David Simon, Creator of The Wire, Named 2010 MacArthur Fellow

in Art, Film, Television | September 27th, 2010

The 2010 MacArthur Fel­lows were named today. The lat­est “genius” grants go to 23 recip­i­ents, includ­ing David Simon, the cre­ator of The Wire, the long run­ning HBO show that was real­ly (Simon once said) “a polit­i­cal tract mas­querad­ing as a cop show.” Above, Simon talks more about the thread run­ning through his work. The Wire, Treme and Gen­er­a­tion Kill – they’re all ulti­mate­ly about the end of the Amer­i­can Empire, and the cit­i­zens that get left behind. Like the oth­er grant win­ners, Simon will receive $500,000 over the next five years to spend how­ev­er he sees fit …

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Free Online: The Original Superman Cartoon Series in Technicolor (1941–1943)

in Art, Film, Television | September 16th, 2010

Ear­li­er this week, we flagged a dig­i­tal archive of com­ic books from the Gold­en Age. Now we stum­ble upon this nugget from the same era: A video archive that show­cas­es the com­plete Super­man ani­mat­ed car­toon series from the ear­ly 40’s, all in Tech­ni­col­or. Based on the orig­i­nal DC Comics char­ac­ter, these 17 episodes appeared on Amer­i­can movie screens (before the show­ing of fea­ture films) between 1941 and 1943. And they were tak­en seri­ous­ly as an art form. The first episode, com­mon­ly known as “The Mad Sci­en­tist” (watch above), was nom­i­nat­ed for an Oscar in 1942, and, in case you some­how missed it, it spells out the whole premise/backstory of the Super­man saga. These episodes – all now in the pub­lic domain – can be viewed on Youtube. Wikipedia pro­vides some oth­er options for watching/downloading these vin­tage bits of Amer­i­cana media.

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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Nelson Mandela’s First-Ever TV Interview (1961)

in History, Politics, Television, Video - Politics/Society | July 28th, 2010

Note: This post was orig­i­nal­ly fea­tured on our site in 2010. In light of the news that Nel­son Man­dela has passed away at age 95, we’re bring­ing this vin­tage clip back to the fore. Here you can see a young Man­dela mak­ing his­to­ry, and with­out per­haps real­iz­ing it, build­ing the remark­able lega­cy that remains with us today.

In 1962, Nel­son Man­dela was arrest­ed on alle­ga­tions of sab­o­tage and oth­er charges and sen­tenced to life in prison, where he spent 27 years before becom­ing South Africa’s first pres­i­dent elect­ed in a ful­ly demo­c­ra­t­ic elec­tion. His sto­ry, among mod­ern his­to­ry’s most pro­found­ly inspi­ra­tional, is beau­ti­ful­ly and poet­i­cal­ly cap­tured in Clint East­wood’s 2009 gem, Invic­tus. But what East­wood’s account leaves out are the events that pre­ced­ed and led to Man­de­la’s arrest.

In May of 1961, a 42-year-old Man­dela gave his first-ever inter­view to ITN reporter Bri­an Wid­lake as part of a longer ITN Rov­ing Report pro­gram about Apartheid. At that point, the police are already hunt­ing for Man­dela, but Wid­lake pulls some strings and arranges to meet him in his hide­out. When the reporter asks Man­dela what Africans want, he prompt­ly responds:

“The Africans require, want the fran­chise, the basis of One Man One Vote – they want polit­i­cal inde­pen­dence.”

But per­haps more inter­est­ing is the dia­logue towards the end of the inter­view, where Man­dela explores the com­plex rela­tion­ship between peace and vio­lence as protest and nego­ti­a­tion tac­tics. We’re left won­der­ing whether his seem­ing­ly sud­den shift from a com­plete­ly peace­ful cam­paign strat­e­gy up to that point towards con­sid­er­ing vio­lence as a pos­si­bil­i­ty may be the prod­uct of South African police going after him with full force that week. Vio­lence, it seems, does breed vio­lence even in the best and noblest of us.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Nel­son Man­dela Archive Goes Online (With Help From Google)

The Nel­son Man­dela Dig­i­tal Archive Goes Online

U2 Releas­es a Nel­son Man­dela-Inspired Song, “Ordi­nary Love”

Maria Popo­va is the founder and edi­tor in chief of Brain Pick­ings, a curat­ed inven­to­ry of eclec­tic inter­est­ing­ness and indis­crim­i­nate curios­i­ty. She writes for Wired UK, GOOD Mag­a­zine, Big­Think and Huff­in­g­ton Post, and spends a dis­turb­ing amount of time curat­ing inter­est­ing­ness on Twit­ter.

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Mike Wallace and Bennett Cerf (Founder of Random House) Talk Censorship

in Books, Television | July 27th, 2010

Long before 60 Min­utes, Mike Wal­lace host­ed his own talk show, The Mike Wal­lace Inter­view (1957 — 1960), where he asked prob­ing ques­tions to celebri­ties of the day. The com­plete archive – now avail­able via the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas (access it here) – fea­tures inter­views with Frank Lloyd Wright, Eleanor Roo­sevelt, Sal­vador Dali, Rein­hold Niebuhr, Aldous Hux­ley, and Hen­ry Kissinger, to name a few. In anoth­er notable inter­view, Wal­lace talked with Ben­nett Cerf (watch here), co-founder of the pub­lish­ing giant Ran­dom House, and even­tu­al­ly the con­ver­sa­tion turned to cen­sor­ship. Cer­f’s com­ments date back more than 50 years, but the issue nev­er real­ly goes away. File under: “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.”

WALLACE: Well, yet you say, one of the great­est threats fac­ing book pub­lish­ing and the entire coun­try is cen­sor­ship.

CERF: That’s right.

WALLACE: What is the… Who does the cen­sor­ing, and what is the motive of those who cen­sor?

CERF: Well, now that would take a lot of explo­ration Mike. I think there are an awful lot of peo­ple in this coun­try, who are not sat­is­fied to gov­ern them­selves and their own fam­i­lies. Or the peo­ple who belong to the same cult that they do, but who have tak­en upon them­selves, to tell every­body else what they should read, what they should see, and what they should think.

WALLACE: For what rea­son do they do it?

CERF: I guess, they think it will make them more sure of get­ting to heav­en. I don’t know why they do it. I think they’re sell­ing short, the good taste of the Amer­i­can pub­lic.

WALLACE: Who are these peo­ple, who would like to inflict this kind of cen­sor­ship upon the Amer­i­can pub­lic? What are the groups?

CERF: Self-appoint­ed snoop hounds.

WALLACE: Such as… such as…

CERF: They come from all… walks of life, er… in all the way back to colo­nial days, and in times of the Puri­tans. There were peo­ple who were telling oth­ers, what they most think, how they must behave, and what their morals must be. These peo­ple can­not resist butting in.

via Richard S.

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Ingmar Bergman Visits The Dick Cavett Show, 1971

in Film, Television | July 21st, 2010

Run­ning from 1968 to 1982, “The Dick Cavett Show” some­times brought heady cul­ture to the Amer­i­can air­waves. In this par­tic­u­lar case, Cavett gave Amer­i­cans a close up view of Ing­mar Bergman, the influ­en­tial Swedish direc­tor so admired by Woody Allen. (Allen once called Bergman “prob­a­bly the great­est film artist, all things con­sid­ered, since the inven­tion of the motion pic­ture cam­era.”) Cavet­t’s wide-rang­ing, 60 minute inter­view appears above. Thanks Rober­ta for the lead on this one.

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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Bruce Lee Auditions for The Green Hornet (1964)

in Television | June 22nd, 2010

Here’s where the leg­end of Bruce Lee all began (at least for Amer­i­can audi­ences). Back in 1964, Lee, only 24 years old, was invit­ed to audi­tion for The Green Hor­net. And he nailed it, land­ing a star­ring role on the short-lived ABC tele­vi­sion series. Dur­ing these eight vin­tage min­utes, Lee gives you, the view­er, the the­o­ry and prac­tice of kung fu. It’s all rather enjoy­able to watch, unless you’re the slow-reflexed man shar­ing the stage with him. The real action begins at the 4:05 minute mark.

Thanks to Maria Popo­va, aka @BrainPicker, for giv­ing us a heads up on this…

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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David Simon Takes New York Down a Peg

in Television | May 21st, 2010

Speak­ing in New York City, David Simon, the cre­ator of The Wire, was­n’t shy about tak­ing the city to task. “There is no city more vain about its posi­tion in pop­u­lar cul­ture, more indif­fer­ent to oth­er real­i­ties, more self absorbed than oth­er cities.” “Man­hat­tan is [now] one big pile of mon­ey,” which leaves it divorced from the real prob­lems fac­ing oth­er Amer­i­can cities. So why are so many sto­ries and tele­vi­sion shows still cen­tered in New York, and how can they tell the real tale of urban Amer­i­ca in 2010?

This talk took place at The New School for Lib­er­al Arts in NYC.

via The Dai­ly Dish

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Lena Horne on “What’s My Line” (1958)

in Music, Television | May 10th, 2010


Anoth­er great way to remem­ber the great Lena Horne. This clip brings you back to 1958, when Horne appeared on What’s My Line, the longest-run­ning game show in Amer­i­can tele­vi­sion his­to­ry. Dur­ing its eigh­teen sea­sons, the show fea­tured hun­dreds of celebri­ties, includ­ing some of America’s lead­ing cul­tur­al fig­ures. You can rewind the video tape and also check out appear­ances made by Sal­vador Dali, Alfred Hitch­cock, Frank Lloyd Wright, Eleanor Roo­sevelt, Grou­cho Marx, Carl Sand­burg, among oth­ers.

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