Two Men: A Kafka Inspired Short Film

in Film, Literature | January 10th, 2011

Two Men, a short film direct­ed by Dominic Allen, takes an old philo­soph­i­cal sto­ry by Franz Kaf­ka, one set in Europe of course, and adapts it to a con­tem­po­rary Abo­rig­i­nal Aus­tralian con­text, using indige­nous “non actors.” In rework­ing Kafka’s tale (read the orig­i­nal text here), Allen hoped to “affirm an ele­ment of human­i­ty’s com­mon­al­i­ty” … and “rein­force Kafka’s point that it’s impos­si­ble to ever tru­ly know anoth­er’s moti­va­tions.” Made in 2009, the film has since been screened at film fes­ti­vals in New York, Prague, Lon­don, and Syd­ney, and the film earned Allen the “Emerg­ing Aus­tralian Film­mak­er Prize” at the Mel­bourne Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val last year.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Franz Kaf­ka: The Ani­mat­ed Short Film

Prague’s Franz Kaf­ka Inter­na­tion­al Named World’s Most Alien­at­ing Air­port

The Secrets to Living an Awesome Life

in Life, Psychology, TED Talks | January 7th, 2011

You have heard the mes­sage before – the secrets to liv­ing an excel­lent life. But they bear repeat­ing from time to time. And Neil Pas­richa, edi­tor of the 1000 Awe­some Things blog, com­mu­ni­cates it all in a rather touch­ing and earnest­ly straight­for­ward way. This talk comes from TEDx­Toron­to, staged in Sep­tem­ber 2010.…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Every Ted Talk Under the Sun

Daniel Pink: The Sur­pris­ing Truth about What Moti­vates Us

Vik­tor Fran­kl on Our Search for Mean­ing

Vivian Maier, Street Photographer, Discovered

in Art | January 6th, 2011

Vivian Maier grew up in France, immi­grat­ed to the US, spent 40 unas­sum­ing years work­ing as a nan­ny, and then, dur­ing her free time, took more than 100,000 pho­tographs of life on the Chica­go streets. Dis­cov­ered only in 2009, not long before her death, her pho­tog­ra­phy will be on dis­play at the Chica­go Cul­tur­al Cen­ter from Jan­u­ary to April 2011. This marks the first solo exhi­bi­tion of her work. The video above, along with this ded­i­cat­ed blog, will intro­duce you to this belat­ed­ly dis­cov­ered tal­ent. Thanks to @eugenephoto for send­ing this along.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Leon Levin­stein: Pho­tog­ra­phy Reveals How Lit­tle We See

Patti Smith Remembers Robert Mapplethorpe

in Art, Music | January 5th, 2011

Pat­ti Smith. Robert Map­plethor­pe. Born in 1946, the two bud­ding artists met in New York City, long before the 21 year olds achieved their even­tu­al fame – before Smith earned her creds as the “god­moth­er of punk,” and before Map­plethor­pe put his unique stamp on Amer­i­can pho­tog­ra­phy. Their long-last­ing friend­ship was doc­u­ment­ed in Smith’s bit­ter­sweet mem­oir, Just Kids, which won the 2010 Nation­al Book Award for Non­fic­tion. Above, while appear­ing at The New York Pub­lic Library, Smith recounts the day she met Map­plethor­pe as a young­ster. Now 64 years old, she also elab­o­rates on this sto­ry (and more) dur­ing a lengthy inter­view on NPR’s Fresh Air. Stream the audio right below…

14 Actors Acting: A Gallery of Classic Screen Types

in Film | January 4th, 2011

A few weeks back, The New Times Mag­a­zine pre­sent­ed a video gallery fea­tur­ing actors & actress­es doing what they do best — “per­form­ing in vignettes that rep­re­sent clas­sic screen types.” Direct­ed by Solve Sunds­bo with music scored by Arcade Fire’s Owen Pal­let, the videos (now avail­able on YouTube) fea­ture per­form­ers – all impor­tant fig­ures in today’s cin­e­ma – act­ing out scenes with­out the ben­e­fit of dia­logue. Above, we have Antho­ny Mack­ie (The Hurt Lock­er) in a chase scene rem­i­nis­cent of Hitch­cock­’s North by North­west. You can also catch Robert Duvall shav­ing in a moment of reflec­tion; Natal­ie Port­man dis­rob­ing and seduc­ing; Michael Dou­glas schem­ing; and Jen­nifer Lawrence doing anoth­er Hitch­cock-inspired scene from Psy­cho. You can watch all 14 scenes on the NYTimes web site, or again on YouTube.

And speak­ing of Hitch­cock, you will find 15 of his films, most­ly ear­ly ones, in our col­lec­tion of 275 Free Movies Online.

Birth to 10 Years Old in Time Lapse Video

in Life | January 3rd, 2011

The Milky Way Over Texas. The Auro­ra Bore­alis over Nor­way. Decem­ber’s win­ter sol­stice lunar eclipse. Last week’s bliz­zard. What beau­ty can’t be cap­tured in time lapse pho­tog­ra­phy? Per­haps ten years of human life and devel­op­ment? Not so. No if the par­ents reli­gious­ly take a pho­to a day. Then, voila, human growth in time lapse…

via Der­ren­Brown

Thomas Edison Recites “Mary Had a Little Lamb” in Early Voice Recording

in History, Science, Technology | January 3rd, 2011

In the late 1870s, Thomas Edi­son, Amer­i­ca’s pro­lif­ic inven­tor, per­fect­ed the phono­graph and cap­tured a very ear­ly record­ing of the human voice – his own voice recit­ing the still pop­u­lar nurs­ery rhyme, Mary Had a Lit­tle Lamb. (Get mp3 here.) Lat­er, the Edi­son cylin­der also record­ed for pos­ter­i­ty Russ­ian com­pos­er Pyotr Tchaikovsky (The Nut­crack­er, the 1812 Over­ture, etc.) talk­ing with oth­er musi­cians in a light moment.

The Edi­son cylin­der was actu­al­ly pre­ced­ed by anoth­er sound-record­ing device, the pho­nau­to­graph, invent­ed by Édouard-Léon Scott de Mar­t­inville in 1857. Not long ago, sci­en­tists from the Lawrence Berke­ley Nation­al Lab­o­ra­to­ry extract­ed a record­ing not heard in 150 years, a voice singing the French folk song “Au Clair de la Lune.”

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:

Mark Twain Cap­tured on Film by Thomas Edi­son (1909)

Bike Tricks Cour­tesy of Thomas Edi­son

Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree: The Animated Film Narrated by Shel Himself (1973)

in Film, K-12, Literature | January 1st, 2011

Back in 1964, Shel Sil­ver­stein wrote The Giv­ing Tree, a wide­ly loved chil­dren’s book now trans­lat­ed into more than 30 lan­guages. It’s a sto­ry about the human con­di­tion, about giv­ing and receiv­ing, using and get­ting used, need­i­ness and greed­i­ness, although many fin­er points of the sto­ry are open to inter­pre­ta­tion. Today, we’re rewind­ing the video­tape to 1973, when Sil­ver­stein’s lit­tle book was turned into a 10 minute ani­mat­ed film (now added to our free movie col­lec­tion). Sil­ver­stein nar­rates the sto­ry him­self and also plays the har­mon­i­ca.… which brings us to his musi­cal tal­ents. Don’t miss Sil­ver­stein, also a well known song­writer, appear­ing on The John­ny Cash Show in 1970, and the two singing “A Boy Named Sue.” Sil­ver­stein wrote the song, and Cash made it famous. Thanks to Mark, co-edi­tor of the phi­los­o­phy blog/podcast The Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life for send­ing these along.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Shel Sil­ver­stein Reads His Poem ‘Ick­le Me, Pick­le Me, Tick­le Me Too’ in Ani­mat­ed Video

Studs Terkel Inter­views Bob Dylan, Shel Sil­ver­stein, Maya Angelou & More in New Audio Trove

A New Year’s Wish from Neil Gaiman

in Life, Literature | December 31st, 2010

A few days ago, we gave you Neil Gaiman’s dark ani­mat­ed Christ­mas poem. Now, it’s time for his entire­ly upbeat New Year’s Bene­dic­tion, which has some per­fect words for any­one with a cre­ative urg­ing. This short video was record­ed in 2010 at Sym­pho­ny Hall in Boston. Best wish­es to all…

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Neil Gaiman Sto­ries

Neil Gaiman Gives Grad­u­ates 10 Essen­tial Tips for Work­ing in the Arts

Neil Gaiman Gives Sage Advice to Aspir­ing Artists

Stephen Hawking: Abandon Earth Or Face Extinction

in Life, Physics | December 29th, 2010

As the year winds to a close, Big Think has pulled togeth­er a list of their Most Pop­u­lar Videos of 2010. Per­haps the biggest thinker on the list is Stephen Hawk­ing, the renowned the­o­ret­i­cal physi­cist, who issues a stark warn­ing. “Our only chance of long term sur­vival, is not to remain inward look­ing on plan­et Earth, but to spread out into space.” Pop­u­la­tion growth, lim­it­ed resources, cli­mate change – these pres­sures could dri­ve the human race into extinc­tion with­in two cen­turies, and pos­si­bly even one. That makes space – plan­ets beyond our own – the next great fron­tier.