The idea of a Webspinna Battle was so foreign to me at first that I really had no concept of how to begin. After some time, it became evident that my ignorance was perhaps not only exclusive to me, but beneficial in my coming up with a unique approach to the medium.
Admittedly, my work tends to consistently fall on the topic of film, which is neither bad nor good. Or maybe it is both. But as far as poaching is concerned, there is likely nothing I know better other than music. However, if I have learned anything in school, it is that there is so much out there to read, see, and hear, that I will never know it all.
Jonathan Lethem's article titled, "The Ecstasy of Influence" perfectly describes this process of endless searching. There is so much to know, and we will never know it all. He describes how he has hunted for sources for hours only to find that a finite source can never really be found. Which makes this assignment a very appropriate follow-up to the textual poaching of last week. Everything has meaning because of what has preceded it. And that which is to come will only re-contextualize and revitalize what has already been done. Perhaps there is something archetypal about a person being born, living, asking questions, and then dying. Then someone else doing the same thing in a different age, asking the same questions, then accomplishes something that seems totally new to her contemporaries. But really, there is very little revolutionary thought, and mostly a lot of translation of the old into new.
Ben and I decided to do silent cinema vs. sound cinema. Really, contention shouldn't exist between the two types, but the battle perhaps illustrates the fact that they would be formidable one to another should some sort of argument arise. Frankly, for the purpose of humor mostly, we contrasted the sound effects of modern cinema with the would-be equivalents of folley sound of the silent era. In other words, a "boing" would be comparable with a punch sound. One seems pretty innocent, while the other seems to hurt more, and when contrasted, the difference is laughable.
Did God really create anything anyway? The word "create" means to organize. So, taking the liberty of using our own religious vernacular, intelligences always existed. God merely organized them into spirits. The materials which make up our planet and universe are likewise eternal. But Jehovah organized those as well into what we know now. So God basically remixed, or re-contextualized existence as we know it!
The question remains, has the advent of sound caused us to consider different issues or weightier subjects in cinema? Or was and is silent film just as vital to our vocabulary? When a film like Yoyo by Pierre Étaix is watched, what do you call it? It starts as a "silent film," which transforms into a full-fledged talkie, and by itself feels like a remix. But the film tastes like a parallel, in which the father and the son live in the same mansion, which mansion damns the son to the same loneliness experienced by the father at the beginning of the film. In the end, only the liberation of family and poverty really free either of them. So we, and the film, come full circle. The Webspinna, the poaching, and the remix combine the validity of the old and the new, into one conversation. That which the father lived, so shall the son.
Maybe Malachi was on to something.
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