The Ecstasy of Influence

In producing a film, you often hear the director state their desire to create something "never seen before" or "unlike anything else". When people think about these words coming from the mouth of the creative visionary behind the work of art they are watching, they think, "Of course!". We view the world of art and artists as an inherently original and creative world breaking free from the status quo. But, is this idea of unique creation true?

Jonathan Lethem's article The ecstasy of influence: A plagiarism presents an incredibly interesting way to look at artistic and cultural exchange in the world. It runs dangerously close to defaming a lot of big entertainment business practices and copyright protection. Lethem illuminates that artist as a champion borrower of cultural and influence (what romantics like to call inspiration). He states,

"Kenneth Koch once said, “I'm a writer who likes to be influenced.” It was a charming confession, and a rare one. For so many artists, the act of creativity is intended as a Napoleonic imposition of one's uniqueness upon the universe—après moi le déluge of copycats! And for every James Joyce or Woody Guthrie or Martin Luther King Jr., or Walt Disney, who gathered a constellation of voices in his work, there may seem to be some corporation or literary estate eager to stopper the bottle: cultural debts flow in, but they don't flow out. We might call this tendency “source hypocrisy.”

The influence of another part of culture is not something to be feared or denied, but embraced by the artist. This sort of outlook on content creation is incredibly liberating to the artistic community at large. Artists must draw from the world around them, reshaping and creating anew in the process. The production of a great film does not come through the reinvention of the wheel, but through the streamlining of the design and fresh presentation. We, as artists, must not fear the source of our ideas!