The King and the Mockingbird: The Surreal French Animated Film That Took 30 Years to Complete, and Profoundly Influenced Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata

in Animation, Film | January 4th, 2019

Ani­ma­tion, as any­one who has ever tried their hand at it knows, takes a great deal of time. The King and the Mock­ing­bird (Le Roi et l’Oiseau), for exam­ple, required more than thir­ty years, a jour­ney length­ened by much more than just the labo­ri­ous­ness of bring­ing hand-drawn images to life. But it does that glo­ri­ous­ly, with a style and sen­si­bil­i­ty quite unlike any ani­mat­ed film made before or since — a sig­na­ture of its cre­ators, ani­ma­tor Paul Gri­mault and poet/screenwriter Jacques Prévert. Hav­ing already worked togeth­er on 1947’s Hans Chris­t­ian Ander­sen adap­ta­tion The Lit­tle Sol­dier (Le Petit sol­dat, not to be con­fused with the Godard pic­ture), they chose for their next col­lab­o­ra­tion to ani­mate Ander­sen’s sto­ry “The Shep­herdess and the Chim­ney Sweep.”

“The pompous King Charles, who hates his sub­jects and is equal­ly hat­ed in return, rules over the amus­ing­ly named land of Taki­car­dia,” writes crit­ic Christy Lemire. The most prized item in his art col­lec­tion is “his por­trait of a beau­ti­ful and inno­cent shep­herdess with whom he’s des­per­ate­ly in love. What he doesn’t know is that when he’s asleep, the shep­herdess and the chim­ney sweep in the adja­cent can­vas have been car­ry­ing on a sweet and ten­der affair.” Still King Charles keeps try­ing to win her, or steal her, for him­self, “but the cou­ple gets help thwart­ing him at every turn from the one char­ac­ter in the king­dom who does not wor­ship the monar­chy: the brash and trash-talk­ing Mr. Bird, a bright­ly-feath­ered racon­teur.” The film’s mood “shifts seam­less­ly from imp­ish, sil­ly adven­tures to grotesque and night­mar­ish suf­fer­ing. And then the giant robot arrives.”

This may sound ambi­tious, even for the only ani­mat­ed fea­ture in pro­duc­tion in Europe at the time. Alas, the com­pa­ny took Gri­mault and Prévert’s increas­ing­ly expen­sive project out of their hands after just a cou­ple of years, and in 1952 its pro­duc­er André Sar­rut sim­ply released it unfin­ished. (You can watch the now-pub­lic-domain Amer­i­can ver­sion of the film, dubbed by a cast head­ed by Peter Usti­nov and titled The Curi­ous Adven­tures of Mr. Won­der­bird, just above.) But Gri­mault and Prévert held fast to their vision, the lat­ter revis­ing the script until his death in 1977 and the for­mer, hav­ing won back the rights to the film, assem­bling a team of ani­ma­tors to pro­duce new scenes and cut out some of the old ones. This com­plete ver­sion of The King and the Mock­ing­bird had its French pre­miere in 1979, though it would­n’t reach Amer­i­ca until just a few years ago.

“I’m sure this all sounds famil­iar,” says Youtube ani­ma­tion video essay­ist Stevem in his analy­sis of The King and the Mock­ing­bird as a sur­re­al­ist film. “The pro­duc­tion was too ambi­tious, the com­pa­ny steps in and pulls it back, and in spite of its issues it’s remem­bered as a cult clas­sic, and inspired some of the big names along the way.” Those names include Stu­dio Ghi­b­li founders Hayao Miyaza­ki and Isao Taka­ha­ta. “We were formed by the films and film­mak­ers of the 1950s,” Miyaza­ki once said. “It was through watch­ing Le Roi et l’Oiseau by Paul Gri­mault that I under­stood how it was nec­es­sary to use space in a ver­ti­cal man­ner.” Taka­ha­ta saw Gri­mault as hav­ing “achieved bet­ter than any­one else a union between lit­er­a­ture and ani­ma­tion.”

Though Stu­dio Ghi­b­li’s fil­mog­ra­phy may offer plen­ty of mem­o­rably sur­re­al moments, The King and the Mock­ing­bird occu­pies a plane of ani­mat­ed sur­re­al­ism all its own. Draw­ing com­par­isons to Jean Cocteau’s The Blood of a Poet (pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured here on Open Cul­ture), Stevem quotes the line from Andre Bre­ton’s Sur­re­al­ist Man­i­festo about “the belief in the supe­ri­or real­i­ty of cer­tain forms of pre­vi­ous­ly neglect­ed asso­ci­a­tions, in the omnipo­tence of dream, in the dis­in­ter­est­ed play of thought.” That’s the sort of expe­ri­ence Gri­mault and Prévert’s film, in its fin­ished state, offers, while also, in the words of Vul­ture’s Bilge Ebiri, draw­ing on “Fritz Lang and per­haps the style of Walt Dis­ney from the great era of Snow White. There are inter­est­ing antic­i­pa­to­ry echoes, not just of ani­me, but Roald Dahl and the Vul­gar­ia of Chit­ty Chit­ty Bang Bang.” Just the sort of mix­ture only pos­si­ble — only even imag­in­able — in ani­ma­tion.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Take a Free Ani­ma­tion Course from a Renowned French Ani­ma­tion School

French Stu­dent Sets Inter­net on Fire with Ani­ma­tion Inspired by Moe­bius, Syd Mead & Hayao Miyaza­ki

Watch Moe­bius and Miyaza­ki, Two of the Most Imag­i­na­tive Artists, in Con­ver­sa­tion (2004)

Métal hurlant: The Huge­ly Influ­en­tial French Com­ic Mag­a­zine That Put Moe­bius on the Map & Changed Sci-Fi For­ev­er

Sal­vador Dalí & Walt Disney’s Short Ani­mat­ed Film, Des­ti­no, Set to the Music of Pink Floyd

David Lynch Presents the His­to­ry of Sur­re­al­ist Film (1987)

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 2 ) |

Safety Last, the 1923 Movie Featuring the Most Iconic Scene from Silent Film Era, Just Went Into the Public Domain

in Film | January 3rd, 2019

Safe­ty Last, the 1923 film star­ring Harold Lloyd, fea­tures one of the most icon­ic scenes from the silent film era. Writes Roger Ebert, the scene above is “by gen­er­al agree­ment the most famous shot in silent com­e­dy: a man in a straw hat and round horn-rim glass­es, hang­ing from the minute hand of a clock 12 sto­ries above the city street. Strange, that this shot occurs in a film few peo­ple have ever seen. Harold Lloy­d’s Safe­ty Last (1923), like all of his films, was pre­served by the come­di­an but rarely shown.” All of that might be about to change. Along with a num­ber of oth­er clas­sic works, Safe­ty Last went into the pub­lic domain this week. So now every­one can watch the film, when­ev­er they please. Watch a com­plete ver­sion on YouTube here. Restored ver­sions of the film can be pur­chased through Cri­te­ri­on.

Safe­ty Last will be added to our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

An Avalanche of Nov­els, Films and Oth­er Works of Art Will Soon Enter the Pub­lic Domain: Vir­ginia Woolf, Char­lie Chap­lin, William Car­los Williams, Buster Keaton & More

65 Free Char­lie Chap­lin Films Online

Cap­ti­vat­ing GIFs Reveal the Mag­i­cal Spe­cial Effects in Clas­sic Silent Films

The Pow­er of Silent Movies, with The Artist Direc­tor Michel Haz­anavi­cius

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

450+ Movie Scenes Where Actors Break the Fourth Wall, Presented in Two Big Supercuts

in Film | January 2nd, 2019

Do you remem­ber the first time you saw the fourth wall bro­ken? Few of us prob­a­bly do, but maybe we all should, giv­en how radi­al a depar­ture from estab­lished dra­mat­ic con­ven­tion — specif­i­cal­ly, the con­ven­tion dic­tat­ing that a work of dra­mat­ic art not acknowl­edge the fact that it is a work of dra­mat­ic art — fourth-wall-break­age rep­re­sents. Then again, a work of art can break the fourth wall sub­tly, too sub­tly to make an out­sized impact on our con­scious­ness: take, for exam­ple, all the brief but know­ing glances movie char­ac­ters have direct­ed at their audi­ences through­out almost the entire his­to­ry of cin­e­ma.

A fair few of those glances appear in the super­cut of 400 break­ages of the fourth wall above (which may well con­tain the first one you ever wit­nessed). It draws from films from a vari­ety of time peri­ods, Hol­ly­wood clas­sics and block­busters as well as less­er-known pic­tures.

Togeth­er with the Press Play fourth-wall-break­age super­cut below, it pro­vides an overview of just how wide a vari­ety of ways film­mak­ers have found to momen­tar­i­ly breach what Vin­cent Can­by once described as “that invis­i­ble scrim that for­ev­er sep­a­rates the audi­ence from the stage.” Most films break the fourth wall for laughs, but oth­ers have done it in ser­vice of emo­tion­al, aes­thet­ic, and even intel­lec­tu­al ends.

None of this is to say that the fourth wall stood per­fect­ly intact before the colos­sus of cin­e­ma came along to smash it. The con­cept goes at least as far back as 17th-cen­tu­ry France, first used as a term by Molière and lat­er more ful­ly defined by Enlight­en­ment icon Denis Diderot. But the­atri­cal per­form­ers must have been break­ing the fourth wall, or at least pok­ing holes in it, even before the fourth wall was quite up: long ago, we read in his­tor­i­cal accounts of the­ater around the world, audi­ences even expect­ed a cer­tain degree of inter­ac­tion with the action onstage — or at least they expressed their thoughts on it, often force­ful­ly, attempt­ing to break the fourth wall from the oth­er direc­tion.

Over time, we, the cre­ators and view­ers of dra­ma alike, built the fourth wall, and it has sel­dom tak­en us long to expect its pro­tec­tion in every medi­um we enjoy: the­ater and film, yes, but tele­vi­sion, video games, and even lit­er­a­ture as well. “It is not a good idea to inter­rupt the nar­ra­tive too often,” writes J.M. Coet­zee in Eliz­a­beth Costel­lo, a nov­el that breaks the fourth wall and a host of oth­er con­ven­tion besides, “since sto­ry­telling works by lulling the read­er or lis­ten­er into a dream­like state in which the time and space of the real world fade away, super­seded by the time and space of the fic­tion.” A lit­er­ary sto­ry­teller of Coet­zee’s cal­iber would know. But what oth­er art form has been as often com­pared to a dream, or felt as much like a dream, as film — and what oth­er dreams play out on, lit­er­al­ly, a wall?

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Them Watch Us: A His­to­ry of Break­ing the “Fourth Wall” in Film

How the French New Wave Changed Cin­e­ma: A Video Intro­duc­tion to the Films of Godard, Truf­faut & Their Fel­low Rule-Break­ers

Take a 16-Week Crash Course on the His­to­ry of Movies: From the First Mov­ing Pic­tures to the Rise of Mul­ti­plex­es & Net­flix

Cin­e­ma His­to­ry by Titles & Num­bers

We’re Gonna Build a Fourth Wall, and Make the Brechtians Pay for It

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 2 ) |

Public Domain Day Is Finally Here!: Copyrighted Works Have Entered the Public Domain Today for the First Time in 21 Years

in Art, Creativity, Film, History, Literature | January 1st, 2019

Ear­li­er this year we informed read­ers that thou­sands of works of art and enter­tain­ment would soon enter the pub­lic domain—to be fol­lowed every year by thou­sands more. That day is nigh upon us: Pub­lic Domain Day, Jan­u­ary 1, 2019. At the stroke of mid­night, such beloved clas­sics as Robert Frost’s “Stop­ping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” and “Yes! We Have No Bananas” will become the com­mon prop­er­ty of the peo­ple, to be quot­ed at length or in full any­where when the copy­right expires on work pro­duced in 1923. Then, 1924 will expire in 2020, 1925 in 2021, and so on and so forth.

It means that “hun­dreds of thou­sands of books, musi­cal com­po­si­tions, paint­ings, poems, pho­tographs and films” will become freely avail­able to dis­trib­ute, remix, and remake, as Glenn Fleish­man writes at Smith­son­ian. “Any mid­dle school can pro­duce Theodore Pratt’s stage adap­ta­tion of The Pic­ture of Dori­an Gray, and any his­to­ri­an can pub­lish Win­ston Churchill’s The World Cri­sis with her own exten­sive anno­ta­tions… and any film­mak­er can remake Cecil B. DeMille’s orig­i­nal The Ten Com­mand­ments.”

Those are just a few ideas. See more exten­sive lists of hits and obscu­ri­ties from 1923 at our pre­vi­ous post and come up with your own cre­ative adap­ta­tions. The pos­si­bil­i­ties are vast and pos­si­bly world chang­ing, in ways both decid­ed­ly good and arguably quite bad. Teach­ers may pho­to­copy thou­sands of pages with­out fear of pros­e­cu­tion; schol­ars may quote freely, artists may find deep wells of inspi­ra­tion. And we may also see “Frost’s immor­tal ode to win­ter used in an ad for snow tires.”

Such crass­ness aside, this huge release from copy­right her­alds a cul­tur­al sea change—the first time such a thing has hap­pened in 21 years due to a 20-year exten­sion of the copy­right term in 1998, in a bill spon­sored by Son­ny Bono at the urg­ing of the Walt Dis­ney com­pa­ny. The leg­is­la­tion, aimed at pro­tect­ing Mick­ey Mouse, cre­at­ed a “bizarre 20-year hia­tus between the release of works from 1922 and 1923.” It is fas­ci­nat­ing to con­sid­er how a gov­ern­ment-man­dat­ed mar­ket­ing deci­sion has affect­ed our under­stand­ing of his­to­ry and cul­ture.

The nov­el­ist Willa Cather called 1922 the year “the world broke in two,” the start of a great lit­er­ary, artis­tic and cul­tur­al upheaval. In 1922, Ulysses by James Joyce and T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” were pub­lished, and the Harlem Renais­sance blos­somed with the arrival of Claude McKay’s poet­ry in Harlem Shad­ows. For two decades those works have been in the pub­lic domain, enabling artists, crit­ics and oth­ers to bur­nish that notable year to a high gloss in our his­tor­i­cal mem­o­ry. In com­par­i­son, 1923 can feel dull.

That year, how­ev­er, marked the film debut of Mar­lene Diet­rich, the pub­li­ca­tion of mod­ernist land­marks like Vir­ginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dal­loway and Jean Toomer’s Cane and far too many more influ­en­tial works to name here. Find sev­er­al more at Duke University’s Cen­ter for the Study of the Pub­lic Domain,  Life­hack­er, Indiewire, and The Atlantic and have a very hap­py Pub­lic Domain Day.

Pub­lic domain films and books will be added to ever-grow­ing col­lec­tions:

1,000 Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free

4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More

800 Free eBooks for iPad, Kin­dle & Oth­er Devices

Relat­ed Con­tent:

An Avalanche of Nov­els, Films and Oth­er Works of Art Will Soon Enter the Pub­lic Domain: Vir­ginia Woolf, Char­lie Chap­lin, William Car­los Williams, Buster Keaton & More

The Library of Con­gress Launch­es the Nation­al Screen­ing Room, Putting Online Hun­dreds of His­toric Films

List of Great Pub­lic Domain Films 

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 4 ) |

President Obama Names His Favorite Books, Movies & Songs of 2018

in Books, Film, Music | December 28th, 2018

Pho­to by Pete Souza via obamawhitehouse.archive.gov

On Face­book this morn­ing, Pres­i­dent Oba­ma wrote: “As 2018 draws to a close, I’m con­tin­u­ing a favorite tra­di­tion of mine and shar­ing my year-end lists. It gives me a moment to pause and reflect on the year through the books, movies, and music that I found most thought-pro­vok­ing, inspir­ing, or just plain loved. It also gives me a chance to high­light tal­ent­ed authors, artists, and sto­ry­tellers – some who are house­hold names and oth­ers who you may not have heard of before. Here’s my best of 2018 list — I hope you enjoy read­ing, watch­ing, and lis­ten­ing.” Note that you can hear all of the music on this Spo­ti­fy playlist.

Books That Pres. Oba­ma Read This Year:

Becom­ing by Michelle Oba­ma (obvi­ous­ly my favorite!)
An Amer­i­can Mar­riage by Tayari Jones
Amer­i­canah by Chi­ma­man­da Ngozi Adichie
The Bro­ken Lad­der: How Inequal­i­ty Affects the Way We Think, Live, and Die by Kei­th Payne
Edu­cat­ed by Tara West­over
Fact­ful­ness by Hans Rosling
Futureface: A Fam­i­ly Mys­tery, an Epic Quest, and the Secret to Belong­ing by Alex Wag­n­er
A Grain of Wheat by Ngu­gi wa Thiong’o
A House for Mr Biswas by V.S. Naipaul
How Democ­ra­cies Die by Steven Lev­it­sky and Daniel Ziblatt
In the Shad­ow of Stat­ues: A White South­ern­er Con­fronts His­to­ry by Mitch Lan­drieu
Long Walk to Free­dom by Nel­son Man­dela
The New Geog­ra­phy of Jobs by Enri­co Moret­ti
The Return by Hisham Matar
Things Fall Apart by Chin­ua Achebe
Warlight by Michael Ondaat­je
Why Lib­er­al­ism Failed by Patrick Deneen
The World As It Is by Ben Rhodes

Favorite Books of 2018:

Amer­i­can Prison by Shane Bauer
Arthur Ashe: A Life by Ray­mond Arse­nault
Asym­me­try by Lisa Hal­l­i­day
Feel Free by Zadie Smith
Flori­da by Lau­ren Groff
Fred­er­ick Dou­glass: Prophet of Free­dom by David W. Blight
Immi­grant, Mon­tana by Ami­ta­va Kumar
The Largesse of the Sea Maid­en by Denis John­son
Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence by Max Tegmark
There There by Tom­my Orange
Wash­ing­ton Black by Esi Edugyan

Favorite Movies of 2018:

Anni­hi­la­tion
Black Pan­ther
BlacK­kKlans­man
Blindspot­ting
Burn­ing
The Death of Stal­in
Eighth Grade
If Beale Street Could Talk
Leave No Trace
Mind­ing the Gap
The Rid­er
Roma
Shoplifters
Sup­port the Girls
Won’t You Be My Neigh­bor

Favorite Songs of 2018

Apes••t by The Carters
Bad Bad News by Leon Bridges
Could’ve Been by H.E.R. (feat. Bryson Tiller)
Dis­co Yes by Tom Misch (feat. Pop­py Ajud­ha)
Ekombe by Jupiter & Okwess
Every Time I Hear That Song by Bran­di Carlile
Girl Goin’ Nowhere by Ash­ley McBryde
His­to­ria De Un Amor by Ton­i­na (feat. Javier Limón and Tali Rubin­stein)
I Like It by Car­di B (feat. Bad Bun­ny and J Balvin)
Kevin’s Heart by J. Cole
King For A Day by Ander­son East
Love Lies by Khalid & Nor­mani
Make Me Feel by Janelle Monáe
Mary Don’t You Weep (Piano & A Micro­phone 1983 Ver­sion) by Prince
My Own Thing by Chance the Rap­per (feat. Joey Purp)
Need a Lit­tle Time by Court­ney Bar­nett
Nina Cried Pow­er by Hozi­er (feat. Mavis Sta­ples)
Nteri­ni by Fatouma­ta Diawara
One Trick Ponies by Kurt Vile
Turnin’ Me Up by BJ the Chica­go Kid
Wait by the Riv­er by Lord Huron
Wow Freestyle by Jay Rock (feat. Kendrick Lamar)
And in hon­or of one of the great jazz singers of all time, who died this year, a clas­sic album: The Great Amer­i­can Song­book by Nan­cy Wil­son

You can find all of these song neat­ly list­ed in a playlist here on Spo­ti­fy.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Books on Barack Obama’s Sum­mer Read­ing List: Naipaul, Ondaat­je & More

Barack Oba­ma Shares a List of Enlight­en­ing Books Worth Read­ing

The 5 Books on Pres­i­dent Obama’s 2016 Sum­mer Read­ing List

A Free POTUS Sum­mer Playlist: Pres. Oba­ma Curates 39 Songs for a Sum­mer Day

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 16 ) |

Guillermo del Toro Names Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can the Most Underrated Great Movie of All Time

in Film | December 27th, 2018

Direc­tor Guiller­mo del Toro, as one Twit­ter wag put it recent­ly, is the kind of film friend we’d all love to have–a great con­ver­sa­tion­al­ist, a good lis­ten­er, a fan at heart, and an ency­clo­pe­dic knowl­edge of the form. And while it’s not rare to hear him praise Steven Spiel­berg, this recent Twit­ter post most peo­ple by sur­prise:

Catch Me If You Can is hon­est­ly a film I haven’t thought about since I watched it in the the­aters. That’s not to say it was bad–it was an enjoy­able romp with Leonar­do DiCaprio and Tom Han­ks play­ing cat and mouse with each side appre­ci­at­ing the oth­er side’s wiles, but appar­ent­ly de Toro has watched it and thought about it often.

Ben­David Gra­bin­s­ki, the man who made the first vol­ley in pro­claim­ing Spielberg’s film under­rat­ed, is known for writ­ing the Jack­ie Chan-John­ny Knoxville vehi­cle Skip­trace and work­ing on the more recent Blindspot­ting.

“Prob­a­bly Walken’s best per­for­mance after DEER HUNTER,” he adds, along with “Leonar­do DiCaprio is so good you don’t judge Tom Han­ks for falling for his shit.” and “There is noth­ing more enter­tain­ing than hear­ing Tom Han­ks angri­ly yell. Bet­ter than the most expen­sive FX mon­ey can buy.”
(One of Grabinski’s fol­low­ers men­tions Amy Adams’ role, long before she hit it big. There’s also a nod to the John Williams’ score, which is light and jazzy unlike his block­buster work.)

It’s more inter­est­ing who del Toro read­i­ly calls to mind as influ­ences: Stan­ley Donen (Cha­rade), William Well­man (The Pub­lic Ene­my), Vin­cent Min­nel­li, Michael Cur­tiz (Casablan­ca), and William Wyler (Roman Hol­i­day). These men were all worka­day direc­tors with­in the stu­dio sys­tem, all skilled crafts­man, but not so idio­syn­crat­ic as to stand out.

Spiel­berg told the Amer­i­can Film Insti­tute once:

“Peo­ple like Vic­tor Flem­ing and Michael Cur­tiz I iden­ti­fy with more [than the likes of Mar­tin Scors­ese and Orson Welles] because they didn’t have styles…They were chameleons and they could quick­ly adapt; they could go from a sto­ry about heav­en and the after­life to the Civ­il War. They could do a lot of dif­fer­ent sub­jects and they could do them well because they were good crafts­men… but they didn’t impose who they were on what that was. And I always felt I was more in their game.”

Some may dis­agree, as Spiel­berg, espe­cial­ly in his block­busters, has a style that oth­ers have eas­i­ly copied (J.J. Abrams, I’m look­ing at you.) But right from the get-go, Spiel­berg has always made room for oth­er gen­res, from romance to his­tor­i­cal epics to hor­ror and sci-fi.

del Toro is not that kind of film­mak­er, though his best films are when he gets per­son­al and nos­tal­gic, like The Devil’s Back­bone. The Shape of Water cer­tain­ly had its Spiel­ber­gian moments, espe­cial­ly in its E.T.-style res­cu­ing of the cen­tral crea­ture.

Now that del Toro has weighed in, hope­ful­ly he might write a lit­tle bit more on the movie in the future. For us, we might need to watch the film again.

via Indiewire

Relat­ed con­tent:

Steven Spiel­berg on the Genius of Stan­ley Kubrick

Ter­ry Gilliam on the Dif­fer­ence Between Kubrick & Spiel­berg: Kubrick Makes You Think, Spiel­berg Wraps Every­thing Up with Neat Lit­tle Bows

Watch Steven Spielberg’s Debut: Two Films He Direct­ed as a Teenag­er

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the artist inter­view-based FunkZone Pod­cast and is the pro­duc­er of KCR­W’s Curi­ous Coast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, read his oth­er arts writ­ing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

Lin-Manuel Miranda & Emily Blunt Take You Through 22 Classic Musicals in 12 Minutes

in Comedy, Film, Music, Theatre | December 24th, 2018

Watch­ing James Cor­den, Lin-Manuel Miran­da, and Emi­ly Blunt don­ning bad wigs to mug their way through a 12-minute salute to 22 movie musi­cal “clas­sics” is a bit rem­i­nis­cent of watch­ing the three most pop­u­lar coun­selors ham it up dur­ing an over­long sum­mer camp skit.

Their one-take per­for­mance was part of Role Call, a reg­u­lar fea­ture of the Late Late Show with James Cor­den. Usu­al­ly, this fan favorite is an excuse for Cor­den and a megas­tar guest—Tom Han­ks, Julia Roberts, Samuel L. Jack­son—to bum­ble through the most icon­ic moments of their career.

These kinds of larks are more fun for being a mess, and the live stu­dio audi­ence screams like besot­ted campers at every goofy quick change and wink­ing inside ref­er­ence. Blunt and Miran­da are def­i­nite­ly game, though one won­ders if they felt a bit cha­grinned that the film they are pro­mot­ing, Mary Pop­pins Returns, is giv­en pride of place­ment, while the orig­i­nal 1964 film star­ring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke is strange­ly absent.

As is Thor­ough­ly Mod­ern Mil­lie, Victor/Victoria, and even The Sound of Music.

Maybe Corden’s sav­ing up for a Julia Andrews-cen­tric Role Call.

What did make the cut points to how few orig­i­nal movie musi­cals there are to res­onate with mod­ern audi­ences.

Of the 22, over 2/3 start­ed out as Broad­way plays.

And “You Can’t Stop the Beat” from 2007’s Hair­spray was born of the 2002 stage adap­ta­tion, not the grit­ty 1988 orig­i­nal star­ring John Waters’ main­stay, Divine.

Is it wrong to hope that most view­ers hear­ing “Your Song” will think, “Elton John!” not “Moulin Rouge”?

And Beau­ty and The Beast is per­haps not so much a movie musi­cal as a children’s fea­ture-length ani­ma­tion, so why not The Lit­tle Mer­maid, The Lion  King, or hell, Snow White or Pinoc­chio?

Alas, 1953’s Gen­tle­men Pre­fer Blondes is as far back as this skit’s mem­o­ry goes, pre­sum­ably because the audi­ence has a greater like­li­hood of rec­og­niz­ing Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe than say, Howard Keel.

More inter­est­ing than the jokey horse­play with Into the Woods and The Mup­pet Movie is the choice to blithe­ly cast white actors in roles that were writ­ten for black women (Dream­girls, Lit­tle Shop of Hor­rors). I don’t think any­one would try to get away with that on Broad­way these days, even in in a spoofy char­i­ta­ble event like Broad­way Bares or East­er Bon­net… though if they did, get­ting Lin-Manuel Miran­da on board would be a very good idea.

As to why Hamil­ton isn’t one of the titles below … it’s not a movie musi­cal—yet!

Readers—what glar­ing omis­sions leap out at you?

Cabaret

Chica­go

La La Land

Beau­ty and the Beast

Guys and Dolls

Evi­ta

Sin­gin’ in the Rain

Mary Pop­pins Returns

The Mup­pet Movie

The Wiz­ard of Oz 

Hair­spray

Dream­girls

Annie

Fid­dler on the Roof

Into the Woods 

Lit­tle Shop of Hor­rors

Les Mis­er­ables

Moulin Rouge 

Once

Fame 

Gen­tle­men Pre­fer Blondes

Mama Mia

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hair: The Amer­i­can Trib­al Love-Rock Musi­cal Debuted on Broad­way 50 Years Ago: Watch Footage of the Cast Per­form­ing in 1968

David Bowie Dreamed of Turn­ing George Orwell’s 1984 Into a Musi­cal: Hear the Songs That Sur­vived the Aban­doned Project

Alexan­der Hamil­ton: Hip-Hop Hero at the White House Poet­ry Evening

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  See her onstage in New York City this Jan­u­ary as host of  The­ater of the Apes book-based vari­ety show, Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

 

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 3 ) |

Watch the First-Ever Kiss on Film Between Two Black Actors, Just Honored by the Library of Congress (1898)

in Film, History | December 19th, 2018

In 1896, Thomas Edi­son pro­duced The Kiss. One of the first films ever com­mer­cial­ly screened, it adapts the then-pop­u­lar musi­cal The Wid­ow Jones — or at least it adapts about twen­ty sec­onds of it, a kiss that hap­pens in the very last scene. Two years lat­er came the equal­ly short but dif­fer­ent­ly ground­break­ing Some­thing Good – Negro Kiss, a ver­sion of The Kiss star­ring black actors instead of white ones. Only now, thanks in part to the efforts of Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia archivist Dino Everett and Uni­ver­si­ty of Chica­go Cin­e­ma and Media Stud­ies pro­fes­sor Allyson Nadia Field, has it received prop­er recog­ni­tion as the first such kiss on film.

“To uncov­er the ori­gins of Everett’s footage, Field relied on inven­to­ry and dis­tri­b­u­tion cat­a­logs, trac­ing the film to Chica­go,” writes UChica­go News’ Jack Wang. “This was where William Selig —a  vaude­ville per­former turned film pro­duc­er — had shot it on his knock­off of a Lumière Ciné­matographe. That cam­era pro­duced the tell­tale per­fo­ra­tion marks which had tipped Everett off to the print’s age.”

With sup­port from the Muse­um of Mod­ern Art, writes Hyper­al­ler­gic’s Jas­mine Weber, “Field not only iden­ti­fied the film­mak­er, but the per­form­ers: Saint Sut­tle and Ger­tie Brown. Sut­tle is dressed in a dap­per suit and bowtie, while Brown dons an ornate dress — cos­tumes that Field says were typ­i­cal of min­strel per­form­ers.”

“What makes this film so remark­able is that if you look at films from this peri­od that fea­ture African-Amer­i­cans, first of all, most of them are white actors in black­face,” says Field in the NPR seg­ment above. “They are car­i­ca­tures. They’re cer­tain­ly racist. They fea­ture racist tropes like water­mel­on-eat­ing con­tests and things like that. The Amer­i­can screen was incred­i­bly hos­tile to African-Amer­i­cans for much of its his­to­ry,” but Some­thing Good — Negro Kiss “refutes those kind of car­i­ca­tures and asserts an image of human­i­ty and of love.”

That image has received quite a response on the inter­net as the clip has cir­cu­lat­ed in the week since its induc­tion into the Library of Con­gress’ Nation­al Film Reg­istry along­side the likes of The Shin­ing, Mon­terey Pop, Broke­back Moun­tain, The Lady from Shang­hai, and Juras­sic Park. One lawyer-slash-crit­ic even brought this piece of ear­ly cin­e­ma togeth­er with a piece of cur­rent cin­e­ma, mash­ing it up with the score of Bar­ry Jenk­ins’ just-released James Bald­win adap­ta­tion If Beale Street Could Talk. Selig, Sut­tle, and Brown must have known full well that they were mak­ing some­thing new. But did they know they were also mak­ing his­to­ry?

via Quartz

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch the Pio­neer­ing Films of Oscar Micheaux, America’s First Great African-Amer­i­can Film­mak­er

African-Amer­i­can His­to­ry: Mod­ern Free­dom Strug­gle (A Free Course from Stan­ford)

Mas­sive New Data­base Will Final­ly Allow Us to Iden­ti­fy Enslaved Peo­ples and Their Descen­dants in the Amer­i­c­as

Down­load Dig­i­tized Copies of The Negro Trav­el­ers’ Green Book, the Pre-Civ­il Rights Guide to Trav­el­ing Safe­ly in the U.S. (1936–66)

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

« Go Back — More in this category... »
Quantcast