David Lynch Releases an Animated Film Online: Watch Fire (Pozar)

in Animation, Film | May 21st, 2020

David Lynch began his artis­tic career as a painter. Before long his paint­ings became ani­ma­tions, of a kind, as exem­pli­fied by 1967’s Six Men Get­ting Sick (Six Times) and 1968’s The Alpha­bet. By 1977, when the years-in-the-mak­ing Eraser­head final­ly saw the light of day, Lynch’s trans­for­ma­tion into a live-action film­mak­er must have seemed com­plete. But his imag­i­na­tion has nev­er accept­ed con­fine­ment to one medi­um: even while work­ing on ever high­er-pro­file projects — The Ele­phant Man, Blue Vel­vet, Twin Peaks — he con­tin­ued to paint, to draw, to take pho­tographs. Lynch’s com­plete­ly sta­t­ic com­ic strip The Angri­est Dog in the World was a com­pelling fix­ture in the LA Read­er dur­ing the 1980s, but apart from the online series Dum­b­land and the Inter­pol col­lab­o­ra­tion I Touch a Red But­ton Man, lit­tle Lynchi­an in the way of ani­ma­tion has appeared over the past few decades.

This past Mon­day, how­ev­er, Lynch announced the release of one such rar­i­ty free to watch on Youtube. Like I Touch a Red But­ton Man, Fire (Pozar) is a joint effort between film­mak­er and musi­cian, in this case com­pos­er Marek Zebrows­ki. “The whole point of our exper­i­ment was that I would say noth­ing about my inten­tions and Marek would inter­pret the visu­als in his own way,” said Lynch in a USC School of Music inter­view.

As col­lab­o­ra­tors, Lynch and Zebrows­ki go back to Inland Empire, the 2006 fea­ture Lynch shot par­tial­ly in Poland. This neces­si­tat­ed a trans­la­tor, and the Pol­ish-Amer­i­can Zebrows­ki stepped up to the job. In 2007 the two con­tin­ued down that cul­tur­al avenue, record­ing an album called Pol­ish Night Music. Fire (Pozar)‘s bilin­gual title also hon­ors Zebrowski’s ances­tral home­land, though the film itself may lack any direct ref­er­ence to Poland — or to any real place, for that mat­ter.

Lynch is cred­it­ed with hav­ing “writ­ten, drawn, and direct­ed” the short (its ani­ma­tor, Noriko Miyakawa, was an edi­tor on 2017’s Twin Peaks: The Return), and on the visu­al lev­el it plays out like a jour­ney through what will feel, to many of us, like the famil­iar realm of the Lynchi­an imag­i­na­tion. The tit­u­lar fire — or rather, pozar — starts ear­ly on. Then we’re trans­port­ed to a sil­hou­ette land­scape that brings to mind David Fos­ter Wal­lace’s descrip­tion of one of Lynch’s paint­ing’s, “the sort of diag­nos­tic House-Tree-Per­son draw­ing that gets a patient insti­tu­tion­al­ized in a hur­ry.” But there are no peo­ple here, or at least no whole peo­ple: the first even faint­ly humanoid fig­ure to emerge brings to mind the men­ac­ing baby in Eraser­head, and by the end the scene will have been over­tak­en by crea­tures nei­ther prop­er­ly ani­mal nor man. Zebrowski’s score gets thor­ough­ly enough into this stark but fre­net­ic spir­it to make Lynch fans believe that fur­ther col­lab­o­ra­tions must sure­ly be on the way.

This short film will be added to our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Lynch Releas­es a Dis­turb­ing, New Short Film: Watch “Ant Head” Online

David Lynch Made a Dis­turb­ing Web Sit­com Called “Rab­bits”: It’s Now Used by Psy­chol­o­gists to Induce a Sense of Exis­ten­tial Cri­sis in Research Sub­jects

The Paint­ings of Filmmaker/Visual Artist David Lynch

Dis­cov­er David Lynch’s Bizarre & Min­i­mal­ist Com­ic Strip, The Angri­est Dog in the World (1983–1992)

The Sur­re­al Film­mak­ing of David Lynch Explained in 9 Video Essays

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall, on Face­book, or on Insta­gram.

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A Virtual Tour Inside the Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli Museum

in Animation, Film, K-12, Museums | May 8th, 2020

Let us pray that orga­ni­za­tion expert Marie Kon­do nev­er comes with­in spit­ting dis­tance of A Boy’s Room, part of the Stu­dio Ghi­b­li muse­um’s Where a Film is Born instal­la­tion.

It’s not like­ly that every sin­gle item in the mas­sive (and no doubt well dust­ed) col­lec­tion of books, post­cards, hand tools, pic­tures, fig­urines, and oth­er assort­ed tchotchkes pic­tured above sparks joy, but the sug­ges­tion is that any one of them might prove the gate­way to a fan­tas­ti­cal tale, such as those spun by the museum’s exec­u­tive direc­tor, mas­ter ani­ma­tor Hayao Miyaza­ki:

The room seems to belong to some­one who was sketch­ing at the desk just a few min­utes ago. The room is filled with books and toys. The walls are all cov­ered with illus­tra­tions and sketch­es. Hang­ing from the ceil­ing are a mod­el of an air­plane and a mod­el of a Pter­a­n­odon. It’s a place where the own­er of the room has stored his favorite things. This room pro­vides lots of inspi­ra­tion for what will go on to the blank piece of paper on the desk to become the ori­gin of an actu­al film.

The Muse­um, which announced it would delay its reopen­ing out of ongo­ing con­cerns relat­ed to social dis­tanc­ing dur­ing the COVID-19 cri­sis, recent­ly shared some brief video tours of the Miyaza­ki-designed space, per­haps all the more mag­i­cal for being emp­ty.

One lucky view­er, who had trekked to the Tokyo sub­urb of Mita­ka for an in-per­son vis­it, recalled the expe­ri­ence of actu­al­ly being in A Boy’s Room:

Open up the draw­ers in this room, take the books off shelves to look at them, touch things, look through trunks—you might find lit­tle secrets to be dis­cov­ered. One time I took an art book from the shelf and one of the employ­ees came over to me. I was expect­ing to get rep­ri­mand­ed, but instead she kind­ly guid­ed me over to a couch so that I could read the book. Miyaza­ki took care to design the space to be friend­ly to the explorato­ry nature of chil­dren, mak­ing sure that they could play unob­struct­ed. It’s one of the rea­sons why you aren’t allowed to take pho­tos inside—he did­n’t want par­ents inter­rupt­ing their expe­ri­ence to pose for pho­tos they could care less about.

That phi­los­o­phy is enact­ed through­out the muse­um. Kids can climb all over a life-size plush recre­ation of My Neigh­bor Totoro’s cat bus, but would-be Insta­gram­mers are S.O.L.

A peek at the Space of Won­der room reveals Thum­be­li­na-sized char­ac­ters from My Neigh­bor Totoro, Nau­si­caä of the Val­ley of the Wind, and Kik­i’s Deliv­ery Ser­vice frol­ick­ing in a fres­co of fruit, flow­ers, and vines.

The archi­tec­tur­al ele­ments are a par­tic­u­lar treat, and sug­gest that there’s seri­ous bank to be made, should Miyaza­ki ever con­sid­er extend­ing the brand into a theme park-style hotel. (Some­thing tells us he won’t.)

Once hav­ing seen a pho­to essay fea­tur­ing some of the fan­cy refresh­ments oth­ers have enjoyed there, the tour of the emp­ty Straw Hat Café does under­whelm a bit. Those cute lit­tle plates are just call­ing out for a slice of straw­ber­ry short­cake…

We’re unsure if muse­um staffers will be releas­ing more videos dur­ing their down­time, though we’re hope­ful, espe­cial­ly since sev­er­al in-per­son vis­i­tors have not­ed that the museum’s toi­lets are pret­ty note­wor­thy.

That said we’d hap­pi­ly set­tle for some of the short films that screen in the museum’s Sat­urn The­ater.

You can fol­low the Museum’s YouTube chan­nel just in case.

Mean­while, here is Miyazaki’s man­i­festo detail­ing the kind of muse­um he want­ed to make, right down to the café and the gift shop:

A muse­um that is inter­est­ing and which relax­es the soul
A muse­um where much can be dis­cov­ered
A muse­um based on a clear and con­sis­tent phi­los­o­phy
A muse­um where those seek­ing enjoy­ment can enjoy, those seek­ing to pon­der can pon­der, and those seek­ing to feel can feel
A muse­um that makes you feel more enriched when you leave than when you entered!

To make such a muse­um, the build­ing must be…
Put togeth­er as if it were a film
Not arro­gant, mag­nif­i­cent, flam­boy­ant, or suf­fo­cat­ing
Qual­i­ty space where peo­ple can feel at home, espe­cial­ly when it’s not crowd­ed
A build­ing that has a warm feel and touch
A build­ing where the breeze and sun­light can freely flow through

The muse­um must be run in such a way that…
Small chil­dren are treat­ed as if they were grown-ups
Vis­i­tors with dis­abil­i­ties are accom­mo­dat­ed as much as pos­si­ble
The staff can be con­fi­dent and proud of their work
Vis­i­tors are not con­trolled with pre­de­ter­mined cours­es and fixed direc­tions
It is suf­fused with ideas and new chal­lenges so that the exhibits do not get dusty or old, and that invest­ments are made to real­ize that goal

The dis­plays will be…
Not only for the ben­e­fit of peo­ple who are already fans of Stu­dio Ghi­b­li
Not a pro­ces­sion of art­work from past Ghi­b­li films as if it were “a muse­um of the past”
A place where vis­i­tors can enjoy by just look­ing, can under­stand the artists’ spir­its, and can gain new insights into ani­ma­tion

Orig­i­nal works and pic­tures will be made to be exhib­it­ed at the muse­um
A project room and an exhib­it room will be made, show­ing move­ment and life
(Orig­i­nal short films will be pro­duced to be released in the muse­um!)
Ghi­b­li’s past films will be probed for under­stand­ing at a deep­er lev­el

The café will be…
An impor­tant place for relax­ation and enjoy­ment
A place that does­n’t under­es­ti­mate the dif­fi­cul­ties of run­ning a muse­um café
A good café with a style all its own where run­ning a café is tak­en seri­ous­ly and done right

The muse­um shop will be…
Well-pre­pared and well-pre­sent­ed for the sake of the vis­i­tors and run­ning the muse­um
Not a bar­gain shop that attach­es impor­tance only to the amount of sales
A shop that con­tin­ues to strive to be a bet­ter shop
Where orig­i­nal items made only for the muse­um are found

The muse­um’s rela­tion to the park is…
Not just about car­ing for the plants and sur­round­ing green­ery but also plan­ning for how things can improve ten years into the future
Seek­ing a way of being and run­ning the muse­um so that the sur­round­ing park will become even lush­er and bet­ter, which will in turn make the muse­um bet­ter as well!

This is what I expect the muse­um to be, and there­fore I will find a way to do it.

This is the kind of muse­um I don’t want to make!
A pre­ten­tious muse­um
An arro­gant muse­um
A muse­um that treats its con­tents as if they were more impor­tant than peo­ple
A muse­um that dis­plays unin­ter­est­ing works as if they were sig­nif­i­cant

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Stu­dio Ghi­b­li Releas­es Tan­ta­liz­ing Con­cept Art for Its New Theme Park, Open­ing in Japan in 2022

Hayao Miyazaki’s Stu­dio Ghi­b­li Releas­es Free Back­grounds for Vir­tu­al Meet­ings: Princess Mononoke, Spir­it­ed Away & More

For the First Time, Stu­dio Ghibli’s Entire Cat­a­log Will Soon Be Avail­able for Dig­i­tal Pur­chase

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Here lat­est project is a series of free down­load­able posters, encour­ag­ing cit­i­zens to wear masks in pub­lic and wear them prop­er­ly. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli Releases Free Backgrounds for Virtual Meetings: Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away & More

in Animation, Art, Film | April 17th, 2020

To a degree that sur­pass­es any oth­er stu­dio in ani­ma­tion his­to­ry, Stu­dio Ghi­b­li has cre­at­ed a real­i­ty of its own. All of its fans around the world appre­ci­ate the artistry of its films, direct­ed by such lumi­nar­ies of Japan­ese ani­ma­tion as Hayao Miyaza­ki and Isao Taka­ha­ta, and many appre­ci­ate it so fer­vent­ly that they’d pre­fer to occu­py any of Ghi­b­li’s worlds to this one. The stu­dio has respond­ed to their desires by not just con­tin­u­ing to pro­duce motion pic­tures — the “retired” Miyaza­ki is now at work on his lat­est, How Do You Live? — but by autho­riz­ing a wide and ever-chang­ing range of mer­chan­dise, and even build­ing a muse­um out­side Tokyo and a theme park out­side Nagoya.

Alas, like most muse­ums, Ghi­b­li’s is tem­porar­i­ly closed. Nei­ther the Ghi­b­li theme park nor How Do You Live? will open any time soon, and even if they could open today, it would hard­ly be an oppor­tune time to do so. With so few of us any­where able to go to movie the­aters, let alone theme parks (though we can now, at long last, stream Ghi­b­li movies online), we have to enter the realm of Ghi­b­li in a dig­i­tal fash­ion.

To make this a bit more pos­si­ble, the stu­dio has offi­cial­ly released a set of eight back­grounds, suit­able for use as back­drops on Zoom or oth­er video-con­fer­enc­ing appli­ca­tions. You’ll find them all at Ghi­b­li’s web site: in Japan­ese only, true to form, but even non-Japan­ese speak­ers can eas­i­ly click and save the images. (For instruc­tions on how to set one as your back­ground, see our pre­vi­ous post on the sub­ject.)

Drawn from the sweep of Stu­dio Ghi­b­li’s his­to­ry, from Nau­si­caä of the Val­ley of the Wind to Cas­tle in the Sky, Princess Mononoke, Spir­it­ed Away, Howl’s Mov­ing Cas­tle, Ponyo, Arri­et­ty, and The Tale of the Princess Kaguya, the back­drops show the wide aes­thet­ic range of its work. Some of them depict mem­o­rable set­tings from these films (any Ghi­b­li fan will know exact­ly where you “are” the moment you con­nect) but oth­ers cap­ture a char­ac­ter, an icon, or an atmos­phere.

Whichev­er Ghi­b­li back­ground you pick, it will remind your inter­locu­tors of the for­mi­da­ble imag­i­na­tion exer­cised by each and every one of the stu­dio’s films, whether its char­ac­ters soar across the sky, live beneath the sea, or plunge into an unseen under­world — do any­thing, essen­tial­ly, but stay at home mak­ing calls.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Hayao Miyazaki’s Beloved Char­ac­ters Enter the Real World

Build Your Own Minia­ture Sets from Hayao Miyazaki’s Beloved Films: My Neigh­bor Totoro, Kiki’s Deliv­ery Ser­vice & More

Hayao Miyazaki’s Beloved Char­ac­ters Reimag­ined in the Style of 19th-Cen­tu­ry Wood­block Prints

Calm Down & Study with Relax­ing Piano, Jazz & Harp Cov­ers of Music from Hayao Miyaza­ki Films

Stu­dio Ghi­b­li Releas­es Tan­ta­liz­ing Con­cept Art for Its New Theme Park, Open­ing in Japan in 2022

Cus­tomize Your Zoom Vir­tu­al Back­ground with Free Works of Art

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall, on Face­book, or on Insta­gram.

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Watch the Oscar-Winning Animated Short “Hair Love”

in Animation, Life | April 7th, 2020

African-Amer­i­can hair has been mak­ing head­lines for the last few years, usu­al­ly because anoth­er black stu­dent has been deemed in vio­la­tion of the dress code for sport­ing braids, dreads, or a nat­ur­al afro.

This year’s Oscar-win­ning ani­mat­ed short, “Hair Love,” about an African-Amer­i­can dad’s attempt to stay on top of his 5‑year-old daughter’s abun­dant locks, is the sweet alter­na­tive to these upset­ting news sto­ries.

Lit­tle Zuri’s dad, Stephen, doesn’t have to bat­tle clue­less or unfair admin­is­tra­tors on his daughter’s behalf, but he does need to gain the upper hand on an adver­sary with whose ways he’s unfa­mil­iar. (His own hair is styled in tidy dread­locks.)

It’s implied that tend­ing to Zuri’s hair is not exact­ly some­thing he vol­un­teered for, and indeed we learn that the task was pre­vi­ous­ly the domain of her moth­er

In des­per­a­tion, Stephen seeks advice in the form of YouTube videos, find­ing a pletho­ra, as did film­mak­er and for­mer NFL wide receiv­er Matthew A Cher­ry, who ref­er­enced some of his actu­al inspi­ra­tions in the film, like the viral video of DJ Hines’ attempt to con­tain daugh­ter Chloe’s thick hair with a pony­tail hold­er, below.

Cher­ry raised the nec­es­sary fund­ing on Kick­starter, and com­plet­ed the film in about six weeks after post­ing a call for col­lab­o­ra­tors on Twit­ter:

Any 3D artists fol­low me? I got an Oscar wor­thy short film idea to go with this image. Get at me 

As Cher­ry points out in the trail­er for “Hair Love”’s accom­pa­ny­ing book, Zuri’s robust, kinky curls—almost a third char­ac­ter accord­ing to illus­tra­tor Vashti Har­ri­son—are a mar­velous excuse to bust stereo­types by plac­ing an involved, African-Amer­i­can dad front and cen­ter.

The tale has also won a lot of fans in the can­cer sur­vivor com­mu­ni­ty for its deft por­tray­al of the effects of Zuri’s mom’s ill­ness and recov­ery on the fam­i­ly.

Read the San Fran­cis­co Film Festival’s teach­ing guide to “Hair Love” here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch 66 Oscar-Nom­i­nat­ed-and-Award-Win­ning Ani­mat­ed Shorts Online, Cour­tesy of the Nation­al Film Board of Cana­da

Watch This Year’s Oscar-Win­ning Short The Neighbor’s Win­dow, a Sur­pris­ing Tale of Urban Voyeurism

Watch the Pio­neer­ing Films of Oscar Micheaux, America’s First Great African-Amer­i­can Film­mak­er

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Join Ayun’s com­pa­ny The­ater of the Apes in New York City this month for her book-based vari­ety series, Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain, and the world pre­miere of Greg Kotis’ new musi­cal, I AM NOBODY. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Peanuts Rock: Watch the Peanuts Gang Play Classic Rock Songs by Queen, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Journey & More

in Animation, Comedy, Comics/Cartoons, Music | February 21st, 2020

In a very crowd­ed field, Gar­ren Lazar’s com­i­cal take on Queen’s “Bohemi­an Rhap­sody” is a stand-out.

Com­i­cal in the lit­er­al sense. Lazar, aka Super G, struck a rich vein when he thought to mash the Rolling Stones’ “Sym­pa­thy for the Dev­il” with footage culled from Charles Schulz’s ani­mat­ed Peanuts spe­cials.

And over the last six years, he’s mined a lot of gold, using Final Cut Pro to pair famil­iar clips of a drum­ming Pig­pen, Snoopy slap­ping a dou­ble bass, and the icon­ic “Linus And Lucy” scene from A Char­lie Brown Christ­mas with rock and pop clas­sics.

Schulz, an ardent music lover, fre­quent­ly pic­tured his char­ac­ters singing, danc­ing, and play­ing instru­ments, so Lazar, who has an uncan­ny knack for match­ing ani­mat­ed mouths to record­ed lyrics, has plen­ty to choose from.

Char­lie Brown’s anx­i­eties fuel the intro­duc­tion to a 15 minute remix of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird,” until he gets hold of the Christ­mas special’s mega­phone…

The mega­phone serves Char­lie equal­ly well on “Stayin’ Alive,” the Bee Gees’ dis­co chart top­per, though depend­ing on your vin­tage, the vision of Snoopy in leg warm­ers and sweat­band may come as a shock. Those clips come cour­tesy of It’s Flash­bea­gle, Char­lie Brown, Schulz’s 1984 goofy spin on Flash­dance, Foot­loose, Sat­ur­day Night Fever and oth­er dance-based pop cul­tur­al phe­nom­e­nons of the era. Although that special—Schulz’s 27th—features a roto­scoped Snoopy bust­ing moves orig­i­nat­ed by Flash­dance’s stunt dancer Marine Jahan, that old hol­i­day chest­nut still man­ages to steal the show.

And when­ev­er you need a lift, you can’t do bet­ter than to spend a few min­utes with Lazar’s heady reboot of Chicago’s quin­tes­sen­tial 1970s sin­gle, “Sat­ur­day In the Park,” where­in the nor­mal­ly reserved Schroed­er reveals a more exu­ber­ant side.

Begin your explo­rations of Gar­ren Lazar’s musi­cal Peanuts remix­es on his YouTube chan­nel, warm in the knowl­edge that he enter­tains requests in the com­ments.

via Ulti­mate Clas­sic Rock

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Vel­vet Under­ground as Peanuts Char­ac­ters: Snoopy Morphs Into Lou Reed, Char­lie Brown Into Andy Warhol

Umber­to Eco Explains the Poet­ic Pow­er of Charles Schulz’s Peanuts

The Joy of Expe­ri­enc­ing Queen’s Bohemi­an Rhap­sody for the Very First Time: Watch Three Reac­tion Videos

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Join Ayun’s com­pa­ny The­ater of the Apes in New York City this March for her book-based vari­ety series, Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain, and the world pre­miere of Greg Kotis’ new musi­cal, I AM NOBODY. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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Optical Poems by Oskar Fischinger, the Avant-Garde Animator Despised by Hitler, Dissed by Disney

in Animation, History | January 23rd, 2020

At a time when much of ani­ma­tion was con­sumed with lit­tle anthro­po­mor­phized ani­mals sport­ing white gloves, Oskar Fischinger went in a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent direc­tion. His work is all about danc­ing geo­met­ric shapes and abstract forms spin­ning around a flat fea­ture­less back­ground. Think of a Mon­dri­an or Male­vich paint­ing that moves, often in time to the music. Fischinger’s movies have a mes­mer­iz­ing ele­gance to them. Check out his 1938 short An Opti­cal Poem above. Cir­cles pop, sway and dart across the screen, all in time to Franz Liszt’s 2nd Hun­gar­i­an Rhap­sody. This is, of course, well before the days of dig­i­tal. While it might be rel­a­tive­ly sim­ple to manip­u­late a shape in a com­put­er, Fischinger’s tech­nique was decid­ed­ly more low tech. Using bits of paper and fish­ing line, he indi­vid­u­al­ly pho­tographed each frame, some­how doing it all in sync with Liszt’s com­po­si­tion. Think of the hours of mind-numb­ing work that must have entailed.

Born in 1900 near Frank­furt, Fischinger trained as a musi­cian and an archi­tect before dis­cov­er­ing film. In the 1930s, he moved to Berlin and start­ed pro­duc­ing more and more abstract ani­ma­tions that ran before fea­ture films. They proved to be pop­u­lar too, at least until the Nation­al Social­ists came to pow­er. The Nazis were some of the most fanat­i­cal art crit­ics of the 20th Cen­tu­ry, and they hat­ed any­thing non rep­re­sen­ta­tion­al. The likes of Paul Klee, Oskar Kokosch­ka and Wass­i­ly Kandin­sky among oth­ers were writ­ten off as “degen­er­ate.” (By stark con­trast, the CIA report­ed­ly loved Abstract Expres­sion­ism, but that’s a dif­fer­ent sto­ry.) Fischinger fled Ger­many in 1936 for the sun and glam­our of Hol­ly­wood.

The prob­lem was that Hol­ly­wood was real­ly not ready for Fischinger. Pro­duc­ers saw the obvi­ous tal­ent in his work, and they feared that it was too ahead of its time for broad audi­ences. “[Fischinger] was going in a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent direc­tion than any oth­er ani­ma­tor at the time,” said famed graph­ic design­er Chip Kidd in an inter­view with NPR. “He was real­ly explor­ing abstract pat­terns, but with a pur­pose to them — pio­neer­ing what tech­ni­cal­ly is the music video.”

Fischinger’s most wide­ly seen Amer­i­can work was the sec­tion in Walt Dis­ney’s Fan­ta­sia set to Bach’s Toc­ca­ta and Fugue in D Minor. Dis­ney turned his geo­met­ric forms into moun­tain peaks and vio­lin bows. Fischinger was apoplec­tic. “The film is not real­ly my work,” Fischinger lat­er reflect­ed. “Rather, it is the most inartis­tic prod­uct of a fac­to­ry. …One thing I def­i­nite­ly found out: that no true work of art can be made with that pro­ce­dure used in the Dis­ney stu­dio.” Fischinger didn’t work with Dis­ney again and instead retreat­ed into the art world.

There he found admir­ers who were recep­tive to his vision. John Cage, for one, con­sid­ers the Ger­man animator’s exper­i­ments to be a major influ­ence on his own work. Cage recalls his first meet­ing with Fischinger in an inter­view with Daniel Charles in 1968.

One day I was intro­duced to Oscar Fischinger who made abstract films quite pre­cise­ly artic­u­lat­ed on pieces of tra­di­tion­al music. When I was intro­duced to him, he began to talk with me about the spir­it, which is inside each of the objects of this world. So, he told me, all we need to do to lib­er­ate that spir­it is to brush past the object, and to draw forth its sound. That’s the idea which led me to per­cus­sion.

You can find excerpts of oth­er Fischinger films over at Vimeo.

Opti­cal Poems will be added to our list of Ani­ma­tions, part of our col­lec­tion: 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site in Sep­tem­ber, 2014.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

The Nazi’s Philis­tine Grudge Against Abstract Art and The “Degen­er­ate Art Exhi­bi­tion” of 1937

How the CIA Secret­ly Fund­ed Abstract Expres­sion­ism Dur­ing the Cold War

Watch Dzi­ga Vertov’s Unset­tling Sovi­et Toys: The First Sovi­et Ani­mat­ed Movie Ever (1924)

Watch The Amaz­ing 1912 Ani­ma­tion of Stop-Motion Pio­neer Ladis­las Stare­vich, Star­ring Dead Bugs

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. And check out his blog Veep­to­pus, fea­tur­ing one new draw­ing of a vice pres­i­dent with an octo­pus on his head dai­ly.  The Veep­to­pus store is here.

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Cooking with Wool: Watch Mouthwatering Tiny Woolen Food Animations

in Animation, Food & Drink, K-12 | January 17th, 2020

Our fas­ci­na­tion with tiny food can be traced to the mouth­wa­ter­ing illus­tra­tions in Beat­rix Potter’s The Tale of Two Bad Mice.

Just like the doll­house-sized comestibles that so con­found­ed the tit­u­lar rodents, Tom Thumb and Hun­ca­munca, ani­ma­tor Andrea Love’s minia­ture pas­ta with red sauce is as ined­i­ble as it is appe­tiz­ing.

The self-taught stop motion specialist’s medi­um of choice is wool.

In an inter­view with Drag­on Frame stop motion software’s com­pa­ny blog, when they fea­tured Cook­ing with Wool: Break­fast, above, Love explained:

I like to make short per­son­al projects exper­i­ment­ing with the dif­fer­ent ways to ani­mate wool. The tech­nique is called nee­dle felt­ing and it involves shap­ing wool with a barbed nee­dle. I love the fuzzy aes­thet­ic, and feel like the pos­si­bil­i­ties are end­less. Every­thing in this video is made out of wool or felt, and is built over rigid insu­la­tion foam. This was a weekend/evening project, done over the course of three days… It is very chal­leng­ing work­ing with tiny bits of wool, but also amaz­ing how much detail can be achieved on a small scale when you con­sid­er that it is just tiny clumps of fur.

For­get the showstoppers—the melt­ing but­ter, the fried eggs flip­ping in the pan, the steam ris­ing from cup and ket­tle…

Let’s take a moment to admire the atten­tion to detail that went into the back­ground aspects—the rub­ber spat­u­la, the bananas, the cheery flecked wall­pa­per…

The only thing miss­ing is a pothold­er to han­dle that pip­ing hot cast iron skil­let.

Per­haps she ran out of wool?

The Port Townsend, Wash­ing­ton res­i­dent, who grad­u­at­ed from Hamp­shire Col­lege with a con­cen­tra­tion in film stud­ies and sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture, whips up her tee­ny wee­ny wooly meals in the same base­ment stu­dio where she crafts pro­mo­tion­al videos for local busi­ness­es, includ­ing the yarn shop where she sources her wool rov­ings.

View more of Andrea Love’s fiber-art stop motion ani­ma­tions, includ­ing a “dig­i­tal” banana paint­ing cre­at­ed with a woolen tablet and sty­lus, on her web­site and Insta­gram page.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Online Knit­ting Ref­er­ence Library: Down­load 300 Knit­ting Books Pub­lished From 1849 to 2012

Behold an Anatom­i­cal­ly Cor­rect Repli­ca of the Human Brain, Knit­ted by a Psy­chi­a­trist

20+ Knit­ters and Cro­chet Artists Stitch an Aston­ish­ing 3‑D Recre­ation of Picasso’s Guer­ni­ca

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Join her in NYC on Mon­day, Feb­ru­ary 3 for New York: The Nation’s Metrop­o­lis the 21st install­ment of her book-based vari­ety show, Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

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An Animated Look at the Charade of the Global Elites: Claiming They Want to “Change the World,” They End Up Preserving the Unjust Status Quo

in Animation, Current Affairs, Politics | January 8th, 2020

From Peter Kropotkin to Leo Tol­stoy to Noam Chom­sky, some of the most revered anar­chist thinkers have exhaust­ed page after page explain­ing why pow­er over oth­ers is unjus­ti­fied, no mat­ter how it jus­ti­fies itself. To those who say the wealthy and pow­er­ful ben­e­fit soci­ety with char­i­ta­ble works and occa­sion­al­ly humane pol­i­cy, Tol­stoy might reply with the fol­low­ing illus­tra­tion, which opens Time edi­tor Anand Girid­haradas’ talk above, “Win­ner Take All,” as ani­mat­ed by the RSA:

I sit on a man’s back, chok­ing him and mak­ing him car­ry me, and yet assure myself and oth­ers that I am sor­ry for him and wish to light­en his load by all means pos­si­ble… except by get­ting off his back.

The author of Win­ners Take All: The Elite Cha­rade of Chang­ing the World, Girid­haradas doesn’t make the case for anar­chism here, except per­haps by the slight­est impli­ca­tion in his choice of epi­graph. But he does call out the “win­ners of our age,” no mat­ter how much they deter­mine to make a dif­fer­ence with human­i­tar­i­an aid, for being “unwill­ing to get off the man’s back.” Unwill­ing to pay tax­es, close loop­holes and tax shel­ters, pay high­er wages, or stop lob­by­ing to slash pub­lic ser­vices. Unwill­ing to rein­vest in the com­mu­ni­ties that made them.

“What does it look like to imag­ine the kind of change,” Girid­haradas asks, “that would involve the win­ners of our age step­ping off that guy’s back? Or being made to step off that guy’s back?” Here, he leaves us with an ellipses and moves to cri­tique the idea of the “win-win” as a means of mak­ing change, rather than just exchange.

The mar­ket econ­o­my has import­ed the cri­te­ria of exchange into pol­i­tics and social action. Every­thing is trans­ac­tion­al. But in order to address the gross inequities that result in peo­ple fig­u­ra­tive­ly sit­ting on the backs of oth­ers, some must gain more pow­er and oth­ers must have less. The par­ties do not meet in a state of ceteris paribus.

One might take issue with the very terms used in “win-win” think­ing. Rather than win­ners, some would call pow­er­ful cap­i­tal­ists oppor­tunists, prof­i­teers, and worse. (The term “rob­ber baron” was once in com­mon cir­cu­la­tion.) To claim that good works and good inten­tions obvi­ate mas­sive pow­er imbal­ances is to pre­sume that such imbal­ances are jus­ti­fi­able in the first place. Answer­ing this the­o­ret­i­cal ques­tion doesn’t, how­ev­er, address the prac­ti­cal prob­lem.

In the cur­rent sys­tem of cor­po­rate mis­rule, says Girid­haradas, “when every­thing is couched as a win-win, what you are real­ly say­ing… is that the best kinds of solu­tions don’t ask any­one to get off anyone’s back.” Unfet­tered cap­i­tal­ism has brought us the “pri­va­ti­za­tion of pub­lic prob­lems.” That is to say, com­pa­nies prof­it from the same issues they help cre­ate through pol­lu­tion, preda­to­ry schemes, and undue polit­i­cal influ­ence.

You don’t have to be an anar­chist to see a seri­ous prob­lem with that. But if you see the prob­lem, you should want to imag­ine how things could be oth­er­wise.

via Aeon

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Saul Alinsky’s 13 Tried-and-True Rules for Cre­at­ing Mean­ing­ful Social Change

Noam Chom­sky Explains the Best Way for Ordi­nary Peo­ple to Make Change in the World, Even When It Seems Daunt­ing

Teach­ing Tol­er­ance to Activists: A Free Course Syl­labus & Anthol­o­gy

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

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