A Rare Interview with Fritz Lang and His 1931 Masterpiece of Suspense, M

in Film | January 19th, 2012

“I made my films with a kind of sleep­walk­ing secu­ri­ty,” says Fritz Lang. “I did things which I thought were right. Peri­od.” Thus begins this fas­ci­nat­ing inter­view with the great Aus­tri­an-born direc­tor.

The inter­view was con­duct­ed by William Fried­kin, direc­tor of The French Con­nec­tion and The Exor­cist, in Feb­ru­ary of 1975, a lit­tle more than a year before Lang’s death. Lang talks about his ear­ly life as a run­away. (“Any decent human being should run away from home.”), his entry into the­atre and film as a young man, his Ger­man mas­ter­pieces Metrop­o­lis and M, and a chill­ing encounter in 1933 with the Nazi Min­is­ter of Pro­pa­gan­da Joseph Goebbels that pro­voked him to flee Ger­many the same day.

The sto­ry of Lang’s escape has all the ele­ments of a cin­e­mat­ic thriller, but biog­ra­phers have cast doubt on its verac­i­ty, cit­ing pass­port records which indi­cate that Lang left Ger­many some time after the meet­ing with Goebbels, and that he returned on brief trips sev­er­al times that year. But the anec­dote, along with Lang’s reflec­tions on his life and on the nature of fate, pro­vide a fas­ci­nat­ing look into the great film­mak­er’s char­ac­ter.

The con­ver­sa­tion above, which runs 50 min­utes, was edit­ed down from a much longer set of inter­views. Accord­ing to the Tori­no Film Fes­ti­val web­site, Fried­kin orig­i­nal­ly intend­ed to use the Lang mate­r­i­al for a doc­u­men­tary on hor­ror cin­e­ma, to be called A Safe Dark­ness, but there is no dis­cus­sion of the hor­ror genre in this ver­sion.

As an extra bonus from our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online, we present the film Lang most want­ed to be remem­bered for, M. (See below.) The film was made in 1931, and was the first by Lang to incor­po­rate sound. Peter Lorre makes his screen debut as a man guilty of unspeak­able crimes. In its intro­duc­tion to the film, the Cri­te­ri­on Col­lec­tion writes: “In his har­row­ing mas­ter­work M, Fritz Lang merges tren­chant social com­men­tary with chill­ing sus­pense, cre­at­ing a panora­ma of pri­vate mad­ness and pub­lic hys­te­ria that to this day remains the blue­print for the psy­cho­log­i­cal thriller.”

M, by Fritz Lang:

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The Disney Cartoon That Introduced Mickey Mouse & Animation with Sound (1928)

in Animation, Film | January 19th, 2012

In 1927, The Jazz Singer star­ring Al Jol­son, one of the first great “talkies” to use syn­chro­nized singing and speech, hit Amer­i­can the­aters and thrilled audi­ences. Know­ing that change was afoot, Walt Dis­ney spent $4,986 to cre­ate his first sound car­toon, Steam­boat Willie (1928). Remem­ber­ing the film many years lat­er, Dis­ney said:

The effect on our lit­tle audi­ence was noth­ing less than elec­tric. They respond­ed almost instinc­tive­ly to this union of sound and motion. I thought they were kid­ding me. So they put me in the audi­ence and ran the action again. It was ter­ri­ble, but it was won­der­ful! And it was some­thing new!

These tech­ni­cal inno­va­tions make Steam­boat Willie rather leg­endary. But the film retains land­mark sta­tus for anoth­er rea­son. It marked the first pub­lic debut of Mick­ey Mouse and his girl­friend Min­nie, two of the most rec­og­nized car­toon char­ac­ters world­wide. Ub Iwerks, the cel­e­brat­ed Dis­ney ani­ma­tor, first brought Mick­ey to life, and we have been liv­ing with him ever since — although, as you will see, his per­son­al­i­ty has soft­ened over time.

You can see Mick­ey star­ring in two oth­er ear­ly ani­ma­tions: Plane Crazy (1929) where the Mouse imi­tates Amer­i­ca’s hero at the time, Charles Lind­bergh. And The Gal­lopin’ Gau­cho, anoth­er 1928 release.

Steam­boat Willie appears in the Ani­ma­tion Sec­tion of our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

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:

How Walt Dis­ney Car­toons Are Made

The Mak­ing of a Nazi: Disney’s 1943 Ani­mat­ed Short

Des­ti­no: The Sal­vador Dalí – Dis­ney Col­lab­o­ra­tion 57 Years in the Mak­ing

Ger­tie the Dinosaur: The Moth­er of all Car­toon Char­ac­ters

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The Costa Concordia Shipwreck Viewed from Outer Space

in Current Affairs | January 19th, 2012

The search for sur­vivors still goes on near the Tus­can island of Giglio, where the Cos­ta Con­cor­dia hit rocks and list­ed help­less­ly to the side. The help­less­ness of the cruise ship has been cap­tured in a remark­able image tak­en by Dig­i­tal Globe from out­er space. Click here (or above) to see the image in a rather stun­ning, enlarged for­mat.

via Uni­verse Today

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How Film Was Made in 1958: A Kodak Nostalgia Moment

in History, Photography | January 18th, 2012

Before pix­els there were sil­ver halide crys­tals, and before mem­o­ry cards, film. Lit­tle yel­low box­es clut­tered the lives of pho­tog­ra­phers every­where, and the East­man Kodak Com­pa­ny was vir­tu­al­ly syn­ony­mous with pho­tog­ra­phy.

Things have real­ly changed. With the recent news that Kodak is tee­ter­ing on the brink of Chap­ter 11 bank­rupt­cy, many are feel­ing nos­tal­gia for those lit­tle yel­low box­es and the rolls of sil­ver gelatin film inside. To indulge this nostalgia–and per­haps learn some­thing new about an old technology–we offer a fas­ci­nat­ing 1958 doc­u­men­tary from Kodak enti­tled How Film is Made.

The doc­u­men­tary is in Dutch, but mem­bers of the Ana­log Pho­tog­ra­phy Users Group launched a project to cre­ate Eng­lish sub­ti­tles. You can read more about the project on Dutch mem­ber Mar­co Boeringa’s web­site. And you can watch the 18-minute film start­ing above and con­clud­ing below.

Fol­low Open Cul­ture on Face­book and Twit­ter and share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox. And if you want to make sure that our posts def­i­nite­ly appear in your Face­book news­feed, just fol­low these sim­ple steps.

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What is Wrong with SOPA?

in Current Affairs, Media, Politics, Technology | January 18th, 2012

Some of the big web­sites are going black today to protest SOPA, the Stop Online Pira­cy Act, that has been wind­ing its way through Con­gress. We’re going to han­dle things in our own way — by illu­mi­nat­ing the mat­ter with a lit­tle intel­li­gent media.

Backed by the Motion Pic­ture Asso­ci­a­tion of Amer­i­ca, SOPA is designed to debil­i­tate and effec­tive­ly shut down for­eign-based web­sites that sell pirat­ed movies, music and oth­er goods. That all sounds fine on the face of things. But the leg­is­la­tion, if enact­ed, would car­ry with it a series of unex­pect­ed con­se­quences that could change the inter­net as we know it. Among oth­er things, the law could be used to shut down Amer­i­can sites that unwit­ting­ly host or link to ille­gal con­tent — and with­out giv­ing the sites due process, a real day in court. Big sites like YouTube and Twit­ter could fall under pres­sure, and so could count­less small sites. Need­less to say, that could have a seri­ous chill­ing effect on the open­ness of the web and free speech.

To give a quick exam­ple: It could con­ceiv­ably be the case that Stan­ford might object to my fea­tur­ing their video above, file a claim, and shut the site down with­out giv­ing me notice and an oppor­tu­ni­ty to remove the mate­r­i­al (as exists under cur­rent law). It’s not like­ly. But it is pos­si­ble, and the risk increas­es with every post we write. If this law pass­es, the amount of mate­r­i­al we could tru­ly safe­ly cov­er would become ludi­crous­ly small, so much so that it would­n’t be worth run­ning the site and using the web as an edu­ca­tion­al medi­um.

The Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion has come out against SOPA and PIPA, sidelin­ing the leg­is­la­tion for now. But you can almost guar­an­tee that revi­sions will be made, and the bills will return soon. So, while oth­er sites go black, we’re going to do what we do best. We’re fea­tur­ing video of an event held in Decem­ber by the Stan­ford Cen­ter for Inter­net and Soci­ety (SCIS). What’s Wrong with SOPA brings togeth­er a series of informed oppo­nents to SOPA, includ­ing Stan­ford law pro­fes­sors and busi­ness lead­ers with­in Sil­i­con Val­ley. (Find their bios below the jump.) Some of the most inci­sive com­ments are made by Fred von Lohmann, a Google lawyer, start­ing at the 19:10 mark.

Note: If you’re look­ing to under­stand the debate from the per­spec­tive of copy­right hold­ers, then we’d rec­om­mend you spend time watch­ing, Fol­low the Mon­ey: Who Prof­its from Pira­cy?, a video that tracks the theft of one movie, mak­ing it a micro­cosm of a larg­er prob­lem.

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Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief, with Jonathan Miller

in History, Religion | January 18th, 2012

With the Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001 ter­ror­ist attacks and the emo­tion­al whiplash that fol­lowed, the monothe­is­tic reli­gions of the West took a more stri­dent­ly polit­i­cal turn. It was in this con­text that Jonathan Miller, the British the­atre and opera direc­tor, felt com­pelled to cre­ate a three-part doc­u­men­tary trac­ing the his­to­ry of reli­gious skep­ti­cism and dis­be­lief.

Broad­cast by the BBC in 2004 under the title, Athe­ism: A Rough His­to­ry of Dis­be­lief, the series was­n’t broad­cast by PBS in Amer­i­ca until 2007, and only after “Athe­ism” had been removed from the title and the word “rough” changed to “brief.”

“I’m rather reluc­tant to call myself an athe­ist,” Miller says at the out­set. “It’s only in the light of such cur­rent con­tro­ver­sies with regard to belief that I’ve found myself will­ing to explic­it­ly artic­u­late my dis­be­lief.”

Miller goes on to guide the view­er through the his­toric evo­lu­tion of reli­gious doubt, from the skep­ti­cism of Greek and Roman philoso­phers to the Deism of Enlight­en­ment intel­lec­tu­als and the emer­gence of explic­it athe­ism in the writ­ings of the 18th cen­tu­ry French aris­to­crat Paul-Hen­ri Thiry, the Baron d’Hol­bach, who wrote in his Sys­tème de la Nature:

If we go back to the begin­ning we shall find that igno­rance and fear cre­at­ed the gods; that fan­cy, enthu­si­asm, or deceit adorned or dis­fig­ured them; that weak­ness wor­ships them; that creduli­ty pre­serves them; and that cus­tom, respect and tyran­ny sup­port them in order to make the blind­ness of men serve its own inter­ests.

Miller also talks with a num­ber of well-known con­tem­po­rary athe­ists, includ­ing play­wright Arthur Miller, physi­cist Steven Wein­berg and philoso­pher Col­in McGinn. Episode One: Shad­ows of Doubt appears above, in its entire­ty, with the oth­er two episodes: “Noughts and Cross­es” and “The Final Hour.”

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

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 Athe­ism Tapes Presents Lengthy Inter­views with Arthur Miller, Daniel Den­nett & Richard Dawkins About Reli­gion and Unbe­lief

Steve Mar­tin Writes Song for Hymn-Deprived Athe­ists

Athe­ist Stan­ford Biol­o­gist Robert Sapol­sky Explains How Reli­gious Beliefs Reduce Stress

Ayn Rand Argues That Believ­ing in God Is an Insult to Rea­son on The Phil Don­ahue Show (Cir­ca 1979)

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The Monk and the Fish, the Classic Animation by Michael Dudok de Wit

in Art, Film | January 18th, 2012

Edi­tor’s note: The text below dis­cuss­es the end­ing of the film. We rec­om­mend that you watch “The Monk and the Fish” before read­ing.

In this charm­ing and visu­al­ly ele­gant film from 1994, the Dutch-born ani­ma­tor Michael Dudok de Wit tells the sto­ry of a sin­gle-mind­ed monk and a very elu­sive fish. While the set­ting and sym­bols are Chris­t­ian, the sto­ry pro­gres­sion is essen­tial­ly Bud­dhist.

“The Monk and the Fish is not a sto­ry about the solu­tion of a con­flict,” Dudok de Wit explained to Sarah Moli­noff in a 2009 inter­view for the Oxon­ian Review. “It’s more about the rise above the con­flict, the rise above dual­i­ty.” The monk does­n’t catch the fish; he and the fish are unit­ed. Dudok de Wit took his inspi­ra­tion from the Ten Ox Herd­ing Pic­tures, a series of Zen poems and images from 12th Cen­tu­ry Chi­na, which illus­trate the jour­ney to enlight­en­ment through the sto­ry of an oxherd’s strug­gle with a way­ward bull. He said:

The gen­e­sis of the film was the end­ing. It was that sequence I want­ed to cre­ate, where there is a serene union between the monk and the fish. The end­ing by itself would be flat, too abstract, to pull the audi­ence in, so I clear­ly need­ed to have a build-up, to estab­lish and feel empa­thy with the char­ac­ter. In con­trast to the end­ing, in the begin­ning the monk is obsessed, obsessed, obsessed, but in the end­ing he arrives at a res­o­lu­tion. In a qui­et way, not with a big act.

The Lon­don-based artist hand-paint­ed each frame in ink and water­col­or. Like the sto­ry, the visu­al style was inspired by the Far East. “The Japan­ese in par­tic­u­lar, and also the Chi­nese and Kore­ans,” said Dudok de Wit, “have a way of using neg­a­tive space, of not fill­ing the pic­ture, which is very typ­i­cal of the Far East and very untyp­i­cal of the West. We can be inspired by it, but it’s pro­found­ly in their culture–in their genes maybe, and not so much in ours. It’s not just about the brush line, it’s also the space around the line that is inspir­ing.”

For the music, Dudok de Wit chose a clas­sic from the West­ern canon, La Folia, a tra­di­tion­al theme that was often adapt­ed or quot­ed by com­posers like Bach, Vival­di, Corel­li, Han­del and Liszt. The film­mak­er select­ed a few of his favorite variations–mainly from Corel­li and Vivaldi–and asked com­pos­er Serge Bes­set to lis­ten to them and cre­ate a new ver­sion to fit the film.

The Monk and the Fish took six months to cre­ate, and was nom­i­nat­ed for Best Short Ani­mat­ed Film at both the Acad­e­my Awards and the British Acad­e­my Film Awards. You will find it list­ed in our col­lec­tion of 450 Free Movies Online, along with anoth­er mov­ing short by Dudock de Wit, Father and Daugh­ter. They appear in the Ani­ma­tion Sec­tion.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Shel Sil­ver­stein’s The Giv­ing Tree: The Ani­mat­ed Movie

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Physicist Lawrence Krauss Explains How Everything Comes from Nothing

in Physics, Video - Science | January 17th, 2012

Last fall, we fea­tured a talk by the hot-shot the­o­ret­i­cal physi­cist Lawrence Krauss, “A Uni­verse from Noth­ing,” which answered some big enchi­la­da ques­tions: What is our cur­rent under­stand­ing of the uni­verse? When did the uni­verse begin? What came before it? How could some­thing come from noth­ing? And what will hap­pen to the uni­verse in the future?

The lec­ture gave a snap­shot of the think­ing laid out in Krauss’ new­ly-released book by the same title: A Uni­verse from Noth­ing: Why There Is Some­thing Rather than Noth­ing. The book just hit the stands, and right now it’s #51 on the Ama­zon best­seller list. Not bad for a text that delves into the com­plex mys­ter­ies of dark mat­ter, quan­tum mechan­ics and cos­mol­o­gy.

In case you missed the orig­i­nal lec­ture, we have post­ed â€śA Uni­verse from Noth­ing” below for your view­ing plea­sure. (It has racked up over a mil­lion views on YouTube.) And you can catch the video trail­er for Krauss’ new book right above. Find more great physics videos in our col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es and Great Sci­ence Videos.

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