Room 237: New Documentary Explores Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and Those It Obsesses

in Film | April 9th, 2013

Young movie fans often dis­cov­er the exis­tence of auteurs through one auteur in par­tic­u­lar: Stan­ley Kubrick. Often, they dis­cov­er him through one film in par­tic­u­lar: The Shin­ing. Adapt­ed — loose­ly adapt­ed, to the point of rein­ven­tion — from Stephen King’s nov­el, Kubrick­’s first pic­ture of the eight­ies found itself mar­ket­ed as a straight-on hor­ror movie. Kids savor few expe­ri­ences so rich­ly as get­ting scared by a sto­ry, but when they sit down to get scared by The Shin­ing, they don’t feel quite what they expect­ed to. The movie may fill them with fear (I’ve per­son­al­ly expe­ri­enced no greater dis­tur­bance than the stare of that 1920s fel­low in the dog cos­tume toward the end), but it also fills them with the sense that it does­n’t quite align with all the hor­ror movies they’ve watched before. Some of these kids want to find out why. Soon­er or lat­er, they stum­ble upon Bill Blake­more’s well-known essay “The Fam­i­ly of Man,” which exam­ines The Shin­ing and finds it brim­ming with sym­bol­ism per­tain­ing to Native Amer­i­can dis­pos­ses­sion and slaugh­ter. These kids sure­ly all grow up to become cinephiles, but I like to think that some grew up to become the sub­jects of Room 237, Rod­ney Ascher’s new doc­u­men­tary about Shin­ing obses­sives, whose trail­er you can watch above.

“In 1980 Stan­ley Kubrick released his mas­ter­piece of mod­ern hor­ror The Shin­ing,” reads the trail­er’s crawl. “Over 30 years lat­er, we’re still strug­gling to under­stand its hid­den mean­ings.” John Pow­ers’ NPR piece on the doc­u­men­tary can tell you more. “Where you may think it’s mere­ly a hor­ror sto­ry — remem­ber that blood flood­ing out of the ele­va­tor? — these devo­tees argue that Kubrick­’s movie is real­ly about more than a writer going homi­ci­dal­ly bonkers,” Pow­ers says. “For one, it’s about the geno­cide against Native Amer­i­cans; for anoth­er, it’s about the Holo­caust; yet anoth­er says the film is Kubrick­’s admis­sion that he helped fake footage of the Apol­lo 11 moon land­ing. By way of evi­dence, these folks point to all sorts of ‘clues,’ from the pres­ence in sev­er­al shots of the Calumet Bak­ing Pow­der logo — with its dis­tinc­tive trib­al chief in a feath­ered head­dress — to appar­ent con­ti­nu­ity errors involv­ing mis­placed chairs that, this being Kubrick, can’t pos­si­bly be mere errors.” Whether you cred­it Shin­ing the­o­ries or not, you might con­sid­er pref­ac­ing your own Room 237 screen­ing with a watch of The Shin­ing Code, an hour-long video essay on Kubrick­’s film that puts this mind­set on dis­play. Just promise us you won’t get involved with any moon hoax peo­ple.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Mak­ing The Shin­ing

The Mak­ing of Stan­ley Kubrick’s The Shin­ing (As Told by Those Who Helped Him Make It)

Ter­ry Gilliam: The Dif­fer­ence Between Kubrick (Great Film­mak­er) and Spiel­berg (Less So)

Dark Side of the Moon: A Mock­u­men­tary on Stan­ley Kubrick and the Moon Land­ing Hoax

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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The Only Known Footage of the 1926 Film Adaptation of The Great Gatsby (Which F. Scott Fitzgerald Hated)

in Film, Literature | April 9th, 2013

Every­one’s get­ting ready for the release of The Great Gats­by, the new film adap­ta­tion of F. Scott Fitzger­ald’s 1925 clas­sic nov­el. Direct­ed by Baz Luhrmann, this ver­sion stars Leonar­do DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mul­li­gan, Isla Fish­er and oth­ers. It has been shot in 3D.

Undoubt­ed­ly, crit­ics will be quick to com­pare the 2013 adap­ta­tion to the 1974 pro­duc­tion, which had its own strengths — a screen­play writ­ten by Fran­cis Ford Cop­po­la and Vladimir Nabokov for starters. And then a cast with Robert Red­ford, Mia Far­row, and Sam Water­ston in star­ring roles. See the orig­i­nal trail­er above.

Few­er com­par­isons will be made to the less star-stud­ded adap­ta­tion of 1949, which came into the­aters and then fell into deep obscu­ri­ty. And nary a word will be said about how Luhrman­n’s film stacks up against the first appear­ance of The Great Gats­by on cel­lu­loid. That’s because the 1926 silent film has­n’t been seen in decades. It’s sim­ply lost. All that remains of the orig­i­nal 80 minute film is the one minute trail­er above. And the ghost of F. Scott Fitzger­ald isn’t com­plain­ing. Accord­ing to Anne Mar­garet Daniel’s post in Huff­Po, when Scott and Zel­da saw the film in Hol­ly­wood, they gave the Para­mount pro­duc­tion one big thumbs down. (That’s for you Roger.) Zel­da wrote in a let­ter: “We saw ‘The Great Gats­by’ in the movies. It’s ROTTEN and awful and ter­ri­ble and we left.” Hem­ing­way could­n’t have said it bet­ter.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Sev­en Tips From F. Scott Fitzger­ald on How to Write Fic­tion

Rare Footage of Scott and Zel­da Fitzger­ald From the 1920s

F. Scott Fitzger­ald in Drag (1916)

Find The Great Gats­by in our Free eBooks Col­lec­tion

90 Silent Films in Col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online

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Flashmob Recreates Rembrandt’s “The Night Watch” in a Dutch Shopping Mall

in Art, Business | April 8th, 2013

The Euro­pean bank­ing sec­tor may still be on shaky foot­ing. But it’s not stop­ping Euro­pean banks from putting togeth­er a good flash­mob. Last year, the Span­ish bank, Ban­co Sabadell, brought togeth­er 100 pro­fes­sion­al musi­cians and singers to per­form the anthem of the Euro­pean Union — Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” from his Sym­pho­ny No. 9. And mov­ing­ly so. It all hap­pened in the Plaça de Sant Roc in Sabadell, Spain, a lit­tle north of Barcelona.

This year, we trav­el north to the city of Bre­da in Hol­land, where the Dutch multi­na­tion­al bank ING paid per­form­ers to recre­ate Rem­brandt’s famous paint­ing, The Night Watch, in a shop­ping cen­ter. The occa­sion? The re-open­ing of The Rijksmu­se­um in Ams­ter­dam on April 13 after a long 10-year ren­o­va­tion.

via The Guardian

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Rijksmu­se­um Puts 125,000 Dutch Mas­ter­pieces Online, and Lets You Remix Its Art

Imag­in­ing Rembrandt’s Face­book Time­line

16th-Cen­tu­ry Ams­ter­dam Stun­ning­ly Visu­al­ized with 3D Ani­ma­tion

Google “Art Project” Brings Great Paint­ings & Muse­ums to You

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The World According to John Coltrane: His Life & Music Revealed in Heartfelt 1990 Documentary

in Film, Music | April 8th, 2013

In his short life, John Coltrane con­tin­u­al­ly pushed the bound­aries of music. From swing to bebop to hard bop to free jazz, Coltrane was a rest­less seek­er of new sounds. Inspired by the hyp­not­ic, trance-induc­ing tra­di­tion­al music of North Africa and Asia, Coltrane cre­at­ed a new kind of music that fused jazz and East­ern spir­i­tu­al­i­ty.

The World Accord­ing to John Coltrane tells the sto­ry of Coltrane’s quest, from his child­hood in a deeply reli­gious house­hold in North Car­oli­na to his ear­ly days play­ing sax­o­phone in the Navy, to his appren­tice­ship with Miles Davis in the 1950s and his emer­gence as a band­leader and inno­va­tor in the 1960s. Most of the one-hour film is devot­ed to Coltrane’s lat­er peri­od, when he came into his own. The film is not a biog­ra­phy, in the tra­di­tion­al sense. There is very lit­tle about Coltrane’s per­son­al life — his mar­riages, chil­dren, drug prob­lems and declin­ing health. Direc­tor Robert Palmer focus­es instead on Coltrane’s jour­ney as a musi­cian.

The World Accord­ing to John Coltrane was made in 1990, and includes inter­views with Coltrane’s sec­ond wife, pianist Alice Coltrane, and a num­ber of oth­er musi­cians who knew Coltrane and played with him, includ­ing sax­o­phon­ist Wayne Short­er, drum­mer Rashied Ali and Pianist Tom­my Flana­gan. It pro­vides some excel­lent insights into one of the 20th cen­tu­ry’s great­est musi­cians.

via metafil­ter

Relat­ed Con­tent:

John Coltrane’s Naval Reserve Enlist­ment Mugshot (1945)

John Coltrane Plays Only Live Per­for­mance of A Love Supreme

John Coltrane: Three Great Euro­pean Per­for­mances, 1960, 1961 and 1965

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Humans of New York: Street Photography as a Celebration of Life

in Life, Photography | April 8th, 2013

These days any yahoo with a cell phone and access to the Inter­net fan­cies him or her­self a Hen­ri Carti­er-Bres­son, Ruth Orkin or Helen Levitt, but true street pho­tog­ra­phy involves more than just being in the right place at the right time. Bran­don Stan­ton, the self-taught cre­ator of the wild­ly pop­u­lar Humans of New York blog, has the ded­i­ca­tion as well as the eye and the tech­ni­cal mas­tery. His curios­i­ty and com­pas­sion are abun­dant, but what real­ly sets his work apart is its 21st cen­tu­ry imme­di­a­cy.

Dai­ly, Stan­ton wan­ders the streets of New York, approach­es strangers and asks if he can take some pic­tures. A few hours lat­er, those pho­tos light up Face­book, with cap­tions drawn from the brief col­lab­o­ra­tion between sub­ject and pho­tog­ra­ph­er. In short order, each post gar­ners hun­dreds of likes and com­ments. Nasty feed­back is a rar­i­ty. Stan­ton’s fans seem con­tent to fol­low his lead, find­ing much to cel­e­brate in straight­for­ward pos­es of par­ents with chil­dren, fes­tive­ly attired seniors, and proud odd­balls.

Cer­tain inter­ac­tions beg longer nar­ra­tives, which Stan­ton relates in the “Sto­ries” sec­tion of his web­site. These pieces offer char­ac­ter insights, and often doc­u­ment how the pho­to­graph came to be.

dragonmaster

His gift for empa­thy is best exem­pli­fied in his por­trait of Black Wolf, The Drag­on­mas­ter. I’ve run into this dude every­where from the Coney Island Mer­maid Parade to Cen­tral Park, but con­fess that I found his visu­al pre­sen­ta­tion off putting. Unlike me, Stan­ton looked until he found some­thing uni­ver­sal in the delib­er­ate freak­ish­ness.

…we all need to feel impor­tant. Not New York impor­tant, nec­es­sar­i­ly, but impor­tant. We all need to know that there’s a place in this world that only we can fill. Some peo­ple need big­ger places than oth­ers, but every­one needs a place—a hole in the uni­verse that only they can fill. This need is so deep and food-like and so human that we will do any­thing to fill it. We’ll go crazy to feel impor­tant. A pro­tec­tive, evo­lu­tion­ary sort of crazy. When the body has no food, it will break down mus­cle to feed itself. When the ego has no food, it will break down the mind to feed itself. If we have no place in this world, we’ll with­draw from this world, and inhab­it one where we have a place.

Stan­ton’s lens pro­vides the import, yield­ing images so arrest­ing, they stop us in our tracks. Appre­ci­ate his col­lec­tion of extra­or­di­nary humans, then chal­lenge your­self to notice such spec­i­mens in the wild on a dai­ly basis.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Find­ing Vivian Maier: New Doc­u­men­tary Reveals the Vision of Obscure Chica­go Street Pho­tog­ra­ph­er

Watch as Nation­al Geo­graph­ic Pho­tog­ra­ph­er Steve McCur­ry Shoots the Very Last Roll of Kodachrome

Stan­ley Kubrick’s Jazz Pho­tog­ra­phy and The Film He Almost Made About Jazz Under Nazi Rule

Ayun Hal­l­i­day hopes every Glam­our Don’t will some­day find her­self a Human of New York. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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David Byrne Discusses Here Lies Love, His Disco Musical with Fatboy Slim on the Life of Imelda Marcos

in Music, Theatre | April 8th, 2013

In Imel­da Mar­cos, wid­ow of con­tro­ver­sial for­mer pres­i­dent of the Philip­pines Fer­di­nand Mar­cos, the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry had one of its most col­or­ful first ladies. Or at least, to make the most obvi­ous pos­si­ble joke, it had its first lady with the most col­or­ful col­lec­tion of shoes. In fact, giv­en her coun­try’s his­to­ry of pover­ty and cor­rup­tion, Mar­cos’ report­ed­ly vast and osten­ta­tious wardrobe made her a con­tro­ver­sial fig­ure in her­self. Yet she has nev­er seemed whol­ly uncon­cerned with her lega­cy, and in fact remains a mem­ber of the Philip­pine House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives today. She has wished aloud that her tomb­stone read, sim­ply, “Here lies love,” and that epi­taph gives a title to the dis­co musi­cal that Talk­ing Heads mas­ter­mind David Byrne and DJ/nineties elec­tron­ic phe­nom­e­non Fat­boy Slim have craft­ed to tell the sto­ry of Mar­cos’ life. “Prob­a­bly the first thing you need to know,” writes Allan Kozinn in the New York Times, “is that although it is about Imel­da Mar­cos, the for­mer first lady of the Philip­pines, her famous col­lec­tion of shoes is nei­ther men­tioned nor shown.” At the top of the post, you can watch a short clip of Byrne dis­cussing the inspi­ra­tions for and long ges­ta­tion process of Here Lies Love, not to men­tion his efforts to break down the audi­ence’s pre­con­cep­tions, shoe-relat­ed and oth­er­wise.

“Imel­da, who was this flam­boy­ant, noto­ri­ous kind of per­son on the scene, loved going to dis­cos,” he says. “She loved going to Stu­dio 54. She turned the top floor of the palace in Mani­la into a club. She had a mir­ror ball installed in her New York town­house. [ … ] Maybe there’s a con­nec­tion between the eupho­ria you feel in a dance club and the eupho­ria a per­son in pow­er has. ” Just above, you can lis­ten to the musi­cal’s title num­ber. Despite hav­ing sev­er­al times lis­tened to and enjoyed the entire Here Lies Love album, I under­stand it can’t com­pare to the live ver­sion, because the live ver­sion makes you dance — lit­er­al­ly. Kozinn describes Byrne’s lat­est venue as “trans­formed into an ’80s-style dis­co, and the audi­ence is meant to stand, mill around or, if the spir­it moves, dance through the entire 85-minute show.” Byrne has also writ­ten about the devel­op­ment of Here Lies Love on his diary, and promis­ing­ly. “The stag­ing and the con­cept work,” he assures his fans. “It works so well that I sort of cried at every per­for­mance. [ … ] In the end, I’d say it’s the best thing I’ve done since the Stop Mak­ing Sense tour—which I guess is say­ing some­thing.”

Relat­ed con­tent:

David Byrne Gives Us the Low­down on How Music Works (with Neu­ro­sci­en­tist Daniel Lev­itin)

Lis­ten to the New David Byrne/St. Vin­cent Album, Love This Giant

How David Byrne and Bri­an Eno Make Music Togeth­er: A Short Doc­u­men­tary

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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History of Rock: New MOOC Presents the Music of Elvis, Dylan, Beatles, Stones, Hendrix & More

in MOOCs, Music | April 8th, 2013

Here’s some­thing I can get pret­ty jazzed about. Er, maybe that’s not quite the right verb. But close enough.…

On May 13, the East­man School of Music at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Rochester will launch the first of two MOOCs that will trace the his­to­ry of rock music. Taught by John Cov­ach, a pro­fes­sor of music the­o­ry, The His­to­ry of Rock, Part One will revis­it the 1950s and 1960s, the hal­cy­on days of rock ’n’ roll, which gave us the music of Elvis Pres­ley, Chuck Berry, Phil Spec­tor, Bob Dylan, the Bea­t­les, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hen­drix, Cream, and oth­er bands. The course will focus on the music itself, the cul­tur­al con­text from which rock emerged, and how changes in the music busi­ness and music tech­nol­o­gy shaped this new musi­cal form. The sec­ond course (sched­uled to start on July 8) will move for­ward to the 1970, 80s and 90s and cov­er the music of Led Zep­pelin, the All­man Broth­ers, Car­ole King, Bob Mar­ley, the Sex Pis­tols, Don­na Sum­mer, Michael Jack­son, Madon­na, Prince, Metal­li­ca, Run-DMC, Nir­vana, and oth­er artists. Stu­dents who suc­cess­ful­ly com­plete the course will receive a “State­ment of Accom­plish­ment” signed by the instruc­tor.

Oth­er music cours­es list­ed in our col­lec­tion of 300 Free MOOCs from Great Uni­ver­si­ties include Intro­duc­tion to Gui­tar and Intro­duc­tion to Impro­vi­sa­tion. They’re both cre­at­ed by the Berklee Col­lege of Music and start on April 22.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A His­to­ry of Rock ‘n’ Roll in 100 Riffs

The His­to­ry of Punk Rock

Carnegie Hall MOOC Will Teach You How to Lis­ten to Orches­tras (Free)

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60 Second Adventures in Astronomy Explains the Big Bang, Relativity & More with Fun Animation

in Animation, Astronomy | April 8th, 2013

Like many pos­i­tive terms, the phrase “big bang” orig­i­nat­ed as a pejo­ra­tive. Fred Hoyle coined the term in 1949 as a way of deflat­ing the con­cept of an expand­ing uni­verse. It stuck, even after Edwin Hub­ble showed that 13.7 bil­lion years ago, all of the mat­ter in our mas­sive uni­verse was indeed com­pact­ed into “one super­dense ball.” Astronomers have also fig­ured out that the vol­ume of the big bang was only 120 deci­bels, about the loud­ness of your aver­age rock show (though how there might have been sound with­out an atmos­phere escapes me). There is some irony in Hoyle’s dig: the “big bang” wasn’t par­tic­u­lar­ly big, and wasn’t much of a bang, but it hap­pened.

We learn all this and more in the video above from The Open Uni­ver­si­ty, and all with­in a minute, as the title of the series, 60 Sec­ond Adven­tures in Astron­o­my, promis­es. These amus­ing ani­ma­tions are very much like oth­er OU series we’ve fea­tured in the past: 60 Sec­ond Adven­tures in Eco­nom­ics; 60-Sec­ond Adven­tures in Eco­nom­ics: and 60 Sec­ond Adven­tures in Thought. (Find them all on iTune­sU here.)

The uni­ver­si­ty describes the new astron­o­my series like this:

Ever won­dered where the Uni­verse came from? Or more impor­tant­ly, where it’s head­ed? Voiced by David Mitchell, this series of twelve 60 sec­ond ani­ma­tions exam­ines dif­fer­ent sci­en­tif­ic con­cepts from the big bang to rel­a­tiv­i­ty, from black holes to dark mat­ter. The series also explores the pos­si­bil­i­ty of life beyond Earth and con­sid­ers why David Bowie is still none the wis­er about life on Mars.

Spend a few extra min­utes edu­cat­ing your­self with some more 60 sec­ond astron­o­my adven­tures below, or vis­it the com­plete col­lec­tion here on YouTube or iTune­sU.

Super­novae

Exo­plan­ets

Spe­cial Rel­a­tiv­i­ty

Event Hori­zons

Life on Mars

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Neil deGrasse Tyson Answers the Big Enchi­la­da Ques­tion, “Does the Uni­verse Have a Pur­pose?”

Mea­sur­ing the Uni­verse: How Astronomers Learned to Mea­sure Celes­tial Dis­tances Explained with Ani­ma­tion

The Hig­gs Boson, AKA the God Par­ti­cle, Explained with Ani­ma­tion

Demys­ti­fy­ing the Hig­gs Boson with Leonard Susskind, the Father of String The­o­ry

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The Fine Art of Painting Portraits on Coffee Foam

in Food & Drink | April 6th, 2013

Espres­so is his palette. Cof­fee is his medi­um. Wel­come to the artis­tic world of Mike Breach, a NYC barista, who painstak­ing­ly “paints” por­traits on lattes and cap­puc­ci­nos. After you vis­it Breach’s tum­blr filled with “Baris­tArt,” you’ll nev­er be quite so impressed by that heart-shaped design oth­er baris­tas pour onto your expen­sive foam.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

“The Vertue of the COFFEE Drink”: London’s First Cafe Cre­ates Ad for Cof­fee in the 1650s

Every­thing You Want­ed to Know About Cof­fee in Three Min­utes

The Physics of Cof­fee Rings Final­ly Explained

David Lynch’s Organ­ic Cof­fee (Bar­bie Head Not Includ­ed)

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Daniel Dennett and Cornel West Decode the Philosophy of The Matrix

in Film, Philosophy | April 5th, 2013

Apoth­e­o­sis of cyber­punk cul­ture, 1999’s The Matrix and its less-suc­cess­ful sequels intro­duced a gen­er­a­tion of fan­boys and girls to the most styl­ish expres­sion of some age-old ide­al­ist thought exper­i­ments: the Hin­du con­cept of Maya, Plato’s cave, Descartes’ evil demon, Hilary Putnam’s Brain in a Vat—all notions about the nature of real­i­ty that ask whether what we expe­ri­ence isn’t instead an elab­o­rate illu­sion, con­ceal­ing a “real” world out­side of our per­cep­tu­al grasp. In some versions—such as those of cer­tain Bud­dhists and Chris­t­ian Gnos­tics, whose ideas The Matrix direc­tors bor­rowed liberally—one can awak­en from the dream. In oth­ers, such as Kant’s or Jacques Lacan’s, that prospect is unlike­ly, if impos­si­ble. These ques­tions about the nature of real­i­ty ver­sus appear­ance are main­stays of intro phi­los­o­phy cours­es and stereo­typ­i­cal ston­er ses­sions. But they’re also peren­ni­al­ly rel­e­vant to philoso­phers and neu­ro­sci­en­tists, which is why such aca­d­e­m­ic lumi­nar­ies as Daniel Den­nett and David Chalmers con­tin­ue to address them in their work on the nature and prob­lem of con­scious­ness.

Den­nett, Chalmers, the always cap­ti­vat­ing scholar/theologian/activist Cor­nel West, and a host of oth­er aca­d­e­m­ic thinkers, appear in the doc­u­men­tary above, Phi­los­o­phy and the Matrix: Return to the Source. Part of the sprawl­ing box-set The Ulti­mate Matrix Col­lec­tion, the film com­ments on how The Matrix does much more than dra­ma­tize an under­grad­u­ate the­sis; it takes on ques­tions about reli­gious rev­e­la­tion and author­i­ty, para­psy­chol­o­gy, free will and deter­min­ism, and the nature of per­son­al iden­ti­ty in ways that no dry philo­soph­i­cal text or arcane mys­ti­cal sys­tem has before, thanks to its hip veneer and pio­neer­ing use of CGI. While some of the thinkers above might see more pro­fun­di­ty than the movies seem to war­rant, it’s still inter­est­ing to note how each film gloss­es the great meta­phys­i­cal ques­tions that intrigue us pre­cise­ly because the answers seem for­ev­er out of reach.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Matrix: What Went Into The Mix

Daniel Den­nett (a la Jeff Fox­wor­thy) Does the Rou­tine, “You Might be an Athe­ist If…”

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

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Bob Dylan and Van Morrison Sing ‘Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,’ 1998

in Music | April 5th, 2013

Recent­ly we post­ed a remark­able pair of videos fea­tur­ing Bob Dylan and Van Mor­ri­son singing togeth­er on a hill­top in Athens. Today we’re back with anoth­er rare duet from the leg­endary singer-song­writ­ers, this one record­ed nine years after the jam ses­sion in Greece.

The per­for­mance took place on June 24, 1998 at the Nation­al Exhi­bi­tion Cen­tre in Birm­ing­ham, Eng­land. Dylan was on a world tour to sup­port his Time Out of Mind album, which was released the pre­vi­ous fall. Mor­ri­son shared the bill at some parts of the tour, includ­ing shows in North Amer­i­ca, North­ern Ire­land, Eng­land, Scot­land and France. Mor­ri­son usu­al­ly opened for Dylan, but on at least two occa­sions Mor­ri­son closed the show: in his native Belfast, and in Birm­ing­ham.

Near the end of Dylan’s Birm­ing­ham set, the audi­ence was sur­prised when Mor­ri­son walked onstage in his sun­glass­es and pork pie hat. The two sang a duet of “Knockin’ on Heav­en’s Door,” with Dylan play­ing acoustic gui­tar and Mor­ri­son the har­mon­i­ca. It was a rare event: With only a cou­ple of brief excep­tions ear­li­er in the tour, the two super­stars kept their appear­ances sep­a­rate. For­tu­nate­ly, some­one with a video cam­era was there to cap­ture the moment.

h/t Paul Jones

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Won­drous Night When Glen Hansard Met Van Mor­ri­son

Bob Dylan and The Grate­ful Dead Rehearse Togeth­er in Sum­mer 1987. Lis­ten to 74 Tracks.

Two Leg­ends Togeth­er: A Young Bob Dylan Talks and Plays on The Studs Terkel Pro­gram, 1963

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