Orson Welles Narrates an Animated Parable About How Xenophobia & Greed Will Put America Into Decline (1971)

in Current Affairs, Film | October 18th, 2024

More than 50 years and 10 pres­i­den­tial admin­is­tra­tions have passed since Orson Welles nar­rat­ed Free­dom Riv­er (1971). And while it shows signs of age, the ani­mat­ed film, a para­ble about the role of immi­gra­tion, race, and wealth in Amer­i­ca, still res­onates today. Actu­al­ly, giv­en the cyn­i­cal exploita­tion of xeno­pho­bia dur­ing this most unpres­i­den­tial of pres­i­den­tial cam­paigns, you could say that Free­dom River strikes a big­ger chord than it has in years. That’s why we’re fea­tur­ing the ani­ma­tion once again on Open Cul­ture.

The back­sto­ry behind the film deserves a lit­tle men­tion. Accord­ing to Joseph Cavel­la, a writer for the film, it took a lit­tle cajol­ing and per­se­ver­ance to get Orson Welles involved in the film.

For sev­er­al years, Bosus­tow Pro­duc­tions had asked Orson Welles, then liv­ing in Paris, to nar­rate one of their films. He nev­er respond­ed. When I fin­ished the Free­dom Riv­er script, we sent it to him togeth­er with a portable reel to reel tape recorder and a siz­able check and crossed our fin­gers. He was either des­per­ate for mon­ey or (I would rather believe) some­thing in it touched him because two weeks lat­er we got the reel back with the nar­ra­tion word for word and we were on our way.

Indeed, they were.

Direct­ed by Sam Weiss, Free­dom Riv­er tells the sto­ry of decline–of a once-great nation laps­ing into ugli­ness. Despite the com­fort­ing myths we like to tell our­selves here in Amer­i­ca, that ugli­ness has always been there. Xeno­pho­bia, greed, racism (you could add a few more traits to the list) are noth­ing new. They just tend to sur­face when dem­a­gogues make it per­mis­si­ble, which is pre­cise­ly what we’re see­ing right now. For­tu­nate­ly, Welles’s nar­ra­tion leaves us with room to hope, with room to believe that our cit­i­zens will rise above what our worst lead­ers have to offer.

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

Orson Welles Nar­rates Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner in an Exper­i­men­tal Film Fea­tur­ing the Art of Gus­tave Doré

Is It Always Right to Be Right?: Orson Welles Nar­rates a 1970 Oscar-Win­ning Ani­ma­tion That Still Res­onates Today

Future Shock: Orson Welles Nar­rates a 1972 Film About the Per­ils of Tech­no­log­i­cal Change

An Ani­ma­tion of Orson Welles’ Famous Frozen Peas Rant

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Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa Now Appears on Japanese Banknotes

in Art, Current Affairs, Economics | July 4th, 2024

If you’ve lived or trav­eled in Japan, you know full well how much of dai­ly life in that cash-inten­sive soci­ety involves the use of thou­sand-yen bills. Once con­sid­ered the equiv­a­lent of the Amer­i­can ten-spot, the yen’s late­ly hav­ing fall­en to its low­est val­ue in decades means that it’s now worth clos­er to six U.S. dol­lars. This is good news for tourists, and espe­cial­ly so for tourists who appre­ci­ate the wood­block-print art of Hoku­sai, whose famous Great Wave off Kana­gawa adorns the brand new ¥1000 ban­knote. Issued just yes­ter­day by the Bank of Japan, it also bears the image of bac­te­ri­ol­o­gist Kitasato Shibasaburō, who co-dis­cov­ered the infec­tious agent of a bubon­ic plague out­break in 1894.

The last revi­sion of the ¥1000, twen­ty years ago, also fea­tured a bac­te­ri­ol­o­gist: Noguchi Hideyo, who iden­ti­fied syphilis as the cause of pro­gres­sive par­a­lyt­ic dis­ease. Before Noguchi, it bore the image of Nat­sume Sōse­ki, one of the most cel­e­brat­ed writ­ers in the his­to­ry of Japan­ese let­ters.

The Bank of Japan tends to roll out ban­knote designs for each offi­cial era, which begins when­ev­er a new emper­or ascends to the throne; the cur­rent one began in May of 2019, after Emper­or Aki­hi­to stepped down and his son Naruhi­to stepped up. Oth­er his­tor­i­cal fig­ures pic­tured on the cur­ren­cy of this Rei­wa era, as it’s called, include Tsu­da Uni­ver­si­ty founder Tsu­da Umeko and “father of Japan­ese cap­i­tal­ism” Shibu­sawa Eiichi.”

A not just respect­ed but pop­u­lar and com­mer­cial­ly suc­cess­ful artist, Hoku­sai knew a thing or two about cap­i­tal­ism him­self. Yet he also had an uncom­mon eye for the beau­ty of Japan, his dis­tinc­tive per­cep­tions of which have been high­ly influ­en­tial in both East­ern and West­ern art for near­ly two cen­turies now. Japan­ese ban­knotes have pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured images of Mount Fuji, Oga­ta Kōrin’s six-pan­el paint­ing of iris­es, and a scene from the Tale of Gen­ji. But this is the first time any has drawn from ukiyo‑e, the “pic­tures of the float­ing world” of which Hoku­sai was one of sev­er­al mas­ters who worked from the sev­en­teenth through the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry. A Great Wave bill is some­thing to cel­e­brate, but giv­en that today hap­pens to be the Fourth of July, let it be said that the pyra­mid with the eye is also pret­ty cool.

Relat­ed con­tent:

An Intro­duc­tion to Hokusai’s Great Wave, One of the Most Rec­og­niz­able Art­works in the World

The Evo­lu­tion of Hokusai’s Great Wave: A Study of 113 Known Copies of the Icon­ic Wood­block Print

Watch Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kana­gawa Get Entire­ly Recre­at­ed with 50,000 LEGO Bricks

Hokusai’s Action-Packed Illus­tra­tions of Japan­ese & Chi­nese War­riors (1836)

Alan Tur­ing Will Be Fea­tured on England’s New £50 Ban­knote

‘Pride and Prej­u­dice’ Author Jane Austen Will Appear on the £10 Note

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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Who’s Behind These Scammy Text Messages We’ve All Been Getting?: The Search Engine Podcast Demystifies the Global Scam

in Current Affairs, Technology | April 12th, 2024

You have received those odd text mes­sages from a stranger. (“Hi, This is Ani­ta. Have you received the Panam­era parts yet?”) You know the mes­sages are spam, but you don’t quite under­stand the angle of the scam. Above, the Search Engine pod­cast works with Bloomberg reporter Zeke Faux to break down the con oper­a­tion. The sto­ry turns out to be more com­pli­cat­ed than it first appears. It involves cryp­to, but also human traf­fick­ing and forced labor com­pounds in Cam­bo­dia and Myan­mar. We’ll just leave it at that and sug­gest you lis­ten to this unnerv­ing pod­cast episode. You can hope­ful­ly stream it above or find it on your favorite pod­cast platform—e.g., Apple and Spo­ti­fy.

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67 Logical Fallacies Explained in 11 Minutes

in Current Affairs, Philosophy | April 10th, 2024

Fallacies—notes Pur­due’s Writ­ing Lab—“are com­mon errors in rea­son­ing that will under­mine the log­ic of your argu­ment. Fal­lac­i­es can be either ille­git­i­mate argu­ments or irrel­e­vant points, and are often iden­ti­fied because they lack evi­dence that sup­ports their claim. Avoid these com­mon fal­lac­i­es in your own argu­ments and watch for them in the argu­ments of oth­ers.” Pur­due’s web­site then high­lights a num­ber of the men­tal traps that stu­dents often fall into—for exam­ple, the slip­pery slope, beg­ging the claim, cir­cu­lar argu­ments, the red her­ring, and more. But if you want a rapid-fire intro­duc­tion to many more log­i­cal fal­lac­i­es, look no fur­ther than the video above. In 11 min­utes, you will come across ones you may not have known about before—from the No True Scots­man and the Texas Sharp­shoot­er, to the Tu QuoQue and the Igno­ra­tio Elenchi. But it also has some time­less ones we see every day. Indeed who among us has­n’t expe­ri­enced the Sunk Cost Fal­la­cy at work, or the Ad Hominem attack on TV?

Relat­ed Con­tent 

24 Com­mon Cog­ni­tive Bias­es: A Visu­al List of the Psy­cho­log­i­cal Sys­tems Errors That Keep Us From Think­ing Ratio­nal­ly

Daniel Den­nett Presents Sev­en Tools For Crit­i­cal Think­ing

Phi­los­o­phy Ref­er­ee Hand Sig­nals

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What Earth Could Look Like in 2050 If We Do Nothing About Climate Change

in Current Affairs, Environment | April 4th, 2024

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What could our future world look like if we con­tin­ue to do noth­ing about cli­mate change? That’s the ques­tion posed by a new TED ED video, writ­ten by Shan­non Odell and direct­ed by Sofia Pashaei. We are already see­ing the effects of cli­mate change. If you’re pay­ing even a lit­tle atten­tion, you’re feel­ing the hot­ter sum­mers (which is reflect­ed in the data). You’re notic­ing the increas­ing num­ber of droughts. You’re see­ing the grow­ing num­ber of for­est fires, etc. So, “what will our world look like in the next 30 to 80 years, if we con­tin­ue on the cur­rent path?” With the video above, get a glimpse of the pos­si­ble world to come.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Carl Sagan Warns Con­gress about Cli­mate Change (1985)

Frank Capra’s Sci­ence Film The Unchained God­dess Warns of Cli­mate Change in 1958

Free: Watch Our Plan­et, a Ground­break­ing Nature Doc­u­men­tary Series Nar­rat­ed by David Atten­bor­ough

 

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Benedict Cumberbatch Reads Alexei Navalny’s Final Letter: “Victory Is Inevitable. We Must Not Give Up”

in Current Affairs | March 8th, 2024

Above, actor Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch reads the final let­ter writ­ten by Alex­ei Naval­ny, the Russ­ian oppo­si­tion leader who died in a Siber­ian prison on Feb­ru­ary 16th. The let­ter gets at a ques­tion many have asked, even from afar. Why, after being poi­soned with Novi­chok in 2020, did Naval­ny return to Rus­sia, know­ing he would face imme­di­ate and harsh impris­on­ment?

The let­ter, dat­ed Jan­u­ary 17, 2024, begins:

Exact­ly 3 years ago, I returned to Rus­sia after under­go­ing treat­ment for poi­son­ing at the air­port. I was arrest­ed and here I am three years in. For three years, I’ve been answer­ing the same ques­tion. Inmates ask it plain­ly and direct­ly. Prison admin­is­tra­tion staff [ask it] cau­tious­ly, with the recorders off. Why did you come back?

For a coun­try now used to cyn­i­cism and cor­rup­tion, the answer is dis­may­ing:

It’s actu­al­ly very sim­ple. I have my coun­try and my con­vic­tions and I don’t want to renounce either my coun­try or my con­vic­tions.… If your con­vic­tions are worth any­thing, you should be ready to stand up for them and, if nec­es­sary, make some sac­ri­fices. And if you’re not ready, then you have no con­vic­tions at all. You just think you do. But those are not con­vic­tions and
prin­ci­ples, just thoughts in your head.

Naval­ny ends the let­ter with a pre­dic­tion: “Putin’s state is unvi­able. One day we’ll look at its place and it will be gone. Vic­to­ry is inevitable but, for now, we must not give up…” Rest in peace Alex­ei Naval­ny.

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10 Biggest Threats to the World in 2024, Ranked by Ian Bremmer

in Current Affairs | February 13th, 2024

At the start of each year, Ian Brem­mer, a polit­i­cal sci­en­tist and pres­i­dent of Eura­sia Group, cre­ates a list that ranks the great­est threats to our world. In 2024, Brem­mer puts his fin­ger on Ungoverned AI, a Par­ti­tioned Ukraine, a volatile Mid­dle East, and a sput­ter­ing Chi­nese econ­o­my. But the biggest threat? A divid­ed Unit­ed States where the right and left con­sid­er each oth­er an exis­ten­tial threat, where polit­i­cal can­di­dates threat­en their rivals, where pow­er does­n’t get tran­si­tioned peace­ful­ly, and where for­eign nations look to fur­ther sow the seeds of inter­nal divi­sion. You can read Brem­mer’s full report here.

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!

 

 

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College Presidents Lampooned on Saturday Night Live’s Cold Open

in Comedy, Current Affairs | December 10th, 2023

Ouch!

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