Celebrate Saul Bass’ 93rd Birthday with an Animated Google Doodle

in Design, Google | May 8th, 2013

When it comes to title design, no one did it bet­ter than Saul Bass (1920–1996). Dur­ing his long career in Hol­ly­wood, Bass designed sequences for Otto Preminger’s The Man with the Gold­en Arm, Scorsese’s Good­fel­las and Cape Fear, Kubrick’s Spar­ta­cus, and sev­er­al clas­sic films by Alfred Hitch­cock. And that’s just begin­ning to scratch the sur­face. (You can delve into Bass’ oth­er cre­ative work via the links below.)

Today, Google is cel­e­brat­ing what would have been Bass’ 93rd birth­day with an ani­mat­ed doo­dle (above). Accord­ing to Metafil­ter, the doo­dle “pays homage to Bass’ visu­al work on Psy­cho, The Man With The Gold­en Arm, Spar­ta­cus, West Side Sto­ry,Ver­ti­go, North by North­west, Anato­my of a Mur­der, and Around the World in 80 Days.” It’s also set to Dave Brubeck­’s 1961 tune, “Unsquare Dance.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Saul Bass’ Advice for Design­ers: Learn to Draw, and Cre­ate Beau­ty Even If Nobody Else Cares

Saul Bass’ Oscar-Win­ning Ani­mat­ed Short Pon­ders Why Man Cre­ates

Saul Bass Gives Ma Bell a Com­plete Makeover, 1969

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Steven Soderbergh Writes Twitter Novella After His Retirement From Filmmaking

in Film, Literature, Twitter | May 8th, 2013

How does one read Twit­ter lit­er­a­ture? Your thoughts are as good as mine. I sup­pose I’ll have to learn or end up in the ash heap of old-timey turn­ers of pages. Because Twit Lit is upon us, man­i­fest­ed by Jen­nifer Egan and now, under the twit­ter han­dle “Bitchu­a­tion,” by mer­cu­r­ial film­mak­er Steven Soder­bergh. Hav­ing announced his retire­ment from film­mak­ing in 2011, Soder­bergh made anoth­er announce­ment at the San Fran­cis­co Film Fes­ti­val on the State of Cin­e­ma (video above, tran­script here). The fol­low­ing day, Soderbergh’s Twit­ter novel­la Glue began with the lacon­ic April 28 tweet “I will now attempt to tweet a novel­la called GLUE.”

twitlit

Some unique fea­tures of Twit Lit: Soder­bergh can twit­pic an estab­lish­ing shot—which he does, of Ams­ter­dam—along with pics of oth­er loca­tions (or just vague­ly sug­ges­tive images). The indi­vid­ual tweets often read like Horse ebooks absur­di­ties. He’s up to Chap­ter Four­teen now. The lat­er tweets repli­cate screen­play dia­logue, with copi­ous inser­tions of BEAT to sig­ni­fy dra­mat­ic paus­es. Tak­en togeth­er, I sup­pose there’s coher­ence, though as I admit­ted above, I have not mas­tered the abil­i­ty to pull tweets togeth­er into longer text in my mind, Twit­ter being where I go when my atten­tion span is spent.

I leave it to savvi­er, more patient read­ers to judge the suc­cess of Soderbergh’s attempt. It may suf­fice to say that his pes­simism about the state of film does not apply to Twit­ter Lit. Or maybe he’s just pass­ing time before he makes movies again.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Read, Hear, and See Tweet­ed Four Sto­ries by Jen­nifer Egan, Author of A Vis­it from the Goon Squad

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

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Growing Up John Waters: The Oddball Filmmaker Catalogues His Many Formative Rebellions (1993)

in Film | May 7th, 2013

John Waters seems, now, to have a grand old time being John Waters. But what kind of tri­als must the direc­tor of Pink Flamin­gos have endured grow­ing up in mid­cen­tu­ry sub­ur­ban Amer­i­ca with his dis­tinc­tive set of inter­ests, pro­cliv­i­ties, and aes­thet­ics? The half-hour Chan­nel 4 doc­u­men­tary Grow­ing Up John Waters asks the film­mak­er direct­ly, and he responds with sto­ries of the many acts of rebel­lion he’s had to engage in, from child­hood through adult­hood, to reach his full taste-trans­gress­ing poten­tial. Along the way, we get his always enter­tain­ing­ly askew (if ulti­mate­ly sen­si­ble) per­spec­tives on the ear­ly six­ties, reli­gion, the Cold War, sports, shoplift­ing, the Civ­il Rights move­ment, and Elvis.

Rebel­lion John Waters-style, as fans would expect, bears lit­tle resem­blance to the ways we’ve long expect­ed kids to push back against author­i­ty. “What were your child­hood fan­tasies?” the inter­view­er asks as an open­er. “I ain’t tellin’ you,” Waters responds. “If I ever write about my sex life, I’m mak­ing the mon­ey on it, not Chan­nel 4.” And indeed, you can read much in his three books of prose now avail­able, but Grow­ing Up John Waters by no means skips on the insight, even in mat­ters cop­u­la­to­ry. While dis­cussing the sur­re­al nature of his movies’ love scenes, for instance, Waters makes an admis­sion that fore­shad­ows the theme of A Dirty Shame, which he would make a decade lat­er: “I love sex. But it would be bet­ter if I had thought it up.”

(via Dan­ger­ous Minds)

Relat­ed con­tent:

An Anti, Anti-Smok­ing Announce­ment from John Waters

John Waters: The Point of Con­tem­po­rary Art

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.

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How Marie Antoinette, Shakespeare and Other Historical Figures Might Look Today

in Art, History | May 7th, 2013

historical figures todayWhat would a mod­ern Marie Antoinette look like? Her hair would hang down; her once crooked teeth would be straight­ened; she’d con­tin­ue to wear design­er clothes; and, yes, she’d sad­ly have some sur­gi­cal enhance­ments too. A far cry from how the more state­ly Queen Eliz­a­beth I might look today. These images come out of a Tele­graph gallery that gives his­tor­i­cal fig­ures a mod­ern makeover. Oth­er fig­ures re-imag­ined here include Shake­speare (who goes a lit­tle hip­ster doo­fus), Hen­ry VIII, and Admi­ral Lord Nel­son.

via Kot­tke

Fol­low us on Face­book, Twit­ter and Google Plus and share intel­li­gent media with your friends! They’ll thank you for it.

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An Introduction to Great Economists — Adam Smith, the Physiocrats & More — Presented in New MOOC

in Economics, MOOCs | May 7th, 2013

Last fall, Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabar­rok, two econ pro­fes­sors from George Mason Uni­ver­si­ty, launched MRUni­ver­si­ty, a MOOC plat­form that brings eco­nom­ics cours­es to the larg­er world. (If Tyler Cowen’s name sounds famil­iar, it’s prob­a­bly because you’re already famil­iar with his blog Mar­gin­al Rev­o­lu­tion or his “Eco­nom­ic Scene” col­umn for the New York Times.) Fast for­ward to this spring, and MRUni­ver­si­ty now offers cours­es on The Euro­zone Cri­sis, Mex­i­co’s Econ­o­my, The Amer­i­can Hous­ing Finance Sys­tem, and, as of this month, The Great Econ­o­mists. The short course descrip­tion for Great Econ­o­mists: Clas­si­cal Eco­nom­ics and its Fore­run­ners reads:

Who were the first eco­nom­ic thinkers? What are the very ori­gins of eco­nom­ic thought? What did ear­li­er econ­o­mists under­stand but has been lost to the mod­ern world? Why is Adam Smith the great­est econ­o­mist of all time? How did the eco­nom­ic issues of the 18th and 19th cen­turies shape the thoughts of the clas­si­cal econ­o­mists? This class, which cov­ers the his­to­ry of eco­nom­ic thought up until the “Mar­gin­al Rev­o­lu­tion” in the 1870s, will answer all of these ques­tions and many oth­ers.

The course starts with Galileo and the the­o­ry of val­ue; touch­es on Mon­tesquieu and Man­dev­ille; offers to an intro­duc­tion to Mer­can­til­ism and the Phys­iocrats, and then real­ly comes to focus on David Hume and most­ly Adam Smith and his clas­sic trea­tise, The Wealth of Nations (find it in our col­lec­tion of Free eBooks), before turn­ing to lat­er thinkers and peri­ods.

You can sign up for The Great Econ­o­mists here. And it will be added to our list of 300 MOOCs from Great Uni­ver­si­ties.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mar­gin­al Rev­o­lu­tion Uni­ver­si­ty Launch­es, Bring­ing Free Cours­es in Eco­nom­ics to the Web

60-Sec­ond Adven­tures in Eco­nom­ics: An Ani­mat­ed Intro to The Invis­i­ble Hand and Oth­er Eco­nom­ic Ideas

Read­ing Marx’s Cap­i­tal with David Har­vey (Free Course)

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Glenn Gould Offers a Strikingly Unconventional Interpretation of 1806 Beethoven Composition

in Music, Television | May 7th, 2013

Here’s a strik­ing­ly uncon­ven­tion­al inter­pre­ta­tion of Lud­wig van Beethoven’s 1806 com­po­si­tion, 32 Vari­a­tions on an Orig­i­nal Theme in C minor, by the Cana­di­an vir­tu­oso pianist Glenn Gould. It was record­ed in Toron­to in March of 1966 for a spe­cial pro­gram, “Con­ver­sa­tions with Glenn Gould,” which fea­tured an in-depth dis­cus­sion between Gould and the BBC arts reporter Humphrey Bur­ton. You can find the com­plete pro­gram bro­ken up into pieces at the CBC Web site. And for an espe­cial­ly inter­est­ing 35-minute seg­ment, in which Gould explains and demon­strates his idio­syn­crat­ic approach to inter­pret­ing Beethoven, see below:

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Video: Glenn Gould Plays the Gold­berg Vari­a­tions by J.S. Bach

Glenn Gould Explains the Genius of Johann Sebas­t­ian Bach (1962)

Glenn Gould Pre­dicts Mash-up Cul­ture in 1969 Doc­u­men­tary

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The Philosophy of Kierkegaard, the First Existentialist Philosopher, Revisited in 1984 Documentary

in Philosophy | May 7th, 2013

Dan­ish philoso­pher Søren Kierkegaard—often con­sid­ered the first existentialist—was born 200 years ago this past Sun­day in Copen­hagen. Writ­ing under pseu­do­nyms like Johannes Cli­ma­cus and Johannes de Silen­tio, Kierkegaard attacked both the ide­al­ism of con­tem­po­rary philoso­phers Hegel and Schelling and the bour­geois com­pla­cen­cy of Euro­pean Chris­ten­dom. A high­ly skilled rhetori­cian, Kierkegaard pre­ferred the indi­rect approach, deploy­ing irony, ridicule, par­o­dy and satire in a para­dox­i­cal search for indi­vid­ual authen­tic­i­ty with­in a Euro­pean cul­ture he saw as beset by self-impor­tant puffery and unthink­ing mass move­ments.

While mil­lions of read­ers have embraced Kierkegaard’s prob­ing method, as many have also reject­ed his faith-based con­clu­sions. Nev­er­the­less, his strik­ing­ly eccen­tric skew­er­ing of the tepid­ly faith­ful and over­ly opti­mistic breathed light and heat into the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry debates among mod­ern Chris­tians as they con­front­ed the find­ings of sci­ence and the chal­lenges posed by world reli­gions and mate­ri­al­ist philoso­phers like Karl Marx.

Marx and Kierkegaard’s many con­trasts and con­tra­dic­tions are well rep­re­sent­ed in Episode 4 of the BBC doc­u­men­tary series Sea of Faith, “Prometheus Unbound” (part one at top, part two imme­di­ate­ly above). The 1984 six-part series—named in ref­er­ence to Matthew Arnold’s famous poem “Dover Beach” and host­ed by rad­i­cal the­olo­gian Don Cupitt—exam­ines the ways in which the Coper­ni­can and Dar­win­ian sci­en­tif­ic rev­o­lu­tions and the work of crit­ics of reli­gious doc­trine like Freud, Marx, Niet­zsche, Strauss, and Schweitzer shook the foun­da­tions of ortho­dox Chris­tian­i­ty. Here, Kierkegaard is played in reen­act­ments with appro­pri­ate inten­si­ty by British actor Col­in Jeav­ons.

You can learn more about the doc­u­men­tary series (and pur­chase DVDs) here. And for more on Kierkegaard, you would be well-served by lis­ten­ing to Wal­ter Kaufmann’s lec­ture above. For a lighter-heart­ed but still rig­or­ous take on the philoso­pher, be sure to catch the well-read, irrev­er­ent gents at the Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life pod­cast in a dis­cus­sion of Kierkegaard’s earnest and often dis­turb­ing defense of exis­ten­tial Chris­tian­i­ty, The Sick­ness Unto Death.

You can find more phi­los­o­phy doc­u­men­taries in our col­lec­tion, 285 Free Doc­u­men­taries Online.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Down­load Wal­ter Kaufmann’s Lec­tures on Niet­zsche, Kierkegaard, Sartre & Mod­ern Thought (1960)

Exis­ten­tial­ism with Hubert Drey­fus: Four Free Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es

Friedrich Niet­zsche & Exis­ten­tial­ism Explained to Five-Year-Olds (in Com­i­cal Video by Red­dit)

Free Online Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es

135 Free Phi­los­o­phy eBooks

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

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Revisit Martin Scorsese’s Hand-Drawn Storyboards for Taxi Driver

in Film | May 6th, 2013

Any­one who’s watched Mar­tin Scors­ese’s Taxi Dri­ver sure­ly remem­bers, or has remained haunt­ed by, many images from the film, most of which — if not all— began as hum­ble pen­cil draw­ings. Like many major motion pic­tures, Taxi Dri­ver began not just as a script but also as a sto­ry­board, the piece of com­ic book-like sequen­tial art film­mak­ers use to plan shots, cam­era move­ments, and char­ac­ter place­ments. Some direc­tors, like Rid­ley Scott, spend time craft­ing detailed sto­ry­boards, while oth­ers, like the thor­ough­ly impro­vi­sa­tion­al Wern­er Her­zog, don’t use them at all. Scors­ese falls some­where in between, sketch­ing out sto­ry­board pan­els that feel more like brief notes to him­self and his clos­est col­lab­o­ra­tors. You can see them along­side the Taxi Dri­ver scenes they pro­duced in the video above.

td storyboard

“Sto­ry­boards express what I want to com­mu­ni­cate,” Scors­ese told Phaidon in 2011 for an arti­cle on the exhi­bi­tion “Between Film and Art: Sto­ry­boards from Hitch­cock to Spiel­berg.” “They show how I would imag­ine a scene and how it should move to the next.” And the effect on his process of using as seem­ing­ly flim­sy a tool as a pen­cil? “The pen­cil line leaves lit­tle impres­sion on the paper, so if the sto­ry­board is pho­to­copied it los­es some­thing. I refer back to my orig­i­nal draw­ings in order for me to con­jure up the idea I had when I saw the pen­cil line made.” Every film­mak­er has their own way of doing things, and as you can see when the video lines up these pen­cil draw­ings with (mil­lions of dol­lars lat­er) the fin­ished sequences, Scors­ese’s method gets results. “These sto­ry­boards are not the only means of com­mu­ni­ca­tion for what I imag­ine,” the direc­tor adds at the arti­cle’s end, “but they are the point where I begin.”

Relat­ed con­tent:

Mar­tin Scorsese’s Very First Films: Three Imag­i­na­tive Short Works

Mar­tin Scors­ese Presents The Blues: A Film Trib­ute to America’s Great Musi­cal Tra­di­tion

Mar­tin Scors­ese Brings “Lost” Hitch­cock Film to Screen in Short Faux Doc­u­men­tary

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.

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