'Why does a goat jump?'

December 10, 2015 11:56 AM

Interview with Shia LaBeouf and his art collective
posted by fearfulsymmetry (15 comments total)

MoMA curator Klaus Biesenbach all but called #IAMSORRY a rip-off of Marina Abromovic’s The Artist Is Present, in which she locked gazes with members of the public across a table at MoMA. It’s a criticism that makes the trio particularly irate. “It was people sitting facing each other, but there were so many differences it was completely a different piece,” says Rönkkö.

The uneasy sensation I get trying to figure out who is bullshitting whom among the various parties in this paragraph elevates the whole endeavour into the realm of Art for me.
posted by Dr Dracator at 12:24 PM on December 10, 2015 [2 favorites]

“Why does a goat jump?” says LaBeouf. “There’s an animalistic urge to express love that I can’t express in film. I felt limited after coming out of Transformers. Or all the stuff I’d done with Steven Spielberg, not to pooh-pooh those films, but you have no creative control.”

Now I want to see Shia LaBeouf's Transformers, complete with jumping goats or whatnot. What creative control did he want in a Giant Robots Blow Shit Up movie?
posted by filthy light thief at 12:41 PM on December 10, 2015

Some would say he's gone too far, but I say he hasn't gone too far enough. I want to see a movie called "Shia LeBeouf: The Movie" where Shia LeBeouf is played by two hundred consecutive volunteers who receive coaching from Shia LeBeouf on how to be more Shia LeBeouf-ish. Please make it happen Shia LeBeouf!
posted by a_curious_koala at 12:44 PM on December 10, 2015 [16 favorites]

I could only get behind that idea if Philip Seymour Hoffman were still alive, so that he could play a character running the entire operation, something like the playwright in Synecdoche, New York or the games maker in Hunger Games. While LeBeouf coaches the volunteer LeBeoufs, Hoffman would coach LeBeouf himself on how to be more LeBeouf in his techniques for teaching other LeBeouf how to be more LeBeouf. Eventually a standout amateur LeBeouf would stage a coup, claiming to be more LeBeouf than LeBeouf and therefore most qualified to train other LeBeoufs to LeBeouf.

The original LeBeouf would sort of go through a "stages of grief" process with regard to his demotion, eventually becoming determined to prove to PSH that he could be a better LeBeouf than the new impersonator. He'd enter into the LeBeouf pool and let the new LeBeouf train him in how to LeBeouf — and it'd work, he'd get over his humiliation and accept being tutored in LeBeoufery by the new LeBeouf. The movie would close with a LeBeoufoff between the old LeBeouf and the new LeBeouf, which the old LeBeouf would clearly win. At his moment of triumph, he would turn to PSH looking for approval... and then PSH himself would deliver a LeBeoufian performance so overwhelmingly LeBeoufian that everyone present (even the original LeBeouf) would be overcome by tears. Last shot is of PSH as LeBoeuf, impossibly talented, impossibly powerful.

(the film would also feature, if possible, a cameo by Björk as The Writer).

potential titles: Shianecdoche Le Beouf, The Big LeBeoufsky.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 1:02 PM on December 10, 2015 [16 favorites]

Needs actualcannibal tag.
posted by resurrexit at 1:07 PM on December 10, 2015 [2 favorites]

I want that movie so badly that I wouldn't even care if they used a Philip Seymour Hoffman hologram...

Does anyone know who owns the rights to Philip Seymour Hoffman's hologram!?
posted by mayonnaises at 1:09 PM on December 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

Sense/Net
posted by I-baLL at 1:23 PM on December 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

Goats jump to get to a different place or to express joy. You're doing something else there, buddy.
posted by lumpenprole at 2:12 PM on December 10, 2015

I can never shake the idea that he just sort of stumbled into this kind of performance art as a way to hand wave over his general wankery. "I didn't rip off Daniel Clowes, that was a, uh, meta thing..." "Sure, I was drunk in that theater yelling, but if you only knew the hashtag..."
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:26 PM on December 10, 2015 [2 favorites]

potential titles: Shianecdoche Le Beouf, The Big LeBeoufsky.

I'd go with LeBeouf, LeBoeuferty, and the pursuit of LeBoeufiness.

I dunno, I strangely find myself warming up to his antics.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 2:58 PM on December 10, 2015 [3 favorites]

What if Shkreli paid him to do a piece... like I don't know, something like a solo version of Hamlet with La Beouf doing all the roles... that only Shkreli watched, or even knew about....???









Wait, what if this has already happened?!?!!!
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:21 PM on December 10, 2015 [4 favorites]

Me too, Jon Mitchell. There's something exceedingly honest about their projects, and they have a really refreshing approach to the art world in general. And the collective never says, "look how deep this is, look how good our art is..." They just say, "we want people to connect." Whether their projects are a success or a failure are basically only determined by themselves and the participants. Who cares if it's a ripoff of Abramovic? They're not saying that it's some deep, theory-altering piece of crucial work. They're just trying to create a moment that people will think back on and remember that they felt something.

And DirtyOldTown, that exact thing is covered in the article:

"LaBeouf met Turner and Rönkkö after he was accused of plagiarising a work by graphic novelist Daniel Clowes for his short film Howard Cantour.com. Googling for some art theory that could get him off the hook, he instead came across Turner’s manifesto for metamodernism..."

Doesn't sound like anyone's waving over any wankery there.
posted by Cpt. The Mango at 3:22 PM on December 10, 2015 [3 favorites]

Like a cross between Being John Malkovich and the Stanford Prison Experiment. Actually I would like to see Being Phil Zimbardo. If (as seems likely) Zimbardo can't act, you just cast his doppelgänger Rip Torn.
posted by grobstein at 3:26 PM on December 10, 2015

I will take this opportunity to remind us all of this absolute masterpiece.
posted by cubby at 7:57 PM on December 10, 2015 [1 favorite]

How many years until he starts designing wedding dresses?
posted by cottoncandybeard at 6:35 AM on December 11, 2015