Arts & Entertainment with Chris & Randall

Join us as we give arts & entertainment the discussion they deserve.

ep100: Looking back at 99 shows 07/01/2022

ep99: The Vietnam War movie as apologia for empire 06/22/2022

ep99: The Vietnam War movie as apologia for empire Randall asserts that (US-made) Vietnam War movies nearly universally serve to exonerate US conduct in the war — a war whose purpose is only to oppress indigenous people, further colonialism, and expand empire. *** Vietnam movies discussed include: The Green Berets (1968) Coming Home (1978) The Deer Hunter (1978) Go Tell the Spartans (1978) Apocalypse Now (1979) First Blood (1982) Platoon (1986) Good Morning; Vietnam (1987) Hamburger Hill (1987) Gardens of Stone (1987) Full Metal Jacket (1987) Hanoi Hilton (1987) Born on the Fourth of july (1989) Casualties of War (1989) We Were Soldiers (2002) Rescue Dawn (2006) *** Topics discussed include: US empire building The Phoenix Program What would a good Vietnam movie be like? The CIA as an outgrowth of Nazi intelligence Reinhard Gehlen Operation Paperclip Mỹ Lai massacre Wannsee Conference Côn Đảo Prison Zero Dark Thirty (2012) American Sniper (2014) The Card Counter (2021) Top Gun: Maverick (2022) Bertolt Brecht's distancing effect wars run by the CIA Missing (1982) Paths of Glory (1957) *** *** Quotes from this show: I would call it a moral get out of jail free card because if every soldier in every war is really just an innocent chap who accidentally signed up for the wrong thing and now got stuck with a bunch of bullies who don't know any better, it really reduces the entire nation's moral culpability in a war because now it's just a bunch of good guys and bullies. —Chris These movies are trying to excuse the US' behavior in Vietnam. —Randall We gotta do bad things because the people we're fighting do bad things. You can literally justify anything with that moral equivalency. There's no point in having law, order, civility, or even a Geneva Convention if you're just going to tell hero stories. —Chris Our hero has the right to morally transgress because the villain is always so bad that the rules of civility exempts our hero from having any rules of civility. —Chris The CIA is the missing character in a lot of these movies. —Chris Every other kind of genre there's a moment of catharsis and realization that you can be a better person, but you can't do that with a country. You can't tell a story about a nation becoming a better person. Every time you make a war movie you're always going to end up with this false pat on the back. —Chris Is there anything the US could do that the US people would be ashamed of? —Randall Almost every one of our war movies are in some sense a perverse rationalization for violence. —Chris Why are they made at all? They're glorifications of going to war. —Randall *** Background reading: How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States by Daniel Immerwahr The Phoenix Program: America's Use of Terror in Vietnam by Douglas Valentine The CIA as Organized Crime: How Illegal Operations Corrupt America and the World by Douglas Valentine Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic by Chalmers Johnson A True History of the United States: Indigenous Genocide, Racialized Slavery, Hyper-Capitalism, Militarist Imperialism and Other Overlooked Aspects of American Exceptionalism by Daniel Sjursen *** recorded June 12, 2022 *** Visit us at /episode/index/show/chrisandrandall/id/23506781

ep98: What is Psychedelic Music? — with guest Robert Ciccone 06/18/2022

ep97: Q & A with Jerry Leibowitz — Professional Animator, Underground Comic Creator, and Graphic Designer 06/10/2022

ep96: 21st century music bio-pic with guest Bill Gucwa 06/02/2022

ep95: How to sell NFT art 05/26/2022

ep94: What is Generation X humor? 05/20/2022

ep93: Adolf Hitler's taste in art 05/06/2022

ep93: Adolf Hitler's taste in art Randall shows Chris some of Hitler's favorite artists, and some of Hitler's own paintings. *** Download slides here: *** Hitler's favorite fine artists according to Albert Speer: 1) Eduard von Grützner 2) Wilhelm Leibl 3) Hans Thoma 4) Hans Makart 5) Carl Spitzweg 6) Arno Breker 7) Paris Bordone 8) Titian 9) Anselm Feuerbach (Nana) 10) Giovanni Paolo Panini 11) Eduard von Steinle *** In the book, The Mind of Adolf Hitler, Hanisch reports: "He (Hitler) was never an ardent worker, was unable to get up in the morning, had difficulty in getting started, and seemed to be suffering from a paralysis of the will."[6] *** This episode based on Inside the Third Reich, 1970 edition, first US printing You may read a different edition online here: ... p43 One of Hitler's as well as Hoffman's favorite painters was Eduard Grützner... ... For all departments of art Hitler regarded the late nineteenth century as one of the greatest cultural epochs in human history. That is was not yet recognized as such, he said, was only because we were too close to it in time. But his appreciation stopped at Impressionism, whereas the naturalism of a Leibl or a Thoma suited his activistic approach to art. Makart ranked highest; he also thought highly of Spitzweg. In this case I could understand his feeling, although what he admired was not so much the bold and often impressionistic brushwork as the staunch middle-class genre quality, the affable humor with which Spitzweg gently mocked the small-town Munich of his period. ... p90 Along the opposite wall stood a massive chest containing built-in speakers, and adorned by a large bronze bust of Richard Wagner by Arno Breker. Above this hung another tapestry which concealed the movie screen. Large oil paintings covered the walls: a lady with exposed bosom ascribed to Bordone, a pupil of Titian; a picturesque reclining nude said to be by Titian himself; Feuerbach's Nana in a very handsome frame; an early landscape by Spitzweg; a landscape of Roman ruins by Pannini; and surprisingly, a kind of altar painting by Eduard von Steinle, one of the Nazarene group, representing King Henry, founder of cities. But there was no Grützner. Hitler occasionally let if be known that he had paid for these paintings out of his own income. ... Occasionally the movies were discussed, Hitler commenting mainly on the female actors and Eva Braun on the males. No one took the trouble to raise the conversation above the level of trivialities by, for example, remarking on any of the new trends in directing. Of course the choice of films scarcely allowed for any other approach, for they were all standard products of the entertainment industry. Such experiments of the period as Curt Ortel's Michelangelo film were never shown, at least not when I was there. ... Later, during the war, Hitler gave up the evening showings, saying that he wanted to renounce his favorite entertainment "out of sympathy for the privations of the soldiers." Instead records were played. But although the record collection was excellent, Hitler always preferred the same music. Neither baroque nor classical music, neither chamber music nor symphonies, interested him. Before long the order of the records became virtually fixed. First he wanted a few bravura selections from Wagnerian operas, to be followed promptly with operettas. That remained the pattern. Hitler made a point of trying to guess the names of the sopranos and was pleased when he guessed right, as he frequently did. ... p27 To decorate the Goebbels house I borrowed a few watercolors by Nolde from Eberhard Hanfstaengl, the director of the Berlin National Gallery. Goebbels and his wife were delighted with the paintings—until Hitler cane to inspect and expressed his severe disapproval. Then the minister summoned me immediately: "The pictures have to go at once; they're simply impossible!" ... p42 Thus, in the realm of architecture, as in painting and sculpture, Hitler really remained arrested in the world of his youth: the world of 1880 to 1910, which stamped its imprint on his artistic taste as on his political and ideological conceptions. *** Topics discussed include: Rudolf von Alt birth of the modern world Reich Culture Chamber Abstract art Emil Nolde Eduard von Grützner Wilhelm Leibl Hans Thoma Hans Makart Carl Spitzweg Arno Breker Richard Wagner Paris Bordone Titian Anselm Feuerbach (Nana) Reich Culture Chamber The Degenerate Art Exhibition Jazz Swing Kids (1993) Fraktur https://chrisandrandall.com/ep32-does-art-influence-the-public-mind-part-3-of-3-authoritarians-and-the-cias-art-war *** Timeline: 1863 -- Salon de Refuses 1910 -- First abstract painting 1914 -- WWI 1919 -- Bauhaus founded 1933 -- Hitler attains power in Germany 1933 -- Reich Culture Chamber established with Goebbels in charge ... Goebbels and some others believed that the forceful works of such artists as Emil Nolde, Ernst Barlach and Erich Heckel exemplified the Nordic spirit; as Goebbels explained, "We National Socialists are not un-modern; we are the carrier of a new modernity, not only in politics and in social matters, but also in art and intellectual matters."[14] However, a faction led by Rosenberg despised Expressionism, leading to a bitter ideological dispute which was settled only in September 1934, when Hitler declared that there would be no place for modernist experimentation in the Reich. Also outlawed Jazz and the font Fraktur ... 1933 -- Bauhaus closes ... The Nazi movement, from nearly the start, denounced the Bauhaus for its "degenerate art", and the Nazi regime was determined to crack down on what it saw as the foreign, probably Jewish, influences of "cosmopolitan modernism".[1] ... 1937 -- The Degenerate Art Exhibition ... Hitler had been an artist before he was a politician—but the realistic paintings of buildings and landscapes that he preferred had been dismissed by the art establishment in favor of abstract and modern styles. So the Degenerate Art Exhibition was his moment to get his revenge. He had made a speech about it that summer, saying "works of art which cannot be understood in themselves but need some pretentious instruction book to justify their existence will never again find their way to the German people". *** recorded April 21, 2022 *** Visit us at /episode/index/show/chrisandrandall/id/23025098

ep92: Who really painted the first abstract painting? 04/28/2022

ep92: Who really painted the first abstract painting? Did Wassily Kandinsky really invent abstract art? Randall takes Chris on a journey with many twists and turns. *** Download slides: *** Topics discussed include: the first abstract painting Wassily Kandinsky Hilma af Klint Helena Blavatsky automatic drawing Rudolf Steiner The Ten Largest Theosophy Sigmund Freud Adolf Hitler and the Nazis Bauhaus school Georgiana Houghton Albert Einstein the birth of the modern world *** Timeline: 1859 -- Georgiana Houghton starts making "spirit" drawings at seances 1862 -- Hilma af Klint born 1863 -- Salon des Refusés 1871 -- Houghton pays for a show in London 1874 -- Impression, Sunrise by Monet 1875 -- Helena Blavatsky cofounds the Theosophical Society, as "the synthesis of science, religion and philosophy", proclaiming that it was reviving an "Ancient Wisdom" which underlay all the world's religions. 1880 -- Hilma's 10-year-old sister dies, spurring her interest in the occult 1882 -- Hilma af Klint enrolled in Sweden' s Royal Academy of Fine Arts. 1884 -- Georgiana Houghton dies 1887 -- Hilma af Klint graduates with honors, awarded use of shared studio until 1909. Here she paints first 100 or so Paintings For the Temple. 1888 -- The Five is founded 1895 -- X-rays discovered 1895 -- Sigmund Freud publishes one of his first books, Studies on Hysteria 1896 -- Radio waves discovered, first radios 1900 1896 -- radioactivity discovered 1896 -- Hilma experiments with automatic drawing. was participating in weekly seances with The Five. * Through her work with The Five, Hilma af Klint created experimental automatic drawing as early as 1896, leading her toward an inventive geometric visual language capable of conceptualizing invisible forces both of the inner and outer worlds.[citation needed] She explored world religions, atoms, and the plant world and wrote extensively about her discoveries.[5] As she became more familiar with this form of expression, Hilma af Klint was assigned by the High Masters to create the paintings for the "Temple" – however she never understood what this "Temple" referred to. Hilma af Klint felt she was being directed by a force that would literally guide her hand. She wrote in her notebook: The pictures were painted directly through me, without any preliminary drawings, and with great force. I had no idea what the paintings were supposed to depict; nevertheless I worked swiftly and surely, without changing a single brush stroke.[14] * 1903 -- Kandinsky paints the Blue Rider 1904 -- Hilma af Klint joins Theosophical society 1904 -- Hilma af Klint was informed by spirit guides a great temple should be built and filled with paintings. 1905 -- Albert Einstein publishes his 4 seminal papers: photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, special relativity, and the equivalence of mass and energy. 1906 -- Klint begins automatic painting * led by a spiritual guide named Amaliel who contacted af Klint during séances and not only “commissioned” the paintings but, at least at the outset, had, she claimed, directed her hand as she painted. “The pictures were painted directly through me, without any preliminary drawings and with great force,” af Klint wrote in one of her journals of the 193 mostly abstract works known as “The Paintings for the Temple,” meditations on human life and relationships in the most elemental terms. “I had no idea what the paintings were supposed to depict, nevertheless I worked swiftly and surely without changing a single brush stroke.” * Absorbing a wide array of cultural influences old and new – from Goethe’s colour theories to Darwin’s discoveries concerning evolution, from Car Linnaeus’s botanical taxonomies to cutting-edge ideas about atomic matter and radioactivity – Af Klint set about composing for posterity an alluring eye-music that echoed back the complex psyche of her age. * 1907 -- De Fem finishes The Ten Largest 1908 -- Hilma meets Rudolf Steiner * In 1908 af Klint met Rudolf Steiner for the first time. In one of the few remaining letters, she was asking Steiner to visit her in Stockholm and see the finished part of the Paintings for the Temple series, 111 paintings in total. Steiner did see the paintings but mostly left unimpressed, stating that her way of working was inappropriate for a theosophist. According to H.P. Blavatsky, mediumship was a faulty practice, leading its adepts on the wrong path of occultism and black magic.[18] However, during their meeting, Steiner stated that af Klint's contemporaries would not be able to accept and understand their paintings, and it would take another 50 years to decipher them. Of all the paintings shown to him, Steiner paid special attention only to the Primordial Chaos Group, noting them as "the best symbolically".[19] After meeting Steiner, af Klint was devastated by his response and, apparently, stopped painting for 4 years. Interestingly enough, Steiner kept photographs of some of af Klint's artworks, some of them even hand-coloured. Later the same year he met Wassily Kandinsky, who had not yet come to abstract painting. Some art historians assume that Kandinsky could have seen the photographs and perhaps was influenced by them while developing his own abstract path.[20] Later in her life, she made a decision to destroy all her correspondence. She left a collection of more than 1200 paintings and 125 diaries to her nephew, Erik af Klint. Among her last paintings made in 1930s, there are two watercolours predicting the events of World War II, titled The Blitz and The Fight in the Mediterranean.[21] * In 1908, after making 111 paintings, she collapsed: “She had completed a painting every third day – including the 10 huge ones. She was exhausted.” And there was further reason for despond. That same year, Steiner was lecturing in Stockholm. She invited this charismatic man to see her paintings (Mondrian petitioned Steiner too, but always in vain). She had hoped he would interpret the work. Instead he advised: “No one must see this for 50 years.” For four years after this verdict she gave up painting and looked after her sightless mother. Johan shows me a photograph of Hilma at Hanmora, looking down with tenderness, a hand on her mother’s shoulder – the more sympathetic of clues to her character. * 1910 -- first abstract by Kandinsky 1919 -- Bauhaus school founded 1923 -- Hilma writes Steiner asking him what she should do, "burn them?" She never hears back. 1925 -- Rudolf Steiner dies 1928 -- Theosophy reaches peak membership 1930s -- While studies, sketches, and improvisations exist (particularly of Composition II), a Nazi raid on the Bauhaus in the 1930s resulted in the confiscation of Kandinsky's first three Compositions. They were displayed in the State-sponsored exhibit "Degenerate Art", and then destroyed (along with works by Paul Klee, Franz Marc and other modern artists) 1932 -- Hilma af Klint's last will. In will, Hilma keaves 1200 paintings, 26,000 pages of notes (125 notebooks), not to be shown until 20 years after her death. 1933 -- Hitler appointed chancellor of Germany 1944 -- Hilma dies of car accident. She was 82. Also Kandinsky (77), Mondrian (pneumonia, 71) 1970s -- Johan af Kilnt offers works to the Moderna Museet, they refuse. The then-director turned them down. “When he heard that she was a medium, there was no discussion. He didn’t even look at the pictures.” Only in 2013 did the museum redeem itself with a retrospective. 1985 -- Hilma's work discovered. Distant relative of Klint finds paintings just hanging on walls of theosophical society. 1986 -- Hilma af Klint show: The Spiritual in Art, Abstract Painting 1890-1985 2013 -- Hilma af Klint Moderna Museet Stockholm show: perhaps their most popular in history 2019 -- Hilma af Klint Guggenheim show: may have been it's most popular 2020 -- Beyond the Visible: Hilma af Klint documentary *** recorded April 21, 2022 *** Visit us at /episode/index/show/chrisandrandall/id/22943939

ep91: The abstract moment 03/31/2022

ep90: The road to modernism 03/10/2022

ep89: Impressionism is bad photography 03/03/2022

ep89: Impressionism is bad photography Randall goes on a deep dive of modern art in an attempt to describe what leads to abstraction. (You may download slideshow here: ) Topics discussed include: figurative art religious art fantasy art landscape painting Alexander Cozens John Robert Cozens Thomas Monroe J. M. W. Turner Theory of Colours by Goethe Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes En plein air (open-air painting) painting technology Eugène Delacroix photography technology Paris Salon Impressionism Claude Monet Timeline discussed: 1785 -- Alexander Cozens published a pamphlet on this manner of drawing landscapes from blots, called A New Method of Assisting the Invention in Drawing Original Compositions of Landscape 1776 -- Cozen's son, John Robert Cozens displays A Landscape with Hannibal in His March Over the Alps, Showing to His Army Fertile Plains of Italy, now lost 1777 -- John Robert Cozens paints watercolor Lake of Albano and Castel Gandolfo at Sunset which auctions for 2.4 million pounds in 2010 1794 -- John Robert Cozens has nervous breakdown. Committed to Bethlem Royal Hospital. Famous doctor/art collector Thomas Monro buys his collection. Dies 1797, 3 year later. Painter JMW Turner is in his circle 1800 -- The theory of 'En plein air' painting is credited to Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes (1750–1819) first expounded in a treatise entitled Reflections and Advice to a Student on Painting, Particularly on Landscape 1810 -- Goethe’s Theory of Colours 1812 -- J.M.W. Turner paints Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps, slide 004. Inspired by A Landscape with Hannibal in His March Over the Alps, Showing to His Army Fertile Plains of Italy 1824 -- Massacre at Chios by Eugène Delacroix 1824 -- Delacroix Horse Frightened by a Storm 1830 -- Delacroix Liberty Leading the People 1831 -- The Great Wave at Kanagawa 1839 -- France pays Daguerre a pension in exchange to publish his photographic process. France considers this a gift to the world. By 1853, an estimated three million daguerreotypes per year were being produced in the United States alone 1841 -- Delacroix Christ on the Sea of Galilee 1841 -- American John Goffe Rand, a portrait painter and inventor, invents the tin paint tube. The tin tube allowed unused oil paint to be stored and used later without drying out. Renoir said “Without tubes of paint, there would have been no Impressionism.” 1850s -- Field easel invented 1862 -- Delacroix Shipwreck on the Coast 1863 -- Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet, Armand Guillaumin, Paul Cézanne, and others' works are all rejected by the Salon. Emperor Napoleon III founds the Salon des Refusés "exhibition of rejects" to display their works. 1872 -- Claude Monet paints Impression, Sunrise 1888 -- Monet starts painting Haystacks series recorded March 1, 2022 Visit us at /episode/index/show/chrisandrandall/id/22321160