Mr. Happy Man

in Film, Life | February 14th, 2012


Matt Mor­ris, an award-win­ning film­mak­er liv­ing in Win­ter Park, Flori­da, came across John­ny Barnes in the same way he has dis­cov­ered all of his film sub­jects — by com­plete acci­dent. One day, while flip­ping through images on Flickr, Mor­ris stum­bled upon a tourist’s pho­to of the 88-year-old Bermu­di­an. He then read the cap­tion attached to the pho­to and knew he had to make a film about Barnes. “Aside from the fact that I tend to make films about elder­ly folks,” Mor­ris told us, “I’m fas­ci­nat­ed with peo­ple who have cho­sen unique ways of liv­ing their lives and as a result are irre­press­ibly hap­py.” “I want to make films about them in part so that I can learn from them.” And so, Matt head­ed to Bermu­da to cap­ture “Mr. Hap­py Man” work­ing his mag­ic on Crow Lane each day.

In Decem­ber, we fea­tured a 2008 film by Mr. Mor­ris — Pickin’ & Trim­min’, an ele­gant doc­u­men­tary that show­cas­es the blue­grass music made in a down-home North Car­oli­na bar­ber­shop. It’s not to be missed. Mor­ris’ next film, Mark & Lor­na, will take as its sub­ject a lounge singing duo based out of Orlan­do, Flori­da.

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David Lynch Falls in Love: A Classic Scene From Twin Peaks

in Comedy, Television | February 14th, 2012

They say a man falls in love through his eyes, a woman through her ears. In this scene from Twin Peaks, David Lynch pours on the ear-shat­ter­ing charm. The scene is from episode 25 of the sec­ond and final sea­son (1991). Lynch makes a cameo appear­ance as Gor­don Cole, the hard-of-hear­ing region­al bureau chief of the FBI, who has arrived in town to help agent Dale Coop­er (Kyle MacLach­lan) with an inves­ti­ga­tion. When the two men stop by at the Dou­ble R Din­er for a bite to eat, Cole is instant­ly smit­ten by the pret­ty wait­ress, Shelly John­son (Mäd­chen Amick). “Excuse me, Coop,” he says suave­ly, “while I try my hand in a lit­tle counter Esperan­to.” What hap­pens next is a miracle–or maybe just a phe­nom­e­non.

Relat­ed con­tent:

David Lynch’s Sur­re­al Com­mer­cials

David Lynch’s Eraser­head Remade in Clay

David Lynch Talks Med­i­ta­tion with Paul McCart­ney

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William S. Burroughs on Saturday Night Live, 1981

in Literature, Television | February 14th, 2012

Let’s rewind the video­tape to Novem­ber 7, 1981. That’s when Beat writer William S. Bur­roughs made his first appear­ance on Amer­i­can nation­al tele­vi­sion. Appro­pri­ate­ly, it was on the irrev­er­ent, late-night com­e­dy show, Sat­ur­day Night Live. Actress Lau­ren Hut­ton makes the intro­duc­tion, set­ting up Bur­roughs to read from Naked Lunch (1959) and Nova Express (1964). You can watch the action above, which hap­pens to be the open­ing scene of Bur­roughs, a 1983 doc­u­men­tary by Howard Brookn­er. The com­plete film is list­ed in our col­lec­tion of 450 Free Movies Online (look under Doc­u­men­taries), along with a 1997 BBC doc­u­men­tary on the author. For more good video ded­i­cat­ed to Bur­roughs, don’t miss the fol­low­ing:

William S. Bur­roughs Reads His First Nov­el, Junky (find it also in our col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books)

“The Thanks­giv­ing Prayer,” Read by William S. Bur­roughs and Shot by Gus Van Sant

Gus Van Sant Adapts William S. Bur­roughs’ The Dis­ci­pline of D.E.: An Ear­ly 16mm Short

William S. Bur­roughs on the Art of Cut-up Writ­ing

via @BrainPicker

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Peter Sellers Reads The Beatles’ “She Loves You” in 4 Different Accents: Dr. Strangelove, Cockney, Irish & Upper Crust

in Film, Music | February 13th, 2012

Back in the late 1950s, George Mar­tin record­ed two albums with the late, great Peter Sell­ers. When Mar­tin start­ed work­ing with the Bea­t­les a few years lat­er, he put the actor in touch with the musi­cians, and they became fast friends. This rela­tion­ship paved the way for some good com­e­dy. As you might recall, Sell­ers made a cameo appear­ance on “The Music of Lennon and McCart­ney” in 1964, and read A Hard Day’s Night in a way that com­i­cal­ly recalls Lau­rence Olivier’s 1955 per­for­mance in Richard III. (Watch the spoof here.) And then, also dur­ing the mid 60s, Sell­ers record­ed a com­ic read­ing of She Loves You — once in the voice of Dr. Strangelove (above), again with cock­ney and upper-crusty accents (both right below), and final­ly with an Irish twist (the last item). The record­ings were all released posthu­mous­ly between 1981 and 1983 on albums no longer in cir­cu­la­tion.

Cock­ney

Upper Crust

Irish

 

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Here Comes The Sun: The Lost Gui­tar Solo by George Har­ri­son

Gui­tarist Randy Bach­man Demys­ti­fies the Open­ing Chord of ‘A Hard Day’s Night’

The Bea­t­les’ Rooftop Con­cert: The Last Gig

 

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The Story Behind Rodin’s ‘The Kiss’

in Art | February 13th, 2012

NOTE: If you are hav­ing prob­lems view­ing the video on our site, you can also watch it here.

With Valen­tine’s Day almost here, we thought it would be an oppor­tune time to bring you the sto­ry of Auguste Rod­in’s erot­i­cal­ly charged mas­ter­piece, The Kiss.

In this video from the Tate muse­ums, Jane Bur­ton explains how The Kiss was orig­i­nal­ly con­ceived as a detail in an ear­ly ver­sion of Rod­in’s The Gates of Hell, a mon­u­men­tal work that pre­oc­cu­pied the artist for the last 37 years of his life. The Kiss depicts the fate­ful embrace of Francesca and Pao­lo, adul­ter­ous lovers from Dan­te’s Infer­no.

Rodin devel­oped the theme of The Kiss in plas­ter and ter­ra­cot­ta before cre­at­ing a mar­ble ver­sion for the French gov­ern­ment in 1888. That piece is now on dis­play at the Musée Rodin in Paris. The ver­sion fea­tured in the video was com­mis­sioned in 1900 by an Amer­i­can art col­lec­tor liv­ing in Eng­land, and is now part of the per­ma­nent col­lec­tion of the Tate Mod­ern in Lon­don. It’s cur­rent­ly on loan (through Sep­tem­ber 2) to the Turn­er Con­tem­po­rary in Mar­gate, Kent.

The nudi­ty and frank sen­su­al­i­ty of The Kiss drew scorn from many crit­ics when the sculp­ture was first unveiled in 1889. The poet Paul Claudel, a reli­gious con­ser­v­a­tive, wrote:

the man is so to speak attablé [sit­ting down to dine] at the woman. He is sit­ting down in order to make the most of his oppor­tu­ni­ty. He uses both his hands, and she does her best, as the Amer­i­cans say, to “deliv­er the goods.”

Claudel’s con­tempt prob­a­bly had some­thing to do with the fact that his sis­ter, the sculp­tor Camille Claudel, was Rod­in’s lover at the time the work was com­plet­ed. For a more in-depth explo­ration of the fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ry behind The Kiss, be sure to watch the BBC series, Pri­vate Life of a Mas­ter­piece. The episode fea­tur­ing The Kiss can be seen online in four 12-minute seg­ments here.

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Frankenstein: The First Adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Novel to Film (1910)

in Film | February 12th, 2012

102 years ago, J. Sear­le Daw­ley wrote and direct­ed Franken­stein. It took him three days to shoot the short, 12-minute film (when most films were actu­al­ly shot in just one day). It marked the first time that Mary Shel­ley’s lit­er­ary cre­ation was adapt­ed to film. And, some­what notably, Thomas Edi­son had a hand (albeit it an indi­rect one) in mak­ing the film. The first Franken­stein was shot at Edi­son Stu­dios, the pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny owned by the famous inven­tor.

You can down­load the movie at the Inter­net Archive, or find it per­ma­nent­ly list­ed in our col­lec­tion of 725 Free Movies Online. (Also, you can find Mary Shel­ley’s clas­sic nov­el  in our col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books and Free eBooks.) To get more infor­ma­tion on Daw­ley’s short film, please vis­it The Franken­stein blog.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Birth of Film: 11 Firsts in Cin­e­ma

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The Internet Imagined in 1969

in Life, Technology | February 11th, 2012

The gen­der stereo­types might be back­ward-look­ing (we’ll make up for it lat­er in the day), but the tech­no­log­i­cal vision is on the mark, right down to email, e‑commerce and online bank­ing. Of course, these weren’t the only peo­ple imag­in­ing an elec­tron­ic, con­nect­ed world dur­ing the 1960s.

In 1964, the futur­ist Arthur C. Clarke peered into the future and saw our con­nect­ed­ness com­ing. By 2000, he pre­dict­ed, “We could be in instant con­tact with each oth­er, wher­ev­er we may be,” and “it will be pos­si­ble in that age … for a man to con­duct his busi­ness from Tahi­ti or Bali just as well as he could from Lon­don.”

And then Mar­shall McLuhan under­stood the trend too. He saw elec­tron­ic media turn­ing our world into a social one, a world where ser­vices like Face­book and Twit­ter would make com­plete sense. You can watch the pre­scient Mar­shall McLuhan right here.

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!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Arthur C. Clarke Pre­dicts the Future in 1964 … And Kind of Nails It

The Inter­net Imag­ined in 1969

Mar­shall McLuhan: The World is a Glob­al Vil­lage

1930s Fash­ion Design­ers Imag­ine How Peo­ple Would Dress in the Year 2000

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Famous Literary Characters Visualized with Police Composite Sketch Software

in Art, Books, Literature | February 10th, 2012

In his 1955 clas­sic, Loli­ta, Vladimir Nabokov described the facial fea­tures of his scan­dalous pro­tag­o­nist, Hum­bert Hum­bert, in small bits. When tak­en togeth­er, here’s what you get:

Gloomy good looks… Clean-cut jaw, mus­cu­lar hand, deep sonorous voice… broad shoul­ders … I was, and still am, despite mes mal­heurs, an excep­tion­al­ly hand­some male; slow-mov­ing, tall, with soft dark hair and a gloomy but all the more seduc­tive cast of demeanor. Excep­tion­al viril­i­ty often reflects in the subject’s dis­playable fea­tures a sullen and con­gest­ed some­thing that per­tains to what he has to con­ceal. And this was my case… But instead I am lanky, big-boned, wooly-chest­ed Hum­bert Hum­bert, with thick black eye­brows… A cesspool­ful of rot­ting mon­sters behind his slow boy­ish smile… aging ape eyes… Humbert’s face might twitch with neu­ral­gia.

In a rather bril­liant move, Bri­an Joseph Davis has run these descrip­tions through law enforce­ment com­pos­ite sketch soft­ware and brought Hum­bert Hum­bert almost to life. (See above.) And he has done the same for a cast of oth­er lit­er­ary char­ac­ters on his Tum­blr, called The Com­pos­ites. Oth­er char­ac­ters get­ting the perp treat­ment include Emma Bovary (Gus­tave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary), Edward Rochester (Char­lotte Bron­të’s Jane Eyre), and Kei­th Tal­ent (Mar­tin Amis’ Lon­don Fields), among oth­ers. Find them all here. h/t Metafil­ter

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Vladimir Nabokov on Loli­ta: Just Anoth­er Great Love Sto­ry?

Vladimir Nabokov Mar­vels Over Dif­fer­ent “Loli­ta” Book Cov­ers

Nabokov Reads Loli­ta, Names the Great Books of the 20th Cen­tu­ry

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