Screening Critique

For my lecture screening I chose to do Brett Gaylor’s Rip! A Remix Manifesto. Going into the film I had no idea what to expect, I didn’t even know what it was about in the slightest, no genre, no actors, nothing. So my expectations were non-existent. To be honest when I first began watching the movie I was quite shocked. Knowing that this film was approved as a movie that our class could critique I was confused as to why. I thought it would be all about art and techniques and things along that nature, but watching the film made me realize that there are existent problems with our world and the limits they put onto art, and more importantly, artist’s ability to create art. I had no idea about almost any of that information about copyrighting that the film portrayed. I remember once hearing about the illegal downloading of songs, but I never thought that people were actually prosectuted and hunted down by these major corporations. I thought the film was beautifully done, as the overall point and evidence was extremely clear. I thought it was a huge success especially for the purpose of the movie. From the very beginning the viewer sees the intentions of the film-makers, which I thought was key. The irector gets right to the point and does so successfully with vivid and crucial evidence to support his claim. My favorite part of the film was the Disney aspect. How Disney got so many of its ideas from things in the past and his now copyrighting them to no end so no one else can profit off of the artwork created in our century. The director proved to me that we are spiraling downwards in our culture and our art, music, etc. Copyright laws are killing the modern day artist. When the movie was over I enjoyed it so much that I emailed the director and thanked him for doing what he is. I think copyright laws are an extremely touchy subject and by showing the viewer different countries, and important and powerful people, it truly got me thinking of how big of a problem this truly is and that there is something that we all can do to stop this. I thought the evidence supporting was its best overall feature, along with interviews, opinions, but most of all, factual evidence. In all, I thought the movie was beautifully done and well constructed. Hats-off to the entire crew.