FilmCouch

Re:FilmCouch #21

Risselada — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 16:13:27 GMT

Would you consider the original Japanese Gojira and the American recut version with new scenes with Raymond Burr called Godzilla, King of the Monsters to fit into this discussion?

I didn't think it was that unusual when I first thought about it, but apparently to take a foreign movie and totally reshoot new scenes for them and try to fit them seamlessly in is something I can't specifically think of ever happening in another instance. Not to this extent at least

And the recut version is definitely the version that most people in the world have seen, and all the Godzilla sequels and the Japanese giant monster genre might never have happened if it weren't for that American recut version.

Re: FilmCouch #21

Risselada — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 16:42:19 GMT

SkyPilot:
Thanks for mentioning Hollywood Boulevard, joem18b. I haven't seen it and it sounds marvelous! And like Porcupine says, what a story!
I have an idea guys: for less than today's equivalent of ten thousand '76 dollars. Maybe loosen the constraints, like, make a film including at least one Corman scene? But perhaps it should still be filmed within ten days (not written and edited--though that would make it a more authentic Corman experience). And the winner would get a prize, maybe from Corman himself! I bet he would be into it! Paul, Porcupine, men and women of Spout---what can we do about this?

Holy Crap! A TALKING BABY!

I'm sorry I just had to. And I'm not even drunk.

Anyways can we add any more stipulations to this project to make it even more challenging? Like how about the requirement that you must include at least 1,000 feet of continuous footage of a mound of horse dung. And somehow you must have the shot be justified within the context of the film.

Re: FilmCouch #21

SkyPilot — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 02:23:54 GMT

Thanks for mentioning Hollywood Boulevard, joem18b. I haven't seen it and it sounds marvelous! And like Porcupine says, what a story!

I have an idea guys: for less than today's equivalent of ten thousand '76 dollars. Maybe loosen the constraints, like, make a film including at least one Corman scene? But perhaps it should still be filmed within ten days (not written and edited--though that would make it a more authentic Corman experience). And the winner would get a prize, maybe from Corman himself! I bet he would be into it! Paul, Porcupine, men and women of Spout---what can we do about this?

Re: FilmCouch #21

joem18b — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 18:34:30 GMT

Was watching Cinema Paradiso last night. It's not appropriation, I guess, but interesting to see which movies the director picked to throw up there on the screen. I'll have to see if there is a commentary that addresses the subject.

The director's cut got such bad reviews that I'm watching the theatrical version.

[still can't insert movie links. Firefox crashes. Tried in IE this time and got an error. Must be my browser settings. Kind of embarassing to name movies and not make them links...]

Re: FilmCouch #21

joem18b — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 21:15:29 GMT

One other little angle I was thinking about re appropriation is the case where one moviemaker takes footage from someone else's movie and puts it up on a screen or on TV in his/her own movie. For example, Casablanca footage in Play It Again Sam, or the trailer and then movie footage used in Brief Encounter.

Seems to me that there are innumerable movies where someone is fleeing and hides in a movie, or where a date goes wrong in a movie, or two spies or cops meet in a movie, or in at least one case, the audience is watching a movie and a train or car or bus (can't remember which) crashes out through the screen. And one of the Scary Movies starts in a movie, but the movie on the screen was... another Scary Movie? Can't remember.

Course cases like the Purple Rose of Cairo or Last Action Hero don't count. Or Pleasantville.

My problem is my memory. DeNiro is watching a commercial on TV and weeping in Analyze This (or That) but I can't remember the commercial and if it was appropriated or not (probably not). I just watched a movie and every time you could see the TV screen, there was a lion pulling down an antelope or a croc grabbing an ox...

Seems like this is something Tarentino would have addressed somewhere in his movies.

[Hey, Paul. When I try to link a movie, Firefox crashes. Any idea why? Maybe because I have some setting that needs to be changed? thx.]

Re: FilmCouch #21

paul — Thu, 31 May 2007 13:03:01 GMT

joem18b:
"...For once, it'd be nice to sit back and enjoy the entire story without your concentration being interrupted by missing scenes (you know exists) that causes gaps in the narrative."

Appropration is different from reediting because it's editing a new movie out of a preexisting film shot for a different purpose. The GI Joe PSAs repurposed a few years ago are a hysterical example. But the point made above made me think of the Criterion box set for Mr. Arkadin, an Orson Welles picture hacked into a bunch of different versions that showed all over the world. This box set includes three different versions of the film, including what two editors and Welles scholars pieced together into the "Comprehensive Version." The documentary of how they tried to assemble this picture 20 years after Welles died is worth the price of the box set.

Re: FilmCouch #21

joem18b — Wed, 30 May 2007 21:00:16 GMT

(Just tried making my first movie link and Firefox crashed. Maybe I need to turn on popups or something...)

You undoubtedly know more about these things than I do, but since we seem to have a lot of privacy here, I feel comfortable just sitting here on the film couch and responding to your question with a question.

Wouldn't film appropriation be apples to the oranges of a director's reediting? In one case taking somebody else's film and repurposing it for a totally different film, as opposed to cutting some existing film and adding film that was shot for the movie but not included at first.

A viewer's IMDB comment about the Trilogy version:

"And it's still missing about 20 more minutes (deleted from the theatrical versions) of great footage from the broadcast of "A Novel for Television" (or the retitled "Godfather Saga") that combined 1 & 2. ...why take out scenes that were in the theatrical release. Every version has some scenes that the others don't have. I think I'll wait till all the footage that the viewing public has been exposed to is all included in the film from beginning to end because all that footage is great cinema. For once, it'd be nice to sit back and enjoy the entire story without your concentration being interrupted by missing scenes (you know exists) that causes gaps in the narrative."

I was watching Alien last night and Ridley Scott said that he had had 25 years to watch the film and for this version he tried to fix all the problems that he had noticed in that time.

Re: FilmCouch #21

Risselada — Wed, 30 May 2007 16:35:50 GMT

What about The Godfather Trilogy? I mean it's the same director and the same story, but it's reedited together in a new way. Didn't Coppola do this with Apocalypse Now Redux as well? I haven't seen either of these, but what is the deal?

Re: FilmCouch #21

joem18b — Tue, 29 May 2007 17:41:35 GMT

The old serials would frequently reuse footage. A burning building, train wreck, someone going over the falls would just show up again in another action sequence. Also , to remind the audience of plot points, sometimes an earlier scene was just stuck in again. (Reminds me of those horrible Lost episodes that were just rerun scenes.)

Re: FilmCouch #21

porcupine — Tue, 29 May 2007 13:56:38 GMT

Wow, what a great story about Hollywood Boulevard, I have not seen it. Betting Corman that you can make a movie cheaper than him is like trying to beat the devil at his own game.

Re: FilmCouch #21

joem18b — Mon, 28 May 2007 00:51:39 GMT

Porcupine, I notice that you leave the comma out of What's Up Tiger Lily, which is the way Woody wanted it but not what he got? I see that your graphic has no comma but its label does. IMDB uses the comma, but maybe they're just too staid to leave it out?

What about Hollywood Boulevard (1976)? Joe Dante and Alan Arkush were in their twenties and bet Roger Corman they could make a movie more cheaply than he did. They wrapped it in 10 days for 10K, mostly using film from his movies. Excellent commentary on the dvd.

Re: FilmCouch #21

joem18b — Sun, 27 May 2007 18:06:58 GMT

porcupine:
So this leads into a question I wanted to pose: what other movies that use someone else's footage did we miss?

I'm thinking of all those 40s and 50s war movies with the U.S. footage of dogfights, Corsairs crashing on carrier decks, etc.

Re: FilmCouch #21

porcupine — Sun, 27 May 2007 04:57:07 GMT

What's Up Tiger Lily is perfect! I can't believe I didn't think of that! I saw that movie at a friend's house late one night in high school. It was one of those surreal movie viewing experiences where the next day we were all like, "did we really just see that?" Man that is a funny movie.

So this leads into a question I wanted to pose: what other movies that use someone else's footage did we miss? What's Up Tiger Lily is a really good example, we should have talked about it in the show.

Re: FilmCouch #21

joem18b — Sat, 26 May 2007 00:38:23 GMT

Maybe it's not quite appropriation, but as I listened I was thinking about "What's Up, Tiger Lily."

FilmCouch #21

paul — Fri, 25 May 2007 13:30:09 GMT

Appropriation: Originality is overrated. Filmmakers taking footage from another film and adapting it into a new movie--Orson Welles (F for Fake), Werner Herzog (The Wild Blue Yonder) and Roger Corman (Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women)--are they inspired or just desperate?

In the spirit of appropriation, email a sentence into filmcouch@spout.com. Kevin and Paul will incorporate it ever so naturally into next week's show. The first person to identify the appropriated sentence wins a Spout track jacket from American Apparel (valued at $50).

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