Watch Soviet Animations of Winnie the Pooh, Created by the Innovative Animator Fyodor Khitruk

Note: To acti­vate sub­ti­tles, click the CC icon at the bot­tom of the video.

In 1962, the ani­ma­tor Fyo­dor Khitruk made his direc­to­r­i­al debut with Sto­ry of One Crime, a film that broke with a Sovi­et ten­den­cy to make imi­ta­tions of Dis­ney-style ani­ma­tions. The film, as The Guardian explained in its 2012 obit­u­ary for the ani­ma­tor, came as a shock. It was styl­is­ti­cal­ly sim­ple and dealt with themes that Dis­ney films would nev­er touch — like, why would a polite clerk mur­der two house­wives with a fry­ing pan?

Khitruk made oth­er films that were packed with social com­men­tary, often tak­ing aim at abus­es in the Sovi­et sys­tem. But, he also made straight­for­ward ani­ma­tions for chil­dren, none more famous than his series of films based on AA Mil­ne’s beloved Win­nie the Pooh books.

Cre­at­ed between 1969 and 1972, Khitruk’s three films star a bear named “Vin­ni-Pukh” who looks noth­ing like the Win­nie the Pooh that West­ern­ers grew up with. (You can see the orig­i­nal illus­tra­tions of Pooh by E.H. Shep­ard here.) But view­ers will cer­tain­ly rec­og­nize the sto­ry­line and spir­it of the orig­i­nal Pooh in the Sovi­et adap­ta­tions. For decades, these films have enchant­ed East Euro­pean view­ers, both young and old. And they still occa­sion­al­ly appear on Russ­ian TV.

Part 1

Part 2

Above, you can watch the three ani­ma­tions online. They appear in the order in which they were released: 1) Win­nie-the-Pooh (Винни-Пух, 1969), 2) Win­nie-the-Pooh Goes on a Vis­it (Винни-Пух идет в гости, 1971); and 3) Win­nie-the-Pooh and the Day of Con­cern (Винни-Пух и день забот, 1972).

As not­ed up top, you might need to click the “CC” icon at the bot­tom of the YouTube videos in order to acti­vate the sub­ti­tles. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, we can’t vouch for the accu­ra­cy of the trans­la­tions.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear the Clas­sic Win­nie-the-Pooh Read by Author A.A. Milne in 1929

Two Beau­ti­ful­ly-Craft­ed Russ­ian Ani­ma­tions of Chekhov’s Clas­sic Children’s Sto­ry “Kash­tan­ka”

Watch The Amaz­ing 1912 Ani­ma­tion of Stop-Motion Pio­neer Ladis­las Stare­vich, Star­ring Dead Bugs

The Com­plete Wiz­ard of Oz Series, Avail­able as Free eBooks and Free Audio Books

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Legendary Japanese Author Yukio Mishima Muses About the Samurai Code (Which Inspired His Hapless 1970 Coup Attempt)

One day in Novem­ber of 1970, Nobel prize-nom­i­nat­ed author Yukio Mishi­ma bar­ri­cad­ed him­self in the East­ern Com­mand office of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces and tied the com­man­dant to a chair. Accom­pa­nied by a hand­ful of young men from the Tatenokai, a stu­dent soci­ety-cum-mili­tia, Mishi­ma had launched a coup against the gov­ern­ment. He fol­lowed in the tra­di­tion of lit­er­ary rad­i­cals, whose ranks held writ­ers as diverse as Alexan­der Pushkin and Pablo Neru­da, with one key dis­tinc­tion: while Russ­ian and Chilean authors sought left­ward polit­i­cal shifts, Mishi­ma espoused a jack­boot brand of ascetic nation­al­ism. If Mishima’s cap­ti­va­tion with author­i­tar­i­an pol­i­tics seems out of char­ac­ter for a writer of such emo­tion­al depth, it is worth not­ing that his val­ues were root­ed in the hon­our code of the samu­rai, known as bushi­do. A rare clip of Mishima’s Eng­lish inter­views, above, makes the author’s beliefs about both art and hon­or pal­pa­bly clear:

I think that bru­tal­i­ty might come from our fem­i­nine aspect, and ele­gance comes from our ner­vous side. Some­times we are too sen­si­tive about defile­ment, or ele­gance, or a sense of beau­ty, or the aes­thet­ic side. Some­times we get tired of it. Some­times we need a sud­den explo­sion to make us free from it. For instance, after the war, our bru­tal side was com­plete­ly hid­den… I don’t like that the Japan­ese cul­ture is rep­re­sent­ed only by flower arrangement—a peace-lov­ing cul­ture. We still have a very strong war­rior mind.

The samu­rai ethos was a crit­i­cal com­po­nent of Mishi­ma’s most mov­ing works, includ­ing The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea and Patri­o­tism. In the film adap­ta­tion of Patri­o­tism, below, Mishi­ma shows that to him, even love is sub­or­di­nate to—or per­haps great­est when it works alongside—honour. While the film’s the­atri­cal pro­duc­tion and graph­ic nature may not be for everyone’s tastes (we also note that the clip below has been re-scored, with the orig­i­nal film avail­able here), the rit­u­al sui­cide it depicts offers some insight into the author’s psyche—after his failed coup, Mishi­ma plunged a blade into his stom­ach, and had one of the Tatenokai mem­bers behead him. He was 45 years old.

Ilia Blin­d­er­man is a Mon­tre­al-based cul­ture and sci­ence writer. Fol­low him at @iliablinderman.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

In Search of Haru­ki Muraka­mi, Japan’s Great Post­mod­ernist Nov­el­ist

Watch Kurosawa’s Rashomon Free Online, the Film That Intro­duced Japan­ese Cin­e­ma to the West

Amer­i­can Film­mak­ers in Japan­ese Ads: Quentin Taran­ti­no Sells Cell Phones, Orson Welles Hawks Whisky

The Story of the Bass: New Video Gives Us 500 Years of Music History in 8 Minutes

Out­side of mod­ern jazz, bass play­ers have a hard time. Peo­ple either for­get they exist—“John Bon­ham, Jim­my Page, Robert Plant, and … oh yeah, that oth­er guy…”—or they get car­i­ca­tured as the goofi­est mem­bers of the band, due per­haps to the instrument’s unwield­i­ness and the rock­ing-at-the waist motions its awk­ward dimen­sions inspire. The phys­i­cal pos­tures of bassists have lent far too many per­fect pho­to­graph­ic moments to the viral Bass Dogs tum­blr, which imag­ines bass play­ers tick­ling giant, often embar­rassed-look­ing dogs.

But meme-ing aside, the bass occu­pies a cru­cial space, cov­er­ing a fre­quen­cy range and rhyth­mic dimen­sion with­out which we could not be tru­ly moved by mod­ern pop or clas­si­cal music, either in spir­it or body. And while the low end doesn’t clam­or for our attention—like the upper ranges of a chanteuse’s voice, a wail­ing lead gui­tar, or crash­ing cymbals—and can get lost in the tin­ny sounds of ear­buds and cheap radios, we sim­ply can­not do with­out the sound of the bass. To demon­strate what a propul­sive force the bass has been in the evo­lu­tion of music over the cen­turies, col­lec­tive CDZA—who have pre­vi­ous­ly enter­tained and enlight­ened us about the gui­tar solo—fea­ture bassist Michael Thurber in a greatest-hits-who’s‑who his­to­ry les­son, “The Sto­ry of the Bass.”

We begin with that baroque pre­cur­sor to the con­tra bass (or dou­ble bass), the vio­la da gam­ba, which Bach wrote for in his cel­lo suites and in da gam­ba and harp­si­chord pieces. When we come to the 18th cen­tu­ry, we are in the dou­ble bass world of bril­liant vir­tu­oso play­er and com­pos­er Domeni­co Drag­onet­ti, beloved of Haydn and Beethoven (hear a mes­mer­iz­ing Drag­onet­ti con­cer­to above). We then move through the 19th cen­tu­ry with names like Serge Kous­se­vitzky, pop­u­lar­iz­er of the 4‑string dou­ble bass we know today.

With jazz in the ‘20s , the fin­ger pluck­ing style comes to stand in for the tuba of pro­to-jazz Sousa bands. Then the 4‑note walk­ing bassline comes to the fore, brought most famous­ly by Duke Elling­ton bass­man Well­man Braud. In the 40s and 50s, bass took a spot­light with, among many oth­ers, three more some­time Elling­ton bassists: Jim­my Blan­ton, Oscar Pet­ti­ford, and, espe­cial­ly, Charles Min­gus.

The video zooms through country/bluegrass/rockabilly dou­ble bass inno­va­tions with a too-brief men­tion of slap bass tech­nique before Thurber straps on a clas­sic elec­tric to intro­duce but one of Leo Fender’s con­tri­bu­tions to mod­ern music. The first elec­tric bass debuted in 1951, and at the time, only one per­son played it, Monk (erro­neous­ly called “Mark” by CDZA) Mont­gomery, one of a trio of musi­cal broth­ers, who played for Lionel Hampton’s band.

As we get into the post-war peri­od, the bass evolves as rapid­ly as the tech­nolo­gies of ampli­fi­ca­tion, broad­cast, and record­ing. With the dom­i­nance of Motown in the six­ties, the bass takes a lead role in R&B, with the immor­tal James Jamer­son lead­ing the way (above with Jack­son 5). And with British rock and roll, the bass is again pushed to the fore­front by, of course, Paul McCart­ney. New tech­niques abound—John Entwistle of The Who’s fin­ger pluck­ing style, Lar­ry Graham’s slap­ping, the funk/rock/soul sig­na­tures of Nathan Watts, John Paul Jones, and Chris Squire. Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters stands alone as a sin­gu­lar voice on the bass.

Once Thurber reach­es off-the-wall instru­men­tal­ists like Jaco Pas­to­ri­ous (above) and Flea (one is sad­dened Les Clay­pool doesn’t get a name check), we’re off to the races, any­thing goes, and oth­er clichés. Or how about a pun? It’s a bass race to rede­fine the instru­ment until the oughties, when it set­tles back in for folk and six­ties rock revival­ism and explodes in the synth lines of the hard dance revival­ism of dub­step. It’s a rol­lick­ing ride, and as any 8‑and-a-half minute his­to­ry les­son is bound to be, a sur­vey in broad strokes that sure­ly leaves out a cou­ple or dozen of your favorites (Boot­sie Collins? Ged­dy Lee? Peter Hook? Kim Deal? Rob­bie Shake­speare?). But on the whole, it’s an instruc­tive tour of a neglect­ed or maligned instru­ment that deserves much more respect than it gets.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Evo­lu­tion of the Rock Gui­tar Solo: 28 Solos, Span­ning 50 Years, Played in 6 Fun Min­utes

The Fun­da­men­tals of Jazz & Rock Drum­ming Explained in Five Cre­ative Min­utes

An Abridged His­to­ry of West­ern Music: “What a Won­der­ful World” Sung in 16 Dif­fer­ent Styles

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

Filmmaker Michel Gondry Presents an Animated Conversation with Noam Chomsky

Even if you reg­u­lar­ly read Open Cul­ture, where we make a point of high­light­ing unusu­al inter­sec­tions of cul­tur­al cur­rents, you prob­a­bly nev­er expect­ed a col­lab­o­ra­tion between the likes of Michel Gondry and Noam Chom­sky. Gondry we’ve known as an imag­i­na­tive film­mak­er behind fea­tures like Eter­nal Sun­shine of the Spot­less Mind and Be Kind Rewind (as well as music videos for artists like Beck, Kanye West, and the White Stripes), one dri­ven to pur­sue a Con­ti­nen­tal whim­sy tem­pered by a ded­i­ca­tion to elab­o­rate, dif­fi­cult-look­ing hand craft and an appar­ent inter­est in Amer­i­can cul­ture.

Chom­sky we’ve known, depend­ing on our inter­ests, as either a not­ed lin­guist or a con­tro­ver­sial writer and speak­er on pol­i­tics, soci­ety, and the media. Gondry’s new doc­u­men­tary Is the Man Who Is Tall Hap­py?, the project that brings them togeth­er at least, show­cas­es both the less-seen pure­ly philo­soph­i­cal side of Chom­sky, and the also rarely acknowl­edged inquis­i­tive, con­ver­sa­tion­al side of Gondry. In the New York Times “Anato­my of a Scene” clip at the top, the direc­tor explains his process.

Nat­u­ral­ly, Gondry went through a fair­ly unusu­al process to make the film, giv­en that he based the whole thing on noth­ing more elab­o­rate than a long-form in-office con­ver­sa­tion with the MIT-based pro­fes­sor and activist. To get the footage he need­ed of Chom­sky talk­ing, he brought in — nat­u­ral­ly — his vin­tage wind-up Bolex 16-mil­lime­ter film cam­era. He then wove those shots in with his also high­ly ana­log hand-drawn ani­ma­tion, which illus­trates Chom­sky’s ideas as he describes them — and as Gondry prods him for more. “The cam­era is very loud,” Gondry explains over a delib­er­ate­ly shaky frame, “and that’s why I have to draw it each time you hear it.” Just above, you can watch the film’s trail­er, which offers Chom­sky’s voice as well as Gondry’s. “Why should we take it to be obvi­ous that if I let go of a ball,” we hear the inter­vie­wee ask, “it goes down and not up?” We also hear the inter­view­er admit that he “felt a bit stu­pid here,” but these two men’s con­sid­er­able dif­fer­ences — in gen­er­a­tion, in nation­al­i­ty, in sen­si­bil­i­ty, in their con­cerns, in the forms of their work — pro­vide all the more rea­son to lis­ten when they talk. And if you find the intel­lec­tu­al trip not to your taste, just behold the visu­al one.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Noam Chom­sky & Michel Fou­cault Debate Human Nature & Pow­er (1971)

Noam Chom­sky vs. William F. Buck­ley, 1969

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­lesA Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

U2 Releases a Nelson Mandela-Inspired Song, “Ordinary Love”

Worth a quick men­tion: U2 has released “Ordi­nary Love,” a song writ­ten for the new film Man­dela: Long Walk To Free­dom“The band saw var­i­ous cuts of the film over the sum­mer and worked dili­gent­ly to write a song that tru­ly reflects Nel­son Man­dela,” The Hol­ly­wood Reporter quotes film pro­duc­er Har­vey Wein­stein as say­ing. And now, accom­pa­ny­ing the song, U2 has put out a “lyric video” direct­ed by Irish illus­tra­tor Oliv­er Jef­fers and Amer­i­can artist Mac Pre­mo. The song itself does­n’t raise my hopes that the band is break­ing out of what feels like a decade-long cre­ative rut. But it’s their first stu­dio track in four years since 2009’s No Line on the Hori­zon. So, if you’re a diehard U2 fan, it will per­haps sate you until next spring, when the band is sched­uled to release its next stu­dio album,

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Nel­son Mandela’s First-Ever TV Inter­view (1961)

Nel­son Man­dela Archive Goes Online (With Help From Google)

Leonard Cohen and U2 Per­form ‘Tow­er of Song,’ a Med­i­ta­tion on Aging, Loss & Sur­vival

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Noam Chomsky on Commemorating the JFK Assassination: It “Would Impress Kim Il-Sung”

jfk chomskyIn recent decades, his­to­ri­ans have tried to offer a bal­anced assess­ment of JFK’s life and lega­cy, offer­ing clear-eyed accounts of his han­dling of for­eign and domes­tic pol­i­cy, and rais­ing ques­tions about his infi­deli­ties and health prob­lems, all the while chip­ping away at the Camelot myth. On Fri­day, the 50th anniver­sary of the Kennedy assas­si­na­tion, the hagiog­ra­phy returned, and even peren­ni­al cads like Rush Lim­baugh had lit­tle bad to say about Amer­i­ca’s 35th pres­i­dent. He sim­ply insist­ed that JFK would be a con­ser­v­a­tive, if still alive today.

Per­haps the only notable excep­tion was Noam Chom­sky. Nev­er a fan of Kennedy (or prob­a­bly any oth­er Amer­i­can pres­i­dent for that mat­ter), Chom­sky was asked by Truthout, “Do you find it odd that the coun­try is focus­ing on a 50th anniver­sary remem­brance of the Kennedy assas­si­na­tion?” A lead­ing ques­tion, no doubt, to which Chomksy replied, “Wor­ship of lead­ers is a tech­nique of indoc­tri­na­tion that goes back to the crazed George Wash­ing­ton cult of the 18th cen­tu­ry and on to the tru­ly lunatic Rea­gan cult of today, both of which would impress Kim Il-sung. The JFK cult is sim­i­lar.” It’s what you get when you live in “a deeply indoc­tri­nat­ed soci­ety.” If you’re ready to have Chom­sky throw more cold water (or is it com­bustible gaso­line?) on the JFK lega­cy, head over to Truthout for more.

P.S. Don’t shoot the mes­sen­ger on this…

via Leit­er Reports

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Noam Chom­sky Slams Žižek and Lacan: Emp­ty ‘Pos­tur­ing’

Clash of the Titans: Noam Chom­sky and Michel Fou­cault Debate Human Nature and Pow­er on Dutch TV, 1971

Noam Chom­sky vs. William F. Buck­ley, 1969

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Rocks Stars Who Died Before They Got Old: What They Would Look Like Today

aged rock stars

Live fast.

Die young.

Spare your­self the grim real­i­ties of the state fair reunion tour cir­cuit.

On the oth­er hand, it’s death­ly hard to con­trol one’s image from beyond the grave. Espe­cial­ly when you’ve got an award-win­ning PR Agency and a pho­to manip­u­la­tion com­pa­ny team­ing up to imag­ine how you might look had you sur­vived!

The twelve unlucky recip­i­ents of these posthu­mous makeovers remain house­hold names (see the gallery here), even though it’s near­ly twen­ty years since the last of their num­ber drew breath. Like Jim Mor­ri­son, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hen­drix, Kurt Cobain was but 27 when he passed, though at the time of his birth, the oth­er three were all old enough to be his mom­my or dad­dy. Fit­ting, then, that he appears to be the baby of the gold­en group.

Music writer Eli­jah Wald and pop­u­lar music schol­ar Reebee Garo­fa­lo offer insights below each por­trait in the gallery about where the sub­jects might now find them­selves in their careers. It’s all con­jec­ture, but their expe­ri­ence ensures that their opin­ions can be tak­en as edu­cat­ed guess­es, at least.

Less con­vinc­ing are the sar­to­r­i­al choic­es on dis­play. Den­nis Wil­son in a Hawai­ian shirt, okay, but were he alive, might not Kei­th Moon fol­low suit with for­mer-band­mates Pete Town­shend and Roger Dal­trey, both of whom have adopt­ed the sleek, mono­chro­mat­ic wardrobe favored by aging rock gods?

And who here thinks the 78-year-old Elvis would traipse around in the sort of short-sleeved poly-blend shirt my late grand­fa­ther wore to his week­ly men’s prayer break­fast?

For pity’s sake, age does not auto­mat­i­cal­ly imply drab­ness!

(Who’s that I see over there? Could it be Yoko Ono, look­ing great at 80, in a top hat and tap pants? Even if she were look­ing less-than-fit, it would still be a bold choice! I doubt she wears that get-up to the gro­cery store, but the pro­gres­sion of time has not robbed her of the abil­i­ty to make a delib­er­ate visu­al impres­sion.)

What is refreshing—though not nec­es­sar­i­ly believable—is how none of the res­ur­rect­ed icons in these por­traits seem to have gone in for plas­tic surgery.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Jimi Hendrix’s Final Inter­view on Sep­tem­ber 11, 1970: Lis­ten to the Com­plete Audio

Watch Janis Joplin’s Final Inter­view Reborn as an Ani­mat­ed Car­toon

Ani­mat­ed Video: Kurt Cobain on Teenage Angst, Sex­u­al­i­ty & Find­ing Sal­va­tion in Punk Music

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the author of sev­en books, most recent­ly Peanut. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

The Existentialism Files: How the FBI Targeted Camus, and Then Sartre After the JFK Assassination

Sartre y Camus

Today, as you must sure­ly know, marks the 50th anniver­sary of John F. Kennedy’s assas­si­na­tion and also sure­ly marks a revival of inter­est in the myr­i­ad con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries that abound in the absence of a sat­is­fac­to­ry expla­na­tion for the events at Dealey Plaza on Novem­ber 22nd, 1963. One the­o­ry I’ve nev­er heard float­ed before comes to us via Andy Mar­tin, lec­tur­er in French at Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty and author of The Box­er and the Goal­keep­er: Sartre vs Camus. In an arti­cle for Prospect mag­a­zine, Mar­tin writes:

To the massed ranks of the CIA, the Mafia, the KGB, Cas­tro, Hoover, and LBJ, we can now add: Jean-Paul Sartre. FBI and State Depart­ment reports of the 1960s had drawn atten­tion to Sartre’s mem­ber­ship of the Fair Play for Cuba Com­mit­tee, of which Lee Har­vey Oswald was also a mem­ber. And—prophetically?—Sartre had “dis­missed the US as a head­less nation.” […] Could he, after all, have been the Sec­ond Shoot­er?

It’s prob­a­bly fair to say that Martin’s tongue is wedged firm­ly in his cheek through­out this open­ing of his fas­ci­nat­ing chron­i­cle of the FBI’s sur­veil­lance of Sartre and his one­time friend and edi­tor Albert Camus. But Martin’s inter­est in the mis­al­liance of Sartre and the Feds is very seri­ous. What he finds dur­ing his inves­ti­ga­tion of the FBI files on exis­ten­tial­ism is that “the G‑men, ini­tial­ly so anti-philo­soph­i­cal, find them­selves reluc­tant­ly phi­los­o­phiz­ing. They become (in GK Chesterton’s phrase) philo­soph­i­cal police­men.”

While we have become accus­tomed, since the days of Joe McCarthy, to ide­o­log­i­cal witch hunts, it seems that Sartre and Camus served as test cas­es for the sort of thing that fre­quent­ly plays out in over­heat­ed Con­gres­sion­al hear­ings and media denunciations—agents with fur­rowed brows and lit­tle philo­soph­i­cal train­ing des­per­ate­ly try­ing to work out whether such and such abstruse aca­d­e­m­ic is part of a grand con­spir­a­cy to under­mine truth, jus­tice, the Amer­i­can Way, etc.. Sartre appeared ear­ly on the anti-Com­mu­nist radar, though, iron­i­cal­ly, he did so as a plant of sorts, brought over in 1945 by the Office of War Infor­ma­tion as part of a group of jour­nal­ists the Unit­ed States’ gov­ern­ment hoped would put out good pro­pa­gan­da.

“Hoover won­dered,” how­ev­er, writes Mar­tin, “what kind of good pro­pa­gan­da you can hope to get out of the author of Nau­sea and Being and Noth­ing­ness.” It turned out, not much, but a year lat­er Hoover latched on to Sartre’s friend and edi­tor Albert Camus, whose name he and his agents spelled, var­i­ous­ly, as “Canus” or “Corus.” Where Sartre had breezed into the country—smitten by its lit­er­a­ture and music—Camus was held at immi­gra­tion on Hoover’s orders. He would spend a brief, depress­ing time and nev­er return.

How we get from post-war sur­veil­lance of French exis­ten­tial­ist philoso­phers to Sartre and the grassy knoll is a long and com­pli­cat­ed tale, befit­ting the para­noid imag­in­ings of J. Edgar Hoover. He was, after all, the con­spir­a­cy the­o­rist par excel­lence and “he need­ed to know,” writes Mar­tin, “if Exis­ten­tial­ism and Absur­dism were some kind of front for Com­mu­nism. To him, every­thing was poten­tial­ly a cod­ed re-write of the Com­mu­nist Man­i­festo.” What Hoover feared from Sartre, how­ev­er, was that the lat­ter was him­self an influ­en­tial believ­er in a con­spir­a­cy, one that cast doubt on the FBI’s strong­ly-held belief that Oswald was the lone gun­man.

Despite gath­er­ing years of NSA-wor­thy sur­veil­lance on the philoso­phers, Hoover’s agents were nev­er able to dis­cern the ide­o­log­i­cal pro­gram of the French. “I can’t work out,” wrote one in a note in Sartre’s file, “if he’s pro-Com­mu­nist or anti-Com­mu­nist.” The black-and-white, spy-vs-spy world of the FBI left lit­tle room for philo­soph­i­cal nuance and lit­er­ary ambi­gu­i­ty, after all. But they nev­er stopped watch­ing Sartre, con­vinced that “there must be some kind of con­spir­a­cy between com­mu­nists, blacks, poets and French philoso­phers.” As it turns out, there were several—political and aes­thet­ic con­spir­a­cies involv­ing such ter­ri­fy­ing fig­ures as Frantz Fanon and Aimé Césaire. These poets and close rela­tions of Sartre did, indeed, help foment rev­o­lu­tion in the Caribbean and elsewhere—but theirs are sto­ries for anoth­er day.

Read Martin’s Prospect arti­cle here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

FBI’s “Vault” Web Site Reveals Declas­si­fied Files on Hem­ing­way, Ein­stein, Mar­i­lyn & Oth­er Icons

Albert Camus Writes a Friend­ly Let­ter to Jean-Paul Sartre Before Their Per­son­al and Philo­soph­i­cal Rift

How the CIA Secret­ly Fund­ed Abstract Expres­sion­ism Dur­ing the Cold War

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

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