RE: Films That Reference Other Films: The Difference Between an Homage and a Straight-Up Steal
Nice write up and definitely something worth discussing...
Both Sergei and Sergio didn't live to see these hommage / steals. Apparently, Eisenstein passed away aged 50 and Leone aged 60. Even then, they might be turning around in their graves if they aren't paid credit ( did Leone do so? )
Brian de Palma sure knows his classics. Don't ask me why exactly, but I like his work more than that of Tarantino ( talking about people knowing their classics and copy pasting them into 'their' work ).
I always felt that de Palma paid hommage ( what about Scarface? I love the version by De Palma! ) and Tarantino a little less. Or perhaps there's other reasons why I don't like the work of Quentin T. ( or perhaps Tarantino the person? ) too much. It might be because - back when I studied film - people always asked me 'How I liked Tarantino?' I enjoyed telling them I did not necessarily like his work and often killed the chat haha ( 'film snob' ).
To get back to De Palma, once again, what do you think of Blow-Out? Is it a hommage to Antonioni's Blow-up or more of a steal? :>)
P.S. I always found The Quick and The Dead an a-typical Sam Raimi film. Although he did a lot of superhero stuff my favorite films by him are easily The Evil Dead movies.
See you around :>)
Brian de Palma has forgotten more film history than I'll ever know in my entire life. (This is an American idiom that means a person who knows so much about a subject that they can afford to forget large parts of it and still be considered an expert.) I kind of see him as collage artist, not a thief. He's like the person who cuts out photos from magazines and then pastes them into an original picture that looks totally different from what the photos were meant to depict. In that way, he is better than Tarantino who is just kind of lazy and thinks that audiences won't recognize all the stuff he's ripping off (we do notice!). I need to watch Blow-Up and Blow-Out back-to-back again to answer your question. It's been a long time since seeing both.
The main problem with De Palma is that he gets so caught up in his technical proficiency (technically he's the equal of Kubrick or Hitchcock or Ridley Scott etc.) that he often forgets about scripts, acting, telling a story. He's made a lot of brilliant films and a lot of dogs, which has hurt his reputation. Where as top-tier directors like Kubrick etc. haven't made a lot of dogs. I kinda feel bad about where De Palma's career has ended up in his later years.