Listen to Eight Interviews of Orson Welles by Filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich (RIP)

in Film | January 7th, 2014

Image by Carl Van Vecht­en, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

Orson Welles nev­er wrote a prop­er auto­bi­og­ra­phy, but we have a book that comes close: This is Orson Welles, assem­bled by crit­ic Jonathan Rosen­baum and film­mak­er Peter Bog­danovich (Tar­gets, The Last Pic­ture Show, Paper Moon) out of a series of in-depth record­ed con­ver­sa­tions between Bog­danovich and Welles. That vol­ume has giv­en the younger film­mak­er some­thing of a sub-career as the old­er one’s Boswell, which has led to a cer­tain degree of rib­bing about his will­ing­ness to trot out an Orson Welles anec­dote for every con­text. Though I’ve always enjoyed hear­ing Bog­danovich’s inter­pre­ta­tions of Welles, they always get me curi­ous to hear the sto­ries of the life and career of the man who made The War of the Worlds, Cit­i­zen Kane, and (my per­son­al favorite) F for Fake straight from, well, the man who made The War of the Worlds, Cit­i­zen Kane, and F for Fake. You can do just that at the Inter­net Archive, which offers near­ly four hours of audio of the very inter­views that gave This is Orson Welles its source mate­r­i­al. (Audio starts at the 12 sec­ond mark.)

“I first met Orson Welles toward the end of 1968,” says Bog­danovich in his intro­duc­tion, “and not long after we began tap­ing our con­ver­sa­tions for a book about his career that he hoped would ‘set the record straight.’ We start­ed in his bun­ga­low at the Bev­er­ly Hills Hotel, and then resumed a cou­ple of weeks lat­er in Guay­mas, Mex­i­co, where Orson was act­ing in the movie of Catch-22.” Their talks con­tin­ued in places from New York’s Plaza Hotel and Rome’s Hotel Eden to, for what­ev­er rea­son, Care­free, Ari­zona, explor­ing not just the well-known chap­ters of Welles’ career, but his expe­ri­ences with now-over­looked or nev­er-com­plet­ed projects like most of his count­less radio dra­mas, his ear­ly adap­ta­tion of Cecil Day-Lewis’ Smil­er with a Knife, and his lat­er adap­ta­tion of Kafka’s The Tri­al. Some may accuse Bog­danovich of over-milk­ing his asso­ci­a­tion with Welles, but if I had con­ver­sa­tions this fas­ci­nat­ing with per­haps the most respect­ed auteur in Amer­i­can film his­to­ry, I’d prob­a­bly talk about them all the time too.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Orson Welles Remem­bers his Stormy Friend­ship with Ernest Hem­ing­way

Orson Welles’ Last Inter­view and Final Moments Cap­tured on Film

Orson Welles Explains Why Igno­rance Was His Major “Gift” to Cit­i­zen Kane

Revis­it Orson Welles’ Icon­ic ‘War of the Worlds’ Broad­cast That Aired 75 Years Ago Today

Orson Welles Meets H.G. Wells in 1940: The Leg­ends Dis­cuss War of the Worlds, Cit­i­zen Kane, and WWII

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

Sir Patrick Stewart Demonstrates How Cows Moo in Different English Accents

in Comedy, Politics, Radio, Theatre | January 6th, 2014

Hav­ing spent the fall loung­ing in the bath dressed as a lob­ster, and gam­bol­ing around New York City with Wait­ing for Godot cast mate Ian McK­ellen, the irre­press­ible Patrick Stew­art brought 2013 to a close by indulging a curi­ous fan of NPR’s How To Do Every­thing pod­cast.

Her ques­tion? What do Eng­lish cows sound like when they moo.

The knight­ed star does not skimp on his answer, even if, as he repeat­ed­ly sug­gests, one can­not do the sub­ject jus­tice in less than an entire after­noon. The dialects of British cows, like those of their human coun­ter­parts, under­score that theirs is a soci­ety “dom­i­nat­ed by class, social sta­tus and loca­tion.”

The moo of a cow from West Oxford­shire, home to Prime Min­is­ter David Cameron, is quite con­ser­v­a­tive com­pared to the lusty bel­low of a spec­i­men from West York­shire, where Stew­art grew up. (The lat­ter is so aston­ish­ing, he imme­di­ate­ly offers to pro­duce it twice.)

Cock­ney cows, a breed whose ranks have thinned con­sid­er­ably since Shake­speare’s day, sound like sheep.

May­fair cows sound like for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Sir Alec Dou­glas-Home.

As an extra treat, Stew­art gen­er­ous­ly agrees to the host’s request for an Amer­i­can cow, imper­son­at­ing a Neva­da-dweller, a geo­graph­ic homage to the orig­i­nal ques­tion­er as well as his bride, jazz singer Sun­ny Ozell.

Is there any­thing this man can’t — or won’t — do?

via Laugh­ing Squid

Ayun Hal­l­i­day wish­es her favorite play­wright a very hap­py birth­day. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Peter Sell­ers Gives a Quick Demon­stra­tion of British Accents

Peter Sell­ers Reads The Bea­t­les’ “She Loves You” in Four Dif­fer­ent Accents

Patrick Stew­art Talks Can­did­ly About Domes­tic Vio­lence in a Poignant Q&A Ses­sion at Comic­palooza

Acclaimed BBC Pro­duc­tion of Ham­let, Star­ring David Ten­nant (Doc­tor Who) and Patrick Stew­art (Star Trek)

Lego Video Shows How David Bowie Almost Became “Cobbler Bob,” Not “Aladdin Sane”

in Comedy, Music | January 5th, 2014

In Octo­ber, 1973, David Bowie made his last live appear­ance as Zig­gy Star­dust. (Watch it here.) Pret­ty soon, Bowie would morph into a new per­sona Aladdin Sane and lat­er The Thin White Duke. But, for a moment there, he almost went with anoth­er unlike­ly char­ac­ter, “Cob­bler Bob.” Or so that’s the play­ful sce­nario that Eng­lish come­di­an and actor Adam Bux­ton imag­ines in this short lego video. Enjoy.

When you’re done hav­ing a laugh and ready for some­thing more seri­ous, we’d encour­age you to see these relat­ed posts:

The Sto­ry of Zig­gy Star­dust: How David Bowie Cre­at­ed the Char­ac­ter that Made Him Famous

David Bowie Recalls the Strange Expe­ri­ence of Invent­ing the Char­ac­ter Zig­gy Star­dust (1977)

David Bowie Sings ‘I Got You Babe’ with Mar­i­anne Faith­full in His Last Per­for­mance As Zig­gy Star­dust

David Bowie Releas­es Vin­tage Videos of His Great­est Hits from the 1970s and 1980s

via Metafil­ter

Vintage Films Revisits Literary Scene of 1920s New York, with Clips of Sinclair Lewis, Willa Cather, H.L. Mencken & Other Icons

in History, Video - Arts & Culture | January 4th, 2014

When young artists, be they writ­ers, painters, or musi­cians, aim to strike it big, they invari­ably choose to move to New York. Brook­lyn lofts, hopes of find­ing a like­mind­ed smart set, and the promise of good times beck­on count­less young men and women to devel­op their cre­ative careers in a city whose his­to­ry teems with out­sized aspi­ra­tions and even larg­er per­son­al­i­ties. New York has, after all, been a hub for artis­tic lumi­nar­ies since the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry.

In the 1961 doc­u­men­tary enti­tled New York In The Twen­ties, above, Wal­ter Cronkite gives a snap­shot of the tal­ent­ed crowd that was once drawn in by the city’s cul­tur­al rip­tide dur­ing the 1920s. The short video con­sists of inter­views with the pub­lish­er Alfred Knopf; New York Her­ald Tri­bune edi­tor Stan­ley Walk­er; and Pulitzer prize-win­ning author of The Green Pas­tures, Marc Con­nel­ly. Walk­er plays the part of the con­sum­mate New York news­pa­per­man, pin­ing for the days when decent cit­i­zens weren’t forced to rub shoul­ders with the boors now infest­ing the Westch­ester and Con­necti­cut trains. Con­nel­ly, in more affa­ble fash­ion, describes the fabled 1920s group of cre­ative minds known as the Algo­nquin Round Table:

Alexan­der Wooll­cott was sear­ing, acid, rude; I used to feel some­times his only exer­cise was ran­cour. But, he was engag­ing, was com­pelling, and amus­ing… Edna Fer­ber, young, indus­tri­ous, she used to scare us all to death by her habit of indus­try. George Kauf­man was cer­tain­ly one of the wit­ti­est of that group. George’s wit… had the sharp­ness of a sil­ver point etch­ing… There was… Harold Ross, founder of the New York­er. There was spec­u­la­tion about Ross, his curi­ous head of hair; it was very high, very thick. Some­body once said that that jun­gle pic­ture Chang had been filmed in it. I think it was George Kauf­mann that once said he looked like a dis­hon­est Lin­coln. 

A lot of peo­ple who knew noth­ing about the per­son­al lives or the atti­tudes … of the peo­ple at the round table… thought that it was a mutu­al admi­ra­tion soci­ety and a logrolling orga­ni­za­tion. It was any­thing but that because I promise you, the worst pan­nings ever received for our books or our plays came from the crit­i­cal friends who were mem­bers of that group.

Alfred Knopf, in turn, dis­cuss­es the glo­ry days of pub­lish­ers and writ­ers, as well as the genius of H. L. Menck­en, whom he describes as “the great­est edi­tor… that I’ve ever known.”

View­ing the hal­cy­on days of New York’s cre­ative scene, with its jazz clubs and speakeasies, it’s no won­der that Knopf, Walk­er, and Connelly’s accounts leave one with an ineluctable sense of nos­tal­gia. Of course, with its unceas­ing influx of artists, the city’s sub­stance remains the same today. It’s just that its Bloomberg-era steril­i­ty has led to a change in style.

Ilia Blin­d­er­man is a Mon­tre­al-based cul­ture and sci­ence writer. Fol­low him at @iliablinderman.

Milton Friedman & John Kenneth Galbraith’s Present Their Opposing Economic Philosophies on Two TV Series (1977–1980)

in Economics, Television | January 2nd, 2014

Do Mil­ton Fried­man and John Ken­neth Gal­braith debate in that great eco­nom­ics depart­ment in the sky? Both men died in 2006, after remark­ably long and dis­tin­guished careers as two of the most wide­ly read econ­o­mists of the 20th cen­tu­ry, yet I can only with great dif­fi­cul­ty imag­ine them ever agree­ing. Fried­man, founder of the free mar­ket-ori­ent­ed Uni­ver­si­ty of Chica­go “school” of eco­nom­ics, scru­ti­nized the world’s economies and found that a only min­i­mum of gov­ern­ment inter­ven­tion makes for a max­i­mum of free­dom. The Cana­di­an-born Gal­braith, who served on Har­vard’s fac­ul­ty as well as under four U.S. Pres­i­dents, saw things dif­fer­ent­ly, believ­ing in the neces­si­ty of a strong state to ensure sta­bil­i­ty, effi­cien­cy, and equal­i­ty. Both spent a great deal of time and ener­gy com­mu­ni­cat­ing direct­ly with the pub­lic, not just with pop­u­lar books and com­men­taries on eco­nom­ic issues of the day, but with tele­vi­sion pro­grams too. You can watch Gal­braith’s The Age of Uncer­tain­ty, which first aired on the BBC in 1977, above. Fried­man’s “response” Free to Choose, broad­cast on PBS in 1980, appears below.

The fif­teen-episode Age of Uncer­tain­ty and the ten-episode Free to Choose both come down to the teach­ings of their star econ­o­mists; you might think of them as extend­ed lec­tures, with quite dif­fer­ent con­clu­sions, on the caus­es and effects of cap­i­tal­ism. But both expand upon this base of con­tent with rich imagery, from a vari­ety of cre­ative visu­al­iza­tions (up to and includ­ing his­tor­i­cal drama­ti­za­tion) of Gal­braith’s words to Fried­man’s trav­els far and wide, from his mon­ey-dri­ven birth­place of New York City to the “haven for peo­ple who sought to make the most of their own abil­i­ties” of Hong Kong in search of real exam­ples of the free mar­ket in action. The styles of dress may look dat­ed, but the pro­duc­tion val­ue holds up, and the eco­nom­ic issues dis­cussed have only grown more rel­e­vant with time. Whether you believe the gov­ern­ment should keep a help­ing hand on the econ­o­my or keep its grub­by mitts off it, both series have a wealth, as it were, of enter­tain­ment and edu­ca­tion in store for you. As bit­ter­ly as Gal­braithi­an sta­tists and Fried­man­ite lib­er­tar­i­ans may argue, sure­ly they can agree on the enjoy­a­bil­i­ty of qual­i­ty tele­vi­sion.

The Age of Uncer­tain­ty

1. The Prophets and Promise of Clas­si­cal Cap­i­tal­ism
2. The Man­ners and Morals of High Cap­i­tal­ism
3. The Dis­sent of Karl Marx
4. The Colo­nial Idea
5. Lenin and the Great Unglu­ing
6. The Rise and Fall of Mon­ey
7. The Man­darin Rev­o­lu­tion
8. The Fatal Com­pe­ti­tion
9. The Big Cor­po­ra­tion
10. Land and Peo­ple
11. The Metrop­o­lis
12. Democ­ra­cy, Lead­er­ship, Com­mit­ment
13. Week­end in Ver­mont (part one, part two, part three)

Free to Choose

1. The Pow­er of the Mar­ket
2. The Tyran­ny of Con­trol
3. Anato­my of a Cri­sis
4. From Cra­dle to Grave
5. Cre­at­ed Equal
6. What’s Wrong with Our Schools?
7. Who Pro­tects the Con­sumer?
8. Who Pro­tects the Work­er?
9. How to Cure Infla­tion
10. How to Stay Free

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mil­ton Fried­man on Greed

The His­to­ry of Eco­nom­ics & Eco­nom­ic The­o­ry Explained with Comics, Start­ing with Adam Smith

An Intro­duc­tion to Great Econ­o­mists — Adam Smith, the Phys­iocrats & More — Pre­sent­ed in a Free Online Course

60-Sec­ond Adven­tures in Eco­nom­ics: An Ani­mat­ed Intro to The Invis­i­ble Hand and Oth­er Eco­nom­ic Ideas

Eco­nom­ics: Free Online Cours­es

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

A Brief History of Hollywood Censorship and the Ratings System

in Film, History | December 31st, 2013

Cen­sor­ship, as most seri­ous film­go­ers know, shaped the sen­si­bil­i­ty of all the pic­tures we know from the “Gold­en Age” of Hol­ly­wood. It did so in the form of 1930’s “Motion Pic­ture Pro­duc­tion Code (also known as the Hays Code),” which “set up a small jury to review films for con­tent,” at first “still with­out teeth and large­ly mocked by indus­try insid­ers.” But that changed in a big way when “the Amer­i­can Bish­ops of the Roman Catholic Church orga­nized The Legion of Decen­cy and, in 1934, with the sup­port of Protes­tant and Jew­ish Orga­ni­za­tions, began call­ing for boy­cotts of films deemed unac­cept­able. [ … ] The Hol­ly­wood stu­dios, still reel­ing from the loss­es of 1933 due in large part to the delayed effects of the Great Depres­sion, were forced to act.” That sum­ma­ry comes from “The His­to­ry of Hol­ly­wood Cen­sor­ship and the Rat­ings Sys­tem,” a brief but in-depth les­son pro­duced by Film­mak­er IQ. Its video ver­sion appears at the top. Below, you can watch 1941’s The Out­law, the bust size of whose star Jane Rus­sell had the cen­sors demand­ing “37 spe­cif­ic reshoots.”

The com­plete sto­ry of cen­sor­ship and rat­ings in Hol­ly­wood involves such ele­ments of Amer­i­can his­to­ry and cul­ture as not just the Great Depres­sion and the Roman Catholic Church, but the 1919 World Series Gam­bling scan­dal, the Chicago’s Women’s Munic­i­pal League, mighty sys­tems of pro­duc­tion, the sport of box­ing, Howard Hugh­es, and of course, the almighty dol­lar. Even­tu­al­ly, film­mak­ers began to sim­ply defy the Hays Code; you can watch Otto Pre­minger’s famous exam­ple of just that, the 1953 com­e­dy The Moon is Blue (pos­sessed, cen­sors said, of “an unac­cept­ably light atti­tude towards seduc­tion, illic­it sex, chasti­ty, and vir­gin­i­ty”). In 1968, the weak­ened Code’s replace­ment arrived: the Motion Pic­ture Asso­ci­a­tion of Amer­i­ca’s Rat­ings sys­tem and its still-famil­iar G, PG, R, and X (PG-13 was intro­duced in 1984; NC-17 replaced X in 1990). Quaint as these mea­sures may now seem, the les­son tells us that con­tro­ver­sy has remained. “Some may say that films were sex­i­er and scari­er under the cen­sor­ship of the pro­duc­tion code – for noth­ing that can be seen is as tan­ta­liz­ing and hor­ri­fy­ing as what the imag­i­na­tion and antic­i­pa­tion can con­jure. But giv­en the choice between free­dom and cen­sor­ship, free­dom is the only sus­tain­able option.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ear­ly Hol­ly­wood Cen­sored

Did Hol­ly­wood Movies Stu­dios “Col­lab­o­rate” with Hitler Dur­ing WW II? His­to­ri­an Makes the Case

Frank Zap­pa Debates Cen­sor­ship on CNN’s Cross­fire (1986)

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

Norman Rockwell’s Typewritten Recipe for His Favorite Oatmeal Cookies

in Art, Food & Drink | December 30th, 2013

Nor­man Rock­well, pro­lif­ic painter and illus­tra­tor of 20^th cen­tu­ry Amer­i­cana, often worked so sin­gle-mind­ed­ly that he missed his meals. In 1943, Rock­well exhaust­ed him­self to such a degree that, while com­plet­ing the Franklin Delano Roo­sevelt-inspired series of paint­ings enti­tled Four Free­doms, he lost 15 pounds over the course of sev­en months. This drop in weight is, per­haps, all the more shock­ing when giv­en some con­text: Rock­well was far from being a cor­pu­lent man. In fact, when the then 23-year-old artist attempt­ed to enlist as a ser­vice­man in the U. S. Navy dur­ing World War I, he was judged to be eight pounds under­weight, stand­ing at six feet and tip­ping the scales at 140 pounds. Rock­well, how­ev­er, was not to be deterred by some­thing so triv­ial as his bod­i­ly com­po­si­tion. He gorged him­self on bananas and dough­nuts when he came home that evening. The next day, Navy recruiters dul­ly wel­comed the suf­fi­cient­ly bloat­ed Rock­well to the fold.

When Rock­well did eat, we know that he had a pen­chant for oat­meal cook­ies. At least two of the artist’s let­ters detail­ing instruc­tions for mak­ing this choice snack are post­ed online. Although there is a 1966 iter­a­tion of the oat­meal cook­ie recipe avail­able on Biblioklept.org, we’ve pro­vid­ed a lat­er ver­sion, from the 1970s, found on The Sat­ur­day Evening Post web­site:

Ingre­di­ents

• 1 stick but­ter
• 1 cup light brown sug­ar
• 1/2 cup gran­u­lat­ed sug­ar
• 1 tea­spoon vanil­la
• 1/4 cup water and 2 eggs well beat­en
• 1 tea­spoon salt
• 1 cup flour, sift­ed
• 1/2 tea­spoon bak­ing soda
• About 1 cup oat­meal
• Chopped nuts (wal­nuts pre­ferred)

Direc­tions

Mix in order and drop on bak­ing sheet. Bake 400° 7 to 8 min­utes. Then run under broil­er to brown.

via Sat­ur­day Evening Post

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ernest Hemingway’s Favorite Ham­burg­er Recipe

David Lynch Teach­es You to Cook His Quinoa Recipe in a Weird, Sur­re­al­ist Video

Pre­pare Mar­i­lyn Monroe’s Per­son­al, Hand­writ­ten Turkey-and-Stuff­ing Recipe on Thanks­giv­ing

On Christmas, Browse A Historical Archive of More Than 50,000 Toys

in Archives, Creativity, Education, History, Life | December 25th, 2013

The Strong Nation­al Muse­um of Play, locat­ed in Rochester, NY, is a fun children’s muse­um. But the insti­tu­tion also has seri­ous research archives, stuffed with toys, games, and records of the toy indus­try. Its online col­lec­tions, which cur­rent­ly boast 55,068 objects, take a hol­i­day brows­er on a trip into a fig­u­ra­tive grandma’s attic, chock-full of the play­things peo­ple loved in the nine­teenth and twen­ti­eth cen­turies.

The online archives are divid­ed into four cat­e­gories: “Toys”, “Dolls”, “Games”, and “More.” Each of these four sec­tions is fur­ther sub­di­vid­ed into top­i­cal­ly-spe­cif­ic groups, cho­sen by the archivists.

The collection’s strength is also its weak­ness: there are so many toys that it can be easy to get over­whelmed. The sub­ject divi­sions are help­ful here. As some­body with an inter­est in gen­der and child­hood, I found myself fas­ci­nat­ed by the house­keep­ing toys—kids used to use ovens that were heat­ed with real coals!—and that was an easy way to nar­row down my browse.  Sub­ject group­ings for toy sol­diers, celebri­ty dolls, and board games also piqued my inter­est.

It’s fun to look around for toys from your own child­hood (I found a few), but if you’re inter­est­ed in his­to­ry, you might find the echoes of his­tor­i­cal events to be even more intrigu­ing. Late-nine­teenth-cen­tu­ry kids played with a paper doll inspired by the cir­cus celebri­ty Tom Thumb; chil­dren of the 1930s had licensed dolls of the media-sen­sa­tion Dionne Quin­tu­plets; a play­set from 1940 fea­tured grim, suit­ed-up “Para­troops in Action.”

Mou­s­ing over the thumb­nails will allow you to see the item’s name. If you see a blue “Learn More” tag, be sure to click through; that means that the item’s image will be accom­pa­nied by an inter­pre­tive his­tor­i­cal note writ­ten by the Strong’s archivists. These vary in length, and con­tain intrigu­ing tid­bits. Did you know, for exam­ple, that Hol­ly Hob­bie was a real per­son: the artist Hol­ly Ulinkas Hob­bie? Or that the famous artist Charles Dana Gib­son had a now-for­got­ten fol­low­er, Nell Brink­ley, who illus­trat­ed the flap­per era?

Rebec­ca Onion is a writer and aca­d­e­m­ic liv­ing in Philadel­phia. She runs Slate.com’s his­to­ry blog, The Vault. Fol­low her on Twit­ter: @rebeccaonion. 

On the Air: Watch the 1950s Sitcom by David Lynch and His Twin Peaks Co-Creator Mark Frost

in Television | December 25th, 2013

In “David Lynch Keeps His Head” (uncut ver­sion here), David Fos­ter Wal­lace’s Pre­miere mag­a­zine report from the set of Lost High­way, Wal­lace rat­tles off the “enter­tain­ments David Lynch has cre­at­ed and/or direct­ed” includ­ing “Eraser­head (1978), The Ele­phant Man (1980), Dune (1984), Blue Vel­vet (1986), Wild at Heart (1990), two tele­vised sea­sons of Twin Peaks (1990–92), Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), and the mer­ci­ful­ly ablat­ed TV show On the Air (1992).” (To ablate, a verb Wal­lace uses again in the arti­cle in ref­er­ence to a sev­ered head, means “to remove or dis­si­pate by melt­ing, vapor­iza­tion, ero­sion, etc.”) Even Lynch die-hards may nev­er have caught a glimpse of On the Air, which Wal­lace lat­er describes as “bot­tom­less­ly hor­rid” and “eutha­na­tized by ABC after six very long-seem­ing weeks.” Clear­ly the author of Infi­nite Jest, despite great­ly respect­ing Lynch’s unprece­dent­ed­ly sur­re­al prime­time dra­ma Twin Peaks (its first sea­son, at least) and cred­it­ing Blue Vel­vet with reveal­ing to him the very pos­si­bil­i­ties of art, could­n’t stom­ach this show. Now you can watch all sev­en episodes of On the Air on Youtube, three of which aired in the Unit­ed States, and judge for your­self.

The series, which debuted and end­ed in the sum­mer of 1992, takes place in 1957, peer­ing behind the scenes at the fic­tion­al Zoblot­nick Broad­cast­ing Com­pa­ny, pro­duc­ers of the hap­less vari­ety pro­gram The Lester Guy Show. Lester Guy him­self, an alco­holic sil­ver-screen lead­ing man who rose to fame by stay­ing out of the Sec­ond World War, spends most episodes vying for pop­u­lar suprema­cy against his cast’s blonde ingenue Bet­ty Hud­son, who may remind you of an even sim­pler ver­sion of Sandy Williams, the Lau­ra Dern char­ac­ter in Blue Vel­vet. The series appeared as the sec­ond col­lab­o­ra­tion between Lynch and Mark Frost, co-cre­ator of Twin Peaks, which brought their sig­na­ture sen­si­bil­i­ty of intense vivid­ness and vague­ly haunt­ing unre­al­i­ty to the detec­tive genre. On the Air brings it to the clas­sic goof­ball sit­com. Watch the first episode (ranked as #57 on TV Guide’s “100 Great­est TV Episodes of All Time” list) and, to expe­ri­ence either the utter genius or the utter train­wreck, you’ll want to watch the fol­low­ing six. “There was a lot of laugh­ter on the set,” remem­bers Ian Buchanan, who played Lester Guy. “Maybe we were too hap­py. Every­body I knew on suc­cess­ful shows was mis­er­able.”

(日本人 Lynch-heads, take note: each episode includes Japan­ese sub­ti­tles.)

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Lynch’s Sur­re­al Com­mer­cials

David Lynch Presents the His­to­ry of Sur­re­al­ist Film (1987)

David Lynch Presents the His­to­ry of Sur­re­al­ist Film (1987)

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

Hear Kevin Smith’s Three Tips For Aspiring Filmmakers (NSFW)

in Film | December 24th, 2013

If you’re seek­ing advice about mak­ing your first film, Kevin Smith is a good place to start. The comedic direc­tor of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Chas­ing Amy fame was a Hol­ly­wood out­sider when he made his debut with the crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed Clerks in 1994. The black and white fea­ture went on to gross $3.1 mil­lion — not bad for a Van­cou­ver Film School dropout who shot the movie in the con­ve­nience store where he once worked, on a total bud­get of $27,575.

In the clip above, Smith dis­pens­es a dose of ram­bling advice to Cana­di­an film­mak­er and video pro­duc­er Gavin Michael Booth. We’ve summed it up in three main points. Our sum­ma­ry lacks the exple­tives that makes Smith’s talk rather col­or­ful.

1 – “You have to have a rea­son­able amount of unrea­son­abil­i­ty” – Smith sug­gests that film­mak­ers must pos­sess an appro­pri­ate degree of self-belief and dri­ve, regard­less of the obsta­cles before them. If young film­mak­ers were rea­son­able about their chances of suc­cess, the only peo­ple mak­ing movies would be Los Ange­les natives already entrenched in the film indus­try.

2 – “You have to know… what hills you’re will­ing to die on.” The rea­son­able amount of unrea­son­abil­i­ty also refers to know­ing which bat­tles are worth fight­ing for. A direc­to­r­i­al vision is impor­tant, but at the end of the day it is sub­or­di­nate to bud­get con­straints.

3 – “You have to learn how to kill your babies.” Smith is an ardent believ­er in movies need­ing to be only as long as they must, and no longer. Includ­ing scenes because you like them unless they’re unequiv­o­cal­ly essen­tial is self-indul­gent and does a dis­ser­vice to the audi­ence.

If you’re after fur­ther tips, we’ve also writ­ten about Quentin Taran­ti­no joint­ly giv­ing film­mak­ing advice with Sam Rai­mi, and leg­endary Sovi­et direc­tor Andrei Tarkovsky’s coun­sel to begin­ner film­mak­ers. Plus we have 10 Tips From the Great Bil­ly Wilder on How to Write a Good Screen­play.

Ilia Blin­d­er­man is a Mon­tre­al-based cul­ture and sci­ence writer. Fol­low him at @iliablinderman

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