Free Short Films by Osamu Tezuka aka “The Japanese Walt Disney”

in Art, Film | May 16th, 2011

Over at Metafil­ter, Kári Tulin­ius has a post­ed a nice selec­tion of exper­i­men­tal short films by the great Japan­ese ani­ma­tor and man­ga artist Osamu Tezu­ka. Tezu­ka died in 1989, and although he’s most famous in the US for chil­dren’s car­toons like Astro-Boy and Kim­bo the White Lion (bet­ter known to every­one but the Walt Dis­ney Com­pa­ny’s lawyers as The Lion King), his achieve­ments extend­ed well beyond those two US hits. In his home coun­try, The God of Man­ga is right­ly con­sid­ered a nation­al trea­sure, and his mas­sive body of work includes a man­ga adap­ta­tion of Crime and Pun­ish­ment, a 12-vol­ume fan­ta­sy saga about immor­tal­i­ty, and the world’s first fea­ture-length ani­mat­ed porn movie.

These shorts pro­vide an excel­lent intro­duc­tion to Tezuka’s many moods and styles, from the inno­cent whim­sy of Mer­maid (1964), about a boy who falls in love with a mer­maid at sea.…


… to the caus­tic humor of Mem­o­ry (1964), a bit­ing med­i­ta­tion on our rose-tint­ed view of the past:


…to the light exu­ber­ance of Jump­ing (1984):


… and final­ly the full-blown apoc­a­lyp­tic dark­ness of Push (1987), as rel­e­vant now as it was 25 years go — if not more so:

See also: Male (1962), Bro­ken Down Film (1985), The Drop (1965), Sto­ry of a Street Cor­ner (1962), Gen­e­sis (1968), Mura­masa (1987), and this inter­view, in which the Tezu­ka dis­cuss­es his short exper­i­men­tal films…

via @brainpicker

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

Relat­ed Con­tent 

The Ori­gins of Ani­me: Watch Ear­ly Japan­ese Ani­ma­tions (1917 to 1931)

The Art of Hand-Drawn Japan­ese Ani­me: A Deep Study of How Kat­suhi­ro Otomo’s Aki­ra Uses Light

Watch the Old­est Japan­ese Ani­me Film, Jun’ichi Kōuchi’s The Dull Sword (1917)

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1956 Home Movie: Laurel & Hardy Together for the Last Time

in Comedy, Film | May 13th, 2011

There is no exact date for this silent home movie shot at the Rese­da, CA home of Stan Lau­rel’s daugh­ter, Lois. But the year must have been 1956, because, dur­ing that year, Oliv­er Hardy, the oth­er mem­ber of the great com­ic duo, lost more than 150 pounds, result­ing in a com­plete change of his out­ward appear­ance. Hardy had a mild heart attack in 1954 and start­ed look­ing after his health. But let­ters by Stan Lau­rel indi­cate that Oliv­er was also suf­fer­ing from can­cer. In Sep­tem­ber 1956 — prob­a­bly not long after this movie was made — Oliv­er suf­fered a major stroke, which left him unable to speak and con­fined to bed for sev­er­al months. Then, at the begin­ning of August 1957, he had two more strokes and slipped into a coma from which he nev­er recov­ered. He died on August 7 that year.

Exact­ly one week after Oliv­er’s death, Stan gave a rare radio inter­view and recount­ed the moment when he and Oliv­er met for the first time. The full, one-hour inter­view can be enjoyed here. Stan died on 23 Feb­ru­ary 1965 after suf­fer­ing a heart attack of his own. He was buried at For­est Park Memo­r­i­al Park in Bur­bank. Footage from the funer­al shows celebri­ties such as Dick Van Dyke, Buster Keaton and George Chan­dler in atten­dance. Stan’s friend Dick Van Dyke deliv­ered this mov­ing eulo­gy.

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The Legend of Bluesman Robert Johnson Animated

in Animation, Film, Music | May 12th, 2011

Robert John­son, the leg­endary blues­man, would have turned 100 this week. That’s well beyond the age he actu­al­ly lived to – a very young 27. Dur­ing his short life (1911–1938), John­son record­ed 29 indi­vid­ual songs. But they could not have been more influ­en­tial. Songs like Cross Road Blues, Sweet Home Chica­go, and Kind Heart­ed Woman Blues (all found in this new­ly-released Cen­ten­ni­al Col­lec­tion) had a remark­able influ­ence on musi­cians grow­ing up gen­er­a­tions lat­er. Kei­th Richards, Eric Clap­ton, Robert Plant – they all acknowl­edge a deep debt to John­son.

Speak­ing of debts, you can’t talk about Robert John­son with­out talk­ing about the famous dev­il leg­end. The leg­end holds that John­son made a Faus­t­ian bar­gain with the dev­il, sell­ing his soul in exchange for bound­less musi­cal tal­ent. It’s a great tale, and it all gets brought back to life in “Dev­il­ish Detail,” a new ani­mat­ed film (above) fea­tur­ing illus­tra­tions by Christo­pher Dar­ling. You can view it in a larg­er for­mat on Nowness.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!

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64 Years of Posters for the Cannes Film Festival

in Art, Film | May 11th, 2011

The 64th Annu­al Cannes Film Fes­ti­val opens tonight, and the cineast­es among you have prob­a­bly already book­marked the film site MUBI, where you can find all things Cannes (and all things inter­na­tion­al cin­e­ma, for that mat­ter) at the site’s blog: the MUBI Dai­ly.

Edit­ed by Daniel Kas­man, the MUBI Dai­ly fea­tures stel­lar writ­ers, includ­ing Glenn Ken­ny, Ignatiy Vish­n­evet­sky, and the won­der­ful David Hud­son, whom you may rec­og­nize from his days at Greencine and IFC.  You’ll find review round-ups, com­men­tary, inter­views, updates, trail­ers for many films at Cannes, and final­ly, quirky entries like this one: Con­trib­u­tor Adri­an Cur­ry’s com­men­tary on a L’Ex­press col­lec­tion of 64 year’s worth of offi­cial Cannes Fes­ti­val posters. Cur­ry high­lights the best and worst of the lot (along with a spe­cial wince d’or for 1995’s pas­tel night­mare of a seascape, to which design­er Ryszard Horowitz may as well have added rain­bows and uni­corns).

The site is def­i­nite­ly worth keep­ing tabs on, espe­cial­ly this week, when they’ll be offer­ing a vir­tu­al tick­et to the south of France, minus the lines, mobs, and high like­li­hood of lap­top theft.

A last note: you can find sev­er­al prize-win­ning films from the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val (includ­ing two by Andrei Tarkovksy) in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

via MUBI and A Life in Film

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

via

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David Lynch’s Organic Coffee (Barbie Head Not Included)

in Film, Video - Arts & Culture | May 11th, 2011

In one of his very best ear­ly essays, David Lynch Keeps His Head (1996), the late nov­el­ist and essay­ist David Fos­ter Wal­lace did his best to pin­point exact­ly what it is that makes Lynch such an odd and won­der­ful direc­tor. The arti­cle is pure plea­sure (and a reminder of just how fresh and orig­i­nal Wal­lace was, and how rarely his imi­ta­tors ever do him jus­tice). One line in par­tic­u­lar stands out — the writer’s now-famous com­par­i­son between Lynch and Taran­ti­no: “Quentin Taran­ti­no,” wrote Wal­lace, “is inter­est­ed in watch­ing some­one’s ear get cut off. David Lynch is inter­est­ed in the ear.”

We’re not quite sure what that line has to do with the direc­tor’s lat­est pro­duc­tion (a com­mer­cial adver­tis­ing his new cof­fee line and star­ring a sev­ered Bar­bie head) except that we could­n’t stop think­ing of either the quote or the essay as we watched it — appalled, dis­mayed, per­plexed, and, as always with the films of Mr. Lynch, com­plete­ly inca­pable of look­ing away.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Lynch on his Favorite Movies and Film­mak­ers

Ear­ly David Lynch Films

via David Lynch

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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Short Film: “Nuit Blanche” Mixes Romance with Matrix-Style Visuals

in Film | May 10th, 2011

If you’ve ever had doubts about the impact of videogame aes­thet­ics on con­tem­po­rary cin­e­ma — not just action movies, but video and inde­pen­dent film as well — this roman­tic short from Spy Films might well dis­pel them. The plot is basic: A man and a woman lock eyes in the street, and dream of what might have been, while sweet notes fill the air. But direc­tor and cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Arev Manoukian updates the famil­iar sto­ry with a com­pelling visu­al style which seems inspired by equal parts Matrix tril­o­gy and PlaySta­tion 3. For more infor­ma­tion about the spe­cial effects, there’s a “mak­ing of” video for your view­ing.

Francophones/francophiles of more lud­dite ten­den­cies might find them­selves imme­di­ate­ly rush­ing to play Georges Brassens’ ode to ephemer­al street romance, “Les Pas­santes.” We strong­ly encour­age you to do so, prefer­ably at sun­set, while sip­ping a hot cup of long­ing-infused tea.

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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The Existential Star Wars: Sartre Meets Darth Vader

in Film, Philosophy | May 10th, 2011

A few weeks ago we direct­ed you to a won­der­ful three-part BBC doc­u­men­tary about mod­ern phi­los­o­phy called Human, All Too Human, adding that we con­sid­ered the chap­ter on Jean-Paul Sartre the most sat­is­fy­ing of the three.

Now we give you a light-heart­ed chas­er for that doc­u­men­tary’s strong spir­its: The French philoso­pher’s teach­ings as inter­pret­ed by the sci­ence fic­tion over­lord Darth Vad­er. Per­haps more than any oth­er 20th cen­tu­ry supervil­lain, the dis­graced Jedi knight trag­i­cal­ly and per­fect­ly embod­ies the Sar­tri­an notion that “Free­dom is what you do with what has been done to you.”

For those who might con­sid­er the Jok­er a bet­ter can­di­date, we humbly sub­mit that with the Jok­er, it’s more of a Niet­zschean thing.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Down­load 90 Free Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es and Start Liv­ing the Exam­ined Life

The Phi­los­o­phy of Kierkegaard, the First Exis­ten­tial­ist Philoso­pher, Revis­it­ed in 1984 Doc­u­men­tary

Wal­ter Kaufmann’s Lec­tures on Niet­zsche, Kierkegaard and Sartre (1960)

via Roger Ebert’s Jour­nal

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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Orson Welles’ Birthday Bash: Three Movies, One Radio Classic, and Two Great Narrations

in Film, Radio | May 6th, 2011

96 years ago today, Orson Welles, the “ulti­mate auteur,” was born in Kenosha, Wis­con­sin. Hence his ear­ly nick­name, The Kenosha Kid. Nowa­days, we remem­ber Welles as arguably the great­est direc­tor of the 20th cen­tu­ry, a superb actor on stage and screen, and a pio­neer­ing radio drama­tist. To cel­e­brate his 96th birth­day, we have dipped into our archives and pulled togeth­er some of Welles’ finest artis­tic works, all now freely avail­able online:

The Stranger

Welles’ third film, The Stranger, a 1946 film noir thriller, was a com­mer­cial suc­cess upon release. The same could­n’t be said for Cit­i­zen Kane. The Stranger fea­tures Edward G. Robin­son hunt­ing a Nazi fugi­tive (Welles him­self) who mar­ries the daugh­ter (Loret­ta Young) of a Supreme Court jus­tice. The film, now avail­able online in its entire­ty, is one of the first post WWII films to show footage of con­cen­tra­tion camps. You can find this film, and oth­ers men­tioned below, in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

The Third Man


The Third Man by crazedig­i­tal­movies

Welles famous­ly starred in The Third Man, a must-see noir film, which won the Grand Prix at the 1949 Cannes Film Fes­ti­val and an Acad­e­my Award for Best Black and White Cin­e­matog­ra­phy in 1950. A half cen­tu­ry lat­er, the British Film Insti­tute named The Third Man the best British film of the 20th cen­tu­ry. Quite a state­ment. You can watch it here.

Free­dom Riv­er

Almost 40 years (and sev­en pres­i­den­tial admin­is­tra­tions) have passed since Orson Welles nar­rat­ed Free­dom Riv­er. And although the ani­ma­tion shows some age, the para­ble, a com­men­tary on Amer­i­ca, still res­onates today. Or, at least I sus­pect many view­ers will think so. You can get the back­sto­ry on this intrigu­ing lit­tle project here.

The War of the Worlds

Back in the late 1930s, Orson Welles launched The Mer­cury The­atre on the Air, a radio pro­gram ded­i­cat­ed to bring­ing dra­mat­ic pro­duc­tions to the Amer­i­can air­waves. The show had a fair­ly short run. It last­ed from 1938 to 1941. But it made its mark. Dur­ing these few years, The Mer­cury The­atre aired The War of the Worlds, an episode nar­rat­ed by Welles that led many Amer­i­cans to believe their coun­try was under Mar­t­ian attack. The leg­endary pro­duc­tion was based on H.G. Wells’ ear­ly sci-fi nov­el, and you can lis­ten to it here. We have more links to Mer­cury The­atre pro­duc­tions here.

Welles Reads Moby Dick

He only gives you two tan­ta­liz­ing min­utes. And he’s para­phras­ing more than read­ing the text itself. But it’s vin­tage Welles. You can find him read­ing anoth­er pas­sage from Melville’s clas­sic here…

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