Werner Herzog Loses a Bet to Errol Morris, and Eats His Shoe (Literally)

in Film | July 8th, 2011

Almost 35 years ago, some­time in the late 70s, the film­mak­ers Errol Mor­ris and Wern­er Her­zog made a bet. Cor­rec­tion: At the time, Her­zog was a film­mak­er, and already a star, but Errol Mor­ris was just a guy obsessed with the idea of mak­ing a film about a pet ceme­tery. ‘I don’t believe you have the guts,’ Her­zog told Mor­ris. ‘But if you do, I’ll eat my shoe.’

Mor­ris rolled up his sleeves and got to work. The result is his stun­ning debut, Gates of Heav­en (1978). In response, Her­zog rolled up his sleeves, and got to work as well — in the kitchen, where he and uber-chef Alice Waters tried their might­i­est to con­coct a decent recipe for leather footwear.

Just to com­plete the doc­u­men­tar­i­an tri­fec­ta, the 20-minute short film, Wern­er Her­zog Eats his Shoe (1980), was direct­ed by the great Berke­ley film­mak­er, Les Blanc. You can watch a short­ened ver­sion above, or the full ver­sion here. The film is also now added to our big col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Errol Mor­ris and Wern­er Her­zog in Con­ver­sa­tion

Wern­er Her­zog and Cor­mac McCarthy Talk Sci­ence and Cul­ture

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.

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Baba Brinkman: The Rap Guide to Evolution

in Music, Science, TED Talks | July 7th, 2011

Cana­di­an “geek rap­per” Baba Brinkman first gar­nered pop­u­lar atten­tion with a well-received, well-reviewed rap adap­ta­tion of Chaucer’s Can­ter­bury Tales at the Edin­burgh Fringe Fes­ti­val. (To get a sense of the project, check out this brief scene from “The Par­don­er’s Tale.”) And we also pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured his bril­liant work on Macmil­lan’s What’s Your Eng­lish? cam­paign.

Brinkman has brought his fol­low-up show, a fas­ci­nat­ing homage to Charles Dar­win called “The Rap Guide to Evo­lu­tion,” to New York City, where it’s get­ting rave reviews. In the video above, he explains how he went about putting the project togeth­er, and how evo­lu­tion­ary sci­ence enriched his under­stand­ing of the vio­lence and anger so preva­lent in the music he loves. The whole talk is great, but if you want to start off with a taste of the rap itself, skip for­ward to minute 9:03.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hayak vs. Keynes Rap

The Cli­mate Sci­en­tist Rap (Warn­ing: Offen­sive Lan­guage)

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.

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Jean-Luc Godard’s After-Shave Commercial for Schick

in Film, Television | July 7th, 2011

The Dzi­ga Ver­tov Group (1968–1972) was a film col­lec­tive co-found­ed by Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin, named after the pio­neer­ing doc­u­men­tary film­mak­er Dzi­ga Ver­tov. Anti-auteur, anti-ver­ité, anti-bour­geois and anti-cap­i­tal­ist, the DVG was also the most rad­i­cal of the French film col­lec­tives, and so, of course, it man­aged to land a great adver­tis­ing gig.

But don’t call it a sell­out. Accord­ing to at least one account, Godard and Gorin man­aged to stick it to their ad agency. Fur­ther­more, they deliv­ered full-throt­tle irony: Their Schick com­mer­cial fea­tures a young man and woman argu­ing over a news broad­cast about Pales­tine … and Pales­tine was also the sub­ject of an ill-fat­ed 1970 DGV project called “Until Vic­to­ry.” You can read the fas­ci­nat­ing back-sto­ry of that film here.

And for the movie geeks: Yes, the actress is Godard reg­u­lar Juli­et Berto.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Jean-Luc Godard Meets Woody Allen

Ing­mar Bergman’s Soap Com­mer­cials Wash Away the Exis­ten­tial Despair

Fellini’s Fan­tas­tic TV Com­mer­cials

Wes Anderson’s New Com­mer­cials Sell the Hyundai Azera

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.

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Introduction to Political Philosophy: A Free Yale Course

in Online Courses, Philosophy, Politics | July 7th, 2011

Stephen B. Smith, a polit­i­cal sci­ence pro­fes­sor at Yale Uni­ver­si­ty since 1984, has made avail­able a 24-lec­ture course, Intro­duc­tion to Polit­i­cal Phi­los­o­phy, which cov­ers Pla­to, Aris­to­tle, Machi­avel­li, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Toc­queville.

His approach is high­ly lit­er­ary. In his Repub­lic lec­tures, for instance, he spends a good chunk of the time dis­cussing the metaphors and char­ac­ters involved. One of Smith’s major con­cerns is what cit­i­zen­ship amounts to. The lec­ture above is on Pla­to’s “Apol­o­gy,” and while this may be Pla­to’s most famous work (with its dic­tum that “The unex­am­ined life is not worth liv­ing”), it’s less about polit­i­cal phi­los­o­phy than about the vir­tu­ous life. Smith sees these top­ics as inti­mate­ly relat­ed, and in his clos­ing lec­ture, he gives a defense of patri­o­tism, say­ing that in the ivy league envi­ron­ment, express­ing an inter­est in patri­o­tism is like con­fess­ing an inter­est in child pornog­ra­phy.

Despite his engag­ing style, he speaks some­what slow­ly. If your lis­ten­ing device offers a “dou­ble speed” fea­ture, I rec­om­mend using this. You can obtain the whole series on the web: Yale web site — YouTube — iTunes (audio) —  iTunes (video). You can also find the course in the Phi­los­o­phy sec­tion of our col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

Mark Lin­sen­may­er runs the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life phi­los­o­phy pod­cast and blog. He also per­forms with the Madi­son, WI band New Peo­ple.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Oxford’s Free Intro­duc­tion to Phi­los­o­phy: Stream 41 Lec­tures

Online Degrees & Mini Degrees: Explore Mas­ters, Mini Mas­ters, Bach­e­lors & Mini Bach­e­lors from Top Uni­ver­si­ties

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Blind Guitarist Lives Out Dream at U2 Show

in Life, Music | July 6th, 2011

What can I say? I’m a suck­er for these feel-good moments. This past week­end, Adam Bev­ell, who lost his sight more than two decades ago, attend­ed his 20th U2 con­cert in Nashville. Through­out the show, he held up a sign that read “Blind Gui­tar Play­er: Bring Me Up!” And even­tu­al­ly Bono took him up on the offer, invit­ing him on stage to strum along to “All I Want is You” and then let­ting him leave with a lit­tle par­ty favor — Bono’s green gui­tar. A class act.

You can catch Adam talk­ing about his expe­ri­ence and play­ing some more gui­tar here. And if you like moments like these, then don’t miss this feelin’-groovy moment from Paul Simon’s recent show in Toron­to.

via @Metafilter

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Star Wars as Silent Film

in Film, Sci Fi | July 6th, 2011

You know George Lucas’ clas­sic, The Empire Strikes Back. Now roll it back a good 60 years and imag­ine the silent ver­sion. It works unex­pect­ed­ly well.

H/T to @wesalwan. And don’t miss many land­mark silent films in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online. Chap­lin, ear­ly Hitch­cock, Fritz Lang, the first sci-fi and west­ern films — they’re all there. Find them at the bot­tom of the page…

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

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!

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How Alice Herz-Sommer, the Oldest Holocaust Survivor, Survived the Horrific Ordeal with Music

in Film, History, Music | July 6th, 2011

What you’re watch­ing is the trail­er for the doc­u­men­tary Alice Danc­ing Under the Gal­lows by Nick Reed, to be released lat­er this year. At 110, Alice Herz-Som­mer is the old­est Holo­caust sur­vivor. Her sto­ry is both touch­ing and inspir­ing.

Alice was born in Prague — then part of the Aus­tro-Hun­gar­i­an Empire — in 1903. She start­ed play­ing the piano as a child and took lessons with Con­rad Ansorge, a stu­dent of Liszt. At 16, she attend­ed the mas­ter class at Prague’s pres­ti­gious Ger­man musi­cal acad­e­my. Lat­er, Alice became a respect­ed con­cert pianist in Prague. Through her fam­i­ly, she also knew Franz Kaf­ka. All of this changed when the Nazis occu­pied Czecho­slo­va­kia in March 1939. Along with oth­er Jews liv­ing in Prague, Alice was ini­tial­ly forced to live in Prague’s ghet­to before being deport­ed to the There­sien­stadt con­cen­tra­tion camp in 1943, along with her five-year-old son Raphael. Even­tu­al­ly her whole fam­i­ly, includ­ing her hus­band, cel­list Leopold Som­mer, and her moth­er, were sent to Auschwitz, Tre­blin­ka and Dachau, where they were killed.

Alice and her son sur­vived There­sien­stadt because the Nazis used this par­tic­u­lar con­cen­tra­tion camp to show the world how “well” the inmates were treat­ed. A pro­pa­gan­da film by the Nazis was shot and a del­e­ga­tion from the Dan­ish and Inter­na­tion­al Red Cross was shown around in 1943. To boost morale, Alice and many oth­er impris­oned musi­cians reg­u­lar­ly per­formed for the inmates. Despite the unimag­in­able liv­ing con­di­tions, Alice and her son sur­vived. They moved to Israel after the war, where she taught music. In 1986, she moved to Lon­don, where she still lives. Her son died in 2001 (obit­u­ary here).

The way Alice dealt with those hor­ri­ble times is par­tic­u­lar­ly inspir­ing. She says about the role of music: “I felt that this is the only thing which helps me to have hope … it’s a sort of reli­gion actu­al­ly. Music is … is God. In dif­fi­cult times you feel it, espe­cial­ly when you are suf­fer­ing.” When asked by Ger­man jour­nal­ists if she hat­ed Ger­mans, she replied: “I nev­er hate, and I will nev­er hate. Hatred brings only hatred.”

Extra mate­r­i­al: Art Ther­a­py Blog has a tran­script of the trail­er, mem­o­rable quotes by Alice and two BBC Radio inter­views with her. Alice’s life sto­ry is told in the book A Gar­den of Eden in Hell.

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.

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Bertrand Russell & Other Big Thinkers in BBC Lecture Series (Free)

in Media, Philosophy | July 6th, 2011

Back in 1948, Britain was mak­ing anoth­er dif­fi­cult tran­si­tion, mov­ing from the trau­ma of World War II to the chill of the Cold War. Hop­ing to give radio lis­ten­ers some clar­i­ty on con­tem­po­rary affairs, the BBC began air­ing an annu­al series of lec­tures — the Rei­th Lec­tures — that fea­tured lead­ing thinkers of the day. 60 years lat­er, the tra­di­tion con­tin­ues, and dur­ing this long stretch, some leg­endary fig­ures have graced the BBC’s air­waves: Michael Sandel, Edward Said, John Sear­le, John Ken­neth Gal­braith, George Ken­nan, and Robert Oppen­heimer, just to name a few. (And, yes, the list unfor­tu­nate­ly skews heav­i­ly male.)

Late last month, the BBC put the com­plete audio archive online, which gives you access to 240 lec­tures in total. Where’s the best place to start? How about at the begin­ning, with the inau­gur­al lec­tures pre­sent­ed by philoso­pher Bertrand Rus­sell in 1948. His lec­ture series, Author­i­ty and the Indi­vid­ual, delved into an age old ques­tion in polit­i­cal phi­los­o­phy — the indi­vid­ual and his/her rela­tion­ship with com­mu­ni­ties and states. The head of the BBC lat­er groused that Rus­sell spoke “too quick­ly and had a bad voice.” But the real com­plaints came from the Sovi­ets, who inter­pret­ed Rus­sel­l’s lec­tures as an attack on Com­mu­nism. You can find the lec­tures here; the first lec­ture appears at the bot­tom of the page.

Note: Our Twit­ter friends around the world said that they could almost uni­ver­sal­ly access the lec­tures. If you expe­ri­ence any geo-restrict­ing, we apol­o­gize in advance.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bertrand Rus­sell Sends a Mes­sage to the Future

Bertrand Rus­sell on God

Free Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es

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