Alfred Hitchcock Tantalizes Audiences with a Playful Trailer for Psycho (1960)
You can’t say that Hitchcock didn’t think through the angles when he released Psycho in 1960. As you may recall, Hitchcock tightly controlled the promotion for the film. The stars of the now classic movie — Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh — didn’t talk to the media. Critics weren’t given private screenings. And Hitchcock put a firm “no late admission” policy in place. If you didn’t see the film from the beginning, you didn’t see it all. It’s a hardball approach that the director publicized in a video outlining The Rules for Watching Psycho.
But then there was a carrot to accompany the stick — a playful trailer (above) that gave viewers a light-hearted tour of the Psycho set. You know, the infamous Bates Motel. In the trailer, Hitchcock teases the audience, almost giving away spoiler details, but never quite goes that far. The cheerful music playing in the background comes from Hitchcock’s lost masterpiece The Trouble with Harry. And, it all ends with .… ok we won’t tell … but just keep in mind that what you see is not Janet Leigh. It’s actually Vera Miles, who played a supporting role in the film, sporting a blonde wig and looking like Janet Leigh.
Unfortunately, you can’t watch Psycho on the web, but you can catch 22 Free Hitchcock Movies Online.
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Read More...Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) Go International
A few quick notes from the MOOC front.…
The first major providers of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) got their start in Silicon Valley, Cambridge, Massachusetts and Canada. Now we’re seeing them sprout up outside of the United States. Take for example OpenLearning.com, a venture born out of the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney, Australia. Starting this week, you can begin taking two of their courses (Observing and Analysing Performance in Sport & Services Marketing – The Next Level). Or you can check into a 12-week course that recently got underway: UNSW Computing 1.
Meanwhile, if you can exercise a little patience, you can eventually start taking classes with the University of Western Australia. By next March, the Perth-based university plans to offer two courses (one in sociology, the other in oceanography) using an adapted version of Stanford’s open source platform, Class2Go. The courses will be delivered over mobile phones.
Finally, if you’re looking to learn a new language, why not try SpanishMooc? It’s billed as “the first open online Spanish course for everyone.” And it’s seemingly run as an independent project not associated with an existing university. The 12-week course will start on January 21, 2013.
For a complete list of MOOCs, visit our collection of 130 Free Online Certificate Courses from Great Universities.
Read More...Bruce Springsteen Stumps/Sings for Obama: A Free Six-Song Set
Back in 2008, Bruce Springsteen threw himself vigorously behind Barack Obama’s campaign. He played small concerts on Obama’s behalf, and then wrote on his personal web site that Obama “speaks to the America I’ve envisioned in my music for the past 35 years, a generous nation with a citizenry willing to tackle nuanced and complex problems, a country that’s interested in its collective destiny and in the potential of its gathered spirit.” Fast forward four years, Springsteen is back at it again, though perhaps with a few more reservations. This summer, he told David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, that he admired Obama “for the health-care bill, for rescuing the automobile industry, for the withdrawal from Iraq, for killing Osama bin Laden.” But, on the flip side, he’s “disappointed in the failure to close Guantánamo and to appoint more champions of economic fairness, and .… an unseemly friendliness toward corporations.” [This is The New Yorker paraphrasing his concerns.] Aloud, he wondered whether he could go out there again:
I did it twice because things were so dire.… It seemed like if I was ever going to spend whatever small political capital I had, that was the moment to do so. But that capital diminishes the more often you do it. While I’m not saying never, and I still like to support the President, you know, it’s something I didn’t do for a long time, and I don’t have plans to be out there every time.
That was in July. But, fast forward to October and November, and we find the Boss stumping again for the president in swing states. Springsteen appeared in Madison Wisconsin today (below) and Charlottesville, VA on October 23. You can watch the six-song acoustic set above, which features “We Take Care Of Our Own,” “Forward, “The River,” “Promised Land,” “No Surrender” and “Thunder Road.”
There’s not much that’s positive about this campaign. Every day when you turn on the TV, we’re reminded of how special interests have corrupted our politic process, all with the blessing of the Supreme Court. But if there’s a silver lining to be found — a free set by the Boss — we’ll take it. Go out and vote tomorrow, no matter which candidate you support. And we’ll see you on the other side.
Read More...
FolkStreams Presents a Big Film Archive on American Folk Art and Music
Folkstreams is not just a Wunderkammer of American folk traditions captured on film. It’s also an online repository for folk films themselves, whose weird lengths and non-mainstream obsessions limited their chances of widespread distribution, while ensuring that the majority of their makers would toil in oblivion.
The archive is exceedingly democratic. Browse by region or general subjects such as religion, rural life, and custom/dress. Household names such as B.B. King and Grandma Moses exist alongside snake handlers (Gretchen Robinson and Stan Woodward’s People Who Take Up Serpents) and disabled tattoo artist Stoney St. Clair, the subject of Alan Govenar’s irresistible 1981 Stoney Knows How. Admirers of the form will be glad to know that the archive is also searchable by filmmaker and distributor.
Any one of these short films could provide a folk remedy antidote to a case of acute digital overload. I’d also suggest succumbing to the archivist’s Netflix-style, viewing-history-based recommendations (“If you liked Painted Bride you may also like Mosquitoes and High Water.” Think of it as it is a do-it-yourself doc fest on autopilot, the sort of once-in-a-blue-moon programming you’d be lucky to catch, perpetually playing on demand.
The clip above comes from the film Give My Poor Heart Ease: Mississippi Delta Bluesmen. Enter the Folkstreams films archive here.
- Ayun Halliday is doing her bit to keep zines alive within the realm of American folk culture.
Read More...Making The Planet of the Apes: Roddy McDowall’s Home Movies and a 1966 Makeup Test
By most accounts, when Roddy McDowall appeared on The Carol Burnett Show in full Planet of the Apes makeup, the host was genuinely frightened, a testament to the extraordinary work of legendary, Oscar-winning makeup artist John Chambers (who as Ben Affleck’s new film Argo reveals, also did work for the CIA). The handsome character-actor McDowall spent a good portion of his film career in makeup, most memorably as the characters Cornelius, Caesar, and Galen (on the 1974 TV show) of the Planet of the Apes series. A home movie buff and photographer, McDowall documented the lengthy process of his Apes’ makeup (above), applied here by artist Don Cash and his assistants. Shot and edited by McDowall, and set to excerpts from the dramatic Jerry Goldsmith Apes score, the film also includes a quick shot of Maurice Evans in the first minute, gamely smoking a cigarette in full Dr. Zaius makeup.
The Planet of the Apes franchise is one of the most successful and long-running sci-fi series of all time. Adapted from a 1963 novel by French writer Pierre Boulle, the original 1968 film spawned four sequels, Tim Burton’s 2001 remake, the 2011 prequel Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and its sequel, the upcoming Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, slated for the spring of 2014. Then, of course, there’s a world of merchandise, comic books, and a cartoon series. The longevity of the series is due in no small part to Chamber’s remarkably durable visual realization of Boulle’s premise. However, few people know how much different the film might have looked had it stayed true to the aesthetic of a 1966 studio pitch/makeup test. In the video right above, set up in the first few minutes with hand-drawn stills and voice-over narration, Charleton Heston plays Thomas (later changed to Taylor), Edward G. Robinson is Dr. Zaius, James Brolin is Cornelius and Linda Harrison is Zira (later played by Kim Hunter). This film shows a much more advanced, scientific ape society than the resulting first film, limited by budget concerns, would be able to.
Josh Jones is a doctoral candidate in English at Fordham University and a co-founder and former managing editor of Guernica / A Magazine of Arts and Politics.
Read More...Le Blog de Jean-Paul Sartre Discovered
Wednesday, 22 July, 1959: 10:50 A.M.
This morning over breakfast S. [short for Simone]. asked me why I looked so glum.
“Because,” I said, “everything that exists is born for no reason, carries on living through weakness, and dies by accident.”
“Jesus,” S. said. “Aren’t you ever off the clock?”
Thursday, 16 July, 1959: 7:45 P.M.
When S. returned this afternoon I asked her where she had been, and she said she had been in the street.
“Perhaps,” I said, “that explains why you look ‘rue’-ful.”
Her blank stare only reinforced for me the futility of existence.
Sartre, Heidegger, Nietzsche: Three Philosophers in Three Hours (BBC documentaries)
Walter Kaufmann’s Lectures on Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and Sartre (1960, Audio)
75 Free Philosophy Courses from Great Universities
Sartre’s famous lecture Existentialism is a Humanism (1946) that otherwise appears in our collection of Free eBooks.
Read More...An Acoustic History of Punk Rock Sheds Light on NYC’s Lower East Side (NSFW)
With electricity just restored to lower Manhattan and subways still significantly disabled six days after Hurricane Sandy, it seems a fitting time for an unplugged History of Punk Rock and Its Development on the Lower East Side, 1950 to 1975.
This neighborhood salute comes courtesy of anti-folk hero/comic book writer Jeffrey Lewis, who wasn’t born until late in the period he describes, but he’s got tons of street cred, having grown up without a TV in one of the very buildings whose darkened stairwells have dominated recent headlines. The clip was originally available as a mini cd, packaged with FUFF #1, one of Lewis’ comic books. Here, he delivers the goods in one caterwauling, NSFW, eight-minute take, accompanying himself on a sticker covered acoustic guitar. The breakneck, charmingly off-key primer name checks everyone from The Holy Modal Rounders and the Fugs to Patti Smith and Richard Hell, with sonic examples of their work crammed between instructive rhyming recitative.
To whit:
In ’71, Lester Bangs first writes the word ‘punk’
to describe ’60s enthusiastic teenage rock junk
’72, Lenny Kaye puts out the ’60s Garage comp. ‘Nuggets’
and coins the phrase ‘punk-rock’ in the liner notes of it
Though punk-rock would soon come to mean something different
from what Lester and Lenny thunk
(They meant raw 60s punk songs)
Even if you’re still pissed about that John Varvatos boutique opening in the building that once housed CBGBs, please consider making a donation to help New Yorkers clobbered by Hurricane Sandy. Especially if Lewis’ tribute has expanded your mental picture of who an elderly person on today’s Lower East Side might be.
Those with the power to do so can download FUFF #1 in digital form, and listen to the History of Punk Rock on the Lower East Side via legendary New Jersey radio station WFMU.
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- Ayun Halliday is the author of the Zinester’s Guide to NYC.
Read More...The Rijksmuseum Puts 125,000 Dutch Masterpieces Online, and Lets You Remix Its Art
The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is one of the grand European museums. Home to many of the Dutch masters (Rembrandt’s Night Watch, which seems to glow from its center, and Vermeer’s Milkmaid, to name just a few), the museum is located on the city’s Museumplein, surrounded by the smaller Vincent Van Gogh museum and modern Stedelijk.
All those masterpieces are now available for close-up view online at the Rijksmuseum’s digitized collection. Users can explore the entire collection, which is handily sorted by artist, subject, style and even by events in Dutch history. The new digital archive has all the same great learning potential as any other online collection. It’s searchable, as is the museum’s library.
But the Dutch are a whimsical people, so it seems right that, in digitizing its collection, the museum went a step further than further. Not only can users create their own online galleries from selected works in the museum’s collection, they can download Rijksmuseum artwork for free to decorate new products. (Note: users will need to create a free account to get started.)
By visiting the museum’s Rijksstudio, art lovers can create their own “sets” of Rijksmuseum works. Sets can include images of just flowers (think of the luscious roses and tulips in Dutch still life paintings of the 1600s), faces appearing in portraits, or paintings of Amsterdam itself through the ages. Just select a work of art and drop it into your own image collection. Then use these selected images to create your own personalized products. From tattoos to wallpaper to scooters (yes, scooters) to smart phone skins. Unusual yet everyday items of all shapes and sizes can now bear the image of gorgeous art. The art is free and the object could be as simple as a T‑shirt.
All of this can be done with the blessings and support of the museum, which provides links to sites that offer various forms of printing on demand.
What better way to make the collection accessible to the public? Some might say it is sacrilege to put Rembrandt’s face on the side of a van; the Rijksmuseum encourages it. None of the artists are alive anyway to claim copyright infringement, now are they?
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Kate Rix writes about digital media and education. Read more of her work at and thenifty.blogspot.com.
Read More...13 Lectures by The Great Courses
Note: The free lectures by The Great Courses have been taken offline. But no worries, you can find over 33,000 hours of free lectures from top universities in our collection, 1,700 Free Online Courses from Top Universities. They’ll keep you busy for years to come.
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Read More...Russell Brand and Tracey Ullman Sing the Wonders of “Asstrology” in Eric Idle’s What About Dick?
Monty Python alumnus and Spamalot creator Eric Idle’s new musical What About Dick? tells the story of the “birth of a sex toy invented in Shagistan in 1898 by Deepak Obi Ben Kingsley” (Eddie Izzard). It’s also about the decline of the British Empire as told by a piano (Idle). Oh, there’s quite a bit more, but I won’t rehearse the plot—let’s get right to a clip, shall we? In the above number, “What About Asstrology,” Aunt Maggie (Tracey Ullman) and the young Dick (Russell Brand), who live together in an Edwardian novel, sing about her metaphysical talent for reading the future on people’s bums. The exchange begins: “What is it exactly that you do?” to which Ullman responds in Cockney, “I’m an aaassss reader.” Then they launch into song. Yes, it’s as ridiculous as it sounds, and as funny (if that’s what you’re into), and partakes of the Pythons’ unique ability to skewer the pretensions of religion, new age goofiness, and hocus pocus of all kinds with classic music hall humor and flatulence jokes.
So mark your calendars: this November 13 is “Dick Day,” when What About Dick? is available for digital download, and you’ll want to get your hands on it (sorry). Idle ratchets up his profane silliness with a cast “you’ll never see… together again doing something like this.” Idle has assembled the finest minds of British comedy for a show he calls “Oscar Wilde on acid or like Downton Abbey, only funnier”: Brand, Ullman, Idle, Billy Connolly, Tim Curry, Eddie Izzard, Jane Leeves, Jim Piddock, and Sophie Winkleman. If this cast doesn’t make you shoot out of your chair and yell Hooray for Dick! or something like that, you’re clearly not the proper audience for this show.
Go ahead, watch the trailer right above and visit the official site for updates and more awkward, off-color Britishisms.
Josh Jones is a doctoral candidate in English at Fordham University and a co-founder and former managing editor of Guernica / A Magazine of Arts and Politics.
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Open Culture editor Dan Colman scours the web for the best educational media. He finds the free courses and audio books you need, the language lessons & movies you want, and plenty of enlightenment in between.
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