North Korea’s Cinema of Dreams

in Film, Video - Arts & Culture | March 4th, 2011

Kim Jong-Il, North Kore­a’s leader, is revered as a genius of cin­e­ma by his own peo­ple. Or so the North Kore­an pro­pa­gan­dists would have you believe. In this fas­ci­nat­ing video from Al Jazeera, we fol­low two reporters (Lynn Lee and James Leong) as they gain unprece­dent­ed access to Pyongyang’s Uni­ver­si­ty of Cin­e­mat­ic and Dra­mat­ic Arts, where young actors are picked to serve the mas­sive pro­pa­gan­da machine. Along the way, Lee and Leong encounter two young film stu­dents – Kim Un Bom and Ri Yun Mi – as they rehearse, take music and dance lessons, and call atten­tion to their priv­i­leged lives.

How are films dif­fer­ent in cap­i­tal­ist coun­tries vs. North Korea? Leave it to Ri Yun Mi, the film stu­dent, to explain (3:27 in the video):

“Films made in cap­i­tal­ist coun­tries are com­mer­cial prod­ucts. Movies in our coun­try bring out the ide­ol­o­gy of the peo­ple. We could say we are rep­re­sen­ta­tives of our [Com­mu­nist] Par­ty.”

The young reporters go on to explain the chal­lenges they faced in cre­at­ing this film. They were repeat­ed­ly denied per­mis­sion to film at the Uni­ver­si­ty, and fre­quent­ly told to delete footage when it did­n’t con­form to North Kore­a’s stan­dards. All in all, this film does a good job illu­mi­nat­ing anoth­er hid­den part of North Kore­an life: the cin­e­ma of dreams.

Eugene Buchko is a blog­ger and pho­tog­ra­ph­er liv­ing in Atlanta, GA. He main­tains a pho­to­blog, Eru­dite Expres­sions, and writes about what he reads on his read­ing blog.

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Jay‑Z: The Evolution of My Style

in Music, Video - Arts & Culture | March 3rd, 2011

Shawn Carter – the MC, entre­pre­neur, and recent best-sell­ing author who is known to every­one but his moth­er as Jay‑Z  – proved with the 2010 pub­li­ca­tion of his mem­oir Decod­ed that he is not only one of hip-hop’s top artists, but also one of its top inter­preters.

In Decod­ed, Jay‑Z offers lit­tle in the way of new per­son­al details. He’s been telling that sto­ry in his raps for twen­ty years now – from his father­less child­hood in the projects, to his years deal­ing crack cocaine, to his star­dom, and final­ly to his cur­rent suc­cess as a busi­ness­man and cul­tur­al icon. And what­ev­er the 41-year-old has­n’t divulged yet, he may well have been advised by a lawyer to keep to him­self. Instead of auto­bi­og­ra­phy, Decod­ed pro­vides some­thing much more valu­able, a thought­ful analy­sis of his own lyrics and the his­to­ry of his cho­sen art form. Jay‑Z  helps us under­stand that he and hip-hop are rough­ly the same age, and that their sto­ries are almost inter­change­able: When young Shawn Carter first fell in love with the sound of rhymes over beats in Brook­lyn in 1978, he was dis­cov­er­ing the new music just as the new music was dis­cov­er­ing itself.

Ran­dom House has just released an iPad appli­ca­tion of Decod­ed, adding about thir­ty min­utes of mul­ti-media con­tent, includ­ing the video above. You might also want to check out Jay-Z’s appear­ance on Char­lie Rose (on Youtube in 5 parts) and his recent inter­view on Fresh Air.

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Visualizing WiFi Signals with Light

in Science, Technology, Video - Arts & Culture | March 3rd, 2011

Have you ever won­dered what the WiFi sig­nal looks like around your office, school, or local café? In this video, Timo Arnall, Jørn Knut­sen, and Einar Sneve Mar­t­i­nussen show you the invis­i­ble. And they pulled this off by build­ing a WiFi mea­sur­ing rod, mea­sur­ing four meters in length, that can visu­al­ize WiFi sig­nals around Oslo, Nor­way with the help of long expo­sure pho­tog­ra­phy.

What’s fas­ci­nat­ing to see is how the WiFi sig­nals vary across the city. Away from res­i­den­tial build­ings, the drop-off in WiFi strength is steep. On the oth­er hand, the WiFi sig­nal is dense around com­mer­cial and aca­d­e­m­ic build­ings. The amaz­ing visu­al­iza­tion gives us a glimpse into the com­plex rela­tion­ships between WiFi net­works and the phys­i­cal envi­ron­ments under­pin­ning them. For a deep­er read about this project, see this blog post.

Eugene Buchko is a blog­ger and pho­tog­ra­ph­er liv­ing in Atlanta, GA. He main­tains a pho­to­blog, Eru­dite Expres­sions, and writes about what he reads on his read­ing blog.

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The Restoration of a Masterpiece, as Narrated by Martin Scorsese

in Film, TED Talks, Video - Arts & Culture | March 2nd, 2011

This week, some of the world’s great­est thinkers (and biggest spenders) are gath­ered in Palm Springs and Long Beach, Cal­i­for­nia for TED’s annu­al con­fer­ence. In case your invi­ta­tion to TED2011 got lost in the mail along with ours, you can still keep up with the con­fer­ence through TED’s home­page. Some high­lights so far include an open­ing address beamed in from out­er space, physi­cist Jan­na Lev­in’s dis­cus­sion of what she calls the sound­track of the uni­verse, and final­ly, a stun­ning video doc­u­ment­ing the restora­tion of Luchi­no Vis­con­ti’s 1963 clas­sic film, The Leop­ard. Even bet­ter, the video is nar­rat­ed by Mar­tin Scors­ese, uber-direc­tor, cin­e­ma his­to­ri­an, and founder of The Film Foun­da­tion, one of the many orga­ni­za­tions involved with the restora­tion.

By the way, Scorcese gave a fas­ci­nat­ing talk about film restora­tion last year at LACMA. You can watch it here. For a com­plete list of films his foun­da­tion has been involved in restor­ing or pre­serv­ing, click here.

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Jane Russell (RIP) Stars in “Outlawed” Western

in Film, Video - Arts & Culture | March 1st, 2011

Pub­lic­i­ty can be ter­ri­ble. But only if you don’t have any. - Jane Rus­sell

Jane Rus­sell learned the pow­er of noto­ri­ety at an ear­ly age. Direc­tor Howard Hugh­es (the reclu­sive bil­lion­aire) had cast the volup­tuous 19-year-old in his epic West­ern The Out­law (1943), with the full inten­tion of mak­ing her a sex sym­bol. Hugh­es essen­tial­ly made her con­sid­er­able assets the star of the film, even going so far as to design a spe­cial can­tilevered push-up bra for her to wear dur­ing shoot­ing.

Hugh­es did his job almost too well. The promi­nent dis­play of cleav­age in both the film and its trail­er unnerved cen­sors and kept The Out­law out of the­aters until near­ly 1950. (You can watch the full movie above.) The con­tro­ver­sy also launched Rus­sel­l’s career as a WWII pin-up girl, but she con­tin­ued to per­form in films, even­tu­al­ly prov­ing to be a fine actress and singer. Today she is per­haps best remem­bered  for her con­fi­dent, sexy, per­for­mance oppo­site Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe in the 1953 com­e­dy Gen­tle­man Pre­fer Blondes, and espe­cial­ly for her show­stop­ping num­ber, “Ain’t Any­one Here For Love?”

A botched ille­gal abor­tion at the age of 19 left the actress unable to bear chil­dren, and she was a vocal anti-abor­tion activist and advo­cate for adop­tion. Also a proud Repub­li­can, she described her­self to an inter­view­er in 2003 as a “a tee­to­tal, mean-spir­it­ed, right-wing, nar­row-mind­ed, con­ser­v­a­tive Chris­t­ian big­ot — but not a racist.”

Ms. Rus­sell died yes­ter­day of a lung-relat­ed ill­ness at her home in San­ta Maria, Cal­i­for­nia. She was 89 years old.

You can see The Out­law in our free movies col­lec­tion.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

25 Free John Wayne West­erns

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The Big Apple in Incredible Time Lapse Video

in Video - Arts & Culture | March 1st, 2011

In this beau­ti­ful time lapse video, Josh Owens (aka Min­drel­ic) shows us New York City as we’ve nev­er seen it before. We begin with an unas­sum­ing shot of a boat in a har­bor, but then the action picks up. We pass quick­ly through icon­ic land­marks of the city – Times Square, the Brook­lyn Bridge, the Hol­land Tun­nel, and the New York Stock Exchange – right before see­ing the city from the van­tage point of a pas­sen­ger in an NYC cab.

The footage was shot over mul­ti­ple days using the Canon 5d Mark II dSLR and the fol­low­ing lens­es: Canon 14mm 2.8L, Canon 24mm 1.4L, Canon 50mm 1.2L, and Canon 70–200mm 2.8L. The video is one of the best time laps­es out there, a stun­ning trib­ute to the city that nev­er sleeps.

Eugene Buchko is a blog­ger and pho­tog­ra­ph­er liv­ing in Atlanta, GA. He main­tains a pho­to­blog, Eru­dite Expres­sions, and writes about what he reads on his read­ing blog.

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Pete Eckert: Blind Photographer, Visual Artist

in Art, Video - Arts & Culture | February 25th, 2011

Pete Eck­ert is blind, total­ly blind. But his dis­abil­i­ty (if you can call it that) has­n’t stopped him from express­ing him­self visu­al­ly. As Pete explains in the video above, he has always been a visu­al per­son. And pho­tog­ra­phy has become more than a cre­ative out­let for Pete. It’s a per­son­al form of artis­tic expres­sion, the way he sees the world through sound.

Eck­ert was named the Grand Prize recip­i­ent of Artists Want­ed: Expo­sure in 2008, an inter­na­tion­al pho­tog­ra­phy com­pe­ti­tion. You can learn more about Pete Eck­ert in this video and on his web page.

Eugene Buchko is a blog­ger and pho­tog­ra­ph­er liv­ing in Atlanta, GA. He main­tains a pho­to­blog, Eru­dite Expres­sions, and writes about what he reads on his read­ing blog.

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Rauschenberg Erases De Kooning

in Art, Video - Arts & Culture | February 24th, 2011

In 1953, Willem De Koon­ing was one of the world’s most revered liv­ing painters, and Robert Rauschen­berg was a tal­ent­ed ris­ing star, just a year out of art school. In this clip, Rauschen­berg tells of how, armed with noth­ing but chutz­pah and a bot­tle of Jack Daniels, he knocked on De Koon­ing’s door and flat-out asked the mas­ter for an orig­i­nal draw­ing — so he could erase it. De Koon­ing not only acqui­esced, but even chose a draw­ing he par­tic­u­lar­ly liked. Though it was con­tro­ver­sial at the time, Erased De Koon­ing is now con­sid­ered a con­cep­tu­al art clas­sic. And its influ­ence endures: Last year a stu­dent at Brown out-Rauschen­berg’d Rauschen­berg by eras­ing De Koon­ing’s wikipedia entry.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

MoMA Puts Pol­lock, Rothko & de Koon­ing on Your iPad

The MoMA Teach­es You How to Paint Like Pol­lock, Rothko, de Koon­ing & Oth­er Abstract Painters

How the CIA Secret­ly Fund­ed Abstract Expres­sion­ism Dur­ing the Cold War

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