Carmen can be found all over the web, but for a quick glance at more images, including some recent ones of the now 82 year-old, still working, Carmen click here.

All photos above are of Fritzi. Below, are photos of girls in Munich. All were sourced via a search of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s web site.

TEEN PRODIGIES

What’s more impressive than a teen doing something better than their own parents or teachers? Teen prodigies of today are making apps and writing programs that have applications in science, medicine and entertainment. Before the internet, teens were showing their early chops in the arts and sports. Today we take a look back at our posts about remarkable teens, excelling in their field before they come of age. Check out vanished novelist Barbara Newhall Follett (above), teen rock sensation Charlie Sexton, queen of the slopes Andrea Mead Lawrence, and contemporary stars drummer Izzy Schappeli Spillman and blogger/editor Tavi Gevinson.

Charlie Sexton by Willa Nasatir

Andrea Ski by Kelly Rakowski

Wang Yi, Painter Prodigy by Claire Lucido

Teenage Drummer: Izzy Schappell-Spillman by Matt Wolf

Teen Witch BFF: An Interview with Tavi by Isadora Schappell-Spillman

Teens dance and take breaks to confess what really turns ‘em off. Seems that not much has changed: Don’t have bad breath, and don’t be late. Don’t be ignorant or negative! Cool moves and sassy ‘tudes.

From an episode of the 1980s reality show “Dancing on Air,” from Philadelphia’s Channel 17 WPHL-TV via Liveleaks.com.

GANGS

For better or worse, teens and gang life have always gone hand in hand. Some gangs are harmless, more focused on creating space for teens with stuff in common to hang out. Others of course, are more notorious. From New Zealand to Chicago to Zaire, from the 50s to the present, here’s a look back at our coverage of teen gangs around the world. We still can’t believe that Chicago gangbangers in the 70s carried around business cards.

80 Blocks from Tiffany’s by Kelly Rakowski

Teenage Gang Debs by the Teenage Editor

Black Power, Christchurch by Kelly Rakowski

Chicago Gousters by the Teenage Editor

 The Bills by Kelly Rakowski

The Jokers by Abigail Wilson

Terrifying! Gangs! Of England! by Kelly Rakowski

Since 1996, Radio Diaries has been giving young people tape recorders and asking them to tell their stories, which are then broadcast nationally on All Things Considered. Eleven of these stories are available on their website, and each chronicles a unique aspect of teen life in America in the mid-90s. Listen to Jeff talk about growing up half-black and half-white in Dorchester, Massachusetts, Amanda’s struggle coming out to her family, or Melissa’s journey as a teenage mom.

Their Teen Reporter Handbook trains teens on how to make radio diaries and interview people in their communities in order to tell unique stories of their own lives and the people around them. It is available for free download here.

NPR’s All Things Considered is airing “Teenage Diaries Revisited” all this week. And for teens looking to join the next generation of radio diary contributors, click here.

[Thanks for the tip Carl!]

Northern Soul began in the working-class clubs of the north of England, where an unprecedented dance scene took hold of the 1970s generation. The music wasn’t local; it came from America, but legendary all-night dance marathons like those at the Wigan Casino claimed it as their own. Photographer Elaine Constantine is directing a new movie (to be released this year) aiming to capture the madness, using hundreds of actors and dancers who weren’t even alive at the time.

Archive footage from Wigan Casino demonstrates the exuberance of the movement, one that would last only a few short years. One young man, when asked by an interviewer how he would feel if the scene were shut down, neatly sums up the effect Constantine’s film hopes to capture: ‘Instant nostalgia.’

Put your balgha on and take a stroll through the streets of Morocco…

Above, a young bride.

September, 1989. 18 year-old Lisa Lopes‘ audition tape for a rap competition in NY. She hand delivered it an hour before the deadline and she wrote it all, of course.  Lopes later created the Lisa Lopes Foundation dedicated to providing resources for neglected and abandoned youths. Her spiritual motto was “energy never dies…it just transforms.”

We couldn’t find hundreds of hours of archival footage by ourselves. Our Lead Archival Researcher Rosemary Rotondi, and a team of researchers obsessively scoured the world for images and footage of youth from 1900 through the end of World War II.

But a story like Teenage can’t just be an intellectual history… it needs to match the emotional intensity of its subject. The personal stories of individuals helped me internalize the history. We found four characters, who together create a composite portrait of the emerging “teenager”: Brenda Dean Paul, a notorious drug addict and fixture of England’s Bright Young People; Melita Maschmann, an idealistic Hitler Youth; Tommie Scheel, a proto-punk German Swing Kid; and Warren Wall, an African American boy scout. These are real people from the past, but there’s no footage of them… We needed to create our own.

I collaborated with a big team to make recreations in the style of vintage home movies. My cinematographer Nick Bentgen worked incredibly hard to degrade 16mm film… he stripped coating off lenses and striked bleach bypass prints of our footage, and then he hand-scratched every frame to give our footage the grimy look we were after.

Production Designer Inbal Weinberg poured through references and prop houses to create vivid teenage bedrooms for Brenda, Melita, Tommie, and Warren. And Costume Designer Tere Duncan brought their everyday style to life—from gender-bending freak party costumes to a 1940s boy scout uniform.

But the film really came together in the edit room. Joe Beshenkovsky and I worked together for over a year to merge this disparate material into a single story. Music would be the glue that connects all the moving parts. It was amazing to wake up in the morning to new music cues by one of my favorite artists, Bradford Cox.

I think the stylized voice-over in Teenage is what makes the film unconventional. The entire story is told from the point of view of youth, and you’re literally experiencing the course of history in a teenager’s head. We sourced hundreds of actual quotes from youth, and I was lucky to work with some incredible actors to bring them to life. Jena Malone, Ben Whishaw, Julia Hummer, and Jessie Usher helped me figure out how to tell a story in a different way.

A lot of times when a film gets finished, all the credit goes to the Director. But the people who work most closely with me are my producers. Kyle Martin, Ben Howe, and our producing collaborators are sort of like filmmaking family. They helped conceive this project, and then make sure it could grow up and find a life of it’s own.

A film like Teenage needs adventurous partners. Cinereach pushed me to make the most ambitious creative decisions, not the easy ones that have been tried before. They provided a home, where all these collaborators were encouraged to try something challenging and new.

This blog isn’t just about the film Teenage, it’s about the bigger themes that come from it. While the stories in Teenage take place in the past, the ideas are about the future. Keep coming back to this site because we’ll be posting regular bites of youth culture—photo essays, music mixes, YouTube videos, and diary entries. There are hidden histories and teenage pioneers in every generation, and this website is about paying tribute to them.

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and now Instagram to keep in touch. Thanks for checking out our site and the film.

-Matt Wolf

Production Stills by Anna Rose Holmer / Poster designed by Erik Buckham