Miscellaneous Film Clips

Table of Contents


Cat Distracts Polish Professor    26 October 2018

Anyone who has children or pets knows that they tend to interrupt during important conversations.  The clip below is a prime example.  The original is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtB7qwhPhhg.  Background information about the interview is at https://www.eonline.com/news/950404/this-cat-can-t-stop-interrupting-a-polish-professor-s-tv-interview.

2,400 Years of European History    24 October 2018

See the map of Europe change over the past 2,400 years at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY9P0QSxlnI.

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For an explanation of some of the highlights the map reflects, see http://www.visualcapitalist.com/2400-years-of-european-history/.  The creators also have a map of Europe based on rulers from 400 BC to 2017 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpKqCu6RcdI.

Seinfeld and Waltz: Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee    15 April 2018

Anyone with some exposure to Central Europe will enjoy the episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with Jerry Seinfeld and Christoph Waltz.  The references to Austria and Vienna, Waltz's native city, abound, and the Waltz's humor is, well, so Viennese.  The episode also grabs my attention because the car Seinfeld drove is a 1956 BMW 507, a limited-production handcrafted roadster.  In it, I see the ghost of my current standard mode of transportation and sometimes project car, a 2001 BMW Z3, with a 2.5l engine.

Only a clip of the episode, which appears below, is available on Youtube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3529uTmKNHo:



Another interesting clip in the series is Jerry Seinfeld's interview of Barack Obama, which is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM-Q_zpuJGU.

Czech Public Art from the Communist Era    1 April 2018

A project titled "Aliens and Herons" (Vetřelci a volavky) is documenting Czech sculptures and other works of art, along with their creators, from 1968 to the end of the Communist era.  Unfortunately, some of the items are missing, and others are impossible to identify.  The large quantity of art work was a result of the policy of devoting up to 4 percent of the funding for any construction to public spaces and art.  An interactive map is available at http://www.vetrelciavolavky.cz/en/mapa, and a video (in Czech) is located at http://www.ceskatelevize.cz/ivysilani/10169621461-vetrelci-a-volavky/20856226640.  The website is in both Czech and English.

Animated History of Poland    19 February 2018

The Animated History of Poland was part of the Polish exhibition for the 2010 Expo in Shanghai, China.  Watch for the synagogue that is near the Gothic church in the 1500-1600 segment--a display of tolerance in the Poland before the anti-democratic Law and Justice party monopolized power.  The Winged Hussars appear in commemoration of the 1683 Battle of Vienna.  There also is a defiant Józef Piłsudski staring down a Bolshevik soldier during the Polish-Russian War that took place after the First World War.

The Netherlands Welcomes Donald Trump's Presidency    4 February 2017

After the Dutch comedian, Arjen Lubach, released this video on his television show, Zontag met Lubach, on 23 January 2017, following Donald Trump's inauguration as the president of the United States, it went viral.  As of 4 February 2017, one Youtube site with the clip had 18 million views and another more than 9 million views.  In reality, 50 million saw the clip within a few days (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xH6Iae1LAwk).  Other television comedians around the world started producing their own welcome messages, which will serve as fantastic primary-source material for some future historian.  Lubach's video is totally irreverent yet totally funny (be sure to turn on the subtitles).  The source of the clip below is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELD2AwFN9Nc.

Wierd Al Yankovic, Word Crimes    2015

For anyone who enjoys the unusual approach of Wierd Al Yankovic and pays attention to grammar should enjoy his Word Crimes, which is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc&app=desktop.

New Year's Day 2015 Fireworks in Prague and Bratislava    2 January 2015

Fireworks in Bratislava from the Danube River

Fireworks in Bratislava over the City

Fireworks in Prague from Letná

Slovak Crosses and the 2004 Devastation in the Tatry Mountains    18 June 2014

Milan Malast, who created the video on wooden churches in Slovakia that appears on this web page, created two more videos in 2014: Kríž (Cross), which is a study of all types of crosses in Slovakia, and Apokalypsa Tatry (Apocalypse Tatry), which depicts the devastating winds of 2004 that felled so many trees in Slovakia's Tatry National Park. These are available at:

Trabant Commercials and Documentaries    24 December 2013

The German Democratic Republic's Trabant was a simple automobile for socialist families, and it has become a collectible idem throughout Europe.  Below are a number of videos related to the Trabant.
Top Gear Television Documentary -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqWqF56aZtc
Levi's commercial from 1995 that features a Trabant -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yiOPgUs1lA
Motor Week "Over the Edge: Cold War Collectible" -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXt0h30V4no

A Millennium of European History    6 November 2013

Click on http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=f54_1337075813 for a video that shows how the map of Europe changed over the past thousand years.  There are no dates for the border changes, which provides one with a good test of  major events.

Wooden Churches in Slovakia    5 April 2013


The photographer Milan Malast has constructed a video presenting his photographs of wooden churches in Slovakia.  More about Malast is at http://fotoklubnova.sk/content/view/84/39/ (in Slovak).

The History of English in Ten Minutes    28 November 2011

Prague Apartment in 1986    23 November 2011

The concrete apartment block was a unique aspect of life under socialism from in the 1960s until the fall of the Berlin Wall.  Made of concrete panels, the multistory buildings were coveted dwellings for couples, especially in light of the housing shortage that always plagued socialist societies.  In the news clip below from 22 November 1986, two friends of mine from Prague, Hana Podloucká, a bookkeeper, and her husband, Petr Podloucký, now a journalist, photographer, and construction supervisor but at the time working in the field of construction for a uranium mine, take possession of their newly-built apartment.  Watch for the scenes that show the construction of a new apartment building.  The interview begins approximately three minutes into the clip.

http://www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/10132488909-pred-25-lety/211411000111122/video/

Wood Carving Depicting Folk Life in Slovakia    23 November 2011

The owners of Slovak Folk Crafts in Grove City, PA, commissioned an enormous animated carving with 82 moving figures that depicts folk life in Slovakia.  Three Slovak wood carvers did the work, which took them more than two-and-one-half years to complete.  After Slovak Folk Crafts closed, in 2015, the wood carving found a new home at the National Slovak Society’s NSS Life Heritage Museum in McMurray, PA.

First Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goXRwup_Gvk
Second Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc3IZKexSfM&feature=related
Third Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBOVHx8BMig&feature=related

The NSS Life Heritage Museum is at http://nsslife.org/museum/.

Crisis: A Film of ‘The Nazi Way’    23 November 2011

On 13 March 1939, just two days before Hitler invaded the western part of Czecho-Slovakia and  incorporated the territory into the German Third Reich as the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, Crisis: A Film of ‘The Nazi Way’ was released in the United States.  It contains footage shot in Czechoslovakia and smuggled to America that depicts the life of the Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia in the latter half of the 1930s.  The film’s producers were Herbert Kline and Rosa Harvan Kline; associate producer was Hanuš Burger (Hans Burger); script was by Herbert Kline, Hanuš Burger, and Alexander Hackenschmied (Hammid); on-screen commentary was by Vincent Sheean; cinematographer was Alexander Hackenschmied; editing was by Herbert Kline, Hanuš Burger, and Alexander Hackenschmied; montage was by Alexander Hackenschmied; score was by H.W. Susskind and Jaroslav Harvan; orchestration was by Roger Désormières (Désormière); and narration was by Leif Erickson.  Also appearing in the film are the Czech actors and writers Jiří Voscovec and Jan Werich.

1/8  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=try7eIZLN8I&feature=related
2/8  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fM5Cuf3L8zQ&feature=related
3/8  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vyepon6hE9E&feature=related
4/8  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msqVf42048s&feature=related
5/8  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIe8yg6YVAs&feature=related
6/8  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfU_C8ShWag&feature=related
7/8  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxWCZx04_xY&feature=related
8/8  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBKgyryPe8Q&feature=related
The above Youtube frame links to the eighth and final video in the list.

“Zem spieva”: Film about Slovakia from 1933    23 November 2011

Karel Plicka (1894-1987) was a famous Czech photographer, and his photographic books of Slovakia, Prague, Prague Castle, and the Vltava River reveal talents that are comparable to the American photographer Ansel Adams (1902-1984), who was a contemporary of Plicka.

Plicka also ventured into filmmaking, and in 1933, he directed and filmed Zem spieva, translated as The Earth Sings or The Land Sings.  The film is an important record of folk life in Slovakia, particular about the peasants near the Tatry Mountains.  The musical score was by František Škvor (1898-1970), and the editor was Alexander Hackenschmied (1907-2004), who also was involved in Crisis: A Film of ‘The Nazi Way’ (1939).

Zem spieva is 63 minutes long, and it does not appear to be on the Internet.  However, Youtube has several scenes listed below in random order (the clip above is the second clip from the list):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=FBummf5t6Rg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDaIO7y-r7c&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozHtY2y62Pw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1iqEbnmpuk&feature=related
NOTE: This is of lesser quality than the preceding clip,
but it includes a few seconds more in the beginning.