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Metropolis is a 1927 German expressionist science-fiction silent film directed by Fritz Lang and written by Thea von Harbou in collaboration with Lang from von Harbou's 1925 novel of the same name (which was intentionally written as a treatment). It stars Gustav Fröhlich, Alfred Abel, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, and Brigitte Helm. Erich Pommer produced it in the Babelsberg Studios for Universum Film A.G. (UFA). The silent film is regarded as a pioneering science-fiction movie, being among the first feature-length movies of that genre. Filming took place over 17 months in 1925-26 at a cost of more than five million Reichsmarks, or the equivalent of about €21 million.

Made in Germany during the Weimar period, Metropolis is set in a futuristic urban dystopia and follows the attempts of Freder, the wealthy son of the city master, and Maria, a saintly figure to the workers, to overcome the vast gulf separating the classes in their city and bring the workers together with Joh Fredersen, the city master. The film's message is encompassed in the final inter-title: "The Mediator Between the Head and the Hands Must Be the Heart".

Metropolis met a mixed reception upon release. Critics found it visually beautiful and powerful - the film's art direction by Otto Hunte, Erich Kettelhut, and Karl Vollbrecht draws influence from opera, Bauhaus, Cubist, and Futurist design, along with touches of the Gothic in the scenes in the catacombs, the cathedral and Rotwang's house - and lauded its complex special effects, but accused its story of being naive. H. G. Wells described the film as "silly", and The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction calls the story "trite" and its politics "ludicrously simplistic". Its alleged communist message was also criticized.

The film's long running time also came in for criticism. It was cut substantially after its German premiere. Many attempts have been made since the 1970s to restore the film. In 1984, Italian music producer Giorgio Moroder released a truncated version with a soundtrack by rock artists including Freddie Mercury, Loverboy, and Adam Ant. In 2001, a new reconstruction of Metropolis was shown at the Berlin Film Festival. In 2008, a damaged print of Lang's original cut of the film was found in a museum in Argentina. To quote the opening explanation in the restored film: "...The material was heavily damaged and, because it had been printed on 16mm film stock, does not have the full-aperture silent picture ratio. ...In order to maintain the scale of the restored footage, the missing portion of the frame appears black. Black frames indicate points at which footage is still lost." After a long restoration process that required additional materials provided by a print from New Zealand, the film was 95% restored and shown on large screens in Berlin and Frankfurt simultaneously on 12 February 2010.

Metropolis is now widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential films ever made, ranking 67th in Sight & Sound's 2022 critics' poll. In 2001, the film was inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register, the first film thus distinguished.

On 1 January 2023, the film's United States copyright expired, entering the public domain in that country.

In the future, wealthy industrialists and business magnates and their top employees reign over the city of Metropolis from colossal skyscrapers, while underground-dwelling workers toil to operate the great machines that power it. Joh Fredersen is the city's master. His son, Freder, idles away his time at sports and in a pleasure garden, but is interrupted by the arrival of a young woman named Maria, who has brought a group of workers' children to witness the lifestyle of their rich "brothers". Maria and the children are ushered away, but Freder becomes fascinated by her and goes to the lower levels to find her. In the machine halls, he witnesses the explosion of a huge machine that kills and injures numerous workers. Freder has a hallucination that the machine is a temple of Moloch and the workers are being fed to it. When the hallucination ends, and he sees the dead workers being carried away on stretchers, he hurries to tell his father about the accident.

Grot, foreman of the Heart Machine, brings Fredersen secret maps found on the dead workers. Fredersen fires his assistant Josaphat for not being the first to bring him details about the explosion or the maps. After seeing his father's cold indifference towards the harsh conditions faced by the workers, Freder secretly rebels against him by deciding to help the workers. He enlists Josaphat's assistance and returns to the machine halls, where he trades places with a worker who has collapsed from exhaustion.

Fredersen takes the maps to the inventor Rotwang to learn their meaning. Rotwang had been in love with a woman named Hel, who left him to marry Fredersen and later died giving birth to Freder. Rotwang shows Fredersen a robot he has built to " resurrect" Hel. The maps show a network of catacombs beneath Metropolis, and the two men go to investigate. They eavesdrop on a gathering of workers, including Freder. Maria addresses them, prophesying the arrival of a mediator who can bring the working and ruling classes together. Freder believes he can fill the role and declares his love for Maria.

Fredersen orders Rotwang to give Maria's likeness to the robot so that it can discredit her among the workers, but is unaware that Rotwang plans to use the robot to destroy Metropolis and ruin both Fredersen and Freder. Rotwang kidnaps Maria, transfers her likeness to the robot, then sends the robot to Fredersen. Freder finds the two embracing and, believing it is the real Maria, falls into a prolonged delirium. Intercut with his hallucinations, the false Maria unleashes chaos throughout Metropolis, driving men to murder and stirring dissent among the workers.

Freder recovers and returns to the catacombs, accompanied by Josaphat. Finding the false Maria urging the workers to rise up and destroy the machines, he accuses her of not being the real Maria. The workers follow the false Maria from their city to the machine halls, leaving their children behind. They destroy the machines, triggering a flood in their city deeper underground. The real Maria, having escaped from Rotwang's house, rescues the children with help from Freder and Josaphat. Grot berates the celebrating workers for abandoning their children in the flooded city. Believing their children to be dead, the hysterical workers capture the false Maria and burn her at the stake. A horrified Freder watches, not understanding the deception, until the fire reveals her to be a robot. Rotwang becomes delusional, seeing the real Maria as his lost Hel, and chases her to the roof of the cathedral, pursued by Freder. The two men fight as Fredersen and the workers watch from the street, and Rotwang falls to his death. Freder fulfills his role as mediator by linking the hands of Fredersen and Grot to bring them together.

Four roles (The Creative Man, The Machine Man, Death, The Seven Deadly Sins) are included in the opening credits but do not list any actors' names.

Among the uncredited actors are Margarete Lanner, Helen von Münchofen, Olaf Storm, Georg John, Helene Weigel and Fritz Alberti.

One scene in which Freder listens to a monk preaching in the city cathedral has been lost. However, the 2010 restoration includes a call-back to the scene, with Freder hallucinating that the Thin Man is the monk.

Metropolis features a range of elaborate special effects and set designs, ranging from a huge gothic cathedral to a futuristic cityscape. In an interview, Fritz Lang reported that "the film was born from my first sight of the skyscrapers in New York in October 1924". He had visited New York City for the first time and remarked "I looked into the streets-the glaring lights and the tall buildings-and there I conceived Metropolis," although in actuality Lang and Harbou had been at work on the idea for over a year. Describing his first impressions of the city, Lang said that "the buildings seemed to be a vertical sail, scintillating and very light, a luxurious backdrop, suspended in the dark sky to dazzle, distract and hypnotize". He added "The sight of Neuyork [sic] alone should be enough to turn this beacon of beauty into the center of a film..."

The appearance of the city in Metropolis is strongly informed by the Art Deco movement; however, it also incorporates elements from other traditions. Ingeborg Hoesterey described the architecture featured in Metropolis as eclectic, writing how its locales represent both "functionalist modernism [and] art deco" whilst also featuring "the scientist's archaic little house with its high-powered laboratory, the catacombs [and] the Gothic cathedral". The film's use of art deco architecture was highly influential, and has been reported to have contributed to the style's subsequent popularity in Europe and America. The New Babel Tower, for instance, has been inspired by Upper Silesian Tower in Poznań fairgrounds, which was recognized in Germany as a masterpiece of architecture.

Lang's visit to several Hollywood studios in the same 1924 trip also influenced the film in another way: Lang and producer Erich Pommer realized that to compete with the vertical integration of Hollywood, their next film would have to be bigger, broader, and better made than anything they had made before. Despite UFA's growing debt, Lang announced that Metropolis would be "the costliest and most ambitious picture ever."

The film drew heavily on biblical sources for several of its key set-pieces. During her first talk to the workers, Maria uses the story of the Tower of Babel to highlight the discord between the intellectuals and the workers. Additionally, a delusional Freder imagines the false-Maria as the Whore of Babylon, riding on the back of a many-headed dragon.

The name of the Yoshiwara club alludes to the famous red-light district of Tokyo.

Much of the plot line of Metropolis stems from the First World War and the culture of the Weimar Republic in Germany. Lang explores the themes of industrialization and mass production in his film; two developments that played a large role in the war. Other post-World War I themes that Lang includes in Metropolis include the Weimar view of American modernity, fascism, and communism.

Metropolis's screenplay was written by Thea von Harbou, a popular writer in Weimar Germany, jointly with Lang, her then-husband. The film's plot originated from a novel of the same title written by Harbou for the sole purpose of being made into a film. The novel in turn drew inspiration from H. G. Wells, Mary Shelley and Villiers de l'Isle-Adam's works and other German dramas. The novel featured strongly in the film's marketing campaign, and was serialized in the journal Illustriertes Blatt in the run-up to its release. Harbou and Lang collaborated on the screenplay derived from the novel, and several plot points and thematic elements-including most of the references to magic and occultism present in the novel-were dropped.

Lang and Harbou in their Berlin apartment in 1923 or 1924, about the time they were working on the scenario for Metropolis

The screenplay itself went through many rewrites, and at one point featured an ending where Freder flew to the stars; this plot element later became the basis for Lang's Woman in the Moon. The time setting of Metropolis is open to interpretation. The 2010 re-release and reconstruction, which incorporated the original title cards written by Thea von Harbou, do not specify a year. Before the reconstruction, Lotte Eisner and Paul M. Jensen placed the events happening around the year 2000. Giorgio Moroder's re-scored version included a title card placing the film in 2026, while Paramount's original US release said the film takes place in 3000. A note in one edition of Harbou's novel says that the story does not take place at any particular place or time, in the past or the future. Meanwhile, the 1963 Ace Books edition which reprints the 1927 English edition specifies the setting as "The World of 2026 A.D."

Metropolis began principal photography on 22 May 1925 with an initial budget of 1.5 million ℛ︁ℳ︁. Lang cast two unknowns with little film experience in the lead roles. Gustav Fröhlich (Freder) had worked in vaudeville and was originally employed as an extra on Metropolis before Thea von Harbou recommended him to Lang. Brigitte Helm (Maria) had been given a screen test by Lang after he met her on the set of Die Nibelungen, but would make her feature film debut with Metropolis. In the role of Joh Fredersen, Lang cast Alfred Abel, a noted stage and screen actor whom he had worked with on Dr. Mabuse the Gambler. Lang also cast his frequent collaborator Rudolph Klein-Rogge in the role of Rotwang. This was Klein-Rogge's fourth film with Lang, after , Dr. Mabuse the Gambler, and Die Nibelungen.

Shooting of the film was a draining experience for the actors involved due to the demands that Lang placed on them. For the scene where the workers' city was flooded, Helm and 500 children from the poorest districts of Berlin had to work for 14 days in a pool of water that Lang intentionally kept at a low temperature. Lang would frequently demand numerous re-takes, and took two days to shoot a simple scene where Freder collapses at Maria's feet; by the time Lang was satisfied with the footage he had shot, actor Gustav Fröhlich found he could barely stand. Other anecdotes involve Lang's insistence on using real fire for the climactic scene where the false Maria is burnt at the stake (which resulted in Helm's dress catching fire), and his ordering extras to throw themselves towards powerful jets of water when filming the flooding of the workers' city.

Helm recalled her experiences of shooting the film in a contemporary interview, saying that "the night shots lasted three weeks, and even if they did lead to the greatest dramatic moments-even if we did follow Fritz Lang's directions as though in a trance, enthusiastic and enraptured at the same time-I can't forget the incredible strain that they put us under. The work wasn't easy, and the authenticity in the portrayal ended up testing our nerves now and then. For instance, it wasn't fun at all when Grot drags me by the hair, to have me burned at the stake. Once I even fainted: during the transformation scene, Maria, as the android, is clamped in a kind of wooden armament, and because the shot took so long, I didn't get enough air."

Despite the hardships, Thea von Harbou recounted how the film set was paradise for the hundreds of poor, malnourished children used as extras. In 1927 in Metropolis Magazine, von Harbou describes their warm and clean rooms, time for play, and ample toys and hot meals four times a day. "No film ever had more enthusiastic and willing collaborators than these little children," she recalled, "always willing to dash into the chilly water [...] like perfect actors".

UFA invited several trade journal representatives and several film critics to see the film's shooting as parts of its promotion campaign.

Shooting lasted 17 months, with 310 shooting days and 60 shooting nights, and was finally completed on 30 October 1926. By the time shooting finished, the film's budget leapt to 5.3 million Reichsmarks, or over three and a half times the original budget. Producer Erich Pommer had been fired during production.

The effects expert Eugen Schüfftan created pioneering visual effects for Metropolis. Among the effects used are miniatures of the city, a camera on a swing, and most notably, the Schüfftan process, in which mirrors are used to create the illusion that actors are occupying miniature sets. This new technique was seen again just two years later in Alfred Hitchcock's film (1929).

A film scene with Maschinenmensch.

The Maschinenmensch - the robot built by Rotwang to resurrect his lost love Hel - was created by sculptor Walter Schulze-Mittendorff. A whole-body plaster cast was taken of actress Brigitte Helm, and the costume was then constructed around it. A chance discovery of a sample of "plastic wood" (a pliable substance designed as wood-filler) allowed Schulze-Mittendorff to build a costume that would both appear metallic and allow a small amount of free movement. Helm sustained cuts and bruises while in character as the robot, as the costume was rigid and uncomfortable.

Gottfried Huppertz composed the film's score for a large orchestra. He drew inspiration from Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss, and combined a classical orchestral style with mild modernist touches to portray the film's massive industrial city of workers. Nestled within the original score were quotations of Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle's " La Marseillaise" and the traditional " Dies Irae", the latter of which was matched to the film's apocalyptic imagery. Huppertz's music played a prominent role during the film's production; the composer often played piano on Lang's set to inform the actors' performances. Huppertz's score only accompanied the film once, at its original premiere. Sections of the score were recorded and released by the record label Vox.

The full score was not recorded until 2001, for the film's first comprehensive restoration, with Berndt Heller conducting the Rundfunksinfonieorchester Saarbrücken. It was released internationally on various DVD editions beginning in 2003.

In 2007, Huppertz's score was also played live by the VCS Radio Symphony, which accompanied the restored version of the film at Brenden Theatres in Vacaville, California. The score was also produced in a salon orchestration, which was performed for the first time in the United States in August 2007 by The Bijou Orchestra under the direction of Leo Najar as part of a German Expressionist film festival in Bay City, Michigan. The same forces also performed the work at the Traverse City Film Festival in Traverse City, Michigan in August 2009.

For the film's 2010 "complete" restoration premiere, Huppertz's score was performed live and subsequently re-recorded by the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Frank Strobel. This version was released internationally on various DVD and Blu-ray editions beginning in 2010.

Various artists have created other scores for Metropolis:

In 1975, the BBC provided an electronic score composed by William Fitzwater and Hugh Davies.[45]

In 1978, Australian composer Chris Neal created an experimental score for the film. It was performed live around Sydney throughout 1979.

In 1984, Giorgio Moroder restored and produced the 80-minute 1984 re-release, which had a pop soundtrack written by Moroder and performed by Moroder, Pat Benatar, Bonnie Tyler, Jon Anderson, Adam Ant, Cycle V, Loverboy, Billy Squier, and Freddie Mercury.

In 1991, the Club Foot Orchestra created an original score that was performed live with the film. It was also recorded for CD.

In 1994, Montenegrin experimental rock musician Rambo Amadeus wrote his version of the musical score for Metropolis. At the screening of the film in Belgrade, the score was played by the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra.

In 1998, the material was recorded and released on the album Metropolis B (tour-de-force).[46]

In 2000, Jeff Mills created a techno score for Metropolis which was released as an album. He also performed the score live at public screenings of the film.

In 2004, Abel Korzeniowski created a score for Metropolis played live by a 90-piece orchestra and a choir of 60 voices and two soloists. The first performance took place at the Era Nowe Horyzonty Film Festival in Poland.

In 2004, Ronnie Cramer produced a score and effects soundtrack for Metropolis that won two Aurora awards.[48]

The New Pollutants (Mister Speed and DJ Tr!p) has performed Metropolis Rescore live for festivals since 2005[citation needed ] and rescored to the 2010 version of the film for premiere at the 2011 Adelaide Film Festival.[49]

By 2010, the Alloy Orchestra had scored four different versions of the film, including Moroder's, and most recently for the American premiere of the 2010 restoration. A recording of Alloy's full score was commissioned by Kino Lorber, with the intention of it being issued on their remastered Blu-ray and DVD as an alternative soundtrack, but this was vetoed by Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung, which owns the copyright to the restoration and mandates that only their own score can accompany it. Alloy's score is available on its website and can be synchronised to the film independently.[50][51]

In 2012, Dieter Moebius was invited to perform music to the film. For that purpose, he produced pre-arranged tracks and samples, combined with live improvisation. He died in 2015, but the project was completed and released in 2016, as Musik für Metropolis.

Also in 2014, Spanish band Caspervek Trio premiered a new score at "La Galería Jazz" Vigo, with further performances in Budapest, Riga and Groningen. Metavari rescored Metropolis as a commission from Fort Wayne, Indiana's Cinema Center for Art House Theater Day 2016.[53] The score was released worldwide on One Way Static Records for Record Store Day 2017 and distributed in the United States by Light in the Attic Records.[54][55]

In 2017, Factory Floor performed their own soundtrack at the London Science Museum as part of their Robot Exhibition.[56] An album was released of their composition for the film in October 2018 called Soundtrack to a Film.[57]

In February 2018, organist Brett Miller transcribed Gottfried Huppertz' original score as a benefit for JDRF live at the Trenton War Memorial. His performance was featured in March of that year in PBS's State of the Arts.[58]

Also in 2019, the Bach Elgar Choir, under director Alexander Cann, presented a live soundtrack to the film, which included prepared improvised music as well as compositions by Ravel, Ives, Honegger, Canadian composer Harry Freedman, and excerpts from Huppertz's original soundtrack. The choir was joined by four instrumentalists (Chris Palmer, electric guitar, Evelyn Charlotte Joe, double bass, Connor Bennett, tenor saxophone, Krista Rhodes, keyboard).[61]

Advertisement for the film from New Zealand with misprint: (Try to descibe [sic] it).

Metropolis was distributed by Parufamet, a company formed in December 1925 by the American film studios Paramount Pictures and Metro Goldwyn Mayer to loan $4 million (US) to UFA. The film had its world premiere at the UFA-Palast am Zoo in Berlin on 10 January 1927, where the audience, including a critic from the Berliner Morgenpost, reacted to several of the film's most spectacular scenes with "spontaneous applause". However, others have suggested the premiere was met with muted applause interspersed with boos and hisses.

At the time of its German premiere, Metropolis had a length of 4,189 metres, which is approximately 153 minutes at 24 frames per second (fps). UFA's distribution deal with Paramount and MGM "entitled [them] to make any change [to films produced by UFA] they found appropriate to ensure profitability". Considering that Metropolis was too long and unwieldy, Parufamet commissioned American playwright Channing Pollock to write a simpler version of the film that could be assembled using the existing material. Pollock shortened the film dramatically, altered its inter-titles and removed all references to the character of Hel, because the name sounded too similar to the English word Hell, thereby removing Rotwang's original motivation for creating his robot. Pollock said about the original film that it was "symbolism run such riot that people who saw it couldn't tell what the picture was about. ... I have given it my meaning." Lang's response to the re-editing of the film was to say "I love films, so I shall never go to America. Their experts have slashed my best film, Metropolis, so cruelly that I dare not see it while I am in England." The Hel storyline would be partially restored in Giorgio Moroder's 1984 version, and subsequent versions completely restored it.

Reprise announcement of Fritz Lang's 'Metropolis' at Cine Pedro II, in Parque do Anhangabaú (São Paulo, Brazil, 18 July 1930)

In Pollock's cut, the film ran for 3,170 metres, or approximately 116 minutes-although a contemporary review in of a showing in Los Angeles gave the running time as 107 minutes, and another source lists it at 105 minutes. This version of Metropolis premiered in the United States in March 1927, and was released, in a slightly different and longer version (128 minutes) in the United Kingdom around the same time with different title cards.

Alfred Hugenberg, a German nationalist businessman, cancelled UFA's debt to Paramount and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer after taking charge of the company in April 1927, and chose to halt distribution in German cinemas of Metropolis in its original form. Hugenberg had the film cut down to a length of 3,241 metres (about 118 minutes), broadly along the lines of Pollock's edit, removing the film's perceived "inappropriate" communist subtext and religious imagery. Hugenberg's cut of the film was released in German cinemas in August 1927. Later, after demands for more cuts by Nazi censors, UFA distributed a still shorter version of the film (2,530 metres, 91 minutes) in 1936, and an English version of this cut was archived in the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) film library in the 1930s. It was this version which was the basis of all versions of Metropolis until the recent restorations. In 1986 it was recopied and returned to Germany to be the basis of the 1987 Munich Archive restoration.

Despite the film's later reputation, some contemporary critics panned it. Critic Mordaunt Hall of The New York Times called it a "technical marvel with feet of clay". A review by H. G. Wells dated 17 April 1927 accused it of "foolishness, cliché, platitude, and muddlement about mechanical progress and progress in general". He faulted Metropolis for its premise that automation created drudgery rather than relieving it, wondered who was buying the machines' output if not the workers, and found parts of the story derivative of Shelley's Frankenstein, Karel Čapek's , and his own The Sleeper Awakes. Wells called Metropolis "quite the silliest film", but the New York Herald Tribune called it "a weird and fascinating picture".

In The New Yorker Oliver Claxton called Metropolis "unconvincing and overlong", faulting much of the plot as "laid on with a terrible Teutonic heaviness, and an unnecessary amount of philosophizing in the beginning" that made the film "as soulless as the city of its tale". He also called the acting "uninspired with the exception of Brigitte Helm". Nevertheless, Claxton wrote that "the setting, the use of people and their movement, and various bits of action stand out as extraordinary and make it nearly an obligatory picture." Other critics considered the film a remarkable achievement that surpassed even its high expectations, praising its visual splendour and ambitious production values.

Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels was impressed with the film's message of social justice. In a 1928 speech he said, "the political bourgeoisie is about to leave the stage of history. In its place advance the oppressed producers of the head and hand, the forces of Labor, to begin their historical mission". Shortly after the Nazis came to power, Goebbels told Lang that, on the basis of their seeing Metropolis together years before, Hitler had said that he wanted Lang to make Nazi films.

German cultural critic Siegfried Kracauer later wrote of Metropolis, "The Americans relished its technical excellence; the English remained aloof; the French were stirred by a film which seemed to them a blend of [composer] Wagner and [armaments manufacturer] Krupp, and on the whole an alarming sign of Germany's vitality."

Lang later expressed dissatisfaction with the film. In an interview with Peter Bogdanovich in Who the Devil Made It: Conversations with Legendary Film Directors, published in 1998, he expressed his reservations:

The main thesis was Mrs. Von Harbou's, but I am at least 50 percent responsible because I did it. I was not so politically minded in those days as I am now. You cannot make a social-conscious picture in which you say that the intermediary between the hand and the brain is the heart. I mean, that's a fairy tale-definitely. But I was very interested in machines. Anyway, I didn't like the picture-thought it was silly and stupid-then, when I saw the astronauts: what else are they but part of a machine? It's very hard to talk about pictures-should I say now that I like Metropolis because something I have seen in my imagination comes true, when I detested it after it was finished?

In his profile of Lang, which introduced the interview, Bogdanovich suggested that Lang's distaste for his film also stemmed from the Nazi Party's fascination with it. Von Harbou became a member of the Party in 1933. She and Lang divorced the following year. Lang later moved to the United States to escape the Nazis, while Harbou stayed in Germany and continued to write state-approved films.

According to Roger Ebert, " Metropolis is one of the great achievements of the silent era, a work so audacious in its vision and so angry in its message that it is, if anything, more powerful today than when it was made." Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide's entry on the film reads, "Heavy going at times but startling set design and special effects command attention throughout."

Colin Greenland reviewed Metropolis for magazine, and stated that "It's a measure of the sheer power of Lang's vision that it survives this heavy-handed cosmetic modernizing quite intact. Inspired by his first sight of Manhattan, Metropolis is a dark dream of the city of 2026, where the idle rich live in penthouses and play in rooftop pleasure gardens while the faceless workers toil in the machine caverns far, far below."

The film has an approval rating of 97% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 126 reviews, with an average rating of 9.1/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "A visually awe-inspiring science fiction classic from the silent era." In Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 98 out of 100 based on 14 critics, Indicating "universal acclaim". It also ranked 12th in magazine's "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010. The 2002 version was awarded the New York Film Critics Circle Awards "Special Award" for the restoration. In 2012, in correspondence with the Sight & Sound Poll, the British Film Institute called Metropolis the 35th-greatest film of all time. In the 2022 version of the poll, Metropolis fell slightly to 67th place.

Lane Roth in Film Quarterly called it a "seminal film" because of its concerns with "profound impact technological progress has on man's social and spiritual progress" and concluded that "ascendancy of artifact over nature is depicted not as liberating man, but as subjugating and corrupting him". Martin Scorsese included it on a list of "39 Essential Foreign Films for a Young Filmmaker."

Exploring the dramatic production background and historical importance of the film's complex political context in The American Conservative, film historian Cristobal Catalan suggests "Metropolis is a passionate call, and equally a passionate caution, for social change". Peter Bradshaw noted that The Maschinenmensch based on Maria is "a brilliant eroticisation and fetishisation of modern technology".

Poster for the 2002 restored version, featuring the Maschinenmensch

The original premiere cut of Metropolis has been lost, and for decades the film could be seen only in heavily truncated edits that lacked nearly a quarter of the original length. But over the years, various elements of footage have been rediscovered. This was the case even though cinematographer Karl Freund followed the usual practice of the time of securing three printable takes of each shot in order to create three camera negatives which could be edited for striking prints. Two of these negatives were destroyed when Paramount reedited the film for the US market and the UK market. UFA itself cut the third negative for the August 1927 release.

East German version (1972)

Between 1968 and 1972, the Staatliches Filmarchiv der DDR, with the help of film archives from around the world, put together a version of Metropolis which restored some scenes and footage, but the effort was hobbled by a lack of a guide, such as an original script, to determine what, exactly, was in the original version.

Giorgio Moroder version (1984)

In 1984, a new restoration and edit of the film, running 83 minutes, was made by Italian music producer Giorgio Moroder, who paid $200,000 for the rights, outbidding his collaborator David Bowie. Although Moroder initially intended only to create a new soundtrack, he was surprised by the lack of a definitive print, and expanded his project to a major reconstruction. Moroder's version, which was made in consultation with the Munich Film Archive and their archivist, Enno Patalas, was tinted to emphasise the different moods and locations in the film. It also featured additional special effects, replaced intertitles of character dialogue with subtitles and incorporated a soundtrack featuring songs Moroder composed, produced and recorded with popular artists such as Freddie Mercury, Bonnie Tyler, Pat Benatar, Adam Ant and Jon Anderson. It was the first serious attempt made at restoring Metropolis to Lang's original vision, and until the restorations in 2001 and 2010, it was the most complete version of the film commercially available. The shorter run time was due to the extensive use of subtitles for spoken lines instead of title cards, a faster frame rate than the original, and the fact that large amounts of footage were still missing at the time.

Moroder's version of Metropolis generally received poor reviews. Moroder responded to the critics who lambasted his production for not being faithful to the original in The New York Times: "I didn't touch the original because there is no original." The film was nominated for two Raspberry Awards, Worst Original Song for " Love Kills" and Worst Musical Score for Moroder. However, Bonnie Tyler was nominated for Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance at the 27th Grammy Awards for "Here She Comes".

In August 2011, after years of the Moroder version being unavailable on video in any format due to music licensing problems, it was announced that Kino International had managed to resolve the situation, and the film was to be released on Blu-ray and DVD in November. In addition, the film enjoyed a limited theatrical re-release.

In 2012, the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films gave "Giorgio Moroder Presents Metropolis" a Saturn Award for Best DVD/Blu-Ray Special Edition Release.

Soundtrack

Munich Archive version (1987)

The moderate commercial success of the Moroder version inspired Enno Patalas, the archivist of the Munich Film Archive, to make an exhaustive attempt to restore the movie in 1986. Starting from the version in the Museum of Modern Art collection, this version took advantage of new acquisitions and newly discovered German censorship records of the original inter-titles, as well as the musical score and other materials from the estate of composer Gottfried Huppertz. The Munich restoration also utilized newly rediscovered still photographs to represent scenes that were still missing from the film. The Munich version was 9,840 feet, or 109 minutes long.

Restored Authorized Edition (2001)

In 1998, Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung commissioned film preservationist Martin Koerber to create a "definitive" restoration of Metropolis by expanding on the Munich version. Previously unknown sections of the film were discovered in film museums and archives around the world, including a nitrate original camera negative from the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv, as well as nitrate prints from the George Eastman House, the British Film Institute and the Cineteca Italiana. These original film elements, digitally cleaned and repaired to remove defects, were used to assemble the film. Newly written intertitles were used to explain missing scenes.

The 2001 restoration premiered on 15 February 2001 at the Berlin Film Festival, with a new score by Bernd Schultheis, performed live by the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin. For theatrical and DVD release, it featured a new recording of Huppertz's original score performed by a 65-piece orchestra. The running time is 124 minutes at 24 fps, and it was released internationally on various DVD editions beginning in 2003.

The Complete Metropolis (2010)

On 1 July 2008, film experts in Berlin announced that a 16 mm reduction negative of the original cut had been discovered in the archives of the Museo del Cine in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The negative was a safety reduction made in the 1960s or 1970s from a 35 mm positive of Lang's original version, which an Argentinian film distributor had obtained in advance of arranging theatrical engagements in South America. The safety reduction was intended to safeguard the contents in case the original's flammable nitrate film stock was destroyed. The negative was passed to a private collector, an art foundation and finally the Museo del Cine.

The print was investigated by the Argentinian film collector/historian and TV presenter Fernando Martín Peña, along with Paula Felix-Didier, the head of the museum, after Peña heard an anecdote from a cinema club manager expressing surprise at the length of a print of Metropolis he had viewed. The print was indeed Lang's full original, with about 25 minutes of footage, around one-fifth of the film, that had not been seen since 1927.

Under the auspices of the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung, Berlin's Deutsche Kinemathek and Museo del Cine, a group of experts, including Anke Wilkening, Martin Koerber, and Frank Strobel began combining the newly discovered footage with the existing footage from the 2001 restoration. A major problem was that the Argentinian footage was in poor condition and had many scratches, streaks, and changes in brightness. The group was able to repair some of this damage using digital technology that had not yet been developed in 2001. The reconstruction of the film with the new footage was once again accompanied by the original music score, including Huppertz's handwritten notes, which acted as the key resource in determining the places in which the restored footage would go. Since the Argentinian print was a complete version of the original, some scenes from the 2001 restoration were put in different places than previously, and the tempo of the original editing was restored.

In 2005, Australian historian and politician Michael Organ had examined a print of the film in the National Film Archive of New Zealand. Organ discovered that the print contained scenes missing from other copies of the film. After hearing of the discovery of the Argentine print of the film and the restoration project, Organ contacted the German restorers; the New Zealand print contained 11 missing scenes and featured some brief pieces of footage that were used to restore damaged sections of the Argentine print. It is believed that the New Zealand and Argentine prints were all sourced from the same master. The newly discovered footage was used in the restoration project. The Argentine print was in poor condition and required considerable restoration before it was re-premiered in February 2010. Two short sequences, depicting a monk preaching and a fight between Rotwang and Fredersen, were damaged beyond repair. Title cards describing the action were inserted by the restorers to compensate. The Argentine print revealed new scenes that enriched the film's narrative complexity. The characters of Josaphat, the Thin Man, and 11811 appear throughout the film and the character Hel is reintroduced.

The 2010 restoration was premiered on 12 February 2010 at the Berlin Friedrichstadtpalast. Huppertz's score was performed by the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Frank Strobel, who also re-recorded it for theatrical and home video release. The performance was a gala screening as part of the 60th Berlinale and had several simultaneous screenings. It was also shown on an outdoor screen at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate, as well as at the Alte Oper in Frankfurt am Main. The Brandenburg Gate screening was also telecast live by the Arte network. The North American premiere took place at the 2010 TCM Classic Film Festival in Mann's Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles on 25 April 2010.

The restoration has a running time of 148 minutes (or nearly 2.5 hours) and was released internationally on various DVD and Blu-ray editions beginning in 2010.

The American copyright for Metropolis lapsed in 1953, which led to a proliferation of versions being released on video. Along with other foreign-made works, the film's U.S. copyright was restored in 1996 by the Uruguay Round Agreements Act; the constitutionality of this copyright extension was challenged, but was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2012's Golan v. Holder. This had the effect of restoring the copyright in the work as of 1 January 1996.

Under current EU copyright law, the film will remain under copyright in Germany and the rest of the European Union until the end of 2046, 70 years after Fritz Lang's death. Under current U.S. copyright law, Metropolis entered the public domain on 1 January 2023; the U.S. copyright limit for films of its age is 95 years from publication per the Copyright Term Extension Act.

A 1989 musical theatre adaptation, Metropolis, was performed on the West End in London and in Chicago. The play's music was written by Joe Brooks and the lyrics by Dusty Hughes.

In December 2007, it was announced that producer Thomas Schühly (, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen) had obtained the remake rights to Metropolis.

In December 2016, it was announced that Sam Esmail would adapt the film into a television miniseries. In March 2022, Apple TV+ gave the production a series order, with Esmail writing and directing the series and also serving as showrunner. In February 2023, it was reported that Briana Middleton was cast in the lead role. In June 2023, the producers Universal Content Productions stated that the series would not be moving forward due to the WGA strike and rising development costs.

The Metropolis manga, sometimes referred to as Osamu Tezuka's Metropolis or Robotic Angel, has parallels with the film. Mangaka Osamu Tezuka has said that he saw a single still image of the movie in a magazine at the time of creating his manga. The manga has been adapted into a 2001 anime feature film of the same name. The adaptation incorporated more elements of the 1927 film.[citation needed ]

The cover of 1970s British rock band Be Bop Deluxe's 1977 album Live! In the Air Age is a still from the film.[citation needed ]

David Bowie's 1974 Diamond Dogs Tour and Diamond Dogs album was inspired by the film with Amanda Lear recalling "He rented the film and ran it over and over again in his house. And that's where Diamond Dogs came from - the whole staging and album and everything, Bowie got from Metropolis".

The German electronic group Kraftwerk's 1978 album The Man-Machine contains the song "Metropolis".[citation needed ]

The rock band Motörhead's album contains the song "Metropolis", which was written by Lemmy, the band's lead singer and bassist, after he saw the film in 1979. It was written to fill space on the album which was short.

When designing the character of C-3PO for , Ralph McQuarrie was inspired by the aesthetic of the Maschinenmensch, the two bearing a striking resemblance to one another.

The music video for Queen's 1984 song "Radio Ga Ga" uses imagery and clips from the movie. The four members of the band are inserted into clips, for example the face of Freddie Mercury is briefly superimposed over the robot's face. The video ends with the caption "Thanks to Metropolis". Mercury also contributed the song "Love Kills" to the soundtrack of the Moroder version of the film, for which he received a Golden Raspberry Award nomination for Worst Original Song.

In 1998, American nu metal band System of a Down released a music video called "Sugar", which features footage from Metropolis.

Janelle Monáe based both her concept albums on the original film, including her EP, Metropolis: Suite I (The Chase), released in mid-2007, and The ArchAndroid, released in 2009. The latter also included an homage to Metropolis on its cover, with the film version of the Tower of Babel among the remainder of the city. The albums follow the adventures of Monáe's alter-ego and robot, Cindi Mayweather, as a messianic figure to the android community of Metropolis.

Videos for songs by pop singer-songwriter Lady Gaga have made a series of references to Lang's film. Visual allusions to the film are noted most predominantly in the music videos for "Alejandro" (2010), "Born This Way" (2011), and "Applause" (2013).

The 2012 EP Metropolis Part I by the electronic music trio The M Machine is a conceptual work inspired by the film.

The Brazilian metal band Sepultura named their 2013 album The Mediator Between Head and Hands Must Be the Heart after a quote from the film.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen graphic novel Nemo: The Roses of Berlin is set in Metropolis in 1941, in the midst of Adenoid Hynkel (from The Great Dictator)'s Nazi-like regime.

A lookalike of Hanson Robotics robot Sophia was portrayed by drag queen Gigi Goode in the "Snatch Game" episode of the twelfth season of RuPaul's Drag Race (2020). Goode won the episode with her character "Maria the Robot", based heavily on Sophia and named after a robot featured in Metropolis.

"Monsters in Metropolis", a 2021 audio play released by Big Finish Productions, features the Ninth Doctor battling a Cyberman on the set of the film and includes many references both to the film itself and its legacy.

Informational notes

Citations

Bibliography

Ebert, Roger (1985). Roger Ebert's Movie Home Companion: 400 Films on Cassette, 1980-85. Andrews, McMeel & Parker. ISBN 978-0-8362-6209-4.

Grant, Barry Keith, ed. (2003). Fritz Lang: Interviews. Conversations with Filmmakers Series. Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 9781578065776.

Kracauer, Siegfried (1947). From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of German Film. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-02505-3.

Magid, Annette M. (Summer 2006). "Better than the Book: Fritz Lang's Interpretation of Thea von Harbou's Metropolis" (PDF). Spaces of Utopia. No. 2. Universidade do Porto. pp. 129-149. ISSN 1646-4729.

Michael, Mick St. (2004). Madonna 'Talking': Madonna in Her Own Words. Omnibus Press. ISBN 1-84449-418-7.

Mok, Michel (May 1930). "New Ideas Sweep Movie Studios". Popular Science. Popular Science Publishing. 116 (5). ISSN 0161-7370.

Roth, Lane (1978). ""Metropolis", The Lights Fantastic: Semiotic Analysis of Lighting Codes in Relation to Character and Theme". Film Quarterly. 6 (4): 342-346. JSTOR 43795693.

Stoicea, Gabriela (2006). "Re-Producing the Class and Gender Divide: Fritz Lang's Metropolis". Women in German Yearbook. 22: 21-42. doi:10.1353/wgy.2006.0012. JSTOR 20688260. S2CID 143458810.

Further reading

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Metropolis is a 1927 German expressionist science-fiction silent film directed by Fritz Lang and written by Thea von Harbou in collaboration with Lang from von Harbou's 1925 novel of the same name (which was intentionally written as a treatment). It stars Gustav Fröhlich, Alfred Abel, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, and Brigitte Helm.

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Blade Runner is a 1982 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott, and written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples. Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos, it is an adaptation of Philip K. Dick's 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The film is set in a dystopian future Los Angeles of 2019, in which synthetic humans known as replicants are bio-engineered by the powerful Tyrell Corporation to work on space colonies. When a fugitive group of advanced replicants led by Roy Batty (Hauer) escapes back to Earth, burnt-out cop Rick Deckard (Ford) reluctantly agrees to hunt them down.

Blade Runner initially underperformed in North American theaters and polarized critics; some praised its thematic complexity and visuals, while others critiqued its slow pacing and lack of action. The film's soundtrack, composed by Vangelis, was nominated in 1982 for a BAFTA and a Golden Globe as best original score. Blade Runner later became a cult film, and has since come to be regarded as one of the greatest science fiction films. Hailed for its production design depicting a high-tech but decaying future, the film is often regarded as both a leading example of neo-noir cinema as well as a foundational work of the cyberpunk and tech noir genres. It has influenced many science fiction films, video games, anime, and television series. It also brought the work of Dick to Hollywood's attention and led to several film adaptations of his works. In 1993, it was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.

Seven different versions of Blade Runner exist as a result of controversial changes requested by studio executives. A director's cut was released in 1992 after a strong response to test screenings of a workprint. This, in conjunction with the film's popularity as a video rental, made it one of the earliest movies to be released on DVD. In 2007, Warner Bros. released The Final Cut, a 25th-anniversary digitally remastered version; this is the only version over which Scott retained artistic control. The film is the first of the franchise of the same name. A sequel, titled Blade Runner 2049, was released in 2017 alongside a trilogy of short films covering the thirty-year span between the two films' settings. The anime series Blade Runner: Black Lotus was released in 2021.

In 2019 Los Angeles, former police officer Rick Deckard is detained by Officer Gaff, who likes to make origami figures, and is brought to his former supervisor, Bryant. Deckard, whose job as a "blade runner" was to track down bioengineered humanoids known as replicants and terminally "retire" them, is informed that four replicants are on Earth illegally. Deckard begins to leave, but Bryant ambiguously threatens him and Deckard stays. The two watch a video of a blade runner named Holden administering the Voight-Kampff test, which is designed to distinguish replicants from humans based on their emotional responses to questions. The test subject, Leon, shoots Holden on the second question. Bryant wants Deckard to retire Leon and three other Nexus-6 replicants: Roy Batty, Zhora, and Pris.

Bryant has Deckard meet with the CEO of the company that creates the replicants, Eldon Tyrell, so he can administer the test on a Nexus-6 to see if it works. Tyrell expresses his interest in seeing the test fail first and asks him to administer it on his assistant Rachael. After a much longer than standard test, Deckard concludes privately to Tyrell that Rachael is a replicant who believes she is human. Tyrell explains that she is an experiment who has been given false memories to provide an "emotional cushion", and that she has no knowledge of her true nature.

In searching Leon's hotel room, Deckard finds photos and a scale from the skin of an animal, which is later identified as a synthetic snake scale. Deckard returns to his apartment where Rachael is waiting. She tries to prove her humanity by showing him a family photo, but Deckard reveals that her memories are implants from Tyrell's niece, and she leaves in tears.

Replicants Roy and Leon meanwhile investigate a replicant eye-manufacturing laboratory and learn of J. F. Sebastian, a gifted genetic designer who works closely with Tyrell. Pris locates Sebastian and manipulates him to gain his trust.

A photograph from Leon's apartment and the snake scale lead Deckard to a strip club, where Zhora works. After a confrontation and chase, Deckard kills Zhora. Bryant also orders him to retire Rachael, who has disappeared from the Tyrell Corporation. Deckard spots Rachael in a crowd, but he is ambushed by Leon, who knocks the gun out of Deckard's hand and beats him. As Leon is about to kill Deckard, Rachael saves him by using Deckard's gun to kill Leon. They return to Deckard's apartment and, during a discussion, he promises not to track her down. As Rachael abruptly tries to leave, Deckard restrains her and forces her to kiss him, and she ultimately relents. Deckard leaves Rachael at his apartment and departs to search for the remaining replicants.

Roy arrives at Sebastian's apartment and tells Pris that the other replicants are dead. Sebastian reveals that because of a genetic premature aging disorder, his life will be cut short, like the replicants that were built with a four-year lifespan. Roy uses Sebastian to gain entrance to Tyrell's penthouse. He demands more life from his maker, which Tyrell says is impossible. Roy confesses that he has done "questionable things" but Tyrell dismisses this, praising Roy's advanced design and accomplishments in his short life. Roy kisses Tyrell and then kills him by crushing his skull. Sebastian tries to flee and is later reported dead.

At Sebastian's apartment, Deckard is ambushed by Pris, but he kills her as Roy returns. Roy's body begins to fail as the end of his lifespan nears. He chases Deckard through the building and onto the roof. Deckard tries to jump onto another roof but is left hanging on the edge. Roy makes the jump with ease and, as Deckard's grip loosens, Roy hoists him onto the roof to save him. Before Roy dies, he laments that his memories " will be lost in time, like tears in rain". Gaff arrives to congratulate Deckard, also reminding him that Rachael will not live, but "then again, who does?" Deckard returns to his apartment to retrieve Rachael. While escorting her to the elevator, he notices a small origami unicorn on the floor. He recalls Gaff's words and departs with Rachael.

Map of Ridleyville, exterior sets for Blade Runner located on the New York Street of the Warner Bros. Studios lot (Burbank, California)

Interest in adapting Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? developed shortly after its 1968 publication. Director Martin Scorsese was interested in filming the novel, but never optioned it. Producer Herb Jaffe optioned it in the early 1970s, but Dick was unimpressed with the screenplay written by Herb's son Robert, saying, "Jaffe's screenplay was so terribly done ... Robert flew down to Santa Ana to speak with me about the project. And the first thing I said to him when he got off the plane was, 'Shall I beat you up here at the airport, or shall I beat you up back at my apartment?'"

The screenplay by Hampton Fancher was optioned in 1977. Producer Michael Deeley became interested in Fancher's draft and convinced director Ridley Scott to film it. Scott had previously declined the project, but after leaving the slow production of , wanted a faster-paced project to take his mind off his older brother's recent death. He joined the project on February 21, 1980, and managed to push up the promised Filmways financing from US$13 million to $15 million. Fancher's script focused more on environmental issues and less on issues of humanity and religion, which are prominent in the novel, and Scott wanted changes. Fancher found a cinema treatment by William S. Burroughs for Alan E. Nourse's novel The Bladerunner (1974), titled Blade Runner (a movie). Scott liked the name, so Deeley obtained the rights to the titles. Eventually, he hired David Peoples to rewrite the script and Fancher left the job over the issue on December 21, 1980, although he later returned to contribute additional rewrites.

Having invested over $2.5 million in pre-production, as the date of commencement of principal photography neared, Filmways withdrew financial backing. In ten days Deeley had secured $21.5 million in financing through a three-way deal between the Ladd Company (through Warner Bros.), the Hong Kong-based producer Sir Run Run Shaw and Tandem Productions.

Dick became concerned that no one had informed him about the film's production, which added to his distrust of Hollywood. After Dick criticized an early version of Fancher's script in an article written for the Los Angeles Select TV Guide, the studio sent Dick the Peoples rewrite. Although Dick died shortly before the film's release, he was pleased with the rewritten script and with a 20-minute special effects test reel that was screened for him when he was invited to the studio. Despite his well-known skepticism of Hollywood in principle, Dick enthused to Scott that the world created for the film looked exactly as he had imagined it. He said, "I saw a segment of Douglas Trumbull's special effects for Blade Runner on the KNBC news. I recognized it immediately. It was my own interior world. They caught it perfectly." He also approved of the film's script, saying, "After I finished reading the screenplay, I got the novel out and looked through it. The two reinforce each other so that someone who started with the novel would enjoy the movie and someone who started with the movie would enjoy the novel." The motion picture was dedicated to Dick. Principal photography of Blade Runner began on March 9, 1981, and ended four months later.

In 1992, Ford revealed, " Blade Runner is not one of my favorite films. I tangled with Ridley." Apart from friction with the director, Ford also disliked the voiceovers: "When we started shooting it had been tacitly agreed that the version of the film that we had agreed upon was the version without voiceover narration. It was a f**king [] nightmare. I thought that the film had worked without the narration. But now I was stuck re-creating that narration. And I was obliged to do the voiceovers for people that did not represent the director's interests." "I went kicking and screaming to the studio to record it." The narration monologs were written by an uncredited Roland Kibbee.

In 2006, Scott was asked "Who's the biggest pain in the arse you've ever worked with?" He replied: "It's got to be Harrison ... he'll forgive me because now I get on with him. Now he's become charming. But he knows a lot, that's the problem. When we worked together it was my first film up and I was the new kid on the block. But we made a good movie." Ford said of Scott in 2000: "I admire his work. We had a bad patch there, and I'm over it." In 2006 Ford reflected on the production of the film saying: "What I remember more than anything else when I see Blade Runner is not the 50 nights of shooting in the rain, but the voiceover ... I was still obliged to work for these clowns that came in writing one bad voiceover after another." Ridley Scott confirmed in the summer 2007 issue of that Harrison Ford contributed to the Blade Runner Special Edition DVD, and had already recorded his interviews. "Harrison's fully on board", said Scott.

The Bradbury Building in Los Angeles was used as one of the filming locations.

The Bradbury Building in downtown Los Angeles served as a filming location, and a Warner Bros. backlot housed the 2019 Los Angeles street sets. Other locations included the Ennis-Brown House and the 2nd Street Tunnel. Test screenings resulted in several changes, including adding a voice-over, a happy ending, and the removal of a Holden hospital scene. The relationship between the filmmakers and the investors was difficult, which culminated in Deeley and Scott being fired but still working on the film. Crew members created T-shirts during filming saying, "Yes Guv'nor, My Ass" that mocked Scott's unfavorable comparison of U.S. and British crews; Scott responded with a T-shirt of his own, "Xenophobia Sucks", making the incident known as the T-shirt war.

Casting the film proved troublesome, particularly for the lead role of Deckard. Screenwriter Hampton Fancher envisioned Robert Mitchum as Deckard and wrote the character's dialogue with Mitchum in mind. Director Ridley Scott and the film's producers spent months meeting and discussing the role with Dustin Hoffman, who eventually departed over differences in vision. Harrison Ford was ultimately chosen for several reasons, including his performance in the films, Ford's interest in the Blade Runner story, and discussions with Steven Spielberg who was finishing Raiders of the Lost Ark at the time and strongly praised Ford's work in the film. Following his success in those two films, Ford was looking for a role with dramatic depth. According to production documents, several actors were considered for the role, including Gene Hackman, Sean Connery, Jack Nicholson, Paul Newman, Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Peter Falk, Nick Nolte, Al Pacino and Burt Reynolds.

One role that was not difficult to cast was Rutger Hauer as Roy Batty, the violent yet thoughtful leader of the replicants. Scott cast Hauer without having met him, based solely on Hauer's performances in Paul Verhoeven's movies Scott had seen (Katie Tippel, Soldier of Orange, and Turkish Delight). Hauer's portrayal of Batty was regarded by Philip K. Dick as "the perfect Batty - cold, Aryan, flawless". Of the many films Hauer made, Blade Runner was his favorite. As he explained in a live chat in 2001, " Blade Runner needs no explanation. It just [is]. All of the best. There is nothing like it. To be part of a real masterpiece which changed the world's thinking. It's awesome." Hauer rewrote his character's " tears in rain" speech himself and presented the words to Scott on set prior to filming.

Blade Runner used a number of then-lesser-known actors: Sean Young portrays Rachael, an experimental replicant implanted with the memories of Tyrell's niece, causing her to believe she is human; Nina Axelrod auditioned for the role. Daryl Hannah portrays Pris, a "basic pleasure model" replicant; Stacey Nelkin auditioned for the role, but was given another part in the film, which was ultimately cut before filming. Debbie Harry turned down the role of Pris. Casting Pris and Rachael was challenging, requiring several screen tests with Morgan Paull playing the role of Deckard. Paull was cast as Deckard's fellow bounty hunter Holden based on his performances in the tests. Brion James portrays Leon Kowalski, a combat and laborer replicant, and Joanna Cassidy portrays Zhora, an assassin replicant.

Edward James Olmos portrays Gaff. Olmos drew on diverse ethnic sources to help create the fictional " Cityspeak" language his character uses in the film. His initial address to Deckard at the noodle bar is partly in Hungarian and means, "Horse dick [bullshit]! No way. You are the Blade ... Blade Runner." M. Emmet Walsh portrays Captain Bryant, a rumpled, hard-drinking and underhanded police veteran typical of the film noir genre. Joe Turkel portrays Dr. Eldon Tyrell, a corporate mogul who built an empire on genetically manipulated humanoid slaves. William Sanderson was cast as J. F. Sebastian, a quiet and lonely genius who provides a compassionate yet compliant portrait of humanity. J. F. sympathizes with the replicants, whom he sees as companions, and he shares their shorter lifespan due to his rapid aging disease. Joe Pantoliano had earlier been considered for the role. James Hong portrays Hannibal Chew, an elderly geneticist specializing in synthetic eyes, and Hy Pyke portrayed the sleazy bar owner Taffey Lewis - in a single take, something almost unheard-of with Scott, whose drive for perfection resulted at times in double-digit takes.

Scott credits Edward Hopper's painting Nighthawks and the French science fiction comics magazine Métal Hurlant, to which the artist Jean "Moebius" Giraud contributed, as stylistic mood sources. He also drew on the landscape of " Hong Kong on a very bad day" and the industrial landscape of his one-time home in northeast England. The visual style of the movie is influenced by the work of futurist Italian architect Antonio Sant'Elia. Scott hired Syd Mead as his concept artist; like Scott, he was influenced by Métal Hurlant. Moebius was offered the opportunity to assist in the pre-production of Blade Runner, but he declined so that he could work on René Laloux's animated film Les Maîtres du temps - a decision that he later regretted. Production designer Lawrence G. Paull and art director David Snyder realized Scott's and Mead's sketches. Douglas Trumbull and Richard Yuricich supervised the special effects for the film, and Mark Stetson served as chief model maker.

Blade Runner has numerous similarities to Fritz Lang's Metropolis, including a built-up urban environment, in which the wealthy literally live above the workers, dominated by a huge building - the Stadtkrone Tower in Metropolis and the Tyrell Building in Blade Runner. Special effects supervisor David Dryer used stills from Metropolis when lining up Blade Runner's miniature building shots.

The extended end scene in the original theatrical release shows Rachael and Deckard traveling into daylight with pastoral aerial shots filmed by director Stanley Kubrick. Ridley Scott contacted Kubrick about using some of his surplus helicopter aerial photography from The Shining.

A "spinner" (police variant) on display at Disney-MGM Studios in the 1990s

"Spinner" is the generic term for the fictional flying cars used in the film. A spinner can be driven as a ground-based vehicle, and take off vertically, hover, and cruise much like vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft. They are used extensively by the police as patrol cars, and wealthy people can also acquire spinner licenses. The vehicle was conceived and designed by Syd Mead who described the spinner as an aerodyne - a vehicle which directs air downward to create lift, though press kits for the film stated that the spinner was propelled by three engines: "conventional internal combustion, jet, and anti-gravity". A spinner is on permanent exhibit at the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in Seattle, Washington. Mead's conceptual drawings were transformed into 25 vehicles by automobile customizer Gene Winfield; at least two were working ground vehicles, while others were light-weight mockups for crane shots and set decoration for street shots. Two of them ended up at Disney World in Orlando, Florida, but were later destroyed, and a few others remain in private collections.

Voight-Kampff machine

A very advanced form of lie detector that measures contractions of the iris muscle and the presence of invisible airborne particles emitted from the body. The bellows were designed for the latter function and give the machine the menacing air of a sinister insect. The VK is used primarily by Blade Runners to determine if a suspect is truly human by measuring the degree of his empathic response through carefully worded questions and statements.

- Description from the original press kit.

The Voight-Kampff machine is a fictional interrogation tool, originating from the novel (where it is spelled "Voigt-Kampff"). The Voight-Kampff is a polygraph-like machine used by blade runners to determine whether an individual is a replicant. It measures bodily functions such as respiration, blush response, heart rate and eye movement in response to questions dealing with empathy.

The Blade Runner soundtrack by Vangelis is a dark melodic combination of classic composition and futuristic synthesizers which mirrors the film noir retro-future envisioned by Scott. Vangelis, fresh from his Academy Award-winning score for Chariots of Fire, composed and performed the music on his synthesizers. He also made use of various chimes and the vocals of collaborator Demis Roussos. Another memorable sound is the tenor sax solo "Love Theme" by British saxophonist Dick Morrissey, who performed on many of Vangelis's albums. Ridley Scott also used "Memories of Green" from the Vangelis album See You Later, an orchestral version of which Scott would later use in his film Someone to Watch Over Me.

Along with Vangelis's compositions and ambient textures, the film's soundscape also features a track by the Japanese ensemble Nipponia - "Ogi no Mato" or "The Folding Fan as a Target" from the Nonesuch Records release Traditional Vocal and Instrumental Music - and a track by harpist Gail Laughton from "Harps of the Ancient Temples" on Laurel Records.

Despite being well received by fans and critically acclaimed and nominated in 1982 for a BAFTA and a Golden Globe as best original score, and the promise of a soundtrack album from Polydor Records in the end titles of the film, the release of the official soundtrack recording was delayed for over a decade. There are two official releases of the music from Blade Runner. In light of the lack of a release of an album, the New American Orchestra recorded an orchestral adaptation in 1982 which bore little resemblance to the original. Some of the film tracks would, in 1989, surface on the compilation Vangelis: Themes, but not until the 1992 release of the Director's Cut version would a substantial amount of the film's score see commercial release.

These delays and poor reproductions led to the production of many bootleg recordings over the years. A bootleg tape surfaced in 1982 at science fiction conventions and became popular given the delay of an official release of the original recordings, and in 1993 "Off World Music, Ltd" created a bootleg CD that would prove more comprehensive than Vangelis' official CD in 1994. A set with three CDs of Blade Runner-related Vangelis music was released in 2007. Titled Blade Runner Trilogy, the first disc contains the same tracks as the 1994 official soundtrack release, the second features previously unreleased music from the movie, and the third disc is all newly composed music from Vangelis, inspired by, and in the spirit of the movie.

The film's special effects are generally recognized to be among the best in the genre, using the available (non-digital) technology to the fullest. Special effects engineers who worked on the film are often praised for the innovative technology they used to produce and design certain aspects of those visuals. In addition to matte paintings and models, the techniques employed included multipass exposures. In some scenes, the set was lit, shot, the film rewound, and then rerecorded over with different lighting. In some cases this was done 16 times in all. The cameras were frequently motion controlled using computers. Many effects used techniques which had been developed during the production of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Blade Runner was released in 1,290 theaters on June 25, 1982. That date was chosen by producer Alan Ladd Jr. because his previous highest-grossing films ( and ) had a similar opening date (May 25) in 1977 and 1979, making the 25th of the month his "lucky day". Blade Runner grossed reasonably good ticket sales in its opening weekend; earning $6.1 million during its first weekend in theaters. The film was released close to other major science-fiction and fantasy releases such as , Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Conan the Barbarian and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, which affected its commercial success.

Several versions of Blade Runner have been shown. The original workprint version (1982, 113 minutes) was shown for audience test previews in Denver and Dallas in March 1982. Negative responses to the previews led to the modifications resulting in the U.S. theatrical version. The workprint was shown as a director's cut without Scott's approval at the Los Angeles Fairfax Theater in May 1990, at an AMPAS showing in April 1991, and in September and October 1991 at the Los Angeles NuArt Theater and the San Francisco Castro Theatre. Positive responses pushed the studio to approve work on an official director's cut. A San Diego Sneak Preview was shown only once, in May 1982, and was almost identical to the U.S. theatrical version but contained three extra scenes not shown in any other version, including the 2007 Final Cut.

Two versions were shown in the film's 1982 theatrical release: the U.S. theatrical version (117 minutes), known as the original version or Domestic Cut (released on Betamax, CED Videodisc and VHS in 1983, and on LaserDisc in 1987), and the International Cut (117 minutes), also known as the "Criterion Edition" or "uncut version", which included more violent action scenes than the U.S. version. Although initially unavailable in the U.S. and distributed in Europe and Asia via theatrical and local Warner Home Video releases, the International Cut was later released on VHS and The Criterion Collection Laserdisc in North America, and re-released in 1992 as a "10th Anniversary Edition".

Ridley Scott's Director's Cut (1992, 116 minutes) had significant changes from the theatrical version including the removal of Deckard's voice-over, the re-insertion of the unicorn sequence, and the removal of the studio-imposed happy ending. Scott provided extensive notes and consultation to Warner Bros. through film preservationist Michael Arick, who was put in charge of creating the Director's Cut.

Scott's definitive The Final Cut (2007, 117 minutes) was released by Warner Bros. theatrically on October 5, 2007, and subsequently released on DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray Disc in December 2007. This is the only version over which Scott had complete artistic and editorial control.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an 88% approval rating based on 130 reviews, with an average rating of 8.50/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Misunderstood when it first hit theaters, the influence of Ridley Scott's mysterious, neo-noir Blade Runner has deepened with time. A visually remarkable, achingly human sci-fi masterpiece." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 84 out of 100 based on 15 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

Initial reactions among film critics were mixed. Some wrote that the plot took a back seat to the film's special effects and did not fit the studio's marketing as an action and adventure film. Others acclaimed its complexity and predicted it would stand the test of time. Negative criticism in the United States cited its slow pace. Sheila Benson from the Los Angeles Times called it "Blade Crawler", and Pat Berman in and Columbia Record described it as "science fiction pornography". Pauline Kael praised Blade Runner as worthy of a place in film history for its distinctive sci-fi vision, yet criticized the film's lack of development in "human terms". magazine said, "Misunderstood by audiences and critics alike, it is by far the best science fiction film of the year."

Academics began analyzing the film almost as soon as it was released. One of the first books on the film was Paul M. Sammon's Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner (1996), which dissects all the details concerning the film making. He was followed by Scott Bukatman's Blade Runner and other books and academic articles. In Postmodern Metanarratives: Blade Runner and Literature in the Age of Image, Décio Torres Cruz analyzes the philosophical and psychological issues and the literary influences in Blade Runner. He examines the film's cyberpunk and dystopic elements by establishing a link between the Biblical, classical and modern traditions and the postmodern aspects in the film's collage of several literary texts.

The boom in home video formats helped establish a growing cult around the film, which scholars have dissected for its dystopic aspects, questions regarding "authentic" humanity, ecofeminist aspects and use of conventions from multiple genres. Popular culture began to reassess its impact as a classic several years after it was released. Roger Ebert praised the visuals of both the original and the Director's Cut and recommended it for that reason; however, he found the human story clichéd and a little thin. He later added The Final Cut to his "Great Movies" list. Critic Chris Rodley and Janet Maslin theorized that Blade Runner changed cinematic and cultural discourse through its image repertoire and subsequent influence on films. In 2012, film critic Richard Corliss surgically analyzed the durability, complexity, screenplay, sets and production dynamics from a personal, three-decade perspective. Denis Villeneuve, who directed the sequel, Blade Runner 2049, cites the film as a huge influence for him and many others.

It has also been noted for its postmodernist approach and that it contributes to the historical development of modern dystopia in film. Furthermore, the futuristic version of Los Angeles has been widely discussed by academics with some comparing it to Milton's descriptions of hell in Paradise Lost. A 2019 retrospective in the BBC argued that elements of the film's socio-political themes remained prescient in the real year of the film's setting, such as its depiction of climate change. From a more philosophical perspective, Alison Landsberg described Scott's direction of the film as a "prosthetic memory"-an action that has never happened and appears to be divorced from lived experience, yet it defines personhood and identity within the wider Blade Runner universe.

Blade Runner won or received nominations for the following awards:

The film operates on multiple dramatic and narrative levels. It employs some of the conventions of film noir, among them the character of a femme fatale; narration by the protagonist (in the original release); chiaroscuro cinematography; and giving the hero a questionable moral outlook - extended to include reflections upon the nature of his own humanity. It is a literate science fiction film, thematically enfolding the philosophy of religion and moral implications of human mastery of genetic engineering in the context of classical Greek drama and hubris. It also draws on Biblical images, such as Noah's flood, and literary sources, such as Frankenstein and William Blake. Although Scott said any similarity was merely coincidental, fans claimed that the chess game between Sebastian and Tyrell was based on the famous Immortal Game of 1851.

Blade Runner delves into the effects of technology on the environment and society by reaching to the past, using literature, religious symbolism, classical dramatic themes, and film noir techniques. This tension between past, present, and future is represented in the "retrofitted" future depicted in the film, one which is high-tech and gleaming in places but decayed and outdated elsewhere. In an interview with The Observer in 2002, director Ridley Scott described the film as "extremely dark, both literally and metaphorically, with an oddly masochistic feel". He also said that he "liked the idea of exploring pain" in the wake of his brother's death: "When he was ill, I used to go and visit him in London, and that was really traumatic for me."

A sense of foreboding and paranoia pervades the world of the film: corporate power looms large; the police seem omnipresent; vehicle and warning lights probe into buildings; and the consequences of huge biomedical power over the individual are explored - especially regarding replicants' implanted memories. The film depicts a world post ecocide, where warfare and capitalism have led to destruction of 'normal' ecological systems. Control over the environment is exercised on a vast scale, and goes hand in hand with the absence of any natural life; for example, artificial animals stand in for their extinct predecessors. This oppressive backdrop explains the frequently referenced migration of humans to "off-world" (extraterrestrial) colonies. Eyes are a recurring motif, as are manipulated images, calling into question the nature of reality and our ability to accurately perceive and remember it.

These thematic elements provide an atmosphere of uncertainty for Blade Runner's central theme of examining humanity. In order to discover replicants, an empathy test is used, with a number of its questions focused on the treatment of animals - seemingly an essential indicator of one's "humanity". Replicants will not respond the same way humans would, showing a lack of concern. The film goes so far as to question if Deckard might be a replicant, in the process asking the audience to re-evaluate what it means to be human.

The question of whether Deckard is intended to be a human or a replicant has been an ongoing controversy since the film's release. Both Michael Deeley and Harrison Ford wanted Deckard to be human, while Hampton Fancher preferred ambiguity. Ridley Scott has stated that in his vision, Deckard is a replicant. Deckard's unicorn-dream sequence, inserted into Scott's Director's Cut and concomitant with Gaff's parting gift of an origami unicorn, is seen by many as showing that Deckard is a replicant - because Gaff could have retrieved Deckard's implanted memories. The interpretation that Deckard is a replicant is challenged by others who believe the unicorn imagery shows that the characters, whether human or replicant, share the same dreams and recognize their affinity, or that the absence of a decisive answer is crucial to the film's main theme. The film's inherent ambiguity and uncertainty, as well as its textual richness, have permitted multiple interpretations.

A police spinner flying beside enormous skyscrapers, some with electronic billboards on them. Special effects such as these were benchmarks and have been highly influential on the esthetics of subsequent sci-fi movies.

Tesla's Cybertruck was heavily inspired by Blade Runner.

While not initially a success with North American audiences, Blade Runner was popular internationally and garnered a cult following. The film's dark style and futuristic designs have served as a benchmark and its influence can be seen in many subsequent science fiction films, video games, anime, and television programs. For example, Ronald D. Moore and David Eick, the producers of the re-imagining of Battlestar Galactica, have both cited Blade Runner as one of the major influences for the show.

The film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 1993 and is frequently taught in university courses. In 2007, it was named the second-most visually influential film of all time by the Visual Effects Society. The film has also been the subject of parody, such as the comics Blade Bummer by comics, Bad Rubber by Steve Gallacci, and the 2009 three-part miniseries " Back to Earth". The anime series Psycho-Pass by Production I.G was also highly influenced by the movie.

Blade Runner continues to reflect modern trends and concerns, and an increasing number of critics consider it one of the greatest science fiction films of all time. It was voted the best science fiction film ever made in a 2004 poll of 60 eminent world scientists. Blade Runner is also cited as an important influence to both the style and story of the Ghost in the Shell franchise, which itself has been highly influential to the future-noir genre. Blade Runner has been very influential to the cyberpunk movement. It also influenced the cyberpunk derivative biopunk, which revolves around biotechnology and genetic engineering.

The dialogue and music in Blade Runner has been sampled in music more than any other film of the 20th century. The 2009 album by Singaporean band Deus Ex Machina makes numerous references to the genetic engineering and cloning themes from the film, and even features a track titled "Replicant".

Blade Runner is cited as a major influence on Warren Spector, designer of the video game , which displays evidence of the film's influence in both its visual rendering and plot. Indeed, the film's look - and in particular its overall darkness, preponderance of neon lights and opaque visuals - are easier to render than complicated backdrops, making it a popular reference point for video game designers. It has influenced adventure games such as the 2012 graphical text adventure , Rise of the Dragon, , the series, Beneath a Steel Sky, Flashback: The Quest for Identity, Bubblegum Crisis video games (and their original anime), the role-playing game , the first-person shooter Perfect Dark, the shooter game , and the series of video games.

The logos of Atari, Bell, Coca-Cola, Cuisinart, Pan Am, and RCA, all market leaders at the time, were prominently displayed as product placement in the film, and all experienced setbacks after the film's release, leading to suggestions of a Blade Runner curse. Coca-Cola and Cuisinart recovered, and Tsingtao beer was also featured in the film and was more successful after the film than before.

The design of Tesla's Cybertruck was inspired by the film. Prior to its release Elon Musk promised that it would "look like something out of Blade Runner". Besides referring to the truck as the "Blade Runner Truck", Musk chose to debut the truck in order to coincide with the film's setting of November 2019. The film's art designer Syd Mead praised the truck and said he was "flattered" by the homage to Blade Runner.

American Film Institute recognition

Before filming began, Cinefantastique magazine commissioned Paul M. Sammon to write a special issue about Blade Runner's production which became the book Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner. The book chronicles Blade Runner's evolution, focusing on film-set politics, especially the British director's experiences with his first American film crew; of which producer Alan Ladd, Jr. has said, "Harrison wouldn't speak to Ridley and Ridley wouldn't speak to Harrison. By the end of the shoot Ford was 'ready to kill Ridley', said one colleague. He really would have taken him on if he hadn't been talked out of it." Future Noir has short cast biographies and quotations about their experiences as well as photographs of the film's production and preliminary sketches. A second edition of Future Noir was published in 2007, and additional materials not in either print edition have been published online.

Philip K. Dick refused a $400,000 offer to write a Blade Runner novelization, saying: "⁠[I was] told the cheapo novelization would have to appeal to the twelve-year-old audience" and it "would have probably been disastrous to me artistically". He added, "That insistence on my part of bringing out the original novel and not doing the novelization - they were just furious. They finally recognized that there was a legitimate reason for reissuing the novel, even though it cost them money. It was a victory not just of contractual obligations but of theoretical principles." Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was eventually reprinted as a tie-in, with the film poster as a cover and the original title in parentheses below the Blade Runner title. Additionally, a novelization of the movie entitled Blade Runner: A Story of the Future by Les Martin was released in 1982. Archie Goodwin scripted the comic book adaptation, A Marvel Comics Super Special: Blade Runner, published in September 1982, which was illustrated by Al Williamson, Carlos Garzon, Dan Green, and Ralph Reese, and lettered by Ed King.

Blue Dolphin Enterprises published the film's screenplay combined with selected production storyboards as The Illustrated Blade Runner (June 1982); a book of original production artwork by Syd Mead, Mentor Huebner, Charles Knode, Michael Kaplan, and Ridley Scott as Blade Runner Sketchbook (1982); and The Blade Runner Portfolio (1982), a collection of twelve photographic prints, similar to the artist portfolios released by their Schanes & Schanes imprint.

There are two video games based on the film, both titled Blade Runner: one from 1985, a side-scrolling video game for Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, and Amstrad CPC by CRL Group PLC, which is marked as "a video game interpretation of the film score by Vangelis" rather than of the film itself (due to licensing issues); and another from 1997, a point-and-click adventure for PC by Westwood Studios. The 1997 game has a non-linear plot based in the Blade Runner world, non-player characters that each ran in their own independent AI, and an unusual pseudo-3D engine (which eschewed polygonal solids in favor of voxel elements) that did not require the use of a 3D accelerator card to play the game. Eldon Tyrell, Gaff, Leon, Rachael, Chew, J. F. Sebastian and Howie Lee appear, and their voice files are recorded by the original actors, with the exception of Gaff, who is replaced by Javier Grajeda (as Victor Gardell) and Howie Lee, who is replaced by Toru Nagai. The player assumes the role of McCoy, another replicant-hunter working at the same time as Deckard.

The television film (and later series) Total Recall 2070 was initially planned as a spin-off of the film Total Recall (based on Philip K. Dick's short story " We Can Remember It for You Wholesale"), but was produced as a hybrid of Total Recall and Blade Runner. Many similarities between Total Recall 2070 and Blade Runner were noted, as well as apparent influences on the show from Isaac Asimov's The Caves of Steel and the TV series Holmes & Yoyo.

The film has been the subject of several documentaries.

Blade Runner: Convention Reel (1982, 13 minutes)

Co-directed by Muffet Kaufman and Jeffrey B. Walker, shot and screened in 16 mm, featured no narrator, was filmed in 1981 while Blade Runner was still in production and featured short "behind-the-scenes" segments showing sets being built and sequences being shot, as well as interviews with Ridley Scott, Syd Mead and Douglas Trumbull. Appears on the Blade Runner Ultimate Collector's Edition.[221]

On the Edge of Blade Runner (2000, 55 minutes)

Directed by Andrew Abbott and hosted/written by Mark Kermode. Interviews with production staff, including Scott, give details of the creative process and the turmoil during preproduction. Insights into Philip K. Dick and the origins of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? are provided by Paul M. Sammon and Hampton Fancher.[34]

Future Shocks (2003, 27 minutes)

Directed by TVOntario.[222] It includes interviews with executive producer Bud Yorkin, Syd Mead, and the cast, and commentary by science fiction author Robert J. Sawyer and from film critics.

Dangerous Days: Making Blade Runner (2007, 213 minutes)

Directed and produced by Charles de Lauzirika for The Final Cut version of the film. Its source material comprises more than 80 interviews, including extensive conversations with Ford, Young, and Scott.[223] The documentary is presented in eight chapters, with each of the first seven covering a portion of the filmmaking process. The final chapter examines Blade Runner's controversial legacy.[224]

All Our Variant Futures: From Workprint to Final Cut (2007, 29 minutes)

Produced by Paul Prischman, appears on the Blade Runner Ultimate Collector's Edition and provides an overview of the film's multiple versions and their origins, as well as detailing the seven-year-long restoration, enhancement and remastering process behind The Final Cut.[88]

Blade Runner Phenomenon (2021, 53 minutes)

Directed by Boris Hars-Tschachotin and made by the France and Germany European public service channel ARTE, this documentary informs viewers using behind-the-scenes material from various sets, photos, original locations in Los Angeles, and interviews with those involved in the production.

Screen capture of DVD bonus feature from Prometheus (2012), a dictated letter by Peter Weyland about Eldon Tyrell, chief executive officer of the Tyrell Corporation

A sequel was released in 2017, titled Blade Runner 2049, with Ryan Gosling alongside Ford in the starring roles. It entered production in mid-2016 and is set decades after the first film. Harrison Ford reprised his role as Rick Deckard. The film won two Academy Awards, for cinematography and visual effects.

The world of Blade Runner has also come to be explored in animation. Blade Runner 2049 was preceded by the release of three short films that served as prequels, where the chronological first, Blade Runner Black Out 2022, was anime (the other two, 2036: Nexus Dawn and 2048: Nowhere to Run, were live action, not animated).

In November 2021, a Japanese-American anime television series called Blade Runner: Black Lotus was released. The series tells the story of a female replicant protagonist, rather than that of a male Blade Runner one.

Dick's friend K. W. Jeter wrote three authorized Blade Runner novels that continue Rick Deckard's story, attempting to resolve the differences between the film and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? These are Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Human (1995), Blade Runner 3: Replicant Night (1996), and Blade Runner 4: Eye and Talon (2000)

Blade Runner cowriter David Peoples wrote the 1998 action film , which he referred to as a " sidequel" or spiritual successor to the original film; the two are set in a shared universe. A bonus feature on the Blu-ray for Prometheus, the 2012 film by Scott set in the universe, states that Eldon Tyrell, CEO of the Blade Runner Tyrell Corporation, was the mentor of Guy Pearce's character Peter Weyland.

In late 2022, Amazon announced a Blade Runner 2049 sequel series would be produced. On October 12, 2022, an apparent official approval to actually make a Blade Runner 2099 TV series was reported.

Brooker, Will, ed. (2005). The Blade Runner Experience. London: Wallflower. ISBN 978-1-904764-30-4.

Bukatman, Scott (1997). BFI Modern Classics: Blade Runner. London: British Film Institute. ISBN 978-0-85170-623-8.

Doll, Susan, and Greg Faller. 1986. "Blade Runner and Genre: Film Noir and Science Fiction." Literature Film Quarterly 14 (2): 89-100.

Eagan, Daniel (2010) America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, ISBN 0826429777, pages 775-776

Kerman, Judith, ed. (1991). Retrofitting Blade Runner: Issues in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner and Philip K. Dick's Do Android's Dream of Electric Sheep?. Bowling Green University Popular Press. ISBN 978-0-87972-510-5.

Macarthur, David (2017). "A Vision of Blindness: Bladerunner and Moral Redemption". Film-Philosophy. 21 (3): 371-391. doi:10.3366/film.2017.0056.

Morgan, David. Blade Runner at National Film Registry

Sammon, Paul M. (1996). Future Noir: the Making of Blade Runner. London: Orion Media. ISBN 978-0-06-105314-6.

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Blade Runner is a 1982 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott, and written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples. Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos, it is an adaptation of Philip K. Dick's 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

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The Firebird (French: L'Oiseau de feu; Russian: Жар-птица, romanized: Zhar-ptitsa) is a ballet and orchestral concert work by the Russian-born composer Igor Stravinsky. It was written for the 1910 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company. The original choreography was by Michel Fokine, who collaborated with Alexandre Benois on a scenario based on the Russian fairy tales of the Firebird and the blessing and curse it possesses for its owner. Its premiere at the Opéra de Paris on 25 June 1910 was an immediate success, catapulting Stravinsky to international fame.

The ballet was not only Stravinsky's professional breakthrough, but also the beginning of his partnership with Diaghilev, which would subsequently produce , The Rite of Spring, Pulcinella, , and .

Igor Stravinsky was the son of Fyodor Stravinsky, the principal bass at the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, and Anna (née Kholodovskaya), a competent amateur singer and pianist from an old established Russian family. Fyodor's association with many of the leading figures in Russian music, including Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin and Mussorgsky, meant that Igor grew up in an intensely musical home. In 1901, Stravinsky began to study law at Saint Petersburg Imperial University, while taking private lessons in harmony and counterpoint. Sensing talent in the young composer's early efforts, Rimsky-Korsakov took Stravinsky under his private tutelage. By the time of his mentor's death in 1908, Stravinsky had produced several works, among them a Piano Sonata in F-sharp minor, a Symphony in E-flat, and a short orchestral piece titled Feu d'artifice ("Fireworks").

In 1909, Stravinsky's Scherzo fantastique and Feu d'artifice were premiered in Saint Petersburg. Among those in the audience was the impresario Sergei Diaghilev, who was about to debut his Ballets Russes in Paris. Diaghilev's intention was to present new works in a distinctively 20th-century style, and he was looking for fresh compositional talent. Impressed by Stravinsky, he commissioned from him orchestrations of Chopin's music for the ballet Les Sylphides.

Alexandre Benois recalled that in 1908 he had suggested to Diaghilev the production of a Russian nationalist ballet, an idea all the more attractive given both the newly awakened French passion for Russian dance and the expense of staging opera. The idea of mixing the mythical Firebird with the unrelated Russian tale of Koschei the Deathless possibly came from a popular child's verse by Yakov Polonsky, "A Winter's Journey" ( Zimniy put, 1844), which includes the lines:

And in my dreams I see myself on a wolf's back
Riding along a forest path
To do battle with a sorcerer-tsar (Koschei)
In that land where a princess sits under lock and key,
Pining behind massive walls.
There gardens surround a palace all of glass;
There Firebirds sing by night
And peck at golden fruit.

Benois collaborated with the choreographer Michel Fokine, drawing from several books of Russian fairy tales including the collection of Alexander Afanasyev, to concoct a story involving the Firebird and the evil magician Koschei. The scenery was designed by Aleksandr Golovin and the costumes by Léon Bakst.

Diaghilev first approached the Russian composer Anatoly Lyadov in September 1909 to write the music. There is no evidence that he ever accepted the commission, despite the anecdote that he was slow to start composing the work. Nikolai Tcherepnin composed some music for the ballet (which he later used in his The Enchanted Kingdom), but withdrew from the project without explanation after completing only one scene. After deciding against using Alexander Glazunov and Nikolay Sokolov, Diaghilev finally chose the 28-year-old Stravinsky, who had already begun sketching the music in anticipation of the commission.

Stravinsky would later remark about working with Fokine that it meant "nothing more than to say that we studied the libretto together, episode by episode, until I knew the exact measurements required of the music." Several ideas from works by Rimsky-Korsakov were used in The Firebird.[citation needed ] Koschei's "Infernal Dance" borrows the highly chromatic scale Rimsky-Korsakov created for the character Chernobog in his opera , while the Khorovod uses the same folk tune from his Sinfonietta, Op. 31.[citation needed ] The piano score was completed on 21 March 1910 and was fully orchestrated by May, although not before work was briefly interrupted by another Diaghilev commission: an orchestration of Grieg's Kobold, Op. 71, no. 3 for a charity ball dance featuring Vasily Nijinsky.

Soon thereafter, Diaghilev began to organize private previews of The Firebird for the press. French critic Robert Brussel, who attended one of these events, wrote in 1930:

The composer, young, slim, and uncommunicative, with vague meditative eyes, and lips set firm in an energetic looking face, was at the piano. But the moment he began to play, the modest and dimly lit dwelling glowed with a dazzling radiance. By the end of the first scene, I was conquered: by the last, I was lost in admiration. The manuscript on the music-rest, scored over with fine pencillings, revealed a masterpiece.

The Firebird was premiered by the Ballets Russes at the Palais Garnier in Paris on 25 June 1910, conducted by Gabriel Pierné. Even before the first performance, the company sensed a huge success in the making; and every performance of the ballet in that first production, as Tamara Karsavina recalled, met a "crescendo" of success. "Mark him well," Diaghilev said of Stravinsky, "he is a man on the eve of celebrity."

Critics praised the ballet for its integration of decor, choreography and music. "The old-gold vermiculation of the fantastic back-cloth seems to have been invented to a formula identical with that of the shimmering web of the orchestra," wrote Henri Ghéon in Nouvelle revue française, who called the ballet "the most exquisite marvel of equilibrium" and added that Stravinsky was a "delicious musician." Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi hailed the young composer as the legitimate heir to The Mighty Handful. The ballet's success also secured Stravinsky's position as Diaghilev's star composer, and there were immediate talks of a sequel, leading to the composition of and The Rite of Spring. In Russia, however, reaction was mixed. While Stravinsky's friend Andrey Rimsky-Korsakov spoke approvingly of it, the press mostly took a dim view of the music, with one critic denouncing what he considered its "horrifying poverty of melodic invention." A fellow Rimsky-Korsakov pupil, Jāzeps Vītols, wrote that "Stravinsky, it seems, has forgotten the concept of pleasure in sound... [His] dissonances unfortunately quickly become wearying, because there are no ideas hidden behind them."

Sergei Bertensson recalled Sergei Rachmaninoff saying of the music: "Great God! What a work of genius this is! This is true Russia!" Another colleague, Claude Debussy, who later became an admirer took a more sober view of the score: "What do you expect? One has to start somewhere." Richard Strauss told the composer in private conversation that he had made a "mistake" in beginning the piece pianissimo instead of astonishing the public with a "sudden crash." Shortly thereafter he summed up to the press his experience of hearing The Firebird for the first time by saying, "it's always interesting to hear one's imitators."

The Firebird has been restaged by many choreographers, including George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins (co-choreographers), Graeme Murphy, Alexei Ratmansky, and Yuri Possokhov.

The ballet was revived in 1934 by Colonel Wassily de Basil's company, the Ballets Russes de Monte-Carlo, in a production staged in London, using the original decor and costumes from Diaghilev's company. The company subsequently performed the ballet in Australia, during the 1936-37 tour.

The work was staged by George Balanchine for the New York City Ballet in 1949 with Maria Tallchief as the Firebird, with scenery and costumes by Marc Chagall, and was kept in the repertory until 1965. The ballet was restaged by George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins in 1970 for the New York City Ballet with elaborated scenery by Chagall, and with new costumes by Karinska based on Chagall's for the 1972 Stravinsky Festival that introduced Gelsey Kirkland as the Firebird.

In 1970 Maurice Béjart staged his own version in which the ballet's protagonist was a young man who rose from the ranks of the revolutionists and became their leader. The lead role was danced by Michel Denard.

The Mariinsky Ballet performed the original choreography at Covent Garden in August 2011, as part of their Fokine retrospective.

The National Ballet of Canada created a version of the Firebird for television, occasionally rebroadcast, in which special effects were used to make it appear that the Firebird is in flight.

On 29 March 2012, the American Ballet Theatre premiered the ballet with choreography by Alexei Ratmansky at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, California, starring Misty Copeland.

The Royal Ballet staged 6 performances of the ballet at the Royal Opera House in London in June 2019, with Yasmine Naghdi performing the role of the Firebird.

The ballet centers on the journey of its hero, Prince Ivan. While hunting in the forest, he strays into the magical realm of the evil Koschei the Immortal, whose immortality is preserved by keeping his soul in a magic egg hidden in a casket. Ivan chases and captures the Firebird and is about to kill her; she begs for her life, and he spares her. As a token of thanks, she offers him an enchanted feather that he can use to summon her should he be in dire need.

Prince Ivan then meets thirteen princesses who are under the spell of Koschei and falls in love with one of them. The next day, Ivan confronts the magician and eventually they begin quarrelling. When Koschei sends his minions after Ivan, he summons the Firebird. She intervenes, bewitching the monsters and making them dance an elaborate, energetic dance (the "Infernal Dance").

Exhausted, the creatures and Koschei then fall into a deep sleep. While they sleep, the Firebird directs Ivan to a tree stump where the casket with the egg containing Koschei's soul is hidden. Ivan destroys the egg, and with the spell broken and Koschei dead, the magical creatures that Koschei held captive are freed and the palace disappears. All of the "real" beings, including the princesses, awaken and with one final hint of the Firebird's music (though in Fokine's choreography she makes no appearance in that final scene on-stage), celebrate their victory.

Numbers designated by Stravinsky in the score

1. Le Jardin enchanté de Kachtcheï (The Enchanted Garden of Koschei)

2. Apparition de l'Oiseau de feu, poursuivi par Ivan Tsarévitch (Appearance of the Firebird, Pursued by Prince Ivan)

3. Danse de l'Oiseau de feu (Dance of the Firebird)

4. Capture de l'Oiseau de feu par Ivan Tsarévitch (Capture of the Firebird by Prince Ivan)

5. Supplications de l'Oiseau de feu (Supplication of the Firebird) - Apparition des treize princesses enchantées (Appearance of the Thirteen Enchanted Princesses)

6. Jeu des princesses avec les pommes d'or (The Princesses' Game with the Golden Apples). Scherzo

7. Brusque apparition d'Ivan Tsarévitch (Sudden Appearance of Prince Ivan)

8. Khorovode (Ronde) des princesses (Khorovod (Round Dance) of the Princesses)

9. Lever du jour (Daybreak) - Ivan Tsarévitch pénètre dans le palais de Kachtcheï (Prince Ivan Penetrates Koschei's Palace)

10. Carillon Féerique, apparition des monstres-gardiens de Kachtcheï et capture d'Ivan Tsarévitch (Magic Carillon, Appearance of Koschei's Monster Guardians, and Capture of Prince Ivan) - Arrivée de Kachtcheï l'Immortel (Arrival of Koschei the Immortal) - Dialogue de Kachtcheï avec Ivan Tsarévitch (Dialogue of Koschei and Prince Ivan) - Intercession des princesses (Intercession of the Princesses) - Apparition de l'Oiseau de feu (Appearance of the Firebird)

11. Danse de la suite de Kachtcheï, enchantée par l'Oiseau de feu (Dance of Koschei' Retinue, Enchanted by the Firebird)

12. Danse infernale de tous les sujets de Kachtcheï (Infernal Dance of All Koschei's Subjects) - Berceuse (L'Oiseau de feu) (Lullaby) - Réveil de Kachtcheï (Koschei's Awakening) - Mort de Kachtcheï (Koschei's Death) - Profondes ténèbres (Profound Darkness)

Disparition du palais et des sortilèges de Kachtcheï, animation des chevaliers pétrifiés, allégresse générale (Disappearance of Koschei's Palace and Magical Creations, Return to Life of the Petrified Knights, General Rejoicing)

The work is scored for a large orchestra with the following instrumentation:

Besides the complete 50-minute ballet score of 1909-10, Stravinsky arranged three suites for concert performance which date from 1911, 1919, and 1945.

1. Introduction - Kashchei's Enchanted Garden - Dance of the Firebird

2. Supplication of the Firebird

3. The Princesses' Game with Apples

4. The Princesses' Khorovod (Rondo, round dance)

5. Infernal Dance of all Kashchei's Subjects

Instrumentation: essentially as per the original ballet. The score was printed from the same plates, with only the new endings for the movements being newly engraved.

1. Introduction - The Firebird and its dance - The Firebird's variation

2. The Princesses' Khorovod (Rondo, round dance)

3. Infernal dance of King Kashchei

4. Berceuse (Lullaby)

5. Finale

Instrumentation: 2 flutes (2nd also piccolo); 2 oboes (2nd also English horn for one measure); 2 clarinets; 2 bassoons; 4 horns; 2 trumpets; 3 trombones; tuba; timpani; bass drum; cymbals; triangle; xylophone; harp; piano (also opt. celesta); strings.

This suite was created in Switzerland for conductor Ernest Ansermet. When it was originally published, the score contained many mistakes, which were only fixed in 1985.

1. Introduction - The Firebird and its dance - The Firebird's variation

2. Pantomime I

3. Pas de deux: Firebird and Ivan Tsarevich

4. Pantomime II

5. Scherzo: Dance of the Princesses

6. Pantomime III

7. The Princesses' Khorovod (Rondo, round dance)

8. Infernal dance of King Kashchei

9. Berceuse (Lullaby)

10. Finale

Instrumentation: 2 Flutes (2nd also Piccolo); 2 Oboes; 2 Clarinets; 2 Bassoons; 4 Horns; 2 Trumpets; 3 Trombones; Tuba; Timpani; Bass Drum; Snare Drum; Tambourine; Cymbals; Triangle; Xylophone; Harp; Piano; Strings.

In 1945, shortly before he acquired American citizenship, Stravinsky was contacted by Leeds Music with a proposal to revise the orchestration of his first three ballets in order to recopyright them in the United States. The composer agreed, setting aside work on the finale of his Symphony in Three Movements. He proceeded to fashion a new suite based on the 1919 version, adding to it and reorchestrating several minutes of the pantomimes from the original score.

1916

Beecham Symphony Orchestra

Sir Thomas Beecham

Columbia Graphophone Company

78 RPM

Three excerpts from 1911 suite. First ever commercial recording of Stravinsky's music.

Excerpts from The Firebird were used in Bruno Bozzetto's 1976 animated film Allegro Non Troppo and in Walt Disney's animated film Fantasia 2000.

Saviour Pirotta and Catherine Hyde's picture book, Firebird, is based on the original stories that inspired the ballet, and was published in 2010 to celebrate the ballet's centenary.

The influence of The Firebird has been felt beyond classical music. Stravinsky was an important influence on Frank Zappa, who used the melody from the Berceuse in his 1967 album Absolutely Free, in the "Amnesia Vivace" section of the "Duke of Prunes" suite (along with a melody from The Rite of Spring).[clarification needed ] Prog rock band Yes has regularly used the ballet's finale as their "walk-on" music for concerts since 1971.[citation needed ] Jazz musician and arranger Don Sebesky featured a mash-up of the piece, with the jazz fusion composition Birds of Fire by John McLaughlin, on his 1973 album . During the 1980s and 1990s, the chord which opens the "Infernal Dance" became a widely used orchestra hit sample in music, specifically within new jack swing.

It was used in the opening ceremony of Sochi 2014 during the Cauldron Lighting segment.

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The Firebird (French: L'Oiseau de feu; Russian: Жар-птица, romanized: Zhar-ptitsa) is a ballet and orchestral concert work by the Russian-born composer Igor Stravinsky. It was written for the 1910 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company.

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Ai Weiwei: Trace at Hirshhorn - Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden | Smithsonian

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Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden | Smithsonian

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JUL 28, 2017-JAN 01, 2018

Ai Weiwei's own experiences of incarceration, interrogation, and surveillance form the basis for his interest in the portrayal of dissidents worldwide. He has long been a vocal critic of the Chinese government's stance on human rights and freedom of speech. In 2011, while already a prominent contemporary artist, Ai Weiwei was arrested and detained in Beijing for 81 days and prohibited from traveling abroad until July 2015. Trace was created in 2014, while he was still unable to leave China. Ai Weiwei continues to be one of the most significant voices on the international art scene while producing a prolific array of work. His work continues to inspire conversations about global issues. Visitors' perspectives of the individuals Ai chose to portray no doubt vary-some are considered criminals in their own country, others heroes-inspiring conversation on the sometimes cloudy line between activist and lawbreaker.

Trace was created using more than 1.2 million LEGOs. Each individual portrait is comprised of several thousand LEGO bricks, assembled by hand and laid out on the floor. Each portrait is created in panels, which are then connected. Each of the six zones features approximately 396 panels combined to create 30 portraits per zone.

Inspired by his five-year-old son, Ai chose LEGOs as a disarmingly playful and ubiquitous material that can easily be constructed, or deconstructed, on a massive scale-in some ways acting as a metaphor for freedom. Ai is known for appropriating materials such as pearls, porcelain, and salvaged wood in his works, and the artist has a tendency to use mass quantities of objects-and large numbers of volunteers-to help create his work, playing with the dichotomies of individual and collective effort, unity and fragmentation.

Each image is pixelated, resembling surveillance or photos found on the Internet. The graphic manipulation can symbolize the dissolving nature of the individual or may suggest that each person has been encoded as a form of digital data. The colors in each portrait roughly represent the colors of the subject's national flags.

The installation featured portraits of 176 individuals from around the world whom the artist believes to have been detained or exiled or who have sought political asylum as a result of their actions, beliefs or affiliations. They were arranged on the floor, in six zones spread throughout the Museum's 700-foot second-level gallery space. The work was built entirely of plastic LEGO blocks.

Trace was joined by a new work-a monumental wallpaper installation called The Plain Version of the Animal That Looks Like a Llama but Is Really an Alpaca. The intricate graphic is a lavish, rococo print of Twitter birds, surveillance cameras, handcuffs, chains, and alpacas, images of both expression and control. It spanned the continuous 700-foot perimeter of the exhibition's exterior wall. On view near the exhibition entrance was The Animal That Looks Like a Llama but Is Really an Alpaca, a gold graphic wall treatment that used similar imagery but employed lavish color to create a tromp l'oeil effect. Those who looked closely were rewarded with an image of Ai Weiwei himself hidden within the pattern.

The title, and the work itself, has a touch of ironic humor and is a form of wordplay. The "Grass Mud Horse," or caonima, is a Chinese Internet meme that resembles an alpaca and is a popular symbol of defiance against censorship in China. In Mandarin, caonima can also be translated as an insult. The animal's image has become an Internet phenomenon worldwide, frequently appearing in the media and even on merchandise. It was prefaced with The Plain Version to differentiate it from a similarly titled earlier work, also on view in the exhibition, which featured gold and 3-D modeling.

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Ai Weiwei: Trace at Hirshhorn - Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden | Smithsonian

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JUL 28, 2017-JAN 01, 2018 Ai Weiwei's own experiences of incarceration, interrogation, and surveillance form the basis for his interest in the portrayal of dissidents worldwide. He has long been a vocal critic of the Chinese government's stance on human rights and freedom of speech.

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Psycho is a 1960 American psychological horror thriller film produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The screenplay, written by Joseph Stefano, was based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch. The film stars Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin and Martin Balsam. The plot centers on an encounter between on-the-run embezzler Marion Crane (Leigh) and shy motel proprietor Norman Bates (Perkins) and its aftermath, in which a private investigator (Balsam), Marion's lover Sam Loomis (Gavin), and her sister Lila (Miles) investigate the cause of her disappearance.

Psycho was seen as a departure from Hitchcock's previous film North by Northwest, as it was filmed on a lower budget in black-and-white by the crew of his television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. The film was initially considered controversial and received mixed reviews, but audience interest and outstanding box-office returns prompted a major critical re-evaluation. Psycho was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actress for Janet Leigh and Best Director for Hitchcock.

Psycho is now considered one of Hitchcock's best films, and is arguably his most famous work. It has been praised as a major work of cinematic art by international film critics and scholars due to its slick direction, tense atmosphere, impressive camerawork, a memorable score and iconic performances. Often ranked among the greatest films of all time, it set a new level of acceptability for violence, deviant behavior and sexuality in American films, and is widely considered to be the earliest example of the slasher film genre.

After Hitchcock's death in 1980, Universal Pictures produced follow-ups: three sequels, a remake, a made-for-television spin-off, and a prequel television series set in the 2010s. In 1992, the Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

During a Friday afternoon tryst in a Phoenix hotel, real-estate secretary Marion Crane and her boyfriend Sam Loomis discuss their inability to get married because of Sam's debts. Marion returns to work, decides to steal a cash payment of $40,000 entrusted to her for deposit at the bank; and, drive to Sam's home in Fairvale, California. En route, Marion hurriedly trades her car arousing suspicion from both the car dealer and a California Highway Patrol officer.

Marion stops for the night at the Bates Motel, located off the main highway and hides the stolen money inside a newspaper. Proprietor Norman Bates descends from a large house atop a hill overlooking the motel, registers Marion under an assumed name she uses, and invites her to dine with him. Returning to his house, Norman has an argument with his mother, overheard by Marion, about Marion's presence. Norman returns with a light meal and apologizes for his mother's outbursts. Norman discusses his hobby as a taxidermist, his mother's "illness" and how people have a "private trap" they want to escape. Marion decides to drive back to Phoenix in the morning and return the stolen money. As Marion showers, a shadowy figure appears, stabs her to death. Soon afterward, Norman's anguished voice is heard from the house yelling "Mother! Oh God, Mother! Blood! Blood!" Norman cleans up the murder scene, puts Marion's body, her belongings and the hidden cash in her car, and sinks it in a swamp near the motel.

Marion's sister Lila arrives in Fairvale a week later, tells Sam about the theft, and demands to know her whereabouts. He denies knowing anything about her disappearance. A private investigator named Arbogast approaches them, saying that he has been hired to retrieve the money. Arbogast learns that Marion spent a night at the Bates Motel. He questions Norman, whose nervous behavior and inconsistent answers arouse Arbogast's suspicion. When Norman implies Marion had spoken to his mother, Arbogast asks to speak to her, but Norman refuses. Arbogast updates Sam and Lila about his findings, and promises to phone again in an hour. When he enters the Bates home in search of Norman's mother, a shadowy figure emerges from the bedroom and stabs him to death.

When Lila and Sam do not hear from Arbogast, Sam visits the motel. He sees a figure in the house whom he assumes is Norman's mother; she ignores him. Lila and Sam alert the local sheriff, who tells them that Norman's mother died in a murder-suicide ten years earlier. The sheriff concludes that Arbogast lied to Sam and Lila so he could pursue Marion and the money. Convinced that something happened to Arbogast, Lila and Sam drive to the motel. Sam distracts Norman in the office, while Lila sneaks into the house. Suspicious, Norman becomes agitated and knocks Sam unconscious. As he goes to the house, Lila hides in the fruit cellar, where she discovers the mother's mummified body. She screams, and Norman, wearing his mother's clothes and a wig, enters the cellar and tries to stab her. Sam appears, and subdues him.

At the police station, a psychiatrist explains that a jealous Norman murdered his mother and her lover ten years earlier. He mummified his mother's corpse and began treating it as if she were still alive. He recreated his mother in his mind as an alternate personality, as jealous and possessive towards Norman as he felt about his mother. When Norman is attracted to a woman, "Mother" takes over: He had murdered two other young women before Marion, and Arbogast was killed to hide "his mother's" crime. The psychiatrist concludes "Mother" has now completely taken over Norman's personality. Norman sits in a jail cell, and hears his mother saying that the murders were all his doing. Marion's car is retrieved from the swamp.

Psycho is based on Robert Bloch's 1959 novel of the same name, loosely inspired by the case of convicted Wisconsin murderer and grave robber Ed Gein. Both Gein, who lived only 40 miles (64 km) from Bloch, and the story's protagonist Norman Bates, were solitary murderers in isolated rural locations. Each had deceased, domineering mothers, had sealed off a room in their home as a shrine to them, and dressed in women's clothes. However, Gein was apprehended after killing only twice.

Peggy Robertson, Hitchcock's long-time assistant, read Anthony Boucher's positive review of the novel in his "Criminals at Large" column The New York Times and decided to show the book to her employer; however, studio readers at Paramount Pictures had already rejected its premise for a film. Hitchcock acquired rights to the novel for $9,500 and reportedly ordered Robertson to buy all copies to preserve the novel's surprises. Hitchcock, who had come to face genre competitors whose works were critically compared to his own, was seeking new material to recover from two aborted projects with Paramount: Flamingo Feather and No Bail for the Judge. He disliked stars' salary demands and trusted only a few people to choose prospective material, including Robertson.

Paramount executives balked at Hitchcock's proposal and refused to provide his usual budget. In response, Hitchcock offered to film Psycho quickly and cheaply in black and white using his Alfred Hitchcock Presents television series crew. Paramount executives rejected this cost-conscious approach, claiming their sound stages were booked, but the industry was in a slump. Hitchcock countered he personally would finance the project and film it at Universal-International using his Shamley Productions crew if Paramount would distribute. In lieu of his usual $250,000 director's fee, he proposed a 60% stake in the film negative. This combined offer was accepted, and Hitchcock went ahead in spite of naysaying from producer Herbert Coleman and Shamley Productions executive Joan Harrison.

James P. Cavanagh, a writer on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, wrote the first draft of the screenplay. Hitchcock felt the script dragged and read like a television short horror story, an assessment shared by an assistant. Although Joseph Stefano had worked on only one film before, Hitchcock agreed to meet with him; despite Stefano's inexperience, the meeting went well and he was hired.

The screenplay is relatively faithful to the novel, with a few significant changes by Hitchcock and Stefano. Stefano found the character of Norman Bates unsympathetic-in the book, he is middle-aged, overweight, and more overtly unstable-but became more intrigued when Hitchcock suggested casting Anthony Perkins. Stefano eliminated Bates' drinking, which evidently necessitated removing Bates' "becoming" the mother personality when in a drunken stupor. Also gone is Bates' interest in spiritualism, the occult and pornography. Hitchcock and Stefano elected to open the film with scenes in Marion's life and not introduce Bates at all until 20 minutes into the film rather than open with Bates reading a history book as Bloch does. Writer Joseph W. Smith observes that "Her story occupies only two of the novel's 17 chapters. Hitchcock and Stefano expanded this to nearly half the narrative". He likewise mentions the absence of a hotel tryst between Marion and Sam in the novel. For Stefano, the conversation between Marion and Norman in the hotel parlor in which she displays a maternal sympathy towards him makes it possible for the audience to switch their sympathies towards Norman Bates after Marion's murder. When Lila Crane is looking through Norman's room in the film, she opens a book with a blank cover whose contents are unseen; in the novel, these are "pathologically pornographic" illustrations. Stefano wanted to give the audience "indications that something was quite wrong, but it could not be spelled out or overdone." In his book of conversations with Hitchcock, François Truffaut says the novel "cheats" by having extended conversations between Norman and "Mother" and stating what Mother is "doing" at various given moments.

The first name of the female protagonist was changed from Mary to Marion because a real Mary Crane existed in Phoenix. Also changed is the novel's budding romance between Sam and Lila. Hitchcock preferred to focus the audience's attention on the solution to the mystery, and Stefano thought such a relationship would make Sam Loomis seem cheap. Instead of having Sam explain Norman's pathology to Lila, the film uses a psychiatrist. (Stefano was in therapy dealing with his relationship with his own mother while writing the script.) The novel is more violent than the film: Marion is beheaded in the shower rather than being stabbed to death. Minor changes include changing Marion's telltale earring found after her death to a scrap of paper that failed to flush down the toilet. This provided some shock effect because toilets almost never were seen in American cinema in the 1960s. The location of Arbogast's death was moved from the foyer to the stairwell. Stefano thought this would make it easier to conceal the truth about "Mother" without tipping that something was being hidden. As Janet Leigh put it, this gave Hitchcock more options for his camera.

Paramount, whose contract guaranteed another film by Hitchcock, did not want Hitchcock to make Psycho. Paramount was expecting No Bail for the Judge starring Audrey Hepburn, who became pregnant and had to bow out, leading Hitchcock to scrap the production. Their official stance was that the book was "too repulsive" and "impossible for films", and nothing but another of his star-studded mystery thrillers would suffice. They did not like "anything about it at all" and denied him his usual budget. In response Hitchcock financed the film's creation through his own Shamley Productions, shooting at Universal Studios under the Revue television unit. The original Bates Motel and Bates house set buildings, which were constructed on the same stage as Lon Chaney's The Phantom of the Opera, are still standing at the Universal Studios backlot in Universal City near Hollywood and are a regular attraction on the studio's tour. As a further result of cost cutting, Hitchcock chose to film Psycho in black and white, keeping the budget under $1 million. Other reasons for shooting in black and white were his desire to prevent the shower scene from being too gory.

To keep costs down, and because he was most comfortable around them, Hitchcock took most of his crew from his television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including the cinematographer, set designer, script supervisor, and first assistant director. He hired regular collaborators Bernard Herrmann as music composer, George Tomasini as editor, and Saul Bass for the title design and storyboarding of the shower scene. In all, his crew cost $62,000.

Through the strength of his reputation, Hitchcock cast Leigh for a quarter of her usual fee, paying only $25,000 (in the 1967 book Hitchcock/Truffaut, Hitchcock said that Leigh owed Paramount one final film on her seven-year contract which she had signed in 1953). His first choice, Leigh agreed after having only read the novel and making no inquiry into her salary. Her co-star, Anthony Perkins, agreed to $40,000. Both stars were experienced and proven box-office draws.

Paramount distributed the film, but four years later Hitchcock sold his stock in Shamley to Universal's parent company ( MCA) and his remaining six films were made at and distributed by Universal Pictures. After another four years, Paramount sold all rights to Universal.

The film, independently produced and financed by Hitchcock, was shot at Revue Studios, the same location as his television show. Psycho was shot on a tight budget of $807,000, beginning on November 11, 1959, and ending on February 1, 1960. Filming started in the morning and finished by six p.m. or earlier on Thursdays (when Hitchcock and his wife would dine at Chasen's). Nearly the whole film was shot with 50 mm lenses on 35 mm cameras. This provided an angle of view similar to human vision, which helped to further involve the audience.

Before shooting began in November, Hitchcock dispatched assistant director Hilton A. Green to Phoenix to scout locations and shoot the opening scene. The shot was supposed to be an aerial shot of Phoenix that slowly zoomed into the hotel window of a passionate Marion and Sam. Ultimately, the helicopter footage proved too shaky and had to be spliced with footage from the studio. Another crew filmed day and night footage on Highway 99 between Gorman and Fresno, California for projection when Marion drives from Phoenix. Footage of her driving into Bakersfield to trade her car is also shown. They also provided the location shots for the scene in which she is discovered sleeping in her car by the highway patrolman. In one street scene shot in downtown Phoenix, Christmas decorations were discovered to be visible; rather than re-shoot the footage, Hitchcock chose to add a graphic to the opening scene marking the date as "Friday, December the Eleventh".

Green also took photos of a prepared list of 140 locations for later reconstruction in the studio. These included many real estate offices and homes such as those belonging to Marion and her sister. He also found a girl who looked just like he imagined Marion and photographed her whole wardrobe, which would enable Hitchcock to demand realistic looks from Helen Colvig, the wardrobe supervisor. The look of the Bates house was modeled on Edward Hopper's painting The House by the Railroad, a fanciful portrait of the Second Empire Victorian home at 18 Conger Avenue in Haverstraw, New York.

Lead actors Perkins and Leigh were given freedom to interpret their roles and improvise as long as it did not involve moving the camera. An example of Perkins' improvisation is Norman's habit of eating candy corn. Throughout filming, Hitchcock created and hid various versions of the "Mother corpse" prop in Leigh's dressing room closet. Leigh took the joke well, and she wondered whether it was done to keep her in suspense or to judge which corpse would be scarier for the audience.

Hitchcock was forced to uncharacteristically do retakes for some scenes. The final shot in the shower scene, which starts with an extreme close-up on Marion's eye and zooms in and out, proved difficult for Leigh because the water splashing in her eyes made her want to blink, and the cameraman had trouble as well because he had to manually focus while moving the camera. Retakes were required for the opening scene because Hitchcock felt that Leigh and Gavin were not passionate enough. Leigh had trouble saying "Not inordinately" for the real estate office scene, requiring additional retakes. Lastly, the scene in which "Mother" is discovered required complicated coordination of the chair turning around, Vera Miles (as Lila Crane) hitting the light bulb, and a lens flare, which proved to be difficult. Hitchcock forced retakes until all three elements were effected to his satisfaction.

According to Hitchcock, a series of shots with Arbogast going up the stairs in the Bates house before he is stabbed were done by assistant director Hilton A. Green, working with storyboard artist Saul Bass' drawings only while Hitchcock was incapacitated with the common cold. However, upon viewing the dailies of the shots, Hitchcock was forced to scrap them. He claimed they were "no good" because they did not portray "an innocent person but a sinister man who was going up those stairs". Hitchcock later re-shot the scene, though a little of the cut footage made its way into the film. Filming the murder of Arbogast proved problematic, owing to the overhead camera angle necessary to hide the film's twist. A camera track constructed on pulleys alongside the stairway together with a chairlike device had to be constructed and thoroughly tested over a period of weeks.

Alfred Hitchcock's cameo is a signature occurrence in most of his films. In Psycho, he can be seen through a window-wearing a Stetson hat-standing outside Marion Crane's office. Wardrobe mistress Rita Riggs has said that Hitchcock chose this scene for his cameo so that he could be in a scene with his daughter, who played one of Marion's colleagues. Others have suggested that he chose this early appearance in the film in order to avoid distracting the audience.

The murder of Leigh's character in the shower is the film's pivotal scene and one of the best-known in all of cinema. As such, it spawned numerous myths and legends. It was shot from December 17-23, 1959, after Leigh had twice postponed the filming, firstly for a cold and then her period. The finished scene runs some three minutes, and its flurry of action and edits has produced contradictory attempts to count its parts. Hitchcock himself contributed to this pattern, telling Truffaut that "there were seventy camera setups for forty-five seconds of footage", and maintaining to other interviewers that there were "seventy-eight pieces of film". The 2017 documentary 78/52: Hitchcock's Shower Scene, by director Alexandre O. Philippe, latches onto this last figure for the production's tagline, '78 Shots & 52 Cuts That Changed Cinema Forever'. But in his careful description of the shower scene, film scholar Philip J. Skerry counted only 60 separate shots, with a table breaking down the middle 34 by type, camera position, angle, movement, focus, POV, and subject. Absent an alternative tabulation, Richard Schickel and Frank Capra, in their 2001 book The Men Who Made the Movies, concluded the most reasonable calculation was 60. Many are close-ups, including extreme close-ups, except for medium shots in the shower directly before and directly after the murder. The combination of the close shots with their short duration makes the sequence feel more subjective than if the images were presented alone or in a wider angle, an example of the technique Hitchcock described as "transferring the menace from the screen into the mind of the audience".

To capture the straight-on shot of the shower head, the camera had to be equipped with a long lens. The inner holes on the shower head were blocked and the camera placed a sufficient distance away so that the water, while appearing to be aimed directly at the lens, actually went around and past it.

The soundtrack of screeching violins, violas, and cellos was an original all-strings piece by composer Bernard Herrmann titled " The Murder". Hitchcock originally intended to have no music for the sequence (and all motel scenes), but Herrmann insisted he try his composition. Afterward, Hitchcock agreed it vastly intensified the scene, and nearly doubled Herrmann's salary. The blood in the scene was Hershey's chocolate syrup, which shows up better on black-and-white film, and has more realistic density than stage blood. The sound of the knife entering flesh was created by plunging a knife into a casaba melon.

There are varying accounts whether Leigh was in the shower the entire time or a body double was used for some parts of the murder sequence and its aftermath. In an interview with Roger Ebert and, in the book by Stephen Rebello, Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, Leigh stated she appeared in the scene the entire time and Hitchcock used a stand-in only for the sequence in which Norman wraps Marion's body in a shower curtain and places it in the trunk of her car. The 2010 book The Girl in Alfred Hitchcock's Shower by Robert Graysmith and the documentary 78/52: Hitchcock's Shower Scene contradicts this, identifying Marli Renfro as Leigh's body double for some of the shower scene's shots. Graysmith also stated that Hitchcock later acknowledged Renfro's participation in the scene. Rita Riggs, who was in charge of the wardrobe, claims it was Leigh in the shower the entire time, explaining that Leigh did not wish to be nude and so she devised strategic items including pasties, moleskin, and bodystockings, to be pasted on Leigh for the scene. Riggs and Leigh went through strip tease magazines that showed all the different costumes, but none of them worked because they all had tassels on them.

As you know, you could not take the camera and just show a nude woman, it had to be done impressionistically. So, it was done with little pieces of film, the head, the feet, the hand, etc. In that scene there were 78 pieces of film in about 45 seconds.

A popular myth emerged that ice-cold water was used in the shower scene to make Leigh's scream realistic. Leigh denied this on numerous occasions, saying the crew was accommodating, using hot water throughout the week-long shoot. All of the screams are Leigh's. Another myth was that graphic designer Saul Bass directed the shower scene. This was refuted by several figures associated with the film, including Leigh, who stated: "absolutely not! I have emphatically said this in any interview I've ever given. I've said it to his face in front of other people ... I was in that shower for seven days, and, believe me, Alfred Hitchcock was right next to his camera for every one of those seventy-odd shots." Hilton A. Green, the assistant director, also refutes Bass' claim: "There is not a shot in that movie that I didn't roll the camera for. And I can tell you I never rolled the camera for Mr. Bass." Roger Ebert, a longtime admirer of Hitchcock's work, summarily dismissed the rumor, stating, "It seems unlikely that a perfectionist with an ego like Hitchcock's would let someone else direct such a scene."

Commentators such as Stephen Rebello and Bill Krohn have argued in favor of Bass' contribution to the scene in his capacity as visual consultant and storyboard artist. Along with designing the opening credits, Bass is termed "Pictorial Consultant" in the credits. When interviewing Hitchcock in 1967, François Truffaut asked about the extent of Bass' contribution, to which Hitchcock replied that in addition to the titles, Bass had provided storyboards for the Arbogast murder (which he claimed to have rejected), but made no mention of Bass providing storyboards for the shower scene.

According to Bill Krohn's Hitchcock At Work, Bass' first claim to have directed the scene was in 1970, when he provided a magazine with 48 drawings used as storyboards as proof of his contribution. Krohn's analysis of the production, while refuting Bass' claims for directing the scene, notes that these storyboards did introduce key aspects of the final scene-most notably, the fact that the killer appears as a silhouette, and details such as the close-ups of the slashing knife, Leigh's desperate outstretched arm, the shower curtain being torn off its hooks, and the transition from the hole of the drainage pipe to Marion Crane's dead eyes. Krohn notes that this final transition is highly reminiscent of the iris titles that Bass created for . Krohn also notes that Hitchcock shot the scene with two cameras: one a BNC Mitchell, the other a handheld French camera which Orson Welles had used in Touch of Evil (1958). In order to create an ideal montage for the greatest emotional impact on the audience, Hitchcock shot a lot of footage of this scene which he trimmed down in the editing room. He even brought a Moviola on the set to gauge the footage required. The final sequence, which his editor George Tomasini worked on with Hitchcock's advice, however did not go far beyond the basic structural elements set up by Bass' storyboards.

According to Donald Spoto in The Dark Side of Genius and to Stephen Rebello in Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, Hitchcock's wife and trusted collaborator, Alma Reville, spotted a blooper in one of the last edits of Psycho before its official release: after Marion was supposedly dead, one could see her blink. According to Patricia Hitchcock, talking in Laurent Bouzereau's "making of" documentary, Alma spotted that Leigh's character appeared to take a breath. In either case, the postmortem activity was edited out and was never seen by audiences. Although Marion's eyes should be dilated after her death, the contact lenses necessary for this effect would have required six weeks of acclimation to wear them, so Hitchcock decided to forgo them.

It is often claimed that, despite its graphic nature, the shower scene never once shows a knife puncturing flesh. However, a frame by frame analysis of the sequence shows one shot in which the knife appears to penetrate Leigh's abdomen, but the effect was created by lighting and reverse motion. Leigh herself was so affected by this scene when she saw it, that she no longer took showers unless she absolutely had to; she would lock all the doors and windows and would leave the bathroom and shower door open. She never realized until she first watched the film "how vulnerable and defenseless one is".

Before production, Leigh and Hitchcock fully discussed what the scene meant:

Marion had decided to go back to Phoenix, come clean, and take the consequence, so when she stepped into the bathtub it was as if she were stepping into the baptismal waters. The spray beating down on her was purifying the corruption from her mind, purging the evil from her soul. She was like a virgin again, tranquil, at peace.

Film theorist Robin Wood also discusses how the shower washes "away her guilt". He comments upon the " alienation effect" of killing off the "apparent center of the film" with which spectators had identified. The scene was the subject of Alexandre O. Philippe's 2017 documentary 78/52: Hitchcock's Shower Scene, the title of which references the putative number of cuts and set-ups, respectively, that Hitchcock used to shoot it.

Hitchcock insisted that Bernard Herrmann write the score for Psycho despite the composer's refusal to accept a reduced fee for the film's lower budget. The resulting score, according to Christopher Palmer in The Composer in Hollywood (1990) is "perhaps Herrmann's most spectacular Hitchcock achievement." Hitchcock was pleased with the tension and drama the score added to the film, later remarking "33% of the effect of Psycho was due to the music." and that "Psycho depended heavily on Herrmann's music for its tension and sense of pervading doom."

Herrmann used the lowered music budget to his advantage by writing for a string orchestra rather than a full symphonic ensemble, contrary to Hitchcock's request for a jazz score. He thought of the single tone color of the all-string soundtrack as a way of reflecting the black-and-white cinematography of the film. The strings play con sordini (muted) for all the music other than the shower scene, creating a darker and more intense effect. Film composer Fred Steiner, in an analysis of the score to Psycho, points out that string instruments gave Herrmann access to a wider range in tone, dynamics, and instrumental special effects than any other single instrumental group would have.

The main title music, a tense, hurtling piece, sets the tone of impending violence, and returns three times on the soundtrack. Though nothing shocking occurs during the first 15-20 minutes of the film, the title music remains in the audience's mind, lending tension to these early scenes. Herrmann also maintains tension through the slower moments in the film through the use of ostinato.

There were rumors that Herrmann had used electronic means, including amplified bird screeches to achieve the shocking effect of the music in the shower scene. The effect was achieved, however, only with violins in a "screeching, stabbing sound-motion of extraordinary viciousness." The only electronic amplification employed was in the placing of the microphones close to the instruments, to get a harsher sound. Besides the emotional impact, the shower scene cue ties the soundtrack to birds. The association of the shower scene music with birds also telegraphs to the audience that it is Norman, the stuffed-bird collector, who is the murderer rather than his mother.

Herrmann biographer Steven C. Smith writes that the music for the shower scene is "probably the most famous (and most imitated) cue in film music," but Hitchcock was originally opposed to having music in this scene. When Herrmann played the shower scene cue for Hitchcock, the director approved its use in the film. Herrmann reminded Hitchcock of his instructions not to score this scene, to which Hitchcock replied, "Improper suggestion, my boy, improper suggestion." This was one of two important disagreements Hitchcock had with Herrmann, in which Herrmann ignored Hitchcock's instructions. The second one, over the score for Torn Curtain (1966), resulted in the end of their professional collaboration. A survey conducted by PRS for Music, in 2009, showed that the British public consider the score from 'the shower scene' to be the scariest theme from any film.

To honor the fiftieth anniversary of Psycho, in July 2010, the San Francisco Symphony obtained a print of the film with the soundtrack removed, and projected it on a large screen in Davies Symphony Hall while the orchestra performed the score live. This was previously mounted by the Seattle Symphony in October 2009 as well, performing at the Benaroya Hall for two consecutive evenings.

Several CDs of the film score have been released, including:

The October 2, 1975 recording with Bernard Herrmann conducting the National Philharmonic Orchestra [Unicorn CD, 1993].

The 1997 Varèse Sarabande CD features a re-recording of the complete score performed by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and conducted by Joel McNeely .

The 1998 Soundstage Records SCD 585 CD claims to feature the tracks from the original master tapes. However, it has been asserted that the release is a bootleg recording.

The 2011 Doxy Records DOY650 (Italy) 180 gram LP release of the complete original score conducted by Herrmann.

Another issue was the gender nonconformity. Perkins, who was allegedly a homosexual, and Hitchcock, who previously made , were both experienced in the film's transgressive subject matter. The viewer is unaware of the Bates' crossdressing until, at the end of the movie, it is revealed during the attempted murder of Lila. At the station, Sam asks why Bates was dressed that way. The police officer, ignorant of Bates' split personality, bluntly announces his conclusion that Bates is a transvestite. The psychiatrist corrects him and says, "Not exactly". He explains that Bates believes that he is his own mother when he dresses in her clothes.

Another cause of concern for the censors was that Marion was shown flushing a toilet, with its contents (torn-up note paper) fully visible. No flushing toilet had appeared in mainstream film and television in the United States at that time.

Internationally, Hitchcock was forced to make minor changes to the film, mostly to the shower scene. In Britain, the BBFC required cuts to stabbing sounds and visible nude shots, and in New Zealand the shot of Norman washing blood from his hands was seen as disgusting. In Singapore, though the shower scene was left untouched, the murder of Arbogast and a shot of Norman's mother's corpse were removed. In Ireland, the censor Gerry O'Hara banned it upon his initial viewing in 1960. The next year, a highly edited version missing some 47 feet of film was submitted to the Irish censor. O'Hara ultimately requested that an additional seven cuts be made: the line where Marion tells Sam to put his shoes on (which implied that he earlier had his pants or trousers off), two shots of Norman spying on Marion through the key-hole, Marion's undressing, the shots of Marion's blood flowing down the shower, the shots of Norman washing his hands when blood is visible, incidents of multiple stabbings ("One stab is surely enough," wrote O'Hara), the words "in bed" from the Sheriff's wife's line "Norman found them dead together in bed," and Arbogast's questions to Norman about whether he spent the night with Marion.

The film was released on June 16, 1960, at the DeMille Theatre and the Baronet Theatre in New York City. It was the first film sold in the US on the basis that no one would be admitted to the theater after the film had started.

Hitchcock's "no late admission" policy for the film was unusual for the time. It was not an entirely original publicity strategy as Clouzot had done the same in France for Les Diabolique (1955). Hitchcock believed people who entered the theater late and thus never saw the appearance of star actress Janet Leigh would feel cheated. At first theater owners opposed the idea, thinking they would lose business. However, after the first day, the owners enjoyed long lines of people waiting to see the film. Shortly before the release of Psycho, Hitchcock promised a film in "the Diabolique manner".

The week after the New York premiere, the film opened at the Paramount Theatre, Boston; the Woods Theatre, Chicago and the Arcadia Theatre, Philadelphia. After nine weeks of release at the DeMille and the Baronet, the film was released in neighborhood New York theaters, the first time a film had played on Broadway and the neighborhood theaters simultaneously.

Hitchcock did most of the promotion himself, forbidding Leigh and Perkins to make the usual television, radio, and print interviews for fear of them revealing the plot. Even critics were not given private screenings but rather had to see the film with the general public, which, may have affected their reviews.

The film's original trailer features a jovial Hitchcock taking the viewer on a tour of the set, and almost giving away plot details before stopping himself. It is "tracked" with Herrmann's Psycho theme, but also jovial music from Hitchcock's comedy The Trouble with Harry; most of Hitchcock's dialogue is post-synchronized. The trailer was made after completion of the film, and because Janet Leigh was no longer available for filming, Hitchcock had Vera Miles don a blonde wig and scream loudly as he pulled the shower curtain back in the bathroom sequence of the preview. Because the title Psycho instantly covers most of the screen, the switch went unnoticed by audiences for years. However, a freeze-frame analysis clearly reveals that it is Miles and not Leigh in the shower during the trailer.

Psycho has been rated and re-rated several times over the years by the MPAA. Upon its initial release, the film received a certificate stating that it was "Approved" (certificate #19564) under the simple pass/fail system of the Production Code in use at that time. Later, when the MPAA switched to a voluntary letter ratings system in 1968, Psycho was one of a number of high-profile motion pictures to be retro-rated with an "M" (Suggested for mature audiences: Parental discretion advised).[citation needed ] This remained the only rating the film would receive for 16 years, and according to the guidelines of the time "M" was the equivalent of a "PG" rating. In 1984, amidst a controversy surrounding the levels of violence depicted in "PG"-rated films in the VCR era, the film was re-classified to its current rating of "R".

The film had another successful theatrical reissue in 1969.[citation needed ]

The film was re-released to cinemas on September 20 and 23, 2015, as part of the "TCM Presents" series by Turner Classic Movies and Fathom Events.

CBS purchased the television rights for $450,000. CBS planned to televise the film on September 23, 1966, as an installment of its new movie night The CBS Friday Night Movies. Three days prior to the scheduled telecast, Valerie Percy, daughter of Illinois senate candidate Charles H. Percy, was murdered. As her parents slept mere feet away, she was stabbed a dozen times with a double-edged knife. In light of the murder, CBS agreed to postpone the broadcast. As a result of the Apollo 1 fire on January 27, 1967, the network washed its hands of Psycho.

Shortly afterward Paramount included the film in its first syndicated package of post-1950 movies, "Portfolio I". WABC-TV in New York City was the first station in the country to air Psycho (with some scenes significantly edited), on its late-night movie series, The Best of Broadway, on June 24, 1967.

The film finally made its way to general television broadcast in one of Universal's syndicated programming packages for local stations in 1970. Psycho was aired for 20 years in this format, then leased to cable for two years before returning to syndication as part of the "List of a Lifetime" package.

The film has been released several times on VHS, LaserDisc, DVD and Blu-ray. DiscoVision first released Psycho on the LaserDisc format in "standard play" (5 sides) in 1979, and "extended play" (2 sides) in October 1981. MCA/Universal Home Video released a new LaserDisc version of Psycho in August 1988 (Catalog #: 11003). In May 1998, Universal Studios Home Video released a deluxe edition of Psycho as part of their Signature Collection. This THX-certified Widescreen (1.85:1) LaserDisc Deluxe Edition (Catalog #: 43105) is spread across 4 extended play sides and 1 standard play side, and includes a new documentary and isolated Bernard Herrmann score. A DVD edition was released at the same time as the LaserDisc.

A version of the film with extended footage of Marion undressing (showing her taking off her bra), Norman cleaning up after the murder, and Arbogast's death (in which he is stabbed four times instead of two) has been shown on German TV, and was released there on Blu-ray in 2015. This footage had been cut from the U.S version of the film in 1968 before the re-release of the movie after the ratings system was first established by the MPAA, these cuts were at the insistence of the National Legion of Decency.

For the DVD release, Laurent Bouzereau produced a documentary looking at the film's production and reception. Universal released a 50th anniversary edition on Blu-ray in the United Kingdom on August 9, 2010, with Australia making the same edition (with a different cover) available on September 1, 2010. To mark the film's 50th anniversary, a Blu-ray in the U.S. was released on October 19, 2010, featuring yet another cover. The film is also included on two different Alfred Hitchcock Blu-ray box-sets from Universal.

On September 8, 2020, the film was released on 4K UHD Blu-Ray as part of The Alfred Hitchcock Classics Collection, along with an individual "60th anniversary" Blu-Ray release as well. This release includes the extended footage from the German release, making it the first time that these scenes were presented to US audiences as Hitchcock intended.

Initial reviews of the film were mixed. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote: "There is not an abundance of subtlety or the lately familiar Hitchcock bent toward significant and colorful scenery in this obviously low-budget job." Crowther called the "slow buildups to sudden shocks" reliably melodramatic but contested Hitchcock's psychological points, reminiscent of Krafft-Ebing's studies, as less effective. While the film did not conclude satisfactorily for the critic, he commended the cast's performances as "fair". British critic C. A. Lejeune was so offended that she not only walked out before the end but permanently resigned her post as film critic for The Observer. Other negative reviews stated, "a blot on an honorable career", "plainly a gimmick movie", and "merely one of those television shows padded out to two hours." The Catholic Legion of Decency gave the film a B rating, meaning "morally objectionable in part".

Critics from the New York , New York Daily Mirror, and The Village Voice were positive, writing, "Anthony Perkins' performance is the best of his career ... Janet Leigh has never been better", "played out beautifully", and "first American movie since Touch of Evil to stand in the same creative rank as the great European films", respectively. A mixed review from the New York Herald Tribune's review stated it was "rather difficult to be amused at the forms insanity may take ... keeps your attention like a snake-charmer." The film ranked 9th on Cahiers du Cinéma's Top 10 Films of the Year List in 1960.

In its opening week it grossed $46,500 at the DeMille and a record $19,500 at the Baronet. Following its expansion the following week, it grossed $143,000 from 5 theaters and ranked second at the US box-office. It remains the most commercially successful film in Hitchcock's career.

In the United Kingdom, the film broke attendance records at the London Plaza Cinema, but nearly all British film critics gave it poor reviews, questioning Hitchcock's taste and judgment and calling it his worst film ever. Reasons cited for this were the lack of preview screenings; the fact that they had to turn up at a set time as they wouldn't be admitted after the film had started; their dislike of the gimmicky promotion; and Hitchcock's expatriate status. Critics later reassessed the film more positively. magazine switched its opinion from "Hitchcock bears down too heavily in this one" to "superlative" and "masterly", and Bosley Crowther put it on his Top Ten list of 1960. Psycho was criticized for causing other filmmakers to show gory content; three years later, Blood Feast, considered to be the first " splatter film", was released. Inspired by Psycho, Hammer Film Productions launched a series of mystery thrillers including (1965) starring Bette Davis and William Castle's (1961) was followed by a slew of more than thirteen other splatter films.

It broke box-office records in Japan and the rest of Asia, France, Britain, South America, the United States, and Canada, and was a moderate success in Australia for a brief period. Hitchcock personally earned in excess of $15 million from Psycho. He then swapped his rights to Psycho and his TV anthology for 150,000 shares of MCA, making him the third largest shareholder in MCA Inc., and his own boss at Universal, in theory; however, this did not stop them from interfering with his later films. Psycho was one of Hitchcock's most profitable films, earning $32 million worldwide.

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Psycho has an approval rating of 96% based on 103 reviews, with an average score of 9.20/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Infamous for its shower scene, but immortal for its contribution to the horror genre. Because Psycho was filmed with tact, grace, and art, Hitchcock didn't just create modern horror, he validated it." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 97 out of 100 based on 17 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". In his 1998 review of Psycho film critic Roger Ebert summarised the film's enduring appeal, writing:

What makes "Psycho" immortal, when so many films are already half-forgotten as we leave the theater, is that it connects directly with our fears: Our fears that we might impulsively commit a crime, our fears of the police, our fears of becoming the victim of a madman, and of course our fears of disappointing our mothers.

In Psycho, Hitchcock subverts the romantic elements that are seen in most of his work. The film is instead ironic as it presents "clarity and fulfillment" of romance. The past is central to the film; the main characters "struggle to understand and resolve destructive personal histories" and ultimately fail. Lesley Brill writes, "The inexorable forces of past sins and mistakes crush hopes for regeneration and present happiness." The crushed hope is highlighted by the death of the protagonist, Marion Crane, halfway through the film. Marion is like Persephone of Greek mythology, who is abducted temporarily from the world of the living. The myth does not sustain with Marion, who dies hopelessly in her room at the Bates Motel. The room is wallpapered with floral print like Persephone's flowers, but they are only "reflected in mirrors, as images of images-twice removed from reality". In the scene of Marion's death, Brill describes the transition from the bathroom drain to Marion's lifeless eye, "Like the eye of the amorphous sea creature at the end of Fellini's La Dolce Vita, it marks the birth of death, an emblem of final hopelessness and corruption."

Marion is deprived of "the humble treasures of love, marriage, home and family", which Hitchcock considers elements of human happiness. There exists among Psycho's secondary characters a lack of "familial warmth and stability", which demonstrates the unlikelihood of domestic fantasies. The film contains ironic jokes about domesticity, such as when Sam writes a letter to Marion, agreeing to marry her, only after the audience sees her buried in the swamp. Sam and Marion's sister Lila, in investigating Marion's disappearance, develop an "increasingly connubial" relationship, a development that Marion is denied. Norman also suffers a similarly perverse definition of domesticity. He has "an infantile and divided personality" and lives in a mansion whose past occupies the present. Norman displays stuffed birds that are "frozen in time" and keeps childhood toys and stuffed animals in his room. He is hostile toward suggestions to move from the past, such as with Marion's suggestion to put his mother "someplace" and as a result kills Marion to preserve his past. Brill explains, "'Someplace' for Norman is where his delusions of love, home, and family are declared invalid and exposed."

The film often features shadows, mirrors, windows, and, less so, water. The shadows are present from the first scene where the blinds make bars on Marion and Sam as they peer out of the window. The stuffed birds' shadows loom over Marion as she eats, and Norman's mother is seen in only shadows until the end. More subtly, backlighting turns the rakes in the hardware store into talons above Lila's head.

Mirrors reflect Marion as she packs, her eyes as she checks the rear-view mirror, her face in the policeman's sunglasses, and her hands as she counts out the money in the car dealership's bathroom. A motel window serves as a mirror by reflecting Marion and Norman together. Hitchcock shoots through Marion's windshield and the telephone booth, when Arbogast phones Sam and Lila. The heavy downpour can be seen as a foreshadowing of the shower, and its cessation can be seen as a symbol of Marion making up her mind to return to Phoenix.

There are a number of references to birds. Marion's last name is Crane and she is from Phoenix. Norman comments that Marion eats like a bird. The motel room has pictures of birds on the wall. Brigitte Peucker also suggests that Norman's hobby of stuffing birds literalizes the British slang expression for sex, "stuffing birds", bird being British slang for a desirable woman. Robert Allan suggests that Norman's mother is his original "stuffed bird", both in the sense of having preserved her body and the incestuous nature of Norman's emotional bond with her.

In his documentary The Pervert's Guide to Cinema, Slavoj Žižek remarks that Norman Bates' mansion has three floors, paralleling the three levels of the human mind that are postulated by Freudian psychoanalysis: the top floor would be the superego, where Bates' mother lives; the ground floor is then Bates' ego, where he functions as an apparently normal human being; and the basement would be Bates' id. Žižek interprets Bates' moving his mother's corpse from top floor to basement as a symbol for the deep connection that psychoanalysis posits between superego and id.

In 1992, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. In 1998, ranked it #8 on their list of the 50 Greatest Movies on TV (and Video).

Psycho has appeared on a number of lists by websites, television channels, and magazines. The shower scene was featured as number four on the list of Bravo Network's 100 Scariest Movie Moments, whilst the finale was ranked number four on 's similar list. In the British Film Institute's 2012 Sight & Sound polls of the greatest films ever made, Psycho was 35th among critics and 48th among directors. In the earlier 2002 version of the list the film ranked 35th among critics and 19th among directors. In 1998 conducted a reader's poll and Psycho was voted the 29th greatest film of all time. The Village Voice ranked Psycho at No. 19 in its Top 250 "Best Films of the Century" list in 1999, based on a poll of critics. Entertainment Weekly voted it the 11th Greatest film of all time in 1999. In January 2002, the film was voted at No. 72 on the list of the "Top 100 Essential Films of All Time" by the National Society of Film Critics. The film was included in 's All-Time 100 best movies list in 2005. In 2005, magazine ranked Psycho as the 6th-greatest horror film of all time. In 2010, The Guardian newspaper ranked it as "the best horror film of all time". Director Martin Scorsese included Psycho in his list of the 11 scariest horror films of all time. In 2017 Empire magazine's reader's poll ranked Psycho at No. 53 on its list of The 100 Greatest Movies. In an earlier poll held by the same magazine in 2008, it was voted 45th on the list of 'The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time'. In 2021, The film was ranked at No. 5 by Time Out on their list of "The 100 best horror movies".

In 2012, the Motion Picture Editors Guild listed the film as the twelfth best-edited film of all time based on a survey of its membership. Psycho was ranked 8th in BBC's 2015 list of the 100 greatest American films.

American Film Institute has included Psycho in these lists:

Psycho has become one of the most recognizable films in cinema history, and is arguably Hitchcock's best known film. In his novel, Bloch used an uncommon plot structure: he repeatedly introduced sympathetic protagonists, then killed them off. This played on his reader's expectations of traditional plots, leaving them uncertain and anxious. Hitchcock recognized the effect this approach could have on audiences, and utilized it in his adaptation, killing off Leigh's character at the end of the first act. This daring plot device, coupled with the fact that the character was played by the biggest box-office name in the film, was a shocking turn of events in 1960.

The shower scene has become a pop culture touchstone and is often regarded as one of the most iconic moments in cinematic history, as well as the most suspenseful scene ever filmed. Its effectiveness is often credited to the use of startling editing techniques borrowed from the Soviet montage filmmakers, and to the iconic screeching violins in Bernard Herrmann's musical score. In 2000 The Guardian ranked the shower scene at No. 2 on their list of "The top 10 film moments". The scene has been frequently parodied and referenced in popular culture, complete with the violin screeching sound effects (see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, among many others). 78/52: Hitchcock's Shower Scene, a documentary on its production by Alexandre O. Philippe, was released on October 13, 2017. It features interviews with and analysis by Guillermo del Toro, Peter Bogdanovich, Bret Easton Ellis, Jamie Lee Curtis, Karyn Kusama, Eli Roth, Oz Perkins, Leigh Whannell, Walter Murch, Danny Elfman, Elijah Wood, Richard Stanley, and Neil Marshall.

Psycho is considered by some to be the first film in the slasher film genre, though some critics and film historians point to Michael Powell's Peeping Tom, a lesser-known film with similar themes of voyeurism and sexualized violence, whose release happened to precede Psycho's by a few months. However, due to Peeping Tom's critical drubbing at the time and short lifespan at the box office, Psycho was the more widely known and influential film.

Psycho has been referenced in other films numerous times: examples include the 1974 musical horror film Phantom of the Paradise; the 1978 horror film (which starred Jamie Lee Curtis, Janet Leigh's daughter, and which featured a character Sam Loomis); the 1977 Mel Brooks tribute to many of Hitchcock's thrillers, High Anxiety; the 1980 Fade to Black; the 1980 Dressed to Kill; and Wes Craven's 1996 horror satire . Bernard Herrmann's opening theme has been sampled by rapper Busta Rhymes on his song " Gimme Some More" (1998). Manuel Muñoz's 2011 novel What You See in the Dark includes a sub-plot that fictionalizes elements of the filming of Psycho, referring to Hitchcock and Leigh only as "The Director" and "The Actress". In the comic book stories of Jonni Future, the house inherited by the title character is patterned after the Bates Motel.

The film boosted Perkins' career, but he soon began to suffer from typecasting. When Perkins was asked whether he would have still taken the role knowing that he would be typecast afterwards, he said "yes". As Perkins was in New York working on a Broadway stage show when the shower sequence was filmed, actresses Anne Dore and Margo Epper stepped in as his body doubles for that scene. Until her death in 2004, Leigh received strange and sometimes threatening calls, letters, and even tapes detailing what the caller would like to do to Marion Crane. One letter was so "grotesque" that she passed it to the FBI. Two agents visited Leigh and told her the culprits had been located and that she should notify the FBI if she received any more letters of that type.

Leigh said, "No other murder mystery in the history of the movies has inspired such merchandising." A number of items emblazoned with Bates Motel, stills, lobby cards, and highly valuable posters are available for purchase. In 1992 Innovation Comics published a three-issue, shot-for-shot comics miniseries adaptation of the film.

Metalcore band Ice Nine Kills released a song on their most recent album The Silver Scream 2: Welcome to Horrorwood called, "The Shower Scene" which pays homage to the film.

Three sequels were produced after Hitchcock died: (1983), (1986), and Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990), the last being a part-prequel television movie written by the original screenplay author, Joseph Stefano. Anthony Perkins returned to his role of Norman Bates in all three sequels, and also directed the third film. The voice of Norman Bates' mother was maintained by noted radio actress Virginia Gregg with the exception of Psycho IV, where the role was played by Olivia Hussey. Vera Miles also reprised her role of Lila Crane in Psycho II. The sequels received mixed reviews and were universally considered inferior to the original.

In 1998, Gus Van Sant made a nearly shot-for-shot remake (in color) starring Vince Vaughn, Julianne Moore, and Anne Heche.[citation needed ] Van Sant said that his film was "a huge kind of experimental project," and that, though it did not do well commercially or critically, he may do it again, with more changes.

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Thomson, David, The Moment of Psycho (2009) ISBN 978-0-465-00339-6

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Psycho is a 1960 American psychological horror thriller film produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The screenplay, written by Joseph Stefano, was based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch. The film stars Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin and Martin Balsam.

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(Spirited Away Japanese: 千と千尋の神隠し, Hepburn: Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi, 'Sen and Chihiro's Spiriting Away') is a 2001 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, animated by Studio Ghibli for Tokuma Shoten, Nippon Television Network, Dentsu, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Tohokushinsha Film, and Mitsubishi. The film features the voices of Rumi Hiiragi, Miyu Irino, Mari Natsuki, Takeshi Naito, Yasuko Sawaguchi, Tsunehiko Kamijō, Takehiko Ono, and Bunta Sugawara. Spirited Away tells the story of Chihiro Ogino (Hiiragi), a ten-year-old girl who, while moving to a new neighborhood, enters the world of Kami (spirits of Japanese Shinto folklore). After her parents are turned into pigs by the witch Yubaba (Natsuki), Chihiro takes a job working in Yubaba's bathhouse to find a way to free herself and her parents and return to the human world.

Miyazaki wrote the screenplay after he decided the film would be based on the ten-year-old daughter of his friend Seiji Okuda, the film's associate producer, who came to visit his house each summer. At the time, Miyazaki was developing two personal projects, but they were rejected. With a budget of US$19 million, production of Spirited Away began in 2000. Pixar animator John Lasseter, a fan and friend of Miyazaki, convinced Walt Disney Pictures to buy the film's North American distribution rights, and served as executive producer of its English-dubbed version. Lasseter then hired Kirk Wise as director and Donald W. Ernst as producer, while screenwriters Cindy and Donald Hewitt wrote the English-language dialogue to match the characters' original Japanese-language lip movements.

Originally released in Japan on 20 July 2001 by distributor Toho, the film received universal acclaim, grossing $395.8 million at the worldwide box office. It is frequently regarded as one of the best films of the 21st century as well as one of the greatest animated films ever made. Accordingly, it became the most successful and highest-grossing film in Japanese history with a total of ¥31.68 billion ($305 million). It held the record for 19 years until it was surpassed by Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Mugen Train in 2020.

It won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature at the 75th Academy Awards, making it the first, and to date only hand-drawn and non-English-language animated film to win the award. It was the co-recipient of the Golden Bear at the 2002 Berlin International Film Festival (shared with Bloody Sunday), and is within the top ten on the British Film Institute's list of "Top 50 films for children up to the age of 14". In 2016, it was voted the fourth-best film of the 21st century by the BBC, as picked by 177 film critics from around the world, making it the highest-ranking animated film on the list. In 2017, it was also named the second "Best Film...of the 21st Century So Far" by The New York Times.

Ten-year-old Chihiro and her parents are traveling to their new home. Her father, a man who loves to take shortcuts, ends up in front of a tunnel leading to a dry riverbed and, beyond, what appears to be an abandoned village. He conjectures they have stumbled upon a failed theme park, and insists on exploring it despite his daughter's misgivings. The family soon finds an unattended restaurant stall with a spread of fresh food, which the parents begin to enjoy. Refusing to partake, Chihiro explores on her own and finds an exquisite bathhouse and meets a boy named Haku, who warns her to return across the riverbed before sunset. However, Chihiro discovers too late that her parents have transformed into pigs, and she is unable to cross the now-flooded river.

Haku finds Chihiro and advises her to ask for a job from the bathhouse's boiler-man, Kamaji. While initially dismissive of Chihiro, Kamaji asks Lin, a bathhouse worker, to send Chihiro to Yubaba, the witch who runs the bathhouse. Yubaba tries to frighten Chihiro away, but Chihiro persists, and Yubaba hires her. Yubaba takes away the second kanji of her name, Chihiro, renaming her Sen. Haku later warns her that if she forgets her name like he has forgotten his, she will remain trapped in the spirit world.

Sen is treated poorly by the other bathhouse workers; only Kamaji and Lin show sympathy for her. While working, she invites a silent creature named No-Face inside, believing him to be a customer. A "stink spirit" arrives as Sen's first customer, and she discovers he is the spirit of a polluted river. In gratitude for cleaning him, he gives Sen a magic emetic dumpling. Meanwhile, No-Face, imitating the gold left behind by the stink spirit, tempts a worker with gold and then swallows him. He demands food and begins tipping excessively. He swallows two more workers when they interfere with his conversation with Sen.

Sen sees paper Shikigami attacking a Japanese dragon and recognizes the dragon as Haku. When a grievously injured Haku crashes into Yubaba's penthouse, Sen follows him upstairs. A shikigami that stowed away on her back shapeshifts into Zeniba, Yubaba's twin sister. She transforms Yubaba's son, Boh, into a mouse and mutates Yubaba's harpy into a tiny bird. As a decoy she turns Yubaba's three tsurube-otoshi into Boh. Zeniba tells Sen that Haku has stolen a magic golden seal from her, and warns Sen that it carries a lethal curse. Haku destroys the shikigami, eliminating Zeniba's manifestation. He falls into the boiler room with Sen, Boh, and the harpy, where Sen feeds him part of the dumpling, causing him to vomit both the seal and a black slug, which Sen crushes with her foot.

With Haku unconscious, Sen resolves to return the seal and apologize to Zeniba. Sen confronts No-Face, who is now massive, and feeds him the rest of the dumpling. No-Face follows Sen out of the bathhouse, regurgitating everything and everyone he has eaten. Sen, No-Face, Boh, and the harpy travel by train to meet Zeniba. Yubaba orders that Sen's parents be slaughtered, but Haku reveals that Boh is missing and offers to retrieve him if Yubaba releases Sen and her parents.

Zeniba reveals that Sen's love for Haku broke her curse and that Yubaba used the black slug to take control over Haku. Haku appears at Zeniba's home in his dragon form and flies Sen, Boh, and the harpy to the bathhouse. No-Face decides to remain with Zeniba. In mid-flight, Sen recalls an incident from her early childhood in which she fell in the Kohaku River and nearly drowned before she was safely washed ashore. She correctly deduces that Haku is the spirit of the river, breaking the control that Yubaba has over him.

When they arrive at the bathhouse, Yubaba forces Sen to identify her parents from among a group of pigs in order to break their curse. After Sen answers correctly that none of the pigs are her parents, she is free to go. Haku takes her to the now-dry riverbed and vows to meet her again. Chihiro returns through the tunnel with her parents, who do not remember anything after eating at the restaurant stall. Chihiro looks back at the tunnel, unsure if her adventure really happened. When they reach their car, they find it covered in dust and leaves, but drive off toward their new home.

"I created a heroine who is an ordinary girl, someone with whom the audience can sympathize [...]. [I]t's not a story in which the characters grow up, but a story in which they draw on something already inside them, brought out by the particular circumstances [...]. I want my young friends to live like that, and I think they, too, have such a wish."

Every summer, Hayao Miyazaki spent his vacation at a mountain cabin with his family and five girls who were friends of the family. The idea for Spirited Away came about when he wanted to make a film for these friends. Miyazaki had previously directed films for small children and teenagers such as My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service, but he had not created a film for ten-year-old girls. For inspiration, he read shōjo manga magazines like and the girls had left at the cabin, but felt they only offered subjects on "crushes" and romance. When looking at his young friends, Miyazaki felt this was not what they "held dear in their hearts" and decided to produce the film about a young heroine whom they could look up to instead.

Miyazaki had wanted to produce a new film for years, but his two previous proposals-one based on the Japanese book Kiri no Mukō no Fushigi na Machi (霧のむこうのふしぎな町) by Sachiko Kashiwaba, and another about a teenage heroine-were rejected. His third proposal, which ended up becoming Sen and Chihiro's Spirited Away, was more successful. The three stories revolved around a bathhouse that was inspired by one in Miyazaki's hometown. He thought the bathhouse was a mysterious place, and there was a small door next to one of the bathtubs in the bath house. Miyazaki was always curious to what was behind it, and he made up several stories about it, one of which inspired the bathhouse setting of Spirited Away.

Production of Spirited Away commenced in 2000 on a budget of ¥1.9 billion (US$15 million). Walt Disney Pictures financed ten percent of the film's production cost for the right of first refusal for American distribution. As with Princess Mononoke, Miyazaki and the Studio Ghibli staff experimented with computer animation. With the use of more computers and programs such as Softimage 3D, the staff learned the software, but used the technology carefully so that it enhanced the story, instead of "stealing the show". Each character was mostly hand-drawn, with Miyazaki working alongside his animators to see they were getting it just right. The biggest difficulty in making the film was to reduce its length. When production began, Miyazaki realized it would be more than three hours long if he made it according to his plot. He had to delete many scenes from the story, and tried to reduce the "eye candy" in the film because he wanted it to be simple. Miyazaki did not want to make the hero a "pretty girl". At the beginning, he was frustrated at how she looked "dull" and thought, "She isn't cute. Isn't there something we can do?" As the film neared the end, however, he was relieved to feel "she will be a charming woman."

Miyazaki based some of the buildings in the spirit world on the buildings in the real-life Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum in Koganei, Tokyo, Japan. He often visited the museum for inspiration while working on the film. Miyazaki had always been interested in the Pseudo-Western style buildings from the Meiji period that were available there. The museum made Miyazaki feel nostalgic, "especially when I stand here alone in the evening, near closing time, and the sun is setting - tears well up in my eyes." Another major inspiration was the Notoya Ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn located in Yamagata Prefecture, famous for its exquisite architecture and ornamental features. While some guidebooks and articles claim that the old gold town of Jiufen in Taiwan served as an inspirational model for the film, Miyazaki has denied this. The Dōgo Onsen is also often said to be a key inspiration for the Spirited Away onsen/bathhouse.

The film score of Spirited Away was composed and conducted by Miyazaki's regular collaborator Joe Hisaishi, and performed by the New Japan Philharmonic. The soundtrack received awards at the 56th Mainichi Film Competition Award for Best Music, the Tokyo International Anime Fair 2001 Best Music Award in the Theater Movie category, and the 17th Japan Gold Disk Award for Animation Album of the Year. Later, Hisaishi added lyrics to "One Summer's Day" and named the new version of the song "The Name of Life" which was performed by Ayaka Hirahara.

The closing song, "Always With Me" (いつも何度でも, , lit. 'Always, No Matter How Many Times') was written and performed by (煙突描きのリン, Youmi Kimura, a composer and lyre-player from Osaka. The lyrics were written by Kimura's friend Wakako Kaku. The song was intended to be used for Rin the Chimney Painter Entotsu-kaki no Rin), a different Miyazaki film which was never released. In the special features of the Japanese DVD, Hayao Miyazaki explains how the song in fact inspired him to create Spirited Away. The song itself would be recognized as Gold at the 43rd Japan Record Awards.

Besides the original soundtrack, there is also an (千と千尋の神隠し　イメージアルバム, image album, titled Spirited Away Image Album Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi Imēji Arubamu), that contains 10 tracks.

John Lasseter, Pixar animator and a fan and friend of Miyazaki, would often sit with his staff and watch Miyazaki's work when encountering story problems. After seeing Spirited Away Lasseter was ecstatic. Upon hearing his reaction to the film, Disney CEO Michael Eisner asked Lasseter if he would be interested in introducing Spirited Away to an American audience. Lasseter obliged by agreeing to serve as the executive producer for the English adaptation. Following this, several others began to join the project: Beauty and the Beast co-director Kirk Wise and co-producer Donald W. Ernst joined Lasseter as director and producer of Spirited Away, respectively. Screenwriters Cindy Davis Hewitt and Donald H. Hewitt penned the English-language dialogue, which they wrote in order to match the characters' original Japanese-language lip movements.

The cast of the film consists of Daveigh Chase, Jason Marsden, Suzanne Pleshette (in her final film role before her death in January 2008), Michael Chiklis, Lauren Holly, Susan Egan, David Ogden Stiers and John Ratzenberger (a Pixar regular). Advertising was limited, with Spirited Away being mentioned in a small scrolling section of the film section of ; Disney had sidelined their official website for Spirited Away and given the film a comparatively small promotional budget. Marc Hairston argues that this was a justified response to Studio Ghibli's retention of the merchandising rights to the film and characters, which limited Disney's ability to properly market the film.

The major themes of Spirited Away, heavily influenced by Japanese Shinto- Buddhist folklore, centre on the protagonist Chihiro and her liminal journey through the realm of spirits. The central location of the film is a Japanese bathhouse where a great variety of Japanese folklore creatures, including kami, come to bathe. Miyazaki cites the solstice rituals when villagers call forth their local kami and invite them into their baths. Chihiro also encounters kami of animals and plants. Miyazaki says of this:

In my grandparents' time, it was believed that kami existed everywhere - in trees, rivers, insects, wells, anything. My generation does not believe this, but I like the idea that we should all treasure everything because spirits might exist there, and we should treasure everything because there is a kind of life to everything.

Chihiro's archetypal entrance into another world demarcates her status as one somewhere between child and adult. Chihiro also stands outside societal boundaries in the supernatural setting. The use of the word kamikakushi (literally 'hidden by gods') within the Japanese title, and its associated folklore, reinforces this liminal passage: "Kamikakushi is a verdict of 'social death' in this world, and coming back to this world from Kamikakushi meant 'social resurrection.'"

Additional themes are expressed through No-Face, who reflects the characters who surround him, learning by example and taking the traits of whomever he consumes. This nature results in No-Face's monstrous rampage through the bathhouse. After Chihiro saves No-Face with the emetic dumpling, he becomes timid once more. At the end of the film, Zeniba decides to take care of No-Face so he can develop without the negative influence of the bathhouse.

The film has been compared to Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, as the stories have some elements in common such as being set in a fantasy world, the plots including a disturbance in logic and stability, and there being motifs such as food having metamorphic qualities; though developments and themes are not shared. Among other stories compared to Spirited Away, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is seen to be more closely linked thematically.

Yubaba has many similarities to the Coachman from the 1940 film , in the sense that she mutates humans into pigs in a similar way that the boys of Pleasure Island were mutated into donkeys. Upon gaining employment at the bathhouse, Yubaba's seizure of Chihiro's true name symbolically kills the child, who must then assume adulthood. She then undergoes a rite of passage according to the monomyth format; to recover continuity with her past, Chihiro must create a new identity.

Spirited Away contains critical commentary on modern Japanese society concerning generational conflicts and environmental issues. Chihiro has been seen as a representation of the , whose roles and ideology had changed dramatically since post-war Japan. Just as Chihiro seeks her past identity, Japan, in its anxiety over the economic downturn occurring during the release of the film in 2001, sought to reconnect to past values. In an interview, Miyazaki has commented on this nostalgic element for an old Japan.

Accordingly, the film can be partly understood as an exploration of the effect of greediness and Western consumerism on traditional Japanese culture. For instance, Yubaba is stylistically unique within the bathhouse, wearing a Western dress and living among European décor and furnishings, in contrast with the minimalist Japanese style of her employees' quarters, representing the Western capitalist influence over Japan in its Meiji period and beyond. Along with its function within the ostensible coming of age theme, Yubaba's act of taking Chihiro's name and replacing it with Sen (an alternate reading of chi, the first character in Chihiro's name, lit. 'one thousand'), can be thought of as symbolic of capitalism's single-minded concern with value.

The Meiji design of the abandoned theme park is the setting for Chihiro's parents' metamorphosis - the family arrives in an imported Audi car and the father wears a European-styled polo shirt, reassuring Chihiro that he has "credit cards and cash," before their morphing into literal consumerist pigs.[failed verification ] Miyazaki has stated:

Chihiro's parents turning into pigs symbolizes how some humans become greedy. At the very moment Chihiro says there is something odd about this town, her parents turn into pigs. There were people that "turned into pigs" during Japan's bubble economy ( consumer society) of the 1980s, and these people still haven't realized they've become pigs. Once someone becomes a pig, they don't return to being human but instead gradually start to have the "body and soul of a pig". These people are the ones saying, "We are in a recession and don't have enough to eat." This doesn't just apply to the fantasy world. Perhaps this isn't a coincidence and the food is actually (an analogy for) "a trap to catch lost humans."

However, the bathhouse of the spirits cannot be seen as a place free of ambiguity and darkness. Many of the employees are rude to Chihiro because she is human, and corruption is ever-present; it is a place of excess and greed, as depicted in the initial appearance of No-Face. In stark contrast to the simplicity of Chihiro's journey and transformation is the constantly chaotic carnival in the background.

There are two major instances of allusions to environmental issues within the movie. The first is seen when Chihiro is dealing with the "stink spirit". The stink spirit was actually a river spirit, but it was so corrupted with filth that one couldn't tell what it was at first glance. It only became clean again when Chihiro pulled out a huge amount of trash, including car tires, garbage, and a bicycle. This alludes to human pollution of the environment, and how people can carelessly toss away things without thinking of the consequences and of where the trash will go.

The second allusion is seen in Haku himself. Haku does not remember his name and lost his past, which is why he is stuck at the bathhouse. Eventually, Chihiro remembers that he used to be the spirit of the Kohaku River, which was destroyed and replaced with apartments. Because of humans' need for development, they destroyed a part of nature, causing Haku to lose his home and identity. This can be compared to deforestation and desertification; humans tear down nature, cause imbalance in the ecosystem, and demolish animals' homes to satisfy their want for more space (housing, malls, stores, etc.) but do not think about how it can affect other living things.

Spirited Away was released theatrically in Japan on 20 July 2001 by distributor Toho. It grossed a record ¥1.6 billion ($13.1 million) in its first three days, beating the previous record set by Princess Mononoke. It was number one at the Japanese box office for its first eleven weeks and spent 16 weeks there in total. After 22 weeks of release and after grossing $224 million in Japan, it started its international release, opening in Hong Kong on 13 December 2001. It was the first film that had grossed more than $200 million at the worldwide box office excluding the United States. It went on to gross ¥30.4 billion to become the highest-grossing film in Japanese history, according to the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan. It also set the all-time attendance record in Japan, surpassing the 16.8 million tickets sold by . Its gross at the Japanese box office has since increased to ¥31.68 billion, as of 2020.

In February 2002, Wild Bunch, an international sales company that had recently span-off from its former parent StudioCanal, picked up the international sale rights for the film outside of Asia and France. The company would then on-sell it to independent distributors across the world. On April 13, 2002, The Walt Disney Company acquired the Taiwanese, Singapore, Hong Kong, French and North American sale rights to the film, alongside Japanese Home Media rights.

Disney's English dub of the film supervised by Lasseter, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on 7 September 2002 and was later released in the United States on 20 September 2002. The film grossed $450,000 in its opening weekend from 26 theatres. Spirited Away had very little marketing, less than Disney's other B-films, with a maximum of 151 theatres showing the film in 2002. After the 2003 Oscars, it expanded to 714 theatres. It ultimately grossed around $10 million by September 2003. Outside of Japan and the United States, the movie was moderately successful in both South Korea and France where it grossed $11 million and $6 million, respectively. In Argentina, it is in the top 10 anime films with the most tickets sold.

In the United Kingdom, then-independent based film distributor Optimum Releasing acquired the rights to the movie from Wild Bunch in January 2003. The company then released it theatrically on 12 September 2003. The movie grossed $244,437 on its opening weekend from 51 theatres, and by the end of its theatrical run in October, the movie has grossed $1,383,023 in the country.

About 18 years after its original release in Japan, Spirited Away had a theatrical release in China on 21 June 2019. It follows the theatrical China release of My Neighbour Totoro in December 2018. The delayed theatrical release in China was due to long-standing political tensions between China and Japan, but many Chinese became familiar with Miyazaki's films due to rampant video piracy. It topped the Chinese box office with a $28.8-million opening weekend, beating in China. In its second weekend, Spirited Away grossed a cumulative $54.8 million in China, and was second only behind Spider-Man: Far From Home that weekend. As of 16 July 2019, the film has grossed $70 million in China, bringing its worldwide total box office to over $346 million as of 8 July 2019.

Spirited Away's worldwide box office total stands at US$395,802,070

Spirited Away was first released on VHS and DVD formats in Japan by Buena Vista Home Entertainment on 19 July 2002. The Japanese DVD releases include storyboards for the film and the special edition includes a Ghibli DVD player. Spirited Away sold 5.5million home video units in Japan by 2007, and currently[when? ] holds the record for most home video copies sold of all-time in the country. The movie was released on Blu-ray by Walt Disney Studios Japan on 14 July 2014, and DVD was also reissued on the same day with a new HD master, alongside several other Studio Ghibli movies.

In North America, the film was released on DVD and VHS formats by Walt Disney Home Entertainment on 15 April 2003. The attention brought by the Oscar win resulted in the film becoming a strong seller. The bonus features include Japanese trailers, a making-of documentary which originally aired on Nippon Television, interviews with the North American voice actors, a select storyboard-to-scene comparison and The Art of Spirited Away, a documentary narrated by actor Jason Marsden. The movie was released on Blu-ray by and North America by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment on 16 June 2015. GKIDS and Shout! Factory re-issued the film on Blu-ray and DVD on 17 October 2017 following the expiration of Disney's previous deal with Studio Ghibli in the country. On 12 November 2019, GKIDS and Shout! Factory issued a North-America-exclusive Spirited Away collector's edition, which includes the film on Blu-ray, and the film's soundtrack on CD, as well as a 40-page book with statements by Toshio Suzuki and Hayao Miyazaki, and essays by film critic Kenneth Turan and film historian Leonard Maltin.

In the United Kingdom, the film was released on DVD and VHS as a rental release through independent distributor High Fliers Films PLC following the film's limited theatrical release. It was later officially released on DVD in the UK on 29 March 2004, with the distribution being done by Optimum Releasing themselves. In 2006, the DVD was reissued as a single-disc release (without the second one) with packaging matching other releases in Optimum's "The Studio Ghibli Collection" range. The then-renamed StudioCanal UK released the movie on Blu-ray on 24 November 2014, A British 20th Anniversary Collector's Edition, similar to other Studio Ghibli anniversary editions released in the UK, will be released on 18 October 2021.

Along with the rest of the Studio Ghibli films, Spirited Away was released on digital markets in the United States for the first time, on 17 December 2019.

Spirited Away has received significant critical success on a broad scale. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 97% approval rating based on 190 reviews, with an average rating of 8.60/10. The website's critics consensus reads, " Spirited Away is a dazzling, enchanting, and gorgeously drawn fairy tale that will leave viewers a little more curious and fascinated by the world around them." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 96 out of 100 based on 41 critics, indicating "universal acclaim."

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a full four stars, praising the work and Miyazaki's direction. Ebert also said that Spirited Away was one of "the year's best films", as well as adding it to his " Great Movies" list. Elvis Mitchell of The New York Times positively reviewed the film and praised the animation sequences. Mitchell also drew a favorable comparison to Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass, as well as saying that Miyazaki's movies are about "moodiness as mood" and the characters "heightens the [film's] tension." Derek Elley of said that Spirited Away "can be enjoyed by sprigs and adults alike" and praised the animation and music. Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times praised Miyazaki's direction and the voice acting, as well as saying that the film is the "product of a fierce and fearless imagination whose creations are unlike anything a person has seen before." Orlando Sentinel's critic Jay Boyar also praised Miyazaki's direction and said the film is "the perfect choice for a child who has moved into a new home."

In 2004, Cinefantastique listed the film as one of the "10 Essential Animations". In 2005, Spirited Away was ranked by IGN as the 12th-best animated film of all time. The film is also ranked number 9 of the highest-rated movies of all time on Metacritic, being the highest rated traditionally animated film on the site. The film ranked number 10 in Empire magazine's "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema" in 2010. In 2010, Rotten Tomatoes ranked it as the 13th-best animated film on the site, and in 2012 as the 17th. In 2019, the site considered the film to be #1 among 140 essential animated movies to watch. In 2021 the film was ranked at number 46 on magazine's list of "The 100 Best Movies of All Time".

In his book Otaku, Hiroki Azuma observed: "Between 2001 and 2007, the otaku forms and markets quite rapidly won social recognition in Japan," and cites Miyazaki's win at the Academy Awards for Spirited Away among his examples.[failed verification ]

A stage production of Spirited Away was announced in February 2021 with a world premiere planned in Tokyo in 2022. The adaption will be written and directed by John Caird, with Toho as the production company, with Studio Ghibli's blessing. The role of Chihiro will be played by both Kanna Hashimoto and Mone Kamishiraishi.

Broderick, Mick (2003). "Intersections Review, Spirited Away by Miyazaki's Fantasy". Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context (9).

Callis, Cari. 2010. "Nothing that Happens is ever Forgotten." In Anime and Philosophy, edited by J. Steiff and T. D. Tamplin. New York: Open Court. ISBN 9780812697131.

Cooper, Damon (1 November 2010), "Finding the spirit within: a critical analysis of film techniques in spirited Away.(Critical essay)", Babel, Australian Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations, vol. 45 no. 1, pp. 30(6), ISSN 0005-3503

Coyle, Rebecca (2010). Drawn to Sound: Animation Film Music and Sonicity. Equinox Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84553-352-6. Drawn to Sound focuses on feature-length, widely distributed films released in the period since World War II, from producers in the USA, UK, Japan and France-from Animal Farm (1954) to Happy Feet (2006), Yellow Submarine (1968) to Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005), Spirited Away (2001) and Les Triplettes de Belleville (2003).

Fielding, Julien R. (2008). Discovering World Religions at 24 Frames Per Second. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-5996-8. Several films with a 'cult-like' following are also discussed, such as Fight Club, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, and Jacob's Ladder.

Fox, Kit. "Spirited Away". Animerica. Archived from the original on 7 April 2004.

Galbraith IV, Stuart (2008). The Toho Studios Story: A History and Complete Filmography. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-6004-9. Since its inception in 1933, Toho Co., Ltd., Japan's most famous movie production company and distributor, has produced and/or distributed some of the most notable films ever to come out of Asia, including Seven Samurai, Godzilla, When a Woman Ascends the Stairs, Kwaidan, Woman in the Dunes, Ran, Shall We Dance?, Ringu, and Spirited Away.

Hooks, Ed (2005). "Spirited Away". Acting in Animation: A Look at 12 Films. Heinemann Drama. ISBN 978-0-325-00705-2.

Knox, Julian (22 June 2011), "Hoffmann, Goethe, and Miyazaki's Spirited Away.(E.T.A. Hoffmann, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and Hayao Miyazaki)(Critical essay)", Wordsworth Circle, Wordsworth Circle, 42 (3): 198(3), doi:10.1086/TWC24043148, ISSN 0043-8006, S2CID 169044013

Matthews, Kate (2006), "Logic and Narrative in 'Spirited Away'", Screen Education (43): 135-140, ISSN 1449-857X

Napier, Susan J. (2005). Anime from Akira to Howl's Moving Castle: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-4039-7051-0.

Yang, Andrew. 2010. "The Two Japans of 'Spirited Away'." International Journal of Comic Art 12(1):435-52.

Yoshioka, Shiro (2008). "Heart of Japaneseness: History and Nostalgia in Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away". In MacWilliams, Mark W (ed.). Japanese Visual Culture: Explorations in the World of Manga and Anime. M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 978-0-7656-1601-2.

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(Spirited Away Japanese: 千と千尋の神隠し, Hepburn: Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi, 'Sen and Chihiro's Spiriting Away') is a 2001 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, animated by Studio Ghibli for Tokuma Shoten, Nippon Television Network, Dentsu, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Tohokushinsha Film, and Mitsubishi.

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Godzilla is a 1954 Japanese kaiju film directed by Ishirō Honda, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. Produced and distributed by Toho Co., Ltd, it is the first film in the Godzilla franchise and the Shōwa era. The film stars Akira Takarada, Momoko Kōchi, Akihiko Hirata, and Takashi Shimura, with Haruo Nakajima and Katsumi Tezuka as Godzilla. In the film, Japan's authorities deal with the sudden appearance of a giant monster, whose attacks trigger fears of nuclear holocaust during post-war Japan.

Godzilla entered production after a Japanese-Indonesian co-production collapsed. Tsuburaya originally opted for a giant octopus before the filmmakers decided on a dinosaur-inspired creature. Godzilla pioneered a form of special effects called suitmation, in which a stunt performer wearing a suit interacts with miniature sets. Principal photography lasted 51 days, and special effects photography lasted 71 days.

Godzilla was theatrically released in Japan on November 3, 1954, and grossed ¥183,000,000 (equivalent to ¥1,130,160,652 in 2019) during its original theatrical run. In 1956, a heavily re-edited "Americanized" version, titled Godzilla, King of the Monsters! was released in the United States. The film spawned a multimedia franchise, being recognized by Guinness World Records as the longest-running film franchise in history. The character Godzilla has since become an international pop culture icon. The film and Tsuburaya have been largely credited for establishing the template for media. Since its release, the film has been regarded as a cinematic achievement and one of the best monster films ever made.

When the Japanese freighter Eiko-maru is destroyed near Odo Island, another ship-the Bingo-maru-is sent to investigate, only to meet the same fate with few survivors. A fishing boat from Odo is also destroyed, with one survivor. Fishing catches mysteriously drop to zero, blamed by an elder on the ancient sea creature known as " Godzilla". Reporters arrive on Odo Island to further investigate. A villager tells one of the reporters that something in the sea is ruining the fishing. That evening, a storm strikes the island, destroying the reporters' helicopter, and Godzilla, briefly seen, destroys 17 homes and kills nine people and 20 of the villagers' livestock.

Odo residents travel to Tokyo to demand disaster relief. The villagers' and reporters' evidence describes damage consistent with something large crushing the village. The government sends paleontologist Kyohei Yamane to lead an investigation on the island, where giant radioactive footprints and a trilobite are discovered. The village alarm bell is rung and Yamane and the villagers rush to see the monster, retreating after seeing that it is a giant dinosaur. Yamane presents his findings in Tokyo, estimating that Godzilla is 50 m tall and is evolved from an ancient sea creature becoming a terrestrial creature. He concludes that Godzilla has been disturbed by underwater hydrogen bomb testing. Debate ensues about notifying the public about the danger of the monster. Meanwhile, 17 ships are lost at sea.

Ten frigates are dispatched to attempt to kill the monster using depth charges. The mission disappoints Yamane, who wants Godzilla to be studied. When Godzilla survives the attack, officials appeal to Yamane for ideas to kill the monster, but Yamane tells them that Godzilla is unkillable, having survived H-bomb testing, and must be studied. Yamane's daughter, Emiko, decides to break off her arranged engagement to Yamane's colleague, Daisuke Serizawa, because of her love for Hideto Ogata, a salvage ship captain. When a reporter arrives and asks to interview Serizawa, Emiko escorts the reporter to Serizawa's home. After Serizawa refuses to divulge his current work to the reporter, he gives Emiko a demonstration of his recent project on the condition that she must keep it a secret. The demonstration horrifies her and she leaves without mentioning the engagement. Shortly after she returns home, Godzilla surfaces from Tokyo Bay and attacks Shinagawa. After attacking a passing train, Godzilla returns to the ocean.

After consulting international experts, the Japanese Self-Defense Forces construct a 30 m tall and 50,000 volt electrified fence along the coast and deploy forces to stop and kill Godzilla. Dismayed that there is no plan to study Godzilla for its resistance to radiation, Yamane returns home, where Emiko and Ogata await, hoping to get his consent for them to wed. When Ogata disagrees with Yamane, arguing that the threat that Godzilla poses outweighs any potential benefits from studying the monster, Yamane tells him to leave. Godzilla resurfaces and breaks through the fence to Tokyo with its atomic breath, unleashing more destruction across the city. Further attempts to kill the monster with tanks and fighter jets fail and Godzilla returns to the ocean. The day after, hospitals and shelters are crowded with the maimed and the dead, with some survivors suffering from radiation sickness.

Distraught by the devastation, Emiko tells Ogata about Serizawa's research, a weapon called the "Oxygen Destroyer", which disintegrates oxygen atoms and causes organisms to die of a rotting asphyxiation. Emiko and Ogata go to Serizawa to convince him to use the Oxygen Destroyer but he initially refuses, explaining that if he uses the device, the superpowers of the world will surely force him to construct more Oxygen Destroyers for use as a superweapon. After watching a program displaying the nation's current tragedy, Serizawa finally accepts their pleas. As Serizawa burns his notes, Emiko breaks down crying.

A navy ship takes Ogata and Serizawa to plant the device in Tokyo Bay. After finding Godzilla, Serizawa unloads the device and cuts off his air support, taking the secret of the Oxygen Destroyer to his grave. Godzilla is destroyed, but many mourn Serizawa's death. Yamane believes that if nuclear weapons testing continues, another Godzilla may rise in the future.

Akira Takarada as Hideto Ogata

Momoko Kōchi as Emiko Yamane

Akihiko Hirata as Dr. Daisuke Serizawa

Takashi Shimura as Dr. Kyohei Yamane

Fuyuki Murakami as Dr. Tanabe

Sachio Sakai as Hagiwara

Ren Yamamoto as Masaji Yamada

Toyoaki Suzuki as Shinkichi Yamada

Toranosuke Ogawa as the President of the Nankai Shipping Company

Hiroshi Hayashi as the Chairman of Diet Committee

Seijiro Onda as Oyama, Diet Committee member

Kin Sugai as Ozawa, Diet Committee member

Kokuten Kōdō as the old fisherman

Tadashi Okabe as the assistant of Dr. Tanabe

Jiro Mitsuaki as an employee of the Nankai Salvage Company

Ren Imaizumi as a radio officer of the Nankai Salvage Company

Sokichi Maki as the chief at the Maritime Safety Agency

Kenji Sahara as a partygoer

Haruo Nakajima as Godzilla and a reporter

Katsumi Tezuka as Godzilla and a newspaper deskman

In the film, Godzilla symbolizes nuclear holocaust from Japan's perspective and has since been culturally identified as a strong metaphor for nuclear weapons. Producer Tomoyuki Tanaka stated that, "The theme of the film, from the beginning, was the terror of the bomb. Mankind had created the bomb, and now nature was going to take revenge on mankind." Director Ishirō Honda filmed Godzilla's Tokyo rampage to mirror the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, stating, "If Godzilla had been a dinosaur or some other animal, he would have been killed by just one cannonball. But if he were equal to an atomic bomb, we wouldn't know what to do. So, I took the characteristics of an atomic bomb and applied them to Godzilla."

On March 1, 1954, just a few months before the film was made, the Japanese fishing vessel Daigo Fukuryū Maru ("Lucky Dragon No. 5") had been showered with radioactive fallout from the U.S. military's 15-megaton " Castle Bravo" hydrogen bomb test at nearby Bikini Atoll. The boat's catch was contaminated, spurring a panic in Japan about the safety of eating fish, and the crew was sickened, with one crew member eventually dying from radiation sickness. This event led to the emergence of a large and enduring anti-nuclear movement that gathered 30 million signatures on an anti-nuclear petition by August 1955 and eventually became institutionalized as the Japan Council against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs. The film's opening scene of Godzilla destroying a Japanese vessel is a direct reference to these events, and had a strong impact on Japanese viewers with this recent event still fresh in the mind of the public.

Academics Anne Allison, Thomas Schnellbächer, and Steve Ryfle have said that Godzilla contains political and cultural undertones that can be attributed to what the Japanese had experienced in World War II and that Japanese audiences were able to connect emotionally to the monster. They theorized that these viewers saw Godzilla as a victim and felt that the creature's backstory reminded them of their experiences in World War II. These academics have also claimed that as the atomic bomb testing that woke Godzilla was carried out by the United States, the film in a way can be seen to blame the United States for the problems and struggles that Japan experienced after World War II had ended. They also felt that the film could have served as a cultural coping method to help the people of Japan move on from the events of the war.

Brian Merchant from Motherboard called the film "a bleak, powerful metaphor for nuclear power that still endures today" and on its themes, he stated: "It's an unflinchingly bleak, deceptively powerful film about coping with and taking responsibility for incomprehensible, manmade tragedy. Specifically, nuclear tragedies. It's arguably the best window into post-war attitudes towards nuclear power we've got-as seen from the perspective of its greatest victims." Terrence Rafferty from The New York Times said Godzilla was "an obvious gigantic, unsubtle, grimly purposeful metaphor for the atomic bomb" and felt the film was "extraordinarily solemn, full of earnest discussions".

Mark Jacobson from the website of magazine said that Godzilla "transcends humanist prattle. Very few constructs have so perfectly embodied the overriding fears of a particular era. He is the symbol of a world gone wrong, a work of man that once created cannot be taken back or deleted. He rears up out of the sea as a creature of no particular belief system, apart from even the most elastic version of evolution and taxonomy, a reptilian id that lives inside the deepest recesses of the collective unconscious that cannot be reasoned with, a merciless undertaker who broaches no deals." Regarding the film, Jacobson stated, "Honda's first Godzilla... is in line with these inwardly turned post-war films and perhaps the most brutally unforgiving of them. Shame-ridden self-flagellation was in order, and who better to supply the rubber-suited psychic punishment than the Rorschach-shaped big fella himself?"

Tim Martin from The Daily Telegraph (London) said that the original 1954 film was "a far cry from its B-movie successors. It was a sober allegory of a film with ambitions as large as its thrice-normal budget, designed to shock and horrify an adult audience. Its roster of frightening images-cities in flames, overstuffed hospitals, irradiated children-would have been all too familiar to cinemagoers for whom memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were still less than a decade old, while its script posed deliberately inflammatory questions about the balance of postwar power and the development of nuclear energy." Martin also commented how the film's themes were omitted in the American version, stating, "Its thematic preoccupation with nuclear energy proved even less acceptable to the American distributors who, after buying the film, began an extensive reshoot and recut for Western markets."

Ishirō Honda - director, co-writer

Eiji Tsuburaya - special effects director

Kōji Kajita - assistant director

Teruo Maki - production manager

Choshiro Ishii - lighting

Takeo Kita - chief art director

Satoshi Chuko - art director

Akira Watanabe - special effects art director

Kuichirō Kishida - special effects lighting

Teizō Toshimitsu - monster builder

Hisashi Shimonaga - sound recording

Ichiro Minawa - sound and musical effects

[If] our hearts were not in it 100 percent it would not have worked. We wanted [the monster] to possess the terrifying characteristics of an atomic bomb. This was our approach, without any reservations.

- Honda on his and the crew's vision for the film.

In 1954, Toho originally planned to produce Eikō no Kage ni (栄光の影に; In the Shadow of Glory), a Japanese-Indonesian co-production about the aftermath of the Japanese occupation of Indonesia. However, anti-Japanese sentiment in Indonesia forced political pressure on the government to deny visas for the Japanese filmmakers. The film was to be co-produced with Perfini, filmed on location in Jakarta in color (a first for a major Toho production), and was to open markets for Japanese films in Southeast Asia.

Producer Tomoyuki Tanaka flew to Jakarta to renegotiate with the Indonesian government but was unsuccessful and on the flight back to Japan, conceived the idea for a giant monster film inspired by the 1953 film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and the Daigo Fukuryū Maru incident that happened in March 1954. The film's opening sequence is a direct reference to the incident. Tanaka felt the film had potential due to nuclear fears generating news and monster films becoming popular, due to the financial success of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and the 1952 re-release of , the latter of which earned more money than previous releases.

During his flight, Tanaka wrote an outline with the working title The Giant Monster from 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea and pitched it to executive producer Iwao Mori. Mori approved the project in mid-April 1954 after special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya agreed to do the film's effects and confirmed that the film was financially feasible. Mori also felt the project was a perfect vehicle for Tsuburaya and to test the storyboarding system that he instituted at the time. Mori also approved Tanaka's choice to have Ishirō Honda direct the film and shortened the title of the production to Project G (G for Giant), as well as giving the production classified status and ordered Tanaka to minimize his attention on other films and mainly focus on Project G.

Toho originally intended for Senkichi Taniguchi to direct the film, as he was originally attached to direct In the Shadow of Glory, however, Taniguchi declined the assignment. Honda was not Toho's first choice for the film's director, however, his war-time experience made him an ideal candidate for the film's anti-nuclear themes. Several other directors passed on the project, feeling the idea was "stupid", however, Honda accepted the assignment due to this interest in science and "unusual things", stating, "I had no problem taking it seriously." It was during the production of Godzilla that Honda worked with assistant director Kōji Kajita for the first time. Afterwards, Kajita would go on to collaborate with Honda as his chief assistant director for 17 films over the course of 10 years. Due to sci-fi films lacking respect from film critics, Honda, Tanaka, and Tsuburaya agreed on depicting a monster attack as if it were a real event, with the serious tone of a documentary.

Tsuburaya submitted an outline of his own, written three years prior to Godzilla; it featured a giant octopus attacking ships in the Indian Ocean. In May 1954, Tanaka hired sci-fi writer Shigeru Kayama to write the story. Only 50 pages long and written in 11 days, Kayama's treatment depicted Dr. Yamane wearing dark shades, a cape and living in a European-style house from which he only emerged at night. Godzilla was portrayed as more animal-like by coming ashore to feed on animals, with an ostensibly gorilla-like interest in females. Kayama's story also featured less destruction and borrowed a scene from The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms by having Godzilla attack a lighthouse.

Takeo Murata and Honda co-wrote the screenplay in three weeks, confining themselves in a Japanese inn in Tokyo's Shibuya ward. On writing the script, Murata stated, "Director Honda and I... racked our brains to make Mr. Kayama's original treatment into a full, working vision." Murata said that Tsuburaya and Tanaka pitched their ideas as well. Tanaka requested that they do not spend too much money, while Tsuburaya encouraged them to "do whatever it takes to make it work". Murata and Honda redeveloped key characters and elements by adding Emiko's love triangle. In Kayama's story, Serizawa was depicted as merely a colleague of Dr. Yamane's. Godzilla's full appearance was to be revealed during the Odo Island hurricane but Honda and Murata opted to show parts of the creature as the film built up to his full reveal. Honda and Murata also introduced the characters Hagiwara and Dr. Tanabe in their draft but the role of Shinkichi, who had a substantial role in Kayama's story, was cut down.

Godzilla was designed by Teizō Toshimitsu and Akira Watanabe under Eiji Tsuburaya's supervision. Early on, Tanaka contemplated having the monster be gorilla-like or whale-like in design, due to the name "Gojira" (a combination of the Japanese words for "gorilla", ゴリラ gorira, and "whale", クジラ kujira), but eventually settled on a dinosaur-like design. Kazuyoshi Abe was hired earlier to design Godzilla but his ideas were later rejected due to Godzilla looking too humanoid and mammalian, with a head shaped like a mushroom cloud; however, Abe was retained to help draw the film's storyboards.

Toshimitsu and Watanabe decided to base Godzilla's design on dinosaurs and, by using dinosaur books and magazines as a reference, combined elements of a Tyrannosaurus, Iguanodon and the dorsal fins of a Stegosaurus. Despite wanting to have utilized stop motion animation, Tsuburaya reluctantly settled on suitmation. Toshimitsu sculpted three clay models on which the suit would be based. The first two were rejected but the third was approved by Tsuburaya, Tanaka, and Honda.

The Godzilla suit was constructed by Kanji Yagi, Koei Yagi, and Eizo Kaimai, who used thin bamboo sticks and wire to build a frame for the interior of the suit and added metal mesh and cushioning over it to bolster its structure and finally applied coats of latex. Coats of molten rubber were additionally applied, followed by carved indentations and strips of latex glued onto the surface of the suit to create Godzilla's scaly hide. This first version of the suit weighed 100 kilograms (220 pounds). For close-ups, Toshimitsu created a smaller scale, mechanical, hand-operated puppet that sprayed streams of mist from its mouth to act as Godzilla's atomic breath.

Haruo Nakajima and Katsumi Tezuka were chosen to perform in the Godzilla suit, due to their strength and endurance. At the first costume fitting, Nakajima fell down while inside the suit, due to the heavy latex and inflexible materials used to create the suit. This first version of the suit was cut in half and used for scenes requiring only partial shots of Godzilla or close-ups, with the lower-half fitted with rope suspenders for Nakajima to wear. For full-body shots, a second identical suit was created which was made lighter than the first suit, but Nakajima was still only able to be inside for three minutes before passing out. Nakajima lost 20 pounds during the production of the film. Nakajima would go on to portray Godzilla and other monsters until his retirement in 1972. Tezuka filmed scenes in the Godzilla suit but, due to his older body, he was unable to fully commit to the physical demands required by the role. As a result, few of his scenes made it to the final cut as very few scenes were considered usable. Tezuka filled in for Nakajima when he was unavailable or needed relief from the physically demanding role.

Godzilla's name was also a source of consternation for the filmmakers. Because the monster had no name, the first draft of the film was not called Gojira but rather titled G, also known as Kaihatsu keikaku G (" Development Plan G"), the "G" of the title stood for "Giant", however. Nakajima confirmed that Toho held a contest to name the monster. The monster was eventually named Gojira. One explanation that is chalked up to legend is that a hulking Toho Studios employee's physical attributes led him to be nicknamed Gojira. In a 1998 BBC documentary on Godzilla, Kimi Honda, the widow of the director, dismissed the employee-name story as a tall tale, believing that Honda, Tanaka, and Tsuburaya gave "considerable thought" to the name of the monster, stating, "the backstage boys at Toho loved to joke around with tall stories, but I don't believe that one". In 2003, a Japanese television special claimed to have identified the anonymous hulking Toho employee as Shiro Amikura, a Toho contract actor from the 1950s.

The film's special effects were directed by Eiji Tsuburaya. In order for the effects footage to sync with the live-action footage, Honda and Tsuburaya would develop plans early during development and briefly meet prior to the day's shoot. Kajita would shuttle Tsuburaya to Honda's set to observe how a scene was being shot and where the actors were being positioned. Kajita also ushered Honda to the effects stage to observe how Tsuburaya was shooting certain effects. While Honda edited the live-action footage, he left blank leaders for Tsuburaya to insert the effects footage. At times, Honda had to cut out certain effects footage. Tsuburaya disapproved of these decisions due to Honda's cuts not matching the effects; however, Honda had final say in these matters.

Tsuburaya originally wanted to use stop motion for the film's special effects but realized it would have taken seven years to complete based on the then-current staff and infrastructure at Toho. Settling on suitmation and miniature effects, Tsuburaya and his crew scouted the locations Godzilla was to destroy and were nearly arrested after a security guard overheard their plans for destruction but were released after showing police their Toho business cards. Kintaro Makino, the chief of miniature construction, was given blueprints by Akira Watanabe for the miniatures and assigned 30 to 40 workers from the carpentry department to build them, which took a month to build the scaled down version of Ginza. A majority of the miniatures were built at 1:25 scale but the Diet building was scaled down to a 1:33 scale to look smaller than Godzilla.

The buildings' framework were made of thin wooden boards reinforced with a mixture of plaster and white chalk. Explosives were installed inside miniatures that were to be destroyed by Godzilla's atomic breath while some were sprayed with gasoline to make them burn more easily; others included small cracks so they could crumble easily. Optical animation techniques were used for Godzilla's glowing dorsal fins by having hundreds of cells drawn frame-by-frame. Haruo Nakajima perspired inside the suit so much that the Yagi brothers had to dry out the cotton lining every morning and sometimes re-line the interior of the suit and repair damages.

The typhoon waves were created by stagehands who overturned barrels of water into a water tank where the miniature Odo Island shoreline was built. Multiple composition shots were used for the Odo Island scenes. Most of the Odo Island scenes were filmed near rice fields. Toho hired en masse part-time employees to work on the film's optical effects. Half of the 400 hired staff were mostly part-timers with little to no experience. An early version of Godzilla's full reveal was filmed that featured Godzilla, via hand-operated puppet, devouring a cow. Sadamasa Arikawa thought the scene was too gruesome and convinced Tsuburaya to re-film it. Optical effects were utilized for Godzilla's footprints on the beach by painting them onto glass and inserting it onto an area of the live-action footage. Special effects photography lasted for 71 days.

On the first day of filming, Honda addressed a crew of 30 to read the script and leave the project if they did not feel convinced, wanting only to work with those who had confidence in him and the film. Most of the film was shot in the Toho lot. Honda's team also filmed on location in the Shima Peninsula in Mie Prefecture to film the Odo Island scenes, which used 50 Toho extras and Honda's team establishing their base in the town of Toba. Local villagers were also used as extras for the Odo Island scenes. The dance ritual scene was filmed on location in Mie Prefecture, with local villagers performing as the dancers. The cast and crew commuted every morning by boat to Toba, Mie, working under harsh weather temperatures. Honda worked shirtless and as a result, suffered blistering sunburn on his back that left permanent scars.

Toho had negotiated with the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) to film scenes requiring the military and filmed target practices and drills for the film; Honda's team followed a convoy of JSDF vehicles for the convoy dispatch scene. Two thousand girls were used from an all-girls high school for the prayer for peace scene. The filmmakers had little cooperation from the JSDF and had to rely on World War II stock footage, provided by the Japanese military, for certain scenes. The stock footage was sourced from 16mm prints. Honda's team spent 51 days shooting the film.

The film's score was composed by Akira Ifukube. After meeting with Tanaka, Tsuburaya, and Honda, Ifukube enthusiastically accepted the job after learning that the main character was a monster, Ifukube said, "I couldn't sit still when I heard that in this movie the main character was a reptile that would be rampaging through the city." Ifukube was not shown the final film and only had a week to compose his music. Within that time, he was only shown a model of Godzilla and the screenplay. Tsuburaya briefly showed Ifukube some footage, albeit with the effects missing and Tsuburaya attempting to describe how the scene would unfold, Ifukube recalled, "I was very confused. So I tried to make music that would remind you of something enormous." Ifukube used low-pitch brass and string instruments.

It was Honda's idea to make Godzilla roar, despite the fact that reptiles do not have vocal cords. Shimonaga and Minawa were originally tasked with creating the roar, however, Ifukube became involved after taking interest in creating sound effects. Ifukube discussed with Honda regarding what type of sounds were going to be used in certain scenes and other details concerning sounds. Minawa went to the zoo and recorded various animal roars that were played back at certain speeds. However, these sounds proved unsatisfactory and went unused. Ifukube borrowed a contrabass from the Japan Art University's music department and created Godzilla's roar by loosening the strings and rubbing them with a leather glove. The sound was recorded and played at a reduced speed, which achieved the effect of the roar used in the film. This technique would be adopted by Toho as a standard method in creating monster roars in the following years.

There are conflicting reports as to how Godzilla's footsteps were created. One claim states that the roar was created with a knotted rope hitting a kettle drum that was recorded and processed through an echo box. However, Ifukube told Cult Movies that the footsteps were created using a primitive amplifier that made a loud clap when struck. Some Japanese texts claim that the footsteps were sourced from an explosion with the ending clipped off and processed through an electronic reverb unit. The optical recording equipment contained four audio tracks: one for principal dialogue, one for background chatter, ambient noises, tanks, planes, and one for the roars and footsteps. An independent audio track was used to prevent bleeding over other audio.

The music and sound effects of Godzilla's rampage were recorded live simultaneously. While Ifukube conducted the NHK Philharmonic orchestra, a foley artists watched Godzilla's rampage projected on a screen and used tin, concrete debris, wood, and other equipment to simulate sounds that would sync with the footage. A new take would be needed if the foley artist had missed a cue. Many of Ifukube's themes and motifs associated with Godzilla were introduced in the film, such as the March, the Horror theme, and the Requiem. The "Self Defense Force March" had become synonymous with Godzilla that Ifukube later referred to it as "Godzilla's theme." Ifukube considers his music for the film his finest film score.

During production, Mori devised promotional strategies to generate public interest. Amongst these strategies was a radio play titled Monster Godzilla. 11 episodes were produced based on the screenplay, and aired on Saturdays on the NHK radio network from July 17, 1954 to September 25, 1954. In an attempt to build mystery, Mori banned reporters from the set, kept the special effects techniques and other behind the scenes crafts secret. Nakajima's suit performance as Godzilla would not be revealed until the 1960s. However, Godzilla's image was widely publicized. Godzilla's image was added to the company stationary, cut-out pictures and posters were displayed in theaters and stores, large advertisement balloons were flown to major Japanese cities, and a Godzilla doll was mounted onto a truck to be driven around Tokyo. The film's theatrical trailer debuted in theaters on October 20, 1954.

Godzilla was first released in Nagoya on October 27, 1954, and released nationwide on November 3, 1954. At the time of the film's release, it set a new opening day record for any Toho film, selling 33,000 tickets at Toho's cinemas in Tokyo and selling out at Nichigeki Theater. As a result, Toho's CEO personally called Honda to congratulate him. Honda's wife, Kimi, noted "that sort of thing didn't usually happen."

From 1955 into the 1960s, Godzilla played in theaters catering to Japanese-Americans in predominantly Japanese neighborhoods in the United States. An English subtitled version was shown at film festivals in New York, Chicago, and other cities in 1982. An 84-minute cut of the Japanese version was theatrically released in West Germany on April 10, 1956, as Godzilla. This version removes the Japanese Parliament argument, acknowledgement of Godzilla as a "child of the H-bomb", references to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and an altered translation of the mother holding her children. The film was re-released theatrically in Japan on November 21, 1982, to commemorate Toho's 50th anniversary. Since its release, the 1954 film remained unavailable officially in the United States until 2004.

To coincide with Godzilla's 50th anniversary, art-house distributor Rialto Pictures gave the film a traveling tour-style limited release, coast-to-coast, across the United States, on May 7, 2004. It ran uncut with English subtitles until December 19, 2004. The film never played on more than six screens at any given point during its limited release. The film played in roughly sixty theaters and cities across the United States during its -month release. On April 18, 2014, Rialto re-released the film in the United States, coast-to-coast, using another limited-style traveling tour. This coincided with not only Godzilla's 60th anniversary, but also celebrated the American Godzilla film which was released that same year. To avoid confusion with the Hollywood feature, the Rialto release was subtitled The Japanese Original. It was screened in 66 theaters in 64 cities from April 18 to October 31, 2014.

To commemorate the film's 67th anniversary, a 4K remaster of the film, along with other Godzilla films, is scheduled to be screened in Alamo Drafthouse Cinema locations on November 3, 2021.

Following the film's success in Japan, Toho sold the American rights to Joseph E. Levine for $25,000. A heavily altered version of the film was released in the United States and worldwide as Godzilla, King of the Monsters! on April 27, 1956. This version trimmed the original down to 80 minutes and featured new footage with Canadian actor Raymond Burr interacting with body doubles mixed with Honda's footage to make it seem like he was part of the original Japanese production. Many of the film's political themes were trimmed or removed completely. It was this version of the original Godzilla film that introduced audiences worldwide to the character and franchise and the only version that critics and scholars had access to until 2004 when the 1954 film was released in select theaters in North America. Godzilla, King of the Monsters! grossed $2 million during its theatrical run, more than what the 1954 film grossed in Japan.

Honda was unaware that Godzilla had been re-edited until Toho released Godzilla, King of the Monsters! in Japan in May 1957 as Monster King Godzilla. Toho converted the entire film from its original scope to a widescreen 2.35:1 scope, which resulted in an awkward crop for the entire film. Japanese subtitles were given to the Japanese actors since their original dialogue differed greatly from the original script and were dubbed in English. Since the release of the film, Toho had adopted the moniker "King of the Monsters" for Godzilla, which has since appeared in official marketing, advertisement, and promotional materials.

The 1956 Godzilla, King of the Monsters! version of the film was released on DVD by Simitar in 1998 and Classic Media in 2002. In 2005, BFI released the original Japanese version in the UK theatrically, and later in the same year on DVD. The DVD includes the original mono track and several extra features, such as documentaries and commentary tracks by Steve Ryfle, Ed Godziszewski, and Keith Aiken. The DVD also includes a documentary about the Daigo Fukuryū Maru, a Japanese fishing boat that was caught in an American nuclear blast and partially inspired the creation of the film.

In 2006, Classic Media and Sony BMG Music Entertainment Home Entertainment released a two-disc DVD set titled Gojira: The Original Japanese Masterpiece. This release features both the 1954 Japanese version and the 1956 American version, making the Japanese version of the film available on DVD in North America for the first time. This release features theatrical trailers for both films, audio commentary tracks on both films with Godzilla scholars Steve Ryfle (author of Japan's Favorite Mon-Star: The Unauthorized Biography of the Big G) and Ed Godziszewski (editor of Japanese Giants Magazine), two 13-minute documentaries titled "Godzilla Story Development" and "Making of the Godzilla Suit", and a 12-page essay booklet by Steve Ryfle. This release also restores the original ending credits of the American film which, until recently, were thought to have been lost.

In 2009, Classic Media released Godzilla on Blu-ray. This release includes the same special features from the 2006 Classic Media DVD release, but does not feature the 1956 American version. In 2012, the Criterion Collection released a "new high-definition digital restoration" of Godzilla on Blu-ray and DVD. This release includes a remaster of the 1956 American version, Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, as well as other special features such as interviews with Akira Ikufube, Japanese film critic Tadao Sato, actor Akira Takarada, Godzilla performer Haruo Nakajima, effects technicians Yoshio Irie and Eizo Kaimai and audio commentaries on both films by David Kalat, author of A Critical History and Filmography of Toho's Godzilla Series.

In 2014, Classic Media reissued Godzilla and Godzilla, King of the Monsters! on DVD, to commemorate the release of Legendary's Godzilla film. This release retained the same specs and features as the 2006 DVD release. In 2017, Janus Films and the Criterion Collection acquired the film, as well as other Godzilla titles, to stream on Starz and FilmStruck. In 2019, the film and the American version were included in the Godzilla: The Showa Era Films Blu-ray box set released by the Criterion Collection, which included all 15 films from the franchise's Shōwa era.

During its initial Japanese theatrical run, the film sold approximately 9.6 million tickets and was the eighth best-attended film in Japan that year. The film earned a distribution rental income of ¥183,000,000 (equivalent to ¥1,130,160,652 in 2019), unadjusted for inflation. During its 2004 limited theatrical release in North America, the film grossed $ 38,030 on its opening weekend and grossed $412,520 by the end of its limited run. For the 2014 limited re-release in North America, it grossed $10,903 after playing in one theater in New York and grossed $150,191 at the end of its run. In the United Kingdom, the film sold 3,643 tickets from limited releases during 2005-2006 and 2016-2017.

Prior to the release of the film, skeptics predicted the film would flop. At the time of the film's release, Japanese reviews were mixed. Japanese critics accused the film of exploiting the widespread devastation that the country had suffered in World War II, as well as the Daigo Fukuryū Maru incident that occurred a few months before filming began. Ishiro Honda lamented years later in the Tokyo Journal, "They called it grotesque junk, and said it looked like something you'd spit up. I felt sorry for my crew because they had worked so hard!"

Others said that depicting a fire breathing organism was strange. Honda also believed Japanese critics began to change their minds after the good reviews the film received in the United States. He stated "The first film critics to appreciate Godzilla were those in the U.S. When Godzilla was released there as Godzilla, King of the Monsters! in 1956, the critics said such things as, 'For the start, this film frankly depicts the horrors of the Atomic Bomb', and by these evaluations, the assessment began to impact critics in Japan and has changed their opinions over the years."

As time went on, the film gained more respect in its home country. In 1984, Kinema Junpo magazine listed Godzilla as one of the top 20 Japanese films of all time, while a survey of 370 Japanese film critics published in Nihon Eiga Besuto 150 ( Best 150 Japanese Films), had Godzilla ranked as the 27th best Japanese film ever made. The film was nominated for two Japanese Movie Association awards. One for best special effects and the other for best film. It won best special effects but lost best picture to Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 93% based on 74 reviews, with an average score of 7.6/10. The site's consensus states, "More than straight monster-movie fare, Gojira offers potent, sobering postwar commentary". On Metacritic, the film has a score of 78/100, based on 20 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Owen Gleiberman from Entertainment Weekly noted the film is more "serious" than the 1956 American cut yet "its tone just veers closer to that of solemn American B-horror cheese like The real difference is that the film's famous metaphor for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki looks more nuttily masochistic than ever." Luke Y. Thompson from Dallas Observer defended the film's effects as products of their time and felt that viewers would be "surprised by what they see", stating, "This ain't your standard goofy monster rampage." Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian awarded the film four stars out of five, praising the storytelling as "muscular" and the nuclear themes as "passionate and fascinatingly ambiguous", stating, "the sheer fervency of this film takes it beyond the crash-bang entertainment of most blockbusters, ancient and modern." David Nusair from Reel Film Reviews awarded the film one and a half stars out of four, saying the film turns into a "terminally erratic narrative that's more dull than engrossing." Nusair criticized Honda for his "inability to offer up even a single compelling human character" and found the film's ending as "anticlimactic and pointless", concluding, "the film is entirely lacking in elements designed to capture and hold the viewer's ongoing attention."

Roger Ebert from the Chicago Sun-Times awarded the film one and a half stars out of four, stating, "regaled for 50 years by the stupendous idiocy of the American version of Godzilla, audiences can now see the original Japanese version, which is equally idiotic, but, properly decoded, was the Fahrenheit 9/11 of its time." Ebert criticized the effects as looking "crude", feeling the effects of the 1933 film King Kong were "more convincing" and concluded that "This is a bad movie, but it has earned its place in history."

Keith Uhlich from awarded the film four stars out of five, calling the film "Pop Art as purge", and praising the film's characters, themes, and Godzilla as a "potent and provocative metaphor, a lumbering embodiment of atomic-age anxieties birthed from mankind's own desire to destroy." Desson Thomson from the Washington Post called the film's effects "pretty extraordinary" and "amazingly credible" for their time. Thomson felt some of the acting was "ham-handed" but said "there's a surprisingly powerful thrust to this film." Mick LaSalle from the San Francisco Chronicle called the film a "classic", stating, "Such moments go beyond spectacle. Godzilla is a collective metaphor and a collective nightmare, a message film that says more than its message, that captures, with a horrified poetry, the terrors that stomped through the minds of people 50 years ago."

Since its release, Godzilla has been regarded as one of the best giant monster films ever made: critic Allen Perkins called the film "not just a classic monster movie, but also an important cinematic achievement." In 2010, the film was ranked No. 31 in magazine's "100 Best Films Of World Cinema". In 2013, Rolling Stone ranked the film No. 1 on their "Best Monster Movies of All Time" list. In 2015, listed the film amongst their "10 Best Monster Movies of All-Time" list. In 2019, Time Out Film ranked the film No. 9 on their "50 best monster movies" list.

In 1954, Eiji Tsuburaya won the Japanese Film Technique award for the film's special effects. In 2007, Classic Media's DVD release of the film won "Best DVD of 2006" by the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards and Best DVD Classic Film Release by the Saturn Awards.

The film spawned a multimedia franchise consisting of 33 films in total, video games, books, comics, toys and other media. The Godzilla franchise has been recognized by Guinness World Records as being the longest-running film franchise in history. Since his debut, Godzilla became an international pop culture icon, inspiring countless rip-offs, imitations, parodies and tributes. The 1954 film and its special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya have been largely credited for establishing the template for , a technique of practical special effects filmmaking that would become essential in Japan's film industry since the release of Godzilla. Critic and scholar Ryusuke Hikawa said: "Disney created the template for American animation, In the same way, (special-effects studio) Tsubaraya created the template for the Japanese movie business. It was their use of cheap but craftsman-like approaches to movie-making that made tokusatsu unique." Steven Spielberg cited Godzilla as an inspiration for Jurassic Park (1993), specifically Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956), which he grew up watching.

In 1998, TriStar Pictures released a reimagining, titled Godzilla, directed by Roland Emmerich. Emmerich wanted his Godzilla to have nothing to do with Toho's Godzilla but chose to retain key elements from the 1954 film, stating, "We took part of [the original movie's] basic storyline, in that the creature becomes created by radiation and it becomes a big challenge. But that's all we took."

In 2014, Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures released a reboot, also titled Godzilla, directed by Gareth Edwards. Edwards stated that his film was inspired by the 1954 film, and attempted to retain some of its themes, stating, "Godzilla is a metaphor for Hiroshima in the original movie. We tried to keep that, and there are a lot of themes from the '54 movie that we've kept."

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Godzilla is a 1954 Japanese kaiju film directed by Ishirō Honda, with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. Produced and distributed by Toho Co., Ltd, it is the first film in the Godzilla franchise and the Shōwa era. The film stars Akira Takarada, Momoko Kōchi, Akihiko Hirata, and Takashi Shimura, with Haruo Nakajima and Katsumi Tezuka as Godzilla.

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Chuck Berry - Johnny B. Goode (Live 1958)

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Chuck Berry - Johnny B. Goode (Live 1958)

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Yayoi Kusama was born in 1929, a remarkable figure of Japanese Feminist Art and Outsider art (Art brut). Find more works of this artist at Wikiart.org - best visual art database.

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Theme for English B by Langston Hughes | Poetry Foundation

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Theme for English B by Langston Hughes | Poetry Foundation

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The Wizard of Oz (1939 film) - Wikipedia

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The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. An adaptation of L. Frank Baum's 1900 children's fantasy novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the film was primarily directed by Victor Fleming (who left the production to take over the troubled Gone with the Wind), and stars Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, Jack Haley, Billie Burke and Margaret Hamilton. Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, but others made uncredited contributions. The songs were written by Edgar "Yip" Harburg and composed by Harold Arlen. The musical score and incidental music were composed by Herbert Stothart.

Characterized by its use of Technicolor, fantasy storytelling, musical score, and memorable characters, The Wizard of Oz was moderately successful upon its original release of August 25, 1939. The film was considered a critical success and was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, winning in two categories: Best Original Song for " Over the Rainbow" and Best Original Score by Stothart. While the film was sufficiently popular at the box office, it failed to make a profit for MGM until the 1949 re-release, earning only $3,017,000 on a $2,777,000 budget, not including promotional costs, which made it MGM's most expensive production at that time.

The 1956 television broadcast premiere of the film on the CBS network reintroduced the film to the public; according to the Library of Congress, it is the most seen film in movie history. In 1989, it was selected by the U.S. Library of Congress as one of the first 25 films for preservation in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". It is also one of the few films on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register. It was among the top ten in the 2005 BFI ( British Film Institute) list of "50 films to be seen by the age of 14", and is on the BFI's updated list of "50 films to be seen by the age of 15" released in May 2020.

The Wizard of Oz has become the source of many quotes referenced in contemporary popular culture. The film ranks often on critics' lists of greatest films of all time, and is the most commercially successful adaptation of L. Frank Baum's work.

In sepia-toned Kansas, Dorothy Gale lives with her Cairn Terrier, Toto, on a farm belonging to her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry, who employ the quirky farmhands Zeke, Hunk and Hickory. Toto bites the wealthy and grouchy Miss Almira Gulch on the leg, leading her to obtain a sheriff's order to have him destroyed. Miss Gulch takes Toto away, but he escapes and returns to Dorothy; she decides to run away to save her dog. Not far from the farm, she runs into Professor Marvel, a charlatan fortune-teller who uses his crystal ball to make Dorothy believe that Aunt Em is heartbroken. Dorothy rushes home as a tornado approaches. Aunt Em, Uncle Henry, and the farmhands take shelter in the storm cellar and lock it behind them. Dorothy has to seek shelter in her bedroom, where the window is blown in and hits her on the head, knocking her unconscious. The house is sent spinning into the air, and she awakens to see various figures fly by, including Miss Gulch, who transforms into a witch, flying on a broomstick.

The movie shifts to Technicolor as Dorothy's house lands in Munchkinland in the Land of Oz. Glinda the Good Witch of the North and the Munchkins welcome her as a heroine, as the falling house has killed the Wicked Witch of the East. As the Munchkins celebrate the end of their enslavement by the witch, the Wicked Witch of the West - the same witch Dorothy saw in the cyclone - arrives to claim her sister's ruby slippers, but Glinda transfers them onto Dorothy's feet. Enraged, the Witch swears revenge on Dorothy and vanishes. Glinda tells Dorothy to follow the Yellow Brick Road to Emerald City, where she can ask the Wizard of Oz to help her return home. On her journey, Dorothy meets a Scarecrow, who wants a brain; a Tin Woodman, who seeks a heart; and a Cowardly Lion, who desires courage; the three resemble her aunt and uncle's farmhands. She invites them to accompany her and ask the Wizard for what they lack. Despite the Witch's attempts to stop them with sleeping spells and other magic, they reach the city and see the Wizard, who appears as a giant ghostly head. He agrees to grant their requests if they bring him the Witch's broomstick.

As they make their way to the Witch's castle, the Witch sends her winged monkeys to capture Dorothy. With Dorothy captured and brought to her, the Witch tries to take off the slippers. But after they harm her, she realizes that the slippers will only be removed after Dorothy's life ends. She turns over an hourglass full of blood-red sand and leaves Dorothy to die. Toto escapes and leads her three friends to the castle. They ambush three guards, don their uniforms, and free Dorothy. The Witch and more guards pursue and surround them. The Witch sets fire to the Scarecrow, causing Dorothy to toss a bucket of water on him, inadvertently splashing the Witch, who melts until only her black witch outfit remains. The guards rejoice and give Dorothy her broomstick. Upon their return, the Wizard stalls in fulfilling his promises until Toto pulls back a curtain, exposing the "Wizard" as a con man operating machinery; he resembles Professor Marvel, the fortune-teller Dorothy met back in Kansas. Admitting to being a humbug, he insists he is "a good man, but a bad wizard." He gives the Scarecrow a diploma, the Lion a medal, and the Tin Man a ticking heart-shaped clock, helping them see that they already had what they wanted all along. He offers to take Dorothy and Toto home in his hot air balloon, revealing that he is also from Kansas and was originally a carnival showman before his balloon escaped Kansas and brought him to the Emerald City.

As Dorothy and the Wizard prepare to depart, the Wizard places the Scarecrow in charge of Emerald City, with the Tin Man and Lion as his aides. Toto sees a cat and leaps from Dorothy's arms. As Dorothy pursues Toto, the balloon departs with the Wizard. Glinda then appears and tells Dorothy that she has always had the power to return home using the ruby slippers. After Dorothy bids the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion farewell, Glinda instructs her to tap her heels together three times and say: "There's no place like home." When Dorothy does, she awakens in her bedroom, surrounded by her family and friends. Everyone dismisses her adventure as a dream, but Dorothy insists it was real, noting that she saw them in Oz. She says she will never run away again and declares: "There's no place like home!", closing the movie.

Cast listing:

Production on the film began when Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) showed that films adapted from popular children's stories and fairytale folklore could still be successful. In January 1938, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer bought the rights to L. Frank Baum's hugely popular novel from Samuel Goldwyn. Goldwyn had toyed with the idea of making the film as a vehicle for Eddie Cantor, who was under contract to Samuel Goldwyn Productions and whom Goldwyn wanted to cast as the Scarecrow.

The script went through several writers and revisions before the final shooting. Mervyn LeRoy's assistant, William H. Cannon, had submitted a brief four-page outline. Because recent fantasy films had not fared well, he recommended toning down or removing the magical elements of the story. In his outline, the Scarecrow was a man so stupid that the only employment open to him was literally scaring crows from cornfields. Also in his outline, the Tin Woodman was a criminal so heartless that he was sentenced to be placed in a tin suit for eternity. This torture softened him into somebody gentler and kinder. Cannon's vision was similar to Larry Semon's 1925 film adaptation of the story, in which the magical elements are absent.

Afterward, LeRoy hired screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, who soon delivered a 17-page draft of the Kansas scenes. A few weeks later, Mankiewicz delivered a further 56 pages. LeRoy also hired Noel Langley and poet Ogden Nash to write separate versions of the story. None of these three knew about the others, and this was not an uncommon procedure. Nash delivered a four-page outline; Langley turned in a 43-page treatment and a full film script. Langley then turned in three more scripts, this time incorporating the songs written by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg. Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf submitted a script and were brought on board to touch up the writing. They were asked to ensure that the story stayed true to Baum's book. However, producer Arthur Freed was unhappy with their work and reassigned it to Langley. During filming, Victor Fleming and John Lee Mahin revised the script further, adding and cutting some scenes. Jack Haley and Bert Lahr are also known to have written some of their dialogue for the Kansas sequence.

They completed the final draft of the script on October 8, 1938, following numerous rewrites. All in all, it was a mish-mash of many creative minds, but Langley, Ryerson, and Woolf got the credits. Along with these already mentioned, others who contributed to the adaptation without credit include Irving Brecher, Herbert Fields, Arthur Freed, Yip Harburg, Samuel Hoffenstein, Jack Mintz, Sid Silvers, Richard Thorpe, George Cukor and King Vidor.

In addition, songwriter Harburg's son (and biographer) Ernie Harburg reported:

So anyhow, Yip also wrote all the dialogue in that time and the setup to the songs and he also wrote the part where they give out the heart, the brains, and the nerve, because he was the final script editor. And he - there was eleven screenwriters on that - and he pulled the whole thing together, wrote his own lines and gave the thing a coherence and unity which made it a work of art. But he doesn't get credit for that. He gets lyrics by E. Y. Harburg, you see. But nevertheless, he put his influence on the thing.

The original producers thought that a 1939 audience was too sophisticated to accept Oz as a straight-ahead fantasy; therefore, it was reconceived as a lengthy, elaborate dream sequence. Because they perceived a need to attract a youthful audience by appealing to modern fads and styles, the score had featured a song called "The Jitterbug", and the script had featured a scene with a series of musical contests. A spoiled, selfish princess in Oz had outlawed all forms of music except classical music and operetta. The princess challenged Dorothy to a singing contest, in which Dorothy's swing style enchanted listeners and won the grand prize. This part was initially written for Betty Jaynes, but was later dropped.

Another scene, which was removed before final script approval and never filmed, was an epilogue scene in Kansas after Dorothy's return. Hunk (the Kansan counterpart to the Scarecrow) is leaving for an agricultural college, and extracts a promise from Dorothy to write to him. The scene implies that romance will eventually develop between the two, which also may have been intended as an explanation for Dorothy's partiality for the Scarecrow over her other two companions. This plot idea was never totally dropped, but is especially noticeable in the final script when Dorothy, just before she is to leave Oz, tells the Scarecrow, "I think I'll miss you most of all."

Several actresses were reportedly considered for the part of Dorothy, including Shirley Temple from 20th Century Fox, at the time, the most prominent child star; Deanna Durbin, a relative newcomer, with a recognised operatic voice; and Judy Garland, the most experienced of the three. Officially, the decision to cast Garland was attributed to contractual issues.

Ray Bolger was originally cast as the Tin Man and Buddy Ebsen was to play the Scarecrow. Bolger, however, longed to play the Scarecrow, as his childhood idol Fred Stone had done on stage in 1902; with that very performance, Stone had inspired him to become a vaudevillian in the first place. Now unhappy with his role as the Tin Man (reportedly claiming, "I'm not a tin performer; I'm fluid"), Bolger convinced producer Mervyn LeRoy to recast him in the part he so desired. Ebsen did not object; after going over the basics of the Scarecrow's distinctive gait with Bolger (as a professional dancer, Ebsen had been cast because the studio was confident he would be up to the task of replicating the famous "wobbly-walk" of Stone's Scarecrow), he recorded all of his songs, went through all the rehearsals as the Tin Man and began filming with the rest of the cast.

Bert Lahr was signed for the Cowardly Lion on July 25, 1938, and Charles Grapewin was cast as Uncle Henry on August 12.

W. C. Fields was originally chosen for the title role of the Wizard (after Ed Wynn turned it down, considering the part "too small"), but the studio ran out of patience after protracted haggling over Fields' fee. Wallace Beery lobbied for the role, but the studio refused to spare him during the long shooting schedule. Instead, another contract player, Frank Morgan, was cast on September 22.

Veteran vaudeville performer Pat Walshe was best known for his performance as various monkeys in many theatre productions and circus shows. He was cast as Nikko, the head Winged Monkey, on September 28, travelling to MGM studios on October 3.

An extensive talent search produced over a hundred little people to play Munchkins; this meant that most of the film's Oz sequences would have to already be shot before work on the Munchkinland sequence could begin. According to Munchkin actor Jerry Maren, the little people were each paid over $125 a week (equivalent to $2,300 today). Meinhardt Raabe, who played the coroner, revealed in the 1990 documentary The Making of the Wizard of Oz that the MGM costume and wardrobe department, under the direction of designer Adrian, had to design over 100 costumes for the Munchkin sequences. They photographed and cataloged each Munchkin in their costume so they could consistently apply the same costume and makeup each day of production.

Gale Sondergaard was originally cast as the Wicked Witch of the West, but withdrew from the role when the witch's persona shifted from sly and glamorous (thought to emulate the Evil Queen in Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) to the familiar "ugly hag". She was replaced on October 10, 1938, just three days before filming started, by MGM contract player Margaret Hamilton. Sondergaard said in an interview for a bonus feature on the DVD that she had no regrets about turning down the part. Sondergaard would go on to play a glamorous feline villainess in Fox's version of Maurice Maeterlinck's The Blue Bird in 1940. Hamilton played a role remarkably similar to the Wicked Witch in the Judy Garland film Babes in Arms (1939).

Filming for The Wizard of Oz started on October 13, 1938 on the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio lot in Culver City, California, with Richard Thorpe as director, replacing original director Norman Taurog, who filmed a few early Technicolor tests and was then reassigned. Thorpe initially shot about two weeks of footage, nine days in total, involving Dorothy's first encounter with the Scarecrow, and a number of sequences in the Wicked Witch's castle, such as Dorothy's rescue, which, though unreleased, includes the only footage of Buddy Ebsen's Tin Man.

The production faced the challenge of creating the Tin Man's costume. Several tests were done to find the right makeup and clothes for Ebsen. Ten days into the shoot, Ebsen suffered a reaction to the aluminum powder makeup he wore, though he did recall taking a breath one night without suffering any immediate effects. He was hospitalized in critical condition and was subsequently forced to leave the project. In a later interview (included on the 2005 DVD release of The Wizard of Oz), he recalled that the studio heads appreciated the seriousness of his illness only after he was hospitalized. Filming halted while a replacement for him was sought.

George Cukor's brief stint

Victor Fleming, the main director

Cukor did not shoot any scenes for the film, but acted merely as a creative advisor to the troubled production. His prior commitment to direct Gone with the Wind required him to leave on November 3, 1938, when Victor Fleming assumed directorial responsibility. As director, Fleming chose not to shift the film from Cukor's creative realignment, as producer LeRoy had already expressed his satisfaction with the film's new course.

Production on the bulk of the Technicolor sequences was a long and exhausting process that ran for over six months, from October 1938 to March 1939. Most of the cast worked six days a week and had to arrive as early as 4 a.m. to be fitted with makeup and costumes, and often did not leave until 7 pm or later. Cumbersome makeup and costumes were made even more uncomfortable by the daylight-bright lighting the early Technicolor process required, which could heat the set to over 100 °F (38 °C). Bolger later said that the frightening nature of the costumes prevented most of the Oz principals from eating in the studio commissary; and the toxicity of Hamilton's copper-based makeup forced her to eat a liquid diet on shoot days. It took as many as twelve takes to have Toto run alongside the actors as they skipped down the Yellow Brick Road.

All the Oz sequences were filmed in three-strip Technicolor. The opening and closing credits, and the Kansas sequences, were filmed in black and white and colored in a sepia-tone process. Sepia-tone film was also used in the scene where Aunt Em appears in the Wicked Witch's crystal ball. The film was not the first to use Technicolor, which was introduced in The Gulf Between (1917).

In Hamilton's exit from Munchkinland, a concealed elevator was installed to lower her below stage level, as fire and smoke erupted to dramatize and conceal her exit. The first take ran well, but on the second take, the burst of fire came too soon. The flames set fire to her green, copper-based face paint, causing third-degree burns to her hands and face. She spent three months recuperating before returning to work.

King Vidor's finishing work as director

On February 12, 1939, Fleming hastily replaced Cukor in directing Gone with the Wind. The next day, the studio assigned Fleming's friend, King Vidor, to finish directing The Wizard of Oz (mainly the early sepia-toned Kansas sequences, including Garland's singing of " Over the Rainbow" and the tornado). Although the film was a hit on its release, Vidor chose not to take public credit for his contribution until Fleming died in 1949.[citation needed ]

Since the film has been released, credible stories have come out indicating that Judy Garland endured extensive abuse during and before filming from various parties involved. The studio went to extreme lengths to change her appearance including binding her chest and giving her Benzedrine tablets to keep her weight down, along with uppers and downers that caused giggling fits. There were claims that director Victor Fleming often slapped her in the face and various members of the cast pointed out her breasts and made other lewd comments. Claims have been made in memoirs that the frequently drunk actors portraying the Munchkins propositioned and pinched her. There were also allegations that she was groped by Louis B. Mayer.

Special effects, makeup and costumes

Arnold Gillespie, the film's special effects director, employed several visual-effect techniques. Developing the tornado scene was especially costly. Gillespie used muslin cloth to make the tornado flexible, after a previous attempt with rubber failed. He hung the 35 ft (11 m) of muslin from a steel gantry and connected the bottom to a rod. By moving the gantry and rod, he was able to create the illusion of a tornado moving across the stage. Fuller's earth was sprayed from both the top and bottom using compressed air hoses to complete the effect. Dorothy's house was recreated using a model. Stock footage of this tornado was later recycled for a climactic scene in the 1943 musical film Cabin in the Sky, directed by Judy Garland's eventual second husband Vincente Minnelli.

The Cowardly Lion and Scarecrow masks were made of foam latex makeup created by makeup artist Jack Dawn. Dawn was one of the first to use this technique. It took an hour each day to slowly peel Bolger's glued-on mask from his face, a process that eventually left permanent lines around his mouth and chin.

Hamilton received severe burns to her hands and face in an accident with the flame effect during her exit from Munchkinland. At the time, she was wearing her green makeup, which was usually removed with acetone due to its toxic copper content. Because of Hamilton's burns, makeup artist Jack Young removed the makeup with alcohol to prevent infection. The Tin Man's costume was made of leather-covered buckram, and the oil used to grease his joints was made from chocolate syrup. The Cowardly Lion's costume was made from real lion skin and fur. For the "horse of a different color" scene, Jell-O powder was used to color the white horses. Asbestos was used to achieve some of the special effects, such as the witch's burning broomstick and the fake snow that covers Dorothy as she sleeps in the field of poppies.

The Wizard of Oz is famous for its musical selections and soundtrack. Its songs were composed by Harold Arlen, with lyrics by Yip Harburg. They won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Over the Rainbow". The song ranks first in the AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs and the Recording Industry Association of America's " 365 Songs of the Century".

MGM composer Herbert Stothart, a well-known Hollywood composer and songwriter, won the Academy Award for Best Original Score.

Georgie Stoll was associate conductor, and screen credit was given to George Bassman, Murray Cutter, Ken Darby and Paul Marquardt for orchestral and vocal arrangements. (As usual, Roger Edens was also heavily involved as an unbilled musical associate to Freed.)

The songs were recorded in the studio's scoring stage before filming. Several of the recordings were completed while Ebsen was still with the cast. Although he had to be dropped from the cast because of a dangerous reaction to his aluminum powder makeup, his singing voice remained on the soundtrack (as mentioned in the notes for the CD Deluxe Edition). He can be heard in the group vocals of "We're Off to See the Wizard". Haley spoke with a distinct Boston accent and did not pronounce the R in "wizard". Ebsen, a Midwesterner like Garland, pronounced it clearly.

"Over the Rainbow" - Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale

Munchkinland Sequence:

"Come Out ..." - Billie Burke as Glinda, and the Munchkins

"It Really Was No Miracle" - Judy Garland as Dorothy, Billy Bletcher and the Munchkins

"We Thank You Very Sweetly" - Frank Cucksey and Joseph Koziel

"Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead" - Billie Burke as Glinda (speaking) and the Munchkins

"As Mayor of the Munchkin City"

"As Coroner, I Must Aver"

"Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead" (Reprise) - The Munchkins

"The Lullaby League"

"The Lollipop Guild"

"We Welcome You to Munchkinland" - The Munchkins

"Follow the Yellow Brick Road/You're Off to See the Wizard" - Judy Garland as Dorothy, and the Munchkins

"If I Only Had a Brain" - Ray Bolger as the Scarecrow, and Judy Garland as Dorothy

"We're Off to See the Wizard" - Judy Garland as Dorothy, and Ray Bolger as the Scarecrow

"If I Only Had a Heart" - Jack Haley (originally Buddy Ebsen) as the Tin Man

"We're Off to See the Wizard" (Reprise 1) - Judy Garland as Dorothy, Ray Bolger as the Scarecrow, and Buddy Ebsen as the Tin Man

"If I Only Had the Nerve" - Bert Lahr as the Cowardly Lion, Jack Haley as the Tin Man, Ray Bolger as the Scarecrow, and Judy Garland as Dorothy

"We're Off to See the Wizard" (Reprise 2) - Judy Garland as Dorothy, Ray Bolger as the Scarecrow, Buddy Ebsen as the Tin Man, and Bert Lahr as the Cowardly Lion

"Optimistic Voices" - MGM Studio Chorus

"The Merry Old Land of Oz" - Frank Morgan as Cabby, Judy Garland as Dorothy, Ray Bolger as Scarecrow, Jack Haley as the Tin Man, Bert Lahr as the Cowardly Lion and the Emerald City townspeople

"If I Were King of the Forest" - Bert Lahr as the Cowardly Lion, Judy Garland as Dorothy, Ray Bolger as the Scarecrow and Jack Haley as the Tin Man

"The Jitterbug" - Although this song was removed from the final film, it is still available on some extended edition CDs.

Some musical pieces were filmed and deleted later, in the editing process.

The song "The Jitterbug", written in a swing style, was intended for a sequence where the group journeys to the Witch's castle. Owing to time constraints, it was cut from the final theatrical version. The film footage of the song has been lost, although silent home-film footage of rehearsals has survived. The audio recording of the song was preserved, and was included in the two-CD Rhino Records deluxe edition of the soundtrack, as well as on the film's VHS and DVD editions. A reference to "The Jitterbug" remains in the film: The Witch tells her flying monkeys that they should have no trouble apprehending Dorothy and her friends because "I've sent a little insect on ahead to take the fight out of them."

Garland was to sing a brief reprise of "Over the Rainbow" while Dorothy was trapped in the Witch's castle, but it was cut because it was considered too emotionally intense. The original soundtrack recording still exists, and was included as an extra in all home media releases from 1993 onward.

Extensive edits in the film's final cut removed vocals from the last portion of the film. However, the film was fully underscored, with instrumental snippets from the film's various leitmotifs throughout. There was also some recognizable classical and popular music, including:

Excerpts from Schumann's "The Happy Farmer", at several points early in the film, including the opening scene when Dorothy and Toto hurry home after their encounter with Miss Gulch; when Toto escapes from her; and when the house "rides" the tornado.

An excerpt of Mendelssohn's "Opus 16, #2", when Toto escapes from the Witch's castle.

An excerpt of Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain", when Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion try to escape from the Witch's castle.

"In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree", when Dorothy and the Scarecrow discover the anthropomorphic apple trees.

"Gaudeamus Igitur", as the Wizard presents awards to the group.

"Home! Sweet Home!", in part of the closing scene, at Dorothy's house in Kansas.

An excerpt of Tchaikovsky's "Waltz of the Flowers", Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion, Toto. Poppy field sleeping

(This list is excerpted from the liner notes of the Rhino Records collection.)

Principal photography concluded with the Kansas sequences on March 16, 1939. Reshoots and pick-up shots were done through April and May and into June, under the direction of producer LeRoy. When the "Over the Rainbow" reprise was revived after subsequent test screenings in early June, Garland had to be brought back to reshoot the "Auntie Em, I'm frightened!" scene without the song. The footage of Blandick's Aunt Em, as shot by Vidor, had already been set aside for rear-projection work, and was reused.

After Hamilton's torturous experience with the Munchkinland elevator, she refused to do the pick-ups for the scene where she flies on a broomstick that billows smoke, so LeRoy had stunt double Betty Danko perform instead. Danko was severely injured when the smoke mechanism malfunctioned.

At this point, the film began a long, arduous post-production. Herbert Stothart composed the film's background score, while A. Arnold Gillespie perfected the special effects, including many of the rear-projection shots. The MGM art department created matte paintings for many scene backgrounds.

A significant innovation planned for the film was the use of stencil printing for the transition to Technicolor. Each frame was to be hand-tinted to maintain the sepia tone. However, it was abandoned because it was too expensive and labor-intensive, and MGM used a simpler, less-expensive technique: During the May reshoots, the inside of the farmhouse was painted sepia, and when Dorothy opens the door, it is not Garland, but her stand-in, Bobbie Koshay, wearing a sepia gingham dress, who then backs out of frame. Once the camera moves through the door, Garland steps back into frame in her bright blue gingham dress (as noted in DVD extras), and the sepia-painted door briefly tints her with the same color before she emerges from the house's shadow, into the bright glare of the Technicolor lighting. This also meant that the reshoots provided the first proper shot of Munchkinland. If one looks carefully, the brief cut to Dorothy looking around outside the house bisects a single long shot, from the inside of the doorway to the pan-around that finally ends in a reverse-angle as the ruins of the house are seen behind Dorothy and she comes to a stop at the foot of the small bridge.

Test screenings of the film began on June 5, 1939. Oz initially ran nearly two hours long. In 1939, the average film ran for about 90 minutes. LeRoy and Fleming knew they needed to cut at least 15 minutes to get the film down to a manageable running time. Three sneak previews in San Bernardino, Pomona and San Luis Obispo, California, guided LeRoy and Fleming in the cutting. Among the many cuts were "The Jitterbug" number, the Scarecrow's elaborate dance sequence following "If I Only Had a Brain", reprises of "Over the Rainbow" and " Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead", and a number of smaller dialogue sequences. This left the final, mostly serious portion of the film with no songs, only the dramatic underscoring.

"Over the Rainbow" was almost deleted. MGM felt that it made the Kansas sequence too long, as well as being far over the heads of the target audience of children. The studio also thought that it was degrading for Garland to sing in a barnyard. LeRoy, uncredited associate producer Arthur Freed and director Fleming fought to keep it in, and they eventually won. The song went on to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song, and came to be identified so strongly with Garland herself that she made it her signature song.

After the preview in San Luis Obispo in early July, the film was officially released in August 1939 at its current 101-minute running time.

The film premiered at the Orpheum Theatre in Green Bay, Wisconsin on August 10, 1939. The first sneak preview was held in San Bernardino, California. The film was previewed in three test markets: in Kenosha, Wisconsin and Dennis, Massachusetts on August 11, 1939, and at the Strand Theatre in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, on August 12.

The Hollywood premiere was on August 15, 1939, at Grauman's Chinese Theatre. The New York City premiere, held at Loew's Capitol Theatre on August 17, 1939, was followed by a live performance with Garland and her frequent film co-star Mickey Rooney. They continued to perform there after each screening for a week. Garland extended her appearance for two more weeks, partnered with Rooney for a second week and with Oz co-stars Ray Bolger and Bert Lahr for the third and final week. The film opened nationwide on August 25, 1939.

MGM sold CBS the rights to televise the film for $225,000 (equivalent to $1.65 million in 2019) per broadcast. It was first shown on television on November 3, 1956 as the last installment of the Ford Star Jubilee. It was a ratings success, with a Nielsen rating of 33.9 and an audience share of 53%.

It was repeated on December 13, 1959, and gained an even larger television audience, with a Nielsen rating of 36.5 and an audience share of 58%. It became an annual television tradition.

On October 25, 1980, the film was released on videocassette (in both VHS and Betamax format) by MGM/CBS Home Video. All current home video releases are by Warner Home Video (via current rights holder Turner Entertainment).

The film's first LaserDisc release was in 1983. In 1989, there were two releases for the 50th anniversary, one from Turner and one from The Criterion Collection, with a commentary track. Laserdiscs came out in 1991 and 1993, and the final LaserDisc was released September 11, 1996.

The film was released on the CED format once, in 1982, by MGM/UA Home Video. It has also been released multiple times outside of the North American and European markets, in Asia, in the Video CD format.

The first DVD release was on March 26, 1997, by MGM/Turner. It contained no special features or supplements. On October 19, 1999, Oz was re-released by Warner Bros to celebrate the picture's 60th anniversary, with its soundtrack presented in a new 5.1 surround sound mix. The DVD also contained a behind-the-scenes documentary, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: The Making of a Movie Classic, produced in 1990 and hosted by Angela Lansbury, which was originally shown on television immediately following the 1990 telecast of the film. It had been featured in the 1993 "Ultimate Oz" LaserDisc release. Outtakes, the deleted "Jitterbug" musical number, clips of pre-1939 Oz adaptations, trailers, newsreels, and a portrait gallery were also included, as well as two radio programs of the era publicizing the film.

In 2005, two DVD editions were released, both featuring a newly restored version of the film with an audio commentary and an isolated music and effects track. One of the two DVD releases was a "Two-Disc Special Edition", featuring production documentaries, trailers, outtakes, newsreels, radio shows and still galleries. The other set, a "Three-Disc Collector's Edition", included these features, as well as the digitally restored 80th-anniversary edition of the 1925 feature-length silent film version of The Wizard of Oz, other silent Oz adaptations and a 1933 animated short version.

The film was released on Blu-ray on September 29, 2009, for its 70th anniversary, in a four-disc "Ultimate Collector's Edition", including all the bonus features from the 2005 Collector's Edition DVD, new bonus features about Victor Fleming and the surviving Munchkins, the telefilm The Dreamer of Oz: The L. Frank Baum Story, and the miniseries MGM: When the Lion Roars. For this edition, Warner Bros. commissioned a new transfer from the original negatives at 8K resolution. The restoration job was given to Prime Focus World. This restored version also features a lossless 5.1 Dolby TrueHD audio track.

On December 1, 2009, three Blu-ray discs of the Ultimate Collector's Edition were repackaged as a less expensive "Emerald Edition". An Emerald Edition four-disc DVD arrived the following week. A single-disc Blu-ray, containing the restored movie and all the extra features of the two-disc Special Edition DVD, became available on March 16, 2010.

In 2013, the film was re-released on DVD, Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D and UltraViolet for the 90th anniversary of Warner Bros. and the 75th anniversary of the film.

Many special editions were released in celebration of the film's 75th anniversary in 2013, including one exclusively by Best Buy (a SteelBook of the 3D Blu-ray) and another by Target stores that came with a keepsake lunch bag.

The film was issued on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray on October 29, 2019, featuring both a Dolby Vision and an HDR10+ grading from an 8K transfer.

The MGM "Children's Matinees" series re-released the film twice, in both 1970 and 1971. It was for this release that the film received a G rating from the MPAA.

For the film's upcoming 60th anniversary, Warner Bros. released a "Special Edition" on November 6, 1998, digitally restored with remastered audio.

On September 23, 2009, the film was re-released in select theaters for a one-night-only event in honor of its 70th anniversary and as a promotion for various new disc releases later in the month. An encore of this event took place in theaters on November 17, 2009.

An IMAX 3D theatrical re-release played at 300 theaters in North America for one week only beginning September 20, 2013, as part of the film's 75th anniversary. Warner Bros. spent $25 million on advertising. The studio hosted a premiere of the film's first IMAX 3D release on September 15, 2013, in Hollywood at the newly remodeled TCL Chinese Theatre (formerly Grauman's Chinese Theatre, the site of the film's Hollywood premiere). It was the first picture to play at the new theater and served as the grand opening of Hollywood's first 3D IMAX screen. It was also shown as a special presentation at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival. This re-release grossed $5.6 million at the North American box office.

In 2013, in preparation for its IMAX 3D release, the film was submitted to the MPAA for re-classification. According to MPAA rules, a film that has been altered in any way from its original version must be submitted for re-classification, and the 3-D conversion fell within that guideline. Surprisingly, the 3D version received a PG rating for "Some scary moments", although no change was made to the film's original story content. The 2D version still retains its G rating.

The film was re-released by Fathom Events on January 27, 29, 30, 2019, and February 3 and 5, 2019, as part of its 80th anniversary. It also had a one-week theatrical engagement in Dolby Cinema on October 25, 2019, to commemorate the anniversary.

The Wizard of Oz received widespread acclaim upon its release. Writing for The New York Times, Frank Nugent considered the film a "delightful piece of wonder-working which had the youngsters' eyes shining and brought a quietly amused gleam to the wiser ones of the oldsters. Not since Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs has anything quite so fantastic succeeded half so well." Nugent had issues with some of the film's special effects:

with the best of will and ingenuity, they cannot make a Munchkin or a Flying Monkey that will not still suggest, however vaguely, a Singer's Midget in a Jack Dawn masquerade. Nor can they, without a few betraying jolts and split-screen overlappings, bring down from the sky the great soap bubble in which Glinda rides and roll it smoothly into place.

According to Nugent, "Judy Garland's Dorothy is a pert and fresh-faced miss with the wonder-lit eyes of a believer in fairy tales, but the Baum fantasy is at its best when the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Lion are on the move."

Writing in , John C. Flinn predicted that the film was "likely to perform some record-breaking feats of box-office magic," noting, "Some of the scenic passages are so beautiful in design and composition as to stir audiences by their sheer unfoldment." He also called Garland "an appealing figure" and the musical numbers "gay and bright."

Harrison's Reports wrote, "Even though some persons are not interested in pictures of this type, it is possible that they will be eager to see this picture just for its technical treatment. The performances are good, and the incidental music is of considerable aid. Pictures of this caliber bring credit to the industry."

Film Daily wrote:

Leo the Lion is privileged to herald this one with his deepest roar-the one that comes from way down-for seldom if indeed ever has the screen been so successful in its approach to fantasy and extravaganza through flesh-and-blood... handsomely mounted fairy story in Technicolor, with its wealth of humor and homespun philosophy, its stimulus to the imagination, its procession of unforgettable settings, its studding of merry tunes should click solidly at the box-office.

Some reviews were less positive. Some moviegoers felt that the 16-year-old Garland was slightly too old to play the little girl who Baum intended his Dorothy to be. Russell Maloney of The New Yorker wrote that the film displayed "no trace of imagination, good taste, or ingenuity" and declared it "a stinkeroo", while Otis Ferguson of The New Republic wrote: "It has dwarfs, music, Technicolor, freak characters, and Judy Garland. It can't be expected to have a sense of humor, as well - and as for the light touch of fantasy, it weighs like a pound of fruitcake soaking wet." Still, the film placed seventh on s year-end nationwide poll of 542 critics naming the best films of 1939.

According to MGM records, during the film's initial release, it earned $2,048,000 in the US and Canada and $969,000 in other countries throughout the world, for total earnings of $3,017,000. However, its high production cost, plus the costs of marketing, distribution, and other services, resulted in a loss of $1,145,000 for the studio. It did not show what MGM considered a profit until a 1949 re-release earned an additional $1.5 million (about $13 million in 2019). For all the risks and cost MGM undertook to produce the film, it was certainly more successful than anyone expected. Christopher Finch, author of the Judy Garland biography Rainbow: The Stormy Life of Judy Garland, wrote: "Fantasy is always a risk at the box office. The film had been enormously successful as a book, and it had also been a major stage hit, but previous attempts to bring it to the screen had been dismal failures." He also wrote that after the film's success, Garland signed a new contract with MGM giving her a substantial increase in salary, making her one of the top ten box office stars in the United States.

The film was also re-released domestically in 1955. Subsequent re-releases between 1989 and 2019 have grossed $25,173,032 worldwide, for a total worldwide gross of $29,690,032.

Roger Ebert chose it as one of his Great Films, writing that " The Wizard of Oz has a wonderful surface of comedy and music, special effects and excitement, but we still watch it six decades later because its underlying story penetrates straight to the deepest insecurities of childhood, stirs them and then reassures them."

In his 1992 critique of the film for the British Film Institute, author Salman Rushdie acknowledged its effect on him, noting " The Wizard of Oz was my very first literary influence" . In "Step Across This Line", he wrote: "When I first saw The Wizard of Oz, it made a writer of me." His first short story, written at the age of 10, was titled "Over the Rainbow".

In a 2009 retrospective article about the film, San Francisco Chronicle film critic and author Mick LaSalle declared:

"...the entire Munchkinland sequence, from Dorothy's arrival in Oz to her departure on the yellow brick road, has to be one of the greatest in cinema history - a masterpiece of set design, costuming, choreography, music, lyrics, storytelling, and sheer imagination."

On the film review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, The Wizard of Oz has a 99% rating based on 145 reviews, with an average score of 9.5/10. Its critical consensus reads, "An absolute masterpiece whose groundbreaking visuals and deft storytelling are still every bit as resonant, The Wizard of Oz is a must-see film for young and old." At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, the film received the maximum score of 100 out of 100, based on 4 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim", which, as of March 2020, is matched only by eight other films.

The American Film Institute (AFI) has compiled various lists which include this film or its elements.

Among the many dramatic differences between the film and the novel are the era (1900); the character of Dorothy Gale, who is not given an age in the novel but depicted as much younger than Garland in the illustrations; and the ruby slippers, which are Silver Shoes.

The Tin Woodman's backstory is not presented in the film: he started off a human being and kept lopping off bits of himself by accident.

Baum's Oz is divided into regions where people dress in the same color. Munchkins, for example, all wear blue. This did not lend itself to the brilliant palette that was the hallmark of Technicolor films at the time.

Dorothy's adventures in the book last much longer, and take her and her friends to more places in Oz, where they meet interesting characters. In the end, her friends are invited to rule different areas of Oz.

In some cases-including the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, the Munchkins (in style if not color), Dorothy's long pigtails and the unusual Oz noses-the film's designers were inspired by the book's illustrations by William Wallace Denslow. In others, including the costumes for the witches, good and bad, they created their own visions. The Wicked Witch of the West has green skin in the film and dresses in black, while the book describes her as having one eye and has Boq explain that "only witches and sorceresses wear white" and "white is the witch color", but combining it with Munchkin blue indicates that Dorothy is a "friendly witch". The illustrations show her wearing light-colored clothing and an eye patch. The book describes the good witch and two Munchkins who greet her as all about as tall as a well-grown child like Dorothy, and the illustrations generally depict denizens of Oz as Dorothy's height; it was the film that made short stature a trait of Munchkins in particular.

An official 1972 sequel, the animated Journey Back to Oz starring Liza Minnelli, Garland's daughter, was produced to commemorate the original film's 35th anniversary.

In 1975, a comic book adaptation of the film titled MGM's Marvelous Wizard of Oz was released. It was the first co-production between DC Comics and Marvel Comics. Marvel planned a series of sequels based on the subsequent novels. The first, The Marvelous Land of Oz, was published later that year. The next, The Marvelous Ozma of Oz was expected to be released the following year but never came to be.

In 1985, Walt Disney Productions released the live-action fantasy film Return to Oz, starring Fairuza Balk in her film debut as a young Dorothy Gale and based on The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904) and (1907). With a darker story, it fared poorly with critics unfamiliar with the Oz books and was not successful at the box office, although it has since become a popular cult film, with many considering it a more loyal and faithful adaptation of what L. Frank Baum envisioned.

The Broadway play premiered in 2003, and is based on the film and original novel. It has since gone on to become the second-highest grossing Broadway play of all time, and won three Tony Awards, seven Drama Desk Awards, and a Grammy Award. A film adaptation of the musical, directed by Jon M. Chu, has been in development at Universal Pictures since 2004.

Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice produced a stage musical of the same name, which opened in 2011 at the West End's London Palladium.

An animated film called Tom and Jerry and the Wizard of Oz was released in 2011 by Warner Home Video, incorporating Tom and Jerry into the story as Dorothy's "protectors". A sequel titled Tom and Jerry: Back to Oz was released on DVD on June 21, 2016.

In 2013, Walt Disney Pictures released a spiritual prequel titled Oz the Great and Powerful. It was directed by Sam Raimi and starred James Franco, Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz and Michelle Williams. It was the second film based on Baum's Oz series to be produced by Disney, after Return to Oz. It was a commercial success but received a mixed reception from critics.

In 2014, independent film company Clarius Entertainment released a big-budget animated musical film, Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return, which follows Dorothy's second trip to Oz. The film fared poorly at the box office and was received negatively by critics, largely for its plot and unmemorable musical numbers.

In February 2021, New Line Cinema, Temple Hill Entertainment and Wicked producer Marc Platt announced that a new film version of the original book is in the works with s Nicole Kassell slated to direct the reimagining, which will have the option to include elements from the 1939 film.

According to the US Library of Congress exhibition The Wizard of Oz: an American Fairy Tale (2010):

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is America's greatest and best-loved home-grown fairytale. The first totally American fantasy for children, it is one of the most-read children's books ... Despite its many particularly American attributes, including a wizard from Omaha, [the 1939 film adaptation] has universal appeal... Because of its many television showings between 1956 and 1974, it has been seen by more viewers than any other movie".

In 1977, Aljean Harmetz wrote The Making of The Wizard of Oz, a detailed description of the creation of the film based on interviews and research; it was updated in 1989.

Because of their iconic stature, the ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in the film are now among the most treasured and valuable film memorabilia in movie history. Dorothy actually wore Silver Shoes in the book series, but the color was changed to ruby to take advantage of the new Technicolor process. Adrian, MGM's chief costume designer, was responsible for the final design. Five known pairs of the slippers exist. Another, differently styled pair, not used in the film, was sold at auction by actress Debbie Reynolds for $510,000 (not including the buyer's premium) in June 2011.

Dorothy's dress

In July 2021, Catholic University of America reported that a dress worn by Dorothy, believed to have been given to Rev. Gilbert Hartke by Mercedes McCambridge as a gift in 1973, was found in the university's Hartke Building after being missing for many years. The university said an expert on the movie's memorabilia at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History said five other dresses apparently worn by Judy Garland were "probably authentic". The dress found at the university had characteristics shared by the other five, including a "secret pocket" for Dorothy's handkerchief, and Garland's name written in a specific style. The university said the dress would be stored in Special Collections. Another of the dresses sold at auction in 2015 for nearly $1.6 million.

The Wizard of Oz has a presence at the Disney Parks and Resorts. The film had its own scene at The Great Movie Ride at Disney Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World Resort, and is also represented in miniature at Disneyland and at Disneyland Paris as part of the Storybook Land Canal Boats attraction in Fantasyland.

Memories of a Munchkin: An Illustrated Walk Down the Yellow Brick Road by Meinhardt Raabe and Daniel Kinske (Back Stage Books, 2005), ISBN 0-8230-9193-7

The Ruby Slippers of Oz by Rhys Thomas (Tale Weaver, 1989), ISBN 0-942139-09-7, 978-0-942139-09-9

The Wizardry of Oz: The Artistry And Magic of the 1939 MGM Classic - Revised and Expanded by Jay Scarfone and William Stillman (Applause Books, 2004), ISBN 0-517-20333-2, 978-0-517-20333-0

The Munchkins of Oz by Stephen Cox (Cumberland House, 1996) ISBN 1-58182-269-3, 978-1-58182-269-4

"Did these stories really happen?" by Michelle Bernier (Createspace, 2010) ISBN 1-4505-8536-1

Green, Stanley (1999) Hollywood Musicals Year by Year (2nd ed.), pub. Hal Leonard Corporation ISBN 0-634-00765-3 pages 88-89.

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The Wizard of Oz (1939 film) - Wikipedia

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The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. An adaptation of L. Frank Baum's 1900 children's fantasy novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz , the film was primarily directed by Victor Fleming (who left the production to take over the troubled Gone with the Wind ), and stars Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, Jack Haley, Billie Burke and Margaret Hamilton.

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Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz, and starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Paul Henreid. Filmed and set during World War II, it focuses on an American expatriate (Bogart) who must choose between his love for a woman (Bergman) or helping her and her husband (Henreid), a Czech resistance leader, escape from the Vichy-controlled city of Casablanca to continue his fight against the Germans. The screenplay is based on Everybody Comes to Rick's, an unproduced stage play by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison. The supporting cast features Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Dooley Wilson.

Warner Bros. story editor Irene Diamond convinced producer Hal B. Wallis to purchase the film rights to the play in January 1942. Brothers Julius and Philip G. Epstein were initially assigned to write the script. However, despite studio resistance, they left to work on Frank Capra's Why We Fight series early in 1942. Howard Koch was assigned to the screenplay until the Epsteins returned a month later. Principal photography began on May 25, 1942, ending on August 3; the film was shot entirely at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California with the exception of one sequence at Van Nuys Airport in Van Nuys, Los Angeles.

Although Casablanca was an A-list film with established stars and first-rate writers, no one involved with its production expected it to be anything other than one of the hundreds of pictures produced by Hollywood yearly. Casablanca was rushed into release to take advantage of the publicity from the Allied invasion of North Africa a few weeks earlier. It had its world premiere on November 26, 1942, in New York City and was released nationally in the United States on January 23, 1943. The film was a solid if unspectacular success in its initial run.

Exceeding expectations, Casablanca went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, while Curtiz was selected as Best Director and the Epsteins and Koch were honored for writing the Best Adapted Screenplay. Its reputation has gradually grown, to the point that its lead characters, memorable lines, and pervasive theme song have all become iconic, and it consistently ranks near the top of lists of the greatest films in history. In 1989, the United States Library of Congress selected the film as one of the first for preservation in the National Film Registry.

In December 1941, American expatriate Rick Blaine owns a nightclub and gambling den in Casablanca. "Rick's Café Américain" attracts a varied clientele, including Vichy French and German officials, refugees desperate to reach the neutral United States, and those who prey on them. Although Rick professes to be neutral in all matters, he ran guns to Ethiopia during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War and fought on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War.

Petty crook Ugarte boasts to Rick of "letters of transit" obtained by murdering two German couriers. The papers allow the bearers to travel freely around German-occupied Europe and to neutral Portugal; they are priceless to the refugees stranded in Casablanca. Ugarte plans to sell them at the club, and persuades Rick to hold them. Before he can meet his contact, Ugarte is arrested by the local police under the command of Captain Louis Renault, the unabashedly corrupt prefect of police. Ugarte dies in custody without revealing that he entrusted the letters to Rick.

Then the reason for Rick's cynical nature-former lover Ilsa Lund-enters his establishment. Spotting Rick's friend and house pianist, Sam, Ilsa asks him to play " As Time Goes By". Rick storms over, furious that Sam disobeyed his order never to perform that song and is stunned to see Ilsa. She is accompanied by her husband, Victor Laszlo, a renowned, fugitive Czech Resistance leader. They need the letters to escape to America to continue his work; Major Strasser has come to Casablanca to thwart him.

When Laszlo makes enquiries, Ferrari, an underworld figure and Rick's friendly business rival, divulges his suspicion that Rick has the letters. Privately, Rick refuses to sell at any price, telling Laszlo to ask his wife the reason. They are interrupted when Strasser leads a group of officers in singing "Die Wacht am Rhein" ("The Watch on the Rhine"). Laszlo orders the house band to play "La Marseillaise". When the band looks to Rick, he nods his head. Laszlo starts singing, alone at first, then patriotic fervor grips the crowd and everyone joins in, drowning out the Germans. Strasser demands Renault close the club, which he does on the pretext of suddenly discovering there is gambling on the premises.

Ilsa confronts Rick in the deserted café; when he refuses to give her the letters, she threatens him with a gun but then confesses that she still loves him. She explains that when they met and fell in love in Paris in 1940, she believed her husband had been killed attempting to escape from a concentration camp. While preparing to flee with Rick from the city during the Battle of France, she learned Laszlo was alive and in hiding. She left Rick without explanation to nurse her sick husband. Rick's bitterness dissolves. He agrees to help, letting her believe she will stay with him when Laszlo leaves. When Laszlo unexpectedly shows up, having narrowly escaped a police raid on a Resistance meeting, Rick has waiter Carl spirit Ilsa away. Laszlo, aware of Rick's love for Ilsa, tries to persuade him to use the letters to take her to safety.

When the police arrest Laszlo on a trumped-up charge, Rick persuades Renault to release him by promising to set him up for a much more serious crime: possession of the letters. To allay Renault's suspicions, Rick explains that he and Ilsa will be leaving for America. When Renault tries to arrest Laszlo as arranged, Rick forces him at gunpoint to assist in their escape. At the last moment, Rick makes Ilsa board the plane to Lisbon with Laszlo, telling her that she would regret it if she stayed: "Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow but soon and for the rest of your life." Strasser, tipped off by Renault, drives up alone. Rick shoots him when he tries to intervene. As the police arrive, Renault pauses, then orders them to "round up the usual suspects". He suggests to Rick that they join the Free French in Brazzaville. As they walk away into the fog, Rick says: "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

The play's cast consisted of 16 speaking parts and several extras; the film script enlarged it to 22 speaking parts and hundreds of extras. The cast is notably international: only three of the credited actors were born in the United States (Bogart, Dooley Wilson, and Joy Page). The top-billed actors are:

Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine

Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa Lund. Bergman's official website calls Ilsa her "most famous and enduring role". The Swedish actress's Hollywood debut in Intermezzo had been well received, but her subsequent films were not major successes until Casablanca. Film critic Roger Ebert called her "luminous", and commented on the chemistry between her and Bogart: "she paints his face with her eyes". Other actresses considered for the role of Ilsa included Ann Sheridan, Hedy Lamarr, Luise Rainer, and Michèle Morgan. Producer Hal Wallis obtained the services of Bergman, who was contracted to David O. Selznick, by lending Olivia de Havilland in exchange.

Paul Henreid as Victor Laszlo. Henreid, an Austrian actor who had emigrated in 1935, was reluctant to take the role (it "set [him] as a stiff forever", according to Pauline Kael), until he was promised top billing along with Bogart and Bergman. Henreid did not get on well with his fellow actors; he considered Bogart "a mediocre actor"; Bergman called Henreid a "prima donna".

The second-billed actors are:

Claude Rains as Captain Louis Renault

Conrad Veidt as Major Heinrich Strasser. He was a refugee German actor who had fled the Nazis with his Jewish wife, but frequently played Nazis in American films. He was the highest paid member of the cast despite his second billing.

Sydney Greenstreet as Signor Ferrari

Peter Lorre as Signor Ugarte

Also credited are:

Curt Bois as the pickpocket. He had one of the longest careers in cinema, spanning over 80 years.

Leonid Kinskey as Sascha, the Russian bartender infatuated with Yvonne. He told Aljean Harmetz, author of Round Up the Usual Suspects: The Making of Casablanca, that he was cast because he was Bogart's drinking buddy. He was not the first choice for the role; he replaced Leo Mostovoy, who was deemed not funny enough.

Madeleine Lebeau as Yvonne, Rick's soon-discarded girlfriend. She was a French refugee who had left Nazi-occupied Europe with her husband Marcel Dalio, who was a fellow Casablanca performer. She was the last surviving cast member until her death on May 1, 2016.

Joy Page, the step-daughter of studio head Jack L. Warner, as Annina Brandel, the young Bulgarian refugee

John Qualen as Berger, Laszlo's Resistance contact

S. Z. Sakall (credited as S. K. Sakall) as Carl, the waiter

Dooley Wilson as Sam. He was one of the few American-born members of the cast. A drummer, he had to fake playing the piano. Even after shooting had been completed, producer Wallis considered dubbing over Wilson's voice for the songs.

Notable uncredited actors are:

Much of the emotional impact of the film, for the audience in 1942, has been attributed to the large proportion of European exiles and refugees who were extras or played minor roles (in addition to leading actors Paul Henreid, Conrad Veidt and Peter Lorre), such as Louis V. Arco, Trude Berliner, Ilka Grünig, Ludwig Stössel, Hans Heinrich von Twardowski, and Wolfgang Zilzer. A witness to the filming of the "duel of the anthems" sequence said he saw many of the actors crying and "realized that they were all real refugees". Harmetz argues that they "brought to a dozen small roles in Casablanca an understanding and a desperation that could never have come from Central Casting". Even though many were Jewish or refugees from the Nazis (or both), they were frequently cast as Nazis in various war films, because of their accents.

Jack Benny may have appeared in an unbilled cameo, as was claimed by a contemporary newspaper advertisement and in the Casablanca press book. When asked in his column "Movie Answer Man", critic Roger Ebert first replied, "It looks something like him. That's all I can say." In a later column, he responded to a follow-up commenter, "I think you're right. The Jack Benny Fan Club can feel vindicated".

The film was based on Murray Burnett and Joan Alison's unproduced play Everybody Comes to Rick's. The Warner Bros. story analyst who read the play, Stephen Karnot, called it (approvingly) "sophisticated hokum" and story editor Irene Diamond, who had discovered the script on a trip to New York in 1941, convinced Hal Wallis to buy the rights in January 1942 for $20,000 (equivalent to $272,000 in 2019), the most anyone in Hollywood had ever paid for an unproduced play. The project was renamed Casablanca, apparently in imitation of the 1938 hit . Although an initial filming date was selected for April 10, 1942, delays led to production starting on May 25. Filming was completed on August 3. It went $75,000 over budget for a total cost of $1,039,000 (equivalent to $13,087,000 in 2019), above average for the time. Unusually, the film was shot in sequence, mainly because only the first half of the script was ready when filming began.

The entire picture was shot in the studio, except for the sequence showing Strasser's arrival, which was filmed at Van Nuys Airport, and a few short clips of stock footage views of Paris. The street used for the exterior shots had recently been built for another film, The Desert Song, and redressed for the Paris flashbacks.

The background of the final scene, which shows a Lockheed Model 12 Electra Junior airplane with personnel walking around it, was staged using little person extras and a proportionate cardboard plane. Fog was used to mask the model's unconvincing appearance. Nevertheless, the Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park in Orlando, Florida, purchased a Lockheed 12A for its Great Movie Ride attraction, and initially claimed that it was the actual plane used in the film.

The difference between Bergman's and Bogart's height caused some problems. She was two inches (5 cm) taller than Bogart, and claimed Curtiz had Bogart stand on blocks or sit on cushions in their scenes together.

Later, there were plans for a further scene, showing Rick, Renault and a detachment of Free French soldiers on a ship, to incorporate the Allies' 1942 invasion of North Africa. It proved too difficult to get Claude Rains for the shoot, and the scene was finally abandoned after David O. Selznick judged "it would be a terrible mistake to change the ending."

The original play was inspired by a trip to Europe made by Murray Burnett and his wife in 1938, during which they visited Vienna shortly after the Anschluss and were affected by the antisemitism they saw. In the south of France, they went to a nightclub that had a multinational clientele, among them many exiles and refugees, and the prototype of Sam. In The Guardian, Paul Fairclough writes that Cinema Vox in Tangier "was Africa's biggest when it opened in 1935, with 2,000 seats and a retractable roof. As Tangier was in Spanish territory [ sic], the theatre's wartime bar heaved with spies, refugees and underworld hoods, securing its place in cinematic history as the inspiration for Rick's Cafe in Casablanca." The scene of the singing of "La Marseillaise" in the bar is attributed by the film scholar Julian Jackson as an adaptation of a similar scene from Jean Renoir's film La Grande Illusion five years prior.

The first writers assigned to the script were twins Julius and Philip Epstein who, against the wishes of Warner Bros., left at Frank Capra's request early in 1942 to work on the Why We Fight series in Washington, D.C. While they were gone, the other credited writer, Howard Koch, was assigned; he produced thirty to forty pages. When the Epstein brothers returned after about a month, they were reassigned to Casablanca and-contrary to what Koch claimed in two published books-his work was not used. The Epstein brothers and Koch never worked in the same room at the same time during the writing of the script. In the final budget for the film, the Epsteins were paid $30,416, (equivalent to $377,859 in 2019) and Koch earned $4,200 (equivalent to $52,900 in 2019).

The possibility was discussed of Laszlo being killed in Casablanca, allowing Rick and Ilsa to leave together, but as Casey Robinson wrote to Wallis before filming began, the ending of the film "set up for a swell twist when Rick sends her away on the plane with Laszlo. For now, in doing so, he is not just solving a love triangle. He is forcing the girl to live up to the idealism of her nature, forcing her to carry on with the work that in these days is far more important than the love of two little people." It was certainly impossible for Ilsa to leave Laszlo for Rick, as the Motion Picture Production Code forbade showing a woman leaving her husband for another man. The concern was not whether Ilsa would leave with Laszlo, but how this outcome would be engineered. The problem was solved when the Epstein brothers were driving down Sunset Boulevard and stopped for the light at Beverly Glen. At that instant the identical twins turned to each other and simultaneously cried out, "Round up the usual suspects!" By the time they had driven past Fairfax and the Cahuenga Pass and through the Warner Brothers studio's portals at Burbank, in the words of Julius Epstein, "the idea for the farewell scene between a tearful Bergman and a suddenly noble Bogart" had been formed and all the problems of the ending had been solved.

The uncredited Casey Robinson assisted with three weeks of rewrites, including contributing the series of meetings between Rick and Ilsa in the cafe. Koch highlighted the political and melodramatic elements, and Curtiz seems to have favored the romantic parts, insisting on retaining the Paris flashbacks.

In a telegram to film editor Owen Marks on August 7, 1942, Wallis suggested two possible final lines of dialogue for Rick: "Louis, I might have known you'd mix your patriotism with a little larceny" or "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." Two weeks later, Wallis settled on the latter, which Bogart was recalled to dub a month after shooting had finished.

Bogart's line "Here's looking at you, kid", said four times, was not in the draft screenplays, but has been attributed to a comment he made to Bergman as he taught her poker between takes.

Despite the many writers, the film has what Ebert describes as a "wonderfully unified and consistent" script. Koch later claimed it was the tension between his own approach and Curtiz's which accounted for this: "Surprisingly, these disparate approaches somehow meshed, and perhaps it was partly this tug of war between Curtiz and me that gave the film a certain balance." Julius Epstein would later note the screenplay contained "more corn than in the states of Kansas and Iowa combined. But when corn works, there's nothing better."

The film ran into some trouble with Joseph Breen of the Production Code Administration (the Hollywood self-censorship body), who opposed the suggestions that Captain Renault extorted sexual favors from his supplicants, and that Rick and Ilsa had slept together. Extensive changes were made, with several lines of dialogue removed or altered. All direct references to sex were deleted; Renault's selling of visas for sex, and Rick and Ilsa's previous sexual relationship were implied elliptically rather than referenced explicitly. Also, in the original script, when Sam plays "As Time Goes By", Rick remarks, "What the -- are you playing?" This line was altered to: "Sam, I thought I told you never to play..." to conform to Breen's objection to an implied swear word.

Wallis's first choice for director was William Wyler, but he was unavailable, so Wallis turned to his close friend Michael Curtiz. Curtiz was a Hungarian Jewish émigré; he had come to the U.S. in 1926, but some of his family were refugees from Nazi Europe.

Roger Ebert has commented that in Casablanca "very few shots ... are memorable as shots," as Curtiz wanted images to express the story rather than to stand alone. He contributed relatively little to development of the plot. Casey Robinson said Curtiz "knew nothing whatever about story ... he saw it in pictures, and you supplied the stories."

Critic Andrew Sarris called the film "the most decisive exception to the auteur theory", of which Sarris was the most prominent proponent in the United States. Aljean Harmetz has responded, "nearly every Warner Bros. picture was an exception to the auteur theory". Other critics give more credit to Curtiz. Sidney Rosenzweig, in his study of the director's work, sees the film as a typical example of Curtiz's highlighting of moral dilemmas.

The second unit montages, such as the opening sequence of the refugee trail and the invasion of France, were directed by Don Siegel. Siegel later directed the science fiction horror film Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), as well as five films with Clint Eastwood, including the police thriller Dirty Harry (1971) and the prison drama Escape from Alcatraz (1979), and John Wayne's final film, the Western The Shootist (1976).

The cinematographer was Arthur Edeson, a veteran who had previously shot The Maltese Falcon and Frankenstein. Particular attention was paid to photographing Bergman. She was shot mainly from her preferred left side, often with a softening gauze filter and with catch lights to make her eyes sparkle; the whole effect was designed to make her face seem "ineffably sad and tender and nostalgic". Bars of shadow across the characters and in the background variously imply imprisonment, the crucifix, the symbol of the Free French Forces and emotional turmoil. Dark film noir and expressionist lighting was used in several scenes, particularly towards the end of the picture. Rosenzweig argues these shadow and lighting effects are classic elements of the Curtiz style, along with the fluid camera work and the use of the environment as a framing device.

The music was written by Max Steiner, who wrote scores for King Kong and Gone with the Wind. The song " As Time Goes By" by Herman Hupfeld had been part of the story from the original play; Steiner wanted to write his own composition to replace it, but Bergman had already cut her hair short for her next role (María in For Whom the Bell Tolls) and could not re-shoot the scenes which incorporated the song, so Steiner based the entire score on it and " La Marseillaise", the French national anthem, transforming them as leitmotifs to reflect changing moods. Even though Steiner disliked "As Time Goes By", he admitted in a 1943 interview that it "must have had something to attract so much attention." Dooley Wilson, who played Sam, was a drummer, so his piano playing was performed by Jean Plummer.

Particularly memorable is the "duel of the anthems" between Strasser and Laszlo at Rick's cafe. In the soundtrack, "La Marseillaise" is played by a full orchestra. Originally, the opposing piece for this iconic sequence was to be the " Horst Wessel Lied", a Nazi anthem, but this was still under international copyright in non-Allied countries. Instead " Die Wacht am Rhein" was used. The " Deutschlandlied", the national anthem of Germany, is used several times in minor mode as a leitmotif for the German threat, e.g. in the scene in Paris as it is announced that the German army will reach Paris the next day. It is featured in the final scene, giving way to "La Marseillaise" after Strasser is shot.

Other songs include:

"It Had to Be You", music by Isham Jones, lyrics by Gus Kahn

"Shine", music by Ford Dabney, lyrics by Cecil Mack and Lew Brown

"Avalon", music and lyrics by Al Jolson, Buddy DeSylva and Vincent Rose

"Perfidia", by Alberto Dominguez

"The Very Thought of You", by Ray Noble

"Knock on Wood", music by M. K. Jerome, lyrics by Jack Scholl, the only original song.

Very few films in the early 1940s had portions of the soundtrack released on 78 rpm records, and Casablanca was no exception. In 1997, almost 55 years after the film's premiere, Turner Entertainment in collaboration with Rhino Records issued the film's first original soundtrack album for release on compact disc, including original songs and music, spoken dialogue, and alternate takes.

The piano featured in the Paris flashback sequences was sold in New York City on December 14, 2012, at Sotheby's for more than $600,000 to an anonymous bidder. The piano Sam "plays" in Rick's Café Américain, put up for auction with other film memorabilia by Turner Classic Movies at Bonhams in New York on November 24, 2014, sold for $3.4 million.

Although an initial release date was anticipated for early 1943, the film premiered at the Hollywood Theater in New York City on November 26, 1942, to capitalize on Operation Torch (the Allied invasion of French North Africa) and the subsequent capture of Casablanca. It went into general release on January 23, 1943, to take advantage of the Casablanca Conference, a high-level meeting in the city between British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and American President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Office of War Information prevented screening of the film to troops in North Africa, believing it would cause resentment among Vichy supporters in the region.

On March 19, 1943, the film was banned in Ireland for infringing on the Emergency Powers Order preserving wartime neutrality, by portraying Vichy France and Nazi Germany in a "sinister light". It was passed with cuts on June 15, 1945, shortly after the EPO was lifted. The cuts were made to dialogue between Rick and Ilsa referring to their love affair. A version with only one scene cut was passed on July 16, 1974. RTÉ inquired about showing the film on TV - it still required a dialogue cut to Ilsa expressing her love for Rick.

Warner Brothers released a heavily edited version of Casablanca in West Germany in 1952. All scenes with Nazis were removed, along with most references to World War II. Important plot points were altered when the dialogue was dubbed into German. Victor Laszlo was no longer a Resistance fighter who escaped from a Nazi concentration camp. Instead, he became a Norwegian atomic physicist who was being pursued by Interpol after he "broke out of jail." The West German version was 25 minutes shorter than the original cut. A German version of Casablanca with the original plot was not released until 1975.

Casablanca received "consistently good reviews". Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote, "The Warners ... have a picture which makes the spine tingle and the heart take a leap." He applauded the combination of "sentiment, humor and pathos with taut melodrama and bristling intrigue". Crowther noted its "devious convolutions of the plot", and praised the screenplay quality as "of the best" and the cast's performances as "all of the first order".

The trade paper commended the film's "combination of fine performances, engrossing story and neat direction" and the "variety of moods, action, suspense, comedy and drama that makes Casablanca an A-1 entry at the b.o." "Film is splendid anti-Axis propaganda, particularly inasmuch as the propaganda is strictly a by-product of the principal action and contributes to it instead of getting in the way." The review also applauded the performances of Bergman and Henreid and noted that "Bogart, as might be expected, is more at ease as the bitter and cynical operator of a joint than as a lover, but handles both assignments with superb finesse."

Some other reviews were less enthusiastic. The New Yorker rated it only "pretty tolerable" and said it was "not quite up to Across the Pacific, Bogart's last spyfest".

In the 1,500-seat Hollywood Theater, the film grossed $255,000 over ten weeks (equivalent to $3.2 million in 2019). In its initial U.S. release, it was a substantial but not spectacular box-office success, taking in $3.7 million (equivalent to $47 million in 2019). According to Warner Bros. records, the film earned $3,398,000 domestically and $3,461,000 in foreign markets.

In the seven decades since its production, the film has grown in popularity. Murray Burnett called it "true yesterday, true today, true tomorrow". By 1955, the film had brought in $6.8 million, making it the third most successful of Warners' wartime movies (behind Shine On, Harvest Moon and This Is the Army). On April 21, 1957, the Brattle Theater of Cambridge, Massachusetts, showed the film as part of a season of old movies. It was so popular that it began a tradition of screening Casablanca during the week of final exams at Harvard University, which continues to the present day. Other colleges have adopted the tradition. Todd Gitlin, a professor of sociology who had attended one of these screenings, has said that the experience was "the acting out of my own personal rite of passage". The tradition helped the movie remain popular while other films famous in the 1940s have faded from popular memory. By 1977, Casablanca had become the most frequently broadcast film on American television.

For actress Ingrid Bergman, this was one of her best-known roles. In later years, she stated, "I feel about Casablanca that it has a life of its own. There is something mystical about it. It seems to have filled a need, a need that was there before the film, a need that the film filled".

On the film's 50th anniversary, the Los Angeles Times called Casablanca's great strength "the purity of its Golden Age Hollywoodness [and] the enduring craftsmanship of its resonantly hokey dialogue". Bob Strauss wrote in the newspaper that the film achieved a "near-perfect entertainment balance" of comedy, romance, and suspense.

According to Roger Ebert, Casablanca is "probably on more lists of the greatest films of all time than any other single title, including Citizen Kane" because of its wider appeal. Ebert opined that Citizen Kane is generally considered to be a "greater" film, but Casablanca "is more loved." In his opinion, the film is popular because "the people in it are all so good", and it is "a wonderful gem". Ebert said that he has never heard of a negative review of the film, even though individual elements can be criticized, citing unrealistic special effects and the stiff character/portrayal of Laszlo.

Critic Leonard Maltin considers Casablanca "the best Hollywood movie of all time."

Rick, according to Rudy Behlmer, is "not a hero ... not a bad guy": he does what is necessary to get along with the authorities and "sticks his neck out for nobody". The other characters, in Behlmer's words, are "not cut and dried" and come into their goodness over the course of the film. Renault begins as a collaborator with the Nazis who extorts sexual favors from refugees and has Ugarte killed. Even Ilsa, the least active of the main characters, is "caught in the emotional struggle" over which man she really loves. By the end, however, "everybody is sacrificing." Behlmer also emphasized the variety in the picture: "it's a blend of drama, melodrama, comedy [and] intrigue".

A remembrance written for the 75th anniversary published by The Washington Free Beacon said, "It is no exaggeration to say Casablanca is one of the greatest films ever made," making special note of the "intellectual nature of the film" and saying that "while the first time around you might pay attention to only the superficial love story, by the second and third and fourth viewings the sub-textual politics [of communitarianism and anti-isolationism] have moved to the fore."

A few reviewers have had reservations. To Pauline Kael, "It's far from a great film, but it has a special appealingly schlocky romanticism ..." Umberto Eco wrote that "by any strict critical standards ... Casablanca is a very mediocre film." He viewed the changes the characters undergo as inconsistent rather than complex: "It is a comic strip, a hotchpotch, low on psychological credibility, and with little continuity in its dramatic effects." However, he added that due to the presence of multiple archetypes which allow "the power of Narrative in its natural state without Art intervening to discipline it", it is a movie reaching "Homeric depths" as a "phenomenon worthy of awe."

Casablanca holds a 99% approval rating and a weighted average of 9.40/10 on Rotten Tomatoes based on 122 reviews. The site's critics consensus reads: "An undisputed masterpiece and perhaps Hollywood's quintessential statement on love and romance, Casablanca has only improved with age, boasting career-defining performances from Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman." On Metacritic, the film has a perfect score of 100 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". It is one of the few films in the site's history to achieve a perfect aggregate score.

In the November/December 1982 issue of Film Comment, Chuck Ross wrote that he retyped the screenplay to Casablanca, changing the title back to Everybody Comes to Rick's and the name of the piano player to Dooley Wilson, and submitted it to 217 agencies. The majority of agencies returned the script unread (often due to a policy of refusing unsolicited screenplays) or did not respond; however, of those who did respond, only thirty-three specifically recognized it as Casablanca. Meanwhile, eight others thought it was similar to Casablanca, and forty-one agencies rejected the screenplay outright, offering comments such as "Too much dialogue, not enough exposition, the story line was weak, and in general didn't hold my interest." Three agencies offered to represent the screenplay, and one suggested turning it into a novel.

Many subsequent films have drawn on elements of Casablanca. Passage to Marseille (1944) reunited actors Bogart, Rains, Greenstreet, and Lorre and director Curtiz in 1944, and there are similarities between Casablanca and a later Bogart film, To Have and Have Not (also 1944). Parodies have included the Marx Brothers' A Night in Casablanca (1946), Neil Simon's The Cheap Detective (1978), and (2001). Indirectly, it provided the title for the 1995 neo-noir film The Usual Suspects. Woody Allen's Play It Again, Sam (1972) appropriated Bogart's Casablanca persona as the fantasy mentor for Allen's character.

The film was a plot device in the science-fiction television movie Overdrawn at the Memory Bank (1983), based on John Varley's story. It was referred to in Terry Gilliam's dystopian (1985). Warner Bros. produced its own parody in the homage Carrotblanca, a 1995 Bugs Bunny cartoon. Film critic Roger Ebert pointed out the plot of the film (1996) was identical to that of Casablanca. In Casablanca, a novella by Argentine writer Edgar Brau, the protagonist somehow wanders into Rick's Café Américain and listens to a strange tale related by Sam. The 2016 musical film contains multiple allusions to Casablanca in the imagery, dialogue, and plot. Robert Zemeckis, director of (2016), which is also set in 1942 Casablanca, studied the film to capture the city's elegance. The 2017 Moroccan drama film , directed by Nabil Ayouch, is mostly set in the city of Casablanca, and its characters frequently discuss the 1942 film.

Because of its November 1942 release, the New York Film Critics decided to include the film in its 1942 award season for best picture. Casablanca lost to In Which We Serve. However, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences stated that since the film went into national release at the beginning of 1943, it would be included in that year's nominations. Casablanca was nominated for eight Academy Awards, and won three.

When the award for Best Picture was announced, producer Hal B. Wallis got up to accept, but studio head Jack L. Warner rushed up to the stage "with a broad, flashing smile and a look of great self-satisfaction," Wallis later recalled. "I couldn't believe it was happening. Casablanca had been my creation; Jack had absolutely nothing to do with it. As the audience gasped, I tried to get out of the row of seats and into the aisle, but the entire Warner family sat blocking me. I had no alternative but to sit down again, humiliated and furious ... Almost forty years later, I still haven't recovered from the shock." This incident would lead Wallis to leave Warner Bros. in April.

In 1989, the film was one of the first 25 films selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In 2005, it was named one of the 100 greatest films of the last 80 years by magazine (the selected films were not ranked). Bright Lights Film Journal stated in 2007, "It is one of those rare films from Hollywood's Golden Age which has managed to transcend its era to entertain generations of moviegoers ... Casablanca provides twenty-first-century Americans with an oasis of hope in a desert of arbitrary cruelty and senseless violence."

The film also ranked at number 28 on 's list of the 100 Greatest Movies of All Time, which stated: "Love, honour, thrills, wisecracks and a hit tune are among the attractions, which also include a perfect supporting cast of villains, sneaks, thieves, refugees and bar staff. But it's Bogart and Bergman's show, entering immortality as screen lovers reunited only to part. The irrefutible [ sic] proof that great movies are accidents." Screenwriting teacher Robert McKee maintains that the script is "the greatest screenplay of all time". In 2006, the Writers Guild of America, West agreed, voting it the best ever in its list of the 101 greatest screenplays.

The film has been selected by the American Film Institute for many of their lists of important American films:

2005

AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes

5: "Here's looking at you, kid."
20: "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
28: "Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By'."
32: "Round up the usual suspects."
43: "We'll always have Paris."
67: "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine."
These six lines were the most of any film (Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz tied for second with three apiece). Also nominated for the list was "Ilsa, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world."

Several physical artifacts used in the film have survived. The piano Sam plays in Rick's Café Américain sold at Bonhams in 2014 for US$ 3.4 million. This was the first time it had been sold at auction. In 2012 the piano from the Paris sequences sold for US$ 602,500. The 1940 Buick Phaeton that appears prominently in the final scene at the airport sold at Bonhams in 2014 for US$ 461,000. The whereabouts of the 1940 Buick Century that Strasser drives are unknown.

Casablanca has been subjected to many readings; Semioticians account for the film's popularity by claiming that its inclusion of stereotypes paradoxically strengthens the film. Umberto Eco wrote:

Thus Casablanca is not just one film. It is many films, an anthology. Made haphazardly, it probably made itself, if not actually against the will of its authors and actors, then at least beyond their control. And this is the reason it works, in spite of aesthetic theories and theories of film making. For in it there unfolds with almost telluric force the power of Narrative in its natural state, without Art intervening to discipline it ... When all the archetypes burst in shamelessly, we reach Homeric depths. Two clichés make us laugh. A hundred clichés move us. For we sense dimly that the clichés are talking among themselves, and celebrating a reunion.

Eco also singled out sacrifice as a theme, "the myth of sacrifice runs through the whole film". It was this theme which resonated with a wartime audience that was reassured by the idea that painful sacrifice and going off to war could be romantic gestures done for the greater good.

Koch also considered the film a political allegory. Rick is compared to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who gambled "on the odds of going to war until circumstance and his own submerged nobility force him to close his casino (partisan politics) and commit himself-first by financing the Side of Right and then by fighting for it". The connection is reinforced by the film's title, which means " white house".

Harvey Greenberg presents a Freudian reading in his The Movies on Your Mind, in which the transgressions which prevent Rick from returning to the United States constitute an Oedipus complex, which is resolved only when Rick begins to identify with the father figure of Laszlo and the cause which he represents. Sidney Rosenzweig argues that such readings are reductive and that the most important aspect of the film is its ambiguity, above all in the central character of Rick; he cites the different names which each character gives Rick (Richard, Ricky, Mr. Rick, Herr Rick and boss) as evidence of the different meanings which he has for each person.

Casablanca was initially released on Betamax and VHS by Magnetic Video and later by CBS/Fox Video (as United Artists owned the distribution rights at the time). It was next released on laserdisc in 1991, and on VHS in 1992-both from MGM/UA Home Entertainment (distributing for Turner Entertainment Co.), which at the time was distributed by Warner Home Video. It was first released on DVD in 1998 by MGM, containing the trailer and a making-of featurette (Warner Home Video reissued the DVD in 2000). A subsequent two-disc special edition, containing audio commentaries, documentaries, and a newly remastered visual and audio presentation, was released in 2003.

An HD DVD was released on November 14, 2006, containing the same special features as the 2003 DVD. Reviewers were impressed with the new high-definition transfer of the film.

A Blu-ray release with new special features came out on December 2, 2008; it is also available on DVD. The Blu-ray was initially only released as an expensive gift set with a booklet, a luggage tag and other assorted gift-type items. It was eventually released as a stand-alone Blu-ray in September 2009. On March 27, 2012, Warner released a new 70th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Edition Blu-ray/DVD combo set. It includes a brand-new 4K restoration and new bonus material.

Almost from the moment Casablanca became a hit, talk began of producing a sequel. One titled Brazzaville (in the final scene, Renault recommends fleeing to that Free French-held city) was planned, but never produced. (A newspaper article at the time mentions that Bogart and Greenstreet "will continue their characterizations from the first film, and it's likely that Geraldine Fitzgerald will have an important role".). Since then, no studio has seriously considered filming a sequel or outright remake. François Truffaut refused an invitation to remake the film in 1974, citing its cult status among American students as his reason. Attempts to recapture the magic of Casablanca in other settings, such as Caboblanco (1980), "a South American-set retooling of Casablanca", and (1990) have been poorly received.

Stories of a Casablanca remake or sequel nonetheless persist. In 2008, Madonna was reported to be pursuing a remake set in modern-day Iraq. In 2012, both The Daily Telegraph and Entertainment Weekly reported on efforts by Cass Warner, granddaughter of Harry Warner and friend of the late Howard Koch, to produce a sequel featuring the search by Rick Blaine and Ilsa Lund's illegitimate son for the whereabouts of his biological father.

On radio there were several adaptations of the film. The two best-known were a thirty-minute adaptation on The Screen Guild Theater on April 26, 1943, starring Bogart, Bergman, and Henreid, and an hour-long version on the Lux Radio Theater on January 24, 1944, featuring Alan Ladd as Rick, Hedy Lamarr as Ilsa, and John Loder as Victor Laszlo. Two other thirty-minute adaptations were aired, one on Philip Morris Playhouse on September 3, 1943, and the other on Theater of Romance on December 19, 1944, in which Dooley Wilson reprised his role as Sam.

On television, there have been two short-lived series based upon Casablanca, both sharing the title. Casablanca (1955) aired on ABC as part of the wheel series Warner Bros. Presents in hour-long episodes from 1955 to 1956, is a Cold War espionage program set contemporaneously with its production, and starred Charles McGraw as Rick and Marcel Dalio, who played Emil the croupier in the movie, as the police chief. Casablanca (1983) broadcast on NBC in April 1983, starred David Soul as Rick and was canceled after three weeks.

The novel As Time Goes By, written by Michael Walsh and published in 1998, was authorized by Warner. The novel picks up where the film leaves off, and also tells of Rick's mysterious past in America. The book met with little success. David Thomson provided an unofficial sequel in his 1985 novel Suspects.

Julius Epstein made two attempts to turn the film into a Broadway musical, in 1951 and 1967, but neither made it to the stage. The original play, Everybody Comes to Rick's, was produced in Newport, Rhode Island, in August 1946, and again in London in April 1991, but met with no success. The film was adapted into a musical by the Takarazuka Revue, an all-female Japanese musical theater company, and ran from November 2009 through February 2010.

Casablanca was part of the film colorization controversy of the 1980s, when a colorized version aired on the television network WTBS. In 1984, MGM/UA hired Color Systems Technology to colorize the film for $180,000. When Ted Turner of Turner Broadcasting System purchased MGM/UA's film library two years later, he canceled the request, before contracting American Film Technologies (AFT) in 1988. AFT completed the colorization in two months at a cost of $450,000. Turner later reacted to the criticism of the colorization, saying, "[ Casablanca] is one of a handful of films that really doesn't have to be colorized. I did it because I wanted to. All I'm trying to do is protect my investment."

The Library of Congress deemed that the color change differed so much from the original film that it gave a new copyright to Turner Entertainment. When the colorized film debuted on WTBS, it was watched by three million viewers, not making the top-ten viewed cable shows for the week. Although Jack Matthews of the Los Angeles Times called the finished product "state of the art", it was mostly met with negative critical reception. It was briefly available on home video. Gary Edgerton, writing for the Journal of Popular Film & Television criticized the colorization, "... Casablanca in color ended up being much blander in appearance and, overall, much less visually interesting than its 1942 predecessor." Bogart's son Stephen said, "if you're going to colorize Casablanca, why not put arms on the Venus de Milo?"

Several unfounded rumors and misconceptions have grown up around the film, one being that Ronald Reagan was originally chosen to play Rick. This originated in a press release issued by the studio early on in the film's development, but by that time the studio already knew that he was going into the Army, and he was never seriously considered. George Raft claimed that he had turned down the lead role. Studio records make clear that Wallis was committed to Bogart from the start.

Another story is that the actors did not know until the last day of shooting how the film was to end. Koch later acknowledged:

When we began, we didn't have a finished script ... Ingrid Bergman came to me and said, 'Which man should I love more...?' I said to her, 'I don't know ... play them both evenly.' You see we didn't have an ending, so we didn't know what was going to happen!

The film has several logical flaws, one being the two "letters of transit" that enable their bearers to leave Vichy French territory. Ugarte says the letters had been signed by (depending on the listener) either Vichy General Weygand or Free French General de Gaulle. The French subtitles on the official DVD read Weygand; the English ones specify de Gaulle. Weygand had been the Vichy delegate-general for the North African colonies until November 1941, a month before the film is set. But de Gaulle was the head of the Free French government in exile, so a letter signed by him would have provided no benefit. The letters were invented as a MacGuffin by Joan Alison for the original play and never questioned.

In the same vein, though Laszlo asserts that the Nazis cannot arrest him, saying, "This is still unoccupied France; any violation of neutrality would reflect on Captain Renault," Ebert points out, "It makes no sense that he could walk around freely. ... He would be arrested on sight." In addition, no uniformed German troops were stationed in Casablanca during World War II, and neither American nor French troops occupied Berlin in 1918.

According to Harmetz, the usual route out of Germany, at least for people in the film industry, was not via Morocco and Lisbon but via Vienna, Prague, Paris and England. Only the film's technical adviser, Robert Aisner, traced the path to Morocco shown in the film's opening scene.

A line closely associated with Casablanca-"Play it again, Sam"-is not spoken in the film. When Ilsa first enters the Café Américain, she spots Sam and asks him to "Play it once, Sam, for old times' sake." After he feigns ignorance, she responds, "Play it, Sam. Play ' As Time Goes By'." Later that night, alone with Sam, Rick says, "You played it for her, you can play it for me," and "If she can stand it, I can! Play it!"

Bibliography

Casablanca (Two-Disc Special Edition DVD) (2003) (with audio commentaries by Roger Ebert and Rudy Behlmer and documentary Casablanca 50th Anniversary Special: You Must Remember This, narrated by Lauren Bacall).

Epstein, Julius J. (1994). Casablanca. Imprenta Glorias. OCLC 31873886.

Gardner, Gerald (1988). The Censorship Papers: Movie Censorship Letters from the Hays Office, 1934 to 1968. New York: Dodd Mead. ISBN 978-0-396-08903-2.

Harmetz, Aljean (1992). Round Up the Usual Suspects: The Making of Casablanca - Bogart, Bergman, and World War II. Hyperion. ISBN 978-1-56282-761-8.

Koch, Howard (1973). Casablanca: Script and Legend. The Overlook Press. ISBN 978-0-87951-006-0.

Lebo, Harlan (1992). Casablanca: Behind the Scenes. Fireside. ISBN 978-0-671-76981-9.

McGilligan, Pat (1986). Backstory: Interviews with Screenwriters of Hollywood's Golden Age. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-05666-4.

Miller, Frank (1992). Casablanca - As Times Goes By: 50th Anniversary Commemorative. Turner Publishing Inc. ISBN 978-1-878685-14-8.

Robertson, James C. (1993). The Casablanca Man: The Cinema of Michael Curtiz London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-06804-5

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Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz, and starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Paul Henreid. Filmed and set during World War II, it focuses on an American expatriate (Bogart) who must choose between his love for a woman (Bergman) or helping her and her husband (Henreid), a Czech resistance leader, escape from the Vichy-controlled city of Casablanca to continue his fight against the Germans.

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Sunset Boulevard (styled in the main title on-screen as SUNSET BLVD.) is a 1950 American black comedy film noir directed and co-written by Billy Wilder, and produced and co-written by Charles Brackett. It was named after a major street that runs through Hollywood, the center of the American movie industry.

The film stars William Holden as Joe Gillis, a struggling screenwriter, and Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond, a former silent-film star who draws him into her demented fantasy world, where she dreams of making a triumphant return to the screen. Erich von Stroheim plays Max von Mayerling, her devoted butler, and Nancy Olson, Jack Webb, Lloyd Gough, and Fred Clark appear in supporting roles. Director Cecil B. DeMille and gossip columnist Hedda Hopper play themselves, and the film includes cameo appearances by leading silent-film actors Buster Keaton, H. B. Warner, and Anna Q. Nilsson.

Praised by many critics when first released, Sunset Boulevard was nominated for 11 Academy Awards (including nominations in all four acting categories) and won three. It is often ranked among the greatest movies ever made. As it was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the U.S. Library of Congress in 1989, Sunset Boulevard was included in the first group of films selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. In 1998, it was ranked number 12 on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 best American films of the 20th century, and in 2007, it was 16th on their 10th Anniversary list.

At a mansion on Sunset Boulevard, a group of police officers and photographers discover the body of Joe Gillis, floating face down in the swimming pool. In a flashback, Joe relates the events leading to his death.

Six months earlier, down-on-his-luck screenwriter, Joe, tries selling Paramount Pictures producer Sheldrake on a story he submitted. Script reader Betty Schaefer harshly critiques it, unaware that Joe is listening. Later, while fleeing from repossession men seeking his car, Joe turns into the driveway of a seemingly deserted mansion. After concealing the car, he hears a woman inside call out to him, mistaking him for a man bringing a coffin for her deceased chimpanzee. Ushered in by Max, the butler, Joe recognizes the woman as a forgotten silent film star, Norma Desmond. Learning that Joe is a writer, Norma asks his opinion of a script she has written for a film about Salome. She plans to play the role herself in her return to the screen. Joe finds her script abysmal but flatters her into hiring him as a script doctor.

Moved into Norma's mansion at her insistence, Joe resents but gradually accepts his dependent situation. He sees that Norma refuses to accept that her fame has evaporated, and learns that Max secretly writes the fan letters she receives. Max explains that Norma is emotionally fragile and has attempted suicide. Norma lavishes attention on Joe and buys him expensive clothes. At her New Year's Eve party, he discovers that he is the only guest and realizes she has fallen in love with him. Joe tries to let her down gently, but Norma slaps him and retreats to her room. Joe visits his friend Artie Green to ask about staying at his place. He again meets Betty, who is Artie's girlfriend. Betty thinks a scene in one of Joe's scripts has potential, but Joe is uninterested. When he phones Max to have him pack his things, Max tells him Norma cut her wrists with his razor. Joe returns to Norma.

Norma has Max deliver the edited Salome script to her former director Cecil B. DeMille at Paramount. She starts getting calls from Paramount executive Gordon Cole but petulantly refuses to speak to anyone except DeMille. Eventually, she has Max drive her and Joe to Paramount in her 1929 Isotta Fraschini. The older studio employees recognize her and warmly greet her. DeMille welcomes her affectionately and treats her with great respect, tactfully evading her questions about her script, which he secretly considers awful. Meanwhile, Max learns that Cole merely wants to rent her unusual car for a film.

Preparing for her imagined comeback, Norma undergoes rigorous beauty treatments. Joe secretly works nights at Betty's Paramount office, collaborating on an original screenplay. His moonlighting is found out by Max, who reveals that he was a respected film director who discovered Norma as a teenage girl, made her a star, and was her first husband. After she divorced him, he found life without her unbearable and abandoned his career to become her servant. Meanwhile, despite Betty's engagement to Artie, she falls in love with Joe, who feels guilty. After Norma discovers a manuscript with Joe's and Betty's names on it, she phones Betty. She insinuates that Joe is not the man he seems. Joe, overhearing, invites Betty to see for herself. When she arrives, he pretends he is satisfied being a gigolo. However, after she tearfully leaves, he packs for a return to his old Ohio newspaper job. He bluntly informs Norma there will be no comeback; her fan mail comes from Max, and she has been forgotten. He disregards Norma's threat to kill herself and the gun she shows him to back it up. As Joe walks out of the house, Norma shoots him three times, and he falls into the pool.

The flashback ends. The house is filled with police and reporters. Norma, having lost touch with reality, believes the newsreel cameras are there to film Salome. Max and the police play along. Max sets up a scene for her and calls, "Action!" As the cameras roll, Norma dramatically descends her grand staircase. She pauses and makes an impromptu speech about how happy she is to be making a film again, ending with, "All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up." She steps toward the camera, into a hallucination of grandeur.

The street known as Sunset Boulevard has been associated with Hollywood film production since 1911, when the town's first film studio, Nestor, opened there. The film workers lived modestly in the growing neighborhood, but during the 1920s, profits and salaries rose to unprecedented levels. With the advent of the star system, luxurious homes noted for their often incongruous grandeur were built in the area.

As a young man living in Berlin in the 1920s, Billy Wilder was interested in American culture, with much of his interest fueled by the country's films. In the late 1940s, many of the grand Hollywood houses remained, and Wilder, then a Los Angeles resident, found them to be a part of his everyday world. Many former stars from the silent era still lived in them, although most were no longer involved in the film business. Wilder wondered how they spent their time now that "the parade had passed them by" and began imagining the story of a star who had lost her celebrity and box-office appeal.

The character of Norma Desmond mirrors aspects of the twilight years of several real-life faded silent-film stars, such as the reclusive existences of Greta Garbo, Mary Pickford and Pola Negri and the mental disorders of Mae Murray, Valeska Surratt and Clara Bow. It is usually regarded as a fictional composite inspired by several different people, not just a thinly disguised portrait of one in particular. Nevertheless, some[who? ] commentators have tried to identify specific models. Dave Kehr has asserted that Norma Talmadge is "the obvious if unacknowledged source of Norma Desmond, the grotesque, predatory silent movie queen" of the film. The most common analysis of the character's name is that it is a combination of the names of silent film actress Mabel Normand and director William Desmond Taylor, a close friend of Normand's who was murdered in 1922 in a never-solved case sensationalized by the press.

Wilder and Brackett began working on a script in 1948, but the result did not completely satisfy them. In August 1948, D. M. Marshman Jr., formerly a writer for , was hired to help develop the storyline after Wilder and Brackett were impressed by a critique he provided of their film The Emperor Waltz (1948). In an effort to keep the full details of the story from Paramount Pictures and avoid the restrictive censorship of the Breen Code, they submitted the script a few pages at a time. The Breen Office insisted certain lines be rewritten, such as Gillis's "I'm up that creek and I need a job," which became "I'm over a barrel. I need a job." Paramount executives thought Wilder was adapting a story called A Can of Beans (which did not exist) and allowed him relative freedom to proceed as he saw fit. Only the first third of the script was written when filming began in early May 1949, and Wilder was unsure how the film would end.

The fusion of writer-director Billy Wilder's biting humor and the classic elements of film noir make for a strange kind of comedy, as well as a strange kind of film noir. There are no belly laughs here, but there are certainly strangled giggles: at the pet chimp's midnight funeral, at Joe's discomfited acquiescence to the role of gigolo; at Norma's Mack Sennett-style "entertainments" for her uneasy lover; and at the ritualized solemnity of Norma's "waxworks" card parties, which feature such former luminaries as Buster Keaton as Norma's has-been cronies.

Wilder preferred to leave analysis of his screenplays and films to others. When asked if Sunset Boulevard was a black comedy, he replied: "No, just a picture".

According to Brackett, Wilder and he never considered anyone except Gloria Swanson for the role of Norma Desmond. Wilder, however, had a different recollection. He recalled first wanting Mae West and Marlon Brando for the leads. West rejected the offer out-right. West portrayed herself as a sex symbol through her senior years, and was offended that she should be asked to play a Hollywood has-been.

The filmmakers approached Greta Garbo, but she was not interested. Wilder contacted Pola Negri by telephone, but had a difficult time understanding her heavy Polish accent. He then reached out to Clara Bow, the famed IT Girl of the 1920s, but she declined citing that she had no interest in engaging in the film industry again due to how hard it was for her during the transition of sound films and that she'd prefer to remain in seclusion with her husband and sons while leaving her previous life behind her. They also offered the part of Norma Desmond to Norma Shearer, but she rejected the role due to both her retirement and distaste for the script. They were considering Fred MacMurray to play opposite her as Joe. Wilder and Brackett then visited Mary Pickford, but before even discussing the plot with her, Wilder realized she would consider a role involving an affair with a man half her age an insult, so they departed. They had considered pairing Montgomery Clift with her.

According to Wilder, he asked George Cukor for advice, and he suggested Swanson, one of the most fêted actresses of the silent-screen era, known for her beauty, talent, and extravagant lifestyle. In many ways, she resembled the Norma Desmond character, and like her, had been unable to make a smooth transition into talking pictures. The similarities ended there; Swanson made a handful of talking pictures. She accepted the end of her film career, and in the early 1930s moved to New York City, where she worked in radio. In the mid-1940s, she worked in television and on the New York stage and had last appeared in the 1941 film Father Takes a Wife. Though Swanson was not seeking a movie comeback, she became intrigued when Wilder discussed the role with her.

Swanson was glad for the opportunity to earn a greater salary than she had been making in television and on stage. However, she was chagrined at the notion of submitting to a screen test, saying she had "made 20 films for Paramount. Why do they want me to audition?" Her reaction was echoed in the screenplay when Norma Desmond declares, "Without me there wouldn't be any Paramount." In her memoir, Swanson recalled asking Cukor if it was unreasonable to refuse the screen test. He replied that since Norma Desmond was the role for which she would be remembered, "If they ask you to do ten screen tests, do ten screen tests, or I will personally shoot you." His enthusiasm convinced Swanson to participate, and she signed a contract for $50,000 (equivalent to $540,000 in 2020). In a 1975 interview, Wilder recalled Swanson's reaction with the observation, "There was a lot of Norma in her, you know."

Wilder harks back to Swanson's silent film career when Norma shows Joe the film Queen Kelly, an earlier Gloria Swanson film directed by Erich Von Stroheim. Queen Kelly wasn't released in the United States for over 50 years after Swanson walked off the set.

Montgomery Clift was signed to play Joe Gillis for $5,000 per week for a guaranteed 12 weeks, but just before the start of filming, he withdrew from the project, claiming his role of a young man involved with an older woman was too close to the one he had played in The Heiress (1949), in which he felt he had been unconvincing. An infuriated Wilder responded, "If he's any kind of actor, he could be convincing making love to any woman." Clift himself was having an affair with a much older woman (the singer Libby Holman) which was suggested as his real reason for withdrawing from the film.

Forced to consider the available Paramount contract players, Wilder and Brackett focused on William Holden, who had made an impressive debut a decade earlier in (1939). Following an appearance in (1940), he served in the military in World War II, and his return to the screen afterward had been moderately successful. Holden was enthusiastic about the script and eager to accept the role. He did not know at the time that his salary of $39,000 (equivalent to $420,000 in 2020) was much less than had been offered to Clift.

Erich von Stroheim, a leading film director of the 1920s who had directed Swanson, was signed to play Max, Norma's faithful servant, protector, and former husband. For the role of Betty Schaefer, Wilder wanted a newcomer who could project a wholesome and ordinary image to contrast with Swanson's flamboyant and obsessive Desmond. He chose Nancy Olson, who had recently been considered for the role of Delilah in Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah.

DeMille, often credited as the person most responsible for making Swanson a star, plays himself, and was filmed on the set of Samson and Delilah at Paramount Studios. He calls Norma "young fella" as he had called Swanson.

Norma's friends who come to play bridge with her, described in the script as "the waxworks", were Swanson's contemporaries Buster Keaton, Anna Q. Nilsson, and H. B. Warner, who like DeMille, played themselves. Hedda Hopper also played herself, reporting on Norma Desmond's downfall in the film's final scenes.

The film's dark, shadowy black-and-white, film noir cinematography was the work of John F. Seitz. Wilder had worked with him on several projects before, and trusted his judgment, allowing him to make his own decisions. Seitz recalled asking Wilder what he required for the pet chimpanzee's funeral scene. Wilder replied, "you know, just your standard monkey funeral shot." For some interior shots, Seitz sprinkled dust in front of the camera before filming to suggest "mustiness," a trick he had also used for Double Indemnity (1944).

The film had the option to be shot in color, but it was instead shot in black and white to be more reflective of the noir genre.

Wilder was adamant that the corpse of Joe Gillis be seen from the bottom of the pool, but creating the effect was difficult. The camera was placed inside a specially constructed box and lowered under water, but the result disappointed Wilder, who insisted on further experiments. The shot was finally achieved by placing a mirror on the bottom of the pool and filming Holden's reflection from above with the distorted image of the policemen standing around the pool and forming a backdrop.

Film historian Tom Stempel writes, "In both Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard, Seitz does something that has always impressed me. Both are films noir, and he finesses the fact that both are set in the sunniest of locales, Los Angeles... he brings together the light and the dark in the same film without any seams showing... he brings together the realistic lighting of Joe Gillis out in the real world with the gothic look of Norma Desmond's mansion. Again with no seams showing."

Edith Head designed the costumes. Wilder, Head, and Swanson agreed that Norma Desmond would have kept somewhat up-to-date with fashion trends, so Head designed costumes closely resembling the Dior look of the mid-1940s. Embellishments were added to personalize them and reflect Norma Desmond's taste.

Swanson recalled in her biography that the costumes were only "a trifle outdated, a trifle exotic." Head later described her assignment as "the most challenging of my career," and explained her approach with the comment, "Because Norma Desmond was an actress who had become lost in her own imagination, I tried to make her look like she was always impersonating someone." Head later said she relied on Swanson's expertise because "she was creating a past that she knew and I didn't." Head also designed the costumes for William Holden and the minor characters, but for authenticity, Wilder instructed Von Stroheim and Nancy Olson to wear their own clothing.

The overstated decadence of Norma Desmond's home was created by set designer Hans Dreier, whose career extended back to the silent era. He had also been commissioned to complete the interior design for the homes of movie stars, including the house of Mae West. William Haines, an interior designer and former actor, later rebutted criticism of Dreier's set design with the observation, " Bebe Daniels, Norma Shearer, and Pola Negri all had homes with ugly interiors like that."

The bed in the shape of a boat in which Norma Desmond slept had been owned by the dancer Gaby Deslys, who died in 1920. It had originally been bought by the Universal prop department at auction after Deslys's death. The bed appeared in The Phantom of the Opera (1925) starring Lon Chaney.

Wilder also made use of authentic locales. Joe Gillis's apartment is in the Alto Nido, a real apartment block in central Hollywood that was often populated by struggling writers. The scenes of Gillis and Betty Schaefer on Paramount's back lot were filmed on the actual back lot, and the interior of Schwab's Drug Store was carefully recreated for several scenes. The exterior scenes of the Desmond house were filmed at a house on Wilshire Boulevard built during the 1920s by the millionaire William O. Jenkins. Jenkins and his family lived in it for just one year, then left it abandoned for more than a decade, which earned it the nickname, the "Phantom House". By 1949, it was owned by the former wife of J. Paul Getty. The house was later featured in Nicholas Ray's Rebel Without a Cause (1955). It was demolished by the Gettys in 1957 to allow construction of an office building .

During filming, considerable publicity was given to health-conscious Gloria Swanson's youthful appearance, which made her look the same age as Holden. Wilder insisted that the age difference between the characters be delineated, and instructed makeup supervisor Wally Westmore to make Swanson look older. Swanson argued that a woman of Norma Desmond's age, with her considerable wealth and devotion to self, would not necessarily look old, and suggested Holden be made up to appear younger. Wilder agreed, and Westmore was assigned this task, which allowed Swanson to portray Norma Desmond as more glamorous a figure than Wilder had originally imagined.

The musical score was the final element added to Sunset Boulevard. The film was scored by Franz Waxman. His theme for Norma Desmond was based on tango music, inspired by her having danced the tango with Rudolph Valentino. This style was contrasted with Joe Gillis's bebop theme. Waxman also used distorted arrangements of popular film-music styles from the 1920s and 1930s to suggest Norma Desmond's state of mind. The film's score was recorded for compact disc by the Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Joel McNeely and released in 2002. The surviving parts of the original score were released in 2010.

Wilder and Brackett, nervous about a major screening in Hollywood, held a preview in Evanston, Illinois, in late 1949. The original edit opened with a scene inside a morgue, with the assembled corpses discussing how they came to be there. The story began with the corpse of Joe Gillis recounting his murder to the others. The audience reacted with laughter and seemed unsure whether to view the rest of the film as drama or comedy. After a similar reaction during its second screening in Poughkeepsie, New York, and a third in Great Neck, the morgue opening was replaced by a shorter poolside opening, using footage filmed on January 5, 1950.

In Hollywood, Paramount arranged a private screening for the various studio heads and specially invited guests. After viewing the film, Barbara Stanwyck knelt to kiss the hem of Gloria Swanson's skirt. Swanson later remembered looking for Mary Pickford, only to be told, "She can't show herself, Gloria. She's too overcome. We all are." Louis B. Mayer berated Wilder before the crowd of celebrities, saying, "You have disgraced the industry that made and fed you! You should be tarred and feathered and run out of Hollywood!" Upon hearing of Mayer's slight, Wilder strode up to the mogul and retorted with a vulgarity that one biographer said was allegedly because Mayer, who was Jewish, suggested that Wilder, who was also Jewish, would be better off being sent back to Germany, an extraordinary sentiment so soon after the war and the Holocaust, in which Wilder's family perished. In 2020 Olson recounted that friends who had attended the screening told her that Wilder had simply told Mayer "Go fuck yourself."

The few other criticisms were not so venomous. According to one often-told but later discredited anecdote, actress Mae Murray, a contemporary of Swanson, was offended by the film and commented, "None of us floozies was that nuts."

Sunset Boulevard had its official world premiere at Radio City Music Hall on August 10, 1950. After a seven-week run, magazine reported the film had grossed "around $1,020,000", making it one of that theater's most successful pictures. Variety also noted that, while it was "breaking records in major cities, it is doing below average in ... the sticks." To promote the film, Gloria Swanson traveled by train throughout the United States, visiting 33 cities in a few months. The publicity helped attract people to the cinemas, but in many areas away from major cities it was considered less than a hit.

The film earned an estimated $2,350,000 at the U.S. box office in 1950.

Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 98% of critics gave the film a positive review based on 103 reviews, with an average rating of 9.5/10. The critical consensus states: "Arguably the greatest movie about Hollywood, Billy Wilder's masterpiece Sunset Boulevard is a tremendously entertaining combination of noir, black comedy, and character study."

Contemporary

Sunset Boulevard attracted a range of positive reviews from critics. described it as a story of "Hollywood at its worst told by Hollywood at its best", while Boxoffice Review wrote "the picture will keep spectators spellbound." James Agee, writing for Sight & Sound, praised the film and said Wilder and Brackett were "beautifully equipped to do the cold, exact, adroit, sardonic job they have done." Good Housekeeping described Swanson as a "great lady [who] spans another decade with her magic," while praised her "brilliant and haunting performance."

Some critics accurately foresaw the film's lasting appeal. The Hollywood Reporter wrote that future generations would "set themselves the task of analyzing the durability and greatness" of the film, while Commonweal said that in the future "the Library of Congress will be glad to have in its archives a print of Sunset Boulevard."

The rare negative comments included those from The New Yorker, which described the film as "a pretentious slice of Roquefort", containing only "the germ of a good idea". Thomas M. Pryor wrote for The New York Times that the plot device of using the dead Joe Gillis as narrator was "completely unworthy of Brackett and Wilder, but happily it does not interfere with the success of Sunset Boulevard".

Retrospective

In 1999, Roger Ebert praised the acting of Holden and von Stroheim and has described Swanson's as "one of the all time greatest performances." He says Sunset Boulevard "remains the best drama ever made about the movies because it sees through the illusions." Ebert gave the film four stars out of four and included it in his Great Movies list. Pauline Kael described the film as "almost too clever, but at its best in its cleverness", and also wrote that it was common to "hear Billy Wilder called the world's greatest director." When Wilder died in 2002, obituaries singled out Sunset Boulevard for comment, describing it as one of his most significant works, along with Double Indemnity (1944) and Some Like It Hot (1959).

Film writer Richard Corliss describes Sunset Boulevard as "the definitive Hollywood horror movie", noting that almost everything in the script is "ghoulish". He remarks that the story is narrated by a dead man whom Norma Desmond first mistakes for an undertaker, while most of the film takes place "in an old, dark house that only opens its doors to the living dead". He compares von Stroheim's character Max with the concealed Erik, the central character in The Phantom of the Opera, and Norma Desmond with Dracula, noting that, as she seduces Joe Gillis, the camera tactfully withdraws with "the traditional directorial attitude taken towards Dracula's jugular seductions". He writes that the narrative contains an excess of "cheap sarcasm", but ultimately congratulates the writers for attributing this dialogue to Joe Gillis, who was in any case presented as little more than a hack writer.

Of the various films that have attracted Academy Award nominations in all four acting categories, Sunset Boulevard is one of only three not to win in any category, the others being My Man Godfrey (1936) and American Hustle (2013). At the time its eleven Oscar nominations were exceeded only by the fourteen received by All About Eve, which won six awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Many critics predicted that the Best Actress award would be given to Gloria Swanson or Bette Davis for All About Eve and were surprised that the recipient was newcomer Judy Holliday for Born Yesterday. Bette Davis believed that her and Swanson's comparable characters effectively "cancelled each other out", allowing Holliday to win. Swanson recalled the press's reaction following Holliday's win: "It slowly dawned on me that they were asking for a larger-than-life scene, or better still, a mad scene. More accurately, they were trying to flush out Norma Desmond."

Sunset Boulevard was dramatized as an hour-long radio play on the September 17, 1951 broadcast of Lux Radio Theater with Gloria Swanson and William Holden in their original film roles.

In 1989, the film was among the first group of 25 deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. The Village Voice ranked the film at No. 43 in its Top 250 "Best Films of the Century" list in 1999, based on a poll of critics. The film was included in " The New York Times Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made" in 2002. In January 2002, the film was voted at No. 87 on the list of the "Top 100 Essential Films of All Time" by the National Society of Film Critics. Sunset Boulevard received 33 votes in the British Film Institute's 2012 Sight & Sound polls, making it the 63rd greatest film of all time in the critics' poll and 67th in the directors' poll. In the earlier 2002 Sight & Sound polls the film ranked 12th among directors. The Writers Guild of America ranked the film's screenplay (Written by Charles Brackett & Billy Wilder and D.M. Marshman, Jr.) the 7th greatest ever. In a 2015 poll by BBC Culture, film critics ranked Sunset Boulevard the 54th greatest American film of all time.

American Film Institute included the film on these lists:

Sunset Boulevard was the last collaboration between Wilder and Brackett. They parted amicably and respected their long-term partnership by not airing any grievance publicly. Their mutual respect and courteous integrity remained in force throughout the rest of their lives. In later years, Brackett confided in screenwriter/director Garson Kanin that he had not anticipated the split, or had ever understood exactly what happened or why. He described it as "an unexpected blow" from which he never recovered fully. When asked to respond to Brackett's comments, Wilder remained silent.

The two men briefly reunited in October 1951 to face charges that they had plagiarized Sunset Boulevard. Former Paramount accountant Stephanie Joan Carlson alleged that in 1947 she had submitted to Wilder and Brackett, at their request, manuscripts of stories, both fictional and based on fact, she had written about studio life. She claimed that one in particular, Past Performance, served as the basis for the Sunset script, and sued the screenwriters and Paramount for $100,000 in general damages, $250,000 in punitive damages, $700,000 based on the box office returns, and an additional $350,000 for good measure, for a total of $1,400,000. Carlson's suit was dismissed after two and a half years. In 1954, a similar suit was filed by playwright Edra Buckler, who claimed material she had written had been the screenplay's source. Her suit was dismissed the following year.

Brackett's Hollywood career continued after his split with Wilder. He won an Academy Award for his screenplay for (1953), and wrote (1953), the breakthrough film for Marilyn Monroe as a dramatic actress. It was Wilder, however, who realized Monroe's comedic abilities in The Seven Year Itch and Some Like It Hot. Brackett's career waned by the end of the decade, though he did produce the Oscar-nominated film The King and I (1956). He received an Honorary Oscar for Lifetime Achievement in 1958.

William Holden began receiving more important parts and his career rose. He won the Best Actor Oscar for Stalag 17 (1953), also directed by Wilder, and by 1956 he was the top box-office attraction in the United States.

Before the film was released, Nancy Olson had grown disenchanted with film as a career partly because the themes of Sunset Boulevard resonated with her, and also because she had become engaged to songwriter Alan Jay Lerner and decided to move to New York with him. Nevertheless, Olson's pairing with William Holden was considered a success, and she appeared opposite him in several films during the 1950s, although none of them repeated their earlier success; she returned to Hollywood to make several other films, including The Absent-Minded Professor (1961) and Son of Flubber (1963), in which she was paired with Fred MacMurray.

Holden and Wilder also rejoined forces for Fedora (1978), another film critical of Hollywood.

Similarly, Gloria Swanson was not able to leverage her own success in Sunset Boulevard. Although offered scripts, she felt that they all were poor imitations of Norma Desmond. Imagining a career that would eventually reduce her to playing "a parody of a parody," she virtually retired from films.

Sunset Boulevard was shown again in New York City in 1960, and drew such a positive response that Paramount arranged for a limited re-release in theaters throughout the United States.

Films that discuss Sunset Boulevard in their screenplays or pay homage in scenes or dialogue include (1991), (1992), Gods and Monsters (1998), Mulholland Drive (2001), Inland Empire (2006) and (2005). The ending of Cecil B. Demented (2000) is a parody of Sunset Boulevard's final scene.

By the late 1990s, most Sunset Boulevard prints were in poor condition, and as the film was shot using cellulose nitrate filmstock, much of the original negative had perished. Paramount Studios, believing the film merited the effort of a complete restoration, mounted an expensive project to have it digitally restored. This restored version was released on DVD in 2002. In 2012, the film was digitally restored by Paramount Pictures for Blu-ray Disc debut. Frame-by-frame digital restoration by Prasad Corporation removed dirt, tears, scratches and other defects.

From around 1952 to 1956, Gloria Swanson herself worked with actor Richard Stapley (aka Richard Wyler) and cabaret singer/pianist Dickson Hughes on an adaptation titled Boulevard! (at first Starring Norma Desmond). Stapley and Hughes first approached Swanson about appearing in a musical revue they had written, About Time (based on ). Swanson stated that she would return to the stage only in a musical version of her comeback film. Within a week, Stapley and Dickson had written three songs which Swanson approved.

In this version, the romance between Gillis and Schaefer was allowed to blossom, and rather than shoot Gillis at the end, Norma gave the couple her blessing, sending them on their way to live "happily ever after."

Although Paramount gave verbal permission to proceed with the musical, there was no formal legal option. In the late 1950s, Paramount withdrew its consent, leading to the demise of the project.

In 1994, Dickson Hughes incorporated material from Boulevard! into a musical Swanson on Sunset, based on his and Stapley's experiences in writing Boulevard!.

Stephen Sondheim briefly considered turning Sunset Boulevard into a musical until meeting Billy Wilder at a cocktail party, who told him that the film would be better adapted as an opera rather than a musical. Hal Prince later approached Sondheim to adapt the film as a musical with Angela Lansbury playing Norma Desmond.

John Kander and Fred Ebb were also approached by Hal Prince to write a musical of Sunset Boulevard.

Andrew Lloyd Webber and Black & Hampton

A musical adaptation with book and lyrics written by Don Black and Christopher Hampton, and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber was staged in 1993 in London, with Patti LuPone playing Norma Desmond. It closely followed the film story, retained much of the dialogue and attempted to present similar set designs. It reached Broadway in 1994, with Glenn Close playing Norma Desmond. The production staged 17 previews beginning November 1, 1994, and played 977 performances at the Minskoff Theatre from November 17, 1994 through March 22, 1997. In 2016, Close reprised the role in London's West End, followed by a 12-week run at the Palace Theater in New York City from February 2 to June 25, 2017.

A film adaptation of the musical, with Close and Lloyd Webber producing, and Close playing Norma, is in development at Paramount Pictures, with Rob Ashford directing and Tom MacRae writing. Filming was originally set to begin in late 2019, but was delayed twice due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The film was parodied on The Carol Burnett Show in a recurring sketch called "Sunnyset Boulevard" in which Carol Burnett played the insane "Nora Desmond" and Harvey Korman (in a bald cap) her servant Max.

The Tiny Toon Adventures episode "Sepulveda Boulevard" is a parody of the movie.

In the episode of American Dad!, entitled "Star Trek", the plot revolves around the downfall of stardom and pays tribute by replicating the opening scene of the movie. The plot of the episode "A Star is Reborn" is also based on the film.

The season 7 finale and segue to the film noir Archer: Dreamland season 8 recreate the pool scene from the opening of the film.

The character Gordon Cole is named after the Sunset Boulevard character. A scene from the film itself appears in Part 15 of Twin Peaks: The Return. In the scene, being viewed by Dale Cooper, the name "Gordon Cole" is spoken, which stirs Cooper's buried memory of his time in the FBI.

The 3rd Rock from the Sun episode "Fifteen Minutes of Dick" (season 2, ep. 23) features a spoof on the film, wherein Sally, suddenly famous, spirals into Norma-esque despair as her celebrity wanes.

The early episodes of Desperate Housewives (2004) have numerous allusions to Sunset Boulevard, including the use of a dead person as a narrator, and another character's fondness for Billy Wilder movies.

Sunset Boulevard is heavily referenced in The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made by Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell. Quotes from the film are used as epigraphs for many chapters; for example, Chapter 11 begins, "No one leaves a star. That's what makes one a star." Plot and themes of the film are directly invoked to point out parallels in the production of . In an interview, Sestero states, "I saw a lot of similarities with my story, especially when Tommy lived in a place that had a pool and wanted to make his own vanity project."

In February 2020, President Donald Trump tweeted "So won Best Picture at the 92nd Academy Awards" and lamented that movies like Sunset Boulevard aren't made anymore.

1. Wood, Michael (March 2, 2000). Review of ^ Conversations with Wilder by Cameron Crowe. London Review of Books, Retrieved on July 21, 2005 from http://www.lrb.co.uk/v22/n05/wood01_.html.

2. ^ Art, Stephen Harvey; Stephen Harvey is assistant curator in the Department of Film of the Museum of Modern (September 22, 1985). "'queen Kelly' Opens - More Than 50 Years Late". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331.

3. ^ Petersen, Anne Helen (September 23, 2014). "Scandals of Classic Hollywood: The Long Suicide of Montgomery Clift". Vanity Fair. He was also close with stage actress Libby Holman, 16 years his senior, who had become a notorious feature in the gossip columns following the suspicious death of her wealthy husband, rumors of lesbianism, and her general practice of dating younger men. Clift was so protective of Holman that when offered the plum role of the male lead in Sunset Boulevard, he turned it down-reportedly to avoid any suggestion that Libby Holman was his own delusional Norma Desmond, using a handsome young man to pursue her lost stardom.

4. ^ Gritten, David (February 3, 2013). "Montgomery Clift: better than Brando, more tragic than Dean". The Telegraph Limited. His agent Herman Citron later suggested to Clift's biographer Patricia Bosworth that the Gillis role might have been too close for comfort; at the time, the 30-year-old actor was conducting a secret liaison with singer-actress Libby Holman, 16 years his senior, a state of affairs that would have been considered scandalous.

5. ^ Beach, Christopher (2015). A Hidden History of Film Style: Cinematographers, Directors, and the Collaborative Process. Oakland, California: University of California Press. pp. 86-114. ISBN 9780520284357.

6. ^ Feinberg, Scott (April 19, 2020). "'Sunset Blvd.' Turns 70: Nancy Olson on Wilder, Holden and Why She Walked Away From Stardom". The Hollywood Reporter.

7. ^ Sunset Boulevard film locations Archived 2013-08-06 at the Wayback Machine, The Worldwide Guide To Movie Locations, 2013

8. ^ Sikov, Ed (2017). On Sunset Boulevard: The Life and Times of Billy Wilder. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press. p. 300. ISBN 978-1496812650.

9. Ankerich, Michael G. (2013). ^ Mae Murray: the girl with the bee-stung lips (lack of capitalization sic per colophon), The University Press of Kentucky. According to Kevin Brownlow's foreword (page ix), the "rigorous work" of Ankerich "indicates that Murray never made this remark."

10. ^ Box Office Movie Review Review dated April 22, 1950. Retrieved July 21, 2005. Archived October 31, 2004, at the Wayback Machine

11. ^ Roger Ebert review June 27, 1999. Retrieved January 9, 2021.

12. Myrna Oliver. "^ Writer-Director Billy Wilder Dies", Los Angeles Times, March 28, 2002. Retrieved July 21, 2005.

13. Anthony Breznican, "^ Oscar winning filmmaker Billy Wilder dies at 95" (Associated Press), Gettysburg Times, March 29, 2002. Retrieved November 20, 2011.

14. ^ Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, award nominations for Sunset Boulevard Archived 2012-01-12 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved July 21, 2005.

15. ^ "Take One: The First Annual Village Voice Film Critics' Poll". The Village Voice. 1999. Archived from the original on August 26, 2007.

16. ^ "The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made". The New York Times. 2002. Archived from the original on December 11, 2013.

17. Robert A. Harris, "^ Saving Sunset Archived 2005-11-22 at the Wayback Machine", The Digital Bits, November 15, 2002. Retrieved November 21, 2011.

18. ^ Brevet, Brad (January 14, 2009). "Paramount's Centennial Collection: Sunset Blvd. and Four Hepburn Flicks". ComingSoon.net.

19. ^ Stephen., Sondheim (2011). Look, I made a hat : collected lyrics (1981-2011) with attendant comments, amplifications, dogmas, harangues, wafflings, anecdotes and miscellany. London: Virgin. ISBN 978-0753522608. OCLC 751797401.

20. ^ Staggs, Sam (February 2003). Close-up on Sunset Boulevard : Billy Wilder, Norma Desmond, and the dark Hollywood dream (1st St. Martin's Griffin ed.). New York: St. Martin's Griffin. p. 320. ISBN 0312302541. OCLC 51815402.

21. ^ Sestero, Greg (2014). The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made. Simon and Schuster. p. 152.

Kirgo, Julie (1979). "Sunset Boulevard". In Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward, eds, Film noir: An encyclopedic reference to the American style. Woodstock: Overlook Press, 1979. ISBN 0-87951-055-2.

Phillips, Gene (2010). Some Like It Wilder: The Life and Controversial Films of Billy Wilder. The University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0-8131-7367-2.

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Sunset Boulevard (styled in the main title on-screen as SUNSET BLVD. ) is a 1950 American black comedy film noir directed and co-written by Billy Wilder, and produced and co-written by Charles Brackett. It was named after a major street that runs through Hollywood, the center of the American movie industry.

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Ariel by Sylvia Plath | Poetry Foundation

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Ariel by Sylvia Plath | Poetry Foundation

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" Crazy in Love" is a song recorded by American singer Beyoncé featuring rapping from her-then boyfriend Jay-Z from her debut solo studio album Dangerously in Love (2003). The song was released as the album's lead single on May 14, 2003, through Columbia Records and Music World Entertainment. Both artists wrote and composed the song in collaboration with Rich Harrison and Eugene Record; the former also produced it with Beyoncé. Using samples from the Chi-Lites's 1970 song "Are You My Woman (Tell Me So)", "Crazy in Love" is a pop, hip hop and R&B love song that incorporates elements of hip hop, soul, and 1970s-style funk music. Its lyrics describe a romantic obsession that causes the protagonist to act out of character.

"Crazy in Love" was a number-one hit in the United States and United Kingdom, and reached the top ten in various other countries worldwide. Music critics praised the hook, Jay-Z's contribution, and Beyoncé's assertive delivery of the lyrics. VH1 declared it the greatest song of the 2000s decade, while Rolling Stone ranked it at number 16 on their list of the 500 greatest songs of all time in 2021, and in 2018, declared the song, the greatest of the 21st century so far. At the 46th Annual Grammy Awards (2004), "Crazy in Love" won Grammy Awards for Best R&B Song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration.

The song's accompanying music video features Beyoncé in various dance sequences. It won three awards at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards, and its director, Jake Nava, won the Music Video Production Association award for Best R&B Video in 2004. Since 2003, "Crazy in Love" has been a staple in Beyoncé's live performances and concert tours. The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) recognized "Crazy in Love" as one of the most performed songs of 2004. Artists including David Byrne have covered the song, and it has been used in various television shows and other media.

Development and production

By July 2002, Beyoncé had already recorded several songs which would appear on Dangerously in Love. Columbia Records planned to release the album in October 2002; however, the release was postponed several times to capitalize on the success of American rapper Nelly's 2002 single " Dilemma," which features Beyoncé's former Destiny's Child colleague Kelly Rowland. These delays allowed Beyoncé to record more songs for the album.

Before meeting Beyoncé, Rich Harrison had conceptualized the beat of the song. He had sampled the hook's instrumentation from the 1970 song "Are You My Woman? (Tell Me So)," which had originally been written and composed by Eugene Record, frontman of the Chicago-based vocal group the Chi-Lites. When Harrison first played the beat to his friends, they could not "dig it," and this made him realize that he had conceived something special, which people would appreciate better after hearing the whole record. Thus Harrison decided not to market the selection, and instead, he waited for the right artist to record it: "I had it in the chamber, I had not really shopped it much, because sometimes you do not want to come out of the bag before it's right. People do not really get it and you will leave them with a foul taste in their mouth."

Harrison was pleasantly surprised when he got a call from Beyoncé, who was working on one of the most anticipated albums of the year. However, things did not turn up according to his plans the following day, as he was late and was still suffering the effects of a hangover. When Harrison played the sample to Beyoncé in the studio, the singer initially had doubts about the "sound so full of blaring fanfare;" it seemed too retro and according to her, no one used horn riffs in the 21st century. Nevertheless, Beyoncé accepted the sample, much to Harrison's delight, and gave him two hours to write and compose the song while she went out.

Harrison confessed that it was not easy for him to come up with the lyrics to "Crazy in Love" in that length of time. But two hours later, he had written the verses and the hook, in spite of being hung over. Harrison had also made provision for a backing track; he played all the instruments on the track. The bridge was written by Beyoncé, who was inspired by looking at herself in the mirror; as she was not wearing matching clothes and her hair was untidy, she kept saying, "I'm looking so crazy right now." Harrison sang back to her and said, "That's the hook." It also inspired the title of the song. After that Beyoncé had filled up the middle eight, she came up with the catchphrase - "Uh-oh, uh-oh, you know" - alongside Harrison.

American rapper Jay-Z became involved late in the song's production. Around 3 am, he came to the studio and recorded a rap verse, which he improvised in about ten minutes. The recording of "Crazy in Love" took place nearly three months following the meeting of Beyoncé with Harrison.

Music and lyrics

According to the sheet music published at Musicnotes.com by Alfred Music Publishing, "Crazy in Love" was composed in the key of D-minor and F-major. It incorporates influences of 1970s-style funk, hip hop, and soul. As commented by Robert Webb of The Independent, the old soul influences in the song seem to have been derived from the horn hook, which samples the 1970 song "Are You My Woman? (Tell Me So)." Having a go-go vibe, "Crazy in Love" is built on a hip hop beat. Beyoncé told The Sunday Herald that the beat is "so hard that it makes your heart hurt." The song's tempo is a moderate 100 beats per minute, in common time. Beyoncé's vocal range spans around one and a half octaves in the song, from the low note of to the high note of . "Crazy in Love" uses two major chords, B♭ and G, a minor third apart. One of the main vocal riffs uses the traditional cowbell rhythm often found in samba music. Lisa Verrico of magazine, wrote that "Crazy in Love" makes use of big drums and bits of brass.

According to Natalie Nichols of the Los Angeles Times, the lyrics of "Crazy in Love" reference a state of romantic obsession. Beyoncé said that the song talks "about how, when you are falling in love, you do things that are out of character and you do not really care because you are just open." Anthony DeCurtis of Rolling Stone wrote that "Crazy in Love" has "such a cauldron of energy," that Beyoncé sounds "loose and sexy," gripped by emotions she "can neither understand nor control." The lyrics are composed in the traditional verse-chorus form. Jay Z opens the song with a brief spoken verse-rap, containing the lyrics: "Yes! So crazy right now. Most incredibly, it's your girl, B. It's your boy, Young. You ready?" After Beyoncé delivers the "uh-oh, uh-oh" catchphrase, Jay Z continues the monologue. Beyoncé begins the first verse, followed with the whistle-backed chorus. She repeats the "uh-oh, uh-oh" phrase, leading to the second verse. The chorus follows, giving way to the second verse-rap which contains the lyrics: "Jay Z in the range, crazy and deranged [...] I been iller than chain smokers, how you think I got the name 'Hova', I been real and the game's over". The song continues to the bridge, singing: "I'm not myself, lately I'm foolish, I don't do this, / I've been playing myself, baby, I don't care / 'Cuz your love's got the best of me, / And baby, you're making a fool of me, / You got me sprung and I don't care who sees." She then sings the chorus again and the song fades out with the horns.

"Crazy in Love" was released to rhythmic contemporary, contemporary hit radio, and urban contemporary radios in the United States on May 18, 2003. The single was first released for digital download via iTunes Store in the United Kingdom and in the United States on May 20, 2003. Notably, the song was also fairly successful as a ringtone among cell phone users across the United States. The song was released as a CD single in Ireland and Switzerland, and as a digital EP in Germany on June 20, 2003. "Crazy in Love" was released as a maxi single in Germany on June 30, 2003, and in Australia on July 7, 2003. The song was issued as a CD single in the United Kingdom on June 30, 2003. "Crazy in Love" was released as a digital EP in several European countries, including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden on July 8, 2003. This digital EP was also available in Canada and Ireland on July 8, 2003. On July 22, 2003, two remixes-one from Rockwilder and the other from Adam 12 -were released in the United States.

Critical reception

"Crazy in Love" was lauded by contemporary music critics, who complimented the horn lines and the guest appearance of Jay-Z. Many of them called it the Summer Anthem of 2003. Tim Sendra of AllMusic described the song as a "stunning pop masterpiece", while Stephen Thomas Erlewine of the same website called it "deliriously catchy". Darryl Sterdan of Jam! noted the "Crazy in Love" is "instantly addictive horn lines". Anthony DeCurtis of Rolling Stone wrote: "'Crazy in Love' ... roars out of the speakers on the strength of a propulsive horn sample and the charged presence of her pal, Jay-Z." Ben Ratliff of magazine called the song an "itchy [and] eager-to-please" one. Marc Anthony Neal of PopMatters called the "uh-oh, uh-oh" phrase catchy. MTV News considered "Crazy in Love" to be the "proudest moment" of Dangerously in Love. Similarly, Allison Stewart of The Washington Post called it the best song on the album, praising its instrumentation, harmonies, and the rap verse of Jay Z. This was echoed by Kelefa Sanneh of The New York Times who wrote that "Crazy in Love" is the best one on the album thanks to its "simplicity, irresistible combination of triumphant horns and a wicked hip-hop beat". She added that "[Beyoncé's] vocals - as deft and accurate as ever - convey none of the giddy rush that the lyrics describe." Likewise, Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine wrote the lyrical arrangement, the music structure and the guest vocals by Jay Z all contributed in making "Crazy in Love" a wonderful resume for Beyoncé.

Rob Fitzpatrick of called "Crazy in Love" a "head-nodding [and] body-rocking funk-soul genius" and wrote that it is "a 100 per cent, stone-cold, dead-cert classic". He complimented Beyoncé's vocals, describing them as "genuinely, hip-grindingly fruity". Los Angeles Times writer Natalie Nichols noted that "sexy dance tunes as the vintage funk-flavored 'Crazy in Love'" made Dangerously in Love a great album. Neil Drumming of Entertainment Weekly wrote that the song has a "fresh sound". Spence D. of IGN Music wrote that Beyoncé rides the "infectious rhythm" with grace and mid-range seductively. He added, "As [it] can be expected, the track bumps when Jay drops his distinctive uptown flavor. While other rap-meet-R&B tracks often fall flat, this one works well as Beyoncé and Jay's verbals play nicely against one another." Lisa Verrico of The Times wrote that Jay Z performed a "decent rap", however, "Beyoncé and the beats save the day" and that "Crazy in Love" was a departure for Beyoncé from Destiny's Child.

Commercial performance

"Crazy in Love" was a commercial success in the United States, debuting at number fifty-eight on the Billboard Hot 100. Although it hadn't yet been released to retail stores, the single gained much attention and reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 based on heavy rotation alone. The same week it reached number one, Dangerously in Love debuted on the Billboard 200 at number one on July 12, 2003. Substantial airplay, and later in retail, gains of "Crazy in Love" allowed it to dominate the chart, spending eight consecutive weeks at number one on the Hot 100, making it Beyoncé's first number one single in her solo career. According to Nielsen SoundScan, "Crazy in Love" was the most downloaded song in the United States for four consecutive weeks in July 2003. "Crazy in Love" spent fifteen weeks in the top ten, twenty-six weeks in the top fifty, and twenty-seven weeks on the chart in total. The song was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in 2004 while its mastertone was also certified gold two years later. "Crazy in Love" was the fourth biggest hit of 2003 in the United States. By October 6, 2010, "Crazy in Love" had sold 47,000 physical units in the United States. "Crazy In Love" also has the distinction of being the first number-one single on Billboard's inaugural Hot Dance Airplay Chart, which debuted on August 16, 2003, where it spent seven weeks at the top spot.

In the United Kingdom, Beyoncé became the third female artist to top the UK Singles Chart and UK Albums Chart simultaneously, following Mariah Carey in 1994 and Kylie Minogue in 2001. Including her career with Destiny's Child, "Crazy in Love" became Beyoncé's third number one single in the United Kingdom and was the only song to top the charts the United Kingdom and the United States simultaneously in 2003. The single spent three weeks at number one in the United Kingdom and fifteen weeks in the top hundred. As of March 2018, it has sold over 1 million units in the country, making it her second best selling song there. "Crazy in Love" reached number one on the Irish Singles Chart, where it spent eighteen weeks. In Australia, "Crazy in Love" peaked at number two on the ARIA Singles Chart and was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) with sales of over 70,000 units. It also peaked at number two on the New Zealand Singles Chart, and was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ). "Crazy in Love" reached top ten throughout Europe, including Austria, the Belgian territories of Flanders and Wallonia, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.

Music video

Production and synopsis

The music video of "Crazy in Love", released in May 2003, was directed by Jake Nava and filmed in downtown Los Angeles. In MTV Making of the Video 2003 documentary, Beyoncé described the video's conception: "[It] celebrates the evolution of a woman. It is about a girl who is at the point of a relationship. She realizes that she is in love, she is doing stuff she would not normally do but she does not care. It does not matter she is just crazy in love."

The opening sequence of the video features Jay-Z as a passenger in a car speeding along Mission Road in Los Angeles, where he encounters Beyoncé, standing in the middle of the road, at the Fourth Street bridge. Beyoncé performs in various dance sequences, beginning with her wearing a white tank top, denim blue shorts, and red high-heels. She performs an elaborate solo dance on a riser. The scene shifts to a gold set with a mock photo shoot, before moving into a scene with dancers detailing Beyoncé and dancing against a wall while wearing caps and full length pants. Jay Z appears and ignites a line of petrol leading to a car parked under the bridge, which explodes in flames. Jay Z performs his rap in front of the burning car, and Beyoncé dances beside him, wearing an exotic silk print over a fur coat, before kicking the valve off a fire hydrant. She continues to dance while the water is flying everywhere. The video ends with Beyoncé and her dancers wearing vibrant Versace dresses in front of a large fan. Their outfits contrast with the neutral colors of the background, the video. Carmit Bachar, then a member of The Pussycat Dolls, is one of the dancers.

Reception and accolades

The music video received acclaim by music critics. Cynthia Fuchs, writing for PopMatters commented that the photo shoot scene uses the routine used by Jennifer Lopez in the video for " Jenny from the Block" (2002) with hot lights, scary makeup, and inclusion of many shots of legs. She wrote that: "Beyoncé's body becomes its undeniable emblem." Tom Moon of The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote that Beyoncé "shakes every inch of her famously photogenic goddess frame."

The music video won three awards at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards in the categories of Best Female Video, Best R&B Video, and Best Choreography. It however lost to Good Charlotte's " Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous" in the Viewer's Choice category. Director Nava also won a Music Video Production Association award for the Best R&B Video in 2004. During the same year, the video won the Best Collaboration award at the 2004 MTV Video Music Awards Japan, where it was also nominated for the Best Female Video award. "Crazy in Love" was nominated at the 36th NAACP Image Awards for the Outstanding Music Video award. It won the Best International Video award at the 2004 MuchMusic Video Awards. The song is also recognized as the Best Selling Mobile Ringtone in the United Kingdom for 2003 In 2014, The Guardian writer Michael Cragg included the clip for "Crazy in Love" in his list of the ten best music videos by Beyoncé. He offered high praise for it, saying "Aware of how much of a statement the song was, the video is a checklist of icon-making visuals, from the locations... the dance moves... to the part where she makes bubble blowing look like the sexiest thing a human could do."

Live performances

Beyoncé first performed "Crazy in Love" with Jay Z at the 2003 BET Awards. They also performed the song during the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards. She sang the song in a medley, with the pre-recorded vocals of Sean Paul on " Baby Boy" (2003). "Crazy in Love" was included on the set list for most of Beyoncé's concert tours. The song was the closing track of her Dangerously in Love World Tour that began in late 2003. On February 8, 2004, Prince appeared at the 46th Annual Grammy Awards with Beyoncé. In a performance that opened the show, they performed a medley of " Purple Rain", " Let's Go Crazy", " Baby I'm a Star", and Beyoncé's "Crazy in Love". Beyoncé performed "Crazy in Love" live at the 2004 BRIT Awards February 17, 2004. Monique Jessen And Todd Peterson wrote that she, "...lit up the stage with her performance of "Crazy in Love", wearing a white Roberto Cavalli dress and nearly half a million dollars worth of diamonds. The pop diva, appearing onstage in a puff of smoke, stopped midway through the song to pull up her top before walking away with the best international female solo artist award." Beyoncé and Jay Z also performed "Crazy in Love" at The Prince's Trust Urban Music Festival at Earls Court in London on May 31, 2004.

"Crazy in Love" was the first song on Beyoncé's set list on The Beyoncé Experience in Los Angeles and the I Am... Tour at several venues, including the Odyssey Arena in Belfast, the O2 Arena in London, and in Athens and Sydney. On August 5, 2007, Beyoncé performed the song at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Beyoncé emerged in a sparkling silver dress with a long train. She walked to the front of the stage, did a couple of snaps of her neck and then started singing "Crazy in Love". She climbed a staircase where her all-female band and three backup singers were positioned. The staircase moved forward in two places; top part moved while the bottom poked out more. At the top of her staircase, she removed her train and returned to the main stage. Her backup singers followed and danced with Beyoncé. After "Crazy in Love", Beyoncé performed a short rendition of Gnarls Barkley's " Crazy" (2006), singing: "Who do you, who do you think you are? / Ha, ha, ha, bless your soul."

Shaheem Reid of MTV News wrote: "There are few (very few) ladies out there who can really sing, a lot who can dance, a lot more who look good - but really no other who can combine all three and add iconic star power like Miss Beyoncé, arguably the best all-around stage performer in the game right now." Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote: "Beyoncé needs no distractions from her singing, which can be airy or brassy, tearful or vicious, rapid-fire with staccato syllables or sustained in curlicued melismas. But she was in constant motion, strutting in costumes (most of them silvery), from miniskirts to formal dresses, flesh-toned bodysuit to bikini to negligee." Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter wrote: "Her performance of 'Crazy in Love' featured some surprising arrangements that gave the material freshness". Performances of "Crazy in Love" were included on her live albums The Beyoncé Experience Live (2007), and the deluxe edition of I Am... World Tour (2010). Beyoncé performed "Crazy in Love" wearing a pink fringe dress at a concert at Palais Nikaïa in Nice, France, on June 20, 2011, in support of her album 4, and at the 2011 Glastonbury Festival on June 26, 2011.[citation needed ]

In August 2011, Beyoncé performed "Crazy in Love" during her revue show 4 Intimate Nights with Beyoncé. She performed a slowed-down, jazzier version of the song and danced with a similar routine to the one in the music video. During the ITV special A Night With Beyoncé which aired on December 4 in the United Kingdom, Beyoncé performed "Crazy in Love" to a selected crowd of fans. In May 2012, she performed the song during her Revel Presents: Beyoncé Live revue in Atlantic City, New Jersey, United States' entertainment resort, hotel, casino and spa, Revel. During the performance, Jay-Z did not appear on stage but his pre-recorded voice was heard. Dan DeLuca of noted that the song was one of the "beat-savvy booty-shaking workouts" performed during the revue. Jim Farber of New York Daily News wrote that "The first, and last parts of the show stressed the steeliest Beyoncé, told in bold songs" like "Crazy in Love". A writer of Black Entertainment Television noted that, "She dazzled fans with an assortment of high-energy performances of her upbeat hits like... 'Crazy in Love.'" Beyoncé also performed the song at the Super Bowl XLVII halftime show held on February 3, 2013. In July 2013, while placing Beyoncé at number 33 on their list of 50 Best Live Musicians, the writers of Rolling Stone magazine noted that the performance of "Crazy in Love" was a highlight during her live shows with the singer "expertly poppin' her booty".

Cover versions

Several artists have recorded cover versions of "Crazy in Love". In 2003, Irish singer-songwriter Mickey Joe Harte recorded an acoustic rendition of "Crazy In Love" for the charity album Even Better Than the Real Thing Vol. 1. Alternative rock band Snow Patrol recorded the song during a BBC session with Zane Lowe. Snow Patrol's version was released as a B-side to the single " Spitting Games", on the compilation Cosmosonica - Tom Middleton Presents Crazy Covers Vol. 1 and on Snow Patrol's compilation album . Ross Langager of PopMatters noted that their cover "sparks an initial chuckle of recognition but soon after becomes more than a bit unfortunate". David Byrne closed his concert at the Hollywood Bowl on June 27, 2005, with a samba-tinged version of "Crazy in Love". In 2007, American alternative rock band Switchfoot produced a rock version that was released as part of Yahoo!'s CoverArt series. Switchfoot produced a video for their cover version. Nashville-based indie quintet Wild Cub performed a version of the song in June 2014 for 's A.V. Undercover series.

British band The Magic Numbers performed "Crazy in Love" on the Australian radio station Triple J, and recorded it for the Starbucks ( Hear Music) compilation album, Sounds Eclectic: The Covers Project (2007). Tracy Bonham covered the song with guitar and violin accompaniment, for her 2007 album In The City + In The Woods. British close harmony trio The Puppini Sisters covered "Crazy in Love" for their 2007 album The Rise and Fall of Ruby Woo; this was remixed by the electronica jazz outfit The Real Tuesday Weld. Indie artist Dsico recorded an electronic cover of the song. In 2009, Pattern Is Movement recorded a cover of "Crazy in Love", which they claimed was inspired by Anohni's version; this cover was included on their September 4, 2009 Daytrotter session. Antony and the Johnsons released an orchestral version of the song as the b-side to their 2009 single "Aeon". Indie singer-songwriter Eden recorded a cover version of "Crazy in Love" for his final extended play (EP) under the EDEN Project alias.

German group The Baseballs covered the song in rockabilly style for their debut album Strike! Back in August 2010. "Crazy in Love" was performed live on Australian Idol during the first season by winner Guy Sebastian on the Final 2 showdown in 2003. A jazz version was performed during the fourth season by runner-up Jessica Mauboy on the Final 6 Big Band show in 2006. In June 2008, Mauboy performed "Crazy in Love" on Indonesian Idol with some eliminated contestants. Singapore Idol contestant Maia Lee performed "Crazy in Love" on the show. In March 2012, Swing Republic released their electro swing cover version which also ended up featuring on their album released the same year entitled Midnight Calling. In June 2012, Robin Thicke and Olivia Chisholm covered the song during the show . Kate Kroll of Rolling Stone gave a negative review for Chisholm's performance, saying that "Her voice sounded thin, and she just can't seem to shake that Stepford Wife stare." Emeli Sandé and The Bryan Ferry Orchestra recorded a cover of the song which was included on The Great Gatsby soundtrack (2013). Upon hearing a preview of the song, Randall Roberts of the Los Angeles Times commented that the cover was the best song on the album sang with a "surprising, simmering urgency". Kyle Anderson of Entertainment Weekly also wrote that the swing cover of "Crazy in Love" was one of the highlights on the album. On October 21, 2013, Third Degree covered "Crazy in Love" on the fifth season of The X Factor Australia, and on May 4, 2014, C Major covered the song on the third series of The Voice Australia. In 2015, Monica Michael covered the song on The X Factor UK. Filipina actress Denise Laurel covered the song while impersonating Beyoncé, based on her performance at the Super Bowl XLVII halftime show on Your Face Sounds Familiar, in which Laurel won the season.

Usage in media

In 2002, Beyoncé signed a contract with Pepsi, and appeared on several of its advertising campaigns, one of which featured "Crazy in Love" as background music. After winning the Best Collaboration Awards for "Crazy in Love" at the 2004 BET Awards, Beyoncé dedicated the award to the show's host, comedian Mo'Nique, who parodied the choreography from the "Crazy in Love" video with six equally voluptuous female dancers. "Crazy in Love" was included on the official soundtrack albums of the following films: Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004), White Chicks (2004), (2004), Good Luck Chuck (2007), (2012), and (2014), as well in the tenth season of Brazilian soap opera . In 2009, the cast of performed a mash up of the songs " Hair" from the musical and "Crazy in Love" in season one, episode eleven " Hairography". A parody of the song is also used in the Disney Channel's show That's So Raven, in the episode "Hizzouse Party". It was featured on the video games Karaoke Revolution Party and Just Dance 2. On the eleventh series of Dancing on Ice, Gemma Collins and Matt Evers performed to the song on the first week of the competition.

Impact and legacy

"'Crazy in Love' was another one of those classic moments in pop culture that none of us expected. I asked Jay to get on the song the night before I had to turn my album in - thank God he did. It still never gets old, no matter how many times I sing it."

-Beyoncé reflects on "Crazy in Love" during her cover story in 2011.

Entertainment Weekly magazine ranked "Crazy in Love" forty-seven in its list of The 100 Greatest Summer Songs. The song was also ranked as the Best Song of 2003 from NME, Mojo, Nöjesguiden, Rockdelux, Dotmusic, Playlouder and Magic The song was listed at number three on Rolling Stone's list of the 50 Best Songs of the 2000s Decade in 2009, and as the one-hundred-and-eighteenth greatest song of all time on the magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time (2010), as well as ranking it at number two on the list Singles of the Year, and at number three on their 100 Best Songs of the 2000s list, writing: "The horns weren't a hook. They were a herald: Pop's new queen had arrived.". In 2018, the song topped Rolling Stone list on " 100 Greatest Songs of the Century - So Far". In 2021, Rolling Stone placed "Crazy in Love" at number 16 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The song also placed at number one on the Singles of the Decade by The Times Literary Supplement and 75 Best Singles of the Decade by The Observer. " NME" staff voted "Crazy in Love" the best song of the 2000s, calling it "a dancefloor-destroying howitzer of a pop song.", also ranking it at number nineteen on their list of five hundred best songs of all time. The song was ranked at number four on Pitchfork Media's list of The Top 500 Tracks of the 2000s, number seven on The Daily Telegraph's list of the best songs of the decade and number six on 's list of the 100 Best Singles of the Decade. In September 2011, VH1 ranked "Crazy in Love" number one on its list of The 100 Greatest Songs of the 2000s. In October 2011, to mark NME's fifteenth birthday, its staff members selected the one-hundred-and-fifty tracks "that have meant the most to [them] over the site's lifetime", placing "Crazy in Love" at number sixteen. In 2012, the song was ranked at number twenty-two on Billboard's list of "Top 50 'Love' Songs of All Time". In 2013, John Boone and Jennifer Cady of E! placed the song at number one on their list of ten best Beyoncé's songs, writing: "It's the song that started it all. The definitive best Beyoncé jam is her first, complete with a guest spot by now-husband Jay Z, a killer hook and a chorus of horns that you have to dance to. Literally have to, Pavlovian conditioning-style." In a 2013 list of Jay Z's 20 Biggest Billboard Hits, "Crazy in Love" was ranked at number one. On July 5, 2013, NME magazine named "Crazy in Love" "the Best Pop Song of the Century". ranked the song at number fifty-nine on their list of 1001 Best Songs Ever. It was also ranked at number two on The Village Voice's list Pazz + Jop 2003.

In 2004, "Crazy in Love" was nominated for three Grammy Awards in the categories of Best R&B Song and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration, which it won, and Record of the Year, which it did not win. A remix of "Crazy in Love", known as "Krazy in Luv" (Maurice's Nu Soul Mix), won the award Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical for its remixer, Maurice Joshua. "Crazy in Love" was also recognized at the 2004 ASCAP Pop Music Awards Awards as one of the Most Performed Songs and its publisher, EMI, received the Publisher of the Year award. magazine's VIBE Awards recognized the song for Coolest Collaboration in 2003. In Europe, "Crazy in Love" won the Best Song award at the 2003 MTV Europe Music Awards. "Crazy in Love" won the awards for Best R&B/Urban Track and Best Pop Dance Track at the 22nd Annual International Dance Music Awards in 2003. It was recognized by Beyoncé's peers in the urban markets, and won the award for Best Collaboration at the BET Awards, where it also received a nomination in the Viewers Choice Awards category in 2004. "Crazy in Love" was nominated at the 36th NAACP Image Awards for the Outstanding Song award and for Favorite Song at the 2004 Kids' Choice Awards.

"Crazy in Love" has various remixes, including the Rockwilder remix, Maurice Joshua's Nu Soul remix, and Juniors World remix. These versions appeared on the single releases of "Crazy in Love" under an alternative spelling, "Krazy in Luv". The Rockwilder remix slows down the beat and makes the song deeper and funkier with chopped up horn samples and sparkling synth textures. Maurice's Nu Soul Remix speeds up the beat, taking it from hip-hop to house territory. A version of the song included on Asian special edition of Dangerously in Love features a rap in Mandarin Chinese performed by American-Taiwanese singer Vanness Wu, instead of Jay Z's performance.

"Crazy in Love" was re-recorded by Beyoncé for the film Fifty Shades of Grey (2015) and used for its trailer which was released on July 24, 2014. This slowed-down version was produced by Boots with violin arrangements by Margot, both of whom worked on Beyoncé's self-titled fifth studio album (2013), and unlike the original, doesn't feature Jay-Z. Margot said: "It inspires me to work on other artists' songs [because] it pushes my boundaries in a direction that I wouldn't necessarily come up with. Obviously I know how 'Crazy in Love' goes, but I knew there was the possibility her vocals would be different. It's almost more vulnerable and beautiful this way, because you do do crazy things when you fall in love. To hear the mood reversed and flipped makes it even more powerful."

The track was then officially released through iTunes Store on Beyoncé's birthday, September 4, 2015. The single cover artwork is a black and white version of the original single cover. The rendition was performed for the first time during the 2015 Budweiser Made in America Festival on September 5, 2015. It was included on the setlist of The Formation World Tour, alongside the original version.

Track listings and formats

Credits and personnel

Recording and management

Personnel

Pat Woodward - assistant mix engineer

Luz Vasquez - assistant mix engineer

Jay-Z - songwriting

Maurice Joshua - remixing

Certifications

Release history

References

External links

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" Crazy in Love" is a song recorded by American singer Beyoncé featuring rapping from her-then boyfriend Jay-Z from her debut solo studio album Dangerously in Love (2003). The song was released as the album's lead single on May 14, 2003, through Columbia Records and Music World Entertainment.

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The Great Wave off the Coast of Kanagawa - Katsushika Hokusai - Google Arts & Culture

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The Great Wave off the Coast of Kanagawa - Katsushika Hokusai - Google Arts & Culture

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This iconic composition comes from the golden age of Japanese woodblock printmaking. Hokusai manages, through the clever and dramatic manipulation of space...

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The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari ( German: Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari) is a 1920 German silent horror film, directed by Robert Wiene and written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer. Considered the quintessential work of German Expressionist cinema, it tells the story of an insane hypnotist ( Werner Krauss) who uses a somnambulist ( Conrad Veidt) to commit murders. The film features a dark and twisted visual style, with sharp-pointed forms, oblique and curving lines, structures and landscapes that lean and twist in unusual angles, and shadows and streaks of light painted directly onto the sets.

The script was inspired by various experiences from the lives of Janowitz and Mayer, both pacifists who were left distrustful of authority after their experiences with the military during World War I. The film makes use of a frame story, with a prologue and epilogue combined with a twist ending. Janowitz has said this device was forced upon the writers against their will. The film's design was handled by Hermann Warm, Walter Reimann and Walter Röhrig, who recommended a fantastic, graphic style over a naturalistic one.

The film thematizes brutal and irrational authority. Writers and scholars have argued the film reflects a subconscious need in German society for a tyrant, and is an example of Germany's obedience to authority and unwillingness to rebel against deranged authority. Some critics have interpreted Caligari as representing the German war government, with Cesare symbolic of the common man conditioned, like soldiers, to kill. Other themes of the film include the destabilized contrast between insanity and sanity, the subjective perception of reality, and the duality of human nature.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was released just as foreign film industries were easing restrictions on the import of German films following World War I, so it was screened internationally. Accounts differ as to its financial and critical success upon release, but modern film critics and historians have largely praised it as a revolutionary film. Critic Roger Ebert called it arguably " the first true horror film", and film reviewer Danny Peary called it cinema's first cult film and a precursor for arthouse films. Considered a classic, it helped draw worldwide attention to the artistic merit of German cinema and had a major influence on American films, particularly in the genres of horror and film noir.

As Francis sits on a bench with an older man who complains that spirits have driven him away from his family and home, a dazed woman named Jane passes them. Francis explains she is his "fiancée" and that they have suffered a great ordeal. Most of the rest of the film is a flashback of Francis's story, which takes place in Holstenwall, a shadowy village of twisted buildings and spiraling streets. Francis and his friend Alan who are good-naturedly competing for Jane's affections, plan to visit the town fair. Meanwhile, a mysterious man named Dr. Caligari seeks a permit from the rude town clerk to present a spectacle at the fair, which features a somnambulist named Cesare. The clerk mocks and berates Caligari, but ultimately approves the permit. That night, the clerk is found stabbed to death in his bed.

The next morning, Francis and Alan visit Caligari's spectacle, where he opens a coffin-like box to reveal the sleeping Cesare. On Caligari's order, Cesare awakens and answers questions from the audience. Despite Francis's protests, Alan asks, "How long shall I live?" To Alan's horror, Cesare answers, "The time is short. You die at dawn!" Later that night, a figure breaks into Alan's home and stabs him to death in his bed. A grief-stricken Francis investigates Alan's murder with help from Jane and her father, Dr. Olsen, who obtains police authorization to investigate the somnambulist. That night, the police apprehend a criminal in possession of a knife who is caught attempting to murder an elderly woman. When questioned by Francis and Dr. Olsen, the criminal confesses he tried to kill the elderly woman, but denies any part in the two previous deaths; he was merely taking advantage of the situation to divert blame away from himself.

At night, Francis spies on Caligari and observes what appears to be Cesare sleeping in his box. However, the real Cesare sneaks into Jane's home as she sleeps. He raises a knife to stab her, but instead abducts her after a struggle, dragging her through the window onto the street. Chased by an angry mob, Cesare eventually drops Jane and flees; he soon collapses and dies. Francis confirms that the criminal who confessed to the elderly woman's murder is still locked away and could not have been Jane's attacker. Francis and the police investigate Caligari's sideshow and realize that the "Cesare" sleeping in the box is only a dummy. Caligari escapes in the confusion. Francis follows and sees Caligari go through the entrance of an insane asylum.

Upon further investigation, Francis is shocked to learn that Caligari is the asylum's director. With help from the asylum staff, Francis studies the director's records and diary while the director is sleeping. The writings reveal his obsession with the story of an 11th-century monk named Caligari, who used a somnambulist named Cesare to commit murders in northern Italian towns. The director, attempting to understand the earlier Caligari, experiments on a somnambulist admitted to the asylum, who becomes his Cesare. The asylum director screams, "I must become Caligari!" Francis and the doctors call the police to Caligari's office, where they show him Cesare's corpse. Caligari then attacks one of the staff. He is subdued, restrained in a straitjacket, and becomes an inmate in his own asylum.

The narrative returns to the present, where Francis concludes his story. In a twist ending, Francis is depicted as an asylum inmate. Jane and Cesare are patients as well; Jane believes that she is a queen, while Cesare is not a somnambulist but awake, quiet, and not visibly dangerous. The man Francis refers to as "Dr. Caligari" is the asylum director. Francis attacks him and is restrained in a straitjacket, then placed in the same cell where Caligari was confined in Francis's story. The asylum director announces that, now that he understands Francis's delusion, he is confident that he can cure him.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer, both of whom were pacifists by the time they met following World War I. Janowitz served as an officer during the war, but the experience left him embittered with the military, which affected his writing. Mayer feigned madness to avoid military service during the war, which led him to intense examinations from a military psychiatrist. The experience left him distrustful of authority, and the psychiatrist served as a model for the Caligari character. Janowitz and Mayer were introduced in June 1918 by a mutual friend, actor Ernst Deutsch. Both writers were penniless at the time. Gilda Langer, an actress with whom Mayer was in love, encouraged Janowitz and Mayer to write a film together. She later became the basis for the Jane character. Langer also encouraged Janowitz to visit a fortune teller, who predicted that Janowitz would survive his military service during the war, but Langer would die. This prediction proved true, as Langer died unexpectedly in 1920 at the age of 23, and Janowitz said it inspired the scene in which Cesare predicts Alan's death at the fair.

Although neither had any associations with the film industry, Janowitz and Mayer wrote a script over six weeks during the winter of 1918-19. In describing their roles, Janowitz called himself "the father who planted the seed, and Mayer the mother who conceived and ripened it". The Expressionist filmmaker Paul Wegener was among their influences. The story was partially inspired by a circus sideshow the two visited on Kantstrasse in Berlin, called "Man or Machine?", in which a man performed feats of great strength after becoming hypnotized. They first visualized the story of Caligari the night of that show. Several of Janowitz's past experiences influenced his writing, including memories of his hometown of Prague, and, as he put it, a mistrust of "the authoritative power of an inhuman state gone mad" due to his military service. Janowitz also believed he had witnessed a murder in 1913 near an amusement park on Hamburg's Reeperbahn, beside the Holstenwall, which served as another inspiration for the script. According to Janowitz, he observed a woman disappear into some bushes, from which a respectable-looking man emerged a few moments later, and the next day Janowitz learned the girl was murdered. Holstenwall later became the name of the town setting in Caligari.

Janowitz and Mayer are said to have set out to write a story denouncing arbitrary authority as brutal and insane. Janowitz said it was only years after the film was released that he realized exposing the "authoritative power of an inhuman state" was the "subconscious intention" of the writers. However, Hermann Warm, who designed the film's sets, said Mayer had no political intentions when he wrote the film. Film historian David Robinson noted Janowitz did not refer to anti-authority intentions in the script until many decades after Caligari was released, and he suggested Janowitz's recollection may have changed in response to later interpretations to the film. The film they wrote was entitled Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari, using the English spelling Cabinet rather than the German Kabinett. The completed script contained 141 scenes. Janowitz has claimed the name Caligari, which was not settled upon until after the script was finished, was inspired by a rare book called Unknown Letters of Stendhal, which featured a letter from the French novelist Stendhal referring to a French officer named Caligari he met at the La Scala theatre in Milan. However, no record of any such letter exists, and film historian John D. Barlow suggested Janowitz may have fabricated the story. The physical appearance of Caligari was inspired by portraits of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. The character's name is spelled Calligaris in the only known surviving script, although in some instances the final s is removed. Other character names are also spelled differently from the final film: Cesare appears as Caesare, Alan is Allan or sometimes Alland and Dr. Olfen is Dr. Olfens. Likewise, unnamed characters in the final film have names in the script, including the town clerk ("Dr. Lüders") and the house-breaker ("Jakob Straat").

The story of Caligari is told abstractly, like a fairy tale, and includes little description about or attention toward the psychological motivations of the characters, which is more heavily emphasized in the film's visual style. The original script shows few traces of the Expressionist influence prevalent in the film's sets and costumes. Through film director Fritz Lang, Janowitz and Mayer met with Erich Pommer, head of production at the Decla-Bioscop film studio, on 19 April 1919, to discuss selling the script. According to Pommer, he attempted to get rid of them, but they persisted until he agreed to meet with them. Pommer reportedly asked the writers to leave the script with him, but they refused, and instead Mayer read it aloud to him. Pommer and his assistant, Julius Sternheim, were so impressed that he refused to let them leave until a contract was signed, and he purchased the script from them that night. The writers had originally sought no fewer than 10,000 marks, but were given 3,500, with the promise of another 2,000 once the film went into production and 500 if it was sold for foreign release, which the producers considered unlikely. The contract, today preserved at Berlin's Bundesfilmarchiv, gave Pommer the right to make any changes to the script deemed appropriate. Pommer said he was drawn to the script because he believed it could be filmed inexpensively, and it bore similarities to films inspired by the macabre horror shows of the Grand Guignol theatre in Paris, which were popular at the time. Pommer later said: "They saw in the script an 'experiment'. I saw a relatively cheap film".

Frame story

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari makes use of a "Rahmenerzählung", or frame story; a prologue and epilogue establish the main body of the film as a delusional flashback, a novel technique. Lang has said that, during early discussions about his possible involvement with the film, he suggested the addition of an opening scene with a "normal" style, which would lead the public into the rest of the film without confusion. It remains unclear whether Lang suggested the frame story structure or simply gave advice on how to write a frame story that was already agreed and some writers, like David Robinson, have questioned whether Lang's recollection is correct. The director, Robert Wiene, was supportive of the changes. Janowitz has said he and Mayer were not privy to discussions about adding the frame story and strongly opposed its inclusion, believing it had deprived the film of its revolutionary and political significance; he wrote that it was "an illicit violation, a raping of our work" that turned the film "into a cliché ... in which the symbolism was to be lost". Janowitz says the writers sought legal action to stop the change but failed. He also says they did not see the finished film with the frame story until a preview was shown to studio heads, after which the writers "expressed our dissatisfaction in a storm of thunderous remonstrances". They had to be persuaded not to publicly protest against the film.

In his 1947 book From Caligari to Hitler, Siegfried Kracauer argued, based largely on an unpublished typescript written and provided by Janowitz, that the film originally included no frame story and started with the fair coming to town and ended with Caligari becoming institutionalized. Kracauer argued the frame story glorified authority and was added to turn a "revolutionary" film into a "conformistic" one. No surviving copies of the script were believed to exist until the early 1950s when actor Werner Krauss revealed he still had his copy. He refused to part with it; only in 1978, two decades after his death, was it purchased by the German film archive Deutsche Kinemathek. It remained unavailable for public consumption until 1995, when a full transcript was published.

The script revealed that a frame story was part of the original Caligari screenplay, albeit a different one from that in the film. The original manuscript opens on an elegant terrace of a large villa, where Francis and Jane are hosting a party and the guests insist that Francis tell them a story that happened to him 20 years earlier. The conclusion to the frame story is missing from the script. Critics widely agree that the discovery of the screenplay strongly undermines Kracauer's theory, with some, like the German film historian Stephen Brockmann, even arguing it disproves his claims altogether. Others, like John D. Barlow, argue that it does not settle the issue, as the original screenplay's frame story simply serves to introduce the main plot, rather than subvert it as the final film's version does.

Many details about the making of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari are in dispute and will probably remain unsettled due to the large number of people involved in the making of the film, many of whom have recalled it differently or dramatized their own contributions to its production. Production of the film was delayed about four or five months after the script was purchased. Pommer originally chose Lang as the director of Caligari, and Lang even went so far as to hold preparatory discussions about the script with Janowitz, but he became unavailable due to his involvement with the filming of The Spiders, so Wiene was selected instead. According to Janowitz, Wiene's father, a successful theatre actor, had "gone slightly mad when he could no longer appear on the stage", and Janowitz believed that experience helped Wiene bring an "intimate understanding" to the source material of Caligari.

Decla producer Rudolf Meinert introduced Hermann Warm to Wiene and provided Warm with the Caligari script, asking him to come up with proposals for the design. Warm believed "films must be drawings brought to life", and felt a naturalistic set was wrong for the subject of the film, instead recommending a fantastic, graphic style, in which the images would be visionary, nightmarish and out of the ordinary. Warm brought to the project his two friends, painters and stage designers Walter Reimann and Walter Röhrig, both of whom were associated with the Berlin art and literary magazine . The trio spent a full day and part of the night reading the script, after which Reimann suggested an Expressionist style, a style often used in his own paintings. They also conceived the idea of painting forms and shadows directly onto the sets to ensure a dark and unreal look. According to Warm, the three approached Wiene with the idea and he immediately agreed, although Wiene has made claims that he conceived the film's Expressionist style. Meinert agreed to the idea after one day's consideration, telling Warm, Reimann and Röhrig to make the sets as "crazy" and "eccentrically" as possible. He embraced the idea for commercial, not aesthetic reasons: Expressionism was fashionable at the time, so he concluded even if the film received bad reviews, the artistic style would garner attention and make it profitable.

Wiene filmed a test scene to demonstrate Warm, Reimann and Röhrig's theories, and it so impressed the producers that the artists were given free rein. Pommer later said he was responsible for placing Warm, Reimann and Röhrig in charge of the sets, but Warm has claimed that, although Pommer was in charge of production at Decla when Caligari was made, he was not actually a producer on the film itself. Instead, he says Meinert was the film's true producer, and that it was he who gave Warm the manuscript. Warm claimed Meinert produced the film "despite the opposition of a part of the management of Decla". Meinert said Pommer had "not sanctioned" the film's abstract visual style. Nevertheless, Pommer claimed to have supervised Caligari, and that the film's Expressionistic style was chosen in part to differentiate it from competing Hollywood films. The predominant attitude at the time was that artistic achievement led to success in exports to foreign film markets. The dominance of Hollywood at the time, coupled with a period of inflation and currency devaluation, forced German film studios to seek projects that could be made inexpensively, with a combination of realistic and artistic elements so the films would be accessible to American audiences, yet also distinctive from Hollywood films. Pommer has claimed while Mayer and Janowitz expressed a desire for artistic experimentation in the film, his decision to use painted canvases as scenery was primarily a commercial one, as they would be a significant financial saving over building sets.

Janowitz claims he attempted to commission the sets from designer and engraver Alfred Kubin, known for his heavy use of light and shadow to create a sense of chaos, but Kubin declined to participate in the project because he was too busy. In a conflicting story, however, Janowitz claimed he requested from Decla "Kubin paintings", and that they misread his instructions as " cubist painters" and hired Reimann and Röhrig as a result. David Robinson argues this story was probably an embellishment stemming from Janowitz's disdain for the two artists. Janowitz has claimed that he and Mayer conceived the idea of painting the sets on canvas, and that the shooting script included written directions that the scenery be designed in Kubin's style. However, the later rediscovery of the original screenplay refutes this claim, as it includes no such directions about the sets. This was also disputed in a 1926 article by Barnet Braverman in magazine, which claimed the script included no mention of an unconventional visual style, and that Janowitz and Mayer in fact strongly opposed the stylization. She claims Mayer later came to appreciate the visual style, but that Janowitz remained opposed to it years after the film's release.

The set design, costumes and props took about two weeks to prepare. Warm worked primarily on the sets, while Röhrig handled the painting and Reimann was responsible for the costumes. Robinson noted the costumes in Caligari seem to resemble a wide variety of time periods. For example, Caligari and the fairground workers' costumes resemble the Biedermeier era, while Jane's embody Romanticism. Additionally, Robinson wrote, Cesare's costume and those of policemen in the film appear abstract, while many of the other characters' seem like ordinary German clothes from the 1920s. The collaborative nature of the film's production highlights the importance that both screenwriters and set designers held in German cinema of the 1920s, although film critic Lotte H. Eisner said sets held more importance than anything else in German films at that time. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was the first German Expressionist film, although Brockmann and film critic Mike Budd claim it was also influenced by German Romanticism; Budd notes the film's themes of insanity and the outcry against authority are common among German Romanticism in literature, theatre and the visual arts. Film scholar Vincent LoBrutto said the theatre of Max Reinhardt and the artistic style of Die Brücke were additional influences on Caligari.

Janowitz originally intended the part of Cesare to go to his friend, actor Ernst Deutsch. Mayer wrote the part of Jane for Gilda Langer, but by the time the film was cast Langer's interests had moved on from Janowitz and Mayer to director Paul Czinner, leaving the role to be played by Lil Dagover. Janowitz claimed he wrote the part of Caligari specifically for Werner Krauss, whom Deutsch had brought to his attention during rehearsals for a Max Reinhardt play; Janowitz said only Krauss or Paul Wegener could have played the part. The parts of Caligari and Cesare ultimately went to Krauss and Conrad Veidt, respectively, who enthusiastically took part in many aspects of the production. Krauss suggested changes to his own make-up and costumes, including the elements of a top hat, cape and walking stick with an ivory handle for his character. The actors in Caligari were conscious of the need to adapt their make-up, costumes and appearance to match the visual style of the film. Much of the acting in German silent films at the time was already Expressionistic, mimicking the pantomimic aspects of Expressionist theatre. The performances of Krauss and Veidt in Caligari were typical of this style, as they both had experience in Expressionist-influenced theatre, and as a result, John D. Barlow said they appear more comfortable in their surroundings in the film than the other actors. Prior to filming, Kraus and Veidt appeared on stage in the winter of 1918 in an Expressionist drama, Reinhold Goering's Seeschlacht, at the Deutsches Theater. By contrast, Dagover had little experience in Expressionist theatre, and Barlow argues her acting is less harmonious with the film's visual style.

Wiene asked the actors to make movements similar to dance, most prominently from Veidt, but also from Krauss, Dagover and Friedrich Feger, who played Francis. Krauss and Veidt are the only actors whose performances fully match the stylization of the sets, which they achieved by concentrating their movements and facial expressions. Barlow notes that "Veidt moves along the wall as if it had 'exuded' him ... more a part of a material world of objects than a human one", and Krauss "moves with angular viciousness, his gestures seem broken or cracked by the obsessive force within him, a force that seems to emerge from a constant toxic state, a twisted authoritarianism of no human scruple and total insensibility". Most of the other actors besides Krauss and Veidt have a more naturalistic style. Alan, Jane and Francis play the roles of an idyllically happy trio enjoying youth; Alan in particular represents the archetype of a sensitive 19th-century student. Mike Budd points out realist characters in stylized settings are a common characteristic in Expressionist theatre. However, David Robinson notes even the performances of the more naturalistic supporting roles in Caligari have Expressionist elements, like Hans-Heinz von Twardowski's "strange, tormented face" as Alan. He also cites Feher's "large angular movements", especially in the scene where he searches the deserted fairground. Other minor roles are Expressionistic in nature, like two policemen who sit facing each other at their desks and move with exaggerated symmetry, and two servants who awaken and rise from their beds in perfect synchronization. Vincent LoBrutto said of the acting in the film:

The acting style is as emotionally over-the-top as the narrative and visual style of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. The behavior of the characters represents the actors' emotional responses to the expressionistic environment and the situations in which they find themselves. Staging and movement of the actors respond to the hysteria of Caligari's machinations and to the fun-house labyrinth that appears to be the reflection of a crazy mirror, not an orderly village.

Shooting for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari began at the end of December 1919 and concluded at the end of January 1920. It was shot entirely in a studio without any exterior shots, which was unusual for films of the time, but dictated by the decision to give the film an Expressionist visual style. The extent to which Mayer and Janowitz participated during filming is disputed: Janowitz claims the duo repeatedly refused to allow any script changes during production, and Pommer claimed Mayer was on the set for every day of filming. Hermann Warm, however, claimed they were never present for any of the shooting or involved in any discussions during production.

Caligari was filmed in the Lixie-Atelier film studio (formerly owned by Continental-Kunstfilm) at 9 Franz Joseph-Strasse (now Max Liebermannstraße), Weißensee, a north-eastern suburb of Berlin. Decla had been making films at the Lixie studio since October 1919, having previously released three titles, The Plague of Florence ( Die Pest in Florenz) (1919) and the two parts of The Spiders ( Die Spinnen). The relatively small size of the studio (built some five years earlier in 1914) meant most of the sets used in the film did not exceed six meters in width and depth. Certain elements from the original script had to be cut from the film due to the limited space, including a procession of gypsies, a handcart pushed by Caligari, Jane's carriage, and a chase scene involving horse-cabs. Likewise, the script called for a fairground scene with roundabouts, barrel organs, sideshow barkers, performers and menageries, none of which could be achieved in the restrictive space. Instead, the scenes use a painting of the Holstenwall town as a background; throngs of people walk around two spinning merry-go-round props, which creates the impression of a carnival. The script also made references to modern elements like telephones, telegrams and electric light, but they were eliminated during the filming, leaving the final film's setting with no indication of a specific time period.

Several scenes from the script were cut during filming, most of which were brief time lapses or transitioning scenes, or title screens deemed unnecessary. One of the more substantial scenes to be cut involved the ghost of Alan at a cemetery. The scene with the town clerk berating Caligari deviated notably from the original script, which simply called for the clerk to be "impatient". He is far more abusive in the scene as it was filmed, and is perched atop an exaggeratedly high bench that towers over Caligari. Another deviation from the script comes when Caligari first awakens Cesare, one of the most famous moments in the film. The script called for Cesare to gasp and struggle for air, then shake violently and collapse in Caligari's arms. As it was filmed, there is no such physical struggling, and instead the camera zooms in on Cesare's face as he gradually opens his eyes. The original title cards for Caligari featured stylized, misshapen lettering with excessive underlinings, exclamation points and occasionally archaic spellings. The bizarre style, which matches that of the film as a whole, mimics the lettering of Expressionistic posters at the time. The original title cards were tinted in green, steely-blue and brown. Many modern prints of the film do not preserve the original lettering.

Photography was provided by Willy Hameister, who went on to work with Wiene on several other films. The camerawork in Caligari is fairly simple and is used primarily to show the sets, mostly alternating between medium shots and straight-on angles, with occasionally abrupt close-ups to create a sense of shock. There are few long shots or panning movement within the cinematography. Likewise, there is very little interscene editing. Most scenes follow the other without intercutting, which gives Caligari more of a theatrical feel than a cinematic one. Heavy lighting is typically absent from the film, heightening the sense of darkness prevalent in the story. However, lighting is occasionally used to intensify the uneasiness created by the distortions of the sets. For example, when Cesare first awakens at the fair, a light is shone directly on a close-up of his heavily made-up face to create an unsettling glow. Additionally, lighting is used in a then-innovative way to cast a shadow against the wall during the scene in which Cesare kills Alan, so the viewer sees only the shadow and not the figures themselves. Lighting techniques like this became frequently used in later German films.

The visual style of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is dark, twisted and bizarre; radical and deliberate distortions in perspective, form, dimension and scale create a chaotic and unhinged appearance. The sets are dominated by sharp-pointed forms and oblique and curving lines, with narrow and spiraling streets, and structures and landscapes that lean and twist in unusual angles, giving the impression they could collapse or explode at any given moment. Film critic Roger Ebert described it as "a jagged landscape of sharp angles and tilted walls and windows, staircases climbing crazy diagonals, trees with spiky leaves, grass that looks like knives". The sets are characterized by strokes of bold, black paint. The landscape of Holstenwall is painted on canvas, as opposed to a constructed set, and shadows and streaks of light are painted directly onto the sets, further distorting the viewer's sense of perspective and three-dimensionality. Buildings are clustered and interconnected in a cubist-like architecture, surrounded by dark and twisted back alleys. Lotte Eisner, author of The Haunted Screen, writes that objects in the film appear as if they are coming alive and "seem to vibrate with an extraordinary spirituality". Rudolf Kurtz, screenwriter and author of Expressionismus und Film, likewise wrote "the dynamic force of objects howls their desire to be created". The rooms have radically offset windows with distorted frames, doors that are not squared, and chairs that are too tall. Strange designs and figures are painted on the walls of corridors and rooms, and trees outside have twisted branches that sometimes resemble tentacles.

German film professor Anton Kaes wrote, "The style of German Expressionism allowed the filmmakers to experiment with filmic technology and special effects and to explore the twisted realm of repressed desires, unconscious fears, and deranged fixations". The visual style of Caligari conveys a sense of anxiety and terror to the viewer, giving the impression of a nightmare or deranged sensibility, or a place transformed by evil, in a more effective way than realistic locations or conventional design concepts could. Siegfried Kracauer wrote that the settings "amounted to a perfect transformation of material objects into emotional ornaments". The majority of the film's story and scenes are memories recalled by an insane narrator, and as a result the distorted visual style takes on the quality of his mental breakdown, giving the viewers the impression that they are inside the mind of a madman. As with contemporary Expressionist paintings, the visual style of Caligari reflects an emotional reaction to the world, and the film's characters represent an emotional response to the terror of society as embodied by Caligari and Cesare. Often in the film, set pieces are emblematic of the emotional state of the characters in the scene. For example, the courtyard of the insane asylum during the frame story is vastly out of proportion. The characters seem too big for the small building, and the courtyard floor features a bizarre pattern, all of which represent the patients' damaged frames of mind. Likewise, the scene with the criminal in a prison cell features a set with long vertical painted shadows resembling arrowheads, pointing down at the squatting prisoner in an oppressive effect that symbolizes his broken-down state.

Stephen Brockmann argues the fact that Caligari was filmed entirely in a studio enhances the madness portrayed by the film's visuals because "there is no access to a natural world beyond the realm of the tortured human psyche". The sets occasionally feature circular images that reflect the chaos of the film, presenting patterns of movement that seem to be going nowhere, such as the merry-go-round at the fair, moving at a titled angle that makes it appear at risk of collapsing. Other elements of the film convey the same visual motifs as the sets, including the costumes and make-up design for Caligari and Cesare, both of which are highly exaggerated and grotesque. Even the hair of the characters is an Expressionistic design element, especially Cesare's black, spiky, jagged locks. They are the only two characters in the film with Expressionistic make-up and costumes, making them appear as if they are the only ones who truly belong in this distorted world. Despite their apparent normalcy, however, Francis and the other characters never appear disturbed by the madness around them reflected in the sets; they instead react as if they are parts of a normal background.

A select few scenes disrupt the Expressionistic style of the film, such as in Jane's and Alan's home, which include normal backgrounds and bourgeois furniture that convey a sense of security and tranquility otherwise absent from the film. Eisner called this a "fatal" continuity error, but John D. Barlow disagrees, arguing it is a common characteristic for dream narratives to have some normal elements in them, and that the normalcy of Jane's house in particular could represent the feeling of comfort and refuge Francis feels in her presence. Mike Budd argues while the Expressionistic visual style is jarring and off-putting at first, the characters start to blend more harmoniously as the film progresses, and the setting becomes more relegated into the background.

Robinson suggested Caligari is not a true example of Expressionism at all, but simply a conventional story with some elements of the art form applied to it. He argues the story itself is not Expressionistic, and the film could have easily been produced in a traditional style, but that Expressionist-inspired visuals were applied to it as decoration. Similarly, Budd has called the film a conventional, classical narrative, resembling a detective story in Francis's search to expose Alan's killer, and said it is only the film's Expressionist settings that make the film transgressive. Hans Janowitz has entertained similar thoughts as well: "Was this particular style of painting only a garment in which to dress the drama? Was it only an accident? Would it not have been possible to change this garment, without injury to the deep effect of the drama? I do not know."

Though often considered an art film by some modern critics and scholars, Caligari was produced and marketed the same way as a normal commercial production of its time period, able to target both the elite artistic market as well as a more commercial horror genre audience. The film was marketed extensively leading up to the release, and advertisements ran even before the film was finished. Many posters and newspaper advertisements included the enigmatic phrase featured in the film, "Du musst Caligari werden!", or "You must become Caligari!" Caligari premiered at the Marmorhaus theatre in Berlin on 26 February 1920, less than one month after it was completed. The filmmakers were so nervous about the release that Erich Pommer, on his way to the theatre, reportedly exclaimed, "It will be a horrible failure for all of us!" As with the making of the film, several urban legends surround the film's premiere. One, offered by writers Roger Manvell and Heinrich Fraenkel in The German Cinema, suggests the film was shelved "for lack of a suitable outlet", and was only shown at Marmorhaus because another film had fallen through. Another suggested the theatre pulled the film after only two performances because audiences demanded refunds and demonstrated against it so strongly. This story was told by Pommer, who claimed the Marmorhaus picked Caligari back up and ran it successfully for three months after he spent six months working on a publicity campaign for the film. David Robinson wrote that neither of these urban legends were true, and that the latter was fabricated by Pommer to increase his own reputation. On the contrary, Robinson said the premiere was highly successful, showing at the theatre for four weeks, an unusual amount for the time, and then returning two weeks later. He said it was so well received that women in the audience screamed when Cesare opened his eyes during his first scene, and fainted during the scene in which Cesare abducts Jane.

Caligari was released at a time when foreign film industries had just started easing restrictions on the import of German films following World War I. The film was acquired for American distribution by the Goldwyn Distributing Company, and had its American premiere at the Capitol Theatre in New York City on 3 April 1921. It was given a live theatrical prologue and epilogue, which was not unusual for film premieres at major theatres at the time. In the prologue, the film is introduced by a character called "Cranford", who identifies himself as the man Francis speaks with in the opening scene. In the epilogue, Cranford returns and exclaims that Francis has fully recovered from his madness. Mike Budd believes these additions simplified the film and "adjusted [it] for mass consumption", though Robinson argued it was simply a normal theatrical novelty for the time. Capitol Theatre runner Samuel Roxy Rothafel commissioned conductor Ernö Rapée to compile a musical accompaniment that included portions of songs by composers Johann Strauss III, Arnold Schoenberg, Claude Debussy, Igor Stravinsky and Sergei Prokofiev. Rotafel wanted the score to match the dark mood of the film, saying: "The music had, as it were, to be made eligible for citizenship in a nightmare country".

Caligari had its Los Angeles premiere at Miller's Theater on 7 May 1921, but the theatre was forced to pull it due to demonstrations by protestors. However, the protest was organized by the Hollywood branch of the American Legion due to fears of unemployment stemming from the import of German films into America, not over objections to the content of Caligari itself. After running in large commercial theatres, Caligari began to be shown in smaller theatres and film societies in major cities. Box office figures were not regularly published in the 1920s, so it has been difficult to assess the commercial success or failure of Caligari in the United States. Film historians Kristin Thompson and David B. Pratt separately studied trade publications from the time in an attempt to make a determination, but reached conflicting findings; Thompson concluded it was a box office success and Pratt concluded it was a failure. However, both agreed it was more commercially successful in major cities than in theatres in smaller communities, where tastes were considered more conservative.

Caligari did not immediately receive a wide distribution in France due to fears over the import of German films, but film director Louis Delluc organized a single screening of it on 14 November 1921, at the Colisée cinema in Paris as part of a benefit performance for the Spanish Red Cross. Afterward, the Cosmograph company bought the film's distribution rights and premiered it at the Ciné-Opéra on 2 March 1922. Caligari played in one Paris theatre for seven consecutive years, a record that remained intact until the release of Emmanuelle (1974). According to Janowitz, Caligari was also shown in such European cities as London, Rome, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Brussels, Prague, Vienna, Budapest and Bucharest, as well as outside Europe in China, Japan, India and Turkey, and also in South American nations.

There are differing accounts as to how Caligari was first received by audiences and critics immediately after its release. Stephen Brockmann, Anton Kaes and film theorist Kristin Thompson say it was popular with both the general public and well-respected by critics. Robinson wrote, "The German critics, almost without exception, ranged from favourable to ecstatic". Kracauer said critics were "unanimous in praising Caligari as the first work of art on the screen", but also said it was "too high-brow to become popular in Germany". Barlow said it was often the subject of critical disapproval, which he believes is because early film reviewers attempted to assign fixed definitions to the young art of cinema, and thus had trouble accepting the bizarre and unusual elements of Caligari. Some critics felt it imitated a stage production too closely. Other commentators, like critic Herbert Ihering and novelist Blaise Cendrars, objected to the presentation of the story as a madman's delusion because they felt it belittled Expressionism as an artform. Theatre critic Helmut Grosse condemned the film's visual design as clichéd and derivative, calling it a "cartoon and [a] reproduction of designs rather than from what actually took place on stage". Several reviewers, like Kurt Tucholsky and Blaise Cendrars, criticized the use of real actors in front of artificially-painted sets, saying it created an inconsistent level of stylization. Critic Herbert Ihering echoed this point in a 1920 review: "If actors are acting without energy and are playing within landscapes and rooms which are formally 'excessive', the continuity of the principle is missing".

While Robinson said the response from American critics was largely positive and enthusiastic, Kaes said American critics and audiences were divided: some praised its artistic value and others, particularly those distrustful of Germany following World War I, wished to ban it altogether. Some in the Hollywood film industry felt threatened by the potential rivalry and spoke out against Caligari's release, condemning it as a "foreign invasion". Nevertheless, the film remained popular in the United States. Several American reviewers compared it to an Edgar Allan Poe story, including in a 1921 review in magazine, which praised the direction and "perfect tempo" of the film, as well as the sets that "squeeze and turn and adjust the eye, and through the eye the mentality". A New York Times review likened it to modernist art, comparing the film's sets to Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2, and said the film "gives dimensions and meaning to shape, making it an active part of the story, instead of merely the conventional and inert background", which was key to the film's "importance as a work of cinematography". Albert Lewin, a critic who eventually became a film director and screenwriter, called Caligari "the only serious picture, exhibited in America so far, that in anything like the same degree has the authentic thrills and shock of art". A story in a November 1921 edition of Exceptional Photoplays, an independent publication issued by the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures, said it "occupies the position of unique artistic merit", and said American films in comparison looked like they were made for "a group of defective adults at the nine-year-old level".

Caligari was a critical success in France, but French filmmakers were divided in their opinions after its release. Abel Gance called it "superb" and wrote, "What a lesson to all directors!" and René Clair said it "overthrew the realist dogma" of filmmaking. Film critic and director Louis Delluc said the film has a compelling rhythm: "At first slow, deliberately laborious, it attempts to irritate. Then when the zigzag motifs of the fairground start turning, the pace leaps forward, agitato, accelerando, and leaves off only at the word 'End', as abruptly as a slap in the face." Jean Epstein, however, called it "a prize example of the abuse of décor in the cinema" and said it "represents a grave sickness of cinema". Likewise, Jean Cocteau called it "the first step towards a grave error which consists of flat photography of eccentric decors, instead of obtaining surprise by means of the camera". French critic Frédéric-Philippe Amiguet wrote of the film: "It has the odor of tainted food. It leaves a taste of cinders in the mouth." The Russian director Sergei Eisenstein especially disliked Caligari, calling it a "combination of silent hysteria, partially coloured canvases, daubed flats, painted faces, and the unnatural broken gestures and action of monstrous chimaeras".

While early reviews were more divided, modern film critics and historians have largely praised Caligari as a revolutionary film. Film reviewer Roger Ebert called it arguably "the first true horror film", and critic Danny Peary called it cinema's first cult film and a precursor for arthouse films. In October 1958, Caligari was ranked as the twelfth-best film of all time during a poll organized at the Brussels World's Fair. With input from 117 film critics, filmmakers and historians from around the world, it was the first universal film poll in history. American film historian Lewis Jacobs said "its stylized rendition, brooding quality, lack of explanation, and distorted settings were new to the film world". Film historian and critic Paul Rotha wrote of it, "For the first time in the history of the cinema, the director has worked through the camera and broken with realism on the screen; that a film could be effective dramatically when not photographic and finally, of the greatest possible importance, that the mind of the audience was brought into play psychologically". Likewise, Arthur Knight wrote in : "More than any other film, ( Caligari) convinced artists, critics and audiences that the movie was a medium for artistic expression". Entertainment Weekly included Caligari in their 1994 "Guide to the Greatest Movies Ever Made", calling it a "landmark silent film" and saying, "No other film's art direction has ever come up with so original a visualization of dementia".

The film holds an approval rating of 99% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 67 reviews, with a weighted average of 9.30/10. The site's critics' consensus states: "Arguably the first true horror film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari set a brilliantly high bar for the genre - and remains terrifying nearly a century after it first stalked the screen."

Caligari is considered the quintessential work of German Expressionist cinema, and by far the most famous example of it. It is considered a classic film, often shown in introductory film courses, film societies and museums, and is one of the most famous German films from the silent era. Film scholar Lewis Jacobs called it the "most widely discussed film of the time". Caligari helped draw worldwide attention to the artistic merit of German cinema, while also bringing legitimacy to the cinema among literary intellectuals within Germany itself. Lotte Eisner has said it was in Expressionism, as epitomized in Caligari, that "the German cinema found its true nature". The term caligarism was coined as a result, referring to a style of similar films that focus on such themes as bizarre madness and obsession, particularly through the use of visual distortion. Expressionism was late in coming to cinema, and by the time Caligari was released, many German critics felt the art form had become commercialized and trivialized; such well-known writers as Kasimir Edschmid, René Schickele, and Yvan Goll had already pronounced the Expressionist movement dead by the time Caligari arrived in theatres. Few other purely Expressionistic films were produced, and Caligari was the only one readily accessible for several decades. Among the few films to fully embrace the Expressionist style were (1920) and Raskolnikow (1923), both directed by Wiene, as well as From Morn to Midnight (1920), (1921), Das Haus zum Mond (1921), Haus ohne Tür und ohne Fenster (1921) and .

While few other purely Expressionistic films were made, Caligari still had a major influence over other German directors, and many of the film's Expressionist elements - particularly the use of setting, light and shadow to represent the dark psychology of its characters - became prevalent in German cinema. Among the films to use these elements were Murnau's (1922) and The Last Laugh (1924), G. W. Pabst's Secrets of a Soul (1926), and Lang's Metropolis (1927) and (1931). The success of Caligari also affected the way in which German films were produced during the 1920s. For example, the majority of major German films over the next few years moved away from location shooting and were fully filmed in studios, which assigned much more importance to designers in German cinema. Robinson argues this led to the rise of a large number of film designers - such as Hans Dreier, Rochus Gliese, Albin Grau, Otto Hunte, Alfred Junge, Erich Kettelhut and Paul Leni - and that effect was felt abroad as many of these talents later emigrated from Germany with the rise of the National Socialist German Workers Party. Additionally, the success of Caligari's collaborative effort - including its director, set designers and actors - influenced subsequent film production in Germany for many years, making teamwork a hallmark of German cinema in the Weimar Republic.

The effect of Caligari was felt not just in German cinema, but internationally as well. Both Rotha and film historian William K. Everson wrote that the film probably had as much of a long-term effect on Hollywood directors as Battleship Potemkin (1925). In his book The Film Til Now, Rotha wrote that Caligari and Potemkin were the "two most momentous advances in the development of the cinema", and said Caligari "served to attract to the cinema audience many people who had hitherto regarded the film as the low watermark of intelligence". Caligari influenced the style and content of Hollywood films in the 1920s and early 1930s, particularly in films such as (1926), The Man Who Laughs (1928) and Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932), and had a major influence on American horror films of the 1930s, some of which featured an antagonist using Caligari-like supernatural abilities to control others, such as (1931), (1931) and The Mad Genius (1931). Kaes said both Caligari's stylistic elements, and the Cesare character in particular, influenced the Universal Studios horror films of the 1930s, which often prominently featured some sort of monster, such as Frankenstein (1931), (1932), The Black Cat (1934), and Bride of Frankenstein (1935). The Expressionism of Caligari also influenced American avant-garde film, particularly those that used fantastic settings to illustrate an inhuman environment overpowering an individual. Early examples include The Fall of the House of Usher (1928), The Last Moment (1928) and The Life and Death of 9413: a Hollywood Extra (1928). LoBrutto wrote, "Few films throughout motion picture history have had more influence on the avant-garde, art, and student cinema than Caligari".

Caligari and German Expressionism heavily influenced the American film noir period of the 1940s and '50s, both in visual style and narrative tone. Noir films tended to portray everyone, even the innocent, as the object of suspicion, a common thread in Caligari. The genre also employs several Expressionistic elements in its dark and shadowy visual style, stylized and abstract photography, and distorted and expressive make-up and acting. Caligari also influenced films produced in the Soviet Union, such as (1924) and The Overcoat (1926). Observers have noted the black and white films of Ingmar Bergman bear a resemblance to the German films of the 1920s, and film historian Roy Armes has called him "the true heir" of Caligari. Bergman himself, however, has downplayed the influence of German Expressionism on his work. Caligari has also affected stage theatre. Siegfried Kracauer wrote that the film's use of the iris shot has been mimicked in theatrical productions, with lighting used to single out a lone actor.

Caligari continues to be one of the most discussed and debated films from the Weimar Republic. Two major books have played a large part in shaping the perception of the film and its effect on cinema as a whole: Siegfried Kracauer's From Caligari to Hitler (1947) and Lotte Eisner's The Haunted Screen (1974). From Caligari to Hitler based its claims about the film largely on an unpublished typescript by Hans Janowitz called Caligari: The Story of a Famous Story, which gave Janowitz and Carl Mayer principal credit for the making of Caligari. Mike Budd wrote of Kracauer's book: "Perhaps no film or period has been so thoroughly understood through a particular interpretation as has Caligari, and Weimar cinema generally, through Kracauer's social-psychological approach". Prior to the publication of From Caligari to Hitler, few critics had derived any symbolic political meaning from the film, but Kracauer's argument that it symbolized German obedience toward authority and a premonition of the rise of Adolf Hitler drastically changed attitudes about Caligari. Many of his interpretations of the film are still embraced, even by those who have strongly disagreed with his general premise, and even as certain claims Kracauer made have been disproven, such as his statement that the original script included no frame story. Eisner's book, meanwhile, placed Caligari into historical context by identifying how it influenced Expressionist features in other films of the 1920s.

Film historian David Robinson claimed Wiene, despite being the director of Caligari, is often given the least amount of credit for its production. He believes this is in part because Wiene died in 1938, closer to the release of the film than any other major collaborators, and was therefore unable to defend his involvement in the work while others took credit. In fact, Robinson argues Caligari ultimately hurt Wiene's reputation because his subsequent films did not match its success, so he is often wrongly considered "a one-film director" for whom Caligari was "a lucky fluke".

Caligari, like a number of Weimar films that followed it, thematizes brutal and irrational authority by making a violent and possibly insane authority figure its antagonist. Kracauer said Caligari was symbolic of the German war government and fatal tendencies inherent in the German system, saying the character "stands for an unlimited authority that idolizes power as such, and, to satisfy its lust for domination, ruthlessly violates all human rights and values". Likewise, John D. Barlow described Caligari as an example of the tyrannical power and authority that had long plagued Germany, while Cesare represents the "common man of unconditional obedience". Janowitz has claimed Cesare represents the common citizen who is conditioned to kill or be killed, just as soldiers are trained during their military service, and that Caligari is symbolic of the German government sending those soldiers off to die in the war. The control Caligari yields over the minds and actions of others results in chaos and both moral and social perversion. Cesare lacks any individuality and is simply a tool of his master; Barlow writes that he is so dependent on Caligari that he falls dead when he strays too far from the source of his sustenance, "like a machine that has run out of fuel".

In his book From Caligari to Hitler, Kracauer argues the Caligari character is symptomatic of a subconscious need in German society for a tyrant, which he calls the German "collective soul". Kracauer argues Caligari and Cesare are premonitions of Adolf Hitler and his rule over Germany, and that his control over the weak-willed, puppet-like somnambulist prefigures aspects of the mentality that allowed the Nazi Party to rise. He calls Caligari's use of hypnotism to impose his will foreshadowing of Hitler's "manipulation of the soul". Kracauer described the film as an example of Germany's obedience to authority and failure or unwillingness to rebel against deranged authority, and reflects a "general retreat" into a shell that occurred in post-war Germany. Cesare symbolizes those who have no mind of their own and must follow the paths of others; Kracauer wrote he foreshadows a German future in which "self-appointed Caligaris hypnotized innumerable Cesares into murder". Barlow rejects Kracauer's claims that the film glorifies authority "just because it has not made a preachy statement against it", and said the connection between Caligari and Hitler lies in the mood the film conveys, not an endorsement of such tyrant on the film's part.

Everyday reality in Caligari is dominated by tyrannical aspects. Authorities sit atop high perches above the people they deal with and hold offices out of sight at the end of long, forbidding stairways. Most of the film's characters are caricatures who fit neatly into prescribed social roles, such as the outraged citizens chasing a public enemy, the authoritarian police who are deferential to their superiors, the oft-harassed bureaucratic town clerk, and the asylum attendants who act like stereotypical "little men in white suits". Only Caligari and Cesare are atypical of social roles, instead serving as, in Barlow's words, "abstractions of social fears, the incarnations of demonic forces of a nightmarish world the bourgeoisie was afraid to acknowledge, where self-assertion is pushed to willful and arbitrary power over others". Kracauer wrote the film demonstrates a contrast between the rigid control, represented by such characters as Caligari and the town clerk, and chaos, represented by the crowds of people at the fair and the seemingly never-ending spinning of the merry-go-rounds. He said the film leaves no room for middle ground between these two extremes, and that viewers are forced to embrace either insanity or authoritarian rigidity, leaving little space for human freedom. Kracauer writes: " Caligari exposes the soul wavering between tyranny and chaos, and facing a desperate situation: any escape from tyranny seems to throw it into a state of utter confusion".

Caligari is not the only symbol of arrogant authority in the film. In fact, he is a victim of harsh authority himself during the scene with the dismissive town clerk, who brushes him off and ignores him to focus on his paperwork. Film historian Thomas Elsaesser argues that Caligari's murderous rampage through Cesare can be seen as a rebellious, anti-authoritarian streak in response to such experiences as these, even in spite of his own authoritarianism. The Expressionistic set design in this scene further amplifies the power of the official and the weakness of his supplicant; the clerk towers in an excessively high chair over the small and humiliated Caligari. The scene represents class and status differences, and conveys the psychological experience of being simultaneously outraged and powerless in the face of a petty bureaucracy. Another common visual motif is the use of stairways to illustrate the hierarchy of authority figures, such as the multiple stairs leading up to police headquarters, and three staircases ascending to Caligari in the asylum.

Francis expresses resentment of all forms of authority, particularly during the end of the frame story, when he feels he has been institutionalized because of the madness of the authorities, not because there is anything wrong with him. Francis can be seen, at least within the main narrative, as a symbol of reason and enlightenment triumphing over the irrational tyrant and unmasking the absurdity of social authority. But Kracauer contended the frame story undermines that premise. He argues if not for the frame story, the tale of Francis's efforts against Caligari would have been a praiseworthy example of independence and rebellion against authority. However, with the addition of the frame story, which places the veracity of Francis's claims into question, Kracauer argues the film glorifies authority and turns a reactionary story into an authoritarian film: "The result of these modifications was to falsify the action and to ultimately reduce it to the ravings of a madman." Kracauer believed these changes were not necessarily intentional, but rather an "instinctive submission to the necessities of the screen" because commercial films had to "answer to mass desires". Fritz Lang disagreed with Kracauer's argument, and instead believes the frame story makes the film's revolutionary inclinations more convincing, not less. David Robinson said, as time passed, filmgoers have been less inclined to interpret the film as a vindication of authority because modern audiences have grown more skeptical of authority in general, and are more inclined to believe Francis's story and interpret the asylum director as wrongly committing Francis to silence him.

Another major theme of Caligari is, Stephen Brockmann writes, "the destabilized contrast between insanity and sanity and hence the destabilization of the very notion of sanity itself". By the end of the film, according to Brockman, viewers realize the story they have been watching has been told from the perspective of an insane narrator, and therefore they cannot accept anything they have seen as reliable. The film's unusual visual abstractions and other stylized elements serve to show the world as one experienced by a madman. Similarly, the film has been described as portraying the story as a nightmare and the frame story as the real world. John D. Barlow said the film exemplifies a common Expressionist theme that "the ultimate perception of reality will appear distorted and insane to the healthy and practical mind". The film serves as a reminder that any story told through a flashback subjectivizes the story from the perspective of the narrator. At the end of the film, the asylum director gives no indication that he means Francis ill will, and in fact he seems, to Barlow, to truly care for his patients. But Francis nevertheless believes he is being persecuted, so in the story as told from his perspective, Caligari takes on the role of persecutor.

However, the Expressionistic visual elements of the film are present not only in the main narrative, but also in the epilogue and prologue scenes of the frame story, which are supposed to be an objective account of reality. For example, the frame story scenes still have trees with tentacle-like branches and a high, foreboding wall in the background. Strange leaf and line patterns are seen on the bench Francis sits upon, flame-like geometric designs can be seen on the walls, and his asylum cell has the same distorted shape as in the main narrative. If the primary story were strictly the delusions of a madman, the frame story would be completely devoid of those elements, but the fact they are present makes it unclear whether that perspective can be taken as reliable either. Instead, the film offers no true or normal world to oppose to that of the twisted and nightmarish world as described by Francis. As a result, after the film's closing scene, it can be seen as ambiguous whether Francis or the asylum director is truly the insane one, or whether both are insane. Likewise, the final shot of the film, with an iris that fades to a close-up on the asylum director's face, further creates doubt over whether the character is actually sane and trustworthy. In Brockman's words, "In the end, the film is not just about one unfortunate madman; it is about an entire world that is possibly out of balance". Mike Budd notes that, during the scene in which asylum doctors restrain Francis, his movements closely mimic those of Caligari from a similar scene during the main story. Budd says this suggests a "dream logic of repetition" that throws further confusion on which perspective is reality.

Beyond Francis's individual circumstances, the use of the narrator's perspective in Dr. Caligari can be seen as reflective of a worldview of the screenwriters. Mayer and Janowitz were pacifists opposed to what Eisner described as the willingness of Germans to commit themselves to the dark forces, such as demoniac magic and supernatural powers, that led to death on the battlefield. Although he does not think it possible to reduce the narrative or the film to the beliefs of its makers, Eisner claims Francis can be seen as embodying the politics of Expressionism's anti-naturalism, through which a protagonist does not see the world objectively, but has "visions" that are abstracted from individuality and psychology. The framing device of an insane asylum, for Eisner, has a broader connotation as a statement on social reality in the context of the " state of exception". Here, Eisner claims, the militarist and imperialist tendency of monopoly capitalism is combined with what Sigmund Freud would later refer to as the longing for protection by a tyrannical father figure, or what Kracauer characterized as "asocial authority".

Duality is another common theme in Caligari. Caligari is portrayed in the main narrative as an insane tyrant, and in the frame story as a respected authority and director of a mental institution. As a result of this duality, it is possible for the viewer to suspect a malevolent aspect of him at the conclusion of the film, even despite evidence indicating he is a kind and caring man. Even within the main narrative alone, Caligari lives a double life: holding a respectable position as the asylum director, but becoming a hypnotist and murderer at night. Additionally, the character is actually a double of the "real" Caligari, an 18th-century mystic whom the film character becomes so obsessed with that he desires to penetrate his innermost secrets and "become Caligari". Francis also takes on a double life of sorts, serving as the heroic protagonist in the main narrative and a patient in a mental institution in the frame story. Anton Kaes described the story Francis tells as an act of transference with his psychiatrist, as well as a projection of his feelings that he is a victim under the spell of the all-powerful asylum director, just as Cesare is the hypnotized victim of Caligari. The Cesare character serves as both a persecutor and a victim, as he is both a murderer and the unwilling slave of an oppressive master.

Siegfried Kracauer said by coupling a fantasy in which Francis overthrows a tyrannical authority with a reality in which authority triumphs over Francis, Caligari reflects a double aspect of German life, suggesting they reconsider their traditional belief in authority even as they embrace it. A contrast between levels of reality exists not only in the characterizations, but in the presentation of some of the scenes as well. This, Barlow writes, "reveals a contrast between external calm and internal chaos". For example, flashback scenes when Francis reads Caligari's diary, in which the doctor is shown growing obsessed with learning hypnotic powers, take place as Caligari is sleeping peacefully in the present. Another example is the fair, which on the surface appears to represent fun and escapism, but reveals a lurking sense of chaos and disaster in the form of Caligari and Cesare. The visual elements of the film also convey a sense of duality, particularly in the contrasts between black and white. This is especially prevalent in the sets, where black shadows are set against white walls, but also in other elements like the costumes and make-up. For instance, Caligari wears mostly black, but white streaks are present in his hair and on his gloves. Cesare's face is a ghostly white, but the darks of his eyes are heavily outlined in black. Likewise, Jane's white face contrasts with her deep, dark eyes.

Critics have suggested that Caligari highlights some of the neuroses prevalent in Germany and the Weimar Republic when the film was made, particularly in the shadow of World War I, at a time when extremism was rampant, reactionaries still controlled German institutions, and citizens feared the harm the Treaty of Versailles would have on the economy. Siegfried Kracauer wrote that the paranoia and fear portrayed in the film were signs of things to come in Germany, and that the film reflected a tendency in Germans to "retreat into themselves" and away from political engagement following the war. Vincent LoBrutto wrote that the film can be seen as a social or political analogy of "the moral and physical breakdown of Germany at the time, with a madman on the loose wreaking havoc on a distorted and off-balanced society, a metaphor for a country in chaos".

Anton Kaes, who called Caligari "an aggressive statement about war psychiatry, murder and deception", wrote that Alan's question to Cesare, "How long have I to live?" reflected the trauma German citizens experienced during the war, as that question was often on the minds of soldiers and of family members back home concerned about their loved ones in the military. Francis's despair after Alan's murder can likewise be compared to that of the many soldiers who survived the war but saw their friends die on the battlefield. Kaes noted other parallels between the film and war experiences, noting that Cesare attacked Alan at dawn, a common time for attacks during the war. Thomas Elsaesser called Caligari an "outstanding example of how 'fantastic' representations in German films from the early 1920s seem to bear the imprint of pressures from external events, to which they refer only through the violence with which they disguise and disfigure them".

Sequels, remakes and musical works

Several unsuccessful attempts were made to produce sequels and remakes in the decades following Caligari's release. Robert Wiene bought the rights to Caligari from Universum Film AG in 1934 with the intention of filming a sound remake, which never materialized before Wiene's death in 1938. He intended to cast Jean Cocteau as Cesare, and a script, believed to be written by Wiene, indicated the Expressionist style would have been replaced with a French surrealist style. In 1944, Erich Pommer and Hans Janowitz each separately attempted to obtain the legal rights to the film, with hopes of a Hollywood remake. Pommer attempted to argue he had a better claim to the rights because the primary value of the original film came not from the writing, but "in the revolutionary way the picture was produced". However, both Janowitz and Pommer ran into complications related to the invalidity of Nazi law in the United States, and uncertainty over the legal rights of sound and silent films. Janowitz wrote a treatment for a remake, and in January 1945 was offered a minimum guarantee of $16,000 against a five-percent royalty for his rights to the original film for a sequel to be directed by Fritz Lang, but the project never came to fruition. Later, Janowitz planned a sequel called Caligari II, and unsuccessfully attempted to sell the property to a Hollywood producer for $30,000.

Around 1947, Hollywood agent Paul Kohner and German filmmaker Ernst Matray also planned a Caligari sequel; Matray and his wife Maria Solveg wrote a screenplay called The Return of Caligari. That script would have reimagined Caligari as a former Nazi officer and war criminal, but the film was never produced. In 1960, independent Hollywood producer Robert Lippert acquired the rights to Caligari from Matray and Universum Film AG for $50,000, and produced a film called The Cabinet of Caligari, which was released in 1962. Screenwriter Robert Bloch did not intend to write a Caligari remake, and in fact the title was forced upon his untitled screenplay by director Roger Kay. The film had few similarities to the original Caligari except for its title and a plot twist at the end, in which it is revealed the story was simply the delusion of the protagonist, who believed she was being held captive by a character named Caligari. Instead, he was her psychiatrist, and he cures her at the end of the film.

A quasi-sequel, called Dr. Caligari, was released in 1989, directed by Stephen Sayadian and starring Madeleine Reynal as the granddaughter of the original Caligari, now running an asylum and performing bizarre hormonal experiments on its patients. The sex-driven story ultimately had little in common with the original film. In 1992, theatre director Peter Sellars released his only feature film, The Cabinet of Dr. Ramirez, an experimental film loosely based on Caligari. However, the storyline was created as the film was being made, so it has few similarities with the original film. The film was screened only at the 1992 Sundance Film Festival and never theatrically released. An independent film remake of Caligari edited, written and directed by David Lee Fisher was released in 2005, in which new actors were placed in front of the actual backdrops from the original film. The actors performed in front of a green screen, then their performances were superimposed in front of matte shots based on the original sets. Doug Jones played the role of Cesare.

Numerous musicians have composed new scores to accompany the film. The Club Foot Orchestra premiered a score penned by ensemble founder and artistic director Richard Marriott in 1987. The Israeli Electronica group TaaPet composed a soundtrack for the film and performed it several times through Israel in 2000. The British composer and musician Geoff Smith composed a new soundtrack for the film in 2003. The Dutch psychedelic band Monomyth composed a new score and performed it during a screening of Caligari at the Imagine Film Festival in the Netherlands in April 2016. Bertelsmann/BMG commissioned Timothy Brock to adapt his 1996 score for string orchestra for a 2014 restoration; Brock conducted the premiere in Brussels on 15 September 2014. In 2012, the Chatterbox Audio Theatre recorded a live soundtrack, including dialogue, sound effects, and music for Caligari, which was released on YouTube on 30 October 2013. Two new scores were recorded for a 2016 DVD release of Caligari: a traditional score by Timothy Brock performed by the Brussels Philharmonic, and an electroacoustic score by Edison Studio, a collective of composers.

In 1981, Bill Nelson was asked by the Yorkshire Actors Company to create a soundtrack for a stage adaptation of the film. That music was later recorded for his 1982 album Das Kabinet (The Cabinet Of Doctor Caligari).

In 1983, the German TV station ZDF commissioned composer Peter Michael Hamel to create a new score for a restoration of the film, based on a 1921 print. The version with Hamel's music premiered on ZDF in May 1983, and was subsequently broadcast during the 1980s and 1990s on TV stations in a number of European countries, including Spain and Poland.

Caligari was adapted into an opera in 1997 by composer John Moran. It premiered at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in a production by Robert McGrath. Joseph Kahn and Rob Zombie directed a music video for the 1999 single " Living Dead Girl" with imagery directly inspired by The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, with Zombie's wife Sheri Moon Zombie playing the Cesare part. In 2015, Indian scenographer and director Deepan Sivaraman adapted the film into an hour-long mixed-media piece with the performance studies students at Ambedkar University Delhi as part of a course entitled "Space and Spectatorship". Scottish Opera's Connect Company commissioned composer Karen MacIver and librettist Allan Dunn to produce an opera based on The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, which was first performed in 2016. Though it shared the same story as the film, the setting was changed to Glasgow Green and Gartloch in Glasgow, Scotland.

In 2020, Spanish post-rock band Toundra has released their own soundtrack to the movie. It has been released exactly 100 years after the original film premiere. The album consists of 7 songs, which match the film structure - opening title sequenz, plus six film acts. The songs are also the same length as the acts, so the music can be played along the film, perfectly synchronizing. The whole movie with the music can be seen on Vimeo platform, with original, and Spanish subtitles.

In 1998, an audio adaptation of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari written and directed by Yuri Rasovsky was released by Tangled Web Audio on audio cassette. The cast included John de Lancie, Kaitlin Hopkins, and Robertson Dean. The dramatization won the Independent Publisher Book Award for Best Direct-to-Audio Production in 1998. In 2008, BBC Radio 3 broadcast an audio adaptation by Amanda Dalton entitled Caligari, starring Luke Treadaway, Tom Ferguson, Sarah McDonald Hughes, Terence Mann, and countertenor Robin Blaze as Cesare. Caligari was an entirely silent character in this adaptation.

Amiguet, Frédéric-Philippe (1923). Cinéma! Cinéma!. Paris: Payot & Cie.

Budd, Mike (1990). "The Moments of Caligari". The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari: Texts, Contexts, Histories. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0-8135-1571-7.

Eisner, Lotte H. (1974). The Haunted Screen: Expressionism in the German Cinema and the Influence of Max Reinhardt. Oakland, California: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-02479-3.

The Entertainment Weekly Guide to The Greatest Movies Ever Made. New York City: Time Warner. 1996. ASIN B000EELLOQ.

Janowitz, Hans (1941). "Caligari: The Story of a Famous Story". The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari: Texts, Contexts, Histories. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0-8135-1571-7.

Jacobs, Lewis (1939). The Rise of the American Film: A Critical History. San Diego: Harcourt, Brace and Company. ASIN B00277PV5S.

Kaes, Anton (2006). "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari: Expressionism and Cinema". Masterpieces of Modernist Cinema. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-34771-8.

Kracauer, Siegfried (1947). From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-02505-6.

Patterson, Michael (1981). The Revolution in German Theatre, 1900-1933. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Books. ISBN 978-0-7100-0659-2.

Scheunemann, Dietrich (2003b). "The Double, the Décor, and the Framing Device: Once More of Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari". Expressionist Film: New Perspectives. Rochester, New York: Camden House Publishing. ISBN 978-1-57113-350-2.

Thomson, David (2008). 'Have You Seen...?" A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films. New York City: Alfred A. Knopf. ASIN B00JW73ARC.

Wright, Willard Huntington, "The Romance of the Third Dimension," , September 1921, p. 41.

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The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari ( German: Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari ) is a 1920 German silent horror film, directed by Robert Wiene and written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer. Considered the quintessential work of German Expressionist cinema, it tells the story of an insane hypnotist ( Werner Krauss) who uses a somnambulist ( Conrad Veidt) to commit murders.

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Ragnar Kjartansson engages multiple artistic mediums, creating video installations, performances, drawings, and paintings that draw upon myriad historical and cultural references. An underlying pathos and irony connect his works, with each deeply influenced by the comedy and tragedy of classical theater. The artist blurs the distinctions between mediums, approaching his painting practice as performance, likening his films to paintings, and his performances to sculpture. Throughout, Kjartansson conveys an interest in beauty and its banality, and he uses durational, repetitive performance as a form of exploration.

Kjartansson (b. 1976) lives and works in Reykjavík. Major solo shows include exhibitions at the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Reykjavík Art Museum; the Barbican Centre, London; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Park, Washington D.C.; the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal; the Palais de Tokyo, Paris; the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich; the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; and the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; among others. Kjartansson participated in The Encyclopedic Palac e at the Venice Biennale in 2013, Manifesta 10 in St. Petersburg, Russia in 2014, and he represented Iceland at the 2009 Venice Biennale. The artist received the 2019 Ars Fennica Award, and was the recipient of the 2015 Artes Mundi's Derek Williams Trust Purchase Award, and Performa's 2011 Malcolm McLaren Award.

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Ragnar Kjartansson engages multiple artistic mediums, creating video installations, performances, drawings, and paintings that draw upon myriad historical and cultural references. An underlying pathos and irony connect his works, with each deeply influenced by the comedy and tragedy of classical theater.

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THE LORD WILL DELIVER HIS PEOPLE ACROSS JORDAN

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THE LORD WILL DELIVER HIS PEOPLE ACROSS JORDAN

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THE LORD WILL DELIVER HIS PEOPLE ACROSS JORDAN

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Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii

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Title

Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii

Mediums Description

fifty-one channel video installation (including one closed-circuit television feed), custom electronics, neon lighting, steel and wood; color, sound

Keywords

Object - written matter - map

Object - furniture - television

Landscape - United States

When Nam June Paik came to the United States in 1964, the interstate highway system was only nine years old, and superhighways offered everyone the freedom to "see the U.S.A. in your Chevrolet." Walking along the entire length of this installation suggests the enormous scale of the nation that confronted the young Korean artist when he arrived. Neon outlines the monitors, recalling the multicolored maps and glowing enticements of motels and restaurants that beckoned Americans to the open road. The different colors remind us that individual states still have distinct identities and cultures, even in today's information age.

Paik augmented the flashing images "seen as though from a passing car" with audio clips from The Wizard of Oz, Oklahoma, and other screen gems, suggesting that our picture of America has always been influenced by film and television. Today, the Internet and twenty-four-hour broadcasting tend to homogenize the customs and accents of what was once a more diverse nation. Paik was the first to use the phrase "electronic superhighway," and this installation proposes that electronic media provide us with what we used to leave home to discover. But Electronic Superhighway is real. It is an enormous physical object that occupies a middle ground between the virtual reality of the media and the sprawling country beyond our doors.

Exhibition Label, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2006

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Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii

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Title Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii Mediums Description fifty-one channel video installation (including one closed-circuit television feed), custom electronics, neon lighting, steel and wood; color, sound Keywords Object - written matter - map Object - furniture - television Landscape - United States When Nam June Paik came to the United States in 1964, the interstate highway system was only nine years old, and superhighways offered everyone the freedom to "see the U.S.A.

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The Book of Kells ( Latin: Codex Cenannensis; Irish: Leabhar Cheanannais; Dublin, Trinity College Library, MS A. I. [58], sometimes known as the Book of Columba) is an illuminated manuscript Gospel book in Latin, containing the four Gospels of the New Testament together with various prefatory texts and tables. It was created in a Columban monastery in either Scotland, England, or Ireland and may have had contributions from various Columban institutions from each of these areas. It is believed to have been created c. 800 AD. The text of the Gospels is largely drawn from the Vulgate, although it also includes several passages drawn from the earlier versions of the Bible known as the Vetus Latina. It is a masterwork of Western calligraphy and represents the pinnacle of Insular illumination. The manuscript takes its name from the Abbey of Kells, which was its home for centuries.

The illustrations and ornamentation of the Book of Kells surpass that of other Insular Gospel books in extravagance and complexity. The decoration combines traditional Christian iconography with the ornate swirling motifs typical of Insular art. Figures of humans, animals and mythical beasts, together with Celtic knots and interlacing patterns in vibrant colours, enliven the manuscript's pages. Many of these minor decorative elements are imbued with Christian symbolism and so further emphasise the themes of the major illustrations.

The manuscript today comprises 340 leaves or folios; the recto and verso of each leaf total 680 pages. Since 1953, it has been bound in four volumes, 330 mm by 250 mm (13 inches by 9.8 inches). The leaves are high-quality calf vellum; the unprecedentedly elaborate ornamentation that covers them includes ten full-page illustrations and text pages that are vibrant with decorated initials and interlinear miniatures, marking the furthest extension of the anti-classical and energetic qualities of Insular art. The Insular majuscule script of the text appears to be the work of at least three different scribes. The lettering is in iron gall ink, and the colours used were derived from a wide range of substances, some of which were imported from distant lands.

The manuscript is in Trinity College Library, Dublin which usually has on display at any given time two of the four volumes it is now divided into, open to show a major illustration from one and a typical text page from the other, rotated frequently. A digitised version of the entire manuscript may also be seen online.

The Book of Kells is one of the finest and most famous, and also one of the latest, of a group of manuscripts in what is known as the Insular style, produced from the late 6th through the early 9th centuries in monasteries in Ireland, Scotland and England and in continental monasteries with Hiberno-Scottish or Anglo-Saxon foundations. These manuscripts include the Cathach of St. Columba, the Ambrosiana Orosius, fragmentary Gospel in the Durham Dean and Chapter Library (all from the early 7th century), and the Book of Durrow (from the second half of the 7th century). From the early 8th century come the Durham Gospels, the Echternach Gospels, the Lindisfarne Gospels (see illustration at right), and the Lichfield Gospels. Among others, the St. Gall Gospel Book belongs to the late 8th century and the Book of Armagh (dated to 807-809) to the early 9th century.

Scholars place these manuscripts together based on similarities in artistic style, script, and textual traditions. The fully developed style of the ornamentation of the Book of Kells places it late in this series, either from the late 8th or early 9th century. The Book of Kells follows many of the iconographic and stylistic traditions found in these earlier manuscripts. For example, the form of the decorated letters found in the incipit pages for the Gospels is surprisingly consistent in Insular Gospels. Compare, for example, the incipit pages of the Gospel of Matthew in the Lindisfarne Gospels and in the Book of Kells, both of which feature intricate decorative knot work patterns inside the outlines formed by the enlarged initial letters of the text. (For a more complete list of related manuscripts, see: List of Hiberno-Saxon illustrated manuscripts).

The Abbey of Kells in Kells, County Meath had been founded, or refounded, from Iona Abbey, construction taking from 807 until the consecration of the church in 814. The manuscript's date and place of production have been subjects of considerable debate. Traditionally, the book was thought to have been created in the time of Columba, possibly even as the work of his own hands. This tradition has long been discredited on paleographic and stylistic grounds: most evidence points to a composition date c. 800, long after St. Columba's death in 597. The proposed dating in the 9th century coincides with Viking raids on Lindisfarne and Iona, which began c. 793-794 and eventually dispersed the monks and their holy relics into Ireland and Scotland. There is another tradition, with some traction among Irish scholars, that suggests the manuscript was created for the 200th anniversary of the saint's death. Alternatively, as is thought possible for the Northumbrian Lindisfarne Gospels and also the St Cuthbert Gospel, both with Saint Cuthbert, it may have been produced to mark the "translation" or moving of Columba's remains into a shrine reliquary, which probably had taken place by the 750s.

There are at least five competing theories about the manuscript's place of origin and time of completion. First, the book, or perhaps just the text, may have been created at Iona and then completed in Kells. Second, the book may have been produced entirely at Iona. Third, the manuscript may have been produced entirely in the scriptorium at Kells. Fourth, it may have been produced in the north of England, perhaps at Lindisfarne, then brought to Iona and from there to Kells. Finally, it may have been the product of Dunkeld or another monastery in Pictish Scotland, though there is no actual evidence for this theory, especially considering the absence of any surviving manuscript from Pictland. Although the question of the exact location of the book's production will probably never be answered conclusively, the first theory, that it was begun at Iona and continued at Kells, is widely accepted. Regardless of which theory is true, it is certain that the Book of Kells was produced by Columban monks closely associated with the community at Iona.

The historical circumstances which informed the Book of Kells' production were the preservation of the Latin language after the fall of the Roman Empire and the establishment of monastic life which entailed the production of texts. Cassiodorus in particular advocated both practices, having founded the monastery Vivarium in the sixth century and having written Institutiones, a work which describes and recommends several texts-both religious and secular-for study by monks. Vivarium included a scriptorium for the reproduction of books in both genres. Later, the Carolingian period introduced the innovation of copying texts onto vellum, a material much more durable than the papyrus to which many ancient writings had been committed. Gradually, these traditions spread throughout the European continent and finally to the British Isles.

Kells Abbey was pillaged by Vikings many times in the beginning of the 9th century, and how the book survived is not known. The earliest historical reference to the book, and indeed to the book's presence at Kells, can be found in a 1007 entry in the Annals of Ulster. This entry records that "the great Gospel of Columkille, (Columba) the chief relic of the Western World, was wickedly stolen during the night from the western sacristy of the great stone church at Cenannas on account of its wrought shrine". The manuscript was recovered a few months later-minus its golden and bejewelled cover-"under a sod". It is generally assumed that the "great Gospel of Columkille" is the Book of Kells. If this is correct, then the book was in Kells by 1007 and had been there long enough for thieves to learn of its presence. The force of ripping the manuscript free from its cover may account for the folios missing from the beginning and end of the Book of Kells. The description in the Annals of the book as "of Columkille"-that is, having belonged to, and perhaps being made by Columba-suggests that the book was believed at that time to have been made on Iona.

Regardless, the book was certainly at Kells in the 12th century, when land charters pertaining to the Abbey of Kells were copied onto some of its blank pages. The practice of copying charters into important books was widespread in the medieval period, and such inscriptions in the Book of Kells provide concrete evidence about its location at the time.

The Abbey of Kells was dissolved because of the ecclesiastical reforms of the 12th century. The abbey church was converted to a parish church in which the Book of Kells remained.

Book of Kildare

The 12th-century writer Gerald of Wales, in his Topographia Hibernica, described seeing a great Gospel Book in Kildare which many have since assumed was the Book of Kells. The description certainly matches Kells:

This book contains the harmony of the Four Evangelists according to Jerome, where for almost every page there are different designs... and other forms almost infinite... Fine craftsmanship is all about you, but you might not notice it. Look more keenly at it and you will penetrate to the very shrine of art. You will make out intricacies, so delicate and subtle, so exact and compact, so full of knots and links, with colours so fresh and vivid, that you might say that all this was the work of an angel, and not of a man.

Since Gerald claims to have seen this book in Kildare, he may have seen another, now lost, book equal in quality to the Book of Kells, or he may have misstated his location.

The Book of Kells remained in Kells until 1654. In that year, Cromwell's cavalry was quartered in the church at Kells, and the governor of the town sent the book to Dublin for safekeeping. Henry Jones, who later became bishop of Meath after the Restoration, presented the manuscript to Trinity College in Dublin in 1661, and it has remained there ever since, except for brief loans to other libraries and museums. It has been on display to the public in the Old Library at Trinity since the 19th century.

The manuscript's rise to worldwide fame began in the 19th century. The association with St. Columba, who died the same year Augustine brought Christianity and literacy to Canterbury from Rome, was used to demonstrate Ireland's cultural primacy, seemingly providing "irrefutable precedence in the debate on the relative authority of the Irish and Roman churches". Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were invited to sign the book in 1849. The book's artistry was influential on the Celtic Revival; several Victorian picture books of medieval illuminations featured designs from the book which were in turn extensively copied and adapted, patterns appearing in metalwork, embroidery, furniture and pottery among other crafts.

Over the centuries, the book has been rebound several times. During a 19th-century rebinding, the pages were badly cropped, with small parts of some illustrations being lost. The book was also rebound in 1895, but that rebinding broke down quickly. By the late 1920s, several folios had detached completely and were kept separate from the main volume. In 1953, bookbinder Roger Powell rebound the manuscript in four volumes and stretched several pages that had developed bulges. Two volumes can normally be seen displayed at Trinity, one opened at a major decorated page, and one opened to show two text pages with smaller decorations.

In 2000, the volume containing the Gospel of Mark was sent to Canberra, Australia, for an exhibition of illuminated manuscripts. This was only the fourth time the Book of Kells had been sent abroad for exhibition. The volume suffered what has been called "minor pigment damage" while en route to Canberra. It is thought that the vibrations from the aeroplane's engines during the long flight may have caused the damage.

The Book of Kells contains the four Gospels of the Christian scriptures written in black, red, purple, and yellow ink in an insular majuscule script, preceded by prefaces, summaries, and concordances of Gospel passages. Today, it consists of 340 vellum leaves, or folios, totaling 680 pages. Almost all folios are numbered at recto, bottom left. One folio number, 36, was mistakenly double-counted. As a result, the pagination of the entire book is reckoned thus: folio 1r - 36v, 36*r - 36*v (the double-counted folio), and 37r - 339v. The majority of the folios are part of larger sheets, called bifolios, which are folded in half to form two folios. The bifolios are nested inside of each other and sewn together to form gatherings called quires. On occasion, a folio is not part of a bifolio but is instead a single sheet inserted within a quire. The extant folios are gathered into 38 quires. There are between four and twelve folios (two to six bifolios) per quire; the folios are commonly, but not invariably, bound in groups of ten. Some folios are single sheets, as is frequently the case with the important decorated pages. The folios had lines drawn for the text, sometimes on both sides, after the bifolios were folded. Prick marks and guide lines can still be seen on some pages. The vellum is of high quality, although the folios have an uneven thickness, with some being close to leather while others are so thin as to be almost translucent. As many as twelve individuals may have collaborated on the book's production, of whom four scribes and three painters have been distinguished.

The book's current dimensions are 330 by 250 mm. Originally, the folios were of no standard size, but they were cropped to the current size during a 19th-century rebinding. The text area is approximately 250 by 170 mm. Each text page has 16 to 18 lines of text. The manuscript is in remarkably good condition considering its age, though many pages have suffered some damage to the delicate artwork due to rubbing. The book must have been the product of a major scriptorium over several years, yet was apparently never finished, the projected decoration of some pages appearing only in outline. It is believed that the original manuscript consisted of about 370 folios, based on gaps in the text and the absence of key illustrations. The bulk of the missing material (or, about 30 folios) was perhaps lost when the book was stolen in the early 11th century. In 1621 the prominent Anglican clergyman James Ussher counted just 344 folios; presently another four or five are missing from the body of the text, after folios 177, 239, and 330. The missing bifolium 335-36 was found and restored in 1741.

The extant book contains preliminary matter, the complete text of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, and the Gospel of John through John 17:13. The remaining preliminary matter consists of two fragmentary lists of Hebrew names contained in the Gospels, Breves causae (Gospel summaries), Argumenta (short biographies of the Evangelists), and Eusebian canon tables. It is probable that, like the Lindisfarne Gospels and the Books of Durrow and Armagh, part of the lost preliminary material included the letter of Jerome to Pope Damasus I beginning Novum opus, in which Jerome explains the purpose of his translation. It is also possible, though less likely, that the lost material included the letter of Eusebius to Carpianus, in which he explains the use of the canon tables. Of all the insular Gospels, only the Lindisfarne manuscript contains this letter.

There are two fragments of the lists of Hebrew names; one on the recto of the first surviving folio and one on folio 26, which is currently inserted at the end of the prefatory matter for John. The first list fragment contains the end of the list for the Gospel of Matthew. The missing names from Matthew would require an additional two folios. The second list fragment, on folio 26, contains about a fourth of the list for Luke. The list for Luke would require an additional three folios. The structure of the quire in which folio 26 occurs is such that it is unlikely that there are three folios missing between folios 26 and 27, so that it is almost certain that folio 26 is not now in its original location. There is no trace of the lists for Mark and John.

The first list fragment is followed by the canon tables of Eusebius of Caesarea. These tables, which predate the text of the Vulgate, were developed to cross-reference the Gospels. Eusebius divided the Gospel into chapters and then created tables that allowed readers to find where a given episode in the life of Christ was located in each of the Gospels. The canon tables were traditionally included in the prefatory material in most medieval copies of the Vulgate text of the Gospels. The tables in the Book of Kells are however unusable, first because the scribe condensed the tables in such a way as to make them confused. Second and more importantly, the corresponding chapter numbers were never inserted into the margins of the text, making it impossible to find the sections to which the canon tables refer. The reason for the omission remains unclear: the scribe may have planned to add the references upon the manuscript's completion, or he may have deliberately left them out so as not to spoil the appearance of pages.

The Breves causae and Argumenta belong to a pre-Vulgate tradition of manuscripts. The Breves causae are summaries of the Old Latin translations of the Gospels and are divided into numbered chapters. These chapter numbers, like the numbers for the canon tables, are not used on the text pages of the Gospels. It is unlikely that these numbers would have been used, even if the manuscript had been completed, because the chapter numbers corresponded to old Latin translations and would have been difficult to harmonise with the Vulgate text. The Argumenta are collections of legends about the Evangelists. The Breves causae and Argumenta are arranged in a strange order: first come the Breves causae and Argumenta for Matthew, followed by the Breves and Argumenta for Mark, then, quite oddly, come the Argumenta of both Luke and John, followed by their Breves causae. This anomalous order mirrors that found in the Book of Durrow, although in the latter instance, the misplaced sections appear at the very end of the manuscript rather than as part of a continuous preliminary. In other insular manuscripts, such as the Lindisfarne Gospels, the Book of Armagh, and the Echternach Gospels, each Gospel is treated as a separate work and has its preliminaries immediately preceding it. The slavish repetition in Kells of the order of the Breves causae and Argumenta found in Durrow led scholar T. K. Abbott to conclude that the scribes of Kells had either the Book of Durrow or a common model in hand.

The Book of Kells contains the text of the four Gospels based on the Vulgate. It does not, however, contain a pure copy of the Vulgate. There are numerous differences from the Vulgate, where Old Latin translations are used in lieu of Jerome's text. Although such variants are common in all the insular Gospels, there does not seem to be a consistent pattern of variation amongst the various insular texts. Evidence suggests that when the scribes were writing the text they often depended on memory rather than on their exemplar.

The manuscript is written primarily in insular majuscule with some occurrences of minuscule letters (usually e or s). The text is usually written in one long line across the page. Françoise Henry identified at least three scribes in the manuscript, whom she named Hand A, Hand B, and Hand C. Hand A is found on folios 1 through 19v, folios 276 through 289, and folios 307 through the end of the manuscript. Hand A, for the most part, writes eighteen or nineteen lines per page in the brown gall ink common throughout the West. Hand B is found on folios 19r through 26 and folios 124 through 128. Hand B has a somewhat greater tendency to use minuscule and uses red, purple and black ink and a variable number of lines per page. Hand C is found throughout the majority of the text. Hand C also has greater tendency to use minuscule than Hand A. Hand C uses the same brownish gall ink used by hand A and wrote, almost always, seventeen lines per page. Additionally a fourth scribe named Hand D has been hypothesized, to whom folio 104r was attributed.

Errors and deviations

There are several differences between the text and the accepted Gospels. In the genealogy of Jesus, which starts at Luke 3:23, Kells names an extra ancestor. At Matthew 10:34, a common English translation reads "I came not to send peace, but a sword". However, the manuscript reads gaudium ("joy") where it should read gladium ("sword"), thus translating as "I came not (only) to send peace, but joy." The lavishly decorated opening page of the Gospel according to John had been deciphered by George Bain as: "In principio erat verbum verum" (In the beginning was the True Word). Therefore, the incipit is a free translation into Latin of the Greek original λογος rather than a mere copy of the Roman version.

Annotations

Over the centuries multiple annotations have been written in the book, recording page information and historical events. During the 19th century, former Trinity Librarian J.H. Todd numbered the book's folios at recto, bottom left. On several of the blank pages among the preliminaries (folios 5v-7r and 27r) are found land charters pertaining to the Abbey of Kells; recording charters in important books was a common custom in the medieval period. James Ussher transcribed the charters in his collected works, and they were later translated into English. A blank page at the end of Luke (folio 289v) contains a poem complaining of taxation upon church land, dated to the 14th or 15th century. In the early 17th century one Richardus Whit recorded several recent events on the same page in "clumsy" Latin, including a famine in 1586, the accession of James I, and plague in Ireland during 1604. The signature of Thomas Ridgeway, 17th century Treasurer of Ireland, is extant on folio 31v, and the 1853 monogram of John O. Westwood, author of an early modern account of the book, is found on 339r.

Three notes concerning the book's pagination are found together on a single page (folio 334v): in 1568 one Geralde Plunket noted his annotations of the Gospel's chapter numbers throughout the book. A second note from 1588 gave a folio count, and a third note by James Ussher reported 344 folios in the book as of 1621. The bifolium 335-336 was lost and subsequently restored in 1741, recorded in two notes on folio 337r. Plunket's accretions were varied and significant. He inscribed transcriptions in the margins of the major illuminated folios 8r, 29r, 203r and 292r. On folio 32v, he added the annotation "Jesus Christus" in the spandrels of the composition's architecture, identifying the portrait's subject as Christ; in the 19th century this annotation was covered by white paint, altering the composition. Plunket also wrote his name on multiple pages, and added small animal embellishments.

The text is accompanied by many full-page miniature illustrations, while smaller painted decorations appear throughout the text in unprecedented quantities. The decoration of the book is famous for combining intricate detail with bold and energetic compositions. The characteristics of the insular manuscript initial, as described by Carl Nordenfalk, here reach their most extreme realisation: "the initials ... are conceived as elastic forms expanding and contracting with a pulsating rhythm. The kinetic energy of their contours escapes into freely drawn appendices, a spiral line which in turn generates new curvilinear motifs...". The illustrations feature a broad range of colours, with purple, lilac, red, pink, green, and yellow being the colours most often used. Earlier manuscripts tend toward more narrow palettes: the Book of Durrow, for example, uses only four colours. As is usual with insular work, there was no use of gold or silver leaf in the manuscript. The pigments for the illustrations included red and yellow ochre, green copper pigment (sometimes called ), indigo, and possibly lapis lazuli. These would have been imported from the Mediterranean region and, in the case of the lapis lazuli (also known as ultramarine), from northeast Afghanistan. Though the presence of lapis lazuli has long been considered evidence of the great cost required to create the manuscript, recent examination of the pigments has shown that lapis lazuli was not used.

The lavish illumination programme is far greater than any other surviving Insular Gospel book. Thirty-three of the surviving pages contain decorative elements which dominate the entire page. These include ten full-page miniature illustrations: a portrait of the Virgin and Child, three pages of evangelist symbols informed by the tetramorphs described in Ezekiel and Revelation, two evangelist portraits, a portrait of Christ enthroned, a carpet page, and scenes of the Arrest of Jesus and Temptation of Christ. Twelve fully decorated text pages embellish the book's verses, of which the most extreme examples are the four incipits beginning each Gospel, together with the Chi Rho monogram, a page receiving comparable treatment which heralds a "second beginning" of Matthew, the narrative of Christ's life following his genealogy. Another six fully decorated text pages emphasize various points in the Passion story, while a seventh corresponds to the Temptation. The first eleven pages of the extant manuscript begin with a decorated list of Hebrew names, followed by ten pages of Eusebian canon tables framed by architectural elements. Additionally, fourteen pages feature large decorative elements which do not extend throughout the entire page.

It is highly probable that there were other pages of miniature and decorated text that are now lost. Henry identified at least three distinct artists. The "Goldsmith" was responsible for the Chi Rho page, using colour to convey metallic hues. The "Illustrator" was given to idiosyncratic portraits, having produced the Temptation and the Arrest of Christ. The "Portrait Painter" executed the portraits of Christ and the Evangelists. Almost every page contains a decorative element incorporating colour; throughout the text pages, these are commonly stylized capitals. Only two pages-folios 29v and 301v-are devoid of pigment colouration or overt pictorial elements, but even they contain trace decorations in ink.

The extant folios of the manuscript start with the fragment of the glossary of Hebrew names. This fragment occupies the left-hand column of folio 1r. A miniature of the four evangelist symbols, now much abraded, occupies the right-hand column. The miniature is oriented so that the volume must be turned ninety degrees to view it properly. The four evangelist symbols are a visual theme that runs throughout the book. They are almost always shown together to emphasise the doctrine of the four Gospels' unity of message.

The unity of the Gospels is further emphasised by the decoration of the Eusebian canon tables. The canon tables illustrate the unity of the Gospels by organising corresponding passages from the Gospels. The Eusebian canon tables normally require twelve pages. In the Book of Kells, the makers of the manuscript planned for twelve pages (folios 1v through 7r) but for unknown reasons, condensed them into ten, leaving folios 6v and 7r blank. This condensation rendered the canon tables unusable. The decoration of the first eight pages of the canon tables is heavily influenced by early Gospel Books from the Mediterranean, where it was traditional to enclose the tables within an arcade (as seen in the London Canon Tables). The Kells manuscript presents this motif in an Insular spirit, where the arcades are not seen as architectural elements but rather become stylised geometric patterns with Insular ornamentation. The four evangelist symbols occupy the spaces under and above the arches. The last two canon tables are presented within a grid. This presentation is limited to Insular manuscripts and was first seen in the Book of Durrow.

The preliminary matter is introduced by an iconic image of the Virgin and Child (folio 7v), the first representation of the Virgin Mary in a Western manuscript. Mary is shown in an odd mixture of frontal and three-quarter pose. This miniature also bears a stylistic similarity to the carved image on the lid of St. Cuthbert's coffin of 698. The iconography of the miniature may derive from an Eastern or Coptic icon.

The miniature of the Virgin and Child faces the first page of text, which begins the Breves causae of Matthew with the phrase Nativitas Christi in Bethlem (the birth of Christ in Bethlehem). The beginning page ( folio 8r) of the text of the Breves causae is decorated and contained within an elaborate frame. The two-page spread of the miniature and the text makes a vivid introductory statement for the prefatory material. The opening lines of six of the other seven pieces of preliminary matter are enlarged and decorated (see above for the Breves causae of Luke), but no other section of the preliminaries is given the same full-page treatment as the beginning of the Breves causae of Matthew.

The book was designed so that each of the Gospels would have an elaborate introductory decorative programme. Each Gospel was originally prefaced by a full page miniature containing the four evangelist symbols, followed by a blank page. Then came a portrait of the evangelist which faced the opening text of the Gospel, itself given an elaborate decorative treatment. The Gospel of Matthew retains both its Evangelist portrait ( folio 28v) and its page of Evangelist symbols (folio 27v, see above). The Gospel of Mark is missing the Evangelist portrait but retains its Evangelist symbols page ( folio 129v). The Gospel of Luke is missing both the portrait and the Evangelist symbols page. The Gospel of John, like the Gospel of Matthew, retains both its portrait (folio 291v, see at right) and its Evangelist symbols page ( folio 290v). It can be assumed that the portraits for Mark and Luke and the symbols page for Luke at one time existed but have been lost.

The ornamentation of the opening few words of each Gospel is lavish; their decoration is so elaborate that the text itself is almost illegible. The opening page (folio 29r) of Matthew may stand as an example. (See illustration at left.) The page consists of only two words: Liber generationis ("The book of the generation"). The lib of Liber is turned into a giant monogram which dominates the entire page. The er of Liber is presented as an interlaced ornament within the b of the lib monogram. Generationis is broken into three lines and contained within an elaborate frame in the right lower quadrant of the page. The entire assemblage is contained within an elaborate border, further decorated with elaborate spirals and knot work, many of which are zoomorphic.

The opening words of the gospel of Mark, Initium evangelii Iesu Christi ("The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ"), Luke, ("Forasmuch"), and John, In principio erat verbum verum ("In the beginning was the True Word"), are all given similar treatments. Although the decoration of these pages was most extensive in the Book of Kells, they are all decorated in the other Insular Gospel books.

The Gospel of Matthew begins with a genealogy of Jesus, followed by his portrait. Folio 32v (top of article) has a miniature of Christ enthroned, flanked by peacocks. Peacocks function as symbols of Christ throughout the book. According to earlier accounts given by Isidore of Seville and Augustine in The City of God, the peacocks' flesh does not putrefy; the animals therefore became associated with Christ via the Resurrection. Facing the portrait of Christ on folio 33r is the only carpet page in the Book of Kells, which is rather anomalous; the Lindisfarne Gospels have five extant carpet pages and the Book of Durrow has six. The blank verso of folio 33 faces the single most lavish miniature of the early medieval period, the Book of Kells Chi Rho monogram, which serves as incipit for the narrative of the life of Christ.

At Matthew 1:18 (folio 34r), the actual narrative of Christ's life starts. This "second beginning" to Matthew was given emphasis in many early Gospel Books, so much so that the two sections were often treated as separate works. The second beginning starts with the word Christ. The Greek letters chi and rho were normally used in medieval manuscripts to abbreviate the word Christ. In Insular Gospel books, the initial Chi Rho monogram was enlarged and decorated. In the Book of Kells, this second beginning was given a decorative programme equal to those prefacing the Gospels, its Chi Rho monogram having grown to consume the entire page. The letter chi dominates the page with one arm swooping across the majority of the page. The letter rho is snuggled underneath the arms of the chi. Both letters are divided into compartments which are lavishly decorated with knot work and other patterns. The background is likewise awash in a mass of swirling and knotted decoration. Within this mass of decoration are hidden animals and insects. Three angels arise from one of the cross arms of the chi. This miniature is the largest and most lavish extant Chi Rho monogram in any Insular Gospel book, the culmination of a tradition that started with the Book of Durrow.

The Book of Kells contains two other full-page illustrations, which depict episodes from the Passion story. The text of Matthew is illustrated with a full-page illumination of the Arrest of Christ ( folio 114r). Jesus is shown beneath a stylised arcade while being held by two much smaller figures. In the text of Luke, there is a full sized miniature of the Temptation of Christ ( folio 202v). Christ is shown from the waist up on top of the Temple. To his right is a crowd of people, perhaps representing his disciples. To his left and below him is a black figure of Satan. Above him hover two angels.

Throughout the body of the Gospels, six fully decorated text pages receive treatment comparable to that of the page which began the Breves causae of Matthew. Of these, five correspond to episodes in the Passion story, and one refers to the Temptation. The verso of the folio containing the Arrest of Christ ( 114v) has a full page of decorated text which reads "Tunc dicit illis Iesus omnes vos scan(dalum)" (Matthew 26:31), where Jesus addresses his disciples immediately before his arrest. A few pages later ( folio 124r) is found a very similar decoration of the phrase "Tunc crucifixerant Xpi cum eo duos latrones" (Matthew 27:38), Christ's crucifixion together with two thieves. In the Gospel of Mark, another decorated page ( folio 183r) gives a description of the Crucifixion (Mark 15:25), while the final (and decorated) page of Mark (folio 187v) describes Christ's Resurrection and Ascension (Mark 16:19-Mark 16:20). In the Gospel of Luke, folio 203r faces the illustration of the Temptation, itself an illumination of the text (Luke 4:1) beginning the Temptation narrative. Finally, folio 285r is a fully decorated page corresponding to another moment of the Passion, (Luke 23:56-Luke 24:1) between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. Since the missing folios of John contain another Passion narrative, it is likely that John contained full pages of decorated text that have been lost.

Apart from the thirty-three fully illuminated pages, fourteen receive substantial decoration not extending over the entire page. Among the Preliminaries and apart from the fully decorated page beginning the Breves causae of Matthew, six pages begin six of the eight sections of Breves causae and Argumenta with embellished names. The exception is folio 24v which introduces the final section of the Breves causae of John without a comparable device. Five pages (folios 200r-202v) give an organized decoration of Luke's genealogy of Christ, just before the Temptation narrative. Another three pages contain large illuminated elements not extending throughout the entire page. Folio 40v contains text of the Beatitudes in Matthew (Matthew 5:3-Matthew 5:10) where the letters B beginning each line are linked into an ornate chain along the left margin of the page. Folio 127v has an embellished line beginning the final chapter of Matthew, which gives an account of the Resurrection. A similar treatment is given to a line in folio 188v (Luke 1:5), which begins an account of the Nativity.

The book had a sacramental rather than educational purpose. Such a large, lavish Gospel would have been left on the high altar of the church and removed only for the reading of the Gospel during Mass, with the reader probably reciting from memory more than reading the text. It is significant that the Chronicles of Ulster state the book was stolen from the sacristy, where the vessels and other accoutrements of the Mass were stored, rather than from the monastic library. Its design seems to take this purpose in mind; that is, the book was produced with appearance taking precedence over practicality. There are numerous uncorrected mistakes in the text. Lines were often completed in a blank space in the line above. The chapter headings that were necessary to make the canon tables usable were not inserted into the margins of the page. In general, nothing was done to disrupt the look of the page: aesthetics were given priority over utility.

Some of the first faithful reproductions made of pages and elements of the Book of Kells were by the artist Helen Campbell D'Olier in the 19th century. She used vellum and reproduced the pigments used in the original manuscript. Photographs of her drawings were included in Sullivan's study of the Book of Kells, first printed in 1913.

In 1951, the Swiss publisher Urs Graf Verlag Bern produced the first facsimile of the Book of Kells. The majority of the pages were reproduced in black-and-white photographs, but the edition also featured forty-eight colour reproductions, including all the full-page decorations. Under licence from the Board of Trinity College Dublin, Thames and Hudson produced a partial facsimile edition in 1974, which included a scholarly treatment of the work by Françoise Henry. This edition included all the full-page illustrations in the manuscript and a representative selection of the ornamentation of the text pages, together with some enlarged details of the illustrations. The reproductions were all in full colour, with photography by John Kennedy, Green Studio, Dublin.

In 1979, Swiss publisher Faksimile-Verlag Luzern requested permission to produce a full-colour facsimile of the book. Permission was initially denied, because Trinity College officials felt that the risk of damage to the book was too high. By 1986, Faksimile-Verlag had developed a process that used gentle suction to straighten a page so that it could be photographed without touching it and so won permission to publish a new facsimile. After each page was photographed, a single-page facsimile was prepared so the colours could be carefully compared to the original and adjustments made where necessary. The completed work was published in 1990 in a two-volume set containing the full facsimile and scholarly commentary. One copy is held by the Anglican Church in Kells, on the site of the original monastery.

The ill-fated Celtworld heritage centre, which opened in Tramore, County Waterford in 1992, included a replica of the Book of Kells. It cost approximately £18,000 to produce. In 1994, Bernard Meehan, Keeper of Manuscripts at Trinity College Dublin, produced an introductory booklet on the Book of Kells, with 110 colour images of the manuscript. His 2012 book contained more than 80 pages from the manuscript reproduced full-size and in full colour.

A digital copy of the manuscript was produced by Trinity College in 2006 and made available for purchase through Trinity College on DVD-ROM. It included the ability to leaf through each page, view two pages at a time, or look at a single page in a magnified setting. There were also commentary tracks about the specific pages as well as the history of the book. Users were given the option to search by specific illuminated categories including animals, capitols and angels. It retailed for approximately €30 but has since been discontinued. The Faksimile-Verlag images are now online at Trinity College's Digital Collections portal.

The 2009 animated film The Secret of Kells tells a fictional story of the creation of the Book of Kells by an elderly monk Aidan and his young apprentice Brendan, who struggle to work on the manuscript in the face of destructive Viking raids. It was directed by Tomm Moore and nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2009.

1. "Digital Collections: Book of Kells". Trinity College Dublin.

2. ^ McCaffrey, Carmel; Leo Eaton (2002). In Search of Ancient Ireland: The Origins of the Irish from Neolithic Times to the Coming of the English. Chicago: New Amsterdam Books. ISBN 1-56131-072-7.

3. Meyvaert, 12, note 26; Sharpe, Richard. "In quest of Pictish manuscripts." ^ The Innes Review . 59.2 (2008): 145-146.

4. Columkille is the name by which St. Columba is best known in Ireland. ^ "St. Columkille". Library Ireland. Archived from the original on 2 February 2009.

5. O'Donovan, John. "^ The Irish Charters in the Book of Kells". University College Cork. Retrieved on 29 February 2008.

6. Banville, John (23 November 2012). "Let there be light: The enduring fascination of Ireland's monastic masterpiece, the Book of Kells". ft.com.

7. Hoops, Johannes (ed.) "Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde". Walter De Gruyter Inc, September 2001, 346. ^ ISBN 3-11-016950-9

8. ^ Nathan, George Jean Nathan; Henry Louis Mencken (1951). The American Mercury. p. 572. The compilers of the late seventh century manuscript, The Book of Kells, refused to adopt St. Jerome's phrase "I come not to bring peace but a sword." (" . . . non-pacem sed gladium.") ...

9. ^ O'Donovan, J (1846). "The Irish Charters in the Book of Kells". Miscellany of the Irish Archeological Society. 1: 127-158.

10. ^ Strickland, Walter (1913). A dictionary of Irish artists. Dublin and London: Maunsell & Co.

11. McGill, Douglas. "^ Irelands's Book of Kells is Facsimiled". New York Times, 2 June 1987. Retrieved on 28 February 2008.

12. John Murray, Tony Wheeler, Sean Sheehan. ^ Ireland: a travel survival kit. Page 198. Lonely Planet, 1994.

13. ^ Jessica Stewart (1 April 2019). "World's Most Famous Medieval Illuminated Manuscript Now Viewable Online". My Modern Net.

14. ^ "The 82nd Academy Awards (2010) Nominees and Winners". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on 6 October 2014.

Alton, E. H. and P. Meyer. Evangeliorum quattuor Codex Cenannensi. 3 vols. Bern: Urs Graf Verlag, 1950-1951.

Brown, T. J. "Northumbria and the Book of Kells". Anglo-Saxon England I (1972): 219-246.

De Paor, Liam. "The world of the Book of Kells," in Ireland and early Europe: essays and occasional writings on art and culture. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1997. ISBN 1-85182-298-4

Farr, Carol Ann. The Book of Kells: Its Function and Audience (British Library Studies in Mediaeval Culture, 4). London: British Library & Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997. ISBN 0-7123-0499-1.

Farr, Carol, "Cosmological and Eschatological Images in the Book of Kells: Folios 32v and 114r.," in Elizabeth Mullins and Diarmuid Scully (eds), Listen, O Isles, unto me: Studies in Medieval Word and Image in honour of Jennifer O'Reilly (Cork, 2011), 291-301.

Forbes, Andrew; Henley, David (2012). Pages from the Book of Kells. Chiang Mai: Cognoscenti Books. ASIN: B00AN4JVI0

Friend, A. M., Jr. "The Canon Tables of the Book of Kells". In Mediæval Studies in Memory of A. Kingsley Porter, ed. W. R. K. Koehler. Vol. 2, pp. 611-641. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1939.

Henderson, Isabel, "Pictish art and the Book of Kells", in: Whitelock, Dorothy, Rosamund McKitterick, and David N. Dumville (eds.), Ireland in early medieval Europe: studies in memory of Kathleen Hughes, 1982, Cambridge University Press, 79-105.

Lewis, Susanne. "Sacred Calligraphy: The Chi Rho Page in the Book of Kells". Traditio 36 (1980): 139-159.

Lyons, Martyn. Books: A Living History. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum. (2011). 43-44.

McGurk, P. "Two Notes on the Book of Kells and Its Relation to Other Insular Gospel Books". Scriptorium 9 (1955): 105-107.

Mussetter, Sally. "An Animal Miniature on the Monogram Page of the Book of Kells". Mediaevalia 3 (1977): 119-120.

Nordenfalk, Carl. "Another Look at the Book of Kells". In Festschrift Wolfgang Braunfels, pp. 275-279. Tübingen: Wasmuth, 1977.

O'Mahony, Felicity, ed. The Book of Kells: Proceedings of a conference at Trinity College Dublin, 6-9 September 1992. Dublin: Trinity College Library and Scolar Press, 1994.

O'Reilly, Jennifer. "The Book of Kells, Folio 114r: A Mystery Revealed yet Concealed." In The Age of Migrating Ideas: Early Medieval Art in Northern Britain and Ireland. Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Insular Art held in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, 3-6 January 1991, eds. R. Michael Spearman and John Higgit, 106-114. Edinburgh: National Museum of Scotland, 1993.

Powell, Roger. "The Book of Kells, the Book of Durrow, Comments on the Vellum and the Make-up and Other Aspects". Scriptorum 10 (1956), 12-21.

Pulliam, Heather. Word and Image in the Book of Kells. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2006. ISBN 1-85182-925-3.

Sullivan, Sir Edward (1920). The Book of Kells. "The Studio" Limited.

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The Book of Kells ( Latin: Codex Cenannensis; Irish: Leabhar Cheanannais; Dublin, Trinity College Library, MS A. I. [58], sometimes known as the Book of Columba) is an illuminated manuscript Gospel book in Latin, containing the four Gospels of the New Testament together with various prefatory texts and tables.

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It's a Wonderful Life is a 1946 American Christmas family fantasy drama film produced and directed by Frank Capra, based on the short story and booklet The Greatest Gift, which Philip Van Doren Stern self-published in 1943 and is in turn loosely based on the 1843 Charles Dickens novella A Christmas Carol. The film stars James Stewart as George Bailey, a man who has given up his personal dreams, in order to help others in his community, and whose suicide attempt on Christmas Eve brings about the intervention of his guardian angel, Clarence Odbody ( Henry Travers). Clarence shows George how he, George, has touched the lives of others and how different life would be for his wife Mary and his community of Bedford Falls if he had not been born.

Theatrically, the film's break-even point was $6.3 million, about twice the production cost, a figure it did not come close to achieving on its initial release. Because of the film's disappointing sales, Capra was seen by some studios as having lost his ability to produce popular, financially successful films. Although It's a Wonderful Life initially received mixed reviews and was unsuccessful at the box office, it became a classic Christmas film after it was put into the public domain, which allowed it to be broadcast without licensing or royalty fees.

It's a Wonderful Life is considered one of the greatest films of all time. It was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and has been recognized by the American Film Institute as one of the 100 best American films ever made. It was No. 11 on the American Film Institute's 1998 greatest movie list, No. 20 on its 2007 greatest movie list, and No. 1 on its list of the most inspirational American films of all time. Capra revealed that it was his favorite among the films he directed and that he screened it for his family every Christmas season. It was also Jimmy Stewart's favorite film. In 1990, the film was designated as "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" and added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.

On Christmas Eve 1945, in Bedford Falls, New York, George Bailey contemplates suicide. The prayers of his family and friends reach heaven, where Angel 2nd class Clarence Odbody is assigned to save George in order to earn his wings. Clarence is shown flashbacks of George's life. He watches 12-year-old George save his younger brother, Harry, from drowning, but lose hearing in his left ear. George later prevents the distraught town druggist, Mr. Gower, from accidentally poisoning a child's prescription.

George plans a world tour before college and is reintroduced to Mary Hatch, who has a crush on him. The attraction is now mutual. When his father dies from a stroke, George postpones his travel to settle the family business, Bailey Brothers Building and Loan, which avaricious board member Henry Potter, who controls most of the town, seeks to dissolve. The board members vote to keep the Building and Loan open if George runs it. George acquiesces and works alongside his uncle, Billy, giving his tuition to Harry with the understanding that Harry will run the business when he graduates.

But Harry returns from college married and with a job offer from his father-in-law. George resigns himself to running the Building and Loan. Following their wedding, George and Mary witness a run on the bank, and use their honeymoon savings to keep the Building and Loan solvent.

Under George's leadership, the company establishes Bailey Park, a modern housing development rivaling Potter's overpriced slums. Potter offers George $20,000 a year to be his assistant, but, realizing that Potter still intends to close the Building and Loan, George declines.

During World War II, George is ineligible for service because of his deaf ear. Harry becomes a Navy pilot and wins the Medal of Honor for shooting down a kamikaze plane headed for a troop transport. On Christmas Eve 1945, as the town prepares a hero's welcome for Harry, Billy goes to the bank to deposit $8,000 of the Building and Loan's cash. Billy taunts Potter with a newspaper headline about Harry, but unintentionally wraps the envelope of cash in Potter's newspaper. Potter finds the money but says nothing, while Billy cannot recall how he misplaced it. With a bank examiner reviewing the company's records, George realizes scandal and criminal charges will follow. Fruitlessly retracing Billy's steps, George berates him and takes out his frustration on his family.

George appeals to Potter for a loan, offering his life insurance policy as collateral. Potter says George is worth more dead than alive, and phones the police to arrest him. George flees, gets drunk at a bar, and prays for help. Suicidal, he goes to a nearby bridge, but before he can jump, Clarence dives into the river. George rescues him.

When George wishes he had never been born, Clarence shows him a timeline in which George never existed. Bedford Falls is now Pottersville, an unsavory town occupied by sleazy entertainment venues, crime, and amoral people. The druggist, Mr. Gower, was imprisoned for manslaughter since George did not prevent him from poisoning the pills. George's mother reveals that Billy was institutionalized after the Building and Loan failed. Bailey Park is a cemetery, where George discovers Harry's grave. Since George did not save Harry, Harry did not save the soldiers on the transport. George finds that Mary is a spinster librarian. When he claims to be her husband, she screams for the police and George runs away.

Convinced that Clarence is his guardian angel, George begs for his life back. The original reality is restored, and a grateful George rushes home to await his arrest. Mary and Billy have rallied the townspeople, who donate enough to cover the missing $8,000. Harry arrives and toasts George as "the richest man in town". George receives a copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer as a gift from Clarence, with a note reminding George that no man is a failure who has friends, and thanking him for his wings. When a bell on the Christmas tree rings, George's youngest daughter, Zuzu, explains that it means that an angel has earned his wings. George, his family and friends sing Auld Lang Syne as they celebrate Christmas Eve.

Famous or memorable uncredited cast members include:

The original story, The Greatest Gift, was written by Philip Van Doren Stern in November 1939. After it was rejected by several publishers, he had it printed as a 24-page pamphlet and mailed to 200 family members and friends for Christmas 1943. The story came to the attention of either Cary Grant or RKO producer David Hempstead, who showed it to Grant's agent. In April 1944, RKO Pictures bought the rights to the story for $10,000, hoping to turn it into a vehicle for Grant. Dalton Trumbo, Clifford Odets, and Marc Connelly each worked on versions of the screenplay before the RKO shelved the project. In Trumbo's draft, George Bailey is an idealistic politician who slowly grows more cynical as the story progresses, then tries to commit suicide after losing an election. The angel shows him Bedford Falls not as it would be if he had never been born, but if he had gone into business instead of politics. Grant went on to make another Christmas movie staple, The Bishop's Wife.

RKO studio chief Charles Koerner urged Frank Capra to read "The Greatest Gift". Capra's new production company, Liberty Films, had a nine-film distribution agreement with RKO. Capra immediately saw its potential, and wanted it for his first Hollywood film after making documentaries and training films during the war. RKO sold him the rights for $10,000 and threw in the three earlier scripts for free. (Capra claimed the rights and the scripts cost him $50,000.) Capra salvaged a few scenes from Odets' earlier screenplay and worked with writers Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, Jo Swerling, Michael Wilson, and Dorothy Parker (brought in to "polish" the script), on many drafts of the screenplay.

It was not a harmonious collaboration. Goodrich called Capra "that horrid man" and recalled, "He couldn't wait to get writing it himself." Her husband, Albert Hackett, said, "We told him what we were going to do, and he said 'That sounds fine.' We were trying to move the story along and work it out, and then somebody told us that [Capra] and Jo Swerling were working on it together, and that sort of took the guts out of it. Jo Swerling was a very close friend of ours, and when we heard he was doing this we felt rather bad about it. We were getting near the end and word came that Capra wanted to know how soon we'd be finished. So my wife said, 'We're finished right now.' We quickly wrote out the last scene and we never saw him again after that. He's a very arrogant son of a bitch."

Later, a dispute ensued over the writing credits. Capra said, "The Screen Writers' Arbitration committee decided that Hackett and Goodrich, a married writing team, and I should get the credit for the writing. Jo Swerling hasn't talked to me since. That was five years ago." The final screenplay, renamed by Capra It's a Wonderful Life, was credited to Goodrich, Hackett, and Capra, with "additional scenes" by Jo Swerling.

Seneca Falls, New York, claims that Frank Capra was inspired to model Bedford Falls after the town after a visit in 1945. The town has an annual "It's a Wonderful Life Festival" in December. In mid-2009, The Hotel Clarence opened in Seneca Falls, named after George Bailey's guardian angel. On December 10, 2010, the "It's a Wonderful Life" Museum opened in Seneca Falls, with Karolyn Grimes, who played Zuzu in the movie, cutting the ribbon. However, film historian Jeanine Basinger, curator of the Frank Capra archives at Wesleyan University and author of The 'It's A Wonderful Life' Book, has said no evidence exists for Seneca Falls' claim. "I have been through every piece of paper in Frank Capra's diaries, his archives, everything. There's no evidence of any sort whatsoever to support this. That doesn't mean it isn't true, but no one is ever going to prove it." Basinger said that Capra always described Bedford Falls as an "Everytown".

Philip Van Doren Stern said in a 1946 interview, "Incidentally, the movie takes place in Westchester County. Actually, the town I had in mind was Califon, N.J." The historic iron bridge in Califon is similar to the bridge that George Bailey considered jumping from in the movie.

Both James Stewart (from Indiana, Pennsylvania) and Donna Reed (from Denison, Iowa) came from small towns. Stewart's father ran a small hardware store where James worked for years. Reed demonstrated her rural roots by winning an impromptu bet with Lionel Barrymore when he challenged her to milk a cow on set.

In his autobiography, Capra recalled, "Of all actors' roles I believe the most difficult is the role of a Good Sam who doesn't know that he is a Good Sam. I knew one man who could play it ... James Stewart. ... I spoke to Lew Wasserman, the MCA agent who handled Jimmy, told him I wanted to tell Jimmy the story. Wasserman said Stewart would gladly play the part without hearing the story." Stewart and Capra had previously collaborated on You Can't Take It with You (1938) and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939).

Henry Fonda, arguably Stewart's best friend, was also considered. Both actors had returned from the war with no employment prospects. Fonda, however, was cast in John Ford's My Darling Clementine (1946), which was filmed at the same time that Capra shot It's a Wonderful Life. For 17 supporting roles in the film, Capra considered over 170 established actors.

Jean Arthur, Stewart's co-star in You Can't Take It With You and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, was first offered the role of Mary, but had recently dropped out of the Broadway show "Born Yesterday" from exhaustion. Capra next considered Olivia de Havilland, Martha Scott, Ann Dvorak, and Ginger Rogers before borrowing Donna Reed from MGM. Rogers turned it down because she considered it "too bland". In chapter 26 of her autobiography Ginger: My Story, she questioned her decision by asking her readers: "Foolish, you say?"

A long list of actors was considered for the role of Potter (originally named Herbert Potter): Edward Arnold, Charles Bickford, Edgar Buchanan, Louis Calhern, Victor Jory, Raymond Massey, Thomas Mitchell, and Vincent Price. Lionel Barrymore, who eventually won the role, was a famous Ebenezer Scrooge in radio dramatizations of A Christmas Carol at the time, and was a natural choice for the role. Barrymore had also worked with Capra and Stewart on Capra's 1938 Best Picture Oscar winner, You Can't Take It with You.

Before Capra decided on Ward Bond as Bert, he also considered Sam Levene, Barton MacLane, Robert Mitchum, John Alexander and Irving Bacon for the role.

H. B. Warner, who was cast as the drugstore owner Mr. Gower, had studied medicine before going into acting. He was also in some of Capra's other films, including Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Lost Horizon, You Can't Take It with You, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. In the silent era, he had played the role of Jesus Christ in Cecil B. DeMille's The King of Kings (1927). The name Gower came from Capra's employer Columbia Pictures, which had been located on Gower Street for many years. Also on Gower Street was a drugstore that was a favorite for the studio's employees.

Charles Williams, who was cast as Eustace Bailey, and Mary Treen, who was cast as Matilda "Tilly" Bailey, were both B-list actors, having appeared in 90 films each before It's a Wonderful Life.

Jimmy the raven (Uncle Billy's pet) appeared in You Can't Take It with You and each subsequent Capra film.

It's a Wonderful Life was shot at RKO Radio Pictures Studios in Culver City, California, and the 89-acre RKO movie ranch in Encino, where "Bedford Falls" was adapted from Oscar-winning sets originally designed by art director Max Ree for the 1931 epic film . Covering 4 acres (1.6 ha), the town consisted of a main street stretching 300 yards (three city blocks) with 75 stores and buildings, and a residential neighborhood. Capra added a tree-lined center parkway, built a working bank set, and planted 20 full-grown oak trees. Pigeons, cats, and dogs were allowed to roam the mammoth set to give the "town" a lived-in feel.

Due to the requirements of filming in an "alternate reality", as well as different seasons, the exterior set was extremely adaptable. RKO studio's head of special effects, Russell Shearman, developed a new compound using water, soap flakes, foamite, and sugar to create "chemical snow" for the film. Before then, movie snow was usually made from untoasted cornflakes, which were so loud when stepped on that dialogue had to be redubbed afterwards.

Filming started on April 15, 1946, and wrapped on July 27, 1946, exactly on deadline for the 90-day principal photography schedule.

Only two locations from the film survive. The first, the swimming pool that was unveiled during the high-school dance sequence, is located in the gymnasium at Beverly Hills High School and is still in use as of 2013. The second is the "Martini home" in La Cañada Flintridge, California. RKO's movie ranch in Encino was razed in 1954.

The scene where young George saves his brother Harry from drowning was different in an early draft of the script. The boys play ice hockey on the river (which is on Potter's property) as Potter watches with disdain. George shoots the puck, but it goes astray and breaks the "No Trespassing" sign and lands in Potter's yard. Potter becomes irate and the gardener releases the attack dogs, which cause the boys to flee. Harry falls in the ice and George saves him with the same results.

In another draft, after he unsuccessfully attempts to consult his father about his drugstore dilemma, George considers asking Uncle Billy, but Billy is on the phone with the bank examiner. Billy lights his cigar and throws his match in the wastebasket. George turns to Tilly (who, along with Eustace, are his cousins, although not Billy's kids), but she is on the phone with her friend, Martha. She says, "Potter's here, the bank examiner's coming. It's a day of judgment." The wastebasket suddenly catches fire and Billy cries for help. Tilly runs in and puts the fire out with a pot of coffee. George decides to deal with the situation by himself.

According to Bobby Anderson, in the confrontation between Mr. Gower and young George, H. B. Warner slapped him for real and made his ear bleed, reducing him to tears. Warner hugged him after the scene was shot.

Composer Dimitri Tiomkin had written "Death Telegram" and "Gower's Deliverance" for the drugstore sequence, but Capra elected to forgo music in those scenes. Tiomkin had worked on many of Capra's previous films, but those changes, and others, led to a falling out between the two men. Tiomkin felt as though his work was being seen as a mere suggestion. In his autobiography Please Don't Hate Me, he said of the incident, "an all around scissors job".

In the scene where Uncle Billy gets drunk at Harry and Ruth's welcome home/newlyweds' party and staggers away off camera, a crash is heard off screen. Mitchell, as Uncle Billy, yells, "I'm all right! I'm all right!". A technician had actually knocked over some equipment; Capra left in Mitchell's impromptu ad lib and rewarded the technician with $10, thanking him for his 'sound improvement'.

According to rare stills that have been unearthed, several sequences were filmed but subsequently cut. Alternative endings were also considered. Capra's first script had Bailey fall to his knees to recite "The Lord's Prayer" (the script also called for an opening scene with the townspeople in prayer). Feeling that an overly religious tone undermined the emotional impact of the family and friends rushing to George's rescue, the closing scenes were rewritten.

Capra found the film's original cinematographer Victor Milner slow and pretentious, and hired Joseph Walker. When Harry Cohn demanded that Walker return to Columbia Pictures to shoot a film for one of the studio's female stars, Walker trained Joseph Biroc to be his replacement. Although working with three cinematographers was difficult for Capra, it turned out very well in Walker's opinion because the scenes each cinematographer shot were so different that they did not have to match each other's visual styles.

According to a 2006 book, "A spate of movies appeared just after the ending of the Second World War, including It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and Stairway to Heaven (1946), perhaps tapping into so many people's experience of loss of loved ones and offering a kind of consolation." It's a Wonderful Life premiered at the Globe Theatre in New York on December 20, 1946, to mixed reviews. While Capra thought the contemporary critical reviews were either universally negative, or at best dismissive, said, " It's a Wonderful Life is a pretty wonderful movie. It has only one formidable rival (Goldwyn's The Best Years of Our Lives) as Hollywood's best picture of the year. Director Capra's inventiveness, humor, and affection for human beings keep it glowing with life and excitement."

Bosley Crowther, writing for The New York Times, complimented some of the actors, including Stewart and Reed, but concluded, "the weakness of this picture, from this reviewer's point of view, is the sentimentality of it-its illusory concept of life. Mr. Capra's nice people are charming, his small town is a quite beguiling place and his pattern for solving problems is most optimistic and facile. But somehow, they all resemble theatrical attitudes, rather than average realities."

The film, which went into general release on January 7, 1947, placed 26th ($3.3 million) in box-office revenues for 1947 (out of more than 400 features released), one place ahead of another Christmas film, Miracle on 34th Street. The film was supposed to be released in January 1947, but was moved up to December 1946 to make it eligible for the 1946 Academy Awards. This move was seen as worse for the film, as 1947 did not have quite the stiff competition as 1946. If it had entered the 1947 awards, its strongest competitor would have been Miracle on 34th Street. The number-one grossing movie of 1947, The Best Years of Our Lives, made $11.5 million.

The film recorded a loss of $525,000 at the box office for RKO.

On May 26, 1947, the Federal Bureau of Investigation issued a memo stating, "With regard to the picture 'It's a Wonderful Life', [redacted] stated in substance that the film represented rather obvious attempts to discredit bankers by casting Lionel Barrymore as a 'scrooge-type' so that he would be the most hated man in the picture. This, according to these sources, is a common trick used by Communists. [In] addition, [redacted] stated that, in his opinion, this picture deliberately maligned the upper class, attempting to show the people who had money were mean and despicable characters." Film historian Andrew Sarris points out as "curious" that "the censors never noticed that the villainous Mr. Potter gets away with robbery without being caught or punished in any way".

In 1990, It's a Wonderful Life was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in their National Film Registry.

In 2002, Channel 4 in the United Kingdom ranked It's a Wonderful Life as the seventh-greatest film ever made in its poll "The 100 Greatest Films". The network airs the film to British viewers annually on Christmas Eve.

In June 2008, AFI revealed its , the best 10 films in 10 "classic" American film genres, after polling over 1,500 people from the creative community. It's a Wonderful Life was acknowledged as the third-best film in the fantasy genre.

Somewhat more iconoclastic views of the film and its contents are occasionally expressed. In his review for The New Republic in 1947, film critic Manny Farber wrote, "To make his points, [Capra] always takes an easy, simple-minded path that doesn't give much credit to the intelligence of the audience", and adds that it has only a "few unsentimental moments here and there". Wendell Jamieson, in a 2008 article for The New York Times which was generally positive in its analysis of the film, noted that far from being simply a sweetly sentimental tale, it "is a terrifying, asphyxiating story about growing up and relinquishing your dreams, of seeing your father driven to the grave before his time, of living among bitter, small-minded people. It is a story of being trapped, of compromising, of watching others move ahead and away, of becoming so filled with rage that you verbally abuse your children, their teacher, and your oppressively perfect wife."

... one of the most profoundly pessimistic tales of human existence ever to achieve a lasting popularity.

-Film historian Andrew Sarris in "You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet.": The American Talking Film History & Memory, 1927-1949.

In a 2010 essay for , Richard Cohen described It's a Wonderful Life as "the most terrifying Hollywood film ever made". In the "Pottersville" sequence, he wrote, George Bailey is not seeing the world that would exist had he never been born, but rather "the world as it does exist, in his time and also in our own". Nine years earlier, another Salon writer, Gary Kamiya, had expressed the opposing view that "Pottersville rocks!", adding: "The gauzy, Currier-and-Ives veil Capra drapes over Bedford Falls has prevented viewers from grasping what a tiresome and, frankly, toxic environment it is ... We all live in Pottersville now."

The film's elevation to the status of a beloved classic came three decades after its initial release, when it became a television staple during Christmas season in 1976. This came as a welcome surprise to Frank Capra and others involved with its production. "It's the damnedest thing I've ever seen", Capra told The Wall Street Journal in 1984. "The film has a life of its own now, and I can look at it like I had nothing to do with it. I'm like a parent whose kid grows up to be President. I'm proud ... but it's the kid who did the work. I didn't even think of it as a Christmas story when I first ran across it. I just liked the idea." In a 1946 interview, Capra described the film's theme as "the individual's belief in himself" and that he made it "to combat a modern trend toward atheism". It ranked 283rd among critics, and 107th among directors, in the 2012 Sight & Sound polls of the greatest films ever made.

The film's positive reception has continued into the present. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 94% based on 85 reviews, with an average rating of 9.00/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "The holiday classic to define all holiday classics, It's a Wonderful Life is one of a handful of films worth an annual viewing." On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, the film has a score 89 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

Prior to its Los Angeles release, Liberty Films mounted an extensive promotional campaign that included a daily advertisement highlighting one of the film's players, along with comments from reviewers. Jimmy Starr wrote, "If I were an Oscar, I'd elope with It's a Wonderful Life lock, stock and barrel on the night of the Academy Awards". The New York Daily Times published an editorial that declared the film and James Stewart's performance to be worthy of Academy Award consideration.

It's a Wonderful Life received five Academy Award nominations:

The Best Years of Our Lives, a drama about servicemen attempting to return to their pre-World War II lives, won most of the awards that year, including four of the five for which It's a Wonderful Life was nominated. (The award for "Best Sound Recording" was won by The Jolson Story.) The Best Years of Our Lives, directed by William Wyler, Capra's business partner along with George Stevens in Liberty Films, was also an outstanding commercial success, ultimately becoming the highest-grossing film of the decade, in contrast to the more modest initial box-office returns of It's a Wonderful Life.

It's a Wonderful Life received a Golden Globe Award for Capra as Best Motion Picture Director. He also won a "CEC Award" from the Cinema Writers Circle in Spain, for Mejor Película Extranjera (Best Foreign Film). Jimmy Hawkins won a "Former Child Star Lifetime Achievement Award" from the Young Artist Awards in 1994; the award recognized his role as Tommy Bailey as igniting his career, which lasted until the mid-1960s.

Liberty Films was purchased by Paramount Pictures, and remained a subsidiary until 1951. In 1955, M. & A. Alexander purchased the movie. This included key rights to the original television syndication, the original nitrate film elements, the music score, and the film rights to the story on which the film is based, "The Greatest Gift". National Telefilm Associates took over the rights to the film soon thereafter.

A clerical error at NTA prevented the copyright from being renewed properly in 1974. Despite the lapsed copyright, television stations that aired it still had to pay royalties because-though the film's images had entered the public domain-the film's story was still restricted as a derivative work of the published story The Greatest Gift, whose copyright Philip Van Doren Stern had renewed in 1971. The film became a perennial holiday favorite in the 1980s, possibly due to its repeated showings each holiday season on hundreds of local television stations. It was mentioned during the deliberations on the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998.

In 1993, Republic Pictures, which was the successor to NTA, relied on the 1990 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Stewart v. Abend (which involved another Stewart film, Rear Window) to enforce its claim to the copyright. While the film's copyright had not been renewed, Republic still owned the film rights to "The Greatest Gift"; thus, the plaintiffs were able to argue its status as a derivative work of a work still under copyright. That year, Republic made a deal with Turner Broadcasting System, authorizing only three airings of the movie, all on cable's TNT and TBS. However, the studio's attempt to reassert control was widely ignored since there were still some existing distribution deals that Republic had to honor.

In 1994, the studio sold exclusive television rights to NBC. "We're thrilled that we will have the opportunity to broadcast this picture," said NBC Entertainment President Warren Littlefield at the time. "We will broadcast the original director's cut in black and white, full-length, the way Frank Capra intended this picture to be seen."

NBC traditionally shows it during the holidays after Thanksgiving and on Christmas Eve. Paramount (via parent company Viacom's 1998 acquisition of Republic's then-parent, Spelling Entertainment) once again has distribution rights for the first time since 1955.

Due to all the above actions, this is one of the few RKO films not controlled by Turner Entertainment/ Warner Bros. in the US. It is also one of two Capra films Paramount owns despite not having originally released it-the other is Broadway Bill (originally from Columbia, remade by Paramount as Riding High in 1950).

Director Capra met with Wilson Markle about having Colorization Inc. colorize It's a Wonderful Life based on an enthusiastic response to the colorization of from actor Cary Grant. The company's art director, Brian Holmes, prepared 10 minutes of colorized footage from It's a Wonderful Life for Capra to view, which resulted in Capra signing a contract with Colorization Inc., and his "enthusiastic agree[ment] to pay half the $260,000 cost of colorizing the movie and to share any profits" and giving "preliminary approval to making similar color versions of two of his other black-and-white films, Meet John Doe (1941) and Lady for a Day (1933)".

However, the film was believed to be in the public domain at the time, and as a result, Markle and Holmes responded by returning Capra's initial investment, eliminating his financial participation, and refusing outright to allow the director to exercise artistic control over the colorization of his films, leading Capra to join in the campaign against the process.

Three colorized versions have been produced. The first was released by Hal Roach Studios in 1986. The second was authorized and produced by the film's permanent owner, Republic Pictures, in 1989. Both Capra and Stewart took a critical stand on the colorized editions. The Hal Roach color version was re-released in 1989 to VHS via Video Treasures. A third, computer-colorized version was produced by Legend Films in 2007 and has been released on DVD, Blu-ray, and streaming services.

Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, when the film was still under public domain status, It's a Wonderful Life was released on VHS by a variety of home video companies. Among the companies that released the film on home video before Republic Pictures stepped in were Meda Video (which would later become Media Home Entertainment), Kartes Video Communications (under its Video Film Classics label), GoodTimes Home Video, and Video Treasures (now Anchor Bay Entertainment). After Republic reclaimed the rights to the film, all unofficial VHS copies of the film still in the hands of video distributors were supposed to have been destroyed. Artisan Entertainment (under license from Republic) took over home video rights in the mid-1990s. Artisan was later sold to Lions Gate Entertainment, which continued to hold US home video rights until late 2005, when they reverted to Paramount, which also owns video rights throughout Region 4 ( Latin America and Australia) and in France. Video rights in the rest of the world are held by different companies; for example, the UK rights were once with Universal Studios, but have since reverted to Paramount.

Technological first: CD-ROM

In 1993, due in part to the confusion of the ownership and copyright issues, Kinesoft Development, with the support of Republic Pictures, released It's a Wonderful Life as one of the first commercial feature-length films on CD-ROM for the Windows PC ( Windows 3.1). Antedating commercial DVDs by several years, it included such features as the ability to follow along with the complete shooting script as the film was playing.

Given the state of video playback on the PC at the time of its release, It's a Wonderful Life for Windows represented another milestone, as the longest-running video on a computer. Prior to its release, Windows could only play back about 32,000 frames of video, or about 35 minutes at 15 frames per second.[citation needed ] Working with Microsoft, Kinesoft was able to enhance the video features of Windows to allow for the complete playback of the entire film-all of this on a PC with a 486SX processor and 8 MB of RAM.

Computer Gaming World said in April 1994, "The picture quality still has a way to go before it reaches television standards", but was "a noble effort" that would "please fans of the film".

The film has seen multiple DVD releases since the availability of the format. In the autumn of 2001, Republic issued the movie twice, once in August, and again with different packaging in September of that same year. On October 31, 2006, Paramount released a newly remastered "60th Anniversary Edition". On November 13, 2007, Paramount released a two-disc "special edition" DVD of the film that contained both the original theatrical black-and-white version, and a new, third colorized version, produced by Legend Films using the latest colorization technology. On November 3, 2009, Paramount re-released the previous DVD set as a "Collector's Edition" and debuted a Blu-ray edition, also containing both versions of the film.

In 2017, the film was restored in 4K resolution, available via streaming services and DCP.

On October 29, 2019, the film was released for the first time on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray, along with digital copy featuring a new Dolby Vision transfer.

The film was twice adapted for radio in 1947, first on Lux Radio Theater (March 10) and then on the Screen Guild Theater (December 29), then again on the Screen Guild Theater broadcast of March 15, 1951. James Stewart and Donna Reed reprised their roles for all three radio productions. Stewart also starred in the May 8, 1949 radio adaptation presented on the Screen Directors Playhouse.

A musical stage adaptation of the film, titled A Wonderful Life, was written by Sheldon Harnick and Joe Raposo. This version was first performed at the University of Michigan in 1986, but a planned professional production was stalled by legal wrangling with the estate of Philip Van Doren Stern. It was eventually performed in Washington, DC, by Arena Stage in 1991, and had revivals in the 21st century, including a staged concert version in New York City in 2005 and several productions by regional theatres.

Another musical stage adaptation of the film, titled It's a Wonderful Life - The Musical, was written by Bruce Greer and Keith Ferguson. This version premiered at the Majestic Theatre, Dallas, Texas, in 1998. It was an annual Christmas show at the theatre for five years. It has since been performed at venues all around the United States.

In July 2019, it was revealed that another stage musical adaptation was in development with music and lyrics by Paul McCartney (making his musical theatre debut), lyrics and book by Lee Hall and produced by Bill Kenwright. The musical was set to debut late 2020, however has still yet to be announced.

A 1986 skit on Saturday Night Live features William Shatner introducing the "lost ending" of It's a Wonderful Life in which George Bailey ( Dana Carvey) and the citizens of Bedford Falls discover that Mr. Potter ( Jon Lovitz) has stolen George's money and take turns beating him up in his office.

In 1992, the final episode of Tiny Toon Adventures parodied It's A Wonderful Life entitled "It's A Wonderful Tiny Toon Christmas". In it, Buster Bunny feels sad after the failure of his play and wishes he had never become a Tiny Toon, so a guardian angel shows Buster what life would have been like without him.

The film was also adapted into a play in two acts by James W. Rodgers. It was first performed on December 15, 1993, at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School. The play opens with George Bailey contemplating suicide and then goes back through major moments in his life. Many of the scenes from the movie are only alluded to or mentioned in the play rather than actually dramatized. For example, in the opening scene, Clarence just mentions George having saved his brother Harry after the latter had fallen through the ice.

It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, a stage adaptation presented as a 1940s radio show, was adapted by Joe Landry and has been produced around the United States since 1997. The script is published by Playscripts, Inc.

In 1997, PBS aired Merry Christmas, George Bailey, taped from a live performance of the 1947 Lux Radio Theatre script at the Pasadena Playhouse. The presentation, which benefited the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, featured an all-star cast, including Bill Pullman as George, Nathan Lane as Clarence, Martin Landau as Mr. Potter, Penelope Ann Miller as Mary, and Sally Field as Mother Bailey.

In 2002, the television film It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie premiered on NBC. The film is an homage to It's a Wonderful Life. In the film, Kermit the Frog wishes that he had never been born.

Tony Palermo's 2005 stage adaptation has the story presented as actors making a radio-play complete with them making live sounds effects

Philip Grecian's 2006 radio play based on the film It's a Wonderful Life is a faithful adaptation, now in its third incarnation, that has been performed numerous times by local theatres in Canada.

The Last Temptation of Clarence Odbody is a novel written by John Pierson. The novel imagines the future lives of various characters if George had not survived his jump into the river.

Scenes from the film are seen in the documentary Abacus: Small Enough to Jail, where Abacus Federal Savings Bank founder and chairman Thomas Sung talked about how It's a Wonderful Life influenced him.

A stage-adaptation of the story was presented at The Tower Theatre in Winchester in December 2016 by Blue Apple Theatre with Lawrie Morris in the role of George Bailey. This is believed to be the first time an actor with an intellectual disability (Lawrie Morris had Down's Syndrome) has had the role.

A new "cinematic audio" adaptation by David Ossman of the Firesign Theatre was produced and directed by Ossman and his wife Judith Walcutt of Otherworld Media in December 2019 at the Whidbey Island Center for the Arts. Their version combined elements of traditional and radio theatre, with costumes, sets, makeup, and lighting effects, as well as live music, live sound effects, and over 20 microphones.

It Happened One Christmas was a 1977 television movie remake of the classic film, whose screenplay Lionel Chetwynd based on both the original Van Doren Stern short story and the 1946 screenplay. This remake employed gender-reversal, with Marlo Thomas as the protagonist Mary Bailey, Wayne Rogers as George Hatch, and Cloris Leachman as the angel Clara Oddbody. Leachman received her second Emmy nomination for this role. In a significant departure from his earlier roles, Orson Welles was cast as Mr. Potter. Following initial positive reviews, the made-for-television film was rebroadcast twice in 1978 and 1979, but has not been shown since on national re-broadcasts or issued to home media.

Merry Christmas, George Bailey was a 1997 PBS television movie adaptation of the film directed by Matthew Diamond and starring Bill Pullman as George Bailey, Penelope Ann Miller as Mary, Nathan Lane as Clarence and Martin Landau as Potter.

The Christmas Spirit was a retelling of the movie starring Nicollette Sheridan as Charlotte Hart. This was a made-for-TV film aired on December 1, 2013 on the Hallmark Channel executive produced by Sheridan under her company, Wyke Lane Productions, and Brad Krevoy Television. The film was directed and written by Jack Angelo. Spirit was set in the present day, with the Hart character working to save a "quiet New England town from a ruthless real estate developer". The film was planned to kick off a film series about the Hart character. The film had 3.372 million viewers overall.

, though not entirely a remake, "borrows shamelessly" from the plot of It's a Wonderful Life. This movie follows a similar plotline, in that the main character gets to experience what life would be like if he was not present for his family.

"The Greatest Gift", Warehouse 13 season 3 Christmas episode tells a similar story after agent Pete Lattimer touches Stern's brush.

In 1990, the made-for-television film stars Robert Carradine in a new tale of the helpful angel.

A purported sequel was in development for a 2015 release, and was to be called It's a Wonderful Life: The Rest of the Story. It was to be written by Bob Farnsworth and Martha Bolton and follow the angel of George Bailey's daughter Zuzu (played once again by Karolyn Grimes), as she teaches Bailey's evil grandson how different the world would have been if he had never been born. Producers were considering directors and hoped to shoot the film with a $25-$35 million budget in Louisiana early in 2014.

The film had been announced as being produced by Star Partners and Hummingbird Productions, neither of which are affiliated with Paramount, owners of the original film (Farnsworth claimed that It's a Wonderful Life was in the public domain). Later, a Paramount spokesperson claimed that they were not granting permission to make the film, "To date, these individuals have not obtained any of the necessary rights, and we would take all appropriate steps to protect those rights", the spokesperson said. No further developmental plans have since arisen.

Sesame Street urban legend

It is commonly believed that the characters of Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the cabdriver; however, in a correction for the 1999 "Annual Xmas Quiz" in the San Francisco Chronicle, which made this claim, series writer Jerry Juhl confirmed that, per producer Jon Stone, the shared names were merely a coincidence. Despite this, the 1996 holiday special Elmo Saves Christmas references the rumor, during a scene where Bert and Ernie walk by a TV set, which is playing the movie. The pair are surprised by the line: "Bert! Ernie! What's the matter with you two guys? You were here on my wedding night!"

Stephan's Quintet usage

The angelic figures depicted as a galaxy cluster at the beginning of the film are based on images of Stephan's Quintet.

1. Michael R. Pitts: ^ RKO Radio Pictures Horror, Science Fiction and Fantasy Films, 1929-1956, p. 161. see Google Books Retrieved 4 January 2020.

2. Heyboer, Kelly (December 24, 2017). "The surprising Jersey roots of 'It's a Wonderful Life'". NJ.com. Archived from the original on December 24, 2017.

3. ^ John A. Noakes (1998). "Bankers and Common Men in Bedford Falls: How the FBI Determined That "It's a Wonderful Life" Was a Subversive Movie". Film History. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. 10 (3): 311-319. JSTOR 3815225. Also in "Bankers and common men in Bedford Falls". Film History, Volume 10. Taylor & Francis. 1998. p. 315.

4. Greene, Liz. ""One of America's Favorite Christmas Movies Has a Wonderful Life of Its Own: 72 Percent of Viewers are Younger Than the Movie"". Archived from the original on December 7, 2008. Blockbuster Inc. Retrieved: August 2, 2011.

5. ^ Hickman, Matt (December 14, 2011). "6 things you probably didn't know about 'It's a Wonderful Life'". mnn.com.

6. ^
Goodtimes, Johnny (December 20, 2011). ""It's a Wonderful Life" Is Communist Propaganda".
Eschner, Kat (December 20, 2017). "The Weird Story of the FBI and 'It's a Wonderful Life'".

7. ^ Travis M. Andrews (December 21, 2017). "'It's a Wonderful Life' is a holiday classic. The FBI thought it was communist propaganda". The Washington Post.

8. ^ Gamarekian, Barbara; Times, Special To the New York (October 19, 1990). "Library of Congress Adds 25 Titles to National Film Registry (Published 1990)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331.

9. ^ "AFI Crowns Top 10 Films in 10 Classic Genres". American Film Institute via ComingSoon.net, June 17, 2008. Retrieved: June 18, 2008.

10. ^ The Copyright Term Extension Act of 1995: Hearing Before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, One Hundred Fourth Congress, first session, on S. 483 ... September 20, 1995. By United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary, United States. Published by U.S. G.P.O., 1997, pp. 16, 73, 126. ISBN 978-0-16-054351-7.

11. "Notes for 'It's a Wonderful Life'". Retrieved October 29, 2011. TCM Movie Database, 2010. Retrieved: November 8, 2010.

12. Alsdorf, Matt. ^ Slate.com: "Why Wonderful Life Comes but Once a Year". slate.com, December 21, 1999. Retrieved: September 10, 2009.

13. Burr, Ty. ^ "ABC'S OF CD: Delivering the Future". ew.com via Entertainment Weekly, 2009. Retrieved: May 29, 2009.

14. Price, Michael H. ^ " 'Life' gets even more wonderful two generations later". Fort Worth Star-Telegram, December 14, 1991. Retrieved: July 31, 2011.

Jones, Ken D., Arthur F. McClure and Alfred E. Twomey. The Films of James Stewart. New York: Castle Books, 1970.

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It's a Wonderful Life is a 1946 American Christmas family fantasy drama film produced and directed by Frank Capra, based on the short story and booklet The Greatest Gift , which Philip Van Doren Stern self-published in 1943 and is in turn loosely based on the 1843 Charles Dickens novella A Christmas Carol .

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Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a three-act play written by Tennessee Williams; an adaptation of his 1952 short story "Three Players of a Summer Game", he wrote the play between 1953 and 1955. One of Williams's more famous works and his personal favorite, the play won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1955. Set in the "plantation home in the Mississippi Delta" of Big Daddy Pollitt, a wealthy cotton tycoon, the play examines the relationships among members of Big Daddy's family, primarily between his son Brick and Maggie the "Cat", Brick's wife.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof features motifs such as social mores, greed, superficiality, mendacity, decay, sexual desire, repression and death. Dialogue throughout is often written using nonstandard spelling intended to represent accents of the Southern United States. The original production starred Barbara Bel Geddes, Burl Ives and Ben Gazzara. The play was adapted as a motion picture of the same name in 1958, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman as Maggie and Brick, with Burl Ives and Madeleine Sherwood recreating their stage roles. Williams made substantial excisions and alterations to the play for a revival in 1974. This has been the version used for most subsequent revivals, which have been numerous.

A family in the American South is in crisis, especially the husband Brick and wife Margaret (usually called Maggie or "Maggie the Cat"), and their interaction with Brick's family over the course of one evening's gathering at the family estate in Mississippi. The party celebrates the birthday of patriarch Big Daddy Pollitt, "the Delta's biggest cotton-planter", and his return from the Ochsner Clinic with what he has been told is a clean bill of health. All family members (except Big Daddy and his wife Big Mama) are aware of Big Daddy's true diagnosis: He is dying of cancer. His family has lied to Big Daddy and Big Mama to spare the aging couple from pain on the patriarch's birthday, but throughout the course of the play, it becomes clear that the Pollitt family has long constructed a web of deceit for itself.

Maggie, determined and beautiful, has escaped a childhood of poverty to marry into the wealthy Pollitts, but finds herself unfulfilled. The family is aware that Brick has not slept with Maggie for a long time, which has strained their marriage. Brick, an aging football hero, infuriates her by ignoring his brother Gooper's attempts to gain control of the family fortune. Brick's indifference and his drinking have escalated with the suicide of his friend Skipper. Maggie fears that Brick's malaise will ensure that Gooper and his wife Mae inherit Big Daddy's estate.

Through the evening, Brick, Big Daddy and Maggie-and the entire family-separately must face the issues which they have bottled up inside. Big Daddy attempts a reconciliation with the alcoholic Brick. Both Big Daddy and Maggie separately confront Brick about the true nature of his relationship with his football buddy Skipper, which appears to be the source of Brick's sorrow and the cause of his alcoholism.

Brick explains to Big Daddy that Maggie was jealous of the close friendship between Brick and Skipper, and she believed it had a romantic undercurrent. He states that Skipper took Maggie to bed to prove her wrong. Brick believes that when Skipper could not complete the act, his self-questioning about his sexuality and his friendship with Brick made him "snap". Brick reveals that Skipper, shortly before committing suicide, confessed his feelings to Brick, but Brick rejected him.

Disgusted with the family's mendacity, Brick tells Big Daddy that the report from the clinic about his condition was falsified for his sake. Big Daddy storms out of the room, leading the party gathered out on the gallery to drift inside. Maggie, Brick, Mae, Gooper, and Doc Baugh (the family's physician) decide to tell Big Mama the truth about his illness, and she is devastated by the news. Gooper and Mae start to discuss the division of the Pollitt estate. Big Mama defends her husband from Gooper and Mae's proposals.

Big Daddy reappears and makes known his plans to die peacefully. Attempting to secure Brick's inheritance, Maggie tells him she is pregnant. Gooper and Mae know this is a lie, but Big Mama and Big Daddy believe that Maggie "has life." When they are alone again, Maggie locks away the liquor and promises Brick that she will "make the lie true."

Mendacity is a recurring theme throughout the play. Brick uses the word to express his disgust with the "lies and liars" he sees around him, and with complicated rules of social conduct in Southern society and culture. Big Daddy states that Brick's disgust with mendacity is really disgust with himself for rejecting Skipper before his suicide. With the exception of Brick, the entire family lies to Big Daddy and Big Mama about his terminal cancer. Furthermore, Big Daddy lies to his wife, and Gooper and Mae exhibit avaricious motives in their attempt to secure Big Daddy's estate.

In some cases, characters refuse to believe certain statements, leading them to believe they are lies. A recurring phrase is the line, "Wouldn't it be funny if that was true?", said by both Big Daddy and Brick after Big Mama and Maggie (respectively) claim their love. The characters' statements of feeling are no longer clear-cut truths or lies; instead they become subject more to certainty or uncertainty. This phrase is the last line of the play as originally written by Williams and again in the 1974 version.

The ways in which humans deal with death are also at the focus of this play, as are the futility and nihilism some encounter when confronted with imminent mortality. Similar ideas are found in Dylan Thomas's " Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night", which Williams excerpted and added as an epigraph to his 1974 version. These lines are appropriate, as Thomas wrote the poem to his own dying father.

Additionally, in one of his many drafts, in a footnote on Big Daddy's action in the third act, Williams deems Cat on a Hot Tin Roof a "play which says only one affirmative thing about 'Man's Fate': that he has it still in his power not to squeal like a pig but to keep a tight mouth about it."

At the urging of Elia Kazan, the play's director for its 1955 premiere, Williams revised the third act and that revision was performed. But when the play was published later that year by New Directions Publishing, it included two versions of act three, Williams' original and the Broadway revision, with his accompanying "Note of Explanation". For its 1974 revival, Williams made further revisions to all three acts, and New Directions published that version of the play in 1975.

The original Broadway production, which opened at the Morosco Theater on March 24, 1955, was directed by Elia Kazan and starred Barbara Bel Geddes as Maggie, Ben Gazzara as Brick, Burl Ives as Big Daddy, Mildred Dunnock as Big Mama, Pat Hingle as Gooper, and Madeleine Sherwood as Mae. Bel Geddes was the only cast member nominated for a Tony Award, and Kazan was nominated for Best Director of a Play. Both Ives and Sherwood would reprise their roles in the 1958 film version. The cast also featured the southern blues duo Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry and had as Gazzara's understudy the young Cliff Robertson. When Gazzara left the play, Jack Lord replaced him. Others from the original Broadway production included R.G. Armstrong as Doctor Baugh, Fred Stewart as Reverend Tooker, Janice Dunn as Trixie, Seth Edwards as Sonny, Maxwell Glanville as Lacey, Pauline Hahn as Dixie, Darryl Richard as Buster, Eva Vaughn Smith as Daisy, and Musa Williams as Sookey.

In London, the play was directed by Peter Hall and opened at the Comedy Theatre on January 30, 1958. Kim Stanley starred as Maggie, with Paul Massie as Brick and Leo McKern as Big Daddy.

A 1974 revival by the American Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford, Connecticut, featured Elizabeth Ashley, Keir Dullea, Fred Gwynne, Kate Reid, and Charles Siebert. Ashley was nominated for a Tony Award. For this production, Williams restored much of the text which he had removed from the original one at the insistence of Elia Kazan. He included a revised third act and made substantial revisions elsewhere. According to Ashley, Williams allowed the actors to examine his original notes and various drafts of the script, and to make additions to the dialogue. When this production moved from Connecticut to Broadway, the part of Lacey was omitted and the number of Mae and Gooper's children reduced to three. In that same decade, John Carradine and Mercedes McCambridge toured in a road company production as Big Daddy and Big Mama.

The 1988 London National Theatre production, directed by Howard Davies, starred Ian Charleson, Lindsay Duncan, Barbara Leigh-Hunt, and Eric Porter.

A revival in 1990 featured Kathleen Turner, who was nominated for a Tony for her performance as Maggie, though magazine called her "hopelessly lost ... in this limp production." Charles Durning, as Big Daddy, received a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play. Daniel Hugh Kelly was Brick, and Polly Holliday was Big Mama. Holliday also was nominated for a Tony.

A 2001 production at the Lyric Shaftesbury, London, was the first West End revival since 1958. Produced by Anthony Page, the production featured Brendan Fraser as Brick, Frances O'Connor as Maggie, Ned Beatty as Big Daddy and Gemma Jones as Big Mamma. Reviews were generally positive.

A 2003 revival received lukewarm reviews despite the presence of film stars Ashley Judd and Jason Patric. Only Ned Beatty as Big Daddy and Margo Martindale as Big Mama were singled out for impressive performances. Martindale received a Tony nomination.

A 2003 revival for Belvoir St Theatre was directed by Simon Stone and starred Jacqueline McKenzie as Maggie, Ewen Leslie as Brick, and Marshall Napier as Big Daddy. This production was a box office hit, with season extended to the Theatre Royal (Sydney).

A 2004 production at the Kennedy Center featured Mary Stuart Masterson as Maggie, Jeremy Davidson as Brick, George Grizzard as Big Daddy, Dana Ivey as Big Mama, and Emily Skinner as Mae. Shortly afterward, Masterson and Davidson were married.

In 2008, an all-black production directed by Debbie Allen opened on Broadway. Terrence Howard made his Broadway debut as Brick, with James Earl Jones as Big Daddy, Phylicia Rashad as Big Mama, Anika Noni Rose as Maggie and Lisa Arrindell Anderson as Mae. In November 2009, the production moved to London's West End, where Adrian Lester played Brick and Sanaa Lathan played Maggie. The West End Production received the 2010 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Revival of a Play.

In 2010, a production of the play opened at Cambridge University's ADC Theatre, and in January 2011, a production to mark Williams' 100th birthday was presented at Vienna's English Theatre, Vienna, Austria. The play was performed at the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada in 2011 starring Maya O'Connell as Maggie and Gray Powell as Brick and in 2012 at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis.

A 2013 Broadway revival featured Ciarán Hinds as Big Daddy, Debra Monk as Big Mama, Benjamin Walker as Brick, George Porteous as Sonny, and Scarlett Johansson as Maggie.

A 2014 production played at Royal & Derngate, Royal Exchange Theatre and Northern Stage, with original music by White Lies. It featured Mariah Gale, Charles Aitken, Daragh O'Malley and Kim Criswell and was directed by James Dacre. In this production, O'Malley was singled out for his performance and won an MTA Award and Stage Nomination for his portrayal of Big Daddy.

The Berkshire Theatre Festival produced the play in June, 2016, under the direction of David Auburn, with Michael Raymond-James as Brick, Rebecca Brooksher as Maggie, Linda Gehringer as Big Mama, and Jim Beaver as Big Daddy.

The Young Vic's 2018 production, directed by Benedict Andrews, and starring Sienna Miller as Maggie, Jack O'Connell as Brick, Colm Meaney as Big Daddy, Lisa Palfrey as Big Mama, Hayley Squires as Mae, Brian Gleeson as Gooper, Richard Hansell as Doctor, and Michael J. Shannon as Reverend, was filmed at the Apollo Theatre for National Theatre Live. On March 10, 2021, the filmed production was added the National Theatre Live's streaming service: National Theatre At Home.

The big-screen adaptation of the play was released by MGM in 1958 and starred Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, Judith Anderson, and Jack Carson, with Burl Ives and Madeleine Sherwood reprising their stage roles. The Hays Code limited Brick's portrayal of sexual desire for Skipper, and diminished the original play's critique of homophobia and sexism. Williams reportedly was unhappy with the screenplay, which removed almost all of the homosexual themes and revised the third act section to include a lengthy scene of reconciliation between Brick and Big Daddy. Paul Newman, the film's star, also had stated his disappointment with the adaptation. Despite this, the film was highly acclaimed and was nominated for several Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman both received Oscar nominations for their performances.

In 1976, a television version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was produced, starring the then husband-and-wife team of Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner, and featuring Laurence Olivier as Big Daddy and Maureen Stapleton as Big Mama.

In 1984 a television version was produced by American Playhouse, starring Jessica Lange, Tommy Lee Jones, Rip Torn, Kim Stanley, David Dukes, and Penny Fuller. This adaptation, directed by Jack Hofsiss, revived the sexual innuendos which had been muted in the 1958 film. Both Stanley and Fuller were nominated for the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Special, and Stanley won.

The 2016 Bollywood movie Kapoor & Sons also drew its inspiration from the play.

Informational notes

Citations

Further reading

Bloom, Harold (ed.). Tennessee Williams, Modern Critical Views, 80. New York: Chelsea House, 1987.

Cañadas, Ivan. "The Naming of Straw and Ochello in Tennessee Williams's Cat On a Hot Tin Roof", English Language Notes 42.4 (June 2005): 57-62.

Clum, John M. "'Something Cloudy, Something Clear': Homophobic Discourse in Tennessee Williams", South Atlantic Quarterly 88.1 (Winter 1989): 161-79.

The National, indie rock band. "City Middle" from the record Alligator: "I think I'm like Tennessee Williams, I wait for the click; I wait, but it doesn't kick in."

Plooster, Nancy. "Silent Partners: Lost Lovers in American Drama". 1995 Queer Frontiers: Proceedings of the Fifth Annual National Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Graduate Student Conference. University of Southern California. March 23-26, 1995, Ed. John Waiblinger. University of Southern California Library. USC.edu

Shackelford, Dean. "The Truth That Must Be Told: Gay Subjectivity, Homophobia, and Social History in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof". Tennessee Williams Annual Review 1 (1998): 103-118.

Spoto, Donald (1985). The Kindness of Strangers: The Life of Tennessee Williams. Boston: Little Brown. ISBN 0-306-80805-6.

Stanton, Stephen S. (Ed.). Tennessee Williams: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1977.

Winchell, Mark Royden. "Come Back to the Locker Room Ag'in, Brick Honey!". Mississippi Quarterly: The Journal of Southern Culture. 48:4 (Fall 1995): 701-12.

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Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a three-act play written by Tennessee Williams; an adaptation of his 1952 short story "Three Players of a Summer Game", he wrote the play between 1953 and 1955. One of Williams's more famous works and his personal favorite, the play won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1955.

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Music/Performance: The Marriage of Figaro

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Music/Performance: The Marriage of Figaro

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(The Marriage of Figaro (Italian: Le nozze di Figaro, pronounced [le ˈnɔttse di ˈfiːɡaro] listen )), K. 492, is an opera buffa (comic opera) in four acts composed in 1786 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with an Italian libretto written by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It premiered at the Burgtheater in Vienna on 1 May 1786. The opera's libretto is based on the 1784 stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro ("The Mad Day, or The Marriage of Figaro"). It tells how the servants Figaro and Susanna succeed in getting married, foiling the efforts of their philandering employer Count Almaviva to seduce Susanna and teaching him a lesson in fidelity.

Considered one of the greatest operas ever written it is a cornerstone of the repertoire and appears consistently among the top ten in the Operabase list of most frequently performed operas. In 2017, BBC News Magazine asked 172 opera singers to vote for the best operas ever written. The Marriage of Figaro came in at No. 1 out of the 20 operas featured, with the magazine describing the work as being "one of the supreme masterpieces of operatic comedy, whose rich sense of humanity shines out of Mozart's miraculous score".

Beaumarchais's earlier play The Barber of Seville had already made a successful transition to opera in a version by Paisiello. Beaumarchais's Mariage de Figaro was at first banned in Vienna; Emperor Joseph II stated that "since the piece contains much that is objectionable, I therefore expect that the Censor shall either reject it altogether, or at any rate have such alterations made in it that he shall be responsible for the performance of this play and for the impression it may make", after which the Austrian Censor duly forbade performing the German version of the play. Mozart's librettist managed to get official approval from the emperor for an operatic version which eventually achieved great success.

The opera was the first of three collaborations between Mozart and Da Ponte; their later collaborations were Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte. It was Mozart who originally selected Beaumarchais's play and brought it to Da Ponte, who turned it into a libretto in six weeks, rewriting it in poetic Italian and removing all of the original's political references. In particular, Da Ponte replaced Figaro's climactic speech against inherited nobility with an equally angry aria against unfaithful wives. The libretto was approved by the Emperor before any music was written by Mozart.

The Imperial Italian opera company paid Mozart 450 florins for the work; this was three times his (low) yearly salary when he had worked as a court musician in Salzburg. Da Ponte was paid 200 florins.

Figaro premiered at the Burgtheater in Vienna on 1 May 1786, with a cast listed in the " Roles" section below. Mozart himself conducted the first two performances, conducting seated at the keyboard, the custom of the day. Later performances were conducted by Joseph Weigl. The first production was given eight further performances, all in 1786.

Although the total of nine performances was nothing like the frequency of performance of Mozart's later success, The Magic Flute, which for months was performed roughly every other day, the premiere is generally judged to have been a success. The applause of the audience on the first night resulted in five numbers being encored, seven on 8 May. Joseph II, who, in addition to his empire, was in charge of the Burgtheater, was concerned by the length of the performance and directed his aide Count Rosenberg as follows:

To prevent the excessive duration of operas, without however prejudicing the fame often sought by opera singers from the repetition of vocal pieces, I deem the enclosed notice to the public (that no piece for more than a single voice is to be repeated) to be the most reasonable expedient. You will therefore cause some posters to this effect to be printed.

The requested posters were printed up and posted in the Burgtheater in time for the third performance on 24 May.

The newspaper Wiener Realzeitung carried a review of the opera in its issue of 11 July 1786. It alludes to interference probably produced by paid hecklers, but praises the work warmly:

Mozart's music was generally admired by connoisseurs already at the first performance, if I except only those whose self-love and conceit will not allow them to find merit in anything not written by themselves.

The public, however ... did not really know on the first day where it stood. It heard many a bravo from unbiased connoisseurs, but obstreperous louts in the uppermost storey exerted their hired lungs with all their might to deafen singers and audience alike with their St! and Pst; and consequently opinions were divided at the end of the piece.

Apart from that, it is true that the first performance was none of the best, owing to the difficulties of the composition.

But now, after several performances, one would be subscribing either to the cabal or to tastelessness if one were to maintain that Herr Mozart's music is anything but a masterpiece of art.

It contains so many beauties, and such a wealth of ideas, as can be drawn only from the source of innate genius.

The Hungarian poet Ferenc Kazinczy was in the audience for a May performance, and later remembered the powerful impression the work made on him:

[Nancy] Storace [see below], the beautiful singer, enchanted eye, ear, and soul. - Mozart conducted the orchestra, playing his fortepiano; but the joy which this music causes is so far removed from all sensuality that one cannot speak of it. Where could words be found that are worthy to describe such joy?

Joseph Haydn appreciated the opera greatly, writing to a friend that he heard it in his dreams. In summer 1790 Haydn attempted to produce the work with his own company at Eszterháza, but was prevented from doing so by the death of his patron, Nikolaus Esterházy.

The Emperor requested a special performance at his palace theatre in Laxenburg, which took place in June 1786.

The opera was produced in Prague starting in December 1786 by the Pasquale Bondini company. This production was a tremendous success; the newspaper Prager Oberpostamtszeitung called the work "a masterpiece", and said "no piece (for everyone here asserts) has ever caused such a sensation." Local music lovers paid for Mozart to visit Prague and hear the production; he listened on 17 January 1787, and conducted it himself on the 22nd. The success of the Prague production led to the commissioning of the next Mozart/Da Ponte opera, Don Giovanni, premiered in Prague in 1787 (see Mozart and Prague).

The work was not performed in Vienna during 1787 or 1788, but starting in 1789 there was a revival production. For this occasion Mozart replaced both arias of Susanna with new compositions, better suited to the voice of Adriana Ferrarese del Bene who took the role. To replace "Deh vieni" he wrote "Al desio di chi t'adora" - "[come and fly] To the desire of [the one] who adores you" (K. 577) in July 1789, and to replace "Venite, inginocchiatevi" he wrote "Un moto di gioia" - "A joyous emotion", (K. 579), probably in mid-1790.

The voice types which appear in this table are those listed in the critical edition published in the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe. In modern performance practice, Cherubino and Marcellina are usually assigned to mezzo-sopranos, and Figaro to a bass-baritone.

The Marriage of Figaro continues the plot of The Barber of Seville several years later, and recounts a single "day of madness" ( la folle journée) in the palace of Count Almaviva near Seville, Spain. Rosina is now the Countess; Dr. Bartolo is seeking revenge against Figaro for thwarting his plans to marry Rosina himself; and Count Almaviva has degenerated from the romantic youth of Barber, a tenor (in Paisiello's 1782 opera), into a scheming, bullying, skirt-chasing baritone. Having gratefully given Figaro a job as head of his servant-staff, he is now persistently trying to exercise his droit du seigneur - his right to bed a servant girl on her wedding night - with Figaro's bride-to-be, Susanna, who is the Countess's maid. He keeps finding excuses to delay the civil part of the wedding of his two servants, which is arranged for this very day. Figaro, Susanna, and the Countess conspire to embarrass the Count and expose his scheming. He retaliates by trying to compel Figaro legally to marry a woman old enough to be his mother, but it turns out at the last minute that she really is his mother. Through the clever manipulations of Susanna and the Countess, Figaro and Susanna are finally able to marry.

Place: Count Almaviva's estate, Aguas-Frescas, three leagues outside Seville, Spain.

The overture is in the key of D major; the tempo marking is presto; i.e. quick. The work is well known and often played independently as a concert piece.

A partly furnished room, with a chair in the centre.

Figaro happily measures the space where the bridal bed will fit while Susanna tries on her wedding bonnet in front of a mirror (in the present day, a more traditional French floral wreath or a modern veil are often substituted, often in combination with a bonnet, so as to accommodate what Susanna happily describes as her wedding cappellino). (Duet: "Cinque, dieci, venti" - "Five, ten, twenty"). Figaro is quite pleased with their new room; Susanna far less so (Duettino: "Se a caso madama la notte ti chiama" - "If the Countess should call you during the night"). She is bothered by its proximity to the Count's chambers: it seems he has been making advances toward her and plans on exercising his droit du seigneur, the purported feudal right of a lord to bed a servant girl on her wedding night before her husband can sleep with her. The Count had the right abolished when he married Rosina, but he now wants to reinstate it. The Countess rings for Susanna and she rushes off to answer. Figaro, confident in his own resourcefulness, resolves to outwit the Count ( Cavatina: " Se vuol ballare signor contino" - "If you want to dance, sir count").

Figaro departs, and Dr. Bartolo arrives with Marcellina, his old housekeeper. Figaro had previously borrowed a large sum of money from her, and, in lieu of collateral, had promised to marry her if unable to repay at the appointed time; she now intends to enforce that promise by suing him. Bartolo, seeking revenge against Figaro for having facilitated the union of the Count and Rosina (in The Barber of Seville), agrees to represent Marcellina pro bono, and assures her, in comical lawyer-speak, that he can win the case for her (aria: "La vendetta" - "Vengeance").

Bartolo departs, Susanna returns, and Marcellina and Susanna exchange very politely delivered sarcastic insults (duet: "Via resti servita, madama brillante" - "After you, brilliant madam"). Susanna triumphs in the exchange by congratulating her rival on her impressive age. The older woman departs in a fury.

Cherubino then arrives and, after describing his emerging infatuation with all women, particularly with his "beautiful godmother" the Countess (aria: "Non so più cosa son" - "I don't know anymore what I am"), asks for Susanna's aid with the Count. It seems the Count is angry with Cherubino's amorous ways, having discovered him with the gardener's daughter, Barbarina, and plans to punish him. Cherubino wants Susanna to ask the Countess to intercede on his behalf. When the Count appears, Cherubino hides behind a chair, not wanting to be seen alone with Susanna. The Count uses the opportunity of finding Susanna alone to step up his demands for favours from her, including financial inducements to sell herself to him. As Basilio, the music teacher, arrives, the Count, not wanting to be caught alone with Susanna, hides behind the chair. Cherubino leaves that hiding place just in time, and jumps onto the chair while Susanna scrambles to cover him with a dress.

When Basilio starts to gossip about Cherubino's obvious attraction to the Countess, the Count angrily leaps from his hiding place (terzetto: "Cosa sento!" - "What do I hear!"). He disparages the "absent" page's incessant flirting and describes how he caught him with Barbarina under the kitchen table. As he lifts the dress from the chair to illustrate how he lifted the tablecloth to expose Cherubino, he finds ... the self same Cherubino! The count is furious, but is reminded that the page overheard the Count's advances on Susanna, something that the Count wants to keep from the Countess. The young man is ultimately saved from punishment by the entrance of the peasants of the Count's estate, a preemptive attempt by Figaro to commit the Count to a formal gesture symbolizing his promise that Susanna would enter into the marriage unsullied. The Count evades Figaro's plan by postponing the gesture. The Count says that he forgives Cherubino, but he dispatches him to his own regiment in Seville for army duty, effective immediately. Figaro gives Cherubino mocking advice about his new, harsh, military life from which all luxury, and especially women, will be totally excluded (aria: " Non più andrai" - "No more gallivanting").

A handsome room with an alcove, a dressing room on the left, a door in the background (leading to the servants' quarters) and a window at the side.

The Countess laments her husband's infidelity (aria: "Porgi, amor, qualche ristoro" - "Grant, love, some comfort"). Susanna comes in to prepare the Countess for the day. She responds to the Countess's questions by telling her that the Count is not trying to seduce her; he is merely offering her a monetary contract in return for her affection. Figaro enters and explains his plan to distract the Count with anonymous letters warning him of adulterers. He has already sent one to the Count (via Basilio) that indicates that the Countess has a rendezvous of her own that evening. They hope that the Count will be too busy looking for imaginary adulterers to interfere with Figaro and Susanna's wedding. Figaro additionally advises the Countess to keep Cherubino around. She should dress him up as a girl and lure the Count into an illicit rendezvous where he can be caught red-handed. Figaro leaves.

Cherubino arrives, sent in by Figaro and eager to co-operate. Susanna urges him to sing the song he wrote for the Countess (aria: "Voi che sapete che cosa è amor" - "You ladies who know what love is, is it what I'm suffering from?"). After the song, the Countess, seeing Cherubino's military commission, notices that the Count was in such a hurry that he forgot to seal it with his signet ring (which would be necessary to make it an official document).

Susanna and the Countess then begin with their plan. Susanna takes off Cherubino's cloak, and she begins to comb his hair and teach him to behave and walk like a woman (aria of Susanna: "Venite, inginocchiatevi" - "Come, kneel down before me"). Then she leaves the room through a door at the back to get the dress for Cherubino, taking his cloak with her.

While the Countess and Cherubino are waiting for Susanna to come back, they suddenly hear the Count arriving. Cherubino hides in the closet. The Count demands to be allowed into the room and the Countess reluctantly unlocks the door. The Count enters and hears a noise from the closet. He tries to open it, but it is locked. The Countess tells him it is only Susanna, trying on her wedding dress. At this moment, Susanna re-enters unobserved, quickly realizes what's going on, and hides in the alcove (Trio: "Susanna, or via, sortite" - "Susanna, come out!"). The Count shouts for her to identify herself by her voice, but the Countess orders her to be silent. Furious and suspicious, the Count leaves, with the Countess, in search of tools to force the closet door open. As they leave, he locks all the bedroom doors to prevent the intruder from escaping. Cherubino and Susanna emerge from their hiding places, and Cherubino escapes by jumping through the window into the garden. Susanna then takes Cherubino's former place in the closet, vowing to make the Count look foolish (duet: "Aprite, presto, aprite" - "Open the door, quickly!").

The Count and Countess return. The Countess, thinking herself trapped, desperately admits that Cherubino is hidden in the closet. The enraged Count draws his sword, promising to kill Cherubino on the spot, but when the door is opened, they both find to their astonishment only Susanna (Finale: "Esci omai, garzon malnato" - "Come out of there, you ill-born boy!"). The Count demands an explanation; the Countess tells him it is a practical joke, to test his trust in her. Shamed by his jealousy, the Count begs for forgiveness. When the Count presses about the anonymous letter, Susanna and the Countess reveal that the letter was written by Figaro, and then delivered by Basilio. Figaro then arrives and tries to start the wedding festivities, but the Count berates him with questions about the anonymous note. Just as the Count is starting to run out of questions, Antonio the gardener arrives, complaining that a man has jumped out of the window and damaged his carnations while running away. Antonio adds that he tentatively identified the running man as Cherubino, but Figaro claims it was he himself who jumped out of the window, and pretends to have injured his foot while landing. Figaro, Susanna, and the Countess attempt to discredit Antonio as a chronic drunkard whose constant inebriation makes him unreliable and prone to fantasy, but Antonio brings forward a paper which, he says, was dropped by the escaping man. The Count orders Figaro to prove he was the jumper by identifying the paper (which is, in fact, Cherubino's appointment to the army). Figaro is at a loss, but Susanna and the Countess manage to signal the correct answers, and Figaro triumphantly identifies the document. His victory is, however, short-lived: Marcellina, Bartolo, and Basilio enter, bringing charges against Figaro and demanding that he honor his contract to marry Marcellina, since he cannot repay her loan. The Count happily postpones the wedding in order to investigate the charge.

A rich hall, with two thrones, prepared for the wedding ceremony.

The Count mulls over the confusing situation. At the urging of the Countess, Susanna enters and gives a false promise to meet the Count later that night in the garden (duet: "Crudel! perchè finora" - "Cruel girl, why did you make me wait so long"). As Susanna leaves, the Count overhears her telling Figaro that he has already won the case. Realizing that he is being tricked (recitative and aria: "Hai già vinta la causa! ... Vedrò, mentr'io sospiro" - "You've already won the case!" ... "Shall I, while sighing, see"), he resolves to punish Figaro by forcing him to marry Marcellina.

Figaro's hearing follows, and the Count's judgment is that Figaro must marry Marcellina. Figaro argues that he cannot get married without his parents' permission, and that he does not know who his parents are, because he was stolen from them when he was a baby. The ensuing discussion reveals that Figaro is Raffaello, the long-lost illegitimate son of Bartolo and Marcellina. A touching scene of reconciliation occurs. During the celebrations, Susanna enters with a payment to release Figaro from his debt to Marcellina. Seeing Figaro and Marcellina in celebration together, Susanna mistakenly believes that Figaro now prefers Marcellina to her. She has a tantrum and slaps Figaro's face. Marcellina explains, and Susanna, realizing her mistake, joins the celebration. Bartolo, overcome with emotion, agrees to marry Marcellina that evening in a double wedding (sextet: "Riconosci in questo amplesso" - "Recognize in this embrace").

All leave, before Barbarina, Antonio's daughter, invites Cherubino back to her house so they can disguise him as a girl. The Countess, alone, ponders the loss of her happiness (aria: "Dove sono i bei momenti" - "Where are they, the beautiful moments"). Meanwhile, Antonio informs the Count that Cherubino is not in Seville, but in fact at his house. Susanna enters and updates her mistress regarding the plan to trap the Count. The Countess dictates a love letter for Susanna to send to the Count, which suggests that he meet her (Susanna) that night, "under the pines". The letter instructs the Count to return the pin which fastens the letter (duet: " Sull'aria ... che soave zeffiretto" - "On the breeze... What a gentle little zephyr").

A chorus of young peasants, among them Cherubino disguised as a girl, arrives to serenade the Countess. The Count arrives with Antonio and, discovering the page, is enraged. His anger is quickly dispelled by Barbarina, who publicly recalls that he had once offered to give her anything she wants in exchange for certain favors, and asks for Cherubino's hand in marriage. Thoroughly embarrassed, the Count allows Cherubino to stay.

The act closes with the double wedding, during the course of which Susanna delivers her letter to the Count (Finale: "Ecco la marcia" - "Here is the procession"). Figaro watches the Count prick his finger on the pin, and laughs, unaware that the love-note is an invitation for the Count to tryst with Figaro's own bride Susanna. As the curtain drops, the two newlywed couples rejoice.

The garden, with two pavilions. Night.

Following the directions in the letter, the Count has sent the pin back to Susanna, giving it to Barbarina. However, Barbarina has lost it (aria: "L'ho perduta, me meschina" - "I have lost it, poor me"). Figaro and Marcellina see Barbarina, and Figaro asks her what she is doing. When he hears the pin is Susanna's, he is overcome with jealousy, especially as he recognises the pin to be the one that fastened the letter to the Count. Thinking that Susanna is meeting the Count behind his back, Figaro complains to his mother, and swears to be avenged on the Count and Susanna, and on all unfaithful wives. Marcellina urges caution, but Figaro will not listen. Figaro rushes off, and Marcellina resolves to inform Susanna of Figaro's intentions. Marcellina sings an aria lamenting that male and female wild beasts get along with each other, but rational humans can't (aria: "Il capro e la capretta" - "The billy-goat and the she-goat"). (This aria and the subsequent aria of Basilio are mostly not performed; however, some recordings include them.)

Motivated by jealousy, Figaro tells Bartolo and Basilio to come to his aid when he gives the signal. Basilio comments on Figaro's foolishness and claims he was once as frivolous as Figaro was. He tells a tale of how he was given common sense by "Donna Flemma" ("Dame Prudence") and learned the importance of not crossing powerful people. (aria: "In quegli anni" - "In those years"). They exit, leaving Figaro alone. Figaro muses bitterly on the inconstancy of women (recitative and aria: "Tutto è disposto ... Aprite un po' quegli occhi" - "Everything is ready ... Open those eyes a little"). Susanna and the Countess arrive, each dressed in the other's clothes. Marcellina is with them, having informed Susanna of Figaro's suspicions and plans. After they discuss the plan, Marcellina and the Countess leave, and Susanna teases Figaro by singing a love song to her beloved within Figaro's hearing (aria: "Deh vieni non tardar" - "Oh come, don't delay"). Figaro is hiding behind a bush and, thinking the song is for the Count, becomes increasingly jealous.

The Countess arrives in Susanna's dress. Cherubino shows up and starts teasing "Susanna" (really the Countess), endangering the plan. (Finale: "Pian pianin le andrò più presso" - "Softly, softly I'll approach her") The Count strikes out in the dark at Cherubino. but his punch hits Figaro, and Cherubino runs off.

The Count now begins making earnest love to "Susanna" (really the Countess), and gives her a jeweled ring. They go offstage together, where the Countess dodges him, hiding in the dark. Onstage, meanwhile, the real Susanna enters, wearing the Countess' clothes. Figaro mistakes her for the real Countess, and starts to tell her of the Count's intentions, but he suddenly recognizes his bride in disguise. He plays along with the joke by pretending to be in love with "my lady", and inviting her to make love right then and there. Susanna, fooled, loses her temper and slaps him many times. Figaro finally lets on that he has recognized Susanna's voice, and they make peace, resolving to conclude the comedy together ("Pace, pace, mio dolce tesoro" - "Peace, peace, my sweet treasure").

The Count, unable to find "Susanna", enters frustrated. Figaro gets his attention by loudly declaring his love for "the Countess" (really Susanna). The enraged Count calls for his people and for weapons: his servant is seducing his wife. (Ultima scena: "Gente, gente, all'armi, all'armi" - "Gentlemen, to arms!") Bartolo, Basilio and Antonio enter with torches as, one by one, the Count drags out Cherubino, Barbarina, Marcellina and the "Countess" from behind the pavilion.

All beg him to forgive Figaro and the "Countess", but he loudly refuses, repeating "no" at the top of his voice, until finally the real Countess re-enters and reveals her true identity. The Count, seeing the ring he had given her, realizes that the supposed Susanna he was trying to seduce was actually his wife. He kneels and pleads for forgiveness himself ("Contessa perdono!" - "Countess, forgive me!"). The Countess replies ("Più docile io sono e dico di sì" - "I am more docile [than you], and I say yes".) Now nothing stands in the way of Figaro's wedding.

Act 1

1. Cinque... dieci... venti... - Susanna, Figaro

2. Se a caso madama la notte ti chiama - Susanna, Figaro

3. Se vuol ballare, signor Contino - Figaro

4. La vendetta, oh la vendetta! - Bartolo

5. Via resti servita, madama brillante - Susanna, Marcellina

6. Non so più cosa son, cosa faccio - Cherubino

7. Cosa sento! tosto andate - Susanna, Basilio, Count

8. Giovani liete, fiori spargete - Chorus

9. Non più andrai, farfallone amoroso - Figaro

Act 2

10. Porgi amor qualche ristoro - Countess

11. Voi che sapete che cosa è amor - Cherubino

12. Venite inginocchiatevi - Susanna

13. Susanna or via sortite - Countess, Susanna, Count

14. Aprite presto aprite - Susanna, Cherubino

15. Esci omai, garzon malnato - Susanna, Countess, Marcellina, Basilio, Count, Antonio, Bartolo, Figaro

Act 3

16. Crudel! perché finora - Susanna, Count

17. Hai già vinta la causa - Vedrò mentr'io sospiro - Count

18. Riconosci in questo amplesso - Susanna, Marcellina, Don Curzio, Count, Bartolo, Figaro

19. E Susanna non vien - Dove sono i bei momenti - Countess

20. Canzonetta sull'aria - Susanna, Countess

21. Ricevete, o padroncina - Farm girls

22. Ecco la marcia, andiamo - Susanna, Countess, Count, Figaro; Chorus

Act 4

23. L'ho perduta... me meschina - Barbarina

24. Il capro e la capretta - Marcellina

25. In quegl'anni in cui val poco - Basilio

26. Tutto è disposto - Aprite un po' quegl'occhi - Figaro

27. Giunse alfin il momento - Deh vieni non tardar - Susanna

28. Pian pianin le andrò più presso - Susanna, Countess, Barbarina, Cherubino, Marcellina, Basilio, Count, Antonio, Figaro, Bartolo

The Marriage of Figaro is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two clarini, timpani, and strings; the recitativi secchi are accompanied by a keyboard instrument, usually a fortepiano or a harpsichord, often joined by a cello. The instrumentation of the recitativi secchi is not given in the score, so it is up to the conductor and the performers. A typical performance lasts around 3 hours.

Two arias from act 4 are often omitted: one in which Marcellina regrets that people (unlike animals) abuse their mates ("Il capro e la capretta"), and one in which Don Basilio tells how he saved himself from several dangers in his youth, by using the skin of a donkey for shelter and camouflage ("In quegli anni").

Mozart wrote two replacement arias for Susanna when the role was taken over by Adriana Ferrarese in the 1789 revival. The replacement arias, "Un moto di gioia" (replacing "Venite, inginocchiatevi" in act 2) and "Al desio di chi t'adora" (replacing "Deh vieni non tardar" in act 4), in which the two clarinets are replaced with basset horns, are normally not used in modern performances. A notable exception was a series of performances at the Metropolitan Opera in 1998 with Cecilia Bartoli as Susanna.

Lorenzo Da Ponte wrote a preface to the first published version of the libretto, in which he boldly claimed that he and Mozart had created a new form of music drama:

In spite ... of every effort ... to be brief, the opera will not be one of the shortest to have appeared on our stage, for which we hope sufficient excuse will be found in the variety of threads from which the action of this play [i.e. Beaumarchais's] is woven, the vastness and grandeur of the same, the multiplicity of the musical numbers that had to be made in order not to leave the actors too long unemployed, to diminish the vexation and monotony of long recitatives, and to express with varied colours the various emotions that occur, but above all in our desire to offer as it were a new kind of spectacle to a public of so refined a taste and understanding.

Charles Rosen, in The Classical Style, proposes to take Da Ponte's words quite seriously, noting the "richness of the ensemble writing", which carries forward the action in a far more dramatic way than recitatives would. Rosen also suggests that the musical language of the classical style was adapted by Mozart to convey the drama: many sections of the opera musically resemble sonata form; by movement through a sequence of keys, they build up and resolve musical tension, providing a natural musical reflection of the drama. As Rosen writes:

The synthesis of accelerating complexity and symmetrical resolution which was at the heart of Mozart's style enabled him to find a musical equivalent for the great stage works which were his dramatic models. The Marriage of Figaro in Mozart's version is the dramatic equal, and in many respects the superior, of Beaumarchais's work.

This is demonstrated in the closing numbers of all four acts: as the drama escalates, Mozart eschews recitativi altogether and opts for increasingly sophisticated writing, bringing his characters on stage, revelling in a complex weave of solo and ensemble singing in multiple combinations, and climaxing in seven- and eight-voice tutti for acts 2 and 4. The finale of act 2, lasting 20 minutes, is one of the longest uninterrupted pieces of music Mozart ever wrote. Eight of the opera's 11 characters appear on stage in its more than 900 bars of continuous music.

Mozart cleverly uses the sound of two horns playing together to represent cuckoldry, in the act 4 aria "Aprite un po' quegli occhi". Verdi later used the same device in Ford's aria in .

Johannes Brahms said "In my opinion, each number in Figaro is a miracle; it is totally beyond me how anyone could create anything so perfect; nothing like it was ever done again, not even by Beethoven."

A musical phrase from the act 1 trio of The Marriage of Figaro (where Basilio sings Così fan tutte le belle) was later reused, by Mozart, in the overture to his opera Così fan tutte. Mozart also quotes Figaro's aria " Non più andrai" in the second act of his opera Don Giovanni. Further, Mozart used it in 1791 in his Five Contredanses, K. 609, No. 1. Mozart reused the music of the "Agnus Dei" of his earlier Krönungsmesse (Coronation Mass) for the Countess's "Dove sono", in C major instead of the original F major. Mozart also reused the motif that begins his early bassoon concerto in another aria sung by the Countess, "Porgi, amor". Franz Liszt quoted the opera in his Fantasy on Themes from Mozart's Figaro and Don Giovanni.

In 1819, Henry R. Bishop wrote an adaptation of the opera in English, translating from Beaumarchais's play and re-using some of Mozart's music, while adding some of his own.

In his 1991 opera, The Ghosts of Versailles, which includes elements of Beaumarchais's third Figaro play (La Mère coupable) and in which the main characters of The Marriage of Figaro also appear, John Corigliano quotes Mozart's opera, especially the overture, several times.

Notes

1. ^ "Statistics for the five seasons 2009/10 to 2013/14". Operabase. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016.

2. ^ Mann, William. The Operas of Mozart. Cassell, London, 1977, p. 366 (in chapter on Le Nozze di Figaro).

3. The librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte in his memoirs asserted that the play was banned only for its sexual references. See the ^ Memoirs of Lorenzo Da Ponte, translated by Elisabeth Abbott (New York: Da Capo Press, 1988), 150.

4. While the political content was suppressed, the opera enhanced the emotional content. According to ^ Stendhal, Mozart "transformed into real passions the superficial attachments that amuse Beaumarchais's easy-going inhabitants of [Count Almaviva's castle] Aguas Frescas". Stendhal's French text is in: Dümchen, Sybil; Nerlich, Michael, eds. (1994). Stendhal - Text und Bild (in German). Tübingen: Gunter Narr. ISBN 978-3-8233-3990-8.

5. ^ Broder, Nathan (1951). "Essay on the Story of the Opera". The Marriage of Figaro: Le Nozze di Figaro. By Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus; Da Ponte, Lorenzo (piano reduction vocal score). Translated by Martin, Ruth; Martin, Thomas. New York: Schirmer. pp. v-vi. (Quoting Memoirs of Lorenzo da Ponte, transl. and ed. by L. A. Sheppard, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1929, pp. 129ff

6. The letter, to ^ Marianne von Genzinger, is printed in Geiringer & Geiringer 1982, pp. 90-92

7. See ^ Robinson 1986, p. 173; Chanan 1999, p. 63; and Singher & Singher 2003, p. 150. Mozart (and his contemporaries) never used the terms "mezzo-soprano" or "baritone". Women's roles were listed as either "soprano" or "contralto", while men's roles were listed as either "tenor" or "bass". Many of Mozart's baritone and bass-baritone roles derive from the basso buffo tradition, where no clear distinction was drawn between bass and baritone, a practice that continued well into the 19th century. Similarly, mezzo-soprano as a distinct voice type was a 19th-century development (Jander et al. 2001, chapters "Baritone" and "Mezzo-soprano [mezzo]"). Modern re-classifications of the voice types for Mozartian roles have been based on analysis of contemporary descriptions of the singers who created those roles and their other repertoire, and on the role's tessitura in the score.

8. This piece became so popular that Mozart himself, in the final act of his next opera ^ Don Giovanni, transformed the aria into Tafelmusik played by a woodwind ensemble, and alluded to by Leporello as "rather well-known sounds".

9. Brown-Montesano, Kristi (2007). ^ Understanding the Women of Mozart's Operas, p. 207. University of California Press. ISBN 052093296X

10. ^ Gossett, Philip (2008). Divas and Scholars: Performing Italian Opera, pp. 239-240. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226304876

11. ^ "Verdi Falstaff (La Scala, 1932) - About this Recording" by Keith Anderson, Naxos Records

12. ^ "Belly laugh: Verdi's Falstaff ends CBSO season in high spirits" by Mark Pullinger, , 14 July 2016

13. Harris, Robert, ^ What to listen for in Mozart, 2002, ISBN 0743244044, p. 141; in a different translation, Peter Gay, Mozart: A Life, Penguin, New York, 1999, p. 131.

14. ^ Phillip Huscher (5 June 2014). "Mozart's Bassoon Concerto, 'a little masterpiece'". Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Sources

Chanan, Michael (1999). From Handel to Hendrix: The Composer in the Public Sphere. Verso. ISBN 1-85984-706-4.

Deutsch, Otto Erich (1965). Mozart: A Documentary Biography. Stanford University Press.

Geiringer, Karl; Geiringer, Irene (1982). Haydn: A Creative Life in Music (3rd ed.). University of California Press. pp. xii, 403. ISBN 0-520-04316-2.

Jander, Owen; Steane, J. B.; Forbes, Elizabeth; Harris, Ellen T.; Waldman, Gerald (2001). Stanley Sadie; John Tyrrell (eds.). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd ed.). Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-60800-3.

Landon, H. C. Robbins; Jones, David Wyn (1988). Haydn: His Life and Music. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-37265-9.

Melitz, Leo (1921). The Opera Goer's Complete Guide. Translated by Richard Sanger. Dodd, Mead and Co.

Rice, John A. (1999). Antonio Salieri and Viennese Opera. University of Chicago Press.

Robinson, Paul A. (1986). Opera & Ideas: From Mozart to Strauss. Cornell University Press. p. 173. ISBN 0-8014-9428-1.

Rosen, Charles (1997). The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven (2nd ed.). New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0-393-31712-9. (At archive.org)

Singher, Martial; Singher, Eta (2003). An Interpretive Guide to Operatic Arias: A Handbook for Singers, Coaches, Teachers, and Students. Penn State University Press. ISBN 0-271-02354-6.

Solomon, Maynard (1995). Mozart: A Life. HarperCollins. ISBN 9780060190460.

Le nozze di Figaro: Score and critical report (in German) in the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe

Libretto, critical editions, diplomatic editions, source evaluation (German only), links to online DME recordings, Digital Mozart Edition

Libretto, first edition, Presso Giuseppe Nob. de Kurzbek (Ritter Joseph Edler von Kurzböck), 1786 (in Italian)

Complete libretto

Full orchestral score (German/Italian)

Italian/English side by side translation

Italian/English side by side translation

Mozart's Opera Marriage of Figaro, containing the Italian text, with an English translation, and the Music of all of the Principal Airs, Ditson (1888)

Le nozze di Figaro: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project

Complete recording at Mozart Archiv

Photos of 21st century productions of The Marriage of Figaro in Germany and Switzerland (in German)

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(The Marriage of Figaro (Italian: Le nozze di Figaro , pronounced [le ˈnɔttse di ˈfiːɡaro] listen )), K. 492, is an opera buffa (comic opera) in four acts composed in 1786 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with an Italian libretto written by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It premiered at the Burgtheater in Vienna on 1 May 1786.

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" We Can Do It!" is an American World War II wartime poster produced by J. Howard Miller in 1943 for Westinghouse Electric as an inspirational image to boost female worker morale.

The poster was little seen during World War II. It was rediscovered in the early 1980s and widely reproduced in many forms, often called "We Can Do It!" but also called " Rosie the Riveter" after the iconic figure of a strong female war production worker. The "We Can Do It!" image was used to promote feminism and other political issues beginning in the 1980s. The image made the cover of the Smithsonian magazine in 1994 and was fashioned into a US first-class mail stamp in 1999. It was incorporated in 2008 into campaign materials for several American politicians, and was reworked by an artist in 2010 to celebrate the first woman becoming prime minister of Australia. The poster is one of the ten most-requested images at the National Archives and Records Administration.

After its rediscovery, observers often assumed that the image was always used as a call to inspire women workers to join the war effort. However, during the war the image was strictly internal to Westinghouse, displayed only during February 1943, and was not for recruitment but to exhort already-hired women to work harder. People have seized upon the uplifting attitude and apparent message to remake the image into many different forms, including self empowerment, campaign promotion, advertising, and parodies.

After she saw the Smithsonian cover image in 1994, Geraldine Hoff Doyle mistakenly said that she was the subject of the poster. Doyle thought that she had also been captured in a wartime photograph of a woman factory worker, and she innocently assumed that this photo inspired Miller's poster. Conflating her as "Rosie the Riveter", Doyle was honored by many organizations including the Michigan Women's Historical Center and Hall of Fame. However, in 2015, the woman in the wartime photograph was identified as then 20-year-old Naomi Parker, working in early 1942 before Doyle had graduated from high school. Doyle's notion that the photograph inspired the poster cannot be proved or disproved, so neither Doyle nor Parker can be confirmed as the model for "We Can Do It!".

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. government called upon manufacturers to produce greater amounts of war goods. The workplace atmosphere at large factories was often tense because of resentment built up between management and labor unions throughout the 1930s. Directors of companies such as General Motors (GM) sought to minimize past friction and encourage teamwork. In response to a rumored public relations campaign by the United Auto Workers union, GM quickly produced a propaganda poster in 1942 showing both labor and management rolling up their sleeves, aligned toward maintaining a steady rate of war production. The poster read, "Together We Can Do It!" and "Keep 'Em Firing!" In creating such posters, corporations wished to increase production by tapping popular pro-war sentiment, with the ultimate goal of preventing the government from exerting greater control over production.

J. Howard Miller

J. Howard Miller was an American graphic artist. He painted posters during World War II in support of the war effort, among them the famous "We Can Do It!" poster. Aside from the iconic poster, Miller remains largely unknown. Little has been written about Miller's life, and the year of his birth and death are uncertain. His life span has been published as "ca. 1915 - ca. 1990", "ca. 1915 - 1990", and "1918-2004"

Miller studied at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, graduating in 1939. He lived in Pittsburgh during the war. His work came to the attention of the Westinghouse Company (later, the Westinghouse War Production Co-Ordinating Committee), and he was hired to create a series of posters. The posters were sponsored by the company's internal War Production Co-Ordinating Committee, one of the hundreds of labor-management committees organized under the supervision of the national War Production Board.

Westinghouse Electric

In 1942, Miller was hired by Westinghouse Electric's internal War Production Coordinating Committee, through an advertising agency, to create a series of posters to display to the company's workers. The intent of the poster project was to raise worker morale, to reduce absenteeism, to direct workers' questions to management, and to lower the likelihood of labor unrest or a factory strike. Each of the more than 42 posters designed by Miller was displayed in the factory for two weeks, then replaced by the next one in the series. Most of the posters featured men; they emphasized traditional roles for men and women. One of the posters pictured a smiling male manager with the words "Any Questions About Your Work? ... Ask your Supervisor."

No more than 1,800 copies of the 17-by-22-inch (559 by 432 mm) "We Can Do It!" poster were printed. It was not initially seen beyond several Westinghouse factories in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and the midwestern U.S., where it was scheduled to be displayed for two five-day work weeks starting Monday, February 15, 1943. The targeted factories were making plasticized helmet liners impregnated with Micarta, a phenolic resin invented by Westinghouse. Mostly women were employed in this enterprise, which yielded some 13 million helmet liners over the course of the war. The slogan "We Can Do It!" was probably not interpreted by the factory workers as empowering to women alone; they had been subjected to a series of paternalistic, controlling posters promoting management authority, employee capability and company unity, and the workers would likely have understood the image to mean "Westinghouse Employees Can Do It", all working together. The upbeat image served as gentle propaganda to boost employee morale and keep production from lagging. The badge on the "We Can Do It!" worker's collar identifies her as a Westinghouse Electric plant floor employee; the pictured red, white and blue clothing was a subtle call to patriotism, one of the frequent tactics of corporate war production committees.

During World War II, the "We Can Do It!" poster was not connected to the 1942 song "Rosie the Riveter", nor to the widely seen Norman Rockwell painting called Rosie the Riveter that appeared on the cover of the Memorial Day issue of the Saturday Evening Post, May 29, 1943. The Westinghouse poster was not associated with any of the women nicknamed "Rosie" who came forward to promote women working for war production on the home front. Rather, after being displayed for two weeks in February 1943 to some Westinghouse factory workers, it disappeared for nearly four decades. Other "Rosie" images prevailed, often photographs of actual workers. The Office of War Information geared up for a massive nationwide advertising campaign to sell the war, but "We Can Do It!" was not part of it.

Rockwell's emblematic Rosie the Riveter painting was loaned by the Post to the U.S. Treasury Department for use in posters and campaigns promoting war bonds. Following the war, the Rockwell painting gradually sank from public memory because it was copyrighted; all of Rockwell's paintings were vigorously defended by his estate after his death. This protection resulted in the original painting gaining value-it sold for nearly $5 million in 2002. Conversely, the lack of protection for the "We Can Do It!" image is one of the reasons it experienced a rebirth.

Ed Reis, a volunteer historian for Westinghouse, noted that the original image was not shown to female riveters during the war, so the recent association with "Rosie the Riveter" was unjustified. Rather, it was targeted at women who were making helmet liners out of Micarta. Reis joked that the woman in the image was more likely to have been named "Molly the Micarta Molder or Helen the Helmet Liner Maker."

In 1982, the "We Can Do It!" poster was reproduced in a magazine article, "Poster Art for Patriotism's Sake", a Washington Post Magazine article about posters in the collection of the National Archives.

In subsequent years, the poster was re-appropriated to promote feminism. Feminists saw in the image an embodiment of female empowerment. The "We" was understood to mean "We Women", uniting all women in a sisterhood fighting against gender inequality. This was very different from the poster's 1943 use to control employees and to discourage labor unrest. History professor Jeremiah Axelrod commented on the image's combination of femininity with the "masculine (almost macho) composition and body language."

Smithsonian magazine put the image on its cover in March 1994, to invite the viewer to read a featured article about wartime posters. The US Postal Service created a 33¢ stamp in February 1999 based on the image, with the added words "Women Support War Effort". A Westinghouse poster from 1943 was put on display at the National Museum of American History, part of the exhibit showing items from the 1930s and '40s.

In 1984, former war worker Geraldine Hoff Doyle came across an article in Modern Maturity magazine which showed a wartime photograph of a young woman working at a lathe, and she assumed that the photograph was taken of her in mid-to-late 1942 when she was working briefly in a factory. Ten years later, Doyle saw the "We Can Do It!" poster on the front of the Smithsonian magazine and assumed the poster was an image of herself. Without intending to profit from the connection, Doyle decided that the 1942 wartime photograph had inspired Miller to create the poster, making Doyle herself the model for the poster. Subsequently, Doyle was widely credited as the inspiration for Miller's poster. From an archive of Acme news photographs, Professor James J. Kimble obtained the original photographic print, including its yellowed caption identifying the woman as Naomi Parker. The photo is one of a series of photographs taken at Naval Air Station Alameda in California, showing Parker and her sister working at their war jobs during March 1942. These images were published in various newspapers and magazines beginning in April 1942, during a time when Doyle was still attending high school in Michigan. In February 2015, Kimble interviewed the Parker sisters, now named Naomi Fern Fraley, 93, and her sister Ada Wyn Morford, 91, and found that they had known for five years about the incorrect identification of the photo, and had been rebuffed in their attempt to correct the historical record. Naomi Parker Fraley died at age 96 on January 20, 2018.

Although many publications have repeated Doyle's unsupported assertion that the wartime photograph inspired Miller's poster, Westinghouse historian Charles A. Ruch, a Pittsburgh resident who had been friends with J. Howard Miller, said that Miller was not in the habit of working from photographs, but rather live models. However, the photograph of Naomi Parker did appear in the Pittsburgh Press on July 5, 1942, making it possible that Miller saw it as he was creating the poster.

Today, the image has become very widely known, far beyond its narrowly defined purpose during World War II. It has adorned T-shirts, tattoos, coffee cups and refrigerator magnets-so many different products that The Washington Post called it the "most over-exposed" souvenir item available in Washington, D.C. It was used in 2008 by some of the various regional campaigners working to elect Sarah Palin, Ron Paul and Hillary Clinton. Michelle Obama was worked into the image by some attendees of the 2010 Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. The image has been employed by corporations such as Clorox who used it in advertisements for household cleaners, the pictured woman provided in this instance with a wedding ring on her left hand. Parodies of the image have included famous women, men, animals and fictional characters. A bobblehead doll and an action figure toy have been produced. The Children's Museum of Indianapolis showed a four-by-five-foot (1.2 by 1.5 m) replica made by artist Kristen Cumings from thousands of Jelly Belly candies.

After Julia Gillard became the first female prime minister of Australia in June 2010, a street artist in Melbourne calling himself Phoenix pasted Gillard's face into a new monochrome version of the "We Can Do It!" poster. AnOther Magazine published a photograph of the poster taken on Hosier Lane, Melbourne, in July 2010, showing that the original "War Production Co-ordinating Committee" mark in the lower right had been replaced with a URL pointing to Phoenix's Flickr photostream. In March 2011, Phoenix produced a color version which stated "She Did It!" in the lower right, then in January 2012 he pasted "Too Sad" diagonally across the poster to represent his disappointment with developments in Australian politics.

Geraldine Doyle died in December 2010. Utne Reader went ahead with their scheduled January-February 2011 cover image: a parody of "We Can Do It!" featuring Marge Simpson raising her right hand in a fist. The editors of the magazine expressed regret at the passing of Doyle.

A stereoscopic image of "We Can Do It!" was created for the closing credits of the 2011 superhero film Captain America: The First Avenger. The image served as the background for the title card of English actress Hayley Atwell.

The Ad Council claimed the poster was developed in 1942 by its precursor, the War Advertising Committee, as part of a "Women in War Jobs" campaign, helping to bring "over two million women" into war production. In February 2012 during the Ad Council's 70th anniversary celebration, an interactive application designed by Animax's HelpsGood digital agency was linked to the Ad Council's Facebook page. The Facebook app was called "Rosify Yourself", referring to Rosie the Riveter; it allowed viewers to upload images of their faces to be incorporated into the "We Can Do It!" poster, then saved to be shared with friends. Ad Council President and CEO Peggy Conlon posted her own "Rosified" face on Huffington Post in an article she wrote about the group's 70-year history. The staff of the television show posted two "Rosified" images on their website, using the faces of news anchors Matt Lauer and Ann Curry. However, Seton Hall University professor James J. Kimble and University of Pittsburgh professor Lester C. Olson researched the origins of the poster and determined that it was not produced by the Ad Council nor was it used for recruiting women workers.

In 2010, American singer Pink featured this poster in her Raise Your Glass music video. Pink recreates the poster wearing the same clothing and doing the same pose as in the poster.

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" We Can Do It!" is an American World War II wartime poster produced by J. Howard Miller in 1943 for Westinghouse Electric as an inspirational image to boost female worker morale. The poster was little seen during World War II.

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Fearless Girl is a bronze sculpture by Kristen Visbal, commissioned by State Street Global Advisors (SSGA), a large asset management company. The statue was installed on March 7, 2017, in anticipation of International Women's Day the following day. It depicts a girl four feet high, promoting female empowerment. It is located across from the New York Stock Exchange Building in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City.

Fearless Girl was commissioned to advertise for an index fund that comprises gender-diverse companies that have a relatively high percentage of women among their senior leadership. A plaque originally placed below the statue stated: "Know the power of women in leadership. SHE makes a difference," with "SHE" being both a descriptive pronoun and the fund's NASDAQ ticker symbol.

The statue was first installed at the northern tip of Bowling Green on Broadway, facing down the Charging Bull statue. Following complaints from that statue's sculptor, Arturo Di Modica, it was removed in November 2018 and relocated to its current location the following month. A plaque with footprints was placed on the original site of Fearless Girl.

Fearless Girl measures approximately 50 inches (130 cm) tall and weighs about 250 pounds (110 kg). As first placed, it faced Charging Bull, a much larger and heavier bronze statue that is 11 feet (3.4 m) tall and weighs 7,100 pounds (3,200 kg).

Fearless Girl is meant to "send a message" about workplace gender diversity and encourage companies to recruit women to their boards. The plaque below the statue stated: "Know the power of women in leadership. SHE makes a difference," with SHE referring to both the gender of the subject and the fund's NASDAQ ticker symbol.

The commission by State Street Global Advisors specified that the statue should depict a girl with hands on her hips and chin up, with a height of 36 inches, which Kristen Visbal and her collaborators then increased to 50 inches, to better match the size of Charging Bull. Still, Visbal commented that "I made sure to keep her features soft; she's not defiant, she's brave, proud, and strong, not belligerent". She modeled the sculpture on two children from Delaware "so everyone could relate to the Fearless Girl."

The statue was installed on March 7, 2017-the day before International Women's Day-by State Street Global Advisors, in a campaign developed by advertising agency McCann New York. SSGA was celebrating the first anniversary of its "Gender Diversity Index" fund that "invests in U.S. large-capitalization companies that rank among the highest in their sector in achieving gender diversity across senior leadership". The concept for the statue was developed by Senior Art Director Lizzie Wilson and Senior Copywriter Tali Gumbiner. Wilson and Gumbiner established both the idea for the statue as well as the overall look of the girl using countless moodboards and imagery, which Visbal referenced.

Fearless Girl was originally given a one-week City Hall permit that was later extended to 30 days. Later, it was announced that the statue would remain in place through February 2018. Among those advocating for the statue to stay longer was U.S. Representative Carolyn Maloney of New York's 12th congressional district, who stated, "This statue has touched hearts across the world with its symbolism of the resiliency of women." New York City Public Advocate Letitia James wrote a letter that supported keeping the statue, "Fearless Girl stands as a powerful beacon, showing women-young and old-that no dream is too big and no ceiling is too high".

A petition on Change.org asking for the statue to be made permanent gathered 2,500 signatures in its first 48 hours. Efforts to make the statue permanent continued after the statue was granted a one-year permit. In April 2018, after Fearless Girl had been in place for thirteen months, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that both Charging Bull and Fearless Girl would be moved to a location facing the New York Stock Exchange. The move would occur before the end of 2018.

The statue was removed from its original location at Bowling Green on November 28, 2018. On the spot where the statue stood was placed a marker which read, " Fearless Girl is on the move to the New York Stock Exchange. Until she's there, stand for her." The plaque has footprints where people can stand. The statue was unveiled on December 10 at its new site facing the New York Stock Exchange Building.

Juxtaposition with Charging Bull

Di Modica, who installed Charging Bull in 1989, asked that the statue of the girl be removed, arguing that the piece exploited his work for commercial purposes and altered the perception of the bull. He called Fearless Girl "an advertising trick" that he wanted relocated.

On April 12, 2017, Di Modica and his attorney, former New York Civil Liberties Union director Norman Siegel, challenged city officials who let the Fearless Girl statue be installed. Di Modica said that the statue corrupted Charging Bull's artistic integrity by distorting the intent of his statue from "a symbol of prosperity and for strength" into a villain, and does so for SSGA's commercial gain. Siegel said a lawsuit had not been filed as of yet. De Blasio supported keeping the statue, tweeting that "Men who don't like women taking up space are exactly why we need the Fearless Girl."

Feminist concerns

Some women criticized the statue as "corporate feminism" that violated their own feminist principles. The New York Times columnist Ginia Bellafante called it "an exercise in corporate imaging" by State Street, which, she wrote, had entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the United States Department of Justice, agreeing to pay more than $64 million to resolve fraud charges for secretly billing clients for unwarranted commissions. "Corporate feminism", she wrote, "operates with the singular goal of aiding and abetting a universe of mothers who tuck their daughters in at night whispering, 'Someday, honey, you can lead the emerging markets and sovereign debt team at Citigroup, and then become a director at Yahoo.'" Christine Emba, an opinion writer for The Washington Post, wrote that the statue "portrays the empowered woman as a child, reinforcing the idea of femaleness as cute and inoffensive-a child with potential, maybe, but not all the way there."

Other controversies

On May 29, 2017, artist Alex Gardega added a statue of a small dog, titled Peeing Pug, and removed it after approximately three hours.

Gothamist reported on March 20, 2017, that masked activists had covered the statue in " Make America Great Again" apparel and a US flag. They also placed pro- Donald Trump signs on it, including one reading "VETS B4 ILLEGALS" and another with a drawing of Pepe the Frog.

On October 6, 2017, State Street, the company that funded Fearless Girl, paid $5 million to settle a lawsuit from its female and minority employees who alleged the company violated equal pay rights.

On February 14, 2019, State Street Global Advisors filed a lawsuit against Kristen Visbal, claiming that she has made and sold replicas of the statue in violation of her contract with the company. The suit claims the artist made at least three unauthorized Fearless Girl reproductions that could damage the company's global campaign in support of female leadership and gender diversity. Court filings reported that replica Fearless Girl statues were selling for as much as $250,000.

On 25 February 2021, SSGA took Maurice Blackburn (an Australian law firm) to the Federal Court in Australia alleging that one of the Fearless Girl's replicas constituted copyright and trademark infringement. Justice Jonathan Beach found in favour of Maurice Blackburn (MBL) finding there was no violation of SSGA's trademark, since the replica's name "fearless girl" was used in a descriptive way. In other words, MBL were able to rely upon the defence of acting in good faith under s.122(1)(b)(i) of Trade Marks Act 1995. The copyright infringement claim under s.36 Copyright Act 1968 also failed as MBL were able to rely upon the defence of innocent infringement. Overall, this meant that MBL are able to display their Australian replica legally.

As reported by Bloomberg News, analysts from marketing firm Apex Marketing estimated that the statue resulted in $7.4 million in free publicity for SSGA as of April 2017, broken down into $201,075 worth of free radio coverage, $393,047 worth of free social media coverage, $3,115,751 worth of free TV coverage, and $3,729,926 worth of free online/print news coverage.

At the 2017 Cannes Lions festival, Fearless Girl won three Grand Prix on the first day of the event alone, in the Glass (which deals with marketing addressing gender inequality) and PR categories, and tying for first in the Outdoor category alongside a campaign by Twitter.

A duplicate of the sculpture was unveiled outside the Grand Hotel in the Norwegian city of Oslo on March 8, 2018. It faces the Norwegian parliament Stortinget.

Another duplicate was revealed by Kristen Visbal at Federation Square in Melbourne, Australia, before Women's Day at March 8, 2019. It is planned to stand there for four years.

Yet another was placed in Paternoster Square, near the London Stock Exchange during spring 2019.

In March 2019, St. Timothy's School displayed another duplicate on its campus.

The Most Next Award, 2018 Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP) Next Awards

Grand Effie - best in show, North American Effie Awards

Fearless Girl won 18 Cannes Lions at the 2017 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity:

Titanium: Grand Prix

Outdoor: Grand Prix, one gold

PR: Grand Prix, one gold, one silver

Glass: Grand Prix

Promo and Activation: Two golds, one silver

Media: Two golds

Direct: Two golds, one silver, one bronze

Design: Two golds

Fearless Girl is one of only two campaigns that have ever won four Grand Prix at Cannes.

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Fearless Girl is a bronze sculpture by Kristen Visbal, commissioned by State Street Global Advisors (SSGA), a large asset management company. The statue was installed on March 7, 2017, in anticipation of International Women's Day the following day. It depicts a girl four feet high, promoting female empowerment.

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The Planets, Op. 32, is a seven- movement orchestral suite by the English composer Gustav Holst, written between 1914 and 1917. In the last movement the orchestra is joined by a wordless female chorus. Each movement of the suite is named after a planet of the solar system and its supposed astrological character.

The premiere of The Planets was at the Queen's Hall, London on 29 September 1918, conducted by Holst's friend Adrian Boult before an invited audience of about 250 people. Three concerts at which movements from the suite were played were given in 1919 and early 1920. The first complete performance at a public concert was given at the Queen's Hall on 15 November 1920 by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Albert Coates.

The innovative nature of Holst's music caused some initial hostility among a minority of critics, but the suite quickly became and has remained popular, influential and widely performed. The composer conducted two recordings of the work, and it has been recorded at least 80 times subsequently by conductors, choirs and orchestras from the UK and internationally.

The Planets was composed over nearly three years, between 1914 and 1917. The work had its origins in March and April 1913, when Gustav Holst and his friend and benefactor Balfour Gardiner holidayed in Spain with the composer Arnold Bax and his brother, the author Clifford Bax. A discussion about astrology piqued Holst's interest in the subject. Clifford Bax later commented that Holst became "a remarkably skilled interpreter of horoscopes". Shortly after the holiday Holst wrote to a friend: "I only study things that suggest music to me. That's why I worried at Sanskrit. Then recently the character of each planet suggested lots to me, and I have been studying astrology fairly closely". He told Clifford Bax in 1926 that The Planets:

... whether it's good or bad, grew in my mind slowly-like a baby in a woman's womb ... For two years I had the intention of composing that cycle, and during those two years it seemed of itself more and more definitely to be taking form.

Imogen Holst, the composer's daughter, wrote that her father had difficulty with large-scale orchestral structures such as symphonies, and the idea of a suite with a separate character for each movement was an inspiration to him. Holst's biographer Michael Short and the musicologist Richard Greene both think it likely that another inspiration for the composer to write a suite for large orchestra was the example of Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra. That suite had been performed in London in 1912 and again in 1914; Holst was at one of the performances, and he is known to have owned a copy of the score.

Holst described The Planets as "a series of mood pictures", acting as "foils to one another", with "very little contrast in any one of them". Short writes that some of the characteristics the composer attributed to the planets may have been suggested by Alan Leo's booklet What is a Horoscope?, which he was reading at the time. Holst took the title of two movements - "Mercury, the Winged Messenger" and "Neptune, the Mystic" - from Leo's books. But although astrology was Holst's starting point, he arranged the planets to suit his own plan:

... ignoring some important astrological factors such as the influence of the sun and the moon, and attributing certain non-astrological qualities to each planet. Nor is the order of movements the same as that of the planets' orbits round the sun; his only criterion being that of maximum musical effectiveness.

In an early sketch for the suite Holst listed Mercury as "no. 1", which Greene suggests raises the possibility that the composer's first idea was simply to depict the planets in the obvious order, from nearest the sun to the farthest. "However, opening with the more disturbing character of Mars allows a more dramatic and compelling working out of the musical material".

Holst had a heavy workload as head of music at St Paul's Girls' School, Hammersmith and director of music at Morley College, and had limited time for composing. Imogen Holst wrote, "Weekends and holidays were the only times when he could really get on with his own work, which is why it took him over two years to finish The Planets". She added that Holst's chronic neuritis in his right arm was troubling him considerably and he would have found it impossible to complete the 198 pages of the large full score without the help of two colleagues at St Paul's, Vally Lasker and Nora Day, whom he called his "scribes".

The first movement to be written was Mars in mid-1914, followed by Venus and Jupiter in the latter part of the year, Saturn and Uranus in mid-1915, Neptune later in 1915 and Mercury in early 1916. Holst completed the orchestration during 1917.

Just before the Armistice, Gustav Holst burst into my office: "Adrian, the YMCA are sending me to Salonika quite soon and Balfour Gardiner, bless his heart, has given me a parting present consisting of the Queen's Hall, full of the Queen's Hall Orchestra for the whole of a Sunday morning. So we're going to do The Planets, and you've got to conduct."

The premiere of The Planets, conducted at Holst's request by Adrian Boult, was held at short notice on 29 September 1918, during the last weeks of the First World War, in the Queen's Hall with the financial support of Gardiner. It was hastily rehearsed; the musicians of the Queen's Hall Orchestra first saw the complicated music only two hours before the performance, and the choir for Neptune was recruited from Holst's students at Morley College and St Paul's Girls' School. It was a comparatively intimate affair, attended by around 250 invited associates, but Holst regarded it as the public premiere, inscribing Boult's copy of the score, "This copy is the property of Adrian Boult who first caused the Planets to shine in public and thereby earned the gratitude of Gustav Holst."

At a Royal Philharmonic Society concert at the Queen's Hall on 27 February 1919 conducted by Boult, five of the seven movements were played in the order Mars, Mercury, Saturn, Uranus, and Jupiter. It was Boult's decision not to play all seven movements at this concert. Although Holst would have liked the suite to be played complete, Boult's view was that when the public were being presented with a completely new language of this kind, "half an hour of it was as much as they could take in". Imogen Holst recalled that her father "hated incomplete performances of The Planets, though on several occasions he had to agree to conduct three or four movements at Queen's Hall concerts. He particularly disliked having to finish with Jupiter, to make a 'happy ending', for, as he himself said, 'in the real world the end is not happy at all'".

At a Queen's Hall concert on 22 November 1919, Holst conducted Venus, Mercury and Jupiter. There was another incomplete public performance, in Birmingham, on 10 October 1920, with five movements (Mars, Venus, Mercury, Saturn and Jupiter), conducted by the composer. The first complete performance of the suite at a public concert was on 15 November 1920; the London Symphony Orchestra was conducted by Albert Coates. The first complete performance conducted by the composer was on 13 October 1923, with the Queen's Hall Orchestra.

The work is scored for a large orchestra. Holst's fellow composer Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote in 1920, "Holst uses a very large orchestra in the Planets not to make his score look impressive, but because he needs the extra tone colour and knows how to use it". The score calls for the following instrumentation. The movements vary in the combinations of instruments used.

In Neptune, two three-part women's choruses (each comprising two soprano sections and one alto section) located in an adjoining room which is to be screened from the audience are added.

Mars is marked allegro and is in a relentless ostinato for most of its duration. It opens quietly, the first two bars played by percussion, harp and strings. The music builds to a quadruple-forte, dissonant climax. Although Mars is often thought to portray the horrors of mechanised warfare, it was completed before the First World War started. The composer Colin Matthews writes that for Holst, Mars would have been "an experiment in rhythm and clashing keys", and its violence in performance "may have surprised him as much as it galvanised its first audiences". Short comments, "harmonic dissonances abound, often resulting from clashes between moving chords and static pedal-points", which he compares to a similar effect at the end of Stravinsky's The Firebird, and adds that although battle music had been written before, notably by Richard Strauss in Ein Heldenleben, "it had never expressed such violence and sheer terror".

The second movement begins adagio in . According to Imogen Holst, Venus "has to try and bring the right answer to Mars". The movement opens with a solo horn theme answered quietly by the flutes and oboes. A second theme is given to solo violin. The music proceeds tranquilly with oscillating chords from flutes and harps, with decoration from the celesta. Between the opening adagio and the central largo there is a flowing andante section in with a violin melody (solo then tutti) accompanied by gentle syncopation in the woodwind. The oboe solo in the central largo is one of the last romantic melodies Holst allowed himself before turning to a more austere manner in later works. Leo called the planet "the most fortunate star under which to be born"; Short calls Holst's Venus "one of the most sublime evocations of peace in music".

Mercury is in and is marked vivace throughout. The composer R. O. Morris thought it the nearest of the movements to "the domain of programme music pure and simple ... it is essentially pictorial in idea. Mercury is a mere activity whose character is not defined". This movement, the last of the seven to be written, contains Holst's first experiments with bitonality. He juxtaposes melodic fragments in and E major, in a fast-moving scherzo. Solo violin, high-pitched harp, flute and glockenspiel are prominently featured. It is the shortest of the seven movements, typically taking between 3½ and 4 minutes in performance.

In this movement Holst portrays Jupiter's supposedly characteristic "abundance of life and vitality" with music that is buoyant and exuberant. Nobility and generosity are allegedly characteristics of those born under Jupiter, and in the slower middle section Holst provides a broad tune embodying those traits. It has been compromised by its later use as the melody for a solemn patriotic hymn, " I Vow to Thee, My Country", but the music writer Lewis Foreman comments that the composer did not think of it in those terms, as shown by his own recordings of the movement. The opening section of the movement is marked allegro giocoso, in time. The second theme, at the same tempo, is in time, as is the broad melody of the middle section, marked andante maestoso, which Holst marks to be taken at half the speed of the opening section. The opening section returns and after a reappearance of the maestoso tune - its expected final cadence unresolved, as in its first appearance - the movement ends with a triple forte quaver chord for the full orchestra.

Saturn was Holst's favourite movement of the suite. Matthews describes it as "a slow processional which rises to a frightening climax before fading away as if into the outer reaches of space". The movement opens as a quiet adagio in and the basic pace remains slow throughout, with short bursts of animato in the first part and a switch to andante in in the later section. Apart from the timpani no percussion is used in this movement except for tubular bells at climactic points. At the beginning, flutes, bassoons and harps play a theme suggesting a ticking clock. A solemn melody is introduced by the trombones (Holst's own main instrument) and taken up by the full orchestra. A development of the ticking theme leads to a clangorous triple forte climax, after which the music dies away and ends quietly.

Matthews describes the character of the movement as that of "a clumsy dance, which gradually gets more and more out of hand (not unlike Dukas's Sorcerer's Apprentice) until, with what seems like a magic wand, all is abruptly swept away into the far distance". The movement, which begins with a what Short calls "a tremendous four-note brass motif", is marked allegro in . The music proceeds in "a series of merry pranks" with occasional interjections in , building to a quadruple forte climax with a prominent organ glissando, after which the music suddenly drops to a pianissimo lento before alternating quick and slow sections bring the movement to its pianissimo conclusion.

The music of the last movement is quiet throughout, in a swaying, irregular metre, opening with flutes joined by piccolo and oboes, with harps and celesta prominent later. Holst makes much use of dissonance in this movement. Before the premiere his colleague Geoffrey Toye said that a bar where the brass play chords of E minor and together was "going to sound frightful". Holst agreed, and said it had made him shudder when he wrote it down but, "What are you to do when they come like that?" As the movement develops, the orchestra is joined by an offstage female chorus singing a soft wordless line: this was unusual in orchestral works at the time, although Debussy had used the same device in his (1900). The orchestra falls silent and the unaccompanied voices bring the work to a pianissimo conclusion in an uncertain tonality, as a door between the singers and the auditorium is gradually closed.

Imogen Holst wrote of the 1918 premiere under Boult:

Even those listeners who had studied the score for months were taken aback by the unexpected clamour of Mars. During Jupiter the charwomen working in the corridors put down their scrubbing-brushes and began to dance. In Saturn the isolated listeners in the dark, half-empty hall felt themselves growing older at every bar. But it was the end of Neptune that was unforgettable, with its hidden chorus of women's voices growing fainter and fainter in the distance, until the imagination knew no difference between sound and silence.

When the music was first introduced to the general public in February 1919, critical opinion was divided. Greene prints a summary of reviews of the first four public performances of the suite (or movements from it) in February and November 1919 and October and November 1920. Positive reviews are recorded in 28 of the 37 papers, magazines and journals cited. A small minority of reviewers were particularly hostile, among them those of ("Noisy and pretentious)"; The Sunday Times ("Pompous, noisy and unalluring"), and ("a great disappointment ... elaborately contrived and painful to hear"). The critic in The Saturday Review wrote that Holst evidently regarded the planets "as objectionable nuisances that he would oust from our orbit if he could".

The Times rapidly changed its mind; in July 1919 it called Holst the most intriguing of his compeers and commented, " The Planets still leaves us gasping"; after hearing Holst conduct three of the movements in November 1919 the paper's critic declared the piece "the first music by an Englishman we have heard for some time which is neither conventional nor negligible", and by the time of Holst's death in 1934 the paper's assessment of the piece was "Holst's greatest work":

Each of the seven numbers shows one aspect of life regarded with a detached and unflinching scrutiny. In this suite Holst, with the directness which was characteristic of his personal intercourse and character, and which comes out in spite of all his mysticism in the technique of his music, sets forth with every elaboration his fundamentally simple view of what life brings. The work is original in conception, in its philosophical implications, in its scoring, and in its harmonic and rhythmic idiom.

The Sunday Times, too, quickly changed its line. In 1920 its new music critic, Ernest Newman, said that Holst could do "easily, without a fuss" what some other composers could only do "with an effort and a smirk", and that in The Planets he showed "one of the subtlest and most original minds of our time. It begins working at a musical problem where most other minds would leave off". Newman compared Holst's harmonic innovations to those of Stravinsky, to the latter's disadvantage, and expressed none of the reservations that qualified his admiration of Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra.

There have been at least 80 commercial recordings of The Planets. Holst conducted the London Symphony Orchestra in the first two recorded performances: the first was an acoustic recording made in sessions between September 1922 and November 1923; the second was made in 1926 using the new electrical recording process. Holst's tempi are in general faster than those of most of his successors on record. This may have been due to the need to fit the music on 78 rpm discs, although later 78 versions are slower. Holst's later recording is quicker than the acoustic version, possibly because the electrical process required wider grooves, reducing the available playing time. Other, slower, recordings from the 78 era include those conducted by Leopold Stokowski (1943) and Sir Adrian Boult (1945) Recordings from the LP age are also typically longer than the composer's, but from the digital era a 2010 recording by the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Jurowski is quicker than Holst's acoustic version and comes close to matching his 1926 speeds, and in two movements (Venus and Uranus) surpasses them. There were no commercial recordings of the work in the 1930s; timings are given below of a recording representing each subsequent decade up to the 2010s:

Additions, adaptations and influences

There have been many adaptations of the suite, and several attempts to add an eighth planet - Pluto - in the time between its discovery in 1930 and its downgrading to " dwarf planet" in 2006. The most prominent of these was Matthews's 2000 composition, "Pluto, the Renewer", commissioned by the Hallé Orchestra. Dedicated posthumously to Imogen Holst, it was first performed in Manchester on 11 May 2000, with Kent Nagano conducting. Matthews changed the ending of Neptune slightly so that the movement would segue into Pluto. Matthews's Pluto has been recorded, coupled with Holst's suite, on at least four occasions. Others who have produced versions of Pluto for The Planets include Leonard Bernstein and Jun Nagao.

The suite has been adapted for numerous instruments and instrumental combinations, including organ, synthesiser, brass band, and jazz orchestra. Holst used the melody of the central section of "Jupiter" for a setting ("Thaxted") of the hymn "I Vow to Thee, My Country" in 1921.

The Planets has been taken as an influence by various rock bands, and for film scores such as those for the series. There have been numerous references to the suite in popular culture, from films to television and computer games.

Notes, references and sources

References

1. Leo, p. 58; and Head, Raymond. ^ "Holst - Astrology and Modernism in 'The Planets'", Tempo , December 1993, pp. 15-22 (subscription required)

2. (subscription or Warrack, John. "Holst, Gustav Theodore" Archived 20 June 2021 at the Wayback Machine, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2011. Retrieved 18 June 2021 UK public library membership required)

3. ^ "London Concerts", The Musical Times, April 1919, p. 179 (subscription required) Archived 22 January 2019 at the Wayback Machine

4. ^ "Music in the Provinces" Archived 22 January 2019 at the Wayback Machine, The Musical Times, 1 November 1920, p. 769; and "Municipal Music in Birmingham", The Manchester Guardian, 11 October 1920, p. 6

5. "Winter Concerts: Plan for Season", ^ The Times, 17 September 1923, p. 10; and "Music", The Observer, 14 October 1923, p. 10

6. Vaughan Williams, Ralph. ^ "Gustav Holst (Continued)", Music & Letters , October 1920, p. 314 (subscription required)

7. ^ Matthews, Colin (2011). Notes to Chandos CD CHSA5086 OCLC 887360432

8. Notes to Cala CD CACD0526 ^ OCLC 46880671; Notes to Avid CD AMSC 582 OCLC 45217594; and Notes to LPO CD LPO-0047 OCLC 871404142

9. Norris, David Owen. ^ "The Planets", Building a Library, BBC Radio 3 podcast, retrieved 9 July 2021. Event occurs at 46m 15s

10. Weir William. ^ "A Little Bit Softer Now, a Little Bit Softer Now ...", Slate, 14 September 2014. Retrieved 20 June 2021

11. ^ "The Planets" Archived 20 June 2021 at the Wayback Machine, WorldCat. Retrieved 19 June 2021

12. ^ "The Planets", Naxos Music Library. Retrieved 18 June 2021 (subscription required) Archived 20 June 2021 at the Wayback Machine

13. Scott Rohan, Michael, Review, ^ Gramophone, August 2001, p. 50; Hambrick, Jennifer. "The Missing Planet: Watch Leonard Bernstein Improvise 'Pluto, the Unpredictable'". WOSU Public Media. WOSU Radio. Archived from the original on 12 January 2019.; and "Earth, The, from "The Planets" by Trouvère". Wind Repertory Project.

14. ^ Holst: Music for Two Pianos, Naxos catalogue no. 8.554369, About This Recording Archived 4 July 2009 at the Wayback Machine; Peter Sykes. " Holst: The Planets Archived 29 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine." HB Direct, Released 1996; "Peter Sykes". Peter Sykes. Archived from the original on 2 November 2013.; Isao Tomita. " Tomita's Planets Archived 19 August 2010 at the Wayback Machine." HB Direct, Released 1976; Stephen Roberts Archived 14 June 2009 at the Wayback Machine at 4barsrest.com;"DownBeat Reviews". downbeat.com. Archived from the original on 24 September 2020.

15. ^ "King Crimson - Mars". Paste Magazine. Archived from the original on 10 April 2017.;"Archived copy". Archived from the original on 25 August 2012.; Shobe, Michael and Kim Nowack. "The Classical Music Influences Inside John Williams' 'Star Wars' Score," Archived 3 July 2017 at the Wayback Machine WQXR (Dec 17, 2015)

Links to public domain scores of The Planets:

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The Planets , Op. 32, is a seven- movement orchestral suite by the English composer Gustav Holst, written between 1914 and 1917. In the last movement the orchestra is joined by a wordless female chorus. Each movement of the suite is named after a planet of the solar system and its supposed astrological character.

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The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly

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The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly is a complex work of art created by James Hampton over a period of fourteen years. Hampton made the array based on several religious visions that prompted him to prepare for Christ's return to earth. His reference to the "third heaven" is based on scriptures citing it as the "heaven of heavens" -- God's realm.

Hampton created his masterpiece in a rented carriage house, transforming its drab interior into a resplendent world. He hand-crafted many of the elements from cardboard and plastic, but added structure with found objects from his neighborhood, such as old furniture and jelly jars, and discards like light bulbs from the federal office buildings in which he worked. Hampton selected shimmering metallic foils, purple paper (now faded to tan), and other materials to evoke spiritual awe and splendor. The Throne embodies a complex fusion of Christianity and African-American spiritual practices overlaying themes of deliverance and freedom; it is both astonishingly splendid and profoundly humble.

The Throne derives coherence from parallel rows of components arranged on two levels. A cushioned throne at the rear is a focal point for the highly symmetrical array. Objects on the right refer to the New Testament and Jesus; those on the left to the Old Testament and Moses. Hampton also left texts written in an arcane spiritual script that he may have understood as the word of God as received by him.

Praised as America's greatest work of visionary art, Hampton's Throne reveals one man's faith in God as well as his hope for salvation. Although Hampton did not live to initiate a public ministry, his commanding phrase -- "FEAR NOT" -- summarizes his project's powerful message.

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The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly

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The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly is a complex work of art created by James Hampton over a period of fourteen years.

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Symphonie fantastique: Épisode de la vie d'un artiste ... en cinq parties ( Fantastical Symphony: Episode in the Life of an Artist ... in Five Sections) Op. 14, is a program symphony written by the French composer Hector Berlioz in 1830. It is an important piece of the early Romantic period. The first performance was at the Paris Conservatoire on 5 December 1830. Franz Liszt made a piano transcription of the symphony in 1833 (S. 470).

The American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein described the symphony as the first musical expedition into psychedelia because of its hallucinatory and dream-like nature, and because history suggests Berlioz composed at least a portion of it under the influence of opium. According to Bernstein, "Berlioz tells it like it is. You take a trip, you wind up screaming at your own funeral."

In 1831 Berlioz wrote a lesser-known sequel to the work, Lélio, for actor, soloists, chorus, piano and orchestra.

Symphonie fantastique is a piece of program music that tells the story of an artist gifted with a lively imagination who has poisoned himself with opium in the depths of despair because of hopeless, unrequited love. Berlioz provided his own preface and program notes for each movement of the work. They exist in two principal versions - one from 1845 in the first score of the work and the second from 1855. From the revised preface and notes, it can be seen how Berlioz, later in his life, downplayed the programmatic aspect of the work.

In the first score from 1845, he writes:

The composer's intention has been to develop various episodes in the life of an artist, in so far as they lend themselves to musical treatment. As the work cannot rely on the assistance of speech, the plan of the instrumental drama needs to be set out in advance. The following programme must therefore be considered as the spoken text of an opera, which serves to introduce musical movements and to motivate their character and expression.

In the 1855 preface, a different outlook towards the work's programmatic undertones is established by Berlioz:

The following programme should be distributed to the audience every time the Symphonie fantastique is performed dramatically and thus followed by the monodrama of which concludes and completes the episode in the life of an artist. In this case the invisible orchestra is placed on the stage of a theatre behind the lowered curtain. If the symphony is performed on its own as a concert piece this arrangement is no longer necessary: one may even dispense with distributing the programme and keep only the title of the five movements. The author hopes that the symphony provides on its own sufficient musical interest independently of any dramatic intention.

Inspiration

After attending a performance of William Shakespeare's on 11 September 1827, Berlioz fell in love with the Irish actress Harriet Smithson, who had played the role of Ophelia. He sent her numerous love letters, all of which went unanswered. When she left Paris in 1829, they had still not met. Berlioz then wrote Symphonie fantastique as a way to express his unrequited love. Smithson did not attend the premiere in 1830, but she heard the work in 1832 and realized Berlioz's genius. The two finally met and were married on 3 October 1833. However, their marriage became increasingly bitter, and they eventually separated after years of unhappiness.

The score calls for a total of over 90 instruments:

Berlioz specified at least 15 1st violins, 15 2nd violins, 10 violas, 11 celli and 9 basses on the score.

Berlioz originally wrote for 1 serpent and one ophicleide, but quickly switched to two ophicleides after the serpent proved to be difficult to use.

The symphony has five movements, instead of four as was conventional for symphonies of the time:

1. "Rêveries - Passions" (Reveries - Passions) - C minor/C major

2. "Un bal" (A Ball) - A major

3. "Scène aux champs" (Scene in the Fields) - F major

4. "Marche au supplice" (March to the Scaffold) - G minor

5. "Songe d'une nuit du sabbat" (Dream of a Witches' Sabbath) - C minor/C major

Each movement depicts an episode in the protagonist's life that is described by Berlioz in the program notes to the 1845 score. These program notes are quoted in each section below.

The author imagines that a young musician, afflicted by the sickness of spirit which a famous writer has called the vagueness [or confusion] of passions (), sees for the first time a woman who unites all the charms of the ideal person his imagination was dreaming of, and falls desperately in love with her. By a strange anomaly, the beloved image never presents itself to the artist's mind without being associated with a musical idea, in which he recognizes a certain quality of passion, but endowed with the nobility and shyness which he credits to the object of his love.

This melodic image and its model keep haunting him ceaselessly like a double idée fixe. This explains the constant recurrence in all the movements of the symphony of the melody which launches the first allegro. The transitions from this state of dreamy melancholy, interrupted by occasional upsurges of aimless joy, to delirious passion, with its outbursts of fury and jealousy, its returns of tenderness, its tears, its religious consolations - all this forms the subject of the first movement.

The first movement is radical in its harmonic outline, building a vast arch back to the home key; while similar to the sonata form of the classical period, Parisian critics regarded this as unconventional.[citation needed ] It is here that the listener is introduced to the theme of the artist's beloved, or the idée fixe. The idée fixe begins:

Throughout the movement there is a simplicity in the way melodies and themes are presented, which Robert Schumann likened to Beethoven's epigrams' ideas that could be extended had the composer chosen to. In part, it is because Berlioz rejected writing the more symmetrical melodies then in academic fashion, and instead looked for melodies that were "so intense in every note as to defy normal harmonization", as Schumann put it. The theme itself was taken from Berlioz's scène lyrique "Herminie", composed in 1828.

The artist finds himself in the most diverse situations in life, in the tumult of a festive party, in the peaceful contemplation of the beautiful sights of nature, yet everywhere, whether in town or in the countryside, the beloved image keeps haunting him and throws his spirit into confusion.

The second movement is a waltz in . It begins with a mysterious introduction that creates an atmosphere of impending excitement, followed by a passage dominated by two harps; then the flowing waltz theme appears, derived from the idée fixe at first, then transforming it. More formal statements of the idée fixe twice interrupt the waltz.

The movement is the only one to feature the two harps, providing the glamour and sensual richness of the ball, and may also symbolize the object of the young man's affection. Berlioz wrote extensively in his memoirs of his trials and tribulations in having this symphony performed, due to a lack of capable harpists and harps, especially in Germany.

Another feature of this movement is that Berlioz added a part for solo cornet to his autograph score, although it was not included in the score published in his lifetime. The work has most often been played and recorded without the solo cornet part. However, conductors Jean Martinon, Colin Davis, Otto Klemperer, Gustavo Dudamel, John Eliot Gardiner, Charles Mackerras, Jos van Immerseel and Leonard Slatkin have employed this part for cornet in performances of the symphony.

One evening in the countryside he hears two shepherds in the distance dialoguing with their ranz des vaches; this pastoral duet, the setting, the gentle rustling of the trees in the wind, some causes for hope that he has recently conceived, all conspire to restore to his heart an unaccustomed feeling of calm and to give to his thoughts a happier colouring. He broods on his loneliness, and hopes that soon he will no longer be on his own... But what if she betrayed him!... This mingled hope and fear, these ideas of happiness, disturbed by dark premonitions, form the subject of the adagio. At the end one of the shepherds resumes his ranz des vaches; the other one no longer answers. Distant sound of thunder... solitude... silence.

The third movement is a slow movement, marked Adagio, in . The two shepherds mentioned in the program notes are depicted by a cor anglais (English horn) and an offstage oboe tossing an evocative melody back and forth. After the cor anglais-oboe conversation, the principal theme of the movement appears on solo flute and violins. It begins with:

Berlioz salvaged this theme from his abandoned Messe solennelle. The idée fixe returns in the middle of the movement, played by oboe and flute. The sound of distant thunder at the end of the movement is a striking passage for four timpani.

Convinced that his love is spurned, the artist poisons himself with opium. The dose of narcotic, while too weak to cause his death, plunges him into a heavy sleep accompanied by the strangest of visions. He dreams that he has killed his beloved, that he is condemned, led to the scaffold and is witnessing his own execution. The procession advances to the sound of a march that is sometimes sombre and wild, and sometimes brilliant and solemn, in which a dull sound of heavy footsteps follows without transition the loudest outbursts. At the end of the march, the first four bars of the idée fixe reappear like a final thought of love interrupted by the fatal blow.

Berlioz claimed to have written the fourth movement in a single night, reconstructing music from an unfinished project, the opera Les francs-juges. The movement begins with timpani sextuplets in thirds, for which he directs: "The first quaver of each half-bar is to be played with two drumsticks, and the other five with the right hand drumsticks". The movement proceeds as a march filled with blaring horns and rushing passages, and scurrying figures that later show up in the last movement.

Before the musical depiction of his execution, there is a brief, nostalgic recollection of the idée fixe in a solo clarinet, as though representing the last conscious thought of the soon-to-be-executed man.

He sees himself at a witches' sabbath, in the midst of a hideous gathering of shades, sorcerers and monsters of every kind who have come together for his funeral. Strange sounds, groans, outbursts of laughter; distant shouts which seem to be answered by more shouts. The beloved melody appears once more, but has now lost its noble and shy character; it is now no more than a vulgar dance tune, trivial and grotesque: it is she who is coming to the sabbath ... Roar of delight at her arrival ... She joins the diabolical orgy ... The funeral knell tolls, burlesque parody of the Dies irae, the dance of the witches. The dance of the witches combined with the Dies irae.

This movement can be divided into sections according to tempo changes:

The introduction is Largo, in common time, creating an ominous quality through the copious use of diminished seventh chords dynamic variations and instrumental effects, particularly in the strings (tremolos, pizzicato, sforzando).

At bar 21, the tempo changes to Allegro and the metre to . The return of the idée fixe as a "vulgar dance tune" is depicted by the B clarinet. This is interrupted by an Allegro Assai section in cut time at bar 29.

At bar 80, there is one bar of , with descending crotchets in unison through the entire orchestra. Again in , this section sees the introduction of the bells and fragments of the "witches' round dance".

The "Dies irae" begins at bar 127, the motif derived from the 13th-century Latin sequence. It is initially stated in unison between the unusual combination of four bassoons and two ophicleides. The key, C minor, allows the bassoons to render the theme at the bottom of their range.

At bar 222, the "witches' round dance" motif is repeatedly stated in the strings, to be interrupted by three syncopated notes in the brass. This leads into the Ronde du Sabbat (Sabbath Round) at bar 241, where the motif is finally expressed in full.

The Dies irae et Ronde du Sabbat Ensemble section is at bar 414.

There are a host of effects, including trilling in the woodwinds and in the strings. The climactic finale combines the somber Dies Irae melody, now in A minor, with the fugue of the Ronde du Sabbat, building to a modulation into E-flat major, then chromatically into C major, ending on a C chord.

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Symphonie fantastique: Épisode de la vie d'un artiste ... en cinq parties ( Fantastical Symphony: Episode in the Life of an Artist ... in Five Sections) Op. 14, is a program symphony written by the French composer Hector Berlioz in 1830. It is an important piece of the early Romantic period.

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Glenn Ligon | Untitled (I Am a Man) (1988) | Artsy

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Perhaps the most influential artist of the 20th century, Pablo Picasso may be best known for pioneering Cubism and fracturing the two-dimensional picture plane in order to convey three-dimensional space. Inspired by African and Iberian art, he also contributed to the rise of Surrealism and Expressionism. Picasso's sizable oeuvre grew to include over 20,000 paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures,ceramics, theater sets, and costume designs. He painted his most famous work, Guernica (1937), in response to the Spanish Civil War; the totemic grisaille canvas remains a definitive work of anti-war art. At auction, a number of Picasso's paintings have sold for more than $100 million. The indefatigable artist has been the subject of exhibitions at the world's most prestigious institutions, from the Museum of Modern Art and Centre Pompidou to the Stedelijk Museum and Tate Modern.

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Glenn Ligon | Untitled (I Am a Man) (1988) | Artsy

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Perhaps the most influential artist of the 20th century, Pablo Picasso may be best known for pioneering Cubism and fracturing the two-dimensional picture plane in order to convey three-dimensional space. Inspired by African and Iberian art, he also contributed to the rise of Surrealism and Expressionism.

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Vietnam Veterans Memorial (U.S. National Park Service)

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Honoring the men and women who served in the controversial Vietnam War, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial chronologically lists the names of 58,318 Americans who gave their lives in service to their country. Read More

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Vietnam Veterans Memorial (U.S. National Park Service)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Honoring the men and women who served in the controversial Vietnam War, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial chronologically lists the names of 58,318 Americans who gave their lives in service to their country. Read More

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Man at the Crossroads (1934) was a fresco by Diego Rivera in New York City's Rockefeller Center. It was originally slated to be installed in the lobby of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the main building of the center. Man at the Crossroads showed the aspects of contemporary social and scientific culture. As originally installed, it was a three- paneled artwork. A central panel depicted a worker controlling machinery. The central panel was flanked by two other panels, The Frontier of Ethical Evolution and The Frontier of Material Development, which respectively represented socialism and capitalism.

The Rockefeller family approved of the mural's idea: showing the contrast of capitalism as opposed to communism. However, after the New York World-Telegram complained about the piece, calling it "anti-capitalist propaganda", Rivera added images of Vladimir Lenin and a Soviet Russian May Day parade in response. When these were discovered, Nelson Rockefeller - at the time a director of the Rockefeller Center - wanted Rivera to remove the portrait of Lenin, but Rivera was unwilling to do so. In May 1933, Rockefeller ordered the mural to be plastered-over and thereby destroyed before it was finished, resulting in protests and boycotts from other artists. Man at the Crossroads was peeled off in 1934 and replaced by a mural from Josep Maria Sert three years later. Only black-and-white photographs exist of the original incomplete mural, taken when Rivera suspected it might be destroyed. Using the photographs, Rivera repainted the composition in Mexico under the variant title Man, Controller of the Universe.

The controversy over the mural was significant because Rivera's communist ideals contrasted with the theme of Rockefeller Center, even though the Rockefeller family themselves admired Rivera's work. The creation and destruction of the mural is dramatized in the films Cradle Will Rock (1999) and (2002). The reactions to the mural's controversy have been dramatized in Archibald MacLeish's 1933 collection Frescoes for Mr. Rockefeller's City as well as in E. B. White's 1933 poem "I paint what I see: A ballad of artistic integrity".

John D. Rockefeller Jr., a businessman and member of the Rockefeller family, was heavily involved in the 1930s construction of Rockefeller Center. He wanted to have a 63 by 17 feet (19.2 by 5.2 m) mural placed on the lobby wall of the RCA Building (now 30 Rockefeller Plaza), the largest structure in Rockefeller Center. Meanwhile, his wife, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, was a patron of the socialist Mexican artist Diego Rivera. This had been the case since winter 1931-1932, when Abby purchased many of Rivera's pieces at a Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) show. At the time, Rivera was painting a controversial fresco in Detroit titled Detroit Industry, commissioned by the Rockefellers' friend, Edsel Ford, who later became a MoMA trustee. Rivera had recently been kicked out of Communist Party USA for accepting commissions from wealthy patrons, and his commission for Detroit Industry did not help improve the Communist Party's views of him.

The writer Daniel Okrent states that a key event in the mural's conception occurred during a luncheon that Abby Rockefeller hosted in January 1932, at which Rivera was a guest. Abby suggested that a mural by Rivera would be a positive addition to Rockefeller Center. The entire Rockefeller family became close friends with Rivera and his wife Frida Kahlo over the next few months, which led to the decision to commission Rivera for the RCA Building's mural. Rivera was given the theme "Man at the Crossroads Looking with Hope and High Vision to the Choosing of a New and Better Future", since John wanted the painting to make people pause and think. The historian Alan Balfour writes that the Rockefellers had full knowledge of Rivera's communist activities, but hired him anyway.

Rivera was officially commissioned by Todd, Robertson & Todd, the development agents for the complex. The full commission had planned for Man at the Crossroads to be a three-paneled mural. The two panels to either side, The Frontier of Ethical Evolution and The Frontier of Material Development, would respectively contrast capitalism and socialism. According to Rivera's verbal description of the planned mural, the center panel would depict a person at the literal intersection of these two ideals (namely, the "man at the crossroads").

The RCA Building lobby's wall had such a prominent position within Rockefeller Center that John and Abby Rockefeller's son Nelson had originally wanted Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso to create the paintings on either side of Man at the Crossroads. Nelson Rockefeller had chosen these artists because he favored their modern style. Rivera's artistic renown made his commission all the more fitting, since it was so prominently located. However, neither of the other two artists were available: Matisse was already completing commissions for Philadelphia's Barnes Foundation at the time, while Picasso never responded to the wire that requested a meeting with "Pierre Picasso". Josep Maria Sert and Frank Brangwyn were later hired to paint other murals in their place. Sert would paint murals on the northern corridor, while Brangwyn would paint murals on the southern corridor.

Rivera did not agree with principal Rockefeller Center architect Raymond Hood's suggestion that the mural be commissioned exclusively in grayscale colors. Rivera also declined to take part in an artistic competition prior to the announcement of his commission, and he wanted to withdraw from the project when it was announced that neither Matisse nor Picasso would be painting at the RCA Building. He eventually acquiesced after Nelson convinced Hood to remove his grayscale requirement and allowed Rivera to paint Man at the Crossroads in a fresco format. However, Rivera withdrew again after Sert and Brangwyn were announced as the new artists, calling them "two inferior painters". He eventually rejoined the project by fall 1932.

As part of the contract, Rivera would be paid $21,000 for the work. This was considerably more than the $10,000 he had been paid for Detroit Industry, which he continued painting even as he was negotiating for Man at the Crossroads. According to Daniel Okrent, Rivera did not read the fine print of the contract that he signed, which stipulated that in exchange for the $21,000, Rockefeller Center Inc. would hold full ownership of Man at the Crossroads; this would lead to a controversy when the work was later removed from the RCA Building.

Rivera showed Abby the sketch of his proposed work on November 1932. Nelson and John also looked at the sketch, and Nelson concluded that there was nothing controversial about the planned mural. Rivera and the Rockefellers signed a contract in which they agreed that the sketch was the final plan for the mural, and that the completed work could not be different from what was on that sketch. In March 1933, Rivera traveled from Detroit to New York so he could work on the RCA Building mural. He employed artists from around the world in his six-person crew, which also included the artists Ben Shahn and Lucienne Bloch. Rivera's assistants converted his small sketch to full-size 1-square-foot (0.093 m ²) pieces of tracing paper, which would then be painted onto the wall. Also in March 1933, Webster B. Todd, one of the contractors working on the construction of Rockefeller Center, requested sketches of Man at the Crossroads because he was concerned about the mural's potential controversial effect. Even so, Rivera did not express worry about any potential issues, even expressing pride over his work when The New York Times wrote a lengthy profile on him on April 2, 1933. The Rockefellers did not show concern either, and the complex's publicist Merle Crowell took credit for the New York Times article.

Rivera's composition depicted many aspects of contemporary social and scientific culture, and as with his other paintings, contained influences from Communism. In the center, a workman was depicted controlling machinery. Before him, a giant fist emerged holding an orb depicting the recombination of atoms and dividing cells in acts of chemical and biological generation. From the central figure four propeller-like shapes stretched to the corner of the composition, depicting arcs of light created by giant lenses anchoring the left and right edges of the space. Rivera described these as "elongated ellipses". Within these, cosmological and biological forces such as exploding suns and cell-forms were depicted. These represented the discoveries made possible by the telescope and the microscope.

Between and beyond the arcs were scenes of modern social life. Wealthy society women were seen playing cards and smoking at the left. Opposite, on the right, Lenin was seen holding hands with a multi-racial group of workers. Soldiers and war machinery occupied the top left above the society women, and a Russian May Day rally with red flags was seen at the right, above Lenin. For Rivera, this represented contrasting social visions: the "debauched rich" watched by the unemployed while war raged, and a socialist utopia ushered in by Lenin. Beyond the giant lenses to left and right were depicted figures contemplating the central scene, behind which were gigantic classical statues. The one on the left depicted an angry Jupiter, whose raised hand holding a thunderbolt had been severed by a lightning strike. This comprised The Frontier of Ethical Evolution. The one on the right was a headless seated Caesar. This comprised The Frontier of Material Development. For Rivera these represented the replacement of superstition by scientific mastery of nature, and the overthrow of authoritarian rule by liberated workers.

The bottom part of the painting was to depict the controlled growth of natural resources, in the form of a variety of plants emerging from their roots, visible in a cut-away view under the soil. This portion of the original mural was never completed, and it exists only in the later recreation of the composition in Mexico.

On April 24, 1933, the New York World-Telegram published an article attacking the mural as anti-capitalist propaganda. As a defiant response to the article, Rivera or one of his assistants added a portrait of Lenin to the mural, which had not been apparent in initial sketches. The Rockefellers did not express any visible concern about the mural. On April 28, to ensure that the late addition of Lenin would be undetected, Rivera sent his assistants to make sure that there was no trace of the Lenin portrait in the blueprints and outlines for Man at the Crossroads. Rivera thought that if anyone were to check the blueprints, they would not be able to discern the hidden portrait of Lenin unless they looked closely. He believed that his close relationship with the Rockefellers would permit the surreptitious addition of the portrait. The Lenin portrait would still have gone unnoticed if not for a mistake made by workmen applying a final coat of paint to the wall above Rivera's mural. Some of the paint dripped onto the mural, and when Raymond Hood went to examine the drip, he found the portrait of Lenin.

Following the discovery of Lenin's portrait, Nelson Rockefeller delayed the mural's planned May 1 unveiling. He wrote to Rivera to request that the painter remove the picture of Lenin. The portrait was the only thing about Man at the Crossroads that offended the Rockefeller family, despite the presence of other overtly Communist icons such as the hammer and sickle. A letter of reply from Rivera, written on May 6, politely declined the offer to remove Lenin's portrait, but by way of a compromise, offered to add Abraham Lincoln to the work. Rivera also said that he would be amenable to adding portraits of other American icons such as the abolitionists Nat Turner, John Brown, or Harriet Beecher Stowe, but he refused to remove the portrait of Lenin:

"Rather than mutilate the conception [of the mural], I shall prefer the physical destruction of the conception in its entirety, but preserving, at least, its integrity."

Daniel Okrent states that Rivera did not write the letter himself, instead leaving the task to Ben Shahn, the assistant most strongly opposed to Nelson's request to remove the Lenin portrait.

Nelson then left the decision about the future of the mural to Todd, Robertson & Todd. Hugh Robertson, one of the firm's principals, had written a reply to Rivera by May 9. In the letter, Robertson wrote that Rivera had deceived Rockefeller Center Inc. in the contract he made with them, and thus, Rivera was compelled to remove the Lenin portrait immediately. However, it was unclear whether Rivera understood that the painting belonged to Rockefeller Center Inc. After reading the letter, Rivera went back to his painting.

On May 10, 1933, as Rivera and his assistants worked on the mural, they were scrutinized throughout the day during what Rivera called "the battle of Rockefeller Center". By the evening, Robertson had ordered that Rivera stop all work on the mural. Rivera was paid in full, but the mural was covered in stretched canvas and left incomplete. He was unsatisfied with the monetary payment, saying that he intended to complete the mural: "I will not change my mural even if I lose in the courts." Rivera's net profit from Man at the Crossroads only amounted to US$7,000 (equivalent to $139,946 in 2020), a third of his total payment, after accounting for all expenses. He promised to reproduce the mural at any building that asked him to do so. On May 12, two days after the stop-work order was announced, Rivera was also dismissed from a commission at Chicago's Century of Progress exhibition, where he had been hired to paint a mural for General Motors' pavilion. An architect for GM cited the controversy surrounding Man at the Crossroads as the grounds for Rivera's dismissal.

The concealment of Man at the Crossroads was itself controversial. The artist John Sloan, the writer Lewis Mumford, and the photographer Alfred Stieglitz all showed support toward Rivera's position, while the Communist Party was stuck between endorsing a former member or his wealthy patron. The painter Edwin Blashfield supported Rivera's dismissal because the premise of Man at the Crossroads was contrary to the American government. In May 1933, Rockefeller Center Inc. announced that the mural would "remain hidden for an indefinite time". Within days of the stop-work order, artists' groups had drawn up manifestos to demand that Rivera be able to complete his mural.

In December 1933, Rockefeller Center developer John R. Todd proposed that Man at the Crossroads be moved to MoMA, and suggested that Rivera could be re-hired to finish the mural. Rockefeller Center Inc. agreed to this proposal, but it was never carried out because the Rockefeller Center's management had not permitted Rivera's team to lay the plaster onto a specially built metal substructure which had been developed by Rivera and his principle assistant Clifford Wight so that Rivera's frescoes could be removed from the buildings they decorated if necessary. The mural remained covered until February 1934, when workmen peeled the mural off the wall. Rivera said that the mural's destruction "will advance the cause of the labor revolution", while Rockefeller Center Inc. simply issued a two-sentence press release saying that the walls had been replastered, resulting in the mural's demolition.

The destruction caused widespread controversy, with many artists vowing to boycott any future exhibitions or commissions at Rockefeller Center. Ralph Stackpole and Bernard Zakheim created paintings in which figures held up newspapers with headlines alluding to the Man at the Crossroads controversy.

The communist New Workers School in Manhattan was one of the entities who protested the destruction of Man at the Crossroads. Its leader Bertram Wolfe was one of Rivera's associates and would later become his biographer. Rivera painted 21 frescoes and gave them to the school as a gift for their protests.

The protests largely stopped when Robertson released Rivera's previous correspondence about preferring the mural's destruction.

Despite the disagreement over Man at the Crossroads, Nelson Rockefeller still admired Rivera's work, and the two had an amicable relationship. Years afterward, he would collect paintings and loan them to Rivera's art shows. However, according to Daniel Okrent, his mother felt "betrayed" by Rivera, and they were not known to see each other again after the dispute had subsided. As a result of the controversy, John Rockefeller saw to it that no artwork would be commissioned for Rockefeller Center without his explicit approval. As for Rivera, Bertram Wolfe wrote that the artist commissioned paintings for movements that opposed the Rockefellers' "continued rule".

After Man at the Crossroads was demolished, Brangwyn was asked to exclude Jesus Christ from his own mural in the RCA Building's lobby, which depicted the Sermon on the Mount. Todd reportedly made the request because Christ could have been depicted in many different ways, but unlike with Man at the Crossroads, there was very little controversy. Brangwyn wrote to John Rockefeller to ask for reconsideration of this request. Brangwyn's mural, completed in December 1933, ultimately featured a depiction of Christ with his back turned. At the mural's unveiling, Todd said that Rockefeller Center management had not cajoled Brangwyn in any way.

Meanwhile, replacements for Man at the Crossroads were being considered, and Rockefeller Center Inc. approached many artists for possible offers. Initially, Picasso showed interest in the commission, but Todd declined the offer because Picasso refused to show a preview of what he was going to paint, and because Picasso would not negotiate from his stated price of $32,000. In 1937, Sert agreed to paint the replacement mural for $27,000. The mural, titled American Progress, depicts a vast allegorical scene of men constructing modern America, and contains figures of Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. American Progress wraps around the west wall of 30 Rockefeller Plaza's Grand Lobby.

Man, Controller of the Universe

Concerned that Nelson Rockefeller would destroy the work, Rivera had asked Lucienne Bloch to take photographs of the mural before it could be destroyed. In late 1933, Rivera went to Mexico City and persuaded the Mexican government to let him repaint the mural on a blank wall at the Palacio de Bellas Artes. In his biography of Rivera, Bertram Wolfe stated that the artist did not care for the location of the mural this time around. Rather, Wolfe wrote, Rivera had been "looking for a public place where he could let men see what kind of painting it was that these 'patrons of the arts' had chosen to destroy".

Using the photographs as a reference, Rivera repainted the mural, though at a smaller scale, where it was renamed Man, Controller of the Universe. The composition was almost identical, but the central figure was moved slightly to be aligned with the supporting mast of the cylindrical telescope above him. The new version includes a portrait of Leon Trotsky alongside Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels at the right. Others appear at the left, including Charles Darwin. Beside Darwin is John Rockefeller, Jr, a lifelong teetotaler, drinking in a nightclub with a woman. Above their heads is a dish of syphilis bacteria.

The Rockefeller-Rivera dispute has become an emblem of the relationship of politics, aesthetics, creative freedom and economic power. Some works dramatized the incident, and a few went so far as to lampoon it. The American poet Archibald MacLeish's 1933 collection Frescoes for Mr. Rockefeller's City was inspired by the incident. It included six poems about the mural in which both Nelson Rockefeller and Rivera were criticized. The New Yorker published E. B. White's poem "I paint what I see: A ballad of artistic integrity", an imaginary debate between Nelson Rockefeller and Rivera, on May 20, 1933. The incident has also been dramatized in the American films Cradle Will Rock (1999) and (2002), both set in the 1930s.

Other works focused specifically on Nelson Rockefeller's and Diego Rivera's conduct during the dispute over Man at the Crossroads. In her 1983 biography , Hayden Herrera mentions that Kahlo wrote, "one could fight against [the Rockefellers] without being stabbed in the back". This referred to Rockefeller and Rivera's continued relationship even after the controversy had passed. Cary Reich writes in The Life of Nelson A. Rockefeller that the controversy was an instance of Nelson's "princely tendency [...] to have surrogates handle his dirty work".

1. Aguilar-Moreno, Manuel; Cabrera, Erika (2011). Diego Rivera: A Biography: A Biography. Greenwood Biographies. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-0-313-35407-6.

2. Balfour, Alan (1978). Rockefeller Center: Architecture as Theater. McGraw-Hill, Inc. ISBN 978-0-070-03480-8.

3. Reich, Cary (1996). The Life of Nelson A. Rockefeller: Worlds to Conquer, 1908-1958. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-24696-5.

4. Okrent, Daniel (2003). Great Fortune: The Epic of Rockefeller Center. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0142001776.

5. Roussel, Christine (May 17, 2006). The Art of Rockefeller Center. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-3930-6082-9.

6. Smith, Richard Norton (2014). On His Own Terms: A Life of Nelson Rockefeller. Random House. ISBN 978-0-375-50580-5.

7. Wolfe, Bertram David (1943). Diego Rivera, his life and times. Alfred A. Knopf. ASIN B000RY5E6Y.

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Man at the Crossroads (1934) was a fresco by Diego Rivera in New York City's Rockefeller Center. It was originally slated to be installed in the lobby of 30 Rockefeller Plaza, the main building of the center. Man at the Crossroads showed the aspects of contemporary social and scientific culture.

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The statue of Laocoön and His Sons, also called the Laocoön Group ( Italian: Gruppo del Laocoonte), has been one of the most famous ancient sculptures ever since it was excavated in Rome in 1506 and placed on public display in the Vatican, where it remains. It is very likely the same statue that was praised in the highest terms by the main Roman writer on art, Pliny the Elder. The figures are near life-size and the group is a little over 2 m (6 ft 7 in) in height, showing the Trojan priest Laocoön and his sons Antiphantes and Thymbraeus being attacked by sea serpents.

The group has been called "the prototypical icon of human agony" in Western art, and unlike the agony often depicted in Christian art showing the Passion of Jesus and martyrs, this suffering has no redemptive power or reward. The suffering is shown through the contorted expressions of the faces ( Charles Darwin pointed out that Laocoön's bulging eyebrows are physiologically impossible), which are matched by the struggling bodies, especially that of Laocoön himself, with every part of his body straining.

Pliny attributes the work, then in the palace of Emperor Titus, to three Greek sculptors from the island of Rhodes: Agesander, Athenodoros and Polydorus, but does not give a date or patron. In style it is considered "one of the finest examples of the Hellenistic baroque" and certainly in the Greek tradition, but it is not known whether it is an original work or a copy of an earlier sculpture, probably in bronze, or made for a Greek or Roman commission. The view that it is an original work of the 2nd century BC now has few if any supporters, although many still see it as a copy of such a work made in the early Imperial period, probably of a bronze original. Others see it as probably an original work of the later period, continuing to use the Pergamene style of some two centuries earlier. In either case, it was probably commissioned for the home of a wealthy Roman, possibly of the Imperial family. Various dates have been suggested for the statue, ranging from about 200 BC to the 70s AD, though "a Julio-Claudian date [between 27 BC and 68 AD] ... is now preferred".

Although mostly in excellent condition for an excavated sculpture, the group is missing several parts, and analysis suggests that it was remodelled in ancient times and has undergone a number of restorations since it was excavated. It is on display in the Museo Pio-Clementino, a part of the Vatican Museums.

The story of Laocoön, a Trojan priest, came from the Greek Epic Cycle on the Trojan Wars, though it is not mentioned by Homer. It had been the subject of a tragedy, now lost, by Sophocles and was mentioned by other Greek writers, though the events around the attack by the serpents vary considerably. The most famous account of these is now in Virgil's (see the Aeneid quotation at the entry Laocoön), but this dates from between 29 and 19 BC, which is possibly later than the sculpture. However, some scholars see the group as a depiction of the scene as described by Virgil.

In Virgil, Laocoön was a priest of Poseidon who was killed with both his sons after attempting to expose the ruse of the Trojan Horse by striking it with a spear. In Sophocles, on the other hand, he was a priest of Apollo, who should have been celibate but had married. The serpents killed only the two sons, leaving Laocoön himself alive to suffer. In other versions he was killed for having had sex with his wife in the temple of Poseidon, or simply making a sacrifice in the temple with his wife present. In this second group of versions, the snakes were sent by Poseidon and in the first by Poseidon and Athena, or Apollo, and the deaths were interpreted by the Trojans as proof that the horse was a sacred object. The two versions have rather different morals: Laocoön was either punished for doing wrong, or for being right.

The snakes are depicted as both biting and constricting, and are probably intended as venomous, as in Virgil. Pietro Aretino thought so, praising the group in 1537:

...the two serpents, in attacking the three figures, produce the most striking semblances of fear, suffering and death. The youth embraced in the coils is fearful; the old man struck by the fangs is in torment; the child who has received the poison, dies.

In at least one Greek telling of the story the older son is able to escape, and the composition seems to allow for that possibility.

Ancient times

The style of the work is agreed to be that of the Hellenistic " Pergamene baroque" which arose in Greek Asia Minor around 200 BC, and whose best known undoubtedly original work is the Pergamon Altar, dated c. 180-160 BC, and now in Berlin. Here the figure of Alcyoneus is shown in a pose and situation (including serpents) which is very similar to those of Laocoön, though the style is "looser and wilder in its principles" than the altar.

The execution of the Laocoön is extremely fine throughout, and the composition very carefully calculated, even though it appears that the group underwent adjustments in ancient times. The two sons are rather small in scale compared to their father, but this adds to the impact of the central figure. The fine white marble used is often thought to be Greek, but has not been identified by analysis.

In Pliny's survey of Greek and Roman stone sculpture in his encyclopedic Natural History (XXXVI, 37), he says:

....in the case of several works of very great excellence, the number of artists that have been engaged upon them has proved a considerable obstacle to the fame of each, no individual being able to engross the whole of the credit, and it being impossible to award it in due proportion to the names of the several artists combined. Such is the case with the Laocoön, for example, in the palace of the Emperor Titus, a work that may be looked upon as preferable to any other production of the art of painting or of [bronze] statuary. It is sculptured from a single block, both the main figure as well as the children, and the serpents with their marvellous folds. This group was made in concert by three most eminent artists, Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus, natives of Rhodes.

It is generally accepted that this is the same work as is now in the Vatican. It is now very often thought that the three Rhodians were copyists, perhaps of a bronze sculpture from Pergamon, created around 200 BC. It is noteworthy that Pliny does not address this issue explicitly, in a way that suggests "he regards it as an original". Pliny states that it was located in the palace of the emperor Titus, and it is possible that it remained in the same place until 1506 (see "Findspot" section below). He also asserts that it was carved from a single piece of marble, though the Vatican work comprises at least seven interlocking pieces. The phrase translated above as "in concert" ( de consilii sententia) is regarded by some as referring to their commission rather than the artists' method of working, giving in Nigel Spivey's translation: " [the artists] at the behest of council designed a group...", which Spivey takes to mean that the commission was by Titus, possibly even advised by Pliny among other savants.

The same three artists' names, though in a different order (Athenodoros, Agesander, and Polydorus), with the names of their fathers, are inscribed on one of the sculptures at Tiberius's villa at Sperlonga (though they may predate his ownership), but it seems likely that not all the three masters were the same individuals. Though broadly similar in style, many aspects of the execution of the two groups are drastically different, with the Laocoon group of much higher quality and finish.

Some scholars used to think that honorific inscriptions found at Lindos in Rhodes dated Agesander and Athenodoros, recorded as priests, to a period after 42 BC, making the years 42 to 20 BC the most likely date for the Laocoön group's creation. However the Sperlonga inscription, which also gives the fathers of the artists, makes it clear that at least Agesander is a different individual from the priest of the same name recorded at Lindos, though very possibly related. The names may have recurred across generations, a Rhodian habit, within the context of a family workshop (which might well have included the adoption of promising young sculptors). Altogether eight "signatures" (or labels) of an Athenodoros are found on sculptures or bases for them, five of these from Italy. Some, including that from Sperlonga, record his father as Agesander. The whole question remains the subject of academic debate.

Renaissance

The group was unearthed in February 1506 in the vineyard of Felice De Fredis; informed of the fact, Pope Julius II, an enthusiastic classicist, sent for his court artists. Michelangelo was called to the site of the unearthing of the statue immediately after its discovery, along with the Florentine architect Giuliano da Sangallo and his eleven-year-old son Francesco da Sangallo, later a sculptor, who wrote an account over sixty years later:

The first time I was in Rome when I was very young, the pope was told about the discovery of some very beautiful statues in a vineyard near Santa Maria Maggiore. The pope ordered one of his officers to run and tell Giuliano da Sangallo to go and see them. So he set off immediately. Since Michelangelo Buonarroti was always to be found at our house, my father having summoned him and having assigned him the commission of the pope's tomb, my father wanted him to come along, too. I joined up with my father and off we went. I climbed down to where the statues were when immediately my father said, "That is the Laocoön, which Pliny mentions". Then they dug the hole wider so that they could pull the statue out. As soon as it was visible everyone started to draw (or "started to have lunch"), all the while discoursing on ancient things, chatting as well about the ones in Florence.

Julius acquired the group on March 23, giving De Fredis a job as a scribe as well as the customs revenues from one of the gates of Rome. By August the group was placed for public viewing in a niche in the wall of the brand new Belvedere Garden at the Vatican, now part of the Vatican Museums, which regard this as the start of their history. As yet it had no base, which was not added until 1511, and from various prints and drawings from the time the older son appears to have been completely detached from the rest of the group.

In July 1798 the statue was taken to France in the wake of the French conquest of Italy, though the replacement parts were left in Rome. It was on display when the new Musée Central des Arts, later the Musée Napoléon, opened at the Louvre in November 1800. A competition was announced for new parts to complete the composition, but there were no entries. Some plaster sections by François Girardon, over 150 years old, were used instead. After Napoleon's final defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 most (but certainly not all) the artworks plundered by the French were returned, and the Laocoön reached Rome in January 1816.

Restorations

When the statue was discovered, Laocoön's right arm was missing, along with part of the hand of one child and the right arm of the other, and various sections of snake. The older son, on the right, was detached from the other two figures. The age of the altar used as a seat by Laocoön remains uncertain. Artists and connoisseurs debated how the missing parts should be interpreted. Michelangelo suggested that the missing right arms were originally bent back over the shoulder. Others, however, believed it was more appropriate to show the right arms extended outwards in a heroic gesture.

According to Vasari, in about 1510 Bramante, the Pope's architect, held an informal contest among sculptors to make replacement right arms, which was judged by Raphael, and won by Jacopo Sansovino. The winner, in the outstretched position, was used in copies but not attached to the original group, which remained as it was until 1532, when Giovanni Antonio Montorsoli, a pupil of Michelangelo, added his even more straight version of Laocoön's outstretched arm, which remained in place until modern times. In 1725-1727 Agostino Cornacchini added a section to the younger son's arm, and after 1816 Antonio Canova tidied up the group after their return from Paris, without being convinced by the correctness of the additions but wishing to avoid a controversy.

In 1906 Ludwig Pollak, archaeologist, art dealer and director of the Museo Barracco, discovered a fragment of a marble arm in a builder's yard in Rome, close to where the group was found. Noting a stylistic similarity to the Laocoön group he presented it to the Vatican Museums: it remained in their storerooms for half a century. In 1957 the museum decided that this arm - bent, as Michelangelo had suggested - had originally belonged to this Laocoön, and replaced it. According to Paolo Liverani: "Remarkably, despite the lack of a critical section, the join between the torso and the arm was guaranteed by a drill hole on one piece which aligned perfectly with a corresponding hole on the other."

In the 1980s the statue was dismantled and reassembled, again with the Pollak arm incorporated. The restored portions of the children's arms and hands were removed. In the course of disassembly, it was possible to observe breaks, cuttings, metal tenons, and dowel holes which suggested that in antiquity, a more compact, three-dimensional pyramidal grouping of the three figures had been used or at least contemplated. According to Seymour Howard, both the Vatican group and the Sperlonga sculptures "show a similar taste for open and flexible pictorial organization that called for pyrotechnic piercing and lent itself to changes at the site, and in new situations".

The more open, planographic composition along a plane, used in the restoration of the Laocoön group, has been interpreted as "apparently the result of serial reworkings by Roman Imperial as well as Renaissance and modern craftsmen". A different reconstruction was proposed by Seymour Howard, to give "a more cohesive, baroque-looking and diagonally-set pyramidal composition", by turning the older son as much as 90°, with his back to the side of the altar, and looking towards the frontal viewer rather than at his father. The findings Seymour Howard documented do not change his belief about the organization of the original. But dating the reworked coil ends by measuring the depth of the surface crust and comparing the metal dowels in the original and reworked portions allows one to determine the provenance of the parts and the sequence of the repairs. Other suggestions have been made.

The discovery of the Laocoön made a great impression on Italian artists and continued to influence Italian art into the Baroque period. Michelangelo is known to have been particularly impressed by the massive scale of the work and its sensuous Hellenistic aesthetic, particularly its depiction of the male figures. The influence of the Laocoön, as well as the Belvedere Torso, is evidenced in many of Michelangelo's later sculptures, such as the Rebellious Slave and the Dying Slave, created for the tomb of Pope Julius II. Several of the and the figure of Haman in the Sistine Chapel ceiling draw on the figures. Raphael used the face of Laocoön for his Homer in his in the Raphael Rooms, expressing blindness rather than pain.

The Florentine sculptor Baccio Bandinelli was commissioned to make a copy by the Medici Pope Leo X. Bandinelli's version, which was often copied and distributed in small bronzes, is in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, the Pope having decided it was too good to send to François I of France as originally intended. A bronze casting, made for François I at Fontainebleau from a mold taken from the original under the supervision of Primaticcio, is at the Musée du Louvre. There are many copies of the statue, including a well-known one in the Grand Palace of the Knights of St. John in Rhodes. Many still show the arm in the outstretched position, but the copy in Rhodes has been corrected.

The group was rapidly depicted in prints as well as small models, and became known all over Europe. Titian appears to have had access to a good cast or reproduction from about 1520, and echoes of the figures begin to appear in his works, two of them in the Averoldi Altarpiece of 1520-1522. A woodcut, probably after a drawing by Titian, parodied the sculpture by portraying three apes instead of humans. It has often been interpreted as a satire on the clumsiness of Bandinelli's copy, or as a commentary on debates of the time around the similarities between human and ape anatomy. It has also been suggested that this woodcut was one of a number of Renaissance images that were made to reflect contemporary doubts as to the authenticity of the Laocoön Group, the 'aping' of the statue referring to the incorrect pose of the Trojan priest who was depicted in ancient art in the traditional sacrificial pose, with his leg raised to subdue the bull. Over 15 drawings of the group made by Rubens in Rome have survived, and the influence of the figures can be seen in many of his major works, including his Descent from the Cross in Antwerp Cathedral.

The original was seized and taken to Paris by Napoleon Bonaparte after his conquest of Italy in 1799, and installed in a place of honour in the Musée Napoléon at the Louvre. Following the fall of Napoleon, it was returned by the Allies to the Vatican in 1816.

Laocoön as an ideal of art

Pliny's description of Laocoön as "a work to be preferred to all that the arts of painting and sculpture have produced" has led to a tradition which debates this claim that the sculpture is the greatest of all artworks. Johann Joachim Winkelmann (1717-1768) wrote about the paradox of admiring beauty while seeing a scene of death and failure. The most influential contribution to the debate, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's essay Laocoon: An Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry, examines the differences between visual and literary art by comparing the sculpture with Virgil's verse. He argues that the artists could not realistically depict the physical suffering of the victims, as this would be too painful. Instead, they had to express suffering while retaining beauty.

Johann Goethe said the following in his essay, Upon the Laocoon "A true work of art, like a work of nature, never ceases to open boundlessly before the mind. We examine, - we are impressed with it, - it produces its effect; but it can never be all comprehended, still less can its essence, its value, be expressed in words.

The most unusual intervention in the debate, William Blake's annotated print Laocoön, surrounds the image with graffiti-like commentary in several languages, written in multiple directions. Blake presents the sculpture as a mediocre copy of a lost Israelite original, describing it as "Jehovah & his two Sons Satan & Adam as they were copied from the Cherubim Of Solomons Temple by three Rhodians & applied to Natural Fact or History of Ilium". This reflects Blake's theory that the imitation of ancient Greek and Roman art was destructive to the creative imagination, and that Classical sculpture represented a banal naturalism in contrast to Judeo-Christian spiritual art.

The central figure of Laocoön served as loose inspiration for the Indian in Horatio Greenough's (1837-1850) which stood before the east facade of the United States Capitol for over 100 years.

Near the end of Charles Dickens' 1843 novella, A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge self-describes "making a perfect Laocoön of himself with his stockings" in his hurry to dress on Christmas morning.

John Ruskin disliked the sculpture and compared its "disgusting convulsions" unfavourably with work by Michelangelo, whose fresco of The Brazen Serpent, on a corner pendentive of the Sistine Chapel, also involves figures struggling with snakes - the fiery serpents of the Book of Numbers. He invited contrast between the "meagre lines and contemptible tortures of the Laocoon" and the "awfulness and quietness" of Michelangelo, saying "the slaughter of the Dardan priest" was "entirely wanting" in sublimity. Furthermore, he attacked the composition on naturalistic grounds, contrasting the carefully studied human anatomy of the restored figures with the unconvincing portrayal of the snakes:

For whatever knowledge of the human frame there may be in the Laocoön, there is certainly none of the habits of serpents. The fixing of the snake's head in the side of the principal figure is as false to nature, as it is poor in composition of line. A large serpent never wants to bite, it wants to hold, it seizes therefore always where it can hold best, by the extremities, or throat, it seizes once and forever, and that before it coils, following up the seizure with the twist of its body round the victim, as invisibly swift as the twist of a whip lash round any hard object it may strike, and then it holds fast, never moving the jaws or the body, if its prey has any power of struggling left, it throws round another coil, without quitting the hold with the jaws; if Laocoön had had to do with real serpents, instead of pieces of tape with heads to them, he would have been held still, and not allowed to throw his arms or legs about.

In 1910 the critic Irving Babbit used the title The New Laokoon: An Essay on the Confusion of the Arts for an essay on contemporary culture at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1940 Clement Greenberg adapted the concept for his own essay entitled Towards a Newer Laocoön in which he argued that abstract art now provided an ideal for artists to measure their work against. A 2007 exhibition at the Henry Moore Institute in turn copied this title while exhibiting work by modern artists influenced by the sculpture.

The location where the buried statue was found in 1506 was always known to be "in the vineyard of Felice De Fredis" on the Oppian Hill (the southern spur of the Esquiline Hill), as noted in the document recording the sale of the group to the Pope. But over time, knowledge of the site's precise location was lost, beyond "vague" statements such as Sangallo's "near Santa Maria Maggiore" (see above) or it being "near the site of the Domus Aurea" (the palace of the Emperor Nero); in modern terms near the Colosseum. An inscribed plaque of 1529 in the church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli records the burial of De Fredis and his son there, covering his finding of the group but giving no occupation. Research published in 2010 has recovered two documents in the municipal archives (badly indexed, and so missed by earlier researchers), which have established a much more precise location for the find: slightly to the east of the southern end of the Sette Sale, the ruined cistern for the successive imperial baths at the base of the hill by the Colosseum.

The first document records De Fredis' purchase of a vineyard of about 1.5 hectares from a convent for 135 ducats on 14 November 1504, exactly 14 months before the finding of the statue. The second document, from 1527, makes it clear that there is now a house on the property, and clarifies the location; by then De Fredis was dead and his widow rented out the house. The house appears on a map of 1748, and still survives as a substantial building of three storeys, as of 2014 in the courtyard of a convent. The area remained mainly agricultural until the 19th century, but is now entirely built up. It is speculated that De Fredis began building the house soon after his purchase, and as the group was reported to have been found some four metres below ground, at a depth unlikely to be reached by normal vineyard-digging operations, it seems likely that it was discovered when digging the foundations for the house, or possibly a well for it.

The findspot was inside and very close to the Servian Wall, which was still maintained in the 1st century AD (possibly converted to an aqueduct), though no longer the city boundary, as building had spread well beyond it. The spot was within the Gardens of Maecenas, founded by Gaius Maecenas the ally of Augustus and patron of the arts. He bequeathed the gardens to Augustus in 8 BC, and Tiberius lived there after he returned to Rome as heir to Augustus in 2 AD. Pliny said the Laocoön was in his time at the palace of Titus ( qui est in Titi imperatoris domo), then heir to his father Vespasian, but the location of Titus's residence remains unknown; the imperial estate of the Gardens of Maecenas may be a plausible candidate. If the Laocoön group was already in the location of the later findspot by the time Pliny saw it, it might have arrived there under Maecenas or any of the emperors. The extent of the grounds of Nero's Domus Aurea is now unclear, but they do not appear to have extended so far north or east, though the newly rediscovered findspot-location is not very far beyond them.

1. Digital Sculpture Project: Laocoön, "Catalogue Entry: Laocoon Group"

2. ^ Darwin, Charles (1872). The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. New York: D. Appleton & Company. p. 183.

3. Stewart, 85, this last in the commentary on Virgil of ^ Maurus Servius Honoratus, citing Euphorion of Chalcis

4. The Greeks were familiar with constricting snakes, and the small boa ^ Eryx jaculus is still native to Greece. But the danger to Ancient Greeks from venomous snakes was far greater

5. ^ English text at Tufts, Book 36, Ch 4, but usually cited as 36:37, e.g. by Spivey, 26. Latin text: "...nec deinde multo plurium fama est, quorundam claritati in operibus eximiis obstante numero artificum, quoniam nec unus occupat gloriam nec plures pariter nuncupari possunt, sicut in laocoonte, qui est in titi imperatoris domo, opus omnibus et picturae et statuariae artis praeferendum. ex uno lapide eum ac liberos draconumque mirabiles nexus de consilii sententia fecere summi artifices Hagesander et Polydorus et Athenodorus rhodii." Naturalis Historia. Pliny the Elder. Karl Friedrich Theodor Mayhoff. Lipsiae. Teubner. 1906, as 36:11, at Tufts. The word statuariae used by Pliny means bronze statues as opposed to stone, as pointed out by Bernard Andreae and others. See Isager, 171

6. ^ Rose, Herbert Jennings (1996), "Laocoön", in Hornblower, Simon (ed.), Oxford Classical Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press

7. In 2005 Lynn Catterson argued that the sculpture was a forgery created by ^ Michelangelo, in Catterson, Lynn, "Michelangelo's 'Laocoön?'" Artibus et historiae. 52 2005: 29. Richard Brilliant, author of My Laocoön, described Catterson's claims as "noncredible on any count". See An Ancient Masterpiece Or a Master's Forgery?, New York Times, April 18, 2005

8. Ambiguous due to a quirk of Tuscan Italian, "everyone started to eat lunch" ^ ci tornammo a desinare - see Barkan lecture notes PDF Archived 2012-04-18 at the Wayback Machine for 2011 Jerome Lectures, University of Chicago, "Unswept Floor: Food Culture and High Culture, Antiquity and Renaissance", Lecture 1, start: "It's a piece of sixteenth-century spelling, and I (along with many other commentators - if I was wrong, I wasn't wrong alone) - understood it as disegnare, that is, to draw ...[rather than] digiunare - in other words, to eat lunch." Farinelli, 16, has "And having seen it we went back to dinner, talking ..."

9. ^ Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2001.08.34, review of Richard Brilliant, My Laocoön: Alternative Claims.

10. Gustafson, Susan, ^ Laocoon's Body and the Aesthetics of Pain: Winckelmann, Lessing, Herder, Moritz and Goethe by Simon Richter, South Atlantic Review, Vol. 58, No. 4 (Nov., 1993), pp. 145-147, JSTOR 3201020

11. ^ "Laocoon and the expression of pain" Archived 2013-10-05 at the Wayback Machine, William Schupbach, Wellcome Trust

12. Volpe and Parisi; the map is ^ Giambattista Nolli's Nuova Pianta di Roma, section image here, the house shown with a zig-zag plan to the top left of the section.

13. Volpe and Parisi; the text probably reflects tidying by ^ Pliny the Younger, as his father died (25 August 79) at Pompeii only two months after Vespasian died (23 June 79) and Titus became Imperator rather than Caesar, his title as heir.

Barkan, Leonard, Unearthing the Past: Archaeology and Aesthetics in the Making of Renaissance Culture, 1999, Yale University Press, ISBN 0-300-08911-2, 978-0-300-08911-0

Beard, Mary, Times Literary Supplement, "Arms and the Man: The restoration and reinvention of classical sculpture", 2 February 2001, subscription required, reprinted in Confronting the Classics: Traditions, Adventures and Innovations, 2013 EBL ebooks online, Profile Books, ISBN 1-84765-888-1, 978-1-84765-888-3 Google Books

Boardman, John ed., The Oxford History of Classical Art, 1993, OUP, ISBN 0-19-814386-9

"Chronology": Frischer, Bernard, Digital Sculpture Project: Laocoon, "An Annotated Chronology of the "Laocoon" Statue Group", 2009

Clark, Kenneth, The Nude, A Study in Ideal Form, orig. 1949, various edns, page refs from Pelican edn of 1960

Cook, R.M., Greek Art, Penguin, 1986 (reprint of 1972), ISBN 0-14-021866-1

Farinella, Vincenzo, Vatican Museums, Classical Art, 1985, Scala

Haskell, Francis, and Penny, Nicholas, 1981. Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500-1900 (Yale University Press), cat. no. 52, pp. 243-47

Herrmann, Ariel, review of Sperlonga und Vergil by Roland Hampe, The Art Bulletin, Vol. 56, No. 2, Medieval Issue (Jun., 1974), pp. 275-277, JSTOR 3049235

Howard, Seymour, "Laocoon Rerestored", American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 93, No. 3 (Jul., 1989), pp. 417-422, JSTOR 505589

Isager, Jacob, Pliny on Art and Society: The Elder Pliny's Chapters On The History Of Art, 2013, Routledge, ISBN 1-135-08580-3, 978-1-135-08580-3, Google Books

Rice, E. E., "Prosopographika Rhodiaka", The Annual of the British School at Athens, Vol. 81, (1986), pp. 209-250, JSTOR 30102899

Spivey, Nigel (2001), Enduring Creation: Art, Pain, and Fortitude, University of California Press, ISBN 0-520-23022-1, 978-0-520-23022-4

Smith, R.R.R., Hellenistic Sculpture, a handbook, Thames & Hudson, 1991, ISBN 0500202494

Stewart, A., "To Entertain an Emperor: Sperlonga, Laokoon and Tiberius at the Dinner-Table", The Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 67, (1977), pp. 76-90, JSTOR 299920

"Volpe and Parisi": Digital Sculpture Project: Laocoon. "Laocoon: The Last Enigma", translation by Bernard Frischer of Volpe, Rita and Parisi, Antonella, "Laocoonte. L'ultimo engima," in Archeo 299, January 2010, pp. 26-39

Warden, P. Gregory, "The Domus Aurea Reconsidered", Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Dec., 1981), pp. 271-278, doi:10.2307/989644, JSTOR 989644

University of Virginia's Digital Sculpture Project 3D models, bibliography, annotated chronology of the Laocoon

Laocoon photos

Laocoon and his Sons in the Census database

FlickR group "Responses To Laocoön", a collection of art inspired by the Laocoön group

Lessing's Laocoon etext on books.google.com

Loh, Maria H. (2011). "Outscreaming the Laocoön: Sensation, Special Affects, and the Moving Image". Oxford Art Journal. 34 (3): 393-414. doi:10.1093/oxartj/kcr039. Archived from the original on 2 May 2015.

Laocoonte: variazioni sul mito, con una Galleria delle fonti letterarie e iconografiche su Laocoonte, a cura del Centro studi classicA, "La Rivista di Engramma" n. 50, luglio/settembre 2006 (in Italian)

Nota sul ciclo di Sperlonga e sulle relazioni con il Laoocoonte Vaticano, a cura del Centro studi classicA, "La Rivista di Engramma" n. 50. luglio/settembre 2006 (in Italian)

Nota sulle interpretazioni del passo di Plinio, Nat. Hist. XXXVI, 37, a cura del Centro studi classicA, "La Rivista di Engramma" n. 50. luglio/settembre 2006 (in Italian)

Scheda cronologica dei restauri del Laocoonte, a cura di Marco Gazzola, "La Rivista di Engramma" n. 50, luglio/settembre 2006 (in Italian)

Texts on Wikisource:

by William Blake, with the texts transcribed

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The statue of Laocoön and His Sons , also called the Laocoön Group ( Italian: Gruppo del Laocoonte), has been one of the most famous ancient sculptures ever since it was excavated in Rome in 1506 and placed on public display in the Vatican, where it remains.

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These quiet, compelling photographs of an African American family living under segregation in the 1950s elicit a reaction that Gordon Parks believed was critical to undoing racial prejudice: empathy. He took these pictures on assignment for a Life magazine photo essay, "The Restraints: Open and Hidden," which documented the everyday activities and rituals of one extended black family living in the rural South under Jim Crow segregation. Throughout his career, Parks endeavored to help viewers, white and black, understand and share the feelings of others. It was with this goal in mind that he set out to document the lives of the Thornton family, creating images meant to alter the way Americans viewed one another and, ultimately, themselves.

While twenty-six photographs were eventually published in Life in September 1956, and some were exhibited during his lifetime, the bulk of Parks' work from that assignment was thought to have been lost. That is, until the spring of 2012, when The Gordon Parks Foundation discovered more than two hundred color transparencies at the bottom of an old storage box, wrapped in paper and masking tape and marked "Segregation Series."

More than anything, the series challenged the abiding myth of racism, that the races are innately unequal, an illusion that allows one group to declare its superiority over another by capriciously ascribing to it negative traits, abnormalities, or pathologies. It is the very fullness, even ordinariness, of the lives of the Thornton family that most effectively contests these notions of difference, which had flourished in a popular culture that offered no more than an incomplete or distorted view of African American life.

Segregation Story is an iteration of the exhibition and catalogue Gordon Parks: Segregation Story curated and written by Brett Abbot and organized by the High Museum of Art, in collaboration with the Gordon Parks Foundation.

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The Gordon Parks Foundation permanently preserves the work of Gordon Parks, makes it available to the public through exhibitions, books, and electronic media and supports artistic and educational activities that advance what Gordon described as "the common search for a better life and a better world."

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Picnic is a 1953 play by William Inge. The play was premiered at the Music Box Theatre, Broadway, on 19 February 1953 in a Theatre Guild production, directed by Joshua Logan, which ran for 477 performances.

The original cast featured Ralph Meeker, Eileen Heckart, Arthur O'Connell, Janice Rule, Reta Shaw, Kim Stanley and Paul Newman. Inge won the 1953 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for the work, and Logan received a Tony Award for Best Director. The play also won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play of the season.

Picnic was Paul Newman's Broadway debut. An unknown at the time, Newman campaigned heavily for the leading role of Hal, but director Joshua Logan did not think Newman was physically large enough to convey the lead character's athletic attributes. As a result, Ralph Meeker was given the role of Hal opposite Janice Rule as Madge. Newman played Hal's former college roommate Alan Seymour while understudying the role of Hal. Newman eventually took over the lead role.

It is Labor Day, and everyone is preparing for a neighborhood picnic. Hal Carter, a drifter, arrives in town looking for work and visits his college friend Alan, who is dating Madge Owens with the intent to marry her. Hal does odd jobs for the welcoming Helen Potts. Her neighbor, Flo Owens, distrusts Hal, especially around her daughters, Madge and Millie. Since shy Millie does not have a date, neighbor Mrs. Potts suggests that Hal accompany her, much to the chagrin of Flo. Hal agrees, but he is much more interested in Madge. There is an undeniable attraction between the two, as much as they try to fight it. While getting ready for the picnic, the family and friends dance in Flo's backyard to music playing nearby. Hal grows on both Millie and Madge, and they both vie for his attention. Rosemary, an "old maid schoolteacher" who boards at the Owens house, notices, disapproves, and is attracted to the shirtless Hal as she waits for her Labor Day date, local shop proprietor Howard Bevans. As Madge and Hal dance passionately, and a drunken Rosemary later butts in so she can dance with Hal (and proceeds to rip his shirt when Howard pries her away from Hal), Millie gets sick from drinking too much whiskey while no one is paying attention. Rosemary blames Millie's drinking on her date with Hal, and says he'll never rise beyond the gutter, and Flo joins in criticizing him.

Hal sits in the shadows by himself while everyone leaves for the picnic. Rosemary and her boyfriend Howard decide to skip the picnic and go for a drive. Madge stays behind to change her dress. When she comes back outside and tries to console Hal, they kiss after a deep and revealing conversation. They run off together and spend the night in the car.

Howard brings Rosemary back to the house. As he leaves, Rosemary begs him to marry her. When Madge and Hal return, Madge is ashamed of what they did. Hal asks for one more kiss, and their "passion is revived".

In the morning, Flo is frantic because she has seen Madge crying hysterically. Rosemary leaves with Howard to get married, and everyone goes to the street to see her off. When Madge is left alone in the backyard, Hal shows up to talk to her. He has spent the night in hiding after Alan falsely reported to the police that Hal stole his car, in order to drive him out of town for "stealing" Madge. The others come back into the yard, and Hal leaves after defending himself when Alan arrives to drive him away, but only after telling Madge that he loves her and asks her to leave with him, despite Flo's presence and disapproval. Madge finally realizes that she loves him after he's gone, and she enters the house crying. Alan leaves, and it is obviously over between him and Madge. A little while later, Madge comes out of the house with a suitcase and tells her mother that she's going after Hal. The play ends with Flo watching her daughter leave.

The original cast for the 1953 Music Box Theatre production (in order of appearance):

Ruth McDevitt - Helen Potts - Flo's neighbor

Ralph Meeker - Hal Carter - Hired by Helen, an old college friend of Alan

Kim Stanley - Millie Owens - Younger daughter of Flo

Morris Miller - Bomber - Neighborhood kid

Janice Rule - Madge Owens - Elder daughter of Flo

Peggy Concklin - Flo Owens - Madge and Millie's mother

Eileen Heckart - Rosemary Sydney - Schoolteacher renting a room in Flo's house

Paul Newman - Alan Seymour - Madge's boyfriend, an old college friend of Hal

Reta Shaw - Irma Kronkite - Schoolteacher, a friend of Rosemary

Elizabeth Wilson - Christine Schoenwalder - Schoolteacher, a friend of Rosemary

Arthur O'Connell - Howard Bevans - Rosemary's boyfriend

The setting for Picnic was argued over by Inge and director Joshua Logan, so the play is typically presented with the original scenery of the two back porches. This allows for little to no set changes and is a bit ironic in the fact that the play is called Picnic, but there are no picnic scenes. The houses are typically shown as a bit rundown and as naturalistic as possible.

In this play, there are several instances where the characters reference piano and band music playing down the street. All are in act two's dancing scene, in which different characters dance together, get to know each other better, and some major conflict begins. Millie mentions the music when it is present in the play, and it seems to have some importance to her. She is a lover of art and changing the world, which can be done with music. Millie explains that the music is coming from a band called Ernie Higgins and his Happiness Boys. The name suggests happiness, and brings with it a sense of freedom.

Picnic opened on Broadway at The Music Box Theatre in New York City on February 19, 1953. It was produced by The Theatre Guild and directed by Joshua Logan. The play's original cast included Ralph Meeker as Hal, Janice Rule as Madge, Kim Stanley as Millie, Peggy Concklin as Flo, and Paul Newman as Alan. After that, the play toured throughout 1954 and 1955. In 1955, Picnic was produced in several different states, including Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, Pennsylvania on May 30, the Pasadena Playhouse in Pasadena, California on July 28, and the Cape Playhouse in Dennis, Massachusetts in August. Picnic opened in England at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry on April 14, 1958, with scenery and costumes designed by Barry Kay. A revival was produced by Roundabout Theatre Company in 1994, starring Kyle Chandler, Tate Donovan, and Ashley Judd. A 2017 off-Broadway revival was presented by Transport Group Thtr Co, featuring David T. Patterson as Hal, Emily Skinner as Rosemary, Michele Pawk as Flo and Heather MacRae as Mrs. Potts.

Paul Osborne was chosen to turn Picnic into a musical in the 1960s. It was called Hot September and instead of going to the Alvin Theatre on Broadway in October 1965, the musical premiered in Boston and closed within a few weeks. Another rewrite of Picnic, undertaken by Inge himself in the early 1970s, was titled Summer Brave. It opened at the Equity Library Theatre in New York in 1973, two months before Inge committed suicide. The play only lasted 14 performances, but it was revived two years later at the ANTA Theatre. This time it lasted 18 performances.

Picnic was made into a film by Columbia Pictures, and was released in December 1955. It was directed by Joshua Logan. and nominated for six Academy Awards, of which it won two. William Holden, Kim Novak, Rosalind Russell, and Arthur O'Connell were the most prominent members of the cast.

There was also a television special called Picnic - Broadway on Showtime that aired on November 10, 1986, and featured Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gregory Harrison, Rue McClanahan, Dick Van Patten, Conchata Ferrell, Dana Hill, and Michael Learned. It was produced by Catalina Production Group, Ltd.

Another TV film was made in 2000, with Gretchen Mol, Josh Brolin, Chad Morgan, Bonnie Bedelia, Mary Steenburgen.

The University of Kansas' operatic version of the play premiered April 8, 2008. Librettist and stage director Tim Ocel recalled, "When Forrest Pierce knocked on my door during the fall of 2006 and said he'd like to compose something for KU Opera, I jumped at the chance. The voice/opera division was just beginning to consider what our contribution to the 50th Murphy Hall celebration would be. I thought maybe we should create something; William Inge is the playwright and dramatic storyteller of 1950s Kansas, so why not explore the possibility of turning one of his plays into an opera? We both agreed that Picnic was the play that lent itself best to an operatic treatment. The libretto formed over the next six months, and by June 2007 Forrest was composing. The opera is a domestic comedy of sorts. Inge calls the play "A Summer Romance." It's about everyday people... you and I... who have to figure out what it means to be alive and connected and useful in this world. It attempts to show the truth and the possibility of our everyday lives."

Inge's Picnic was used as the basis for an opera with the name, composed by Libby Larsen on a commission from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro's School of Music, Theatre and Dance. Larsen's Picnic premiered on Thursday, April 2, 2009 by UNCG, in Aycock Auditorium.

The play was revived on Broadway in 2013 at the American Airlines Theatre, with a cast that featured Ellen Burstyn, Mare Winningham, Maggie Grace, Sebastian Stan, Reed Birney, and Elizabeth Marvel.

At Home with Amy Sedaris season 3, Episode 3, titled "Outdoor Entertaining" is loosely based on this play.

In The Golden Girls season 2, Episode 14, "The Actor", the women are cast in similar play.

Tom Jicha of the South Florida Sun Sentinel wrote in 2000 that by then, the Picnic franchise no longer had a "racy" and critically acclaimed reputation and had shifted to being perceived as being not critically acclaimed and "tamer than an episode of Dawson's Creek".

According to Jicha, this meant that the TV movie produced by CBS airing that year, while not being "a washout" and "moderately entertaining couple of hours", had "a second-tier cast glad to take the work".

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Picnic is a 1953 play by William Inge. The play was premiered at the Music Box Theatre, Broadway, on 19 February 1953 in a Theatre Guild production, directed by Joshua Logan, which ran for 477 performances. The original cast featured Ralph Meeker, Eileen Heckart, Arthur O'Connell, Janice Rule, Reta Shaw, Kim Stanley and Paul Newman.

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Explore Barbara Kruger: Belief+Doubt from Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden on Artsy. August 20 - December 31, 2017.

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Smithsonian American Art Museum and Renwick Gallery

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Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe | visitBerlin.de

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Art: Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

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Art: Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

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The Holocaust Memorial in Berlin: A central place of remembrance. ✓ History & Background ✓ Opening hours ► Learn more about the memorial!

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Def Poetry Jam - Saul Williams (Coded Language)

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Def Poetry Jam - Saul Williams (Coded Language)

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Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial (U.S. National Park Service)

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These words by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt ushered the United States into World War II and defined what it is to be an American. Stop by this secluded memorial and begin to understand the Roosevelt legacy. Read More

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Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial (U.S. National Park Service)

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These words by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt ushered the United States into World War II and defined what it is to be an American. Stop by this secluded memorial and begin to understand the Roosevelt legacy. Read More

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Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial (U.S. National Park Service)

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Located in downtown Washington, DC, the memorial honors Martin Luther King, Jr.'s legacy and the struggle for freedom, equality, and justice. A prominent leader in the modern civil rights movement, Dr. King was a tireless advocate for racial equality, working class, and the oppressed around the world.

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Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial (U.S. National Park Service)

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Located in downtown Washington, DC, the memorial honors Martin Luther King, Jr.'s legacy and the struggle for freedom, equality, and justice. A prominent leader in the modern civil rights movement, Dr. King was a tireless advocate for racial equality, working class, and the oppressed around the world.

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You Can Now Explore All 48,000 Panels of the AIDS Memorial Quilt Online

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The commemorative quilt weighs 54 tons and spans 1.2 million square feet

smithsonianmag.com

When the AIDS Memorial Quilt was first displayed on the National Mall in 1987, it contained 1,920 panels commemorating people who had died of the disease. Twenty-five years later, when the quilt returned to the Mall as part of the 2012 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, it had grown so much in size that its 48,000 panels couldn't be displayed simultaneously. Instead, organizers showcased smaller sets of 1,500 squares on each day of the two-week celebration.

Now, reports Billy Anania for Hyperallergic, the 1.2-million-square-foot quilt is available to view online in its entirety. Together, the panels-sewn into groups of eight-serve as a massive, searchable memorial to the more than 125,000 people who have died of HIV and AIDS since 1980.

"When we created the first Quilt panels it was to share with as many people possible lives tragically being lost to AIDS and to demand action from our government," says quilt founder and gay rights activist Cleve Jones in a statement. "The Quilt has become a powerful educator and symbol for social justice. My hope is that through continued storytelling and making the panels available online, that more people will be drawn to its stories, its history and that we can continue to change hearts and minds."

The quilt traces its origins to 1985, when Jones decided to commemorate the 1,000 San Francisco residents who had succumbed to AIDS to date by asking those attending a march to tape placards bearing lost loved ones' names onto the San Francisco Federal Building. To Jones, the wall of names resembled a quilt.

Most of the quilt's blocks are rectangles measuring 6 feet by 3 feet, or roughly the size of a grave. Many were individually crafted by people whose friends and family members succumbed to AIDS; this personal touch is evident in the panels' designs, which range from abstract geometric patterns to intricate multimedia collages and stenciled lists of names.

As Katherine Ott, a curator in the division of medicine and science at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, told Smithsonian magazine 's Brian Wolly in 2010, the quilt "is the largest, most complicated example of folk art in the United States. Furthermore, it was a new kind of memorial; one that was collectively created and movable and shape-shifting, instead of the classic mausoleum sort of thing or sober mourning statue."

Last November, the NAMES Project Foundation, which was established in 1987 to care for the quilt, announced plans to transfer an archive of more than 200,000 items associated with the project-including biographical records, photographs, news clippings and letters-to the Library of Congress' American Folklife Center. The Atlanta-based foundation also revealed plans to send the quilt home to San Francisco under the stewardship of the National AIDS Memorial.

Per Hyperallergic, the newly launched digitization commemorates the International AIDS Conference, which was held virtually this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the 40th anniversary of the first reported HIV cases in the United States. When viewing the interactive quilt, users can either appreciate the enormous mosaic in its entirety or zoom in on specific panels, which often include individuals' names and messages of love. Additionally, virtual visitors can search the quilt for specific names, keywords or block numbers.

A new initiative dubbed 2020/40 accompanies the interactive quilt. Dedicated to sharing stories from the 40-year fight against AIDS, the platform includes interviews with such individuals as Al and Jane Nakatani, who lost two of their sons to AIDS, and Rayson Roldan, who was diagnosed with HIV in December 2016.

"As a person living with AIDS, I never thought I would have to live through two pandemics," says John Cunningham, executive director of the National AIDS Memorial, in the statement. "While very different, there is a thread that pulls through connecting them together, rooted in stigma and discrimination. The Quilt and storytelling efforts can help us learn from the past to positively change the future."

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smithsonian center for folklife and cultural heritage

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You Can Now Explore All 48,000 Panels of the AIDS Memorial Quilt Online

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smithsonianmag.com When the AIDS Memorial Quilt was first displayed on the National Mall in 1987, it contained 1,920 panels commemorating people who had died of the disease. Twenty-five years later, when the quilt returned to the Mall as part of the 2012 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, it had grown so much in size that its 48,000 panels couldn't be displayed simultaneously.

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The Graduate is a 1967 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Mike Nichols and written by Buck Henry and Calder Willingham, based on the 1963 novel of the same name by Charles Webb, who wrote it shortly after graduating from Williams College. The film tells the story of 21-year-old Benjamin Braddock ( Dustin Hoffman), a recent college graduate with no well-defined aim in life, who is seduced by an older married woman, Mrs. Robinson ( Anne Bancroft), and then becomes obsessed with her daughter Elaine ( Katharine Ross).

The Graduate was released on December 21, 1967, to critical and commercial success, grossing $104.9million, becoming the highest-grossing film of 1967 worldwide. Adjusted for inflation (as of 2021), the film's gross is $857 million, making it the 23rd highest-ever grossing film in North America with inflation taken into account. It received seven nominations at the 40th Academy Awards including for the Best Picture and won Best Director. In 1996, The Graduate was selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". It is ranked by the American Film Institute as the 17th greatest American film of all time.

After earning his bachelor's degree from an East Coast college, Benjamin Braddock returns to his parents' Pasadena, California home. He cringes as his parents deliver accolades during his graduation party and retreats to his bedroom until Mrs. Robinson, the wife of his father's law partner, insists that he drive her home. Once there, she tries to seduce him. He initially resists her advances, but after his parents continue to make him feel isolated and desperate for any kind of connection, he invites Mrs. Robinson to the Taft Hotel, where he registers under the pseudonym "Mr. Gladstone".

Benjamin spends the summer relaxing in his parents' pool by day and meeting Mrs. Robinson at the hotel by night. During one of their trysts, Mrs. Robinson reveals that her loveless marriage resulted when she accidentally became pregnant with her daughter, Elaine. When Benjamin jokingly suggests that he date Elaine, Mrs. Robinson angrily forbids it. However, Benjamin's parents, unaware of the affair, are eager for their son to date Elaine and relentlessly pester him to ask her out, as does Mr. Robinson. Benjamin gives in and reluctantly takes Elaine on a date.

When he sees how upset Mrs. Robinson is, Benjamin attempts to sabotage his date by ignoring Elaine, driving recklessly, and taking her to a strip club. She flees the club in tears, but Benjamin, feeling remorseful, runs out after her, apologizes, and kisses her. They eat at a drive-in restaurant, where they bond over their shared uncertainty about their future plans. After they visit the Taft Hotel for a late-night drink and the staff greet Benjamin as "Mr. Gladstone", Elaine deduces that Benjamin is having an affair with a married woman. Benjamin swears that the affair is over and makes plans for another date with Elaine for the following day.

To prevent Benjamin from dating Elaine, Mrs. Robinson threatens to tell Elaine about their affair. To thwart this, Benjamin reveals to Elaine that the married woman is her mother. Elaine is so upset that she refuses to see Benjamin again and returns to school at Berkeley.

Benjamin follows her to Berkeley hoping to regain her affections. Elaine is aghast because her mother told her that Benjamin raped her when she was drunk. After Benjamin explains what really happened and apologizes, Elaine forgives him and they rekindle their relationship. He asks her to marry him, but she is uncertain despite her feelings for him. Later, an angry Mr. Robinson arrives at Berkeley and confronts Benjamin in his boarding room, where he informs him that he and his wife will be divorcing soon and threatens to have Benjamin jailed if he continues to see Elaine. He then forces Elaine to leave college to marry Carl Smith, a classmate whom she briefly dated.

Benjamin drives back to Pasadena and breaks into the Robinson home in search of Elaine. Instead, he finds Mrs. Robinson who calls the police and claims that her house is being burglarized. She then tells Benjamin that he cannot prevent Elaine's marriage to Carl. Before the police can arrest him, Benjamin flees the Robinson home and drives back to Berkeley. There, he visits Carl's fraternity and discovers from one of Carl's fraternity brothers that the wedding will take place in Santa Barbara that day. He rushes towards the area near the church, when his Alfa Romeo, which he received as a graduation present from his parents, runs out of gas, causing him to jog towards the church and arrives just as the ceremony ends. Overlooking the sanctuary, he bangs on the glass separating him from the wedding and shouts Elaine's name. After surveying the angry faces of Carl and her parents, Elaine shouts "Ben!" and flees the sanctuary. Benjamin fights off Mr. Robinson and repels the wedding guests by swinging a large cross, which he uses to barricade the church doors, trapping them inside. Elaine and Benjamin escape aboard a bus and sit among startled passengers. As the bus drives on, their ecstatic smiles slowly fade away and they begin to look toward an uncertain future.

Getting the film made was difficult for Nichols, who, while noted for being a successful Broadway director, was still an unknown in Hollywood. Producer Lawrence Turman, who wanted only Nichols to direct it, was continually turned down for financing. He then contacted producer Joseph E. Levine, who said he would finance the film because he had associated with Nichols on the play , and because he heard that Elizabeth Taylor specifically wanted Nichols to direct her and Richard Burton in Virginia Woolf.

With financing assured, Nichols suggested Buck Henry for screenwriter, although Henry's experience had also been mostly in improvised comedy, and had no writing background. Nichols said to Henry, "I think you could do it; I think you should do it." Nichols was paid $150,000 but was to receive one-sixth of the profits.

Nichols' first choice for Mrs. Robinson was French actress Jeanne Moreau. The motivation for this was the cliché that in French culture, "older" women tended to "train" the younger men in sexual matters. Numerous actors were considered for or sought roles in the film. Doris Day turned down an offer because the nudity required by the role offended her. Joan Crawford inquired about the part, while Lauren Bacall and Audrey Hepburn both wanted the role. Patricia Neal turned down the film as she had recently recovered from a stroke and did not feel ready to accept such a major role. Geraldine Page also turned it down. Other actors considered for the part included Claire Bloom, Angie Dickinson, Sophia Loren, Judy Garland, Rita Hayworth, Susan Hayward, Anouk Aimée, Jennifer Jones, Deborah Kerr, Eva Marie Saint, Rosalind Russell, Simone Signoret, Jean Simmons, Lana Turner, Eleanor Parker, Anne Baxter and Shelley Winters. Angela Lansbury also asked about playing the part. Ava Gardner sought the role of Mrs. Robinson, and reportedly called Nichols saying,"I want to see you! I want to talk about this Graduate thing!" Nichols did not seriously consider her for the role (he wanted a younger woman as Bancroft was 35 and Gardner was 45), but did end up visiting her hotel. He later recounted that "she sat at a little French desk with a telephone, she went through every movie star cliché. She said, 'All right, let's talk about your movie. First of all, I strip for nobody.'" Meanwhile, Natalie Wood turned down not only the role of Mrs. Robinson, but also that of Elaine.

For the character of Elaine, casting was also an issue. Patty Duke turned down the part as she did not want to work at the time. Faye Dunaway was also considered for Elaine, but had to turn it down, in favor of Bonnie and Clyde. Sally Field and Shirley MacLaine refused the role as well. Raquel Welch and Joan Collins both wanted the role, but did not succeed in getting it. Carroll Baker tested, but was said to have been too old to portray Anne Bancroft's daughter. Candice Bergen screen-tested as well, as did Goldie Hawn and Jane Fonda. Additionally, Ann-Margret, Elizabeth Ashley, Carol Lynley, Sue Lyon, Yvette Mimieux, Suzanne Pleshette, Lee Remick, Pamela Tiffin, Julie Christie, and Tuesday Weld were all on the director's shortlist before Katharine Ross was cast.

When Dustin Hoffman auditioned for the role of Benjamin, he was just short of his 30th birthday at the time of filming. He was asked to perform a love scene with Ross, having previously never done one during his acting classes and believed that, as he said later, "a girl like [Ross] would never go for a guy like me in a million years." Ross agreed, believing that Hoffman "look[ed] about 3 feet tall ... so unkempt. This is going to be a disaster." Producer Joseph E. Levine later admitted that he at first believed that Hoffman "was one of the messenger boys." Despite-or perhaps because of-Hoffman's awkwardness, Nichols chose him for the film. "As far as I'm concerned, Mike Nichols did a very courageous thing casting me in a part that I was not right for, meaning I was Jewish," said Hoffman. "In fact, many of the reviews were very negative. It was kind of veiled anti-Semitism.... I was called 'big-nosed' in the reviews, 'a nasal voice'." Hoffman was paid $20,000 for his role in the film, but netted just $4,000 after taxes and living expenses. After spending that money, Hoffman filed for New York State unemployment benefits, receiving $55 per week while living in a two-room apartment in the West Village of Manhattan.

Before Hoffman was cast, Robert Redford, Warren Beatty and Charles Grodin were among the top choices. Beatty turned the film down, as he was occupied with Bonnie and Clyde. Redford tested for the part of Benjamin (with Candice Bergen as Elaine), but Nichols thought Redford did not possess the underdog quality Benjamin needed. Grodin turned down the part at first because of the low $500/week salary offered by producer Lawrence Turman. Grodin was offered more money but declined again because he didn't believe he could prepare for a screen test for the film overnight. "If they had given me three days to prepare, I think I would have gotten the role," he said.

Harrison Ford also auditioned for the role of Benjamin Braddock but was turned down.

Burt Ward was informally offered Hoffman's role, but was already committed to the role of Robin in the Batman television series.

Jack Nicholson, Steve McQueen, Anthony Perkins, George Hamilton, Keir Dullea, Brandon deWilde and Michael Parks were also considered for the role of Benjamin Braddock.

In the role of Mr. Robinson, Gene Hackman was originally cast, but just before filming began, the director decided he was too young and decided to replace him. Marlon Brando, Howard Duff, Brian Keith, George Peppard, Jack Palance, Frank Sinatra, Walter Matthau were all other choices for the role that Murray Hamilton eventually played. Susan Hayward was the first choice for Benjamin's mother, Mrs. Braddock, but the role was given to Elizabeth Wilson. For the role of Mr. Braddock, Yul Brynner, Kirk Douglas, Jack Lemmon, Robert Mitchum, Karl Malden, Christopher Plummer and Ronald Reagan (who had been Governor of California for nearly a year when the film was released) were all considered before William Daniels secured the part.

The quality of the cinematography was influenced by Nichols, who chose Oscar winner Robert Surtees to do the photography. Surtees, who had photographed major films since the 1920s, including , said later, "It took everything I had learned over 30 years to be able to do the job. I knew that Mike Nichols was a young director who went in for a lot of camera. We did more things in this picture than I ever did in one film."

Many of the exterior university campus shots of Berkeley were actually filmed on the brick campus of USC in Los Angeles.

The church used for the wedding scene is actually the United Methodist Church in La Verne. In a commentary audio released with the 40th anniversary DVD, Hoffman revealed that he was uneasy about the scene in which he pounds on the church window, as the minister of the church had been watching the filming disapprovingly. The wedding scene was highly influenced by the ending of the 1924 comedy film starring Harold Lloyd, who also served as an advisor for the scene in The Graduate.

The film boosted the profile of folk-rock duo Simon & Garfunkel. Originally, Nichols and O'Steen used their existing songs like " The Sound of Silence" merely as a pacing device for the editing until Nichols decided that substituting original music would not be effective and decided to include them on the soundtrack, an unusual move at that time.

According to a article by Peter Bart in the May 15, 2005, issue, Lawrence Turman, his producer, then made a deal for Simon to write three new songs for the movie. By the time they had nearly finished editing the film, Simon had written only one new song. Nichols begged him for more, but Simon, who was touring constantly, told him he did not have the time. He did play him a few notes of a new song he had been working on; "It's not for the movie... it's a song about times past-about Mrs. Roosevelt and Joe DiMaggio and stuff." Nichols advised Simon, "It's now about Mrs. Robinson, not Mrs. Roosevelt."

The Graduate had a dual world premiere in New York City on December 20, 1967 at the Coronet Theatre and at the Lincoln Art Theatre on 57th Street. It was released to the public on December 21, 1967.

The film was released on Blu-ray by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. The Graduate was released on DVD by MGM Home Entertainment.

The Graduate was met with generally positive reviews from critics upon its release. A.D. Murphy of and Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times praised the film, with Murphy describing it as a "delightful satirical comedy-drama" and Ebert claiming it was the "funniest American comedy of the year".[verification needed ] However, critic Richard Schickel felt the film "starts out to satirize the alienated spirit of modern youth, does so with uncommon brilliance for its first half, but ends up selling out to the very spirit its creators intended to make fun of... It's a shame - they were halfway to something wonderful when they skidded on a patch of greasy kid stuff." Pauline Kael wondered, "How could you convince them [younger viewers] that a movie that sells innocence is a very commercial piece of work when they're so clearly in the market to buy innocence?"

Critics continue to praise the film, if not always with the same ardor. For the film's thirtieth anniversary reissue, Ebert retracted some of his previous praise for it, noting that he felt its time had passed and that he now had more sympathy for Mrs. Robinson than for Benjamin (whom he considered "an insufferable creep"), viewing one's sympathy for Mrs. Robinson and disdainful attitude toward Ben as a function of aging and wisdom. He, along with Gene Siskel, gave the film a positive if unenthusiastic review on the television program Siskel & Ebert. Furthermore, the film's rating in the AFI list of the greatest American films fell from seventh in 1997 to seventeenth in the 2007 update. Lang Thompson, however, argued that "it really hasn't dated much".

Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 87% based on 83 reviews, with an average rating of 8.90/10. The site's consensus reads: "The music, the performances, the precision in capturing the post-college malaise- The Graduate's coming-of-age story is indeed one for the ages." On the similar website Metacritic, the film holds a score of 83 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

In 1996, The Graduate was selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", and placed #23 on the list of highest-grossing films in the United States and Canada, adjusted for inflation.

Years later in interviews, Bancroft stated that Mrs. Robinson was the role with which she was most identified, and added, "Men still come up to me and tell me 'You were my first sexual fantasy.'"[citation needed ]

The film is listed in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.

The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:

Terry Johnson's adaptation of the original novel and the film ran both on London's West End and on Broadway, and has toured the United States. There is a Brazilian version adapted by Miguel Falabella. Several actresses have starred as Mrs. Robinson, including Kathleen Turner, Lorraine Bracco, Jerry Hall, Amanda Donohoe, Morgan Fairchild, Anne Archer, Vera Fischer, Patricia Richardson and Linda Gray.

The stage production adds several scenes that are not in the novel or the film, as well as using material from both film and novel. It also uses songs by Simon & Garfunkel not used in the film, such as " Bridge Over Troubled Water" as well as music from other popular musicians from the era such as The Byrds and The Beach Boys. The West End production opened at the Gielgud Theatre on April 5, 2000, after previews from March 24, with Kathleen Turner starring as Mrs. Robinson. The production closed in January 2002. Jerry Hall replaced Turner on July 31, 2000, followed by Amanda Donohoe from February 2001, Anne Archer from June 2001, and Linda Gray from October 2001. The 2003 UK touring production starred Glynis Barber as Mrs. Robinson.

The Broadway production opened at the Plymouth Theatre on April 4, 2002, and closed on March 2, 2003, after 380 performances. Directed by Terry Johnson, the play featured the cast of Jason Biggs as Benjamin Braddock, Alicia Silverstone as Elaine Robinson, and Kathleen Turner as Mrs. Robinson. The play received no award nominations. Linda Gray briefly filled in for Turner in September 2002. Lorraine Bracco replaced Turner from November 19, 2002.

The Graduate ran at the Cape Playhouse ( Dennis, Massachusetts) in July 2011, and starred Patricia Richardson.

Charles Webb has written a sequel to his original novel titled Home School, but initially refused to publish it in its entirety because of a contract he signed in the 1960s. When he sold film rights to The Graduate, he surrendered the rights to any sequels. If he were to publish Home School, Canal+, the French media company that owns the rights to The Graduate, would be able to adapt it for the screen without his permission. Extracts of Home School were printed in on May 2, 2006. Webb also told the newspaper that there was a possibility he would find a publisher for the full text, provided he could retrieve the film rights using French copyright law. On May 30, 2006, The Times reported that Webb had signed a publishing deal for Home School with Random House which he hoped would enable him to instruct French lawyers to attempt to retrieve his rights. The novel was published in Britain in 2007.

In , Robert Altman's satire of Hollywood, Buck Henry pitches a sequel to The Graduate to producer Griffin Mill (played by Tim Robbins) during the film's opening sequence. A parody of Hollywood high concept films, Henry describes the plot as Ben and Elaine living in a haunted house in Northern California, with an invalid Mrs. Robinson living in the attic.

The final act of the film Wayne's World 2 begins with an extended parody of the climactic sequence of The Graduate, where Wayne pulls into a gas station to get directions, eventually asking for a better actor, and eventually stops Cassandra's wedding and barricades the door with an electric guitar. This scene is also parodied in the episode " When You Wish Upon a Weinstein" and The Simpsons episode " Lady Bouvier's Lover".

The music video for " If You Go" by Jon Secada also imitates the film's wedding crash scene.

The song " Crashed the Wedding" by Busted was inspired by the film's wedding crash scene.

The wedding crash scene was parodied for the finale of the Papa and Nicole advertising campaign in the 1990s for the MK1 Renault Clio. The advert, aired in 1998, featured Reeves and Mortimer and tied in with the release of the MK2 Renault Clio.

The wedding crash scene was parodied in the film Other Sister (1999), where Giovanni Ribisi and Juliette Lewis manage to tie the knot despite their developmental disabilities.

A sixth-season episode of the television series includes a fantasy scene where Jackie assumes the Bancroft role and attempts to seduce David, with the famous shot of Benjamin seen between the leg of Mrs. Robinson replicated. This scene is also parodied in The Simpsons episode " Lisa's Substitute" when Mrs. Krabappel tries to seduce Mr. Bergstrom, who was voiced by Hoffman.

The film parodied The Graduate, showing Woody Harrelson framed by his repulsive landlady's leg, and features an excerpt of "The Sound of Silence" after Harrelson's character has sex with his landlady to make up for back rent, and is so sickened by the act that he repeatedly vomits afterwards.

The car that Benjamin drives in the movie is an Alfa Romeo Spider. Based on its iconic role, Alfa Romeo sold a version of the Spider in the United States from 1985 to 1990 under the name "Spider Graduate".

Hoffman later recreated the wedding scene at the same church for an Audi commercial, in which he stops his daughter (played by Lake Bell) from getting married and tells her "you're just like your mother" as they drive off, implying that he is possibly portraying Benjamin and referring to Elaine.

The ending of season 3, episode 11 features an homage to the ending of The Graduate in which Katya Kazanova, a cyborg engaged to be married to the main character Sterling Archer, leaves the wedding in the company of another cyborg, Barry Dylan, after he crashes it. Following their departure on a bus, music reminiscent of "The Sound of Silence" plays as the characters' faces change from excitement to uncertainty.

The 1992 song, " Too Funky," by George Michael features a clip of the following Anne Bancroft lines "I am not trying to seduce you... Would you like me to seduce you? Is that what you're trying to tell me?" as an intro of the song and is repeated during the final crescendo.

(500) Days of Summer features a scene where the protagonist, Tom, watches The Graduate with his then girlfriend Summer. He is said to misinterpret the ending, a fact which serves to characterise his naivety concerning relationships. This moment can be considered a turning point in the film, as it reveals to her the issues with their relationship.

The plot of the 2005 romantic comedy film Rumor Has It directed by Rob Reiner, and starring Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Costner, Shirley MacLaine and Mark Ruffalo revolves around a story where a woman learns that her mother and grandmother may be the inspiration for The Graduate and the 1963 novel of the same name it was based on.

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The Graduate is a 1967 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Mike Nichols and written by Buck Henry and Calder Willingham, based on the 1963 novel of the same name by Charles Webb, who wrote it shortly after graduating from Williams College.

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William H. Johnson painted rural scenes inspired in part by his memories of growing up in South Carolina. A family of four ride on an oxcart toward a distant hill, where three crosses mark their physical destination as well as their spiritual home on Calvary. The flat composition, comprised of clashing hues arranged in stripes and color blocks, recalls the story quilts made of scraps pieced together by African American women.

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William H. Johnson painted rural scenes inspired in part by his memories of growing up in South Carolina. A family of four ride on an oxcart toward a distant hill, where three crosses mark their physical destination as well as their spiritual home on Calvary. The flat composition, comprised of

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Kehinde Wiley | Anthony of Padua (2013) | Artsy

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Perhaps the most influential artist of the 20th century, Pablo Picasso may be best known for pioneering Cubism and fracturing the two-dimensional picture plane in order to convey three-dimensional space. Inspired by African and Iberian art, he also contributed to the rise of Surrealism and Expressionism. Picasso's sizable oeuvre grew to include over 20,000 paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures,ceramics, theater sets, and costume designs. He painted his most famous work, Guernica (1937), in response to the Spanish Civil War; the totemic grisaille canvas remains a definitive work of anti-war art. At auction, a number of Picasso's paintings have sold for more than $100 million. The indefatigable artist has been the subject of exhibitions at the world's most prestigious institutions, from the Museum of Modern Art and Centre Pompidou to the Stedelijk Museum and Tate Modern.

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Kehinde Wiley | Anthony of Padua (2013) | Artsy

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Perhaps the most influential artist of the 20th century, Pablo Picasso may be best known for pioneering Cubism and fracturing the two-dimensional picture plane in order to convey three-dimensional space. Inspired by African and Iberian art, he also contributed to the rise of Surrealism and Expressionism.