Animated Video Features Werner Herzog Discussing His Childhood Adventures & 20th-Century Rage

in Animation, Environment, Film, Life | March 14th, 2014

I’m not sur­prised that film­mak­er Wern­er Her­zog hates the com­mod­i­fi­ca­tion of the word “adven­ture,” when he’s spent over four decades court­ing it in the most clas­sic sense. In the New York Pub­lic Library Con­ver­sa­tion Por­trait above (one of a series that includes the John Waters pro­file we brought you ear­li­er this week), the ven­er­a­ble direc­tor describes the sort of child­hood that could cause one to take a dim view of pack­aged tours mas­querad­ing as adven­ture.

After the infant Her­zog sur­vived a bomb­ing that cov­ered him in rub­ble, his moth­er, under­stand­ably fear­ing for her chil­dren’s safe­ty, fled to the moun­tains. The remote­ness of his upbring­ing shel­tered him in some ways (“I did not even know that cin­e­ma exist­ed until I was 11”) and not, in oth­ers. (“At age four, I was in pos­ses­sion of a func­tion­ing sub­ma­chine gun and my broth­er had a hand grenade.”)

When he says that hunger was a pre­vail­ing theme, I dare you to dis­agree.

I’m like­wise inclined to pay atten­tion when he asserts that the mod­ern obses­sion with tech­nol­o­gy is gob­bling resources at a dis­as­trous pace, and that thou­sands of world lan­guages will have dis­ap­peared for good by 2050.

Dire pre­dic­tions, and yet he fills me with cheer every time he opens his mouth. I swear it’s not just that mar­velous, much imi­tat­ed voice. It’s also a com­fort to know we’ve got a pro­lif­ic artist remain­ing at his out­post from a sense of duty, gloomy yet stout as a child in his belief that an ecsta­sy of truth lies with­in human grasp.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Wern­er Herzog’s Eye-Open­ing New Film Reveals the Dan­gers of Tex­ting While Dri­ving

Por­trait Wern­er Her­zog: The Director’s Auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal Short Film from 1986

Mas­ter Cura­tor Paul Hold­en­gräber Inter­views Hitchens, Her­zog, Goure­vitch & Oth­er Lead­ing Thinkers

Ayun Hal­l­i­day looks in the eyes of the bear … Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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John Waters Talks About His Books and Role Models in a Whimsical Animated Video

in Animation, Books, Film, Life | March 10th, 2014

Kudos to car­toon­ist Flash Rosen­berg for hav­ing the huevos to illus­trate cult film icon John Waters’ remarks at the New York Pub­lic Library in real time before a live audi­ence. The first half minute of this ani­mat­ed Con­ver­sa­tion Por­trait had me wor­ried on her behalf. What a relief when the the coiled lump she was swab­bing with brown water­col­or turned out to be a cin­na­mon roll, and not the sub­stance Divine (the direc­tor’s muse) famous­ly ate—for real—in 1972’s Pink Flamin­gos.

It’s a very free asso­cia­tive process. The top­ic under dis­cus­sion turns out to be not baked goods, but rather role mod­els. (Roll mod­els, get it?)

As to who the Sire of Sleaze choos­es to ele­vate in this capac­i­ty:

Croon­er John­ny Math­is, whose heav­en­ly pipes Waters pre­scribes as a poten­tial rem­e­dy for bipar­ti­san ugli­ness.

Play­wright Ten­nessee Williams (whose work Car­di­nal Spell­man denounced as “revolt­ing, deplorable, moral­ly repel­lent…”)

And, touch­ing­ly, his par­ents, whom Rosen­berg draws with arms encir­cling their pen­cil-mus­tached tot, a sweet Three Is a Mag­ic Num­ber tableau. (In non-ani­mat­ed life, Waters is one of four chil­dren.)

The Prince of Puke mod­est­ly deflects inter­view­er Paul Hold­en­gräber’s asser­tion that he him­self is a role mod­el, advis­ing his fans to pick ten flawed indi­vid­u­als from whom they’ve learned some­thing  and “let them know how much you mean to them.”  (He may have meant “let them know how much they mean to you,” but it might be a fun sort of exer­cise to fol­low his instruc­tions as uttered.)

And if on some far off evening, you’re moved to have sex on his grave, know that this role mod­el’s ghost will rest con­tent.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

John Waters Makes Hand­made Christ­mas Cards, Says the “Whole Pur­pose of Life is Christ­mas”

Grow­ing Up John Waters: The Odd­ball Film­mak­er Cat­a­logues His Many For­ma­tive Rebel­lions (1993)

An Anti, Anti-Smok­ing Announce­ment from John Waters

Ayun Hal­l­i­day told you cha cha heels, black ones! Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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Quantum Entanglement Animated

in Animation, Physics | February 20th, 2014

PhD Comics has released the third video in an ani­mat­ed series explain­ing Quan­tum con­cepts and devices. This one focus­es on Quan­tum Entan­gle­ment and fea­tures the work of Cal­tech physi­cists Jeff Kim­ble and Chen-Lung Hung. Mean­while Jorge Cham, cre­ator of PhD Comics, pro­vides the accom­pa­ny­ing ani­ma­tion.

Entire cours­es on Quan­tum Entan­gle­ment can be found in our col­lec­tion of Free Online Physics Cours­es, part of our col­lec­tion of 825 Free Online Cours­es.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Leonard Susskind Teach­es You “The The­o­ret­i­cal Min­i­mum” for Under­stand­ing Mod­ern Physics

Quan­tum Physics Made Rel­a­tive­ly Sim­ple: A Mini Course from Nobel Prize-Win­ning Physi­cist Hans Bethe

The Hig­gs Boson, AKA the God Par­ti­cle, Explained with Ani­ma­tion

What’s Next for the Large Hadron Col­lid­er? PhD Comics Intro­duces the Search for Extra Dimen­sions

The Famous Feyn­man Lec­tures on Physics: The New Online Edi­tion (in HTML5)

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Watch 13 Experimental Short Films by Tezuka Osamu, the Walt Disney of Japan

in Animation, Art, Film | February 18th, 2014

Tezu­ka Osamu (1928–1989) is known as “the God of man­ga” in Japan. He cre­at­ed clas­sics for both chil­dren and adults in every genre – from hor­ror to romance to action. The sheer amount of work pro­duced in Osamu’s rel­a­tive­ly short life is stag­ger­ing; some esti­mates have it that he drew over 150,000 pages of comics.

While focus­ing just on man­ga would have been enough for most mor­tals, Osamu was also a trail­blaz­er in ani­ma­tion. He cre­at­ed Astro-Boy, the huge­ly pop­u­lar char­ac­ter that spawned com­ic books, TV shows, video games and a cou­ple of movies. The visu­al style of Osamu’s ani­mat­ed work — Astro-Boy and oth­ers — proved to be very influ­en­tial. Those trade­mark giant eyes on ani­me char­ac­ters come straight from Osamu (who in turn was influ­enced by Walt Dis­ney and Max Fleis­ch­er).

Osamu relent­less­ly chal­lenged the lim­its of what man­ga and ani­me could do. He’s cred­it­ed with mak­ing the first ever X‑Rated ani­mat­ed fea­ture film, Cleopa­tra, Queen of Sex (1970) — imag­ine Dis­ney doing that. He also made a series of exper­i­men­tal ani­mat­ed shorts, which show­case not only Osamu’s cre­ativ­i­ty and range but also his phi­los­o­phy, which was heav­i­ly influ­enced by Bud­dhism.

His 1962 work Tale of Street Cor­ner is a sur­pris­ing­ly mov­ing short about the day-to-day life of a city street cor­ner as seen through the eyes of some anthro­po­mor­phized mice and sen­tient street posters.

And if you want get a sense of Osamu’s ver­sa­til­i­ty, check out his 1966 movie Pic­tures at an Exhi­bi­tion. The work is an omnibus film fea­tur­ing ten small­er shorts, all set to Mus­sorgsky’s famous suite. Osamu recre­at­ed each short in a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent style from the oth­ers.

His 1984 short, Jump­ing is a tech­ni­cal tour-de-force told with admirable sim­plic­i­ty. Seen from a first per­son point of view, the movie is about a young child who is jump­ing down a coun­try road. As each jump gets high­er and longer, the cam­era pass­es through cities, fields and oceans and even­tu­al­ly into a war­zone. The sharp-eyed view­er will see R2D2 and C‑3PO make a sur­prise cameo at around the 2:57 mark­er.

And final­ly, here is an inter­view with the mas­ter him­self as he talks about mak­ing these movies. And you can see all 13 of the ani­mat­ed shorts here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

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

Kafka’s Night­mare Tale, ‘A Coun­try Doc­tor,’ Told in Award-Win­ning Japan­ese Ani­ma­tion

Japan­ese Car­toons from the 1920s and 30s Reveal the Styl­is­tic Roots of Ani­me

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

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.

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A Quick Animation of Frida Kahlo’s Famous Self Portrait

in Animation, Art | February 2nd, 2014

In 1940, Fri­da Kahlo paint­ed a self por­trait for her lover, the pho­tog­ra­ph­er Nick­o­las Muray. Accord­ing to the Fri­da Kahlo fan site, the paint­ing enti­tled “Autor­re­tra­to con col­lar de espinas” (or Self Por­trait with Neck­lace of Thorns) fea­tures Kahlo wear­ing Christ’s crown of thorns

as a neck­lace, pre­sent­ing her­self as a Chris­t­ian mar­tyr. The thorns dig­ging into her neck are sym­bol­ic of the pain she still feels over her divorce from Diego [Rivera]. Hang­ing from the thorny neck­lace is a dead hum­ming­bird whose out­stretched wings echo Frida’s joined eye­brows. In Mex­i­can folk tra­di­tion, dead hum­ming­birds were used as charms to bring luck in love. Over her left shoul­der the black cat, a sym­bol of bad luck and death, waits to pounce on the hum­ming­bird. Over her right shoul­der the sym­bol of the dev­il, her pet monkey…a gift from Diego. Around her hair, but­ter­flies rep­re­sent the Res­ur­rec­tion. Once again, Fri­da uses a wall of large trop­i­cal plant leaves as the back­ground.

In late 2013, Flo­rent Por­ta dropped the paint­ing into Pho­to­shop and brought every­thing in the back­ground to life. If this short clip intrigues, you should­n’t miss the recent viral video called “Beau­ty,” which ani­mates paint­ings by Car­avag­gio, Ver­meer, & oth­er great mas­ters.

via Coudal

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Fri­da Kahlo Writes a Per­son­al Let­ter to Geor­gia O’Keeffe After O’Keeffe’s Ner­vous Break­down (1933)

Watch Mov­ing Short Films of Fri­da Kahlo and Diego Rivera at the “Blue House”

Fri­da Kahlo and Diego Rivera Vis­it Leon Trot­sky in Mex­i­co, 1938

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How to Build a Fictional World: Animated Video Explains What Makes Lord of the Rings & Other Fantasy Books Come Alive

in Animation, K-12, Literature, TED Talks, Writing | January 20th, 2014

Today, I was eaves­drop­ping on a young cou­ple in a cafe. The man asked the woman to rec­om­mend a book, some­thing he would­n’t be able to put down on a long, upcom­ing plane ride. The woman seemed stymied by this request. Exhaust­ed, even. (A stroller in which a fair­ly new­born baby slum­bered was parked next to them).

It must’ve been obvi­ous that my wheels were turn­ing for the woman turned to me, remark­ing, “He does­n’t like books.”

“I’m all about mag­a­zines,” the man chimed in.

Hmm. Per­haps Kather­ine Anne Porter’s Ship of Fools was­n’t such a good idea after all. What would this stranger like? With­out giv­ing it very much thought at all, I reached for The Spir­it Catch­es You And You Fall Down, Anne Fadi­man’s Nation­al Book Crit­ics Cir­cle Award-win­ning non-fic­tion account of a West­ern doc­tor’s tus­sle with the fam­i­ly of an epilep­tic Hmong child. It seems unlike­ly my impromp­tu ele­va­tor pitch con­vinced him to nip round the cor­ner to see if Green­light Book­store had a copy in stock. More prob­a­bly, I impressed him  as one of those New Age‑y matrons eager to pub­licly iden­ti­fy with what­ev­er trib­al cul­ture lays with­in reach.

(Lest you think me an insuf­fer­able busy­body, the man at the next table horned in on the con­ver­sa­tion too, rec­om­mend­ing a col­lec­tion of mod­ern-day Sher­lock Holmes sto­ries and a nov­el, which we all said sound­ed great. Because real­ly, what else were we going to say?

A read­er’s taste is so sub­jec­tive, is it any won­der I felt leery going into “How to Build a Fic­tion­al World,” an ani­mat­ed Ted-Ed talk by chil­dren’s book author and for­mer mid­dle school teacher, Kate Mess­ner? The titles she name-checks—The Lord of the Rings, The Matrix,  and the Har­ry Pot­ter series—are all wild­ly suc­cess­ful, and far—as in light years—from of my cup of tea.

That’s not to say I’m opposed to fan­ta­sy. I adore Dun­geon, Lewis Trond­heim and Joann Sfar’s out­ra­geous­ly fun­ny, anthro­po­mor­phic graph­ic nov­el series. Ani­mal Farm… A Clock­work Orange…all of these per­son­al favorites are easy to decon­struct using Mess­ner’s recipe for fic­tion­al world-build­ing. (Those whose tastes run sim­i­lar to mine may want to jump ahead to the 3:15 minute mark above.)

Kudos to ani­ma­tor Avi Ofer, for the wit with which he con­cep­tu­al­izes Mess­ner’s ideas. The way he choos­es to rep­re­sent the inhab­i­tants’ rela­tion­ships with the plants and ani­mals of their fic­tion­al world (4:13) is par­tic­u­lar­ly inven­tive. His con­tri­bu­tions alone are enough to make this must-see view­ing for any reluc­tant  — or stuck — cre­ative writer.

For those of you who enjoy fan­ta­sy and sci­ence fic­tion, how do your favorite titles cleave to Mess­ner’s guide­lines? Let us know in the com­ments below.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ani­mat­ed Video Explores the Invent­ed Lan­guages of Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones & Star Trek

“The Tolkien Pro­fes­sor” Presents Three Free Cours­es on The Lord of the Rings

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

Ayun Hal­l­i­day will be hon­or­ing fic­tion­al worlds with a trip to Urine­town this spring. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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How Coffee Affects Your Brain: A Very Quick Primer

in Animation, Food & Drink | January 14th, 2014

The morn­ing cup of cof­fee sweeps the cob­webs off of your brain. Almost mag­i­cal­ly. Just like that. If you care to get ana­lyt­i­cal about what’s going on in your caf­feinat­ed brain, we give you a short video from PHD comics — short, of course, for Piled High­er and Deep­er. For more of their videos see:

The Hig­gs Boson, AKA the God Par­ti­cle, Explained with Ani­ma­tion

What’s Next for the Large Hadron Col­lid­er? PhD Comics Intro­duces the Search for Extra Dimen­sions

Dark Mat­ter Ani­mat­ed: The Next Fron­tier of Dis­cov­ery for Physi­cists and Cos­mol­o­gists

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Barry White’s Philosophy of Music and Making Love, Animated

in Animation, Music | January 8th, 2014

Blank on Blank returns with an ani­mat­ed inter­view with Bar­ry White, the singer-song­writer who rose to promi­nence dur­ing the 1970s, record­ing songs that put us all in a lov­ing mood. With hits like “Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love Baby,” “You’re the First, the Last, My Every­thing,” and “Love Theme” (record­ed by his 40-piece orches­tral group The Love Unlim­it­ed Orches­tra), White reached right into our bed­room and tried to nur­ture the best parts of human­i­ty and sub­due the worst. As he says in the ani­mat­ed inter­view above, “When a man is mak­ing love, the last thing he thinks about is war!” (Yes, it’s a gen­dered com­ment, but, let’s face it, it’s almost always men that screw up the world.) Oth­er artists and authors fea­tured in the Blank on Blank ani­mat­ed series include Kurt Cobain, Grace Kel­ley, Janis Joplin, Ray Charles, The Beast­ie Boys, David Fos­ter Wal­lace, Jim Mor­ri­son & Dave Brubeck.

Don’t miss any­thing from Open Cul­ture. Sign up for our Dai­ly Email or RSS Feed. And we’ll send cul­tur­al curiosi­ties your way, every day.

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