(4.5/5)First off, a personal thank-you to director Brett Gaylor and his CC posse for making this documentary and for sending me a copy of it to review and give away (contest is here). I have been in a creative funk for a couple weeks, and this film came at precisely the right moment to awaken something in me that had felt dormant for far too long.
Buzz for Rip! A Remix Manifesto had been making its rounds on the Toronto circuit a few months ago. Unfortunately, I never made it to the showings but on the periphery I got the sense that the documentary was about something I hold very dear to my heart, something that has in part defined the way I engage with culture: the creation and exchange of mixtapes. The word mixtape, as far as I recall, is never uttered in the film, yet the spirit which drove that early peer-to-peer expression permeates this investigation into the culture of mash-ups, remixes, and culture jamming. A mixtape aspires to create something greater than a playlist of songs, the very act of recontextualizing the music brings with it an ability to inject new narrative and mood inflections to the familiar to make something singularly yours. As Lawrence Lessig (founder of Creative Commons) describes it in the film, such an act progresses the conversation with the past so as to make something new, and indeed, there is in part an organic logic to this freedom of expression. The post-Napster boon of mash-up remixes is essentially this same impulse that gave rise to the mixtape phenomenon, where rather than using whole songs as found components to pastiche, the expression is created within the confines of a single song or a single video clip, taking anything and everything in the public domain and even outside of it to evoke a Pop Art for our times.
Gaylor’s documentary is part advocacy for, part celebration of this mash-up culture, a movement that considers the well-being of a culture reliant upon the fair access to the intellectual property of the past in order to build upon it. This, as the titular manifesto states, is what ensures free societies. From the get-go, the film makes it clear this is a culture war, the old versus the new, the resuscitated spirit of dadaists and beatniks, in the form of remixers now emboldened with hitherto unimagined technological resources who seek to jam the cultural milieu of Big Media and overturn the legislation that has granted them the encroaching right to stifle artistic expression. In short, this is a war on Mickey Mouse.
Do not let the subject matter of copyright infringement and the legal ramifications of intellectual property fool you into thinking this to be yet another dry talking heads activist agenda documentary, the message while always prescient, is never didactic; in fact, this is one of the most enjoyable visual aural onslaughts I have had this year. By making a documentary on the issue of copyright infringement imposed by the mash-up culture, the director was allowed the rare privilege of using copious clips from licensed music and video in order to make his argument (a fortunate ‘fair use’ clause that allows Gaylor to have his cake and eat it too). While he paints the bleak realities of those not protected by the ‘fair use’ clause, those deemed pirates irrespective of context and sued for enormous sums of money that do not fit the crimes, he himself (for the most part) gets away with sharing licensed works without paying. The documentary doesn’t so much depict it’s subject as embody it, exploding outward with the energy of a viral video, and in fact, part of the documentary is mashed from the contributions of his open source cinema project.
Observing the evolution of music and all manners of storytelling, RIP! blurs the lines of what it means to infringe on intellectual property, showing how organically music has taken from its past to enrich itself, and how in video, Disney built its empire on the unapologetic reappropriation of the past right down to the mouse himself as a Buster Keaton knock-off in Steamboat Willie. The myth and cult of originality is a relatively recent phenomenon, in tow with the American delusion of the self-made man, and born from this delusion comes an inflated sense of ownership that over time has gained more and more fervor to the detriment of a progressive culture. In Antiquity, the Italian Renaissance and even Elizabethan England, imitation lacked such derogatory implications and was rather a badge of honor. As Rip! explores, its only with the dawn of the 20th century and the corporate instinct to partition off all aspects of life for financial gain that imitation became a bad word.
One of the chief joys of this documentary for me is the discovery of the musician Girl Talk, who intermittently talks and performs throughout the film and serves as one of the cultural heralds spearheading the movement. Armed with a laptop, headband and lots of perspiration, Girl Talk is a maelstrom of energy whose contagious spontaneity in the celebration of mashed music spurs on impromptu raves that rush the stage and even burst onto the streets. Watching him create new music seemingly on the fly as he cuts and pastes appropriated songs into a cacophony of pulsating sound is one of the great joys of the documentary, a joy I can relate to with my mixtapes. Rip! shows the possibilities for this bright future of artistic expression, a new Renaissance not unlike what is happening in Brazil, and with the advances by artists such as Radiohead and Girl Talk, and the rise of Creative Commons and the further democratization of choice in a world set free by the internet rhizome, there is hope. I implore you to seek out this film. Viva the laptop revolution!
* Please Note: later this week there will be a giveaway of a copy of this film, do yourself a favor and stay tuned at Row Three to win.
Check the trailer to get a taste:
Check out Row Three’s interview with the director, Brett Gaylor, some good stuff there.
For samples of Girl Talk’s music and performance go to my post on Morepop here:
Completely agree with the long-term strategy point. Now that J.J. has left the building and I hope all his...
Woohoo! The LOVE!
And check out Dale’s interview with director Brett Gaylor from a few months ago:
http://www.rowthree.com/2008/12/10/after-the-credits-episode-51-interview-rip-a-remix-manifesto-director-brett-gaylor/
cool I look forward to checking out this interview. Have you seen the film yet Marina?
nice interview Dale, I added it to the post proper. I love that he started this film 6 years ago, before there was even a youtube around.
I was lucky enough to follow the progress of the making of RIP while working with filmmaker Brett Gaylor on the Homelass Nation project but was totally blown away to see the finsihed version on the big screen at SXSW – memorized and entertained by this very important manifesto.
we should keep promoting this film, it is the perfect mix of being entertaining, informative and relevant to our times. Why it is not getting more attention boggles my mind.
Watched this over the weekend and was truly blown away by the film. I even made a few of my relatives watch it, which in turn spurned all sorts of enjoyable discussion throughout my trip abroad (Ohio).
My only guess on why this film isn’t garnering more attention is that Hollywood doesn’t like to talk about remixing, as it actively hates such an idea. I’d find it more puzzling if the powers that be were actually pushing the film into the mainstream.
SO I am not going crazy, I am utterly confused how this film is not getting more buzz than it is. I have watched it three times, planning on seeing it a fourth with friends… I think it is this perfect melding of entertainment with an important issue that is often overlooked.
Watch the extras on the disc, good stuff there, the Lawrence Lessig presentation is pretty impressive. I think he talks about Jack Valenti in that presentation, and yeah, that maybe is why there isn’t more garnered attention.
Not to mention I am now a full-on Girl Talk addict.
I watched the extras as well and I agree, they are solid. I’ll be interested to find out what they eventually plan on selling this for, if they plan on selling it at all. A pay what you want kind of setup I think would fit perfectly with the message they are trying to deliver.
Just recently they started selling Rip! as part of the Hot Docs Collection, here: http://www.hotdocs.ca/index.php/audience/youth/the_hot_docs_collection
I don’t see a problem with them selling this dvd in a conventional way, the difference is I suspect they will look the other way if you rip it and share it.
This was absolutely fantastic, but I hate this movie for the new problem of deciding what music doc I liked more is: this or Anvil. Very tough call.
I need to get an mp3 of that Colbert remix
“I need to get an mp3 of that Colbert remix
”
http://www.eclecticmethod.net/the-colbert-report-remix/
well that was easy
still haven’t seen Anvil!
@”still haven’t seen Anvil!”
fail.
@”still haven’t seen Anvil!”
DOUBLE FAIL
Well, RiP (A Remix Manifesto) absolutely lives up to the (ambitious) promise of its Title. Well Done Sirs. Well Done.
The music of all stripes and colours (and folds and contortions) balance well with the concepts and ideas.
I’d put this right next to my copy of “No Logo”, “Shop Craft as Soulcraft,” “In Rainbows,” and “Themetime Radio Hour” as 21st century “MUSTS”.
Nearly a consensus! I am just waiting for Andrew to do a colossal fail of his own in the tradition of Do The Right Thing
More on my opinion of this movie on tomorrow’s Cinecast. But for now, recommended reading:
http://morepop.rowthree.com/2009/01/do-you-torrent-do-you/
This is old news to people who are already fans of Girl Talk, but for newcomers his latest album Feed the Animals is available for pay what you want download here:
http://74.124.198.47/illegal-art.net/__girl__talk___feed__the__anima.ls___/
If you haven’t heard of him, just try it out anyways, it is addictive to listen to.
His music is ditty-licious and catchy as hell. But I think half of the fun is trying to spot all the pop music references. If you’re not an avid music listener you’re going to miss a lot of the winks. Which might prompt a lot of people to not really get it – or at the very least not be too interested.
I like the mix of Avril Lavigne’s Since You Were Gone with Nine Inch Nail’s Wish. One of the more obvious ones, but still good.
I have also been listening to Girl Talk more often since RiP.
I have to say though, sometimes I wish he’d do some full tracks of more obscure music, and do more tracks where he’s keeping the rap beat and using the rock vocals, because its usually the other way around.
I actually enjoy most the rap lyrics he uses, there is some great and hilarious wordsmithin’ that I would otherwise not be exposed to.
I agree with Andrew that Night Ripper is the better album, its hard to articulate why exactly, but I feel more in awe of the mixing he is doing there. Although Animals has some stand-out numbers, I particularly like Here’s the Thing, and its ending refrain of ‘Freedom’.
I posted this and a couple of other tracks for streaming on Morepop here:
http://morepop.rowthree.com/2009/07/girl-talk/
have you bothered to look up any of his pre-Night Ripper stuff, such as Unstoppable?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bqmIHy5w28
This is one of my favorite mashups of all time. A basic two song mashup of songs that thematically fit together very well. I think it makes both songs better.
This RiP thing in subverting video form (ala the Darth Vader harmonica thing) is something I’d been involved with heavily for a couple years on YTMND. I was one of the most well known users there. It’s a user-content driven site which means most of it is shit, and quite low brow. I’d share it with certain people but probably only over email. One of my pieces there got talked about in the New York Times, another was a big hit on Perez Hilton’s site. YTMND has been sued/threatened numerous times by countless people, probably most notoriously by the Church of Scientology.
I haven’t checked out Unstoppable yet but I think Andrew has.
I can’t really get into that mash-up because I just do not like that Beastie Boys track, but I do hear the mastery of the mash-up.
In this culture, the skills should be less important than the effects… the old world culture was one of self-made men with untouchable talents, shrouded in this mythic originality, and its all baloney. I mean it had its time as a narrative, I certainly still see Michelangelo in that glow, but by this time in our history is feels so backwards.
The mash-up culture builds upon the Dadaists, the beatniks, grunge, this culture of the individual expressing themselves directly without needing to go through the establishment to be deemed important. I still think even the mere selection of passages put side by side to make something new (which is no different than a mixtape in reality) is a new expression, the effects of the words are more significant than the effort.
effort needs to be replaced by sincerity as the motivating and celebratory virtue of a creative act.
I just finished reading Grapes of Wrath and it was really tedious… but I am told it is a great piece of literature, largely due to the effort employed (as told to me through the introduction). However I watched Ford’s film first, and it to me is a better version of that story, and arguably there is less effort to that film because it borrowed from an original source… should that matter? Should it matter that it was a film and not a book, is one medium inferior to another? To judge by effort is to judge by status quo, its to deal in hypothetical values.
correction, the freedom refrain is at the end of Shut the Club Down, not Here’s The Thing, both are solid tracks though, and both are at Morepop for your listening pleasure.
http://morepop.rowthree.com/2009/07/girl-talk/
I personally prefer Night Ripper to Unstoppable – though I like them both. NR seems to flow just a little bit better. It’s as if he’s learning from himself and just improving slightly as he does more experimenting. I also like how NR is just basically one long track. With clear ebbs, flows and landmarks, but still just one 70 minute tune. Unstoppable is cut up into clear tracks. Which is fine I just happen to prefer the other a bit more.
apparently the Canadian Government wants to hear from you about how our copyright laws should be amended. There are several ways to have your voice heard, including town meetings, Toronto is this month:
http://artthreat.net/2009/07/copyright-consultations-schedule-announced/
charming post. simply one unimportant where I contest with it. I am emailing you in detail.
and while I am at it, VANCOUVER date:
RIP! A REMIX MANIFESTO
- BC Civil Liberties Festival, VANCOUVER, BC (Nov. 18)