Reappropriated Film Festival

March 9, 2010 12:40 AM

"Charlie Rose" by Samuel Beckett was recently posted in a separate thread, but it's hardly the first example of filmmaking based on reusing footage out of context. Among the more recent examples of the genre are Jandrew Edits (containing footage from Star Trek: the Next Generation) and the Japanese Okusan Domon Desu (and the fourth episode. It may help to have seen the original G Gundam too). It's also been the basis for a couple of feature-length, real-theater-type movies, including Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid and Kung Pow! Enter the Fist (Wiki links), though in those cases, to be fair, they had new footage filmed to tie the bits together. Naturally, the technique tends to lend itself to comedy.
posted by DoctorFedora (13 comments total)

Reminds me of These GI Joe spoof videos that didn't make any sense. Unfortunately the link is dead, but they're probably still floating around the 'net.
posted by delmoi at 12:48 AM on March 9, 2010

Another example, Woody Allen's first film, What's Up, Tiger Lily?
posted by spacely_sprocket at 1:46 AM on March 9, 2010

Détournement, if we're getting all Wiki in here...
posted by bonefish at 1:55 AM on March 9, 2010

There was a scene in one of the Home Alone movies where Macaulay Culkin had a 1940-ish movie playing in his room that tricked a number of hotel staff into fearing for their lives - that they were being attacked by a man with a machine gun.

What laughs!
posted by uncanny hengeman at 4:01 AM on March 9, 2010

I can't believe I researched this. I've never even seen the movies. Maybe just 10-15 minutes here and there.

It was Home Alone 2, and it looks like it was a PRETEND old 1940s movie. The pretend old movie also featured in the original Home Alone on three separate occasions if I’m reading imdb.com correctly.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 4:16 AM on March 9, 2010

or like garfield minus garfield, &c? and i guess space ghost made liberal use of repurposed out-of-context editing... oh and jandrews previously :P

cheers!
posted by kliuless at 4:20 AM on March 9, 2010

What, no Farce of the Pengions? (NSFW)

(see also)
posted by Evilspork at 5:28 AM on March 9, 2010

Space Ghost!
posted by Mid at 5:43 AM on March 9, 2010

Space Ghost! (and Bjork!)
posted by Mid at 5:44 AM on March 9, 2010

don't miss J Tyler Helms' excellent reappropriating music videos:

Arcade Fire - My Body Is A Cage (Once Upon A Time In The West)

Radiohead - All I Need (Microcosmos)

he also did a beautiful edit of scenes from Albert Lamorisse's Le Ballon Rouge to Grizzly Bear's song Two Weeks, but it's sadly been taken down, due to a copyright claim from Iles Films, Montsouris.
posted by progosk at 10:27 AM on March 9, 2010

The long ones tend to get tired after a while. That's why my favorites are trailers like: 10 Things I Hate About Commandments.
posted by storybored at 1:22 PM on March 9, 2010

here's the primer, y'all. [self previously]
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 3:33 PM on March 9, 2010

> Naturally, the technique tends to lend itself to comedy.

...or harshly critical media ethnography in the case of many of the doc/avant-garde examples. (Picturing Oriental Girls, Loose Ends, Night and Fog, Atomic Cafe, The Decay of Ficton, Tribulation 99, etc.)
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 3:38 PM on March 9, 2010 [1 favorite]