Salvador Dalí Creates a Dream Sequence for Spellbound, Hitchcock’s Psychoanalytic Thriller

Alfred Hitch­cock made so many time­less films, but Spell­bound, alas, has­n’t held up quite so com­fort­ably. Most of the prob­lem has to do with its theme: psy­cho­analy­sis, which enjoyed a trendy moment in the mid-for­ties and may have attained enough rel­e­vance at the time to dri­ve a plot, but now seems a rather weak engine. That era’s ther­a­py craze swept up pic­ture’s pro­duc­er, old-Hol­ly­wood titan David O. Selznick, with such force that he per­son­al­ly asked the direc­tor to take it on as a sub­ject. Hitch­cock grudg­ing­ly agreed, set­ting the pro­duc­tion gears turn­ing on Spell­bound. Selznick arranged for his own ther­a­pist to both act as the movie’s tech­ni­cal advis­er and to cause Hitch­cock a num­ber of on-set headaches. So if Spell­bound seems faint­ly un-Hitch­cock­ian, we can chalk it up part­ly to Selznick­’s psy­cho­an­a­lyt­ic zeal, but some of the cred­it must also go to Sal­vador Dalí.

Hired to craft a dream sequence, the Span­ish sur­re­al­ist painter and film­mak­er report­ed­ly pro­duced over twen­ty min­utes of footage, four and a half min­utes of which appear in the clip above. “I can’t make out just what sort of a place it was,” Gre­go­ry Peck mut­ters, reclined on the ther­a­pist’s couch, as the shot dis­solves into his mind and into Dalí’s imagery. “It seemed to be a gam­bling house, but there weren’t any walls, just a lot of cur­tains with eyes paint­ed on them. A man was walk­ing around with a large pair of scis­sors, cut­ting all the drapes in half. And then a girl came in with hard­ly any­thing on and start­ed walk­ing around the gam­bling room, kiss­ing every­body.” Sure­ly those days offered no more ide­al can­di­date for the job of real­iz­ing such a vision than Dalí. The light­ly theremin-ed score comes from Mik­lós Rózsa, but Hitch­cock did­n’t like that either. Though the famous­ly con­trol­ling auteur may have found his pow­er com­pro­mised in its pro­duc­tion, Spell­bound does end up being a rare thing indeed in the his­to­ry of cin­e­ma: dream sequences com­pelling enough not to put you to sleep.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch 20 Free Hitch­cock Movies Online

Alfred Hitch­cock Recalls Work­ing with Sal­vador Dali on Spell­bound

A Soft Self-Por­trait of Sal­vador Dali, Nar­rat­ed by the Great Orson Welles

A Tour Inside Sal­vador Dalí’s Labyrinthine Span­ish Home

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

Amazing Flipbook Animation Shows Off the Skills of Ronaldinho

Ronal­do de Assis Mor­eira, oth­er­wise sim­ply known as Ronald­in­ho, plays football/soccer for Atléti­co Mineiro and cur­rent­ly cap­tains the Brazil­ian nation­al team. And the artist ‘Etoilec1,’ whose real name remains obscure to us, cre­ates some amaz­ing flip­books, includ­ing this one that ani­mates Ronald­in­ho’s finest moments on the pitch. You can watch real high­lights of Ronald­in­ho’s foot­work here, and find more care­ful­ly wrought flip­books by Etoilec1 here.

via mefi

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Read the First Page of Thomas Pynchon’s New Novel, Bleeding Edge

Pynchon first page

Click the image for a larg­er view. And if it does­n’t get large enough, click it again…

Pyn­chon. What to say? An all-night marathon read­ing of Gravity’s Rain­bow changed my brain chem­istry. A cou­ple days locked in a room with V altered my real­i­ty for­ev­er. I read the first chap­ter of Mason & Dixon. Bought and for­got a copy of Against the Day. Scanned a review of Inher­ent Vice.

So maybe the lat­er Pyn­chon hasn’t grabbed me, or my leisure read­ing time has just evap­o­rat­ed. Or both. I’m sure I’m not alone in this. But now we’ve got anoth­er chance to gape at the reclu­sive paranoiac’s labyrinthine prose, since his new nov­el Bleed­ing Edge comes out Sep­tem­ber 17th. And pub­lish­er Pen­guin has thrown us a morsel—you can read the first page of Bleed­ing Edge (above), from Penguin’s Fall 2013 cat­a­log.

Described as a “his­tor­i­cal romance on New York in the ear­ly days of the inter­net,” Bleed­ing Edge takes place in a pre-lapser­ian 2001, “in the lull between the col­lapse of the dot-com boom and the ter­ri­ble events of Sep­tem­ber 11th.” The nov­el promis­es plen­ty of intrigue, dark humor, lay­ers of occult fore­bod­ing, “lamen­ta­tions about the ’60s coun­ter­cul­ture,” and “shady fascis­tic orga­ni­za­tions with futur­is­tic names.”

Read the full descrip­tion of Bleed­ing Edge at Gothamist.

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him @jdmagness

Ira Glass on the Art and Craft of Telling Great Radio Stories

As tele­vi­sion news con­tin­ues its pathet­ic slide into the abyss of celebri­ty wor­ship, polit­i­cal par­ti­san­ship and 24-hour pun­dit­ry, its encour­ag­ing to note that in one area of tra­di­tion­al broad­cast­ing there is actu­al­ly some­thing of a renais­sance going on. Pub­lic radio is buck­ing the trend with pro­grams like Radi­o­lab and This Amer­i­can life, shows that do noth­ing to con­firm our bias­es, but instead engage our curios­i­ty and teach us some­thing new.

In this fun­ny and thought-pro­vok­ing talk from the 2007 Gel Con­fer­ence, Ira Glass, host of This Amer­i­can Life, explains a lit­tle of what goes into a good radio sto­ry.  “Nar­ra­tive,” he says, “is basi­cal­ly a machine that’s rais­ing ques­tions and answer­ing them.” Glass’s talk is very much like his radio show. In exchange for a lit­tle patience, you will be reward­ed with a good sto­ry and per­haps an insight or two.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ken Burns on the Art of Sto­ry­telling: “It’s Lying Twen­ty-Four Times a Sec­ond”

The Moth Now Streams its Bril­liant & Qui­et­ly Addic­tive Sto­ries on the Web

Ira Glass on Why Cre­ative Excel­lence Takes Time

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

To some fans of his not-exact­ly-a-sit­com Louie, Louis C.K. sim­ply appeared a few years ago, ful­ly formed and acclaimed by his peers as per­haps the most skilled, ded­i­cat­ed comedic crafts­men work­ing today. But he does have a past, stretch­ing back well beyond his voice role on the ani­mat­ed series Home Movies and his direc­tion of the film Pootie Tang, and he has offered up enter­tain­ing frag­ments of it online. Above you’ll find his ear­li­est known short film, Ice Cream. Begin watch­ing this black-and-white med­i­ta­tion on the vagaries of dis­af­fect­ed twen­tysome­thing love in the nineties — one which opens in a con­ve­nient store, no less — and you’ll imme­di­ate­ly think of Kevin Smith’s Clerks. But C.K. made Ice Cream in 1993, the year before Clerks came out, and it tilts in direc­tions even Smith would­n’t dare pre­dict, ulti­mate­ly arriv­ing at a mari­achi band-scored finale.

Just above, we have 1998’s Hel­lo There. In four min­utes, the film fol­lows a cata­ton­ic-look­ing fel­low (played by come­di­an Ron Lynch) wear­ing a poor­ly fit­ting suit and a cas­sette recorder around his neck as he makes his way through town. “Excuse me,” his machine says when he press­es its play but­ton, “do you have the cor­rect time?” A bystander ner­vous­ly answers. “Hel­lo there,” his speak­er blares to a bum doz­ing in a card­board box, “is that a new hat? You are a good guy.”

As the morn­ing con­tin­ues, we come to under­stand that this eccen­tric is not the only one of his kind. Below you can watch that same year’s Brunch, which throws the ver­bal­ly NSFW come­di­an Rick Shapiro into a sharply observed mid-morn­ing hud­dle of pon­tif­i­cat­ing senior cit­i­zens. These all come from Louis C.K.s offi­cial Youtube chan­nel, and indeed, C.K. pre­scient­ly made them in a form neat­ly suit­ed to the Youtube era, just as Louie has proven an ide­al artis­tic, intel­lec­tu­al, and finan­cial fit for the mod­ern cable tele­vi­sion land­scape.

Louis C.K.‘s short films: Ice Cream (1993), The Let­ter V (1998), The Leg­end of Willie Brown (1998), Ugly Revenge, Hijack­er (1998), Hel­lo There (1998), Brunch (1998), Per­sona Ne’ll Aqua (1999),Search­ing for Nixon

(via Metafil­ter)

Relat­ed Con­tent:

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

How the Great George Car­lin Showed Louis CK the Way to Suc­cess (NSFW)

David Lynch Teach­es Louis C.K. How to Host The David Let­ter­man Show

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

Steel-Willed Hand Balancer Jaakko Tenhunen Explains Why Effort Brings the Most Satisfaction

Few of us pos­sess the phys­i­cal strength and even stee­l­i­er will to fol­low in the hand­prints of pro­fes­sion­al bal­ancer Jaakko Ten­hunen, but most of us have oth­er projects that could ben­e­fit from the sort of relent­less deter­mi­na­tion he brings to his work. “Effort, not com­fort, is what gives the most tan­gi­ble sense of sat­is­fac­tion,” he remarks in the voiceover above, as the cam­era cap­tures him sup­port­ing his entire body weight on a sin­gle palm, his face intense but not at all anguished. Reduce this ele­gant phi­los­o­phy to the far punchi­er “just do it,” and you stand to sell a lot of shoes.

As Ten­hunen knows first­hand, this sort of effort­ful pur­suit depends on dis­ci­pline and dai­ly prac­tice. Patience is also key, as suc­cess is cumu­la­tive, and dif­fi­cult to mea­sure in the ear­ly stages.

The stripped down aes­thet­ic of his per­for­mance does not nec­es­sar­i­ly make what he does look easy, so much as worth­while. If you are a fledg­ling hand bal­ancer, you may well find it dis­cour­ag­ing, but for those of us striv­ing to see oth­er goals through to com­ple­tion, Tehunen pro­vides a brac­ing visu­al metaphor.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

J.K. Rowl­ing Tells Har­vard Grads Why Suc­cess Begins with Fail­ure

Con­for­mi­ty Isn’t a Recipe for Excel­lence: Wis­dom from George Car­lin & Steve Jobs (NSFW)

Meet Frank Catal­fu­mo, the Shoe­mak­er Who Has Been Mend­ing Souls in Brook­lyn Since 1945

Ayun Hal­l­i­day will be at tabling at the Brook­lyn Zine­fest this Sun­day. Imme­di­ate­ly there­after catch her per­form­ing the Com­plete His­to­ry of her long run­ning zine, the East Vil­lage Inky… in song, as part of Brook­lyn Brain Frame.

New Documentary Brings You Inside Africa’s Little-Known Punk Rock Scene

Punk rock has died a thou­sand deaths in the West.  Almost as soon as the mass media picked it up, punk split into sev­er­al hun­dred sub­species and spawned oth­er monoliths—post-punk, new wave, “alter­na­tive.” Giv­en that his­to­ry, it’s gen­er­al­ly assumed—a cou­ple gen­er­a­tions of sub­ur­ban mall­rats aside—that the orig­i­nal move­ment flashed and failed, over­tak­en by key­boards and drum machines, cor­po­rate greed and nar­cis­sism. But that his­to­ry is incom­plete. As a recent Guardian head­line pro­claims, punk rock is “alive and kick­ing in a repres­sive state near you.” The cause célèbre of inter­na­tion­al punk is, of course, Russia’s Pussy Riot, three of whose mem­bers were con­vict­ed of “hooli­gan­ism” and sent to labor camps. But dis­si­dent punk scenes thrive under the radar in many oth­er places hos­tile to dis­sent, such as Bur­ma, Indone­sia, and Chi­na.

And while the con­tem­po­rary phe­nom­e­non of glob­al punk makes for fas­ci­nat­ing news sto­ries, a new doc­u­men­tary, Punk in Africa, demon­strates that inter­na­tion­al punk rock is as old as the West­ern vari­ety. It just nev­er got the same press. In South Africa, short­ly after the 1976 Sowe­to Upris­ing, mul­ti-racial punk bands began to form, with names like Gay Marines, Nation­al Wake, and Scream­ing Foe­tus. Meet­ing and per­form­ing under the pall of Apartheid, these bands defied laws against racial mix­ing and braved con­stant harass­ment by police. As one mem­ber of Nation­al Wake says in the trail­er above, “the vice squad would vis­it us, some­times three times in one day.” He calls the racial ter­ri­to­ry the band had to nav­i­gate a “mine­field.”

A lot of the Afrop­unk fea­tured in the film is rem­i­nis­cent of the meet­ing of black and white sounds and musi­cians in Eng­land, espe­cial­ly in bands like The Clash, The Beat and The Spe­cials. Lat­er African ska bands like Hog Hog­gi­ty Hog and The Rudi­men­tals cer­tain­ly car­ry on that tra­di­tion. But many of the bands profiled—from South Africa, Zim­bab­we, and Mozambique—melded raw punk ener­gy with African polyrhythms and dis­tinc­tive local sounds and instru­men­ta­tion. Nation­al Wake pro­vides a good exam­ple of such hybridiza­tion. The live per­for­mance above even includes a drum solo—anathema to most West­ern punk rock.

Punk in Africa promis­es to add some nec­es­sary bal­ance to the slew of punk his­to­ries that focus only on Britain and the U.S.. In the inter­view above, one of the documentary’s direc­tors, Deon Maas, points out that the “punk thing in Africa” start­ed vir­tu­al­ly weeks after its U.K. cousin, first in imi­ta­tion, then as a true move­ment in its own right. Like the inter­na­tion­al punk scenes bur­geon­ing around the world today, it’s a move­ment that deserves to be heard.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The His­to­ry of Punk Rock

Russ­ian Punk Band, Sen­tenced to Two Years in Prison for Derid­ing Putin, Releas­es New Sin­gle

Rare Live Footage Doc­u­ments The Clash From Their Raw Debut to the Career-Defin­ing Lon­don Call­ing

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him @jdmagness

Animations Revive Lost Interviews with David Foster Wallace, Jim Morrison & Dave Brubeck

David Ger­lach left a com­fort­able job work­ing as a TV pro­duc­er to launch Blank on Blank, a mul­ti­me­dia non­prof­it with a sim­ple mis­sion — to curate jour­nal­ists’ for­got­ten inter­views with cul­tur­al icons, and then bring them back to life again, some­times as ani­mat­ed shorts. You can start enjoy­ing the fruit of Blank on Blank’s labors by watch­ing a series of web ani­ma­tions, recent­ly pro­duced in col­lab­o­ra­tion with PBS Dig­i­tal Stu­dios. Above, we’re start­ing you off with a four-minute ani­ma­tion of David Fos­ter Wal­lace reflect­ing on his ear­ly ten­nis days, the per­ils of per­fec­tion­ism, and his ten­den­cy to be a “gram­mar nazi” when teach­ing col­lege stu­dents — some­thing we’ve cov­ered here before. The inter­view orig­i­nal­ly aired on WNY­C’s Leonard Lopate Show in 1996, and you can lis­ten to the con­ver­sa­tion in its entire­ty here.

Next comes some mem­o­rable moments with Jim Mor­ri­son, the great singer-song­writer, who met with Vil­lage Voice writer Howard Smith back in Novem­ber, 1969. Going into the meet­ing, Smith sensed that things would­n’t be easy. He lat­er recalled, “I had a feel­ing that it was going to be a tough inter­view. I just kin­da had a feel­ing that … it was going to be tricky, and I said .… if things get real­ly dif­fi­cult with him, I’m gonna sug­gest that we arm wres­tle.” As you’ll hear, Smith made his great arm-wrestling escape an inevitabil­i­ty when he nee­dled Mor­ri­son, sug­gest­ing that the singer had put on too much weight. You can see how things played out above, or catch the com­plete inter­view here.

Blank on Blank has pro­duced oth­er ani­mat­ed inter­views with Bono, Lar­ry King, and surfer Kel­ly Slater. But we’re going to wind things down with Dave Brubeck recall­ing how Pres­i­dent Eisen­how­er sent him to East­ern Europe to fight Com­mu­nism with Jazz. Brubeck relat­ed this sto­ry at the Litch­field Jazz Fes­ti­val in 2008.

If you’re look­ing to rum­mage through a big archive of lost inter­views, I’d encour­age you to spend time with the Blank on Blank pod­cast avail­able on iTunes and rss.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Nazis’ 10 Con­trol-Freak Rules for Jazz Per­form­ers: A Strange List from World War II

Pak­istani Musi­cians Play Amaz­ing Ver­sion of Dave Brubeck’s Jazz Clas­sic, “Take Five”

David Fos­ter Wallace’s 1994 Syl­labus: How to Teach Seri­ous Lit­er­a­ture with Light­weight Books

An Uplift­ing Musi­cal Sur­prise for Dave Brubeck in Moscow (1997)

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