Obey the Giant: Short Film Presents the True Story of Shepard Fairey’s First Act of Street Art

in Art, Film | May 1st, 2013

Street artists: you either love ’em or hate ’em. Or, to put it less blunt­ly, you either find ’em inno­v­a­tive pub­lic icono­g­ra­phers or find ’em puerile pub­lic nui­sances. I sure­ly don’t have to get into the con­tro­ver­sy of appraisal and reap­praisal that swirls end­less­ly around Eng­lish sten­cil-wield­ing satirist Banksy, but even the far less secre­tive and aggres­sive Shep­ard Fairey has detrac­tors as fer­vent as his admir­ers. Yes, I mean the Oba­ma “HOPE” fel­low, though he began launch­ing images into our zeit­geist well before any of us knew the name of the future Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca. You can learn much more about his ear­ly, pre-HOPE work by watch­ing Obey the Giant, a brand new twen­ty-minute doc­u­men­tary free to watch online. Among the truths revealed: Fairey also cre­at­ed “Andre the Giant has a posse” stick­ers, those pil­lars of nineties under­ground cul­ture and results of an “exper­i­ment in phe­nom­e­nol­o­gy” that you’ve almost cer­tain­ly been spot­ting ever since.

Direct­ed by for­mer Fairey intern Julian Mar­shall, the short exam­ines the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing his cre­ation of this prank­ish yet sur­pris­ing­ly long-lived cam­paign. Why appro­pri­ate the image of such a well-known pro­fes­sion­al wrestler? Why cred­it him with a posse? Why start spread­ing the word on the streets of Prov­i­dence? To address these ques­tions, Obey the Giant goes back to Fairey’s years at the Rhode Island School of Design in the late eight­ies and ear­ly nineties, when he hung out with a tight-knit group of hip-hop-lov­ing skaters, known inter­nal­ly as “the Posse,” and need­ed a sam­ple image to try mak­ing a sten­cil out of. The doc­u­men­tary, which crowd­sourced its $65,000 bud­get through Kick­starter, fea­tures a fic­tion­al­ized ver­sion of Fairey por­trayed by an actor. The move seems faint­ly rem­i­nis­cent of Banksy’s real­i­ty-ambigu­ous 2012 film Exit Through the Gift Shop, though the real Fairey does­n’t con­ceal his iden­ti­ty. He even occa­sion­al­ly turns up, so I’ve heard, at the muse­um here in Los Ange­les where my lady works — in the gift shop, as it hap­pens.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Oba­ma “Hope” Poster & The New Copy­right Con­tro­ver­sy

Shep­ard Fairey Caves In, Revis­es Occu­py Wall Street Poster

Artist Shep­ard Fairey Curates His Favorite YouTube Videos

Strik­ing Posters From Occu­py Wall Street: Down­load Them for Free

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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Willie Nelson Auditions for The Hobbit Film Sequel, Turns 80 Today

in Film, Music | April 30th, 2013

Willie Nel­son, Amer­i­ca’s icon­ic coun­try music singer, has logged lots of miles. And, today, he turns 80, with more than 60 stu­dio albums, 10 live albums, and 27 col­lab­o­ra­tions to his cred­it. Recent­ly, Nel­son showed that he has a lit­tle more tread on his tires when, while vis­it­ing Conan O’Brien’s show, he shot a short audi­tion reel for Peter Jack­son, hop­ing to land the role of Gan­dalf in The Hob­bit sequel. It’s doubt­ful that, wher­ev­er he is, Ian McKel­lan is break­ing a sweat.

For more Tolkien trea­sures don’t miss:

Lis­ten to J.R.R. Tolkien Read a Lengthy Excerpt from The Hob­bit (1952)

Down­load Eight Free Lec­tures on The Hob­bit by “The Tolkien Pro­fes­sor,” Corey Olsen

Dis­cov­er J.R.R. Tolkien’s Per­son­al Book Cov­er Designs for The Lord of the Rings Tril­o­gy

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Steven Spielberg’s Obama, Starring Daniel Day Lewis as the President

in Comedy, Film | April 30th, 2013

Sarah Palin did­n’t like the 2013 White House Cor­re­spon­dents’ Din­ner. In a cranky tweet, she wrote: “That #WHCD was pathet­ic. The rest of Amer­i­ca is out there work­ing our ass­es off while these DC ass­clowns throw them­selves a #nerd­prom.” But I have to dis­agree with Amer­i­ca’s most dis­tin­guished half-term gov­er­nor. Some­where in Wash­ing­ton, a hard-work­ing writer imag­ined Barack Oba­ma play­ing Daniel Day Lewis play­ing Barack Oba­ma and had the gump­tion to fol­low the joke entire­ly through. Who­ev­er’s respon­si­ble for real­iz­ing that com­ic moment, we salute you.

Spiel­berg’s Oba­ma aired dur­ing the Cor­re­spon­dents’ Din­ner. You can watch Conan O’Brien’s full com­e­dy rou­tine at the WHCD here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Steven Spiel­berg on the Genius of Stan­ley Kubrick

Watch Steven Spielberg’s Debut: Two Films He Direct­ed as a Teenag­er

525 Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, etc.

Inside Break­ing Bad: Watch Conan O’Brien’s Extend­ed Inter­view with the Show’s Cast and Cre­ator

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Andrés Segovia: Song of the Guitar, Beautifully Filmed at the Alhambra

in Film, Music | April 26th, 2013

Not long ago we post­ed a beau­ti­ful scene fea­tur­ing the leg­endary gui­tarist Andrés Segovia play­ing Johann Sebas­t­ian Bach at the Alham­bra, the sto­ried 14th cen­tu­ry Moor­ish palace in Grana­da, Spain. Today we’re pleased to bring you the entire 50-minute film from which it came, Andrés Segovia: The Song of the Gui­tar.

The doc­u­men­tary was made in 1976 by the South African-born film­mak­er Christo­pher Nupen. Segovia was 84 years old at the time. When he was a child liv­ing in Grana­da, Segovia loved to bring his gui­tar to the Alham­bra and play for friends. “It was here,” he says in the film, “that I opened my eyes to the beau­ty of nature and art. To be here is to feel one­self to be near, very near, par­adise.” Segovia is often described as the father of mod­ern clas­si­cal gui­tar. In the lin­er notes to the film, which is avail­able on DVD along with anoth­er film on Segovia by Nupen, it says:

As an instru­men­tal­ist, Segovia did for the gui­tar what Casals did for the cel­lo, but he did it with an instru­ment that had nev­er before been tak­en seri­ous­ly as a con­cert instru­ment. With­in his own life­time, Segovia taught him­self the instru­ment, rev­o­lu­tionised the tech­nique and ele­vat­ed a folk instru­ment to the high­est lev­els of the inter­na­tion­al con­cert plat­form. As a musi­cian, he has come to be recog­nised as one of the most refined and pro­found of his time.

In the film, Segovia rem­i­nisces about his ear­ly days in Grena­da and his hap­py dis­cov­ery of the gui­tar. He plays ten pieces, all beau­ti­ful­ly filmed in the court­yards of the Alham­bra:

  1. “Capri­cho Catalán” by Isaac Albéniz
  2. “La Maja de Goya” by Enrique Grana­dos
  3. “Torre Berme­ja” by Isaac Albéniz
  4. “Sonata in E Minor” by Domeni­co Scar­lat­ti
  5. “Min­uet” by Jean-Philippe Rameau
  6. “Min­uet” by Fer­nan­do Sor
  7. “Bal­let and Alle­gret­to” by Manuel Ponce
  8. “Gavotte I & II” by Johann Sebas­t­ian Bach
  9. “Leyen­da” by Isaac Albéniz
  10. “El Noi de la Mare” a Cata­lan folk song

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Sto­ry of the Gui­tar: The Com­plete Three-Part Doc­u­men­tary

The Art of Mak­ing a Fla­men­co Gui­tar: 299 Hours of Blood, Sweat & Tears Expe­ri­enced in 3 Min­utes

The Gui­tar Prodi­gy from Karachi

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Tilda Swinton and Barry White Lead 1500 People in Dance-Along to Honor Roger Ebert

in Film, Life, Music | April 26th, 2013

The rela­tion­ship of movie star to crit­ic isn’t always as par­a­sitic and fraught as you might imag­ine. Wit­ness Til­da Swin­ton bounc­ing around the Vir­ginia The­ater in Cham­paign Illi­nois, urg­ing audi­ence mem­bers to get up and dance in hon­or of the late Roger Ebert. (He gave high praise to Swin­ton’s 2009 film Julia, one of the offer­ings in this year’s Ebert­fest.)

Pri­or to leap­ing into the audi­ence to the strains of Bar­ry White’s “You’re the First, the Last, My Every­thing”, the actress decreed par­tic­i­pa­tion was manda­to­ry, no voyeurism allowed. With Ebert’s wid­ow, Chaz, bust­ing some seri­ous moves in sup­port, most of the 1500 atten­dees seemed con­tent to split the dif­fer­ence, cheer­ful­ly clap­ping along in their seats (though check out the grim “how long ’til we’re released from this hell” faces of the cou­ple in the bal­cony at the 4:10 mark).

Remem­ber White Men Can’t Jump? One is tempt­ed to tack on “or dance,” watch­ing the few game souls who tru­ly threw them­selves into the spir­it of the thing. No shame in that. It was, in Swin­ton’s words, a “spir­i­tu­al ser­vice”, not a tal­ent con­test. Sure­ly the biggest win­ners are the ones beam­ing breath­less­ly from the stage at song’s end. (Hon­or­able men­tion to any­one who’s inspired to nev­er again let a fear of embar­rass­ment lead to inac­tion.)

Life is beau­ti­ful. Life is short.

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day wish­es she had been there, for sure. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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Woody Allen Amuses Himself by Giving Untruthful Answers in Unaired 1971 TV Interview

in Comedy, Film, Television | April 26th, 2013

Celebri­ties tire of giv­ing inter­views. I’ve learned this by spend­ing most of my career con­duct­ing inter­views myself, and thus des­per­ate­ly try­ing to mas­ter ask­ing the ques­tions that wake up a weary inter­vie­wee, get­ting them engaged enough to cast aside the boil­er­plate and speak like a con­vers­ing human being. But what about the celebri­ties them­selves? What can they do to spice up their expe­ri­ence? In 1971, the oft-inter­viewed Woody Allen sat down with Grana­da Tele­vi­sion and took a bold move to keep things inter­est­ing, appar­ent­ly chal­leng­ing him­self to reply to each ques­tion as untruth­ful­ly as pos­si­ble. Though the con­ver­sa­tion nev­er aired, Allen did man­age to keep up the rou­tine for quite some time, and you can watch near­ly forty min­utes of it in the clip above.

The inter­view­er asks Allen for a syn­op­sis of his new pic­ture. “It’s a dra­ma about human emo­tion in the Unit­ed States,” the direc­tor flat­ly replies. “It deals with the tragedy of divorce as it relates to the chil­dren and those who have to suf­fer con­tin­u­al­ly from the effects of an unhap­py home.” So it con­tains no com­e­dy what­so­ev­er, then? “No, I try and keep as much com­e­dy out of my films as pos­si­ble.” The film osten­si­bly under dis­cus­sion: Bananas. Asked ques­tion after broad, brief ques­tion, Allen lobs back ever dri­er and more implau­si­ble fab­ri­ca­tions. His ded­i­cat­ed fans, though, will notice that he does slip in a fac­tu­al state­ment. Asked if he watch­es his own films, he says no; and indeed, he famous­ly nev­er looks back at past work. The increas­ing­ly ner­vous-sound­ing inter­view­er (who may be in on the joke?) asks why. “Because I don’t have the patience to sit through them.”

h/t @lit_hum

Relat­ed con­tent:

Woody Allen Answers 12 Uncon­ven­tion­al Ques­tions He Has Nev­er Been Asked Before

Meetin’ WA: Jean-Luc Godard Meets Woody Allen in 26 Minute Film

Woody Allen Lives the “Deli­cious Life” in Ear­ly-80s Japan­ese Com­mer­cials

Woody Allen Box­es a Kan­ga­roo, 1966

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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David Lynch Explains How Meditation Enhances Our Creativity

in Creativity, Film, Psychology | April 25th, 2013

David Lynch med­i­tates, and he med­i­tates hard. Begin­ning his prac­tice in earnest after it helped him solve a cre­ative prob­lem dur­ing the pro­duc­tion of his break­out 1977 film Eraser­head, he has con­tin­ued med­i­tat­ing assid­u­ous­ly ever since, going so far as to found the David Lynch Foun­da­tion for Con­scious­ness-Based Edu­ca­tion and Peace and pub­lish a pro-med­i­ta­tion book called Catch­ing the Big Fish.

It might seem non­sen­si­cal to hear an artist of the grotesque like Lynch speak rap­tur­ous­ly about voy­ag­ing into his own con­scious­ness, let alone in his frac­tured all-Amer­i­can, askew-Jim­my-Stew­art man­ner, but he does med­i­tate for a prac­ti­cal rea­son: it gives him ideas. Only by med­i­tat­ing, he says, can he dive down and catch the “big fish” he uses as ingre­di­ents in his inim­itable film, music, and visu­al art. You can hear more of his thoughts on med­i­ta­tion, con­scious­ness, and cre­ativ­i­ty in his nine-minute speech above.

If you’d like to hear more, the video just above offers a near­ly two-hour pre­sen­ta­tion at UC Berke­ley with Lynch as its star. You’ll also hear from out­spo­ken quan­tum physi­cist John Hagelin and Fred Travis, direc­tor of the Cen­ter for Brain, Con­scious­ness and Cog­ni­tion Mahar­ishi Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­age­ment. Some of what they say might make good sense to you: after all, we could all use a method to clear our minds so we can cre­ate what we need to cre­ate. Some of what they say might strike you as total non­sense. But if you feel tempt­ed to dis­miss all as too bizarre for seri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion, you might med­i­tate, as it were, on oth­er things Lynchi­an: back­wards-talk­ing dwarves, sev­ered ears on sub­ur­ban lawns, alien babies, women liv­ing in radi­a­tors, sit­com fam­i­lies in rab­bit suits. He’s cer­tain­ly pitched us weird­er con­cepts than med­i­ta­tion.

For some sec­u­lar intro­duc­tions to med­i­ta­tion, you may wish to try UCLA’s free guid­ed med­i­ta­tion ses­sions or check out the Med­i­ta­tion 101 ani­mat­ed beginner’s guide above. If you’re not too put off by the occa­sion­al Bud­dhist ref­er­ence, I would also high­ly rec­om­mend the Insight Med­i­ta­tion Center’s free six-part intro­duc­tion to mind­ful­ness med­i­ta­tion.

Relat­ed con­tent:

David Lynch Talks Med­i­ta­tion with Paul McCart­ney

Mihaly Czik­szent­mi­ha­lyi Explains Why the Source of Hap­pi­ness Lies in Cre­ativ­i­ty and Flow, Not Mon­ey

David Lynch’s Sur­re­al Com­mer­cials

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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Watch Them Watch Us: A History of Breaking the “Fourth Wall” in Film

in Comedy, Film, Video - Arts & Culture | April 23rd, 2013

Remem­ber that scene in Nashville, when Kei­th Car­ra­dine sings “I’m Easy,” and every woman in the club thinks he’s speak­ing direct­ly to her?

Break­ing the fourth wall—also known as direct address—can have the same effect on a film­go­ing audi­ence. The com­pi­la­tion video above makes it clear that actors love it too. Break­ing from con­ven­tion can tele­graph an unim­peach­able cool, à la John Cusack in High Fideli­ty, or afford a vet­er­an scenery chew­er like Samuel L. Jack­son the oppor­tu­ni­ty to turn the hog loose. It’s most often deployed in the ser­vice of com­e­dy, but a stone-cold killer can make the audi­ence com­plic­it with a wink.

Screen­writer and jour­nal­ist Leigh Singer pulled footage from 54 films for this mash up, and freely admits that time con­straints left some favorites on the cut­ting room floor. What would you add, if you hap­pened to have Mar­shall McLuhan right here?

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Artist Rob­bie Cooper’s Video Project Immer­sion Stares Back at Gamers and YouTu­bers

The Film Before the Film: An Intro­duc­tion to the His­to­ry of Title Sequences in 10 Min­utes

Sig­na­ture Shots from the Films of Stan­ley Kubrick: One-Point Per­spec­tive

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is that rare Gen­er­a­tion X‑er who did­n’t see Fer­ris Bueller’s Day Off until 2013. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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