title: Drishyam 2

text: As Prabhakar immerses Varun's ashes into the river, Bastin convinces Geetha to let go of her enmity with Georgekutty, saying that they will never succeed in punishing him since he is keen on his intent to protect his family. Bastin also states that Georgekutty's "life" is his punishment, as the latter must constantly endeavor in his efforts to protect his family from the ever-watchful eye of the authorities. Meanwhile, Georgekutty, who was watching the trio from afar, leaves solemnly.


title: Drishyam 2

text: Jeethu Joseph and Mohanlal were filming for "Ram" prior to the COVID-19 lockdown in India, however the shooting of the film was stalled as some sequences they want to film in foreign locations, such as London and Cairo. As the crew realised that the filming would take time to continue, Jeethu decided to start the works for "Drishyam 2", a sequel to their 2013 film "Drishyam" which he had plans for some time. As the shooting of the film would only take place in Kerala, Jeethu realised it was most appropriate film to shoot after the lockdown ends. The film was officially announced by Mohanlal on his 60th birthday on 21 May 2020. It was intended to start filming soon after the government allows permission to begin film shootings. Mohanlal said during an interview that he has read the script, and shooting might begin after lockdown. Antony Perumbavoor who produced "Drishyam" returns as the producer. Jeethu said that it is a direct continuation of the last film and for that he has retained the principal characters along with some new additions in the secondary cast. In the turn of events, Georgekutty and his family now leads an affluent life and Georgekutty has opened a cinema theatre and is also planning to produce a film.


title: Drishyam 2

text: Principal photography began on 21 September 2020 in Kochi. It was conducted adhering to the safety precautions set for preventing COVID-19 spread. Indoor scenes were shot there. Filming was held at Kakkanad, Kochi. It was shifted to Thodupuzha after two weeks. The same house at Vazhithala featured as Georegekutty and family's residence in "Drishyam" was used as the location for "Drishyam 2", reportedly, an 18-day shoot was charted at the house. The house was renovated to reflect Georgekutty's present-day prosperity. Filming was also held at some other houses in Thodupuzha, and was also shot at nearby areas such as Kanjar and Arakkulam.


title: Drishyam 2

text: A set was constructed at Kaipa Kavala in Kudayathoor where "Drishyam" was filmed. An entire street was erected at the place, including Rajakkadu Police Station, Georgekutty's cable TV shop, and surrounding stores and structures, which was one of the main locations. Rajeev Kovilakathu was the art director. Following the portions at Kaipa Kavala, filming was concluded on 6 November 2020. The entire filming, which was scheduled to last for 56 days was completed in 46 days. Special team was designated to observe the film crew, including the director, were abiding the COVID-19 protocol.


title: Drishyam 2

text: The songs and the film score were composed by Anil Johnson, with lyrics by Vinayak Sasikumar. The music album consists of only one song titled "Ore Pakal" which was recorded by Zonobia Safar, and was released on 10 February 2021 by Saina Music.


title: Drishyam 2

text: Director Jeethu Joseph stated the plans for a theatrical release on 22 January 2021 before Mohanlal's big-budget film "", citing that it is served to be a "litmus test in getting the audience back when theatres reopen". However, as the Kerala Film Chamber (KFC) decided against reopening theatres since they demanded relief package from the government as theatre business took a severe hit following the coronavirus-induced lockdown and full exemption from entertainment tax, plans for the theatrical release had interrupted and the team opted for the digital streaming platform Amazon Prime Video to distribute the film. A teaser released on the occasion of New Year's Day, confirmed that it will release in Amazon Prime Video.


title: Drishyam 2

text: The film's official trailer was supposed to be unveiled on 8 February 2021, however on 6 February (two days before the trailer release), the trailer was leaked online which resulted the team to release the trailer officially on the same day, also announcing the release date of 19 February 2021. However, "Drishyam 2" was released worldwide on the midnight of 18 February 2021, and was made available for streaming in over 240 countries.


title: Drishyam 2

text: The move for direct-to-digital release of "Drishyam 2" met with criticism from theatre owners and distributors, with Liberty Basheer president of Kerala Film Exhibitors Federations, opined that "a prominent actor-like Mohanlal accepting this, is a selfish act" and opined that the film will easily bring "huge audience to movie theatres, being the sequel to one of the most successful films in the last decade". However, few trade analysts and members from the film circuit supported that "it is due to Anthony Perumbavoor's (the film producer) financial constraints. He had paid advance from theatre owners to screen "Marakkar: Lion of the Arabian Sea", since it is a huge film and made for theatrical experience. But he did not pay advance from "Drishyam 2", which is why he accepted for a digital release." In an online interaction with fans, prior to the film's release, Mohanlal stated that there are possibilities for a theatrical re-release. However, Kerala Film Chamber (KFC) denied the producer's request for theatrical release of Drishyam 2 stating that they would not violate the guidelines by releasing a film in theatres, which is speculated for an online platform release.


title: Drishyam 2

text: Aishwarya Vasudevan of the "Daily News and Analysis" gave a 4 out of 5 star rating and wrote, ""Drishyam 2" is a gripping tale of an investigation and a family which is threatened by it, is a must-watch sequel we didn't know we deserved and the film will make you think for hours after you completed watching it". Sanjith Sidhardhan of "The Times of India" gave a 4 out of 5 star rating, and stated "Jeethu's script for the sequel is tight as ever; like "Drishyam" ... the film is an expertly crafted sequel meant for the audience to enjoy and the team to be proud of", and also praised Mohanlal's acting. Haricharan Pudippedi of "Hindustan Times" wrote that "It's no exaggeration to call "Drishyam 2" one of the best sequels ever", it is "a thoroughly gripping and entertaining sequel, a rare occurrence in Indian cinema. Powered by top class writing and plenty of unexpected twists, the sequel packs a solid punch and makes for a riveting watch right till the end. "Drishyam 2" is a masterclass in suspense building and it works as effectively as the first part if not better".


title: Drishyam 2

text: Rating 4 out of 5 stars, Sowmya Rajendran of "The News Minute" said that this "thriller is a superb sequel ... looking at the strength of the writing, it looks like in Jeethu's mind, "Drishyam" was always supposed to be two films". Rating 4 out of 5 stars, Suresh Mathew of "The Quint" said that "Mohanlal's gripping thriller is a winner again ... unlike the original, "Drishyam 2" grips you from the very start ... "Drishyam 2" is a worthy contender to the original. It grabs your attention from the word go and entertains you throughout its two-and-a-half-hour duration", he also praised Mohanlal's acting. Anna M. M. Vetticad of "Firstpost" called it "a surprisingly satisfying sequel to a spectacular first film ... "Drishyam 2" is clever in the way it smoothly slips back into the world of "Drishyam" ... it now feels as if Part 1 is incomplete without Part 2". Janaki K. of "India Today" called it "a fitting sequel to "Drishyam"" and stated "Jeethu Joseph’s staging and strengths to work on a solid script are the film’s assets ... Mohanlal is just excellent", rating 3.5 out of 5 stars.


title: Drishyam 2

text: Film critic Baradwaj Rangan called it a "solid sequel, which swaps tension with existentialism", with a "superb structure. Like Part 1, this is more a writer’s film than a director’s film", he praised the writing – "it’s basic exposition, scene after scene" and "the writing during the climactic portions treats Part 1/Part 2 of "Drishyam" as two halves of the same story. It’s a brilliant meta touch ... the film is at its best when we look at Part 1/Part 2 as one unified universe". Tina Sara Anien of "Deccan Herald" rated 4 out of 5 stars, calling it "a thrilling, befitting sequel" and that ""Drishyam 2" quashes the notion that sequels lack the magic of the originals ... not many thrillers have succeeded to impress an audience by intensifying the original's plot and that's the clinching proof of this film's special quality". Sajin Shrijith of "The New Indian Express" also rated 4 in a scale of 5, describing it as "a richer, expansive, and far superior sequel ... successful sequels are a rarity, and rarer still is a sequel that surpasses the original. "Drishyam 2" is one such".


title: Drishyam 2

text: Rating 4 out of 5 stars, "Sify" critic said "It is not always that a sequel lives up to the huge expectations of the highly successful original. "Drishyam 2" does that in a brilliant way ... with an engaging script, Jeethu Joseph has presented the sequel in a gripping manner". Joginder Tuteja of "Rediff.com" said that "this Mohanlal suspense drama may well go down as yet another modern day classic ... this is a true sequel to "Drishyam" and is, in fact, the first ever suspense thriller to move from the first to the second part with a seamless ease", he rated 3.5 out of 5. Gautaman Bhaskaran of "News18" wrote that "Mohanlal returns with more vigour and charisma ... Georgekutty is not a man to be cowed down, and the rest of the movie is an exciting game of how he foxes the cops and saves his family. The twist, in the end, is simply superb", he rated 3 out of 5 stars.


title: Drishyam 2

text: Critic from "Asianet News" rated 4 out of 5 and called it a "perfect sequel" and that its "a must-watch for the sheer brilliance of Georgekutty aka Mohanlal and the marvellous script of Jeethu Joseph". Saibal Chatterjee of "NDTV" gave a 2.5 out of 5 stars and wrote, "Mohanlal is flawless yet again ... in terms of structure and rhythm, writer-director Jeethu Joseph follows pretty much the arc of the original film", but felt "the writing could have done with more punch". S. R. Praveen of "The Hindu" opined, ""Drishyam 2" might not work as a stand-alone film — as many sequels do — since it is completely dependent on the first film with constant references. But despite its negatives, it still is a decent companion piece to its much celebrated predecessor". However, Nirmal Narayanan of "IB Times" felt that it "failed to match the cinematic making quality of its ... the first half of the movie had its originality, but the second half of the film was a pure letdown, as it questioned the thinking capability", but he praised Mohanlal's acting.


title: Drishyam 2

text: After the release of "Drishyam 2", producer Antony Perumbavoor commented that it is possible for a third film in the series, although Jeethu had neither confirmed nor denied it. Antony also said that Jeethu is researching on possible story arcs for "Drishyam 3," and there had been discussions with Mohanlal. On 23 February 2021, Jeethu said in a press conference that he currently has figured out the climax for "Drishyam 3", but the screenplay and production may take at least three years to materialise.


title: Drishyam 2

text: The film was remade in Kannada as "Drishya 2" directed by P. Vasu and in Telugu as "Drushyam 2" (2021) by Jeethu Joseph himself. The Hindi remake titled "Drishyam 2" directed by Abhishek Pathak was released on theatres on 18 November 2022.


title: Ed Begley Jr.

text: Edward James Begley Jr. (born September 16, 1949) is an American actor and environmental activist. Begley has appeared in hundreds of films, television shows, and stage performances. He played Dr. Victor Ehrlich on the television series "St. Elsewhere" (1982–1988). The role earned him six consecutive Primetime Emmy Award nominations and a Golden Globe Award nomination. He also co-hosted, along with wife Rachelle Carson, the green living reality show titled "Living with Ed" (2007–2010).


title: Ed Begley Jr.

text: Equally prolific in cinema, Begley's films include "Blue Collar" (1978), "An Officer and a Gentleman" (1982), "This Is Spinal Tap" (1984), "The Accidental Tourist" (1988), and "She-Devil" (1989). He is a recurring cast member in the mockumentaries of Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy, including "Best in Show" (2000), "A Mighty Wind" (2003), "For Your Consideration" (2006), and "Mascots" (2016). In 2020 he was cast along his wife Rachelle in the award-winning mockumentary "Reboot Camp".


title: Ed Begley Jr.

text: Begley was born in 1949 in Los Angeles, California, to Allene Jeanne Sanders and Oscar-winning film actor Ed Begley. When Begley Jr. was born, Begley Sr. was married to Amanda Huff, who died when Begley Jr. was 7 years old. Until he was 16, Begley Jr. believed that Huff was his biological mother. He only later became acquainted with Sanders, his biological mother.


title: Ed Begley Jr.

text: Begley's paternal grandparents were Irish immigrants. He grew up in Buffalo, New York, and attended Stella Niagara Education Park, a private Catholic school in Lewiston, New York. When he was 13, the family moved back to California, where he graduated from Notre Dame High School, Sherman Oaks, a Catholic high school, and from Los Angeles Valley College in North Hollywood.


title: Ed Begley Jr.

text: Begley has had numerous roles in television and film. He appeared as a guest actor on "Maude" and had guest appearances in the 1970s series "Room 222". He had recurring roles on "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman", "7th Heaven", "Arrested Development", "Meego" and "Six Feet Under" and starring roles in "Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital", "St. Elsewhere", and "". He was in one episode of "My Three Sons", playing a tall classmate of Chip's.


title: Ed Begley Jr.

text: He has played significant roles in three of Christopher Guest's mockumentary films "Best in Show", "A Mighty Wind", and "For Your Consideration". Additionally, Begley played Viper pilot Greenbean on the original "Battlestar Galactica" TV series, Boba Fett in the radio adaptation of "Return of the Jedi", and Seth Gillette, a fictional Democratic U.S. senator from North Dakota on "The West Wing".


title: Ed Begley Jr.

text: From 2000 to 2016, Begley was a member of the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In 1996, he appeared in a TV movie called "The Late Shift", where he portrayed CBS executive Rod Perth. He has guest-starred on shows such as "Scrubs", "Boston Legal", and "". He had a recurring guest role in season three of "Veronica Mars". He appeared in the 2008 HBO film "Recount", which profiled the 2000 presidential election and its aftermath, which was decided by Florida's electoral votes after the United States Supreme Court halted the counting of the state's popular vote. Begley also made an appearance on "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!" Season 3, Episode 3, as a spokesman for Cinco.


title: Ed Begley Jr.

text: In 2003, Begley wrote and directed the musical "Cesar and Ruben". It was performed at the El Portal Theatre in Los Angeles and was revived in 2007. Begley played Dr. Walter Krandall, the protagonist's former marriage counselor and fiancé of his ex-wife in the CBS sitcom "Gary Unmarried". Since 2008 he has been in a series of DirecTV commercials as a "Cable Corp Inc." executive. In 2013, he appeared on the reality television show "Beverly Hills Pawn". In 2016, he began appearing in "Breaking Bad" prequel and spinoff "Better Call Saul" as Clifford Main, senior partner at the Davis & Main law firm. Beginning in 2019, he appeared in "Bless This Mess" for duration of the two seasons that the show ran.


title: Ed Begley Jr.

text: According to a feature on the Bio channel television program "Celebrity Close Calls", Begley nearly died in 1972 after being stabbed multiple times while being mugged by a street gang. His attackers were teenagers who were later apprehended by the police.


title: Ed Begley Jr.

text: Since 1970, Begley has been an environmentalist, beginning with his first electric vehicle (a Taylor-Dunn, golf cart–like vehicle), recycling, and becoming a vegan. He promotes eco-friendly products like the Toyota Prius, Envirolet composting toilets and Begley's Best Household Cleaner.


title: Ed Begley Jr.

text: Begley's former home is in size, using solar power, wind power via a PacWind vertical-axis wind turbine, an air conditioning unit made by Greenway Design Group, LLC., and an electricity-generating bicycle used to toast bread. In 2008 he stated that he was paying around $300 a year in electric bills.


title: Ed Begley Jr.

text: Noting that the suburban lawn is environmentally unsustainable, especially in Southern California, owing to water shortage, Begley has converted his own to a drought-tolerant garden composed of native California plants. He is noted for riding bicycles and using public transportation, and owns a 2003 Toyota RAV4 EV electric-powered vehicle.


title: Ed Begley Jr.

text: Begley's hybrid electric bicycle was often featured on his television show "Living With Ed". Begley also spoofed his own environmentalist beliefs on "Homer to the Max", an episode of "The Simpsons" by showing himself using a nonpolluting go-kart that is powered by his "own sense of self-satisfaction" and on an episode of "Dharma and Greg". Later, he appeared in "Gone Maggie Gone", another episode of "The Simpsons", in Season 20. In the episode, during a solar eclipse, he drives a solar-powered car that stops running on train tracks as a train approaches, but the train also stops because it is an Ed Begley Jr. Solar Powered Train. According to another of Groening's animated comedy series, "Futurama", Begley's electric motor is "the most evil propulsion system ever conceived" as stated in "The Honking" (19 minutes in).


title: Ed Begley Jr.

text: In 2009, Begley appeared in the Earth Day edition of "The Price Is Right". He announced the final showcase, which included an electric bicycle, a solar-powered golf cart and a Toyota Prius.


title: Ed Begley Jr.

text: Begley was featured during "The Jay Leno Show"'s Green Car Challenge. Various celebrities drove an electric Ford Focus automobile and tried to set records on an outdoor track. During the second lap, cutouts of Begley and Al Gore would pop out, and if the celebrity had hit either of them, one second was added to his or her time.


title: Ed Begley Jr.

text: Begley is the author of "Living Like Ed: A Guide to the Eco-Friendly Life" (2008) and "Ed Begley Jr.'s Guide to Sustainable Living: Learning to Conserve Resources and Manage an Eco-Conscious Life" (2009) both published by Random House. He also wrote "A Vegan Survival Guide for the Holidays" (2014) with Jerry James Stone.


title: Ed Begley Jr.

text: From 2007 to 2010, Begley and his wife Rachelle Carson starred in their own reality television series, "Living with Ed" on HGTV and Discovery's Planet Green channel. In 2013 he, his wife and daughter Hayden filmed "On Begley Street", a Web series chronicling the deconstruction of his current home and the "building of North America's greenest, most sustainable home".


title: Ed Begley Jr.

text: He received the Thomas Alva Edison Award for Energy Independence from the American Jewish Congress, the first one to be presented. Begley has been a leader in this field and was recognized in November 2007 for his lifelong work in environmentalism.


title: Ed Begley Jr.

text: Begley was also on the advisory committee for the group "2004 Racism Watch", founded by fellow actor Ed Asner. The group was formed to respond to the advertisement campaign of the George W. Bush/Dick Cheney presidential campaign that they claimed was encouraging racism. The advertisement in question, "100 Days", made a reference to terrorism and terrorists while highlighting a photograph of an anonymous man of Middle Eastern descent.


title: Ed Begley Jr.

text: When Begley was a child, his future "St. Elsewhere" series lead, William Daniels, met Begley's father when the two were working on live television. By the time Begley Jr. grew up, he was already a fan of his mentor's work; he would work with Daniels on "St. Elsewhere", where the two had on- and off-screen chemistry for six seasons. Daniels, himself, on the show, was a moody Irishman like Ed Sr., though a far more nurturing father figure. This proved so rich that the role grew beyond even the writers' expectations. Begley Jr. said about his future TV chief of surgery, "I was a huge fan of Bill Daniels. I had seen him in "Two for the Road". I had seen him in "The Graduate", and in "Parallax View". He was an actor I just thought the world of. He played these 'Type A' personalities quite effectively, but (in real life) he is the sweetest guy in the world." He also added: "He is an actor I just thought the world of. I had no delusions about how my character came to be. I rode on the coattails of Bill Daniels... the kind of Mutt and Jeff routine of Dr. Craig looking up and berating the 6' foot 4" doctor Victor Ehrlich. So I owe all my success on the show to Bill Daniels." After the series was canceled, the two still remained friends, living not too far away from each other. In 2002, Daniels, Begley Jr., along with the rest of the former surviving "St. Elsewhere" cast members, the late Stephen Furst and Eric Laneuville all appeared on an episode of "Scrubs".


title: Ed Begley Jr.

text: Before "St. Elsewhere" in the early 1980s, the struggling and unknown Begley met Norman Lloyd, who became a mentor to him while Lloyd was directing an episode of "Tales of the Unexpected". The two became friends. In a 2014 interview with Jimmy Falcon of Cloverleaf Radio, he said this about Lloyd: Not only did I enjoy working with him, but I see him fairly regularly. I just had dinner with him 4 nights ago. We had dinner together at Sarah Nichols's house, his neighbor of mine and friend of his. We had a lovely time and reminisced – he's unbelievable. He's going to be 100 years old this year—and still very active, getting around on his own. He's a force of nature, so Norman Lloyd was somebody I idolized. When I was quite young, wow, James Dean is great and this is one and that. Now look at Janis Joplin, what a great voice and Jim Morrison, those people left us so young, like my point of view has change somewhere, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, saying, 'No, you idolized Jimmy Stewart, Gloria Swanson.' The people that have families and happiness and a long, economy life. You know, Norman Lloyd, he wasn't much older than me, when I did "St. Elsewhere", and I went 'These are my role models, now, people had a long/happy life and continued to be creative.' Those are my role models, not the people that left us so early and I'm sorry they did, I don't mean to trifle with that, but, my role models changed from the people who had an incredible, brief spurt of creativity and life, but to people that went the distance, they became my role models at some point in my early 30s really.


title: Ed Begley Jr.

text: On November 9, 2014, along with former "St. Elsewhere" co-stars, Begley attended Lloyd's 100th birthday in Los Angeles. Begley said, "I worked with Norman Lloyd the actor, and Norman Lloyd the director, and no one informed me better on the art of storytelling than that talented man. He is a constant inspiration and my eternal friend."


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: The Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) is a small American, unaffiliated Primitive Baptist church in Topeka, Kansas, founded in 1955 by pastor Fred Phelps. Labeled a hate group, WBC is known for engaging in homophobic and anti-American pickets, as well as hate speech against atheists, Jews, Muslims, transgender people, and numerous Christian denominations. Their theology and practises have been rejected almost universally by Christian churches.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: WBC has been involved in actions against gay people since 1989, later seeking a crackdown on homosexual activity at Gage Park near its headquarters. In addition to conducting anti-gay protests at military funerals, the organization pickets celebrity funerals and public events. Protests have also been held against Jews, Mormons, and Catholics. Many protests have included WBC members defacing the American flag, flying the flag upside down on a flagpole, and holding protest signs with inflammatory statements such as "God hates fags" and "Thank God for dead soldiers". WBC is monitored by the Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: In 2016, "Forbes" stated WBC had about 70 members. It is headquartered in Topeka, Kansas. The group was once headed by Fred Phelps, although its representatives said there had been no defined leader for some time before his death in March 2014. The group consists primarily of members of Phelps's extended family; however, some family members have left the group in protest at its hostile actions and attitudes. Several former members have accused the group of brainwashing.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: Westboro Baptist Church originated as a branch of the East Side Baptist Church, established in 1931 on the east side of Topeka. In 1954, East Side hired Fred Phelps as an associate pastor, and then promoted him to pastor of its new plant, Westboro Baptist, which opened in 1955 on the west side of Topeka. Its first public service was held on November 27, 1955. After Westboro was established, Phelps broke ties with East Side to become independent of any Baptist denomination. His vitriolic preaching alienated most of the original congregation, who either returned to East Side or joined other congregations, leaving him with a small following consisting almost entirely of his own relatives and close friends.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: Phelps was a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. He founded the Phelps Chartered law firm in 1964, which has since been used to sue communities that are targets of Westboro's protests.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: Westboro Baptist first began protesting homosexuality in 1989 after the discovery of what they referred to as a "tearoom", meaning a public lavatory used for homosexual interactions. The group later began picketing Gage Park six blocks northwest of its headquarters in Topeka in 1991, saying it was a den of anonymous homosexual activity. Soon, its protests had spread throughout the city, and within three years WBC was traveling across the country. Phelps explained in 1994 that he considered the negative reaction to the picketing to be proof of his righteousness.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: On August 20, 1995, a pipe bomb exploded outside the home of Shirley Phelps-Roper, the daughter of Fred Phelps. The blast damaged an SUV, a fence, and part of the house, but no one was injured. In 1996, two men were arrested for the bombing, and both admitted to causing the blast. They had believed Phelps-Roper's house was that of the pastor, and wanted to retaliate against Westboro's anti-gay protests at Washburn University. One of the bombers was fined $1,751 and was sentenced to 16 days in prison plus 100 hours of community service.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: Fred Phelps died of natural causes on March 19, 2014. His daughter Shirley said a funeral would not be held because Westboro does not "worship the dead". He had previously been voted out of his leadership position and, according to representatives, the organization had no defined leader in the time leading up to his death.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: Westboro Baptists believe in Five point Calvinism, as reflected in the TULIP acronym that is displayed prominently at the front of the church sanctuary. They believe in limited atonement, unconditional election, and the double predestination of both the saved and the damned, which can weigh heavily on members as well as those who leave the church. According to Barrett-Fox, they see "moral living as a sign of election" and they say they have a duty to preach to the public, not to "save people" (who are predestined) but to spread a message of obedience to God.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: They see themselves as coming from the Primitive Baptist movement. Their Primitive Baptisce includes their style of worship, approach to church discipline, liturgical preferences, and from a "separatist, antiestablishment" lineage (p.66).


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: WBC is known for its anti-homosexual rhetoric. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) describes the group as "virulently homophobic", saying its anti-homosexual rhetoric is often a cover for antisemitism, anti-Americanism, racism and hatred of other Christian groups. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has added WBC to a list of hate groups for its homophobia. The group has also expressed transphobic messages in its protests. Its homophobic outlook has led its members to protest LGBT pride events and funerals of those who died due to HIV/AIDS, as well as blame homosexuals for tragedies such as the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: In 1996, Phelps began a campaign called "Topeka's Baptist Holocaust", whereby he attempted to draw attention to attacks perpetrated against WBC picketers, saying they were not random but organized attacks orchestrated by Jews and homosexuals. Phelps announced, "Jews killed Christ", and "Fag Jew Nazis are worse than ordinary Nazis. They've had more experience. The First Holocaust was a Jewish Holocaust against Christians. The latest Holocaust is by Topeka Jews against Westboro Baptist Church."


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: In another statement, he said "Topeka Jews today stir up Kansas tyrants in persecuting Westboro Baptists. They whine about the Nazi Holocaust, while they perpetrate the Topeka Holocaust."


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: A March 25, 2006, flier regarding a Jewish adversary of Phelps uses the phrase "bloody Jew" four times and the phrase "evil Jew" more than once every 12 sentences. The Anti-Defamation League has criticized WBC and Phelps, and keeps a sampling of WBC's fliers regarding Judaism on their website.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: In an interview, Margie Phelps said WBC targeted the American Jewish community because members had "testified" to gentiles for 19 years that "America is doomed" and that "Now it's too late. We're done with them." She also claimed Jews were "one of the loudest voices" in favor of homosexuality and abortion, and that "[Jews] claim to be God's chosen people. Do you think that God is going to wink at that forever?" Phelps concluded by stating, in an apparent reference to the Book of Revelation, that all the nations of the world would soon march on Israel, and that they would be led by President Barack Obama, whom she called the "Antichrist".


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: Jael Phelps said in a 2011 interview that she and the other members of WBC tauntingly and publicly burned a copy of the Quran while being scolded by a Muslim man, calling it an "idolatrous piece of trash" and that they were giving it the "proper respect that it deserves" by doing so. They picketed the funeral of the Muslim man's wife the following week. Jael Phelps said the wife's death was partly due to her Muslim husband having spoken out against WBC, and therefore rejecting God and bringing his "righteous judgement" down upon him. She also commented that "all those angry little Muslims can just shut their mouths."


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: Margie Phelps, daughter of Fred Phelps and attorney for WBC, said in an interview with Fox News that Barack Obama would "absolutely" be going to Hell and that he was "most likely the Beast spoken of in the Revelation." She also said Obama's presidency was a sign of the Apocalypse. On January 20, 2013, picketers of the Westboro Baptist Church protested Obama's second inauguration. The protesters had a legal permit and used signs with homophobic messages as well as referring to Obama as the Antichrist.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: WBC consists primarily of members of Fred Phelps's extended family. According to "Forbes", it has roughly 70 members as of 2016, having previously had 80 members in 2011. In her book on Westboro Baptists, religious studies scholar Rebecca Barrett-Fox describes their identification with Primitive Baptists. Members attend a weekly service and believe in a theology of predestination which includes believing all disasters and catastrophes come from the hand of God. Members follow the organization's 'literal' interpretation of the Bible which informs their attitudes towards homosexuality and towards Judaism. The religious justification for active political hate speech has led to much controversy.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: WBC's travel expenses have exceeded as much as $200,000 annually. One of Westboro's followers estimated the organization spends $250,000 a year on picketing. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, it is funded entirely from within the organization and accepts no outside donations. WBC has received money from lawsuits and legal fees, through the closely related Phelps Chartered law firm, when its protests have been unlawfully disrupted. For example, the firm sued the city of Topeka several times in the 1990s, and received $16,500 in legal fees for a court case won against a Marine's bereaved father. Because the firm represents WBC in its lawsuits, it can use money from cases it wins to further fund the organization under the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Award Act of 1976. WBC is considered a nonprofit organization by the federal government, and is therefore exempt from paying taxes. All five of Phelps Chartered's lawyers are Phelps's children, and eleven of his thirteen children are lawyers. Members of the Phelps family are expected to give ten percent of their earnings to WBC.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: WBC carries out daily picketing in Topeka and travels nationally to picket the funerals of gay victims of murder or gay-bashing, as well as those of people who have died from complications related to AIDS. It also pickets other events related or peripherally related to homosexuality; Kansas City Chiefs football games, and live pop concerts. At its peak, the group was able to picket roughly 15 churches a day, including many in Topeka and some events farther afield. The group has protested a number of high-profile events such as the funerals of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and the West Nickel Mines School shooting. As well as protesting these high-profile events, WBC protests many local low-profile events. While the messages are widely condemned, it always ensures its protests are legal in nature. Through keeping the protests non-violent and acquiring the proper permits, WBC avoids legal trouble. However, it is the protesting of military funerals that led to the organization receiving much attention. Its public acts have cast a political spotlight on the group that has given it vast attention for its small size. On two occasions, WBC accepted offers for radio air time in exchange for canceling an announced protest.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: WBC also releases parody songs. According to Steve Drain (WBC's public information officer) in an interview with Vice News, "When we make our choice of songs, that really revolves around mostly popularity. It's mostly mainstream stuff, the whole idea of our doing parodies is to preach."


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: In response to the protests conducted by Westboro members at Indiana funerals, a bill was introduced in the Indiana General Assembly that would make it a felony to protest within of a funeral. The bill provides penalties of up to three years in prison and a $10,000 fine for those found to be in violation of the law. Shortly before this bill was signed members of the church had threatened to protest in Kokomo, Indiana, at a funeral service that was being held for a soldier who was killed in Iraq. On January 11, 2006, the bill unanimously (11–0) passed a committee vote, and while members of the church had traveled to Kokomo to protest, they were not seen during or after the funeral service. On May 23, 2006, the state of Michigan banned any intentional disruption of funerals within of the ceremony. Violating the statute would be a felony, punishable by up to two years in prison and a $5,000 fine for the first offense and up to four years in prison and a $10,000 fine for a subsequent offense.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: On May 17, 2006, the state of Illinois enacted Senate Bill 1144, the "Let Them Rest In Peace Act", to shield grieving military families from protests during funerals and memorial services of fallen military service members. A first-time violation of the Act is a Class C misdemeanor, punishable by up to 30 days in jail and a $1,500 fine, and a second or subsequent offense is a Class 4 felony punishable by one to three years in state prison and a fine of up to $25,000.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: On March 29, 2006, the Respect for America's Fallen Heroes Act was introduced by Mike Rogers, a Republican member of the House. The bipartisan bill received a 408–3 vote in the House, after 21 representatives chose not to vote. The senate unanimously voted in approval of the law. On May 29, 2006, President George W. Bush with great symbolic significance, signed the bill into law at a Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. The bill prohibits protests within 300 feet (100 m) of the entrance of any cemetery under control of the National Cemetery Administration from 60 minutes before to 60 minutes after a funeral. Failing to adhere to this law can lead to a substantial fine of up to $100,000 or up to a year in prison. The group responded to the new law with a series of tweets condemning the restrictions.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: On January 11, 2011, the state of Arizona held an emergency legislative session to pass a bill barring protests within of a funeral and within an hour from its beginning or end. The bill was swiftly signed into law ahead of the January 12 funeral of those killed in the 2011 Tucson shooting.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: On August 2, 2012, Congress passed a bill that included restrictions on demonstrators at military funerals, which became law four days later when signed by President Obama, who condemned WBC. The bill says that for 2 hours before until 2 hours after the funeral service demonstrators must stay at least away from the boundary of the funeral location and away from the residence of grieving family members.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: On March 10, 2006, WBC picketed the funeral of Marine Lance Corporal Matthew A. Snyder in Westminster, Maryland. A cordoned off picket was held approximately from the church for about 30 minutes before the funeral began. Snyder's father, Albert, sued for defamation, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The lawsuit alleged Fred Phelps, Rebekah Phelps-Davis, and Shirley Phelps-Roper were responsible for publishing defamatory statements about the Snyder family on the internet, including that Albert and his wife had "raised [Matthew] for the devil" and taught him "to defy his Creator, to divorce, and to commit adultery". Other statements denounced them for raising their son Catholic. Snyder further alleged the defendants had intruded upon and staged protests at his son's funeral. The defamation count was dismissed on First Amendment grounds, but the case proceeded to trial on the remaining two counts.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: District Judge Richard D. Bennett instructed the jury to decide "whether the defendant's actions would be highly offensive to a reasonable person, whether they were extreme and outrageous and whether these actions were so offensive and shocking as to not be entitled to First Amendment protection". On October 31, 2007, Phelps, Shirley Phelps-Roper and Rebecca Phelps-Davis were found liable for invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The jury awarded Snyder a total of $10,900,000; $2.9 million in compensatory damages, $6 million in punitive damages for invasion of privacy and $2 million for causing emotional distress. The group unsuccessfully sought a mistrial based on alleged prejudicial statements made by the judge and violations of the gag order by the plaintiff's attorney. On February 4, 2008, Bennett upheld the ruling but reduced the punitive damages to $2.1 million. Liens were ordered on WBC buildings and Phelps's law office in an attempt to ensure the damages would be paid.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: On September 24, 2009, a federal appeals court reversed the lower court's award. It found the picket near the funeral was protected speech because it involved "matters of public concern, including the issues of homosexuals in the military, the sex-abuse scandal within the Catholic Church, and the political and moral conduct of the United States and its citizens", and did not violate the privacy of the service member's family. On March 30, 2010, the appeals court ordered Snyder to pay WBC's court costs of over $16,000, a move Snyder's attorneys referred to as "adding insult to injury".


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: On March 8, 2010, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in "Snyder v. Phelps". On May 28, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and 42 other senators filed an "amicus" brief in support of Snyder. On June 1, Kansas Attorney General Stephen Six filed a separate brief supporting Snyder which was joined by the Attorneys General of 47 other states and the District of Columbia. Several news and civil rights organizations filed "amicus" briefs in support of Phelps. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Phelps on March 2, 2011. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote of the 8–1 decision: "What Westboro said, in the whole context of how and where it chose to say it, is entitled to 'special protection' under the First Amendment and that protection cannot be overcome by a jury finding that the picketing was outrageous." Justice Samuel Alito, the lone dissenter, said Snyder wanted only to "bury his son in peace" and "Our profound national commitment to free and open debate is not a license for the vicious verbal assault that occurred in this case".


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: In 1995, Phelps Sr.'s eldest grandson, Benjamin Phelps, was convicted of assault and disorderly conduct after spitting upon the face of a passerby during a picket.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: In the 1990s, WBC won a series of lawsuits against the City of Topeka and Shawnee County for efforts taken to prevent or hinder WBC picketing, and was awarded approximately $200,000 in attorney's fees and costs associated with the litigation.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: In 2004, Phelps Sr.'s daughter Margie Phelps and Margie's son Jacob were arrested for trespassing, disorderly conduct and failure to obey after disregarding a police officer's order during an attempted protest.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: In June 2007 Shirley Phelps-Roper was arrested in Nebraska and charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The arrest resulted from her allowing her ten-year-old son to step on a U.S. flag during the demonstration, which is illegal under Nebraska law. The defense contended that the child's actions were protected speech, and that the state law is unconstitutional. The prosecution claimed the demonstration was not intended as political speech, but as an incitement to violence, and that Phelps-Roper's conduct might also constitute child abuse. Prosecutors later dropped charges against Phelps-Roper.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: On July 14, 2006, Mundy Township, Michigan billed WBC for $5,000, after it had informed the township authorities on June 28 that a protest was planned at the Swartz Funeral Home. The bill to WBC ensued, according to the local police chief, because the organization failed to keep a verbal contract for security. Fred Phelps's daughter claimed that the Holy Ghost had informed them not to fly to Michigan even though they had already purchased airline tickets. Security at the Webb funeral was high; 15 fire trucks were involved, as well as numerous police officers from nearby jurisdictions. The township has stated that it will not pursue the matter.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: In August 2008, Canadian officials learned of WBC's intent to stage a protest at the funeral of Tim McLean, a Winnipeg resident who was killed on a bus. The protests intended to convey the message that the man's murder was God's response to Canadian laws permitting abortion, homosexuality, divorce and remarriage. In response, Canadian officials barred the organization's members from entering the country.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: In February 2009, British news sources discovered WBC had announced, via its website, its intent to picket a youth production of "The Laramie Project" to be held at Central Studio, Queen Mary's College in the town of Basingstoke, Hampshire, on February 20, 2009. This would have been its first picket in the United Kingdom. In the lead-up to the picket, Members of Parliament, LGBT groups, and lobbyists appealed to British Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, requesting WBC be blocked from entering the UK, on the basis of it inciting hatred towards LGBT people. On February 18, 2009, two days before the intended picket date, the Home Office announced Fred Phelps and Shirley Phelps-Roper would be specifically excluded from entering the UK for having "engaged in unacceptable behaviour by inciting hatred against a number of communities", and also other members "could also be flagged and stopped if they tried to enter Britain".


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: A slogan commonly invoked at the counter-protests is "God hates figs". Parodying WBC all-capitals "God hates fags" signs, the counter-protest signs often invoke a passage in the Biblical book of Matthew to justify the claim about God and his feelings about figs. The signs have been noted at counter-protests at the University of Chicago; in Spartanburg, South Carolina; and in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, as well as at the non-WBC-themed Rally to Restore Sanity. The use of these satirical signs has been praised by the ACLU and others.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: Documentation given out at various counter-protests cite biblical verses in which Jesus says that none should eat the fruit of a fig tree, in which Jesus causes a fig tree to wither, and in which God promises as a punishment to make someone like bad figs.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: Other sites and organizations have parodied the slogans of WBC, including God Hates Fred Phelps, God Hates Bags, and God Hates Shrimp. The Cooper family in Kevin Smith's 2011 film "Red State" was reportedly inspired by WBC.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: Baptist churches, Baptist-affiliated seminaries, and Baptist conventions, including the Baptist World Alliance and the Southern Baptist Convention (two of the largest Baptist groups), have denounced WBC over the years. In addition, other mainstream Christian denominations have condemned the actions of WBC. Katherine Weber of "The Christian Post" states that "Westboro is considered an extremist group by most mainstream Christian churches and secular groups, and is well known for its aggressive protesting style."


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: An alliance of six British religious groups (the Methodist Church of Great Britain, Baptist Union of Great Britain, United Reformed Church, Evangelical Alliance UK, Faithworks, and Bible Society-funded thinktank Theos) made a joint statement on February 19, 2009, in support of the government's entry ban for members of WBC. They condemned the activities of WBC, stating:


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: Evangelist pastor Jerry Falwell Sr. referred to Fred Phelps as "a first-class nut". WBC picketed Falwell's funeral service on May 22, 2007.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: In 2013, Christian rock band Five Iron Frenzy recorded a song titled "God Hates Flags" condemning the actions of the Westboro Baptist Church and similar organizations, including such lyrics as "If God is love you got it wrong waving all your placards and flags".


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: A number of Phelps's critics have suggested that the actions of WBC are merely a ploy to receive attention and publicity above all else, though the Phelpses themselves deny this claim. Counter-protesting against the group, they suggest, gives them attention and incentive that they do not deserve; and a more effective response against Phelps would be to ignore his family and congregation completely.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: A frequent critic of WBC is political commentator Bill O'Reilly, who regularly calls WBC "evil and despicable". During "Snyder v. Phelps", O'Reilly offered to pay the entire amount of Albert Snyder's legal costs. Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore has also criticized WBC.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: In response to WBC's announcement that they would picket the vigil for victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, several petitions to the White House (using the We the People system) were submitted, calling on President Barack Obama to legally recognize WBC as a hate group, revoke its tax exemption for religious organizations, and to ban protests at funerals and memorial services. One petition, backed by the hacktivist group Anonymous, was submitted the day of the shootings, and reached more than 75,000 signatures within two days.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: Rapper Mac Lethal uploaded a video titled "Beatbox + iPhone + Guitar + Fast Rap = Win" on December 18, 2012, that took inspiration from the actions of WBC and the media after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Some of the lyrics include:


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: Since 2004, over 20 members of WBC, mostly family members, have left the organization and the Phelps family. Several of them have accused WBC of brainwashing.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: Mark Phelps, estranged son of WBC's founder, Fred Phelps, left the organization in 1973 and began "formal healing therapy in 1988 and worked toward healing and restoration, overcoming the horrible pain and fear from the 19 years of living with" his father. Mark was re-baptized in a local church in 1994 and stated: "If I had to take my family to court and convict them of being followers of Christ, I am not sure where I would find the evidence."


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: Libby Phelps-Alvarez, a granddaughter of the late Fred Phelps and daughter of Fred Phelps Jr. left WBC in 2009. In 2017, she released a book entitled "Girl on a Wire: Walking the Line Between Faith and Freedom". The book documents her years in WBC and what lead up to her decision to leave and eventual departure. Phelps-Alvarez is now an advocate for gay equality.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: Zach Phelps-Roper is the grandson of Fred Phelps and the fourth sibling of the Phelps-Roper family to leave WBC (besides Megan and Grace mentioned below, brothers Joshua and Noah have also left). After attempting to leave the organization five times previously, he finally left in 2014 after his views began to change. He now preaches about a life of empathy and unconditional love.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: Danielle Phelps, granddaughter of Fred Phelps, left the church in 2014 shortly after her grandfather's death. She is openly gay and joined the US Marine Corps after leaving the church. In an interview with Harry Robinson on the "All Out Attack Podcast", Danielle revealed that Steve Drain, father of Lauren Drain and one of the elders of the church after Fred Phelps's passing, and the rest of his family, had reportedly been excommunicated from the church.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: Nathan Phelps is another estranged son of Fred. He left Westboro on his 18th birthday in 1976. He has stated that he never had a relationship with his abusive father when he was growing up, and that WBC is an organization for his father to "vent his rage and anger." He has also stated that, in addition to hurting others, his father used to physically abuse his wife and children by beating them with his fists and with the handle of a mattock to the point of bleeding. Phelps's brother Mark has supported and repeated Nathan's claims of physical abuse by their father.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: In March 2014, Nathan posted on Facebook that his father was in a hospice in Topeka and was near death, and that Fred was excommunicated from WBC in August 2013, for unclear reasons. These assertions were later reaffirmed by Mark Phelps. Nathan had previously predicted the organization may fall into leadership and theological crises when Fred died, because he had been the binding figure and because their beliefs hold that they are immortal, which would be disproved with the death of a member. WBC spokesperson Steve Drain denied Fred Sr. was on the verge of death and refused to confirm the reported excommunication. Fred Sr. died three days later.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: Megan Phelps-Roper, a grandchild of Fred Phelps, left WBC in 2012 together with her sister Grace, and explained her reasons and experiences in a TED talk. In 2015, Sam Harris published an interview with her. She has written a book entitled "Unfollow: A Journey from Hatred to Hope, leaving the Westboro Baptist Church." She has been making a film about her experiences and notes that four of her siblings have also left WBC.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: Lauren Drain, another former member of WBC who was excommunicated in 2008, released an autobiography titled "Banished" in March 2013. She characterizes children, like herself, as being brainwashed into their belief system and describes consequences of questioning their belief system, such as her banishment.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: In 2001, Sundance Channel aired the film "A Union in Wait", a documentary about same-sex marriage directed by Ryan Butler. Phelps and members of WBC appeared in the film after Phelps picketed Wake Forest Baptist Church at Wake Forest University over a proposed same-sex union ceremony.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: In 2005, the British satellite company British Sky Broadcasting produced an investigative piece using hidden cameras, which included footage of two of Phelps's granddaughters, Libby and Jael. In the testimonial, Libby and Jael explain that they hope and pray that no one outside of Westboro becomes "elect", because they want everyone else in the world to die horribly and burn in Hell, and that even if they did not believe their actions were dictated by God, they would still do and enjoy them anyway.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: On April 1, 2007, British television channel BBC Two broadcast Louis Theroux's "The Most Hated Family in America". Theroux has presented a number of documentaries about unusual or unconventional people and groups in the UK, the US and elsewhere. In the documentary, Theroux questioned Shirley Phelps-Roper as to whether she had considered if Westboro's protests were more likely to "put people "off" the Word of Jesus Christ and the Bible". In response, she said, ""You" think our job is to win souls to Christ. All we do, by getting in their face and putting these signs in front of them and these plain words, is make what's already in their heart come out of their mouth." Later in the documentary, Phelps-Roper agreed the $200,000 WBC annually spent to fly to funerals to protest was money spent to spread "God's hate". While being filmed by Theroux, it picketed a local appliance store because the store sold Swedish vacuum cleaners, which the group viewed as being supportive of gay people because of Swedish prosecution of Åke Green, a pastor critical of homosexuality.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: The website godhatesfags.com was prominently featured in "The Jeremy Kyle Show", a talk show aired on the ITV network in the United Kingdom on June 5, 2007. Shirley Phelps-Roper and her daughters had been invited to express their beliefs live via satellite. On the show, Kyle criticized the Phelpses for their beliefs and referred to the Phelps children as "completely and utterly brainwashed", and to Phelps-Roper herself as "deranged".


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: In the June 21, 2007, Channel 4 documentary "Keith Allen Will Burn in Hell", starring Keith Allen, on which Phelps-Roper and some of her children agreed to appear, Phelps-Roper admitted on camera that her oldest son, Samuel, was born out of wedlock. Allen declared Phelps-Roper's vocal condemnation of strangers having sexual congress outside of marriage to be hypocritical as she was guilty of the same thing.


title: Westboro Baptist Church

text: Louis Theroux made a follow-up to his first documentary which was broadcast in the UK on April 3, 2011, "America's Most Hated Family in Crisis". Theroux reported that Westboro was in a state of "crisis" and documented the departure of several young members. Since then, two more prominent members have left WBC. Louis returned for a third documentary, "Surviving America's Most Hated Family", in 2019.


title: Khiladi (2022 film)

text: Khiladi () is a 2022 Indian Telugu-language action thriller film written and directed by Ramesh Varma who co-produced it with Satyanarayana Koneru under A Studios. The film stars Ravi Teja, Arjun Sarja, Unni Mukundan, Meenakshi Chaudhary, Dimple Hayathi, Thakur Anoop Singh, Sachin Khedekar and Nikitin Dheer in pivotal roles.


title: Khiladi (2022 film)

text: Initially scheduled to be released on 28 May 2021, it was indefinitely postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic in India. Soundtrack and score of the film is composed by Devi Sri Prasad. Released theatrically along with a Hindi dubbed version on 11 February 2022, the film received mixed to negative reviews from critics and underperformed at the box office.


title: Khiladi (2022 film)

text: Bala Singham is a crime boss who sends a container of to India to bribe the MLAs to place his father, Guru Singham as the next CM. Pooja is a criminologist who learns about Mohan Gandhi as a part of her research, who was convicted of killing his whole family, except for his daughter. She meets him in the prison, but he refuses to talk to her. While seeing him and his daughter's bond, she promises to help him get bail if he narrates his story, to which Gandhi agrees.


title: Khiladi (2022 film)

text: Flashback: Gandhi is an orphan, who is raised by a successful businessman, Rajashekhar and became the General Manager of the company. He lives a happy life with his wife Chitra and their daughter. CBI officer Arjun arrests Rajashekhar in a money laundering case linked with the same orchestrated by Bala Singam. Guru Singham places two choices for Gandhi: finding the money or letting his family get killed. Gandhi confronts Rajashekhar and learns that Rajashekhar did this to return the favour to Guru Singam, who helped him during his days. Gandhi secretly meets Rajasekhar and decodes the location of the money.


title: Khiladi (2022 film)

text: After confirming the same, Gandhi first informs the Home Minister, who informs the same to David (who also wants a share of the money). The Home Minister orders to kill Rajashekhar inside the custody and transports the money. David robs the money, replaces it with fake currency midway, and burns down the container. Arjun finds a note and is proven fake after forensic analysis. David, who was constantly instructed over the phone via an unknown person, kills Gandhi's family except his daughter, but the latter takes the blame to save his daughter.


title: Khiladi (2022 film)

text: Present: Pooja arranges a bail using her father's name, DGP Jayaram, to perform final rites to his father-in-law. After learning this, Arjun and Jayaram try to stop him, but Gandhi escapes. Pooja, to her shock, finds that Gandhi's supposedly dead family members are alive and are a part of his crew, where it is revealed that Gandhi is a Dubai-based con artist whose sole aim is to fool everyone and rob the money. Arjun was sent to arrest him in Dubai.


title: Khiladi (2022 film)

text: Flashback: One day, Gandhi learns about the and planned to steal them, where he hires a club dancer named Aditi (Chitra), whom Bala Singham intends to date and with the help of his gang and Aditi, Gandhi hacks Bala Singham's phone where the location of the money is stored. When Gandhi is about to acquire the money, Arjun arrests him, but he was shot. Arjun passes the information to the government and is posted to the CBI. Suddenly, Gandhi arrives and surrenders himself where he takes the blame for the crimes he did not committed and was given 14 years of rigorous imprisonment. In the prison, he befriended Ramakrishna, whose story was the one which Gandhi narrated to Pooja and used her to get himself released from prison. He also planned to forge the documents so that Pooja would believe what he was telling was true.


title: Khiladi (2022 film)

text: Present: Arjun deduces a plan where they could catch David and Gandhi. Outside the court, Gandhi captures David after a shootout, while Singham's men captured Ramakrishna. While confronted, a badly heated David reveals that he did all this based on the instructions of an unknown person who is actually Jayaram. Pooja doesn't believe this, but she finds that all the cash is cryptocurrency. Meanwhile, Singham was about to kill Ramakrishna after denying having any knowledge of the money. However, in the nick of time, Pooja calls Singham and strikes a deal to tell him about the location and lets Ramakrishna leave. During a shootout, Aditi betrays Gandhi and shoots him for the money. While hospitalized, Pooja learns from Gandhi's henchmen that Gandhi was after the money to make a charitable trust for needy people. Pooja tells that she lied to them and her father had all the money in the hard cash. Singham and his men arrives at the location and kills Jayaram's men, but Gandhi arrives and kills all of Singham's henchmen and Singham.


title: Khiladi (2022 film)

text: When Gandhi is about to take the money, he suddenly has a change of heart, and frees Ramakrishna, who finally meets his daughter. After a showdown with Arjun, he sees Gandhi as a changed person and lets him scott free. Later, Guru Singham is stripped of his ministerial post as the money he used to bribe the MLAs were bogus. It is revealed that Gandhi stole the real money and fooled Singham and everyone all along. At the same time, he was conversing with Arjun on the phone. Gandhi reveals that he is neither against him nor Singham and Jayaram, but was fighting against the corrupted system's responsibility towards people and wishes good luck to Arjun, who vows to arrest him again.


title: Khiladi (2022 film)

text: Ravi Teja was reported to play dual roles in the film. Meenakshi Chaudhary and Dimple Hayathi are cast as the leads. Principal photography of the film began in November 2020. Few action scenes were shot in Italy in April–May 2021. The second schedule of the film began in June 2021, after a break due to the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic in India.


title: Khiladi (2022 film)

text: The filming was completed in September 2021. Arjun Sarja joined the production in December 2020. Unni Mukundan was cast in a pivotal role in January 2021. The music of the film is being composed by Devi Sri Prasad.


title: Khiladi (2022 film)

text: The soundtrack and score of the film is composed by Devi Sri Prasad. The audio rights were acquired by Aditya Music.


title: Khiladi (2022 film)

text: The film's release was originally scheduled for 28 May 2021. Owing to the COVID-19 pandemic in India. The film's release has been postponed indefinitely. The makers, however, have announced that the film would be released in theatres only. The film was released on 11 February 2022 along with its Hindi dubbed version.


title: Khiladi (2022 film)

text: "Khiladi" received mixed to negative reviews from critics, who praised Ravi Teja's performance but criticised the direction and screenplay.


title: Khiladi (2022 film)

text: Neeshitha Nyayapati of "The Times of India" gave the film a rating of 2/5 and criticized the screenplay, CGI, and songs, writing, "Khiladi is an absurd, sometimes stylish and oddly wacky, disengaging crime thriller." "Pinkvilla" gave the film a rating of 2/5 and wrote "'Khiladi' is a template-driven film if you care to scratch the surface. It's just that the writing department seeks to fortify the formulaic story by structuring the film in a less-than-routine manner in the first half".


title: Khiladi (2022 film)

text: Reviewing the for "The Indian Express", Gabetta Ranjith Kumar appreciated Ravi Teja's performance but felt that the unnecessary songs and inane subplots had put film at a disadvantage."The Hindu" critic Y. Sunita Chowdhary called it an "average film," and added "The story lacks logic, tests patience but cannot be written off completely."


title: Khiladi (2022 film)

text: In an other negative review, "The News Minute" Balakrishna Ganeshan gave the film a rating of 1.5/5 and termed it "an unappealing mish-mash, with Ravi Teja playing a predictable role." Ganesh wrote that "The director attempts to deceive the audience with a story similar to "Shock". But then he completely changes the trajectory by making it a story of a con artist, who is just invincible, or let's say any average Telugu hero who seems to possess superpowers."


title: American Gothic

text: American Gothic is a 1930 painting by Grant Wood in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Wood was inspired to paint what is now known as the "American Gothic" House in Eldon, Iowa, along with "the kind of people [he] fancied should live in that house". It depicts a farmer standing beside his daughter – often mistakenly assumed to be his wife. The painting's name is a word play on the house's architectural style, Carpenter Gothic.


title: American Gothic

text: The figures were modeled by Wood's sister Nan Wood Graham and their dentist Dr. Byron McKeeby. The woman is dressed in a colonial print apron evoking 20th-century rural Americana while the man is adorned in overalls covered by a suit jacket and carries a pitchfork. The plants on the porch of the house are mother-in-law's tongue and beefsteak begonia, which also appear in Wood's 1929 portrait of his mother, "Woman with Plants".


title: American Gothic

text: "American Gothic" is one of the most familiar images of 20th-century American art and has been widely parodied in American popular culture. From 2016 to 2017, the painting was displayed in Paris at the Musée de l'Orangerie and in London at the Royal Academy of Arts in its first showings outside the United States.


title: American Gothic

text: In August 1930, Grant Wood, an American painter with European training, was driven around Eldon, Iowa, by a young local painter named John Sharp. Looking for inspiration, he noticed the Dibble House, a small white house built in the Carpenter Gothic architectural style. Sharp's brother suggested in 1973 that it was on this drive that Wood first sketched the house on the back of an envelope. Wood's earliest biographer, Darrell Garwood, noted that Wood "thought it a form of borrowed pretentiousness, a structural absurdity, to put a Gothic-style window in such a flimsy frame house".


title: American Gothic

text: At the time, Wood classified it as one of the "cardboardy frame houses on Iowa farms" and considered it "very paintable". After obtaining permission from the house's owners, Selma Jones-Johnston and her family, Wood made a sketch the next day in oil paint on paperboard from the front yard. This sketch depicted a steeper roof and a longer window with a more pronounced ogive than on the actual house – features which eventually adorned the final work.


title: American Gothic

text: Wood decided to paint the house along with, in his words, "the kind of people [he] fancied should live in that house". He recruited his sister, Nan (1899–1990), to be the model for the daughter, dressing her in a colonial print apron mimicking 20th-century rural Americana. While preparing for the painting, Wood requested that she make the apron herself and include rickrack trim to better reflect the time period. Unfortunately rickrack was no longer available in stores, and so Nan removed trim from their mother Hattie's old dresses to apply to the apron instead. The model for the father was the Wood family's dentist, Dr. Byron McKeeby (1867–1950) from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Nan told people that her brother had envisioned the pair as father and daughter, not husband and wife, which Wood himself confirmed in his letter to a Mrs. Nellie Sudduth in 1941: "The prim lady with him is his grown-up daughter."


title: American Gothic

text: Elements of the painting stress the "vertical" that is associated with Gothic architecture. The upright, three-pronged pitchfork is echoed in the stitching of the man's overalls and shirt, the Gothic pointed-arch window of the house under the steeped roof, and the structure of the man's face. However, Wood did not add figures to his sketch until he returned to his studio in Cedar Rapids. Moreover, he would not return to Eldon again, although he did request a photograph of the home to complete his painting.


title: American Gothic

text: Wood entered the painting in a competition at the Art Institute of Chicago. One judge deemed it a "comic valentine", but a museum patron persuaded the jury to award the painting the bronze medal and a $300 cash prize. The same patron also persuaded the Art Institute to buy the painting, and it remains part of the Chicago museum's collection. The image soon began to be reproduced in newspapers, first by the "Chicago Evening Post", and then in New York, Boston, Kansas City, and Indianapolis. However, when the image finally appeared in the "Cedar Rapids Gazette", there was a backlash. Iowans were furious at their depiction as "pinched, grim-faced, puritanical Bible-thumpers". Wood protested, saying that he had not painted a caricature of Iowans but a depiction of his "appreciation", stating "I had to go to France to appreciate Iowa." In a 1941 letter, Wood said that, "In general, I have found, the people who resent the painting are those who feel that they themselves resemble the portrayal."


title: American Gothic

text: Art critics who had favorable opinions about the painting, such as Gertrude Stein and Christopher Morley, similarly assumed the painting was meant to be a satire of rural small-town life. It was thus seen as part of the trend toward increasingly critical depictions of rural America along the lines of, in literature, Sherwood Anderson's 1919 novel "Winesburg, Ohio", Sinclair Lewis's 1920 "Main Street", and Carl Van Vechten's 1924 "The Tattooed Countess".


title: American Gothic

text: However, with the deepening of the Great Depression not too long after the painting was made, "American Gothic" came to be seen as a depiction of the steadfast American pioneer spirit. Wood assisted this interpretive transition by renouncing his bohemian youth in Paris and grouping himself with populist Midwestern painters such as John Steuart Curry and Thomas Hart Benton, who revolted against the dominance of East Coast art circles. Wood was quoted in this period as stating, "All the good ideas I've ever had came to me while I was milking a cow."


title: American Gothic

text: American art historian Wanda M. Corn insists that Wood was not painting a modern couple, but rather one of the past, pointing to the fact that Wood directed the models to wear old-fashioned clothing which he found inspiration for by consulting his family photo album. Wood even posed the figures in a way that resembled long-exposure photographs of Midwestern families that dated before World War I.


title: American Gothic

text: Art historian Tripp Evans interpreted it in 2010 as an "old-fashioned mourning portrait ... Tellingly, the curtains hanging in the windows of the house, both upstairs and down, are pulled closed in the middle of the day, a mourning custom in Victorian America. The woman wears a black dress beneath her apron, and glances away as if holding back tears. One imagines she is grieving for the man beside her.” Wood had been only 10 when his father died, and later he lived for a decade "above a garage reserved for hearses", so death was probably on his mind.


title: American Gothic

text: In 2019, culture writer Kelly Grovier described the painting as a portrait of Pluto and Proserpina, the Roman gods of the underworld (a comparison made earlier by American writer Guy Davenport in his analysis of the painting in a 1978 lecture, “The Geography of the Imagination” .) Grovier suggests the small globe on the weather vane at the very top of the painting represents the dwarf planet Pluto (the planet was famously discovered in 1930 around the time of the painting's creation). Grovier interprets the pitchfork-wielding farmer as the guardian of the gates of hell, Pluto, and points to the woman's cameo brooch, containing a classical representation of the mythological goddess, Proserpina, and the dangling strand of hair by the woman's right ear as representing the ravishing in the goddess's myth.


title: American Gothic

text: The Depression-era understanding of the painting as depicting an authentically American scene prompted the first well-known parody, a 1942 photo by Gordon Parks of cleaning woman Ella Watson, shot in Washington, D.C.


title: American Gothic

text: "American Gothic" is a frequently parodied image. It has been lampooned in Broadway shows such as "The Music Man", movies such as "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", and television shows such as "Green Acres" (in the final scene of the opening credits), The "Dick Van Dyke Show" ("The Masterpiece" episode), in an episode of "The Simpsons", and the "SpongeBob SquarePants" episode "Artist Unknown". It has also been parodied in marketing campaigns, pornography, and by couples who recreate the image photographically by facing a camera in the same way, one of them holding a pitchfork or other object in its place. The painting famously appears in the opening titles of the television show "Desperate Housewives" (2004–2012).


title: American Gothic

text: The couple from the painting was also recreated in the HBO drama "Oz" during one of the show's monologue segments in the episode "A Town Without Pity" during the first half of the show's fourth season. The Dibble House was not included owing to logistical and budget constraints.


title: American Gothic

text: The couple in the introduction of Doctor Who's series 3 episode "Gridlock" also resembles that of the painting.


title: Sidney Lumet

text: Sidney Arthur Lumet ( ; June 25, 1924 – April 9, 2011) was an American film director. He was nominated five times for the Academy Award: four for Best Director for "12 Angry Men" (1957), "Dog Day Afternoon" (1975), "Network" (1976), and "The Verdict" (1982) and one for Best Adapted Screenplay for "Prince of the City" (1981). He did not win an individual Academy Award, but did receive an Academy Honorary Award, and 14 of his films were nominated for Oscars.


title: Sidney Lumet

text: According to "The Encyclopedia of Hollywood", Lumet was one of the most prolific filmmakers of the modern era, directing more than one movie a year on average since his directorial debut in 1957. Turner Classic Movies notes his "strong direction of actors", "vigorous storytelling" and the "social realism" in his best work. Film critic Roger Ebert described him as "one of the finest craftsmen and warmest humanitarians among all film directors". Lumet was also known as an "actor's director", having worked with the best of them during his career, probably more than "any other director". Sean Connery, who acted in five of his films, considered him one of his favorite directors, and one who had that "vision thing".


title: Sidney Lumet

text: A member of the inaugural class at New York's Actors Studio, Lumet began his directorial career in Off-Broadway productions, then became a highly efficient TV director. His first movie, "12 Angry Men" (1957), was a courtroom drama centered on a tense jury deliberation. Lumet subsequently divided his energies among political and social drama films, as well as adaptations of literary plays and novels, big stylish stories, New York–based black comedies, and realistic crime dramas, including "Serpico" and "Prince of the City". As a result of directing "12 Angry Men", he was also responsible for leading the first wave of directors who made a successful transition from TV to movies.


title: Sidney Lumet

text: In 2005, Lumet received an Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement for his "brilliant services to screenwriters, performers, and the art of the motion picture". Two years later he concluded his career with the drama "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" (2007). A few months after Lumet's death in April 2011, a retrospective celebration of his work was held at New York's Lincoln Center with numerous speakers and film stars. In 2015, Nancy Buirski directed "By Sidney Lumet", a documentary about his career, which aired as part of PBS's "American Masters" series in January 2017.


title: Sidney Lumet

text: Lumet was born in Philadelphia and grew up in the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan. He studied theater acting at the Professional Children's School of New York and Columbia University.


title: Sidney Lumet

text: Lumet's parents, Baruch and Eugenia (née Wermus) Lumet, were veterans of the Yiddish theatre, and were Polish-Jewish emigrants to the United States. His father, an actor, director, producer and writer, was born in Warsaw. Lumet's mother, who was a dancer, died when he was a child. He had an older sister. He made his professional debut on radio at age four and stage debut at the Yiddish Art Theatre at age five. As a child he also appeared in many Broadway productions, including 1935's "Dead End" and Kurt Weill's "The Eternal Road".


title: Sidney Lumet

text: In 1935, aged 11, he appeared in a Henry Lynn short film "Papirossen" (meaning "Cigarettes" in Yiddish), co-produced by radio star Herman Yablokoff. The film was shown in a theatrical play with the same title, based on the hit song "Papirosn". The play and short film appeared in the Bronx McKinley Square Theatre. In 1939, he made his only feature-length film appearance, at age 15, in "...One Third of a Nation...".


title: Sidney Lumet

text: World War II interrupted his early acting career and he spent four years in the U.S. Army. After returning from service as a radar repairman stationed in India and Burma (1942–1946), he became involved with the Actors Studio, and then formed his own theater workshop. He organized an Off-Broadway group and became its director, and continued directing in summer stock theatre, while teaching acting at the High School of Performing Arts. He was the senior drama coach at the new 46th St. building of "Performing Arts". The 25-year-old Lumet directed the drama department in a production of "The Young and Fair".


title: Sidney Lumet

text: Lumet began his career as a director with Off-Broadway productions and then evolved into a highly respected TV director. After working off-Broadway and in summer stock, he began directing television in 1950, after working as an assistant to friend and then-director Yul Brynner. He soon developed a "lightning quick" method for shooting due to the high turnover required by television. As a result, while working for CBS he directed hundreds of episodes of "Danger" (1950–55), "Mama" (1949–57), and "You Are There" (1953–57), a weekly series which featured Walter Cronkite in one of his early television appearances. Lumet chose Cronkite for the role of anchorman "because the premise of the show was so silly, was so outrageous, that we needed somebody with the most American, homespun, warm ease about him", Lumet said.


title: Sidney Lumet

text: He also directed original plays for "Playhouse 90", "Kraft Television Theatre" and "Studio One", directing around 200 episodes, which established him as "one of the most prolific and respected directors in the business", according to Turner Classic Movies. His ability to work quickly while shooting carried over to his film career. Because the quality of many of the television dramas was so impressive, several of them were later adapted as motion pictures.


title: Sidney Lumet

text: His first movie, "12 Angry Men" (1957), based on a CBS live play, was an auspicious beginning for Lumet. It was a critical success and established him as a director skilled at adapting properties from other mediums to motion pictures. Fully half of Lumet's complement of films originated in the theater.


title: Sidney Lumet

text: A controversial TV show he directed in 1960 gained him notoriety: "The Sacco-Vanzetti Story" on NBC. According to "The New York Times", the drama drew flack from the state of Massachusetts (where Sacco and Vanzetti were tried and executed) because it was thought to postulate that the condemned murderers were, in fact, wholly innocent. However, the resulting controversy actually did Lumet more good than harm, sending several prestigious film assignments his way.


title: Sidney Lumet

text: He began adapting classic plays for both film and television, directing Marlon Brando, Joanne Woodward and Anna Magnani in the feature film "The Fugitive Kind" (1959), based on the Tennessee Williams play "Orpheus Descending". He later directed a live television version of Eugene O'Neill's "The Iceman Cometh", which was followed by his film, "A View from the Bridge" (1962), another psychological drama from the play written by Arthur Miller. This was followed by another Eugene O'Neill play turned to cinema, "Long Day's Journey into Night" (also 1962), with Katharine Hepburn gaining an Oscar nomination for her performance as a drug-addicted housewife; the four principal actors swept the acting awards at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival. It was also voted one of the year's "Ten Best Films" by "The New York Times".


title: Sidney Lumet

text: Film critic Owen Gleiberman has observed that Lumet was a "hardboiled straight-shooter", who, because he was trained during the golden Age of television in the 1950s, became noted for his energetic style of directing. The words "Sidney Lumet" and "energy", he adds, became synonymous: "The energy was there in the quietest moments. It was an inner energy, a hum of existence that Lumet observed in people and brought out in them...[when he] went into the New York streets...he made them electric:


title: Sidney Lumet

text: Lumet generally insisted on the collaborative nature of film, sometimes ridiculing the dominance of the "personal" director, writes film historian Frank P. Cunningham. As a result, Lumet became renowned among both actors and cinematographers for his openness to sharing creative ideas with the writer, actor, and other artists. Lumet "has no equal in the distinguished direction of superior actors", adds Cunningham, with many coming from the theater. He was able to draw powerful performances from actors such as Ralph Richardson, Marlon Brando, Richard Burton, Katharine Hepburn, James Mason, Sophia Loren, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Blythe Danner, Rod Steiger, Vanessa Redgrave, Paul Newman, Sean Connery, Henry Fonda, Dustin Hoffman, Albert Finney, Simone Signoret, and Anne Bancroft. "Give him a good actor, and he just might find the great actor lurking within", wrote film critic Mick LaSalle.


title: Sidney Lumet

text: When necessary, Lumet chose untrained actors, but stated, "over ninety percent of the time I want the best tools I can get: actors, writers, lighting men, cameramen, propmen". Nonetheless, when he did use less experienced actors, he could still bring out superior and memorable acting performances. He did so with Nick Nolte, Anthony Perkins, Armand Assante, Jane Fonda, Faye Dunaway, Timothy Hutton and Ali MacGraw, who herself referred to him as "every actor's dream". In Fonda's opinion, "he was a master. Such control of his craft. He had strong, progressive values and never betrayed them".


title: Sidney Lumet

text: Lumet believed that movies are an art, and "the amount of attention paid to movies is directly related to pictures of quality". Because he started his career as an actor, he became known as an "actor's director", and worked with the best of them over the years, a roster probably unequaled by any other director. Acting scholar Frank P. Tomasulo agrees, and points out that many directors who are able to understand acting from an actor's perspective, were all "great communicators".


title: Sidney Lumet

text: According to film historians Gerald Mast and Bruce Kawin, Lumet's "sensitivity to actors and to the rhythms of the city have made him America's longest-lived descendant of the 1950s Neorealist tradition and its urgent commitment to ethical responsibility". They cite his early film "The Hill" (1965) as "one of the most politically and morally radical films of the 1960s". They add that beneath the social conflicts of Lumet's films lies the "conviction that love and reason will eventually prevail in human affairs", and that "law and justice will eventually be served – or not". His debut film, "Twelve Angry Men", was an acclaimed picture in its day, representing a model for liberal reason and fellowship during the 1950s. The film and Lumet were nominated for Academy Awards, and he was nominated for the Director's Guild Award, with the film widely praised by critics.


title: Sidney Lumet

text: The "Encyclopedia of World Biography" states that his films often featured actors who studied "Method acting", noted for portraying an earthy, introspective style. A leading example of such "Method" actors would be Al Pacino, who, early in his career, studied under Method acting guru Lee Strasberg. Lumet also preferred the appearance of spontaneity in both his actors and settings, which gave his films an improvisational look by shooting much of his work on location.


title: Sidney Lumet

text: Lumet was a strong believer in rehearsal, and felt that if you rehearse correctly the actor will not lose spontaneity. According to acting author Ian Bernard, he felt that it gives actors the "entire arc of the role", which gives them the freedom to find that "magical accident". Director Peter Bogdanovich asked him whether he rehearsed extensively before shooting, and Lumet said he liked to rehearse a minimum of two weeks before filming. During those weeks, recalls Faye Dunaway, who starred in "Network" (1976), he also blocked the scenes with his cameraman. As a result, she adds "not a minute is wasted while he's shooting, and that shows not only on the studio's budget, but it shows on the impetus of performance". She praises his style of directing in "Network", in which she won her only Academy Award:


title: Sidney Lumet

text: Partly because his actors were well rehearsed, he could execute a production in rapid order, which kept his productions within their modest budget. When filming "Prince of the City" (1981), for example, although there were over 130 speaking roles and 135 different locations, he was able to coordinate the entire shoot in 52 days. As a result, write historians Charles Harpole and Thomas Schatz, performers were eager to work with him as they considered him to be an "outstanding director of actors". The film's star, Treat Williams, said that Lumet was known for being "energetic":


title: Sidney Lumet

text: Harpole adds that "whereas many directors disliked rehearsals or advising actors on how to build their character, Lumet excelled at both". He could thereby more easily give his performers a cinematic showcase for their abilities and help them deepen their acting contribution. Actor Christopher Reeve, who co-starred in "Deathtrap" (1982), also pointed out that Lumet knew how to talk technical language: "If you want to work that way – he knows how to talk Method, he knows how to improvise, and he does it all equally well".


title: Sidney Lumet

text: Joanna Rapf, writing about the filming of "The Verdict" (1982), states that Lumet gave plenty of personal attention to his actors, whether listening to them or touching them. She describes how Lumet and star Paul Newman sat on a bench secluded from the main set, where Newman had taken his shoes off, to privately discuss an important scene about to be shot...the actors walk through their scenes before the camera rolls. This preparation was done because Lumet likes to shoot a scene in one take, two at the most. Newman liked to call him "Speedy Gonzales", adding that Lumet did not shoot more than he had to. "He doesn't give himself any protection. I know I would", Newman said.


title: Sidney Lumet

text: Film critic Betsey Sharkey agrees, adding that "he was a maestro of one or two takes years before Clint Eastwood would turn it into a respected specialty". Sharkey recalls, "[Faye] Dunaway once told me that Lumet worked so fast it was as if he were on roller skates. A racing pulse generated by a big heart".


title: Sidney Lumet

text: Biographer Joanna Rapf observes that Lumet had always been an independent director, and liked to make films about "men who summon courage to challenge the system, about the little guy against the system". This also includes the women characters as in "Garbo Talks" (1984). Its star, Anne Bancroft embodied the kind of character portrayal that attracted him: "a committed activist for all kinds of causes, who stands up for the rights of the oppressed, who is lively, outspoken, courageous, who refuses to conform for the sake of convenience, and whose understanding of life allows her to die with dignity ... "Garbo Talks" in many ways is a valentine to New York".


title: Sidney Lumet

text: In an interview in 2006, he said that he had always been "fascinated by the human cost involved in following passions and commitments, and the cost those passions and commitments inflict on others". This theme is at the core of most of his movies, notes Rapf, such as his true-life films about of corruption in the New York City Police Department or in family dramas such as "Daniel" (1983).


title: Sidney Lumet

text: Film historian Stephen Bowles believes Lumet was most comfortable and effective as a director of serious psychodramas, as opposed to light entertainments. His Academy Award nominations, for example, were all for character studies of men in crisis, from his first film, "Twelve Angry Men", to "The Verdict". Lumet excelled at putting drama on the screen. Most of his characters are driven by obsessions or passions, such as the pursuit of justice, honesty, and truth, or jealousy, memory, or guilt. Lumet was intrigued by obsessive conditions, writes Bowles.


title: Sidney Lumet

text: Lumet's protagonists tended to be antiheroes, isolated and unexceptional men who rebel against a group or institution. The most important criterion for Lumet was not simply whether the actions of the people are right or wrong, but whether they were genuine and justified by the individual's conscience. Whistleblower Frank Serpico, for example, is the quintessential Lumet hero, whom he described as a "rebel with a cause".


title: Sidney Lumet

text: An earlier example of psychodrama was "The Pawnbroker" (1964), starring Rod Steiger. In it, Steiger played a Holocaust survivor whose spirit had been broken and lives day-to-day as a pawn shop manager in Harlem. Lumet used the film to examine, with flashbacks, the psychological and spiritual scars Steiger's character lives with, including his lost capacity to feel pleasure. Steiger, who made nearly 80 films, said during a TV interview that the film was his favorite as an actor.


title: Sidney Lumet

text: "Serpico" (1973) was the first of four "seminal" films Lumet made during the 1970s that marked him as "one of the greatest filmmakers of his generation". It was the story of power and betrayal in the New York City police force, with an idealistic policeman battling impossible odds.


title: Sidney Lumet

text: As Lumet was a child during the Depression, he grew up poor in New York City and witnessed the poverty and corruption all around him. It instilled in him at an early age the importance of justice for a democracy, a subject he tried to put in his films. He admitted, however, that he did not believe that the movie business itself has the power to change anything. "There is, as he says, a lot of 'shit' to deal with in the entertainment industry, but the secret of good work is to maintain your honesty and your passion". Film historian David Thomson writes of his films:


title: Sidney Lumet

text: Lumet always preferred to work in New York City and shunned the dominance of Hollywood. As a director he became strongly identified with New York City. "I always like being in Woody Allen's world", he said. He claimed that "the diversity of the City, its many ethnic neighborhoods, its art and its crime, its sophistication and its corruption, its beauty and its ugliness, all feed into what inspires him". He felt that in order to create, it is important to confront reality on a daily basis. For Lumet, "New York is filled with reality; Hollywood is a fantasyland".


title: Sidney Lumet

text: He used New York City time and again as the backdrop – if not the symbol – of his "preoccupation with America's decline", according to film historians Scott and Barbara Siegel. Lumet was attracted to crime-related stories with New York City urban settings where the criminals get caught in a vortex of events they can neither understand nor control, but are forced to resolve.


title: Sidney Lumet

text: Like other Jewish directors from New York such as Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, and Paul Mazursky, Lumet's characters often spoke overtly about controversial issues of the times. They felt unconstrained as filmmakers and their art became "filtered through their Jewish consciousness", wrote film historian David Desser. Lumet, like the others, sometimes turned to Jewish themes in order to develop ethnic sensibilities that were characteristic of contemporary American culture, by dynamically highlighting its "unique tensions and cultural diversity". This was partly reflected in Lumet's preoccupation with city life. His film "A Stranger Among Us" (1992), for example, is the story of a woman undercover police officer and her experiences in a Hasidic community within New York City.


title: Sidney Lumet

text: The subject of "guilt", explains Desser, dominates many of Lumet's films. From his first feature film, "12 Angry Men" (1957), in which a jury must decide the guilt or innocence of a young man, to "Q&A" (1990), in which a lawyer must determine the question of guilt and responsibility on the part of a maverick policeman, guilt is a common thread which runs through many of his films. In a film like "Murder on the Orient Express" (1974), all of the suspects are guilty.


title: Sidney Lumet

text: His films were also characterized by a strong emphasis on family life, often showing tensions within the family. This emphasis on the family included "surrogate families", as in the police trilogy consisting of "Serpico" (1973), "Prince of the City" (1981), and "Q & A". An "untraditional family" is also portrayed in "Dog Day Afternoon" (1975).


title: Sidney Lumet

text: Lumet had always preferred naturalism or realism, according to Joanna Rapf. He did not like the "decorator's look", where the camera could call attention to itself. He edited his films so the camera was unobtrusive. His cinematographer Ron Fortunato said "Sidney flips if he sees a look that's too artsy".


title: Sidney Lumet

text: Partly because he was willing and able to take on so many significant social issues and problems, he achieved strong performances from lead actors with fine work from character actors. He is "one of the stalwart figures of New York moviemaking. He abides by good scripts, when he gets them", said critic David Thomson. Although critics gave varying opinions of his films, in general Lumet's body of work is held in high esteem. Most critics have described him as a sensitive and intelligent director, having good taste, the courage to experiment with his style, and a "gift for handling actors".


title: Sidney Lumet

text: Critic Justin Chang adds that Lumet's skill as a director and in developing strong stories, continued up to his last film in 2007, writing of his "nimble touch with performers, his ability to draw out great warmth and zesty humor with one hand and coax them toward ever darker, more anguished extremes of emotion with the other, was on gratifying display in his ironically titled final film, "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead.""


title: Sidney Lumet

text: In an interview with "New York" magazine, he said he expects to see more directors from different ethnic backgrounds and communities, telling their stories. "You know, I started out making films about Jews and Italians and Irish because I didn't know anything else".


title: Sidney Lumet

text: Lumet has been recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the following films:


title: Sidney Lumet

text: Lumet has also received the Berlin International Film Festival's Golden Bear for "12 Angry Men". He received four nominations for the Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or for the films "Long Day's Journey into Night" (1962), "The Hill" (1965), "The Appointment" (1969), and "A Stranger Among Us" (1992). He also received a Venice Film Festival Golden Lion award nomination for "Prince of the City" (1981).


title: Sidney Lumet

text: According to film historian Bowles, Lumet succeeded in becoming a leading drama filmmaker partly because "his most important criterion [when directing] is not whether the actions of his protagonists are right or wrong, but whether their actions are genuine". And where those actions are "justified by the individual's conscience, this gives his heroes uncommon strength and courage to endure the pressures, abuses, and injustices of others". His films have thereby continually given us the "quintessential hero acting in defiance of peer group authority and asserting his own code of moral values".