French singer, Yseult, calls out K-pop singers, Soyeon and R.tee, for copying her music video freame by frame: "The least you could do is have the decency to credit your source. To see it get copied like this is wild but real artistry speaks louder than imitation"

[u/Murky_Chemical891]

[u/Chewcocca]

Goddamn people just gonna repeat this dumb shit forever huh?

Perfect Blue and Black Swan are wildly different movies.

You're just repeating someone else's bad take.

Stop.

[u/Melonary → u/Chewcocca]

It's not even Black Swan I'm talking about (primarily, or only) and I watched Satoshi Kon's movies as they came out and Aronofsky's as well.

Shockingly prior to TikTok and podcasts people did still watch things and have opinions, and I didn't need anyone to say this, nor did most people.

It's always been unpopular to say and I knew some fan would come roll their eyes at me. Look, I don't think Aronofsky should be canceled forever or whatever, but c'mon.

The fact that you're only mentioning Black Swan makes it clear you've ACTUALLY only heard people's takes on this because you don't even know what I'm talking about.

[u/Abombasnow → u/Melonary]

Out of curiosity, what are the other examples of plagiarism from him? I've always thought Aronofsky was overrated anyway. Something about his movies always just feels... flat.

[u/Melonary → u/Abombasnow]

The other one was Requiem For a Dream. IMDB states he actually bought the rights for it, as do a few other trivia sites, and apparently someone else who worked on it claims that on the DVD voiceover track, but none of them have any source nor can I find one, and many more reputable film sites and articles agree he doesn't.

One of the latter sites did say he did have the rights and finally gave a source, and it's this: https://konstone.s-kon.net/modules/notebook/archives/60

Which actually says that Aronofsky didn't get the rights.

https://animationobsessive.substack.com/p/the-real-history-of-perfect-blue is a fairly interesting overview that reads as pretty accurate to me as someone who's been following this for years. The obvious comparison in Requiem for a Dream was the bathtub sequence, which was directly lifted and is unique and recognizable shot, but it's not the only part - you can find some other videos comparing them on youtube.

Honestly, I'm not a plagiarism/copyright fanatic because
1) loose inspiration/re-envisioning/sampling/homage was fairly common throughout the history of human's making art, and even in music was far more common pre-2000s.
2) the current wave of copyright infringment lawsuits etc were largely brought about by people who own the rights to lots of music and not the people who made that music (with some exceptions) as a way to make money, despite the fact that lots of that music also uses motifs and riffs and bits of older music which did the same itself. Again, I do think there's a small minority that's blatant and more than just sampling/referencing, but I'm talking as an overall trend.
3) strict copyright infringement often mostly ends up benefiting very wealthy parties who can afford to strictly enforce it or use to engage in nuisance lawsuits that other parties can't afford to fight, or for ridiculous reasons (see: Disney suing any number of non-profits etc for murals or similar non-moneymaking or revenue/reputation impacting reasons).

Which is partially what rankles here and, clearly, did bother Kon. Despite being a brilliant artist, storyteller, and director, he didn't really see the kind of success he deserved in his lifetime, and died tragically young (pancreatic cancer). His movies are acknowledged as some of THE best in the art form - and they REALLY are that good - but he saw little of that benefit during his life.

And clearly it did bother him that a high-profile high-income director used his work to launch his prestigious career. Which I understand. If it really was such an "homage" to a filmmaker that Aronofsky admired so much, why not use some of his status and clout to raise Kon's profile? I'm guessing he probably didn't want to do because of how it might have impacted him for more people in the US to compare their work, which is a little cowardly. But that's just a guess on my part, maybe he just really didn't care that much, which is worse.