Watch The 39 Steps, Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 Classic

in Film | July 8th, 2011

Back in 1915, John Buchan pub­lished his grip­ping adven­ture nov­el The Thir­ty-Nine Steps (find free ebook here). Two decades lat­er, in 1935, Alfred Hitch­cock direct­ed the first of four film adap­ta­tions based on the book, and it’s by far the best. We won’t revis­it the plot.

But we will tell you that Hitch­cock­’s clas­sic, star­ring Robert Donat and Madeleine Car­roll, ranks fourth on The British Film Insti­tute’s list of the great­est British films of the 20th cen­tu­ry. And, if you’re won­der­ing why crit­ics give Hitch­cock­’s film such high praise, sim­ply turn to Mar­i­an Keane’s essay on Cri­te­ri­on’s web­site, which ends with these words:

The director’s deep­est subjects—theater and its rela­tion to film, the aban­don­ment of human beings in vacant and fore­bod­ing land­scapes, the com­plex human quest for knowl­edge, and the nature of accidents—abound in The 39 Steps. Hitchcock’s per­cep­tion of the pre­car­i­ous­ness of human exis­tence, and his belief in film’s capac­i­ty to reveal and reflect on it, lie at the heart of his achieve­ment as a mas­ter of the art of film.

Thanks to YouTube and the Inter­net Archive, you can sit back and enjoy The 39 Steps online. It’s per­fect for the upcom­ing week­end, and it’s one of 15 Hitch­cock films avail­able on the web. See our list of Free Hitch­cock Films and our larg­er list of 1000+ Free Movies Online.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Alfred Hitch­cock Recalls Work­ing with Sal­vador Dali on Spell­bound

Truffaut’s Big Inter­view with Hitch­cock (MP3s)

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Werner Herzog Loses a Bet to Errol Morris, and Eats His Shoe (Literally)

in Film | July 8th, 2011

Almost 35 years ago, some­time in the late 70s, the film­mak­ers Errol Mor­ris and Wern­er Her­zog made a bet. Cor­rec­tion: At the time, Her­zog was a film­mak­er, and already a star, but Errol Mor­ris was just a guy obsessed with the idea of mak­ing a film about a pet ceme­tery. ‘I don’t believe you have the guts,’ Her­zog told Mor­ris. ‘But if you do, I’ll eat my shoe.’

Mor­ris rolled up his sleeves and got to work. The result is his stun­ning debut, Gates of Heav­en (1978). In response, Her­zog rolled up his sleeves, and got to work as well — in the kitchen, where he and uber-chef Alice Waters tried their might­i­est to con­coct a decent recipe for leather footwear.

Just to com­plete the doc­u­men­tar­i­an tri­fec­ta, the 20-minute short film, Wern­er Her­zog Eats his Shoe (1980), was direct­ed by the great Berke­ley film­mak­er, Les Blanc. You can watch a short­ened ver­sion above, or the full ver­sion here. The film is also now added to our big col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Errol Mor­ris and Wern­er Her­zog in Con­ver­sa­tion

Wern­er Her­zog and Cor­mac McCarthy Talk Sci­ence and Cul­ture

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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

in Film, Television | July 7th, 2011

The Dzi­ga Ver­tov Group (1968–1972) was a film col­lec­tive co-found­ed by Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin, named after the pio­neer­ing doc­u­men­tary film­mak­er Dzi­ga Ver­tov. Anti-auteur, anti-ver­ité, anti-bour­geois and anti-cap­i­tal­ist, the DVG was also the most rad­i­cal of the French film col­lec­tives, and so, of course, it man­aged to land a great adver­tis­ing gig.

But don’t call it a sell­out. Accord­ing to at least one account, Godard and Gorin man­aged to stick it to their ad agency. Fur­ther­more, they deliv­ered full-throt­tle irony: Their Schick com­mer­cial fea­tures a young man and woman argu­ing over a news broad­cast about Pales­tine … and Pales­tine was also the sub­ject of an ill-fat­ed 1970 DGV project called “Until Vic­to­ry.” You can read the fas­ci­nat­ing back-sto­ry of that film here.

And for the movie geeks: Yes, the actress is Godard reg­u­lar Juli­et Berto.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Jean-Luc Godard Meets Woody Allen

Ing­mar Bergman’s Soap Com­mer­cials Wash Away the Exis­ten­tial Despair

Fellini’s Fan­tas­tic TV Com­mer­cials

Wes Anderson’s New Com­mer­cials Sell the Hyundai Azera

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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Star Wars as Silent Film

in Film, Sci Fi | July 6th, 2011

You know George Lucas’ clas­sic, The Empire Strikes Back. Now roll it back a good 60 years and imag­ine the silent ver­sion. It works unex­pect­ed­ly well.

H/T to @wesalwan. And don’t miss many land­mark silent films in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online. Chap­lin, ear­ly Hitch­cock, Fritz Lang, the first sci-fi and west­ern films — they’re all there. Find them at the bot­tom of the page…

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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How Alice Herz-Sommer, the Oldest Holocaust Survivor, Survived the Horrific Ordeal with Music

in Film, History, Music | July 6th, 2011

What you’re watch­ing is the trail­er for the doc­u­men­tary Alice Danc­ing Under the Gal­lows by Nick Reed, to be released lat­er this year. At 110, Alice Herz-Som­mer is the old­est Holo­caust sur­vivor. Her sto­ry is both touch­ing and inspir­ing.

Alice was born in Prague — then part of the Aus­tro-Hun­gar­i­an Empire — in 1903. She start­ed play­ing the piano as a child and took lessons with Con­rad Ansorge, a stu­dent of Liszt. At 16, she attend­ed the mas­ter class at Prague’s pres­ti­gious Ger­man musi­cal acad­e­my. Lat­er, Alice became a respect­ed con­cert pianist in Prague. Through her fam­i­ly, she also knew Franz Kaf­ka. All of this changed when the Nazis occu­pied Czecho­slo­va­kia in March 1939. Along with oth­er Jews liv­ing in Prague, Alice was ini­tial­ly forced to live in Prague’s ghet­to before being deport­ed to the There­sien­stadt con­cen­tra­tion camp in 1943, along with her five-year-old son Raphael. Even­tu­al­ly her whole fam­i­ly, includ­ing her hus­band, cel­list Leopold Som­mer, and her moth­er, were sent to Auschwitz, Tre­blin­ka and Dachau, where they were killed.

Alice and her son sur­vived There­sien­stadt because the Nazis used this par­tic­u­lar con­cen­tra­tion camp to show the world how “well” the inmates were treat­ed. A pro­pa­gan­da film by the Nazis was shot and a del­e­ga­tion from the Dan­ish and Inter­na­tion­al Red Cross was shown around in 1943. To boost morale, Alice and many oth­er impris­oned musi­cians reg­u­lar­ly per­formed for the inmates. Despite the unimag­in­able liv­ing con­di­tions, Alice and her son sur­vived. They moved to Israel after the war, where she taught music. In 1986, she moved to Lon­don, where she still lives. Her son died in 2001 (obit­u­ary here).

The way Alice dealt with those hor­ri­ble times is par­tic­u­lar­ly inspir­ing. She says about the role of music: “I felt that this is the only thing which helps me to have hope … it’s a sort of reli­gion actu­al­ly. Music is … is God. In dif­fi­cult times you feel it, espe­cial­ly when you are suf­fer­ing.” When asked by Ger­man jour­nal­ists if she hat­ed Ger­mans, she replied: “I nev­er hate, and I will nev­er hate. Hatred brings only hatred.”

Extra mate­r­i­al: Art Ther­a­py Blog has a tran­script of the trail­er, mem­o­rable quotes by Alice and two BBC Radio inter­views with her. Alice’s life sto­ry is told in the book A Gar­den of Eden in Hell.

By pro­fes­sion, Matthias Rasch­er teach­es Eng­lish and His­to­ry at a High School in north­ern Bavaria, Ger­many. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on Twit­ter.

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Alfred Hitchcock Recalls Working with Salvador Dali on Spellbound

in Art, Film | July 5th, 2011

In 1945 Alfred Hitch­cock had to explain one of Hol­ly­wood’s unwrit­ten rules to Sal­vador Dali: No, you can’t pour live ants all over Ingrid Bergman! Hitch­cock had approached Dali for help with a dream sequence in his upcom­ing thriller, Spell­bound, star­ring Bergman and Gre­go­ry Peck. He was unhap­py with the fuzzi­ness of Hol­ly­wood dream sequences. “I want­ed to con­vey the dream with great visu­al sharp­ness and clarity–sharper than film itself,” Hitch­cock recalled in his 1962 inter­view with François Truf­faut. “I want­ed Dali because of the archi­tec­tur­al sharp­ness of his work. Chiri­co has the same qual­i­ty, you know, the long shad­ows, the infin­i­ty of dis­tance and the con­verg­ing lines of per­spec­tive. But Dali had some strange ideas. He want­ed a stat­ue to crack like a shell falling apart, with ants crawl­ing all over it. And under­neath, there would be Ingrid Bergman, cov­ered by ants! It just was­n’t pos­si­ble.”

This clip per­ma­nent­ly resides in our col­lec­tion of Cul­tur­al Icons, which lets you see/hear great cul­tur­al fig­ures in video & audio. And don’t miss our col­lec­tion of Free Hitch­cock movies.

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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Splitscreen: A Love Story

in Film | June 30th, 2011

The Nokia Short 2011 com­pe­ti­tion wrapped up this week­end at the Edin­burgh Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val, and the jury gave the first prize to Splitscreen: A Love Sto­ry. Shot with a Nokia N8 mobile phone and a hand-held dol­ly (watch the “mak­ing of” video here), the film ele­gant­ly weaves togeth­er scenes from Paris and New York. A syn­chro­nized tale of two great cities. Then, it all comes togeth­er in Lon­don. Kudos to direc­tor JW Grif­fiths, and don’t miss his orig­i­nal pitch.

via Curios­i­ty­Counts

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Gone With the Wind Turns 75, and Shows its Age

in Film, History, Literature | June 30th, 2011

It’s with some dis­com­fort that the author names Gone with the Wind, pub­lished exact­ly 75 years ago today, her favorite child­hood book: It was thick, it was roman­tic — and per­haps most cru­cial­ly for any awk­ward, bespec­ta­cled pre­teen girl — it fea­tured a head­strong hero­ine whose appeal to the oppo­site sex derived more from her charm than her phys­i­cal beau­ty.

Nonethe­less, there’s no way around the pro­found fail­ings of both the book and the MGM epic film based on it: Nov­el and film treat­ed slav­ery as an inci­den­tal back­drop to the war; they glo­ri­fied and mis­rep­re­sent­ed the actions of the Ku Klux Klan; and most egre­gious­ly, they por­trayed the mas­ter-slave rela­tion­ship as one which nei­ther mas­ter nor slave should ever dream of alter­ing. In the words of his­to­ri­an and soci­ol­o­gist Jim Loewen, author of Lies My Teacher Told Me: Every­thing Your High School His­to­ry Text­book Got Wrong:

[Gone With The Wind] laments the pass­ing of the slave era as “gone with the wind.” In the nov­el, Mitchell states open­ly that African Amer­i­cans are “crea­tures of small intel­li­gence.” And this book is by far the most pop­u­lar book in the U.S. and has been for 60 years. The book is also pro­found­ly wrong in its his­to­ry. What it tells us about slav­ery, and espe­cial­ly recon­struc­tion, did not happen…it is pro­found­ly racist and pro­found­ly wrong. Should we teach it? Of course. Should we teach against it? Of course.

Mean­while, Hat­tie McDaniel took home a best sup­port­ing actress Oscar for her role as Scar­lett O’Hara’s loy­al house slave, Mam­my. She was the first African-Amer­i­can woman to win an Acad­e­my Award. The fact that she was not allowed to attend the film’s pre­miere in Atlanta makes her accep­tance speech (1940) even more poignant. It appears above.

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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