In Scorpio Rising (1964), Kenneth Anger does something very controversial: he juxtaposes footage of a gay biker orgy with scenes from a previously-made religious instruction film about the life of Jesus Christ. Anger claims that as he was editing Scorpio, a postman delivered the religious film to him by accident, and Anger decided, on the spur of the moment, to chop up the Christ film and fold scenes from it--ironically, of course--into Scorpio.
It's not the only earlier film cited in Scorpio, of course: consider all those shots of Marlon Brando from the biker movie The Wild One (Laslo Benedek, 1953) that appear on Scorpio's black-and-white TV.
This week, we'll be discussing two experimental filmmakers, Joseph Cornell and Bruce
Conner, who make movies entirely out of images shot by other people. To get us thinking about how films beget films, I want you to consider the following question: what's your favorite example of a movie, mainstream or otherwise, that incorporates footage from an earlier movie? Mine is Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978): Laurie (Jaime Lee Curtis) watches The Thing from Another World (Christian Nyby and Howard Hawks, 1951) while she babysits a neighborhood kid. It's almost as if The Thing is warning her about the Inhuman Thing--The Boogeyman, Michael Myers--that will soon attack her; it's also director Carpenter paying homage to one of his favorite B-movies.
What's your favorite example of footage from an older film appearing in a newer movie?
Okay, I'm going to sound completely lame and girly when I say this but I love the way "An Affair to Remember" was used in "Sleepless in Seattle". Even though they showed clips out of order it still made the movie that much more entertaining. In fact, one of my favorite quotes from the movie comes from the big scene where Annie (Meg Ryan) and her friend are watching "An Affair to Remember". Actually that entire scene is my favorite. It's just so true to the way women watch movies together. The quote that I love if your curious is, "That's your problem, you don't want to be in love; you want to be in love in a movie." and then of course the best exchange in the whole movie: "Winter must be cold for those with no warm memories, we've already missed the spring." "Men never get this movie." *sob* "..I know."
ReplyDeleteI also love later on in the movie when Annie tells Becky that "all I could say was hello" and Becky shows her the clip from "An Affair to Remember" where that exact same thing is said Annie's response is, "Of course it's a sign. It's a sign that I have watched this movie TOO many times."
Which might be true of myself after reading over this post. I may have watched "Sleepless in Seattle" too many times.
But I just love the parallel of Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr to Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks and the way it plays out in this movie. It's one of the reason I love "Sleepless in Seattle" so much.
I think the one that comes to mind at the moment is the movie Scream. During the movie, the characters are watching the movie Halloween and at times what is happening in the movie is also taking place in the real world. When Michael is sneaking behind Laurie in the movie, the killer is sneaking up on Randy outside of the movie. I thought this was clever since Scream brought life back to the slasher genre and Halloween was considered one of the greatest of these movies in the past. So in essence, it's like past and present to a horror fan.
ReplyDeleteI don't think this had any significance in the film, but in the Matrix, the film Night of the Lepus is playing on a television in the scene when Neo meets the oracle for the first time. I mention this because when my dad saw the scene he recognized it as a film he had seen before, so he went on a four year crusade to find the name of the film. Its a cheesy 70's film but I liked it plus it had Deforest Kelly in it.
ReplyDeleteMine is a little lame but within the film I thought it was pretty clever. Mine is in Catch Me if You Can, when Leonardo Dicaprio's character continuously watches Bond movies, I think it's Goldfinger which is used most. Obviosuly Bond is a spy, and within his job he must take on different roles in order to infiltrate whatever badguy. Dicaprio's character is the theif who takes on different personas in order to elude capture, and I think it's amusing that he watches Bond films a lot. Obviously it seems that Dicaprios's character idolizes Bond, and would like to be a suave and cool as the spy.
ReplyDeleteMy brain is not working.... The only one i could think of is Hello Dolly showing up in Wall-E. Wall-E finds an old video tape and watches Hello Dolly. Andrew Stanton used ''Put On Your Sunday Clothes'' and ''It Only Takes a Moment,''(songs from Hello Dolly) as a ways to tell the story in Wall-E without dialogue.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite that I can remember is also the one from Wall-E. I felt like it made the movie. When he watches Hello, Dolly!, Wall-E learns more about love and the things to do to express that, like holding hands. The songs from Hello, Dolly! fit perfectly into the movie too, which is why it is one of my favorites.
ReplyDeleteWhen this question was posed, I had to think for a minute to remember a film with old footage in it. My first thought was Home Alone, but then I remembered that the footage in that wasn't actually real. Thinking about Home Alone brought me back to a time when I had about 6 VHS tapes and had seen each of them a significant number of times. This jaunt down memory lane also brought the answer to this question with it. In Field of Dreams, yep that one, Kevin Costner comes down stairs and sees his daughter watching Harvey, the Jimmy Stewart film. He is actually quite angry with his daughter and tells her to "turn off that crap" or something to that effect. When I was younger, I had no idea what Harvey was, I alway thought it was something bad. When I got around to seeing it, I finally understood the meaning of it use in Field of Dreams. If you haven't seen either, let me tell you. Harvey is Jimmy Stewart's imaginary friend, which actually turns out to be a spirit of sorts. Shortly following this exchange between Costner's character and his daughter, Costner starts being visited by spirits of dad baseball players. So I finally got the reference, but it took me a few years.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite example of a current film using old footage is probably "Forest Gump". Old footage of historic events or even old footage superimposed with new footage puts Tom Hanks right in the middle of landmark events that happen throughout the 20th century. Thats all I have to say about that.
ReplyDeleteBefore this was brought up in class, I could have cited twenty examples off the top of my head but as soon as I tried to think of a favorite my mind blanked. But since I watched "Knocked Up" the other day on TV, the hilarious scenes where Seth Rogen and posse are sitting around watching old movies, smoking joints, and cataloging exact times when nudity appears are fresh in my mind.
ReplyDeleteI was also thinking about "Forest Gump" as a significant example of this - especially because they take it to the next level and actually modify the old bits of footage to make them fit the film. I know I've seen other films where they used old footage in a similar way, but nothing is coming to mind right now. Anyways, very cool technique...
ReplyDeleteMy favorite example of this is in Zombie Land where they are watching Ghost busters inside of Bill Murray's mansion. I got a kick out of this because it was a movie about hunting ghost, which in reality weren't real. Then Bill Murray comes up acting like he is dead, and is then hunted/shot. I like that kind of irony.
ReplyDeleteThe film that I'm thinking of is Ghost World, where the main character is watching a Bollywood film at the beginning and dancing along with it. It gives an opening into the character of Enid, showing her as different and more exciting than the other people shown during the opening.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if this really counts or not, but I remember a little competition of sorts between Directors Sam Raimi (Evil Dead Trilogy, Spiderman [Bleh]) and Wes Craven (Nighmare on Elm Street). In this competition, the two directors added recognizable symbols of each others films in their movies to mock the work of the other. I believe that one example was that a glove reminiscent of the one Freddy Crueger wore in Nightmare could be seen in a shed in one of the Evil Dead movies. One of the characters from Nightmare can be seen watching the Evil Dead in the film. Just thought that was cool. ;)
ReplyDeleteThe first film that came to mind is Home Alone when Kevin is watching "Angels With Dirty Souls". I don't know why this scene sticks with me. I haven't seen that movie in probably over a decade but I remember that scene vividly. They show it later on when we uses the tommy gun sounds from the movie to scare off the burglars. It's actually not a real film, they created just for the movie. The movie it takes it's name from is "Angels With Dirty Faces" which is one of my favorite James Cagney movie.
ReplyDeleteThe best film that contains a film in a film is Natural Born Killers. There are short, quickly edited montages of scenes from archived commercials and movies. It is very effective because Natural Born Killers is a direct comment on the media and society. There are splices from Pepsi commercials and vintage commercials that create an interesting transition and commentary on the world. Oliver Stone subliminally creates his theme of NBK through the incorporation of previously released media.
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