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Rust monologues in True Detective allegedly lifted from obscure author

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P

pj

Banned
Pretty thorough article and video with examples here.

The author is Thomas Ligotti and apparently earlier drafts of the screenplays were even more blatant than the final show.

A couple examples:
UGKDRcP.jpg



It's lacking the slam-dunkness I'd like for an "ohhhh, GOTCHA" situation, but there are a lot of very strong similarities.
 
S

SirShandy

Member
None of these ideas are new though, and repeating some of these words is bound to happen when you're reiterating the same ideology.

They're just extensions of existentialism, repackaged in a more mainstream voice. There is very little case here for plagiarism.
 
T

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
This is loose enough that I could buy the writer read the work like a decade ago and the phrases sprang to mind when he was trying to articulate that scene
 
S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
... but Nic Pizzolatto was open about taking inspiration from Ligotti

Here he is in February:
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2014...otti-and-the-weird-secrets-of-true-detective/

Speakeasy: If you could recommend any single work of weird fiction and/or horror to people, what would it be?

Pizzolatto: That’s tough — on the one hand I want to name one of the blue-chip classics, and on the other I’d like to give an endorsement to people who may not usually get enough attention. I mean, I’d suggest Lovecraft or Poe, but everybody knows them already. More recently, I’d point people in the direction of Thomas Ligotti, Laird Barron, John Langan, Simon Strantzas and others. For fans of the show who’d like to see what contemporary voices have done with Chambers’ “King in Yellow,” I’d point them toward Karl Edward Wagner’s short story “The River of Night’s Dreaming” or the recent anthology “A Season in Carcosa.”

When did you first hear of and read Ligotti?

I first heard of Ligotti maybe six years ago, when Laird Barron’s first collection alerted me to this whole world of new weird fiction that I hadn’t known existed. I started looking around for the best contemporary stuff to read, and in any discussion of that kind, the name “Ligotti” comes up first. I couldn’t find any of his books in print, and their used prices were prohibitive for me at the time. But I located a couple at libraries, and his nightmare lyricism was enthralling and visionary.

What work of his do you find the most influential? Are you more attracted to his fiction or his nonfictional writing? Have you read his nonfiction book, “The Conspiracy Against the Human Race”?

I read “The Conspiracy Against the Human Race” and found it incredibly powerful writing. For me as a reader, it was less impactful as philosophy than as one writer’s ultimate confessional: an absolute horror story, where the self is the monster. In episode one [of "True Detective"] there are two lines in particular (and it would have been nothing to re-word them) that were specifically phrased in such a way as to signal Ligotti admirers. Which, of course, you got.

The philosophy Cohle promotes in the show’s earliest episodes is a kind of anti-natalist nihilism, and in that regard all cats should be unbagged: “Confessions of an Antinatalist,” “Nihil Unbound,” “In the Dust of this Planet,” “Better to Have Never Been,” and lots of Cioran were all on the reading list. This is before I came out to Hollywood, but I knew that in my next work I would have a detective who was (or thought he was) a nihilist. I’d already been reading E.M. Cioran for years and consider him one of my all-time favorite and, oddly, most nourishing writers. As an aphorist, Cioran has no rivals other than perhaps Nietzsche, and many of his philosophies are echoed by Ligotti. But Ligotti is far more disturbing than Cioran, who is actually very funny. In exploring these philosophies, nobody I’ve read has expressed the idea of humanity as aberration more powerfully than Cioran and Ligotti.
Click to expand...

In January:
Some readers seem surprised that you didn't mention Ligotti as a direct influence on Cohle, and some were of the opinion you were simply being coy about it. Are you a reader of Ligotti? How influential has his writing been on not only Cohle, but on the series as a whole?

Nic: The work and vision of Thomas Ligotti was very influential for imagining Cohle's overall worldview. I've tried to avoid discussion of Cohle's philosophies because the truth is, the audience cannot yet see the totality of Cohle's character or the story being told. His relationship to the philosophies he espouses in the first three episodes don't encapsulate the entirety of his character. For instance, Cohle can't be a nihilist-- he cares too much; he's too passionate; he yearns too much (so, in his way, he deludes himself as much as Marty does). Who he ultimately is, is not yet clear. Right now, I hope its difficult to tell whose side the writer is on, and I think that's the way it should be. And this might be paranoid, but this early on in the run, I really didn't want people accusing us of pushing some antinatalist or nihilistic agenda: the show's true agenda, and its relationship to those philosophies, won't be clear until the 8th episode finishes. At which point, if anybody still cared, I was hoping to get to discuss these things. Anyhow: there was a clear line to me from Chambers to Lovecraft to Ligotti, and their fictional visions of cosmic despair were articulating the same things as certain nihilist and pessimist philosophers, but with more poetry and art and vision. And then I found that this level of bleakness went arm-in-arm with the genre of noir, and that aspects of the weird fiction I loved could be used to puncture and punctuate aspects of the noir genre that I loved. I mean, what could be harder, more unforgivingly noir than Thomas Ligotti's vision of what the human race is? But I suppose I've been overly wary of having people define Cohle solely based on the philosophy he espouses in the first three episodes, because the truth is that the whole of his character and his journey is much more complex than that. Having said that, if this leads people to discover and explore Ligotti's work, then I'll be very happy. And for the record; I don't personally share those philosophies, but one of the reasons Ligotti is an important literary writer is because it's important for us to confront the potential of the true abyss, its possibility, and I can't really think of a contemporary writer who can define that abyss as well as Ligotti.
Click to expand...

How would this be plagiarism?
 
B

blainethemono

Member
"And I asked myself if Nic Pizzolatto had given Thomas Ligotti “due acknowledgement”. Unfortunately, there appear to be only two instances where Pizzolatto has mentioned Ligotti at all. Worse, to date Pizzolatto has only acknowledged Ligotti when he is directly asked about him — in other words, when he has no choice. On the DVD commentary, there is not one word about Thomas Ligotti. Pizzolatto mentions that Matthew McConaughey’s character sometimes borrows philosophical ideas from Nietzche, the 19th century German philosopher, but there is no mention of Ligotti."
Click to expand...



Writer Nic Pizzolatto on Thomas Ligotti and the Weird Secrets of ‘True Detective’


Speakeasy: If you could recommend any single work of weird fiction and/or horror to people, what would it be?

Pizzolatto: That’s tough — on the one hand I want to name one of the blue-chip classics, and on the other I’d like to give an endorsement to people who may not usually get enough attention. I mean, I’d suggest Lovecraft or Poe, but everybody knows them already. More recently, I’d point people in the direction of Thomas Ligotti, Laird Barron, John Langan, Simon Strantzas and others. For fans of the show who’d like to see what contemporary voices have done with Chambers’ “King in Yellow,” I’d point them toward Karl Edward Wagner’s short story “The River of Night’s Dreaming” or the recent anthology “A Season in Carcosa.”
Click to expand...

Those quotes from the show do seem like they're cutting it a little close though
 
V

voodoopanda

Member
Thomas Ligotti is a writer of Lovecraft-style stories, and True Detectives was full of Lovecraft stuff. Lovecraftian writers obviously influenced the show greatly.
 
F

Foggy

Member
Yeah I'm not buying it. I wrote a comic book story back in high school that ripped off the coffin gag from Django and I had no idea until I was in my 20's. Sometimes weird shit happens and when the backbone of the dialogue is established philosophy then it's even easier for there to be striking similarities. The similarities just aren't compelling enough for me
 
P

pj

Banned
I won't be mad that nobody is reading the article because I always do the same..


MD: But isn’t it true that Pizzolatto acknowledged Ligotti’s influence on True Detective and praised his work?

JP: In the many interviews Pizzolatto gave in the lead up to episode three, the show’s influences were discussed by the show’s creator at great length. You know who wasn’t mentioned by Pizzolatto until days after episode three aired? Ligotti.

MD: But in this Wall Street Journal interview, Pizzolatto does talk at length about Ligotti’s influence on the show.

JP: Only under pressure. Here’s /what was happening behind the scenes: WSJ reporter Michael Calia and I (and plenty of other Ligotti readers) had already noticed that Rust Cohle’s monologues and other dialogue were peculiarly Ligottian (his prose is very distinctive). In an interview with the True Detective creator, Arkham Digest editor Justin Steele even brought up Cohle’s “Ligottian wordview”, and I was frustrated when Pizzolatto evaded his question,
Click to expand...
 
Z

Zeliard

Member
It's pretty classic existentialist philosophy in general, and there's no question Pizzolatto borrowed some of it from Ligotti and others, but he's been more upfront about than the writers of this article are willing to offer him. It's kind of silly to say that Pizzolatto has only admitted Ligotti's direct influence when he's been "pressured" to. Kind of hard to create a case for plagiarism when the author gives attribution.
 
W

WyndhamPrice

Member
Well everyone already beat me to it but Pizzolatto has openly talked about Ligotti's influence so this is more homage than anything else. It'd be like saying Ligotti was plagiarizing Lovecraft when really they're just expanding on the same themes.
 
A

Aurongel

Member
Definitely not plagiarism. The topics of Cohles monologues were often so vague and existential that they could have been lifted from a variety of similar sources.
 
S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
Like, I'm reading the back half of the article and I still don't see the case for plagiarism rather than homage, especially given the accuser's focus on the "lack of attribution" when Pizzolatto is very forthcoming about the influence; framing it as "he hides it until journalists force him to talk about it" is sort of weird. People normally talk about their influences when they're asked and not before. What sort of attribution was the accuser expecting Ligotti to have? A written by credit?

pj said:
I won't be mad that nobody is reading the article because I always do the same..
Click to expand...

But I don't think the article really establishes this is any more likely than the alternative hypothesis. Which is that he didn't want to talk too much about what happened before it aired, and when it aired he was more willing to open up about his creative process on the episodes that had aired. Especially the lines about how Pizzolatto was pressured into admitting the influence or did some only to respond to dogged journalists exposing the whole sham seem like an overly aggressive reading of the facts laid out.
 
P

pj

Banned
Zeliard said:
It's pretty classic existentialist philosophy in general, and there's no question Pizzolatto borrowed some of it from Ligotti and others, but he's been more upfront about than then the writers of this article are willing to offer him. It's kind of silly to say that Pizzolatto has only admitted Ligotti's direct influence when he's been "pressured" to. Kind of hard to create a case for plagiarism when the author gives attribution.
Click to expand...

I dunno, when I watched the show I saw "WRITTEN BY: Nic Pizzolatto"

Is it really attribution if you have to read the wall st journal to see it?
 
V

voodoopanda

Member
It's a tradition in Lovecraftian stories to take things from past authors. Chambers --> Lovecraft --> Ligotti --> True Detectives.
 
S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
pj said:
I dunno, when I watched the show I saw "WRITTEN BY: Nic Pizzolatto"

Is it really attribution if you have to read the wall st journal to see it?
Click to expand...

If the challenge here is substantially legal (IE copyright infringement) then one might expect a credit otherwise, but the challenge in the article seems to be more moral than anything. What is the moral requirement of attributing one's influences? To be, being forthright and not hiding them. It's not a specific level of credit within the work itself. The quotes don't seem to close enough to me to constitute plagiarism, they seem more like synthesis and stylistic homage, and I think based on what I've seen he's acknowledged that appropriately.

In the same way, creative works based on archetypal stories typically discuss that influence when asked, but don't otherwise go out of the way to say "Based on King Lear by William Shakespeare" or whatever, right?
 
Z

Zyae

Member
pj said:
I dunno, when I watched the show I saw "WRITTEN BY: Nic Pizzolatto"

Is it really attribution if you have to read the wall st journal to see it?
Click to expand...

do you want him to have the president to declare it for him?
 
H

hydruxo

Member
SirShandy said:
None of these ideas are new though, and repeating some of these words is bound to happen when you're reiterating the same ideology.

They're just extensions of existentialism, repackaged in a more mainstream voice. There is very little case here for plagiarism.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Hardly lifted from anything in particular.
 
P

pj

Banned
Stumpokapow said:
Like, I'm reading the back half of the article and I still don't see the case for plagiarism rather than homage, especially given the accuser's focus on the "lack of attribution" when Pizzolatto is very forthcoming about the influence; framing it as "he hides it until journalists force him to talk about it" is sort of weird. People normally talk about their influences when they're asked and not before. What sort of attribution was the accuser expecting Ligotti to have? A written by credit?



But I don't think the article really establishes this is any more likely than the alternative hypothesis. Which is that he didn't want to talk too much about what happened before it aired, and when it aired he was more willing to open up about his creative process on the episodes that had aired. Especially the lines about how Pizzolatto was pressured into admitting the influence or did some only to respond to dogged journalists exposing the whole sham seem like an overly aggressive reading of the facts laid out.
Click to expand...


Like I said, I don't think this is slam dunk case of plagiarism at all. It's more disappointing than anything. Hearing that stuff in the show, while knowing the philosophy expressed isn't particularly original, was really enjoyable in its presentation.

Knowing that a lot of the phrasing was directly "inspired by" some other dude reduces my admiration for Pizzolatto.
 
F

FStop7

Banned
Is any one person the proprietor of nihilism? Because that's all it is.

As far as I'm concerned, Pizzolatto and Ligotti are just rephrasing Shakespeare.


Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then, the whining school-boy with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like a snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then, a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then, the justice,
In fair round belly, with a good capon lin'd,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws, and modern instances,
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well sav'd, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason,
how infinite in faculties, in form and moving,
how express and admirable in action, how like an angel in apprehension,
how like a god!

Also, one of the lines from John Doe's journal in the film Se7en:

What sick ridiculous puppets we are / and what gross little stage we dance on / What fun we have dancing and fucking / Not a care in the world / Not knowing that we are nothing / We are not what was intended
 
A

Always-honest

Banned
Well, it could be they stole some of the writing (in slightly different worthing). But it's not like these thoughts are very unique. They are well written.
I was thinking how much it resembled the way i think. I can't write it down so eloquently though
 
R

Real Hero

Member
LOL read any interview with the the creator, he was always saying how big an influence the Thomas Ligotti stuff is. This is not some hidden case of plagiarism, he was using the philosophical bent of the author and was completely open about doing so. In fact I remember people saying the show had convinced them to go read the books, so this has always been a known connection. No gotcha here.
 
X

xbhaskarx

Member
Wow this is a bombshell, great investigative journalism... except people were discussing Thomas Ligotti in the True Detective thread starting from like the third episode.
 
N

nel e nel

Member
pj said:
Like I said, I don't think this is slam dunk case of plagiarism at all. It's more disappointing than anything. Hearing that stuff in the show, while knowing the philosophy expressed isn't particularly original, was really enjoyable in its presentation.

Knowing that a lot of the phrasing was directly "inspired by" some other dude reduces my admiration for Pizzolatto.
Click to expand...

Lovecraft was directly 'inspired by' Poe.
 
Z

Zeliard

Member
pj said:
Like I said, I don't think this is slam dunk case of plagiarism at all. It's more disappointing than anything. Hearing that stuff in the show, while knowing the philosophy expressed isn't particularly original, was really enjoyable in its presentation.

Knowing that a lot of the phrasing was directly "inspired by" some other dude reduces my admiration for Pizzolatto.
Click to expand...

I think you can give significant credit to Pizzolatto for having fashioned out such a memorable character, as well as Matthew McConaughey for playing him with such verve.

Nihilism and existentialism are of course not wholly original concepts but to create a character that imbues and promotes those philosophies with such lucidity takes a great deal of skill.
 
Battersea Power Station

Battersea Power Station

Member
pj said:
Like I said, I don't think this is slam dunk case of plagiarism at all. It's more disappointing than anything. Hearing that stuff in the show, while knowing the philosophy expressed isn't particularly original, was really enjoyable in its presentation.

Knowing that a lot of the phrasing was directly "inspired by" some other dude reduces my admiration for Pizzolatto.
Click to expand...
BS. If you're into literature even slightly, there's no way to avoid the concepts of determinism, of reality as an illusion, and all that other Philosophy 101 stuff. That doesn't make him any less of a screenwriter or showrunner.

What does disappoint me is that all that really interesting characterization lead nowhere. It didn't matter what kind of person or detective Rust was. It was just a simplistic mystery with a cliched cover-up.
 
J

JDSN

Banned
Isnt that the point plot-wise? The monologes always felt like someone hiding his true self deep inside beneath some pseudointelectual shit that he never fully believed? Marty correctly described him as "panicking" in the second episode, and the end of his arc involved that character coming to terms with the fact that he beliefs in a brighter future.
 
S

Salsa

Member
the reason I enjoyed true detective was never "omg how did the writer CAME UP with this stuff Rust is saying!"

he says nothing new really. it's jargon that's been written about or said in the almost exact same way by many. True detective's best qualities lie elsewhere, or rather with having a character like this in this particular situation, that's whats "new", in a way, and doesnt really have anything to do with this
 
R

Real Hero

Member
JDSN said:
Isnt that the point plot-wise? The monologes always felt like someone hiding his true self deep inside beneath some pseudointelectual shit that he never fully believed? Marty correctly described him as "panicking" in the second episode, and the end of his arc involved that character coming to terms with the fact that he beliefs in a brighter future.
Click to expand...
Yep, anyone who though Rusts views were supposed to be admirable or unique are probably the same people thought Walter White was a cool male role model.
 
J

JDSN

Banned
Real Hero said:
Yep, anyone who though Rusts views were supposed to be admirable or unique are probably the same people thought Walter White was a cool male role model.
Click to expand...
Thats why part of the entertainment of the finale was all the people mad cos they lost their fedora christ.
 
S

Salsa

Member
JDSN said:
Thats why part of the entertainment of the finale was all the people mad cos they lost their fedora christ.
Click to expand...

honestly I find the "people DONT GET IT LOL" attitude as annoying as those people you guys refer to

show's there to be watched by anyone so whatever

either way Nic has expressed that he feels or felt like Rust does so I dont think he's just mocking those kinds of.. beliefs?
 
O

OverBlood 3

Banned
Real Hero said:
Yep, anyone who though Rusts views were supposed to be admirable or unique are probably the same people thought Walter White was a cool male role model.
Click to expand...

I wish I could shake your hand right now.

Also all of this was undermined by the awful ending in TD. I enjoyed it but I just blanked the ending out so I didn't smash my front room up.
 
B

Brakke

Banned
Pfffft "everybody is nobody"? I guarantee I've written that phrase at least once in my life.

This is clearly a case of inspiration.
 
T

The Albatross

Member
These aren't lifted at all. Both are nihilistic and defeatist, but neither one is a rip off of the other.

There's nothing unique about Rust's rants, but they're also not ripoffs of anything either.
 
J

JDSN

Banned
SalsaShark said:
honestly I find the "people DONT GET IT LOL" attitude as annoying as those people you guys refer to

show's there to be watched by anyone so whatever
Click to expand...

I dont mean it in a "haters gotta hate" way, but there were hints here and there that the characters's beliefs were a creed he forced on himself, its okay to have a different opinion but some people just wanted their No country Cohens ending and instead got mad cos they got a Fargo Cohens one. Whatever, this is offtopic anyway
 
S

see5harp

Member
They aren't lifted verbatim and in any case the writer specifically mentions the name of the author and cites him as a huge influence. He can't be any clearer than that.
 
R

Real Hero

Member
SalsaShark said:
either way Nic has expressed that he feels or felt like Rust does so I dont think he's just mocking those kinds of.. beliefs?
Click to expand...
He's not mocking them at all ,he takes them absolutely seriously as far philosophy goes. But he also makes it clear through the show that nihilism is as much a defensive and coping mechanism as religion ( that rust at one point mocks).
 
B

Blader

Member
Battersea Power Station said:
BS. If you're into literature even slightly, there's no way to avoid the concepts of determinism, of reality as an illusion, and all that other Philosophy 101 stuff. That doesn't make him any less of a screenwriter or showrunner.

What does disappoint me is that all that really interesting characterization lead nowhere. It didn't matter what kind of person or detective Rust was. It was just a simplistic mystery with a cliched cover-up.
Click to expand...

No it quite clearly did lead somewhere. You not liking the outcome doesn't mean nothing happened.
 
Battersea Power Station

Battersea Power Station

Member
Real Hero said:
I think it was clear from the start the show had about 10% interest in the mystery itself.
Click to expand...
Well, I got suckered in by his "tax man" stuff, and his ability to find weakness, and his existentialism, and thought there would be either some deeper exploration of those themes (instead of just a surface introduction) or some pay-off with the plot.

I enjoyed watching the characters to some extent. But mostly I felt baited and switched.
 
M

Mononoke

Banned
What everyone else said. However, did anyone really think the dialogue was the stand out part to those scenes? No. It was McConaugheys acting/delivery of them.
 
I

Iksenpets

Banned
It's pretty straightforward homage. He's not claiming "Here are the bold and original ideas of me, Nic Pizzolatto". It's just a story with a guy who voices ideas from Ligotti.
 
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