A few things to know about Charlie Chaplin. He starred in over 80 films, reeling off most during the silent film era. In 1914 alone, he acted in 40 films, then another 15 in 1915. By the 1920s, Chaplin had emerged as the first larger-than-life movie star, if not the most recognizable person on the planet.
The actor still holds enough cultural sway that Google gave him a special doodle for his birthday last week. And now we give you a 4‑in‑1 collection of Chaplin films. Created in 1938, this mini film festival, running 46 minutes, presents The Adventurer, The Cure, Easy Street and The Immigrant, all filmed in 1917. (Find an alternate version here.) Plus if you head into our collection of Free Movies Online, you will find another 10 Chaplin films, all free. Just scroll down to the Silent Film section, and you’ll be on your way…
Earlier today, Tim Hetherington, the photographer who produced and directed the award-winning film Restrepo, was killed in the Libyan city of Misurata. Although interested in diverse art forms, Hetherington spent more than a decade working in war zones. He was a cameraman on Liberia: An Uncivil War (2004) and The Devil Came on Horseback (2007), then directed Restrepo, a film about a platoon of soldiers in Afghanistan. It won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. And, that same year, Hetherington also shot a short film, Diary, which he summarized in this fashion:
‘Diary’ is a highly personal and experimental film that expresses the subjective experience of my work, and was made as an attempt to locate myself after ten years of reporting. It’s a kaleidoscope of images that link our western reality to the seemingly distant worlds we see in the media.”
Morgan Spurlock’s newest documentary, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, exposes the myriad ways in which popular media is almost wholly sponsored, leased, bought and branded by powerful corporations. Ironically — and intentionally — Spurlock made sure his documentary would also be almost wholly sponsored, leased, bought and branded by powerful corporations. In his very funny TED talk, Spurlock (Super Size Me, 30 Days) explains how he furthered his experiment in “pure transparency” by encouraging sponsorships of, you guessed it, his very funny TED talk.
Confused? That’s because pure transparency is a lot easier to envision than execute. Find out why starting at minute 6:18.
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.
The vintage video above is an excerpt from a 16 mm home movie showing President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on January 20, 1941, the day of his Third Inauguration. This silent color movie was shot by FDR’s son-in-law (Clarence) John Boettiger, who was then working for the Motion Picture Association of America, and the quality of this rare footage is quite outstanding. Watch the full 14-minute version here.
FDR can first be seen at 2:45, heavily supported by his oldest son James. This is one of the rare moments on film where Roosevelt can actually be seen walking, and it’s obvious how difficult it was for him to walk after polio left him paralyzed from the hips down in 1921. Next, FDR is seen on the presidential platform with his wife Eleanor and Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, taking the Oath of Office and giving his Inaugural Address. The full text of the address can be read courtesy of Yale Law School, and a high-resolution scan of the Inauguration Ceremonies Program has been uploaded by The Library of Congress.
FDR was the first American president to successfully run for a third term due to the precarious international situation in 1941. (Get the audio file of FDR’s State of the Union from January 6, 1941 here). After George Washington declined to run for a third term in 1796, it had become an unwritten rule to follow his lead. But it was not until the 22nd Amendment from 1947/1951 (“No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.”) that this restriction was enshrined into law. FDR was, of course, elected for a fourth term in 1945, but died of a massive stroke on April 12, 1945.
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.
Fans of filmmaker Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunting, My Own Private Idaho, Milk) will love this 1982 short film – The Discipline of D.E. – based on a story by William S. Burroughs. And fans of Burroughs himself will particularly love its theme: The “D.E.” in the title stands for “Doing Easy,” a quasi-Buddhist notion best explained by the short’s koan-like closing question, “How fast can you take your time, kid?”
But it is to fans of Burroughs’ brief performance in the 1989 Van Sant classic Drugstore Cowboythat we dedicate this post. Playing the kind, ruined dope-fiend Father Murphy — i.e. himself — Burroughs perfectly embodied both the allure of his junky aesthetic and its underlying despair. In the six years between The Discipline of D.E. and Drugstore Cowboy, Van Sant seemed to have traded his youthful infatuation with a cult hero for the mournful appreciation of a wise but broken man. We highly recommend viewing both films together.
Finally, in our collection of Free Movies Online, you will also find Burroughs the Movie (a documentary by Howard Bruckner) andThe Junky’s Christmas, a shortclaymation film written by William S. Burroughs and produced by Francis Ford Coppola.
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.
To kick off this wonderful episode of Science Friday (listen below), physicist Lawrence M. Krauss suggests that science and art ask the same fundamental question: Who are we, and what is our place in the universe?
Over the next hour, Krauss is joined in his exploration of this question by the great filmmaker Werner Herzog (Grizzly Man, Encounters at the End of the World) and 2000 Pulitzer Prize winner Cormac McCarthy (The Crossing, The Road, No Country For Old Men). Much of their discussion revolves around Herzog’s latest film, the 3‑D documentary The Cave of Forgotten Dreams, but they also address bottleneck theory, complexity science, the history of painting, and the upcoming rise of the machines.
Low point: Herzog asserts that Star Trek lied — human beings will never learn to instantly transport from planet to planet. Krauss confirms, and Trekkie hearts all over the world break into tiny unbeamable pieces (17:00).
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.
A few years ago, the geniuses over at Four Seasons Productions began shooting evocative short films set to classic poetry. 21 finished pieces, a long list of festival prizes and a full DVD later, many of their best “poem videos” are now available to watch for free on their YouTube channel.
These short pieces capture the mood, rhythms and meaning of a wide range of poetic voices and styles in imaginative ways. Our favorite is the above interpretation of Langston Hughes’ “The Weary Blues,” but there are several other exceptional shorts, including “Only Breath” by the great 13th century sufi poet Jalal ad-Din Rumi and “100 Love Sonnets IX” by Pablo Neruda. Note: The Neruda poems are read in the original Spanish.
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.
The evolution of Stanley Kubrick’s early career looks something like this. A young Kubrick graduates from high school in 1945, and almost immediately starts working for LOOK Magazine as a photojournalist, where he masters his visual craft. (You can see a good sampling of his photographic work right here.) By the early 1950s, Kubrick has his sights set on motion pictures, and, after shooting a couple of short documentaries, he gets to work on feature films. His first production, Fear and Desire (1953), is something of a letdown. Though critics give it sound reviews, Kubrick is unhappy with the result, and he works hard to remove all existing copies from circulation. Even so, you can still find grainy copies online.
Fast forward two years, and Kubrick, now 26, borrows $40,000 from his uncle and shoots Killer’s Kiss, a movie that sits squarely in the film noir tradition. (Get more noir films here.) It’s short, running only 67 minutes. It passes the litmus test for Kubrick himself, officially launching his filmmaking career. And the mini noir is now available on Daily Motion. We also have Killer’s Kiss and Fear and Desire listed in our collection of Free Online Movies. Enjoy…
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