title: Magnus the Good

text: Olaf was dethroned by the Danish king Cnut the Great in 1028, and he went into exile with his family and court, including the young Magnus. They travelled over the mountains and through Eidskog during the winter, entered Värmland, and were given shelter by a chieftain called Sigtrygg in Närke. After a few months, they departed Närke, and by March went eastwards towards Sigtuna, where the Swedish king Anund Jacob had left them a ship. The party thereafter sailed through the Baltic Sea and into the Gulf of Finland, eventually landing in Kievan Rus' ("Garðaríki"). They made their first stop at Staraya Ladoga ("Aldeigjuborg") to organise the further journey. From there they travelled southwards to Novgorod ("Holmgard"), where Olaf sought assistance from Grand Prince Yaroslav the Wise. Yaroslav, however, did not want to become directly involved in the Scandinavian power-struggles, and declined to help. After some time, in early 1030, Olaf learned that the Earl of Lade Håkon Eiriksson, Cnut's regent in Norway, had disappeared at sea, and gathered his men to make a swift return to Norway. Magnus was left to be fostered by Yaroslav and his wife Ingegerd.


title: Magnus the Good

text: In early 1031, a party including Magnus's uncle Harald Sigurdsson (later also to be king and then known as Harald Hardrada) arrived to report the news of his father's death at the Battle of Stiklestad. For the next few years, Magnus was educated in Old Russian and some Greek and was trained as a warrior. In 1030, Cnut appointed his first wife Ælfgifu and their son Svein as regents, but the Norwegians found their rule oppressive and, by the time of Cnut's death in 1035, they had been driven out and Magnus was established as king. Einar Thambarskelfir and Kalf Arnesson, who had both sought to be appointed regents under Cnut after Olaf's death in 1030, had gone together to Kievan Rus' to bring the boy back to rule as the King of Norway. After receiving the approval of Ingegerd, they returned with Magnus to Sigtuna in early 1035, and received backing from the Swedish king, brother of Magnus's stepmother Astrid. Astrid immediately became an important supporter of Magnus, and an army was gathered in Sweden, headed by Einar and Kalf, to place Magnus on the Norwegian throne.


title: Magnus the Good

text: Magnus was proclaimed king in 1035 at 11 years of age. At first, Magnus sought revenge against his father's enemies, but on Sigvatr's advice, he stopped doing so, which is why he became known as "good" or "noble".


title: Magnus the Good

text: Another son of Cnut, Harthacnut, was on the throne of Denmark and wanted his country to reunite with Norway, while Magnus initiated a campaign against Denmark around 1040. However, the noblemen of both countries brought the two kings together at the Göta älv, the border between their kingdoms. They made peace and agreed that the first of them to die would be succeeded by the other. In 1042, Harthacnut died while in England, and Magnus also became King of Denmark, in spite of a claim by Cnut's nephew Sweyn Estridsen, whom Harthacnut had left in control of Denmark when he went to England, and who had some support.


title: Magnus the Good

text: As part of consolidating his control, Magnus destroyed the Jomsborg, headquarters of the Jomsvikings. Sweyn fled east and returned as one of the leaders of an invasion by the Wends in 1043, which Magnus decisively defeated at the Battle of Lyrskov Heath, near Hedeby. In the battle, Magnus wielded Saint Olaf's battle-axe, named Hel after the goddess of death. He had dreamt of his father the night before, and the Norwegians swore that before the battle they could hear the bell that Saint Olaf had given to the Church of St. Clement in Kaupang, in Nidaros—a sign that the saint was watching over his son and the army. It was the greatest victory ever over the Wends, with up to 15,000 killed.


title: Magnus the Good

text: Sweyn continued to oppose Magnus in Denmark, although according to "Heimskringla", they reached a settlement by which Sweyn became Earl of Denmark under Magnus.


title: Magnus the Good

text: Magnus wanted to reunite Cnut the Great's entire North Sea Empire by also becoming king of England. When Harthacnut died, the English nobles had chosen as their king Æthelred the Unready's son Edward (later known as Edward the Confessor); Magnus wrote to him that he intended to attack England with combined Norwegian and Danish forces and "he will then govern it who wins the victory." The English were mostly hostile to Magnus; Sweyn was made welcome there, although Edward's mother, Emma, curiously favored Magnus and in 1043 the king confiscated her property, with which by one report she had promised to assist Magnus.


title: Magnus the Good

text: Meanwhile, Magnus' uncle Harald Sigurdsson had returned to Norway from the east and contested his rule there, while Sweyn was still a threat in Denmark; Harald allied himself with Sweyn. Magnus chose to appease Harald, and made him his co-king in Norway in 1046.


title: Magnus the Good

text: Sweyn increased the pressure on Magnus from his base in Scania, but by late 1046, Magnus had driven Sweyn out of Denmark. However, on 25 October 1047, Magnus suddenly died while in Denmark, either in Zealand or in Jutland, either in an accident or of a disease; accounts vary. Reports include falling overboard from one of the ships he was mustering to invade England and drowning, falling off a horse, and falling ill while on board a ship. He is said to have made Sweyn his heir in Denmark, and Harald in Norway; some say in a deathbed statement. Magnus was buried with his father in the cathedral at Nidaros, modern Trondheim.


title: Magnus the Good

text: Snorri describes Magnus as "of middle height, with regular features and light complexion. He had light blond hair, was well spoken and quick to make up his mind, was of noble character, most generous, a great warrior, and most valorous."


title: Magnus the Good

text: The line of Olaf II ended with Magnus' death. However, in 1280, Eric II of Norway, who was descended through his mother from Magnus' legitimate sister, Wulfhild, was crowned king of Norway.


title: Magnus the Good

text: Magnus was not married, but had a daughter out of wedlock, , who married , a Norwegian nobleman. Ragnhild and Haakon had daughters Sunniva and Ragnhild. Sunniva had a son Hakon Sunnivasson, whose son became King Eric III of Denmark. Ragnhild married Paul Thorfinnsson, Earl of Orkney, and together they were the parents of Haakon Paulsson, who also became an earl of Orkney.


title: Active noise control

text: Active noise control (ANC), also known as noise cancellation (NC), or active noise reduction (ANR), is a method for reducing unwanted sound by the addition of a second sound specifically designed to cancel the first. The concept was first developed in the late 1930s; later developmental work that began in the 1950s eventually resulted in commercial airline headsets with the technology becoming available in the late 1980s. The technology is also used in road vehicles, mobile telephones, earbuds, and headphones


title: Active noise control

text: Sound is a pressure wave, which consists of alternating periods of compression and rarefaction. A noise-cancellation speaker emits a sound wave with the same amplitude but with inverted phase (also known as antiphase) relative to the original sound. The waves combine to form a new wave, in a process called interference, and effectively cancel each other out – an effect which is called destructive interference.


title: Active noise control

text: Modern active noise control is generally achieved through the use of analog circuits or digital signal processing. Adaptive algorithms are designed to analyze the waveform of the background aural or nonaural noise, then based on the specific algorithm generate a signal that will either phase shift or invert the polarity of the original signal. This inverted signal (in antiphase) is then amplified and a transducer creates a sound wave directly proportional to the amplitude of the original waveform, creating destructive interference. This effectively reduces the volume of the perceivable noise.


title: Active noise control

text: A noise-cancellation speaker may be co-located with the sound source to be attenuated. In this case it must have the same audio power level as the source of the unwanted sound in order to cancel the noise. Alternatively, the transducer emitting the cancellation signal may be located at the location where sound attenuation is wanted (e.g. the user's ear). This requires a much lower power level for cancellation but is effective only for a single user. Noise cancellation at other locations is more difficult as the three-dimensional wavefronts of the unwanted sound and the cancellation signal could match and create alternating zones of constructive and destructive interference, reducing noise in some spots while doubling noise in others. In small enclosed spaces (e.g. the passenger compartment of a car) global noise reduction can be achieved via multiple speakers and feedback microphones, and measurement of the modal responses of the enclosure.


title: Active noise control

text: Applications can be "1-dimensional" or 3-dimensional, depending on the type of zone to protect. Periodic sounds, even complex ones, are easier to cancel than random sounds due to the repetition in the wave form.


title: Active noise control

text: Protection of a "1-dimension zone" is easier and requires only one or two microphones and speakers to be effective. Several commercial applications have been successful: noise-cancelling headphones, active mufflers, anti-snoring devices, vocal or center channel extraction for karaoke machines, and the control of noise in air conditioning ducts. The term "1-dimension" refers to a simple pistonic relationship between the noise and the active speaker (mechanical noise reduction) or between the active speaker and the listener (headphones).


title: Active noise control

text: Protection of a 3-dimension zone requires many microphones and speakers, making it more expensive. Noise reduction is more easily achieved with a single listener remaining stationary but if there are multiple listeners or if the single listener turns their head or moves throughout the space then the noise reduction challenge is made much more difficult. High frequency waves are difficult to reduce in three dimensions due to their relatively short audio wavelength in air. The wavelength in air of sinusoidal noise at approximately 800 Hz is double the distance of the average person's left ear to the right ear; such a noise coming directly from the front will be easily reduced by an active system but coming from the side will tend to cancel at one ear while being reinforced at the other, making the noise louder, not softer. High frequency sounds above 1000 Hz tend to cancel and reinforce unpredictably from many directions. In sum, the most effective noise reduction in three-dimensional space involves low frequency sounds. Commercial applications of 3-D noise reduction include the protection of aircraft cabins and car interiors, but in these situations, protection is mainly limited to the cancellation of repetitive (or periodic) noise such as engine-, propeller- or rotor-induced noise. This is because an engine's cyclic nature makes analysis and the noise cancellation easier to apply.


title: Active noise control

text: Modern mobile phones use a multi-microphone design to cancel out ambient noise from the speech signal. Sound is captured from the microphone(s) furthest from the mouth [noise signal(s)] and from one closest to the mouth [desired signal]. The signals are processed to cancel the noise from the desired signal, producing improved voice sound quality.


title: Active noise control

text: In some cases, noise can be controlled by employing active vibration control. This approach is appropriate when vibration of a structure produces unwanted noise by coupling the vibration into the surrounding air or water.


title: Active noise control

text: "Noise control" is an active or passive means of reducing sound emissions, often for personal comfort, environmental considerations or legal compliance. "Active" noise control is sound reduction using a power source. "Passive" noise control is sound reduction by noise-isolating materials such as insulation, sound-absorbing tiles, or a muffler rather than a power source.


title: Active noise control

text: Active noise cancelling is best suited for low frequencies. For higher frequencies, the spacing requirements for free space and zone of silence techniques become prohibitive. In acoustic cavity and duct based systems, the number of nodes grows rapidly with increasing frequency, which quickly makes active noise control techniques unmanageable. Passive treatments become more effective at higher frequencies and often provide an adequate solution without the need for active control.


title: Active noise control

text: The first patent for a noise control system——was granted to inventor Paul Lueg in 1936. The patent described how to cancel sinusoidal tones in ducts by phase-advancing the wave and cancelling arbitrary sounds in the region around a loudspeaker by inverting the polarity. In the 1950s Lawrence J. Fogel patented systems to cancel the noise in helicopter and airplane cockpits. In 1957 Willard Meeker developed a working model of active noise control applied to a circumaural earmuff. This headset had an active attenuation bandwidth of approximately 50–500 Hz, with a maximum attenuation of approximately 20 dB. By the late 1980s the first commercially available active noise reduction headsets became available. They could be powered by NiCad batteries or directly from the aircraft power system.


title: Relic (2020 film)

text: Relic is a 2020 Australian psychological horror film directed by Natalie Erika James from a screenplay by James and Christian White. The film stars Emily Mortimer, Robyn Nevin, and Bella Heathcote.


title: Relic (2020 film)

text: "Relic" had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on 25 January 2020, and was released on 3 July 2020 in the United States by IFC Midnight, and 10 July in Australia on Stan.


title: Relic (2020 film)

text: When Edna, the demented, elderly, and widowed matriarch of the family, goes missing, her daughter Kay and granddaughter Sam travel to their remote family home to find her. They discover the house locked from the inside, and a strange black mold-like substance on an upstairs wall. Much of the furniture has been adorned with Post-it notes of reminders for Edna.


title: Relic (2020 film)

text: That night, Sam is visited by their young neighbour Jamie, who states that he had not been to visit Edna for a while after his father had told him not to go back to the house. Sam and Kay grow increasingly disturbed by a loud creaking from inside the walls and the appearance of more black mold throughout the house. Kay experiences nightmares of a withered rotting corpse in an old shack in the woodlands.


title: Relic (2020 film)

text: The next morning, Kay finds Edna has returned, barefoot and muddied, and unaware of her own disappearance. Following a visit from a doctor, Edna is found to be mostly of sound mind and without injury with the exception of a large black bruise on her chest (resembling the mold). Kay tells Sam that she plans to move Edna into a retirement home, given her self-neglect. That night, Kay awakes to find Edna sleepwalking toward the front door, whispering, "It's nothing." After being brought back to bed, Edna is convinced there is something hiding in the room and urges Kay to check under the bed; Kay sees something breathing but is distracted before she can investigate further.


title: Relic (2020 film)

text: The next day, Sam and her grandmother share a tender moment until Edna suddenly grows cold and accuses Sam of stealing from her. She snatches the ring off of Sam's finger (not remembering that she had gifted Sam this ring). Following another violent event involving Edna, Sam visits Jamie's father Alex to ask why he stopped letting Jamie visit. Alex reveals that the last time Jamie visited, the pair played hide-and-seek, however, Edna mistakenly locked Jamie in his hiding space and left him there for hours, forgetting she had even seen him that day. Back at the house, Kay follows Edna into the garden, where she finds her tearing pages from the family photo album and frantically eating them. When Kay tries to intervene, Edna bites her and storms off, attempting to bury the album in the soil, claiming it will "be safer there". Fearing something may come to get her, Edna softens and agrees to let Kay take care of her.


title: Relic (2020 film)

text: Sam discovers a hidden passageway to another part of the house. She enters but becomes lost as the corridor begins to loop. Disoriented and afraid, she resorts to screaming and banging on the walls. Edna's condition seems to have worsened again; she now glares at Kay mistrustfully, refusing to eat and wetting herself. Kay notices her mother's urine is stained black. As Edna bathes, she scratches what was once her bruise but is now rotting black flesh. The bathwater overflows and reacts with an electric heater, causing the house's power to go out. Sam travels deeper into the corridors. The ceilings slope lower, forcing her to crawl. She eventually escapes by knocking holes through the molded walls.


title: Relic (2020 film)

text: Kay finds Edna, much to her horror, picking at her rotting face with a knife. Kay and Sam flee into the passageway (hearing Edna approaching). Edna, now disfigured and physically contorted, crawls toward them. She attempts to pin down Sam before being beaten down by Kay. Wheezing, the decaying Edna gestures toward a post-it note on the floor, labelled "I AM LOVED", and smiles. Kay realises that the walls of the house are no longer rotting and returns to her corpse-like mother to carry her to bed. She helps Edna peel away the last remnants of her hair and flesh to reveal her final form, a withered rotting corpse (like the one in her nightmare). Kay and Sam then lay on the bed with Edna until she peacefully falls asleep.


title: Relic (2020 film)

text: The film ends with Sam noticing a very small black bruise on the nape of Kay's neck, resembling that of Edna's initial bruise, suggesting that in time Kay will suffer a similar fate as her mother.


title: Relic (2020 film)

text: In October 2018, Emily Mortimer, Robyn Nevin and Bella Heathcote joined the cast of the film with Natalie Erika James directing from a screenplay she co-wrote alongside Christian White. Jake Gyllenhaal and Riva Marker served as producers on the film, while Anthony Russo and Joe Russo served as executive producers under their Nine Stories Productions and AGBO banners, respectively.


title: Relic (2020 film)

text: The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on 25 January 2020. On 10 March, it was announced that IFC Midnight had acquired the North American distribution rights to the film. In the United States, it was released on 3 July 2020 in drive-in theatres and received a wide release in theatres and video on demand on 10 July.


title: Relic (2020 film)

text: "Relic" grossed $192,352 from 69 theaters in its opening weekend, finishing first among reported films. It then made $195,674 from 128 theaters in its second weekend.


title: Relic (2020 film)

text: On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average score of . The site's critics consensus reads, ""Relic" ratchets up its slowly building tension in an expertly crafted atmosphere of dread, adding up to an outstanding feature debut for director/co-writer Natalie Erika James." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 76 out of 100, based on 34 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews."


title: Relic (2020 film)

text: Justin Chang, speaking on "Fresh Air", said: "There are no shocking twists or contrivances in store in "Relic", and not a lot of gore, either. James excels at mining dread and tension from ordinary conversation, and she uses thriller conventions to get at something simple but shattering: the horror of watching a parent slowly deteriorate."


title: The Power of the Dog (Winslow novel)

text: The Power of the Dog is a 2005 crime/thriller novel by American writer Don Winslow, based on the DEA's involvement with the War on Drugs. The book was published after six years of writing and research by the author.


title: The Power of the Dog (Winslow novel)

text: Winslow's novel describes three decades of the United States' war on drugs by following several main characters: The DEA agent Art Keller; Adán Barrera, who controls large parts of the drug trade from Mexico to the United States of America; the prostitute Nora Hayden; and Sean Callan, a gangster from the streets of New York. Agent Keller becomes obsessed with the Barrera family after they torture and kill a DEA agent in Mexico. Trying to avenge his colleague, Keller discovers massive involvement of the US and the Mexican governments in drug trade operations. The CIA prevents him from taking revenge on the drug cartels to combat left-wing activists in Latin America.


title: The Power of the Dog (Winslow novel)

text: Winslow's novel exposes the brutality of the war of drugs with graphic scenes of torture and massacres. It also navigates through the inner workings of the drug trade and how different organizations collaborate to achieve their respective goals, from the Mexican drug cartels to the Vatican.


title: The Power of the Dog (Winslow novel)

text: "The Power of the Dog" starts in 1975 and follows the DEA's War on Drugs and various aspects of Operation Condor, with the CIA involvement in Contra cocaine trafficking being central to the book's plot. It also includes the 1985 Mexico City earthquake and its far-reaching consequences for Mexico, and portrays the Mexican presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio's murder in Tijuana on March 23, 1994. Aspects and some of the resolutions of the Cristero War are also mentioned.


title: The Power of the Dog (Winslow novel)

text: In 2015, 20th Century Fox paid $6 million for the film rights to both "The Power of the Dog" and its sequel, "The Cartel", with Ridley Scott producing.


title: The Power of the Dog (Winslow novel)

text: In 2015, the first sequel "The Cartel", was published. It follows Keller from 2004 to 2014 as he continues to track down Barrera after he escapes from prison. In 2019, the final book in the three-part series, "The Border," was published. It follows Keller as head of the DEA.


title: Alexander III of Scotland

text: Alexander III (Medieval ; Modern Gaelic: ; 4 September 1241 – 19 March 1286) was King of Scots from 1249 until his death. He concluded the Treaty of Perth, by which Scotland acquired sovereignty over the Western Isles and the Isle of Man. His heir, Margaret, Maid of Norway, died before she could be crowned.


title: Alexander III of Scotland

text: Alexander was born at Roxburgh, the only son of Alexander II by his second wife Marie de Coucy. Alexander's father died on 6 July 1249 and he became king at the age of seven, inaugurated at Scone on 13 July 1249.


title: Alexander III of Scotland

text: The years of his minority featured an embittered struggle for the control of affairs between two rival parties, the one led by Walter Comyn, Earl of Menteith, the other by Alan Durward, Justiciar of Scotia. The former dominated the early years of Alexander's reign. At the marriage of Alexander to Margaret of England in 1251, Henry III of England seized the opportunity to demand from his son-in-law homage for the Scottish kingdom, but Alexander did not comply. In 1255 an interview between the English and Scottish kings at Kelso led to Menteith and his party losing to Durward's party. But though disgraced, they still retained great influence, and two years later, seizing the person of the king, they compelled their rivals to consent to the erection of a regency representative of both parties.


title: Alexander III of Scotland

text: On attaining his majority at the age of 21 in 1262, Alexander declared his intention of resuming the projects on the Western Isles which the death of his father thirteen years before had cut short. He laid a formal claim before the Norwegian king Haakon. Haakon rejected the claim, and in the following year responded with a formidable invasion. Sailing around the west coast of Scotland he halted off the Isle of Arran, and negotiations commenced. Alexander artfully prolonged the talks until the autumn storms should begin. At length Haakon, weary of delay, attacked, only to encounter a terrific storm which greatly damaged his ships. The Battle of Largs (October 1263) proved indecisive, but even so, Haakon's position was hopeless. Baffled, he turned homewards, but died in Orkney on 15 December 1263. The Isles now lay at Alexander's feet, and in 1266 Haakon's successor concluded the Treaty of Perth by which he ceded the Isle of Man and the Western Isles to Scotland in return for a monetary payment. Norway retained Orkney and Shetland until 1469 when they became a dowry for James III's bride, Margaret of Denmark.


title: Alexander III of Scotland

text: Alexander had married Margaret, daughter of King Henry III of England and Eleanor of Provence, on 26 December 1251, when he was ten years old and she was eleven. She died in 1275, after they had had three children.


title: Alexander III of Scotland

text: According to the "Lanercost Chronicle", Alexander did not spend his decade as a widower alone: "he used never to forbear on account of season nor storm, nor for perils of flood or rocky cliffs, but would visit none too creditably nuns or matrons, virgins or widows as the fancy seized him, sometimes in disguise."


title: Alexander III of Scotland

text: Towards the end of Alexander's reign, the death of all three of his children within a few years made the question of the succession one of pressing importance. In 1284 he induced the Estates to recognize as his heir-presumptive his granddaughter Margaret, the "Maid of Norway". The need for a male heir led him to contract a second marriage to Yolande de Dreux on 1 November 1285.


title: Alexander III of Scotland

text: Alexander died in a fall from his horse while riding in the dark to visit the queen at Kinghorn in Fife on 19 March 1286 because it was her birthday the next day. He had spent the evening at Edinburgh Castle celebrating his second marriage and overseeing a meeting with royal advisors. He was cautioned against making the journey to Fife because of weather conditions, but crossed the Forth from Dalmeny to Inverkeithing anyway. On arriving in Inverkeithing, he insisted on not stopping for the night, despite the pleas of the nobles accompanying him and one of the burgesses of the town, Alexander Le Saucier. Le Saucier (who was either linked to the King's kitchen or the master of the local saltpans) must have been known to the King, since his rather blunt warning to the King lacks the usual deference: "My lord, what are you doing out in such weather and darkness? How many times have I tried to persuade you that midnight travelling will do you no good?"


title: Alexander III of Scotland

text: However, Alexander ignored the repeated warnings about travelling in a storm, and set off with his retinue and two local guides. The king became separated from his party near Kinghorn, and was found dead with a broken neck near the shore the following morning. It is assumed that his horse lost its footing in the dark. While some texts say that he fell off a cliff, there is none at the site where his body was found; however, there is a very steep rocky embankment, which "would have been fatal in the dark." After Alexander's death, his realm was plunged into a period of darkness that would eventually lead to war with England. He was buried in Dunfermline Abbey.


title: Alexander III of Scotland

text: As Alexander left no surviving children, the heir to the throne was his unborn child by Queen Yolande. When Yolande's pregnancy ended, probably with a miscarriage, Alexander's three-year-old granddaughter Margaret, Maid of Norway, became the heir. Margaret died, still uncrowned, on her way to Scotland in 1290. The inauguration of John Balliol as king on 30 November 1292 ended the six years of the Guardians of Scotland governing the land.


title: Alexander III of Scotland

text: The death of Alexander and the subsequent period of instability in Scotland was lamented in an early Scots poem recorded by Andrew of Wyntoun in his Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland.


title: Alexander III of Scotland

text: In 1886, a monument to Alexander III was erected at the approximate location of his death in Kinghorn.


title: Clotilda (slave ship)

text: The schooner Clotilda (often misspelled "Clotilde") was the last known U.S. slave ship to bring captives from Africa to the United States, arriving at Mobile Bay, in autumn 1859 or July 9, 1860, with 110 African men, women, and children. The ship was a two-masted schooner, long with a beam of .


title: Clotilda (slave ship)

text: U.S. involvement in the Atlantic slave trade had been banned by Congress through the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves enacted on March 2, 1807 (effective January 1, 1808), but the practice continued illegally, especially through slave traders based in New York in the 1850s and early 1860. In the case of the "Clotilda", the voyage's sponsors were based in the South and planned to buy Africans in Whydah, Dahomey. After the voyage, the ship was burned and scuttled in Mobile Bay in an attempt to destroy the evidence.


title: Clotilda (slave ship)

text: After the Civil War, Cudjo Kazoola Lewis and thirty-one other formerly enslaved people founded Africatown on the north side of Mobile, Alabama. They were joined by other continental Africans and formed a community that continued to practice many of their West African traditions and Yoruba language for decades.


title: Clotilda (slave ship)

text: A spokesman for the community, Cudjo Lewis lived until 1935 and was one of the last survivors from the "Clotilda." Redoshi, another captive on the "Clotilda", was sold to a planter in Dallas County, Alabama, where she became known also as Sally Smith. She married, had a daughter, and lived to 1937 in Bogue Chitto. She was long thought to have been the last survivor of the "Clotilda." Research published in 2020 indicated that another survivor, Matilda McCrear, lived until 1940.


title: Clotilda (slave ship)

text: Some 100 descendants of the enslaved people carried by the "Clotilda" still live in Africatown, and others are around the country. After World War II, the neighborhood was absorbed by the city of Mobile. A memorial bust of Lewis was placed in front of the historic Union Missionary Baptist Church. The Africatown historic district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012. In May 2019, the Alabama Historical Commission announced that remnants of a ship found along the Mobile River, near 12 Mile Island and just north of the Mobile Bay delta, were confirmed as the "Clotilda". The wreck site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2021.


title: Clotilda (slave ship)

text: The schooner "Clotilda", under the command of Captain William Foster and carrying a cargo of 124 Africans, arrived in Mobile Bay, Alabama, in July 1860. Captain Foster was working for Timothy Meaher, a wealthy Mobile shipyard owner and steamboat captain, who in 1855 or 1856"" had built "Clotilda", a two-masted schooner long with a beam of and a copper-sheathed hull, designed for the lumber trade.


title: Clotilda (slave ship)

text: Meaher had learned that West African tribes were at war and that the King of Dahomey (now Benin) was willing to sell enemy prisoners as slaves. Dahomey's forces had been raiding communities in the interior, bringing captives to the large slave market at the port of Ouidah. Meaher was said to have wagered another wealthy gentleman from New Orleans, that he could successfully smuggle Africans into the US despite the 1807 Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves.


title: Clotilda (slave ship)

text: Departing on March 4, 1860, Foster sailed from Mobile with a crew of 12, including himself, carrying $9,000 in gold to purchase Africans. He arrived in Whydah on May 15, 1860, where he had the ship outfitted to carry Africans, using materials he had transported. He offered to buy 125 Africans in Whydah for $100 each. said to be mostly of the "Tarkbar" tribe, taken in a raid near Tamale in present-day Ghana. Research in the 21st century suggests that they were actually Takpa people, a band of Yoruba people from the interior of present-day Nigeria.


title: Clotilda (slave ship)

text: He described meeting an African prince and being taken to the king's court, where he observed some religious practices. Foster wrote in his journal in 1860, "Having agreeably transacted affairs with the Prince we went to the warehouse where they had in confinement four thousand captives in a state of nudity from which they gave me liberty to select one hundred and twenty-five as mine offering to brand them for me, from which I preemptorily [sic] forbid; commenced taking on cargo of negroes [sic], successfully securing on board one hundred and ten."


title: Clotilda (slave ship)

text: As the captives were being loaded, Foster saw two steamers off the port and, fearing capture, ordered the crew to leave immediately, although only 110 Africans had been secured on board, leaving behind the last 15. They saw a man o' war during the ocean passage, but escaped notice when a squall came up and they outran the ship, reaching Abaco lighthouse at the Bahama banks by June 30. As they neared the United States, they disguised the schooner by taking down the "squaresail yards and the fore topmast", hoping to pass as a "coaster" carrying African captives within the US in the domestic coastal trade.


title: Clotilda (slave ship)

text: Foster's journal recorded that he anchored "Clotilda" on July 9 off Point of Pines in Grand Bay, Mississippi (likely referring to Point Aux Pins on Grand Bay in Alabama, near the Mississippi state line). He traveled overland by horse and buggy to Mobile to meet with Meaher. Fearful of criminal charges, Captain Foster brought the schooner into the Port of Mobile at night and had it towed up the Spanish River to the Alabama River at Twelve Mile Island. He transferred the African captives to a river steamboat, then burned "Clotilda" "to the water's edge" before sinking it. He paid off the crew and told them to return North.


title: Clotilda (slave ship)

text: The African captives were mostly distributed to the financial backers of the "Clotilda" venture, with Timothy Meaher retaining 30 captives on his property north of Mobile, including Cudjo (aka Cudjoe) Lewis, known as "Kossoula" or "Kazoola". Despite the racial hierarchy of the Deep South, the Africans from "Clotilda" could not be legally registered as slaves because they were smuggled in; however, they were treated as chattel. Some of the captives were sold farther away, including Redoshi (later known also as Sally Smith) and a man later known as William or Billy, whom she was forced to marry on board the ship. They were sold to Washington Smith, a planter in Dallas County, Alabama.


title: Clotilda (slave ship)

text: In 1861, the federal government prosecuted Meaher and Foster in Mobile for illegal slave importation, but the case was dismissed for lack of evidence from the ship or its manifest, and perhaps because of the outbreak of the Civil War.


title: Clotilda (slave ship)

text: Because Captain Foster reported he burned and sank "Clotilda" in the delta north of Mobile Bay, archaeological searches have continued into the 21st century for the wreck. Several visible wrecks have been referred to by locals as the slave ship. Wreckage from "Clotilda" was allegedly found in 2018, but the Alabama Historical Commission ruled out the findings because of "major differences between the two vessels," and apparent lack of any fire damage. In May 2019, the Alabama Historical Commission announced the wreck had finally been found by researcher Ben Raines, showing "physical and forensic evidence [that] powerfully suggests that this is the Clotilda."


title: Clotilda (slave ship)

text: The Africans of the "Clotilda" were effectively emancipated at the end of the Civil War. As did many freedmen, Redoshi and William stayed with their daughter at the plantation in Bogue Chitto and continued to work there.


title: Clotilda (slave ship)

text: Many of Meaher's former enslaved people returned to Magazine Point, and to land owned by Meaher on the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta just north of Mobile and on the west bank of the Mobile River. They founded the all-black community of Africatown, and attracted other ethnic Africans to join them in the independent community. They adopted community rules based on mostly Takpa tribal customs, and chose leaders, maintaining the use of their Yoruba language and cultural traditions into the 1950s.


title: Clotilda (slave ship)

text: Children born in the community began to learn English, first at church, and then in schools that were founded in the late nineteenth century. Cudjo Lewis lived until 1935 and was long thought to be the last survivor of the "Clotilda". In 2019, a new study established that Redoshi (Sally Smith) lived until 1937 in Bogue Chitto, and she was thus considered the last survivor. But in 2020 it was announced that Matilda McCrear had survived until 1940, when she died in Selma, Alabama.


title: Clotilda (slave ship)

text: The community of Africatown grew to 12,000 as new industry attracted workers to the upper river, including paper mills built after World War II. But with closing industries and job losses, the population has declined to about 2,000 in the early twenty-first century. In the postwar period, the area was mostly absorbed into a neighborhood of Mobile, with part in the neighboring town of Prichard. In 2012 the Africatown Historic District was recognized and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Their cemetery is also listed.


title: Clotilda (slave ship)

text: On January 24, 2018, reporter Ben Raines claimed to have discovered the wreck of the "Clotilda" in the lower Mobile–Tensaw Delta, a few miles north of the city of Mobile. Record low tides, caused by a storm system that produced the January 2018 North American blizzard, had left parts of a wreck visible above the mud. Based on their preliminary review, a team of archeologists said, "based on the dimensions of the wreckage and its contents... the remnants were most likely those of the slave ship." People in Africatown began to discuss what should be done with the wreckage if it was the "Clotilda", and how best to tell their story.


title: Clotilda (slave ship)

text: On March 5, 2018, Raines reported that the wreck he had discovered was not likely to be the "Clotilda". Researchers had concluded the wreckage appeared to be "simply too big, with a significant portion hidden beneath mud and deep water".


title: Clotilda (slave ship)

text: A few weeks later, Raines and a team from the University of Southern Mississippi returned to the river and performed the first survey of the 12 Mile Island section of the Mobile River. A week later, Raines and Monty Graham, head of Marine Sciences at the University of Southern Mississippi, explored several of the 11 wrecks identified in the survey, along with Joe Turner and a team from Underwater Works Dive Shop. On April 13, Ben Raines pulled up the first piece of Clotilda to see the light of day in 160 years. The coordinates and survey data were shared with the Alabama Historical Commission, which hired Search Inc., to verify the find. The discovery was kept secret for a year, until the verification process was complete.


title: Clotilda (slave ship)

text: On May 22, 2019, the Alabama Historical Commission announced that the wreckage of the "Clotilda" had been found.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: The Rules of the Game (original French title: La règle du jeu) is a 1939 French satirical comedy-drama film directed by Jean Renoir. The ensemble cast includes Nora Gregor, Paulette Dubost, Mila Parély, Marcel Dalio, Julien Carette, Roland Toutain, Gaston Modot, Pierre Magnier and Renoir.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: Renoir's portrayal of the wise, mournful Octave anchors the fatalistic mood of this pensive comedy of manners. The film depicts members of upper-class French society and their servants just before the beginning of World War II, showing their moral callousness on the eve of destruction.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: At the time, "The Rules of the Game" was the most expensive French film made: Its original budget of 2.5 million francs eventually increased to more than 5 million francs. Renoir and cinematographer Jean Bachelet made extensive use of deep-focus and long shots during which the camera is constantly moving, sophisticated cinematic techniques in 1939.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: Renoir's career in France was at its pinnacle in 1939 and "The Rules of the Game" was eagerly anticipated. However, its premiere was met with scorn and disapproval by critics and audiences. Renoir reduced the film's running time from 113 minutes to 85 but even then the film was a critical and financial disaster. In October 1939, it was banned by the wartime French government for "having an undesirable influence over the young".


title: The Rules of the Game

text: For many years, the 85-minute version was the only one available but despite this its reputation slowly grew. In 1956, boxes of original material were discovered and a reconstructed version of the film premiered that year at the Venice Film Festival, with only a minor scene from Renoir's first cut missing. Since then, "The Rules of the Game" has been called one of the greatest films in the history of cinema. Numerous film critics and directors have praised it highly, citing it as an inspiration for their own work. It is the only film to earn a place among the top ten films in the respected Sight & Sound (BFI) decennial critics' poll for every decade from the poll's inception in 1952 through the 2012 list (in 2022 it fell to #13).


title: The Rules of the Game

text: Aviator André Jurieux lands at Le Bourget Airfield outside Paris after crossing the Atlantic in his plane. He is greeted by his friend Octave, who tells André that Christine the Austrian-French noblewoman André loveshas not come to greet him. André is heartbroken. When a radio reporter comes to broadcast André's first words upon landing, he explains his sorrow and denounces Christine. She is listening to the broadcast in her Paris apartment while attended by her maid, Lisette. Christine has been married to Robert, Marquis de la Chesnaye for three years. For two years, Lisette has been married to Schumacher the gamekeeper at Robert's country estate, La Colinière in Solognebut she is more devoted to Christine than to her husband. Christine's past relationship with André is openly known by her husband, her maid and their friend Octave. After Christine and Robert playfully discuss André's emotional display and pledge devotion to one another, Robert excuses himself to make a telephone call. He arranges to meet his mistress Geneviève the next morning.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: At Geneviève's apartment, Robert says he must end their relationship but invites her to join them for a weekend retreat to La Colinière. Christine also invites her niece, Jackie. Later, Octave induces Robert to invite André to the estate as well. They joke that André and Geneviève will begin a relationship, thereby solving everyone's problems. At the estate, Schumacher is policing the grounds and trying to eliminate rabbits. Marceau a poachersneaks onto the estate to retrieve a rabbit caught in a snare. Before Marceau can escape, Schumacher catches him and begins to escort him from the property when Robert demands to know what is happening. Marceau explains that he can catch rabbits and Robert hires him as a servant. Once inside the house, Marceau flirts with Lisette. The assembled guests go on a hunt led by Schumacher, who resents Marceau. On the way back to La Colinière's castle, Robert tells Geneviève that he no longer loves her. Geneviève wants to pack up and leave but Christine persuades her to stay.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: At a masked ball, various romantic liaisons are made. André and Christine declare their love for each other and plan to run away together. Marceau pursues Lisette, and the jealous Schumacher is upset. Robert and André come to an argument over Christine. In the secluded greenhouse, Octave declares that he too loves Christinewho is now having doubts about Andréand they decide to run away together. Schumacher and Marceau, who have both been expelled from the estate by Robert after a fight over Lisette, watch Octave and Christine in the greenhouse. As in Beaumarchais's "Marriage of Figaro," the literary basis for Mozart's opera, they mistake Christine for Lisette because Christine is wearing Lisette's cape and hood. Octave returns to the house for his coat and hat, where Lisette begs him not to leave with Christine.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: Breaking his promise to Christine, Octave meets André and sends him out to Christine in the greenhouse, lending him his overcoat, which causes André's death. When André reaches the greenhouse wearing Octave's coat, Schumacher mistakes him for Octave, who he thinks is trying to run off with his wife, and shoots him dead.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: In the closing moments of the film, Octave and Marceau walk away into the night as Robert brings Schumacher back into the household and explains that he would report the killing to the authorities as nothing more than an unfortunate accident.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: In 1938 the French film industry was booming, and Renoir was at the height of his career. He had had three consecutive hit films and "La Grande Illusion" had won awards from the New York Film Critics, the National Board of Review and the Venice Film Festival. The financial success of "La Bête Humaine" made it easy for Renoir to secure enough financial backing to form his own production company. In 1938 he founded Nouvelle Édition Française (NEF) with his brother Claude Renoir, together with André Zwoboda, Oliver Billiou and Camille Francois. All five invested 10,000 francs into the company and intended to produce two films per year. The company was modeled after the American film production company United Artists, which was formed in 1919 as a film distribution company for independent artists by Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, D.W. Griffith and Mary Pickford. Renoir rallied his friends in the film industry around the company and got financial support from René Clair, Julien Duvivier, Jean Gabin and Simone Simon. NEF's headquarters on the Rue la Grange-Batelière was sublet from Marcel Pagnol's production company. On December 8, 1938 Georges Cravenne published a press release in "Paris-Soir" announcing that Renoir and Pagnol were about to sign an agreement to procure a large theatre where they would publicly screen "the films that they would direct from then on". "The Rules of the Game" was the only film produced by the company.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: In May 1938, Renoir completed the historical drama "La Marseillaise" and wanted to make a comedy. He was anxious about the Munich agreement and the strong possibility of another world war, and wanted to film a "happy dream" to subdue his pessimism. He wrote a synopsis for a film titled "Les Millions d'Arlequin", which had characters similar to those in "The Rules of the Game". When conceiving the film, Renoir was inspired by classical French art, such as the works of Pierre de Marivaux, Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais and especially Alfred de Musset's "Les Caprices de Marianne". Renoir initially intended to adapt the classic French play "Les Caprices de Marianne"; NEF first announced the film as an adaptation of it. Renoir later said he never intended to directly adapt "Les Caprices de Marianne" but only to re-read it and other classics of French literature for inspiration.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: After returning from lecturing in London in January 1939, Renoir left Paris to work on a script. He told a reporter that his next film would be "A precise description of the bourgeois of our age." Renoir, Carl Koch and Zwoboda went to Marlotte to work on the script. Because Renoir wanted to allow the actors to improvise their dialogue, only one-third of the film was scripted and the rest was a detailed outline. Renoir later said that his "ambition when I made the film was to illustrate this remark: we are dancing on a volcano". Renoir called the film a "divertissement" for its use of baroque music and aspects of classical French comedies. Renoir's initial inspiration by "Les Caprices de Marianne" led to the film's four main characters correlating with those of the play; a virtuous wife, a jealous husband, a despairing lover and an interceding friend. In both the play and the film the interceding friend is named Octave. Octave is also the only one of the four characters inspired by the play that shares traits with its counterpart. In both works, Octave is a "sad clown" full of self-doubt and self-pity. The characters' names constantly changed between versions of the script; Renoir said that in an early draft, André Jurieux was an orchestra conductor rather than an aviator.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: Renoir originally wanted the entire cast of "La bête humaine"including Fernand Ledoux, Simone Simon, Jean Gabin and Julien Carettefor the film. Gabin was offered the role of André but rejected it and accepted a role in Marcel Carné's "Le jour se lève" instead. He was replaced by Roland Toutain. Simon was offered the role of Christine but wanted 800,000 francs, which was a third of the film's entire budget. Simon's salary request was vetoed by NEF administrator Camille François. Ledoux was offered the role of Schumacher. He was married to Simon at the time; he declined when her salary request was denied and instead took a role in Maurice Tourneur's "Volpone". He was replaced by Gaston Modot. Claude Dauphin was offered the role of the Marquis de la Chesnaye; he refused it and instead acted with Simon in Raymond Bernard's "Cavalcade d'amour". Renoir then cast Marcel Dalio as the Marquis. Years later, Dalio asked Renoir why he had been cast after having typically played burlesque or traitorous roles. Renoir told Dalio that he was the opposite of the cliché of what a Marquis was and that Dalio was the only actor he knew that could portray the character's insecurity. Renoir's brother Pierre was cast as Octave, and Carette was cast as Marceau.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: Francois suggested newly famous stage actress Michele Alfa for the role of Christine, and Renoir went with his wife Marguerite and Zwobada to see her perform in a play. While at the play Renoir noticed Nora Gregor in a box seat in the audience and asked about her during the intermission. He learned that Gregor was the wife of Prince Ernst Rudiger von Stahremberg, an Austrian nobleman. Renoir became friends with Gregor and her husband, getting to know them over several dinners in Paris. Stahremberg was forced to resign his leadership role in the Heimwehra paramilitary fascist partybecause Gregor was Jewish and he was anti-fascist. When Germany annexed Austria in March 1938 Gregor and Stahremberg fled to France. Renoir said they were "in a state of great disarray. Everything they believed in was collapsing." Gregor was an actress from the Viennese "Burgtheater" and had appeared in some films, including Carl Theodor Dreyer's "Michael". Gregor's first husband had been the concert pianist Mitja Nikisch, son of the renowned conductor Arthur Nikisch of the Leipzig Opera and according to film theorist Charles Drazin, a possible inspiration for some characteristics of Octave.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: Despite objections from his NEF colleagues, Renoir hired Gregor for the role of Christine. She was older than the original character, and he made changes to the character based on Gregor's personality and on their dinner conversations, such as making Christine the daughter of an Austrian conductor. Many of Renoir's friends believed he fell in love with Gregor shortly after casting her. Zwoboda said Gregor had "that which Renoir loved above all; an incontestable class, a style, the gestures and bearing of a great distinction". Renoir said he cast Gregor because of her Austrian accent, which he believed would create "a little barrier ... between her and her surroundings" and because of her appearance, which he considered "birdlike" and "sincere".


title: The Rules of the Game

text: Renoir finished casting the remaining roles by late January 1939. When asked who the main character of the film was, Renoir answered: "There isn't any! My conception at the beginningand at the endwas to make a "film d'ensemble", a film representing a society, a group of persons, almost a whole class, and not a film of personal affairs."


title: The Rules of the Game

text: Filming for exterior scenes set in the country began on February 15, 1939, in Sologne and outside the Chateau de la Ferté-Saint-Aubin. Renoir later said he chose Sologne because his father Pierre-Auguste Renoir "regretted that he had never been able to paint [it]. How well I understand the sincerity of those regrets before these beautiful landscapes of Sologne, in astonishing colors, of a grace so melancholy yet so gentle." Renoir said Sologne's mist "took me back to the happy days of my childhood."


title: The Rules of the Game

text: The cast and crew arrived in Sologne between February 6 and 15. Renoir's son Alain worked as an assistant camera operator and Dido Freire worked as the script girl. Renoir's assistants on the film were Koch, Zwobada and Henri Cartier-Bresson. Tony Corteggianni was hired as a technical advisor for the rabbit hunting sequence. The cast and crew stayed at Hotel Rat in Lamotte-Beuvron. Heavy rainfall prevented the start of shooting in Sologne for several weeks and Renoir rewrote parts of the script to accommodate the rain. While he finished the script the entire company played cards and bonded; they described it as a happy time in their lives just before the horrors of World War II began. Paulette Dubost said shooting the film was great fun.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: The delays caused Pierre Renoir to pull out of the film because of prior commitments to stage plays in Paris. Renoir then asked Michel Simon to play Octave but Simon was busy with other projects. Renoir finally cast himself, later saying that he "was just waiting for the moment when Pierre would say 'Why don't you play the role yourself, Jean?' He didn't have to ask me twice." He added that after having gained experience and confidence as a director his "most stubborn dream has been to be an actor." Renoir rewrote the role of Octave to better suit himself since he and Pierre were physically and personally very different.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: To raise additional funding for the over-running production, Zwoboda had used the success of "La Bête Humaine" to sell advanced screening rights in large theatres to Jean Jay, the director of the Gaumont Film Company. When shooting in Sologne finally began progress was slow because of the constant improvisations of the actorswhich Renoir encouragedand Gregor's struggles with her role. Jay visited the set and was unhappy with the slow progress and with Renoir's performance. The cast and crew however admired Renoir and enjoyed the carefree atmosphere on set, forgetting about the impending political situation. The cast's improvisations caused some changes from the original script. Christine was initially written as a bored, upper class bourgeois whose main preoccupation was planning parties, but Renoir amended this to accommodate Gregor's acting. Renoir also cut most of the references to Christine's conductor father Stiller, such as his relationship with the Marquis. The Marquis was initially written as a patron of the arts and music instead of a collector of music boxes.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: Journalists often visited the set and wrote positively about the production. The film was shot almost chronologically in Sologne and again in Joinville, Val-de-Marne, which Renoir considered important for the actors' performances. Renoir said he did not need to do much directing since the actors were so involved in their roles. When directing himself, Renoir arranged the performers movements first then acted in the scenes. Jay pushed Renoir to finish filming in Sologne and move the production to sets erected at the Pathé studios in Joinville. Renoir finally agreed and left Zwobada, Cortegganni and Cartier-Bresson in Sologne to shoot B-roll footage of the rabbit hunting sequence. Hundreds of animals were killed during filming and local people were used as stand-ins for the actors.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: Filming on the sets in Joinville continued at a slow pace. Renoir would often film fifteen to twenty takes of individual shots and change dialogue on the set, making previous takes useless. Film historian Joel Finler said the film "truly "evolved"" during its making, as Renoir worked on writing and rewriting the script, balancing and rebalancing the characters and relationships, plots and subplots." Cartier-Bresson said the improvisation during filming was like a jam session; both cast and crew members were encouraged to suggest ideas and dialogue would often change on the morning of the shoot.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: On March 16, 1939, Germany invaded Czechoslovakia, breaking the Munich Agreement, which caused the French Army to start mobilizing in anticipation of a coming war. Shortly afterwards, several of the film's electricians and technicians left to join the army. Set designer Eugène Lourié left because he was Jewish and a communist, and Max Douy took over as the film's set designer.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: During filming, Renoir became disappointed by Gregor's performance. He began to cut her scenes and add new scenes for Paulette Dubost and Mila Parély. Film historian Gerald Mast found Gregor's performance to be "as haunting and bewitching as a plastic giraffe." During production, Jay told Renoir he hated his performance as Octave. Renoir offered to replace himself with Michel Simon, but Jay refused because two-thirds of the film had already been shot. Jay asked Renoir to instead remove Octave's scenes, which had not yet been shot. Renoir refused, and throughout shooting he added new scenes for Octave. Shooting in Joinville finally wrapped in May 1939; the film was over schedule and the rented soundstage was needed for other films. Renoir originally wanted to release the film in June because the potential war would make a post-summer release impossible.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: Renoir continued shooting additional scenes with some of the actors. The opening scene at the airfield was shot in mid-June at the Bourget Airport in the middle of the night with whatever extras they could find. Renoir almost ran out of money when he filmed the car crash scene, which was shot very quickly with Alain Renoir as the camera operator. Renoir never liked the scene and initially removed it. The principal photography was nine and a half weeks over schedule when it finally wrapped in June.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: Despite beginning the shoot in love with Gregor, Renoir's infatuation remained unrequited. During the film's production, he ended his relationship with his common-law wife Marguerite and began another with script girl Dido Freire, whom he had known for 12 years and was Alain Renoir's nanny. Eventually Dido married Renoir.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: Renoir edited the film while shooting; his first cut was three hours long. He and editor Marguerite completed a 113-minute final cut of the film in July 1939. Jay hated it and demanded that Renoir make cuts, including the excision of Renoir's entire performance as Octave. Renoir refused to completely omit Octave but agreed to remove 13 minutes from the film.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: "The Rules of the Game" was the most expensive film produced in France when it was released. Its original budget had been 2.5 million francs (which already made it the most expensive French film of that year) and was increased by another 2 million francs, costing over 5 million francs total.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: The film had an elaborate advertising campaign that began one week before its release in anticipation of it becoming another hit film for Renoir. This campaign included a promotional crossword puzzle published three days before the film's opening night; the prize for solving the puzzle was free tickets.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: The first preview screening of the 113-minute version of "The Rules of the Game" took place on June 28, 1939. It received a poor reaction from the audience. On June 29, the film was screened for the Minister of National Education and Fine Arts Jean Zay and for the jury of the annual Louis Delluc Prize for the best French film. When the awards were announced 10 days later, Marcel Carne's "Le Quai des brumes" won the first prize and "The Rules of the Game" was not a runner-up. Because of the success and popularity of Renoir's previous films, "The Rules of the Game" was highly anticipated, and Zay had expected to award it the prize. Renoir later said he thought the film would be commercially successful.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: "The Rules of the Game" premiered on Friday, July 7, 1939, at the Colisée Theatre in Paris to a full house and later at the Aubert Palace also in Paris. It was shown on a double bill with a patriotic documentary about French history. The audience at the screening consisted of members of the right-wing organisations, who booed after a while into the screening; Paulette Dubost said people at the screening fought, and one person tried to set fire to the theater. Renoir said he "depicted pleasant, sympathetic characters, but showed them in a society in the process of disintegration, so that they were defeated at the onset ... the audience recognized this. The truth is that they recognized themselves. People who commit suicide do not care to do it in front of witnesses."


title: The Rules of the Game

text: In France, film attendance was typically low in July; "The Rules of the Game" ended its run at the Colisée Theatre after three weeks because of poor attendance. It later was shown at the Aubert-Palace in Paris. Renoir said of the attendance "I was utterly dumbfounded when it became apparent that the film, which I wanted to be a pleasant one, rubbed most people the wrong way." Renoir initially wanted to screen the film at the 1939 World's Fair in New York City, but this idea was abandoned after the disastrous release in France.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: Claude Gauteur surveyed reviews of "The Rules of the Game" published in Paris and said 12 were "unqualifiedly unfavorable", 13 were "favorable with reservations", and 10 were "favorable." Many reviews criticized the film for being "unpatriotic, frivolous and incomprehensible." One mixed review came from Nino Frank of "Pour Vous", who called it "a copious work, even too much so, very complex and profoundly intelligent from one end to the other." "Le Figaro" called it a "bizarre spectacle" which was "one long succession of errors ... a heavy-handed fantasy with wooly dialogue." In the 1943 edition of "Histoire du cinéma", Robert Brasillach wrote that "The Rules of the Game" was among Renoir's most "jumbled" and "confused" films but applauded the biting satire, which he considered "Proustian." Brasillach also praised the technical variation employed by the director and said the film was an unrealized masterpiece. In the United States, a negative review from "Variety" said Renoir "attempts to crowd too many ideas into 80 minutes of film fare, resulting in confusion." According to François Truffaut, the film was very disconcerting to audiences at the time because of its peculiar atmosphere, which explains its commercial failure.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: While the film received mostly unfavorable reviews, most critics praised the actingincluding Renoir's, and only the far right-wing press criticized Marcel Dalio's performance. In July 1939 a right-wing French newspaper criticized the film for portraying the Jewish Marquis married to the Austrian Christine. The Union Sacrée, a French clerical fascist group, organized demonstrations wherever the film was screened. Renoir was a known pacifist and supporter of the Communist Party, which made him unpopular in the tense weeks before World War II began. Years later Renoir said "there was no question of contrivance; my enemies had nothing to do with its failure. At every session I attended I could feel the unanimous disapproval of the audience."


title: The Rules of the Game

text: In the weeks that followed the premiere, Renoir reduced the film's running time from its original 113 minutes to 100 minutes, then to 90 minutes and finally to 85 minutes. He told Margurite Renoir and Zwobada to cut the scenes that the audience had found the most upsetting. Renoir said he mostly cut his own scenes or dialogue "as though I were ashamed, after this rebuff, of showing myself on the screen." He later defended his own performance as being awkwardthe way Octave should have been. The reduction in length removed Octave's complexity and completely changed the character's motives at the end of the film. In the 85-minute version, Octave does not intend to run away with Christine and merely lends André his coat for warmth before sending him out to the greenhouse. The omission of this item in the plot resulted in the misconception that the film has an alternative ending; this was first reported by Roger Manvell after he watched it at its London premiere in 1946. At one point, Jean Jay told Renoir to restore the film to the 100-minute version "to avoid commercial disaster", but none of the shorter versions improved its reception or attendance figures. When asked about the film's poor reception with audience members, Renoir said "I thought I was gentle with them, and they thought I was laughing at them."


title: The Rules of the Game

text: In October 1939 "The Rules of the Game" officially was banned in France for being "depressing, morbid, immoral [and] having an undesirable influence over the young." Other films that were similarly banned included Marcel Carné's "Le Quai des brumes" and "Le Jour Se Lève". The Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated "we are especially anxious to avoid representations of our country, our traditions, and our race that changes its character, lie about it, and deform it through the prism of an artistic individual who is often original but not always sound." "The Marriage of Figaro", one of the inspirations for the film, had been banned for similar reasons. After the end of World War II, the 85-minute version of the film was re-released in Paris on September 26, 1945, and it was banned again.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: Renoir said that of all his films, "The Rules of the Game" was the biggest failure at the time of its release. He also said its failure "so depressed me that I resolved to either give up the cinema or to leave France." During shooting, Renoir was offered the chance to film an adaptation of "Tosca" by Italian producers; he agreed to the deal on July 14, 1939, and saw it as an opportunity to leave France. Renoir and Carl Koch traveled to Rome on August 10 for pre-production, but had to leave on August 23 after the German-Soviet pact made his French citizenship an issue. Koch directed the film instead and Renoir emigrated to Hollywood.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: In 1942, during one of the Allied bombings of Boulogne-sur-Seine, the G.M. Film Lab, which housed the original negative of "The Rules of the Game", was destroyed. In 1946, a print of the 85-minute version was found in a box, and a new print was made from it. This version was occasionally screened at film clubs, cinematheques and film festivals, and its reputation slowly began to grow. It finally premiered in New York City in April 1950, but it was critically unsuccessful. A review in "The New York Times" called it "one for the buzzards" and stated "the master has dealt his admirers a pointless, thudding punch below the belt." In 1952, the 85-minute version was included in "Sight & Sound" inaugural list of the 10 greatest films ever made.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: In 1956, film enthusiasts Jean Gaborit and Jacques Maréchal founded the Société des Grands Films Classiques, a film restoration company focused on neglected films. "The Rules of the Game" was one of the company's early restorations; Gaborit and Maréchal persuaded Camille François to sell them the rights to the film. With François' help, they discovered records that led to 224 boxes that had been found at the bombed G.M. Film Lab site. These boxes included negative prints, duplicated prints, and sound mixes of the film. With the help and advice of Renoir and Jacques Durand, Gaborit and Maréchal restored most of the cut footage from Renoir's original version and assembled a 106-minute version of the film.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: In mid-1959, Renoir saw the reconstructed version of the film for the first time and left the theater in tears. He said "there is only one scene missing in this re-construction, a scene that isn't very important. It's a scene with me and Roland Toutain that deals with the maids' sexual interest." The restored version premiered at the 1959 Venice Film Festival, where it was called a masterpiece. Claude Chabrol, Alain Resnais and Louis Malle were all in attendance and publicly called Renoir their master while praising the reconstructed version of the film. In 1961 Howard Thompson of "The New York Times" stated the film "completely justified its European reputation ... [it is] a memorable experience." Archer Winsten of the "New York Post" praised the film for "showing the corruption of French society from top to bottom" and a "New York Herald Tribune" review called it "a satire on French society ... a sharp criticism of social pretenses." The reconstructed version of the film was exhibited in France on April 23, 1965. It won the 1966 Bodil Award for Best Non-American Film/Best European Film (Bedste europæiske film) in Denmark.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: "The Rules of the Game" is remembered as a commentary on the moral callousness of the European upper class and their servants just before World War II. While making the film, Renoir knew a new world war was coming; he later said there was a sense of it in film, and wrote "it is a war film and yet there is no reference to the war". This sense of doom began just before shooting started in January when Barcelona fell to Franco and throughout the production when Prime Minister of France Édouard Daladier recognized Francoist Spain, Italy annexed Albania and Adolf Hitler prepared his Invasion of Poland. Renoir articulated this unmentioned theme of the film by saying:


title: The Rules of the Game

text: what is interesting about this film, perhaps, is the moment when it was made. It was shot between Munich and the war, and I shot it absolutely impressed, absolutely disturbed by the state of mind of a part of French society, a part of English society, a part of world society. And it seemed to me that a way of interpreting this state of mind, to the world hopefully, was not to talk of that situation, but tell a frivolous story. I looked for inspiration to Beaumarchais, to Marivaux, to the classical authors of comedy.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: Renoir wanted to depict people as they truly were at that point in history; he said "The Rules of the Game" was "a reconstructed documentary, a documentary on the condition of a society at a given moment". He believed this depiction was the reason behind the film's disastrous premiere, saying "the audience's reaction was due to my candour". "The Marriage of Figaro", an inspiration for the film, had also been considered controversial for its attack on the class system. "The Rules of the Game" remained controversial with the French public shortly after World War II when it was once again banned. Renoir's biographer Ronald Bergan said the film hit a raw nerve with the public by depicting "people, who might have had an influence in shaping the world, [but] did nothing to prevent an advance of Fascism; some of whom, indeed, actually welcomed it".


title: The Rules of the Game

text: The rabbit hunt scene is often compared to the senseless death that occurs during war; Renoir said he wanted to show a certain class of people killing for no reason. Renoir himself had never killed an animal and called hunting "an abominable exercise in cruelty". Bergan saw the analogy to world events and wrote "in the great set piece of the hunt, the callous cruelty of the guests is laid bare as they fire at any rabbit and bird that moves after the beaters have led the game to slaughter".


title: The Rules of the Game

text: The film's most-quoted line of dialogue, spoken by Octave, is "You see, in this world, there is one awful thing, and that is that everyone has his reasons". Renoir's sentiment of objective humanism for the film's characters is articulated by Octave's remark and shows his empathy for the people he was simultaneously criticizing. Richard Roud praised Renoir's role in the film, observing that Renoir's honesty compelled him to include his own role in his social criticism: "he did not wish to stand outside. And Renoir/Octave serves as the standard against which reality and fiction can be measured." In his original outline for the film, Renoir said he intended all the characters to be sincere and that the film would have no villains.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: Renoir said André was "the victim, who, trying to fit into a world in which he does not belong, fails to respect the rules of the game", and that André thought he could shatter the rules by a world flight, while Christine thought she could do the same by following her heart. The "rules" of the film's title are its only villain. Renoir said "the world is made up of cliques ... Each of these cliques has its customs, its mores, indeed, its own language. To put it simply, each has its rules, and these rules determine the game." Renoir said all human activity is "subject to social protocols that are less apparent than, but just as strict as, those practiced by Louis XIV." Renoir's son Alain said the film continues to be relevant and popular because it shows the artificial joy of the modern age in contrast to the rules of that (or any) age.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: Filming Émile Zola's "La Bête Humaine" inspired Renoir to "make a break, and perhaps get away from naturalism completely, to try to touch on a more classical, more poetic genre." While shooting, Renoir began listening to baroque music by Louis Couperin, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Jean-Baptiste Lully and André Grétry. He later said "Little by little, my idea took shape and the subject got simpler. I kept living on baroque rhythms, and after a few more days, the subject became more and more precise." He also said he began imagining Simone Simon "moving to the spirit of the music." This preoccupation with baroque music during filming led to Renoir's original idea of adapting "Les Caprices de Marianne" into a film.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: "The Rules of the Game" is known for its early and elaborate use of deep focus cinematography. Renoir said he and his cinematographer Jean Bachelet "ordered some special lenses, very fast lenses, but ones that still gave us considerable depth, so that we could keep our backgrounds in focus almost all the time." This depth of field in his shots allowed Renoir to shoot in large rooms and long corridors in the chateau sequences, and characters were able to move freely between the background and the foreground. Approximately half of the shots in the film have camera movements. In many shots the camera moves, stops in place, changes direction and circles around the subjects. Film critic David Thomson said "one has the impression of a camera that is always moving to cover as much as possible. One does not notice cuts, one delights in a continuity which is often on the verge of chaos and finally leads to tragedy in the intrusion of subplot into plot, of the theatrical into the real and of disaster into balances."


title: The Rules of the Game

text: Renoir used few close-ups or reverse shots and most of the shots are two shots. The hunt scene differs from the rest of the film; it uses rapid editing whereas most of the film uses long takes of dialogue or action. Renoir wanted to shoot the film in color to take advantage of the beauty of Sologne in the winter but he was unable to secure funding from Jean Jay. One week before filming began Renoir tried to persuade Technicolor to fund the color cinematography but the company refused.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: The sound in the film was complex for its time; it included dialogue spoken over ambient noises such as crowds at the airport and gunfire during the hunt. Film director Jean Prat said the film's soundtrack was "of a perfection never equaled by any French film." Characters often talk at once or talk over each other's lines. One example of the dense soundtrack is the party scene, which includes dialogue over screams, gunfire and music. Except for the opening credits and the very end of the film, all of the music heard in the film is incidental. The sound engineer was Joseph de Bretagne. Music used in the film includes Mozart's "Three German Dances", Monsigny's "Le déserteur", Louis Byrec, Léon Garnier and Eugène Rimbault's "", Strauss's "Die Fledermaus", Saint-Saëns's "Danse macabre", Chopin's "Minute Waltz" and Scotto's "À Barbizon". The music was arranged by Joseph Kosma and Roger Désormière.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: The film's set designers Eugène Lourié and Max Douy built one of the most expensive sets in French film history at the Joinville Studio. According to Douy they were based on the script and were not reproductions of the interior of Chateau de la Ferté-Saint-Aubin, where exterior scenes were shot. The music boxes used in the film were borrowed from several sources and some are now in a museum in Neuilly-sur-Seine. Renoir thought the musical organ scene and Dalio's performance in it was the best scene he had ever filmed. He shot the scene several times before he was satisfied with it. The costumes for the film were designed by Coco Chanel.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: Since its restoration, "The Rules of the Game" has come to be regarded by many film critics and directors as one of the greatest films of all time. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 96% based on 52 reviews, with an average rating of 9.50/10. The website's consensus reads, "Its genius escaped many viewers at the time, but in retrospect, "The Rules of the Game" stands as one of Jean Renoir's—and cinema's—finest works." The decennial poll of international critics by "Sight & Sound" magazine ranked it #10 in 1952, elevated it to No. 3 in 1962, and #2 in 1972, 1982 and 1992. In 2002 it fell to No. 3 behind "Citizen Kane" and "Vertigo". In 2012, it fell to No. 4, behind "Vertigo", "Citizen Kane", and "Tokyo Story". It is the only film to have been included on every top ten list since 1952. "Empire" magazine ranked at number 13 in its list of "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010. In "Le Figaro" 2008 list of the greatest films ever made it tied for second with "The Night of the Hunter", behind "Citizen Kane". In 2018 the film ranked fifth on the BBC's list of the 100 greatest foreign-language films, as voted on by 209 film critics from 43 countries.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: Critics and directors who have placed it on their "Sight & Sound" lists include Richard Peña, Michel Ciment, David Denby, Lawrence Kasdan, Steve McQueen and Paul Schrader. Schrader said the film "has it all ... [it] represents all that film can be." Martin Scorsese included it on a list of "39 Essential Foreign Films for a Young Filmmaker." French film critic André Bazin praised the film's mobile cinematographic style; he said its depth of field and deep focus "mise-en-scène" resembled that seen in "Citizen Kane" and "The Best Years of Our Lives."


title: The Rules of the Game

text: Many contemporary film critics have written favorably about the film. It has been hailed as a masterpiece by Kent Jones, Adolf Heinzlmeier, Berndt Schulz and Penelope Gilliatt, who said it was "not only a masterpiece of filmmaking, not only a great work of humanism in a perfect rococo frame, but also an act of historical testimony." Its themes have been analyzed by film scholar and Renoir's biographer Leo Braudy, who observed that the film "embodies a social world in which there are rules but no values. If you don't know the rules, you are crushed; but if you do know the rules you are cut off from your own nature." Dudley Andrew described the film's "complex social criticism" while Kenneth Browser and Peter Cowie wrote about its sense of humanity. Other critics have written about the film's darker themes; Andrew Sarris praised its depiction of class differences. The complexity of Renoir's storytelling techniques have been examined by Roger Ebert, who called it "so simple and so labyrinthine, so guileless and so angry, so innocent and so dangerous, that you can't simply watch it, you have to absorb it", Lucy Sante, who labeled it "a dense clockwork mechanism" and Robin Wood, who said the film "operates on all levels." Critics have praised its farcical elements: Pauline Kael characterized it as "a great satirical comedy, a dance of death" and Gerald Mast wrote "[it] depicts the failure of love, the failure of society, and the failure of men to rise above the ridiculous. Their only success is that they try and they care." David Thomson praised Renoir's performance and remarked on "Renoir's admission that the director, supposedly the authoritative and manipulating figure, is as much victim as originator of circumstances." Amy Taubin said "I can think of no other film that is as unfailingly generousto its audience, its characters, its actors, the milieu and the medium." J. Hoberman wrote about its influence on Woody Allen, Robert Altman and Mike Leigh.


title: The Rules of the Game

text: The film especially was appreciated by filmmakers and film critics associated with the French New Wave movement. Bazin said "as a conventional love story, the film could have been a success if the scenario had respected the rules of the movie game. But Renoir wanted to make his own style of "drame gai" [merry drama], and the mixture of genres proved disconcerting to the public." Film critic Claude Beylie called it "the cornerstone of the work of Jean Renoir, the point of arrival and the swan song of the French cinema of the thirties ..."The Rules of the Game" is a rare combination of satire, vaudeville and tragedy." It was a major source of inspiration for Alain Resnais, who said seeing the film was "the single most overwhelming experience I have ever had at the cinema";and Louis Malle, who said "for all of us, my generation of French filmmakers, "La Règle du jeu" was the absolute masterpiece." François Truffaut articulated the film's enormous influence and said "it isn't an accident that "The Rules of the Game" inspired a large number of young people who had first thought of expressing themselves as novelists to take up careers as filmmakers." He also said "It is the credo of movie lovers, the film of films, the film most hated when it was made and most appreciated afterwards, to the extent that it ultimately became a true commercial success."


title: The Rules of the Game

text: Satyajit Ray called it "a film that doesn't wear its innovations on its sleeve ... Humanist? Classical? "Avant-Garde"? Contemporary? I defy anyone to give it a label. This is the kind of innovation that appeals to me." Other notable filmmakers who have praised it include Bernardo Bertolucci, Wim Wenders, Peter Bogdanovich, Noah Baumbach and Cameron Crowe. Henri Cartier-Bresson, who worked on the film before beginning a long career as a photojournalist, called it "one of the summits of art and a premonition of everything that was to happen in the world." Robert Altman said ""The Rules of the Game" taught me the rules of the game."


title: The Rules of the Game

text: Altman's "Gosford Park" is similar to "The Rules of the Game" in many of its plot elements, including the relationship between wealthy people and their servants as well as the hunting sequence. Italian film critic Francis Vanoye stated "The Rules of the Game" has influenced numerous films that feature a group of characters who spend a short time together at a party or gatheringoften while hunting animalsduring which their true feelings about each other are revealed. Along with "Gosford Park", these films include Jean Grémillon's "Summer Light", Ingmar Bergman's "Smiles of a Summer Night", Carlos Saura's "The Hunt", Peter Fleischmann's "Hunting Scenes from Bavaria", Nikita Mikhalkov's "An Unfinished Piece for a Player Piano", Theo Angelopoulos's "The Hunters" and Denys Arcand's "The Decline of the American Empire". Paul Bartel's "Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills" and Lawrence Kasdan's "The Big Chill" have also been compared to "The Rules of the Game".


title: Guzaarish (film)

text: Guzaarish () is a 2010 Indian Hindi-language romantic drama film written, composed and directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. The film stars Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan while Shernaz Patel, Aditya Roy Kapur, Monikangana Dutta, Suhel Seth, Swara Bhaskar, and Makrand Deshpande portray pivotal roles. It is jointly produced by Bhansali and UTV Motion Pictures. Sudeep Chatterjee handled Cinematography and editing was performed by Hemal Kothari.


title: Guzaarish (film)

text: The film narrates the story of a paralyzed magician-turned-Radio jockey who files a petition in court seeking permission to end his life. The film was released on 19 November 2010 to positive reviews from critics, who praised the direction, cinematography, and performances, particularly of Roshan, and Rai. It is believed to be Roshan's underrated yet crucially career best performance for his strong emotional portrayal of the character. However, veteran Indian writer Dayanand Rajan claimed that the plot of the film was plagiarised from his unpublished novel "Summer Snow".


title: Guzaarish (film)

text: "Guzaarish" is the third film to feature Roshan opposite Rai after "Dhoom 2" and "Jodhaa Akbar".The film received nominations for direction, music and performances of the lead actors, notably Roshan and Rai being nominated under Filmfare Award for Best Actor and Filmfare Award for Best Actress category respectively as well as both critics and popular choice awards at other functions.


title: Guzaarish (film)

text: Ethan Mascarenhas is a former magician who is a quadriplegic. He becomes the Radio Jockey of an FM Station called Radio Zindagi. His show spreads magic, hope, and laughter through his irrepressible wit and humor to every listener and caller, making it difficult to imagine that this is a man who has been immobilized with a spinal injury for the last fourteen years. His nurse, Sofia D'Souza, has been accompanying him for the past twelve years.


title: Guzaarish (film)

text: On the fourteenth anniversary of his accident, Ethan decides to file an appeal to the court for mercy killing. Ethan takes the help of his best friend and lawyer, Devyani Dutta, to support his appeal. Devyani understands Ethan's appeal and agrees to his reasoning and decides to support him in his cause. Surprising everyone with her stance, Ethan's mother Isabel Mascarenhas also supports him in his petition, backing her son's demand. Ethan's physician, Dr. Nayak, who has consistently persuaded him to retract his case, finally relents to Ethan's appeal when he realizes that the friend in him is much stronger than the medic. Meanwhile, a young man named Omar Siddiqui enters Ethan's life to learn magic from him as he considers him to be the greatest of magicians. Impressed by his love for magic, Ethan agrees to pass on his legacy to Omar. Later, Omar confesses to Ethan that he is the son of Yassar Siddiqui, who happens to be responsible for causing Ethan’s accident. Ethan knew of this the entire time, yet that didn't come in the way of passing his legacy to Omar.


title: Guzaarish (film)

text: On the day of verdict Ethan's plea is rejected by the court, saying the legal code of the country cannot be violated in any circumstance. Ethan spends his time alone in his empty home, while Sofia was taken by her husband. When Sofia returns, she confesses to Ethan that she got the divorce and tells him that she will help with his euthanasia, whatever the consequences be as Ethan means more to her. On hearing her words, Ethan realizes how much Sofia loves him. He proposes to her and Sofia agrees.


title: Guzaarish (film)

text: Ethan throws a farewell party for their friends and guests, where Ethan speaks about everyone who has meant very dear to him and finally tells everyone about his and Sofia's love. Ethan says that he will be dying a happy man with no regrets and a heart full of Sofia's love, and bids all goodbye. At these words, all the guests embrace him, with Ethan laughing heartily.


title: Guzaarish (film)

text: Bhansali first told media about his next directorial venture, when he gave an interview to the Indo-Asian News Service (IANS). In the interview he said that he had decided to call his film, "Guzaarish", which is set to be shot in Goa.


title: Guzaarish (film)

text: Bhansali was on the lookout for a mature couple for the portrayal of his lead roles in "Guzaarish". After watching their films Dhoom 2 and Jodhaa Akbar, both of which had starred both Rai and Roshan, Bhansali decided that the pair exuded a dignity and elegance much needed for his film. Though Rai had agreed to the script without even reading it, Roshan was all set to say no to the film. Amita Sehgal, Casting Director, hired other actors including Shernaz Patel, Vijay Crishna, Nafisa Ali, Aditya Roy Kapur and Suhel Seth. Makrand Deshpande was recruited to play an important three-minute cameo in the film on Hrithik Roshan's suggestion. Bhansali said that he had always wanted to work together with Roshan for a very long time as he was impressed by his sincerity as an actor. He added that the script of "Guzaarish" gave him the right opportunity to sign him. About the leading lady, Aishwarya Rai, he said that the role suited her to perfection and though she would have accepted his offer, it was important for an actor to be convinced of what he or she is doing. Bhansali stated that if any of the leading cast had refused to sign, he wouldn't have made "Guzaarish". He later stated saying, the film was only possible if Hrithik and Aishwarya had acted in it.


title: Guzaarish (film)

text: Before starting the filming of "Guzaarish", Bhansali visited Ajmer Dargah in Rajasthan for seeking blessings. Bhansali also met the singing legend Lata Mangeshkar, whom he had revealed to be the source of inspiration to him, to seek her blessings before he fully embarked on filming Guzaarish. During the meeting, Mangeshkar told that she was a big fan of Bhansali's films and that she was fortunate to be the source of inspiration behind such a talented director's film. She told the media members that "..Even I had heard that he makes his singers hear my songs over and over again before making them sing. I've always been a big fan of Sanjay's films, specially "Black". I remember watching the Filmfare Awards in the year of "Black". Every time the nominations were announced I prayed for "Black" to win. And it did. If I'm a source of inspiration to him then I count myself fortunate". Bhansali candidly admitted that he was very much afraid of meeting Lata since "..one doesn't hobnob with one's god". He added that once he reached her home, he "... just wanted to sit and gaze at her. I realized in person she's as magical as she is in her singing. There's something other-worldly about her, a quality I haven't encountered in anyone else in my life".


title: Guzaarish (film)

text: Like all his other films, Bhansali preferred shooting at a studio. Bhansali says, "I like to construct sets and then light it up. It is a part of my story telling. My story needs a setting and I like to create that ambiance." Hence he chose Filmcity, Mumbai to shoot the movie. Before the actual filming started, Hrithik Roshan spent time with a lot of patients to understand his role better and get into the skin of his character. He revealed that he used to ".. spend six hours with the patients, initially once a week and then once a month. I used to go to understand what they go through, what they think, what their needs are. They have taught me a lot of things. So if I have benefited from this experience so much, I am sure that when people see the film and understand the character, they will get a lot to learn".


title: Guzaarish (film)

text: Since Roshan's character was a paraplegic, Bhansali wanted to give him a natural look. Hence he was instructed by the director not to indulge in his regular workouts since he cannot look fit and trim in the film, so as to give touches of authenticity to his character. The movie is set in Goa, and hence, Bhansali wanted to give a Portuguese touch to his frames. Sumit Basu, the Art Director, created Ethan's House in Mehboob Studio with a very Spanish/Portuguese flavour and the auditorium for magic acts, the court room, Martin's Bar in Yash Raj Studio. Also keeping in mind the costumes Bhansali hired Sabhyasachi Mukerjee as the costume designer, who had worked Bhansali in "Black". Mukherjee had earlier worked in the film "Raavan" with Aishwarya Rai the same year.


title: Guzaarish (film)

text: The film's shooting started on 29 July 2009 at Mehboob Studio, Mumbai. It was announced that the first schedule would be shot in July and August to capture the monsoon melody and romance of the place. It is notable that Bhansali came back to Goa after his first film, "" for filming a movie. During the first day of shooting, he made sure that his mother was present on the sets. Sources revealed that his mother was his reason for making films and ".. it is imperative that she be present." Hrithik Roshan joined the crew on 22 July. Aishwarya Rai joined the crew during the initial part of August after wrapping up the shoot for Raavan / Raavanan. A specially made-to-order remote-controlled modernized wheelchair was used in the movie for the role of Ethan Mascarenhas.


title: Guzaarish (film)

text: The next outdoor session of the film was done in Panjim. The lead actors had stayed at the Taj, Goa. During the day shoot at Divar, the unit's base camp was at an Englishman Jan Bostock's home in Divar island, just off Panjim for 4–5 days. Apparently, the film-maker, who is known for his hot-tempered nature, threw away the continuity sheets of one of the scenes being shot while shooting in the outskirts of Goa when one of his assistant directors made the same mistake twice. Hrithik Roshan sang a Hindi song in the film, after attempting playback singing in his previous movie "Kites", in which he had rendered an English song. Bhansali himself personally trained Roshan for the song. Though the director had got the track recorded by another singer so that shooting in Goa could go on uninterrupted, in case Roshan could not complete his recording, his version was finally recorded after four or five takes. Roshan later said in an interview that "Bhansali was really surprised on hearing it."


title: Guzaarish (film)

text: During the filming of the movie, Bhansali also choreographed some of the songs. He used to dance on the sets of "Guzaarish" at times to make the moves clear to his actors. Many times he broke into a dance himself to convey the steps that he had in mind. This took most of his crew by surprise. Pony Verma, who was the choreographer for most of the songs in the film, revealed that as soon as Bhansali conceived a song, he would send it to her and then sing it to her as well. During the shooting of the song, a singer and a guitarist were on the sets. The choreography took place to the accompaniment of live guitar strings and song. According to Verma, this novel way of functioning had enhanced the appeal of the song. She added that when "... the song is playing live, you pick up a lot. She also acknowledged the efforts put in by the lead actress Aishwarya Rai, with whom she had frequent discussion about the feel of the song.


title: Guzaarish (film)

text: The third schedule of the film began on 30 October 2009. The grueling schedule lasted till January 2010, at the city's Mehboob Studios. Rumours had it that during the filming of the movie, Bhansali and Roshan got into a tiff over the excessive use of English in the movie. Roshan, whose previous film "Kites" was also blamed for having non-Hindi dialogues, did not want to take a risk and lessen "Guzaarish"'s appeal. Though there were no comments from either of them, it was learned that the issue was finally sorted out. Bhansali himself put all speculation to rest saying that ".. we (Hrithik Roshan and himself) were actually singing along quite happily."


title: Guzaarish (film)

text: The final schedule of the movie was shot in Yashraj Studios from 21 February 2010. Bhansali found that on the other sets where he had shot the film, he was being frequently disturbed by guests, which prevented him from providing the full concentration which the movie demanded. According to the crew "..Yash Raj Studios was not only classy and had all the facilities but it also doesn't allow guests to come in." Taking these factors into consideration Bhansali decided to bury the hatchet with Aditya Chopra over a film title and started shooting in the studios. The schedule included a spontaneous dance song with Aishwarya Rai, choreographed by Bhansali himself.