Homage and Influence in a Digital Age

For this week's blog pertaining to creativity in a digitally driven world, I've decided to place the focus of my argument and my major: filmmaking.

Artists have always cited artists who came before them as a primary influence on their work. For most creatives, they would not be who they are as artistic individuals without the people who sparked their interests in the first place. For filmmakers like D.W. Griffith who are credited for shaping film grammar as we know it today, there was no one to reference as he was forming his own path as a maverick filmmaker. Because he had no one to actively reference or pay homage to, the themes he explored in his films greatly differ from the themes of today's cineastes because of the advent of digital home video.

When the VHS was introduced in the 1980s, budding filmmakers devoured a century's worth of great films effectively changing the way films are created. They introduced a self-reflexive style or  in simpler terms made "films about films."

During Golden Age Hollywood, once first-run films had ended their theatrical runs, they more or less disappeared from the public consciousness, which created serious holes in the film history of the the world's young filmmakers.

Films were created as stand-alone stories where its characters would never speak about other films or have any awareness of the audience. As Digital Media became a valid source to gain information, the idea of "post-modernism" became introduced to both American and International Cinema.

Filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson who spent most of youth with their eyes glued to a television devouring films from every decade exploded onto the independent film scene with films that were both reverent to the mediums history, and cut from a new, organic cloth. Now here's where digital media plays an integral part into this story...

Without the advent of home video, a film like Pulp Fiction, which has come to define the 1990s as far as film culture is concerned, could have never been created. Tarantino's universe with its references to television, movies, music and everything in between can only exist in a world that has embraced digital media as a cultural archive for artists to embrace.

It is highly likely this next generation of filmmakers will surpass Tarantino in his encyclopedic knowledge of film history with the advent of Netflix, which is essentially a one-stop film school for budding auteurs.

We have the ability to play catch up on over a hundred year's worth of great art simply by clicking a few buttons on a Netflix enabled television.

Jonathan Lethem's "The Ecstasy of Influence" recounts a story of how Bob Dylan borrowed a line from a 1958 Don Siegel noir titled, "The Lineup" for his song "Absolutely Sweet Marie." For Dylan's hearing those words had a profound effect on him inspiring him enough to write a song about it. This type of inspiration, which is brought on by other pieces of art is essential to creation. As artists, we need to be constantly aware of other artists because it helps us raise our game.

Thanks to the contributions of digital media, this is now very possible. A simple Google search will give the Dylan song and the scene from the film in one fall swoop. In short, It's an exciting time to live in if you consider how this will shape the grammar and knowledge for the next generation of artists.