Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment Presented in a Beautifully Animated Short Film

in Animation, Film, Literature, Philosophy | December 11th, 2012

In this dark­ly poet­ic ani­ma­tion, the Pol­ish film­mak­er Piotr Dumala offers a high­ly per­son­al inter­pre­ta­tion of Fyo­dor Dos­toyevsky’s clas­sic nov­el, Crime and Pun­ish­ment. “My film is like a dream,” Dumala said in 2007. “It is as if some­one has read Crime and Pun­ish­ment and then had a dream about it.”

Dumala’s ver­sion takes place only at night. The sto­ry is told expres­sion­is­ti­cal­ly, with­out dia­logue and with an altered flow of time. The com­plex and mul­ti-lay­ered nov­el is pared down to a few cen­tral char­ac­ters and events: In the Russ­ian city of Saint Peters­burg, a young man named Raskol­nikov lies in his dark room brood­ing over a bloody crime.

He mur­ders an old woman with whom he had pawned his watch. When her younger sis­ter comes home unex­pect­ed­ly, he mur­ders her too. He con­fess­es to a saint­ly young woman named Sonya. The sin­is­ter eaves­drop­per Svidri­gailov knows of Raskol­nikov’s love for Sonya, and of his sins. In the end Svidri­gailov takes a pis­tol and “goes to Amer­i­ca” by killing him­self.

Dumala com­plet­ed his half-hour film of Crime and Pun­ish­ment (Zbrod­nia i Kara) in 2000, after three years of work. He has a unique method: He takes a white plas­ter pan­el and coats the sur­face with glue. He then paints over it with a dark col­or and lets it dry. He uses a knife and sand­pa­per to engrave his image, cre­at­ing a hatch­ing effect that gives it a feel­ing of tex­ture. To add dark­ness to a light area, he adds more paint with a brush.

It’s a form of “destruc­tive ani­ma­tion.” Each image exists only long enough to be pho­tographed and then paint­ed over to cre­ate a sense of move­ment. It’s a process that some­times makes Dumala sad. “I think some­times when I do a draw­ing in my film, I want to keep it,” he told Melis­sa Chi­movitz of Ani­ma­tion World Net­work in 1997, “but I must destroy it because this is the tech­nique I use. I must destroy every frame to put in its place anoth­er one, the next one, to have move­ment. This way, some­times I think it is too much suf­fer­ing, to destroy all the time what I am doing.”

If you appre­ci­ate Dumala’s take on Dos­toyevsky, you won’t want to miss his 1992 treat­ment of Franz Kaf­ka.

Dumala’s films are housed in our list of Free Movies Online. Dos­toyevsky’s Crime and Pun­ish­ment appears in our Free Audio Books and Free eBooks col­lec­tions.

Look­ing for free, pro­fes­­sion­al­­ly-read audio books from Audible.com? Here’s a great, no-strings-attached deal. If you start a 30 day free tri­al with Audible.com, you can down­load two free audio books of your choice. Get more details on the offer here.

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Relat­ed con­tent:

Albert Camus Talks About Adapt­ing Dos­toyevsky for the The­atre, 1959

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

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Quentin Tarantino’s 75 Minute Interview with Howard Stern

in Comedy, Film | December 7th, 2012

Quentin Taran­ti­no sat down this week for an inter­view that cov­ered a lot of ter­rain — his strained his rela­tion­ship with his father, his ninth-grade edu­ca­tion and how it shapes his film­mak­ing, his path from work­ing in a video rental store to writ­ing scripts and even­tu­al­ly direct­ing films, his approach to film­ing vio­lence, his new West­ern film Djan­go Unchained, his plans to retire before he gets old and lots more. The inter­view­er? Yup, it’s Howard Stern on Sir­ius and the hearty chuck­les you hear in the back­ground belong to the Star Trek icon George Takei. Need­less to say the inter­view enters some Not-Safe-for-Work ter­ri­to­ry.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Quentin Taran­ti­no Lists His Favorite Films Since 1992

My Best Friend’s Birth­day, Quentin Tarantino’s 1987 Debut Film

Film­mak­ing Advice from Quentin Taran­ti­no and Sam Rai­mi (NSFW)

Quentin Taran­ti­no Gives Sneak Peek of Pulp Fic­tion to Jon Stew­art (1994)

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Orson Welles’ The Stranger Free Online, Where 1940s Film Noir Meets Real Horrors of WWII

in Film | December 4th, 2012

Did Orson Welles ever make an non-notable movie? Sure, the sheer cin­e­mat­ic impor­tance of Cit­i­zen Kane, Touch of Evil, The Lady from Shang­hai, and even the famous­ly incom­plete The Mag­nif­i­cent Amber­sons, tend to draw all the atten­tion most peo­ple have for his fil­mog­ra­phy. Make sure you watch those — no self-respect­ing lover of Amer­i­can film could do with­out them — but then look beyond them.

Per­son­al­ly, I yield to no one in my endorse­ment of Welles’ for­mal­ly unique mul­ti-genre qua­si-doc­u­men­tary F for Fake. But first, I sug­gest you look to the top of this post and watch 1946’s The Stranger, a far more main­stream pic­ture (for one can hard­ly trav­el far­ther from the main­stream than F for Fake), and in fact the only Welles film to meet with imme­di­ate box office suc­cess. Con­sid­er­ing what it shows, that may come as a sur­prise.


The pic­ture pits a Unit­ed Nations Nazi hunter, played by Hol­ly­wood Gold­en Age leg­end Edward G. Robin­son, against a Third Reich war crim­i­nal played by Welles him­self. The hunter tracks down the hunt­ed, who has tak­en on a new, near­ly anony­mous iden­ti­ty in small-town Con­necti­cut. The U.N. man becomes des­per­ate to bring the Nazi to jus­tice, the Naz­i’s becomes des­per­ate to live his new life in peace, and his unsus­pect­ing wife becomes des­per­ate to deny the truth about her hus­band’s past. In order to con­vince the lady, Robin­son’s char­ac­ter screens her actu­al footage of Nazi con­cen­tra­tion camps. The shock on actress Loret­ta Young’s face was the shock on the faces of Amer­i­can audi­ences; nei­ther pre­vi­ous­ly had much of a chance to see what had real­ly hap­pened in wartime Europe. Leave it to Welles, whose fas­ci­na­tion with and hatred of fas­cism led him to write a series of columns on the sub­ject for the New York Post, to smug­gle this depth of real human hor­ror into what looks at first glance like a plain old 1940s noir thriller.

You will find The Stranger, a film now in the pub­lic domain, list­ed in our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Orson Welles on the Art of Act­ing: ‘There is a Vil­lain in Each of Us’

The Hearts of Age: Orson Welles’ Sur­re­al­ist First Film (1934)

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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

in Comedy, Film | November 28th, 2012

Woody Allen hates per­son­al pub­lic­i­ty. He does­n’t appear on talk shows or attend the Oscars. He rarely gives inter­views, even when he has a new film to pro­mote. But a few years back Allen opened up to film­mak­er Robert B. Wei­de for the mak­ing of Woody Allen: A Doc­u­men­tary, which aired last year in the Amer­i­can Mas­ters series on PBS. “He nev­er refused a request,” Wei­de told PBS, “and he nev­er declined to answer a ques­tion.” At one point Wei­de asked Allen a series of twelve ques­tions that he was rea­son­ably sure Allen had nev­er been asked before. The result­ing inter­view, shown above, is includ­ed as an extra in the DVD ver­sion of the film and offers a fas­ci­nat­ing lit­tle por­tal into the reclu­sive film­mak­er’s per­son­al­i­ty.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

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

How Woody Allen Dis­cov­ered Ing­mar Bergman, and How You Can Too

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The Coen Brothers Make a TV Commercial — Ridiculing “Clean Coal”

in Comedy, Film, Technology, Television | November 26th, 2012

When famous movie direc­tors shoot tele­vi­sion spots, they usu­al­ly focus on the mer­its of a par­tic­u­lar prod­uct: Wim Wen­ders and Stel­la Artois, Wes Ander­son and the Hyundai Azera, Jean-Luc Godard and Schick after­shave. Above, you’ll see one by Joel and Ethan Coen meant not to endorse but to oppose. Premised on the notion that the name “clean coal” masks a not-espe­cial­ly-clean tech­nol­o­gy, “Clean Coal Clean” dish­es it out against the coal indus­try — “the most trust­ed name in coal” — with a satir­i­cal pas­tiche of house­hold clean­ing spray com­mer­cials. I’ll say this: if any pair of film­mak­ers can get me to watch a video about the pol­i­tics of coal, the guys behind Rais­ing Ari­zona, Bar­ton Fink, and A Seri­ous Man can. The clip just below offers a look into the pro­duc­tion of anoth­er “Clean Coal Clean” par­o­dy com­mer­cial, and a rare chance to see the Coen broth­ers at work.

Mar­la Dick­er­son in the Los Ange­les Times pro­vides back­ground on this “lat­est sal­vo in the media bat­tle between the coal indus­try and envi­ron­men­tal­ists over the role that car­bon fuels should play in the Unit­ed States’ ener­gy future.” Dick­er­son quotes a coal spokesman on how the “the indus­try spent more than $50 bil­lion since the 1970s installing pol­lu­tion-con­trol equip­ment and design­ing plants that are more effi­cient.” She also lays out the envi­ron­men­tal­ists’ argu­ment: “the coal indus­try’s mar­ket­ing cam­paign has left Amer­i­cans with the impres­sion that such ‘clean coal” tech­nol­o­gy already exists. Such a break­through has yet to be devel­oped,” she quotes the Sier­ra Cub’s coal cam­paign direc­tor as say­ing, “and may nev­er be at a cost that makes eco­nom­ic sense.” Of course, not even a genius auteur — not even two of them — can make up your mind on this issue. But with these spots, the Coen broth­ers and the Alliance for Cli­mate Pro­tec­tion reit­er­ate an invalu­able point: whether about house­hold clean­ers or ener­gy sources, nev­er believe the hype.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Wim Wen­ders Cre­ates Ads to Sell Beer (Stel­la Artois), Pas­ta (Bar­il­la), and More Beer (Car­ling)

Wes Anderson’s New Com­mer­cials Sell the Hyundai Azera

Fellini’s Fan­tas­tic TV Com­mer­cials

David Lynch’s Sur­re­al Com­mer­cials

Jean-Luc Godard’s After-Shave Com­mer­cial for Schick

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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The Making of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (As Told by Those Who Helped Him Make It)

in Film | November 21st, 2012

Last year, we fea­tured Mak­ing The Shin­ing, the behind-the-scenes doc­u­men­tary on Stan­ley Kubrick­’s Stephen King-adapt­ing hor­ror film shot by his teenage daugh­ter Vivian. (Find Part 1 below, and Part 2 here.) If you can’t get enough knowl­edge about Kubrick­’s work­ing meth­ods — and true Kubrick afi­ciona­dos nev­er can — you’ll want to watch Stair­cas­es to Nowhere as well. This extend­ed cut ver­sion of the film offers some­thing of an oral his­to­ry of The Shin­ing’s pro­duc­tion from those who toiled hard on it: a scenic artist and prop man, a cam­era oper­a­tor, a cam­era tech­ni­cian, a con­ti­nu­ity super­vi­sor, and even a pub­li­cist. Those who know Kubrick­’s work know that, in every aspect of film­mak­ing, the man had very spe­cif­ic ideas about what he want­ed. He also had high expec­ta­tions for his crew’s abil­i­ty to real­ize them, even if that would require untest­ed, or even yet unen­vi­sioned, tech­niques and devices. One inter­vie­wee describes Kubrick as “a frus­trat­ed tech­ni­cian,” and indeed, this doc­u­men­tary fills out the image of the direc­tor as an artis­tic inno­va­tor will­ing to exper­i­ment and impro­vise with the phys­i­cal tech­nol­o­gy of film­mak­ing.

The on-set sto­ries told in Stair­cas­es to Nowhere come, so the video descrip­tion puts it, as “extracts from full-length inter­views with each of the con­trib­u­tors about their careers work­ing at stu­dios in Elstree and Bore­ham­wood, and form part of ‘The Elstree Project’ — a col­lab­o­ra­tion between Elstree Screen Her­itage and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Hert­ford­shire. This work has been done on a vol­un­tary basis with stu­dent vol­un­teers and staff giv­ing up their own time to help pre­serve the lega­cy of the ‘British Hol­ly­wood’.”  You can learn more about the project at its offi­cial site, which con­tin­ues to doc­u­ment the Eng­lish towns of Bore­ham­wood and Elstree’s rich his­to­ry of film and tele­vi­sion pro­duc­tion. The Amer­i­can-born but British-res­i­dent Kubrick cer­tain­ly found some­thing that worked for him in Eng­land. Whether that came down to a sim­ple affin­i­ty for the coun­try or the coun­try’s tol­er­ance of his uncom­mon­ly rig­or­ous approach to craft, you can’t argue with the results today — as much as the man indi­vid­u­al­ly re-paint­ing hun­dreds of ball­room tiles gold for light­ing rea­sons might have felt like argu­ing at the time.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Rare 1960s Audio: Stan­ley Kubrick’s Big Inter­view with The New York­er

Stan­ley Kubrick’s Very First Films: Three Short Doc­u­men­taries

Ter­ry Gilliam: The Dif­fer­ence Between Kubrick (Great Film­mak­er) and Spiel­berg (Less So)

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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Resurrecting the Sounds of Abraham Lincoln in Steven Spielberg’s New Biopic

in Film, History | November 20th, 2012

If you’re head­ing to see Steven Spiel­berg’s new biopic of Abra­ham Lin­coln, you can go there know­ing one thing (oth­er than Daniel Day-Lewis has deliv­ered anoth­er Acad­e­my Award-win­ing per­for­mance) — and that’s that the direc­tor, cast and crew paid close atten­tion to the his­tor­i­cal details. In an inter­view yes­ter­day, Sal­ly Field (who plays Lin­col­n’s wife Mary Todd) described how she immersed her­self in the lan­guage of the era, pored over let­ters exchanged between Lin­coln and his wife, gained 25 pounds to resem­ble Mary’s doc­u­ment­ed mea­sure­ments. And then there’s this curi­ous detail. Dur­ing the film­ing of Lin­coln (watch the trail­er below), Daniel Day-Lewis and Sal­ly Field nev­er spoke to one anoth­er out of char­ac­ter. They knew each oth­er sim­ply as “Mary Lin­coln” and “Mr. Lin­coln” through­out.

In the video above, we get to lis­ten to sound design­er Ben Burtt talk about his own quest for his­tor­i­cal authen­tic­i­ty — that is, how he tried to recap­ture the sounds that Lin­coln heard dur­ing his life­time. Of course, we don’t have audio record­ings from the 1860s. But Burtt found cre­ative ways to res­ur­rect sounds from the peri­od, like record­ing the tick-tocks of Lin­col­n’s per­son­al watch, or cap­tur­ing the sounds made by mahogany doors that still stand in the White House. We’ll let Burtt explain the rest above.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Last Sur­viv­ing Wit­ness of the Lin­coln Assas­si­na­tion (1956)

Louis CK Plays Abra­ham Lin­coln, America’s 16th Pres­i­dent and (Yes) Stand-Up Come­di­an Too

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

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Watch The White Shadow, the Recently-Discovered and Earliest-Surviving Hitchcock Film

in Film | November 19th, 2012

We’ve hooked you up with 20 free Alfred Hitch­cock movies online. We’ve writ­ten about Hitch­cock, the new Antho­ny Hop­kins-star­ring film that opens this week. Now we’d like to direct your atten­tion dear Open Cul­ture read­ers to The White Shad­ow. Even if you think you’ve seen every Hitch­cock movie, you prob­a­bly haven’t seen this one, giv­en that its sur­viv­ing ele­ments only recent­ly came to light. “For­get about that Alfred Hitch­cock movie star­ring Antho­ny Hop­kins that opens next week,” says the Hol­ly­wood Reporter. “Fans can watch anoth­er film with the famed director’s fin­ger­prints all over it — the old­est one any­one could pos­si­bly see, in fact — start­ing today [ … ] the ear­li­est sur­viv­ing fea­ture cred­it­ed to Hitch­cock.” It comes to us as a project of the New Zealand Film Archive, whose efforts have made the film stream­able here.

The catch: only three reels of The White Shad­ow sur­vive. But that’s three more than cinephiles could enjoy before their sud­den dis­cov­ery last year. A fundrais­ing dri­ve draw­ing on Hitch­cock enthu­si­asts the world over made pos­si­ble the restora­tion and scor­ing of these reels, not to men­tion their online stream­ing avail­abil­i­ty through Jan­u­ary 15, 2013.

You’ll even get a suite of asso­ci­at­ed fea­tures, includ­ing notes by crit­ic David Ster­ritt, a bio of salvager/projectionist Jack Mur­taugh, and a slide show doc­u­ment­ing the dis­cov­ery of the film. But this is Hitch­cock we’re talk­ing about, and even though The White Shad­ow came only three years into his career and appears in a halved state, it still deliv­ers his sig­na­ture com­bi­na­tion of atmos­phere, sus­pense, and con­trolled sen­sa­tion­al­ism. Whether or not you also plan to see Hop­kins play Hitch­cock or have a 20-pic­ture online Hitch­cock marathon, enjoy, while you can, this par­tial Parisian tale of twin sis­ters, “one angel­ic and the oth­er with­out a soul.”

Find The White Shad­ow in our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Hitch­cock (Antho­ny Hop­kins) Pitch­es Janet Leigh (Scar­lett Johans­son) on the Famous Show­er Scene

22 Free Hitch­cock Movies Online

Mar­tin Scors­ese Brings “Lost” Hitch­cock Film to Screen in Short Faux Doc­u­men­tary

François Truffaut’s Big Inter­view with Alfred Hitch­cock (Free Audio)

Hitch­cock on Hap­pi­ness

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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