About Allusion

Assuming that most everyone that is reading this post has taken a basic high school english class, I think it's safe to assume we all know what a literary allusion is. Assuming even further that we've all had the unique experience of reading Fahrenheit 451 or That other one about "Big Brother", I think we can all agree that it's a common technic even in the most intellectual literature. So, why is it that when we see a movie with cinematic allusions we condemn it as Lacking Creativity or even Stealing? The most prevalent example that comes to my mind is the similarities between the curious Twin Peeks and gritty The Killing.

This example only comes to mind because I watched the first season of The Killing yesterday and now I'm watching Twin Peeks. The myriad of comparisons lends itself to the simple fact that they are both TV murder mysteries (e.g. the victim is a girl who is first thought missing then found near/in a body of water). But, here and there you'll find indisputable allusions to the Older of the two. The most famous is the scenes where the mother and father find out their child is dead. They are almost exactly the same, and I don't mind telling you that I think The Killing did it better.

But, that's beside the point. I want to know why people can't respect the decision to make such allusions. After all, it has to take some amount of creativity to recognize the similarity in the first place and be able to work it into your script.

The great thing about an allusion is that it can be anything; a Location like Pizza Planet which is in just about every Pixar movie; a Character like Psych's very own Detective Carlton Lassiter who is almost certainly an allusion to Twin Peek's Special Agent Dale Cooper; whole cinematic sequences have been copped from films like the Battleship Potemkin.

It seems to me that one would have to be a bit pretentious to dismiss these types of allusions. First, as far as I can tell, they usually go completely unscathed before someone points them out to the world. Second, there are many other forms of allusions that we would never think to label as Stealing like hip hop sampling or memes. 

The attack on cinematic allusion is ridiculous and needs to stop. It's like the people making these attacks  haven't even considered that is might have been an allusion at all. But, that's not possible because no one is that stupid......

That being said, what do you think about filmmakers copying from other movies? Is it cheating, stealing, or laziness? OR, is it an attempt to bring people's attention to the classics, an opportunity to thank those who have inspired us to make films in the first place?

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to find out who killed Rosie Larson.... I mean Paula Merral... I mean Laura Palmer! Sheesh.

Think about it,

Dan Hatton