title: Woodstock

text: Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held during August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, United States, southwest of the town of Woodstock. Billed as "an Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music" and alternatively referred to as the Woodstock Rock Festival, it attracted an audience of more than 400,000 attendees. Thirty-two acts performed outdoors despite sporadic rain. It was one of the largest music festivals held in history.


title: Woodstock

text: The festival has become widely regarded as a pivotal moment in popular music history as well as a defining event for the counterculture generation. The event's significance was reinforced by a 1970 documentary film, an accompanying , and a song written by Joni Mitchell that became a major hit for both Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Matthews Southern Comfort. Music events bearing the Woodstock name were planned for anniversaries, which included the tenth, twentieth, twenty-fifth, thirtieth, fortieth, and fiftieth. In 2004, "Rolling Stone" magazine listed it as number 19 of the 50 Moments That Changed the History of Rock and Roll. In 2017, the festival site became listed on the National Register of Historic Places.


title: Woodstock

text: Woodstock was initiated through the efforts of Michael Lang, Artie Kornfeld, Joel Rosenman, and John P. Roberts. Roberts and Rosenman financed the project. Lang had some experience as a promoter, having co-organized the Miami Pop Festival on the East Coast the previous year, where an estimated 25,000 people attended the two-day event.


title: Woodstock

text: Early in 1969, Roberts and Rosenman were New York City entrepreneurs, in the process of building Mediasound, a recording studio complex in Manhattan. Lang and Kornfeld's lawyer, Miles Lourie, who had done legal work on the Mediasound project, suggested that they contact Roberts and Rosenman about financing a similar, but much smaller, studio Kornfeld and Lang hoped to build in Woodstock, New York. Unpersuaded by this Studio-in-the-Woods proposal, Roberts and Rosenman counter-proposed a concert featuring the kind of artists known to frequent the Woodstock area (such as Bob Dylan and The Band). Kornfeld and Lang agreed to the new plan, and Woodstock Ventures was formed in January 1969. The company offices were located in an oddly decorated floor of 47 West 57th Street in Manhattan. Burt Cohen, and his design group, Curtain Call Productions, oversaw the psychedelic transformation of the office.


title: Woodstock

text: From the start, there were differences in approach among the four: Roberts was disciplined and knew what was needed for the venture to succeed, while the laid-back Lang saw Woodstock as a new, "relaxed" way of bringing entrepreneurs together. When Lang was unable to find a site for the concert, Roberts and Rosenman, growing increasingly concerned, took to the road and eventually came up with a venue. Similar differences about financial discipline made Roberts and Rosenman wonder whether to pull the plug or to continue pumping money into the project.


title: Woodstock

text: In April 1969, Creedence Clearwater Revival became the first act to sign a contract for the event, agreeing to play for $10,000 (equivalent to $ in ). The promoters had experienced difficulty landing big-name groups until Creedence committed to play. Creedence drummer Doug Clifford later commented: "Once Creedence signed, everyone else jumped in line and all the other big acts came on." Given their 12:30 a.m. start time and omission from the "Woodstock" film (at frontman John Fogerty's insistence), members have expressed bitterness over their experiences regarding the festival.


title: Woodstock

text: Woodstock was conceived as a profit-making venture. It became a "free concert" when circumstances prevented the organizers from installing fences and ticket booths before opening day. Tickets for the three-day event cost US$18 in advance and $24 at the gate (equivalent to about $ and $ today). Ticket sales were limited to record stores in the greater New York City area, or by mail via a post office box at the Radio City Station Post Office located in Midtown Manhattan. Around 186,000 advance tickets were sold. The organizers had originally anticipated approximately 50,000 festival-goers would turn up.


title: Woodstock

text: The original venue plan was for the festival to take place in the town of Woodstock itself, possibly near the proposed recording studio site owned by Alexander Tapooz. After local residents quickly rejected that idea, Lang and Kornfeld thought they had found another possible location at the Winston Farm in Saugerties, New York. But they had misunderstood, as the landowner's attorney made clear, in a brief meeting with Roberts and Rosenman. Growing alarmed at the lack of progress, Roberts and Rosenman took over the search for a venue, and discovered the Mills Industrial Park () in the town of Wallkill, New York, which Woodstock Ventures leased for US$10,000 (equivalent to $ today) in the Spring of 1969. Town officials were assured that no more than 50,000 would attend. Town residents immediately opposed the project. In early July, the Town Board passed a law requiring a permit for any gathering over 5,000 people. The conditions upon which a permit would be issued made it impossible for the promoters to continue construction at the Wallkill site. Reports of the ban, however, turned out to be a publicity bonanza for the festival.


title: Woodstock

text: In his 2007 book "Taking Woodstock", Elliot Tiber relates that he offered to host the event on his motel grounds, and had a permit for such an event. He claims to have introduced the promoters to dairy farmer Max Yasgur. Lang, however, disputes Tiber's account and says that Tiber introduced him to a realtor, who drove him to Yasgur's farm without Tiber. Sam Yasgur, Max's son, agrees with Lang's account. Yasgur's land formed a natural bowl sloping down to Filippini Pond on the land's north side. The stage would be set up at the bottom of the hill with Filippini Pond forming a backdrop. The pond would become a popular skinny dipping destination. Filippini was the only landowner who refused to sign a lease for the use of his property.


title: Woodstock

text: Despite resident opposition and signs proclaiming, "Buy No Milk. Stop Max's Hippy Music Festival", Bethel Town Attorney Frederick W. V. Schadt, building inspector Donald Clark and Town Supervisor Daniel Amatucci approved the festival permits. Nonetheless, the Bethel Town Board refused to issue the permits formally. Clark was ordered to post stop-work orders. Rosenman recalls meeting Don Clark and discussing with him how unethical it was for him to withhold permits which had already been authorized, and which he had in his pocket. At the end of the meeting, Inspector Clark gave him the permits. The Stop Work Order was lifted, and the festival could proceed pending backing by the Department of Health and Agriculture, and removal of all structures by September 1, 1969.


title: Woodstock

text: The late change in venue did not give the festival organizers enough time to prepare. At a meeting three days before the event, Rosenman was asked by the construction foremen to choose between (a) completing the fencing and ticket booths (without which Roberts and Rosenman would be facing almost certain bankruptcy after the festival) or (b) trying to complete the stage (without which it would be a weekend of half a million concert-goers with no concert to hold their attention.) The next morning, on Wednesday, it became clear that option (a) had disappeared. Overnight, 50,000 "early birds" had arrived and had planted themselves in front of the half-finished stage. For the rest of the weekend, concert-goers simply walked onto the site, with or without tickets. Though the festival left Roberts and Rosenman close to financial ruin, their ownership of the film and recording rights turned their finances around when the Academy Award-winning documentary film "Woodstock" was released in March 1970.


title: Woodstock

text: The influx of attendees to the rural concert site in Bethel created a massive traffic jam. The town of Bethel did not enforce its codes, fearing chaos as the crowd flowed to the site. Eventually, radio and television descriptions of the traffic jams discouraged people from setting off to the festival. Arlo Guthrie made an announcement that was included in the film saying that the New York State Thruway was closed, although the director of the Woodstock museum said that this closure never occurred. To add to the problems and difficulty in dealing with the large crowds, recent rains had caused muddy roads and fields. The facilities were not equipped to provide sanitation or first aid for the number of people attending; hundreds of thousands found themselves in a struggle against bad weather, food shortages, and poor sanitation.


title: Woodstock

text: On the morning of Sunday, August 17, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller called festival organizer John P. Roberts and told him that he was thinking of ordering 10,000 National Guard troops to the festival, but Roberts persuaded him not to. Sullivan County declared a state of emergency. During the festival, personnel from nearby Stewart Air Force Base helped ensure order and air-lifted performers in and out of the concert site.


title: Woodstock

text: Jimi Hendrix was the last to perform at the festival, and he took the stage at 8:30 Monday morning due to delays caused by the rain. The audience had peaked at an estimated 450,000 during the festival but was reduced to about 30,000 by that point; many of them merely waited to catch a glimpse of him, then left during his performance.


title: Woodstock

text: Hendrix and his new band Gypsy Sun and Rainbows were introduced as The Experience, but he corrected this and added: "You could call us a Band of Gypsies". They performed a two-hour set, including his psychedelic rendition of the national anthem. The song became "part of the sixties Zeitgeist" as it was captured in the Woodstock film.


title: Woodstock

text: The festival was remarkably peaceful given the number of people and the conditions involved, although there were three recorded fatalities: two drug overdoses and another caused when a tractor ran over a 17-year-old sleeping in a nearby hayfield. There were births claimed to have occurred among Woodstock attendees, one in a car caught in traffic and another in a hospital after an airlift by helicopter. Extensive research by a book author could not verify any birth claims, except that a potential attendee never arrived. There were a number of miscarriages (sources range from four to eight). Over the course of the three days, there were 742 drug overdoses.


title: Woodstock

text: Max Yasgur owned the site of the event, and he spoke of how nearly half a million people spent the three days with music and peace on their minds. He stated, "If we join them, we can turn those adversities that are the problems of America today into a hope for a brighter and more peaceful future."


title: Woodstock

text: Sound for the concert was engineered by sound engineer Bill Hanley. "It worked very well," he says of the event. "I built special speaker columns on the hills and had 16 loudspeaker arrays in a square platform going up to the hill on towers. We set it up for 150,000 to 200,000 people. Of course, 500,000 showed up." ALTEC designed marine plywood cabinets that weighed half a ton apiece and stood tall, almost deep, and wide. Each of these enclosures carried four JBL D140 loudspeakers. The tweeters consisted of 4×2-Cell & 2×10-Cell Altec Horns. Behind the stage were three transformers providing 2,000 amperes of current to power the amplification setup. For many years this system was collectively referred to as "the Woodstock Bins". The live performances were captured on two 8-track Scully recorders in a tractor trailer back stage by Edwin Kramer and Lee Osbourne on 1-inch Scotch recording tape at 15ips, then mixed at the Record Plant studio in New York.


title: Woodstock

text: Lighting for the concert was engineered by lighting designer and technical director E.H. Beresford "Chip" Monck. Monck was hired to plan and build the staging and lighting, ten weeks of work for which he was paid $7,000 (equivalent to $ today). Much of his plan had to be scrapped when the promoters were not allowed to use the original location in Wallkill, New York. The stage roof that was constructed in the shorter time available was not able to support the lighting that had been rented, which wound up sitting unused underneath the stage. The only light on the stage was from spotlights.


title: Woodstock

text: Monck used twelve 1300 Watt Super Trouper-follow spots rigged on four towers around the stage. The follow spots weighed each and were operated by spotlight operators who had to climb up on the top of the lighting towers.


title: Woodstock

text: Monck also was drafted just before the concert started as the master of ceremonies when Michael Lang noticed he had forgotten to hire one. He can be heard and seen in recordings of Woodstock making the stage announcements, including requests to "stay off the towers" and the warning about the "brown acid".


title: Woodstock

text: Very few reporters from outside the immediate area were on the scene. During the first few days of the festival, national media coverage emphasized the problems. Front-page headlines in the "Daily News" read "Traffic Uptight at Hippiefest" and "Hippies Mired in a Sea of Mud". The "New York Times" ran an editorial titled "Nightmare in the Catskills", which read in part, "The dreams of marijuana and rock music that drew 300,000 fans and hippies to the Catskills had little more sanity than the impulses that drive the lemmings to march to their deaths in the sea. They ended in a nightmare of mud and stagnation ... What kind of culture is it that can produce so colossal a mess?" Coverage became more positive by the end of the festival, in part because the parents of concertgoers called the media and told them, based on their children's phone calls, that their reporting was misleading.


title: Woodstock

text: "The New York Times" covered the prelude to the festival and the move from Wallkill to Bethel. Barnard Collier, who reported from the event for "The New York Times", asserts that he was pressured by on-duty editors at the paper to write a misleadingly negative article about the event. According to Collier, this led to acrimonious discussions and his threat to refuse to write the article until the paper's executive editor, James Reston, agreed to let him write the article as he saw fit. The eventual article dealt with issues of traffic jams and minor lawbreaking, but went on to emphasize cooperation, generosity, and the good nature of the festival goers. When the festival was over, Collier wrote another article about the exodus of fans from the festival site and the lack of violence at the event. The chief medical officer for the event and several local residents were quoted as praising the festival goers.


title: Woodstock

text: Middletown, New York's "Times Herald-Record", the only local daily newspaper, editorialized against the law that banned the festival from Wallkill. During the festival a rare Saturday edition was published. The paper had the only phone line running out of the site, and it used a motorcyclist to get stories and pictures from the impassable crowd to the newspaper's office away in Middletown.


title: Woodstock

text: The documentary film "Woodstock", directed by Michael Wadleigh and edited by a crew headed by Thelma Schoonmaker, was released in March 1970. Artie Kornfeld (one of the promoters of the festival) went to Fred Weintraub, an executive at Warner Bros., and asked for money to film the festival. Artie had been turned down everywhere else, but against the express wishes of other Warner Bros. executives, Weintraub put his job on the line and gave Kornfeld $100,000 (equivalent to $ today) to make the film. "Woodstock" helped to save Warner Bros at a time when the company was on the verge of going out of business. The book "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls" details the making of the film.


title: Woodstock

text: Wadleigh rounded up a crew of about 100 from the New York film scene. With no money to pay the crew, he agreed to a double-or-nothing scheme, in which the crew would receive double pay if the film succeeded and nothing if it bombed. Wadleigh strove to make the film as much about the hippies as the music, listening to their feelings about compelling events contemporaneous with the festival (such as the Vietnam War), as well as the views of the townspeople.


title: Woodstock

text: "Woodstock" received the Academy Award for Documentary Feature. In 1996, the film was inducted into the Library of Congress National Film Registry. In 1994, "Woodstock: The Director's Cut" was released and expanded to include Janis Joplin as well as additional performances by Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, and Canned Heat not seen in the original version of the film. In 2009, the expanded 40th Anniversary Edition was released on DVD. This release marks the film's first availability on Blu-ray.


title: Woodstock

text: "Woodstock Diaries" was produced by D.A. Pennebaker in 1994 as a three-part TV documentary miniseries. It was intended to commemorate Woodstock's 25th anniversary and includes rare performances and interviews with many of the concert’s producers, including Joel Rosenman, John Roberts and Michael Lang.


title: Woodstock

text: "Jimi Hendrix: Live at Woodstock" was produced in 2005 as two-disc set that includes all available footage of Hendrix’s Woodstock performance, in two different edits. The release also includes a mini-documentary with members of Hendrix’s band, and footage of a September 1969 news conference where he discussed his Woodstock set.


title: Woodstock

text: "Taking Woodstock" was produced in 2009 by Taiwanese American filmmaker Ang Lee. Lee practically rented out the entire town of New Lebanon, New York, to shoot the film. He was initially concerned with angering the locals, but they ended up being very welcoming and willing to help with the film. The movie is based on Elliot Tiber, played by Demetri Martin, and his role in bringing Woodstock to Bethel, New York. The film also stars Jonathan Groff as Michael Lang, Daniel Eric Gold as Joel Rosenman, and Henry Goodman and Imelda Staunton as Jake and Sonia Teichberg.


title: Woodstock

text: "Woodstock: Three Days That Defined a Generation" is a documentary by Barak Goodman, produced in 2019 by PBS. It focuses on Woodstock's social and political context and contains previously unseen footage supplemented by voice-over anecdotes from festival attendees. It focuses more on the scene in the crowd (and around the country) than on the stage.


title: Woodstock

text: "Creating Woodstock" was directed by Mick Richards and produced in 2019. It looks at how the festival came together, with interviews with producers elucidating some of Woodstock’s myths, and what it took to get many performers to attend. (Janis Joplin, for example, apparently required a personal supply of strawberries).


title: Woodstock

text: Two soundtrack albums were released. The first, "", was a 3-LP (later 2-CD) album containing a sampling of one or two songs by most of the acts who performed. A year later, "Woodstock 2" was released as a 2-LP album. Both albums included recordings of stage announcements (many by Production Coordinator John Morris, e.g., "[We're told] that the brown acid is not specifically too good", "Hey, if you think really hard, maybe we can stop this rain") and crowd noises (i.e., the rain chant) between songs. In August 1994, a third album, "Woodstock Diary" was released, containing music not included on the earlier two albums.


title: Woodstock

text: Tracks from all three albums, as well as numerous additional, previously unreleased performances from the festival (but not the stage announcements and crowd noises) were reissued by Atlantic, also in August 1994, as a 4-CD box set titled "".


title: Woodstock

text: An album titled "Jimi Hendrix: Woodstock" was also released in August 1994, featuring only selected recordings of Jimi Hendrix at the festival.


title: Woodstock

text: In July 1999, MCA Records released "Live at Woodstock", a double-disc recording (longer than "Jimi Hendrix: Woodstock") featuring nearly every song of Hendrix's performance, omitting just two pieces that were sung by his rhythm guitarist Larry Lee.


title: Woodstock

text: In June 2009, complete performances from Woodstock by Santana, Janis Joplin, Sly & the Family Stone, Jefferson Airplane, and Johnny Winter were released separately by Legacy/SME Records, and were also collected in a box set titled "The Woodstock Experience".


title: Woodstock

text: In August 2009, Rhino/Atlantic Records issued a 6-CD box set titled "", which included further musical performances as well as stage announcements and other ancillary material.


title: Woodstock

text: In October 2009, Joe Cocker released "Live at Woodstock", a live album of his entire Woodstock set. The album contains eleven tracks, ten of which were previously unreleased.


title: Woodstock

text: On 2 August 2019, the Rhino/Atlantic released "", a 38-CD, 36-hour, 432-song completists' audio box set of nearly every note played at the original 1969 Woodstock festival (including 276 songs that were previously unreleased), a "CD collection [co-produced for Rhino by archivist Andy Zax] that lays the '69 fest out in chronological order, from the first stage announcements to muddy farewells." The only things missing from this 38-CD edition are two Jimi Hendrix songs that his estate did not believe were up to the required standard and some of Sha Na Na's music that missed being captured on tape. Due to various production and warehousing issues, the release of the box set was delayed dramatically, causing massive backlash and dissatisfaction toward Rhino and Warner Music. More condensed versions—an album on 10 CDs, and an album on either 3 CDs or 5 LPs—were also released. The full version was limited to a run of only 1,969 copies.


title: Woodstock

text: Also released in 2019 was "Live at Woodstock," an official album of all 11 songs played by Creedence Clearwater Revival, from “Born on the Bayou” to “Bad Moon Rising” and “Proud Mary.” John Fogerty had originally thought the band’s performance was unworthy but this album was finally released both on CD and as a double vinyl LP.


title: Woodstock

text: In the years immediately following the festival, Woodstock co-producers John Roberts and Joel Rosenman, along with Robert Pilpel, wrote "Young Men with Unlimited Capital: The Inside Story of the Legendary Woodstock Festival Told By The Two People Who Paid for It", a book about the goings-on behind the scenes during the production of the Woodstock Festival.


title: Woodstock

text: Max Yasgur refused to rent out his farm for a 1970 revival of the festival, saying, "As far as I know, I'm going back to running a dairy farm." Yasgur died in 1973.


title: Woodstock

text: Bethel voters did not re-elect Supervisor Amatucci, in an election held in November 1969, because of his role in bringing the festival to the town and the upset attributed to some residents. Although accounts vary, the loss was only by a very small margin of between six and fifty votes. The New York State Legislature and the Town of Bethel also enacted mass gathering laws designed to prevent any more festivals from occurring.


title: Woodstock

text: Approximately 80 lawsuits were filed against Woodstock Ventures, primarily by farmers in the area. The movie financed settlements and paid off the $1.4 million of debt (equivalent to $ million today) Roberts and Rosenman had incurred from the festival.


title: Woodstock

text: In 1984, at the original festival site, land owners Louis Nicky and June Gelish put up a monument marker with plaques called "Peace and Music" by a local sculptor from nearby Bloomingburg, Wayne C. Saward.


title: Woodstock

text: Attempts were made to prevent people from visiting the site. Its owners spread chicken manure, and during one anniversary, tractors and state police cars formed roadblocks. Twenty thousand people gathered at the site in 1989 during an impromptu 20th anniversary celebration. In 1997 a community group put up a welcoming sign for visitors. Unlike Bethel, the town of Woodstock made several efforts to capitalize on its connection. Bethel's stance eventually changed and the town began to embrace the festival. Efforts were undertaken to forge a link between Bethel and Woodstock.


title: Woodstock

text: The field and the stage area remain preserved and are open to visitors as part of the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts after being purchased in 1996 by cable television pioneer Alan Gerry for the purpose. The center opened on July 1, 2006, with a performance by the New York Philharmonic on a newly constructed pavilion stage located about south of the site of the 1969 stage. (The site of the original stage is vacant other than a commemorative plaque was placed in 1984.) In June 2008 the Bethel Woods Center opened a museum dedicated to the experience and cultural significance of the Woodstock festival.


title: Woodstock

text: Notable events since the opening of the center have included an August 2006 performance by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and the scattering of


title: Woodstock

text: In late 2016 New York's State Historic Preservation Office applied to the National Park Service to have , including the site of the festival and adjacent areas used for campgrounds, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the site was listed on the register in February 2017.


title: Woodstock

text: There was worldwide media interest in the 40th anniversary of Woodstock in 2009. A number of activities to commemorate the festival took place around the world. On August 15, at the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts overlooking the original site, the largest assembly of Woodstock performing alumni since the original 1969 festival performed in an eight-hour concert in front of a sold-out crowd. Hosted by Country Joe McDonald, the concert featured Big Brother and the Holding Company performing Janis Joplin's hits (she actually appeared with the Kozmic Blues Band at Woodstock, although that band did feature former Big Brother guitarist Sam Andrew), Canned Heat, Ten Years After, Jefferson Starship, Mountain, and the headliners, The Levon Helm Band. At Woodstock, Levon Helm played drums and was one of the lead vocalists with The Band. Paul Kantner was the only member of the 1969 Jefferson Airplane lineup to appear with Jefferson Starship. Tom Constanten, who played keyboard with the Grateful Dead at Woodstock, joined Jefferson Starship on stage for several numbers. Jocko Marcellino from Sha Na Na also appeared, backed up by Canned Heat. Richie Havens, who opened the Woodstock festival in 1969, appeared at a separate event the previous night. Crosby, Stills & Nash and Arlo Guthrie also marked the anniversary with live performances at Bethel earlier in August 2009.


title: Woodstock

text: Another event occurred in Hawkhurst, Kent (UK), at a Summer of Love party, with acts including two of the participants at the original Woodstock, Barry Melton of Country Joe and the Fish and Robin Williamson of The Incredible String Band, plus Santana and Grateful Dead cover bands. On August 14 and 15, 2009, a 40th anniversary tribute concert was held in Woodstock, Illinois, and was the only festival to receive the official blessing of the "Father of Woodstock", Artie Kornfeld. Kornfeld later made an appearance in Woodstock with the event's promoters.


title: Woodstock

text: Also in 2009, Michael Lang and Holly George-Warren published "The Road to Woodstock", which describes Lang's involvement in the creation of the Woodstock Music & Arts Festival, and includes personal stories and quotes from central figures involved in the event.


title: Woodstock

text: In May 2014, Michael Lang, one of the producers and organizers of the original Woodstock event, revealed plans for a possible 50th anniversary concert in 2019 and that he was exploring various locations. Reports in late 2018 confirmed the plans for a concurrent 50th anniversary event on the original site to be operated by the Bethel Woods Centre for the Arts. The scheduled date for the "Bethel Woods Music and Culture Festival: Celebrating the golden anniversary at the historic site of the 1969 Woodstock festival" was August 16–18, 2019. Partners in the event were Live Nation and INVNT. Bethel Woods described the festival as a "pan-generational music, culture and community event" (including some live performances and talks by) "leading futurists and retro-tech experts".


title: Woodstock

text: Michael Lang told a reporter that he also had "definite plans" for a 50th anniversary concert that would "hopefully encourage people to get involved with our lives on the planet" with a goal of re-capturing the "history and essence of what Woodstock was".


title: Woodstock

text: On January 9, 2019, Lang announced that the official Woodstock 50th anniversary festival would take place on August 16–18, 2019, in Watkins Glen, New York.


title: Woodstock

text: On March 19, 2019, the proposed line-up for Woodstock 50 was announced. This included some artists who performed at the original Woodstock festival in 1969: John Fogerty (from Creedence Clearwater Revival), Carlos Santana (as Santana), David Crosby (from Crosby, Stills & Nash), Melanie, John Sebastian, Country Joe McDonald, three Grateful Dead members (as Dead & Company), Canned Heat, and Hot Tuna (containing members of Jefferson Airplane). The event was to take place at Watkins Glen International, the race track in Watkins Glen, New York, the site in 1973 for the Summer Jam at Watkins Glen which drew an estimated 600,000 people.


title: Woodstock

text: On April 29, 2019, it was announced that Woodstock 50 had been cancelled by investors (Dentsu Aegis Network), who had lost faith in its preparations. The producers "vehemently" denied any cancellation, with Michael Lang telling "The New York Times" that investors have no such prerogative.


title: Woodstock

text: After a lawsuit with original financiers, the Woodstock 50 team then announced that it had received help from Oppenheimer & Co. for financing so that the three-day event can continue to take place in August despite the original financiers pulling out.


title: Woodstock

text: On July 31, 2019, NPR reported that the concert had finally been cancelled. The Bethel Woods Center for the Arts did organize a weekend of "low-key" concerts.


title: Woodstock

text: Woodstock still acts as an economic engine for the local economy. A Bethel Woods report from 2018 indicates that $560.82 million of spending has been generated in New York. With 2.9 million visitors since 2006 and 214,405 visitors in 2018, an equivalent of 172 full-time jobs exist as a result, which includes direct wages of $5.1 million from Bethel Woods in Sullivan County.


title: Woodstock

text: As one of the biggest music festivals of all time and a cultural touchstone for the late 1960s, Woodstock has been referenced in many different ways in popular culture. The phrase "the Woodstock generation" became part of the common lexicon. Tributes and parodies of the festival began almost as soon as the festival concluded. Cartoonist Charles Schulz named his recurring "Peanuts" bird character – which began appearing in 1966 but was still unnamed – Woodstock in tribute to the festival (see GoComics archive - 1970JUN22). In April 1970, "Mad" magazine published a poem by Frank Jacobs and illustrated by Sergio Aragonés titled "I Remember, I Remember The Wondrous Woodstock Music Fair" that parodies the traffic jams and the challenges of getting close enough to actually hear the music. Keith Robertson's 1970 children's book "Henry Reed's Big Show" has the title character attempting to emulate the success of the festival by mounting his own concert at his uncle's farm.


title: Woodstock

text: In 1973, the stage show "National Lampoon's Lemmings" portrayed the "Woodchuck" festival, featuring parodies of many Woodstock performers.


title: Woodstock

text: "Time" magazine named "The Who at Woodstock – 1969" to the magazine's "Top 10 Music-Festival Moments" list on March 18, 2010.


title: Woodstock

text: In 2005, Argentine writer Edgar Brau published "Woodstock", a long poem commemorating the festival. An English translation of the poem was published in January 2007 by Words Without Borders.


title: Woodstock

text: In 2017, the singer Lana Del Rey released a song, "Coachella – Woodstock in My Mind," in order to show her worries about the tensions between North Korea and the United States while she was at Coachella, expressing nostalgia by using the Woodstock festival as a symbol of peace.


title: Woodstock

text: In 2017, Portland rock band Portugal. The Man released album Woodstock, inspired by the lead singer John Gourley's conversation with his dad about the Woodstock festival ticket stub.


title: Woodstock

text: In August 2019, the United States Postal Service released a Forever stamp commemorating Woodstock's 50th anniversary. The stamp was designed by Antonio Alcalá, Art Director of the USPS and was first issued at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City on 8 August 2019. The museum was hosting "Play it Loud", an exhibit co-organized with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame consisting of vintage rock and roll instruments, posters, and costumes. Attending the ceremony were Woodstock producers Michael Lang and Joel Rosenman. The ceremony began with a "stirring" electric guitar performance of "The Star Spangled Banner" by "Captain" Kirk Douglas of The Roots—"reminiscent" of Jimi Hendrix's performance at the original festival.


title: 69 (sex position)

text: Sixty-nine or 69, also known by its French name soixante-neuf (69), is a group of sex positions in which two people align themselves so that each person's mouth is near the other's genitals, each simultaneously performing oral sex on the other. The participants are thus mutually inverted like the numerals 6 and 9 in the number 69 (), hence the name. This position can involve any combination of sexes.


title: 69 (sex position)

text: Variations of the 69 positions include mutual anilingus or "double rimming", and digital penetration of either partner's anus or vagina.


title: 69 (sex position)

text: In these positions, the partners are said to experience sexual stimulation simultaneously, but this can also distract those who try to focus solely on pleasuring themselves. The position can also be awkward for partners who are not similar in height.


title: 69 (sex position)

text: The term sixty-nine or soixante-neuf for mutual simultaneous oral-genital stimulation is an English translation of the euphemistic French term, ""soixante-neuf"." The term ""soixante-neuf"" has not been traced any earlier than the "Whore's Catechism"s published in the 1790s in France, usually attributed to the early leader of the French Revolution, Mlle. Théroigne de Méricourt.


title: 69 (sex position)

text: "The earliest unequivocal representation of the sixty-nine appears to be that on an oil-lamp preserved in the Munich Museum (Deutsches Museum), and first reproduced in Dr. Gaston Vorberg's ... portfolio, "Die Erotik der Antiken in Kleinkunst und Keramik" (Munich, 1921) plate 58, showing the woman lying on top of the man. Dr. Vorberg gives this ... to be of the period of the Roman Caesars ... . However, another oil-lamp of the same kind, showing the sixty-nine almost identically ... is more recently reproduced as a full-color plate, in Prof. Jean Marcadé's "Eros Kalos" (English-language edition, Geneva : Nagel, 1965), facing page 58, in ... lamps preserved in the Heracleion Museum in Greece."


title: 69 (sex position)

text: "A Hindu temple-sculpture from the sacred caverns of the island of Elephanta, near Mumbai in India, showing this position with the man actually standing, and holding the woman hanging down in this from his shoulders, was ... brought to England in the late eighteenth century ... . ... this sculptured fragment ... is both discussed and illustrated in Richard Payne Knight's "A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus", privately issued for the Dilettanti Society of London in 1786 ... . The illustration in question is a detail engraving given in Payne Knight's plate XI; and the full form of this sculptured group is ... given as plate XXIV."


title: 69 (sex position)

text: The "Kama Sutra" mentions this sex position, albeit by a different name: "When a man and woman lie down in an inverted order, i.e. with the head of the one towards the feet of the other and carry on [mouth] congress, it is called the 'congress of a crow'."


title: 69 (sex position)

text: In reference to the sex position, "69" has become an internet meme, where users will respond to any occurrence of the number with the word "nice" and draw specific attention to it. This means to sarcastically imply that the reference to the sex position was intentional. Because of its association with the sex position and resulting meme, "69" has become known as "the sex number" in these communities, similar to the number 420, which is known as "the weed number".


title: 300 (film)

text: 300 is a 2006 American epic historical action film based on the 1998 comic series of the same name by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley. Both are fictionalized retellings of the Battle of Thermopylae in the Greco-Persian Wars. The film was co-written and directed by Zack Snyder, while Miller served as executive producer and consultant. It was filmed mostly with a superimposition chroma key technique to replicate the imagery of the original comic book.


title: 300 (film)

text: The plot revolves around King Leonidas (Gerard Butler), who leads 300 Spartans into battle against the Persian "God-King" Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) and his big "and" good army of more than 300,000 soldiers. As the battle rages, Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey) attempts to rally support in Sparta for her husband. The story is framed by a voice-over narrative by the Spartan soldier Dilios (David Wenham). Through this narrative technique, various fantastical creatures are introduced, placing "300" within the genre of historical fantasy.


title: 300 (film)

text: "300" premiered at the Austin Butt-Numb-A-Thon on December 9, 2006, and was released at the Berlin International Film Festival on February 14, 2007, before being released in both conventional and IMAX 8 in the United States on March 9, 2007, and on DVD, Blu-ray Disc, and HD DVD on July 31, 2007. The film received mixed reviews, with critics praising its visuals and style but criticizing its depiction of the Persians, which some characterized as bigoted or Iranophobic. Grossing over $456 million, the film's opening was the 24th-largest in box office history at the time. A sequel, titled "", based on Miller's previously unpublished graphic novel prequel "Xerxes", was released on March 7, 2014.


title: 300 (film)

text: In 479 B.C., one year after the Battle of Thermopylae, Dilios, a hoplite in the Spartan army, begins his story by depicting the life of Leonidas I from childhood to kingship via Spartan doctrine. Dilios's story continues and a Persian herald arrives at the gates of Sparta demanding "earth and water" as a token of submission to King Xerxes—the Spartans reply by throwing the envoy and his escort down into a bottomless pit. Leonidas then visits the Ephors, proposing a strategy to drive back the numerically superior Persians through the Hot Gates. His plan involves building a wall in order to funnel the Persians into a narrow pass between the rocks and the sea: negating the Persian advantage in numbers, and giving the Greeks' heavy infantry the advantage over the vast waves of Persian light infantry. The Ephors consult the Oracle, who decrees that Sparta may not go to war during the Carneia. As Leonidas angrily departs, an agent from Xerxes appears, rewarding the Ephors for their covert support.


title: 300 (film)

text: Although the Ephors have denied him permission to mobilize Sparta's army, Leonidas gathers three hundred of his best soldiers in the guise of his personal bodyguard. They are joined along the way by a force composed of a few thousand Arcadians and other Greeks. At Thermopylae, they construct the wall, using slain Persian scouts as mortar. Stelios, an elite Spartan soldier, orders an enraged Persian emissary to return to his lines and warn Xerxes, after cutting off his whipping arm.


title: 300 (film)

text: Meanwhile, Leonidas encounters Ephialtes, a deformed Spartan whose parents fled Sparta to spare him certain infanticide. Ephialtes asks to redeem his father's name by joining Leonidas' army, warning him of a secret path the Persians could use to outflank and surround the Spartans. Though sympathetic, Leonidas rejects him since his deformity physically prevents him from holding his shield high enough, potentially compromising the phalanx formation.


title: 300 (film)

text: The battle begins soon after the Spartans' refusal to lay down their weapons. Using the Hot Gates to their advantage, as well as their superior fighting skills, the Spartans repel wave after wave of the advancing Persian army. Xerxes personally approaches Leonidas and offers him wealth and power in exchange for his submission. Leonidas declines and mocks the inferior quality of Xerxes' fanatical warriors. In response, Xerxes sends in his elite guard, the Immortals; the Spartans nonetheless defeat them with few losses, with slight help from the Arcadians.


title: 300 (film)

text: On the second day, Xerxes sends in new waves of armies from Asia and other Persian subject states, including war elephants, to crush the Spartans, but to no avail. Meanwhile, an embittered Ephialtes defects to Xerxes to whom he reveals the secret path in exchange for wealth, luxury, women, and a Persian uniform. The Arcadians retreat upon learning of Ephialtes' betrayal, but the Spartans stay. Leonidas orders an injured but reluctant Dilios to return to Sparta and tell them of what has happened: a "tale of victory".


title: 300 (film)

text: In Sparta, Queen Gorgo tries to persuade the Spartan Council to send reinforcements to aid the 300. Theron, a corrupt politician, claims that he "owns" the council and threatens the Queen, who reluctantly submits to his sexual demands in return for his help. When Theron disgraces her in front of the council, Gorgo kills him out of rage, revealing within his robe a bag of Xerxes' gold. Acknowledging his betrayal, the Council unanimously agrees to send reinforcements. On the third day, the Persians, led by Ephialtes, traverse the secret path, encircling the Spartans. Xerxes' general again demands their surrender. Leonidas seemingly kneels in submission, allowing Stelios to leap over him and kill the general. Angered, Xerxes orders his troops to attack. Leonidas throws his spear at Xerxes, which cuts across and wounds his face, proving the God-King's mortality. Leonidas and the remaining Spartans fight to the last man until they finally succumb to an arrow barrage.


title: 300 (film)

text: Dilios, now back in Sparta, concludes his tale before the council. Inspired by Leonidas' sacrifice, the Greeks mobilize. One year later, the Persians face an army of 30,000 free Greeks led by a vanguard of 10,000 Spartans. After one final speech commemorating the 300, Dilios, now head of the Spartan Army, leads them to battle against the Persians across the fields of Plataea.


title: 300 (film)

text: Producer Gianni Nunnari was not the only person planning a film about the Battle of Thermopylae; director Michael Mann already planned a film of the battle based on the book "Gates of Fire". Nunnari discovered Frank Miller's graphic novel "300", which impressed him enough to acquire the film rights. "300" was jointly produced by Nunnari and Mark Canton, and Michael B. Gordon wrote the script. Director Zack Snyder was hired in June 2004 as he had attempted to make a film based on Miller's novel before making his debut with the remake of "Dawn of the Dead". Snyder then had screenwriter Kurt Johnstad rewrite Gordon's script for production and Frank Miller was retained as consultant and executive producer. Frank Miller's original graphic novel "300" was inspired by the film "The 300 Spartans", which Miller first saw at age six.


title: 300 (film)

text: The film is a shot-for-shot adaptation of the comic book, similar to the film adaptation of "Sin City". Snyder photocopied panels from the comic book, from which he planned the preceding and succeeding shots. "It was a fun process for me… to have a frame as a goal to get to," he said. Like the comic book, the adaptation also used the character Dilios as a narrator. Snyder used this narrative technique to show the audience that the surreal "Frank Miller world" of "300" was told from a subjective perspective. By using Dilios' gift of storytelling, he was able to introduce fantasy elements into the film, explaining that "Dilios is a guy who knows how not to wreck a good story with truth." Snyder also added the subplot in which Queen Gorgo attempts to rally support for her husband.


title: 300 (film)

text: Two months of pre-production were required to create hundreds of shields, spears, and swords, some of which were recycled from "Troy" and "Alexander". Creatures were designed by Jordu Schell, and an animatronic wolf and thirteen animatronic horses were created. The actors trained alongside the stuntmen, and even Snyder joined in. Upwards of 600 costumes were created for the film, as well as extensive prosthetics for various characters and the corpses of Persian soldiers. Shaun Smith and Mark Rappaport worked hand in hand with Snyder in pre-production to design the look of the individual characters, and to produce the prosthetic makeup effects, props, weapons and dummy bodies required for the production.


title: 300 (film)

text: "300" entered active production on October 17, 2005, in Montreal, and was shot over the course of sixty days in chronological order with a budget of $60 million. Employing the digital backlot technique, Snyder shot at the now-defunct Icestorm Studios in Montreal using bluescreens. Butler said that while he did not feel constrained by Snyder's direction, fidelity to the comic imposed certain limitations on his performance. Wenham said there were times when Snyder wanted to precisely capture iconic moments from the comic book, and other times when he gave actors freedom "to explore within the world and the confines that had been set". Headey said of her experience with the bluescreens, "It's very odd, and emotionally, there's nothing to connect to apart from another actor." Only one scene, in which horses travel across the countryside, was shot outdoors. The film was an intensely physical production, and Butler pulled an arm tendon and developed foot drop.


title: 300 (film)

text: Post-production was handled by Montreal's Meteor Studios and Hybride Technologies filled in the bluescreen footage with more than 1,500 visual effects shots. Visual effects supervisor Chris Watts and production designer Jim Bissell created a process dubbed "The Crush," which allowed the Meteor artists to manipulate the colors by increasing the contrast of light and dark. Certain sequences were desaturated and tinted to establish different moods. Ghislain St-Pierre, who led the team of artists, described the effect: "Everything looks realistic, but it has a kind of a gritty illustrative feel." Various computer programs, including Maya, RenderMan, and RealFlow, were used to create the "spraying blood". The post-production lasted for a year and was handled by a total of ten special effects companies.


title: 300 (film)

text: In July 2005, composer Tyler Bates began work on the film, describing the score as having "beautiful themes on the top and large choir," but "tempered with some extreme heaviness". The composer had scored for a test scene that the director wanted to show to Warner Bros. to illustrate the path of the project. Bates said that the score had "a lot of weight and intensity in the low end of the percussion" that Snyder found agreeable to the film. The score was recorded at Abbey Road Studios and features the vocals of Azam Ali. A standard edition and a special edition of the soundtrack containing 25 tracks was released on March 6, 2007, with the special edition containing a 16-page booklet and three two-sided trading cards.


title: 300 (film)

text: The score has caused some controversy in the film composer community, garnering criticism for its striking similarity to several other recent soundtracks, including James Horner and Gabriel Yared's work for the film "Troy". The heaviest borrowings are said to be from Elliot Goldenthal's 1999 score for "Titus". "Remember Us," from "300", is identical in parts to the "Finale" from "Titus", and "Returns a King" is similar to the cue "Victorius Titus". On August 3, 2007, Warner Bros. Pictures acknowledged in an official statement:


title: 300 (film)

text: The official "300" website was launched by Warner Bros. in December 2005. The "conceptual art" and Zack Snyder's production blog were the initial attractions of the site. Later, the website added video journals describing production details, including comic-to-screen shots and the creatures of "300". In January 2007, the studio launched a MySpace page for the film. The Art Institutes created a micro-site to promote the film.


title: 300 (film)

text: At Comic-Con International in July 2006, the "300" panel aired a promotional teaser trailer of the film, which was positively received. Despite stringent security, the trailer was subsequently leaked on the Internet. Warner Bros. released the official trailer for "300" on October 4, 2006, and later on it made its debut on Apple.com where it received considerable exposure. The background music used in the trailers was "Just Like You Imagined" by Nine Inch Nails. A second "300" trailer, which was attached to "Apocalypto", was released in theaters on December 8, 2006, and online the day before. On January 22, 2007, an exclusive trailer for the film was broadcast during prime-time television. The trailers have been credited with igniting interest in the film and contributing to its box-office success.


title: 300 (film)

text: In April 2006, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment announced its intention to make a PlayStation Portable game, "", based on the film. Collision Studios worked with Warner Bros. to capture the style of the film in the video game, which was released simultaneously with the film in the United States. The National Entertainment Collectibles Association produced a series of action figures based on the film, as well as replicas of weapons and armor.


title: 300 (film)

text: Warner Bros. promoted "300" by sponsoring the Ultimate Fighting Championship's light heavyweight champion Chuck Liddell, who made personal appearances and participated in other promotional activities. The studio also joined with the National Hockey League to produce a 30-second TV spot promoting the film in tandem with the Stanley Cup playoffs.


title: 300 (film)

text: In August 2006, Warner Bros. announced "300" release date as March 16, 2007, but in October the release was moved forward to March 9, 2007. An unfinished cut of "300" was shown at Butt-Numb-A-Thon film festival on December 9, 2006.


title: 300 (film)

text: "300" was released on DVD, Blu-ray Disc, and HD DVD on July 31, 2007, in region 1 territories, in single-disc and two-disc editions. "300" was released in single-disc and steelcase two-disc editions on DVD, BD and HD DVD in region 2 territories beginning August 2007. On July 21, 2009, Warner Bros. released a new Blu-ray Disc entitled "300: The Complete Experience" to coincide with the Blu-ray Disc release of "Watchmen". This new Blu-ray Disc is encased in a 40-page Digibook and includes all the extras from the original release as well as some new ones. These features include a picture-in-picture feature entitled "The Complete 300: A Comprehensive Immersion", which enables the viewer to view the film in three different perspectives. This release also includes a digital copy. An Ultra HD Blu-ray edition of the film was released on October 6, 2020.


title: 300 (film)

text: On July 9, 2007, American cable channel TNT bought the rights to broadcast the film from Warner Bros. TNT started airing the film in September 2009. Sources say that the network paid between $17 million and just under $20 million for the broadcasting rights. TNT agreed to a three-year deal instead of the more typical five-year deal.


title: 300 (film)

text: "300" was released in North America on March 9, 2007, in both conventional and IMAX theaters. It grossed $28,106,731 on its opening day and ended its North American opening weekend with $70,885,301, breaking the record held by "" for the biggest opening weekend in the month of March and for a Spring release. Since then "300"s Spring release record was broken by "Fast and Furious" and "300"s March record was broken by Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland". "300" opening weekend gross is the 24th-highest in box office history, coming slightly below "" but higher than "Transformers". It was the third-biggest opening for an R-rated film ever, behind "The Matrix Reloaded" ($91.8 million) and "The Passion of the Christ" ($83.8 million). The film also set a record for IMAX cinemas with a $3.6 million opening weekend. The film grossed $456,068,181 worldwide.


title: 300 (film)

text: "300" opened two days earlier, on March 7, 2007, in Sparta, and across Greece on March 8. Studio executives were surprised by the showing, which was twice what they had expected. They credited the film's stylized violence, the strong female role of Queen Gorgo which attracted a large number of women, and a MySpace advertising blitz. Producer Mark Canton said, "MySpace had an enormous impact but it has transcended the limitations of the Internet or the graphic novel. Once you make a great movie, word can spread very quickly."


title: 300 (film)

text: The film received a standing ovation at its world premiere in front of 1,700 audience members at the Berlin International Film Festival on February 14, 2007. It had been panned at a press screening hours earlier, where many attendees left during the showing and those who remained booed at the end.


title: 300 (film)

text: As of January 2021, on Rotten Tomatoes, the film had an approval rating of 61% based on 236 reviews, with an average rating of 6.10/10. The site's critical consensus read, "A simple-minded but visually exciting experience, full of blood, violence, and ready-made movie quotes." As of October 2020, on Metacritic, the film had an weighted average score of 52 out of 100, based on 42 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.


title: 300 (film)

text: Some of the most unfavorable reviews came from major American newspapers. A. O. Scott of "The New York Times" describes "300" as "about as violent as "Apocalypto" and twice as stupid," while criticizing its color scheme and suggesting that its plot includes racist undertones; Scott also poked fun at the buffed bodies of the actors portraying the Spartans, declaring that the Persian characters are "pioneers in the art of face-piercing", but that the Spartans had access to "superior health clubs and electrolysis facilities". Kenneth Turan writes in the "Los Angeles Times" that "unless you love violence as much as a Spartan, Quentin Tarantino or a video-game-playing teenage boy, you will not be endlessly fascinated". Roger Ebert gave the film a 2 out of 4 rating, writing, ""300" has one-dimensional caricatures who talk like professional wrestlers plugging their next feud." Some critics employed at Greek newspapers have been particularly critical, such as film critic Robby Eksiel, who said that moviegoers would be dazzled by the "digital action" but irritated by the "pompous interpretations and one-dimensional characters".


title: 300 (film)

text: "Variety"'s Todd McCarthy describes the film as "visually arresting" although "bombastic" while Kirk Honeycutt, writing in "The Hollywood Reporter", praises the "beauty of its topography, colors and forms". Writing in the "Chicago Sun-Times", Richard Roeper acclaims "300" as "the "Citizen Kane" of cinematic graphic novels". "Empire" gave the film three out of five, writing, "Visually stunning, thoroughly belligerent and as shallow as a pygmy's paddling pool, this is a whole heap of style tinged with just a smidgen of substance." Comic Book Resources' Mark Cronan found the film compelling, leaving him "with a feeling of power, from having been witness to something grand". IGN's Todd Gilchrist acclaimed Zack Snyder as a cinematic visionary and "a possible redeemer of modern moviemaking".


title: 300 (film)

text: At the MTV Movie Awards 2007, "300" was nominated for Best Movie, Best Performance for Gerard Butler, Best Breakthrough Performance for Lena Headey, Best Villain for Rodrigo Santoro, and Best Fight for Leonidas battling "the Über Immortal", but only won the award for Best Fight. "300" won both the Best Dramatic Film and Best Action Film honors in the 2006–2007 Golden Icon Awards presented by Travolta Family Entertainment. In December 2007, "300" won IGN's Movie of the Year 2007, along with Best Comic Book Adaptation and King Leonidas as Favorite Character. The movie received 10 nominations for the 2008 Saturn Awards, winning the awards for Best Director and Best Action/Adventure/Thriller Film. In 2009, "National Review" magazine ranked "300" number 5 on its 25 "Best Conservative Movies of the Last 25 Years" list.


title: 300 (film)

text: In the actual Battle of Thermopylae, the Spartans had already joined an alliance with other Greek "poleis" against the Persians. During the Battle of Thermopylae, Xerxes's invasion of Greece coincided with a Spartan religious festival, the Carneia, in which the Spartans were not permitted to make war. Still, realizing the threat of the Persians and not wanting to appear as Persian sympathizers, the Spartan government, rather than Leonidas alone, decided to send Leonidas with his personal 300-strong bodyguard to Thermopylae. Other Greek "poleis" joined the 300 Spartan men and totaled somewhere between 5,000 and 6,000 total Greek troops. The historical consensus among both ancient chroniclers and current scholars was that Thermopylae was a clear Greek defeat, and the Persian invasion would be pushed back only in later ground and naval battles.


title: 300 (film)

text: Since few records on the actual martial arts used by the Spartans survive aside from accounts of formations and tactics, the fight choreography, led by the stunt coordinator and fight choreographer Damon Caro, was a synthesis of different weapon arts with Filipino martial arts as the base.


title: 300 (film)

text: Paul Cartledge, Professor of Greek History at Cambridge University, advised the filmmakers on the pronunciation of Greek names and said that they "made good use" of his published work on Sparta. He praised the film for its portrayal of "the Spartans' heroic code" and of "the key role played by women in backing up, indeed reinforcing, the male martial code of heroic honour", but he expressed reservations about its West' (goodies) vs 'East' (baddies) polarization". Cartledge wrote that he enjoyed the film but found Leonidas' description of the Athenians as "boy lovers" ironic since the Spartans themselves incorporated institutional pederasty into their educational system.


title: 300 (film)

text: Ephraim Lytle, assistant professor of Hellenistic history at the University of Toronto, said that "300" selectively idealized Spartan society in a "problematic and disturbing" fashion and portrayed the "hundred nations of the Persians" as monsters and non-Spartan Greeks as weak. He suggested that the film's moral universe would have seemed "as bizarre to ancient Greeks as it does to modern historians." Lytle also commented, "Ephialtes, who betrays the Greeks, is likewise changed from a local Malian of sound body into a Spartan outcast, a grotesquely disfigured troll who by Spartan custom should have been left exposed as an infant to die. Leonidas points out that his hunched back means Ephialtes cannot lift his shield high enough to fight in the phalanx. This is a transparent defense of Spartan eugenics, and convenient given that infanticide could as easily have been precipitated by an ill-omened birthmark."


title: 300 (film)

text: Victor Davis Hanson, a "National Review" columnist and former professor of classical history at California State University, Fresno, wrote the foreword to a 2007 reissue of the graphic novel and said that the film demonstrated a specific affinity with the original material of Herodotus in that it captured the martial ethos of ancient Sparta and represents Thermopylae as a "clash of civilizations". He remarked that Simonides, Aeschylus, and Herodotus viewed Thermopylae as a battle against "Eastern centralism and collective serfdom," which opposed "the idea of the free citizen of an autonomous polis." He also said that the film portrays the battle in a "surreal" manner and that the intent was to "entertain and shock first, and instruct second."


title: 300 (film)

text: Touraj Daryaee, who is now Baskerville Professor of Iranian History and the Persian World at the University of California, Irvine, criticized the film's use of classical sources by writing:


title: 300 (film)

text: Some passages from the Classical authors Aeschylus, Diodorus, Herodotus and Plutarch are split over the movie to give it an authentic flavor. Aeschylus becomes a major source when the battle with the "monstrous human herd" of the Persians is narrated in the film. Diodorus' statement about Greek valor to preserve their liberty is inserted in the film, but his mention of Persian valor is omitted. Herodotus' fanciful numbers are used to populate the Persian army, and Plutarch's discussion of Greek women, specifically Spartan women, is inserted wrongly in the dialogue between the "misogynist" Persian ambassador and the Spartan king. Classical sources are certainly used, but exactly in all the wrong places, or quite naively. The Athenians were fighting a sea battle during this.


title: 300 (film)

text: Robert McHenry, the former editor-in-chief of "Encyclopædia Britannica" and the author of "How to Know", said that the film "is an almost ineffably silly movie. Stills from the film could easily be used to promote Buns of Steel, or AbMaster, or ThighMaster. It's about the romanticizing of the Spartan 'ideal', a process that began even in ancient times, was promoted by the Romans, and has survived over time while less and less resembling the actual historical Sparta."


title: 300 (film)

text: The director of "300", Zack Snyder, stated in an MTV interview that "the events are 90 percent accurate. It's just in the visualization that it's crazy... I've shown this movie to world-class historians who have said it's amazing. They can't believe it's as accurate as it is." Nevertheless, he also said the film is "an opera, not a documentary. That's what I say when people say it's historically inaccurate." He was also quoted in a BBC News story as saying that the film is, at its core "a fantasy film". He also describes the film's narrator, Dilios, as "a guy who knows how not to wreck a good story with truth."


title: 300 (film)

text: In an interview the "300" writer Frank Miller, he stated, "The inaccuracies, almost all of them, are intentional. I took those chest plates and leather skirts off of them for a reason. I wanted these guys to move and I wanted 'em to look good. I knocked their helmets off a fair amount, partly so you can recognize who the characters are. Spartans, in full regalia, were almost indistinguishable except at a very close angle. Another liberty I took was, they all had plumes, but I only gave a plume to Leonidas, to make him stand out and identify him as a king. I was looking for more an evocation than a history lesson. The best result I can hope for is that if the movie excites someone, they'll go explore the histories themselves. Because the histories are endlessly fascinating."


title: 300 (film)

text: Dr. Kaveh Farrokh, in the paper "The 300 Movie: Separating Fact from Fiction," noted that the film falsely portrayed "the Greco-Persian Wars in binary terms: the democratic, good, rational 'Us' versus the tyrannical, evil and irrational, 'other' of the ever-nebulous (if not exotic) 'Persia. He highlighted three points regarding the contribution of the Achaemenid Empire to the creation of democracy and human rights: "The founder of the Achaemenid Empire, Cyrus the Great, was the world's first emperor to openly declare and guarantee the sanctity of human rights and individual freedom... Cyrus was a follower of the teachings of Zoroaster, the founder of one of the world's oldest monotheistic religions... When Cyrus defeated King Nabonidus of Babylon, he officially declared the freedom of the Jews from their Babylonian captivity. This was the first time in history that a world power had guaranteed the survival of the Jewish people, religion, customs and culture." He abolished slavery.


title: 300 (film)

text: Before the release of "300", Warner Bros. expressed concerns about the political aspects of the film's theme. Snyder relates that there was "a huge sensitivity about East versus West with the studio."


title: 300 (film)

text: Media speculation about a possible parallel between the Greco-Persian conflict and current events began in an interview with Snyder that was conducted before the Berlin Film Festival. The interviewer remarked that "everyone is sure to be translating this [film] into contemporary politics." Snyder replied that he was aware that people would read the film through the lens of current events, but no parallels between the film and the modern world were intended.


title: 300 (film)

text: Outside current political parallels, some critics have raised more general questions about the film's ideological orientation. The "New York Post"s Kyle Smith wrote that the film would have pleased "Adolf's boys," and "Slate"'s Dana Stevens compared the film to "The Eternal Jew" "as a textbook example of how race-baiting fantasy and nationalist myth can serve as an incitement to total war. Since it's a product of the post-ideological, post-Xbox 21st century, "300" will instead be talked about as a technical achievement, the next blip on the increasingly blurry line between movies and video games." Roger Moore, a critic for the "Orlando Sentinel", relates "300" to Susan Sontag's definition of "fascist art". Indeed, the Lambda sign on the Spartans' shields in 300 formed the inspiration for the official symbol of the far-right Identitarian movement.


title: 300 (film)

text: "Newsday" critic Gene Seymour, on the other hand, stated that such reactions are misguided, writing that "the movie's just too darned silly to withstand any ideological theorizing." Snyder himself dismissed ideological readings, suggesting that reviewers who critique "a graphic novel movie about a bunch of guys... stomping the snot out of each other" using words like neocon,' 'homophobic,' 'homoerotic' or 'racist are "missing the point". Snyder, however, also admitted to fashioning an effeminate villain specifically to make young straight males in the audience uncomfortable: "What's more scary to a 20-year-old boy than a giant god-king who wants to have his way with you?" The Slovenian critic Slavoj Žižek pointed out that the story represents "a poor, small country (Greece) invaded by the army of a much large[r] state (Persia)" and suggested the identification of the Spartans with a modern superpower to be flawed.


title: 300 (film)

text: The writer Frank Miller said: "The Spartans were a paradoxical people. They were the biggest slave owners in Greece. But at the same time, Spartan women had an unusual level of rights. It's a paradox that they were a bunch of people who in many ways were fascist, but they were the bulwark against the fall of democracy. The closest comparison you can draw in terms of our own military today is to think of the red-caped Spartans as being like our special-ops forces. They're these almost superhuman characters with a tremendous warrior ethic, who were unquestionably the best fighters in Greece. I didn't want to render Sparta in overly accurate terms, because ultimately I do want you to root for the Spartans. I couldn't show them being quite as cruel as they were. I made them as cruel as I thought a modern audience could stand."


title: 300 (film)

text: Michael M. Chemers, author of "With Your Shield, or on It': Disability Representation in 300" in the "Disability Studies Quarterly", said that the film's portrayal of the hunchback and his story "is not mere ableism: this is anti-disability." Frank Miller, commenting on areas in which he lessened the Spartan cruelty for narrative purposes, said: "I have King Leonidas very gently tell Ephialtes, the hunchback, that they can't use him [as a soldier], because of his deformity. It would be much more classically Spartan if Leonidas laughed and kicked him off the cliff."


title: 300 (film)

text: From its opening, "300" also attracted controversy over its portrayal of Persians. Officials of the Iranian government denounced the film.


title: 300 (film)

text: Some scenes in the film portray demon-like and other fictional creatures as part of the Persian army, and the fictionalized portrayal of Persian King Xerxes I has been criticized as effeminate. Critics suggested that it was meant to stand in stark contrast to the portrayed masculinity of the Spartan army. Steven Rea argued that the film's Persians were a vehicle for an anachronistic cross-section of Western aspirational stereotypes of Asian and African cultures.


title: 300 (film)

text: The film's portrayal of ancient Persians caused a particularly strong reaction in Iran. Various Iranian officials condemned the film. The Iranian Academy of the Arts submitted a formal complaint against the film to UNESCO that called it an attack on the historical identity of Iran. The Iranian mission to the UN protested the film in a press release, and Iranian embassies protested its screening in France, Thailand, Turkey, and Uzbekistan. The film was banned within Iran as "hurtful American propaganda". Reviewers in the United States and elsewhere "noted the political overtones of the West-against-Iran story line and the way Persians are depicted as decadent, sexually flamboyant and evil in contrast to the noble Greeks." With illegal versions of the film already available in Tehran with the film's international release and news of the film's surprising success at the US box office, the film prompted widespread anger in Iran. Azadeh Moaveni of "Time" reported, "All of Tehran was outraged. Everywhere I went yesterday, the talk vibrated with indignation over the film." Newspapers in Iran featured headlines such as "Hollywood declares war on Iranians" and "300 Against 70 Million", the latter being the size of Iran's population. "Ayende-No", an independent Iranian newspaper, said, "The film depicts Iranians as demons, without culture, feeling or humanity, who think of nothing except attacking other nations and killing people." Four Iranian Members of Parliament have called on Muslim countries to ban the film, and a group of Iranian film makers submitted a letter of protest to UNESCO regarding the film's misrepresentation of Iranian history and culture. The cultural advisor to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called the film an "American attempt for psychological warfare against Iran."


title: 300 (film)

text: Moaveni identified two factors that may have contributed to the intensity of Iranian indignation over the film. Firstly, she described the timing of the film's release, on the eve of Nowruz, the Persian New Year, as "inauspicious". Secondly, Iranians tend to view the era depicted in the film as "a particularly noble page in their history." Moaveni also suggested that "the box office success of "300", compared with the relative flop of "Alexander" (another spurious period epic dealing with Persians), is cause for considerable alarm, signaling ominous U.S. intentions."


title: 300 (film)

text: According to "The Guardian", Iranian critics of "300", ranging from bloggers to government officials, described the movie "as a calculated attempt to demonise Iran at a time of intensifying U.S. pressure over the country's nuclear programme." An Iranian government spokesman described the film as "hostile behavior which is the result of cultural and psychological warfare." Moaveni reported that the Iranians with whom she interacted were "adamant that the movie was secretly funded by the U.S. government to prepare Americans for going to war against Iran."


title: 300 (film)

text: "300" has been spoofed in film, television, and other media, and spawned the "This is Sparta!" internet meme. Skits based upon the film have appeared on "Saturday Night Live" and "Robot Chicken", the latter of which mimicked the visual style of "300" in a parody set during the American Revolutionary War, titled "1776". Other parodies include an episode of "South Park" named "D-Yikes!", the short film "United 300" which won the 2007 MTV Movie Spoof Award, and "BOO!" by "Mad" magazine in its September 2007 issue #481, written by Desmond Devlin and illustrated by Mort Drucker. 20th Century Fox released "Meet the Spartans", a spoof directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. Universal Pictures once planned a similar parody, titled "National Lampoon's 301: The Legend of Awesomest Maximus Wallace Leonidas". "Samurai Jack", an American animated series by Genndy Tartakovsky, also paid homage to the Battle of Thermopylae in the 12th episode of its second season, but instead used minotaur robots as the antagonists.


title: 300 (film)

text: "300", particularly its pithy quotations, has been "adopted" by the student body of Michigan State University (whose nickname is the Spartans), with chants of "Spartans, what is your profession?" becoming common at sporting events starting after the film's release, and Michigan State basketball head coach Tom Izzo dressed as Leonidas at one student event. Nate Ebner, a football player with the New England Patriots in the National Football League and formerly with the Ohio State Buckeyes, was nicknamed "Leonidas," after the Greek warrior-king hero of Sparta acted by Gerard Butler in the movie "300", because of his intense workout regimen, and his beard.


title: 300 (film)

text: In June 2008, producers Mark Canton, Gianni Nunnari and Bernie Goldmann revealed that work had begun on a sequel to "300", "300: Rise of an Empire". Legendary Pictures had announced that Frank Miller started writing the follow-up graphic novel, and Zack Snyder was interested in directing the adaptation, but moved on to develop and direct the Superman reboot "Man of Steel". Noam Murro directed instead, while Zack Snyder produced. The film focused on the Athenian admiral, Themistocles, as portrayed by Australian actor Sullivan Stapleton. The sequel, "", was released on March 7, 2014 and grossed $337 million worldwide.


title: Brokeback Mountain

text: Brokeback Mountain is a 2005 American neo-Western romantic drama film directed by Ang Lee and produced by Diana Ossana and James Schamus. Adapted from the 1997 short story of the same name by Annie Proulx, the screenplay was written by Ossana and Larry McMurtry. The film stars Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, and Michelle Williams and depicts the complex romantic relationship between two American cowboys, Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist, in the American West from 1963 to 1983.


title: Brokeback Mountain

text: Lee became attached to the project in 2001 after previous attempts to adapt Proulx's story into a film did not materialize. Focus Features and River Road Entertainment would jointly produce and distribute the film. After Ledger and Gyllenhaal's casting was announced in 2003, filming commenced in various locations in Alberta, Canada in 2004. "Brokeback Mountain" premiered at the 2005 Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Golden Lion, and was released to theaters on December 9 that year.


title: Brokeback Mountain

text: The film received universal acclaim, with particular praise for the performances of Ledger and Gyllenhaal, and was a commercial success, grossing over $178 million worldwide against its $14 million budget. At the 78th Academy Awards, "Brokeback Mountain" was nominated for Best Picture and won for Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Original Score. It garnered seven nominations at the 63rd Golden Globe Awards, and won four awards. At the 59th British Academy Film Awards, "Brokeback Mountain" was nominated for nine awards, winning Best Film, Best Direction, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor (Gyllenhaal).


title: Brokeback Mountain

text: "Brokeback Mountain" was subject to controversies; its loss to "Crash" (2004) for the Academy Award for Best Picture, subsequent censorship, and criticism from conservative media outlets received significant attention. The sexuality of the main characters has been subject to discussion. "Brokeback Mountain" has also been regarded as a turning point for the advancement of queer cinema into the mainstream. In 2018, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".


title: Brokeback Mountain

text: In Wyoming in 1963, cowboys Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist are hired by foreman Joe Aguirre to herd his sheep through the summer on grazing pastures on Brokeback Mountain. After a night of heavy drinking, Jack makes a pass at Ennis. While initially reluctant, Ennis becomes receptive, and he and Jack have sex in their tent. Despite Ennis telling Jack that it was a one-time incident, they develop a sexual and emotional relationship. Before parting ways, Ennis and Jack have a brawl that leaves both of them bloodied. Ennis later marries his longtime fiancée Alma Beers and has two daughters with her–Alma Jr. and Jenny. Jack returns the next summer seeking work, but Aguirre, who had observed Jack and Ennis on the mountain, refuses to hire him again. Jack moves to Texas, where he meets wealthy rodeo rider Lureen Newsome; they marry and have a son.


title: Brokeback Mountain

text: After four years apart, Jack visits Ennis. Upon meeting, the two passionately kiss, which a stunned Alma inadvertently witnesses. Jack broaches the subject of creating a life with Ennis on a ranch, but Ennis refuses, as he is unwilling to abandon his family and is haunted by a childhood memory of his father showing him the body of a man who was tortured and killed for suspected homosexuality. Ennis and Jack continue to infrequently meet for fishing trips while their respective marriages deteriorate. Lureen abandons the rodeo and goes into business with her father, which causes Jack to work in sales. Alma and Ennis divorce in 1975. Upon hearing about the divorce, Jack drives to Wyoming and tells Ennis that they should live together, but Ennis refuses to move away from his children. Upset, Jack finds solace with male prostitutes in Mexico.


title: Brokeback Mountain

text: Alma takes custody of Alma Jr. and Jenny and marries Monroe, her store manager. She eventually confronts Ennis when he visits about the true nature of his relationship with Jack; the two spar, causing Ennis to cease contact with Alma. Ennis has a short-lived romantic relationship with a waitress named Cassie. Jack and Lureen befriend another couple, Randall and Lashawn Malone, and it is implied that Jack and Randall have a brief affair. At the end of a fishing trip, Ennis tells Jack that he cannot see him again before November due to work demands. The pair argue, blaming each other for their not being together. Ennis begins to cry, and Jack embraces him.


title: Brokeback Mountain

text: Sometime later, Ennis receives a returned postcard that he had sent to Jack, stamped with "Deceased". He calls Lureen, who says that Jack died in an accident from drowning in his own blood after a car tire exploded in his face, though Ennis visualizes Jack's death as a violent murder. After Lureen tells him that Jack wanted to have his ashes scattered on Brokeback Mountain, Ennis visits Jack's parents in hopes of carrying out the request. Jack's father refuses and contends that Jack's ashes will be interred in a family plot. Ennis goes to Jack's bedroom, where he finds the shirts the two wore during their brawl, his shirt inside Jack's, in the closet. Ennis holds the shirts to his face, inhales deeply, and silently weeps. Jack's mother allows him to keep the shirts.


title: Brokeback Mountain

text: Later, a 19-year-old Alma Jr. arrives at Ennis's trailer to tell him that she is engaged. She asks for his blessing and invites him to the wedding, and after some hesitation, he agrees to attend. Once Alma Jr. leaves, Ennis goes to the closet where the two shirts hang together, though now Ennis's shirt is outermost. Next to them, tacked to the closet door, is a postcard of Brokeback Mountain. With tears in his eyes, he stares at the mementos, and says, "Jack, I swear..."


title: Brokeback Mountain

text: Screenwriter Diana Ossana discovered Annie Proulx's short story, "Brokeback Mountain", in October 1997, just days after its publication. She convinced writing partner Larry McMurtry to read it, who thought it was a "masterpiece". The pair asked Proulx if they could adapt it into a film screenplay; although she did not think that the story would work as a film, she agreed. In a 1999 interview with "The Missouri Review", Proulx praised their screenplay. Ossana said that convincing a director and production company to make the film was a challenging and nonstop process. Gus Van Sant attempted to make the film, hoping to cast Matt Damon and Joaquin Phoenix as Ennis and Jack, respectively. He also considered Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt and Ryan Phillippe. Josh Hartnett was originally attached to the film but dropped out due to scheduling conflicts with "The Black Dahlia". Damon, who previously worked with Van Sant on "Good Will Hunting", told the director, "Gus, I did a gay movie ("The Talented Mr. Ripley"), then a cowboy movie ("All the Pretty Horses"). I can't follow it up with a gay-cowboy movie!" Instead, Van Sant went on to make the 2008 biographical film "Milk", based on the life of gay rights activist and politician Harvey Milk. Edward Norton and Joel Schumacher were also linked with the project at one point.


title: Brokeback Mountain

text: Focus Features CEO James Schamus optioned the film rights in 2001, but thought it was a risky project. At Ossana's request, Schamus showed the story and screenplay to director Ang Lee. Lee decided to make "Hulk" instead; his experience of "Hulk," and "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" from two years prior left him exhausted. In 2003, he considered retirement but "Brokeback Mountain" came back to his mind and tempted him back into filmmaking. Lee attempted to get the film made as an independent producer. However, this did not work out, and before Lee would take a break after finishing "Hulk", he contacted Schamus about "Brokeback Mountain". Schamus thought "Brokeback Mountain" embraces the American West without being a traditional Western, and told Lee that he should consider directing it. Lee said, "Towards the end [of the script] ... I got tears in my eyes". He was particularly drawn to the authentic rural American life and repression depicted in the story. Bill Pohlad of River Road Entertainment, who had a two-year partnership with Focus Features, helped finance the film.


title: Brokeback Mountain

text: Casting director Avy Kaufman said Lee was very decisive about the actors for the lead roles. In 2003, screenwriters Ossana and McMurty suggested Heath Ledger (after being impressed by his performance in "Monster's Ball"), but the film studio thought he was not masculine enough. Regardless, Kaufman sent the script to Ledger, who thought it was "beautiful" and put himself forward. Gyllenhaal reacted to the script positively and signed on for the role; he also did not want to miss the opportunity working with Lee and friend Ledger. Gyllenhaal admired Ledger and described him as "way beyond his years as a human". Other actors were considered for the leads but Lee said they were too afraid to take on the roles.


title: Brokeback Mountain

text: From the beginning, Ledger wanted to portray Ennis and not Jack. He opined that Ennis was more complex; a masculine and homophobic character. Ledger said, "The lack of words he [Ennis] had to express himself, his inability to love", made the role enjoyable. Ledger, who grew up around horses, researched his character's personal traits, and learned to speak in Wyoming and Texas accents. Lee gave Ledger and Gyllenhaal books about cowboys who were gay or shared similar experiences as the characters depicted in Proulx's book. Ledger and Gyllenhaal also went to a ranch on the outskirts of Los Angeles and learned to ride horses. Gyllenhaal later said:


title: Brokeback Mountain

text: Lee interviewed between 20 and 30 actresses for the roles of Alma and Lureen. Michelle Williams was one of the first to audition for the role of Alma, and Lee thought she was perfect for the part. Anne Hathaway, who was filming "" at the time, showed up to the audition during her lunch break. She was wearing a ball gown and hairpiece "that was way over the top", but she still felt focused for the audition. At first, Lee did not think she was an obvious choice, but he was convinced with her audition and cast her as Lureen. Hathaway lied to Lee about her knowledge of horse riding in order to cast her. She took lessons for two months to prepare.


title: Brokeback Mountain

text: Lee was happy with Ledger and Gyllenhaal portraying Ennis and Jack, respectively, because he thought their "young innocence" will help carry a love story until the end. Lee added, "I think these two are among the best in their age group [...] Jake plays the opposite of Heath and it creates a very good couple in terms of a romantic love story. The chemistry, I think, is great." Once all four leads were cast, Lee remembered being impressed with their maturity despite their young age; "It really scared me how good they were".


title: Brokeback Mountain

text: Principal photography began in the summer of 2004. While the novel is set in Wyoming, "Brokeback Mountain" was filmed almost entirely in the Canadian Rockies in southern Alberta. Lee was given a tour of the locations from the story in Wyoming by Proulx, but chose to shoot in Alberta citing financial reasons. The mountain featured in the film is a composite of Mount Lougheed south of the town of Canmore, Fortress and Moose Mountain in Kananaskis Country. The campsites were filmed at Goat Creek, Upper Kananaskis Lake, Elbow Falls and Canyon Creek, also in Alberta. Other scenes were filmed in Cowley, Fort Macleod, and Calgary. "Brokeback Mountain"s production budget was approximately US$14 million.


title: Brokeback Mountain

text: Initially, Alberta's environmental department prohibited the crew from bringing domestic sheep into the Rockies, due to a risk of disease harming the local wildlife. The authorities eventually gave permission for them to shoot on one mountain, as long as they transported the domestic sheep in and out, every day. A biologist was hired to supervise this process.


title: Brokeback Mountain

text: Lee prefers working with cinematographers who are open minded, eager to learn, and able to show an interest in the story and content before talking about the visuals. Therefore, he selected Rodrigo Prieto for the job; saying, "I think he's versatile, and I wanted somebody who could shoot quickly [...] he was able to give me the tranquil, almost passive look I wanted for Brokeback. I believe a talent's a talent".


title: Brokeback Mountain

text: Ledger and Gyllenhaal, who were friends before "Brokeback Mountain", were mostly unconcerned with the intimate scenes. The first sex scene between Ennis and Jack took 13 takes to meet Lee's expectation. The director would keep his distance from them during filming, allowing the actors to be free and spontaneous. Lee said, "I don't talk too much [to them] except for technical notes. So they [the intimate scenes] are a lot easier to deal with". Ledger was observant of Lee's directing style, saying, "There's two sides to Ang's direction — there's the pre-production, which is incredibly thorough and private, and then there's the shooting side, when he just doesn't say anything at all." Ledger said that this helped him try harder during takes. Gyllenhaal echoed Ledger's sentiment; "He just totally disconnects from you while you're shooting", but praised Lee's directorial skills. In regards to acting, Ledger was sometimes disrupted by Gyllenhaal's acting style; Gyllenhaal tended to improvise whereas Ledger preferred to be highly prepared. The director allowed Ledger to see his performance on the camera monitor so that he could improve.


title: Brokeback Mountain

text: During the last scenes where Ennis meets Jack's parents, production designer Judy Becker was tasked in finding a suitable house. Lee took inspiration from painters Andrew Wyeth and Vilhelm Hammershoi for the white interior walls. Using two cameras, Lee would capture the actors from both angles, and then change lenses and repeat. "When you edit it together, you can apply certain emphasis to certain reactions, emotions", Lee said. Ossana remembers that the last scenes were emotional for Ledger and personally affected him. The actors who played Jack's parents, Roberta Maxwell and Peter McRobbie, said Ledger was very quiet and gave a "powerful performance".


title: Brokeback Mountain

text: Executive producer Michael Hausman rented Airstream trailers for the cast and crew to sleep in. He created an on-set atmosphere which mimicked a summer camp, where people could bond and feel close. Hausman recalled that they would sit around the fireplaces, cook food and go fishing on the creek. The production was not without commotion; the cast suffered several injuries during filming. Williams sprained her knee in the early days of filming, therefore, her character's movements were altered to be either sitting or standing most of the time. Ledger also injured his hand when he punched a wall for a scene. During a kissing scene, Ledger almost broke Gyllenhaal's nose. The American Humane raised concerns that animals were treated improperly during filming, alleging that sheep were handled roughly and that an elk appeared to have been "shot on cue." They learned that the elk was shot with anesthetic, violating standard guidelines for animal handling in the film industry.


title: Brokeback Mountain

text: During post-production, Geraldine Peroni and Dylan Tichenor served as film editors, but Peroni died in August 2004 and Tichenor took over. The pair relied on Media Composer for editing, and sound engineer Eugene Gearty used Pro Tools for the creation of sound effects. Buzz Image Group were hired to create 75 visual effect shots, including computer-generated clouds, landscapes and sheep. For the film's theatrical poster, Schamus took inspiration from James Cameron's "Titanic," which depicts two star-crossed lovers.


title: Brokeback Mountain

text: Gustavo Santaolalla scored the film's soundtrack, which consists of seventeen tracks as well as songs from Bob Dylan and Roger Miller. The album was released on October 25, 2005. Based on the story and one conversation with the director, Santaolalla was able to score the music before filming began. He said, "I mean if you are connected to the story and to the director, it makes a lot of sense because somehow you know, the music then becomes a part of the fabric of that film from the very beginning." He also used a real orchestra and played his own guitar.


title: Brokeback Mountain

text: The film received a limited release in the United States on December 9, 2005, and grossed $547,425 in its first weekend. Over the Christmas weekend, and beginning of January 2006, the film expanded into more domestic theaters. On January 20, the film opened in 1,194 theaters, then 1,652 theaters on January 27, and 2,089 theaters on February 3, its widest release.


title: Brokeback Mountain

text: "Brokeback Mountain" was released in one theater in London on December 30 and received a wider release in the United Kingdom on January 6, 2006. The film was released in France on January 18, to 155 theaters, expanding to 290 by the third week. In its first week of release, "Brokeback Mountain" was in third place at the French box office. In Italy, the film grossed more than 890,000 in three days and was the fourth highest-grossing film in its first week. The film was released in Australia on January 26, where it ranked fourth place at the weekend box office. "Brokeback Mountain" was released in many other countries during the first three months of 2006. During its first week of release in Hong Kong, "Brokeback Mountain" was ranked first place at the box office, earning more than US$473,868 ($22,565 per theater). The film opened in Lee's native Taiwan on January 20. The film grossed $83 million in North America and $95 million internationally, for a worldwide $178 million. It is the highest-grossing release for Focus Features.


title: Brokeback Mountain

text: The film has been given different titles in accordance to different languages and regions. For the film's release in French and Italian, it was titled "Le Secret de Brokeback Mountain" and "I segreti di Brokeback Mountain" ("The Secret(s) of Brokeback Mountain"), respectively. In Canadian French, the title is "Souvenirs de Brokeback Mountain" ("Memories of Brokeback Mountain"). The film received two Spanish titles: "Brokeback Mountain: En terreno vedado" ("In a forbidden terrain") for its release in Spain and "Secreto en la Montaña" ("Secret in the mountain") for its release in Latin America. In Hungarian, the title was "Túl a barátságon" ("Beyond friendship").The film was met with mixed responses in some regions, particularly China and Islamic nations of western Asia. According to reports, the film was not shown in theaters in China, though it was freely available in bootleg DVD and VHS. The Chinese government said the audience would have been too small; the foreign media accused the government of censorship. The word "brokeback" () also entered the Chinese lexicon as a slang for homosexuality. The film was dubbed "the gay cowboy movie" by the press, a term that was propelled into the American vernacular. The film was also released in Turkey.


title: Brokeback Mountain

text: In the Middle East, distribution of the film became a political issue. Homosexuality is considered a crime in most Islamic nations and is taboo in the few countries where it is legal. Lebanon was the only Arab country to show the film, although in a censored format. The film was officially banned from screenings in the United Arab Emirates; however, the DVD of the film was permitted to be rented from stores such as Blockbuster Video.


title: Brokeback Mountain

text: On December 8, 2008, the Italian state-owned television channel Rai Due aired a censored version of the film, removing all the scenes with homoerotic references. Viewers protested, saying the deletions made the plot hard to follow. The Arcigay organisation accused the channel of homophobic censorship. The state-owned television network RAI said the Italian film distributor had mistakenly censored the film. RAI showed an uncensored version of the film on March 17, 2009.


title: Brokeback Mountain

text: "Brokeback Mountain" was the first major film to be released simultaneously on both DVD and digital download via the Internet. It was released in the United States on April 4, 2006. More than 1 million copies of the DVD were sold in the first week, and it was the third-biggest seller of the week, behind Disney's "" and "King Kong." Although the ranking fluctuated daily, by late March and early April 2006, "Brokeback Mountain" had been the top-selling DVD on Amazon.com for several days running.


title: Brokeback Mountain

text: The DVD in Europe was released in the UK on April 24, 2006. This was followed by France in July, and Poland in September, a considerable time after the theater release in both countries. "Brokeback Mountain" was re-released in a collector's edition on January 23, 2007. On the same day, it was also released in HD DVD format. The film was released on Blu-ray in the UK on August 13, 2007, and in the U.S. on March 10, 2009. The Blu-ray contains special features including interviews with the screenwriters, director and a short documentary about composer Gustavo Santaolalla.


title: Brokeback Mountain

text: "Brokeback Mountain" was released to critical acclaim. On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 87% based on 247 reviews, with an average rating of 8.2/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "A beautifully epic Western, "Brokeback Mountain"s love story is imbued with heartbreaking universality, helped by moving performances by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal." On Metacritic, the film has a rating of 87/100 based on 41 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim."


title: Brokeback Mountain

text: David Ansen of "Newsweek" gave the film a positive review, praising the faithful screenplay. He adds, "There's neither coyness nor self-importance in "Brokeback Mountain"—just close, compassionate observation, deeply committed performances, a bone-deep feeling for hardscrabble Western lives. Few films have captured so acutely the desolation of frustrated, repressed passion." Writing for "The Guardian", Peter Bradshaw praised Ledger and Gyllenhaal for their complementary performances. Bradshaw thought the film was "extremely moving, tragic even, and sensitive towards the feelings of the simple wives who attempt to understand their troubled husbands." Ann Hornaday of "The Washington Post" was equally positive, opining that the two lead actors' performances were unforgettable. In particular, she thought Ledger was impressive in his portrayal of a reserved and emotionally affected Ennis. Hornaday also praised the costumes and sets, writing "The Wyoming vistas are flawlessly manicured, Ledger and Gyllenhaal perfectly costumed and coiffed; even Ennis and Alma's sad little apartment over a laundromat seems to have been designed to death."