Werner Herzog Picks His 5 Top Films

in Film | May 2nd, 2014

If one can char­ac­ter­ize Stan­ley Kubrick by his com­plete con­trol over the medi­um and his dogged insis­tence on stay­ing with­in 30 miles of his house when shoot­ing a movie, even if it means dress­ing up a Lon­don fac­to­ry to look like Hue, Viet­nam as he did for Full Met­al Jack­et, then Wern­er Her­zog can be char­ac­ter­ized as his oppo­site.

Herzog’s movies are strange, messy and ecsta­t­ic, a far cry from the chilly aloof­ness of Kubrick. In both his fea­ture films and his doc­u­men­taries, Her­zog uses his cam­era to uncov­er new lay­ers of nature, expe­ri­ence and the human psy­che. And there have been few film­mak­ers more will­ing to shoot films in rugged, exot­ic places as Her­zog — from Antarc­ti­ca to the Ama­zon­ian rain­for­est. In fact, a num­ber of his most noto­ri­ous shoots seem more designed to test the endurance of the cast and crew than to pro­duce a movie.

WERNER HERZOG TEACHES FILMMAKING. LEARN MORE.

His film Fitz­car­ral­do, for exam­ple, is about a guy who has the vision­ary idea to haul a river­boat over a moun­tain in the Ama­zon rain­for­est. Her­zog decid­ed, for the pur­pos­es of real­ism, that he would actu­al­ly drag a river­boat over a moun­tain. The pro­duc­tion, which is in the run­ning for the most mis­er­able film shoot ever, is the sub­ject of the absolute­ly riv­et­ing doc­u­men­tary The Bur­den of Dreams. At point one in the doc, Her­zog quips, “I should­n’t make movies any­more. I should go to a lunatic asy­lum.” And by the end of the movie, you think that he’s prob­a­bly right.

Of course, that crazed bravu­ra has always been at the cen­ter of Herzog’s mys­tique. After all, this is the guy who actu­al­ly ate a shoe after los­ing a bet with doc­u­men­tary film­mak­er Errol Mor­ris (find 30 of his films online).

In 2009, when Her­zog released Bad Lieu­tenant: Port of Call New Orleans, he was asked by the folks over at Rot­ten Toma­toes to list his top 5 movies. This is a direc­tor who once said, “I believe the com­mon denom­i­na­tor of the Uni­verse is not har­mo­ny, but chaos, hos­til­i­ty and mur­der.” So it’s a pret­ty safe bet that The Lion King didn’t make the cut.

The list starts with Nos­fer­atu from 1922 (up top). Her­zog liked this movie so much that he shot his own ver­sion in 1979.

In my opin­ion, the great­est of great films is Nos­fer­atu by [F.W.] Mur­nau, which I should include in the great­est five films of all time.

Intol­er­ance (1916)

D.W. Grif­fith’s epic was his response to the pub­lic out­cry fol­low­ing his epi­cal­ly racist Birth of a Nation. The movie also hap­pened to rev­o­lu­tion­ize film­mak­ing.

Every­thing that [D.W.] Grif­fith made: Bro­ken Blos­soms, Intol­er­ance, Birth of a Nation, you just name it. Every­thing. He’s the Shake­speare of cin­e­ma. Peri­od. Watch his films and you’ll know instant­ly.

 

Next is Freaks, Tod Brown­ing’s 1932 cult mas­ter­piece that fea­tured actu­al cir­cus per­form­ers and dwarves. No doubt the movie was an influ­ence on Her­zog’s 1970 film Even Dwarves Start­ed Out Small. “It’s just for­mi­da­ble, it’s phe­nom­e­nal,” says Her­zog. “You’ve got­ta see it. It would take me an hour to explain.”

The last two films on Her­zog’s list? Where Is The Friend’s Home? (1987), Abbas Kiarostami’s qui­et tale of a kid who is just look­ing to return a note­book to his friend. And Rashomon (1950), Aki­ra Kuro­sawa’s first true mas­ter­piece, the film that intro­duced Japan­ese film to the west­ern world after it won a Gold­en Lion at the 1951 Venice Film Fes­ti­val. The movie also clear­ly impressed Her­zog:

It is prob­a­bly the only film that I’ve ever seen which has some­thing like a per­fect bal­ance, which does not occur in film­mak­ing very often. You sense it some­times in great music, but I haven’t expe­ri­enced it in cin­e­ma, and it’s mind bog­gling. I don’t know how [Aki­ra] Kuro­sawa did it. It’s still a mys­tery to me. That’s great­ness.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Por­trait Wern­er Her­zog: The Director’s Auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal Short Film from 1986

Errol Mor­ris and Wern­er Her­zog in Con­ver­sa­tion

Wern­er Her­zog Has a Beef With Chick­ens

Wern­er Herzog’s Eye-Open­ing New Film Reveals the Dan­gers of Tex­ting While Dri­ving

Jonathan Crow is a Los Ange­les-based writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at @jonccrow.

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Watch the Talking Heads Play a Vintage Concert in Syracuse (1978)

in Music | May 2nd, 2014

We’ve brought you Talk­ing Heads shows from New York’s CBGB in 1975, Dort­mund, Ger­many in 1980, and Rome that same year. Now we’ve got one more valu­able live find from that for­ma­tive, busy era for the David Byrne-led, Rhode Island School of Design-forged new-wave band: their Novem­ber 1978 per­for­mance in Syra­cuse. The exact venue? Per­haps some­where at Syra­cuse Uni­ver­si­ty, per­haps not, though a col­lege per­for­mance space would make sense, giv­en how many insti­tu­tions of high­er edu­ca­tion they played in 1978. The Talk­ing Heads Con­cert His­to­ry blog has a com­plete list, and the total num­ber of shows in that year alone comes in, aston­ish­ing­ly, at over 130, a fair few of them at schools like NYU, Brown, Berklee, Berke­ley, UCLA, and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ari­zona. “It was real­ly an edu­ca­tion for us,” the page quotes drum­mer Chris Frantz as say­ing of the 1978 tour. “I’m afraid we bit off more than we could chew. We thought that we could play every night, and we found that after four months we were feel­ing pret­ty unin­spired.”

Yet this Syra­cuse gig, which came ten months in, sounds pret­ty inspired to me. It looks it, too, at least from what I can dis­cern from the lo-fi footage. What the image lacks in crisp­ness, though, it makes up for in tech­no­log­i­cal inter­est; it has the sig­na­ture look of the Sony Por­ta­pak, one of the very ear­ly portable con­sumer video record­ing sys­tems beloved of the 1970s’ video ama­teurs and video artists alike. Who­ev­er manned the Por­ta­pak for these 92 min­utes in Syra­cuse cap­tured a valu­able chap­ter in the Talk­ing Heads sto­ry, one the band spent work­ing as hard as pos­si­ble — which, of course, meant play­ing as hard, and as often, as pos­si­ble — and refin­ing their inim­itable sound and sen­si­bil­i­ty in con­cert spaces that, while often low-pro­file, nev­er­the­less pro­vid­ed them with excit­ed and appre­cia­tive audi­ences. Col­lege stu­dents and oth­er­wise, came eager to hear some­thing new — and giv­en that the 70s, that decade of slick dis­co and smooth rock, had almost come to a close, some­thing a bit askew. The Talk­ing Heads, as we see them here, could glad­ly deliv­er.

Set list:

  1. The Big Coun­try
  2. Warn­ing Sign
  3. The Book I Read
  4. Stay Hun­gry
  5. Artists Only
  6. The Girls Want to Be with the Girls
  7. The Good Thing
  8. Love Goes to Build­ings on Fire
  9. Elec­tric­i­ty
  10. Found a Job
  11. Take Me to the Riv­er
  12. I’m Not in Love
  13. No Com­pas­sion

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch the Talk­ing Heads Play Live in Dort­mund, Ger­many Dur­ing Their Hey­day (1980)

Talk­ing Heads Play CBGB, the New York Club that Shaped Their Sound (1975)

Live in Rome, 1980: The Talk­ing Heads Con­cert Film You Haven’t Seen

Talk­ing Heads’ “This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)” Per­formed on Tra­di­tion­al Chi­nese Instru­ments

David Byrne: How Archi­tec­ture Helped Music Evolve

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

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Mr. Rogers Introduces Kids to Experimental Electronic Music by Bruce Haack & Esther Nelson (1968)

in Education, K-12, Music, Television | May 2nd, 2014


Exper­i­men­tal elec­tron­ic musi­cian and inven­tor Bruce Haack’s com­po­si­tions expand­ed many a young con­scious­ness, and taught kids to dance, move, med­i­tate, and to be end­less­ly curi­ous about the tech­nol­o­gy of sound. All of this makes him the per­fect guest for Fred Rogers, who despite his total­ly square demeanor loved bring­ing his audi­ence unusu­al artists of all kinds. In the clips above and below from the first, 1968 sea­son of Mr. Roger’s Neigh­bor­hood, Haack intro­duces Rogers and a group of young­sters to the “musi­cal com­put­er,” a home­made ana­log syn­the­siz­er of his own invention—one of many he cre­at­ed from house­hold items, most of which inte­grat­ed human touch and move­ment into their con­trols, as you’ll see above. In both clips, Haack and long­time col­lab­o­ra­tor Esther Nel­son sing and play charm­ing songs as Nel­son leads them in var­i­ous move­ment exer­cis­es. (The remain­der of the sec­ond video most­ly fea­tures Mr. Roger’s cat.)

Although he’s seen a revival among elec­tron­ic musi­cians and DJs, Haack became best known in his career as a com­pos­er of children’s music, and for good rea­son. His 1962 debut kid’s record Dance, Sing & Lis­ten is an absolute clas­sic of the genre, com­bin­ing a dizzy­ing range of musi­cal styles—country, clas­si­cal, pop, medieval, and exper­i­men­tal electronic—with far-out spo­ken word from Haack and Nel­son. They fol­lowed this up with two more iter­a­tions of Dance, Sing & Lis­ten, then The Way Out Record for Chil­dren, The Elec­tron­ic Record for Chil­dren, the amaz­ing Dance to the Music, and sev­er­al more, all them weird­er and more won­der­ful than maybe any­thing you’ve ever heard. (Don’t believe me? Take a lis­ten to “Soul Trans­porta­tion,” “EIO (New Mac­Don­ald),” or the absolute­ly enchant­i­ng “Saint Basil,” with its Doors‑y organ out­ro.) A psy­che­del­ic genius, Haack also made grown-up acid rock in the form of 1970’s The Elec­tric Lucifer, which is a bit like if Andrew Lloyd Web­ber and Tim Rice had writ­ten Jesus Christ Super­star on heavy dos­es of LSD and banks of ana­log syn­the­siz­ers.

While Haack­’s Mr. Rogers appear­ance may not have seemed like much at the time, in hind­sight this is a fas­ci­nat­ing doc­u­ment of an artist who’s been called “The King of Tech­no” for his for­ward-look­ing sounds meet­ing the cut­ting edge in children’s pro­gram­ming. It’s a tes­ta­ment to how much the coun­ter­cul­ture influ­enced ear­ly child­hood edu­ca­tion. Many of the pro­gres­sive edu­ca­tion­al exper­i­ments of the six­ties have since become his­tor­i­cal curiosi­ties, replaced by insipid cor­po­rate mer­chan­dis­ing. What Haack and Nel­son’s musi­cal approach tells me is that we’d do well to revis­it the edu­ca­tion­al cli­mate of that day and take a few lessons from its freeform exper­i­men­ta­tion and open­ness. I’ll cer­tain­ly be play­ing these records for my daugh­ter.

via Net­work Awe­some

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mr. Rogers Takes Break­danc­ing Lessons from a 12-Year-Old (1985)

Mr. Rogers Goes to Wash­ing­ton

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness.

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Albert Camus Wins the Nobel Prize & Sends a Letter of Gratitude to His Elementary School Teacher (1957)

in Letters, Literature | May 1st, 2014

Image by Unit­ed Press Inter­na­tion­al, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

What would you do if you won a Nobel Prize? Who would you thank? We’ve all won­dered about it, per­haps not about the Nobel specif­i­cal­ly, but about some poten­tial­ly lega­cy-con­firm­ing prize or oth­er — maybe an Oscar, maybe a MacArthur Fel­low­ship. When Albert Camus, the short-lived French nov­el­ist-philoso­pher who wrote such endur­ing works as The Stranger and The Myth of Sisy­phus, won the Nobel for Lit­er­a­ture in 1957 “for his impor­tant lit­er­ary pro­duc­tion, which with clear-sight­ed earnest­ness illu­mi­nates the prob­lems of the human con­science in our times,” he thanked an ele­men­tary-school teacher. “One could argue that, in the his­to­ry of the field, few teacher-pupil rela­tion­ships have had more dra­mat­ic impact than that of Louis Ger­main on his young pupil Albert Camus,” says a Chica­go Tri­bune arti­cle pub­lished dur­ing an upswing in Amer­i­can inter­est in Camus’ work. That hap­pened soon after the pub­li­ca­tion of his unfin­ished auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal nov­el The First Man, a “clas­sic sto­ry of a poor boy who made good” whose appen­dix includes the author’s real-life cor­re­spon­dence with his for­mer teacher.

One of these let­ters Camus wrote to Ger­main not long after win­ning the Nobel. (You can hear his actu­al accep­tance speech here.) He no doubt saw the old­er man’s for­ma­tive influ­ence as essen­tial to the work that brought that pres­ti­gious prize his way, since, as Let­ters of Note puts it, “he was just 11-months-old when his father was killed in action dur­ing The Bat­tle of the Marne; his moth­er, par­tial­ly deaf and illit­er­ate, then raised her boys in extreme pover­ty with the help of his heavy-hand­ed grand­moth­er. It was in school that Camus shone, due in no small part to the encour­age­ment offered by his beloved teacher.” Though nev­er thrilled about pub­lic hon­ors of this type, Camus nonethe­less knew a chance to express long-felt grat­i­tude when he saw it, and to Ger­main he wrote these sen­tences as brief and as pow­er­ful as many in his books: 

19 Novem­ber 1957

Dear Mon­sieur Ger­main,

I let the com­mo­tion around me these days sub­side a bit before speak­ing to you from the bot­tom of my heart. I have just been giv­en far too great an hon­our, one I nei­ther sought nor solicit­ed.

But when I heard the news, my first thought, after my moth­er, was of you. With­out you, with­out the affec­tion­ate hand you extend­ed to the small poor child that I was, with­out your teach­ing and exam­ple, none of all this would have hap­pened.

I don’t make too much of this sort of hon­our. But at least it gives me the oppor­tu­ni­ty to tell you what you have been and still are for me, and to assure you that your efforts, your work, and the gen­er­ous heart you put into it still live in one of your lit­tle school­boys who, despite the years, has nev­er stopped being your grate­ful pupil. I embrace you with all my heart.

Albert Camus

For more such mem­o­rable cor­re­spon­dence, do con­sid­er hav­ing a look at Let­ters of Note’s new­ly pub­lished book, Let­ters of Note: An Eclec­tic Col­lec­tion of Cor­re­spon­dence Deserv­ing of a Wider Audi­ence.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

On His 100th Birth­day, Hear Albert Camus Deliv­er His Nobel Prize Accep­tance Speech (1957)

Albert Camus Writes a Friend­ly Let­ter to Jean-Paul Sartre Before Their Per­son­al and Philo­soph­i­cal Rift

Albert Camus Talks About Adapt­ing Dos­toyevsky for the The­atre, 1959

The Fall by Albert Camus Ani­mat­ed

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

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Cigarette Commercials from David Lynch, the Coen Brothers and Jean Luc Godard

in Film | May 1st, 2014

Even the great­est film­mak­ers out there some­times need to pay the bills.

In the 1990s, Swiss tobac­co com­pa­ny F. J. Bur­rus hired name brand art house direc­tors to make com­mer­cials for their Parisi­enne brand of cig­a­rettes. The com­pa­ny gave free rein to the film­mak­ers both in terms of con­tent and approach. And the tal­ent they man­aged to attract is aston­ish­ing: David Lynch, the Coen Broth­ers, Emir Kus­turi­ca, Roman Polan­s­ki and, most puz­zling­ly, Jean-Luc Godard.

Wait a sec­ond, you might say. Wasn’t Godard an avowed Maoist at one point in his life? Wasn’t he one of the most con­sis­tent­ly anti-bour­geois, anti-cap­i­tal­ist fig­ures in film­dom? Yes. And he also did cig­a­rette com­mer­cials. He did a few for Nike too.

You can see his ad for Parisi­enne above. Typ­i­cal with late peri­od Godard, the com­mer­cial is both lit­er­ary, polit­i­cal and will­ful­ly dif­fi­cult. Cred­it­ed to both Godard and his long time cre­ative and roman­tic part­ner Anne-Marie Miéville, the com­mer­cial fea­tures a skate­board­er slalom­ing between large box­es of cig­a­rettes, some guy in bare feet shuf­fling through a floor lit­tered with Parisi­enne pack­ages and a well-to-do woman read­ing a nov­el called Parisi­enne Peo­ple. On the sound­track, Godard reads a quote from Racine. It’s prob­a­bly noth­ing that Don Drap­er would have been hap­py with, but Bur­rus was pleased.

Ads by oth­er film­mak­ers sim­i­lar­ly show off their quirks and obses­sions. The Coen broth­ers’ com­mer­cial, for instance, looks less like an advert than a scene from one of their movies. A dandy smok­ing a cig from a hold­er is deeply moved by a sweaty vaude­ville per­for­mance. When it ends, he whis­pers, “Again.” It’s a res­o­lu­tion that rais­es as many ques­tions as it answers. It’s a whole short sto­ry in 30 sec­onds.

Emir Kusturica’s ad is packed with magi­cians, acro­bats, Balkan pas­tiche and gor­geous ingénues in black. Just like his movies. Side note: Kus­turi­ca has a suc­cess­ful side career play­ing in a band called The No Smok­ing Orches­tra.

Roman Polanski’s com­mer­cial is a jokey tale about a vam­pire that has an unset­tling­ly under­cur­rent of men­ace and sex­u­al vio­lence. Just like his movies.

And David Lynch’s ad plays out like a night­mare from some­one who fell asleep read­ing a Wal­ter Mosley nov­el.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ing­mar Bergman’s Soap Com­mer­cials Wash Away the Exis­ten­tial Despair

Fellini’s Fan­tas­tic TV Com­mer­cials

Wes Anderson’s New Com­mer­cials Sell the Hyundai Azera

Jonathan Crow is a Los Ange­les-based writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at @jonccrow.

 

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When Neil Young & Rick James Created the 60’s Motown Band, The Mynah Birds

in Music | May 1st, 2014

The lega­cy of Rick James, who died in 2004, may be for­ev­er entwined with Dave Chappelle’s insane imper­son­ations and MC Hammer’s use of “Super Freak,” but there is anoth­er major star whose one­time asso­ci­a­tion with James has been obscured in music his­to­ry. I’m talk­ing about Neil Young, who once played gui­tar in a Toron­to R&B group called The Mynah Birds, the first most­ly white band signed to Motown Records in the mid-60s. The band’s lead singer? A young AWOL Amer­i­can sailor who went by the name of Ricky James Matthews, lat­er Rick James. Before James went full-on funk and Young invent­ed folk-rock, the two con­nect­ed in this pro­to-super­group that includ­ed, writes rock his­to­ri­an Nick War­bur­ton, “sev­er­al notable musi­cians who lat­er found fame with the likes of Buf­fa­lo Spring­field and Step­pen­wolf.” “It would be a gross over­sight,” writes War­bur­ton, “to view the group as mere­ly a foot­note to Rick James and Neil Young’s careers.”

It would also be a mis­take to con­sid­er The Mynah Birds a minor league out­fit. As you can hear above in “I’ve Got You In My Soul” (top), “It’s My Time” (above—co-written by Young and James), and “I’ll Wait For­ev­er” (below), this was seri­ous rock and roll, with a loose, garage-rock jan­gle and raw, soul­ful vocal melodies. The Mynah Birds were also, accord­ing to Jim­my McDo­nough, seri­ous show­men. McDo­nough describes their onstage pres­ence in his Neil Young biog­ra­phy Shakey:

The Mynah Birds—in black leather jack­ets, yel­low turtle­necks and boots—had quite a sur­re­al scene going…. Those lucky enough to see any of the band’s few gigs say they were elec­tri­fy­ing. ‘Neil would stop play­ing lead, do a harp solo, throw the har­mon­i­ca way up in the air and Ricky would catch it and con­tin­ue the solo.’

This is a far cry from the scruffy, earnest Young of Har­vest or CSNY or even the Les Paul-wield­ing jam-rock­er of Crazy Horse and his 90s grunge revival peri­od (and more recent Psy­che­del­ic Pill). But the folky leads in his gui­tar work with James’ band hint at his lat­er incar­na­tions.

Is it a stretch to imag­ine James fronting a band of white Cana­di­an rock­ers? Young remem­bers the dri­ven Amer­i­can singer—who crossed the bor­der to avoid his draft assignment—as “a lit­tle bit touchy, dominating—but a good guy.” He also told McDo­nough that James was drawn pri­mar­i­ly to the sound of the Rolling Stones, and brought the rest of the band around: “We got more and more into how cool the Stones were. How sim­ple they were and how cool it was.” James had them play “Get Off My Cloud” and “Satisfaction”—before the braids, cocaine, and sequins, Rick James “fan­cied him­self the next Mick Jag­ger.”

Unfor­tu­nate­ly for the band, U.S. author­i­ties caught up with James, Motown shelved the tapes, and they were nev­er released. Discouraged—Young told MOJO Mag­a­zine in 1995—he “moved instead towards acoustic music and imme­di­ate­ly became very intro­spec­tive and musi­cal­ly-inward. That’s the begin­ning of that whole side to my music.” Young got in his hearse and head­ed for the States, James did his stint in the Navy, and the rest is, well, you know…. But the sound of The Mynah Birds lived on, per­haps, in at least one Neil Young song. His 1967 “Mr. Soul” with Buf­fa­lo Spring­field, below, is clas­sic six­ties rock and soul with a riff lift­ed right from the Stones.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Great Sto­ry: How Neil Young Intro­duced His Clas­sic 1972 Album Har­vest to Gra­ham Nash

Neil Young Busk­ing in Glas­gow, 1976: The Sto­ry Behind the Footage

See Neil Young Per­form Clas­sic Songs in 1971 BBC Con­cert: “Old Man,” “Heart of Gold” & More

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness.

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Pablo Picasso Poses as Popeye (1957)

in Art, Photography | May 1st, 2014

o-PABLO-PICASSO-POPEYE-ANDRE-VILLERS-570

Suf­fer­ing from tuber­cu­lo­sis, André Villers spent eight long years at a sana­to­ri­um in the French Riv­iera town of Val­lau­ris, start­ing in 1947. There, while recov­er­ing, he learned pho­tog­ra­phy, refined his craft, and lat­er shot por­traits of Europe’s great artists — Fer­nand Léger, Alexan­der Calder, Sal­vador Dalí, Joan Miró, Marc Cha­gall, Max Ernst, Jean Cocteau, Luis Buñuel, Fed­eri­co Felli­ni, to name a few. Villers met Picas­so in 1953 and stayed at his side for close to a decade, writes The Age, “qui­et­ly observ­ing and shoot­ing the man at work and at play.” In the image above, we find Picas­so most cer­tain­ly at play. Appar­ent­ly Pablo threw on some ran­dom clothes one day, and said “Look at me, I am Pop­eye!” That scene is record­ed for pos­ter­i­ty with the great image above. Click to view it in a larg­er for­mat.

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.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Post­cards That Picas­so Illus­trat­ed and Sent to Jean Cocteau, Apol­li­naire & Gertrude Stein

Watch Picas­so Cre­ate Entire Paint­ings in Mag­nif­i­cent Time-Lapse Film (1956)

Picas­so Paint­ing on Glass

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Peter Sellers Presents The Complete Guide To Accents of The British Isles

in Comedy, Film | April 30th, 2014

“There was no Peter Sell­ers,” author Bruce Jay Fried­man once wrote. “He was close to pan­ic as him­self and came alive only when he was imper­son­at­ing some­one else.”

While Sell­ers might have been a curi­ous­ly detached and deeply inse­cure per­son in real life, he was a strik­ing, mem­o­rable fig­ure on the sil­ver screen. His com­ic imag­i­na­tion and stun­ning ver­sa­til­i­ty made him the stand out in just about every movie he was in. In Stan­ley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, Sell­ers played three dif­fer­ent roles using three very dif­fer­ent accents – the upper crust plum­mi­ness of Capt. Man­drake, the Mid­west­ern flat­ness of the hap­less Pres­i­dent Muf­fley and the shriek­ing Teu­ton­ic lilt of Dr. Strangelove whose voice is a bit like how one might imag­ine Hen­ry Kissinger’s after fif­teen Red Bulls.

Sell­ers, of course, got his start in the radio and through­out his career, he con­tin­ued to make audio record­ings of his com­e­dy rou­tines. In his 1979 bit, The Com­plete Guide To Accents of The British Isles, Sell­ers shows just how good a mim­ic he real­ly is.

The piece is nar­rat­ed by Don Shul­man, an Amer­i­can pro­fes­sor of “accents and lan­guages” who likes lit­tle more than to go to Europe to “hear the music of the oth­er languages…Hearing French spoke, for exam­ple, is a sen­su­al expe­ri­ence.” And then what fol­lows is a minute or so of pitch-per­fect gib­ber­ish that does in fact sound a lot like French. He then moves on to the sound of oth­er lan­guages. “The music of the Ger­man lan­guage, on the oth­er hand, is excit­ing and slight­ly, well, slight­ly fright­en­ing. Like a show­er of cold beer.”

As you might guess from the title, Sell­ers then moves on to the British Isles. We’re treat­ed to a song about Argenti­na sung in a near­ly incom­pre­hen­si­ble Cock­ney, a mean­der­ing mono­logue by a hotel own­er in a sim­i­lar­ly dense Sus­sex acci­dent. Shul­man then talks to peo­ple in Birm­ing­ham, York­shire, Glas­gow and Liv­er­pool among oth­ers. And the whole thing is all done by one spec­tac­u­lar­ly tal­ent­ed per­son. It’s like the audio equiv­a­lent of a per­fect­ly exe­cut­ed mag­ic trick or dance rou­tine. And, unlike Criss Angel, Sell­ers is (inten­tion­al­ly) fun­ny. Check out part one up top and part two below that.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Brief Tour of British Accents: 14 Ways to Speak Eng­lish in 84 Sec­onds

Peter Sell­ers Gives a Quick Demon­stra­tion of British Accents

Peter Sell­ers Reads The Bea­t­les’ ‘She Loves You’ in Four Voic­es

Sir Patrick Stew­art Demon­strates How Cows Moo in Dif­fer­ent Eng­lish Accents

Jonathan Crow is a Los Ange­les-based writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at @jonccrow.

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