Oedipus … Starring Vegetables

in Film, Literature, Theatre | February 9th, 2011

Sopho­cles and Aeschy­lus may be spin­ning in their graves. Or, who knows, they may be tak­ing some delight in this bizarre twist on the Oedi­pus myth. Run­ning eight min­utes, Jason Wish­now’s 2004 film puts veg­eta­bles in the star­ring roles. One of the first stop-motion films shot with a dig­i­tal still cam­era, Oedi­pus took two years to make with a vol­un­teer staff of 100. But the hard work paid off. The film has since been screened at 70+ film fes­ti­vals and was even­tu­al­ly acquired by the Sun­dance Chan­nel. Sep­a­rate videos show you the behind-the-scenes mak­ing of the film, plus the sto­ry­boards used dur­ing pro­duc­tion.

via Curios­i­ty Counts

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The James Dean Story: The Early Documentary by Robert Altman

in Film | February 8th, 2011

On James Dean’s 80th birth­day, this film prob­a­bly deserves its own lit­tle men­tion. The James Dean Sto­ry, a 79 minute doc­u­men­tary chron­i­cling the life and times of Jim­my Dean, came out two years after the young actor’s death in 1955. Most notably, the film was direct­ed by Robert Alt­man, a young direc­tor who would even­tu­al­ly make MASH, Nashville, The Play­er, Gos­ford Park, etc. It’s also cat­a­logued in our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

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.

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James Dean at 80

in Film, Television | February 8th, 2011

James Dean starred in only three major films – Rebel With­out a Cause, East of Eden, and Giant – before per­ish­ing in a car acci­dent on Route 466, near Cholame, Cal­i­for­nia in Sep­tem­ber 1955. (A free doc­u­men­tary cov­ers that.) A star died at 24. Mean­while, a leg­end for­ev­er embody­ing youth was born.

Jim­my Dean would have turned 80 today. Amaz­ing to say it. And, to mark the occa­sion, we’re fea­tur­ing a slide show show­cas­ing the pho­tog­ra­phy and voice of Den­nis Stock, the Mag­num pho­tog­ra­ph­er who took many icon­ic pho­tos of Dean, includ­ing Dean’s famous walk through a rainy Times Square with a cig­a­rette propped in mouth and hands in pock­ets. Stock­’s images shaped Dean’s pub­lic per­sona, and the work you’re see­ing here fig­ures into a more com­pre­hen­sive pre­sen­ta­tion of Stock­’s oeu­vre on the Mag­num web­site.

PS Today is also Jules Verne’s 183rd birth­day. If you’re look­ing for his clas­sics – Around the World in 80 Days or 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea – you can find them in our Free Audio Books and Free eBooks col­lec­tions.

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What if Tarantino Directed the Super Bowl Broadcast?

in Film, Television | February 4th, 2011

What would it look like if our great direc­tors took cre­ative con­trol over the Super Bowl broad­cast? Slate imag­ines it, show­ing you how Quentin Taran­ti­no, David Lynch, Wes Ander­son, Wern­er Her­zog and Jean-Luc Godard would put their cin­e­mat­ic stamp on the broad­cast. The clip gets bet­ter as it moves along…

Enjoy the big game. And, if movies are more your thing, don’t for­get to vis­it our big list of 340 Free Movies Online. Films by some of the great direc­tors men­tioned above appear on the list.

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Star Wars is a Remix

in Art, Film | February 3rd, 2011


Kir­by Fer­gu­son is back. Last Sep­tem­ber, the writer/director released the first of a four-part film series – Every­thing is a Remix – that teas­es apart the long his­to­ry of artis­tic “remix­ing.” This first short film con­cen­trat­ed on the artis­tic bor­row­ings of musi­cians and writ­ers, with Led Zep­pelin and the Beat writ­ers get­ting the major focus. Now, with his sec­ond film, the atten­tion turns to film, and par­tic­u­lar­ly to the homages and bor­row­ings of George Lucas’ Star Wars. Aki­ra Kuro­sawa films, Spaghet­ti west­erns and John Wayne west­erns, clas­sic wartime movies, Leni Riefen­stahl pro­pa­gan­da films, Fritz Lang’s Metrop­o­lis – they’re all remixed into the epic space dra­ma. The film wraps up with Fer­gu­son look­ing at Quentin Taran­ti­no and his own remix­ing ten­den­cies. And that sets the stage for parts 3 and 4 – a project that you can help finance in your own mod­est way. I’m sure Kir­by will appre­ci­ate your gen­eros­i­ty…

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Cave of Forgotten Dreams

in Art, Film, History | February 2nd, 2011

The first Wern­er Her­zog 3D film will hit the cin­e­ma screens this spring, and the new trail­er paves the way for it. The 89 minute doc­u­men­tary, Cave of For­got­ten Dreams, brings Her­zog down into the Chau­vet-Pont-d’Arc Cave dis­cov­ered in 1994. Locat­ed in South­ern France, this cave, nor­mal­ly kept off lim­its to the pub­lic, hous­es the old­est cave paint­ings ever dis­cov­ered. We’re talk­ing paint­ings dat­ing back over 30,000 years and all still pre­served in pris­tine con­di­tion. Just as Las­caux left Picas­so in awe, the Chau­vet cave paint­ings inspired Her­zog to use 3D tech­nol­o­gy to cap­ture the char­coal fig­ures, the ear­li­est expres­sion of our artis­tic yearn­ings.

Don’t miss our ear­li­er post, An Evening with Wern­er Her­zog.

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The King’s Speech 1938

in Film, History | February 2nd, 2011

You’ve prob­a­bly seen the film, The King’s Speech, which just land­ed 12 Acad­e­my Award nom­i­na­tions, includ­ing Best Pic­ture, Best Direc­tor, Best Actor, Best Sup­port­ing Actor, and Best Sup­port­ing Actress. Now it’s time to rewind the video­tape and bring you back to 1938, when King George VI, for­mer­ly Prince Albert, Duke of York, makes a speech to open an exhi­bi­tion in Scot­land.

Take a quick hop, skip and jump to the British Path site to watch, and you will get a first­hand look at the King speak­ing in his own words…

Look­ing for a good read on your ebook read­er? Find a clas­sic in our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks. Books avail­able in mul­ti­ple for­mats. Enjoy!

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Tarkovsky’s Solaris Revisited

in Film, Sci Fi | February 2nd, 2011

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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