What is Love? BBC Philosophy Animations Feature Sartre, Freud, Aristophanes, Dawkins & More

The BBC’s recent series of Nigel War­bur­ton-script­ed, celebri­ty-nar­rat­ed ani­ma­tions in phi­los­o­phy haven’t shied away from the hard ques­tions the dis­ci­pline touch­es. How did every­thing begin? What makes us human? What is the self? How do I live a good life? In all those videos, Gillian Ander­son, Stephen Fry, and Har­ry Shear­er told us what his­to­ry’s most thought-about thinkers have had to say on those sub­jects. But for the lat­est round, War­bur­ton and The Hob­bit’s Aidan Turn­er have tak­en on what some would con­sid­er, at least for our prac­ti­cal pur­pos­es, the trick­i­est one of all: what is love?

You might not turn to Jean-Paul Sartre, life part­ner of Simone de Beau­voir, as a first love con­sul­tant of choice, but the series devotes an entire video to the Being and Noth­ing­ness author’s the­o­ries on emo­tion. The free­dom-mind­ed Sartre sees the con­di­tion of love as a “haz­ardous, painful strug­gle,” one of either masochism or sadism: “masochism when a lover tries to become what he thinks his lover wants him to be, and in the process denies his own free­dom; sadism when the lover treats the loved one as an object and ties her down. Either way, free­dom is com­pro­mised.”

Have we any lighter philo­soph­i­cal per­spec­tives on love here? Well, we have a vari­ety of philo­soph­i­cal per­spec­tives on love, any­way: Aristo­phanes’ cre­ation myth of the “miss­ing half,” Sig­mund Freud and Edvard West­er­mar­ck­’s dis­agree­ment over the Oedi­pus com­plex, and the con­vic­tion of “psy­cho­log­i­cal ego­ists” from Thomas Hobbes to Richard Dawkins that no such thing as strict­ly self­less love exists. The phi­los­o­phy of love, like love itself, can get com­pli­cat­ed, but the clear and wit­ty draw­ings accom­pa­ny­ing the ideas dis­cussed in these videos can help us envi­sion the dif­fer­ent ideas they encom­pass. Should you need even clear­er (or less wit­ty) illus­tra­tions on the sub­ject, you could always turn to Love Is…though I have a feel­ing you’d find that solu­tion a bit too sim­ple.

Watch all of the ani­mat­ed videos in the What is Love? playlist here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

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

How Did Every­thing Begin?: Ani­ma­tions on the Ori­gins of the Uni­verse Nar­rat­ed by X‑Files Star Gillian Ander­son

What Makes Us Human?: Chom­sky, Locke & Marx Intro­duced by New Ani­mat­ed Videos from the BBC

How to Live a Good Life? Watch Phi­los­o­phy Ani­ma­tions Nar­rat­ed by Stephen Fry on Aris­to­tle, Ayn Rand, Max Weber & More

How Can I Know Right From Wrong? Watch Phi­los­o­phy Ani­ma­tions on Ethics Nar­rat­ed by Har­ry Shear­er

Down­load 130 Free Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es: Tools for Think­ing About Life, Death & Every­thing Between

Lovers and Philoso­phers — Jean-Paul Sartre & Simone de Beau­voir Togeth­er in 1967

Col­in Mar­shall writes on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour Releases New Animated Video Inspired by Gustave Doré & Milton’s Paradise Lost

Next month, David Gilmour will release his first solo album since 2006 and launch his first tour since ’08. But right now, in the dead of August, you can watch a new ani­mat­ed video for his upcom­ing track, “Rat­tle That Lock.”

Cre­at­ed under the lead­er­ship of Aubrey Pow­ell of Hipg­no­sis (the design group that pro­duced the icon­ic art­work for Dark Side of the Moon and oth­er Pink Floyd LPs), the ani­ma­tion pays homage to Gus­tave DorĂ©, whose illus­tra­tions of Dante, Poe and Cer­vantes we’ve fea­tured here before. And the lyrics them­selves, they draw inspi­ra­tion from John Milton’s Par­adise Lostreports Rolling Stone. Gilmour, DorĂ©, Mil­ton — sure­ly a tri­fec­ta for many OC read­ers.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Gus­tave Doré’s Dra­mat­ic Illus­tra­tions of Dante’s Divine Com­e­dy

Gus­tave Doré’s Splen­did Illus­tra­tions of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” (1884)

Gus­tave Doré’s Exquis­ite Engrav­ings of Cer­vantes’ Don Quixote

William Blake’s Hal­lu­ci­na­to­ry Illus­tra­tions of John Milton’s Par­adise Lost

Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour Sings Shakespeare’s Son­net 18

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Hayao Miyazaki’s Universe Recreated in a Wonderful CGI Tribute

The expo­nen­tial democ­ra­ti­za­tion of dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy every year has led to a wealth of video essays and fan films from bed­room auteurs, the likes of which would have been unimag­in­able even five years ago  To wit: this beau­ti­ful trib­ute to the works of Hayao Miyaza­ki, Japan’s ani­me god, and his Stu­dio Ghi­b­li. A typ­i­cal fan video would have edit­ed togeth­er a “best of” clip show, using a song to link the scenes. But a Paris-based ani­ma­tor named “Dono” has gone one step fur­ther and cre­at­ed a trib­ute where scenes and char­ac­ters from Miyaza­ki all frol­ic about a 3‑D mod­eled world, where the bath­house from Spir­it­ed Away is ren­dered in all of its glo­ry, and Totoro’s cat­bus is only a few blocks away from Kiki’s Deliv­ery Ser­vice, and next door to Por­co Rosso’s favorite hang­out. Even Lupin III, not Miyaza­k­i’s orig­i­nal cre­ation, but who starred in the direc­tor’s first fea­ture, gets a look in.

It’s very charm­ing, and judg­ing from Dono’s oth­er work on his Vimeo chan­nel, a huge step up and no doubt a labor of love. And here’s the oth­er thing about this seam­less work of fan art. In the past, the soft­ware and the com­put­ing pow­er need­ed to make such a film would have been both pro­hib­i­tive­ly expen­sive and the domain of a design com­pa­ny. For this trib­ute, three of the four soft­ware pro­grams named in its creation–Gimp, Blender, and Natron–are free and open-source, and run on a lap­top. (The fourth, Octane, costs a lit­tle bit of mon­ey.)

via Vice

Relat­ed Con­tent:

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

The Simp­sons Pay Won­der­ful Trib­ute to the Ani­me of Hayao Miyaza­ki

The Delight­ful TV Ads Direct­ed by Hayao Miyaza­ki & Oth­er Stu­dio Ghi­b­li Ani­ma­tors (1992–2015)

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the FunkZone Pod­cast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, read his oth­er arts writ­ing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.

The Delightful TV Ads Directed by Hayao Miyazaki & Other Studio Ghibli Animators (1992–2015)

Last week, we fea­tured a trio of ridicu­lous­ly cute com­mer­cials about a cat called Kon­yara. The com­pa­ny that made them was none oth­er that Stu­dio Ghi­b­li, Hayao Miyaza­k­i’s ani­ma­tion shop. Those com­mer­cials, drawn in an ele­gant­ly sim­ple style that recalls tra­di­tion­al Japan­ese sumi‑e illus­tra­tions, had the same metic­u­lous atten­tion to detail and flu­id move­ments that are Miyaza­k­i’s trade­mark.

As it turns out, Ghi­b­li did­n’t restrict its com­mer­cial endeav­ors to car­toon cats. Above are a bunch of com­mer­cials the com­pa­ny did over the years stretch­ing all the way back to 1992. The ads range from ones about bread to banks to green tea. There are also quite a num­ber of tie-ins from the stu­dio’s movies, like an ad for Law­son’s con­ve­nience stores that fea­tures col­lectible dolls from Spir­it­ed Away. What is fas­ci­nat­ing about these ads is the range of styles they exhib­it. Many are done in a way that clear­ly recalls Miyaza­k­i’s movies, oth­ers look much more min­i­mal and much more ges­tur­al.

In oth­er Miyaza­ki relat­ed news, it turns out that the mas­ter isn’t retir­ing after all. Fol­low­ing the release of his fea­ture The Wind Ris­es in 2013, Hayao Miyaza­ki announced he was get­ting out of the ani­ma­tion biz. But as with his numer­ous dec­la­ra­tions of retire­ment in the past, it did­n’t take.

Miyaza­ki is report­ed­ly mak­ing a 10-minute long ani­mat­ed short called Kemushi no Boro (Boro the Cater­pil­lar). The direc­tor describes the short as “a sto­ry of a tiny, hairy cater­pil­lar, so tiny that it may be eas­i­ly squished between your fin­gers.” He has been devel­op­ing on the idea for a cou­ple decades now and, in spite of the short’s length, the film is pro­ject­ed to take three years to make.

What might be sur­pris­ing is that the film will be entire­ly com­put­er gen­er­at­ed. Miyaza­ki is per­haps the world’s most famous pro­po­nent of hand-drawn cel ani­ma­tion. As a younger man, he railed against CGI call­ing the method “shal­low, fake.” Over the years, how­ev­er, his feel­ings evolved.

“If [hand-drawn cel ani­ma­tion] is a dying craft we can’t do any­thing about it,” he told The Guardian back in 2005. “Civ­i­liza­tion moves on. Where are all the fres­co painters now? Where are the land­scape artists? What are they doing now? […] Actu­al­ly I think CGI has the poten­tial to equal or even sur­pass what the human hand can do. But it is far too late for me to try it.”

Appar­ent­ly it is not.

Boro will screen exclu­sive­ly in his Stu­dio Ghi­b­li Muse­um in Mita­ka, Tokyo, so if you want to see the master’s next work, be pre­pared to fly to Japan.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Simp­sons Pay Won­der­ful Trib­ute to the Ani­me of Hayao Miyaza­ki

How to Make Instant Ramen Com­pli­ments of Japan­ese Ani­ma­tion Direc­tor Hayao Miyaza­ki

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

Jonathan Crow is a Los Ange­les-based writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at @jonccrow. And check out his blog Veep­to­pus, fea­tur­ing lots of pic­tures of vice pres­i­dents with octo­pus­es on their heads.  The Veep­to­pus store is here.

Lewis Carroll’s Classic Story, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Told in Sand Animation

Here at Open Cul­ture, the 150th anniver­sary cel­e­bra­tion of Lewis Car­rol­l’s Alice’s Adven­tures in Won­der­land keeps going and going, because, well, who knows what form the inter­net will have tak­en by the time of the 200th? It might well bear more of a resem­blance to the log­i­cal-yet-illog­i­cal real­i­ty in which the sto­ry’s title char­ac­ter finds her­self than any of the things we’ve yet used, or imag­ined. You may laugh, but Lewis Car­rol­l’s ideas have long drawn the fas­ci­na­tion of pro­gram­mers, com­put­er sci­en­tists, and the oth­er archi­tects of the infos­cape through which we nav­i­gate today.

They’ve also, of course, attract­ed the fas­ci­na­tion of oth­er artists, from Brave New World author Aldous Hux­ley, who wrote an ear­ly script for Dis­ney’s film, to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas illus­tra­tor Ralph Stead­man, who did his own illus­trat­ed edi­tion of the book. Today, we give you Alice’s Adven­tures in Won­der­land in the medi­um of sand ani­ma­tion, as prac­ticed by sand ani­ma­tor Mag­dale­na Bak. At just under eight min­utes and thir­ty sec­onds, it will only take you a frac­tion as long to watch as most of Alice’s oth­er cin­e­mat­ic adap­ta­tions (though not the very first, made in 1903, which clocks in at twen­ty sec­onds short­er).

It may also intro­duce you to an ani­ma­tion medi­um you’ve nev­er seen before. If you’d like to watch more of what an ani­ma­tor can do with sand, have a look at the wide vari­ety of sand ani­ma­tions we’ve pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured: Vivaldi’s Four Sea­sons ani­mat­ed in sand, Kafka’s Meta­mor­pho­sis ani­mat­ed in sand, Goethe’s “Der Erlkönig” ani­mat­ed in sand, mod­ern desert war­fare ani­mat­ed in sand, and even a Span­ish-lan­guage music video ani­mat­ed in sand. Sand may strike you as an unusu­al sto­ry­telling medi­um, but sure­ly Alice’s Adven­tures in Won­der­land, even 150 years after its first pub­li­ca­tion, remains an unusu­al sto­ry.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

See Ralph Steadman’s Twist­ed Illus­tra­tions of Alice’s Adven­tures in Won­der­land on the Story’s 150th Anniver­sary

See the Orig­i­nal Alice In Won­der­land Man­u­script, Hand­writ­ten & Illus­trat­ed By Lewis Car­roll (1864)

Lewis Carroll’s Pho­tographs of Alice Lid­dell, the Inspi­ra­tion for Alice in Won­der­land

When Aldous Hux­ley Wrote a Script for Disney’s Alice in Won­der­land

Vivaldi’s Four Sea­sons Brought to Life in Sand Ani­ma­tions by the Hun­gar­i­an Artist Fer­enc Cakó

The Meta­mor­pho­sis of Mr. Sam­sa: A Won­der­ful Sand Ani­ma­tion of the Clas­sic Kaf­ka Sto­ry (1977)

Watch Goethe’s Haunt­ing Poem, “Der Erlkönig,” Pre­sent­ed in an Art­ful Sand Ani­ma­tion

Col­in Mar­shall writes on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

The Evolution of Chuck Jones, the Artist Behind Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck & Other Looney Tunes Legends: A Video Essay

Not­ed car­toon per­son­al­i­ty Bugs Bun­ny has war­bled his way through Wag­ner­ian opera, played every defen­sive posi­tion known to base­ball, styled a monster’s hair…is there any­thing that was­cal­ly wab­bit can­not do?

Yes, in fact. Accord­ing to his long time direc­tor, ani­ma­tor Chuck Jones, Bugs could nev­er pick a fight. Unlike his hair trig­ger Looney Tunes col­league, Daffy Duck, the bun­ny had to be pro­voked before enter­ing the fray. That applies whether he’s a box­er, a gang­ster, or imper­son­at­ing the biggest movie stars of his day.

Abid­ing by the strong rules he estab­lished for the char­ac­ters in the Looney Tunes sta­ble was crit­i­cal to his com­ic approach, as Jones explains in the above video essay, a bit of a depar­ture for Tony Zhou’s cel­e­brat­ed cin­e­ma series, Every Frame a Pic­ture. Rather than exam­ine the fram­ing and tim­ing of “one of the all-time mas­ters of visu­al com­e­dy,” this time Zhou delves into the evo­lu­tion of his subject’s artis­tic sen­si­bil­i­ties.

Like all good direc­tors, Jones learned from his actors–in this case, ani­mat­ed, and not all of them his babies. Bugs and Daffy were the brain­chil­dren of the great Tex Avery. Friz Fre­leng cre­at­ed Yosemite Sam and everyone’s favorite stut­ter­ing pig, Porky.

Jones teased out the desires that became the pri­ma­ry engines for those char­ac­ters’ phys­i­cal­i­ty as well as their behav­ior. Daffy comes off as an unhinged lunatic in his ear­ly appear­ances. His com­ic poten­tial grew once Jones reframed him as a con­niv­er who’d do any­thing in pur­suit of wealth and glo­ry.

Once the char­ac­ters’ moti­va­tions were clear, Jones could mess around with the ol’ one-two punch. It’s a clas­sic com­ic struc­ture, where­in real­i­ty wreaks hav­oc on the audience’s expec­ta­tions about how things should unfold. Then again, a child can tell you what dri­ves Jones’ cre­ation, the pas­sion­ate French skunk, Pepé Le Pew, as well as how those amorous ambi­tions of his are like­ly to work out. Fun­ny! Depend­ably so!

Zhou also draws atten­tion to the evo­lu­tion of the char­ac­ters’ expres­sions, from the antic to the eco­nom­i­cal. John Belushi was not the only com­ic genius to under­stand the pow­er of a raised eye­brow.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Chuck Jones’ 9 Rules For Draw­ing Road Run­ner Car­toons, or How to Cre­ate a Min­i­mal­ist Mas­ter­piece

How to Draw Bugs Bun­ny: A Primer by Leg­endary Ani­ma­tor Chuck Jones

The Strange Day When Bugs Bun­ny Saved the Life of Mel Blanc

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

Insanely Cute Cat Commercials from Studio Ghibli, Hayao Miyazaki’s Legendary Animation Shop

Back in 2010, Hayao Miyaza­ki’s com­pa­ny Stu­dio Ghi­b­li pro­duced a com­mer­cial for the mas­sive food con­glom­er­ate Nissin Sei­fun. The spot cen­ters on a rotund cat named Kon­yara who bats lazi­ly at a red but­ter­fly – Nissin’s logo. Kon­yara is ren­dered in sim­ple thick, black lines that recall Japan­ese sumi‑e paint­ing.

Miyaza­ki report­ed­ly didn’t have much to do direct­ly with the piece but his influ­ence is all over it. The com­mer­cial was pro­duced by Miyazaki’s long time col­lab­o­ra­tor Toshio Suzu­ki and ani­mat­ed by Kat­suya Kon­do, who did the char­ac­ter design for per­haps Miyazaki’s most cat-cen­tric movie Kiki’s Deliv­ery Ser­vice.

Anoth­er Miyaza­ki col­lab­o­ra­tor, pop leg­end Akiko Yano, did the music. More to the point, Kon­yara looks like some of Miyazaki’s most endur­ing char­ac­ters from Totoro to Ponyo to the Kodama from Princess Mononoke. Adorable, ele­gant and vital.

The com­mer­cial was so suc­cess­ful that Nissin com­mis­sioned two more. The sec­ond one aired in 2012 and fea­tured a sleepy Kon­yara strug­gling to grab 40 winks while her off­spring, named Ko-Kon­yara (trans: Lit­tle Kon­yara), insists on cud­dling. The cal­lig­ra­phy on the side reads “Always togeth­er.”

The most recent Ghibli/Nissin com­mer­cial came out a few months ago. Konyara’s brood has expand­ed to three – the two new cats named Kuroneko and Buchi. All three tum­ble into the frame as Kon­yara presents them with a fish while text appears read­ing, “I’m hun­gry.” When the lit­tle black kit­ten, who looks a lot like a soot sprite from Totoro, runs off with din­ner, Kon­yara gives a resigned sigh. It’s an expres­sion that any­one who has spent long peri­ods with very young chil­dren will rec­og­nize.

You can watch all three above or here.

via Car­toon Brew

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Simp­sons Pay Won­der­ful Trib­ute to the Ani­me of Hayao Miyaza­ki

How to Make Instant Ramen Com­pli­ments of Japan­ese Ani­ma­tion Direc­tor Hayao Miyaza­ki

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

Jonathan Crow is a Los Ange­les-based writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at @jonccrow. And check out his blog Veep­to­pus, fea­tur­ing lots of pic­tures of vice pres­i­dents with octo­pus­es on their heads.  The Veep­to­pus store is here.

Alexander Pushkin’s Poem “The Mermaid” Brought to Life in a Masterfully Hand-Painted Animation

Though his name may not car­ry much weight in Eng­lish speak­ing circles—his virtues “lost in trans­la­tion”—no Russ­ian writer stood as high in his time as Alexan­der Pushkin (1799–1837). In his short life of 37 years, Pushkin—the great grand­son of a cap­tured African prince—authored two of his coun­try’s most revered and influ­en­tial works, the play Boris Godunov and the nov­el in verse Eugene One­gin. Like a char­ac­ter in that lat­ter work, the eru­dite noble­man poet met his death at the hands of a sup­posed roman­tic rival “on a win­ter evening,” writes Phoebe Taplin in The Tele­graph, when he “trav­elled by sleigh from Nevsky Prospekt to the Black Riv­er area of St. Peters­burg, then filled with woods and dachas, where Georges D’Anthès fatal­ly wound­ed him in the stom­ach.”

Pushkin wrote as pas­sion­ate­ly as he lived—and died. (That final duel was the last of twen­ty-nine he fought). His work remains vis­cer­al­ly com­pelling, even in trans­la­tion: into oth­er lan­guages, oth­er gen­res, and oth­er media, as in the ani­mat­ed film above of a short poem of Pushk­in’s called Rusal­ka, or “The Mer­maid.” Ani­mat­ed in a mas­ter­ful hand-paint­ed style by Russ­ian artist and film­mak­er Alexan­der Petrov, the film tells the sto­ry of a monk who falls in love with a beau­ti­ful and dan­ger­ous myth­i­cal water spir­it. You can read a para­phrase, trans­la­tion, and inter­pre­ta­tion of the poem here. I rec­om­mend watch­ing the ten-minute film first. Though pre­sent­ed in Russ­ian with­out sub­ti­tles, you will—even if you don’t speak Russian—find your­self seduced.

Petrov, who painstak­ing­ly paints his images on glass with oils, has also adapt­ed the work of oth­er dra­mat­ic writ­ers, includ­ing anoth­er fel­low Russ­ian artist, Dos­to­evsky. His take on Hem­ing­way’s The Old Man and the Sea won an Acad­e­my Award in 2000, and most deserved­ly so. Petrov does not adapt lit­er­ary works so much as he trans­lates them into light, shad­ow, and sound, immers­ing us in their tex­tures and images. His Rusal­ka, just like the poem on which it’s based, speaks direct­ly to our imag­i­na­tions.

Find more lit­er­ary ani­ma­tions in the Ani­ma­tion sec­tion of our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch a Hand-Paint­ed Ani­ma­tion of Dostoevsky’s “The Dream of a Ridicu­lous Man”

Crime and Pun­ish­ment by Fyo­dor Dos­toyevsky Told in a Beau­ti­ful­ly Ani­mat­ed Film by Piotr Dumala

Niko­lai Gogol’s Clas­sic Sto­ry, “The Nose,” Ani­mat­ed With the Aston­ish­ing Pin­screen Tech­nique (1963)

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

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