Allusion vs. Plagiarism

In the HO on Sins, Virtues and Heavenly Graces HO we received on Friday it talks about the likeness of T.S. Eliot’s poems to Dylan’s songs. One example is “And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly”, written by Eliot, and “Through hostile cities and unfriendly towns” written by Dylan. Coincidence or plagiarism? I didn’t get a strong sense either way from this excerpt from the book written about Dylan. Its not word for word, so I don’t think it constitutes as plagiarism but I use that word merely to make a point. In literature, plagiarism is illegal. In film, plagiarism is an allusion, or an homage. Directors take from one another similar in the fashion that Dylan has taken from Eliot, not in an exact manner but with common themes and directions. Let’s take Lolita for example” why are there two versions of the film and only one book? Kubrick may have simply borrowed from Nabokov’s central ideas and plot to make the 1962 version. Adrian Lyne, who directed the 1997 version could have either paid homage to Kubrick by remaking the 1962 Lolita or adapted a version of Lolita from Nabokov. But if someone were to write a book about a girl named Lolita whose mother marries a pedophile who becomes obsessed with Lolita and they call the book Humbert Humbert, that is plagiarism. In film, Gus Van Sant can make a shot for shot remake of Hitchcock’s masterpiece Psycho 40 years later and no one can press charges against Sant for his paying homage to Hitchcock, as much of a failure as it was. My point is I think its interesting how plagiarism differs from literary community to film community. Dylan was paying homage to Elliot I think but because of the consequences of plagiarism in the literary community, he had to put into his own words what Eliot was saying.