Cartoons: Old Disney Short Films
The Walt Disney Company is a corporation with so many subdivisions that one sometimes almost forgets what the company once became famous for under the old Walt: with short films, of course. To celebrate Disney’s 100th anniversary, a selection of the short classics have been restored. It will be released gradually on the Disney+ streaming service through the fall. Heroes of these early adventures are Oswald the Funny Rabbit (the pre-Mickey Mouse character), Goofy, Donald, Chip and Dale, and of course Mickey and Minnie, the trick dream couple. The selection dates back to 1927 and includes both black and white and color clips. Movies like Mickey the Builder (1933) contain all the elements of old Hollywood slapstick art. But they also give an idea of what kind of perfectionist animation company the Disney studios should develop into. David Steinitz
Relaxation: Slow Radio
Very slow: “Slow Radio”.
(Photo: BBC)
For everyone who finds it too quiet at home but otherwise too noisy in the world, there is a podcast on the BBC “Slow Radio”. “Soundscapes” can be found there, soundscapes that envelop you like a cocoon of friendliness. Birdsong from Umbria, for example, or baby seals in Pembrokeshire. “Happy Places” means that in English. This sometimes just barely misses the forest and whale songs that you can buy in esoteric shops. But then they are “happy Irish cows” or Brazilian banjo frogs and not meditation dolphins. The best soundscapes are wordless reports from afar. There’s a Sunday stroll through Harlem, a trip to the Silk Road village of Almatu, DJ Nick Luscombe has collected winter sounds in Japan, and there are sounds from outer space. More deceleration is hardly possible. Andrian Kreye
Architectural Film: “7 Chapels”
The chapel near Oberthürheim was designed by Christoph Mäckler: as a reminder that the Gothic is also something to touch beyond the famous cathedrals.
(Photo: Orla Connolly + Jens Weber)
Jens Weber is standing on the ladder in front of a tripod that spirals into the sky like a telescope. High lookout. Distance. He photographs buildings and manages to capture the magic of architecture, light, form and space, suggestively and calmly. On the other hand, there is a picture of his partner Orla Connolly on the joint homepage that shows the portrait photographer in full action. She has to get close to the objects in front of the camera, which in this case are subjects. Connolly is a portrait specialist. For the people. So what do we have? human and space. Perfect.
The fact that the architecture has something to do with both the longing for transcendence and the desire for a practical way of life makes the grandiosely unzeitgeisty film “7 Chapels” a masterpiece of spatial interpretation. Specially set to music by Wolfram Oettl on the fortepiano, who becomes a silent film pianist. Nothing is told, nothing explained, but everything is shown. The people in this visual study of demanding feature length are all the main actors: their looks, their amazement, their skepticism – and they always touch something, a wall or a piece of wood. Architecture, that’s what makes it so sensual, is something you can touch. The film can be seen on July 17th and 30th in Augsburg in the Thalia cinema, in the “Summer Week Architecture” series.
The Denzel Foundation has built seven modern chapels along the Swabian Danube Cycle Path. Small prayer rooms, mostly located in an astonishing landscape, can be explored by bike in relaxed stages. The buildings are by John Pawson, Volker Staab or Christoph Mäckler. They are all worth seeing (documented by Hirmer: “Seven Wayside Chapels – Architectural Landmarks in the Danube Valley”). But what is particularly beautiful in the film is always the reaction of the cyclists, tourists, children, parents, nuns and moped drivers to what makes architecture what it is: an important and at the same time everyday thing. When you ride a bike, dumping it out of buckets and taking shelter in a chapel, you are in a space that may be sacred but, to the still greater praise of creation, ideally also be dry. Gerhard Matzig
Classic: Hans Abrahamsen “Left, alone”
Some famous composers – Ravel, Prokofiev, Hindemith – wrote piano concertos only for the left hand, the Dane Hans Abrahamsen, born in 1952 with a limited functionality of his right hand, did the same in 2015: “Left, alone” is a lyrical magic play, fuller dreamy melodies, but also, as lightly as everything shimmers and shines here, full of abysses, small moments of wild noise. Tamara Stefanovich (piano), Mariano Chiacchiarini (conductor) and the WDR Symphony Orchestra have recorded it beautifully for the Winter&Winter label. Abrahamsen’s “Ten Sinfonias” (WDR & Peter Rundel) will also be heard: seductive orchestral pop that is only superficially simple, but then soon becomes all the more attractive (Winter & Winter). Egbert Tholl
Museum: “Cosquer Mediterranee” in Marseille
A ghost train under the sea: the “Cosquer Méditerranée” museum in Marseille.
(Photo: Nicolas Tucat/AFP)
This strange building in the Marseille docks, with its bold overhang of 40 meters, is deeply unsettling: could it tip over at any time? Architect Stefano Boeri designed the Villa Méditerranée, which opened in 2013 – Marseille was the cultural capital at the time – for exhibitions, congresses and meetings, but nothing came of it due to safety concerns and the villa remained unused. Then Marseille remembered the sensational discovery of a cave with prehistoric art just around the corner. In 1985, the diver Henri Cosquer discovered the entrance to the cave at a depth of 37 meters on the nearby rocky coast, gained access in daring dives through an ascending, 150 meter long and quite narrow channel and discovered 500 engravings and paintings in two rooms above sea level, between 33 000 and 19 000 years old. During the last ice age, the sea level was more than 110 meters lower than it is today, and people could enter the cave without getting their feet wet.
Nobody can visit the Cosquer Cave, global warming threatens the early art. So the cave, like Altamira and Chauvet, was recreated in the original scale – in the harbor basin under the Villa Méditerranée. The museum, which opened a year ago, is called “Cosquer Méditerranée”. Visitors board a mine elevator that takes them down, then onto ghost train wagons. This is amusing at first, but soon everyone feels like Henri Cosquer on his explorations. The carts drive slowly through the cave replica, flashing spots show what the audio guide puts it soberly: horses painted black, many hand negatives, bison, bison, seals and two penguins fighting for the favor of a female penguin. The fact that the visitor does not encounter the originals is irrelevant. He is overwhelmed by the original size of the amazingly good 3D reproductions. They follow the discoloration and irregularities of the rock faces, which the artists used ingeniously for their purposes. Reinhard J Brembeck