Dylan Putting "Plagiarism" In Its Place Via Modern Times

A debate has sprung up since the release of Modern Times discussing whether Dylan should be found guilty for plagiarism on account of lyrical similarities (sometimes exact phrases according to Peter Greens’ translations of Ovid’s Letters from the Black Sea) to the Roman poet Ovid’s poems and the Civil-War era poet Henry Timrod. Along with these accusations, many have wondered how Dylan got away without giving credit to many blues artists he borrowed lyrics and musical arrangements from including Muddy Waters on “Rollin’ And Tumblin’” and Memphis Minnie on “Thunder On The Mountain.” No lawsuits have been filed and Sony has not budged on their rock-hard support of Dylan’s methods. Robert Politio of the Poetry Foundation stood up for Dylan against allegations of plagiarism stating that people were confusing “art with a term paper.” Artists from the likes of William Shakespeare to Roy Lichtenstein have always used and adapted ideas from their predecessors. Folk music in general is a form of art that is built upon using other musicians’ ideas and creating new ideas with them. Woody Gunthry, one of the most famous and well renowned folk musicians, as well as, Dylan’s biggest idol, once said, "That guy stole that from me, but I steal from everybody.” Stealing or borrowing musical ideas from other musicians is just the folk tradition. In a 2004 interview with Rob Hillburn of the Los Angeles Times Dylan said, “That's the folk music tradition. You use what's been handed down.” Ever since Dylan’s beginnings as a young man in New York City he has followed folk music’s tradition of always using and reusing other musicians ideas and sounds to create new ideas and sounds. After completing his second album, Free Wheelin’ Bob Dylan, he released one of his most famous and revered songs “Blowin’ in the Wind,” a piece he created by adapting a Negro spiritual song "No More Auction Block,” and an old Scottish folk song. Dylan’s piece “Blowin’ in the Wind” was then covered by everyone from Dolly Parton to Stevie Wonder. In this modern age, music has become an industry and genres have transformed into molds in which artists must conform. The popular music of today has come a long way from the traditions of folk, blues, and jazz where musical ideas were shared and built upon like Lego blocks. If a musician takes an idea from another musician in today’s society then a lawsuit is bound to ensue (i.e. Rolling Stones “The Last Time” vs. The Verve “Bittersweet Symphony”). Dylan uses Modern Times to show us how absurd it is to be fighting over music that is being shared (i.e. Napster vs. Metalica, etc.) and borrowed. “The hammer's on the table, the pitchfork's on the shelf, for the love of God, you ought to take pity on yourself (“Thunder on the Mountain”).” He is showing us that even in these modern times genuine music can still be found. The usage of Ted Croner’s photograph, “Taxi, New York at Night” (1947), for the album cover showcases his beliefs perfectly. The photo shows a 1940’s taxi passing by in fleeting overexposed lights. It shows us that even though the times have changed significantly since the 1940’s due to the accessible technologies that allow American culture to move so fast, music as an art does not have to change with the times.

Reflections on the Saturday Shoot

This past Saturday our 6x1 class shot and developed 56 second shorts on 16mm Bolex cameras. Working with the cameras was an absolute blast for me. I am very interested in cinematography and have always wanted to work with real film. It feels like such a rarity to get to work on actual film as a student these days with the perpetual flux of modern technologies. Truthfully I wish I could have worked with the Bolex camera a lot more because I didn't get much hands on time with it but I got some good time with the 8mm camera. I have always been interested in the different sub-mediums of film (i.e. 8mm, 16mm, video, etc) and each formats appearance and limitations. Now I want to learn everything I can about operating cameras as I can so I can explore the limitations of each format/technology. I want to be able to know cameras like the back of my hand - just be able to pick any camera up and know exactly how to use it. Once I can comfortable with cameras and really get to know them and what no,t then I can truly start to use my full creative potential. This weekend was awesome because I feel like it was a good step in the right direction and has only caused me to become more interested in different film/video formats. I am really interested in finding an old Bolex or 8mm camera and start making my own experimental or short films with them. It's so awesome that I can shoot with an old film camera and edit it on my computer - although this does lose some of the film quality. I need to start taking advantage of this and hipefully I'll have my hands on an 8mm or a Bolex of my own by next fall.

As for more on the Saturday shoot - it was fun dressing up and rehearsing in order to get the time down. It worked out a lot better than I thought it was going to so I was very happy with that. I didn't realize that it would be in negatives but it looks really cool that way. I am interested in seeing what it will look like not in negatives and look forward to using some of this footage in other experimental projects in the future.

48 Hour Ideas

The 48 hour film festival is providing me a great opportunity to do something that I've wanted to do for a couple years but have never gotten around to doing it. I've always wanted to do a stop motion film with a digital camera because I am well adept at using digital cameras just from messing around with my dad's when I would travel (I was fortunate enough to have a father who believed in education via traveling and allowed me to go to places from the likes of Uganda Africa, to London, England to Cinque Terre and Rome in Italy). I have a bunch of ideas in journals that we could apply to a stop motion movie but a collaborative approach with my group will be much better here. I will probably be most useful cinematographically seeing that I've experienced a lot of camera techniques over the years. I also believe that having Tory in my group's disposal allows us to have endless potential for a great stop-motion movie. Tory is a great improvisational actor and he is hilarious so I think our group will be safe at achieving some kind of creative, and most likely humorous, stop-motion movie. I'm looking forward to the project.

Scratch Film Junkies Review #2

The Scratch Film Junkies film ­­­______ incorporates many different cameraless filmmaking techniques to create a crazy optical experience. I really enjoyed the initial scrolling (left to right) title sequence in the beginning. The font really reminded me of a Jasper Johns factory print style text (black, with spaces in-between the connecting pieces of each letter – looks like a stencil). The first animation seen in the film involves two-dimensional white lines that morph into people and abstractions. It reminded me of late nineteen-eighties, early nineteen-nineties African-American style art (like in Spike Lee’s ‘Do the Right Thing’). Some of the backgrounds reminded me of psychedelic backdrops shown behind bands in the sixties like the Warlocks at acid tests, the Grateful Dead, the Allman Brothers Band, Jefferson Airplane, etc. I assume that the Scratch Film Junkies applied oil and ink to get this effect. I found this effect to be the most intriguing for me when working on our Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water experimental project. I used this oil and ink effect during one of the fire reels. It looked so awesome originally but I decided to put a magazine transfer on top of certain portions of it as well. Different tints were used when there were dance scenes of people in slow-motion sequences. I really enjoyed these dance sequences – they reminded me of a Ron Rice film I once saw. I recall that there was a really cool arrow animation sequences. These animations were very simple but they worked really well in the whole mix of things. Seeing the way that their use of sandpaper applications came out really makes me regret not using this technique on our Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water reel. Many of the textures created great images that appeared like montage paintings. The film on film transfer was really awesome. I really want to do work with this application in the near future. Really awesome images came out of this salient technique. I love using text - and even more so simple yet ironic texts ad phrases - so the random words that came at the very end of the film were very captivating for me.