T.S. Eliot: Tradition and Individual Talent

T.S. Eliot believed that a poet's significance is measured in relation to dead poets and artists. This is true. When a new grunge-type band comes along, magazines will compare them to Nirvana. When a band emerges that seems to break new ground and becomes an overnight worldwide sensation, they're compared to the Beatles. But that's not exactly what Eliot was getting at. He believed that tradition may indeed define the contemporary, but that the contemporary changes the essence of tradition that itself owns. Apparently Hollywood has lost its originality because lately all they've been spitting out is remakes. Bewitched, superhero movies, 21 Jump Street, all those awful horror movies that Rob Zombie feels compelled to direct, et cetera, et cetera, ET CETERA.

For example, let's compare The Shop Around the Corner, the 1940 movie starring James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan, and 1998's You've Got Mail starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.

 

The Shop Around the Corner is about two coworkers at a small shop who can't stand each other but are falling in love with each other through the mail, as each other's pen pals. The girl, of course, has no idea who her pen pal is but is falling harder for him with each stroke of the pen while the ever-suave and most romantic Jimmy Stewart finds out that he's fallen for his hated coworker. In You've Got Mail it's pretty much the same except Kathleen Kelley (it's so nice to hear Tom Hanks say my name!) and Joe Fox are rival bookstore owners. They have been communicating via e-mail and Joe finds out that Kathleen is his e-mail friend. It's a perfect movie. The point is, though, that You've Got Mail takes a very familiar storyline from a classic movie made 50 years before and puts a modern twist on it by using e-mail instead of snail mail. Defined by tradition, yes. Modern twist, yes. 

 

And as much as I HATE Across the Universe, I can't help but love what they did to "She's So Heavy." Across the Universe took Beatles' songs from yesteryears and put them in a context relevant to when the Beatles were writing and performing them, transforming the world's youth from a "Leave It to Beaver" kind of perfect to rebels who wouldn't hesitate to "stick it to the man" but they also re-recorded all the songs and had the actors sing them and they messed with the instruments. All in all a very individual move using one of the most prolific bands in the history of music.