Movie Tearjerkers: What’s the Saddest Scene in Cinema?

in Film, Psychology | July 28th, 2011

Accord­ing this fas­ci­nat­ing piece in The Smith­son­ian, Fran­co Zef­firelli’s 1979 weep­fest The Champ is the most con­sis­tent­ly effec­tive tear­jerk­er in the his­to­ry of film. It’s also the tear­jerk­er most often used in sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies of grief and sad­ness:

The Champ has been used in exper­i­ments to see if depressed peo­ple are more like­ly to cry than non-depressed peo­ple (they aren’t). It has helped deter­mine whether peo­ple are more like­ly to spend mon­ey when they are sad (they are) and whether old­er peo­ple are more sen­si­tive to grief than younger peo­ple (old­er peo­ple did report more sad­ness when they watched the scene). Dutch sci­en­tists used the scene when they stud­ied the effect of sad­ness on peo­ple with binge eat­ing dis­or­ders (sad­ness didn’t increase eat­ing).

We would have gone with either the last scene of West Side Sto­ry or that dev­as­tat­ing 1989 Negro Col­lege Fund com­mer­cial with the pen­nies. Feel free to post your own can­di­dates in the com­ments.

via Neatora­ma

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

Improv with New Yorker Cartoonists

in Art, Comedy | July 27th, 2011

When you think of The New York­er, you think about two things — long-form arti­cles and leg­endary car­toons. The two art forms have gone hand-in-hand since the mag­a­zine began pub­lish­ing in 1925, and, decades lat­er, a younger gen­er­a­tion of car­toon­ists still deliv­ers the laughs. Thanks to the Gel Con­fer­ence 2011 (see all videos here), you can spend 25 min­utes inside their artis­tic world. Matt Dif­fee, Drew Der­navich, and Zach Kanin talk about their some­times con­tro­ver­sial work at the mag­a­zine and draw improv car­toons based on audi­ence sug­ges­tions. Fun guar­an­teed for all. H/T @opedr

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ein­stein’s Rel­a­tiv­i­ty: New York­er Car­toon Ani­mat­ed

Free Rap in the Streets of NYC

in Life, Music | July 23rd, 2011

Back in Novem­ber 2008, just days after the his­toric elec­tion of Barack Oba­ma, Chris “Shock­wave” Sul­li­van took to the streets of New York City and invit­ed unsus­pect­ing pedes­tri­ans to rap with him. The video went online in 2009, but it’s only going viral today. Fun­ny how the web works. H/T Kot­tke

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hey New York, What Song Are You Lis­ten­ing To?

What New York­ers Heard on the Radio the Night John Lennon was Shot

The Year According to The New York Times, in 12,000 Screenshots

in Random | July 21st, 2011

As if your Twit­ter, Google +, and RSS feeds weren’t over­whelm­ing enough, you can now watch a time lapse video of a year’s worth of The New York Times — in 12,000 screen­shots. Enjoy, and try not get dizzy.

via Giz­mo­do

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Gay Talese: Drink­ing at New York Times Put Mad Men to Shame

Hard Words in The New York Times

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

Hiroshima Atomic Bombing Remembered with Google Earth

in Google, History | July 21st, 2011

Dur­ing the final days of World War II, the Unit­ed States dropped dev­as­tat­ing atom­ic bombs on Hiroshi­ma and Nagasa­ki. More than 65 years lat­er, Hide­nori Watanave, an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor of Tokyo Met­ro­pol­i­tan Uni­ver­si­ty, has cre­at­ed a dig­i­tal archive to pre­serve the mem­o­ry of the Hiroshi­ma bomb­ing. A com­ple­ment to the Nagasa­ki archive launched in 2010, the Hiroshi­ma Archive lay­ers his­tor­i­cal resources into Google Earth, giv­ing users the chance to explore a panoram­ic view of Hiroshi­ma, sur­vivor accounts, aer­i­al pho­tos, 3D topo­graph­i­cal data, and build­ing mod­els.

The doc­u­ments are all writ­ten in Japan­ese, which cre­ates some­thing of a lan­guage bar­ri­er for many read­ers. But a tour through the archive will tell you some­thing impor­tant — some­thing impor­tant about the Hiroshi­ma bomb­ing and how we’re memo­ri­al­iz­ing the past in our new dig­i­tal age.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Google Lit Trips

Ancient Rome in 3D on Google Earth

Vis­it the Pra­do Art Col­lec­tion with Google Earth

Spike Jonze and Beastie Boys, Together Again

in Film, Music, Video - Arts & Culture | July 21st, 2011

Being John Malkovich direc­tor and long­time Beast­ie Boys col­lab­o­ra­tor Spike Jonze has direct­ed yet anoth­er music video for the band: A high-con­cept sci-fi extrav­a­gan­za that fea­tures zom­bies, GI Joe action fig­ures, and, as usu­al, a sound­track with a pret­ty decent hook.

The song is called “Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win,” and the ver­sion we’ve post­ed above is the 11-minute direc­tor’s cut.  You can watch a short­er ver­sion here, but why would you ever want to?

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Col­lab­o­ra­tions: Spike Jonze, Yo-Yo Ma, and Lil Buck

Ful­ly Flared, the 2007 skate­board­ing film direct­ed by Spike Jonze

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

Impressionist Does Shakespeare in 25 Celebrity Voices

in Comedy | July 20th, 2011

Actor Jim Meski­men has appeared in his fair share of films — There Will Be Blood, Frost/Nixon and Mag­no­lia, to name a few. But he’s per­haps best known for his work as an impres­sion­ist come­di­an. He does the voice of George W. Bush, and Mor­gan Free­man too. But that’s just the tip of the ice­berg. In his lat­est video, Meski­men imper­son­ates 25 famous fig­ures — from Woody Allen to Jack Nichol­son to Droopy Dog — and quite nat­u­ral­ly he has them recit­ing Clarence’s mono­logue from Richard III. Enjoy.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Nine Imper­son­ations by Kevin Spacey in Six Min­utes

The Machine: Top Prize Winner at the Robot Film Festival

in Film, Science | July 20th, 2011

[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/6974132[/vimeo]

Rob Shaw’s dark ani­mat­ed short The Machine was vot­ed Best Film at last week’s Robot Film Fes­ti­val in New York City.  The movie starts on what looks like a stan­dard boy-makes-machine, machine-runs-amok, boy-kills-machine tra­jec­to­ry, but veers nice­ly off-course and ends on a note much more Sartre than Ter­mi­na­tor. (Bat­tlestar Galac­ti­ca fans will see the twist com­ing from a mile away).

The Machine seems like a good fit for the new fes­ti­val, which founder and Carnegie Mel­lon roboti­cist Heather Knight hopes will fuel inno­va­tion and help improve robots’ image in a post-Cylon world. For more back­sto­ry, check out edi­tor and RFF judge Celeste Biev­er’s fas­ci­nat­ing wrap-up at the New Sci­en­tist.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Blinky™: A Touch­ing Short Film About A Killer Robot

Robot Con­ducts The Detroit Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.

Orson Welles Narrates an Animation of Plato’s Cave Allegory

in Philosophy | July 19th, 2011

In 1973, Orson Welles nar­rat­ed this ani­mat­ed short, which fea­tures some­what sur­re­al art­work by Dick Oden. You can see more of Oden’s work here.

The Alle­go­ry of the Cave illus­trates Pla­to’s view of knowl­edge as pre­sent­ed in Book VII of The Repub­lic: in ordi­nary expe­ri­ence, we see only shad­ows of the true world, which we can only behold by pur­su­ing rig­or­ous philo­soph­i­cal analy­sis.

This is not the only time “The Cave” has been set to film in some form. Open Cul­ture read­ers may recall this bril­liant ver­sion done with clay­ma­tion. Glut­tons for pun­ish­ment may wish to peruse this col­lec­tion of 20 YouTube ver­sions at PartiallyExaminedLife.com, many of them fright­ful­ly ama­teur­ish and some of them pre­sent­ing a warped and/or incom­pre­hen­si­ble ver­sion of the sto­ry.

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!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free­dom Riv­er: A Para­ble Told by Orson Welles

Orson Welles Reads Moby Dick

Free Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es

Mark Lin­sen­may­er runs the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life phi­los­o­phy pod­cast and blog, which recent­ly released an episode dis­cussing Pla­to’s Repub­lic.

Revisit Havana, the “Paris of the Caribbean,” in the 1930s

in Film, History | July 18th, 2011

This short film show­ing Havana in the 1930s was shot by André de la Varre, the long-time cam­era­man and cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er for Amer­i­can trav­el­er, pho­tog­ra­ph­er and film­mak­er Bur­ton Holmes. In those days, Havana was a flour­ish­ing and fash­ion­able city dubbed the “Paris of the Caribbean,” attract­ing an ever increas­ing num­ber of tourists. André de la Var­re’s film por­trays Havana as the “exot­ic cap­i­tal of appeal,” which pret­ty much sums up its essence dur­ing those days.

Bonus mate­r­i­al: A list of all the sights shown in this film can be found here; anoth­er short film about Havana in the 1950s here. This video from late 2008 gives an idea of the sor­ry state of Havana’s city cen­ter today. And don’t foget to mar­vel at the won­der­ful col­lec­tion of vin­tage trav­el films at The Trav­el Film Archive.

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.