May 28, 2006

NYT gaffe of the day: "François Truffaut's 'Breathless.'"

From a pretty interesting article about copyright and the fair use of film clips in documentaries.

ADDED: And I can just hear some fact checker whine, but Truffaut's name is on the IMDB page!

6 comments:

reader_iam said...

Oh. Dear.

I didn't know Godard and Truffaut were one and the same person! Who knew?

Neat trick, that.

reader_iam said...

Maybe the problem is that is the waning existence of fact-checkers, to begin with. Does the NYT still maintain a herd of such animals?

Of course, reporters/editors could double-check just as quickly.

"If it's on the INTERNET it must be true ... ."

Jim Hu said...

It's not like they even had to go elsewhere on the net to check - the link in the article to the NYT movie database shows Godard

Ann Althouse said...

What gets me is that someone who got to write about film in the New York Times didn't know something that belongs on a list of most basic facts in the history of film. You don't know who directed "Breathless," and you're writing professsionally about film? That doesn't make any sense.

reader_iam said...

It sure doesn't!!!

What's scary is that this sort of knowledge lack isn't necessarily confined to movies ... .

VH: Sqism

Heh! Well, now THAT'S a topic that hasn't raised its head on Althouse for a while.

ROTFL (while keeping a careful eye on the intro's of the Indy 500 drivers ... one must keep one's priorities straight)

KaneCitizen said...

Ouch! How painful!

Still, the gist of the article reaffirms for me what a bunch of self-defeating bullshit this whole rights-clearance thing has evolved into. Did you see "Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession" which was mentioned? It's awesome! They had a ton of film clips, and you know what they made me want to do? Go out and buy or rent EVERY MOVIE THEY SHOWED CLIPS FROM. I've already rented about 5 0r 6 that I would not have otherwise rented, and purchased one. For the life of me, I cannot understand why music and film rights-holders are so stubborn about resisting FREE ADVERTISING for their (almost always back-catalog) products!

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