Art Exhibit on Bill Murray Opens in the UK

in Architecture, Art, Comedy, Film | December 21st, 2015


Some­body get us Bill Mur­ray stat!

The actor and sec­u­lar saint has no direct involve­ment with BILL MURRAY: A Sto­ry of Dis­tance, Size, and Sin­cer­i­ty at the BALTIC Cen­tre for Con­tem­po­rary Art but the inter­view with artist Bri­an Grif­fiths, above, sug­gests that he should.

The major­i­ty of cre­atives pig­gy­back­ing on Murray’s pop­u­lar­i­ty these days would seem to be entre­pre­neur­ial crafts­peo­ple, where­as Grif­fiths is a fine artist. Pre­vi­ous projects include a Romani wag­on com­prised of sec­ond­hand fur­ni­ture and a series of his­tor­i­cal­ly cos­tumed busts cast from actor Peter Lorre’s death mask.

BALTIC’s web­site pro­vides some con­text for the cur­rent instal­la­tion, a series of nine mod­el build­ings in var­i­ous archi­tec­tur­al styles, fes­tooned with Murray’s face and oth­er visu­al indi­ca­tors from his con­sid­er­able oeu­vre:

Bill Mur­ray is always authen­tic. He is con­sis­tent­ly ‘BILL MURRAY’. His sin­gu­lar­i­ty breaks into irre­ducible ambi­gu­i­ties and con­tra­dic­tions – Bill the glob­al super­star, the guy-next-door, anti-brand brand, irre­press­ible lothario, dig­ni­fied clown and droll philoso­pher. This exhi­bi­tion takes these and many oth­er char­ac­ter­is­tics as an approach, turn­ing them into a fan­ta­sy car­i­ca­ture and a poet­ic tableau of scaled down archi­tec­ture and col­lec­tions.

Per­haps Grif­fiths was hav­ing an off day when the cam­era crew showed up to inter­view him about BILL MURRAY: A Sto­ry of Dis­tance, Size, and Sin­cer­i­ty. A Cre­ative Art Prac­tice stu­dent who attend­ed his guest lec­ture at Sheffield Halam Uni­ver­si­ty ear­li­er this year found him to be an enter­tain­ing and sim­i­lar­ly unpre­ten­tious speak­er.

The five minute talk above had the oppo­site effect.

I’d like to pro­pose a reshoot, star­ring Bill Mur­ray. Imag­ine what his par­tic­u­lar com­ic genius could bring to the tran­script above?

Saint Bill has demon­strat­ed that he is will­ing to work below scale when he believes in a project. Per­haps he would accept an exhi­bi­tion t‑shirt in return for liven­ing up this limp artis­tic state­ment.

(Might be what the artist was angling for all along…)

via Hyper­al­ler­gic

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Lis­ten to Bill Mur­ray Lead a Guid­ed Medi­a­tion on How It Feels to Be Bill Mur­ray

An Ani­mat­ed Bill Mur­ray on the Advan­tages & Dis­ad­van­tages of Fame

Bill Mur­ray Sings the Poet­ry of Bob Dylan: Shel­ter From the Storm

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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The Auteurs of Christmas: Christmas Morning as Seen Through the Eyes of Kubrick, Tarantino, Scorsese & More

in Film | December 21st, 2015

What­ev­er our set of beliefs, most of us soon­er or lat­er unite in the same cel­e­bra­to­ry pur­suit on Christ­mas Day: the watch­ing of movies. Going out to the the­ater to catch a hol­i­day-sea­son block­buster or two after you’ve opened your presents (or after oth­er peo­ple have fin­ished open­ing their presents) has become a kind of tra­di­tion in itself, and enough of a tra­di­tion to per­mit vari­a­tions. Maybe you’d rather use film to free your­self of the bur­dens of the Christ­mas sea­son, going instead to the art house and catch­ing the least com­mer­cial film pos­si­ble in this increas­ing­ly com­mer­cial time of the year.

But even if you stick with the auteurs, you can’t get away from Christ­mas entire­ly. A cou­ple Christ­mases ago, “The Auteurs of Christ­mas” shot a series of ver­sions of this most antic­i­pat­ed morn­ing in the style of direc­tors Steven Spiel­berg, Sergei Eisen­stein, Wes Ander­son, Woody Allen, Lars von Tri­er, Mar­tin Scors­ese, Michael Moore, Stan­ley Kubrick, Wern­er Her­zog, and Baz Luhrmann.

More recent­ly, the fol­low-up above expand­ed the project to envi­sion Christ­mas as envi­sioned by Char­lie Chap­lin, Quentin Taran­ti­no, Ter­rence Mal­ick, Christo­pher Nolan, Jean-Luc Godard, Alfred Hitch­cock, Mor­gan Spur­lock, David Lynch, M. Night Shya­malan, and Michael Bay.

But just as the con­clu­sion of one year’s Christ­mas can sim­ply get you look­ing for­ward to the next year’s, so these two super-homages make you think about the pos­si­ble auteurs for inclu­sion in a third: what would Yasu­jirō Ozu’s Christ­mas morn­ing look like, shot just a cou­ple feet off the tata­mi mat? Or Chan­tal Aker­man’s, which, for prop­er pac­ing, might require a whole video by itself? Or a Coen Broth­ers Christ­mas? Gas­par Noé’s? Tru­ly, this hol­i­day keeps on giv­ing.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Ter­ry Gilliam’s Ani­mat­ed Short, The Christ­mas Card (1968)

An Ani­mat­ed Christ­mas Fable by Mau­rice Sendak (1977)

William S. Bur­roughs Nar­rates a Clay­ma­tion of His Grim Hol­i­day Sto­ry “The Junky’s Christ­mas”

A Christ­mas Car­ol Pre­sent­ed in a Thomas Edi­son Film (1910)

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, the video series The City in Cin­e­ma, the crowd­fund­ed jour­nal­ism project Where Is the City of the Future?, and the Los Ange­les Review of Books’ Korea Blog. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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Hunter S. Thompson Sets His Christmas Tree on Fire, Nearly Burns His House Down (1990)

in Literature, Random | December 18th, 2015

It was some­thing of a Christ­mas rit­u­al at Hunter S. Thomp­son’s Col­orado cab­in, Owl Farm. Every year, his sec­re­tary Deb­o­rah Fuller would take down the Christ­mas tree and leave it on the front porch rather than dis­pose of it entire­ly. That’s because Hunter, more often than not, want­ed to set it on fire. In 1990, Sam Allis, a writer for then for­mi­da­ble TIME mag­a­zine, vis­it­ed Thomp­son’s home and watched the fiery tra­di­tion unfold. He wrote:

I gave up on the inter­view and start­ed wor­ry­ing about my life when Hunter Thomp­son squirt­ed two cans of fire starter on the Christ­mas tree he was going to burn in his liv­ing-room fire­place, a few feet away from an unopened wood­en crate of 9‑mm bul­lets. That the tree was far too large to fit into the fire­place mat­tered not a whit to Hunter, who was sport­ing a dime-store wig at the time and resem­bled Tony Perkins in Psy­cho. Min­utes ear­li­er, he had smashed a Polaroid cam­era on the floor.

Hunter had decid­ed to video­tape the Christ­mas tree burn­ing, and we lat­er heard on the replay the ter­ri­fied voic­es of Deb­o­rah Fuller, his long­time sec­re­tary-baby sit­ter, and me off-cam­era plead­ing with him, “NO, HUNTER, NO! PLEASE, HUNTER, DON’T DO IT!” The orig­i­nal man­u­script of Hell’s Angels was on the table, and there were the bul­lets. Noth­ing doing. Thomp­son was a man pos­sessed by now, full of the Chivas Regal he had been slurp­ing straight from the bot­tle and the gin he had been mix­ing with pink lemon­ade for hours.

The wood­en man­tle above the fire­place appar­ent­ly still has burn marks on it today. It’s one of the many things you can check out when Owl Creek starts run­ning muse­um tours in the near future.

Fol­low Open Cul­ture on Face­book and Twit­ter and share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox. And if you want to make sure that our posts def­i­nite­ly appear in your Face­book news­feed, just fol­low these sim­ple steps.

via Gothamist

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hunter S. Thompson’s Har­row­ing, Chem­i­cal-Filled Dai­ly Rou­tine

Hunter S. Thomp­son, Exis­ten­tial­ist Life Coach, Gives Tips for Find­ing Mean­ing in Life

Read 10 Free Arti­cles by Hunter S. Thomp­son That Span His Gonzo Jour­nal­ist Career (1965–2005)

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Watch 34 of Quentin Tarantino’s Visual References to Citizen Kane, Blade Runner, 8 1/2 & Other Great Films

in Film | December 18th, 2015

Some­times when I enjoy a movie less than I thought I would, I find that my dis­sat­is­fac­tion stems from the feel­ing of hav­ing watched a movie made out of oth­er movies, a Franken­stein­ian cre­ation assem­bled from the dead bits and pieces that worked well when attached to their orig­i­nal bod­ies, alive long ago, but, when re-used, don’t come to life at all. When avid cinephile turned avid cinephile and direc­tor Quentin Taran­ti­no plays the role of a cin­e­mat­ic Dr. Franken­stein, how­ev­er, he turns the volt­age much high­er up, ele­vat­ing the prac­tice to an auteur’s art.

When Taran­ti­no’s films ref­er­ence his favorite films — be they clas­sics of the canon, tried-and-true west­erns, kung-fu obscu­ri­ties, pieces of Euro­pean new-wave, or grind-house exploita­tion flicks — they often tran­scend their sources. Jacob Swin­ney, whose super­cuts of Taran­ti­no’s use of sound, close-ups, and cars we fea­tured back in April, has cut togeth­er 34 par­tic­u­lar­ly impres­sive visu­al ref­er­ences of the thou­sands found in the direc­tor’s fil­mog­ra­phy and placed them along­side the works quot­ed.

The video cov­ers, in three min­utes, visu­al ref­er­ences from the “Mex­i­can stand­off” from City of Fire in Reser­voir Dogs to the dances from Band of Out­siders and 8 1/2 in Pulp Fic­tion to Super­chick and The Grad­u­ate’s open­ing titles in Jack­ie Brown to Bruce Lee’s track­suit in Game of Death on Uma Thur­man in Kill Bill Vol­ume One to Daryl Han­nah’s writhing from Blade Run­ner in Kill Bill Vol­ume Two to fram­ing from The Searchers in Inglo­ri­ous Bas­ter­ds.

It stops short of The Hate­ful Eight, Taran­ti­no’s lat­est, leav­ing it as an exer­cise for the view­er to tab­u­late just how wide a swatch of cin­e­ma the man has repur­posed this time. He’s gone on record as say­ing he’ll only make two more fea­ture films, but don’t wor­ry, cinephiles: they’ll more than like­ly con­tain enough ref­er­ences to oth­er movies, visu­al and oth­er­wise, to keep you in view­ing mate­r­i­al for the next twen­ty years.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Quentin Taran­ti­no Super­cuts Explore the Director’s Styl­ized Use of Sound, Close Ups & Cars in His Films

Quentin Taran­ti­no Lists His 20 Favorite Spaghet­ti West­erns, Start­ing with The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

Quentin Taran­ti­no Lists the 12 Great­est Films of All Time: From Taxi Dri­ver to The Bad News Bears

Quentin Taran­ti­no Tells You About The Actors & Direc­tors Who Pro­vid­ed the Inspi­ra­tion for “Reser­voir Dogs”

Watch Free Online My Best Friend’s Birth­day, Quentin Tarantino’s 1987 Debut Film

Quentin Tarantino’s Top 20 Grindhouse/Exploitation Flicks: Night of the Liv­ing Dead, Hal­loween & More

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, the video series The City in Cin­e­ma, the crowd­fund­ed jour­nal­ism project Where Is the City of the Future?, and the Los Ange­les Review of Books’ Korea Blog. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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Muhammad Ali Sings in Broadway’s First Black Power Musical (1970)

in History, Politics, Sports, Television, Theatre | December 18th, 2015

The Great White Way is lit­tered with flops.

Crit­ic Frank Rich evis­cer­at­ed a 1988 musi­cal based on Stephen King’s Car­rie, lament­ing that a poten­tial camp mas­ter­piece wound up as “a typ­i­cal musi­cal-the­ater botch.”

Pro­duc­er David Mer­rick pulled the plug on a 1966 musi­cal adap­ta­tion of Break­fast at Tiffany’s star­ring Mary Tyler Moore long before its offi­cial open­ing night, thus spar­ing the dra­ma crit­ics and the pub­lic “an excru­ci­at­ing­ly bor­ing evening.”

And then there is 1970’s Big Time Buck White, activist Oscar Brown, Jr.’s adap­ta­tion of Joseph Dolan Tuotti’s play. It fea­tured Muham­mad Ali—tem­porar­i­ly benched from box­ing for draft evasion—in the tit­u­lar role of a mil­i­tant lec­tur­er, deliv­er­ing a Black Pow­er mes­sage to a char­ac­ter named Whitey.

The pri­mar­i­ly white Broad­way-going audi­ence that embraced the coun­ter­cul­tur­al “Trib­al Love-Rock Musi­cal” Hair two years ear­li­er with­held its love. In a col­or­blind world, we might be able to chalk that up to the champ’s sub-par singing chops or some clunky lyrics, but it would be a mis­take to turn a blind eye to the polit­i­cal cli­mate.

(Eight years lat­er, Ain’t Mis­be­havin’, a trib­ute to Fats Waller and the Harlem Renais­sance was a bonafide hit.)

Big Time Buck White ran for just sev­en per­for­mances, post­ing its clos­ing notice well in advance of its Jan­u­ary 18th appear­ance on the Ed Sul­li­van Show, above.

These days, the pro­duc­ers would prob­a­bly scram­ble to find a replace­ment, but Sul­li­van, a staunch sup­port­er of Civ­il Rights, hon­ored the book­ing, com­mand­ing his stu­dio audi­ence to give the cos­tumed play­ers “a fine recep­tion.”

After­ward, the champ thanked Sul­li­van for invit­ing him and “the group” so that view­ers who didn’t get a chance to could see “what type of play i was par­tic­i­pat­ing in.”

A bit of triv­ia. Play­bill cred­its actor Don­ald Suther­land, in the role of Black Man. He may be a movie star, but he’s some­thing of a Broad­way flop him­self, his only oth­er cred­it that of Hum­bert Hum­bert in 1980’s Loli­ta, Peo­ple Magazine’s Bomb of the Year.

Above is anoth­er scene from the musi­cal, shared by Ali’s admir­er, Mike Tyson.

via Messy N Chic

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Art of The Black Pan­thers: A Short Doc­u­men­tary on the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Artist Emory Dou­glas

Dick Van Dyke, Paul Lyn­de & the Orig­i­nal Cast of Bye Bye Birdie Appear on The Ed Sul­li­van Show (1961)

Leonard Cohen’s 1983 Musi­cal for Cana­di­an Tele­vi­sion: I Am a Hotel

Watch Stephen Sond­heim Teach a Kid How to Sing “Send In the Clowns”

David Byrne Dis­cuss­es Here Lies Love, His Dis­co Musi­cal with Fat­boy Slim on the Life of Imel­da Mar­cos

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

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16 Great Star Wars Fan Films, Documentaries & Video Essays to Get You Ready for Star Wars: The Force Awakens

in Film | December 18th, 2015

Have you had enough Star Wars yet? No, you will nev­er have enough Star Wars, not even after you’ve acquired the Star Wars dinette set, Star Wars bed and bath col­lec­tion, $400 Star Wars Lego Death Star, Star Wars chick­en frank­furter snack with built-in ketchup (seri­ous­ly)… and that’s not even to men­tion the first six movies, re-released every few years in new for­mats and expand­ed edi­tions.

Yeah, the mer­chan­dis­ing may be a lit­tle much; with the inau­gur­al film of the reboot­ed fran­chise open­ing dur­ing the hol­i­days, it’s a feed­ing fren­zy, no doubt. But for true fans, no amount of crass mate­ri­al­ism can put a damper on the enthu­si­asm, and yes, the anx­i­ety, for Star Wars: The Force Awak­ens. Will it eclipse our painful mem­o­ries of the pre­quels? Will Episode VII rekin­dle the mag­ic of Episodes IV-VI (for­mer­ly Episodes I‑III)? By near­ly all accounts, J.J. Abrams reimag­in­ing of the George Lucas lega­cy does all of the above.

To help you pre­pare for open­ing night (I’ve got my tick­ets!), we’ve com­piled some of our top Star Wars posts, fea­tur­ing all man­ner of doc­u­men­tary explain­ers, fan homages, inter­views, par­o­dies, remix­es, etc. From the dead­ly seri­ous to the ridicu­lous, per­haps no pop­u­lar movie prop­er­ty has attract­ed as much com­men­tary and meta-com­men­tary as Star Wars. That isn’t like­ly to change any­time soon, what with the Star Wars uni­verse again expand­ing into infin­i­ty. Before you take the leap for­ward into its future, revis­it its past at the links below.

Doc­u­men­tary Fea­tures and Archival Footage:

Watch the Very First Trail­ers for Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back & Return of the Jedi (1976–83) (see the first above)

The Mak­ing of Star Wars As Told by C‑3PO & R2-D2: The First-Ever Doc­u­men­tary on the Film (1977)

Kurt Rus­sell Audi­tions for Star Wars

The Mak­ing of The Empire Strikes Back Show­cased on Long-Lost Dutch TV Doc­u­men­tary

The Com­plete Star Wars “Fil­mu­men­tary”: A 6‑Hour, Fan-Made Star Wars Doc­u­men­tary, with Behind-the-Scenes Footage & Com­men­tary

How Star Wars Bor­rowed From Aki­ra Kurosawa’s Great Samu­rai Films

2 Hour Anno­tat­ed Star Wars Film Reveals the Cin­e­mat­ic Influ­ences Behind George Lucas’ Clas­sic Film

Joseph Camp­bell and Bill Moy­ers Break Down Star Wars as an Epic, Uni­ver­sal Myth

Star Wars is a Remix

Adap­ta­tions, Fan Films, and Par­o­dies:

Hard­ware Wars: The Moth­er of All Star Wars Fan Films (and the Most Prof­itable Short Film Ever Made)

Fans Recon­struct Authen­tic Ver­sion of Star Wars, As It Was Shown in The­aters in 1977

Star Wars Uncut: The Epic Fan Film

The Empire Strikes Back Uncut: A New Fan-Made, Shot-for-Shot Remake of the 1980 Sci-Fi Clas­sic

The Exis­ten­tial Star Wars: Sartre Meets Darth Vad­er

Star Wars as Silent Film

Watch a New Star Wars Ani­ma­tion, Drawn in a Clas­sic 80s Japan­ese Ani­me Style

And final­ly, if you’ve got the stom­ach for it and you want to catch up on the last six Star Wars films—or watch them all for the first time—you can do so all at once in the mind-bend­ing Meta Star Wars, which lay­ers all six films over each oth­er to cre­ate a psy­che­del­ic onslaught of whoosh­ing space­ships, droid bleeps and bloops, and flash­ing blasters and lightsabers. You won’t come away from the expe­ri­ence, if you can stand it, with any sense of plot or char­ac­ters, but you’ll have an inti­mate knowl­edge of the Star Wars uni­verse’s many unique sound effects.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch George Lucas’ Award-Win­ning Stu­dent Film Elec­tron­ic Labyrinth THX 1138 4EB (1967)

Free: Down­load 151 Sci-Fi & Fan­ta­sy Sto­ries from Tor.com

Blade Run­ner is a Waste of Time: Siskel & Ebert in 1982

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

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The BBC Creates Step-by-Step Instructions for Knitting the Iconic Dr. Who Scarf: A Document from the Early 1980s

in Television | December 17th, 2015

Knitting-Pattern-4th-Doctor

When Jon Per­twee rein­car­nat­ed into Tom Bak­er in 1974, the Fourth Doc­tor of pop­u­lar sci-fi show Doc­tor Who ditched the fop­pish look of vel­vet jack­ets and frilly shirts, and went for the “Roman­tic adven­tur­er” style, with flop­py felt hat, long over­coats and, most icon­i­cal­ly, his mul­ti­col­ored scarf.

Fan leg­end has it that cos­tume design­er James Ache­son picked up a load of mul­ti-col­or wool and asked knit­ter Bego­nia Pope to cre­ate a scarf, and Pope, per­haps mis­hear­ing, used *all* the wool, result­ing in a scarf that ran 12 feet long. The mis­take was per­fect, and sud­den­ly many UK grand­moth­ers were being asked by their grand­chil­dren to recre­ate their hero’s look.

The above memo isn’t dat­ed, but comes from some­time in the ear­ly ‘80s when the BBC sent detailed instruc­tions to a fan’s moth­er on mak­ing the scarf. (Click here, then click again, to view the doc­u­ment in a larg­er for­mat.) The col­ors include camel, rust, bronze, mus­tard, grey, green and pur­ple and should be knit­ted with size four nee­dles (that’s #9 US size). The requests must have come reg­u­lar­ly, because a sim­i­lar memo is reprint­ed from many years lat­er to anoth­er fan’s fam­i­ly.

The orig­i­nal scarf only last­ed a few episodes, then was altered, replaced, and sub­tly changed as the show went on. There were stunt scarves for stand-ins.

Come Sea­son 18, cos­tume design­er June Hud­son rethought the entire cos­tume and stream­lined the col­ors to three: rust, wine, and pur­ple, to match the Doctor’s more swash­buck­ling look. It also became the longest scarf of the series, some 20 feet.

The fol­low­ing year, the Doc­tor rein­car­nat­ed again into a crick­et-jumper and striped trouser-wear­ing young blonde man. The Scarf Years were over.

For a very in-depth look at the scarves, includ­ing Pan­tone col­or ref­er­ences and wool brands, there is noth­ing bet­ter than DoctorWhoScarf.com. So, get knit­ting, Who-vians!

via Laugh­ing Squid

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Meet Delia Der­byshire, the Dr. Who Com­pos­er Who Almost Turned The Bea­t­les’ “Yes­ter­day” Into Ear­ly Elec­tron­i­ca

See Pen­guins Wear­ing Tiny “Pen­guin Books” Sweaters, Knit­ted by the Old­est Man in Aus­tralia

Play The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Video Game Free Online, Designed by Dou­glas Adams in 1984

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the FunkZone Pod­cast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, read his oth­er arts writ­ing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.

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How Marcel Marceau Started Miming to Save Children from the Holocaust

in History, Theatre | December 17th, 2015

Image via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

If we think about the times evil has most notably reared its head, many of our minds go right to the Holo­caust — as, no doubt, did Mar­cel Marceau’s, espe­cial­ly since he had first-hand expe­ri­ence with the hor­ror of the Nazis, hav­ing lost his father in Auschwitz, and even used the art of mime against it.

The Jew­ish Marceau (née Man­gel) got his first expo­sure to mime from a Char­lie Chap­lin film, which he saw at the age of five. Lat­er, when France entered the Sec­ond World War, he and his fam­i­ly moved around the coun­try to flee the Nazis, from whom it became increas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult to hide as time went on. “I was hid­den by my cousin Georges Loinger who was a hero­ic Resis­tance fight­er,” Marceau recount­ed in a 2001 speech. “He said, ‘Mar­cel must hide for a while. He will play an impor­tant part in the the­ater after the war.’ How did he know that? Because he knew that when I was a child I cre­at­ed a the­ater for chil­dren already.”

The skills Marceau cul­ti­vat­ed per­form­ing for oth­er chil­dren came in more than handy not just after the war but dur­ing it, as he per­formed for young­sters on the run from Hitler. ”Marceau start­ed mim­ing to keep chil­dren qui­et as they were escap­ing,” said doc­u­men­tar­i­an Philippe Mora, son of the Resis­tance fight­er who smug­gled refugees along­side Marceau. “It had noth­ing to do with show busi­ness. He was mim­ing for his life.”

“Paris was lib­er­at­ed after the Amer­i­cans entered in August,” said Marceau, “but the war was­n’t fin­ished. Two months before the lib­er­a­tion of France, I entered a famous the­ater school and a mas­ter of mime, Éti­enne Decroux, said to the young stu­dents, ‘Who wants a part?’ And I said I. And I mimed the killer. And the killer was a Nazi, but of course I did­n’t say Nazi.” Impressed with his impromp­tu embod­i­ment of evil, Decroux asked his name. “I said Mar­cel Marceau,” his new sur­name inspired by a gen­er­al who fought in the French Rev­o­lu­tion, the “Marceau on the Rhine” of Vic­tor Hugo’s poem (“and I was born in Stras­bourg on the Rhine,” the artist adds). “That’s a beau­ti­ful name,” said Decroux. And thus the career of a mime leg­end tru­ly began.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mar­cel Marceau Mimes the Pro­gres­sion of Human Life, From Birth to Death, in 4 Min­utes

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

Mem­o­ry of the Camps (1985): The Holo­caust Doc­u­men­tary that Trau­ma­tized Alfred Hitch­cock, and Remained Unseen for 40 Years

The Touch­ing Moment When Nicholas Win­ton Met the Chil­dren He Saved Dur­ing the Holo­caust

Behind-the-Scenes Footage of Jer­ry Lewis’ Ill-Con­ceived Holo­caust Movie The Day The Clown Cried

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities and cul­ture. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer, the video series The City in Cin­e­ma, the crowd­fund­ed jour­nal­ism project Where Is the City of the Future?, and the Los Ange­les Review of Books’ Korea Blog. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

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Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.