Sunday, September 04, 2005

movie quotes in music

i just recently 'acquired' an album by dj shadow, a very prominent figure in american cutups. the reason i got this was due solely to track 5 on cd2- stem (cops and robbers mix) which contains a lot of voice overs from the film heat 1995 (dir michael mann) mixed over one of shadows earlier tracks. naturally this can pose a lot of questions on copyright boundaries, but since not a lot has been developed on that front recently, ill stick to the content. The original track resembles the sound of say, moby. It’s a slow melancholic synthesizer which very nicely underscores the content of the dialogue, which is sequenced in an order different to the way it plays out in the film, but creates its own separate unified narrative. The fact that I got the song attributes to the power of the franchise, but like the che Guevara picture in the news today, it means something slightly more that the hard drive its saved on. In my opinion, a good reproduction using the quotes can extend the film’s message and the social circulation of its themes. On the other hand it can be used for dissent, as in the negativland example in class (the u2 one) or parody like weird al yankovic. As long as we have equal access to create and receive all stems of the spectrum, I have no quarrels with the idea of ripping movie quotes into songs. I can only hope that there are more talented people who like the movies that I like, but hey, what can you do?

I am also interested in other peoples recommendations for this kind of stuff- movie quotes cut into or rather, stitched seamlessly into songs. the last track on the fight club soundtrack is another very good example.
so- anyone with any suggestions- hook me up. obviously i only like good movies but hey its a big world so hit me with anything you got, and im not talking negativland cubist distorted static stuff, im thinking more like moby or dj shadow.

marc t

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