Tarkovsky’s Solaris Revisited

This week, The New York Times film crit­ic A.O. Scott revis­its Solaris (watch online here), Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1972 film adap­ta­tion of the sci-fi nov­el writ­ten by the Pol­ish author Stanisław Lem (1961). Although Tarkovsky con­sid­ered the film some­thing of an artis­tic fail­ure (and Lem turned sour on the project too), Solaris won the Grand Prix Spé­cial du Jury at the 1972 Cannes Film Fes­ti­val. What’s more, Salman Rushdie lat­er called it “a sci-fi mas­ter­piece,” Roger Ebert gave it a big nod too, and Empire mag­a­zine ranked it 68th on its list of The 100 Best Films Of World Cin­e­ma. Solaris is one among many Tarkovsky films avail­able online (for free) through Google Video and Veoh, or you can always pur­chase Solaris in high qual­i­ty for­mat on DVD.

Look­ing for more movies? Vis­it our mega list of 340 Free Movies Online.

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Fully Flared

Take the intro to Ful­ly Flared, the 2007 skate­board­ing film direct­ed by Spike Jonze, Ty Evans and Cory Weincheque. And then remas­ter it in 720p HD and you have quite the sen­so­ry expe­ri­ence. Give the clip at least a minute to unfold…

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An Evening with Werner Herzog

François Truf­faut once called Wern­er Her­zog the sin­gle most impor­tant direc­tor on the plan­et, and TIME mag­a­zine (with Rogert Ebert writ­ing the relat­ed arti­cle) ranked Her­zog as one of the 100 most influ­en­tial peo­ple alive today. Last April, Her­zog, a “roman­tic vision­ary” of the New Ger­man Cin­e­ma move­ment, vis­it­ed the UC San­ta Bar­bara cam­pus where he spent rough­ly two hours in con­ver­sa­tion with the author and essay­ist, Pico Iyer. The video above skips over two intro­duc­tions, includ­ing one by Iyer him­self. So if you’re look­ing for more con­text, you can always rewind to the very begin­ning… H/T to @eacion and via Film Stud­ies for Free.

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15 Free Alfred Hitchcock Films

Just a quick note: Ear­li­er this week, we post­ed a list of 25 Free John Wayne West­erns. Now comes a list of Free Alfred Hitch­cock films. We have 15 Hitch­cock films in total, most shot dur­ing the ear­ly stages of his career – that is, dur­ing the 1920s and 30s. And, on the list, you will find sev­er­al well known clas­sics, includ­ing The Lodger, one of Hitch­cock­’s great silent films; Black­mail, Hitch­cock­’s first “talk­ing” or sound film; The 39 Steps, a thriller that became an ear­ly com­mer­cial and crit­i­cal hit; and The Man Who Knew Too Much, a film that Hitch­cock lat­er remade for an Amer­i­can audi­ence with Jim­my Stew­art and Doris Day. These clas­sics and eleven oth­er films appear in the Free Hitch­cock col­lec­tion. Enjoy …

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“They Were There” — Errol Morris Finally Directs a Film for IBM

In the late 1990s, Errol Mor­ris, the acclaimed direc­tor, was hired to make a film for an “in house” con­fer­ence of IBM employ­ees. Even­tu­al­ly IBM can­celed the con­fer­ence, and the film was scrapped. (Watch a clip of it here.) Now more than a decade lat­er, IBM has brought Mor­ris back, this time to direct a film meant to com­mem­o­rate the 100th anniver­sary of the com­pa­ny’s found­ing. The 30-minute film, They Were There, appears on IBM’s YouTube Chan­nel, and it notably fea­tures music by Philip Glass.

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:

Novem­ber 22, 1963: Watch Errol Mor­ris’ Short Doc­u­men­tary About the Kennedy Assas­si­na­tion

Film­mak­er Errol Mor­ris Gives Us “11 Excel­lent Rea­sons Not to Vote?”

Errol Mor­ris Med­i­tates on the Mean­ing and His­to­ry of Abra­ham Lincoln’s Last Pho­to­graph

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Beyond the Still: The Largest Online Collaborative Film Contest

A year ago, Canon launched a con­test called “The Sto­ry Beyond the Still,” which encour­aged pho­tog­ra­phers to become film­mak­ers, and help view­ers see “beyond the still” image. Fast for­ward twelve months and we have the final result: A col­lab­o­ra­tive film, now being pre­miered at the Sun­dance Film Fes­ti­val, that stitch­es togeth­er “chap­ters” (or film sequences) cre­at­ed by six con­test-win­ning artists, all under the direc­tion of Vin­cent Laforet. Each chap­ter ends with a still image that cre­ates the jump­ing-off point for the next chap­ter, giv­ing one artist the chance to pick up where a pre­vi­ous artist left off. The com­plete col­lab­o­ra­tive film (above) runs 37 min­utes. You can find more con­test-win­ning video on Vimeo right here.

via @webacion

John Wayne: 26 Free Western Films Online

westofthedivide1

32 years after his death, John Wayne (né Mar­i­on Mor­ri­son) remains a tremen­dous­ly pop­u­lar movie star. Accord­ing to a Har­ris Poll tak­en ear­li­er this month (Jan­u­ary 2011), Amer­i­cans still rank The Duke as their third most favorite actor, putting him right behind John­ny Depp and Den­zel Wash­ing­ton. No doubt about it, the leg­end of John Wayne con­tin­ues to grow. And hap­pi­ly you can find a gold mine of John Wayne West­ern films online – all free. Today, we have pulled togeth­er a list of 25 films that span five decades of work, mov­ing from the 1930s to the 1970s. You can find them all oth­er­wise list­ed in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

  • Angel and the Bad­man Free — A black and white West­ern star­ring John Wayne and Gail Rus­sell. Con­sid­ered a rad­i­cal depar­ture from the West­ern genre at the time. Find Inter­net Archive ver­sion here. (1947)
  • Blue Steel – Free – John Wayne plays a U.S. Mar­shal try­ing to cap­ture the Pol­ka Dot Ban­dit. Some con­sid­er it the best of the John Wayne Lone Star films. (1934)
  • Born to the WestFree — Can Dare Rudd prove he is respon­si­ble enough to win the heart of Judy and also out­wit the crooked saloon own­er? Stars John Wayne, Mar­sha Hunt and John Mack Brown.
  • Fron­tier Hori­zon - Free — The Three Mes­que­teers try to pre­vent whole­sale slaugh­ter in this fine Repub­lic West­ern. Stars John Wayne, Ray “Crash” Cor­ri­g­an, and Ray­mond Hat­ton. (1939)
  • Hell­town — Free — Orig­i­nal­ly called “Born to the West,” this John Wayne West­ern was based on a nov­el by Zane Grey, an impor­tant author of West­ern nov­els. (1937)
  • McLin­tock! — Free — Com­e­dy West­ern star­ring John Wayne and Mau­reen O’Hara. Loose­ly based on Shakespeare’s The Tam­ing of the Shrew. (1963)
  • ‘Neath the Ari­zona Skies — Free — John Wayne plays a cow­boy pro­tect­ing an oil-land heiress. (1934)
  • Par­adise Canyon — Free — Fea­tures Wayne as “gov­ern­ment agent John Wyatt who search­es for a coun­ter­feit ring oper­at­ing on the Mexican/Arizona bor­der.” (1935)
  • Rain­bow Val­leyFree — John Mar­tin (John Wayne) is a “gov­ern­ment agent work­ing under cov­er. Lead­ing cit­i­zen Mor­gan calls in gun­man Butch Galt (Buf­fa­lo Bill Jr.) who blows Mar­t­in’s cov­er.” Find the YouTube ver­sion here. (1935)
  • Randy Rides Alone – Free – Jailed for mur­ders he didn’t com­mit, Randy Bow­ers (John Wayne) escapes only to stum­ble into the den of the real mur­der­ers. Enter­tain­ing ear­ly Wayne West­ern. (1934)
  • Rid­ers of Des­tiny -FreeJohn Wayne por­trays Sin­gin’ Sandy Saun­ders and has a rep­u­ta­tion as the most noto­ri­ous gun­man since Bil­ly the Kid. Wayne was the first singing cow­boy, but his singing was dubbed, and it was the last time he “sang” in a West­ern. (1933)
  • Sage­brush Trail — Free — John Wayne plays John Brant who escapes from jail after being wrong­ly accused of mur­der. Fea­tures great stage­coach chase. (1933)
  • Texas Ter­ror — Free – A young John Wayne in a roman­tic West­ern. (1935)
  • The Dawn Rid­er Free — John Wayne plays John Mason, a man aveng­ing his father’s mur­der. A West­ern direct­ed by Robert Brad­bury. (1935)
  • The Desert Trail Free — Ear­ly West­ern with John Wayne. Accord­ing to West­ern­Clip­pings, not Wayne’s finest hour. (1935)
  • The Law­less Fron­tier Free – B West­ern star­ring John Wayne and direct­ed by Robert Brad­bury. (1934)
  • The Lucky Tex­an Free — Jer­ry Mason (played by John Wayne) and Jake Ben­son become part­ners and strike it rich with a gold mine. (1934)
  • The Man From Utah Free – The Mar­shal sends John West­on (John Wayne) to a “rodeo to see if he can find out who is killing the rodeo rid­ers who are about to win prize mon­ey.” (1934)
  • The Range FeudFree — Clint Turn­er is arrest­ed for the mur­der of his girl­friend Judy’s father, a rival ranch­er who was an ene­my of his own father. Stars John Wayne and Buck Jones. (1931)
  • The Star Pack­er Free – “A gang work­ing for ‘The Shad­ow’ is ter­ror­iz­ing the town. John Tra­vers (John Wayne) decides to take on the job of sher­iff and do some­thing about it.” (1934)
  • The Trail Beyond — Free – West­ern star­ring John Wayne, Noah Beery, Sr., and Noah Beery, Jr. (1934)
  • Two Fist­ed Law - Free — After Rob Rus­sell steals Tim Clark’s ranch, Clark starts prospect­ing for sil­ver. Stars John Wayne and Tim McCoy. (1932)
  • War of the Wild­cats Free – John Wayne stars in a West­ern also released under the title In Old Okla­homa. One of Wayne’s bet­ter post-Stage­coach per­for­mances. (1943)
  • West of the Divide – Free – A young John Wayne in a B West­ern. (1934)
  • Winds of the Waste­landFree — The arrival of the tele­graph put Pony Express rid­ers like John Blair (John Wayne) and his pal Smoky (Lane Chan­dler) out of work they try to start a stage­coach route through a ghost town. A rival stage­coach com­pa­ny tries to stop them. (1936)

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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Sundance Film Festival 2011 on YouTube’s Screening Room

A quick note for film afi­ciona­dos: The 2011 edi­tion of the Sun­dance Film Fes­ti­val is now under­way. And over the next two weeks, The YouTube Screen­ing Room will bring you short films from fes­ti­vals past and present. Right now, you can watch four new films by up-and-com­ing direc­tors – 8 Bits, Andy and Zach, The High Lev­el Bridge, and Skateis­tan: To Live and Skate in Kab­ul (above). More new films will be added on Jan­u­ary 27th and Feb­ru­ary 3rd. In the mean­time, you can catch sev­er­al oth­er short films that orig­i­nal­ly played at Sun­dance, or were made by Sun­dance Insti­tute alum­ni.

via Switched.com

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