Spike Jonze’s Stop Motion Film Hauntingly Animates Paris’ Famed Shakespeare and Company Bookstore

in Animation, Books | October 26th, 2016

Since his break­out ear­ly days direct­ing com­mer­cials and music videos for the likes of Fat­boy Slim, Weez­er, Daft Punk, and the Breed­ers, Spike Jonze has honed a quirky visu­al sen­si­bil­i­ty that trans­lat­ed almost seam­less­ly to fea­ture film. But even at his quirki­est, Jonze hasn’t been about quirk for quirk’s sake. His characters—highly emo­tion­al robots, dog-head­ed men with bro­ken legs, tor­ment­ed pup­peteers, enthu­si­as­tic ama­teur dance troops—are under­dogs, weirdos, fig­ures on the fringes who make us ques­tion what it means to be peo­ple: to be lone­ly, in love, cre­ative­ly obsessed, and emo­tion­al­ly scram­bled.…

There is a para­dox inher­ent in Jonze’s films and videos. Their odd­ball plots and char­ac­ters cut through the cyn­i­cal veneer of cool that keeps us from ask­ing hard ques­tions about our emo­tion­al lives, but they do so in styl­is­tic exer­cis­es that in some cas­es them­selves become emblems of pop-cul­ture cool. Not so the short film “Mourir auprès de toi” (“To Die by Your Side”), which takes its title from one of the most aching­ly heart­break­ing of Smiths’ songs. This is a love sto­ry for the book­ish and the crafty, set in Paris’ famed Shake­speare and Com­pa­ny book­store and fea­tur­ing ani­mat­ed book cov­ers made from embroi­dered felt cutouts.

Co-writ­ten and with a look inspired by design­er Olympia Le-Tan, the short is “an absolute­ly beau­ti­ful stop-motion ani­ma­tion for book-lovers that’s part This Is Where We Live, part Going West, part cre­ative mag­ic only Spike Jonze can bring.” So writes Maria Popo­va at The Atlantic, sum­ma­riz­ing the ups and downs of the plot and allud­ing to a “hap­pi­ly-ever-after end­ing” that “comes only after an appro­pri­ate­ly dark and grim twist.”

Watch “To Die by Your Side” at the top of the post, then, just above, see a short behind-the-scenes teas­er video. “You just start with what the feel­ing is,” Jonze told Now­ness in an inter­view, “Me and Olympia both want­ed to make a love sto­ry.… It evolved nat­u­ral­ly and it all just start­ed with the feel­ing. From there you enter­tain your­self with ideas that excite you.” The quote explains why Jonze’s films and videos—for all their visu­al inven­tive­ness and imag­i­na­tive whimsy—nearly always stay ground­ed in can­did emo­tion­al real­ism. How­ev­er far and wide Jonze’ cin­e­mat­ic and nar­ra­tive  imag­i­na­tion takes us, his films always start with the feel­ing.

“Mourir auprès de toi” (“To Die by Your Side”) first appeared on our site in Octo­ber, 2011.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Spike Jonze and Beast­ie Boys, Togeth­er Again

Spike Jonze’s Imag­i­na­tive TV Ads

Col­lab­o­ra­tions: Spike Jonze, Yo-Yo Ma, and Lil Buck

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

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Stephen Fry Narrates 4 Philosophy Animations On the Question: How to Create a Just Society?

in Animation, History, Philosophy | October 25th, 2016

How do we cre­ate a just soci­ety? 50,000 years or so at it and human­i­ty still has a long way to go before fig­ur­ing that out, though not for lack of try­ing. The four ani­mat­ed videos of “What Is Jus­tice?”—a minis­eries with­in BBC Radio 4 and the Open Uni­ver­si­ty’s larg­er project of ani­mat­ing the ideas of philoso­phers through­out his­to­ry and explain­ing them in the voic­es of var­i­ous famous nar­ra­tors—tell us what John Rawls, Hen­ry David Thore­au, and the Bible, among oth­er sources, have to say on the sub­ject of jus­tice. Stephen Fry pro­vides the voice this time as the videos illus­trate the nature of these ideas, as well as their com­pli­ca­tions, before our eyes.

Imag­ine you had to cre­ate a just soci­ety your­self, but “you won’t know what kind of a per­son you’ll be in the soci­ety you design.” This thought exper­i­ment, first described by Rawls in his 1971 book A The­o­ry of Jus­tice as the “veil of igno­rance,” sup­pos­ed­ly encour­ages the cre­ation of “a much fair­er soci­ety than we now have. There would be exten­sive free­dom and equal­i­ty of oppor­tu­ni­ty. But there would­n’t be extremes of high pay, unless it could be shown that the poor­est in soci­ety direct­ly ben­e­fit­ed as a result.” An intrigu­ing idea, but one eas­i­er artic­u­lat­ed than agreed upon, let alone real­ized.

Much ear­li­er in his­to­ry, you find the sim­pler prin­ci­ple of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” an “ancient form of pun­ish­ment known as lex tal­io­n­is, or the law of retal­i­a­tion.” Any read­er of the Bible will have a strong sense of this idea’s impor­tance in the ancient world, though we’d do well to remem­ber that back then, it “was a way of encour­ag­ing a sense of pro­por­tion — not wip­ing out a whole com­mu­ni­ty in retal­i­a­tion for the killing of one man, for exam­ple.” While harsh pun­ish­ment could, in the­o­ry, deter poten­tial crim­i­nals, “severe legal vio­lence can cre­ate mar­tyrs and increase soci­ety’s prob­lems.” The rule of law, nat­u­ral­ly, has every­thing to do with the cre­ation and main­te­nance of a just soci­ety, though not every law fur­thers the cause.

But you’ve no doubt heard of one that has: habeas cor­pus, the legal prin­ci­ple man­dat­ing that “no one, not even the pres­i­dent, monarch, or any­one else in pow­er, can detain some­one ille­gal­ly.” Instead, “they need to bring the detainee in ques­tion before a court and allow that court to deter­mine whether or not this per­son can legal­ly be held.” Yet not every author­i­ty has con­sis­tent­ly imple­ment­ed or upheld habeas cor­pus or oth­er jus­tice-ensur­ing laws. At times like those, accord­ing to Thore­au, you must engage in civ­il dis­obe­di­ence: “fol­low your con­science and break the law on moral grounds rather than be a cog in an unjust sys­tem.” It’s a dirty job, cre­at­ing a just soci­ety, and will remain so for the fore­see­able future. And though we may not all have giv­en it as much thought as a Rawls or a Thore­au, we’ve all got a role to play in it.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A The­o­ry of Jus­tice, the Musi­cal Imag­ines Philoso­pher John Rawls as a Time-Trav­el­ing Adven­tur­er

Jus­tice: Putting a Price Tag on Life & How to Mea­sure Plea­sure

Free: Lis­ten to John Rawls’ Course on “Mod­ern Polit­i­cal Phi­los­o­phy” (Record­ed at Har­vard, 1984)

47 Ani­mat­ed Videos Explain the His­to­ry of Ideas: From Aris­to­tle to Sartre

What is the Self? Watch Phi­los­o­phy Ani­ma­tions Nar­rat­ed by Stephen Fry on Sartre, Descartes & More

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, the video series The City in Cin­e­ma, the crowd­fund­ed jour­nal­ism project Where Is the City of the Future?, and the Los Ange­les Review of Books’ Korea Blog. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu in Anime: A First Glimpse

in Animation, Literature | September 28th, 2016

Mark it on your cal­en­dars. 2018 will bring an ani­me adap­ta­tion of the pop­u­lar card game Force of Will. An omnibus col­lec­tion of six ani­ma­tions, the film will include one short cre­at­ed by Shuhei Mori­ta, whose 2013 ani­ma­tion “Pos­ses­sions” already earned him an Acad­e­my Award nom­i­na­tion. Mori­ta’s next task–to bring to life H.P. Love­craft’s “Cthul­hu.” We’ve pre­vi­ous­ly high­light­ed Love­craft’s 1934 draw­ings of the mon­ster to which he gave lit­er­ary life in 1928. (See “The Call of Cthul­hu.”) Above, catch a very first glimpse of Mori­ta’s take on the gigan­tic octo­pus. Below, in the Relat­eds, find a good deal of mate­r­i­al on Cthulhu–drawings, radio drama­ti­za­tions and much more.

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!

via Kotaku

Relat­ed Con­tent

H.P. Lovecraft’s Mon­ster Draw­ings: Cthul­hu & Oth­er Crea­tures from the “Bound­less and Hideous Unknown”

H.P. Lovecraft’s Clas­sic Hor­ror Sto­ries Free Online: Down­load Audio Books, eBooks & More

Hear Drama­ti­za­tions of H.P. Lovecraft’s Sto­ries On His Birth­day: “The Call of Cthul­hu,” “The Dun­wich Hor­ror,” & More

Down­load Issues of “Weird Tales” (1923–1954): The Pio­neer­ing Pulp Hor­ror Mag­a­zine Fea­tures Orig­i­nal Sto­ries by Love­craft, Brad­bury & Many More

23 Hours of H.P. Love­craft Sto­ries: Hear Read­ings & Drama­ti­za­tions of “The Call of Cthul­hu,” “The Shad­ow Over Inns­mouth,” & Oth­er Weird Tales

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The Essence of Linear Algebra Explained with Animations

in Animation, Math | September 15th, 2016

Fyi: Grant Sander­son has a knack for math and cod­ing. So he cre­at­ed a tool that has helped him explain “the essence of lin­ear alge­bra” in a “visu­al­ly-dri­ven man­ner.” And he post­ed the result, a series of 13 videos, to YouTube. You can watch the col­lec­tion, called “The Essence of Lin­ear Alge­bra,” above. Top­ics cov­ered include: Vec­tors, what even are they?; Matrix mul­ti­pli­ca­tion as com­po­si­tion; Dot prod­ucts and dual­i­ty; and more.

You can also find com­plete uni­ver­si­ty cours­es on Lin­ear Alge­bra in our col­lec­tion of Free Online Math course, a sub­set of our col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

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!

via Metafil­ter

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Eadweard Muybridge’s Motion Photography Experiments from the 1870s Presented in 93 Animated Gifs

in Animation, Photography | September 9th, 2016

Muybridge_horse_gallop_animated

When a horse trots, do all four of its hooves ever leave the ground at once? At one time, we not only had no answer to that ques­tion, we had no way of find­ing out. But in 1872, when the mat­ter piqued the curios­i­ty of Leland Stan­ford, tycoon, for­mer gov­er­nor of Cal­i­for­nia, co-founder of Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty, and race-horse own­er, it did so at just the right time. Hav­ing made a bet on the answer, Stan­ford called on an Eng­lish pho­tog­ra­ph­er named Ead­weard Muy­bridge, known for his work in such then-cut­ting-edge sub­fields as time-lapse and stere­og­ra­phy, and tasked him with fig­ur­ing it out. Using a series of cam­eras acti­vat­ed by trip wires as the horse trot­ted past, Muy­bridge proved that all four of its hooves do indeed leave the ground, win­ning Stan­ford the wager.

480px-Phenakistoscope_3g07692a

But that only began his ground­break­ing work in motion pho­tog­ra­phy, which made it so, in the words of the Library of Con­gress, “view­ers of the late 19th cen­tu­ry were able to see in a sequence of pho­tos every step tak­en by a horse at full gal­lop, the sleek move­ments of a cat run­ning and each flap of the wings of a bird in flight.”

Cat_trotting,_changing_to_a_gallop

He lat­er devel­oped what he called the Zooprax­is­cope: “One insert­ed a disc with images around the edge into the device, which rotat­ed and pro­ject­ed the images onto a screen. The discs were usu­al­ly paint­ed glass based on Muybridge’s pho­tographs. The effect was to give the audi­ence an impres­sion of move­ment, bring­ing Muybridge’s work to life.” Imag­ine how that would have looked to some­one who’d nev­er seen — who’d nev­er even imag­ined — organ­ic-look­ing move­ment in man­made art?

You can see 93 of Muy­bridge’s mov­ing pho­tographs, zooprax­is­cope discs, and oth­er exper­i­ments in decod­ing the move­ment of liv­ing things and grant­i­ng it to images at Wiki­me­dia Com­mons. “Although Ead­weard Muy­bridge thought of him­self pri­mar­i­ly as an artist, he encour­aged the aura of sci­en­tif­ic inves­ti­ga­tion that sur­round­ed his project,” says the site of Freeze Frame, the Nation­al Muse­um of Amer­i­can His­to­ry’s exhi­bi­tion of his work. It makes sense that Muy­bridge, who qual­i­fied as an eccen­tric as well as a genius, would occu­py the space between art and sci­ence, inquiry and cre­ation, real­i­ty and illu­sion — and it makes sense to view the fruits of his labors as ani­mat­ed GIFs, their tech­no­log­i­cal descen­dants that also looked pret­ty impres­sive, so I recall, when first we laid eyes on them.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Was a 32,000-Year-Old Cave Paint­ing the Ear­li­est Form of Cin­e­ma?

The His­to­ry of the Movie Cam­era in Four Min­utes: From the Lumiere Broth­ers to Google Glass

Watch the Films of the Lumière Broth­ers & the Birth of Cin­e­ma (1895)

One Tril­lion Frames Per Sec­ond: The Sci­ence of Cap­tur­ing Light in Motion

Thomas Edison’s Box­ing Cats (1894), or Where the LOL­Cats All Began

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, the video series The City in Cin­e­ma, the crowd­fund­ed jour­nal­ism project Where Is the City of the Future?, and the Los Ange­les Review of Books’ Korea Blog. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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The History of Stop-Motion Films: 39 Films, Spanning 116 Years, Revisited in a 3‑Minute Video

in Animation | September 7th, 2016

With the release of Kubo and the Two Strings, Vugar Efen­di, a film­mak­er in the UK, cre­at­ed The Evo­lu­tion of Stop-Motion, a mon­tage that brings togeth­er scenes from 39 stop-motion films, span­ning 116 years. Although some trace the begin­nings of stop-motion ani­ma­tion back to the 1898 film, The Hump­ty Dump­ty Cir­cus, Efendi’s mon­tage takes The Enchant­ed Draw­ing (1900) as its start­ing point. Soon enough, we encounter Ladis­las Stare­vich’s insect-filled film, The Cam­era­man’s Revenge (1912). And then onward we go, hurtling through time, even­tu­al­ly reach­ing a more famil­iar set of films (Beetle­juice, Wal­lace and Gromit, etc.). Find a com­plete list of films used in the mon­tage below. And enjoy the ride.…

‑The Enchant­ed Draw­ing (1900)
‑Fun at the Bak­ery Shop (1902)
‑El Hotel Elec­tri­co (1905)
‑Humor­ous Phas­es of Fun­ny Faces (1906)
‑The Cam­era­man’s Revenge (1912)
‑The Night before Christ­mas (1913)
‑Häx­an (1922)
‑The Lost World (1925)
‑The Tale of Fox (1930 ver­sion)
‑King Kong (1933)
‑The New Gul­liv­er (1935)
‑The Beast from 20,000 Fath­oms (1953)
‑It Came Beneath The Sea (1955)
‑Earth vs Fly­ing Saucers (1956)
‑The Sev­enth Voy­age of Sin­bad (1958)
‑Jason and the Arg­onauts (1963)
‑Closed Mon­days (1975)
‑Star wars IV: A New Hope (1977)
‑Star Wars V: Empire Strikes Back (1980)
‑Clash of the Titans (1981)
‑The Ter­mi­na­tor (1984)
‑Robo­cop (1987)
‑Beetle­juice (1988)
‑Wal­lace and Gromit: A grand day out (1990)
‑The Secret Adven­tures of Tom Thumb (1993)
‑The Night­mare Before Christ­mas (1993)
‑James and the Giant Peach (1996)
‑Chick­en Run (2000)
‑Corpse Bride (2005)
‑Cora­line (2009)
‑Mary and Max (2009)
‑Fan­tas­tic Mr.Fox (2009)
‑The Pirates! In an Adven­ture with Sci­en­tists! (2012)
‑Para­nor­man (2012)
‑Franken­wee­nie (2012)
‑Star Wars VII: The Force Awak­ens (2015)
‑The Lit­tle Prince (2015)
‑Anom­al­isa (2015)
‑Kubo and the Two Strings (2016)

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:

Spike Jonze Presents a Stop Motion Film for Book Lovers

Going West: A Stop Motion Nov­el

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

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

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Werner Herzog Narrates Pokémon Go: Imagines It as a Murderous Metaphor for the Battle to Survive

in Animation, Comedy, Film, Games | August 5th, 2016

Like film­mak­er Wern­er Her­zog, I have exist­ed in near total igno­rance of Poké­mon Go, a vir­tu­al real­i­ty game that pur­ports to get play­ers on their feet and out in the real world.

With­out a smartphone—an item Wern­er refus­es to own for “cul­tur­al reasons”—one can­not par­tic­i­pate.

I have a smart­phone, but my data plan is so small, I’m afraid I’d blow it all in hot pur­suit of a Bul­basaur, what­ev­er the hell that is. My kids nev­er got into Poké­mon and thus, nei­ther did I. Reports that some car­toon was caus­ing seizures in Japan­ese child view­ers was my intro­duc­tion to the world of Poké­mon. Epilep­sy runs in the fam­i­ly. It wasn’t hard for me to steer clear.

I have noticed a large num­ber of Face­book friends prais­ing the game’s non-vir­tu­al aspects. Their chil­dren are emerg­ing into the light, gam­bol­ing through parks and pub­lic squares, find­ing com­mon ground with neigh­bors and oth­er play­ers.

Does Wern­er have Face­book friends?

I think we all know the answer to that.

We both got an unex­pect­ed crash course in Poké­mon Go, when Wern­er was inter­viewed by The Verge’s Emi­ly Yoshi­da about his online Mas­ter­Class in film­mak­ing and Lo and Behold, his new doc­u­men­tary about the tech­no­log­i­cal rev­o­lu­tion.

Yoshi­da explained the Poké­mon Go phe­nom­e­non to him thus­ly:

It’s basi­cal­ly the first main­stream aug­ment­ed real­i­ty pro­gram. It’s a game where the entire world is mapped and you walk around with the GPS on your phone. You walk around in the real world and can catch these lit­tle mon­sters and col­lect them. And every­body is play­ing it.

Her­zog was most inter­est­ed in what hap­pens when the Poké­mon appear in the vir­tu­al crosshairs:

When two per­sons in search of a Poké­mon clash at the cor­ner of Sun­set and San Vicente is there vio­lence? Is there mur­der?… Do they bite each oth­er’s hands? Do they punch each oth­er?

He declined Yoshida’s offer to bor­row her cell phone in order to try the game out, at which point Slate’s Daniel Hub­bard and For­rest Wick­man stepped in, cut­ting togeth­er footage of the game and the ani­mat­ed series with some of the most mem­o­rable nar­ra­tion from Herzog’s oevure.

Seen through the above lens, Poké­mon Go becomes a reflec­tion of our ongo­ing bat­tle for sur­vival, rife with for­ni­ca­tion, asphyx­i­a­tion, and rot. The trees and birds are in mis­ery, and the pen­guins are insane.

It almost makes me want to play! Though in truth, I think anoth­er of Herzog’s activ­i­ties —ven­tur­ing into the coun­try­side “to look a chick­en in the eye with great intensity”—is more my speed.

Read the com­plete inter­view on The Verge.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Wern­er Her­zog Offers 24 Pieces of Film­mak­ing & Life Advice

Wern­er Herzog’s Rogue Film School: Apply & Learn the Art of Gueril­la Film­mak­ing & Lock-Pick­ing

Start Your Day with Wern­er Her­zog Inspi­ra­tional Posters

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Her lat­est script, Fawn­book, is avail­able in a dig­i­tal edi­tion from Indie The­ater Now.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Watch “Traffic Stop,” an Emmy-Nominated, Animated Film About a Traffic Stop Gone Horribly Wrong

in Animation, Current Affairs, Law, Life | August 1st, 2016

As the Black Lives Mat­ter move­ment has come to occu­py a greater swath of America’s atten­tion span, a con­ver­sa­tion has arisen around the pit­falls of ally­ship, a term that lends itself to dis­cus­sions of gen­der and dis­abil­i­ty, as well as race.

Sim­ply put, the self-pro­claimed allies are mem­bers of a more priv­i­leged major­i­ty, eager to lend sup­port through word and deed.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, their enthu­si­asm often turns them into micro­phone hogs in what activist Princess Har­mo­ny Rodriguez has referred to as “ally the­ater.”

A num­ber of would-be allies con­fuse humil­i­ty with the seek­ing of brown­ie points. If they real­ly got it, those at the cen­ter of the move­ment say, they would not expect mem­bers of the minor­i­ty to rearrange their to-do lists to bring them up to speed on what it’s like to be a per­son of col­or (or a trans­gen­dered per­son or a dis­abled per­son).

Would-be allies are there­fore advised to step out of the spot­light, stuff a sock in it, and edu­cate them­selves, by work­ing to find exist­ing essays and nar­ra­tives, authored by those with whom they would be in sol­i­dar­i­ty.

Human nature ensures that tem­pers will flare and hurt feel­ings will be aired. The hor­ri­fy­ing social ill that gave rise to the movement—the shoot­ing of unarmed black men by those charged with pro­tect­ing the whole of the public—is elbowed off­stage, so that a phe­nom­e­non such as ally­ship can be the num­ber one top­ic of debate on col­lege cam­pus­es, web­sites, and social media.

“Traf­fic Stop,” above, pro­vides a rare moment of racial accord, stem­ming from yet anoth­er ghast­ly tale of police bru­tal­i­ty.

The short ani­ma­tion was born of a con­ver­sa­tion record­ed by Alex Lan­dau and Pat­sy Hath­away in a Sto­ryCorps booth, a mas­sive oral his­to­ry project designed to attract a wide diver­si­ty of par­tic­i­pants.

Lan­dau is African-Amer­i­can.

His adop­tive moth­er, Hath­away, is white.

Those who would clas­si­fy adopt­ing a child of anoth­er race as “ally­ship” must con­cede that, if so, it is cer­tain­ly of no casu­al stripe.

The events of Jan­u­ary 15, 2009, when Den­ver police stopped the 19-year-old Lan­dau and a white friend for mak­ing an ille­gal left turn, caused Hath­away to rethink the col­or­blind world­view she had espoused while rais­ing her son.

“I thought that love would con­quer all and skin col­or real­ly did­n’t mat­ter,” Hath­away tells Lan­dau. “I had to learn the real­ly hard way when they almost killed you.”

Had the attack hap­pened a few years lat­er, Landau’s friend might have man­aged to doc­u­ment the pro­ceed­ings with a cell phone, despite the hand­cuffs that were placed on him after a bag of mar­i­jua­na was found in his pock­et.

Instead, this ani­ma­tion, and the gris­ly graph­ic pho­to that fol­lows of Landau’s face pri­or to receiv­ing 45 stitch­es, will have to suf­fice. His rec­ol­lec­tion of the laugh­ter and racial epi­thets direct­ed his way as he lay bleed­ing on the ground are stom­ach-churn­ers, too.

Like his moth­er, Landau’s child­hood per­cep­tion of an all-inclu­sive, benev­o­lent world was shat­tered. They mourned it togeth­er when they were reunit­ed in the emer­gency room on the night of the ill-fat­ed traf­fic stop.

Look and lis­ten.

Then, if you are ready to wade into thornier ter­ri­to­ry, read the hun­dreds of com­ments view­ers have post­ed on youtube.

Ulti­mate­ly, the City of Den­ver award­ed Lan­dau a $795,000 set­tle­ment, while the Den­ver Police Depart­ment, cit­ing a lack of evi­dence, cleared all three offi­cers of mis­con­duct. Fol­low up arti­cles from 2011 and 2013 are avail­able here and here.

Traf­fic Stop was ani­mat­ed by  Gina Kamentsky & Julie Zam­marchi (read an inter­view with them here). It was recent­ly nom­i­nat­ed for an Emmy award last week.

via West­word

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Read Online Key Doc­u­ments from the Fer­gu­son Grand Jury: Wit­ness Tes­ti­mo­ny, Foren­sic Evi­dence & More

‘Tired of Giv­ing In’: The Arrest Report, Mug Shot and Fin­ger­prints of Rosa Parks (Decem­ber 1, 1955)

Pep­per Spray­ing Peace­ful Pro­tes­tors Con­tin­ues; This Time at UC Davis

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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