The Paintings of Filmmaker/Visual Artist David Lynch

in Art, Film | January 30th, 2015

It was 1967, and David Lynch, a stu­dent at the Penn­syl­va­nia Acad­e­my of the Fine Arts, was up late in his stu­dio when he had a vision. The plants in the paint­ing he was work­ing on seemed to be mov­ing. “I’m look­ing at this and hear­ing this,” he recalled, “and I say, ‘Oh, a mov­ing paint­ing.’ And that was it.”

That thun­der­bolt of an idea put him on the road towards cre­at­ing some of the most unset­tling and sur­re­al images in cin­e­ma from the danc­ing dream dwarf in Twin Peaks to those freaky lit­tle peo­ple in Mul­hol­land Dri­ve. His first step was the mul­ti­me­dia work “Six Men Get­ting Sick” – a large-scale work con­sist­ing of paint­ing, sculp­ture and a one-minute film loop, Lynch’s first for­ay into film. His sub­se­quent ear­ly film work, from The Grand­moth­er to Eraser­head, feels like an exten­sion of his fine art work. “As a painter, you do every­thing your­self, and I thought cin­e­ma was that way,” Lynch said, “like a paint­ing, but you have peo­ple help­ing you.” Of course, by the time he made his big bud­get dud Dune, he was thor­ough­ly dis­abused of that notion.

Yet while becom­ing one of Hollywood’s most influ­en­tial direc­tors, he con­tin­ued to paint. Last year his alma mater unveiled a ret­ro­spec­tive of his art­work from 1965 to the present called “David Lynch: The Uni­fied Field.” Much of the work is from the late-90s on, a time when Lynch found him­self detach­ing more and more from Hol­ly­wood. His last fea­ture film, Inland Empire, came out in 2006. Appar­ent­ly, he was spend­ing much of his free time in the stu­dio.

David Lynch

His work dur­ing this peri­od is inten­tion­al­ly crude and child­like, com­bin­ing car­toon­ish images with preg­nant, semi-intel­li­gi­ble text. Sure, his paint­ings don’t have the pri­mal, psy­cho­sex­u­al pow­er of his movies, but there is still some­thing com­pelling about them. Take, for insis­tence, the mul­ti­me­dia work “I Burn Pinecone and throw it in your house” (top). It looks like a dement­ed children’s book nar­rat­ed by a crazed moun­tain man.

“At 3 A.M. I Am Here With The Red Dream” (mid­dle) looks like the prod­uct of a men­tal patient, com­plete with smudged out text and Hen­ry Darg­er-esque girl legs.

David Lynch

Of course, Lynch didn’t restrict him­self to paint­ing. He has also worked in dig­i­tal pho­tog­ra­phy. In his 2009 work, Unti­tled (Grim Augury #1), (bot­tom) Lynch depicts a Sun­day din­ner gone hor­ri­bly, inex­plic­a­bly, wrong.

You can watch a video of the exhib­it below. Find an online gallery of Lynch’s artis­tic works here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Lynch’s Unlike­ly Com­mer­cial for a Home Preg­nan­cy Test (1997)

David Lynch Teach­es You to Cook His Quinoa Recipe in a Weird, Sur­re­al­ist Video

What David Lynch Can Do With a 100-Year-Old Cam­era and 52 Sec­onds of Film

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 lots of pic­tures of bad­gers and even more pic­tures of vice pres­i­dents with octo­pus­es on their heads.  The Veep­to­pus store is here.

Stream Classic Poetry Readings from Harvard’s Rich Audio Archive: From W.H. Auden to Dylan Thomas

in Audio Books, Poetry | January 29th, 2015

Found­ed in 1931, the Wood­ber­ry Poet­ry Room at Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty fea­tures (among oth­er things) 6,000 record­ings of poet­ry from the 20th and 21st cen­turies. There you can find some of the ear­li­est record­ings of W. H. Auden, Eliz­a­beth Bish­op, T. S. Eliot, Denise Lev­er­tov, Robert Low­ell, Anais Nin, Ezra Pound, Robert Penn War­ren, Ten­nessee Williams and many oth­ers.

In the “Lis­ten­ing Booth,” a sec­tion of the Poet­ry Room web­site, you can lis­ten to record­ings of clas­sic read­ings by near­ly 200 authors, includ­ing John Berry­man, Robert Bly, Jorge Luis Borges, Joseph Brod­sky, Jorie Gra­ham, Sea­mus Heaney, Jack Ker­ouac, Adri­enne Rich, Anne Sex­ton, Wal­lace Stevens, Dylan Thomas, Anne Wald­man, William Car­los Williams and more. The sound files are all free to stream. And if this is your kind of thing, make sure you vis­it the Penn Sound archive at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia, which is an equal­ly rich and amaz­ing audio archive. We pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured it here.

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.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bill Mur­ray Reads Great Poet­ry by Bil­ly Collins, Cole Porter, and Sarah Man­gu­so

13 Lec­tures from Allen Ginsberg’s “His­to­ry of Poet­ry” Course (1975)

Son­ic Youth Gui­tarist Thurston Moore Teach­es a Poet­ry Work­shop at Naropa Uni­ver­si­ty: See His Class Notes (2011)

Down­load 55 Free Online Lit­er­a­ture Cours­es: From Dante and Mil­ton to Ker­ouac and Tolkien

115 Books on Lena Dunham & Miranda July’s Bookshelves at Home (Plus a Bonus Short Play)

in Film, Life, Literature, Poetry, Television | January 26th, 2015

“Miran­da-july-read­ing” by Alex­is Bar­rera / Licensed under CC BY 2.5 via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons.

Ah, the joys of din­ing at a new friend’s home, know­ing soon­er or lat­er, one’s host­ess’ blad­der or some bit of last minute meal prepa­ra­tion will dic­tate that one will be left alone to rifle the titles on her book­shelf with aban­don. No med­i­cine cab­i­net can com­pete with this peek into the psy­che.

Pity that some of the peo­ple whose book­shelves I’d be most curi­ous to see are the least like­ly to open their homes to me. That’s why I’d like to thank The Strand book­store for pro­vid­ing a vir­tu­al peek at the shelves of film­mak­ers-cum-authors Miran­da July and Lena Dun­ham.  (Pre­vi­ous par­tic­i­pants in the Authors Book­shelf series include just-plain-reg­u­lar authors George Saun­ders, Edwidge Dan­ti­cat and the late David Fos­ter Wal­lace whose con­tri­bu­tions were select­ed by biog­ra­ph­er D.T. Max.)

“Lena Dun­ham” by David Shankbone — Licensed under CC BY 3.0 via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons.

I wish Dun­ham and July had offered up some per­son­al com­men­tary to explain their hand-picked titles. (Sure­ly their homes are lined with books. Sure­ly each list is but a rep­re­sen­ta­tive sam­pling, one shelf from hun­dreds. Hmm. Inter­est­ing. Did they run back and forth between var­i­ous rooms, curat­ing with a vengeance, or is this a case of what­ev­er hap­pened to be in the case clos­est at hand when dead­line loomed?)

Which book’s a long­time favorite?

Which the lit­er­ary equiv­a­lent of com­fort food?

Are there things that only made the cut because the author is a friend?

Both women are cel­e­brat­ed sto­ry­tellers. Sure­ly, there are sto­ries here beyond the ones con­tained between two cov­ers.

But no mat­ter. The lack of accom­pa­ny­ing anec­dotes means we now have the fun of invent­ing imag­i­nary din­ner par­ties:

 

ME: (stand­ing in the liv­ing room, call­ing through the kitchen door, a glass of wine in hand) Whoa, Lena, I can’t believe you’ve got Impor­tant Arti­facts and Per­son­al Prop­er­ty from the Col­lec­tion of Lenore Doolan and Harold Mor­ris, Includ­ing Books, Street Fash­ion, and Jew­el­ry!

LENA DUNHAM: (polite, but dis­tract­ed by a pot of red sauce) I know, isn’t that one great?

ME: So great! Where’d you buy it?

LENA DUNHAM: Uh, The Strand, I think.

ME: Me too! Such a great con­ceit, that book. Wish I’d come up with it!

LENA DUNHAM: I know what you mean.

ME: Ooh, you’ve got Was She Pret­ty? 

LENA DUNHAM: Hmm? Oh, yeah, my friend Miran­da gave me that.

ME: (glanc­ing between the two books.) Wait! Leanne Sharp­ton. Leanne Sharp­ton. I didn’t real­ize it’s the same author.

LENA DUNHAM: As what?

ME: The per­son who wrote Was She Pret­ty? also wrote Impor­tant Arti­facts and Per­son­al Prop­er­ty-

ME & LENA DUNHAM IN UNISON: — from the Col­lec­tion of Lenore Doolan and Harold Mor­ris, Includ­ing Books, Street Fash­ion, and Jew­el­ry!

LENA DUNHAM: Got­ta love that title.

ME: Why do you have all these kids’ books?

LENA DUNHAM: Those are from my child­hood.

ME: (slid­ing an unnamed title off the shelf, eyes widen­ing as I read the shock­ing­ly graph­ic per­son­al inscrip­tion on the fly­leaf) Oh?

LENA DUNHAM: I real­ly relate to Eloise.

ME: (hasti­ly slid­ing the vol­ume back onto the shelf before Lena can catch me snoop­ing) Oh yeah…ha ha.

LENA DUNHAM: Are you the one who likes graph­ic nov­els?

ME: Me? Yes!!!

LENA DUNHAM: Yeah. My friend Miran­da does too.

ME:  That’s fun­ny - Sex and the Sin­gle Girl right next to Of Human Bondage.

LENA DUNHAM: (curs­ing under her breath)

ME: Need help?

LENA DUNHAM: No, it’s just this damn …arrrggh. I hate this cook­book!

ME: (bright­ly) Smells good!

LENA DUNHAM: … crap.

ME: So, is Adam Dri­ver com­ing? Or Ray or any­body?

LENA DUNHAM: (testi­ly)  You mean Alex Kar­povsky?

ME: (flus­tered) Oh, ha ha, yes! Alex! … I sent him a Face­book request and he accept­ed.

LENA DUNHAM: (mut­ters under her breath)

ME: Design Sponge? Real­ly? What’s some­one in your shoes doing with a bunch of DIY dec­o­rat­ing books?

LENA DUNHAM: (cold­ly) Research.

Actu­al­ly, maybe it is bet­ter to admire one’s idols’ book­shelves from afar.

I’m cha­grined that I don’t rec­og­nize more of their mod­ern fic­tion picks. That wasn’t such a prob­lem when I was mea­sur­ing myself against the 430 books on Mar­i­lyn Monroe’s read­ing list.

Thank heav­en for old stand­bys like Madame Bovary.

In all sin­cer­i­ty, I was glad that Dun­ham didn’t try to mask her love of home decor blog books.

And that July includ­ed her husband’s mono­graph, Our Bod­ies, Our­selves and a hand­book to rais­ing self-con­fi­dent babies.

One’s shelves, after all, are a mat­ter of taste. So, cel­e­brate the sim­i­lar­i­ties, take their rec­om­men­da­tions under advise­ment, see below and read what you like!

MIRANDA JULY’S SHELF

A Time for Every­thing  — Karl Ove Knaus­gaard

A Very Young Dancer — Jill Kre­mentz

Alice James: A Biog­ra­phy  — Jean Strouse

Ani­ma­cies: Biopol­i­tics, Racial Mat­ter­ing, and Queer Affect  — Mel Y. Chen

Arthur Tress: The Dream Col­lec­tor — John Mina­han

Build­ing Sto­ries  — Chris Ware

Crud­dy: An Illus­trat­ed Nov­el  — Lyn­da Bar­ry

Diaries, 1910–1923  — Franz Kaf­ka

Do the Win­dows Open?  — Julie Hecht

Dorothy Ian­none: Seek The Extremes! (v.1) — Bar­bara Vinken, Sabine Folie

Edge­wise: A Pic­ture of Cook­ie Mueller  — Chloe Grif­fin

Embryo­ge­n­e­sis — Richard Grossinger

Friedl Kubel­ka Vom Groller  — Melanie Ohne­mus

Amer­i­can War  — Har­rell Fletch­er

Han­nah Höch: Album (Eng­lish and Ger­man Edi­tion) — Han­nah Höch

How to Build a Girl  — Caitlin Moran

Humil­i­a­tion  — Wayne Koesten­baum

It’s OK Not to Share and Oth­er Rene­gade Rules for Rais­ing Com­pe­tent and Com­pas­sion­ate Kids  — Heather Shu­mak­er

King Kong The­o­ry  — Vir­ginie Despentes

Leav­ing the Atocha Sta­tion  — Ben Lern­er

Light­ning Rods  — Helen DeWitt

Lost at Sea: The Jon Ron­son Mys­ter­ies  — Jon Ron­son

Maid­en­head  — Tama­ra Faith Berg­er

Man V. Nature: Sto­ries  — Diane Cook

Mike Mills: Graph­ics Films  — Mike Mills

Napa Val­ley His­tor­i­cal Ecol­o­gy Atlas: Explor­ing a Hid­den Land­scape of Trans­for­ma­tion and Resilience  — Robin Grossinger

Need More Love  — Aline Komin­sky Crumb

Our Bod­ies, Our­selves (Com­plete­ly Revised and Updat­ed Ver­sion)  — Boston Wom­en’s Health Book Col­lec­tive

Jim Gold­berg: Rich and Poor  — Jim Gold­berg

San­ja Ivekovic: Sweet Vio­lence  — Rox­ana Mar­co­ci

Sophie Calle: The Address Book  — Sophie Calle

Star­ing Back  — Chris Mark­er

Taryn Simon: A Liv­ing Man Declared Dead and Oth­er Chap­ters, I‑XVIII — Homi Bhab­ha, Geof­frey Batchen

Tete-a-Tete: The Tumul­tuous Lives & Loves of Simone De Beau­voir and Jean-Paul Sartre  — Hazel Row­ley

The Hour of the Star  — Clarice Lispec­tor

The Illus­trat­ed I Ching — R.L. Wing

Two Kinds of Decay: A Mem­oir  — Sarah Man­gu­so

Traf­fic  — Ken­neth Gold­smith

Two Seri­ous Ladies  — Jane Bowles

Was She Pret­ty?  — Leanne Shap­ton

What is the What: The Auto­bi­og­ra­phy of Valenti­no Achak Deng: A Nov­el  — Dave Eggers

Why Did I Ever  — Mary Robi­son

Women in Clothes  — Sheila Heti

Work­ing: Peo­ple Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do  — Studs Terkel

Your Self-Con­fi­dent Baby: How to Encour­age Your Child’s Nat­ur­al Abil­i­ties — From the Very Start  — Mag­da Ger­ber

Far from the Tree  — Andrew Solomon

How Should a Per­son Be?  — Sheila Heti

LENA DUNHAM’S LIST

The Girls’ Guide to Hunt­ing and Fish­ing  — Melis­sa Bank

A Lit­tle His­to­ry of the World  — E. H. Gom­brich

Anne of Green Gables  — L.M. Mont­gomery

Apart­ment Ther­a­py Presents: Real Homes, Real Peo­ple, Hun­dreds of Real Design Solu­tions  — Maxwell Gilling­ham-Ryan

Ariel: The Restored Edi­tion  — Sylvia Plath

Bad Fem­i­nist: Essays  — Rox­ane Gay

Bas­tard Out of Car­oli­na (20th Anniver­sary Edi­tion)  — Dorothy Alli­son

Blue is the Warmest Col­or  — Julie Maroh

Brighton Rock  — Gra­ham Greene

Caved­weller  - Dorothy Alli­son

Coun­try Girl: A Mem­oir  — Edna O’Brien

Crazy Sal­ad and Scrib­ble Scrib­ble: Some Things About Women and Notes on Media  — Nora Ephron

Design Sponge at Home  — Grace Bon­ney

Din­ner: A Love Sto­ry: It All Begins at the Fam­i­ly Table  — Jen­ny Rosen­stra­ch

Eleanor & Park  — Rain­bow Row­ell

Eloise  — Kay Thomp­son

Eloise In Moscow  — Kay Thomp­son

Eloise In Paris  — Kay Thomp­son

Fan­ny At Chez Panisse  — Alice Waters

Good­bye, Colum­bus and Five Short Sto­ries  — Philip Roth

Hol­i­days on Ice  — David Sedaris

Impor­tant Arti­facts and Per­son­al Prop­er­ty from the Col­lec­tion of Lenore Doolan and Harold Mor­ris, Includ­ing Books, Street Fash­ion, and Jew­el­ry  — Leanne Shap­ton

Lentil  — Robert McCloskey

Love Poems  — Nik­ki Gio­van­ni

Love, an Index (McSweeney’s Poet­ry Series)  — Rebec­ca Lin­den­berg

Love, Nina: A Nan­ny Writes Home  - Nina Stibbe

Madame Bovary: Provin­cial Ways  — Gus­tave Flaubert

NW: A Nov­el  — Zadie Smith

Of Human Bondage  — W. Som­er­set Maugh­am

Ran­dom Fam­i­ly: Love, Drugs, Trou­ble, and Com­ing of Age in the Bronx  — Adri­an Nicole LeBlanc

Rebec­ca  — Daphne Du Mau­ri­er

Remod­elista  — Julie Carl­son

Select­ed Sto­ries, 1968–1994  - Alice Munro

Sex and the Sin­gle Girl  — Helen Gur­ley Brown

She’s Come Undone  — Wal­ly Lamb

Some­where Towards the End: A Mem­oir  — Diana Athill

Stet: An Edi­tor’s Life  - Diana Athill

Sula  — Toni Mor­ri­son

Sum­mer Blonde  — Adri­an Tomine

Super Nat­ur­al Every Day: Well-Loved Recipes from My Nat­ur­al Foods Kitchen  — Hei­di Swan­son

Tenth of Decem­ber  - George Saun­ders

Tess of the D’Urbervilles  — Thomas Hardy

The Boys of My Youth  - Jo Ann Beard

The Col­lect­ed Sto­ries of Lydia Davis  — Lydia Davis

The Dud Avo­ca­do  — Elaine Dundy

The Impor­tant Book  — Mar­garet Wise Brown

The Jour­nal­ist and the Mur­der­er  — Janet Mal­colm

The Liars’ Club: A Mem­oir  — Mary Karr

The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.: A Nov­el  — Adelle Wald­man

The Mar­riage Plot  — Jef­frey Eugenides

The Phi­los­o­phy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again)  - Andy Warhol

The Sto­ry of Fer­di­nand  — Munro Leaf

The Woman in White  - Wilkie Collins

The Writ­ing Class  — Jin­cy Wil­lett

This Is My Life  - Meg Wolitzer

Tiny Beau­ti­ful Things: Advice on Love and Life from ‘Dear Sug­ar’  - Cheryl Strayed

Wall­flower At the Orgy  — Nora Ephron

Was She Pret­ty?  — Leanne Shap­ton

We Have Always Lived In the Cas­tle  — Shirley Jack­son

What Lips My Lips Have Kissed: The Loves and Love Poems of Edna St. Vin­cent Mil­lay  — Daniel Mark Epstein

What She Saw…  — Lucin­da Rosen­feld

What the Liv­ing Do: Poems  — Marie Howe

While I Was Gone  - Sue Miller

With or With­out You: A Mem­oir  — Domeni­ca Rut

Women in Clothes  — Sheila Heti

via Scrib­n­er Books

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Miran­da July’s Quirky Film Presents Some­body, the New App That Con­nects Strangers in the Real World

David Fos­ter Wallace’s Love of Lan­guage Revealed by the Books in His Per­son­al Library

The 430 Books in Mar­i­lyn Monroe’s Library: How Many Have You Read?

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

The Daily Routines of Famous Creative People, Presented in an Interactive Infographic

in Creativity, Productivity | January 13th, 2015

Click the image above to access the inter­ac­tive info­graph­ic.
The dai­ly life of great authors, artists and philoso­phers has long been the sub­ject of fas­ci­na­tion among those who look upon their work in awe. After all, life can often feel like, to quote Elbert Hub­bard, “one damned thing after anoth­er” — a con­stant mud­dle of oblig­a­tions and respon­si­bil­i­ties inter­spersed with moments of fleet­ing plea­sure, wrapped in gnaw­ing low-lev­el exis­ten­tial pan­ic. (Or, at least, it does to me.) Yet some peo­ple man­age to tran­scend this per­pet­u­al bar­rage of office meet­ings, com­muter traf­fic and the unholy allure of real­i­ty TV to cre­ate bril­liant work. It’s easy to think that the key to their suc­cess is how they struc­ture their day.

Mason Currey’s blog-turned-book Dai­ly Rit­u­als describes the worka­day life of great minds from W.H. Auden to Immanuel Kant, from Flan­nery O’Connor to Franz Kaf­ka. The one thing that Currey’s project under­lines is that there is no mag­ic bul­let. The dai­ly rou­tines are as var­ied as the peo­ple who fol­low them– though long walks, a ridicu­lous­ly ear­ly wake up time and a stiff drink are com­mon to many.

One school of thought for cre­at­ing is summed up by Gus­tave Flaubert’s max­im, “Be reg­u­lar and order­ly in your life, so that you may be vio­lent and orig­i­nal in your work.” Haru­ki Muraka­mi has a famous­ly rigid rou­tine that involves get­ting up at 4am and writ­ing for nine hours straight, fol­lowed by a dai­ly 10km run. “The rep­e­ti­tion itself becomes the impor­tant thing; it’s a form of mes­merism. I mes­mer­ize myself to reach a deep­er state of mind. But to hold to such rep­e­ti­tion for so long—six months to a year—requires a good amount of men­tal and phys­i­cal strength. In that sense, writ­ing a long nov­el is like sur­vival train­ing. Phys­i­cal strength is as nec­es­sary as artis­tic sen­si­tiv­i­ty.” He admits that his sched­ule allows lit­tle room for a social life.

Then there’s the fan­tas­ti­cal­ly pro­lif­ic Bel­gian author George Simenon, who some­how man­aged to crank out 425 books over the course of his career. He would go for weeks with­out writ­ing, fol­lowed by short bursts of fren­zied activ­i­ty. He would also wear the same out­fit every­day while work­ing on his nov­el, reg­u­lar­ly take tran­quil­iz­ers and some­how find the time to have sex with up to four dif­fer­ent women a day.

Most writ­ers fall some­where in between. Toni Mor­ri­son, for instance, has a rou­tine that that seems far more relat­able than the super­man sched­ules of Muraka­mi or Sime­on. Since she jug­gled rais­ing two chil­dren and a full time job as an edi­tor at Ran­dom House, Mor­ri­son sim­ply wrote when she could. “I am not able to write reg­u­lar­ly,” she once told The Paris Review. “I have nev­er been able to do that—mostly because I have always had a nine-to-five job. I had to write either in between those hours, hur­ried­ly, or spend a lot of week­end and predawn time.”

Above is a way cool info­graph­ic of the dai­ly rou­tines of 26 dif­fer­ent cre­ators, cre­at­ed by Podio.com. And if you want to see an inter­ac­tive ver­sion of the same graph­ic but with rollover bits of triv­ia, just click here. You’ll learn that Voltaire slept only 4 hours a day and worked con­stant­ly. Vic­tor Hugo pre­ferred to take a morn­ing ice bath on his roof. And Maya Angelou pre­ferred to work in an anony­mous hotel room.

via Thi­sis­Colos­sal

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Dai­ly Habits of High­ly Pro­duc­tive Philoso­phers: Niet­zsche, Marx & Immanuel Kant

John Updike’s Advice to Young Writ­ers: ‘Reserve an Hour a Day’

John Cleese’s Phi­los­o­phy of Cre­ativ­i­ty: Cre­at­ing Oases for Child­like Play

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 lots of pic­tures of bad­gers and even more pic­tures of vice pres­i­dents with octo­pus­es on their heads.  The Veep­to­pus store is here.

7 Tips from Edgar Allan Poe on How to Write Vivid Stories and Poems

in Literature, Writing | January 12th, 2015

There may be no more a macabre­ly misog­y­nis­tic sen­tence in Eng­lish lit­er­a­ture than Edgar Allan Poe’s con­tention that “the death… of a beau­ti­ful woman” is “unques­tion­ably the most poet­i­cal top­ic in the world.” (His per­haps iron­ic obser­va­tion prompt­ed Sylvia Plath to write, over a hun­dred years lat­er, “The woman is per­fect­ed / Her dead / Body wears the smile of accom­plish­ment.”) The sen­tence comes from Poe’s 1846 essay “The Phi­los­o­phy of Com­po­si­tion,” and if this work were only known for its lit­er­ary fetishiza­tion of what Elis­a­beth Bron­fen calls “an aes­thet­i­cal­ly pleas­ing corpse”—marking deep anx­i­eties about both “female sex­u­al­i­ty and decay”—then it would indeed still be of inter­est to fem­i­nists and aca­d­e­mics, though not per­haps to the aver­age read­er.

But Poe has much more to say that does not involve a romance with dead women. The essay deliv­ers on its title’s promise. It is here that we find Poe’s famous the­o­ry of what good lit­er­a­ture is and does, achiev­ing what he calls “uni­ty of effect.” This lit­er­ary “total­i­ty” results from a col­lec­tion of essen­tial ele­ments that the author deems indis­pens­able in “con­struct­ing a sto­ry,” whether in poet­ry or prose, that pro­duces a “vivid effect.”

To illus­trate what he means, Poe walks us through an analy­sis of his own work, “The Raven.” We are to take for grant­ed as read­ers that “The Raven” achieves its desired effect. Poe has no mis­giv­ings about that. But how does it do so? Against com­mon­place ideas that writ­ers “com­pose by a species of fine frenzy—an ecsta­t­ic intu­ition,” Poe has not “the least dif­fi­cul­ty in recall­ing to mind the pro­gres­sive steps of any of my compositions”—steps he con­sid­ers almost “math­e­mat­i­cal.” Nor does he con­sid­er it a “breach of deco­rum” to pull aside the cur­tain and reveal his tricks. Below, in con­densed form, we have list­ed the major points of Poe’s essay, cov­er­ing the ele­ments he con­sid­ers most nec­es­sary to “effec­tive” lit­er­ary com­po­si­tion.

1. Know the end­ing in advance, before you begin writ­ing.

“Noth­ing is more clear,” writes Poe, “than that every plot, worth the name, must be elab­o­rat­ed to its dénoue­ment before any thing be attempt­ed with the pen.” Once writ­ing com­mences, the author must keep the end­ing “con­stant­ly in view” in order to “give a plot its indis­pens­able air of con­se­quence” and inevitabil­i­ty.

2. Keep it short—the “sin­gle sit­ting” rule.

Poe con­tends that “if any lit­er­ary work is too long to be read at one sit­ting, we must be con­tent to dis­pense with the immense­ly impor­tant effect deriv­able from uni­ty of impres­sion.” Force the read­er to take a break, and “the affairs of the world inter­fere” and break the spell. This “lim­it of a sin­gle sit­ting” admits of excep­tions, of course. It must—or the nov­el would be dis­qual­i­fied as lit­er­a­ture. Poe cites Robin­son Cru­soe as one exam­ple of a work of art “demand­ing of no uni­ty.” But the sin­gle sit­ting rule applies to all poems, and for this rea­son, he writes, Milton’s Par­adise Lost fails to achieve a sus­tained effect.

3. Decide on the desired effect.

The author must decide in advance “the choice of impres­sion” he or she wish­es to leave on the read­er. Poe assumes here a tremen­dous amount about the abil­i­ty of authors to manip­u­late read­ers’ emo­tions. He even has the audac­i­ty to claim that the design of the “The Raven” ren­dered the work “uni­ver­sal­ly appre­cia­ble.” It may be so, but per­haps it does not uni­ver­sal­ly inspire an appre­ci­a­tion of Beau­ty that “excites the sen­si­tive soul to tears”—Poe’s desired effect for the poem.

4. Choose the tone of the work.

Poe claims the high­est ground for his work, though it is debat­able whether he was entire­ly seri­ous. As “Beau­ty is the sole legit­i­mate province of the poem” in gen­er­al, and “The Raven” in par­tic­u­lar, “Melan­choly is thus the most legit­i­mate of all poet­i­cal tones.” What­ev­er tone one choos­es, how­ev­er, the tech­nique Poe employs, and rec­om­mends, like­ly applies. It is that of the “refrain”—a repeat­ed “key-note” in word, phrase, or image that sus­tains the mood. In “The Raven,” the word “Nev­er­more” per­forms this func­tion, a word Poe chose for its pho­net­ic as much as for its con­cep­tu­al qual­i­ties.

Poe claims that his choice of the Raven to deliv­er this refrain arose from a desire to rec­on­cile the unthink­ing “monot­o­ny of the exer­cise” with the rea­son­ing capa­bil­i­ties of a human char­ac­ter. He at first con­sid­ered putting the word in the beak of a par­rot, then set­tled on a Raven—“the bird of ill omen”—in keep­ing with the melan­choly tone.

5. Deter­mine the theme and char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of the work.

Here Poe makes his claim about “the death of a beau­ti­ful woman,” and adds, “the lips best suit­ed for such top­ic are those of a bereaved lover.” He choos­es these par­tic­u­lars to rep­re­sent his theme—“the most melan­choly,” Death. Con­trary to the meth­ods of many a writer, Poe moves from the abstract to the con­crete, choos­ing char­ac­ters as mouth­pieces of ideas.

6. Estab­lish the cli­max.

In “The Raven,” Poe says, he “had now to com­bine the two ideas, of a lover lament­ing his deceased mis­tress and a Raven con­tin­u­ous­ly repeat­ing the word ‘Nev­er­more.’” In bring­ing them togeth­er, he com­posed the third-to-last stan­za first, allow­ing it to deter­mine the “rhythm, the metre, and the length and gen­er­al arrange­ment” of the remain­der of the poem. As in the plan­ning stage, Poe rec­om­mends that the writ­ing “have its beginning—at the end.”

7. Deter­mine the set­ting.

Though this aspect of any work seems the obvi­ous place to start, Poe holds it to the end, after he has already decid­ed why he wants to place cer­tain char­ac­ters in place, say­ing cer­tain things. Only when he has clar­i­fied his pur­pose and broad­ly sketched in advance how he intends to acheive it does he decide “to place the lover in his cham­ber… rich­ly fur­nished.” Arriv­ing at these details last does not mean, how­ev­er, that they are after­thoughts, but that they are suggested—or inevitably fol­low from—the work that comes before. In the case of “The Raven,” Poe tells us that in order to car­ry out his lit­er­ary scheme, “a close cir­cum­scrip­tion of space is absolute­ly nec­es­sary to the effect of insu­lat­ed inci­dent.”

Through­out his analy­sis, Poe con­tin­ues to stress—with the high degree of rep­e­ti­tion he favors in all of his writing—that he keeps “orig­i­nal­i­ty always in view.” But orig­i­nal­i­ty, for Poe, is not “a mat­ter, as some sup­pose, of impulse or intu­ition.” Instead, he writes, it “demands in its attain­ment less of inven­tion than nega­tion.” In oth­er words, Poe rec­om­mends that the writer make full use of famil­iar con­ven­tions and forms, but vary­ing, com­bin­ing, and adapt­ing them to suit the pur­pose of the work and make them his or her own.

Though some of Poe’s dis­cus­sion of tech­nique relates specif­i­cal­ly to poet­ry, as his own prose fic­tion tes­ti­fies, these steps can equal­ly apply to the art of the short sto­ry. And though he insists that depic­tions of Beau­ty and Death—or the melan­choly beau­ty of death—mark the high­est of lit­er­ary aims, one could cer­tain­ly adapt his for­mu­la to less obses­sive­ly mor­bid themes as well.

Relat­ed Con­tents:

Gus­tave Doré’s Splen­did Illus­tra­tions of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” (1884)

Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven,” Read by Christo­pher Walken, Vin­cent Price, and Christo­pher Lee

H.P. Love­craft Gives Five Tips for Writ­ing a Hor­ror Sto­ry, or Any Piece of “Weird Fic­tion”

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

David Sedaris Spends 3–8 Hours Per Day Picking Up Trash in the UK; Testifies on the Litter Problem

in Comedy, Current Affairs | January 12th, 2015

Humorist David Sedaris has become some­thing of a local hero in his adopt­ed home of West Sus­sex, Eng­land. And for fair­ly unex­pect­ed rea­sons. Repulsed by the lit­ter prob­lem in Eng­land, Sedaris began spend­ing 3–8 hours each day pick­ing up trash along the side of var­i­ous roads. Day in, day out. Fast for­ward a few years, and the local com­mu­ni­ty hon­ored Sedaris by nam­ing a garbage truck after him — “Pig Pen Sedaris.” And now we have him tes­ti­fy­ing before the MPs on the Com­mu­ni­ties and Local Gov­ern­ment Com­mit­tee. If you like C‑SPAN, you will love these 2+ hours of video.

via metafil­ter

Fol­low us on Face­book, Twit­ter and Google Plus 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.

Hear James Joyce’s Great Short Story “The Dead,” Performed by Cynthia Nixon & Colum McCann

in Audio Books, Literature | January 6th, 2015

“The Dead” is the last – and most mem­o­rable – short sto­ry in James Joyce’s first book, Dublin­ers. Set dur­ing a New Year’s feast in 1904, the sto­ry focus­es on Gabriel Con­roy, a plump, bespec­ta­cled young man who is painful­ly aware of his own social inep­ti­tude. As he nav­i­gates one minor faux pas after the next – mak­ing a poor­ly received joke here, clum­si­ly par­ry­ing a barbed joke there – he comes to real­ize over the course of the par­ty that his beau­ti­ful, dis­tant wife has a past he nev­er knew.

James’s sto­ry is filled with such humor, atten­tion to char­ac­ter and musi­cal­i­ty of lan­guage that it seems to cry out to be read aloud. The NPR series Select­ed Shorts heed­ed that call and presents the entire sto­ry per­formed live by Cyn­thia Nixon, of Sex and the City fame, who reads the first half, and by Irish author Colum McCann, who reads part of the sec­ond.

The read­ing will be added to our col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books. Also find the text of James’ great sto­ry in our col­lec­tion, 800 Free eBooks for iPad, Kin­dle & Oth­er Devices. To learn about the long and dif­fi­cult pub­li­ca­tion of Dublin­ers, check out Sean Hutchin­son’s post over at Men­tal Floss.

Note: you can down­load the audio as MP3s by click­ing the down­load arrow at the top of each audio clip above.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

James Joyce’s Dublin Cap­tured in Vin­tage Pho­tos from 1897 to 1904

James Joyce, With His Eye­sight Fail­ing, Draws a Sketch of Leopold Bloom (1926)

James Joyce’s Ulysses: Down­load the Free Audio Book

Hear All of Finnegans Wake Read Aloud: A 35 Hour Read­ing

See our list of Free Online Lit­er­a­ture Cours­es

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 lots of pic­tures of bad­gers and even more pic­tures of vice pres­i­dents with octo­pus­es on their heads.  The Veep­to­pus store is here.

How the “Paul McCartney is Dead” Hoax Started at an American College Newspaper and Went Viral (1969)

in Music | December 26th, 2014

Next time you see the still-youth­ful and musi­cal­ly pro­lif­ic Paul McCart­ney, take a good hard look and ask your­self, “is it real­ly him?” Can you be sure? Because maybe, just maybe, the con­spir­a­cy the­o­rists are right—maybe Paul did die in a car acci­dent in 1966 and was replaced by a dou­ble who looks, sounds, acts, and writes almost exact­ly like him. Almost. It’s pos­si­ble. Entire­ly implau­si­ble, whol­ly improb­a­ble, but with­in the realm of phys­i­cal pos­si­bil­i­ty.

In fact, the rumor of Paul’s death and replace­ment by some kind of pod per­son imposter cropped up not once, but twice dur­ing the six­ties. First, in Jan­u­ary, 1967, imme­di­ate­ly after an acci­dent involv­ing McCartney’s Mini Coop­er that month. The car, dri­ven by Moroc­can stu­dent Moham­mad Had­jij, crashed on the M1 after leav­ing McCartney’s house en route to Kei­th Richard’s Sus­sex Man­sion. Had­jij was hos­pi­tal­ized, but not killed, and Paul, rid­ing in Mick Jagger’s car, arrived at the des­ti­na­tion safe­ly.

The fol­low­ing month, the Bea­t­les Book Month­ly mag­a­zine quashed rumors that Paul had been dri­ving the Mini and had died, writ­ing, “there was absolute­ly no truth in it at all, as the Bea­t­les’ Press Offi­cer found out when he tele­phoned Paul’s St. John’s Wood home and was answered by Paul him­self who had been at home all day with his black Mini Coop­er Safe­ly locked up in the garage.” “The mag­a­zine,” writes the Bea­t­les Bible, “down­played the inci­dent, and claimed the car was in McCartney’s pos­ses­sion.”

In 1969, rumors of Paul’s death and a con­spir­a­cy to cov­er it up began cir­cu­lat­ing again, this time with an impres­sive appa­ra­tus that includ­ed pub­li­ca­tions in col­lege and local news­pa­pers, dis­cus­sions on sev­er­al radio shows, a uni­ver­si­ty research team, and enough eso­teric clues to keep high­ly sus­pi­cious, stoned, and/or para­noid, minds guess­ing for decades after­ward. The form­less gos­sip first offi­cial­ly took shape in print in the arti­cle “Is Bea­t­le Paul McCart­ney Dead?” in Iowa’s Drake Uni­ver­si­ty stu­dent news­pa­per, the Times-Del­ph­ic. Cat­a­logu­ing “an amaz­ing series of pho­tos and lyrics on the group’s albums” that point­ed to “a dis­tinct pos­si­bil­i­ty that McCart­ney may indeed be insane, freaked out, even dead,” the piece dives head­first into the kind of bizarre analy­sis of dis­parate sym­bols and ten­u­ous coin­ci­dences wor­thy of the most dogged of today’s con­spir­a­cy-mon­gers.

Invoked are ephemera like “a mys­te­ri­ous hand” raised over Paul’s head on the Sgt. Pepper’s cover—“an ancient death sym­bol of either the Greeks or the Amer­i­can Indians”—and Paul’s bass, lying “on the grave at the group’s feet.” The lyric “blew his mind out in a car” from “A Day in the Life” comes up, and more pho­to­graph­ic evi­dence from the album’s back cov­er and cen­ter­fold pho­to. Evi­dence is pro­duced from Mag­i­cal Mys­tery Tour and The White Album. Of the lat­ter, you’ve sure­ly heard, or heard of, the voice seem­ing to intone, “Turn me on, dead man,” and “Cher­ish the dead,” when “Rev­o­lu­tion No. 9” is played back­wards. Only a col­lege dorm room could have nur­tured such a dis­cov­ery.

The arti­cle reads like a parody—similar to the sub­ver­sive, half-seri­ous satir­i­cal weird­ness com­mon to the mid-six­ties hip­pie scene. But whether or not its author, Tim Harp­er, meant to pull off a hoax, the Paul is dead meme went viral when it hit the air­waves the fol­low­ing month. First, a caller to Detroit radio sta­tion WKNR trans­mit­ted the the­o­ry to DJ Russ Gibb. Their hour-long con­ver­sa­tion lead to a review of Abbey Road in The Michi­gan Dai­ly titled “McCart­ney Dead; New Evi­dence Brought to Light.” With tongue in cheek, writer Fred LaBour called the death and replace­ment of Paul “the great­est hoax of our time and the sub­se­quent found­ing of a new reli­gion based upon Paul as Mes­si­ah.” In the mode of para­noid con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry so com­mon to the time—a genre mas­tered by Thomas Pyn­chon as a lit­er­ary art—LaBour invent­ed even more clues, inad­ver­tent­ly feed­ing a pub­lic hun­gry for this kind of thing. “Although clear­ly intend­ed as a joke,” writes the Bea­t­les Bible, “it had an impact far wider than the writer and his edi­tor expect­ed.”

Part of the after­math came in two more radio shows that Octo­ber of 1969. First, in two parts at the top, New York City DJ Roby Yonge makes the case for McCartney’s death on radio sta­tion WABC-AM. Recy­cling many of the “clues” from the pre­vi­ous sources, he also con­tends that a research team of 30 stu­dents at Indi­ana Uni­ver­si­ty has been put on the case. Yonge plain­ly states that some of the clues only emerge “if you real­ly get real­ly, real­ly high… on some, you know, like, mind-bend­ing drug,” but this pro­vi­so doesn’t seem to under­mine his con­fi­dence in the shaky web of con­nec­tions.

Was Yonge’s broad­cast just an atten­tion grab­bing act? Maybe. The next Paul is Dead radio show, just above, is most cer­tain­ly an Orson Welles-like pub­lic­i­ty stunt. Broad­cast on Hal­loween night, 1969, on Buf­fa­lo, NY’s WKBW, the show employs sev­er­al of the station’s DJs, who con­struct a detailed and dra­mat­ic nar­ra­tive of Paul’s death. The broad­cast indulges the same album-cov­er and lyric div­ina­tion of the ear­li­er Paul is Dead media, but by this time, it’s grown pret­ty hoary. But for a small con­tin­gent of die-hards, the rumor was most­ly put to rest just a few days lat­er when Life mag­a­zine pub­lished a cov­er pho­to­graph of Paul—who had been out of the pub­lic eye after the Bea­t­les’ breakup—with his wife Lin­da and their kids. Para­phras­ing Mark Twain, McCart­ney famous­ly remarked in the inter­view inside, “Rumors of my death have been great­ly exag­ger­at­ed,” and added, “If I was dead, I’m sure I’d be the last to know.”

In lat­er inter­views, the Bea­t­les denied hav­ing any­thing to do with the hoax. Lennon told Rolling Stone in 1970 that the idea of them inten­tion­al­ly plant­i­ng obscure clues in their albums “was bull­shit, the whole thing was made up.” The hoax did make for some inter­est­ing publicity—even fea­tur­ing in the sto­ry­line of a Bat­man comics issue—but the band most­ly found it baf­fling and annoy­ing. Cer­tain fans, how­ev­er, refused to let it die, and there are those who still swear that Paul’s imposter, alleged­ly named Bil­ly Shears and some­times called “Faul,” still walks the earth. Paul is Dead web­sites pro­lif­er­ate on the internet—some more, some less con­vinc­ing; all of them out­landish, and all offer­ing a fas­ci­nat­ing descent into the seem­ing­ly bot­tom­less rab­bit hole of con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry. If that’s your kind of trip, you can eas­i­ly get lost—as did pop cul­ture briefly in 1969—in end­less “Paul is Dead” spec­u­la­tion.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Paul McCartney’s Con­cep­tu­al Draw­ings For the Abbey Road Cov­er and Mag­i­cal Mys­tery Tour Film

Chaos & Cre­ation at Abbey Road: Paul McCart­ney Revis­its The Bea­t­les’ Fabled Record­ing Stu­dio

Hear Iso­lat­ed Tracks From Five Great Rock Bassists: McCart­ney, Sting, Dea­con, Jones & Lee

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

Patti Smith’s Passionate Covers of Jimi Hendrix, Nirvana, Jefferson Airplane & Prince

in Music | December 11th, 2014

In 1966, Jimi Hen­drix released his first sin­gle, “Hey Joe,” a cov­er song, and, in a cer­tain sense, reclaimed Amer­i­can rock ‘n’ roll from the British inva­sion. Eight years lat­er in ‘74, it may have seemed like rock ‘n’ roll was dead and gone. Nos­tal­gia set in; Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock” hit the charts again thanks to Amer­i­can Graf­fi­ti and Hap­py Days. And then, a skin­ny poet from New Jer­sey and four kids from Queens more or less invent­ed punk and res­ur­rect­ed the molder­ing corpse of rock. The Ramones appeared at CBGB’s for the first time in August. (See one of their ear­li­est record­ed per­for­mances here.) That same month saw the release of Pat­ti Smith’s first single—“Hey Joe”—arguably the first punk release in his­to­ry, though she sings it like a torch song. (The B‑side, the spo­ken word “Piss Fac­to­ry,” set the tone for punk rock nam­ing prac­tices for decades to come).

At the top, hear Smith’s ver­sion of “Hey Joe,” which she intro­duces with an orig­i­nal piece of trans­gres­sive poet­ry about Pat­ty Hearst, then still a cap­tive mem­ber of the Sym­bionese Lib­er­a­tion Army. In the still image, Smith wears a t‑shirt that seems to answer the echo of Bill Haley’s ghost: “F*ck the Clock. “ Just above, see Smith and band play “Hey Joe” live on The Old Grey Whis­tle Test in 1976, just after an abridged ver­sion of “Hors­es.”

One of Smith’s biggest hits, “Glo­ria,” was also a cov­er, of a song by Van Morrison’s for­mer band Them. She mem­o­rably made that song her own as well with the open­ing line “Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine.” She went on to cov­er a host of artists—Dylan, The Bea­t­les, Ste­vie Won­der, U2. In fact her 10th stu­dio album, 2007’s Twelve, con­sists entire­ly of cov­ers. Just above from that record, hear her folky take on Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spir­it,” record­ed with stand-up bass and ban­jo. And below, she deliv­ers a spooky ren­di­tion of Jef­fer­son Airplane’s “White Rab­bit.”

While her stage per­sona may have mel­lowed with age, Smith’s voice has remained as pow­er­ful and cap­ti­vat­ing as ever. Below she belts out the Stones’ “Gimme Shel­ter” live on the BBC’s Lat­er… with Jool Hol­land, a song she also cov­ers on Twelve.

Her tastes are eclec­tic, her range wide, and though she’ll always get the cred­it as the “God­moth­er of Punk,” she’s able to work in almost any style, even a kind of adult con­tem­po­rary that doesn’t seem very Pat­ti Smith at all. But she owns it in her cov­er of Prince’s “When Doves Cry” below, from her two-disc com­pi­la­tion album Land (1975–2002). It’s a long way from “Piss Fac­to­ry,” but it’s still Smith doing what she’s always done—paying homage to the artists who inspire her. Whether it’s Smokey Robin­son, Bruce Spring­steen, or Vir­ginia Woolf, she’s able to chan­nel the genius of her influ­ences while infus­ing their work with her own pas­sion­ate sex­u­al ener­gy and poet­ic inten­si­ty.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear Pat­ti Smith Read 12 Poems From Sev­enth Heav­en, Her First Col­lec­tion (1972)

Watch Pat­ti Smith Read from Vir­ginia Woolf, and Hear the Only Sur­viv­ing Record­ing of Woolf’s Voice

See Pat­ti Smith Give Two Dra­mat­ic Read­ings of Allen Ginsberg’s “Foot­note to Howl”

Pat­ti Smith’s Cov­er of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spir­it” Strips the Song Down to its Heart

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

50 Film Noirs You Can Watch For Free: A Dame with a Past. A Desperate, Doomed Man. A Gun.

in Film | December 10th, 2014

Film noir isn’t real­ly a genre. It’s a mood. Its ele­ments are so well known that they bor­der on self-par­o­dy. Neon lights. Inky black shad­ows. An emp­ty bot­tle of whiskey. A gun. A dame with a past. A des­per­ate, doomed man.

Like Ger­man Expres­sion­ism dur­ing the 1930s, it was a cul­tur­al pro­cess­ing of a his­toric trau­ma. Like French Poet­ic Real­ism dur­ing that same decade, film noir is fixed in a par­tic­u­lar cul­ture dur­ing a par­tic­u­lar time. In this case, the cul­ture was the inher­ent­ly opti­mistic one of the Unit­ed States. The time was just after World War II when the foun­da­tions of that opti­mism were severe­ly test­ed. A gen­er­a­tion of men returned from Europe and the Pacif­ic scarred and dazed by the mind-bog­gling car­nage of the war only to dis­cov­er that their women were doing just fine work­ing in fac­to­ries and offices. Is it any won­der then that per­haps the most fre­quent trope in noir is of a man, seem­ing­ly tough but riv­en with weak­ness, undone by a pow­er­ful, sex­u­al­ly-dom­i­nat­ing femme fatale?

Though those gen­der roles were quick­ly reshuf­fled and women were, for a time, ban­ished back to the realm of domes­tic­i­ty, cracks remained in the brit­tle veneer of Amer­i­can mas­culin­i­ty. Add to that exis­ten­tial anx­i­eties over the bomb and the Red Scare’s cor­ro­sive para­noia and you have a whole tox­ic stew of cul­tur­al fears bur­bling out of the Amer­i­can col­lec­tive uncon­scious. And film noir artic­u­lat­ed those fears bet­ter than just about any­thing else.

Of course, the rea­son film noir has proved to be so endur­ing is because of its look. The spare light­ing, the cant­ed angles, the grotesque shad­ows. It’s Ger­man Expres­sion­ism cast through the lens of Orson Welles. Its stark style meld­ed per­fect­ly with noir’s bleak cyn­i­cism. It should come as no sur­prise that some of the best noir direc­tors – Fritz Lang, Robert Siod­mak and espe­cial­ly Bil­ly Wilder – fled Ger­many for the warmer climes of Hol­ly­wood. The style was also cheap — lots of shad­ows means less mon­ey spent on lights. It was a boon for the scores of inde­pen­dent pro­duc­ers who made noirs on a shoe­string.

If you want get into that film noir mood, Open Cul­ture has 50, count ‘em, 50 film noir movies that you can watch right now for free. They include:

• Detour Free – Edgar Ulmer’s cult clas­sic noir film shot in 6 days. (1945)
• D.O.A. — Free — Rudolph Maté’s clas­sic noir film. Called “one of the most accom­plished, inno­v­a­tive, and down­right twist­ed entrants to the film noir genre.”  (1950)
• The Hitch-Hik­er —  Free –  The first noir film made by a woman noir direc­tor, Ida Lupino. It appears above. (1953)
• The Naked Kiss — Free - Con­stance Tow­ers is a pros­ti­tute try­ing to start new life in a small town. Direct­ed by Sam Fuller. (1964)
• The Stranger — Free – Direct­ed by Orson Welles with Edward G. Robin­son. One of Welles’s major com­mer­cial suc­cess­es. (1946)

Check out the full list of 50 free noir films here, or find them in our larg­er col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Fritz Lang’s Cen­sored Noir Film, Scar­let Street, Star­ring the Great Edward G. Robin­son (1945)

Detour: The Cheap, Rushed Piece of 1940s Film Noir Nobody Ever For­gets

Watch D.O.A., Rudolph Maté’s “Inno­v­a­tive and Down­right Twist­ed” Noir Film (1950)

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 lots of pic­tures of bad­gers and even more pic­tures of vice pres­i­dents with octo­pus­es on their heads.  The Veep­to­pus store is here.