The Sincerest Form of Flattery

You know what they say about imitation... well, here are three movie scenes that kind of prove the point. The first is from the classic Jean Luc Godard film Band of Outsiders from 1964. The actors are Anna Karina, Sami Frey and Clause Brasseur. The film was not a musical, just included this neat musical moment:



In 1992, Hal Hartley did his variation of the communal dance in his film, Simple Men (definitely worth seeing if you are looking for something to rent), and I think you can see some similarities. The dancers here are Elina Lowensohn, Bill Sage, Martin Donovan, Robert Burke and Karen Sillas:



Last, here's the famous dance scene from Quentin Taratino's Pulp Fiction (1994), with Uma Thurman and John Travolta. Actually, the scene following this one, where Uma dances solo to a tape of Urge Overkill doing "Kentucky Woman" (which I couldn't find a clip of) makes the connection to the Hartley film even more pronounced as she mirrors some of Lowensohn's moves in that sequence. But this is close too:



The point I want to make here is that great artists inevitably borrow from one another, and there's nothing wrong with that as long as the borrowings are relevant to the work as a whole (as is certainly true with Simple Men and Pulp Fiction, and Band of Outsiders too, though I'm not sure where to look for its particular antecedent). I remember noting the nod to Simple Men in Pulp Fiction, but only later discovered the Godard film. Personally, I find the continuity suggested by these links fascinating and appreciate that one generation is paying tribute to their creative ancestors. This is more obvious, I think, in music, but clearly is a factor in all artistic endeavors.