title: The Great Silence

text: By 1967, Sergio Corbucci had grown weary of making Westerns that varied widely in quality and commercial viability. Having returned to Rome after completing principal photography on the Eurospy film "Death on the Run" in Athens, he decided that another Western, set during a blizzard — reportedly an homage to two other "snow Westerns", André de Toth's "Day of the Outlaw" and John Ford's "Cheyenne Autumn" — would provide a similar change of pace. He had previously considered snowed-in valleys as the setting of "Django", although the prior film took place in muddy conditions due to time and budget constraints. According to actor and producer Lars Bloch, this also gave Corbucci an opportunity to visit resorts within the Dolomites, thus allowing him to go on a skiing holiday while making a film. The project was a co-production between the Rome-based production company Adelphia Compagnia Cinematografica and the Paris-based studio Les Film Corona.


title: The Great Silence

text: Casting English-speaking lead actors in Spaghetti Westerns was a growing practice because it was believed to allow international marketability. Marcello Mastroianni had conceived the idea of a mute gunfighter when he told Corbucci that he had always wanted to appear in a Western, but would have been held back by his inability to speak English. When Corbucci first met Jean-Louis Trintignant, who was hired for the leading role of the film by Les Films Corona after it was turned down by Franco Nero (who had previously played the title character of "Django"), he learned that Trintignant did not speak English either. To bypass the need for an English-speaking lead, Corbucci decided to turn Trintignant's character into a mute. At the time, Trintignant was known for his role in the critically acclaimed romantic drama "A Man and a Woman", and is believed to have accepted the role in support of co-producer Robert Dorfmann, who was a friend of his. Silence was his only role in a Spaghetti Western.


title: The Great Silence

text: Corbucci hired established German actor Klaus Kinski to play Loco, a character who was partially intended to emulate Gorca, the vampire played by Boris Karloff in Mario Bava's "Black Sabbath", which served as a major stylistic influence on "The Great Silence". Other cast members were established character actors in or outside the Spaghetti Western genre, including Luigi Pistilli, Mario Brega, Marisa Merlini, Raf Baldassare, Carlo D'Angelo, Spartaco Conversi and Bruno Corazzari (an actor often compared to Kinski). Frank Wolff, usually known for playing serious or villainous characters, was cast against type in the semi-comical role of Sheriff Burnett. Vonetta McGee, a then-unknown pre-law San Francisco State College dropout and amateur actress who had moved to Rome to find work at Cinecittà, was cast as Pauline in her first film role. After appearing in Corbucci's film and Luigi Magni's "Faustina", McGee was invited to return to America by Sidney Poitier, where she became a major actress in the blaxploitation genre. Alex Cox later cast her as Marlene in his film "Repo Man" based on her performance as Pauline.


title: The Great Silence

text: Location filming began in late 1967 in Cortina d'Ampezzo (Veneto) and San Cassiano in Badia (South Tyrol). Several Snow Hill scenes were shot on a set specifically built for the film, with log cabins and alpine roofs. Many of the surrounding hills were used for various set-pieces, including Loco's gang's hideout, the way station, the stagecoach route and the Snow Hill graveyard. According to his autobiography "Kinski Uncut", Kinski had an on-set affair with actress "Sherene Miller" during the Cortina shoot, while his wife Brigitte and daughter Nastassja enjoyed sledding in the snow. Production then moved to southern areas of Italy; Silence's flashback to his childhood was shot at Bracciano Lake, near Manziana in Lazio. The Elios Film town set in Rome, which had previously been used by Corbucci in "Django", was used for several Snow Hill scenes (including the final duel).


title: The Great Silence

text: Most of the Snow Hill scenes filmed at Elios were shot at night so that the fake "snow" looked more convincing; 26 tons of shaving cream was used to give the street a snowbound look. For the daylight scenes, the Elios set was swathed in fog, to disguise the fact that the surrounding countryside had no snow. Camera overexposure was also occasionally used to avoid continuity errors. The film's costumes were designed by Enrico Job (the husband of director Lina Wertmüller), and were influenced by hippie fashion styles, including mufflers, shawls, and outfits made of fur and leather; Corbucci was known for standing heavily against the hippie subculture. Like other Spaghetti Westerns, the film was shot without direct sound to allow for post-production dubbing in multiple languages; to further accommodate this, Corbucci claimed that he would often direct actors to perform in "numerological diction", a technique also used by Federico Fellini, which required actors to count off numbers in their native language instead of performing lines.


title: The Great Silence

text: According to McGee, Corbucci was "the nicest man" during production, and "never tried to put the make on" her. The actress attributed this to the frequent presence of his wife Nori on the set, noting that "they were such a happy couple. They made it a great environment to work in." However, at one point while filming, Wolff had to be restrained from strangling Kinski when the latter insulted his Jewish heritage by telling him "I don't want to work with a filthy Jew like you; I'm German and hate Jews." Following the incident, Wolff refused to speak to Kinski unless required to by the script. Kinski later declared that he insulted Wolff because he wanted to help him get into character.


title: The Great Silence

text: "The Great Silence" was one of several Spaghetti Westerns produced between 1967 and 1968, along with Enzo G. Castellari's "Kill Them All and Come Back Alone" and "One Dollar Too Many", Sergio Sollima's "Run, Man, Run" and Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a Time in the West", to be showcased in Patrick Morin's made-for-television documentary "Western, Italian Style". During the making of the film, Corbucci and Trintignant were interviewed; Corbucci discussed the nature of violence in his films and Spaghetti Westerns in general (comparing the use of violence in such films to the James Bond franchise), while Trintignant spoke of the unusual nature of his role and how he would practice drawing his gun – by pulling a sock (substituting for the gloves Silence wears in the film) off his hand and reaching for a long-stemmed artichoke in his pocket.


title: The Great Silence

text: Following the film's completion, "The Great Silence" was, as per standard procedure for a Spaghetti Western, edited in its final, completed form and dubbed into five languages: Italian, French, Spanish, German and English. Subtitled versions were created for foreign markets outside of the dubbed versions. The English-language version was written by John Davis Hart and Lewis E. Ciannelli (the son of Eduardo Ciannelli) and recorded at Via Margutta Studios in Rome under Ciannelli's direction. Among the voice actors for the English version were Carolyn De Fonseca, Edward Mannix, Ted Rusoff and Mel Welles.


title: The Great Silence

text: Although Hart and Ciannelli's dub script remains relatively faithful to the original Italian dialogue, the meaning of numerous lines and scenes were changed; Ciannelli in particular frequently embellished the dialogue of films in the dubbing stage, such as "Arizona Colt". Much of the dialogue concerning the outlaws, such as a remark made by Walter, the leader of the bandits, about their forthcoming amnesty, as well as Loco's conversation with Burnett about the morality of the thieves, were rewritten to imply that most of the outlaws were being persecuted not simply because of their poverty, but for also practising Mormonism. Several of the characters' names were also changed from Corbucci's originals, for example, "Tigrero" became "Loco", "Sheriff Gideon Corbett" changed to "Sheriff Gideon Burnett", and "Bobo Schultz" was renamed "Sanchez".


title: The Great Silence

text: Film historian Howard Hughes suggests that, despite the implications of a large budget as a result of an international cast, as well as elaborate set and costume designs, there are several aspects that suggest otherwise. These include several continuity errors and revealing mistakes present throughout the film, and a variance in the quality of the film stock. In comparison to the Technicolor/Techniscope presentation most Spaghetti Westerns were filmed in, "The Great Silence" was filmed in the standard European widescreen format and printed in Eastmancolor.


title: The Great Silence

text: "The Great Silence" has been interpreted by various film critics and historians as a subversion of various conventions of the Western film genre. Corbucci, who made his left-wing views either the subtext or subject of several of his films, wrote the film's story as an allegory highlighting the corruptions stemming from authoritarian forms of capitalism, which are personified by the sadistic, greedy bounty killers led by Loco (who use the bounties to fuel their desires for violence and money while acting under the law), as well as the schemes of the banker Pollicutt. This is partially in line with the "Classical Plot" of both American Westerns (such as "Shane") and certain Spaghetti Westerns (such as "A Fistful of Dollars"), in which, according to Will Wright, a "lone stranger rides into a troubled town and cleans it up, winning the respect of the townsfolk and the love of the schoolmarm." As a result of his sympathetic portrayal of the outlaws and the demoniac characterization of the people who hunt them, Corbucci's presentation of bounty killers is far more negative than such figures in Sergio Leone's films – the closing title card of "The Great Silence" contrasts with the opening title card of "For a Few Dollars More".


title: The Great Silence

text: A key aspect of the film that differentiates its stylistic choices from other Westerns is its setting – a snow-bound Utah that contrasts with the desert plains seen in most Western films, American or Italian. The bleakness of the winter landscape complements the dark and pessimistic tone of the film, while providing motivation for the characters, as the living conditions and chances of survival are made more dire. The snowy backdrop isolates the events of the story by providing very little visible geographical detail, and "fair metaphors for the enclosed, cruel world herein" are created.


title: The Great Silence

text: In his analysis of the film, Donato Totaro compares Silence to other Spaghetti Western protagonists, and analyses him in Freudian terms – he is dressed in black (like Corbucci's previous creation, Django), is extremely fast and accurate with his gun, and is anti-heroic, sharing some of his characteristics with Loco (both will kill other people on the grounds that they will receive payment). However, unlike other "strong and silent" Spaghetti Western characters, such as Django or Joe from "A Fistful of Dollars", Silence is completely mute, giving him a sense of vulnerability and sensitivity. In contrast to the Colt Single Action Army revolvers used by his fellow Spaghetti Western protagonists and the other characters in the film, Silence's choice of weapon is a semi-automatic Mauser C96 – its rapid rate of fire gives him an unfair advantage over his opponents, therefore his marksmanship comes in part from technological, not physical, prowess. Like Django and Joe before him, Silence's hands are injured prior to the climax, greatly impeding his marksmanship. However, a further link to the bounty killers he fights is established – due to his throat being cut by their kind, Silence frequently shoots the thumbs of his enemies off, rendering them unable to use a gun. Also, unlike Django and Joe, neither his will to survive nor his advanced weaponry can save Silence in the final duel against Loco. The latter then delivers a "symbolic castration", as described by James Newton, upon the hero by taking the Mauser for himself after killing him.


title: The Great Silence

text: "The Great Silence", as with many of Corbucci's Westerns, is known for its depictions of strong-willed female characters, namely the mother of the young outlaw Miguel (who requests Silence to kill Loco's compatriot Charlie), Regina, the saloon madam who Sherriff Burnett falls for, and Pauline. Because she seeks vengeance for the death of her husband through Silence, falls for him through shared pain and loneliness, and supports him until they are both killed by Loco, Pauline plays a vital part in the film's narrative. She is also shown to be readily in control of her sexuality, as seen in her refusals to become Pollicut's mistress and her seduction of Silence as she tends to his wounds. Pauline is also African-American, and her interracial love scene with Silence has been seen as highly subversive, both in the context of Western films and commercial cinema as a whole. Corbucci later commented:


title: The Great Silence

text: The deaths of Silence, Pauline and the outlaws at the hands of Loco and his gang are a culmination of the subversive elements of "The Great Silence" and its anti-authoritarian stance. Killing sympathetic or leading characters was not a new tactic to Corbucci – the title character of his second Western, "Minnesota Clay", was seemingly killed at the end of the film's American prints. However, the political context of the later film plays a major factor in the presentation of its thematic concerns: when interviewed by the German magazine "Film", Corbucci revealed that he had dedicated "The Great Silence" to the memories of Che Guevara, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, as he believed that their assassinations (all three happening while he was making the film) served to further their causes and resulted in widespread condemnations of violence.Alex Cox elaborates:


title: The Great Silence

text: In contrast to the deaths of leading characters in similarly countercultural films of the time, such of Ben, Duane Jones' character in "Night of the Living Dead", and Wyatt and Billy (Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper) in "Easy Rider", in which said characters are killed by members of similarly disenfranchised groups, the bounty killers are working as part of the State, acting in the service of capital by helping to protect it. What further separates the deaths of the heroes and the anti-authoritarian position of "The Great Silence" from Romero and Hopper's films is that, unlike "Night of the Living Dead" and "Easy Rider", which were produced without the restrictions of well-established genre conventions, Corbucci's film also subverts and comments on the genre that it is part of; in contrast to the relatively rare circumstances of the face-to-face gunfight at the O.K. Corral — which provided the primary template for cinematic depictions of Old West duels — actual shootouts of the era tended to closer resemble ambushes like the one committed by Loco and his gang. Donato Totaro states that the film's title "is rich in possible meaning, suggestive not only of the great white expansive snow, the lead character's muteness, but the late 1960s political defeats that impacted Corbucci's mood that led him to make one of the grimmest Westerns ever made".


title: The Great Silence

text: Cox believes that the moral message of the film is that "sometimes, even though you know you'll fail, you still do the right thing". He also adds that by facing an unbeatable foe and dying in the ensuing duel, Silence "becomes the "noblest" hero of any Western film since "Shane"".


title: The Great Silence

text: "The Great Silence"s soundtrack was composed by Ennio Morricone, Corbucci's frequent musical collaborator since "Navajo Joe", and conducted by Bruno Nicolai. A melancholic, emotive score, Morricone personally viewed it as his best Spaghetti Western soundtrack aside from his compositions for Sergio Leone. The soundtrack was released on CD, also containing five tracks from Morricone's score for "That Splendid November", in 1995, 2005 and 2014. A limited edition LP (consisting of 500 copies) was released by Dagored in April 2016.


title: The Great Silence

text: In reviewing Morricone's score for "Electric Sheep Magazine", Robert Barry expressed that the compositions of the film eschew "the soaring heroic melodies and pounding horse-hoof rhythms of the Leone films" and that the music closely resembles Morricone's own 1970s horror film soundtracks, Florian Fricke's music for Werner Herzog's films, and modernist compositions by Luciano Berio and Pierre Boulez. He also noted that solo violins (playing fifth intervals) and flutes are used in creating Wagnerian leitmotifs to highlight Silence's conflict within the society he is placed in.


title: The Great Silence

text: The Russian progressive rock band Little Tragedies, the Hungarian band Yesterdays and the Italian group N.O.T. (Noise Overtones Therapy) composed and performed 20-minute pieces based on the film, titled "The Voice of Silence", "Suite Pauline" and "Epilogo" respectively, as part of the Colossus Project, a musical project set up by the Finnish Progressive Music Association to encourage bands and musical artists to musically interpret the film and other Spaghetti Westerns. The songs were released on the album "The Spaghetti Epic Volume Three – The Greatest Silence".


title: The Great Silence

text: Morricone's music was sampled and remixed by Thievery Corporation for the album "Morricone Rmx". The grindcore band Cripple Bastards released an album with the film's Italian title. Anima Morte also recorded a version of the main theme for the 2010 compilation album "Cani Arrabbiati – Opening Themes ... A Tribute".


title: The Great Silence

text: "The Great Silence" was released in Italy in November 1968. Due to its graphic violence, the film was awarded an 18 rating in Italy, limiting its domestic box office returns. It performed better in the French and West German markets, largely due to the presence of Trintignant and Kinski. It has been reported that during a screening of the film in Sicily one audience member fired a gun at the screen in anger over the film's ending. The film was released in France on 27 January 1969. In Japan, "The Great Silence" received a theatrical re-release alongside another Corbucci film, "Sonny & Jed", through Cable Hogue and PSC in 1995 as part of a "Spaghetti Western Revival" event.


title: The Great Silence

text: When "The Great Silence" was screened for Darryl F. Zanuck of 20th Century Fox to see whether the film could be released on the American market, he was offended by the film (to the point where he reportedly swallowed the cigar he was smoking in shock upon watching the ending), and refused to distribute it in the United States. 20th Century Fox did, however, distribute the film in Italy and several other markets. The company also considered a remake of the film starring Clint Eastwood, which eventually evolved into a largely unrelated project by Universal Pictures, "Joe Kidd".


title: The Great Silence

text: "The Great Silence" made its British premiere on BBC2's "Moviedrome" block on August 26, 1990 under the title of "The Big Silence", where the film was introduced by Alex Cox. Under license from the film's current exhibition rights holder, Beta Film, its first US theatrical release took place in 2012, when an English-dubbed 35 mm film print owned by Swiss film library Kinemathek Le Bon Film was toured in cinema screens across the country. A German-dubbed, English-subtitled print was also screened from November 14 to 25 that same year at the Brisbane International Film Festival.


title: The Great Silence

text: Following initial screenings at the Festival du Nouveau Cinema, beginning on October 4, 2017, Film Movement announced on October 21 that they had acquired all North American distribution rights to "The Great Silence", resulting from a deal that had been brokered between the distributor's president, Michael E. Rosenberg, and Oliver Bachert of Beta Film. The announcement revealed that the film would receive a theatrical re-release in North American theatres, followed by a release on Blu-ray Disc and digital formats. Regarding the acquisition, Rosenberg commented "Following our experiences releasing "Time To Die" in the States for the very first time, we’re excited to sidle up to bring yet another restored classic western to North American moviegoers, certain to be thrilled by Corbucci’s masterful dark vision". The film began screening in American cinemas on November 12, 2017 at the Winchester Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, utilizing a 2K restoration of the original negative created by Compass Film SRL. Between April 1 and September 27, 2018, the film earned $53,074 from its North American theatrical run.


title: The Great Silence

text: Fantoma Films and Image Entertainment released "The Great Silence" on DVD on September 4, 2001, with their release being the film's first appearance on the American market. The release used an English-language print that was digitally remastered by Zoetrope Aubry Productions, presented in 1.66:1 letterboxed widescreen, with the only audio option being a Dolby Digital Mono mix of the English dub. The DVD's special features consist of a video introduction to the film by Alex Cox, the alternative happy ending (with optional commentary by Cox), and the English version of the film's trailer. Fantoma reissued the disc on January 27, 2004. Glenn Erickson felt that the transfer on Fantoma's DVD was "reasonable but not great" due to the transfer having washed-out colours despite being clean from damage. Erickson also felt that the English dub "still plays as artificial and false, and detracts mightily from Kinski's performance" despite praising the voice acting itself.


title: The Great Silence

text: In the UK, Digital Classics also released their first DVD of the film in 2004; this release includes the English dub alongside the Italian track with English subtitles, the trailer and the alternative happy ending, but lacks Cox's introduction and commentary. Australian distributor Beyond Home Entertainment's release is identical to Digital Classics' initial release. Digital Classics later issued a second DVD of the film, using an anamorphic widescreen transfer, featuring both the English and Italian tracks, English subtitles and the special features from Fantoma's DVD.


title: The Great Silence

text: On February 6, 2013, TC Entertainment released "The Great Silence" on Blu-ray Disc in Japan, using a 1080i, AVC-encoded high-definition transfer of an Italian print and DTS-HD Mono mixes of the Italian, English and Japanese dubs. This release includes the alternative happy ending, the English opening and credits, English and German theatrical trailers, a subtitled interview with Nori Corbucci, a text-based historical overview of bounty hunting and illustrated liner notes as special features. Reviewing the disc for "Rock! Shock! Pop!", Ian Jane criticized the disc for the poor quality of its transfer, stating that it "doesn't offer much of an upgrade over that older DVD release at all", and expressed that the film deserved a better high-definition treatment.


title: The Great Silence

text: German distributor AL!VE re-released the film with remastered, high-definition video and audio (with options for German, Italian and French) on Blu-ray and DVD on December 8, 2017. Their releases include the alternative happy ending, trailers, an audio commentary by filmmaker Mike Siegel, an alternative German "grindhouse" version of the film, several featurettes and image galleries, and a liner notes booklet.


title: The Great Silence

text: Following their theatrical release, Film Movement released "The Great Silence" on Blu-ray and DVD in the US and Canada on June 5, 2018. Presenting the film using with the same 2K restoration from the theatrical run, the disc includes Italian LPCM Mono (with optional English subtitles) and English Dolby Digital Mono audio options. Extras include "Cox on Corbucci", a featurette in which Cox discusses the film and its significance in the context of Corbucci's career, the documentary "Western, Italian Style", the alternative happy ending (with optional commentary by Cox) and the previously-unreleased "ambiguous" recut of the ending, both with restored audio, original and re-release theatrical trailers, and a liner notes booklet featuring "Ending the Silence", an essay about the film by Simon Abrams. Film Movement's release received positive notices from "DoBlu.com", "DVD Compare", "Rock! Shock! Pop!" and "Slant Magazine", whose reviewers singled out the video, Italian audio and extras for praise, while deeming the English dub to have been handled with less attention.


title: The Great Silence

text: British distributor Eureka Entertainment released the film on Blu-ray as the 257th entry in its Masters of Cinema series on November 22, 2021. Presented in a 2K restoration with Italian and English audio options (with English subtitles for the former), this release includes three audio commentaries: one with author Howard Hughes and filmmaker Richard Knew, another with Siegel, and a third with Cox. Other special features include both alternative endings, "Western, Italian Style", the "Cox on Corbucci" featurette from Film Movement's release, a new interview with "Radical Frontiers in the Spaghetti Western: Politics, Violence and Popular Italian Cinema" author Austin Fisher, trailers and image galleries. The initial print run of 3000 copies of the disc also includes a slipcase, a reversible poster, four facsimiles of promotional lobby cards from the film's original release, and a liner notes booklet featuring essays by Hughes.


title: The Great Silence

text: In March 2017, the Cinémathèque Française reported that Cineteca Nazionale, with the cooperation of Italian distribution rights holder Movietime, had authorised a complete restoration of "The Great Silence" (including the alternative ending) from the original camera and sound negatives in 4K resolution. The restoration was carried out at the film laboratories Augustus Color and Studio Cine in Rome.


title: The Great Silence

text: "The Great Silence" has a 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on eleven reviews with an average rating of 8.5 out of 10. It has been widely acclaimed by critics and audiences, and has appeared on numerous lists of the best Spaghetti Western films compiled by audiences, filmmakers and historians. Alongside "Django", it is usually regarded as Corbucci's best film and one of the best Spaghetti Westerns not to be directed by Sergio Leone. A contemporary review of "The Great Silence" in the French newspaper "Le Populaire" described Corbucci as "an excellent creator of atmosphere and a director perfectly at ease with actors: Klaus Kinski [...] is excellent here".


title: The Great Silence

text: Time Out gave the film a mostly positive review, writing, "While "Django" remains the erratic Corbucci's best picture, this slightly later spaghetti Western does well by an inventive set-up [...] between the bullets there's engaging stuff from the two stars and an unmistakable chill in the air". Film critic Leonard Maltin praised the film, awarding it 3 out of a possible 4 stars. In his review he wrote that "The Great Silence" is a "brutal, bleakly beautiful spaghetti Western filmed on stark locations in the Dolomites, with one of the most uncompromising and unforgettable finales ever filmed". Kyle Anderson of "Nerdist News" described the film as Corbucci's "most artful and daring" Western, one that "pushes the genre to new levels and creates a story unlike anything people were used to, even though it's likely more historically accurate". He concluded his review by stating that "If you're looking for a good time on a Saturday night, I'd say this movie is not what you want, but if you're looking for a dark, violent, thoughtful, and well-made film, look no further".


title: The Great Silence

text: Glenn Erickson of "DVD Talk" spoke less enthusiastically about the film, but felt that it was a good Spaghetti Western nonetheless. Although praising the locations, as well as the performances of Kinski and Trintignant, Morricone's score, the realistic approach to the story and Silvano Ippoliti's cinematography, he felt that the characterizations were lacking, adding that Corbucci's direction often "drifts and falters" and lacks the "operatic grandeur" of Leone's films. Erickson also expressed that the film's ending was unsurprising given the nihilistic nature of the rest of the film, but noted that he would have been more shocked by it had he seen the film upon its 1968 theatrical release.


title: The Great Silence

text: In his analysis of the Spaghetti Western genre, Alex Cox described "The Great Silence" as Corbucci's "tightest, most relentless Western; his best and his bleakest. It's shot in his trademark messy, over-edited, jerky-zoom style, and its telephoto close-ups are frequently out of focus. Yet it is incredibly beautiful". He voiced praise for Ippoliti's strategy of "shooting through things" (a marked improvement over his work on "Navajo Joe"), the tight script, the strong female characters and the tragic nature of the ending, rooted in Corbucci's pessimism towards the deaths of radical political leaders. Performance-wise, he described Sheriff Burnett and Regina, the film's equivalent of the "cute/funny" characters that had appeared in Corbucci's earlier Westerns, as "tolerable" due to their senses of dark humour and morality, and praised McGee, Pistilli and Brega's acting. Cox also felt that Kinski's Loco was the actor's finest appearance in a Western, and that Trintignant's performance, which might have seemed doll-like in the hands of actors such as Franco Nero, John Phillip Law and Terence Hill, was pulled off ""flawlessly". His character's moral quandary, and decision to sacrifice himself, are perfectly conveyed". Noting that Corbucci seemed proud of "The Great Silence" – "a great work, a great Spaghetti Western, a great Western, a classic of transgressive cinema" – Cox believes that Zanuck's withholding of the international release and its poor domestic performance were key factors in the decline in quality of Corbucci's output following its release.


title: The Great Silence

text: During its North American 2017-2018 theatrical run, "The Great Silence" received enthusiastic notices from several reviewers, who tended to note its influence on Tarantino's work. "The New York Times"' A. O. Scott felt that the film's "brazen mixing of incompatible elements that defies categorization, imitation or even sober critical assessment. It's anarchic and rigorous, sophisticated and goofy, heartfelt and cynical", and expressed that despite its influence, "this plate of pasta — bitter and pungent, nourishing and perhaps a bit nauseating — should be savored on its own". Simon Abrams, writing for "The Village Voice" felt that the ending "still hurts so good a half-century later", while Kenneth Turan of "Los Angeles Times" noted the film's subversive qualities, and particularly praised the opening sequence and McGee's "affecting" performance, concluding that "nothing works out the way these [characters], not to mention audiences who love classic Hollywood westerns, expect. Not even close". Eric Monder of "Film Journal International" praised the film in its entirety, particularly its political themes and cinematography, as well as the chemistry between Trintignant and McGee and the 2K restoration, which he felt was "so crisp, the production looks like it was finished yesterday".


title: The Great Silence

text: Shared with "Cold Water", "Honeysuckle Rose", "The Docks of New York" and "The Changeling", the film won the Best Rediscoveries Award at the 2018 Boston Society of Film Critics Awards following its screening at the Brattle Theatre.


title: The Great Silence

text: "The Great Silence" has influenced the works of Quentin Tarantino. Describing the film as his favorite "snow Western", he has paid homage to it in "Django Unchained" and "The Hateful Eight". Robert Richardson, the cinematographer for "The Hateful Eight", noted that he and Tarantino studied "The Great Silence"'s photography to get an understanding of the intimacy Tarantino wanted to achieve in the film. Upon being asked what his favorite Western films were, Richardson responded with "I do love "The Great Silence", because Quentin turned me on to it and I love the cinematic nature of that, in the snow. But I'm going with Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch" if I've got to pick one".


title: Lodi Gardens

text: Lodi Gardens is a city park situated in New Delhi, India. Spread over , it contains Mohammed Shah's Tomb, the Tomb of Sikandar Lodi, the Shisha Gumbad and the Bara Gumbad, architectural works of the 15th century by Lodis - who ruled parts of northern India and Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of modern-day Pakistan, from 1451 to 1526. The site is now protected by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).


title: Lodi Gardens

text: The gardens are situated between Khan Market and Safdarjung's Tomb on Lodi Road and is a popular spot for morning walks for the Delhites.


title: Lodi Gardens

text: In the middle of the gardens is the "Bara Gumbad" ("Big Dome"), it consists of a large rubble-construct dome and is not a tomb but was constructed as a gateway to either the attached three domed "masjid" (mosque) or a large walled enclosure. Both the Bara Gumbad and the mosque were built in 1494 during the reign of Sikander Lodi, there is also a residence surrounding a central courtyard, where the remains of a water tank can be seen. Opposite the "Bara Gumbad" is the "Shisha Gumbad" ("mirror dome") for the glazed tiles used in its construction, which contains graves, whose occupants are not clearly identifiable (either an unknown family of Sikandar Lodi's court or Bahlul Lodi).


title: Lodi Gardens

text: To the north of the garden are the remains of a stream which may once have run as far as the Yamuna River, and by its side is the Tomb of Sikandar Lodi. This structure still has the battlements enclosing it. Visible from Sikander's tomb is the "Athpula" ("Eight Piered") Bridge, one of the few monuments in Delhi that were built during the reign of Mughal Emperor Akbar, it contains seven arches, amongst which the central one being the largest.


title: Lodi Gardens

text: The tomb of Mohammed Shah, the last of the Sayyid dynasty rulers, the earliest of the tombs in the garden, was built in 1444 by Ala-ud-din Alam Shah as a tribute to Mohammed Shah. The tomb is octagonal in shape, with numerous ornamental Hindu-style chhatris around the central dome, numerous arches, verandahs and sloping buttresses. There are turrets at each corner. The main tomb is supported by a 16-sided drum. It is of a flattened type and is surrounded by chhatris, which make it look diminutive compared to its substantially larger base. Several years later, the Tomb of Sikandar Lodi seems to have been copied from this Sayyid tomb.


title: Lodi Gardens

text: As there is little architecture dating to the Sayyid and the Lodi periods still standing, Lodi Gardens is an important archaeological site. The tomb of Mohammed Shah is visible from Lodi Road, and is the earliest structure in the gardens. It is a good example of a combination of the Hindu and Islamic styles of architecture. The Hindu features include eight chhatris, each of them capped by a lotus finial with a decorative band around the base; corner ornamental pinnacles (guldastas)and chhajja.


The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China (NPCSC) is the permanent body of the National People's Congress (NPC) of the People's Republic of China (PRC), which is the highest organ of state power and the legislature of China. Although the parent NPC has superiority over the Standing Committee, and certain authorities are not delegated, the Standing Committee is generally viewed to have more power, albeit inferior to its parent, as the NPC convenes only once a year for two weeks, leaving its Standing Committee the only body that regularly drafts and approves decisions and laws.


In 1954, the 1st National People's Congress was held in Beijing, which became the statutory parliament of the People's Republic of China. The Standing Committee was established as its permanent body. The 1954 Constitution of the People's Republic of China stipulates that "the National People's Congress is the sole organ that exercises the legislative power of the state" and that the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress has only the power to "interpret laws" and "enact decrees" However, because the number of delegates to the National People's Congress is in the thousands and non-full-time, only one meeting is held annually, and the meeting period cannot be too long. The 2nd NPC authorized its Standing Committee the power to exercise legislative power when the NPC is not in session.


title: Standing Committee of the National People's Congress

text: During the political chaos of the Cultural Revolution, the NPC rarely held meetings and the Standing Committee virtually ceased to function. During this period, Chairman Zhu De and First Vice Chairman Dong Biwu had both died, which enabled Vice Chairman Soong Ching Ling, a member of the Revolutionary Committee of the Kuomintang, to exercise the functions and powers of Chairman of the NPCSC to a certain extent. With the abolition of the presidency in 1975, she effectively became the first female head of state in China by legal definition.


text: In 1980, after the decision of the 5th National People's Congress, the "Committee for the Amendment of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China" was formally established, presided over by Ye Jianying, Soong Ching Ling and Peng Zhen, and including the main leaders of the democratic parties, social organizations and jurists. It was responsible for amending and establishing the new constitution. During the discussion on constitutional amendment, Hu Qiaomu, secretary general of the Constitution Revision Committee, proposed cutting the number of NPC deputies to 1,000 and setting up two chambers of 500 each under the NPC to make the NPC a permanent, bicameral body, in an attempt to change its image as a "rubber stamp". Another committee member proposed to imitate the system used by the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union with one chamber composed of representatives from different regions and the other composed of representatives from different professional sectors. Opponents, led by Deng Xiaoping and Ye Jianying, argued that "if the two parties disagree, it will be very troublesome to coordinate and difficult to operate". A compromise was finally reached that greatly expanded the powers of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, making it a permanent legislature with the power to enact most laws and to review those for approval by the NPC.


text: The Standing Committee is elected by and from the representatives of the NPC. It currently has 175 members. The term of office of a member of the NPC Standing Committee is the same as that of the current NPC, and is generally five years. It remains in power until the succeeding NPC elects its standing committee. The NPCSC meets every two months with each session of the Committe lasting a week. It convenes the NPC once a year, and may do so when it finds it necessary or with a proposal from one fifth of NPC's members. Members of the NPCSC must not, at the same time, hold executive, judicial, or supervisory positions. In contrast, members of the NPC do not have this restriction.


text: It is led by a Chairman, mainland China's top legislator, who is conventionally ranked third in Mainland China's political ranking system, after the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and the Premier of the People's Republic of China. The Chairman since 2018 is Li Zhanshu.


text: For a while after establishment of the People's Republic, the power of the Standing Committee was limited to interpretation of its constitution and laws. At present, the NPC Standing Committee plays a key role in legislation and has the power to promulgate and amend most laws and decrees. Bills voted on by the National People's Congress are usually submitted by the Standing Committee after its third reading.


text: Deputies of the Standing Committee are made up of those from parties represented in the whole of Congress, and thus their faction leaders in the NPC serve the same function there as leaders of the parties having seats.


text: The NPC and its Standing Committee jointly exercise the power to enact laws in China. The legislative rights of the Standing Committee mainly include: drafting and revising laws except those to be enacted only by the full congress of the NPC; partially supplementing and amending, when the NPC is not in session, laws enacted by the NPC, provided that the basic principles of these laws are not contravened. As a result, a large amount of the legislative work is conducted by the Standing Committee. Although the NPC has the power to revoke "inappropriate decisions" made by the Standing Committee, so far this power has never been used. As a result, the NPC Standing Committee often has a greater say in legislative deliberations.


text: The NPCSC has the power of judicial interpretation of the constitution and law in the PRC, including the Basic Law of Hong Kong and Macau. In contrast to common law jurisdiction in which "stare decisis" gives the power of both final interpretation and adjudication to a supreme court, within Mainland China constitutional and legal interpretation is considered to be a legislative activity rather than a judicial one, and the functions are split so that the NPCSC provides legal interpretations while the Supreme People's Court actually decides cases. Because an interpretation of the NPCSC is legislative in nature and not judicial, it does not affect cases which have already been decided.


text: The NPC Standing Committee has the power to supervise the enforcement of the Constitution. It supervises the work of the State Council, the Central Military Commission, the National Supervisory Commission, the Supreme People’ s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate. It has the power to annul administrative regulations, decisions and orders of the State Council that go against the Constitution and other laws, and to annul local regulations or decisions of the organs of State power of provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government that contravene the Constitution, other laws or administrative regulations.


text: When the NPC is not in session, the Standing Committee examines and approves partial adjustments to the plan for national economic and social development or to the state budget that prove necessary in the course of their implementation. The Standing Committee decides whether to ratify or abrogate treaties and important agreements reached with other countries. It institutes systems of titles and ranks for military and diplomatic personnel, and other specific titles and ranks, state medals and titles of honor as well as the granting of special pardons.


text: The NPCSC decides on general or partial mobilization, and on entering into a state of emergency throughout China or in particular provinces, autonomous regions or municipalities directly under the central government. When the NPC is not in session, the Standing Committee decides whether to proclaim a state of war in the event of an armed attack on China or in fulfillment of international treaty obligations concerning a common defense against aggression.


text: The NPC Standing Committee usually holds a committee session once every two months, usually late in even-numbered months. It may also hold interim sessions if there is a special need. The meetings are convened and chaired by the NPC Standing Committee Chairperson. The chairperson may delegate a vice-chairperson to preside over the meeting on his or her behalf. A meeting of the Standing Committee may not be held unless a quorum is met of more than half of the members of the Standing Committee present. The Council of Chairpersons shall draft the agenda for a meeting of the Standing Committee and refer it to a plenary meeting of the Standing Committee for a decision.


text: According to law, a bill may be proposed by the Chairperson's Council, or submitted by the State Council, the Central Military Commission, the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate and deputies of the special committees of the National People's Congress (or the committee chairmen of these). Ten or more members of the Standing Committee may also sign and introduce a bill. After the bill is introduced, the Chairman's Council shall decide on the agenda of the Standing Committee's meeting. The Chairman's Council may refer the bill to the relevant special committee for deliberation and submit a report before deciding to put it on the agenda of the Standing Committee. It also has the right to vote to reject the bill proposed by the above-mentioned body. When the Chairman's Council rejects a bill, it shall explain the reasons to the Standing Committee and the bill sponsor.


text: A bill put on the agenda of a Standing Committee session shall be deliberated by the Standing Committee for three times before it is submitted to a vote. At the first reading, an explanation of the legislative bill made by its sponsor shall be heard in a plenary session of the Standing Committee and then it shall be preliminarily deliberated at group meetings. At the second reading, a report of the Constitution and Law Committee on the revision of the draft law and main problems concerned shall be heard in a plenary meeting, and then the legislative bill shall be further deliberated at group meetings. At the third reading, a report of the Constitution and Law Committee on the results of its deliberation over the draft law shall be heard in a plenary meeting, and then the revised draft of the law shall be deliberated at group meetings. After the revised draft law has been deliberated at the meetings of the Standing Committee, the Constitution and Law Committee revises it in accordance with the deliberation opinions of the Standing Committee members and prepares the final version to be voted on. The Council of Chairpersons then refers the legislative bill to the Standing Committee for a vote. If the Standing Committee fails to reach an agreement on the bill during the third reading, it shall convene joint group meetings and plenary meetings for further discussion, or invite relevant personage, experts and scholars to hold hearings regarding the bill. After reaching an agreement, it is sent for the vote in a plenary session.


text: For a bill that has been put on the agenda of the session of the Standing Committee, after each deliberation of the session of the Standing Committee, the draft law and the explanation of its drafting and amendment will be published on the website of the People's Republic of China or the Chinese Government Legal Information Network for public comment.


text: When voting, the NPC Standing Committee meeting adopts the absolute majority system, that is, more than half of the committee members present in a session thus producing a quorum, and more than half of the committee members voted in favor, then the bill can be passed. When an affirmative vote and an abstention vote are equal, the chairman has no right to cast a decision vote, and the bill is vetoed.


text: In fact, although most of the bills deliberated by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPCSC) have been agreed upon at the third reading, there are still some bills that have been rejected at the voting stage in the history of the Standing Committee of the NPC. For example, in 1989, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress vetoed the "Organic Law of the Urban Residents Committees of the People's Republic of China" (Draft) due to different opinions on the wording of the provisions of the bill. For example, in 1999, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress rejected the "Highway Law of the People's Republic of China" (Amendment) with 77 votes in favor, 6 against, 42 abstentions and 29 people not participating in the voting, which was just 50% of the total votes.


text: A notable use of the constitutional interpretation power occurred in 1999 over the Right of Abode issue in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in "Lau Kong Yung v. Director of Immigration". The NPCSC interpreted the Basic Law of Hong Kong in accordance with the position taken by the Hong Kong government with respect to the eligibility of permanent residency in Hong Kong.


text: In 2014, the NPCSC set rules for the election of the Chief Executive of Hong Kong, a decision that was widely opposed by the pro-democracy camp and led to the Umbrella Revolution.


text: In 2016, the NPCSC ruled that Hong Kong lawmakers who take their oath improperly could be immediately disqualified.


text: In June 2020, the NPCSC created and passed the Hong Kong National Security Law, legislation that was kept secret until shortly before it took effect. In November 2020, Carrie Lam sought help from the NPCSC to give authority for the Hong Kong government to disqualify 4 pro-democracy lawmakers from the Legislative Council.


text: In December 2020, it was reported that the NPCSC would move to diminish opposition from district councillors, by unseating those who "breached the red line" and also by removing the 117 seats belonging to district councillors in the Chief Executive election committee. Earlier in December 2019, Carrie Lam said that the opposition district councillors would be treated the same as those from the pro-Beijing camp, and that "There is no question of the government’s commitment to continue to respect the roles and functions of the district council."


text: In March 2021, the NPCSC approved changes to Hong Kong's electoral system, allowing only "patriots" to serve in the government, and also reducing democratic representation.


text: Elected by the 13th National People's Congress at its 1st session's 4th plenary meeting on March 17, 2018:


text: Wang Chen (b. December 1950): member of the 19th Politburo, member of the 16th, 17th, and 18th CCCPCs, and former deputy head of CCCPC Publicity Department.


text: Cao Jianming (b. September 1955): member of the 17th, 18th, and 19th CCCPCs, alternate member of the 16th CCCPC, and former Procurator-General of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate. Zhang Chunxian (b. May 1953): member of the 18th Politburo, member of the 16th to 19th CCCPCs, and former secretary of the CPC Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Committee and Hunan Provincial Committee. Shen Yueyue (female, b. January 1957): member of the 17th, 18th, and 19th CCCPCs; the former executive deputy head of the CCCPC Organization Department.


text: Ji Bingxuan (b. November 1951): member of the 17th, 18th, and 19th CCCPCs; the former secretary of the CPC Heilongjiang Provincial Committee, and the former chairman of the Standing Committee of the Heilongjiang Provincial People's Congress.


text: Chen Zhu (b. August 1953): hematologist; academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences; Central Committee chairman, Chinese Peasants and Workers Democratic Party (since 2012).Wang Dongming (b. July 1956): standing committee member of the 10th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), a member of the 17th, 18th, and 19th Central Committees CCCPCs; the secretary of the CPC Sichuan Provincial Committee, and the chairman of the Standing Committee of the Sichuan Provincial People's Congress.


text: Padma Choling (Tibetan, b. October 1952): member of the 18th CCCPC; the former chairman of the Standing Committee of the Tibet Autonomous Region People's Congress, and the Chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region.


text: Cai Dafeng (b. June 1960): chairperson of the China Association for Promoting Democracy. Wu Weihua (b. September 1956): chairperson of the Jiusan Society.


text: All of the above 14 Vicechairpersons of the 13th NPCSC were designated, on December 7, 2020, by US Department of State as connected with the National Security Law (NSL), pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13936, “The President’s Executive Order on Hong Kong Normalization.”, and added to OFAC's SDN List.


title: Srirastu Subhamastu

text: Srirastu Subhamastu is a 2016 Indian Telugu-language romantic comedy film directed by Parasuram and produced by Allu Aravind for Geetha Arts banner. The film features Allu Sirish and Lavanya Tripathi in the lead roles alongside Prakash Raj, Rao Ramesh, Tanikella Bharani, Subbaraju, Sumalatha, and Ali in the supporting roles, while Hamsa Nandini appears in an item song. The film opened to mixed to positive reviews.


title: Srirastu Subhamastu

text: Sirish falls in love with Ananya / Anu. He goes to her as a common man where he says that he "lost his purse" and says that she has to help him get his identity, as when he was beating goons for his purse Anu stops him. One day Anu's friend finds his purse in his back-pack. Sirish reveals to her friend that he is rich and his dad Krishna Mohan said that if Anu fell in love with Sirish without knowing he's rich they would get married. But if she didn't, he would marry a girl of his father's choice. Soon Anu falls in love with Sirish and when she's about to propose, her father says that her godparents would wish that Anu would marry their son Arun. Not wanting to hurt their feelings she accepts. Then Sirish goes to Anu's home in a village to make Anu confess her feelings to him and choose to marry Srish with the help of ShyamSundar, a marriage broker. And then finally Anu's father learns of Sirish's love and asks him whether his family can take good care of Anu. Sirish realizes even if he marries Anu, she would be treated like an outsider like his sister-in-law and Sirish tells his father about the talk with Anu's Dad. Sirish's father talks to Anu's father and tells them about Sirish's real identity and promises that he changed and realized that his thoughts were wrong and will treat his daughters-in-law as his own daughters from now on. The film ends with Sirish and Anu's marriage.


title: Srirastu Subhamastu

text: The film was initially titled ""Chuttalabbayi"", but was dropped as Aadi and Veerabhadram had chosen the same for their next film. Lavanya Tripathi was selected to play the love interest in this film which also has Rao Ramesh in an important role.


title: Srirastu Subhamastu

text: The first–look poster of the film was revealed on Valentine's Day 2016 on social media. The film which was expected to release during the summer of 2016 was finally released on 5 August and received positive reviews.


title: Brian Jacques

text: James Brian Jacques (, as in "Jakes"; 15 June 1939 – 5 February 2011) was an English novelist known for his "Redwall" series of novels and "Castaways of the Flying Dutchman" series. He also completed two collections of short stories entitled "The Ribbajack & Other Curious Yarns" and "Seven Strange and Ghostly Tales".


title: Brian Jacques

text: Brian Jacques was born in Liverpool on 15 June 1939. His parents were James Alfred Jacques, a haulage contractor, and Ellen Ryan.


title: Brian Jacques

text: Jacques grew up in Kirkdale near to the Liverpool Docks. He was known by his middle name, Brian, because his father and a brother were also named James. His father loved literature and read his boys adventure stories by Daniel Defoe, Sir Thomas Mallory, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Edgar Rice Burroughs, but also "The Wind in the Willows" with its cast of animals. Jacques showed early writing talent. At age ten, assigned to write an animal story, he wrote about a bird that cleaned a crocodile's teeth. His teacher could not believe that a ten-year-old wrote it, and caned the boy for refusing to admit copying the story. He had always loved to write, but only then did he realize the extent of his abilities. He attended St John's School until age fifteen, when he left school (as was usual at the time) and set out to find adventure as a merchant sailor. His book "Redwall" was written for his "special friends", the children of the Royal Wavertree School for the Blind, whom he first met while working as a milkman. He began to spend time with the children, reading books to them. However, he became dissatisfied with the state of children's literature, with too much adolescent angst and not enough magic, and eventually began to write stories for them. He is known for the very descriptive style of his novels, which emphasize sound, smell, taste, gravity, balance, temperature, touch, and kinesthetics, not just visual sensations.


title: Brian Jacques

text: His work gained acclaim when Alan Durband, his former English teacher (who also taught The Beatles members Paul McCartney and George Harrison), showed it to his (Durband's) own publisher without telling Jacques. Durband told his publishers: "This is the finest children's tale I've ever read, and you'd be foolish not to publish it". Soon after, Jacques was summoned to London to meet with the publishers, who gave him a contract to write the next five books in the series.


title: Brian Jacques

text: "Redwall" was an 800-page handwritten manuscript. It is now common for children's books to have 350 pages, and the "Harry Potter" books far exceed that, but in those days 200 was regarded as the maximum that would hold a child's attention. It set the tone for the whole series, centered on the triumph of good over evil, with peaceful mice, badgers, voles, hares, moles and squirrels defeating rats, weasels, ferrets, snakes and stoats. He did not shy away from the reality of battle, and many of the "good" creatures die.


title: Brian Jacques

text: "Redwall" alludes to the surrounding human civilization, for example with a scene featuring a horse-drawn cart. The subsequent books ignore humans completely, portraying an Iron Age society from the misty past building castles, bridges and ships to the scale of forest creatures, writing their own literature and drawing their own maps. Jacques was highly involved in the audio books of his work, even enlisting his sons and others to voice Redwall inhabitants. Jacques said that the characters in his stories are based on people he has encountered. He based Gonff, the self-proclaimed "Prince of Mousethieves", on himself when he was a young boy hanging around the docks of Liverpool. Mariel is based on his granddaughter. Constance the Badgermum is based on his maternal grandmother. Other characters are a combination of many of the people he has met in his travels.


title: Brian Jacques

text: Jacques remembered well the rationing during and after the war, when he fantasized about the dishes in his aunt's illustrated Victorian cookbook. Groaning boards spread with sumptuous feasts are common scenes in his stories, described in mouth-watering detail. The war also informed his depictions of gruesome battles. Jacques was known to prefer old-fashioned ways; he always preferred an old typewriter as being more reliable than a computer, and he was known to be not fond of videogames and other modern technology, though he allowed an animated television series to be produced which he introduced himself each episode on the US network PBS and answered children's questions after the cartoon ended. The Teletoon airings omitted that. He never felt that he fit the image of a "writer sitting in his garden." Nonetheless, he was deeply touched by his success at reaching children. He was also pleased to be recognized by the people of Liverpool. His novels have sold more than twenty million copies worldwide and have been published in twenty-eight languages.


title: Brian Jacques

text: Jacques also had musical interests. In the 1960s he formed a folk music band, the Liverpool Fishermen, with two of his brothers. He hosted a radio show called "Jakestown" on BBC Radio Merseyside from 1986 to 2006, featuring selections from his favourite operas.


title: Brian Jacques

text: In June 2005, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters by the University of Liverpool. A prize was created at Bristol Grammar School, known as the 'Brian Jacques Award for Most Improved Creative Writing', and is awarded to a student in Year 8, as book tokens.


title: Brian Jacques

text: He lived with his wife, Maureen, in Liverpool. Jacques and his wife had two sons, now adults, David and Marc, and grandchildren Hannah and Anthony. Marc is a joiner and bricklayer, while David is a muralist and professor of art.


title: Brian Jacques

text: In 2011, Jacques was admitted to the Royal Liverpool Hospital to undergo emergency surgery for an aortic aneurysm. He died from a heart attack on 5 February 2011.


title: Dr. Rajkumar filmography

text: Singanalluru Puttaswamaiah Muthuraj (24 April 1929 – 12 April 2006), better known by his stage name Dr. Rajkumar, was an Indian actor, singer and producer who worked in Kannada cinema. Through his over five-decade long career of over 200 films, he was regarded one of the most pivotal and influential figures of the Kannada film industry. His films were praised for acting as a bridge between the popular and art films because of the theme of the story and their treatment. He debuted as a child actor in the 1942 Kannada film "Bhakta Prahlada". His first role as an adult came in "Sri Srinivasa Kalyana" (1952) and as a lead, two years later, in "Bedara Kannappa," which gave him stardom. He debuted as a singer with the track "Om Namaha Shivaya" from the 1956 film "Ohileshwara." In 1960, he made his debut as a producer by producing "Ranadheera Kanteerava". According to Ashish Rajadhyaksha and Paul Willemen in the book "Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema, Ranadheera Kanteerava" was the first "big hit" in Kannada cinema. In a film career spanning fifty years, Rajkumar received eleven Karnataka State Film Awards, including nine Best Actor and two Best Singer awards, eight Filmfare Awards South, and one National Film Award. Along with Vishnuvardhan and Ambareesh, he is counted in Kannada cinema's "triumvirate" as its most celebrated actor.


title: Dr. Rajkumar filmography

text: In 1983, Rajkumar was honoured with the Padma Bhushan, India's third highest civilian award, for his contributions to Indian cinema, and the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 1995. In 1985, he became the first Indian actor to receive the Kentucky Colonel, an honorary order from the governor of Kentucky, United States. On the occasion of the "Centenary of Indian Cinema" in April 2013, Forbes included his performance in "Bangaarada Manushya" on its list of "25 Greatest Acting Performances of Indian Cinema". Upon his death, "The New York Times" had described him as one of India's most popular movie stars. He received the NTR National Award in 2002 and was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Mysore. "Dr. Rajkumar Samagra Charithre" - a two-volume book by film critic D. Rukkoji on the life and achievements of Rajkumar won the "Swarna Kamal Award" at the 63rd National Film Awards under the National Film Award for Best Book on Cinema category. On the occasion of Rajkumar's 100th film Government of Karnataka honored him with the title of "Nata Saarvabhouma." He is also the first film star to win the National Film Award for Best Male Playback Singer for the song "Naadamaya Ee Lokavella" from the film "Jeevana Chaitra." The State Government established Dr. Rajkumar Award in 1993–94 to be given for lifetime achievement towards contributions to Kannada cinema.


title: Dr. Rajkumar filmography

text: Dr. Rajkumar's 1972 film "Bangaarada Manushya" was the longest running South Indian film at the time of its release. The film elevated him from being just another very popular actor to nearly demigod status among the masses. His 1986 film "Anuraga Aralithu" was the first Indian film to be remade in seven other languages. His 1973 film "Gandhada Gudi" was reported to be the first Indian film to be made on the concept of protection of forest and wildlife conservation with a focus on the need to preserve the flora and fauna at a time when the CITES treaty was signed with an aim to reduce the economic incentive to poach endangered species. The British daily newspaper "The Guardian" praised him for his subtle acting and described him as a humble, modest being who was a symbol of Kannada consciousness. "ABC News" acknowledged him as one of the greatest actors of his time and called him "The Gentle Giant of Karnataka". In 2016, the Maharashtra State Government had prescribed the biography of the actor for its class VIII students detailing his achievements and contributions to the Kannada culture under the title "Natasarvabhouma". In 1989, the critical failure of "Parashuram" led him to take a hiatus from acting. However, he returned to acting three years later, in 1992 with "Jeevana Chaitra," which was a blockbuster running for more than a year in theatres. His final film was 2000's "Shabdavedhi." He had a minimum of ten releases in each of the years from 1963 to 1971. He held the record for highest releases as a lead in a single year (16 in 1968) in Kannada movies for 24 years until it was broken by Malashri in 1992 with 19 releases.


title: Dr. Rajkumar filmography

text: Rajkumar has sung approximately 300 songs in movies and an excess of 400 devotional (non-film) songs in Kannada"." Rajkumar trained in classical music when he was with Gubbi Veeranna's theatre troupe. The track "Om Namaha Shivaya" from the 1956 film "Ohileshwara", which he also starred in, was his first song for a film. He subsequently sang "Thumbithu Manava", a duet with S. Janaki, for the movie "Mahishasura Mardini" (1959). However, he became a full-fledged singer only in 1974 when he sang in place of P. B. Sreenivas for "Sampathige Savaal", who had till then sung for most songs picturized on Rajkumar, fell ill. Rajkumar sang the energetic "Yaare Koogadali" for the film which became widely popular during the time and is considered one of his best songs.


title: Dr. Rajkumar filmography

text: Rajkumar has been credited for having sung across various genres and each rendition according to the mood of the scene in the film. In "Yaaru Tiliyaru Ninna" for "Babruvahana" (1977), a prosodic form of Kannada poetry that required the tone to be a combination of sarcasm and anger, he blended the twin skills of theatrics and music. For "Nee Nanna Gellalare" (1981), he sang two songs—"Jeeva Hoovagide" and "Anuraga Enaytu"—beginning both with the refrain "I love you", that is full of Carnatic gamakas. After the same tone in the refrain, they take on a life of their own with the form according to love and happiness in the former and love but a discord in the latter. He is known widely for his rendition of "Nadamaya" for "Jeevana Chaitra" (1992), a song based on the raga of Todi and with complex graces and strings other ragas as it progresses. He switches ragas with ease, and sings complex swara patterns like a professional classical artiste. For the rendition, he was awarded the National Film Award for Best Male Playback Singer.


title: American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers

text: The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) () is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization (PRO) that collectively licenses the public performance rights of its members' musical works to venues, broadcasters, and digital streaming services (music stores).


text: ASCAP collects licensing fees from users of music created by ASCAP members, then distributes them back to its members as royalties. In effect, the arrangement is the product of a compromise: when a song is played, the user does not have to pay the copyright holder directly, nor does the music creator have to bill a radio station for use of a song.


text: In 2021, ASCAP collected over US$1.335 billion in revenue and distributed $1.254 billion in royalties to its members. ASCAP membership included over 850,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers, with over 16 million registered works.


text: ASCAP was founded by Victor Herbert, together with composers George Botsford, Silvio Hein, Irving Berlin, Louis Hirsch, John Raymond Hubbell and Gustave Kerker, Millard Fillmore, lyricist Glen MacDonough, publishers George Maxwell (who served as its first president) and Jay Witmark and copyright attorney Nathan Burkan at the Hotel Claridge in New York City on February 13, 1914, to protect the copyrighted musical compositions of its members, who were mostly writers and publishers associated with New York City's Tin Pan Alley. ASCAP's earliest members included the era's most active songwriters—George M. Cohan, Rudolf Friml, Otto Harbach, Jerome Kern, John Philip Sousa, Alfred Baldwin Sloane, James Weldon Johnson, Robert Hood Bowers and Harry Tierney. Subsequently, many other prominent songwriters became members. Composers who could not read and write musical notation were ineligible for membership. This requirement, since dropped, excluded many songwriters in such genres as country. However, an exception was made to admit Irving Berlin.


text: In 1919, ASCAP and the Performing Rights Society of Great Britain (since 1997 known as PRS for Music), signed the first reciprocal agreement for the representation of each other's members' works in their respective territories. Today, ASCAP has global reciprocal agreements and licenses the U.S. performances of hundreds of thousands of international music creators.


text: The advent of radio in the 1920s brought an important new source of income for ASCAP. Radio stations originally only broadcast performers live, the performers working for free. Later, performers wanted to be paid, and recorded performances became more prevalent. ASCAP started collecting license fees from the broadcasters. Between 1931 and 1939, ASCAP increased royalty rates charged to broadcasters more than 400%.


text: In 1940, when ASCAP tried to double its license fees again, radio broadcasters formed a boycott of ASCAP and founded a competing royalty agency, Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI). During a ten-month period lasting from January 1 to October 29, 1941, no music licensed by ASCAP (1,250,000 songs) was broadcast on NBC and CBS radio stations. Instead, the stations played regional music and styles (like rhythm and blues or country) that had been rejected by ASCAP. Upon the conclusion of litigation between broadcasters and ASCAP in October 1941, ASCAP settled for a lower fee than they had initially demanded.


text: In the late 1930s, ASCAP's general control over most music and its membership requirements were considered to be in restraint of trade and illegal under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. The Justice Department sued ASCAP in 1937 but abandoned the case. The Justice Department sued again in 1941, and the case was settled with a consent decree in which the most important points were that ASCAP must fairly set rates and not discriminate between customers who have basically the same requirements to license music, or "similar standing." Also, anyone who is unable to negotiate satisfactory terms with ASCAP, or is otherwise unable to get a license, may go to the court in the Southern District of New York overseeing the consent decree and litigate the terms they find objectionable, and the terms set by the court will be binding upon the licensee and ASCAP. BMI also signed a consent decree in 1941.


text: ASCAP's membership diversified further in the 1940s, bringing along jazz and swing greats, including Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, and Fletcher Henderson. The movies also soared in popularity during the 1930s and 1940s, and with them came classic scores and songs by new ASCAP members like Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer, Cole Porter, Morton Gould, and Jule Styne. Classical-music composers Aaron Copland, Igor Stravinsky, and Leonard Bernstein brought their compositions into the ASCAP repertory in the 1940s. In the 1940s, it was common for ASCAP and BMI to send out field representatives to sign new songwriters and music publishing companies, as the firms were not household names; one such ACSAP employee was Loring Buzzell, who later formed the music publishing company Hecht-Lancaster & Buzzell Music.


text: The rise of rock and roll derived from both country music and rhythm and blues music caused airplay of BMI licensed songs to double that of ASCAP licensed songs. ASCAP officials decided that the practice of payola was the reason. So ASCAP spearheaded a congressional investigation into the practice of payola in 1959.


text: In the 1950s and 1960s, television was introduced as a new revenue stream for ASCAP, one that maintains its importance today. With the birth of FM radio, new ASCAP members, including John Denver, Jimi Hendrix, Quincy Jones, Janis Joplin, and Carly Simon scored massive hits. Many Motown hits were written by ASCAP members Ashford & Simpson, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, and Stevie Wonder. Both The Beatles and The Rolling Stones licensed their works through ASCAP, and the very first country Grammy Award went to ASCAP writer Bobby Russell for "Little Green Apples". During this period, ASCAP also initiated a series of lawsuits to recover the position they lost during the boycott of 1941, without success.


text: The early 1960s folk music revival, led by ASCAP member Bob Dylan (later switched to SESAC) made ASCAP a major player in that genre. Dylan's expansion into rock music later that decade gave ASCAP a foothold in that genre. At the same time, ASCAP member Shapiro, Bernstein & Co. started having country hits for ASCAP.


text: By 1970, a new generation of ASCAP board members decided to launch a campaign to attract more songwriters and music publishers away from BMI. The campaign led to Motown Records switching most of its music publishing from BMI to ASCAP in 1971.


text: During the last three decades of the 20th century, ASCAP's membership grew to reflect every new development in music, including the funk, punk rock, heavy metal, hip-hop, techno, and grunge music genres. Creators ranging from Lauryn Hill and Dr. Dre to the Ramones, Slayer, and John Zorn joined. ASCAP launched a Latin membership department to serve ASCAP Latin writers—Marc Anthony, Joan Sebastian, and Olga Tañon among them–with the Spanish-speaking world as their audience. In 1981, ASCAP prevailed against CBS in an eleven-year-old court case challenging the ASCAP blanket license.


text: ASCAP licenses over 11,500 local commercial radio stations, more than 2500 non-commercial radio broadcasters and hundreds of thousands of "general" licensees (bars, restaurants, theme parks, etc.). It maintains reciprocal relationships with nearly 40 foreign PROs across six continents, and licenses billions of public performances worldwide each year. ASCAP was the first U.S. PRO to distribute royalties for performances on the Internet and continues to pursue and secure licenses for websites, digital music providers and other new media.


text: ASCAP honors its top members in a series of annual awards shows in seven different music categories: pop, rhythm and soul, film and television, Latin, country, Christian, and concert music. Awards are presented through a "vote online" that makes up 50% of the judging criteria. Other 50% came from different music critics where in addition, ASCAP inducts jazz greats to its Jazz Wall of Fame in an annual ceremony held at ASCAP's New York City offices and honors PRS members that license their works through ASCAP at an annual awards gala in London, England. ASCAP also gives annually the special accolades Vanguard Award, Songwriter of the Year, and Publisher of the Year.


text: In 1979, to honor composers of concert music (Classical) in the early stages of their careers, ASCAP created The ASCAP Foundation Young Composer Awards which, upon the death of ASCAP President Morton Gould in 1996, were renamed the ASCAP Foundation Morton Gould Young Composer Awards to honor Gould's lifelong commitment to encouraging young creators as well as his own early development as a composer.


text: Beginning in 1986, ASCAP created the "Golden Soundtrack Award" to honor composers for "outstanding achievements and contributions to the world of film and television music." In 1996, it was renamed the "Henry Mancini Award" to pay tribute to the late composer's history of achievements in the field.


text: ASCAP also bestows the near-annual Deems Taylor Awards to writers and music journalists. Named after the first president of ASCAP, Deems Taylor, they were established in 1967 to honor his memory. The Deems Taylor Award "recognizes books, articles, broadcasts and websites on the subject of music selected for their excellence."


text: ASCAP attracted media attention in 1996 when it threatened Girl Scouts of the USA and Boy Scouts of America camps that sang ASCAP's copyrighted works at camps with lawsuits for not paying licensing fees. These threats were later retracted. However, it has drawn negative attention for cracking down on licensing fees on other occasions as well, such as when it demanded that open mic events need to pay licensing (even if most or all of the songs are original).


text: ASCAP has also been criticized for its extremely non-transparent operations, including the refusal to release attendance records for board members, the notes from board meetings, and the reasoning behind their weighting formulas which determine how much money a song or composition earns for use on television or radio.


text: In 2009, an ASCAP rate court case regarding ringtones generated considerable public attention. Critics claimed that ASCAP may seek to hold consumers responsible for a ringtone public performance. In statements to the press, ASCAP noted the following:


text: On October 14, 2009, a federal court ruled that "when a ringtone plays on a cellular telephone, even when that occurs in public, the user is exempt from copyright liability, and [the cellular carrier] is not liable either secondarily or directly." The ruling made clear that playing music in public, when done without any commercial purpose, does not infringe copyright. (US v. ASCAP, US District Court, Southern District of New York).


text: Further controversies arose involving ASCAP in 2009 and 2010. The organization requested that some websites pay licensing fees on embedded YouTube videos, even though YouTube already pays licensing fees, and demanded payment from Amazon.com and iTunes for 30-second streaming previews of music tracks, which traditionally does not require a license, being considered a promotional vehicle for song sales.


text: In 2009, Mike Masnik, the founder and CEO of Floor64, accused ASCAP of keeping some royalties instead of passing them on to artists. He claimed ASCAP collects royalties from all sizes of live performance on behalf of all the artists it represents but passes on the royalties only to artists whose music is represented in one of "the top 200 grossing US tours of the year." This is true in accordance with ASCAP's membership agreement, which states that top performing writers and publishers receive, “bonus incentives,” which are taken from the untraceable revenue brought in by bars, nightclubs, and similarly situated venues.


text: In June 2010, ASCAP sent letters to its members soliciting donations to fight entities that support weaker copyright restrictions, such as Public Knowledge, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Creative Commons, creating notable controversy as many argued that these licences are a form of copyright and offer the artist an extra choice. Lawrence Lessig, a co-founder of Creative Commons, responded stating that they are not aiming to undermine copyright, and invited ASCAP for a public debate. The offer was turned down by ASCAP's Paul Williams.


text: It was reported in April 2020, that songwriters and composers were facing delays in receiving royalties. This was delivered via a memo to hundreds of thousands of members from CEO Elizabeth Matthews, who cited the global disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic was to blame. This raised contention as those critical of the announcement wondered why the pandemic at that time would affect payments related to the third quarter of 2019. Further, it was revealed that publishers were still being paid royalties on time.


title: Lists of cities in Europe

text: This is a list of lists of cities in Europe. Lists of countries includes countries that fall to at least some extent within European geographical boundaries according to certain definitions.


title: John Perkins (author)

text: John Perkins (born January 28, 1945) is an American author. His best known book is "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" (2004), in which Perkins describes playing a role in a process of economic colonization of Third World countries on behalf of what he portrays as a cabal of corporations, banks, and the United States government. The book's claims were met with skepticism and rebuttal by some involved parties. The book spent more than 70 weeks on the "New York Times" bestseller list.


title: John Perkins (author)

text: Perkins graduated from the Tilton School in 1963. He subsequently attended Middlebury College for two years before dropping out. He later earned a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration from Boston University in 1968. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ecuador from 1968 to 1970. He spent the 1970s working for the Boston strategic-consulting firm Chas. T. Main; he claims to have been screened for this job by the National Security Agency (NSA) and subsequently hired by Einar Greve, a member of the firm (alleged by Perkins to have been acting as an NSA liaison, a claim that Greve has denied). Perkins claims that he was seduced and trained as an "economic hitman" by a mysterious businesswoman named Claudine, who used his NSA personality profile to manipulate and control him.


title: John Perkins (author)

text: As Chief Economist at Chas. T. Main, Perkins claims to have advised the World Bank, United Nations, IMF, U.S. Treasury Department, Fortune 500 corporations, and countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Perkins alleges that he worked directly with heads of state and CEOs of major companies. Perkins's time at Chas T. Main provides the basis for his subsequent claims that, as an "economic hit man", he was charged with inducing developing countries to borrow large amounts of money, designated to pay for questionable infrastructure investments, but ultimately with a view to making the debt-laden countries more dependent, economically and politically, upon the West.


title: John Perkins (author)

text: In the 1980s Perkins left Main and founded and directed an independent energy company. In the book "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man", Perkins claims that his company was successful due to 'coincidences' orchestrated by those appreciative of his silence about the work he says he did as an economic hit man. Perkins implies in "New Confessions of an Economic Hitman", published in 2016, that he was poisoned in 2005 on behalf of the NSA or CIA. Doctors diagnosed him with diverticulosis.


title: John Perkins (author)

text: Perkins's story is the main theme in part II of the movie "", released in October 2008. Perkins was awarded the Lennon Ono Grant for Peace 2012, and Rainforest Action Network Challenging Business As Usual Award, 2006.


title: John Perkins (author)

text: Sebastian Mallaby, economics columnist of the "Washington Post", reacted sharply to Perkins' book: describing him as "a conspiracy theorist, a vainglorious peddler of nonsense, and yet his book, "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man", is a runaway bestseller." Mallaby, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, holds that Perkins' conception of international finance is "largely a dream" and that his "basic contentions are flat wrong." As an example, Mallaby states that Indonesia reduced its infant mortality and illiteracy rates by two-thirds after economists persuaded its leaders to borrow money in 1970.


title: John Perkins (author)

text: Articles in the "New York Times" and "Boston" magazine have referred to a lack of documentary or testimonial evidence to corroborate the claim that the NSA was involved in his hiring by Chas T. Main. After an extensive investigation, the "New York Times" concluded that "the arc of Mr. Perkins's career seems to be described accurately," although they did not find evidence to support "some of his fancier claims," including those involving the NSA.


title: John Perkins (author)

text: Chas. T. Main's former vice president Einar Greve, who first offered Perkins a job at the firm, agreed that foreign debt represented a poor economic strategy for developing nations:Basically his story is true.… What John's book says is, there was a conspiracy to put all these countries on the hook, and that happened. Whether or not it was some sinister plot or not is up to interpretation, but many of these countries are still over the barrel and have never been able to repay the loans.However, Greve denied many aspects of Perkins' claims, such as the NSA having any links to Main, or that Perkins was seduced by Claudine Martin, saying that he believes that Perkins has convinced himself that his story is accurate. "Boston" "Magazine" noted that Perkins can provide little documentation to support his claims of international intrigue, describing a largely unconvincing "flimsy package of materials." A number of Perkins' former colleagues disagreed with his perspective on the company and contradicted specific claims he made; Frank Fullerton, one of his supervisors, stated that Perkins left Chas T. Main because he "thought he was worth more than he was."


title: John Perkins (author)

text: In a 2006 statement, American State Department stated that much of the book "appears to be a total fabrication... the National Security Agency is a cryptological (codemaking and codebreaking) organization, not an economic organization... Neither of [its] missions anything remotely resembling placing economists at private companies in order to increase the debt of foreign countries." Perkins responds that Wikileaks and Edward Snowden documents clearly demonstrated that the NSA is involved in a wide range of activities that have nothing to do with codemaking and codebreaking and that often serve to undermine other countries and their leaders.


title: John Perkins (author)

text: The State Department also claims that Perkins has alleged U.S. Government complicity in "the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., former Beatle John Lennon, and several unnamed U.S. senators who had died in plane crashes." Questioned in an interview about the State Department claims on the assassinations, Perkins replied, "No, I've never alleged that. I probably opened a question as to whether it might have been that way." There is no mention in any of his books about U.S. Government complicity in these assassinations. Perkins, however, does allege that two of his clients, President Jaime Roldós Aguilera of Ecuador and Omar Torrijos of Panama, had been assassinated and the US government had been involved, adding "I know. I was there."


title: Ansgar Knauff

text: Ansgar Knauff (born 10 January 2002) is a German footballer who plays as a right winger for Bundesliga club Eintracht Frankfurt, on loan from Borussia Dortmund.


title: Ansgar Knauff

text: Knauff was born in Göttingen to a German mother and Ghanaian father, but raised by his single mother. He began his youth career at hometown club SVG Göttingen, before joining Hannover 96's youth academy in 2015. A year later, he joined the Borussia Dortmund youth team, in which he played in the 2019–20 UEFA Youth League. In September 2020, he made his debut for Borussia Dortmund II in the fourth division of German football. During the 2020–21 Regionalliga West season, he appeared in 28 games for Dortmund II, scoring 9 goals.


title: Ansgar Knauff

text: Knauff signed his first professional contract with Borussia Dortmund on 25 November 2020, lasting until 2023. He made his first team debut on 8 December, coming on as a substitute in the 83rd minute for Thorgan Hazard in the 2020–21 UEFA Champions League match against Zenit Saint Petersburg. The away match finished as a 2–1 win for Dortmund. On 20 March 2021, he made his first appearance in the Bundesliga, coming on for Thomas Meunier in the 80th minute and providing the assist for a late equalizer in a 2-2 draw against Köln. He scored his first Bundesliga goal on 10 April, scoring the winning goal in a 3–2 victory against VfB Stuttgart.


title: Ansgar Knauff

text: On 20 January 2022, Knauff joined Eintracht Frankfurt on an eighteen-month loan deal. Sebastian Kehl, Dortmund's head of playing department, explained the move by stating that "He approached us to state his wish to get more playing time on loan. We would like to offer him this chance to continue his development at a high level." Knauff scored his first goal for Eintracht on 5 March in a 4–1 victory against Hertha BSC. In the knockout phase of the Europa League campaign, he was an undisputed starter, did not miss a single minute of playing time, and scored important goals against FC Barcelona in the quarter-final and West Ham in the semifinal. On 18 May 2022, he appeared as a starting player in the 2022 UEFA Europa League Final against Rangers and won the Europa League trophy with his club after the penalty shoot-out. For his performance during the 2021–22 Europa League season, Knauff was awarded the "Young Player of the Season" award by UEFA.


title: Stay (Rihanna song)

text: "Stay" is a song recorded by Barbadian singer Rihanna for her seventh studio album, "Unapologetic" (2012). It features guest vocals by Mikky Ekko and was released as the second single from the album on December 13, 2012. "Stay" was co-written by Ekko and Justin Parker. The song's lyrics speak of temptation and the inability to resist true love. Music critics were generally positive in their opinion regarding the balladry and most described it as a standout track on the album.


title: Stay (Rihanna song)

text: Upon the release of "Unapologetic", "Stay" charted on multiple charts worldwide. Following its release as a single, it reached number one in Bulgaria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark and Israel and the top five in twenty-four countries worldwide including Australia, France, Germany, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. It peaked at number three on the US "Billboard" Hot 100, becoming Rihanna's twenty-fourth top ten on the chart, thus surpassing Whitney Houston's tally. Furthermore, it has charted at number one on the US Mainstream Top 40 chart and 16 on the Dance Club Songs chart. Worldwide the single has sold over 10.


title: Stay (Rihanna song)

text: The song's accompanying music video, directed by Sophie Muller, depicts Rihanna naked in a bathtub filled with cloudy water, while Ekko sings in a separate bathroom. Critics likened the vulnerability and raw emotion in the video to the song itself. Rihanna premiered "Stay" on "Saturday Night Live" in the United States, while she performed the song in the United Kingdom on the ninth series of "The X Factor". Rihanna and Ekko also performed "Stay" at the 2013 Grammy Awards. The track was included on the set list of the majority of her 777 Tour promotional tour dates, in support of the album, while it was included on Rihanna's fifth headlining tour, the Diamonds World Tour in the encore and the opening song of her seventh headlining tour, the Anti World Tour.


title: Stay (Rihanna song)

text: Rihanna began working on the new sound for her seventh studio album in March 2012, even though she had not yet begun recording. During the production of the album, several musicians and producers were recruited including American singer Mikky Ekko and producer Justin Parker. According to Ekko, the production of the album was massive: "Their pace is insane. They had the studios we were working in booked out for three months, on a cycle. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before." "Stay" was written and produced by Parker, Ekko and Elof Loelv. Initially, when they wrote the song, Ekko didn't like it because of its vulnerability; however, collaborators convinced him to listen to "Stay" again. After another listen, he understood that the song was very important to him, adding that "the track had become so special to me as well, and knowing what the track means to me and what I think it means to her too."


title: Stay (Rihanna song)

text: Shortly after Rihanna's management took over the song, Ekko met her in Los Angeles where she told him she already sang the vocals, about which he reacted positively. Rihanna's and Ekko's vocals were recorded at two recording locations by three people: Mike Gaydusek at NightBird Recording Studios and Marcos Tovar and Kuk Harrel at Westlake Recording Studios, both in Los Angeles. Vocal engineering was done by Gaydusek and assisted by Blake Mares and Robert Cohen. Vocal production was completed by Kuk Harrell. It was mixed by Phil Tan at Ninja Club Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. Additional production was performed by Daniella Rivera. "Stay" was sent to French radio on December 13, 2012, as the second single from "Unapologetic". It later impacted the United Kingdom on January 7, 2013. In the United States, "Stay" was released to adult contemporary radio stations on January 28, 2013, and to contemporary hit radio and rhythmic contemporary radio the next day, as the third single in the country following "Diamonds" and "Pour It Up". It was released as a CD single in Germany on February 15, 2013.


title: Stay (Rihanna song)

text: "Stay" is a pop and R&B ballad that consists of piano and bass guitar instrumentation. It is written in the key of C major, having the chord progression of "C-Dm-Am-F". The song has a moderate tempo of 112 beats per minute. Rihanna's vocal range in the song ranges from the low note of A to the high note of E. Greg Kot for the "Chicago Tribune" described the song as being "stripped-bare". The lyrics revolve around "failing to resist true love", according to Dan Martin for "NME", as Rihanna sings "Funny, you're the broken one/ But I'm the only one who needed saving." According to Jocelyn Vena for MTV, Rihanna "punctuates the emotions of the track" on the lyric "It's not much of a life you're living/ It's not just something you take [it's] given." Rihanna also makes a plea to her lover, singing "'Round and around and around and around we go/ Now, tell me now, tell me now, tell me now you know/ Not really sure how to feel about it/ Something in the way you move/ Makes me feel like I can't live without you/ it takes me all the way/ I want you to stay." Lewis Corner for Digital Spy wrote that Rihanna's vocals glow over the simple yet effective piano riffs.


title: Stay (Rihanna song)

text: "Stay" received favorable reviews from music critics. Jon Dolan for "Rolling Stone" was complimentary of Rihanna's execution of the song, writing that she performs it "within an inch of its life" and "pleads at the piano." Dolan continued to state that it is "stark" and "shadowy" which is "confrontationally honest." Dan Martin for "NME" described "Stay" as "Unapologetic"s highlight, writing that it is a "gorgeous piano ballad." Martin continued to write that the song "puts a vulnerable spin on the Brown situation, repeating another theme of the album", a reference to her relationship with Chris Brown. Smokey Fontaine for "The Huffington Post" also praised "Stay", placing emphasis on Rihanna's vocal performance. He wrote that "Three years ago, no one would have paid attention to a beautiful piano-ballad like 'Stay.' Not because of the events we all witnessed, but because of how honest and emotionally-connected her vocals are."


title: Stay (Rihanna song)

text: Lewis Corner for Digital Spy awarded "Stay" four out of five stars, commenting that Rihanna "doesn't need all the controversial romp to top the charts." Corner also compared "Stay" to the work of "some of 2012's most successful female balladeers" Emeli Sandé and Lana Del Rey and concluded by stating that Rihanna "never [follows] the pack" but "[airs] her seemingly complex emotions through music's current trend." The song garnered a mixed review from Genevieve Koski for "The A.V. Club", writing that the album is "heavy on the sort of milquetoast ballads that have never been Rihanna's specialty" with regard to "Stay" and "What Now". However, Jon Caramanica for "The New York Times" negatively critiqued the song, writing that it is "dull piano driven song." The reason he gave for it being "dull" was that he felt "Stay", along with "Get It Over With" and "Lost in Paradise", were the "least texturally confrontational" and therefore "by far the least successful."