Soviet Scifi Cinema: The Other Tolstoy in the Movies

in Film, Literature, Sci Fi | April 6th, 2011

Seen by over 20 mil­lion Rus­sians when it came out in 1965, The Hyper­boloid of Engi­neer Garin was a film based on a 1927 nov­el by Alek­sey Niko­layevich Tol­stoy, who is not to be con­fused with his famous rel­a­tive Leo Tol­stoy. This Tol­stoy is gen­er­al­ly thought of as the father of Russ­ian sci­ence fic­tion, and The Garin Death Ray was one of his most famous books (Vladimir Nabokov con­sid­ered it his best).

Hyper­boloid was writ­ten and direct­ed by Alek­san­dr Gintzburg, a high­ly gift­ed cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er who nev­er quite reached the career heights his tal­ent might have war­rant­ed, in part because of his Jew­ish ori­gins, and in part because of the nar­row range of artis­tic free­dom allowed direc­tors work­ing for the State-run cin­e­ma. Gintzburg stayed well with­in that range for this film, which leaves us with an odd­ly com­pelling mix of Sovi­et pro­pa­gan­da and 60’s pop-sci­fi.

As for the plot… we’d rather not give any­thing away. Just think of it as a beau­ti­ful­ly-lit pro­to-1984, with sub­ti­tles and laser beams, star­ring Big Broth­er as the good guy.

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 Shape of A Story: Writing Tips from Kurt Vonnegut

in Books, Literature, Writing | April 4th, 2011

A few years ago, Open Cul­ture read­ers list­ed Slaugh­ter­house Five as one of your top life-chang­ing books. But Kurt Von­negut was not only a great author. He was also an inspi­ra­tion for any­one who aspires to write fic­tion – see for exam­ple his 8 rules for writ­ing fic­tion, which starts with the so-obvi­ous-it’s-often-for­got­ten reminder nev­er to waste your read­er’s time.

In this video, Von­negut fol­lows his own advice and sketch­es some bril­liant blue­prints for envi­sion­ing the “shape” of a sto­ry, all in less than 4 min­utes and 37 sec­onds.

FYI. Orig­i­nal works by Von­negut appear in Free Audio Books and Free eBooks col­lec­tions.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ray Brad­bury Gives 12 Pieces of Writ­ing Advice to Young Authors (2001)

John Steinbeck’s Six Tips for the Aspir­ing Writer and His Nobel Prize Speech

Writ­ing Tips by Hen­ry Miller, Elmore Leonard, Mar­garet Atwood, Neil Gaiman & George Orwell

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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James Earl Jones Reads Othello at White House Poetry Jam

in Literature, Poetry | March 29th, 2011

Not long after tak­ing office, Pres­i­dent Oba­ma host­ed the first White House poet­ry jam – an evening ded­i­cat­ed to the spo­ken word and bring­ing vers­es to life. Esper­an­za Spald­ing’s per­for­mance was a high point. And lat­er came James Earl Jones, arguably the best spe­cial effect in Star Wars, who recit­ed lines from Shake­speare instead of Dr. Seuss (since Jesse Jack­son already cov­ered that lit­er­ary ter­ri­to­ry back in 1991). The read­ing comes from Oth­el­lo. Specif­i­cal­ly, we’re wit­ness­ing Othello’s address to the Venet­ian sen­a­tors.

You can read Oth­el­lo, along with the rest of Shake­speare’s com­plete works, at MIT’s web­site for free. Or you can down­load the works as a free ebook via iTune­sU. We have more on that here…

via DIY Schol­ar

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Passages from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake: The Film

in Film, Literature | March 28th, 2011

Due to its styl­is­tic and lin­guis­tic com­plex­i­ty, James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake ranks among the most dif­fi­cult works of fic­tion. And that is why vir­tu­al­ly no film­mak­er has ever tried to adapt Joyce’s final work for the screen. But after Mary Man­ning Howe adapt­ed pas­sages from the book for the stage (lis­ten to her read­ing from Finnegans Wake here), Amer­i­can ani­ma­tor Mary Ellen Bute accept­ed the chal­lenge and turned Man­ning’s play into a film.

Sad­ly, Mary Ellen Bute’s short films are almost for­got­ten today, but from the 1930s to 1950s her abstract musi­cal shorts were known to a wide audi­ence. Don’t miss her first col­or film from 1938.

Between 1965 and 1967, Bute cre­at­ed her last film, and only fea­ture film, Pas­sages from Finnegans Wake. The movie was screened at the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val and named Best Debut of the Year (1965). The video above shows only the open­ing sequence, but the whole film can be enjoyed online cour­tesy of UbuWeb.

Bonus: You can read Roger Ebert’s 1968 review of Bute’s film here. He admits that he did­n’t enjoy it too much, but con­cedes this may have been because he had­n’t actu­al­ly read the book.

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.

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The Wire as Great Victorian Novel

in Books, Literature, Television | March 25th, 2011

A while back, W. Daniel Hillis made the case that The Wire may rise to the lev­el of – if not sur­pass – Tol­stoy’s War & Peace. Writ­ing for the Edge.org, Hillis went so far as to say:

As much as I liked War and Peace, I prob­a­bly got more out of The Wire. And why should that be sur­pris­ing? More human effort can be put into a tele­vi­sion series than a nov­el and more time is spent con­sum­ing it. If both are exe­cut­ed to their high­est stan­dards, with equal care, skill and insight, we might well expect less from the book.

If we can men­tion The Wire in the same breath as Tol­stoy, then why not anoth­er giant of nine­teenth cen­tu­ry lit­er­a­ture, Charles Dick­ens? Yes, The Wire has been called “Dick­en­sian” too, and this week the Hood­ed Util­i­tar­i­an has re-imag­ined The Wire as a seri­al­ized Vic­to­ri­an nov­el. The premise? Imag­ine The Wire writ­ten in 60 install­ments over the course of six years, start­ing in 1846, by Hor­a­tio Buck­les­by Ogden, a Dick­ens con­tem­po­rary who wrote with a “nuance and atten­tion to detail that Dick­ens nev­er achieved.” Each install­ment ran 30 pages and sold for one shilling apiece.

The Hood­ed Util­i­tar­i­an has­n’t actu­al­ly print­ed these 60 install­ments (because they don’t actu­al­ly exist). But they have pro­duced a few won­der­ful mock pages, and writ­ten a faux piece of lit­er­ary crit­i­cism to accom­pa­ny them. A great job by Joy Delyr­ia and Sean Michael Robin­son.

via Boing­Bo­ing

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Forget the Films, Watch the Titles

in Literature | March 16th, 2011

Some watch the Super Bowl for just the com­mer­cials. Oth­ers watch films for the title designs. Title sequences begin and end every movie. They can be “engag­ing or wild­ly enter­tain­ing … or sim­ply drop dead beau­ti­ful.” They can “ooze with visu­al poet­ry and sophis­ti­cat­ed imagery.” And they can put the audi­ence in the right mood for the movie, or close it in the right way. The ins-and-outs of title design get lov­ing­ly cov­ered by a web­site called For­get the Films, Watch the Titles, and today we’re fea­tur­ing the clos­ing moments of Lemo­ny Snick­et’s A Series of Unfor­tu­nate Events, a 2004 black humor film. This five minute ani­mat­ed sequence is the work of Jamie Caliri, a direc­tor with a self-described pas­sion for visu­al sto­ry telling. Not too long ago, we high­light­ed the ani­ma­tion con­cepts he devel­oped for The Amaz­ing Adven­tures of Kava­lier & Clay. And, here, Caliri sits down for an inter­view with For­get the Films, Watch the Titles and talks about his art­ful approach to title design…

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Danny Boyle’s Frankenstein Live at a Cinema Near You

in Literature, Theatre | March 14th, 2011

Here’s the trail­er for the play Franken­stein, which opens in Lon­don at the Nation­al The­ater this Thurs­day. Two intrigu­ing points: 1.) This pro­duc­tion is helmed by Dan­ny Boyle, the Oscar-win­ning direc­tor behind Slum­dog Mil­ion­aire, 127 Hours, and the appro­pri­ate­ly ter­ri­fy­ing zom­bie movie 28 Days Lat­er. 2.) Boyle’s Franken­stein is part of the Nation­al The­ater Live pro­gram – now in its sec­ond sea­son – and will be simul­cast live in hun­dreds of movie the­aters all over the world. There are 12 par­tic­i­pat­ing venues in Cal­i­for­nia alone – click here to find out if there’s one near you.

For a pre-screen­ing refresh­er, you can down­load Mary Shel­ley’s clas­sic nov­el for free at Project Guten­berg, or as a free audio­book at Lib­riVox. And what­ev­er you do, don’t miss this video of the gor­geous 1934 illus­trat­ed edi­tion, with wood­cuts by the Amer­i­can artist Lynd Ward.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Franken­stein Hits the Sil­ver Screen (1910)

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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Mark Twain Lives (in Animation)

in Art, Literature, Video - Arts & Culture | March 10th, 2011

Tak­ing a page from the RSA play­book, the New York Pub­lic Library has uploaded to its YouTube Chan­nel a series of illus­trat­ed talks. John Waters, Jay‑Z, Wern­er Her­zog – they’re all there. And so too is Mark Twain “read­ing” from his own work – work that was first pub­lished in 2009 with­in a vol­ume called Who is Mark Twain?. Flash Rosen­berg pro­vides the art (see her work on Vimeo); John Lith­gow does the voice.…

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