tenacity means a lot to me. yet another character is jones, after "mr. jones" by counting crows, which strikes me with its honesty and to which i know every word.
i like names. but all these so far are mere references. fitz, protagonist of my new script, takes his name from f. scott, and this is actually a structural device homage. fitz struggles with idealizing the past, like gatsby before him. any viewers who pick up on his name will find that it reinforces this motif by invoking the image of a young gatsby staring across the bay.
but there are those artists who still live among us, who mean inexpressibly more to me. sometimes an artist will take up space in my heart not because of what he produces, but because of what he teaches me about humanity. ben gibbard created an entire album, like a gallery of songs, from the pain of a broken heart. in twelve songs he paints twelve different pictures of a shattering break-up. the depth and range of these pictures makes them like a series showing numerous angles of the same sculpture. i had never seen that before in music. it showed me that another artist had harnessed the profundity of heartbreak, and transformed it into an album. this is what humans are capable of. this is what i am capable of.
gibbard deserves more than a character name, referential or structural. his impact on me - not just my work, but my understanding of the human heart - merits something truly unique. i don't know what quite yet. but i know that he needs to know that, he needs to know that someone has heard the meaning of his work. maybe it's my born-again bones crying out to a lost soul.
conclusion: areas for future research
it's people like gibbard that i think about. people like jane hawking. mat kearney. ezra koenig. zach braff. i consider their lives. i pray for them. they don't know it, but if there ever comes a day when, after years of dwelling mentally in the shoes of these souls, i get to speak - well, i want to have something to say. a way of telling them that someone's been listening.
more to come on these people in part II, "other people."
here's to homage. here's to being humble.
----
Eliscu, Jenny. "Hot New Kids: Vampire Weekend." Rolling Stone, 4 Oct. 2007. https://web.archive.org/web/20091103135605/http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/16722257/2007_hot_issue/14
Ernst, Bruno. The Eye Beguiled: Optical Illusions. 1992. Benedikt Taschen. ISBN 3-8228-9637-3.
Leitch, Thomas. "How to Teach Film Adaptations, and Why." In The Pedagogy of Adaptation, edited by Dennis Cutchins, Laurence Raw, and James M. Welsh. The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2010, 21-468. Kindle edition.
Reynolds, Simon. "How Vampire Weekend Fans Help 'Write' the Songs." The Guardian, 12 May 2009. https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2009/may/12/vampire-weekend
Weinberg, Herman G. Saint Cinema. New York: Dover Publications, 1973.
Eliscu, Jenny. "Hot New Kids: Vampire Weekend." Rolling Stone, 4 Oct. 2007. https://web.archive.org/web/20091103135605/http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/16722257/2007_hot_issue/14
Ernst, Bruno. The Eye Beguiled: Optical Illusions. 1992. Benedikt Taschen. ISBN 3-8228-9637-3.
Leitch, Thomas. "How to Teach Film Adaptations, and Why." In The Pedagogy of Adaptation, edited by Dennis Cutchins, Laurence Raw, and James M. Welsh. The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2010, 21-468. Kindle edition.
Reynolds, Simon. "How Vampire Weekend Fans Help 'Write' the Songs." The Guardian, 12 May 2009. https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2009/may/12/vampire-weekend
Weinberg, Herman G. Saint Cinema. New York: Dover Publications, 1973.
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