Einstein’s Theory of Relativity Explained in One of the Earliest Science Films Ever Made (1923)

in Film, Science | June 17th, 2024

Albert Ein­stein devel­oped his the­o­ry of spe­cial rel­a­tiv­i­ty in 1905, and then men­tal­ly mapped out his the­o­ry of gen­er­al rel­a­tiv­i­ty between 1907 and 1915. For years to come, the rest of the world would try to catch up with Ein­stein, try­ing to under­stand the gist, let alone the full impli­ca­tions, of his ground­break­ing ideas.

Above, you can watch one such attempt. Pro­duced by Max and David Fleis­ch­er, best known for their Bet­ty Boop and Super­man car­toons, The Ein­stein The­o­ry of Rel­a­tiv­i­ty used the pow­er of ani­ma­tion to explain rel­a­tiv­i­ty to a broad, non-sci­en­tif­ic audi­ence in 1923. One of the first edu­ca­tion­al sci­ence films ever made, the silent ani­mat­ed film was cre­at­ed with the assis­tance of sci­ence jour­nal­ist Gar­rett P. Serviss and oth­er experts who had a han­dle on Ein­stein’s the­o­ries. Accord­ing to a biog­ra­phy of Max Fleis­ch­er, the film was “an out-and-out suc­cess.” “The crit­ics and the pub­lic applaud­ed it. And Ein­stein did too, appar­ent­ly deem­ing it an “excel­lent attempt to illus­trate an abstract sub­ject.”

Watch the short film above. And find it added to our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & 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!

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Hear Albert Ein­stein Read “The Com­mon Lan­guage of Sci­ence” (1941)

Bertrand Russell’s ABC of Rel­a­tiv­i­ty: The Clas­sic Intro­duc­tion to Ein­stein (Free Audio)

Albert Ein­stein Appears in Remark­ably Col­orized Video & Con­tem­plates the Fate of Human­i­ty After the Atom­ic Bomb (1946)

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Watch the Earliest-Known Charles Dickens Film: The Death of Poor Joe

in Film, Literature | June 17th, 2024

A lit­tle over a decade ago, a cura­tor at the British Film Insti­tute (BFI) dis­cov­ered the old­est sur­viv­ing film fea­tur­ing a Charles Dick­ens char­ac­ter, “The Death of Poor Joe.” The silent film, direct­ed by George Albert Smith in 1900, brings to life Dick­ens’ char­ac­ter Jo, the cross­ing sweep­er from Bleak House. Pri­or to this find, the title of the old­est known Dick­ens film belonged to Scrooge, or, Marley’s Ghost, which pre­miered in Novem­ber 1901.

Pro­vid­ing more con­text for the film, the BFI writes:

This trag­ic short film is based on the stage pro­duc­tion of Poor Jo the Cross­ing Sweep­er, which itself adapt­ed one of the most affect­ing sto­ries in Dick­ens’ epic nov­el Bleak House. This short film is very much an adap­ta­tion of the stage ver­sion, in which a fol­low-spot recre­at­ed the night watch­man’s lamp. As Joe dies, nev­er hav­ing been taught to pray, the light also rep­re­sents the redemp­tive light of heav­en.

The char­ac­ter of Joe was pop­u­larised in the 19th cen­tu­ry by actress Jen­nie Lee, who toured her per­for­mance around Europe and the USA. Here Joe is played by Lau­ra Bay­ley and the Night-watch­man by Tom Green. Both actors were reg­u­lar col­lab­o­ra­tors with the Brighton-based film­mak­er GA Smith (Bay­ley was his wife).

You can watch the film, cour­tesy of BFI, above.

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 

An Oscar-Win­ning Ani­ma­tion of Charles Dick­ens’ Clas­sic Tale, A Christ­mas Car­ol (1971)

Watch L’Inferno (1911), Italy’s First Fea­ture Film and Per­haps the Finest Adap­ta­tion of Dante’s Clas­sic

Watch Very First Film Adap­ta­tions of Shakespeare’s Plays: King John, The Tem­pest, Richard III & More (1899–1936)

Franken­stein Hits the Sil­ver Screen (1910)

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Hear Edgar Allan Poe Stories Read by Iggy Pop, Jeff Buckley, Christopher Walken, Marianne Faithful & More

in Film, Literature, Music | June 13th, 2024

In 1849, a lit­tle over 175 years ago, Edgar Allan Poe was found dead in a Bal­ti­more gut­ter under mys­te­ri­ous cir­cum­stances very like­ly relat­ed to vio­lent elec­tion fraud. It was an igno­min­ious end to a life marked by hard­ship, alco­holism, and loss. After strug­gling for years as the first Amer­i­can writer to try and make a liv­ing from his art, and fail­ing in sev­er­al pub­lish­ing ven­tures and posi­tions, Poe achieved few of his aims, bare­ly get­ting by finan­cial­ly and only man­ag­ing to attract a little—often negative—notice for now-famous poems like “The Raven.” Con­tem­po­raries like Ralph Wal­do Emer­son dis­par­aged the poem and a lat­er gen­er­a­tion of writ­ers, includ­ing William But­ler Yeats, pro­nounced him “vul­gar.”

But of course, as we know, a coun­ter­cur­rent of Poe appre­ci­a­tion took hold among writ­ers, artists, and film­mak­ers inter­est­ed in mys­tery, hor­ror, and the supernatural—to such a degree that in the pre­vi­ous cen­tu­ry, near­ly every artist even pass­ing­ly asso­ci­at­ed with dark­er themes has inter­pret­ed Poe as a rite of pas­sage. We’ve fea­tured a read­ing of “The Raven” by the often-sin­is­ter Christo­pher Walken.

At the top of the post, you can hear anoth­er ver­sion of the Queens-born actor read­ing Poe’s best-known work, a poem designed to pro­duce what the author called a “uni­ty of effect” with its incan­ta­to­ry rep­e­ti­tions. This record­ing comes from a col­lec­tion of celebri­ty Poe read­ings called Closed on Account of Rabies, which also fea­tures such unique takes on the clas­sic hor­ror writer’s work as that above, “The Tell-Tale Heart” as read by Iggy Pop.

Just above, hear a less­er-known poem by Poe called “Ulalume” read by Jeff Buck­ley, with an accom­pa­ny­ing sound­track of low, puls­ing, vague­ly West­ern-inspired music that well suits Buckley’s for­mal, rhyth­mic recita­tion. The use of music on this album has divid­ed many Poe fans, and admit­ted­ly, some tracks work bet­ter than oth­ers. On Buckley’s “Ulalume,” the music height­ens ten­sion and pro­vides a per­fect atmos­phere for imag­in­ing “the misty mid region of Weir,” its “ghoul-haunt­ed wood­land,” and the “sco­ri­ac rivers” of lava pour­ing from the poet’s heart. On Mar­i­anne Faithful’s read­ing of “Annabelle Lee,” below, a score of keen­ing synths can seem over­wrought and unnec­es­sary.

The remain­der of the 1997 album, which you can pur­chase here, treats us to read­ings from 80s goth-rock stars Dia­man­da Galas and Gavin Fri­day, Bad Lieu­tenant direc­tor Abel Fer­rara, Blondie singer Deb­bie Har­ry, and grav­el-voiced New Orleans blues­man Dr. John, among oth­ers.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear Clas­sic Read­ings of Poe’s “The Raven” by Vin­cent Price, James Earl Jones, Christo­pher Walken, Neil Gaiman & More

Why Should You Read Edgar Allan Poe? An Ani­mat­ed Video Explains

7 Tips from Edgar Allan Poe on How to Write Vivid Sto­ries and Poems

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

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Fritz Lang First Depicted Artificial Intelligence on Film in Metropolis (1927), and It Frightened People Even Then

in Artificial Intelligence, Film, Technology | May 23rd, 2024

Arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence seems to have become, as Michael Lewis labeled a pre­vi­ous chap­ter in the recent his­to­ry of tech­nol­o­gy, the new new thing. But human anx­i­eties about it are, if not an old old thing, then at least part of a tra­di­tion longer than we may expect. For vivid evi­dence, look no fur­ther than Fritz Lang’s Metrop­o­lis, which brought the very first cin­e­mat­ic depic­tion of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence to the­aters in 1927. It “imag­ines a future cleaved in two, where the afflu­ent from lofty sky­scrap­ers rule over a sub­ter­ranean caste of labor­ers,” writes Synapse Ana­lyt­ics’ Omar Abo Mos­al­lam. “The class ten­sion is so pal­pa­ble that the inven­tion of a Maschi­nen­men­sch (a robot capa­ble of work) upends the social order.”

The sheer tire­less­ness of the Maschi­nen­men­sch “sows hav­oc in the city”; lat­er, after it takes on the form of a young woman called Maria — a trans­for­ma­tion you can watch in the clip above — it “incites work­ers to rise up and destroy the machines that keep the city func­tion­ing. Here, there is a sug­ges­tion to asso­ciate this new inven­tion with an unrav­el­ing of the social order.” This robot, which Guardian film crit­ic Peter Brad­shaw describes as “a bril­liant eroti­ciza­tion and fetishiza­tion of mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy,” has long been Metrop­o­lis’ sig­na­ture fig­ure, more icon­ic than HAL, Data, and WALL‑E put togeth­er.

Still, those char­ac­ters all rate men­tions of their own in the arti­cles review­ing the his­to­ry of AI in the movies recent­ly pub­lished by the BFI, RTÉ, Pic­to­ry, and oth­er out­lets besides. The Day the Earth Stood Still, Alien, Blade Run­ner (and even more so its sequel Blade Run­ner 2049), Ghost in the Shell, The Matrix, and Ex Machi­na. Not all of these pic­tures present their arti­fi­cial­ly intel­li­gent char­ac­ters pri­mar­i­ly as exis­ten­tial threats to the exist­ing order; the BFI’s Georgina Guthrie high­lights video essay­ist-turned-auteur Kog­o­na­da’s After Yang as an exam­ple that treats the role of AI could assume in soci­ety as a much more com­plex — indeed, much more human — mat­ter.

From Metrop­o­lis to After Yang, as RTÉ’s Alan Smeaton points out, “AI is usu­al­ly por­trayed in movies in a robot­ic or humanoid-like fash­ion, pre­sum­ably because we can eas­i­ly relate to humanoid and robot­ic forms.” But as the pub­lic has come to under­stand over the past few years, we can per­ceive a tech­nol­o­gy as poten­tial­ly or actu­al­ly intel­li­gent even it does­n’t resem­ble a human being. Per­haps the age of the fear­some mechan­i­cal Art Deco gynoid will nev­er come to pass, but we now feel more keen­ly than ever both the seduc­tive­ness and the threat of Metrop­o­lis’ Maschi­nen­men­sch — or, as it was named in the orig­i­nal on which the film was based, Futu­ra.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Metrop­o­lis: Watch Fritz Lang’s 1927 Mas­ter­piece

Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence, Art & the Future of Cre­ativ­i­ty: Watch the Final Chap­ter of the “Every­thing is a Remix” Series

Hunter S. Thomp­son Chill­ing­ly Pre­dicts the Future, Telling Studs Terkel About the Com­ing Revenge of the Eco­nom­i­cal­ly & Tech­no­log­i­cal­ly “Obso­lete” (1967)

Ama­zon Offers Free AI Cours­es, Aim­ing to Help 2 Mil­lion Peo­ple Build AI Skills by 2025

Isaac Asi­mov Pre­dicts the Future in 1982: Com­put­ers Will Be “at the Cen­ter of Every­thing;” Robots Will Take Human Jobs

Google Launch­es a New Course Called “AI Essen­tials”: Learn How to Use Gen­er­a­tive AI Tools to Increase Your Pro­duc­tiv­i­ty

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

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The First Professional Footage of Pink Floyd Gets Captured in a 1967 Documentary (and the Band Also Provides the Soundtrack)

in Film, Music | May 22nd, 2024

British film­mak­er and nov­el­ist Peter White­head has been cred­it­ed with invent­ing the music video with his pro­mo films for the Rolling Stones in the mid-60s. Accord­ing to Ali Cat­ter­all and Simon Wells, authors of Your Face Here, a study of “British Cult Film since the Six­ties,” White­head was “a trust­ed con­fi­dant of the Rolling Stones… and a mem­ber of the inner cir­cle.” In addi­tion to the Stones, White­head had access to a sur­pris­ing num­ber of impor­tant fig­ures in the coun­ter­cul­tur­al scene of 60s Lon­don, includ­ing actors Michael Caine and Julie Christie, artist David Hock­ney, and a just-emerg­ing (and then unknown) psy­che­del­ic band called Pink Floyd. All of these char­ac­ters show up in Whitehead’s 1968 doc­u­men­tary Tonite Let’s All Make Love in Lon­don. Cat­ter­all and Wells describe the film thus:

If any one film tru­ly reveals “Swing­ing Lon­don,” it is Peter White­head­’s lit­tle-seen doc­u­men­tary Tonite Let’s All Make Love In Lon­don (1968). Beau­ti­ful­ly shot, with a Syd Bar­rett-led Pink Floyd sup­ply­ing the sound­track, it is per­haps the only true mas­ter­piece of the peri­od, offer­ing a visu­al­ly cap­ti­vat­ing win­dow on the ‘in’ crowd. Reveal­ing, often very per­son­al inter­views with the era’s prime movers — Michael Caine, Julie Christie, David Hock­ney and Mick Jag­ger — are inter­spersed by daz­zling images of the ‘ded­i­cat­ed fol­low­ers of fash­ion’, patro­n­is­ing the clubs and dis­cothe­ques of the day.

Depart­ing from typ­i­cal doc­u­men­tary styles, Tonite eschews neat nar­ra­tive pack­ag­ing and voice-over, and opts instead for a some­times jar­ring mon­tage of scenes from the Lon­don clubs and streets, rare footage of per­for­mances by the Stones, the Floyd (in one of their first-ever gigs at the UFO club), and oth­ers, and polit­i­cal ral­lies (with Vanes­sa Red­grave singing “Guantanamera”)–all inter­cut with the above­men­tioned inter­views. One of the best of the lat­ter is with a very young and charm­ing David Hock­ney (below), who com­pares Lon­don to Cal­i­for­nia and New York, and debunks ideas about the “swing­ing Lon­don” nightlife (“you need too much mon­ey”).

Over­all, Tonite Let’s All Make Love in Lon­don is a unique por­trait of the era and its ris­ing stars, and White­head­’s visu­al style repli­cates an insider’s per­spec­tive of watch­ing (but not par­tic­i­pat­ing) as a new cul­tur­al moment unfolds. White­head, who “nev­er missed a 60s hap­pen­ing,” has a knack for record­ing such moments. His 1965 Whol­ly Com­mu­nion (see here) cap­tures the spir­it­ed Albert Hall Poet­ry Fes­ti­val in 65 (presided over by doyen Allen Gins­berg), and 1969’s The Fall doc­u­ments some of the most incen­di­ary polit­i­cal action of late-60s New York.

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

Relat­ed Con­tent 

Pink Floyd’s Debut on Amer­i­can TV, Restored in Col­or (1967)

Pink Floyd Plays in Venice on a Mas­sive Float­ing Stage in 1989; Forces the May­or & City Coun­cil to Resign

Short Film “Syd Barrett’s First Trip” Reveals the Pink Floyd Founder’s Psy­che­del­ic Exper­i­men­ta­tion (1967)

Pink Floyd’s First Mas­ter­piece: An Audio/Video Explo­ration of the 23-Minute Track, “Echoes” (1971)

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A Playlist of the 3,300 Best Films & Documentaries on Youtube, Including Works by Hitchcock, Kubrick, Errol Morris & Other Auteurs

in Film, YouTube | May 16th, 2024

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Once upon a time, the most con­ve­nient means of dis­cov­er­ing movies was cable tele­vi­sion. This held espe­cial­ly true for those of us who hap­pened to be ado­les­cents on a break from school, ready and will­ing morn­ing, mid­day, or night to sit through the com­mer­cial-laden likes of Corvette Sum­mer, Tran­syl­va­nia 6–5000, BMX Ban­dits, or Free­jack. Click on any of those links, and you can watch the rel­e­vant pic­ture free on Youtube; click on the link to this playlist, and you’ll find 3,000 of the best films now avail­able on that plat­form (the exact num­ber may vary depend­ing on your region of the world), as curat­ed by Learnoutloud.com.

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Not all these movies belong in the cheap-thrills bin. You’ll also find the work of cel­e­brat­ed auteurs like Alfred Hitch­cock (The Man Who Knew Too Much, The 39 Steps), Stan­ley Kubrick (Fear and Desire, Bar­ry Lyn­don), Aki­ra Kuro­sawa (Der­su Uza­la, Dreams), and Woody Allen (Mighty Aphrodite, Cas­san­dra’s Dream).

Then here are the doc­u­men­taries, gath­ered here on their own playlist, includ­ing Errol Mor­ris’ Gates of Heav­en and The Thin Blue Line and Wern­er Her­zog’s The Great Ecsta­sy of Wood­carv­er Stein­er and Lessons of Dark­ness. You can even find relat­ed pic­tures across gen­res: con­sid­er fol­low­ing Lost in La Man­cha, which doc­u­ments Ter­ry Gilliam’s thwart­ed efforts to make The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, with The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.

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“Almost all of these movies are free with ads,” writes Learnoutloud.com’s David Bis­chke, though YouTube Pre­mi­um sub­scribers will be able to watch ad-free. “Like any stream­ing ser­vice, the rights to these movies change fre­quent­ly, espe­cial­ly on YouTube’s offi­cial Movies and TV chan­nel. So if you see a movie you real­ly want to watch, then check it out soon!” If you’ve been mean­ing to get into Raise the Red Lantern and To Live by direc­tor Zhang Yimou, to learn about artists and musi­cians like Jack­son Pol­lock and Glenn Gould, or to behold a young Arnold Schwarzeneg­ger’s ear­ly appear­ances in Pump­ing Iron and Her­cules in New York, now’s the time. And with Vice Ver­sa and Dream a Lit­tle Dream cur­rent­ly avail­able, why not revis­it the sub­genre of the eight­ies body-switch com­e­dy while you’re at it?

P.S. In case you’re won­der­ing about the legal­i­ty of the films, the Learnout­loud site notes:  To make the playlist, “the movies had to be legal­ly free on YouTube either from YouTube’s offi­cial Movies and TV chan­nel, from a YouTube chan­nel legal­ly dis­trib­ut­ing the movie, or from a movie on YouTube that is in the pub­lic domain.” Just thought you might want to know…

Relat­ed con­tent:

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

Kino Lor­ber Lets You Stream 146 Films on YouTube: Til­da Swin­ton, Samuel L. Jack­son, Steve Busce­mi, Buster Keaton & More

Watch Free Cult Films by Stan­ley Kubrick, Fritz Lang, Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi & More on the New Kino Cult Stream­ing Ser­vice

Watch More Than 400 Clas­sic Kore­an Films Free Online Thanks to the Kore­an Film Archive

Down­load 6600 Free Films from The Prelinger Archives and Use Them How­ev­er You Like

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

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Wes Anderson Directs & Stars in an Ad Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Montblanc’s Signature Pen

in Business, Film | May 15th, 2024

One hard­ly has to be an expert on the films of Wes Ander­son to imag­ine that the man writes with a foun­tain pen. Maybe back in the ear­ly nine­teen-nineties, when he was shoot­ing the black-and-white short that would become Bot­tle Rock­et on the streets of Austin, he had to set­tle for ordi­nary ball­points. But now that he’s long since claimed his place in the top ranks of major Amer­i­can auteurs, he can indulge his taste for painstak­ing crafts­man­ship and recent-past anti­quar­i­an­ism both onscreen and off. For a brand like Mont­blanc, this sure­ly made him the ide­al choice to direct a com­mer­cial cel­e­brat­ing the hun­dredth anniver­sary of their flag­ship writ­ing tool, the Meis­ter­stück.

Shot at Stu­dio Babels­berg in Ger­many, where Ander­son is at work on his next fea­ture The Phoeni­cian Scheme, the result­ing short “fea­tures Ander­son him­self, sport­ing a wispy wal­rus mus­tache, as well as fre­quent col­lab­o­ra­tors Jason Schwartz­man and Rupert Friend, all pos­ing as a group of moun­tain-climbers with a par­tic­u­lar affec­tion for the free­dom and inspi­ra­tion offered by Montblanc’s prod­ucts,” writes Indiewire’s Har­ri­son Rich­lin.

With­in its first minute, “the ad takes us from the cold, snowy caps of Mont Blanc to a cozy chalet Ander­son announces as The Mont Blanc Obser­va­to­ry and Writer’s Room.” Vogue Busi­ness’ Christi­na Bink­ley reports that this indoor-to-out­door tran­si­tion alone required 50 takes, which was only one of the sur­pris­es in store for Mont­blanc’s mar­ket­ing offi­cer.

Ander­son also turned up with an unex­pect­ed pro­pos­al of his own. “The film­mak­er pre­sent­ed a pro­to­type pen of his own design that he asked the Ger­man com­pa­ny to man­u­fac­ture,” Bink­ley writes. “He’d even named it: the Schreiber­ling, which means ‘the scrib­bler’ in Ger­man. That had not been part of the pitch.” Per­haps con­vinced by the built pro­to­type assem­bled by Ander­son­’s set-design team, Mont­blanc “agreed to pro­duce 1,969 copies of this small, green foun­tain pen to com­mem­o­rate Ander­son­’s birth year, 1969.” At 55 years of age, Ander­son may no longer be the preter­nat­u­ral­ly con­fi­dent young film­mak­er we remem­ber from the days of Rush­more or The Roy­al Tenen­baums, but since then, he’s only grown more adept at get­ting exact­ly what he wants from a com­pa­ny, whether it be a movie stu­dio or a Euro­pean lux­u­ry-goods man­u­fac­tur­er.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Wes Anderson’s Shorts Films & Com­mer­cials: A Playlist of 8 Short Ander­son­ian Works

Mont­blanc Unveils a New Line of Miles Davis Pens … and (Kind of) Blue Ink

Why Do Wes Ander­son Movies Look Like That?

Neil Gaiman Talks Dream­i­ly About Foun­tain Pens, Note­books & His Writ­ing Process in His Long Inter­view with Tim Fer­riss

Has Wes Ander­son Sold Out? Can He Sell Out? Crit­ics Take Up the Debate

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

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A Bicycle Trip: Watch an Animation of The World’s First LSD Trip in 1943

in Film, History | May 7th, 2024

On August 16, 1943, Swiss chemist Albert Hof­mann was syn­the­siz­ing a new com­pound called lyser­gic acid diethy­lamide-25 when he got a cou­ple of drops on his fin­ger. The chem­i­cal, lat­er known world­wide as LSD, absorbed into his sys­tem, and, soon after, he expe­ri­enced an intense state of altered con­scious­ness. In oth­er words, he tripped.

Intrigued by the expe­ri­ence, Hof­mann dosed him­self with 250 micro­grams of LSD and then biked his way home through the streets of Basel, mak­ing him the first per­son ever to inten­tion­al­ly drop acid. The event was lat­er com­mem­o­rat­ed by psy­cho­nauts and LSD enthu­si­asts as “Bicy­cle Day.”

Ital­ian ani­ma­tors Loren­zo Veraci­ni, Nan­di­ni Nam­biar and Mar­co Avo­let­ta imag­ine what Hof­mann might have seen dur­ing his his­toric jour­ney in their 2008 short A Bicy­cle Trip.

The film shows Hof­mann rid­ing through the Swiss medieval town as he sees visions like a trail of flow­ers com­ing off a woman in red, cob­ble­stones com­ing alive and scur­ry­ing away, and a whole for­est becom­ing trans­par­ent before the mar­veling scientist’s eyes. The film also shows Hof­mann slam­ming into a fence, illus­trat­ing why it’s nev­er a good idea to dri­ve under the influ­ence of hal­lu­cino­gens.

After his ear­ly exper­i­ments, Albert Hof­mann became con­vinced that LSD is not only a pow­er­ful poten­tial treat­ment for the men­tal­ly ill but also a valu­able bridge between the spir­i­tu­al and the sci­en­tif­ic. He called the sub­stance “med­i­cine for the soul.”

If you’re inter­est­ed in learn­ing more about the tur­bu­lent his­to­ry of the drug, check out below the 2002 doc­u­men­tary Hofmann’s Potion, by Cana­di­an film­mak­er Con­nie Lit­tle­field, which traces Hofmann’s inven­tion from being a promis­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal treat­ment, to coun­ter­cul­ture sym­bol, to banned sub­stance. The 56-minute doc fea­tures footage and inter­views with such psy­che­del­ic lumi­nar­ies as Aldous Hux­ley, Stanislav Grof, Richard Alpert (AKA Ram Dass) along with Hof­mann him­self.

Hof­mann was always uncom­fort­able with the casu­al way the ‘60s coun­ter­cul­ture used his inven­tion. “[LSD] is not just fun,” he says in Littlefield’s movie.  “It is a very seri­ous exper­i­ment.”

Jonathan Crow is a Los Ange­les-based writer whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her at @jonccrow.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ken Kesey’s First LSD Trip Ani­mat­ed

Artist Draws Nine Por­traits on LSD Dur­ing 1950s Research Exper­i­ment

Aldous Huxley’s LSD Death Trip

Take a Trip to the LSD Muse­um, the Largest Col­lec­tion of “Blot­ter Art” in the World

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