Ladies and Gentlemen… Mr. Leonard Cohen: The Poet-Musician Featured in a 1965 Documentary

in Film, Literature, Poetry | October 14th, 2011

Look what the vin­tage video gods have deliv­ered today. Filmed in 1965, the black and white doc­u­men­tary Ladies and Gen­tle­men… Mr. Leonard Cohen intro­duces view­ers to a young Leonard Cohen. Then only 30 years old (and look­ing a lit­tle like Dustin Hoff­man), Cohen had already estab­lished him­self as a poet and nov­el­ist. But his leg­endary career as a singer-song­writer was just bare­ly get­ting under­way. The 44 minute doc­u­men­tary all takes place in his home­town of Mon­tre­al, the city to which Cohen con­tin­u­al­ly returns “to renew his neu­rot­ic affil­i­a­tions” with fam­i­ly and old friends.

Ladies and Gen­tle­men… Mr. Leonard Cohen appears in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online, where you will also find Lian Lunson’s 2005 doc­u­men­tary, Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man, a fas­ci­nat­ing ret­ro­spec­tive of Cohen’s life and work that fea­tures trib­ute per­for­mances by famous artists, includ­ing Beth Orton, Nick Cave, Martha and Rufus Wain­wright, and U2.

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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Italy’s Youngest Led Head

in Music, Poetry | October 1st, 2011

If you liked Fri­day’s post, Jim­my Page Tells the Sto­ry of Kash­mir, then you’ll have a lit­tle fun with this. A short­er ver­sion with sub­ti­tles appears here.

For more moments of cul­tur­al pre­co­cious­ness, don’t miss 3 year old Samuel Chelp­ka recit­ing Bil­ly Collins’ poem “Litany,” and 3 year old Jonathan chan­nel­ing the spir­it of Her­bert von Kara­jan while con­duct­ing the 4th move­ment of Beethoven’s 5th. H/T @MatthiasRascher

Fol­low us on Twit­ter and Face­book, and we’ll keep point­ing you to free cul­tur­al good­ies dai­ly…

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The Brief Wondrous Career of Arthur Rimbaud (1870–1874)

in Poetry | August 25th, 2011

Arthur Rim­baud, once described by Vic­tor Hugo as ‘an infant Shake­speare,’ burst onto the Parisan lit­er­ary scene in 1870, short­ly before he was 16. By the time 1874 rolled around, Rim­baud had bro­ken the con­ven­tions of poet­ry and fash­ioned a new, mod­ern poet­ic lan­guage. He had pub­lished all of his major works — Illu­mi­na­tions, Une sai­son en enfer, etc. – and had his absinthe/hashish-fueled affair with Paul Ver­laine. Then, com­mit­ting an act that still haunts his fans today, the 20 year old renounced poet­ry utter­ly and com­plete­ly and start­ed trav­el­ing the world.

The mys­tery of Rim­baud’s renun­ci­a­tion and his short-lived lit­er­ary career gets revis­it­ed in this week’s edi­tion of The New York­er.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Tom Waits Reads Charles Bukows­ki

Poems as Short Films: Langston Hugh­es, Pablo Neru­da and More

Bill Mur­ray Reads Poet­ry at Con­struc­tion Site

Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free

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Sylvia Plath Reads “Daddy”

in Poetry, Video - Arts & Culture | June 17th, 2011

What do you get for the father who has every­thing? How about a healthy dose of canon­i­cal resent­ment, in the form of Sylvia Plath’s most famous poem, read by Plath her­self, from our list of Cul­tur­al Icons?

Or, if you’d pre­fer some­thing that says “I love you” with a lit­tle less ran­cor, you might want to go with a video that’s guar­an­teed to make him smile.

Hap­py Father’s Day!!!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Antho­ny Hop­kins Reads Dylan Thomas

Vir­ginia Woolf: Her Voice Recap­tured

Ernest Hem­ing­way Reads “In Harry’s Bar in Venice”

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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Penn Sound: Fantastic Audio Archive of Modern & Contemporary Poets

in Poetry | May 31st, 2011

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia hosts an exten­sive and pret­ty remark­able audio col­lec­tion of mod­ern and con­tem­po­rary poet­ry, with a gen­er­ous help­ing of prose writ­ers thrown in. Direct­ed by Al Fil­reis and Charles Bern­stein (whose U. Penn exper­i­men­tal poet­ry cours­es are them­selves works of art), the col­lec­tion includes hun­dreds of names you’ll rec­og­nize imme­di­ate­ly, and oth­ers who are not house­hold names, but ought to be.

You can start with the stars, includ­ing John Ash­bery, F. Scott Fitzger­ald, Amiri Bara­ka, Ezra Pound, William Car­los Williams, and Vladimir Mayakovsky… But don’t be afraid to dig around for a while too. We were delight­ed to find “The Out­cry,” a favorite poem by the won­der­ful William Bronk, and sev­er­al fas­ci­nat­ing pod­cast inter­views with Cid Cor­man.

For more poet­ry, don’t miss the read­ings in our col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books.

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Vari­ety, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

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Gil Scott-Heron, Godfather of Rap, Rest in Peace

in Music, Poetry | May 27th, 2011

Gil Scott-Heron, some­times called the “God­fa­ther of Rap,” passed away in New York today. He was 62 years old.

Scott-Heron start­ed set­ting poet­ry to rhyth­mic jazz dur­ing the late 60s and and gained fame when he record­ed The Rev­o­lu­tion Will Not Be Tele­vised in 1971. Almost 40 years lat­er, he released his final album, I’m New Here, which includ­ed a track called Where Did the Night Go that’s fea­tured above. That same year, the New York­er pub­lished a pro­file – New York Is Killing Me: The unlike­ly sur­vival of Gil Scott-Heron – that takes you through a life that knew hard­ship from begin­ning to end, but which brimmed with cre­ativ­i­ty in between.

If this is your first intro­duc­tion to Scott-Heron’s record­ings, let us refer you to The Bot­tle, Win­ter in Amer­i­ca, Johan­nes­burg, and Ain’t No Such Thing As Super­man…

Don’t miss us on Face­book and Twit­ter.

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Sir Anthony Hopkins Reads Dylan Thomas’ “Do not go gentle into that good night.”

in Poetry, Video - Arts & Culture | May 27th, 2011

The great actor Sir Antho­ny Hop­kins is well versed in the work of fel­low Welsh­man Dylan Thomas — so much so he even direct­ed the crit­i­cal­ly laud­ed film Dylan Thomas: The Return Jour­ney in 2006. Here, he is read­ing one of Thomas’ best-known poems, “Do not go gen­tle into that good night.” (If any­one knows when this video was made, please drop us a line.)

There is, of course, no read­er of Thomas’ poet­ry equal to Thomas him­self. Just lis­ten to this BBC record­ing from 1951, the year the beloved vil­lanelle was first pub­lished. But if dul­cet tones and min­i­mal­ist record­ings aren’t your thing, then you might want to check out this John Cale ver­sion.

And then, because it’s Fri­day, don’t for­get Rod­ney Dan­ger­field.

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:

Lis­ten­ing to Famous Poets Read­ing Their Own Work

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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Poems as Short Films: Langston Hughes, Pablo Neruda and More

in Film, Poetry, Video - Arts & Culture | April 13th, 2011

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.

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