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May 1993

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Subject:
From:
Benjamin Leontief Alpers <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Fri, 28 May 1993 12:05:28 EDT
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Jeremy,
 
Your description of the Ren and Stimpy hommage to _The Searchers_ brought
two thoughts to mind (utterly unrelated to each other, but both related
to your post):
 
1) I just saw _The Searchers_ at the NY Public Theater (on a big screen . . .
it was magnificent!), and was struck by the same line about raising pigs.
It made me think about the opening of _Unforgiven_ . . . do you think
having Munney (Clint Eastwood) farming pigs as his post-gunfighter
job was a reference to Lars Jorgensen's line?
 
2) Hommage, comment, or theft?: I recently read _This Is Orson Welles_,
the book of interviews with Welles done by Peter Bodganovich in the early
1970s and just published last year [plug:  it is a wonderful read and
fascinating if you are at all interested in Welles].  During the discussion
of the Welles film _Mr. Arkadin_ (which I have never had the opportunity to
see but which has just been released on video, I think), the conversation
turned to a story which the character of Arkadin (Welles) tells over dinner.
The story (which Bogdanovich quotes from the film) was very familiar:  it was
the frog and the scorpion, which we all know now from _The Crying Game_, which
may even have lifted it word for word from Welles' script for the initial
telling by Stephen Raye to Forrest Whittaker.  All of which suggests hommage,
not theft, but why?  As I said, I haven't seen _Arkadin_, but from what I
know of the movie, I don't really see any thematic resemblance to
_The Crying Game_ (unless one wishes to see "desire to hide one's past" as a
theme of both, but that seems a little broad).  Any ideas why Jordan chose to
lift this story?  Has he discussed _Mr. Arkadin_ in any interviews or articles?
 
-- Ben Alpers
   Princeton University

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