Fellini: I’m a Born Liar Profiles the Filmmaker’s Love of Artifice (and Features Italo Calvino)

in Film | October 25th, 2012

“If you know lit­tle about Felli­ni,” warns Roger Ebert in his review of Felli­ni: I’m a Born Liar (watch it free online here), “this is not the place to start.” Per­haps he right­ly issues such a dis­claimer about a for­mal­ly unortho­dox doc­u­men­tary that plunges deeply and imme­di­ate­ly into the aes­thet­ics of its sub­jec­t’s work while pay­ing bare­ly any heed to the facts of his life. But if you can’t say that Fed­eri­co Felli­ni dealt near-exclu­sive­ly in aes­thet­ics, you can’t say it about any­one. The direc­tor’s love of arti­fice, which even­tu­al­ly led to his total ded­i­ca­tion to shoot­ing all scenes on a sound­stage, pro­duced motion pic­tures so flam­boy­ant yet so dis­tinc­tive and per­son­al that first-time view­ers still find them­selves unde­cid­ed as to whether to call them ele­gant or grotesque. The ver­dict, as any reg­u­lar attendee of revival screen­ings of 8½, Juli­et of the Spir­its, Satyri­con, and Amar­cord knows, is that they’re both: grotesque to the extent of their ele­gance, and ele­gant to the extent of their grotesque­ness. This already gives doc­u­men­tar­i­an Dami­an Pet­ti­grew much to work with, and indeed, he would have had the mate­r­i­al and exper­tise to assem­ble a robust essay film on Fellini’s visu­als alone. But he chose to make a fresh­er exam­i­na­tion.

Though he pre­miered the movie in 2002, Pet­ti­grew’s real work on I’m a Born Liar began near­ly twen­ty years before. In 1983, he met with the Ital­ian nov­el­ist Ita­lo Calvi­no, intend­ing to shoot a doc­u­men­tary about him. But upon real­iz­ing that their con­ver­sa­tions came around inevitably to Felli­ni, the writer arranged a sur­prise meet­ing of the two film­mak­ers. Years lat­er, Felli­ni would sub­mit to the ten-hour inter­view from Pet­ti­grew that struc­tures this film. Cer­tain col­lab­o­ra­tors give tes­ti­mo­ny, notably still-shak­en actors like Don­ald Suther­land and Ter­ence Stamp. But Calvi­no’s own appear­ance turns out to shed the most light on his coun­try­man’s work, and vice ver­sa, not least because both of them pre­ferred to find the truth through elab­o­rate fab­ri­ca­tion. I’m a Born Liar’s sur­pris­ing­ly thor­ough Wikipedia page quotes a pas­sage from Calvi­no’s Mr. Palo­mar that sup­pos­ed­ly inspired Felli­ni on a shoot, but may also reflect the whole basis of his craft: “Life on the sur­face is so rich and var­i­ous that I have no urge to enquire fur­ther. I believe that it is only when you’ve come to know the sur­face of things that you can try to find out what lies beneath. But the sur­face of things is inex­haustible.”

Relat­ed con­tent:

Fed­eri­co Felli­ni Intro­duces Him­self to Amer­i­ca in Exper­i­men­tal 1969 Doc­u­men­tary

Fellini’s Fan­tas­tic TV Com­mer­cials

John Tur­tur­ro Reads Ita­lo Calvino’s Ani­mat­ed Fairy Tale

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

Watch Historic Footage of Joseph Kittinger’s 102,800 Jump from Space (1960)

in History, Random | October 25th, 2012

When I first heard that 43-year old Aus­tri­an dare­dev­il and for­mer mil­i­tary para­chutist Felix Baum­gart­ner would be jump­ing 128,000 feet from space, my imme­di­ate reac­tion was, “What? Why?!” Because why would any­one do that? And I assumed it was all some macho stunt to pro­mote Red Bull, his cor­po­rate spon­sor, which isn’t entire­ly unfound­ed. But I also had no sense of the his­toric con­text, the sci­en­tif­ic impli­ca­tions, and until I read the details, the tru­ly death-defy­ing mag­ni­tude of it all. As I watched the jump and then learned more, my won­der and admi­ra­tion grew, par­tic­u­lar­ly in read­ing Baumgartner’s own accounts of his sev­en years of prepa­ra­tion for the feat.

Baum­gart­ner best­ed Chuck Yea­ger on the same day in his­to­ry that Yea­ger broke the sound bar­ri­er (he says Yeager’s going to be “pissed”). He also broke the record set by Joseph Kit­tinger, an Air Force pilot who leapt from 102,800 feet (19.5 miles) above earth in 1960. You can watch a short doc­u­men­tary of Kittinger’s famous jump above. The tech­nol­o­gy of 1960 didn’t allow for the crys­tal-clear images Baum­gart­ner cap­tured with his two suit cam­eras, but it’s still an impres­sive lit­tle film, made more so by Kittinger’s voice over describ­ing the sen­sa­tions he expe­ri­enced dur­ing free fall. Below is a clas­sic 1960 news­reel film of the jump, with a dra­mat­ic announc­er and tri­umphal, mar­tial music.

Kit­tinger and Baum­gart­ner first met in 2008, and the elder test pilot sup­port­ed and helped plan the Red Bull Stratos project that would break his record. He also served as Baum­gart­ner’s mis­sion con­trol, guid­ing him from his tiny space cap­sule to the ground. The jump was appar­ent­ly sup­posed to take place two years ear­li­er, on the 50th anniver­sary of Kittinger’s, but was delayed. Below, you can watch Kit­tinger dis­cuss the project and his own career in a 2010 inter­view with Red Bull.

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.

The Writer Who Couldn’t Read … And What That Tells Us About the Brain

in Science | October 25th, 2012

It hap­pened sud­den­ly one day. Howard Engel, a Cana­di­an mys­tery writer, woke up and real­ized he could­n’t read the dai­ly news­pa­per, let alone his own nov­els. He had suf­fered a stroke, it turns out, that left him with a rare con­di­tion called alex­ia sine agraphia, a con­di­tion that strange­ly leaves vic­tims unable to read, but able to write. It seems para­dox­i­cal. Read­ing and writ­ing go hand in hand, right? Not nec­es­sar­i­ly, and that’s why we’re glad that we have NPR’s art­ful video here to explain.

Remembering Janis Joplin: Some Classic Live Performances and Previews of a New Joplin Musical

in Music | October 24th, 2012

Janis Joplin died forty-two years ago this month at age 27 of the same excess­es that killed many of her peers and at the absolute height of her career. But in the mid-nine­teen fifties, Joplin was a mis­fit kid with ter­ri­ble acne liv­ing a lone­ly exis­tence in Port Arthur, Texas. Then she dis­cov­ered the blues, and it trans­formed her. Bessie Smith and Lead­bel­ly, Odet­ta and Aretha Franklin. By 1964, she was liv­ing in San Fran­cis­co and record­ing blues stan­dards with future Jef­fer­son Air­plane gui­tarist Jor­ma Kauko­nen. She rose to promi­nence and found her­self a place to fit in with psy­che­del­ic pio­neers Big Broth­er and the Hold­ing Com­pa­ny. Big Broth­er didn’t ini­tial­ly take to Joplin’s soul­ful rasp, but she even­tu­al­ly won them over, and won mil­lions of fans over to the band, par­tic­u­lar­ly with their sec­ond album Cheap Thrills, which spawned the sin­gle “Piece of My Heart,” and my favorite, her ren­di­tion of blues clas­sic “Ball and Chain.” Her per­for­mance of the lat­ter at the Mon­terey Pop Fes­ti­val in 1967 is leg­endary, and the record­ing of it above is pris­tine, with excel­lent live sound qual­i­ty and close-up cam­era angles of Joplin and the rest of the band.

Joplin broke away from Big Broth­er short­ly after Cheap Thrills and formed a solo act, tour­ing and record­ing with The Kozmic Blues Band, with whom she record­ed just one album, I Got Dem ‘Ol Kozmic Blues Again Mama!. Crit­ics didn’t love it, but this tran­si­tion­al phase was impor­tant for Janis since it enabled her to work in a more blue-based sound bet­ter suit­ed to her dra­mat­ic per­sona. Kozmic draws on the clas­sic Stax/Volt records tem­plate, with horns and back­ing vocals as promi­nent accom­pa­ni­ment.  The record’s strongest moments are prob­a­bly the Bee Gees-penned “To Love Some­body” and the funk-soul “Try (Just a Lit­tle Bit Hard­er)” (above in Frank­furt, Ger­many).

In the last year of her life, Joplin head­lined the all-star Fes­ti­val Express train tour through Cana­da, with Bud­dy Guy, The Band, The Grate­ful Dead, and oth­ers. The tour was doc­u­ment­ed by Acad­e­my Award win­ning cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Peter Biziou and the footage has been acquired by His­toric Films Archive, who are dig­i­tiz­ing almost 96 hours of film from the tour, includ­ing, they claim, the only known live footage of Joplin singing “Me and My Bob­by McGee.” Below is a full, ener­getic, per­for­mance of “Tell Mama” from the Fes­ti­val Express tour:

Joplin con­tin­ued, through most of that year, to ele­vate her art, record­ing the best-sell­ing, posthu­mous­ly-released Pearl with new back­ing band Full Tilt Boo­gie. This is the Joplin most casu­al fans know—of “Me and My Bob­by McGee” and “Mer­cedes Benz,” and for good rea­son. One of her final pub­lic appear­ances was on The Dick Cavett Show in June of 1970 (below), where she per­forms sev­er­al live num­bers with Full Tilt Boo­gie. In Cavett’s inter­view with her, Joplin returns to her painful teenage years, say­ing that her high school class­mates “laughed me out of class, out of town, and out of the state.”

While the final peri­od of Joplin’s life saw her pro­duce some incred­i­ble work, her name occa­sion­al­ly becomes a short­hand for rock and roll excess­es that obscure her amaz­ing, if all-too-brief, career. In an effort to cel­e­brate her life, rather than dwell on her death, the pro­duc­ers of the new show One Night With Janis Joplin (cur­rent­ly at the Are­na Stage in Wash­ing­ton, DC) elide the drug abuse that killed her and focus on the music. Joplin’s broth­er Michael talks about their musi­cal upbring­ing in the video below, which also includes clips from the loose­ly-plot­ted musi­cal, with Mary Brid­get Davies as the star.

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.

Amazing Human-Powered Helicopter Closes in on $250,000 Prize

in Technology | October 24th, 2012

A team of stu­dent engi­neers at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land are clos­ing in on the Amer­i­can Heli­copter Soci­ety’s $250,000 Siko­rsky Prize, which has remained unclaimed for over thir­ty years. The require­ments of the prize sound sim­ple enough. The win­ner must build and demon­strate a human-pow­ered heli­copter that can lift off the ground ver­ti­cal­ly and hov­er for one minute, reach­ing a height of three meters (about 10 feet) with­out drift­ing from a 10-square-meter area. But as this video from the NPR “Radio Pic­tures” series explains, those para­me­ters test the lim­its of light-weight air­craft design. After four years of tri­al and error, the Mary­land team has sat­is­fied two of the three require­ments. In one recent flight they kept their heli­copter, the Gam­era II, in the air for a world-record 65 sec­onds while stay­ing with­in the required 10-meter area–but only reach­ing a height of two feet. In short­er flights they’ve approached the 10 foot goal. To learn more about the project you can read and lis­ten to Adam Cole’s sto­ry at NPR, “Human-Pow­ered Heli­copter: Straight Up Dif­fi­cult.”

Helen Keller Pays a Visit to Martha Graham’s Dance Studio Circa 1954

in History | October 24th, 2012

Helen Keller’s sto­ry is remark­able. With the help of Anne Sul­li­van, Keller (1880–1968) escaped from a “dou­ble dun­geon of dark­ness and silence” and achieved great things. In 1904, she grad­u­at­ed from Rad­cliffe Col­lege (now Har­vard), becom­ing the first deaf blind per­son to earn a B.A. in the U.S..  She went on to write 14 books (a few more than the rest of us) and cham­pi­oned impor­tant polit­i­cal caus­es. A rad­i­cal at heart, she backed wom­en’s suf­frage and birth con­trol move­ments, helped found the ACLU, urged paci­fism, and railed against cap­i­tal­ism. She count­ed many world lead­ers and cul­tur­al lumi­nar­ies as friends, palling around with fig­ures like Char­lie Chap­lin and Mark Twain. And then there’s the time she paid a vis­it to the dance stu­dio of Martha Gra­ham and gained a tac­tile intro­duc­tion to mod­ern dance. The nar­ra­tor describes the mem­o­rable scene fair­ly well. But, if you want more back­sto­ry and pho­tos, you should head over to Brain­Pick­ings to get the big­ger pic­ture.

Relat­ed Must-See Video: Helen Keller and Anne Sul­li­van Togeth­er in 1930

Tune into Allen Ginsberg’s Poetry Teaching Marathon (Free Streaming Audio)

in Poetry | October 23rd, 2012

Def­i­nite­ly worth a quick heads up: The folks who run PennSound, the poet­ry audio archive at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia, have been stream­ing a marathon of Allen Gins­berg’s poet­ry class­es, all record­ed at the Naropa Insti­tute dur­ing the 1970s and 1980s. If you ever won­dered how the finest poet of the Beat Gen­er­a­tion taught poet­ry, now is your chance to find out. But don’t dil­ly-dal­ly around. The marathon will like­ly wrap up by Wednes­day or Thurs­day. Find the audio stream here.

via @SteveSilberman via Poet­ry Foun­da­tion

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Allen Gins­berg Reads His Clas­sic Beat Poem, Howl

Bob Dylan and Allen Gins­berg Vis­it the Grave of Jack Ker­ouac (1979)

‘The Bal­lad of the Skele­tons’: Allen Ginsberg’s 1996 Col­lab­o­ra­tion with Philip Glass and Paul McCart­ney

Ray Bradbury Appears with Groucho Marx on You Bet Your Life (1955)

in Books, Literature, Television | October 23rd, 2012

In 1955, Ray Brad­bury paid a vis­it to Grou­cho Marx’s icon­ic game show You Bet Your Life. Brad­bury, then 35 years old, had already pub­lished some of his now clas­sic works. But appar­ent­ly Fahren­heit 451 and The Mar­t­ian Chron­i­cles had­n’t made their way onto Grou­cho’s read­ing list. When Marx asked Brad­bury what he did for a liv­ing, Brad­bury had to clar­i­fy things. “I’m a writer. W‑r-i-t-e‑r.” Not a “rid­er” of motor­cy­cles or ponies. Per­haps it was a seri­ous exchange. Per­haps it was all part of a script­ed joke. Either way, it’s a great clip from the increas­ing­ly dis­tant past. You can watch the com­plete episode here.

For more Brad­bury clas­sic, spend time with:

Ray Brad­bury Gives 12 Pieces of Writ­ing Advice to Young Authors (2001)

Ray Brad­bury: Lit­er­a­ture is the Safe­ty Valve of Civ­i­liza­tion

Ray Brad­bury Reads Mov­ing Poem on the Eve of NASA’s 1971 Mars Mis­sion

via i09

Download 397 Free Art Catalogs from The Metropolitan Museum of Art

in Art, Books, e-books, Museums | October 22nd, 2012

Ear­li­er this year, the Guggen­heim Muse­um put online 65 mod­ern art books, giv­ing you free access to books intro­duc­ing the work of Alexan­der Calder, Edvard Munch, Fran­cis Bacon, Gus­tav Klimt & Egon Schiele, and Kandin­sky. Now, just a few short months lat­er, the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art has launched Met­Pub­li­ca­tions, a por­tal that will “even­tu­al­ly offer access to near­ly all books, Bul­letins, and Jour­nals” pub­lished by the Met since 1870.

Of the many resources you can explore, here’s one obvi­ous high­light: Met­Pub­li­ca­tions now makes avail­able 397 out-of-print titles, includ­ing lots of infor­ma­tive and visu­al­ly-packed art cat­a­logs from the muse­um’s past exhi­bi­tions. You can read the books online or down­load them in PDF for­mat (although I should warn you that the PDF down­loads take some time, so be patient). When you rum­mage around, you’ll come across works like these and more:

• Al-Andalus: The Art of Islam­ic Spain
• Amer­i­can Impres­sion­ism and Real­ism: The Paint­ing of Mod­ern Life, 1885–1915
• Amer­i­can Art Posters of the 1890s in The Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art
• Degas: The Artist’s Mind
• Leonar­do da Vin­ci: Anatom­i­cal Draw­ings from the Roy­al Library
• Mas­ter­pieces of The Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art
• The Art of Illu­mi­na­tion
• Ver­meer and the Delft School
• Wis­dom Embod­ied: Chi­nese Bud­dhist and Daoist Sculp­ture in The Met­ro­pol­i­tan Muse­um of Art
• Words and Images: Chi­nese Poet­ry, Cal­lig­ra­phy, and Paint­ing

Relat­ed Con­tent:

MoMA Puts Pol­lock, Rothko & de Koon­ing on Your iPad

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

The His­to­ry of West­ern Archi­tec­ture: From Ancient Greece to Roco­co (A Free Online Course)

Down­load 375 Free eBooks

Alan Rickman Does Epic Violence to a Cup of Tea in Super Slow Motion

in Film, Random, Theatre | October 22nd, 2012

“Epic Tea Time with Alan Rick­man” comes from a video series called Por­traits in Dra­mat­ic Time, which fea­tures “an array of glacial­ly paced per­for­mances of the­ater artists and actors.” Accord­ing to its cre­ator David Michalek, the por­traits, each offer­ing “a phys­i­cal metaphor for an emo­tion­al con­di­tion,” were orig­i­nal­ly pro­ject­ed onto a build­ing facade at Lin­coln Cen­ter in New York City dur­ing a 2011 fes­ti­val. This par­tic­u­lar por­trait shows actor Alan Rick­man (you know him from Har­ry Pot­ter, Dog­ma, Die Hard, etc.) doing epic vio­lence to a cup of tea. As one YouTu­ber put it, “It’s a bit like watch­ing God cre­ate the uni­verse. A very angry God.”

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!