The 50 greatest arts videos on YouTube | Technology | The Obs...

Highlighted by undersound

Highlighted by schreiterb

Sid and Nancy on New York cable TV, 1978

Morose, foul-mouthed and dismissive, a shirtless Sid Vicious is joined by a very vocal Nancy Spungen (with co-guests Stiv Bators and Cynthia of the B Girls) on a live New York cable TV show recorded shortly after the break-up of the Sex Pistols. When a drippy female caller flirts with Sid over the phone, Nancy wades in: 'You better keep your fucking hands off him...' A slanging match ensues. Viva la punk.
tinyurl.com/5hjcdc

Highlighted by agcrum

Madonna at the Danceteria, 1982

The first ever live performance of 'Everybody', Madge's first single, at the downtown nightclub where she was a regular and got a demo of the song played. Her three backing dancers - in matching shorts, blazers and pork pie hats - were her friend Erica Bell, former roommate Martin Burgoyne and black dancer Bags. Gotta love those moves.
tinyurl.com/6p77zf

Highlighted by agcrum

Bette Midler and Barry Manilow at the Continental Bath, 1971

Who's better suited to perform at a New York gay bathhouse than the Divine Miss M (aka Bathhouse Betty)? With that voice and raunchy banter, she had those boys wrapped round her finger. Drop in Barry Manilow on piano (sometimes, like the punters, in no more than a towel) and you couldn't get it any camper. Poor quality footage but top quality versions of 'Fat Stuff', 'Easier Said Than Done' and 'Marahuana'.
tinyurl.com/5te2vt

Highlighted by agcrum

Jack Kerouac reads from On the Road (called Project 2), 1959

US TV presenter Steve Allen liked to do things differently. When he invited Kerouac on his show to read from On the Road, Allen decided it was a good idea to give him a jazzy piano accompaniment. It shouldn't work but it does, thanks largely to Kerouac's inordinate skill as a reader, his intonation curiously in tune with the slightly daft tinkerings in the background.
tinyurl.com/5jla3k

Highlighted by agcrum

William Burroughs on cut-ups, c1980

Gaunt and spectral (aged about 65) in this BBC documentary, Burroughs recalls the time he spent in London during the Sixties and his artistic interest in cut-ups: a collage technique of cutting up pages of prose, pasting them back together at random and transcribing the resultant mishmash. An archive recording of one of his cut-out poems pops up as does Allen Ginsberg. Then Burroughs name-checks Wittgenstein. Meaty stuff.
tinyurl.com/5cuo7w

Highlighted by agcrum

Kurt Russell's Star Wars audition, 1975

Just think. Kurt Russell could have been Han Solo ('Look at those radiation readouts. It's impossible!') if Harrison Ford hadn't completely outclassed him. Same goes for drippy teen idol Robby Benson up for the role of Luke. For Mark Hammill, alas, we now count our blessings. Extra titbit: George Lucas and Brian De Palma held joint auditions for Star Wars and Carrie; rumour has it Lucas's first pick for Princess Leia was actually Sissy Spacek. You can see Carrie Fisher's audition for Leia too.
tinyurl.com/5w43gz
tinyurl.com/5ksebw

Highlighted by agcrum

Katharine Hepburn gives a rare interview, 1973

'Can't we have a stationary table?' thunders Katharine Hepburn, 66, to one of the producers on The Dick Cavett Show. Hepburn rarely did interviews. When she did, she wanted it just so. In this case, in prep for the actual recording, Hepburn went on set to veto a wobbly table ('nail it down!') and joke about the garishly russet-coloured carpet: 'Gee whiz. Put a rug over it. Who's idea was that?'
tinyurl.com/6f4ykx

Highlighted by agcrum

James Dean and Paul Newman screen test for East of Eden, 1954

Just 40 seconds but a real gem. Then newcomers Dean and Newman, both impossibly good-looking, face off in a screen test for East of Eden. Dean got the role (Newman's big screen debut came in 1954's The Silver Chalice), but it makes you wish they'd starred together for real. Dean: 'Kiss me.' Newman: 'Can't here.'
tinyurl.com/6793yk

Highlighted by agcrum

Marlon Brando screen tests for Rebel Without a Cause, 1947

Brando was 23, weighed 170lb, was 5ft 10in and had three years' stage experience (at least so the marker plate tells us) when he auditioned for the role that went, years later, to Jimmy Dean. Still, Brando nails it. After his scene, there's a chat about his career to date. With his bashful smile, you can see why he melted hearts.
tinyurl.com/32onos

Highlighted by agcrum

David Lynch interviewed on Scene by Scene, 1999

When the interviewee begins by saying they hate being interviewed, it bodes pretty ill. So, asks BBC Scotland broadcaster Mark Cousins, why are you here? Lynch grins widely, pats young Cousins on the back and, like a father indulging his son, says 'to do you a great favour'. What follows (over five instalments) is truly revealing and, Lynch is actually a real charmer.
tinyurl.com/6bu95h

Highlighted by agcrum

Eveready Harton in Buried Treasure, 1929

Comic book art or seminal smut, we give you the first ever porn cartoon. Parental caution advised because, animation or not, this is a still pretty explicit tale of well-endowed Harton and his efforts to get it off. Supposedly drawn by a group of animators for a private party in honour of fellow animator Winsor McCay (an inspiration to Walt Disney).
tinyurl.com/6je9l9

Highlighted by agcrum

The Seashell and the Clergyman, 1928

Less well known than that other surreal benchmark Un Chien Andalou, which followed a year later, this work based on a screenplay by French auteur Antonin Artaud is nonetheless considered the first surrealistic film. The story covers the erotic fantasies of a priest lusting after a general's wife.
tinyurl.com/599y2k

Highlighted by agcrum

Jackson Pollock drip paints outside his East Hampton home, 1951

Though German-born photographer Hans Namuth didn't much rate Pollock's work, he was fascinated by the man. Having taken over 500 photographs of him already, he turned to film. His resulting documentary captures the artist dressed head to toe in black, a cigarette hanging from his lip, drip painting on to glass. Best of all is Pollock's curiously droning narration: 'The method of painting is a natural growth out of a need.'
tinyurl.com/2zd8ra

Highlighted by agcrum

Andy Warhol's Blow Job, 1963

Titillating or just plain dull? Warhol's original black and white silent film stretches to all of 35 minutes and frames the face of a pretty young man (DeVeren Bookwalter, who just happened to be lolling round the Factory that day) while he's fellated off screen by person or persons unknown. This version lasts an adequate eight minutes. Honestly, who's got the time?
tinyurl.com/6dxudg

Highlighted by agcrum

Francis Bacon interviewed, 1985

About half way through this excellent South Bank Show on Francis Bacon, the interviewer Melvin Bragg and artist sit down to lunch. In Bacon's case that's really a liquid lunch through which he proceeds to slur his way. 'Cheerio,' he clamours, presumably meaning cheers, while topping himself up. Then it's off to the Colony Room for more. ('I'm not one of those made-up poofs...' he toots at another punter). Priceless.
tinyurl.com/5uf6a4

Highlighted by agcrum

Jean-Michel Basquiat interviewed by Glenn O'Brien, 1978

Basquiat, aka SAMO, was about to become a New York art sensation and all-round celebrity thanks in no small part to his regular appearances on this live public access show called TV Party. Slapdash and piss-takingly earnest, it ran until 1982 and was hosted by Glenn O'Brien, also rock critic for Andy Warhol's Interview magazine. In 1981 O'Brien scripted a thinly veiled biopic (about Basquiat) starring Basquiat called Downtown 81, a trailer for which is also on YouTube.
tinyurl.com/5zpsmc

Highlighted by agcrum

Marcel Duchamp's Anemic Cinema, 1926

Shot in Man Ray's studio and officially the brainchild of Duchamp's female alter ego Rrose Sélavy (a pun on 'Eros, c'est la vie' and my, how convincing Duchamp was in drag) this hypnotic short film features a rapidly spinning disc on which a series of punning phrases appear. As much spiritual meditation as work of Dadaist anti-art. Man Ray's dotty Le Retour à la Raison makes an interesting companion piece.
tinyurl.com/6j325b

Highlighted by agcrum

Bill Viola's The Reflecting Pool, 1977-1979

American video-artist Viola has carved out a very definite niche: ultra slow-motion films, imbued with an almost painterly quality, and often tackling twin issues of mortality and spirituality. This early film fixes on a woodland pool and a man frozen mid-air over it. With intimations of birth and death, it's ultimately both creepy and moving.
tinyurl.com/5tjqgr

Highlighted by agcrum