Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Happy birthday, Albert Schweitzer
As regular readers may remember, I like to honour the birthday of Albert Schweitzer on January 14 1875 by remembering him in my Historical Jesus class as close as I can to the occasion. I will therefore be talking about the man today, and I hope to use a few clips from the web, which I will also blog here:
First, there is a short one minute celebration of Schweitzer's life on History.com.
Second, a remarkable French piece featuring a fairly lengthy interview with Schweitzer (in French) from dailymotion.com: Video Docteur Albert Schweitzer. It is apparently from 1961 and the quality is very good.
At about eight minutes in, you can watch the eighty-six year old Schweitzer playing the piano. One delightful thing about this footage is that there is a lot of humour -- Schweitzer comes across as a warm, friendly and funny person. Watch all the way to the end to see him waving at the camera as it departs in a boat.
If you would like to see film of the younger Schweitzer, you will have to make do with a reconstruction. This short clip from the Young Indiana Jones features Schweitzer at the piano, while Indiana Jones surveys his books, including Paul and his Interpreters:
Here is a second clip from the same episode, with Schweitzer on a boat with Indiana:
Here is a third clip, on a boat talking about "reverence for life":
And finally, there is a clip of Schweitzer receiving his honorary degree at Cambridge in 1955 from British Pathe News; you can download this in reasonable quality for free onto your computer, or you can pay for a high resolution version.
First, there is a short one minute celebration of Schweitzer's life on History.com.
Second, a remarkable French piece featuring a fairly lengthy interview with Schweitzer (in French) from dailymotion.com: Video Docteur Albert Schweitzer. It is apparently from 1961 and the quality is very good.
At about eight minutes in, you can watch the eighty-six year old Schweitzer playing the piano. One delightful thing about this footage is that there is a lot of humour -- Schweitzer comes across as a warm, friendly and funny person. Watch all the way to the end to see him waving at the camera as it departs in a boat.
If you would like to see film of the younger Schweitzer, you will have to make do with a reconstruction. This short clip from the Young Indiana Jones features Schweitzer at the piano, while Indiana Jones surveys his books, including Paul and his Interpreters:
Here is a second clip from the same episode, with Schweitzer on a boat with Indiana:
Here is a third clip, on a boat talking about "reverence for life":
And finally, there is a clip of Schweitzer receiving his honorary degree at Cambridge in 1955 from British Pathe News; you can download this in reasonable quality for free onto your computer, or you can pay for a high resolution version.
Labels: schweitzer
Comments:
Bravo. We all stand in his tall shadow - you reminded me to dig out a collection I have of old copies of Life Magazine and such - I am just old enough to recall, as a child, the passing of this remarkable man.
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