David Lynch’s Eraserhead Remade in Clay

in Animation, Film | August 17th, 2011


David Lynch spent five years work­ing on his sur­re­al­ist film Eraser­head, and when it final­ly hit cin­e­mas in 1977, crit­ics panned the film. (Vari­ety called it a “sick­en­ing bad-taste exer­cise.”) Then, adding insult to injury, the film was reject­ed by the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val.

Time has cer­tain­ly been kinder to Eraser­head. Over the years, Stan­ley Kubrick, George Lucas, and John Waters have count­ed them­selves as major fans of the film. Charles Bukows­ki claimed that his love affair with cable tele­vi­sion start­ed when he first tuned in and start­ed watch­ing Eraser­head. Rock bands have named them­selves after the film. And now the lat­est hon­or: Lee Hard­cas­tle has remade the film in clay­ma­tion, and the plot unfolds in pret­ty much 60 sec­onds flat. H/T ope­dr

More Clay­ma­tion Films:

Chess in Clay­ma­tion

William S. Bur­roughs’ Clay­ma­tion Christ­mas Film

Down to the Bone

Pla­to’s Repub­lic … in Clay

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

Bed Peace Revisits John Lennon & Yoko Ono’s Famous Anti-Vietnam Protests: Watch the Documentary Online

in Film, History | August 13th, 2011

Briefly not­ed: Yoko Ono has post­ed on YouTube a 70 minute doc­u­men­tary that revis­its John and Yoko’s famous 1969 Bed-Ins, which amount­ed to a peace­ful protest against the Viet­nam War. The film has been added to our list of Free Doc­u­men­taries, a sub­set of our col­lec­tion 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More. Below, you can find Yoko’s let­ter to view­ers and a sum­ma­ry of the film.

Dear Friends,

In 1969, John and I were so naïve to think that doing the Bed-In would help change the world.
Well, it might have. But at the time, we did­n’t know.

It was good that we filmed it, though.
The film is pow­er­ful now.
What we said then could have been said now.

In fact, there are things that we said then in the film, which may give some encour­age­ment and inspi­ra­tion to the activists of today. Good luck to us all.

Let’s remem­ber WAR IS OVER if we want it.
It’s up to us, and nobody else.
John would have want­ed to say that.

Love, yoko

Yoko Ono Lennon
Lon­don, UK
August 2011

Film Syn­op­sis

1969 was the year that John & Yoko inten­si­fied their long run­ning cam­paign for World Peace. They approached the task with the same entre­pre­neur­ial exper­tise as an adver­tis­ing agency sell­ing a brand of soap pow­der to the mass­es. John & Yoko’s prod­uct how­ev­er was PEACE, not soft soap, and they were deter­mined to use any slo­gan, event and gim­mick in order to per­suade the World to buy it.

BED PEACE (direct­ed by Yoko & John and filmed by Nic Know­land) is a doc­u­ment of the Mon­tre­al events and fea­tures John & Yoko in con­ver­sa­tion with, amongst oth­ers, The World Press, satirist Al Capp, activist Dick Gre­go­ry, come­di­an Tom­my Smoth­ers, pro­test­ers at Berke­ley’s Peo­ple’s Park, Rab­bi Abra­ham L. Fein­berg, quilt­mak­er Chris­tine Kemp, psy­chol­o­gists Tim­o­thy Leary & Rose­mary Leary, CFOX DJs Charles P. Rod­ney Chan­dler & Roger Scott, pro­duc­er André Per­ry, jour­nal­ist Ritchie York, DJ & Pro­mot­er Mur­ray The K, film­mak­er Jonas Mekas, pub­li­cist Derek Tay­lor & per­son­al assis­tant Antho­ny Faw­cett.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 7 ) |

Young Terry Gilliam Shows You How to Make Your Own Cutout Animation

in Animation, Art, Comedy, Film | August 12th, 2011

Put aside 14 min­utes and Ter­ry Gilliam, the leg­endary Mon­ty Python ani­ma­tor, will show you how to make your own cutout ani­ma­tions. Gilliam start­ed out his career as an ani­ma­tor, then moved to Eng­land and joined up with Mon­ty Python’s Fly­ing Cir­cus. For years, he worked as the group’s ani­ma­tor, cre­at­ing the open­ing cred­its and dis­tinc­tive buffers that linked togeth­er the off­beat com­e­dy sketch­es.

If you’ve nev­er tak­en a good look at his work, you will want to spend some time with The Mir­a­cle of Flight from 1974, or this ani­mat­ed sequence, Sto­ry Time, from 1968.

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:

John Cleese on the Ori­gin on Cre­ativ­i­ty

The Mon­ty Python Phi­los­o­phy Foot­ball Match Revis­it­ed

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 6 ) |

Marlon Brando Screen Tests for Rebel Without A Cause (1947)

in Film | August 12th, 2011

Dur­ing the 1940s, Warn­er Broth­ers bought the rights to Robert Lind­ner’s book, Rebel With­out a Cause: The Hyp­no­analy­sis of a Crim­i­nal Psy­chopath, and began turn­ing it into a film. A par­tial script was writ­ten, and a 23-year old Mar­lon Bran­do was asked to do a five-minute screen test in 1947. For what­ev­er rea­son, the stu­dio aban­doned the orig­i­nal project, and even­tu­al­ly revived it eight years lat­er with a new script and a new actor — James Dean, of course. Dean’s own screen test for Rebel With­out a Cause appears here.

Down the road, you can find the Bran­do clip in our col­lec­tion of 275 Cul­tur­al Icons, which fea­tures great thinkers and artists appear­ing in orig­i­nal video & audio. Tol­stoy, Sal­vador Dali, Geor­gia O’Ke­effe, they’re all part of the mix.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The God­fa­ther With­out Bran­do?: It Almost Hap­pened

The James Dean Sto­ry by Robert Alt­man (Com­plete Film)

Paul New­man and James Dean Screen­test for East of Eden

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 3 ) |

Planet of the Apes: A Species Misunderstood

in Film, Video - Science | August 12th, 2011

The Plan­et of the Apes film fran­chise began back in 1968, and it enjoyed a good run dur­ing the 1970s. Now Hol­ly­wood hopes to reboot the series with the release of Rise of the Plan­et of the Apes, a new film star­ring James Fran­co, Frei­da Pin­to, John Lith­gow and Andy Serkis. You don’t need to watch the film to get the gist of the plot: Chimps pow­ered by a genet­i­cal­ly engi­neered retro­virus go wild and start tak­ing over the world. Watch the trail­er and see for your­self.

At Emory Uni­ver­si­ty, Thomas Gille­spie, Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Pub­lic Health and Bio­di­ver­si­ty Con­ser­va­tion, has turned the block­buster release into a good teach­ing moment. In this five minute video, Gille­spie dis­cuss­es the real char­ac­ter­is­tics of this often mis­un­der­stood species, cov­er­ing every­thing from their real tem­pera­ment to their breed­ing habits and com­mon social struc­tures. Take a look and get the real­i­ty behind the fic­tion.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 3 ) |

The Making of The Shining

in Film | August 10th, 2011

In 1980, Stan­ley Kubrick shot The Shin­ing, the clas­sic hor­ror film based on Stephen King’s nov­el. Dur­ing pro­duc­tion, the direc­tor allowed his daugh­ter Vivian, then 17 years old, to shoot a doc­u­men­tary called Mak­ing The Shin­ing, which lets you spend 33 min­utes being a fly on the wall. The film orig­i­nal­ly aired on the BBC and gave British audi­ences the chance to see Jack Nichol­son revving him­self up to act, and Shel­ley Duvall col­laps­ing in the hall­way from stress and fatigue. Min­utes lat­er, we watch Mr. Kubrick exert some direc­to­r­i­al force on the actress, and we under­stand her predica­ment all the more.

via Coudal.com

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:

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

Down­load & Play The Shin­ing Board Game

Stan­ley Kubrick’s Anno­tat­ed Copy of Stephen King’s The Shin­ing

Saul Bass’ Reject­ed Poster Con­cepts for The Shin­ing (and His Pret­ty Excel­lent Sig­na­ture)

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

Astonish Me: A Magical Mystery Through Nature’s Hidden Secrets

in Film, Video - Science | August 8th, 2011

The World Wildlife Fund turns 50 this year, and, to mark the occa­sion, the acclaimed drama­tist Stephen Poli­akoff and direc­tor Charles Stur­ridge have teamed up to shoot ‘Aston­ish Me,’ a short, mag­i­cal tale that reminds us of the many mys­ter­ies nature still con­ceals.

Every year, sci­en­tists dis­cov­er some­where in the neigh­bor­hood of 15,000 new species. (See some of the most intrigu­ing recent ones here.) But this could all dis­ap­pear if we don’t pay more atten­tion to con­ser­va­tion. Every­one who worked on the film — from actors to film crew — did so for free. The action takes place in London’s Nat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Fellini + Abrams = Super 8½

in Film | August 8th, 2011

J.J. Abrams Super 8 meets Fed­eri­co Fellini’s mas­ter­piece 8 ½. The new gets lay­ered over the old, and it all adds up to Super 8 ½. Fun­ny enough, it kind of works.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

« Go Back — More in this category... »
Quantcast