The World’s Best Commercials from 2012–2013 Named at Cannes

in Television | June 26th, 2013

Grow­ing up, I used to watch those com­pi­la­tions of com­mer­cials tele­vi­sion net­works would throw togeth­er to cheap­ly fill air­time: Amer­i­ca’s Fun­ni­est Com­mer­cials, Coolest Com­mer­cials of the Year, The Most Inex­plic­a­ble For­eign Com­mer­cials You’ve Ever Seen. This speaks not only to how bor­ing a child­hood I must oth­er­wise have had, but to how many adver­tise­ments real­ly do, if looked at from the right angle, con­tain a ker­nel of cre­ative val­ue. The Cannes Lions Inter­na­tion­al Fes­ti­val of Cre­ativ­i­ty, the world adver­tis­ing indus­try’s biggest gath­er­ing, recent­ly anoint­ed a few of 2012–13’s com­mer­cials as worth watch­ing on pur­pose. You can watch 21 of them on Adweek’s web­site (though be warned that they unfor­giv­ably put each video on a sep­a­rate page). At the top you’ll find the first, Mel­bourne Metro’s train-safe­ty spot “Dumb Ways to Die.”

You may have encoun­tered it before, when it went mild­ly viral due to not only its sheer macabre cute­ness, but pre­sum­ably pub­lic shock at see­ing a tran­sit agency com­mis­sion some­thing enter­tain­ing. I’ve cer­tain­ly seen many a tin-eared pitch by the Metro in my own city, Los Ange­les. I’ve also seen stub­by Smart Fort­wos sprout up like mobile mush­rooms here, and the ad just above by Big­fish Film­pro­duc­tion tells me why by label­ing it “the ulti­mate city car” — and under­scor­ing the point by show­ing just how poor­ly it fares out in the wilder­ness. Below, you’ll find a com­mer­cial for a brand that hard­ly needs adver­tise­ment: Leica. It trades on the rich his­to­ry of the Leica cam­era, but tells it from the point of view of the cam­era itself, shoot­ing in the style of a clas­sic World War II film. (If it stirs you to learn more, con­sid­er read­ing “Can­did Cam­era,” Antho­ny Lane’s med­i­ta­tion on the Leica for the New York­er.)

H/T Kim L.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Lynch’s Sur­re­al Com­mer­cials

Fellini’s Fan­tas­tic TV Com­mer­cials

Sal­vador Dalí Goes Com­mer­cial: Three Strange Tele­vi­sion Ads

Dig­i­tal Archive of Vin­tage Tele­vi­sion Com­mer­cials

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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Watch Monty Python’s “Summarize Proust Competition” on the 100th Anniversary of Swann’s Way

in Comedy, Literature, Television | June 25th, 2013

Mar­cel Proust’s Swan­n’s Way, the first vol­ume of In Search of Lost Time, appeared in 1913. This year, exact­ly a cen­tu­ry lat­er, Proust enthu­si­asts, both indi­vid­u­al­ly and insti­tu­tion­al­ly, have found all man­ner of ways to cel­e­brate. The Mor­gan Library and Muse­um, for instance, put on an exhi­bi­tion of “a fas­ci­nat­ing selec­tion of the author’s note­books, pre­lim­i­nary drafts, gal­ley-proofs, and oth­er doc­u­ments from the col­lec­tion of the Bib­lio­thèque nationale de France” — lit­er­ar­i­ly seri­ous stuff. For a Proust cen­ten­ni­al expe­ri­ence equal­ly lit­er­ary but far less seri­ous, why not watch the Mon­ty Python sketch above depict­ing the “All-Eng­land Sum­ma­rize Proust Com­pe­ti­tion”?

The sit­u­a­tion presents the chal­lenge you’d expect: con­tes­tants must relate, in fif­teen sec­onds, the entire­ty of Proust’s sev­en-vol­ume mas­ter­work, “once in a swim­suit, and once in evening dress.” The attempt of one hap­less par­tic­i­pant, por­trayed by Gra­ham Chap­man, runs as fol­lows: “Proust’s nov­el osten­si­bly tells of the irrev­o­ca­bil­i­ty of time lost, the for­fei­ture of inno­cence through expe­ri­ence, the rein­stall­ment of extra-tem­po­ral val­ues of time regained. Ulti­mate­ly, the nov­el is both opti­mistic and set with­in the con­text of a humane reli­gious expe­ri­ence, re-stat­ing as it does the con­cept of atem­po­ral­i­ty. In the first vol­ume, Swann, the fam­i­ly friend, vis­its…” But ah, too long. Watch the whole thing and find out if Michael Pal­in’s char­ac­ter fares any bet­ter at sum­ma­riz­ing the unsum­ma­riz­able, and, this hap­pen­ing in Mon­ty Python’s real­i­ty, how quick­ly it will all cease to mat­ter any­way.

Works by Proust can be found in our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

New Ani­mat­ed Film Tells the Life Sto­ry of Mon­ty Python’s Gra­ham Chap­man

John Cleese’s Eulo­gy for Gra­ham Chap­man: ‘Good Rid­dance, the Free-Load­ing Bas­tard, I Hope He Fries’

Mon­ty Python’s Best Phi­los­o­phy Sketch­es

Mon­ty Python Chan­nel Launch­es on Youtube

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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Serge Gainsbourg & Brigitte Bardot Perform Outlaw-Inspired Love Song, ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ (1968)

in Music, Television | June 24th, 2013

In 1967, two icons of French pop­u­lar cul­ture went out on a date. It did­n’t go well. The usu­al­ly cool Serge Gains­bourg was so intim­i­dat­ed by Brigitte Bar­dot’s beau­ty that his noto­ri­ous charm failed him. Believ­ing he had blown his chance, Gains­bourg was sur­prised when Bar­dot tele­phoned and said he could make amends by writ­ing her “the most beau­ti­ful love song you can imag­ine.”

Gains­bourg respond­ed by writ­ing two songs. One was called “Bon­nie and Clyde.” It was inspired by that year’s hit film of the same name by Arthur Penn, star­ring Faye Dun­away and War­ren Beat­ty as the noto­ri­ous 1930s out­laws Bon­nie Park­er and Clyde Bar­row.

Gains­bourg com­posed the song around a French trans­la­tion of a poem Park­er wrote a few weeks before she and Bar­row were gunned down by law­men. (See footage from the scene of their death here.) It begins:

You’ve read the sto­ry of Jesse James
of how he lived and died.
If you’re still in need;
of some­thing to read,
here’s the sto­ry of Bon­nie and Clyde.

Now Bon­nie and Clyde are the Bar­row gang
I’m sure you all have read.
how they rob and steal;
and those who squeal,
are usu­al­ly found dying or dead.

There’s lots of untruths to these write-ups;
they’re not as ruth­less as that.
their nature is raw;
they hate all the law,
the stool pigeons, spot­ters and rats.

They call them cold-blood­ed killers
they say they are heart­less and mean.
But I say this with pride
that I once knew Clyde,
when he was hon­est and upright and clean.

But the law fooled around;
kept tak­ing him down,
and lock­ing him up in a cell.
Till he said to me;
“I’ll nev­er be free,
so I’ll meet a few of them in hell.”

The scene above, with Gains­bourg and Bar­dot per­form­ing the song, was broad­cast on The Brigitte Bar­dot Show in ear­ly 1968. The song was released lat­er that year on two albums: Ini­tials B.B. and Bon­nie and Clyde. The romance between Gains­bourg and Bar­dot was short. She returned to her sec­ond hus­band and he met actress Jane Birkin, with whom he record­ed the sec­ond song he wrote for Bar­dot: “Je t’aime…mois non plus,” which means “I Love You…Me Nei­ther.”

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James Gandolfini Shows Kinder, Softer, Gentler Side on Sesame Street (2002)

in Life, Television | June 23rd, 2013

When James Gan­dolfi­ni first broke into film, he played Vir­gil, a bru­tal woman-beat­ing mafioso (view­er beware), in the 1993 thriller, True Romance, writ­ten by Quentin Taran­ti­no. In Ter­mi­nal Veloc­i­ty, he was back at it again, play­ing a Russ­ian mob­ster. By the 1999, when The Sopra­nos first aired on HBO, Gan­dolfi­ni had per­fect­ed the mob­ster role. The explo­sive anger, the raw vio­lence, the col­or­ful lan­guage — he had it all down. Of course, this con­tributed to a good gag when Gan­dolfi­ni appeared on Sesame Street in 2002. Now the world had the chance to see the actor as it had­n’t seen him before. Meek, timid, and death­ly afraid of giant talk­ing veg­eta­bles. It’s an endear­ing lit­tle scene.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

See Ste­vie Won­der Play “Super­sti­tion” and Ban­ter with Grover on Sesame Street in 1973

Philip Glass Com­pos­es for Sesame Street (1979)

Mor­gan Free­man Teach­es Kids to Read in Vin­tage Elec­tric Com­pa­ny Footage from 1971

 

 

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The Late James Gandolfini, Star of The Sopranos, Appears on Inside the Actors Studio (2004)

in Life, Television | June 19th, 2013

We often write about the cur­rent “gold­en age” of high­ly craft­ed, the­mat­i­cal­ly lay­ered, tonal­ly var­ied tele­vi­sion dra­ma, espe­cial­ly its well-known recent high water marks in series like The Wire, Mad Men, and Break­ing Bad. But if you believe many tele­vi­sion crit­ics, this long and cap­ti­vat­ing wave first rose back in 1999 with David Chase’s ultra­mod­ern mob show The Sopra­nos. Noth­ing onscreen drove its six sea­sons quite so dynam­i­cal­ly as the star­ring per­for­mance from James Gan­dolfi­ni as put-upon mafia boss Tony Sopra­no. The actor’s sud­den pass­ing yes­ter­day will sure­ly prompt count­less Sopra­nos fans to watch the entire series again, and as many soon-to-be Sopra­nos fans to final­ly catch up with the tele­vi­sion mas­ter­piece they’d missed. Before you launch into either of those extend­ed view­ing ses­sions, though (or their nine-minute com­pres­sion), con­sid­er watch­ing Gan­dolfini’s 2004 appear­ance on Inside the Actors Stu­dio at the top of the post (with Span­ish sub­ti­tles).

Gan­dolfini’s con­ver­sa­tion with host James Lip­ton cov­ers his Ital­ian fam­i­ly, his ear­ly work on the stage, his first turn as a mob­ster in True Romance (which includ­ed an appear­ance in what Lip­ton calls the most vio­lent scene Quentin Taran­ti­no ever wrote), which oth­er big star’s father his own father bought tires from, the praise Roger Ebert gave him, how he sees point of view as cen­tral to the craft of act­ing, and how Tony Sopra­no first entered his life. Lip­ton asks Gan­dolfi­ni what he saw in the char­ac­ter that he felt he could play. “It’s a man in strug­gle,” the actor replies. “He does­n’t have a reli­gion. He does­n’t believe in the gov­ern­ment. He does­n’t believe in any­thing except his code of hon­or, and his code of hon­or’s all going to shit. He has noth­ing left, so he’s look­ing around — that search­ing I think a lot of Amer­i­ca does half the time.” Just above, you can watch one of many intense moments in the life of Tony Sopra­no, this one a domes­tic one-on-one with his wife Carmela, played by the also-acclaimed Edie Fal­co.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

James Gan­dolfi­ni Reads from Mau­rice Sendak’s Sto­ry Book “In The Night Kitchen”

The Nine Minute Sopra­nos

David Chase Speaks

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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See Stevie Wonder Play “Superstition” and Banter with Grover on Sesame Street in 1973

in Education, K-12, Music, Television | June 19th, 2013

In 1969, Sesame Street debuted and intro­duced America’s children—growing up in the midst of intense dis­putes over integration—to its urban sen­si­bil­i­ties and mul­ti­cul­tur­al cast, all dri­ven by the lat­est in child­hood devel­op­ment research and Jim Hen­son wiz­ardry. Despite the racial­ly frac­tious times of its ori­gin, the show was a suc­cess (although the state of Mis­sis­sip­pi briefly banned it in 1970), and its list of celebri­ty guests from every con­ceiv­able domain reflect­ed the diver­si­ty of its cast and hip­ness of its tone. With cer­tain excep­tions (par­tic­u­lar­ly in lat­er per­mu­ta­tions), it’s always been a show that knew how to gauge the tenor of the times and appeal broad­ly to both chil­dren and their weary, cap­tive guardians.

Being one of those weary cap­tives, I can’t say enough how grate­ful I’ve been when a rec­og­niz­able face inter­rupts Elmo’s bab­bling to sing a song or do a lit­tle com­e­dy bit, wink­ing at the par­ents all the while. These moments are few­er and far­ther between in the lat­er ages of the show, but in the sev­en­ties, Sesame Street had musi­cal rou­tines wor­thy of Sat­ur­day Night Live. Take, for exam­ple, the 1973 appear­ance of Ste­vie Won­der on the show. While I was born too late to catch this when it aired, there’s no doubt that the child me would find Won­der and his band as funky as the grown-up par­ent does. Check them out above doing “Super­sti­tion.”

Like most musi­cal artists who vis­it the show, Ste­vie also cooked some­thing espe­cial­ly for the kids. In the clip above, watch him do a lit­tle num­ber called “123 Sesame Street.” Won­der breaks out the talk box, a favorite gad­get of his (he turned Framp­ton on to it). The band gets so into it, you’d think this was a cut off their lat­est album, and the kids (the show nev­er used child actors) rock out like only sev­en­ties kids can. The show’s orig­i­nal theme song had its charm, but why the pro­duc­ers didn’t imme­di­ate­ly change it to this is beyond me. I’d pay vin­tage vinyl prices to get it on record.

Final­ly, in our last clip from Stevie’s won­der­ful guest spot, he takes a break from full-on funk and roll to give Grover a lit­tle scat les­son and show off his pipes. The great Frank Oz as the voice of Grover is, as always, a per­fect com­ic foil.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Philip Glass Com­pos­es for Sesame Street (1979)

Mon­ster­piece The­ater Presents Wait­ing for Elmo, Calls BS on Samuel Beck­ett

Jim Hen­son Pilots The Mup­pet Show with Adult Episode, “Sex and Vio­lence” (1975)

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

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Mick Jagger, 15 Years Old, Shows Off His Rock Climbing Shoes on British TV (1959)

in Music, Television | June 14th, 2013

In the 1950s, Mick Jag­ger (then still called “Mike Jag­ger”) was a mid­dle class kid grow­ing up in Dart­ford, Kent, Eng­land. His moth­er, Eva, was a hair­dress­er; his father, Joe, a PE teacher. Togeth­er, they lived in a nice, order­ly home, with more than enough mon­ey to pay the bills. (His neigh­bor, Kei­th Richards, could­n’t say the same.) In 1957, the elder Jag­ger began con­sult­ing on a week­ly TV show called See­ing Sport, which pro­mot­ed the virtues of sports to British chil­dren. Dur­ing the com­ing years, Mick and his broth­er Chris made reg­u­lar appear­ances on the show, show­ing view­ers how to build a tent, or mas­ter var­i­ous canoe­ing skills. In the 1959 clip above, Mick shows off the footwear need­ed for rock climb­ing. Noth­ing too fan­cy. No moun­taineer­ing boots or any­thing like that. Just a pair of “ordi­nary gym shoes … like the kind Mike is wear­ing.”  The episode was shot in a spot called “High Rocks,” near Tun­bridge Wells. This back­ground info comes to us via Philip Nor­man’s 2012 biog­ra­phy of Mick Jag­ger.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Jim­my Page, 13, Plays Gui­tar on BBC Tal­ent Show (1957)

The Bea­t­les as Teens (1957)

The Rolling Stones Sing Jin­gle for Rice Krispies Com­mer­cial (1964)

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Samuel L. Jackson Does a Dramatic Breaking Bad Monologue for Alzheimer’s Charity

in Television | June 7th, 2013

Over a career going strong since the sev­en­ties, Samuel L. Jack­son has shown us time and again that he can deliv­er a mono­logue — a boon to the craft of screen act­ing, where brief but pow­er­ful speech­es seemed to have fall­en out of fash­ion just before Jack­son’s rise to fame in the nineties. His per­for­mance as Jheri-curled hit­man Jules Win­n­field in Quentin Taran­ti­no’s Pulp Fic­tion, of course, sup­plied one of the engines of that fame, and who among us does­n’t know at least part of his Bib­li­cal “I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furi­ous anger” from ear­ly in that movie? In the nineties, crit­ics looked to Amer­i­can inde­pen­dent film for excit­ing, inno­v­a­tive sto­ry­telling. At the moment, they look to tele­vi­sion, and specif­i­cal­ly to shows like Break­ing Bad. At the top of the post, you can see these worlds col­lide, with Jack­son’s record­ing of his own ver­sion of one of the series’ best known mono­logues.

As mil­que­toast high school chem­istry teacher turned sav­age­ly cal­cu­lat­ing metham­phet­a­mine entre­pre­neur Wal­ter White, Break­ing Bad’s star Bryan Cranston has deliv­ered more than a few strik­ing mono­logues him­self. Beset by a case of ter­mi­nal lung can­cer, White casts off the man he was to become the man who can, by the fourth sea­son, speak the words he speaks just above to his wife, after she objects to the dan­ger of his new line of work. “Who are you talk­ing to right now?” he asks. “Who is it you think you see? Do you know how much I make a year? I mean, even if I told you, you would­n’t believe it. Do you know what would hap­pen if I sud­den­ly decid­ed to stop going in to work? A busi­ness big enough that it could be list­ed on the NASDAQ goes bel­ly-up. Dis­ap­pears. It ceas­es to exist with­out me. No, you clear­ly don’t know who you’re talk­ing to, so let me clue you in. I am not in dan­ger, Skyler. I am the dan­ger.” Jack­son per­formed his ren­di­tion of the mono­logue for an Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion char­i­ty dri­ve, but I would imag­ine Break­ing Bad’s fans as well as Jack­son’s own would hard­ly mind see­ing him turn up on the show for a prop­er role.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Inside Break­ing Bad: Watch Conan O’Brien’s Extend­ed Inter­view with the Show’s Cast and Cre­ator

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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