Why 1999 Was the Year of Dystopian Office Movies: What The Matrix, Fight Club, American Beauty, Office Space & Being John Malkovich Shared in Common

in Film, History | July 24th, 2019

On August 11, 1992, the writer Dou­glas Cou­p­land made an appear­ance at the grand open­ing of Min­neapo­lis’ Mall of Amer­i­ca, the largest shop­ping mall on Earth. Against his inter­view­er’s expec­ta­tions, Cou­p­land deliv­ered a paean to the osten­si­bly hyper­con­sumeris­tic scene around him, claim­ing that “future gen­er­a­tions are going to look at images of today here in Min­neso­ta and see them as a sort of gold­en age of Amer­i­can cul­ture. The peace. The calm. The abun­dance. The bot­tom­less good­will of every­one here. I’m unsure if it’s going to last much longer and I think we should appre­ci­ate it while it’s here.”

What made the 90s the 90s? “Mon­ey still gen­er­at­ed mon­ey. Com­put­ers were becom­ing fast easy and cheap, and with them came a sense of equal­i­ty for every­one. Things were pal­pa­bly get­ting bet­ter every­where. His­to­ry was over and it felt great.” From the end of the Cold War until the fall of the Twin Tow­ers, North Amer­i­ca and Europe enjoyed a sta­bil­i­ty and pros­per­i­ty that, to many of us in the 2010s, now seems some­how implau­si­ble. But cin­e­ma remem­bers the 90s, espe­cial­ly the cin­e­ma of the decade’s final year, dif­fer­ent­ly. Unlike “mon­ster movies show­ing cold war anx­i­eties and 21st-cen­tu­ry hor­ror movies con­vey­ing fears of acts of ter­ror,” the films of 1999 “were not about sur­viv­ing the present, because the present was actu­al­ly going well. They were about being tired of that sta­ble present and look­ing for a rad­i­cal­ly dif­fer­ent future.”

Those words come from “Why All Movies From 1999 Are the Same,” the video essay from Now You See It above. Those of us who were moviego­ing that year remem­ber The Matrix, Office Space, Fight Club, Amer­i­can Beau­ty, Being John Malkovich, and all of the oth­er major Hol­ly­wood releas­es fea­tur­ing “a main char­ac­ter tired of the sta­bil­i­ty, monot­o­ny, and unevent­ful­ness of their life,” almost always involv­ing a steady, dull cor­po­rate job. That era, recall, was also when Scott Adams’ com­ic Dil­bert reached the top of the zeit­geist by sat­i­riz­ing the ele­ments of office exis­tence: incom­pe­tent boss­es, slack­ing co-work­ers, and above all, cubi­cles.

Call­ing 1999 “the year of the cubi­cle movie,” this video essay describes its cin­e­mat­ic por­tray­al of office-work­er frus­tra­tions as “a per­fect mir­ror of what Amer­i­ca was like in the late 90s.” Not that those por­tray­als were lit­er­al­ly “the same”: the ter­mi­nal­ly bored men of Fight Club “go to great lengths to man­u­fac­ture con­flict and chaos”; Office Space makes com­e­dy out of sus­penders and paper jams; Being John Malkovich “exag­ger­ates the oppres­sive cor­po­rate imagery in films like Office Space by cre­at­ing an absurd office with low ceil­ings” that “lit­er­al­ly bears down on its employ­ees”; Amer­i­can Beau­ty “crit­i­cizes the per­ceived sta­bil­i­ty of the era, sug­gest­ing that it’s sim­ply a mask that hides the true self.”

And in The Matrix, of course, that veneer of sta­bil­i­ty and pros­per­i­ty exist only to con­ceal the total enslave­ment of human­i­ty. Mod­ern human­i­ty may nev­er cast off its dystopias, but it’s fair to say the dystopi­an visions we enter­tain today look quite a bit dif­fer­ent than the ones we enter­tained twen­ty years ago, and it’s also fair to say that many of us enter­tain them while dream­ing of the rel­a­tive safe­ty, sta­bil­i­ty, and pros­per­i­ty — real or imag­ined — that we enjoyed back then, not to men­tion the secure desk jobs. But as the films of 1999 remind us, those very qual­i­ties could also dri­ve us into a kind of mad­ness. Cou­p­land may right­ly call the 90s “the good decade,” but even if we could return to that time, we’ve got good rea­sons not to want to.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Cringe-Induc­ing Humor of The Office Explained with Philo­soph­i­cal The­o­ries of Mind

The Phi­los­o­phy of The Matrix: From Pla­to and Descartes, to East­ern Phi­los­o­phy

How to Rec­og­nize a Dystopia: Watch an Ani­mat­ed Intro­duc­tion to Dystopi­an Fic­tion

Char­lie Chap­lin Gets Strapped into a Dystopi­an “Rube Gold­berg Machine,” a Fright­ful Com­men­tary on Mod­ern Cap­i­tal­ism

David Fos­ter Wal­lace on What’s Wrong with Post­mod­ernism: A Video Essay

How Char­lie Kauf­man Goes Deep into the Human Con­di­tion in Being John Malkovich, Eter­nal Sun­shine of the Spot­less Mind, and Oth­er Movies

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall, on Face­book, or on Insta­gram.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

The Velvet Underground Captured in Color Concert Footage by Andy Warhol (1967)

in Film, Music | July 23rd, 2019

The Vel­vet Under­ground, the band with which Lou Reed and John Cale achieved artis­tic and cul­tur­al star­dom under the man­age­ment of Andy Warhol, sure­ly have more lis­ten­ers now than they did when they were active in the 1960s and 70s. But few self-described Vel­vet Under­ground enthu­si­asts ever had the chance to see the group per­form. Not in per­son, any­way: last month we fea­tured col­or footage from their 1969 Viet­nam War protest con­cert, and we’ve pre­vi­ous­ly offered oppor­tu­ni­ties to glimpse them play­ing a 1966 Warhol-filmed show that got bro­ken up by the cops, com­pos­ing “Sun­day Morn­ing,” the open­ing track from that same year’s album The Vel­vet Under­ground & Nico, and reunit­ing in 1972 to do an acoustic set on French tele­vi­sion.

But what would it feel like to actu­al­ly be at a Vel­vet Under­ground con­cert? The 1967 film above pro­vides a view of the band per­form­ing, but even more so of their fans tak­ing it in — not that they had many in those days. But what fans they had turned up over and over again to their shows at a club called The Boston Tea Par­ty, which had opened the same year.

Shot by Warhol, one descrip­tion says, it makes use of “sud­den in-and-out zooms, sweep­ing pan­ning shots, in-cam­era edits that cre­ate sin­gle frame images and bursts of light like paparazzi flash bulbs going off” that “mir­ror the kines­thet­ic expe­ri­ence of the Explod­ing Plas­tic Inevitable” — Warhol’s series of mul­ti­me­dia events put on in the mid-60s — “with its strobe lights, whip dancers, col­or­ful slide shows, mul­ti-screen pro­jec­tions, lib­er­al use of amphet­a­mines, and over­pow­er­ing sound.”

As “one of only two known films with syn­chro­nous sound of the band per­form­ing live,” as well as the only one in col­or, this half-hour of the Vel­vet Under­ground expe­ri­ence cap­tured on 16-mil­lime­ter (which you can also find on the Inter­net Archive) con­sti­tutes an impor­tant and vivid piece of the band’s record­ed his­to­ry. Today, any lis­ten­er who has ever tak­en an inter­est in the Vel­vet Under­ground will have heard the clear-eyed drug song “Hero­in” on The Vel­vet Under­ground & Nico and the epic of debauch­ery “Sis­ter Ray” on White Light/White Heat many times. But these Har­vard kids and oth­ers from more than half a cen­tu­ry ago were get­ting down to them — if that is indeed the term for the behav­ior Warhol has cap­tured here — well before most of today’s Vel­vets-inspired rock­ers were even born.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch The Vel­vet Under­ground Per­form in Rare Col­or Footage: Scenes from a Viet­nam War Protest Con­cert (1969)

Andy Warhol Explains Why He Decid­ed to Give Up Paint­ing & Man­age the Vel­vet Under­ground Instead (1966)

Watch Footage of the Vel­vet Under­ground Com­pos­ing “Sun­day Morn­ing,” the First Track on Their Sem­i­nal Debut Album The Vel­vet Under­ground & Nico (1966)

A Sym­pho­ny of Sound (1966): Vel­vet Under­ground Impro­vis­es, Warhol Films It, Until the Cops Turn Up

Lou Reed, John Cale & Nico Reunite, Play Acoustic Vel­vet Under­ground Songs on French TV, 1972

Hear Lost Acetate Ver­sions of Songs from The Vel­vet Under­ground & Nico (1966)

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall, on Face­book, or on Insta­gram.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Songs by Joni Mitchell Re-Imagined as Pulp Fiction Book Covers & Vintage Movie Posters

in Comedy, Design, Film, Music | July 19th, 2019

I wish I had more sense of humor

Keep­ing the sad­ness at bay

Throw­ing the light­ness on these things

Laugh­ing it all away 

                           — Joni Mitchell, “Peo­ple’s Par­ties”

Joni Mitchell has been show­ered with trib­utes of late, many of them con­nect­ed to her all-star 75th birth­day con­cert last Novem­ber.

The silky voiced Seal, who cred­its Mitchell with inspir­ing him to become a musi­cian, soar­ing toward heav­en on “Both Sides Now”…

“A Case Of You” as a duet for fel­low New­port Folk Fes­ti­val alums Kris Kristof­fer­son and Bran­di Carlile….

Cha­ka Khan inject­ing a bit of funk into “Help Me,” a tune she’s been cov­er­ing for 20 some years…

They’re mov­ing and beau­ti­ful and sen­si­tive, but giv­en that Mitchel­l’s the one behind the immor­tal lyric “laugh­ing and cry­ing, you know it’s the same release…,” shouldn’t some­one aim for the fun­ny bone? Mix things up a lit­tle?

Enter Todd Alcott, who’s been delight­ing us all year with his “mid-cen­tu­ry mashups,” an irre­sistible com­bi­na­tion of vin­tage paper­back cov­ers, celebri­ty per­son­ae, and icon­ic lyrics from the annals of rock and pop.

His homage to “Help Me,” above, is decid­ed­ly on brand. The lurid 1950s EC hor­ror com­ic-style graph­ics con­fer a dishy naugh­ti­ness that was—no disrespect—rather lack­ing in the orig­i­nal.

Per­haps Mitchell would approve of these mon­keyshines?

A 1991 inter­view with Rolling Stone’s David Wild sug­gests that she would have at some point in her life:

When I was a kid, I was a real good-time Char­lie. As a mat­ter of fact, that was my nick­name. So when I first start­ed mak­ing all this sen­si­tive music, my old friends back home could not believe it. They didn’t know – where did this depressed per­son come from? Along the way, I had gone through some pret­ty hard deals, and it did intro­vert me. But it just so hap­pened that my most intro­vert­ed peri­od coin­cid­ed with the peak of my suc­cess.

Alcott hon­ors the intro­vert by ren­der­ing “Both Sides Now” as an angsty-look­ing vol­ume of 60s-era poet­ry from the imag­i­nary pub­lish­ing house Clouds.

“Big Yel­low Taxi” car­ries Alcott from the book­shelf to the realm of the movie poster.

The lyrics are def­i­nite­ly the star here, but it’s fun to note just how much mileage he gets out of the float­ing text box­es that were a strange­ly ran­dom-feel­ing fea­ture of the orig­i­nal.

Also “Ladies of the Canyon” is a great pro­duc­er’s cred­it. Giv­en Alcott’s own screen­writ­ing cred­its on IMDB, per­haps we could con­vince him to mash a bit of Joni’s sen­si­bil­i­ty into some of Paul Schrader’s grimmest Taxi Dri­ver scenes…

That said, it’s worth remem­ber­ing that Alcot­t’s cre­ations are lov­ing trib­utes to the artists who mat­ter most to him. As he told Open Cul­ture:

Joni Mitchell is one of the most crim­i­nal­ly under­val­ued Amer­i­can song­writ­ers of the 20th cen­tu­ry, and that now that I live in LA, every time I dri­ve through Lau­rel Canyon I think about her and that whole absurd­ly fer­tile scene in the late 1960s, when artists could afford to live in Lau­rel Canyon and Joni Mitchell was hang­ing out with Neil Young and Charles Man­son.

See all of Todd Alcott’s work here. (Please note that this is his offi­cial sales site… beware of imposters sell­ing quick­ie knock-offs of his designs on eBay and Face­book.) Find oth­er posts fea­tur­ing his work in the Relat­eds below.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

See Clas­sic Per­for­mances of Joni Mitchell from the Very Ear­ly Years–Before She Was Even Named Joni Mitchell (1965/66)

Bea­t­les Songs Re-Imag­ined as Vin­tage Book Cov­ers and Mag­a­zine Pages: “Dri­ve My Car,” “Lucy in the Sky with Dia­monds” & More

Clas­sic Songs by Bob Dylan Re-Imag­ined as Pulp Fic­tion Book Cov­ers: “Like a Rolling Stone,” “A Hard Rain’s A‑Gonna Fall” & More

Songs by David Bowie, Elvis Costel­lo, Talk­ing Heads & More Re-Imag­ined as Pulp Fic­tion Book Cov­ers

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inkyzine.  Join her in NYC on Mon­day, Sep­tem­ber 9 for a new sea­son of her book-based vari­ety show, Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

 

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 2 ) |

When Neil Young & Devo Jammed Together: Watch Them Play “Hey Hey, My My” in a Clip from the 1982 Film Human Highway

in Film, Music | July 17th, 2019

It’s well known that in the 80s, Neil Young briefly went New Wave, first with 1981’s Re-ac-tor, then the fol­low­ing year’s Kraftwerk-inspired album Trans, which fea­tures such dance floor-friend­ly tracks as “Com­put­er Age” (see it live fur­ther down), “Trans­former Man,” and “Com­put­er Cow­boy (aka Syscrush­er).” This is a weird peri­od in Young’s career—one crit­ics tend to ignore or dis­miss, as William Ruhlmann writes at All­mu­sic, as “baf­fling.”

“Despite the crisp dance beats and syn­the­siz­ers,” Ruhlmann com­plains, Trans “sound­ed less like new Kraftwerk than like old Devo” (as though this were a bad thing). But the “old Devo” dig prob­a­bly would­n’t both­er Young. He jammed with the band them­selves in his bizarre 1982 film Human High­way. Devo not only star in the movie—as garbage men at a nuclear pow­er plant—they also play  a ver­sion of “Hey Hey, My My,” with Young on gui­tar and Mark Moth­ers­baugh on vocals.

Young wasn’t cash­ing in on Devo’s pop­u­lar­i­ty, rid­ing their New Wave coat­tails to bol­ster his hip­ster cred with a punk gen­er­a­tion. He began as a big fan before they even released their first album. “Young first saw Devo when they played the Star­wood Club in West Hol­ly­wood in 1977,” writes Andy Greene at Rolling Stone. “He was blown away by their wild, fre­net­ic stage show and decid­ed to cast them in his movie,” which began shoot­ing the fol­low­ing year.


The admi­ra­tion wasn’t mutu­al at first. Devo were “shocked by the atmos­phere on the set,” espe­cial­ly the stoned, drunk­en antics of Den­nis Hop­per and Dean Stock­well, and they weren’t total­ly dig­ging the song, either. The jam was “com­plete­ly unre­hearsed.” Says Devo’s Jer­ry Casale, “He told us the chord pro­gres­sion and that was that…. It was hip­pie style.” Moth­ers­baugh remem­bers, “I didn’t want to sing about John­ny Rot­ten. So we sang about John­ny Spud.”

Young, at work on songs for the clas­sic 1979 live album Rust Nev­er Sleeps, was push­ing his approach­es to per­for­mance and record­ing in new direc­tions. But when Human High­way start­ed shoot­ing in 1978, few fans would have pre­dict­ed that when it wrapped four years lat­er, he would be mak­ing synth-rock records. The film became a cult clas­sic, notable for bring­ing togeth­er a leg­endary cast of weirdos and serv­ing as Mark Mothersbaugh’s first ven­ture in film-scor­ing.

But we can also see this bizarre musi­cal com­e­dy as a con­cep­tu­al bridge between the jam-band “hip­pie style” rock of Crazy Horse and the slick, vocoder pop of Trans, an album that might make a lit­tle more sense if we think of it in part as Young’s trib­ute to Devo.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Who Is Neil Young?: A Video Essay Explores the Two Sides of the Ver­sa­tile Musician–Folk Icon and Father of Grunge

When Neil Young & Rick James Cre­at­ed the 60’s Motown Band, The Mynah Birds

The Phi­los­o­phy & Music of Devo, the Avant-Garde Art Project Ded­i­cat­ed to Reveal­ing the Truth About De-Evo­lu­tion

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

The Simpsons Reimagined as a Russian Art Film

in Animation, Film | July 9th, 2019

Ani­ma­tor Lenivko Kvadratjić has re-cre­at­ed The Simp­sons’ famous open­ing scene. And it’s bleak–as in post-Cher­nobyl bleak. Watch at your own risk.

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!

via Neatora­ma

Relat­ed Con­tent:

When John Waters Appeared on The Simp­sons and Changed America’s LGBTQ Views (1997)

The Rise and Fall of The Simp­sons: An In-Depth Video Essay Explores What Made the Show Great, and When It All Came to an End

The Simp­sons Take on Ayn Rand: See the Show’s Satire of The Foun­tain­head and Objec­tivist Phi­los­o­phy

 

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 5 ) |

How Cinemas Taught Early Movie-Goers the Rules & Etiquette for Watching Films (1912): No Whistling, Standing or Wearing Big Hats

in Film | June 28th, 2019

I admit, I some­times pay a pre­mi­um at a cer­tain din­ner the­ater chain with a lob­by-slash-bar designed to look like clas­sic indie video stores of yore. It’s not only the padded reclin­ers and half-decent grub that keeps me com­ing back. Nope, it’s the rules. Print­ed on the menu are a list of dis­rup­tive behav­iors that will get you uncer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly tossed out—no refunds and no back­sies.

I’ve nev­er seen it hap­pen. Giv­en what peo­ple put down for tick­ets, din­ner, drinks, and/or a babysit­ter, it’s unlike­ly many risk blow­ing the evening. But know­ing that the the­ater takes silence seri­ous­ly brings seri­ous movie­go­ers peace of mind. What is a movie, after all, with­out the all-impor­tant dia­logue, music, and sound cues?

Well, it’s silent film. And even then, when movies were sound-tracked with live accom­pa­ni­ment and dia­logue appeared on title cards, peo­ple wor­ried very much about dis­trac­tions. It just so hap­pens that talk­ing and tex­ting (obvi­ous­ly) were the least of ear­ly audience’s con­cerns.

For one thing, the cin­e­ma was a place where class­es, races, sex­es, and ages “mixed much more freely than had been Vic­to­ri­an cus­tom,” notes Rebec­ca Onion at Slate. There were the usu­al con­cerns about cor­rup­tion of the “del­i­cate sen­si­bil­i­ties” of ladies.

“But female cin­e­ma-goers were just as like­ly to be seen as a prob­lem,” writes Onion, “giv­en their sup­posed propen­si­ty for wear­ing big hats and chat­ting.” The melt­ing pot demo­graph­ic of the nick­elodeon could be exhil­a­rat­ing, and audi­ence mem­bers found they some­times lost their inhi­bi­tions. “Some­how you enter into the spirt of the thing,” observed author W.W. Win­ters in 1910. “Don’t you slip away from your­self, lose your ret­i­cence, reserve, pride, and a few oth­er things?”

These days we’re accus­tomed to cram­ming in elbow-to-elbow next to any­one and every­one, and we most­ly heed the onscreen cajol­ing to put our phones away and keep qui­et, even when we aren’t quar­an­tined in spe­cial­ty bou­tique chains or local art­house the­aters. Then again, if cer­tain behav­iors weren’t an issue, there wouldn’t be ads pro­hibit­ing them.

Enor­mous hats and applause (and applause with things oth­er than hands) may be relics of cinema’s infan­cy. But swap out those admo­ni­tions for oth­ers of the smart­phone vari­ety and these lantern slides instruct­ing view­ers in 1912 about prop­er movie the­ater eti­quette don’t look so dif­fer­ent from today… sort of.

We might want for inter­mis­sions to return, espe­cial­ly after the two-hour mark, and wouldn’t it be nice if, instead of keep­ing us in our seats for post-cred­it scenes, big block­buster movies just said “Good Night”? See more of these delight­ful pub­lic ser­vice announce­ments from 1912 nick­elodeons at Back Sto­ry Radio.

via Slate

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Art of Cre­at­ing Spe­cial Effects in Silent Movies: Inge­nu­ity Before the Age of CGI

Enjoy the Great­est Silent Films Ever Made in Our Col­lec­tion of 101 Free Silent Films Online

The Char­lie Chap­lin Archive Opens, Putting Online 30,000 Pho­tos & Doc­u­ments from the Life of the Icon­ic Film Star

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

When Stanley Kubrick Banned His Own Film, A Clockwork Orange: It Was the “Most Effective Censorship of a Film in British History”

in Film | June 19th, 2019

“What in hell is Kubrick up to here?” asked Roger Ebert in his orig­i­nal 1972 review of A Clock­work Orange, whose mar­ket­ing announced it as a film about “the adven­tures of a young man whose prin­ci­pal inter­ests are rape, ultra-vio­lence, and Beethoven.” How could this acclaimed direc­tor real­ly want to involve us in the “psy­cho­path­ic lit­tle life” of this dubi­ous pro­tag­o­nist? “In a world where soci­ety is crim­i­nal, of course, a good man must live out­side the law. But that isn’t what Kubrick is say­ing. He actu­al­ly seems to be imply­ing some­thing sim­pler and more fright­en­ing: that in a world where soci­ety is crim­i­nal, the cit­i­zen might as well be a crim­i­nal, too.”

Oth­ers in the press lev­eled sim­i­lar crit­i­cisms at A Clock­work Orange, most of them much sim­pler and more accusato­ry. They had more seri­ous con­se­quences for the pic­ture in Kubrick­’s adopt­ed home­land of Eng­land. With­in two weeks of its release there, writes David Hugh­es in The Com­plete Kubrick, “right-wingers and tub-thump­ing MPs were bay­ing for the film to be banned there before copy­cat vio­lence could spread among the nation’s impres­sion­able youth. Under a head­line that read ‘CLOCKWORK ORANGES ARE TICKING BOMBS,’ the Evening News pre­dict­ed that the film would ‘lead to a clock­work cult which will mag­ni­fy teen vio­lence.’ ”

The direct attri­bu­tions of vio­lent inci­dents involv­ing young peo­ple to A Clock­work Orange con­tin­ued until the film was final­ly pulled from British the­aters — by the film­mak­er him­self. “In ear­ly 1974, Kubrick and Warn­er Bros qui­et­ly with­drew it from cir­cu­la­tion,” Hugh­es writes, “refus­ing to allow it to be shown under any cir­cum­stances.” Attempt­ed breach­es of this “most effec­tive cen­sor­ship of a film in British his­to­ry” were dealt with harsh­ly: Lon­don’s Scala Cin­e­ma, for exam­ple, was forced to shut its doors for­ev­er after show­ing the film in 1992. A Clock­work Orange final­ly received a British re-release in 2000, the year after Kubrick­’s death.

That same year the doc­u­men­tary Still Tickin’: The Return of A Clock­work Orange, which you can watch on YouTube, told the sto­ry of the film’s sup­pres­sion and re-emer­gence. But why would such a force­ful­ly indi­vid­u­al­is­tic film­mak­er as Stan­ley Kubrick pull his own film from cir­cu­la­tion in the first place? “Stan­ley was very insult­ed by the reac­tion, and hurt,” Hugh­es quotes his wid­ow Chris­tiane as say­ing. Kubrick “did­n’t want to be mis­un­der­stood and mis­in­ter­pret­ed,” nor did he want to keep receiv­ing the “death threats” that the bad press had been draw­ing.

Kubrick “nev­er spoke about the deci­sion” to ban his own movie, writes Devin Faraci at Birth.Movies.Death., and sure­ly did­n’t see it as to blame for youth vio­lence in Britain, but “he was still sick­ened to see the clothes of his char­ac­ters hung on these per­pe­tra­tors. The mes­sage of his film was being missed, and he refused to let the movie take on a life of its own.” Kubrick had dis­cussed his own oppo­si­tion to the idea that art pro­motes vio­lent behav­ior dur­ing the ini­tial pro­mo­tion of A Clock­work Orange: “There has always been vio­lence in art,” he said to jour­nal­ist Michel Ciment. “There is vio­lence in the Bible, vio­lence in Homer, vio­lence in Shake­speare, and many psy­chi­a­trists believe that it serves as a cathar­sis rather than a mod­el.”

In Kubrick­’s view, “the peo­ple who com­mit vio­lent crime are not ordi­nary peo­ple who are trans­formed into vicious thugs by the wrong diet of films or TV. Rather, it is a fact that vio­lent crime is invari­ably com­mit­ted by peo­ple with a long record of anti-social behav­ior, or by the unex­pect­ed blos­som­ing of a psy­chopath who is described after­ward as hav­ing been ‘…such a nice, qui­et boy.’ ” Either way, “immense­ly com­pli­cat­ed social, eco­nom­ic and psy­cho­log­i­cal forces are involved,” and “the sim­plis­tic notion that films and TV can trans­form an oth­er­wise inno­cent and good per­son into a crim­i­nal has strong over­tones of the Salem witch tri­als.” Whether or not Kubrick went too far in with­draw­ing A Clock­work Orange, he cer­tain­ly had a clear­er sense of what cre­ates the kind of malev­o­lent char­ac­ters it depicts than many of its ear­ly view­ers did.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Mak­ing of Stan­ley Kubrick’s A Clock­work Orange

The Scores That Elec­tron­ic Music Pio­neer Wendy Car­los Com­posed for Stan­ley Kubrick’s A Clock­work Orange and The Shin­ing

Peter Sell­ers Calls Kubrick’s A Clock­work Orange “Vio­lent,” “The Biggest Load of Crap I’ve Seen” (1972)

Stan­ley Kubrick’s Rare 1965 Inter­view with The New York­er

A Clock­work Orange Author Antho­ny Burgess Lists His Five Favorite Dystopi­an Nov­els: Orwell’s 1984, Huxley’s Island & More

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall, on Face­book, or on Insta­gram.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away Opens in China 18 Years After Its Original Release: See Beautiful New Posters for the Film

in Animation, Film | June 17th, 2019

Ani­ma­tion fans all over the world love the films of Japan­ese ani­ma­tor Hayao Miyaza­ki, but ani­ma­tion fans in Chi­na have nev­er, until very recent­ly, been able to see them on the big screen. Part of the prob­lem has to do with the sen­si­tiv­i­ty of Chi­nese author­i­ties to what sort of media enters the coun­try — espe­cial­ly media from a coun­try like Japan, with which Chi­na has not always seen eye to eye. “Miyaza­ki films did not open the­atri­cal­ly in Chi­na until a re-release of My Neigh­bor Totoro in Decem­ber 2018,” writes Indiewire’s Zack Scharf, “one sign that the rela­tion­ship between Japan and Chi­na is get­ting less tense.”

Miyaza­k­i’s Stu­dio Ghi­b­li has pro­duced few char­ac­ters as win­ning as Totoro — the out­sized guardian of the for­est who resem­bles a cross between a cat, an owl, and maybe a bear — and his win­ning over of Chi­na’s cen­sors seemed to have opened the gates to the Mid­dle King­dom for the rest of Miyaza­k­i’s beloved fil­mog­ra­phy. “The Totoro release was a huge box office suc­cess with more than $26 mil­lion,” writes Scharf, “and Spir­it­ed Away is wide­ly expect­ed to per­form even bet­ter giv­en its endur­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty.” Hav­ing opened in Japan back in 2001 as 千と千尋の神隠し, or “The Spir­it­ing-Away of Sen and Chi­hi­ro,” it stands not only as the top-gross­ing film of all time at the Japan­ese box office, but one of the sev­er­al undis­put­ed mas­ter­pieces among Miyaza­k­i’s works.

Spir­it­ed Away tells the sto­ry of a ten-year-old girl who, lost in an aban­doned amuse­ment park, finds her way into a par­al­lel world pop­u­lat­ed with the count­less spir­it crea­tures enu­mer­at­ed in the Japan­ese folk reli­gion of shin­to — which, as revealed in Wise­crack­’s video essay “The Phi­los­o­phy of Hayao Miyaza­ki,” fig­ures heav­i­ly into some, and per­haps all of the mas­ter’s work. As dis­pleas­ing as the pres­ence of reli­gion, let alone a Japan­ese reli­gion, may long have been to Chi­nese high­er-ups, the Chi­nese pub­lic’s enthu­si­asm for Miyaza­k­i’s films can hard­ly be dis­put­ed.

That pow­er­ful force could even return to Spir­it­ed Away the title of most suc­cess­ful Japan­ese ani­mat­ed film ever, which it held until Mako­to Shinkai’s Your Name came along in 2017. The mar­ket­ing of Spir­it­ed Away’s eigh­teen-year-late Chi­nese the­atri­cal release, which includes this series of posters new­ly designed by artist Zao Dao, will cer­tain­ly help give it a push. Every Ghi­b­li enthu­si­ast in Chi­na will cer­tain­ly come out for it, and with luck, they may also be able to see the upcom­ing How Do You Live? — Miyaza­k­i’s next and per­haps final film, for whose pro­duc­tion he came out of the lat­est of his retire­ments — in the­aters along with the rest of the world.

via @MadmanFilms

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Phi­los­o­phy of Hayao Miyaza­ki: A Video Essay on How the Tra­di­tion­al Japan­ese Reli­gion Shin­to Suf­fus­es Miyazaki’s Films

Watch Hayao Miyazaki’s Beloved Char­ac­ters Enter the Real World

How the Films of Hayao Miyaza­ki Work Their Ani­mat­ed Mag­ic, Explained in 4 Video Essays

Watch Hayao Miyaza­ki Ani­mate the Final Shot of His Final Fea­ture Film, The Wind Ris­es

Hayao Miyazaki’s Mas­ter­pieces Spir­it­ed Away and Princess Mononoke Imag­ined as 8‑Bit Video Games

The Simp­sons Pay Won­der­ful Trib­ute to the Ani­me of Hayao Miyaza­ki

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall, on Face­book, or on Insta­gram.

 

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

« Go Back — More in this category... »
Quantcast