Susan Sontag’s List of 10 Parenting Rules

in Life, Literature | December 16th, 2014

Image by Juan Fer­nan­do Bas­tos, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

Par­ent­ing is dif­fi­cult. I don’t need to tell you this—those of you who face the chal­lenge dai­ly and hourly. Those of you who don’t have heard your friends—and your own parents—do enough com­plain­ing that you know, in the­o­ry at least, how rais­ing humans is rough busi­ness all around. Para­dox­i­cal­ly, there is no rule­book for par­ent­ing and there are hun­dreds of rule­books for par­ent­ing, seem­ing­ly a new one pub­lished every day. In my admit­ted­ly lim­it­ed expe­ri­ence as the par­ent of a young child, most such guides have dimin­ish­ing returns next to the direct lessons learned in the fray, so to speak, through tri­al after tri­al and no small amount of error.

But we do ben­e­fit from the wis­dom of oth­ers, espe­cial­ly those who record their exper­i­ments in child-rear­ing with the pre­ci­sion and thought­ful­ness of Susan Son­tag. In the list below, made by a 26-year-old Son­tag in 1959, we see how the young moth­er of a then 7‑year-old David Rieff approached the job.

The son of Son­tag and soci­ol­o­gist Philip Rieff (“pop,” below), whom Son­tag mar­ried at 17 then divorced in 1958, David has writ­ten a mem­oir of Sontag’s painful final days. He also edit­ed her jour­nals and note­books, which con­tained the fol­low­ing rules.

1. Be con­sis­tent.
2. Don’t speak about him to oth­ers (e.g. tell fun­ny things) in his pres­ence. (Don’t make him self-con­scious.)
3. Don’t praise him for some­thing I wouldn’t always accept as good.
4. Don’t rep­ri­mand him harsh­ly for some­thing he’s been allowed to do.
5. Dai­ly rou­tine: eat­ing, home­work, bath, teeth, room, sto­ry, bed.
6. Don’t allow him to monop­o­lize me when I am with oth­er peo­ple.
7. Always speak well of his pop. (No faces, sighs, impa­tience, etc.)
8. Do not dis­cour­age child­ish fan­tasies.
9. Make him aware that there is a grown-up world that’s none of his busi­ness.
10. Don’t assume that what I don’t like to do (bath, hair­wash) he won’t like either.

While Rieff has described his rela­tion­ship with Son­tag as “strained and at times very dif­fi­cult,” it seems to me that a par­ent who adhered to these rules would cre­ate the kind of sup­port­ive struc­ture chil­dren need to thrive. The remain­der of Sontag’s jour­nal entries show us a deeply intro­spec­tive, self-con­scious writer, and yet, writes Emi­ly Green­house at The New York­er, her work as a whole offers “sur­pris­ing­ly lit­tle of her own direct expe­ri­ence” and she nev­er under­took an auto­bi­og­ra­phy. Yet, this short list of par­ent­ing rules gives us a great deal of insight into the per­spi­cac­i­ty and com­pas­sion she brought to her role as a moth­er, qual­i­ties most of us could use a bit more of in our dai­ly par­ent­ing strug­gles.

The list above appears in the new book Lists of Note, the fol­low up to Shaun Usher’s Let­ters of Note, both com­pi­la­tions of his exten­sive online archives of per­son­al notes and cor­re­spon­dence from famous and inter­est­ing peo­ple. Down­load a pre­view of the book and pur­chase a hard­cov­er copy, just in time for Christ­mas, at Waterstones.com (if you live in the UK).

Relat­ed Con­tent:

See Films Made by Susan Son­tag and a List of Her 50 Favorite Films (1977)

F. Scott Fitzger­ald Tells His 11-Year-Old Daugh­ter What to Wor­ry About (and Not Wor­ry About) in Life, 1933

“Noth­ing Good Gets Away”: John Stein­beck Offers Love Advice in a Let­ter to His Son (1958)

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

Alfred Hitchcock Conducts a Politically Incorrect Sound Test on the Set of Blackmail (1929)

in Film | December 16th, 2014

Above we have a young Alfred Hitch­cock on the set of Black­mail (1929), con­duct­ing a rather naughty sound test with actress Anny Ondra (1929).

In case you don’t know the back­sto­ry, Black­mail was orig­i­nal­ly meant to be a silent film. How­ev­er, with talkies becom­ing the rage, Hitch­cock decid­ed mid-stream to make the film a talkie. That deci­sion did­n’t come with­out its own prob­lems. Anny Ondra, a Czech actress, spoke Eng­lish with a heavy accent and could­n’t pass as a Lon­don­er in the film. So Hitch­cock per­formed some cin­e­ma mag­ic and had Eng­lish actress Joan Bar­ry dub Ondra’s lines. In those days, dub­bing could­n’t take place in post-pro­duc­tion. It all had to hap­pen in real-time. Thus, as the cam­era rolled, Bar­ry stood out­side the frame and spoke the dia­logue into a micro­phone, while Ondra pan­tomimed the words. Through­out, Hitch­cock direct­ed Ondra while lis­ten­ing to Bar­ry through a pair of head­phones.

You can watch Black­mail (Britain’s first talkie fea­ture film) online here or find it in our col­lec­tion of 23 Free Hitch­cock Films Online.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

37 Hitch­cock Cameo Appear­ances Over 50 Years: All in One Video

Lis­ten to François Truffaut’s Big, 12-Hour Inter­view with Alfred Hitch­cock (1962)

The Plea­sure Gar­den, Alfred Hitchcock’s Very First Fea­ture Film (1925)

Animated Louis CK Shows Demonstrates How “Animation Lets You Do Anything”

in Animation, Comedy, Life, Television | December 15th, 2014

Father­hood is a fer­tile sub­ject for come­di­an Louis C.K.

Kids do say the darnedest things, but Louis’ obser­va­tions reveal the depth of his invest­ment.

He lit out after stan­dard­ized test­ing and the Com­mon Core on Twit­ter.

He made a pas­sion­ate case against giv­ing kids smart­phones to Conan O’Brien.

Is it any won­der that the “dumb­er, fun­nier” ver­sion of him­self he cre­at­ed for his TV show is pre­oc­cu­pied and often thwart­ed by his respon­si­bil­i­ties as the sin­gle dad of two young daugh­ters?

(Real life may pro­vide inspi­ra­tion, but the writer and star dis­plays appro­pri­ate bound­aries when he says that his actu­al daugh­ters are marked­ly dif­fer­ent char­ac­ters than their TV coun­ter­parts.)

But the knife of father­hood cuts both ways. Louis’ trou­bled rela­tion­ship with his own dad gets less atten­tion than the father-daugh­ter bond, but it’s there in his work. The prospect of spend­ing time with his estranged father caus­es the fic­tion­al Louis to vom­it at the din­ner table in sea­son three.

The ani­mat­ed approach seen above, gives Louis more con­trol over the sit­u­a­tion. Ani­ma­tion, like read­ing, makes pos­si­ble flights of fan­cy where­in children—including grown ones like Louis—can do “absolute­ly any­thing.” Fly­ing and using a rain­bow as a slide are among the fan­tas­ti­cal activ­i­ties the 2‑D Louis sam­ples. Mean­while, the qual­i­ty of his nar­ra­tion con­veys an under­ly­ing dis­taste for the sort of canned “imag­i­na­tive” sug­ges­tions foist­ed on chil­dren by well-mean­ing edu­ca­tion­al pro­gram­mers.

Left to their own devices, most kids will come up with sce­nar­ios and pow­ers far weird­er than any­thing ped­dled to them by an adult. Why “swim through the ocean like a fish” when you can anthro­po­mor­phize your elder­ly father as a malev­o­lent spi­der, lodged in your chest, poop­ing out reg­u­lar lit­tle “infes­ta­tions of hate”?

Ani­ma­tion lets you go all the way, and C.K. cer­tain­ly does, lop­ping off heads, and (SPOILER!) inad­ver­tent­ly Bon­nie and Clyd­ing him­self from with­in.

Someone’s made a lot of progress since the 90’s, when he used his time on Dr. Katz’s ani­mat­ed couch to dis­cuss K‑Mart and Chips Ahoy.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

The Sur­re­al Short Films of Louis C.K., 1993–1999

Sein­feld, Louis C.K., Chris Rock, and Ricky Ger­vais Dis­sect the Craft of Com­e­dy (NSFW)

20-Year-Old Louis CK Per­forms Stand Up (1987)

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, home­school­er, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

Watch Carl Sagan & Richard Dawkins Present the Royal Institution’s Famous Christmas Lectures

in Science | December 15th, 2014

If only some­one could have invent­ed the inter­net by 1825. Not only would we have reached unimag­ined realms of com­mu­ni­ca­tion by now, but we would have a full 189 years of Christ­mas lec­tures to stream online at our leisure. A pro­duc­tion of the Roy­al Insti­tu­tion in the Unit­ed King­dom, the Christ­mas lec­tures began with the edu­ca­tion­al endeav­ors of elec­tro­mag­net­ism and elec­tro­chem­istry pio­neer Michael Fara­day. Between 1827 and 1860, Fara­day gave the first Christ­mas lec­tures on the Lon­don grounds of the Roy­al Insti­tu­tion, hold­ing forth on sub­jects like chem­istry, elec­tric­i­ty, and mat­ter in an effort to get the gen­er­al pub­lic excit­ed about sci­ence. Accord­ing to one of his sound­est prin­ci­ples of lec­tur­ing, “a flame should be light­ed at the com­mence­ment and kept alive with unremit­ting splen­dour to the end.” Gen­er­a­tions of sci­en­tif­ic lec­tur­ers have stepped for­ward to light and keep that splen­did flame to this day.

At the top of the post, we have the first of Carl Sagan’s six Christ­mas lec­tures on Earth, Mars, and our solar sys­tem from 1977. Just above, you can watch the first of Richard Dawkins’ 1991 Christ­mas lec­ture series enti­tled Grow­ing Up in the Uni­verse. Though Sagan and Dawkins osten­si­bly geared their lec­tures toward kids — just as Fara­day intend­ed his sci­en­tif­ic spec­ta­cles for a “juve­nile audi­ence” — don’t let that turn you off if you’ve already reached adult­hood. In fact, grown-ups may stand to gain more than kids, giv­en our ten­den­cy to binge-watch. Why not give your­self an edu­ca­tion­al hol­i­day treat by plow­ing through the past sev­er­al years of Christ­mas lec­tures archived at the Roy­al Insti­tu­tion’s web site? This Christ­mas, they’ve got pro­fes­sor Danielle George on “how the spark of your imag­i­na­tion and some twen­ty first cen­tu­ry tin­ker­ing can change the world” — so get ready to gath­er ’round with all the future world-chang­ers you know, young or old.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Carl Sagan Presents Six Lec­tures on Earth, Mars & Our Solar Sys­tem … For Kids (1977)

Grow­ing Up in the Uni­verse: Richard Dawkins Presents Cap­ti­vat­ing Sci­ence Lec­tures for Kids (1991)

Carl Sagan Explains Evo­lu­tion in an Eight-Minute Ani­ma­tion

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

O Frabjous Day! Neil Gaiman Recites Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” from Memory

in Books, K-12, Literature, Poetry | December 15th, 2014

When the young Neil Gaiman was learn­ing Lewis Carroll’s “Jab­ber­wocky” by heart, he sure­ly had no inkling that years lat­er he’d be called upon to recite it for legions of ador­ing fans…particularly on the Inter­net, a phe­nom­e­non the bud­ding author may well have imag­ined, if not tech­ni­cal­ly imple­ment­ed.

World­builders, a fundrais­ing por­tal that rewards donors not with tote bags or umbrel­las, but rather with celebri­ty chal­lenges of a non-ice buck­et vari­ety, scored big when Gaiman agreed to par­tic­i­pate.

Ear­li­er this year, a rum­pled look­ing Gaiman read Dr. Seuss’s “rather won­der­ful” Green Eggs and Ham into his web­cam.

This month, with dona­tions to Heifer Inter­na­tion­al exceed­ing $600,000, he found him­self on the hook to read anoth­er piece of the donors’ choos­ing. Carroll’s non­sen­si­cal poem won out over Good­night Moon, Fox in Socks, and Where the Wild Things Are. 

Like fel­low author, Lyn­da Bar­ry, Gaiman is not one to under­es­ti­mate the val­ue of mem­o­riza­tion.

The videog­ra­phy may be casu­al, but his off-book per­for­mance in an undis­closed tul­gey wood is the stuff of high dra­ma.

Cal­looh!

Callay!

Is that a mem­o­ry lapse at the one minute mark? Anoth­er inter­preter might have called for a retake, but Gaiman rides out a four sec­ond pause cooly, his eyes the only indi­ca­tor that some­thing may be amiss. Per­haps he’s just tak­ing pre­cau­tions, lis­ten­ing for tell­tale whif­fling and bur­bling.

If you’re on the prowl to make some year end char­i­ta­ble dona­tions, recre­ation­al math­e­mu­si­cian Vi Hart and author John Green are among those World­builders has in the pipeline to per­form stunts for suc­cess­ful­ly fund­ed cam­paigns.

Jab­ber­wocky is a poem that appears in Car­rol­l’s Through the Look­ing-Glass, the 1871 sequel to Alice’s Adven­tures in Won­der­land (1865). You can find both in our col­lec­tion, 800 Free eBooks for iPad, Kin­dle & Oth­er Devices.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Neil Gaiman Reads The Grave­yard Book, His Award-Win­ning Kids Fan­ta­sy Nov­el, Chap­ter by Chap­ter

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

Where Do Great Ideas Come From? Neil Gaiman Explains

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, home­school­er, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

Watch Bob Dylan Play a Private Concert for One Lucky Fan

in Music | December 14th, 2014

On Novem­ber 23rd, Bob Dylan played a live con­cert for one awed fan. As Rolling Stone described it, “Fredrik Wik­ings­son walked into Philadel­phi­a’s Acad­e­my of Music, took a seat in the [sixth] row and pre­pared to watch his hero play a con­cert just for him.” “At this point,” Wik­ings­son said, “I still thought I was about to get Punk’d.” “I thought some ass­hole would walk onstage and just laugh at me. I just could­n’t fath­om that Dylan would actu­al­ly do this.”

But it was­n’t a joke. Dylan treat­ed the super­fan to a per­son­al con­cert, play­ing cov­ers of songs from the ear­ly days of Amer­i­can rock n roll. And it was all filmed for a Swedish TV series called Exper­i­ment Ensam (Exper­i­ment Alone), where indi­vid­u­als take part, alone, in activ­i­ties usu­al­ly meant for groups. The video of the exper­i­men­tal con­cert went online yes­ter­day. You can watch it above.

For more news bring­ing togeth­er Bob Dylan and Swe­den, see our recent post: Swedish Sci­en­tists Sneak Bob Dylan Lyrics Into Their Aca­d­e­m­ic Pub­li­ca­tions For Last 17 Years.

Fol­low us on Face­book, Twit­ter and Google Plus and share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bob Dylan Reads From T.S. Eliot’s Great Mod­ernist Poem The Waste Land

Bob Dylan and The Grate­ful Dead Rehearse Togeth­er in Sum­mer 1987. Lis­ten to 74 Tracks.

Bob Dylan and George Har­ri­son Play Ten­nis, 1969

Lou Reed Reads Delmore Schwartz’s Famous Story “In Dreams Begin Responsibilities”

in Audio Books, Literature | December 13th, 2014

In a gal­lop­ing vignette in Tablet, writer Lee Smith man­ages to evoke the essences of both sen­ti­men­tal tough guy Lou Reed and his lit­er­ary men­tor and hero, “Brook­lyn Jew­ish Trou­ba­dour” Del­more Schwartz. Although Schwartz’s “poet­ry is his real lega­cy,” Smith writes, that rich body of work is often obscured by the fact that “his most famous work is a short sto­ry,” the much-anthol­o­gized “In Dreams Begin Respon­si­bil­i­ties” (1935) It’s a sto­ry writ­ten in prose as lyri­cal as can be—with sen­tences one wants to pause and linger over, read­ing again and again, out loud if pos­si­ble. It’s also a sto­ry in which we see “a direct line… between Schwartz and Reed,” whose song “Per­fect Day” per­forms sim­i­lar kind of mag­i­cal cat­a­logu­ing of urban imper­ma­nence. For Reed, one­time stu­dent of Schwartz at Syra­cuse Uni­ver­si­ty, “Del­more Schwartz is every­thing.”

Reed ded­i­cat­ed the last song, “Euro­pean Son,” on the first Vel­vet Under­ground album to Schwartz, and wrote an elo­quent for­ward to a reis­sue of Schwartz’s first col­lec­tion of sto­ries and poems, also titled In Dreams Begin Respon­si­bil­i­ties. And just above, you can hear Reed him­self read the sto­ry aloud, savor­ing those lyri­cal sen­tences in his Brook­lyn dead­pan. It’s easy to imag­ine Reed writ­ing many of these sen­tences, such was Schwartz’s influ­ence on him. They shared not only com­mon ori­gins, but also a com­mon sen­si­bil­i­ty; in Reed’s songs we hear the echo of Schwartz’s voice, the satir­i­cal world-weari­ness and the lyri­cism and long­ing. In the bio­graph­i­cal doc­u­men­tary Rock and Roll Heart, Reed says that Schwartz showed him how, “with the sim­plest lan­guage imag­in­able, and very short, you can accom­plish the most aston­ish­ing heights.” Read­ing, and lis­ten­ing to Schwartz’s aston­ish­ing “In Dreams Begin Respon­si­bil­i­ties” may help you under­stand just what he meant.

This read­ing has been added to our col­lec­tion, 1,000 Free Audio Books: Down­load Great Books for Free.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Lou Reed Rewrites Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven.” See Read­ings by Reed and Willem Dafoe

Rock and Roll Heart, 1998 Doc­u­men­tary Retraces the Remark­able Career of Lou Reed

Teenage Lou Reed Sings Doo-Wop Music (1958–1962)

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

Blade Runner Spoofed in Three Japanese Commercials (and Generally Loved in Japan)

in Animation, Sci Fi, Television, Video Games | December 12th, 2014

Blade Run­ner’s vision of a thor­ough­ly Japan­i­fied Los Ange­les in the year 2019 reflects the west­ern eco­nom­ic anx­i­eties of the ear­ly 1980s. And while that once far-flung year may not have come quite yet, Japan — giv­en the burst­ing of its post­war finan­cial bub­ble and the “lost decade” of the 1990s that fol­lowed — looks unlike­ly to own a frac­tion as much of the Unit­ed States as Rid­ley Scot­t’s Philip K. Dick adap­ta­tion (and many oth­er futur­is­tic sto­ries besides) assumed it even­tu­al­ly would. Still, the film’s cul­tur­al proph­esy came true: even dur­ing its eco­nom­ic stag­na­tion, Japan exer­cised more “soft pow­er” than ever before, turn­ing the world to the unique claims of its cul­ture, from the refine­ment of its cui­sine to the hyper­ac­tive exu­ber­ance of its music and ani­ma­tion to the match­less ele­gance of its tra­di­tion­al aes­thet­ics.

Even as Blade Run­ner showed us how much Japan­ese style would one day influ­ence, the style of the film had, for its part, an imme­di­ate influ­ence on Japan. Though famous­ly unap­pre­ci­at­ed by west­ern­ers on its ini­tial release (“a waste of time,” said Siskel and Ebert), its pro­to-cyber­punk sen­si­bil­i­ty won the hearts of Japan­ese view­ers, and Japan­ese cre­ators, right away. The video at the top of the post col­lects three Japan­ese tele­vi­sion com­mer­cials that both spoof and pay homage to Blade Run­ner: the first for the Hon­da Beat, a Japan-only road­ster; the sec­ond (an astute par­o­dy of a par­tic­u­lar­ly mem­o­rable scene) for Meni­con con­tact lens­es; and the third for mobile ser­vice provider J‑Phone.

But the movie’s effect on Japan did­n’t stop at the adver­tis­ing indus­try. The 1987 ani­mat­ed series Bub­blegum Cri­sis, which fol­lows the adven­tures of a cyborg-bat­tling team in the “Mega Tokyo” of 2032, plays so much like a home­grown Blade Run­ner that a fan could cre­ate the sec­ond video above: an ani­mat­ed recre­ation of Blade Run­ner’s trail­er, using all its orig­i­nal sound, with Bub­blegum Cri­sis’ footage. The 1988 video game Snatch­er stars the decid­ed­ly Har­ri­son-For­dian Gillian Seed, a detec­tive in pur­suit of the tit­u­lar killer androids in the “Neo Kobe” of 2044. You can still see much of what the film inspired, and what inspired in the film, in major Japan­ese cities today. Even Los Ange­les has made strides here and there toward the Blade Run­ner future, though I regret to admit that we still await our tow­er-side geisha.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Art of Mak­ing Blade Run­ner: See the Orig­i­nal Sketch­book, Sto­ry­boards, On-Set Polaroids & More

The Blade Run­ner Pro­mo­tion­al Film

Blade Run­ner: The Pil­lar of Sci-Fi Cin­e­ma that Siskel, Ebert, and Stu­dio Execs Orig­i­nal­ly Hat­ed

Philip K. Dick Pre­views Blade Run­ner: “The Impact of the Film is Going to be Over­whelm­ing” (1981)

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

10 Classic German Expressionist Films: From Nosferatu to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

in Film, History | December 11th, 2014

In 1913, Ger­many, flush with a new nation’s patri­ot­ic zeal, looked like it might become the dom­i­nant nation of Europe and a real rival to that glob­al super­pow­er Great Britain. Then it hit the buz­z­saw of World War I. After the Ger­man gov­ern­ment col­lapsed in 1918 from the eco­nom­ic and emo­tion­al toll of a half-decade of sense­less car­nage, the Allies forced it to accept dra­con­ian terms for sur­ren­der. The entire Ger­man cul­ture was sent reel­ing, search­ing for answers to what hap­pened and why.

Ger­man Expres­sion­ism came about to artic­u­late these lac­er­at­ing ques­tions roil­ing in the nation’s col­lec­tive uncon­scious. The first such film was The Cab­i­net of Dr. Cali­gari (1920), about a malev­o­lent trav­el­ing magi­cian who has his ser­vant do his mur­der­ous bid­ding in the dark of the night. The sto­ry­line is all about the Freudi­an ter­ror of hid­den sub­con­scious dri­ves, but what real­ly makes the movie mem­o­rable is its com­plete­ly unhinged look. Marked by styl­ized act­ing, deep shad­ows paint­ed onto the walls, and sets filled with twist­ed archi­tec­tur­al impos­si­bil­i­ties — there might not be a sin­gle right angle in the film – Cali­gari’s look per­fect­ly mesh­es with the nar­ra­tor’s dement­ed state of mind.

Sub­se­quent Ger­man Expres­sion­ist movies retreat­ed from the extreme aes­thet­ics of Cali­gari but were still filled with a mood of vio­lence, frus­tra­tion and unease. F. W. Mur­nau’s bril­liant­ly depress­ing The Last Laugh (1924) is about a proud door­man at a high-end hotel who is uncer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly stripped of his posi­tion and demot­ed to a low­ly bath­room atten­dant. When he hands over his uni­form, his pos­ture col­laps­es as if the jack­et were his exoskele­ton. You don’t need to be a semi­ol­o­gist to fig­ure out that the doorman’s loss of sta­tus par­al­lels Germany’s. Fritz Lang’s M (1931), a land­mark of ear­ly sound film, is the first ser­i­al killer movie ever made. But what starts out as a police pro­ce­dur­al turns into some­thing even more unset­tling when a gang of dis­tinct­ly Nazi-like crim­i­nals decide to mete out some jus­tice of their own.

Ger­man Expres­sion­ism end­ed in 1933 when the Nazis came to pow­er. They weren’t inter­est­ed in ask­ing uncom­fort­able ques­tions and viewed such dark tales of cin­e­mat­ic angst as unpa­tri­ot­ic. Instead, they pre­ferred bright, cheer­ful tales of Aryan youths climb­ing moun­tains. By that time, the movement’s most tal­ent­ed direc­tors — Fritz Lang and F.W. Mur­nau — had fled to Amer­i­ca. And it was in Amer­i­ca where Ger­man Expres­sion­ism found its biggest impact. Its stark light­ing, grotesque shad­ows and bleak world­view would go on on to pro­found­ly influ­ence film noir in the late 1940s after anoth­er hor­rif­ic, dis­il­lu­sion­ing war. See our col­lec­tion of Free Noir Films here.

You watch can 10 Ger­man Expres­sion­ist movies – includ­ing Cali­gari, Last Laugh and M — for free below.

• Nos­fer­atu — Free — Ger­man Expres­sion­ist hor­ror film direct­ed by F. W. Mur­nau. An unau­tho­rized adap­ta­tion of Bram Stok­er’s Drac­u­la. (1922)
• The Stu­dent of Prague — Free — A clas­sic of Ger­man expres­sion­ist film. Ger­man writer Hanns Heinz Ewers and Dan­ish direc­tor Stel­lan Rye bring to life a 19th-cen­tu­ry hor­ror sto­ry. Some call it the first indie film. (1913)
• Nerves — Free — Direct­ed by Robert Rein­ert, Nerves tells of “the polit­i­cal dis­putes of an ultra­con­ser­v­a­tive fac­to­ry own­er Herr Roloff and Teacher John, who feels a com­pul­sive but secret love for Rolof­f’s sis­ter, a left-wing rad­i­cal.” (1919)
• The Cab­i­net of Dr. Cali­gari — Free — This silent film direct­ed by Robert Wiene is con­sid­ered one of the most influ­en­tial Ger­man Expres­sion­ist films and per­haps one of the great­est hor­ror movies of all time. (1920)
• Metrop­o­lis — Free — Fritz Lang’s fable of good and evil fight­ing it out in a futur­is­tic urban dystopia. An impor­tant clas­sic. An alter­nate ver­sion can be found here. (1927)
• The Golem: How He Came Into the World — Free — A fol­low-up to Paul Wegen­er’s ear­li­er film, “The Golem,” about a mon­strous crea­ture brought to life by a learned rab­bi to pro­tect the Jews from per­se­cu­tion in medieval Prague. Based on the clas­sic folk tale, and co-direct­ed by Carl Boese. (1920)
• The Golem: How He Came Into the World — Free — The same film as the one list­ed imme­di­ate­ly above, but this one has a score cre­at­ed by Pix­ies front­man Black Fran­cis. (2008)
• The Last Laugh - Free — F.W. Mur­nau’s clas­sic cham­ber dra­ma about a hotel door­man who falls on hard times. A mas­ter­piece of the silent era, the sto­ry is told almost entire­ly in pic­tures. (1924)
• Faust — Free - Ger­man expres­sion­ist film­mak­er F.W. Mur­nau directs a film ver­sion of Goethe’s clas­sic tale. This was Mur­nau’s last Ger­man movie. (1926)
• Sun­rise: A Song of Two Humans — Free — Made by the Ger­man expres­sion­ist direc­tor F.W. Mur­nau. Vot­ed in 2012, the 5th great­est film of all time. (1927)
• M — Free — Clas­sic film direct­ed by Fritz Lang, with Peter Lorre. About the search for a child mur­der­er in Berlin. (1931)

For more clas­sic films, peruse our larg­er col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

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:

Metrop­o­lis Restored: Watch a New Ver­sion of Fritz Lang’s Mas­ter­piece

Fritz Lang’s “Licen­tious, Pro­fane, Obscure” Noir Film, Scar­let Street (1945)

Free: F. W. Murnau’s Sun­rise, the 1927 Mas­ter­piece Vot­ed the 5th Best Movie of All Time

Watch Nos­fer­atu, the Sem­i­nal Vam­pire Film, Free Online (1922)

Jonathan Crow is a Los Ange­les-based writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at @jonccrow. And check out his blog Veep­to­pus, fea­tur­ing lots of pic­tures of bad­gers and even more pic­tures of vice pres­i­dents with octo­pus­es on their heads.  The Veep­to­pus store is here.

John Waters Narrates Offbeat Documentary on an Environmental Catastrophe, the Salton Sea

in Environment, Film | December 11th, 2014

In 2004, John Waters nar­rat­ed Plagues & Plea­sures on the Salton Sea, a humor­ous doc­u­men­tary on the acci­den­tal lake cre­at­ed in the desert of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia. You can now find the film host­ed on the YouTube chan­nel of KQED, the pub­lic tele­vi­sion out­fit in San Fran­cis­co (where we’re get­ting heavy, heavy rains today). They lay the foun­da­tion for watch­ing the film as fol­lows:

Once known as the “Cal­i­for­nia Riv­iera,” the Salton Sea is now con­sid­ered one of Amer­i­ca’s worst eco­log­i­cal dis­as­ters: a fetid, stag­nant, salty lake, cough­ing up dead fish and birds by the thou­sands. Nar­rat­ed by cult-movie leg­end John Waters, Plagues & Plea­sures is an epic west­ern tale of real estate ven­tures and failed boom­towns.

Find Plagues & Plea­sures on the Salton Sea list­ed in our col­lec­tion, 285 Free Doc­u­men­taries Online.

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!

via @Wfmu

Relat­ed Con­tent:

John Waters Makes Hand­made Christ­mas Cards, Says the “Whole Pur­pose of Life is Christ­mas”

An Anti, Anti-Smok­ing Announce­ment from John Waters

John Waters: The Point of Con­tem­po­rary Art

Glob­al Warm­ing: A Free Course from UChica­go Explains Cli­mate Change