John Cleese, Monty Python Icon, on How to Be Creative

in Comedy, Creativity, Life, Psychology, Video - Science | April 11th, 2012

A cou­ple of years ago, Maria Popo­va high­light­ed for us a 2009 talk by John Cleese that offered a hand­book for cre­at­ing the right con­di­tions for cre­ativ­i­ty. Of course, John Cleese knows some­thing about cre­ativ­i­ty, being one of the lead­ing forces behind Mon­ty Python, the beloved British com­e­dy group.

Now, we have anoth­er talk, record­ed cir­ca 1991, where Cleese uses sci­en­tif­ic research to describe what cre­ativ­i­ty is … and what cre­ativ­i­ty isn’t. He starts by telling us, cre­ativ­i­ty is not a tal­ent. It has noth­ing to do with IQ. It is a way of doing things, a way of being — which means that cre­ativ­i­ty can be learned. The rest he explains in 37 thought-filled min­utes.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mal­colm McLaren: The Quest for Authen­tic Cre­ativ­i­ty

Amy Tan: The Sources of Cre­ativ­i­ty

The Uni­ver­sal Mind of Bill Evans: Advice on Learn­ing to Play Jazz & The Cre­ative Process

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Reading David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King Live on Stage; Paperback Coming Soon

in Books, Theatre | April 11th, 2012

“David Fos­ter Wal­lace’s writ­ing sort of lends itself to being read aloud,” says actor Bri­an Elerd­ing. He under­states the case; at times, Wal­lace seems to have craft­ed his prose specif­i­cal­ly to reflect and embody spo­ken lan­guage. He lis­tened to the Eng­lish actu­al­ly used today, includ­ing all its tics, hitch­es, sole­cisms, and delib­er­ate inar­tic­u­lac­i­es, with an obser­va­to­ry pre­ci­sion and rig­or approach­ing the sci­en­tif­ic. Actor-writer-direc­tor John Krasin­s­ki first put this qual­i­ty of Wal­lace’s writ­ing to a high-pro­file test with his 2009 film adap­ta­tion of Brief Inter­views with Hideous Men. In the above clip, we see the mak­ing of a sim­i­lar project in a very dif­fer­ent form: last April in Bev­er­ly Hills, the PEN (Poets, Essay­ists, and Nov­el­ists) Cen­ter USA put on a live read­ing where “eleven tal­ent­ed actors” per­formed David Fos­ter Wal­lace mono­logues “to an enthu­si­as­tic crowd of 300.”

These mono­logues came adapt­ed from The Pale King, Wal­lace’s famous­ly posthu­mous nov­el about what, if any­thing, lays beyond the crush­ing veil of tedi­um at a Peo­ria IRS branch office. As we enter the throes of Unit­ed States tax time, the book gears up for a paper­back release fea­tur­ing addi­tion­al mate­r­i­al, some of which appeared last month at The Mil­lions. PEN’s read­ing, intro­duced by Los Ange­les Times book crit­ic David L. Ulin, show­cased inter­pre­ta­tions of The Pale King’s char­ac­ters through the voic­es of actors like Nick Offer­man and Josh Rad­nor, come­di­ans like Rob Delaney and June Diane Raphael, and even for­mer Black Flag front­man Hen­ry Rollins. Now best known as a spo­ken-word artist, Rollins under­stands well the pow­er and depth of human speech. “It’s try­ing to reach you on every page,” he says of Wal­lace’s writ­ing. “He’s try­ing to make a con­nec­tion.” Strug­gling to pin down the exact nature of Wal­lace’s res­o­nance, so strong with so many read­ers, lit­er­ary schol­ars have used hun­dreds of thou­sands of their own words to draw the very same con­clu­sion.

Relat­ed con­tent:

David Fos­ter Wal­lace: The Big, Uncut Inter­view

‘This Is Water’: Com­plete Audio of David Fos­ter Wallace’s Keny­on Grad­u­a­tion Speech (2005)

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

Watch The Critic: The Oscar-Winning, Animated Film Narrated by Mel Brooks (1963)

in Animation, Comedy, Film | April 10th, 2012

One day in ear­ly 1962, Mel Brooks was sit­ting in a New York City the­ater watch­ing an avant-garde film by the Scot­tish-born Cana­di­an ani­ma­tor Nor­man McLaren when he heard some­one in the audi­ence express­ing bewil­der­ment. “Three rows behind me,” Brooks told Ken­neth Tynan for a 1979 New York­er pro­file, “there was an old immi­grant man mum­bling to him­self. He was very unhap­py because he was wait­ing for a sto­ry line and he was­n’t get­ting one.”

Brooks had made a study of old cur­mud­geons ever since he was a boy grow­ing up in a Jew­ish neigh­bor­hood of Brook­lyn. In a 1975 Play­boy inter­view he described his eccen­tric Uncle Joe, who would say to him when he was five years old, “Don’t invest. Put da mon­ey inna bank. Even the land could sink.”

Lat­er, as a young come­di­an learn­ing his craft on the borscht belt cir­cuit, Brooks paid close atten­tion to the elo­cu­tion and tim­ing of the old Yid­dish come­di­ans. After work­ing as a writer for Sid Cae­sar’s ear­ly tele­vi­sion pro­gram, Your Show of Shows, Brooks and fel­low writer Carl Rein­er hit it big as per­form­ers in 1961, with their “2000-Year-Old Man” rou­tine. Rein­er was the straight man inter­view­ing an old man played by Brooks. In one famous scene Rein­er asked, “You knew Jesus?” Brooks replied, “Yeah. He was a thin man, always wore san­dals. Came into the store but nev­er bought any­thing.”

So when he over­heard the old kvetch in the movie the­ater giv­ing a run­ning com­men­tary on his own bewil­der­ment, Brooks rec­og­nized the comedic pos­si­bil­i­ties. He approached direc­tor Ernest Pintoff, whose Oscar-nom­i­nat­ed 1959 short The Vio­lin­ist had been nar­rat­ed by Rein­er, about mak­ing a movie. Pintoff hired artist Bob Heath to cre­ate the ani­ma­tion, and chose Bach to set the high­brow tone. Brooks was 36 years old when he cre­at­ed the voice of the 71-year-old man. As he told Tynan, the com­men­tary was ad-libbed:

I asked my pal Ernie Pintoff to do the visu­als for a McLaren-type car­toon. I told him, ‘Don’t let me see the images in advance. Just give me a mike and let them assault me.’ And that’s what he did…I sat in a view­ing the­atre look­ing at what Ernie showed me, and I mum­bled what­ev­er I felt that old guy would have mum­bled, try­ing to find a plot in this maze of abstrac­tions. We cut it down to three and a half min­utes and called it The Crit­ic.

The film was a crit­i­cal as well as a pop­u­lar suc­cess, win­ning the Acad­e­my Award for best ani­mat­ed short film of 1963. Putting The Crit­ic into per­spec­tive, Samuel Raphael Fran­co of J, the Jew­ish news week­ly, wrote in 2009:

The film is a rel­ic of quin­tes­sen­tial borscht belt humor.…It is also a valu­able soci­o­log­ic por­trait of the pre­dom­i­nant cul­tur­al atti­tudes of Brook­lyn’s first gen­er­a­tion of Russ­ian-Jew­ish immi­grants. The influ­ence of Brooks’ devel­op­ment as a com­ic as a tumm­ler for the crowds in the Catskills sur­faces right away in the first line, “Vat the hell is dis?”

The Crit­ic has been added to the Ani­ma­tion sec­tion of our Free Movies col­lec­tion, and also to our list of 30 Free Oscar Win­ning Films.

The Invention (and Demonstration) of the First Football Helmet, 1932

in Random | April 10th, 2012

British Pathe con­tin­ues to dust off and dig­i­tize some amaz­ing clips from its archive. First came The World’s First Mobile Phone (1922) and footage of The King’s Speech in 1938 — you know, the real King George VI work­ing his way through a pub­lic speech in Scot­land. Now British Pathe returns with some 1932 footage of an inven­tor show­ing off the first foot­ball hel­met, his mod­est “attempt to pre­vent fatal injuries” in the sport. You won’t want to miss the demo of this new fan­gled piece of sports equip­ment. H/T Devour

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!

How the Titanic Sank: James Cameron’s New CGI Animation

in Animation | April 9th, 2012

It was 100 years ago next Sun­day that the lux­u­ry lin­er Titan­ic struck an ice­berg and sank in the North Atlantic Ocean with 1,514 souls aboard. It was one of the dead­liest mar­itime dis­as­ters in his­to­ry.

Last night, the Nation­al Geo­graph­ic Chan­nel broad­cast the pre­mier of The Titan­ic: The Final Word With James Cameron, in which the famed under­sea explor­er and direc­tor of the 1997 block­buster movie about the dis­as­ter presents the lat­est foren­sic evi­dence of what hap­pened that night a cen­tu­ry ago. At one point in the show, Cameron, fresh off of his dive to the bot­tom of the Mar­i­ana Trench, gives a sort of “play-by-play” analy­sis of the mechan­ics of the dis­as­ter (see above) using Com­put­er Graph­ic Imag­ing (CGI) soft­ware. The trag­ic ele­ment is com­plete­ly abstract­ed out of the pic­ture.

For more on the Titan­ic cen­te­nary, includ­ing inter­ac­tive fea­tures and a 46-minute doc­u­men­tary film on the dis­as­ter, vis­it the Nation­al Geo­graph­ic “Adven­ture on the Titan­ic” Web page.

Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters Performs The Wall at the Berlin Wall (1990)

in Film, History, Music | April 6th, 2012

Per­haps you enjoyed yes­ter­day’s post on Pink Floyd: Live at Pom­peii but today find your­self unsat­is­fied, long­ing for more footage that com­bines the band with a his­tor­i­cal­ly icon­ic work of archi­tec­ture. Today, dear read­ers, we have a con­cert film that might fit your bill: The Wall — Live in Berlin, view­able free on YouTube. While it fea­tures nei­ther the actu­al Berlin Wall — that had already fall­en — nor the com­plete line­up of Pink Floyd, it com­pen­sates with a degree of spec­ta­cle that, in terms of human labor, must rank along­side sev­er­al of the won­ders of the ancient world. This live per­for­mance of The Wall, Pink Floy­d’s dri­ving, para­noid 1979 rock opera, takes place on Pots­damer Platz, nor far from where the Berlin Wall stood a mere eight months before. The show’s crew grad­u­al­ly builds their own wall right there onstage over the course of the show, express­ly to suf­fer the same fate as both the real one that divid­ed East Ger­many from the West and the metaphor­i­cal one that sep­a­rates The Wall’s dis­af­fect­ed rock-star pro­tag­o­nist from the rest of human­i­ty.

The Wall — Live in Berlin hap­pened not as an offi­cial Pink Floyd show, but more as a pro­duc­tion by found­ing mem­ber Roger Waters. But you could­n’t accu­rate­ly call it a Roger Waters solo show either, since, even aside from the large tech­ni­cal staff need­ed to orches­trate such an event, he enlist­ed count­less guest stars to put their own spin on the songs, includ­ing Cyn­di Lau­per, Van Mor­ri­son, Thomas Dol­by, Ger­many’s own Scor­pi­ons, and — who could for­get? — the band of the Com­bined Sovi­et Forces in Ger­many.

The per­for­mance drew hun­dreds of thou­sands of view­ers, a sight from the stage which must sure­ly have kept Waters won­der­ing, in the fol­low­ing decades, if it might make sense to return to The Wall’s well. But could the show ulti­mate­ly rep­re­sent a non-replic­a­ble moment in cul­tur­al, musi­cal, and polit­i­cal his­to­ry? Could only the Berlin of July 1990 have seen pro­gres­sive rock­ers and pop stars join forces to turn a dark, heady dou­ble con­cept album into one of the most elab­o­rate and well-attend­ed con­certs in rock his­to­ry?

You can find an answer to these ques­tions in Waters’ recent The Wall Live tour, which began in Sep­tem­ber 2010. The video above cap­tures the show in Mel­bourne last year. Just as they did not sim­ply stage a live repli­ca of The Wall (the album) for Live in Berlin, Rogers and com­pa­ny have, this time around, wise­ly cho­sen not to attempt a recre­ation of that impres­sive evening twen­ty years before. While no less bold and com­plex than its all-out pre­de­ces­sor, the project of The Wall Live some­how inter­prets its musi­cal source mate­r­i­al in a more sub­dued and — for lack of a bet­ter word — artis­tic man­ner. These choic­es acknowl­edge the fact that pop­u­lar music, even as gen­er­at­ed by the Lady Gagas of the world, has stepped back from the straight­for­ward spec­ta­cle at its height in the late eight­ies. Under­stand­ing, too, that the world-divid­ing clash between com­mu­nism and cap­i­tal­ism no longer looms quite so over­whelm­ing­ly in the zeit­geist, Waters has updat­ed the new shows with an infu­sion of his cur­rent anti-war views. In Pink Floyd: Live in Pom­peii, Waters open­ly wor­ried about becom­ing “a rel­ic of the past.” Watch the evo­lu­tion between these two per­for­mances and judge for your­self whether he’s suc­ceed­ed so far in avoid­ing it.

H/T goes to Kate for flag­ging this con­cert for us…

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

The Birth and Decline of a Book: Two Videos for Bibliophiles

in Books | April 5th, 2012

If you’ve ever spent any time with old books, or stepped into the right used book­store, you’ve encoun­tered that dis­tinc­tive smell. Pro­duced by Abe’s Books, and draw­ing on research from chemists at Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege, Lon­don, this video looks at the sci­ence behind the aro­ma of used books — at what hap­pens when chem­i­cals and organ­ic mat­ter con­front heat, light, mois­ture and time.

When you’re done watch­ing the video, you might want to spend time with a sec­ond clip that deals with anoth­er part of the life­cy­cle of the book — the birth of a book. Shot by Glen Mil­ner at Smith-Set­tle Print­ers in Leeds, Eng­land, this short film lets you watch first­hand a book — Suzanne St Albans’ Man­go and Mimosa — being made with old school print­ing meth­ods. Enjoy.

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!

Views from Hitchcock’s Rear Window in Timelapse

in Film | April 3rd, 2012

Alfred Hitch­cock shot many great films. (Watch 21 of his films online here.) But, if you ask the crit­ics, they’ll often say Rear Win­dow, his 1954 clas­sic star­ring Jim­my Stew­art and Grace Kel­ly, was his finest. We won’t rehearse the plot, except to say that it’s an incred­i­ble study of voyeurism and it all revolves around a pho­tog­ra­ph­er con­fined to a wheel­chair who spends long days look­ing out of his rear win­dow, sur­veilling the apart­ments around his court­yard. Now film­mak­er Jeff Des­om has tak­en this footage — all the footage look­ing out­side the Rear Win­dow — and stitched it into a great lit­tle time­lapse film. The order of events is the same seen in the movie, and the music, a re-arrrange­ment of Brahms’ Hun­gar­i­an Dance No. 5, is pro­vid­ed by Hugo Win­ter­hal­ter… via metafil­ter

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Alfred Hitch­cock Recalls Work­ing with Sal­vador Dali on Spell­bound

François Truffaut’s Big Inter­view with Alfred Hitch­cock (Free Audio)

Hitch­cock on Hap­pi­ness

David Lynch’s New ‘Crazy Clown Time’ Video: Intense Psychotic Backyard Craziness (NSFW)

in Film, Music | April 3rd, 2012

What could be more whole­some and all-Amer­i­can than a back­yard bar­be­cue? Unless, of course, the back­yard in ques­tion belongs to David Lynch.

Lynch has long-since estab­lished him­self as a sort of anti-Nor­man Rock­well. This week, with the release of a new video to go with his debut music album, Crazy Clown Time, Lynch stays true to form. As he explained to Enter­tain­ment Week­ly when the video was still in pro­duc­tion, “A ‘Crazy Clown Time’ should have an intense psy­chot­ic back­yard crazi­ness, fueled by beer.” Yes­ter­day Lynch offered fur­ther expla­na­tion when he sent a mes­sage on Twit­ter announc­ing the release: “Be the 1st on your block to see the Advance­ment of the Race which Con­way Twit­ty spoke so clear­ly.”

The video lasts sev­en min­utes and might be con­sid­ered NSFW, depend­ing on your office’s pol­i­cy on nudi­ty, demon­ic wail­ing and depic­tions of peo­ple pour­ing lighter flu­id on their spiked mohawk hair­do and set­ting it afire.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Lynch’s Sur­re­al Com­mer­cials

David Lynch’s Eraser­head Remade in Clay

Making Paper in L.A., Pianos in Paris: Old Craftsmen Hanging on in a Changing World

in Art, Business | March 30th, 2012

In a world of accel­er­at­ing obso­les­cence, of plas­tic prod­ucts and dig­i­tal infor­ma­tion, a few old-school crafts­man are still hang­ing on. But they’re get­ting hard­er and hard­er to find. In this pair of short films we meet a few crafts­men on both sides of the Atlantic who are stub­born­ly per­sist­ing while the world changes around them. Above is Ink & Paper by Ben Proud­foot, a stu­dent at the Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia School of Cin­e­mat­ic Arts. It tells the sto­ry of the men who run the last sur­viv­ing let­ter­press print­ing com­pa­ny in down­town Los Ange­les, and the old­est paper com­pa­ny. Below is Le Mer de Pianos (The Sea of Pianos) by Tom Wrig­glesworth and Math­ieu Cuve­li­er, about the man who has spent 28 years (the last 15 as own­er) run­ning the old­est piano repair shop in Paris.