Kim Jong-il’s Godzilla Movie & His Free Writings on Film Theory

Ding, dong, Kim Jong-il is dead. Read­ing The New York Times obit, one lit­tle piece of the dic­ta­tor’s insane world stood out for us:

Short and round, he wore ele­va­tor shoes, over­size sun­glass­es and a bouf­fant hair­do — a Hol­ly­wood stereo­type of the wacky post-cold-war dic­ta­tor. Mr. Kim him­self was fas­ci­nat­ed by film. He orches­trat­ed the kid­nap­ping of an actress and a direc­tor, both of them South Kore­ans, in an effort to build a domes­tic movie indus­try.

Let’s give you more on this sto­ry: In 1978, Shin Sang-ok, South Kore­a’s famous direc­tor, went to Hong Kong to fig­ure out why his ex-wife, actress Choi Eun-hee, went miss­ing. When he arrived, North Kore­an agents pulled him into a car, threw a bag over his head, then shipped him to Pyongyang wrapped in plas­tic. (The BBC has more on this.) And so began his eight year impris­on­ment in North Korea, where the film­mak­er had to sat­is­fy the whims of Kim Jong-il, then a young “cinephile” who wrote On the Art of the Cin­e­ma in 1973, and The Cin­e­ma and Direct­ing in 1987 (read the free PDF here). Shin shot eight films dur­ing his “NK peri­od,” the best-known being Pul­gasari, a 1985 Godzil­la-style movie that played to the tastes of the lit­tle dic­ta­tor. We’re adding it to the Hor­ror sec­tion of our big col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

In case you’re won­der­ing, Shin and his wife (they remar­ried while impris­oned) even­tu­al­ly escaped from North Korea in 1986, dur­ing a trip to Vien­na. Despite that, Kim Jong-il’s love of cin­e­ma did­n’t wane. Film­mak­ing still plays a big role in the man­u­fac­tur­ing of North Kore­an ide­ol­o­gy, and below we’re bring­ing back Al Jazeer­a’s look at the con­tem­po­rary North Korea film­mak­ing scene:

via i09

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MIT to Offer Certificates to Students Taking Free Courses on the Web

It hap­pens at least a few times a day. Stu­dents look through our list of 400 Free Online Cours­es, and ask us whether they can get a cer­tifi­cate for tak­ing a class. And, unfor­tu­nate­ly, our answer has been no — no, you can’t. But that may be about to change.

Ear­li­er this fall, Stan­ford launched a high­ly-pub­li­cized series of free cours­es that offer stu­dents some­thing nov­el: the abil­i­ty to take tests and receive a “state­ment of accom­plish­ment” from the instruc­tor — though not the school itself — if they pass the class. (Stan­ford will launch 14 more cours­es start­ing in Jan­u­ary and Feb­ru­ary. Click link for details.)

Now, MIT wants to up the ante on the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of free cours­es. Start­ing next spring, the uni­ver­si­ty, already famous for its Open­Course­Ware project, will launch MITx, an e‑learning ini­tia­tive that will offer cer­tifi­cates to stu­dents demon­strat­ing mas­tery of free MIT cours­es. Accord­ing to a new set of FAQs, the cer­tifi­cates won’t bear MIT’s name. Rather, “MIT plans to cre­ate a not-for-prof­it body with­in [MITx] that will offer cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for online learn­ers of MIT course­work. That body will car­ry a dis­tinct name to avoid con­fu­sion.” The cours­es will be free; the cer­tifi­cates will cost just a “mod­est” sum. It’s all a big step in the right direc­tion.

UPDATE: You can find a list of free cours­es offer­ing cer­tifi­cates from great uni­ver­si­ties here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

MIT Intro­duces Com­plete Cours­es to Open­Course­Ware Project

Down­load The Edupunks’ Guide to a DIY Cre­den­tial (Free eBook)

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Pickin’ & Trimmin’ in a Down-Home North Carolina Barbershop: Award-Winning Short Film

Pickin’ & Trim­min’ is a doc­u­men­tary short film from 2008 pro­fil­ing “The Bar­ber­shop” in Drex­el, North Car­oli­na, where Lawrence Antho­ny and David Shirley have bar­bered for decades, and where blue­grass musi­cians have jammed in the back room every week­end. Direct­ed by Matt Mor­ris, the award-win­ning film show­cas­es the peo­ple and atmos­phere of a small com­mu­ni­ty in rur­al Amer­i­ca, per­haps bet­ter than any­thing you’ve seen before. And the music played in the back room is sim­ply won­der­ful.

You can find pho­tos tak­en at The Bar­ber­shop on Flickr here. The film itself has been added to the Doc­u­men­tary sec­tion of our Free Movies col­lec­tion.

Update: Lawrence Antho­ny, the head bar­ber por­trayed in this film, passed away in 2009. His son con­tin­ues to run The Bar­ber­shop, but severe water dam­age has left the shop in need of repair. Here is a video show­ing the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion.

By pro­fes­sion, Matthias Rasch­er teach­es Eng­lish and His­to­ry at a High School in north­ern Bavaria, Ger­many. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on Twit­ter.

Free Audio: Download the Complete Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

Before the days of Har­ry Pot­ter, gen­er­a­tions of young read­ers let their imag­i­na­tions take flight with The Chron­i­cles of Nar­nia, a series of sev­en fan­ta­sy nov­els writ­ten by C. S. Lewis. Like his friend J.R.R. Tolkien, Lewis served on the Eng­lish fac­ul­ty at Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty and took part in the Inklings, an Oxford lit­er­ary group ded­i­cat­ed to fic­tion and fan­ta­sy.

Pub­lished between 1950 and 1956, The Chron­i­cles of Nar­nia has sold over 100 mil­lion copies in 47 lan­guages, delight­ing younger and old­er read­ers world­wide. The sev­en vol­umes in the series include:

  • The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
  • Prince Caspi­an: The Return to Nar­nia
  • The Voy­age of the Dawn Tread­er
  • The Sil­ver Chair
  • The Horse and His Boy
  • The Magi­cian’s Nephew
  • The Last Bat­tle

Now, with the appar­ent bless­ing of the C.S. Lewis estate, the sev­en vol­ume series is avail­able in a free audio for­mat. There are 101 audio record­ings in total, each aver­ag­ing 30 min­utes and read by Chris­si Hart. Down­load the com­plete audio via the web or RSS Feed. Or start lis­ten­ing to the open­ing chap­ters of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe right below.

We have added The Chron­i­cles of Nar­nia record­ings to our col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books, where you will find many oth­er great clas­sics. h/t metafil­ter

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free: Down­load Copy of New Steve Jobs Biog­ra­phy

Free Audio: Down­load George Orwell’s 1984 and Ani­mal Farm for Free

Down­load 20 Pop­u­lar High School Books Avail­able as Free eBooks & Audio Books

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Tuileries: A Short, Slightly Twisted Film by Joel and Ethan Coen

They call Paris the City of Love. It’s also the birth­place of the Mar­quis de Sade. Behind the roman­tic post­card facade, there’s some­thing a bit more com­pli­cat­ed going on. In Tui­leries, a short film by Joel and Ethan Coen from the 2006 anthol­o­gy, Paris Je T’Aime, Steve Busce­mi plays a mild-man­nered tourist caught com­plete­ly out of his ele­ment. What tran­spires is a rather bizarre five-minute cul­tur­al les­son they won’t teach you at Berlitz. It’s now added to our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

Fol­low us on Face­bookTwit­ter and now Google Plus.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

John Tur­tur­ro Reads Ita­lo Calvino’s Ani­mat­ed Fairy Tale

World Cin­e­ma: Joel and Ethan Coen’s Play­ful Homage to Cin­e­ma His­to­ry

 

RIP Christopher Hitchens: Stephen Fry Pays Tribute, Hitch Rejects the Deathbed Conversion

18 months after being diag­nosed with oesophageal can­cer, the polem­i­cal writer Christo­pher Hitchens has died at the age of 62. His fans began to fear the worst last month when Hitchens, sud­den­ly hos­pi­tal­ized with pneu­mo­nia, could­n’t attend a wide­ly-pub­li­cized debate in Lon­don. The pro­mot­ers of the event, Intel­li­gence², quick­ly turned the debate into a cel­e­bra­tion of Hitchens’ life. Stephen Fry played host, and Richard Dawkins, Christo­pher Buck­ley, Salman Rushdie, Lewis Lapham, Mar­tin Amis, James Fen­ton and Sean Penn all paid trib­ute. Above, we’re high­light­ing the poignant video once again.

Also fit­ting­ly, we’re bring­ing back anoth­er clip that fea­tures Hitchens dis­cussing how his strug­gle with can­cer affect­ed his views on the ques­tion of an after­life. “I would say it frac­tion­al­ly increas­es my con­tempt for the false con­so­la­tion ele­ment of reli­gion and my dis­like for the dic­ta­to­r­i­al and total­i­tar­i­an part of it,” he respond­ed. “It’s con­sid­ered per­fect­ly nor­mal in this soci­ety to approach dying peo­ple who you don’t know but who are unbe­liev­ers and say, ‘Now are you gonna change your mind?’ That is con­sid­ered almost a polite ques­tion.” Dur­ing the event taped last Feb­ru­ary (watch the full pro­gram here), Hitchens made his views pret­ty clear: No deathbed con­ver­sion for me, thanks, but it was good of you to ask.

And final­ly we cap things off with a mon­tage of 22 com­ments from Christo­pher Hitchens. When you add them all up, you get some vin­tage Hitchens — every­thing that made him some­times loved, some­times hat­ed but always respect­ed.

If you have nev­er spent time read­ing Hitch, we’re going to rec­om­mend his last piece for Van­i­ty Fair — his reflec­tion on Niet­zsche’s famous line “What­ev­er doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.” It was pub­lished last week, and it’s quite the coda.

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Helen Mirren Tells Us Why Wassily Kandinsky Is Her Favorite Artist (And What Acting & Modern Art Have in Common)

Russ­ian abstract painter and art the­o­rist Wass­i­ly Kandin­sky was born in Moscow on Decem­ber 16, 1866 (Decem­ber 4 on the Julian cal­en­dar), and raised in Odessa, where he took an ear­ly inter­est in music. As a young man he stud­ied eco­nom­ics and law, but in 1895 his life was for­ev­er changed when he attend­ed a Moscow exhi­bi­tion of paint­ings by the French Impres­sion­ists. Kandin­sky was deeply struck by one of Mon­et’s paint­ings from the series Haystacks at Giverny. He lat­er recalled his epiphany:

That it was a haystack the cat­a­logue informed me. I could not rec­og­nize it. This non-recog­ni­tion was painful to me. I con­sid­ered that the painter had no right to paint indis­tinct­ly. I dul­ly felt that the object of the paint­ing was miss­ing. And I noticed with sur­prise and con­fu­sion that the pic­ture not only gripped me, but impressed itself inerad­i­ca­bly on my mem­o­ry. Paint­ing took on a fairy-tale pow­er and splen­dor.

Kandin­sky quit his job as a law pro­fes­sor and ded­i­cat­ed him­self to paint­ing. He emi­grat­ed, first to France and then to Ger­many, where he moved fur­ther and fur­ther away from fig­u­ra­tive paint­ing. He was among the first to cre­ate works that were com­plete­ly abstract, or non-objec­tive. In his 1910 trea­tise, Con­cern­ing the Spir­i­tu­al in Art, Kandin­sky declares that the ele­ments with­in a paint­ing should not cor­re­spond to any out­er object, but only to the artist’s “inner need.”

In obser­vance of the artist’s 145th birth­day, we present two videos with dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives on his work. Above, actress Helen Mir­ren talks with the Muse­um of Mod­ern Art about what Kandin­sky, and art, mean to her. Below, a trio of scholars–Beth Har­ris, Juliana Kreinik and Steven Zucker–discuss Kandin­sky’s 1913 mas­ter­piece, “Com­po­si­tion VII,” for the Khan Acad­e­my’s Smarthis­to­ry series. “Com­po­si­tion VII” was paint­ed by Kandin­sky in Munich over a peri­od of four days–but only after he had made more than 30 prepara­to­ry sketch­es, water­col­ors and oil stud­ies.

Relat­ed Con­tent

MoMA Puts Pol­lock, Rothko & de Koon­ing on Your iPad

Jack­son Pol­lock: Lights, Cam­era, Paint! (1951)

John Berger’s Ways of See­ing: The TV Series

The Godfather Without Brando?: Coppola Explains How It Almost Happened

It’s hard to imag­ine The God­fa­ther, the icon­ic 1972 film, with­out Mar­lon Bran­do. But that’s almost how it turned out.

Dur­ing cast­ing, Para­mount exec­u­tives orig­i­nal­ly pushed for Lau­rence Olivi­er. But when he could­n’t take the film, and when the direc­tor, Fran­cis Ford Cop­po­la, asked them to con­sid­er Bran­do, they ini­tial­ly respond­ed: “Mar­lon Bran­do will nev­er appear in this motion pic­ture.” Above, Cop­po­la and co-star James Caan explain how the execs were even­tu­al­ly cajoled into chang­ing their minds, and how the clas­sic film fell into place. As you watch this, also keep in mind that Para­mount ini­tial­ly asked two oth­er direc­tors (Ser­gio Leone and then Peter Bog­danovich) to make The God­fa­ther before approach­ing Cop­po­la, plus they lat­er want­ed Robert Red­ford or Ryan O’Neal to play Michael Cor­leone. But Cop­po­la, who threat­ened to quit the pro­duc­tion, got his way and put the rel­a­tive­ly unknown Al Paci­no into the film. The rest, as they say, is his­to­ry.…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, etc.

Bruce Lee Audi­tions for The Green Hor­net

Kurt Rus­sell Audi­tions for Star Wars

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