The Substantially Similar Weblog

Ray Bradbury·, author of the acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451·, is demanding that Michael Moore· apologize and change the title of his new film·, Farenheit 9/11·, which starts playing this Friday·. Bradbury says he wants to avoid litigation, but it’s not clear he’ll back down unless the film’s title is changed, which strikes me as unlikely.

This is poor judgment on Bradbury’s part. I would be willing to put money on the release of Fahrenheit 9/11 helping sales of the book Fahrenheit 451. I’m not sure what sort of claim Bradbury would make, but I assume it would be under trademark law. I can’t imagine Bradbury demonstrating: (1) that there will be any likelihood of confusion at all as to the source or origin of Moore’s film or (2) damages. Or perhaps it would be a claim for copyright infringement. I’m not aware of any cases where a copyright holder has demonstrated infringement based on similarity of title alone, but I may be mistaken.

This reminds me of the ongoing battle over DJ Dangermouse’s The Grey Album·, in which the Beatles’ record label has shut down distribution of a remix of the White Album. In both cases, a younger generation who may not have been exposed to the earlier work is made aware of it, and is much more likely to purchase copies of the earlier work.

Fundamentally, though, it’s not about money, it’s about control. One of the points John Zorn makes repeatedly in the documentary A Bookshelf On Top Of The Sky is that you can’t control a work of art you’ve created. It’s not really “yours” any more than a child you create is “yours.” You have all these ideas about what you want your child to be and what you want your child to do, but it takes on a life of its own and you just have to let it go. I’m sure, however, that many copyright holders do not entirely share Zorn’s philosophy.

Tonight I saw A Bookshelf On Top Of The Sky: 12 Stories About John Zorn· at the Coolidge Corner Theatre·’s summer jazz program·, an excellent documentary about one of my favorite non-categorizable musicians·.

In the film, Zorn rails against facile attempts by critics to pin him down into a packageable description (“Ornette Coleman meets Klezmer Music”). He talks about people judging with their eyes (“Oh, trumpet, sax, bass, and drums, I know what this is”) rather than their ears, complaining that our culture is far too visually-oriented even when it comes to music.

This film is as much about the filmmaker, Claudia Heuermann, as it is about its subject. Halfway through the making of the film, John Zorn apparently refused to answer the phone or return Heuermann’s calls, and she couldn’t even locate him. So she turned the camera back on herself. But of course this is the case with all documentaries to some degree, it’s just more transparent here. In this sense, A Bookshelf On Top Of The Sky was reminiscent of My Architect· (IMDB link·), the story of the son of legendary architect Louis Kahn and his journey to figure out who his absent father really was. You never find out who Louis Kahn was, but the insight into the character of his filmmaker son Nathaniel is profound.

Zorn did see the final product and approved, although enigmatically. I believe he said something like, “Nothing is changed.”