All Nothing: Poetic 1978 Animated Allegory about Mankind’s Greed

Frédéric Back’s beautiful short film about harmony and the tragic entitlement of our species.

French-born artist and activist-filmmaker Frédéric Back got his professional start in Canada in the 1950s, where he was asked to draw still images promoting moving pictures at Radio-Canada’s graphics department. In 1967, his giant stained glass mural entitled L’histoire de la musique à Montréal (“history of music in Montreal”) became the first work of art to be commissioned for the Montreal metro system. But most striking of all are his animated short films. In 1978, his Tout Rien (“All Nothing”), a delicate and pensive 11-minute animated allegory set to the music of Igor Stravinsky about how our human greed is stealing the happiness of our species, earned him an Oscar nomination. It tackles, with remarkable elegance and sensitivity, our tragic tendency towards anthropocentricity in a world we share with countless other creatures.

Possessions, like happiness, are always eluding our grasp. Instead of constantly wanting to have, wouldn’t it be better simply to be-to watch and let the natural environment exist in peace? A world whose true joys and riches, continually renewed and replenished, we have yet to fully appreciate?” Frédéric Back

The following year, while working on another film and applying a coat of fixative to a drawing, the fumes got into Back’s right eye. The film eventually won him his first Oscar, but his eye never recovered. Back, nonetheless, continued to produce breathtakingly beautiful work underpinned by a thoughtful environmental message through the early 1990s.

Brain Pickings has a free weekly newsletter and people say it’s cool. It comes out on Sundays and offers the week’s best articles. Here’s an example. Like? Sign up.

Spike Jonze’s Handmade Stop-Motion Love Story for Bibliophiles

How to punch a whale, or what Dracula has to do with Faulkner and Macbeth.

When beloved director Spike Jonze, he of Being John Malkovic and Where The Wild Things Are fame, met handbag designer Olympia Le-Tan, he fell in love with her intricate embroidery and asked for an embroidered cover of Catcher in the Rye to put on his wall. Le-Tan agreed, but asked for a film in return. The result was Mourir Auprès de Toi (To Die By Your Side) — an absolutely beautiful stop-motion animation for book-lovers that’s part This Is Where We Live, part Going West, part creative magic only Spike Jonze can bring.

Set inside iconic Parisian bookstore Shakespeare and Company, the film tells the story of the skeleton from the cover of Macbeth, voiced by Jonze himself, who falls in love with Mina Harker on the cover of Dracula. He sets out to meet her, but loses his head to a French version of The Big Clock on the way, trips and falls into Faulkner’s Sartoris, and is then swallowed by Moby-Dick. Harker, voiced by French singer Soko, springs to his rescue, punching the legendary whale in the face with a mischievous smirk. The happily-ever-after ending comes only after an appropriately dark and grim twist.

(We also seem to have a running theme of whales this month, first with the stunning Moby-Dick in Pictures, then the poetic animation about the afterlife of a whale, and now this embroidered stop-motion goodness.)

You just start with what the feeling is. For this one the feeling definitely started with the handmade aesthetic and charm of Olympia’s work. Instantly I had the idea of doing it in a bookstore after-hours, imagining the lights coming down and these guys off their books. Me and Olympia both wanted to make a love story, and it was fun to do it with these characters. It evolved naturally and it all just started with the feeling. From there you entertain yourself with ideas that excite you.” ~ Spike Jonze

Here’s Jonze on the inspired making of the film:

via Slate

Brain Pickings has a free weekly newsletter and people say it’s cool. It comes out on Sundays and offers the week’s best articles. Here’s an example. Like? Sign up.

Whale Fall: Poetic Cut-Paper Animation about the Afterlife of a Whale, Inspired by Radiolab

75 years of existential generosity, or what the ocean floor can teach us about existence, ego and impermanence.

If you aren’t listening to WNYC’s fantastic Radiolab, you’re missing out on some of the finest science journalism and curiosity-curation of our time. (The folks at the MacArthur Foundation seem to concur, having just awarded Radiolab producer Jad Abumrad (♥) the wildly prestigious “genius” grant.) In an homage to a fascinating recent Radiolab episode about loops, which features an almost-aside about how when a whale dies, its body can sustain an entire microcosm of an ecosystem for up to seven years in a poetic death-life loop, director-animator duo Sharon Shattuk and Flora Lichtman, better known as Sweet Fern Productions, collaborated with Radiolab’s own Lynn Levy on Whale Fall — an equally poetic and absolutely stunning paper-cutout stop-motion animation about the afterlife of a whale.

More than a mere feat of visual storytelling or a nod to nature’s meticulously orchestrated interdependences, the film is also a lyrical reflection on impermanence and our existence as nodes in something larger, richer, and more complex than our individual lives and egos.

Join me in supporting Radiolab’s wonderful work, which continues to inspire and illuminate with equal parts passion and rigor.

via MetaFilter

Donating = Loving

Bringing you (ad-free) Brain Pickings takes hundreds of hours each month. If you find any joy and stimulation here, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.

♥ $7 / month♥ $3 / month♥ $10 / month♥ $25 / month

You can also become a one-time patron with a single donation in any amount.

Brain Pickings has a free weekly newsletter. It comes out on Sundays and offers the week’s best articles. Here’s what to expect. Like? Sign up.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s Turns 50: Celebrating Audrey Hepburn

One of Old Hollywood’s most charismatic personalities, captured through the affection lens of a dear friend.

Fifty years ago today, Breakfast at Tiffany’s made its debut. The iconic film, based on the Truman Capote novella of the same name, went on to become one of the most beloved romantic comdies of all time, and the Holly Golightly character remained the most memorable role of Edda van Heemstra Hepburn-Ruston, better-known as Audrey Hepburn. Throughout her long career, no one has managed to capture Hepburn’s character, charisma, and enigma with more visual eloquence than iconic photographer Bob Willoughby, who met a young Hepburn shortly after she arrived in Hollywood in 1953 and, mesmerized by her extraordinary persona, continued to shoot her for over a decade. Over the years, Willoughby became a trusted friend who helped frame Hepburn’s life and image, both personally and professionally.

From the fine folks at Taschen (♥) comes a formidable volume not for the faint of heart (or wallet) — Bob Willoughby: Audrey Hepburn: Photographs 1953-1966 is a lavish collector’s edition of 1,000 hand-numbered copies that comes at a hefty 14 pounds and even heftier $750 price tag. Though long sold out, you can scour Amazon and Craigslist for some used copies — but don’t expect a bargain. Still, Willoughby’s work is so poetic and enchanted it’s hard to put a price on.

I really didn’t know what to make of Audrey when I first saw her. She certainly was not the typical image of a young starlet, for that was what I had been sent to photograph. I watched her across the room as she was being photographed by Ben Fraker, and she did have something… but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it until I was finally introduced to her.

Then that radiant smile hit me right between the eyes, warming me inside like a shot of whisky. That amazing instant contact she made, a remarkable gift that everyone who met her felt. She exuded some magic warmth that was hers alone.”

For a more affordable homage, there’s also the excellent Breakfast at Tiffany’s: The Official 50th Anniversary Companion — a first-of-its-kind exploration of what makes the iconic movie so enduring and why it still has the same seductive magic today. The only official release published in association with Paramount Pictures and the Audrey Hepburn estate, the volume is full of rare images, candid behind-the-scenes photos, full-color reproductions of poster art, copies of the original shooting script, and other ephemera to make a movie buff’s heart bustle with joy. A foreword by the great French aristocrat and fashion designer Hubert de Givenchy, who designed much of Hepburn’s wardrobe and famously had her as his muse, adds another layer of affection to what’s already a touching tribute.

Images via Taschen

Brain Pickings has a free weekly newsletter and people say it’s cool. It comes out on Sundays and offers the week’s best articles. Here’s an example. Like? Sign up.