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Gray area of plagiarism in cinema: homage, adaptation, quotation, and remake - From the perspective of French films and theories -
Journal of Humanities
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The matter of plagiarism arises from the earliest times of cinema. Thus, Excursion to the Moon (1908), directed by Segundo de Chomón, is actually a "remake" of A Trip to the Moon (1902) shot a few years earlier by the famous Georges Méliès. It is difficult to characterize this Chomón’s film as a tribute to Méliès or as a reinterpretation of Jules Verne’s original book according to Chomón’s own vision. It seems rather to have been produced in order to benefit from the success of Méliès’ work. If one considers from an ethical point of view the inspiration drawn from other artistic works, we are faced with the following question: how to differentiate between inspiration and plagiarism in movie creation? Indeed, from the point of view of traditional aesthetics, the cases of homage, adaptation, quotation or remake are not significantly differentiated from plagiarism. However, one can observe that there is a tendency not to be very sensitive to this question in the world of cinema, with the exception of critics and film-lovers who value the creativity and originality of a cinematographic work. The specific realm of the motion picture industry, which often thinks only in terms of box-office gross, seems to make useless the warnings issued about the act of copying the work of others. Thus, in order to distinguish between such practices, we will consider the various forms of plagiarism that have occurred since the first times of cinema, focusing on some French examples.
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