Great Artists Steal (Part Two)

I know that everything good has been done before. I know that. But just like how internet advertisements seemingly know what you’ve been thinking about buying before you even search for it, it seems like when I’ve been sitting on a writing idea for too long someone else just sweeps it away and means that if I do end up using it, it looks like I’m inspired by something I probably wasn’t at best and plagiarizing at worst.

For example, I’ve been interested in Prospero’s final monolog in The Tempest since I saw it performed. I wasn’t sure where I was going to use it (I don’t generally write about plays from the inside (a “don’t write what you don’t know about situation)), but I did keep it around as something to consider. Though now that Lady Bird’s out, with Lucas Hedges’ interpretation appearing as a turning point in the movie, that enthusiasm has died a little.

Similarly, I had at least a semblance of an outline involving a film about the creation of a film (because I like meta stuff like that (I know what I said last week and I meant it)), but it turns out a film called Madeline’s Madeline just premiered at Sundance this year that in interviews the director describes as an interpretation of her own process of filmmaking. So it’s a bit more subtle, but it’s definitely there. And if that doesn’t count, there’s also Synecdoche, New York.

I wouldn’t be as upset (to be clear, I’m not that upset) if they weren’t all really good movies. Which means these ideas haven’t just been done, they’ve been done well. I can’t even justify keeping these ideas trying to do better. I mean, I can, but it feels like I’m lying to myself when I say that.

But on the other hand, I feel like I’m selling myself short a little too. Like, this sort of thinking surely isn’t the sort of confident thinking that gets ideas onto paper, right? Because the alternative is looking at these movies and thinking “I totally could have done that” and not doing anything about it. And that’s a stagnant style of living that I’ve been trying to avoid by, for example, starting this blog. Or writing regularly, at least. What I should be doing is treating these as inspiration. Maybe it will be better, maybe it won’t. But it’ll definitely still be my idea.

-F

Here's an interesting blog about Japan: https://ohiomiyazaki.blogspot.com/