60+ Free Charlie Chaplin Films Online

in Film | December 26th, 2011

A few things to know about Char­lie Chap­lin. He starred in over 80 films, reel­ing off most dur­ing the silent film era. In 1914 alone, he act­ed in 40 films, then anoth­er 15 in 1915. By the 1920s, Chap­lin had emerged as the first larg­er-than-life movie star and direc­tor, if not the most rec­og­niz­able per­son in the world. Thanks to YouTube, you can watch 50+ Chap­lin films on the web. Above, you will find a Chap­lin mini-film fes­ti­val that brings togeth­er four movies shot in 1917: The Adven­tur­er, The Cure, Easy Street and The Immi­grant. And then below you’ll find 50+ oth­er films arranged in a neat list. Many can be oth­er­wise found in our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

• A Bur­lesque On Car­men — Free — Orig­i­nal two-reel par­o­dy of Bizet’s Car­men by Char­lie Chap­lin. Also stars Leo White & Edna Pur­viance. (1915)
• A Busy Day — Free — Chap­lin plays a wife jeal­ous of her hus­band’s inter­est in anoth­er woman, played by Phyl­lis Allen. On her way to attack the cou­ple, the wife inter­rupts the set of a film, knock­ing over a film direc­tor, played by Mack Sen­nett, and a police­man, played by Bil­ly Gilbert. (1914)

• A Day’s Plea­sure — Free — “Chap­lin’s fourth film for First Nation­al Films. It was cre­at­ed at the Chap­lin Stu­dio. It was a quick­ly made two-reel­er to help fill a gap while work­ing on his first fea­ture The Kid. It is about a day out­ing with his wife and the kids and things don’t go smooth­ly.” (1919)

• A Dog’s Life — Free – This endear­ing short Chap­lin film tells the sto­ry of under­dogs, human and canine, suc­ceed­ing despite the odds. (1918)
• A Fair Exchange — Free — Orig­i­nal­ly released as Get­ting Acquaint­ed, the film’s plot has been sum­ma­rized as fol­lows: “Char­lie and his wife are walk­ing in the park when they encounter Ambrose and his wife. The part­ners become fond of their coun­ter­parts and begin chas­ing each oth­er around. A police­man look­ing for a pro­fes­sion­al Don Juan becomes involved, as does a Turk.” (1914)
• A Film John­nie - Free — Char­lie goes to the movie and falls in love with a girl on the screen. (1914)
• A Night in the Show — Free — Chap­lin played two roles: one as Mr. Pest and one as Mr. Row­dy. The film was cre­at­ed from Chap­lin’s stage work from a play called Mum­ming Birds. (1915)
• A Night Out — Free — “After a vis­it to a pub, Char­lie and Ben cause a ruckus at a posh restau­rant. Char­lie lat­er finds him­self in a com­pro­mis­ing posi­tion at a hotel with the head wait­er’s wife.” (1915)
• A Woman — Free — This Chap­lin film starts with Char­lie meet­ing Edna (Edna Pur­viance) and her par­ents in a park; the moth­er is played by Mar­ta Gold­en and the father by Charles Ins­ley. (1915)
• Behind the Screen – Free – A short film writ­ten and direct­ed by Chap­lin, the film is long on slap­stick, but it also gets into themes deal­ing with gen­der bend­ing and homo­sex­u­al­i­ty. (1916)

• Between Show­ers - Free — A short Key­stone film from 1914 star­ring Char­lie Chap­lin, Ford Ster­ling, and Emma Bell Clifton.
• By the Sea — Free — “It is windy at a bathing resort. After fight­ing with one of the two hus­bands, Char­lie approach­es Edna while the two hus­bands them­selves fight over ice cream. Dri­ven away by her hus­band, Char­lie turns to the oth­er’s wife.” (1915)
• Caught in a Cabaret — Free —  Char­lie is a clum­sy wait­er in a cheap cabaret, suf­fer­ing the strict orders from his boss. He’ll meet a pret­ty girl in the park, pre­tend­ing to be a fan­cy ambas­sador, despite the jeal­ousy of her fiancée. (1914)
• Char­lie Shang­haied — Free — Char­lie Chap­lin and his Tramp char­ac­ter gets shang­haied by crooks. (1915)
• Char­lie’s Recre­ation — Free — Out of cos­tume, Char­lie is a clean-shaven dandy who, some­what drunk, vis­its a dance hall. There the wardrobe girl has three rival admir­ers: the band leader, one of the musi­cians, and now Char­lie. (1914).
• Char­lotte et Le Man­nequin — Free — Also known as Mabel’s Mar­ried Life, the film’s plot is sum­ma­rized as fol­lows: “Accost­ed by a mash­er in the park and unable to moti­vate hus­band Char­lie into tak­ing action, Mabel gets him a box­ing man­nequin to sharp­en his fight­ing skills.” (1914)
• Cru­el Cru­el Love - Free — Chap­lin plays a rich, upper-class gen­tle­man whose romance is endan­gered when his girl­friend over­sees him being embraced by a maid. (1914)
• Face on a Bar­room Floor — Free — “The plot is a satire derived from Hugh Antoine D’Ar­cy’s poem of the same title. The painter courts Madeleine but los­es to the wealthy client who sits for his por­trait. The despair­ing artist draws the girl’s por­trait on the bar­room floor and gets tossed out. Years lat­er he sees her, her hus­band and their horde of chil­dren. Unrec­og­nized by her, Char­lie shakes off his trou­bles and walks off into the future.” (1914)
• Gen­tle­men of Nerve — Free — “Mabel and her beau go to an auto race and are joined by Char­lie and his friend. As Char­lie’s friend is attempt­ing to enter the race­way through a hole, the friend gets stuck and a police­man shows up. Char­lie sprays the police­man with soda until [his] friends makes it through the hole. In the grand­stand, Mabel aban­dons her beau for Char­lie. Both Char­lie’s friend and Mabel’s are arrest­ed and hauled away.” (1914)
• His Favorite Pas­time — Free — Char­lie gets drunk in the bar. He steps out­side, meets a pret­ty woman, tries to flirt with her, only to retreat after the wom­an’s father returns. (1914)
• His New Job — Free — “Char­lie is try­ing to get a job in a movie. After caus­ing dif­fi­cul­ty on the set he is told to help the car­pen­ter. When one of the actors does­n’t show, Char­lie is giv­en a chance to act but instead enters a dice game. When he does final­ly act he ruins the scene, wrecks the set and tears the skirt from the star.” (1915)
• His Pre­his­toric Past — Free — “Char­lie dreams he is in the stone age. There King Low-Brow rules a harem of wives. Char­lie, in skins and a bowler, falls in love with the king’s favorite wife, Sum-Babee. Dur­ing a hunt­ing trip the king is pushed over a cliff. Char­lie pro­claims him­self king, but Ku-Ku dis­cov­ers the real king alive. They return to find Char­lie and Sum- Babee togeth­er.” (1914)
• His Tryst­ing Place — Free — “Char­lie’s wife sends him to the store for a baby bot­tle with milk. Else­where, Ambrose offers to post a love let­ter for a woman in his board­ing house. The two men meet at a restau­rant and each takes the oth­er’s coat by mis­take. Char­lie’s wife thinks he has a lover; Ambrose’s believes he has an ille­git­i­mate child.” (1914)
• In the Park — Free — “A tramp steals a girl’s hand­bag, but when he tries to pick Char­lie’s pock­et los­es his cig­a­rettes and match­es. He res­cues a hot dog man from a thug, but takes a few with his walk­ing stick. When the thief tries to take some of Char­lie’s sausages, Char­lie gets the hand­bag. The hand­bag makes its way from per­son to per­son to its own­er, who is angry with her boyfriend who did­n’t pro­tect her in the first place. The boyfriend decides to throw him­self in the lake in despair, so Char­lie helps him out.” (1915)
• Kid Auto Races at Venice – Free – It’s the first film in which Char­lie Chap­lin’s icon­ic “Lit­tle Tramp” char­ac­ter makes his appear­ance. (1914)
• Laugh­ing Gas - Free — Film star­ring Chap­lin is some­times known as “Busy Lit­tle Den­tist”, “Down and Out”, “Laffing Gas”, “The Den­tist”, and “Tun­ing His Ivories”.
• Mabel’s Busy Day — Free — “A hot­dog girl gives one to a police­man who then allows her into a race track. While oth­er cus­tomers swipe her hot­dogs, Char­lie runs off with the whole box, pre­tend­ing to sell them while actu­al­ly giv­ing them away. She calls her police­man who bat­tles Char­lie.” (1914)
• Mabel’s Strange Predica­ment — Free — Watch lots and lots of high jinks go down in a hotel. (1914)
• Mak­ing a Liv­ing — Free – Pre­mier­ing on Feb­ru­ary 2, 1914, Mak­ing a Liv­ing marks the first film appear­ance by Char­lie Chap­lin.
• Musi­cal Tramps — Free — “Char­lie and his part­ner are to deliv­er a piano to 666 Prospect St. and repos­sess one from 999 Prospect St. They con­fuse the address­es. The dif­fi­cul­ties of deliv­er­ing the piano by mule cart, and most of the spe­cif­ic gags, appeared lat­er in Lau­rel and Hardy’s ‘The Music Box’.” (1914)
• One A.M. — Free — The first silent film Char­lie Chap­lin starred in alone. (1916)
• Police — Free — “Police was Char­lie Chap­lin’s 14th released film from Essanay. It was made at the Majes­tic Stu­dio in Los Ange­les. Char­lie play­ing an ex-con­vict finds life on the out­side not to his lik­ing and leads him to break­ing into a home with anoth­er thief (Wes­ley Rug­gles). Edna Pur­viance plays the girl liv­ing in the home who tries to change him.” (1916)
• Shoul­der Arms — Free — Char­lie is a boot camp pri­vate who has a dream of being a hero who goes on a dar­ing mis­sion behind ene­my lines. (1918)
• Sun­ny­side — Free — “Char­lie works on a farm from 4am to late at night. He gets his food on the run (milk­ing a cow into his cof­fee, hold­ing an chick­en over the fry­ing pan to get fried eggs). He loves the neigh­bor’s daugh­ter Edna but is dis­liked by her father. He rides a cow into a stream and is kicked off. Uncon­scious, he dreams of a nymph dance. Back in real­i­ty a city slick­er is hurt in a car crash and is being cared for by Edna. When Char­lie is reject­ed after attempt­ing to imi­tate the slick­er, the result is ambiguous–either trag­ic or a hap­py end­ing. Crit­ics have long argued as to whether the final scene is real or a dream.” (1919)
• The Bank — Free — “Char­lie does every­thing but an effi­cient job as jan­i­tor. Edna buys her fiance, the cashier, a birth­day present. Char­lie thinks “To Charles with Love” is for him. He presents her a rose which she throws in the garbage. Depressed, Char­lie dreams of a bank rob­bery and his hero­ic role in sav­ing the man­ag­er and Edna … but it is only a dream.”
• The Bond — Free — A pro­pa­gan­da film cre­at­ed and fund­ed by Chap­lin for the­atri­cal release to help sell U.S. Lib­er­ty Bonds dur­ing World War I. (1918)
• The Cham­pi­on — Free — “Walk­ing along with his bull­dog, Char­lie finds a “good luck” horse­shoe just as he pass­es a train­ing camp adver­tis­ing for a box­ing part­ner “who can take a beat­ing.” After watch­ing oth­ers lose, Char­lie puts the horse­shoe in his glove and wins. The train­er pre­pares Char­lie to fight the world cham­pi­on. A gam­bler wants Char­lie to throw the fight. He and the train­er’s daugh­ter fall in love.” (1915)
• The Count — Free — The Count was Char­lie Chap­lin’s 5th film for Mutu­al Films. Co-star­ring Eric Camp­bell and Edna Pur­viance, it is a sto­ry about Char­lie and his boss find­ing an invi­ta­tion to a par­ty from a real Count. (1916)
• The Fatal Mal­let — Free — Three men will fight for the love of a charm­ing girl. Char­lie will play dirty, throw­ing bricks to his con­tender, and using a huge ham­mer to hurt one of them. But a pre­co­cious kid will be the fourth suit­or in dis­cord. (1914)
• The Fire­man — Free — Char­lie Chaplin’s sec­ond short for Mutu­al con­tin­ued his focus on gags and situations—as the title sug­gests, Chap­lin plays the role of an inept fire­fight­er. (1916)
• The Floor­walk­er — Free — “The Floor­walk­er was Char­lie Chap­lin’s first Mutu­al Film Com­pa­ny made in 1916. It starred Chap­lin as a cus­tomer in a depart­ment store who finds out the man­ag­er is steal­ing mon­ey from the store. It was not­ed for the first ‘run­ning stair­case’ used in films.” (1916)
• The Gold Rush — Free — This film is Char­lie Chaplin’s silent com­e­dy clas­sic set dur­ing the Klondike Gold Rush, where his icon­ic Lone Prospec­tor char­ac­ter endures bliz­zards, star­va­tion, and slap­stick mishaps while prospect­ing for for­tune in Alas­ka. (1925)
• The Good for Noth­ing — Free — Made at the Key­stone Stu­dios, the film involves Chap­lin tak­ing care of a man in a wheel­chair. (1914)
• The Immi­grant — Free — Chap­lin, in the role of the Tramp char­ac­ter, plays an immi­grant com­ing to the Unit­ed States. He gets accused of theft while on a voy­age across the Atlantic Ocean. (1917)
• The Kid - Free — The Kid is a 1921 Amer­i­can silent com­e­dy-dra­ma film writ­ten, pro­duced, direct­ed and star­ring Char­lie Chap­lin, and fea­tures Jack­ie Coogan as his foundling baby, adopt­ed son and side­kick. This was Chap­lin’s first full-length film as a direc­tor. (1921)
• The Knock­out — Free —  Char­lie Chap­lin’s sev­en­teenth film for Key­stone Stu­dios. Chap­lin only has a small role, and Fat­ty Arbuck­le takes up the main role. (1914)
• The Land­la­dy’s Pet — Free — Oth­er­wise known as The Star Board­er, the film turns around this theme: A brat’s mag­ic lantern show expos­es an indis­creet moment between a land­la­dy and her star board­er. (1914)
• The Mas­quer­ad­er — Free — “Char­lie is an actor in a film stu­dio. He mess­es up sev­er­al scenes and is tossed out. Return­ing dressed as a lady, he charms the direc­tor. Even so, Char­lie nev­er makes it into film, wind­ing up at the bot­tom of a well.” (1914)
• The New Jan­i­tor — Free — “Char­lie is jan­i­tor for a firm the man­ag­er of which receives a threat­en­ing note about his gam­bling debts. He throws a buck­et of water out the win­dow which lands on his boss and costs him his job. The boss, attempt­ing to steal the mon­ey heeds from the office safe, is caught by his sec­re­tary and Char­lie comes to save her and the mon­ey. He is briefly accused of being the thief but ulti­mate­ly tri­umphs.” (1914)
• The Pawn­shop – Free – Rich in slap­stick, The Pawn­shop was one of Chap­lin’s more pop­u­lar movies for Mutu­al Film, the pro­duc­er of many fine Chap­lin come­dies. (1916)
• The Prop­er­ty Man — Free — “Char­lie has trou­ble with actors’ lug­gage and con­flicts over who gets the star’s dress­ing room. There are fur­ther dif­fi­cul­ties with fre­quent scene changes, wrong entries and a fire­man’s hose. At one point he jug­gles an ath­lete’s sup­posed weights. The humor is still rough: he kicks an old­er assis­tant in the face and allows him to be run over by a truck.” (1914)
• The Rink – Free – The Rink, Chap­lin’s 8th film for Mutu­al Films, show­cas­es the actor’s roller skat­ing abil­i­ties. (1916)
• The Rival Mash­ers — Free — “Char­lie and a rival vie for the favors of their land­la­dy. In the park they each fall dif­fer­ent girls, though Char­lie’s has a male friend already. Char­lie con­sid­ers sui­cide, is talked out of it by a police­man, and lat­er throws his girl’s friend into the lake. Fright­ened, the girls go off to a movie. Char­lie shows up there and flirts with them. Lat­er both rivals sub­sti­tute them­selves for the girls and attack the unwit­ting Char­lie. In an audi­ence-wide fight, Char­lie is tossed from the screen.” (1914)
• The Rounders — Free — Writes IMDB: “Two drunks live in the same hotel. One beats his wife, the oth­er is beat­en by his. They go off and get drunk togeth­er. They try to sleep in a restau­rant using tables as beds and are thrown out. They lie down in a row boat which fills with water, drown­ing them (a fate appar­ent­ly bet­ter than going home to their wives).” (1914)
• The Tramp - Free — The film made Chap­lin’s great Tramp char­ac­ter famous. (1915)
• The Vagabond — Free — A silent film by Char­lie Chap­lin that co-starred Edna Pur­viance, Eric Camp­bell, Leo White and Lloyd Bacon, with Chap­lin appear­ing as The Tramp. The British Film Insti­tute calls it the “piv­otal work” of his Mutu­al peri­od – “and his most touch­ing.” (1916)
• Tillie’s Punc­tured Romance – Free – Among oth­er things, the film is notable for being the last film that Chap­lin did­n’t write or direct by him­self. (1914)
• Triple Trou­ble — Free — “As Colonel Nutt is exper­i­ment­ing with explo­sives, a new jan­i­tor is join­ing his house­hold. The inept jan­i­tor pro­ceeds to make life dif­fi­cult for the rest of the staff. Mean­while, a for­eign agent arrives at the house in hopes of get­ting Col. Nut­t’s lat­est inven­tion. The inven­tor throws him out, so the agent then employs a thug to get the for­mu­la. When police head to the Nutt home to start an inves­ti­ga­tion, a com­pli­cat­ed fra­cas ensues.” (1918)
• Twen­ty Min­utes of Love — Free — IMDB sum­ma­rizes thus­ly: “Char­lie is hang­ing around in the park, find­ing prob­lems with a jeal­ous suit­or, a man who thinks that Char­lie has robbed him of a watch, a police­man and even a lit­tle boy, all because our friend can’t stop snoop­ing.” (1914)
• Work — Free — “Char­lie and his boss have dif­fi­cul­ties just get­ting to the house they are going to wall­pa­per. The house­hold­er is angry because he can’t get break­fast and his wife is scream­ing at the maid as they arrive. The kitchen gas stove explodes, and Char­lie offers to fix it. The wife’s secret lover arrives and is passed off as the work­ers’ super­vi­sor, but the hus­band does­n’t buy this and fires shots. The stove explodes vio­lent­ly, destroy­ing the house.” (1915)

Most of the quot­ed sum­maries above were writ­ten by Ed Stephan on IMDB.

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in 2011. Some of the links and text have been updat­ed.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

When Char­lie Chap­lin Entered a Chap­lin Look-Alike Con­test & Came in 20th Place

What Would the World of Char­lie Chap­lin Look Like in Col­or?: Watch a Col­or­ful­ly Restored Ver­sion of A Night at the Show (1915)

The Char­lie Chap­lin Archive Opens, Putting Online 30,000 Pho­tos & Doc­u­ments from the Life of the Icon­ic Film Star

Char­lie Chap­lin Gets Strapped into a Dystopi­an “Rube Gold­berg Machine,” a Fright­ful Com­men­tary on Mod­ern Cap­i­tal­ism

Char­lie Chap­lin Films a Scene Inside a Lion’s Cage in 200 Takes

Impressionist Reads ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas in Celebrity Voices

in Music | December 25th, 2011

Ear­li­er this year, actor and impres­sion­ist Jim Meski­men pro­duced a viral video that fea­tured him read­ing a famous mono­logue from Shake­speare’s Richard III, all while using the voic­es of 25 famous fig­ures. (Watch here.) Now, he’s back and read­ing Clement C. Moore’s ‘Twas The Night Before Christ­mas, this time with imper­son­ations of Woody Allen, John F. Kennedy, John Wayne and Samuel L. Jack­son. Have fun with it.  h/t @MatthiasRascher

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Nine Imper­son­ations by Kevin Spacey in Six Min­utes

Watch Terry Gilliam’s Animated Short, The Christmas Card (1968)

in Animation, Art, Comedy | December 24th, 2011

In 1968, Ter­ry Gilliam was a young Amer­i­can car­toon­ist liv­ing in Lon­don. He was hav­ing trou­ble mak­ing a liv­ing from mag­a­zine work, so his friend John Cleese sug­gest­ed he get in touch with Humphrey Bar­clay, who was pro­duc­ing a slight­ly sub­ver­sive tele­vi­sion show for chil­dren called Do Not Adjust Your Set.

Sub­ti­tled “The Fair­ly Point­less Show,” it fea­tured a group of pre­vi­ous­ly unknown actors includ­ing Eric Idle, Michael Palin and Ter­ry Jones, and attract­ed a cult fol­low­ing among adults. Bar­clay looked at Gilliam’s port­fo­lio and decid­ed he would fit right in.

For one ear­ly assign­ment, Gilliam was asked to pre­pare some­thing for a spe­cial show to be broad­cast on Christ­mas day, 1968, called Do Not Adjust Your Stock­ing. Look­ing for inspi­ra­tion, he decid­ed to vis­it the Tate Gallery. In The Pythons Auto­bi­og­ra­phy of the Pythons, Gilliam remem­bered the project and how it fig­ured into his emerg­ing artis­tic style:

I went down to the Tate and they’ve got a huge col­lec­tion of Vic­to­ri­an Christ­mas cards so I went through the col­lec­tion and pho­to­copied things and start­ed mov­ing them around. So the style just devel­oped out of that rather than any plan­ning being involved. I nev­er analysed the stuff, I just did it the quick­est, eas­i­est way. And I could use images I real­ly loved.

The result (above) is a hilar­i­ous free-asso­ci­a­tion­al send-up of tra­di­tion­al Christ­mas card motifs. In addi­tion to being aired on the show, The Christ­mas Card was incor­po­rat­ed into Gilliam’s short debut film from 1968, Sto­ry­time, which is part of our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

For an update of Gilliam’s twist­ed take on Christmas–a dark­er rework­ing of his Malev­o­lent San­ta theme in The Christ­mas Card–look below for a draw­ing Gilliam post­ed a few days ago on his Face­book page. And as the man says, you bet­ter watch out!

via Bleed­ing Cool

Relat­ed Con­tent:

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

Ter­ry Gilliam (Mon­ty Python) Shows You How to Make Your Own Cutout Ani­ma­tion

“Werner Herzog” Reads ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas

in Comedy, Literature | December 24th, 2011

Anoth­er chest­nut — fake Wern­er Her­zog read­ing from ‘Twas The Night Before Christ­mas. This isn’t the sto­ry as you know it. No, this ver­sion is dark, packed with bleak social com­men­tary and some wit­ty lit­er­ary crit­i­cism, and shat­ters all illu­sions.

Ide­al­ly this clip should be watched with faux Wern­er Her­zog read­ing oth­er chil­dren’s clas­sics: Curi­ous George, Made­line, and Where’s Wal­do. And then this: the real Wern­er Her­zog read­ing Go the F**k to Sleep, the 15 minute hit, at The New York Pub­lic Library this past June.

40 Great Filmmakers Go Old School, Shoot Short Films with 100 Year Old Camera

in Film | December 23rd, 2011

In 1995, 40 inter­na­tion­al­ly-rec­og­nized direc­tors took part in a col­lab­o­ra­tive film, Lumiere & Com­pa­ny, that cel­e­brat­ed the first hun­dred years of cin­e­ma. In mak­ing the film, each direc­tor had to agree to four rules. They had to shoot a short film 1.) using the orig­i­nal Ciné­matographe invent­ed by the Lumière Broth­ers a cen­tu­ry before — the same cam­era that shot Work­ers Leav­ing The Lumière Fac­to­ry in Lyon (1895), one of the ear­li­est motion pic­tures ever made. Their films 2.) had to be one con­tin­u­ous shot and could­n’t be longer than 52 sec­onds; 3.) they could­n’t use syn­chro­nized sound or arti­fi­cial lights; and 4.) they were only allowed three takes, no more. As for the results? They ran the gamut. Above Chi­nese film­mak­er Zhang Yimou play­ful­ly shows a cou­ple dressed in tra­di­tion­al garb turn­ing into punk rock­ers, danc­ing to the sounds of Nir­vana atop the Great Wall of Chi­na. And below, we have: Wim Wen­ders revis­it­ing Berlin and the angels from Wings of Desire, his land­mark 1987 film.

David Lynch giv­ing us the essen­tials of a mur­der sto­ry in one minute. He called the short Pre­mo­ni­tions Fol­low­ing an Evil Deed.

Liv Ull­mann cap­tur­ing the leg­endary cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Sven Nykvist, famous for his work with Ing­mar Bergman. Here, Nykvist films Ull­man­n’s cam­era as it films him.

Acclaimed Iran­ian direc­tor Abbas Kiarosta­mi using extreme min­i­mal­ism to tell the tale of unre­quit­ed love.

And Spike Lee giv­ing us a retro home movie.

Source: Roger Ebert.com

The Large Hadron Collider Rap, Yo

in Music, Physics, Random | December 22nd, 2011

Last week, the reports about Hig­gs Boson, oth­er­wise called the God par­ti­cle, put CERN and the Large Hadron Col­lid­er back into the news, lead­ing some to ask: What exact­ly are Hig­gs and the Col­lid­er all about? We’re glad you asked. And what bet­ter way to answer that ques­tion than with a fly, lit­tle rap by Kate McAlpine (aka Alpinekat) and Will Bar­ras. You can find the full lyrics below the jump, and the parts about Hig­gs Boson right below…

The Hig­gs Boson – that’s the one that every­body talks about.
And it’s the one sure thing that this machine will sort out
If the Hig­gs exists, they ought to see it right away
And if it doesn’t, then the sci­en­tists will final­ly say
“There is no Hig­gs! We need new physics to account for why
Things have mass. Some­thing in our Stan­dard Mod­el went awry.”

But the Hig­gs – I still haven’t said just what it does
They sup­pose that par­ti­cles have mass because
There is this Hig­gs field that extends through all space
And some par­ti­cles slow down while oth­er par­ti­cles race
Straight through like the pho­ton – it has no mass
But some­thing heavy like the top quark, it’s drag­gin’ its ***
And the Hig­gs is a boson that car­ries a force
And makes par­ti­cles take orders from the field that is its source.
They’ll detect it…

(more…)

Winter Dreams: F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Life Remembered in Fine Film

in Film, Literature | December 21st, 2011

F. Scott Fitzger­ald died on this day in 1940. It was a Sat­ur­day after­noon in Hol­ly­wood. Fitzger­ald was eat­ing a choco­late bar and read­ing the Prince­ton Alum­ni Week­ly, which had just arrived in the mail, when sud­den­ly he rose from his arm­chair, reached out for a mar­ble man­tel­piece, and col­lapsed onto the floor in a mas­sive heart attack. He was 44 years old.

A lat­er exam­i­na­tion of the choco­late-smudged pages of the mag­a­zine revealed that Fitzger­ald (find sev­er­al of his works in our Free Audio Books and Free eBooks col­lec­tions) had been inter­est­ed in an arti­cle about the 1940 Prince­ton foot­ball team, jot­ting down a ros­ter of for­mer play­ers in the mar­gin and draw­ing a line around this mun­dane pas­sage: “Faced with such men as Rea­gan [a Penn play­er], Ari­co of Dart­mouth, Willough­by of Yale, or Mazur of Army, a play­er has his work cut out for him. The first pre­req­ui­site of a good tack­ler is his desire to tack­le. You must want to tack­le. After that it is a mat­ter of train­ing and the abil­i­ty to think quick­ly and act quick­ly.” Beside the cir­cled pas­sage, Fitzger­ald had writ­ten in pen­cil: “good prose.”

Fitzger­ald, of course, was one of the most cel­e­brat­ed prose styl­ists of the Twen­ti­eth Cen­tu­ry, and to mark the date of his pass­ing we present a fas­ci­nat­ing doc­u­men­tary, F. Scott Fitzger­ald: Win­ter Dreams, from the PBS Amer­i­can Mas­ters series. Pro­duced, writ­ten and direct­ed by DeWitt Sage, the film won a Peabody award in 2002 “for chron­i­cling the life of Fitzger­ald, one of Amer­i­ca’s great­est nov­el­ists, in images and ideas as lyri­cal and inven­tive as his prose.”

The film has no nar­ra­tor. Instead, the sto­ry of Fitzger­ald’s life is pieced togeth­er through read­ings of his sto­ries, let­ters, and notes, and through inter­views with schol­ars, writ­ers (includ­ing E.L. Doc­torow) and a few peo­ple who actu­al­ly knew the writer. F. Scott Fitzger­ald: Win­ter Dreams is 84 min­utes long, and will be added to our grow­ing archive of Free Movies Online. For more about the film, includ­ing an inter­view with the direc­tor and an inter­ac­tive time­line of Fitzger­ald’s life, go to the Amer­i­can Mas­ters web­site. To read Fitzger­ald’s famous short sto­ry called “Win­ter Dreams,” click here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

F. Scott Fitzger­ald Recites “Ode to a Nightin­gale”

F. Scott Fitzger­ald Reads Shake­speare

The Best Lines of Walter Lewin, MIT Physics Prof & Web Star

in Online Courses, Physics | December 21st, 2011

As The New York Times not­ed in a 2007 pro­file, Wal­ter Lewin long had a cult fol­low­ing at MIT. But when his free cours­es went viral on the web (find them in the Physics sec­tion of our big col­lec­tion of Free Online Cours­es), the physics prof became an “inter­na­tion­al Inter­net guru,” the first star of the open course move­ment. It’s a sign of his star­dom that some­one made a mashup of Lewin’s “best lines” (drawn, not spo­ken) from his Clas­si­cal Mechan­ics course. For more great physics videos, don’t miss these items:

Richard Feyn­man’s 1964 Cor­nell Physics Course Goes Online

Physics from Hell: How Dante’s Infer­no Inspired Galileo’s Physics

Lawrence Krauss Explains How You Get ‘A Uni­verse From Noth­ing’

h/t goes to Coudal.com

Kim Jong-il’s Godzilla Movie & His Free Writings on Film Theory

in Film | December 20th, 2011

Ding, dong, Kim Jong-il is dead. Read­ing The New York Times obit, one lit­tle piece of the dic­ta­tor’s insane world stood out for us:

Short and round, he wore ele­va­tor shoes, over­size sun­glass­es and a bouf­fant hair­do — a Hol­ly­wood stereo­type of the wacky post-cold-war dic­ta­tor. Mr. Kim him­self was fas­ci­nat­ed by film. He orches­trat­ed the kid­nap­ping of an actress and a direc­tor, both of them South Kore­ans, in an effort to build a domes­tic movie indus­try.

Let’s give you more on this sto­ry: In 1978, Shin Sang-ok, South Kore­a’s famous direc­tor, went to Hong Kong to fig­ure out why his ex-wife, actress Choi Eun-hee, went miss­ing. When he arrived, North Kore­an agents pulled him into a car, threw a bag over his head, then shipped him to Pyongyang wrapped in plas­tic. (The BBC has more on this.) And so began his eight year impris­on­ment in North Korea, where the film­mak­er had to sat­is­fy the whims of Kim Jong-il, then a young “cinephile” who wrote On the Art of the Cin­e­ma in 1973, and The Cin­e­ma and Direct­ing in 1987 (read the free PDF here). Shin shot eight films dur­ing his “NK peri­od,” the best-known being Pul­gasari, a 1985 Godzil­la-style movie that played to the tastes of the lit­tle dic­ta­tor. We’re adding it to the Hor­ror sec­tion of our big col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

In case you’re won­der­ing, Shin and his wife (they remar­ried while impris­oned) even­tu­al­ly escaped from North Korea in 1986, dur­ing a trip to Vien­na. Despite that, Kim Jong-il’s love of cin­e­ma did­n’t wane. Film­mak­ing still plays a big role in the man­u­fac­tur­ing of North Kore­an ide­ol­o­gy, and below we’re bring­ing back Al Jazeer­a’s look at the con­tem­po­rary North Korea film­mak­ing scene:

via i09

Pickin’ & Trimmin’ in a Down-Home North Carolina Barbershop: Award-Winning Short Film

in Life, Music | December 19th, 2011

Pickin’ & Trim­min’ is a doc­u­men­tary short film from 2008 pro­fil­ing “The Bar­ber­shop” in Drex­el, North Car­oli­na, where Lawrence Antho­ny and David Shirley have bar­bered for decades, and where blue­grass musi­cians have jammed in the back room every week­end. Direct­ed by Matt Mor­ris, the award-win­ning film show­cas­es the peo­ple and atmos­phere of a small com­mu­ni­ty in rur­al Amer­i­ca, per­haps bet­ter than any­thing you’ve seen before. And the music played in the back room is sim­ply won­der­ful.

You can find pho­tos tak­en at The Bar­ber­shop on Flickr here. The film itself has been added to the Doc­u­men­tary sec­tion of our Free Movies col­lec­tion.

Update: Lawrence Antho­ny, the head bar­ber por­trayed in this film, passed away in 2009. His son con­tin­ues to run The Bar­ber­shop, but severe water dam­age has left the shop in need of repair. Here is a video show­ing the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion.

By pro­fes­sion, Matthias Rasch­er teach­es Eng­lish and His­to­ry at a High School in north­ern Bavaria, Ger­many. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on Twit­ter.