Movie, Gamework, Vase, Mask, Choir
How Movies Prepared Us For Coronavirus
Now You See It | YouTube | 13th June 2020
The story of the pandemic told through clips of pre-COVID movies. Makes the argument (without using words) that films about samurai, aliens, zombies, stock market crashes, shark attacks and astronauts are all ultimately about the same arc of human trial and tribulation that we are going through now (8m33s)
Gamework
Games & Culture | YouTube | 16th June 2020
Why is Animal Crossing, a cartoon video game about working to maintain a small village, wildly popular right now? Because in it, "the process of farming is captured for examination in a way that real-world work, so rigidly focused on outcomes, never really permits. We long to shift the focus away from the outcomes and onto the process itself" (13m52s)
Why Did Ozu Cut To A Vase?
Nerdwriter | YouTube | 18th June 2020
This shot, from Yasujirō Ozu's Late Spring, is one of the most famous and widely discussed in all of art cinema. David Bordwell contends that the vase is "an example of Ozu's formal playfulness." Gilles Deleuze theorized that "time is what the mind is made of, so for a few seconds, the shot allows us to observe that basic medium in its pure form" (8m25s)
The Astounding Physics Of N95 Masks
minutephysics | YouTube | 18th June 2020
N95 masks do not, as one might expect, function like strainers. "Unlike strainers, where stacking many identical ones doesn't improve the filter at all, more layers of sticky fibers means more chances for particles to get stuck." These fibers are "electretized," giving them "a long-lasting ability to attract particles, which means they capture about 10x as many particles as regular fibers" (6m07s)
Intriguing Video Of The Week
A performance of Beethoven's "Appassionata" at its "historical tempo" – which is slow
The Viewer is brought to you by the Browser, the curation newsletter for writing of lasting value. The Browser is to writing what The Viewer is to video. Try it for free: https://thebrowser.com/c/the-viewer
Comments? Suggestions? Write to us anytime at editors@theviewer.is
Editor: Abe Callard
Publisher: Uri Bram [uri@theviewer.is]