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Miguel Mera in New York

The Head of the Centre for Music Studies, Dr Miguel Mera, gave a presentation at the Music and Moving Image conference in New York In June. His paper entitled ‘Inglo(u)rious Basterdisation?: Tarantino and the war movie mashup’ examined the use of music in Quentin Tarantino’s film Inglourious Basterds. Miguel argued that the multiple layers of appropriative meaning in the film are synonymous with the popular music practice known as mashup and do not exist solely through ironic counterpoint, emphasising  defamiliarisation, but rather seek the true goal of mashup culture which is pluralism.  Evoking Jean Baudrillard’s notion of the simulacrum, Miguel also argued that the film’s reference to music from the spaghetti western sub-genre allowed historical liberties to become a reflection on the metamorphosis of fact into myth that ultimately problematises the nature of historical (mis)representation in war movies.