As if ruining your childhood with movies like 'Transformers' and 'Indiana Jones And The Crystal Skull' wasn't enough, Shia LaBeouf has just given you another reason to dislike him — it turns out he's a hardcore plagiarist.
LaBeouf's short film, 'HowardCantour.com', was made available online today after generating acclaim with a string of festival showings. It soon became password-protected when canny viewers noticed that the short was lifted wholesale from 'Justin M. Damiano', a 2007 comic by 'Ghost World' creator Dan Clowes. (Who knew there was a Venn diagram where fans of Shia LaBeouf and Dan Clowes overlapped?)
Now, when we say 'plagiarised', we don't mean that LaBeouf pinched the bare bones of the plot and went on his way — we mean that LaBeouf lifted large sections of the script, word-for-word, and placed them in his film without credit.
Both the film and the comic open with exactly the same monologue: "A critic is a warrior, and each of us on the battlefield have the means to glorify or demolish (whether a film, a career, or an entire philosophy) by influencing perception in ways that if heartfelt and truthful, can have far-reaching repercussions."
In both the film and the comic, this is followed by a scene wherein a critic that our narrator dislikes discusses a junket where a film director will be present.
In Clowes' story, the critic says the director "so perfectly gets how we're really all like these aliens who can never have any meaningful contact with each other because we're all so caught up in our own little self-made realities, you know?"
In LaBeouf's film, the critic says the director "so perfectly gets how we're all like these aliens to one another, who never have any meaningful contact with one another because we're all so caught up in our little self-made realities, you know?"
Much of the other dialogue throughout the short is lifted from the Clowes comic — for the most part, only the names have been changed. And yet Clowes is absent from the credits, which boast that 'HowardCantour.com' is "A Film By Shia LaBeouf".
LaBeouf — who was once caught plagiarising a letter of apology to Alec Baldwin — has yet to respond to the latest accusations, but has previously discussed the genesis of the short with Short Of The Week. "I have been crushed by critics (especially during my 'Transformers' run), and in trying to come to terms with my feelings about critics, I needed to understand them," he told the site. "As I tried to empathise with the sort of man who might earn a living taking potshots at me and the people I've worked with, a small script developed."
Daniel Clowes told Buzzfeed that he's never spoken to LaBeouf, and described the film as "shameless theft".
"The first I ever heard of the film was this morning when someone sent me a link," Clowes said. "I've never spoken to or met Mr LaBeouf. I've never even seen one of his films that I can recall — and I was shocked, to say the least, when I saw that he took the script and even many of the visuals from a very personal story I did six or seven years ago and passed it off as his own work. I actually can't imagine what was going through his mind."
Clowes' publisher, Eric Reynolds (of Fantagraphics), told Wired that he was equally shocked when he saw the short.
"My first reaction, before I ever watched it, was basically that as much as the plot sounded like 'Justin M. Damiano', I presumed that LaBeouf would be smart enough to change everything just enough to make it his own thing and shield himself from any legal liability, even if it didn't excuse him from being a weasel. Which is why, when I actually started watching it, I almost spit out my coffee when I realised he lifted the script, word for word.
"The more I think about this, the more I'm fairly convinced that LaBeouf at least subconsciously knew what he was doing. He never completely claims ownership of the script, as near as I can tell; the credits conspicuously do NOT credit a screenwriter or source material, stating simply, 'A Film By Shia LaBeouf'. When you look at that, coupled with the quote he gave Short Of The Week about how details in his own life informed the script, it's clear he's trying to claim authorship without ever stating outright, 'I wrote this!'
"Which makes it even more egregiously shameless, in my mind."
(Via Wired, Comics Alliance)
