Star Wars Retold with Paper Animation

in Art, Film | October 7th, 2010

It’s hard not to enjoy this. Artist Eric Pow­er retells the basic sto­ry of the Star Wars tril­o­gy, using cut-paper ani­ma­tion. The film runs a very quick 2:40, and Jere­my Messer­smith’s ‘Tatooine’ pro­vides the sound­track. (You can down­load the song here for what­ev­er price you want.) More ani­mat­ed films by Pow­er appear on his web­site: www.ericpowerup.net

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Watch a Hair-Raising 1954 Animation of Edgar Allan Poe’s “Tell-Tale Heart,” Narrated by James Mason

in Film, Literature | October 6th, 2010

In 1849, the great Amer­i­can writer Edgar Allan Poe met a strange death in Bal­ti­more. If you recall, Poe was dis­cov­ered, either in a state of delir­i­um or uncon­scious (accounts dif­fer) and appar­ent­ly wear­ing some­one else’s tat­tered clothes, out­side a tav­ern. He was tak­en to a hos­pi­tal where he remained, unable to explain what had hap­pened to him, until he died. (A post in our archive breaks down the strange cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing his death pret­ty well.)

To mark the admit­ted­ly grim occa­sion, we are high­light­ing today the 1953 ani­mat­ed film ver­sion of Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” nar­rat­ed by James Mason. Upon its release, the film was giv­en a bizarre recep­tion. In the UK, the British Board of Film Cen­sors gave the film an “x” rat­ing, deem­ing it unsuit­able for adult audi­ences. Mean­while, “The Tell-Tale Heart” was nom­i­nat­ed for the Acad­e­my Award for Best Ani­mat­ed Short Film in the US, though it ulti­mate­ly lost to a Dis­ney pro­duc­tion. The film runs a short 7:24, and now appears in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

Bonus: You can also down­load a free text ver­sion of Poe’s clas­sic via Project Guten­berg, and then a free audio ver­sion from our list of Free Audio Books.

Many thanks to Mike S. for send­ing this our way. Have a great piece of Open Cul­ture to share with your fel­low read­ers? Get in touch here.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Mys­tery of Edgar Allan Poe’s Death: 19 The­o­ries on What Caused the Poet’s Demise

5 Hours of Edgar Allan Poe Sto­ries Read by Vin­cent Price & Basil Rath­bone

Édouard Manet Illus­trates Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven, in a French Edi­tion Trans­lat­ed by Stephane Mal­lar­mé (1875)

Down­load The Com­plete Works of Edgar Allan Poe: Macabre Sto­ries as Free eBooks & Audio Books

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Johnny Depp: A Voom Portrait by Robert Wilson

in Art | October 6th, 2010

The New York Times has described Robert Wil­son, the avant-garde artist, as “a tow­er­ing fig­ure in the world of exper­i­men­tal the­ater and an explor­er in the uses of time and space onstage.” Known for break­ing con­ven­tions and weav­ing togeth­er sound, images and text in evoca­tive ways, Wil­son cre­at­ed a series of “Voom” por­traits in 2007. As he explains in this inter­view (lis­ten here), the Voom series rein­vents the por­trait by pre­sent­ing fig­ures (includ­ing many celebri­ties) in high-def video rather than the tra­di­tion­al still image. And although the fig­ures remain still (per the con­ven­tion), there’s nonethe­less a cer­tain life and motion to them. Above, we fea­ture the Voom por­trait of actor John­ny Depp. Metafil­ter gives you links to 12 oth­ers.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

John­ny Depp Reads Let­ters from Hunter S. Thomp­son

John Waters: The Point of Con­tem­po­rary Art

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Revisiting JFK on YouTube

in History | October 6th, 2010

On Sep­tem­ber 26, 1960, John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon appeared in Amer­i­ca’s first nation­al­ly tele­vised pres­i­den­tial debate, an event wit­nessed by some 70 mil­lion Amer­i­cans. Although radio lis­ten­ers thought that Nixon hand­i­ly won the debate (48% v. 21%), tele­vi­sion view­ers gave the edge to Kennedy (30% v. 29%) – the even­tu­al win­ner of the elec­tion. On that Sep­tem­ber night, pres­i­den­tial pol­i­tics entered the tele­vi­sion age and nev­er looked back.

Thanks to the YouTube Chan­nel spon­sored by the JFK Pres­i­den­tial Library, you can now revis­it this his­tor­i­cal moment, along with oth­er key footage from the Kennedy pres­i­den­cy. Tak­ing a tour of the chan­nel, you will find Kennedy giv­ing his inau­gur­al address, mak­ing the strong case for civ­il rights, con­fronting the real­i­ty of nuclear war, and urg­ing Amer­i­ca to win the race to the moon.  The JFK video col­lec­tion now appears on our grow­ing list of Intel­li­gent YouTube Chan­nels.

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David Sedaris Reads From New book, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk

in Audio Books, Books, Comedy | October 5th, 2010

squirrel seeks chipmunk

Squir­rel Seeks Chip­munk: A Mod­est Bes­tiary, the new book by David Sedaris has hit the stands last week. And now thanks to The Guardian we get Sedaris him­self read­ing a story/chapter from the col­lec­tion, “The Mouse and the Snake.” It runs near­ly 10 min­utes. Start play­ing below…

via @brainpicker

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Sie liebt dich: The Beatles in German

in Music | October 4th, 2010

In a bit of his­tor­i­cal irony, the British Inva­sion hit Ger­many before it reached the UK or any­where else. From 1960 — 1962, the Bea­t­les played the grit­ty night­clubs of Ham­burg and real­ly learned to play togeth­er as a band. There, they final­ized the cast: John, Paul, George and then Ringo. And there they refined their live act, play­ing 281 con­certs, some last­ing as long as 12 hours. Need­less to say, The Bea­t­les built up a fan­base in Ger­many, and they lat­er nur­tured it by re-record­ing some ear­ly hits in Ger­man. Above, we have “She Loves You” reworked as “Sie Liebt Dich” (Jan­u­ary 1964). Oth­er Ger­man record­ings includ­ed “Komm, gib mir deine Hand” (“I Want to Hold Your Hand”) and the rather amus­ing Geh raus (“Get Back”).

PS Look­ing to learn some Ger­man? Don’t for­get about our col­lec­tion of Free For­eign Lan­guage Lessons.

via Metafil­ter

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Jeff Bezos: What Life Story Will You Write?

in Books, Life | October 4th, 2010

A quick bit of inspi­ra­tion from the man who has changed the way we buy books, and now the way we’re read­ing them – Jeff Bezos (CEO, Ama­zon). Speak­ing at Prince­ton’s grad­u­a­tion last May, Bezos dis­cussed the life choic­es that we all face: Will you fol­low dog­ma? Or be orig­i­nal? Will you play it safe? Or take good risks? Will you be a cyn­ic? Or a builder? Will you be clever at the expense of oth­ers? Or will you be kind?

In short, your life sto­ry comes down to your choic­es. What sto­ry will you write? And how will it read when you’re 80?

via TED

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Steve Jobs Talks Life at Stan­ford Grad­u­a­tion

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Zooming into Italian Masterpieces

in Art | October 3rd, 2010

This past week, an Ital­ian web site (Hal­tadefinizione) placed online six mas­ter­pieces from the famous Uffizi Gallery in Flo­rence, all in super high res­o­lu­tion. Each image is packed with close to 28 bil­lion pix­els, a res­o­lu­tion 3,000 times greater than your nor­mal dig­i­tal pho­to. And this gives art con­nais­seurs every­where the abil­i­ty to zoom in and explore these paint­ings in exquis­ite­ly fine detail – to see strokes and details not nor­mal­ly seen even by vis­i­tors to the Uffizi. The paint­ings fea­tured here include Bot­ti­cel­li’s The Birth of Venus; Leonar­do da Vin­ci’s Annun­ci­a­tion and The Last Sup­per; The Bap­tism of Christ by Ver­roc­chio and da Vin­ci; Car­avag­gio’s Bac­chus; and the Por­trait of Eleono­ra of Tole­do by Bronzi­no. These mas­ter­pieces will remain online for free until Jan­u­ary 29. For more details on the project, look here. Thanks Clau­dia for the great heads up.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Vir­tu­al Tour of the Sis­tine Chapel

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Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.