title: Ava DuVernay

text: DuVernay directed "Selma", a $20 million budget dramatic film, which is relatively low for a film of this caliber, about the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., President Lyndon B. Johnson, and the 1965 Selma to Montgomery march for voting rights. The movie, produced by Plan B Entertainment, was released on December 25, 2014, to critical acclaim. DuVernay in an interview at Indiana University stated that "Selma" would be "the first major feature film in theaters that has anything to do with King's essential character" making it a historical landmark in the history of biopics.


title: Ava DuVernay

text: She made uncredited re-writes of most of the original screenplay by Paul Webb in order to emphasize King and the people of Selma as central figures. In an October 2020 interview on "The Carlos Watson Show", DuVernay claimed that she, not Webb, was the principal writer, saying that the biggest mistake of her career was allowing Paul Webb "to take credit for writing Selma when I wrote it. In response to criticism by some historians and media sources who accused her of irresponsibly rewriting history to portray her own agenda, DuVernay said that the film is "not a documentary. I'm not a historian. I'm a storyteller".


title: Ava DuVernay

text: The film was nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Song, but not Best Director, at the 2014 Academy Awards. The lack of diversity among the Oscar nominations for 2014 was the subject of much press, especially on Twitter. This film was the only one directed by a person of color that was nominated for the 87th Academy Awards. The award for Best Original Song went to "Glory" from "Selma". DuVernay said that she had not expected to be nominated as director, so the omission did not really bother her, but she was disappointed that actor David Oyelowo, who portrayed King, was not nominated as Best Actor. She said that the obstacles to people of color being represented in the Academy Awards were systemic.


title: Ava DuVernay

text: After "Selma," DuVernay was approached by executives to direct Marvel's first film about a superhero of color, "Black Panther", but she passed. In an interview with "Essence" DuVernay provided insight on why she passed on the project: "I think I'll just say we had different ideas about what the story would be. Marvel has a certain way of doing things and I think they're fantastic and a lot of people love what they do. I loved that they reached out to me." She also expressed her support for the project moving forward, "I love the character of Black Panther, the nation of Wakanda and all that that could be visually. I wish them well and will be first in line to see it."


title: Ava DuVernay

text: In July 2016, the New York Film Festival made the surprise announcement that "13th", a documentary directed by DuVernay, would open the festival. Until the announcement no mention of the film had been made by either DuVernay or Netflix, the film's distributor. Centered on race in the United States criminal justice system, the film is titled after the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which outlawed slavery (except as punishment for a crime). DuVernay's documentary opens with the statement that 25 percent of the people in the world who are incarcerated are incarcerated in the U.S., and argues that slavery has been effectively perpetuated in the U.S. through disproportionate mass incarceration of people of color. The film features several prominent activists, politicians, and public figures, such as Bryan Stevenson, Angela Davis, Van Jones, Newt Gingrich, Cory Booker, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Michelle Alexander, and others, who discuss such issues as convict leasing, the war on drugs, and disproportionate arrests, convictions and sentencing of minorities.


title: Ava DuVernay

text: It was also the first critically acclaimed documentary to highlight the tragic story of Kalief Browder.


title: Ava DuVernay

text: It was released on October 7, 2016, on Netflix. "13th" garnered acclaim from film critics and has a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 94 reviews. The critical consensus says: ""13th" strikes at the heart of America's tangled racial history, offering observations as incendiary as they are calmly controlled." In a review from Awards Circuit, Angela Davis said ""13th" is probably the most important movie you'll ever see." In 2017, the film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 89th Oscars; DuVernay became the first Black woman to be nominated by the academy as a director in a feature category. The film also won a Peabody Award in 2017 and a Columbia Journalism School duPont Award in 2018.


title: Ava DuVernay

text: In 2010, it was announced that Disney carried the film rights to Madeleine L'Engle's 1962 novel "A Wrinkle in Time" which follows a young girl traveling through space and time. Following the success of Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland", Disney announced the hiring of Jeff Stockwell to write the screenplay for Cary Granat and his new Bedrock Studios. Cary Granat had previously worked with Disney on the "Chronicles of Narnia" and "Bridge to Terabithia" films. On August 5, 2014, Jennifer Lee was announced as the screenwriter, taking over from Stockwell, who had written the first draft. On February 8, 2016, it was reported that DuVernay had been offered to direct the film, and she was confirmed as director later that same month.


title: Ava DuVernay

text: "A Wrinkle in Time" began filming in November 2016. DuVernay is the first African-American woman to direct a live-action film with a budget of over $100 million, and the second woman to do so after Patty Jenkins (who directed "Wonder Woman").


title: Ava DuVernay

text: The film was released in March 2018 and brought in $33 million in its opening weekend, second at the box office behind "Black Panther." Following Disney's Q2 earnings report in May 2018, Yahoo! Finance deduced the film would lose the studio anywhere from $86–186 million. Nonetheless, "A Wrinkle in Time" still made the list for the top 100 grossing movies of 2018, making Ava DuVernay one of four female directors that made the list that year.


title: Ava DuVernay

text: Upon release, the film received mixed reviews, with critics "taking issue with the film's heavy use of CGI and numerous plot holes" while "celebrating its message of female empowerment and diversity."


title: Ava DuVernay

text: In 2010, DuVernay directed three TV documentaries. The first, two-hour concert film "TV One Night Only: Live from the Essence Music Festival", was a mix of live performances and behind-the-scenes vignettes. It aired August 28, 2010 on TV One and showcases the U.S.'s largest annual African-American entertainment gathering, the Essence Music Festival. In 2010 it was held July 2–4 in New Orleans. Two days later, BET premiered its first original music documentary, "My Mic Sounds Nice: A Truth About Women and Hip Hop", a 41-minute long history of female hip hop artists.


title: Ava DuVernay

text: On Thanksgiving 2010, TV One showed DuVernay's 44-minute documentary special "Essence Presents: Faith Through the Storm", about two Black sisters who reclaimed their lives after personal devastation during Hurricane Katrina. "It was done for a client, for "Essence". They wanted to talk about how faith helped them through, that was very important to them. So it is interspersed with gospel music, images of Katrina, their home and family."


title: Ava DuVernay

text: ESPN commissioned DuVernay to produce and direct "Venus Vs.", a documentary on Venus Williams's fight for equal prize money. This was to be included in their film series "Nine for IX", which aired on July 2, 2013.


title: Ava DuVernay

text: DuVernay also directed the John Legend episode of the performance-and-interview series "HelloBeautiful Interludes Live", which was shown September 14, 2013 on TV One as the series' broadcast premiere.


title: Ava DuVernay

text: She also directed the eighth episode of the third season of the political thriller television series "Scandal". The episode, titled "Vermont is for Lovers, Too", premiered on November 21, 2013, on ABC.


title: Ava DuVernay

text: In 2015, DuVernay executive produced and directed the CBS civil rights crime drama pilot "For Justice", starring Anika Noni Rose. It was not picked up for distribution.


title: Ava DuVernay

text: That same year, DuVernay announced she would be creating and executive producing the drama series "Queen Sugar", based on Natalie Baszile's novel.


title: Ava DuVernay

text: "Queen Sugar" premiered September 6, 2016 on Oprah Winfrey Network to critical acclaim. DuVernay wrote four episodes and directed two. On August 1, 2016, the series was renewed for a second season ahead of its television premiere; it aired in a two-night premiere on June 20 and June 21, 2017. The series was renewed for a third season on July 26, 2017. In August 2018, OWN renewed the series for a fourth season, which premiered on June 12, 2019.


title: Ava DuVernay

text: On July 6, 2017, it was announced that Netflix had given the production "When They See Us" a series order consisting of four episodes. The series was created by DuVernay, who served as executive producer, co-writer, and director. Other executive producers credited, include Jeff Skoll, Jonathan King, Oprah Winfrey, Jane Rosenthal and Berry Welsh. Production companies involved with the series consisted of Participant Media, Harpo Films, and Tribeca Productions. The series premiered on Netflix on May 31, 2019. Upon its release, the miniseries received universal acclaim.


title: Ava DuVernay

text: On June 25, 2019, Netflix announced that the miniseries had been streamed by over 23 million viewers within its first month of release. It received a record number of 16 nominations for Emmy Awards for writing, directing, and acting for stars and supporting actors.


title: Ava DuVernay

text: In 2013, DuVernay partnered with Miu Miu as part of their "Women's Tales" film series. Her short film "The Door" starred actress Gabrielle Union and reunited DuVernay with her "Middle of Nowhere" star Emayatzy Corinealdi. The film premiered online in February 2013 and was presented at the "Venice Days" sidebar of the 70th Venice International Film Festival in August.


title: Ava DuVernay

text: Also in August 2013, DuVernay released, through Vimeo, a second branded short film entitled "Say Yes". The film was sponsored by cosmetic brand Fashion Fair and starred Kali Hawk and Lance Gross with Julie Dash, Victoria Mahoney, Lorraine Toussaint and Issa Rae appearing as extras.


title: Ava DuVernay

text: In 2015, Apple Music and their ad agency Translation hired DuVernay to helm a series of three commercials starring Mary J. Blige, Taraji P. Henson and Kerry Washington. The first ad, "Chapter 1", premiered during Fox's Emmy broadcast on September 20, 2015. "Chapter 2" and "Chapter 3" debuted in November 2015 and February 2016, respectively.


title: Ava DuVernay

text: In 2010 DuVernay founded African-American Film Festival Releasing Movement (AFFRM), her own company to distribute films made by or focusing on Black people. DuVernay refers to AFFRM as "not so much a business, but a call to action." Although she sees building strong business foundations for films is a priority, DuVernay has said that she stresses that the driving force of the organization is activism. In 2015 the company rebranded itself under the name ARRAY, promising a new focus on women filmmakers as well.


title: Ava DuVernay

text: In 2013, she announced development on a narrative feature film entitled "Part of the Sky" and set in Compton.


title: Ava DuVernay

text: In 2015, it was announced that DuVernay would be writing, producing, and directing a fictional account which will focus on the "social and environmental" aspects of Hurricane Katrina while including a love story and a murder mystery. David Oyelowo was said to be part of the project.


title: Ava DuVernay

text: In 2018, it was announced that DuVernay would be directing a New Gods film for the DC Extended Universe. On May 29, 2019, DuVernay announced that she and Tom King would co-write the film. The movie was no longer moving forward by April 2021.


title: Ava DuVernay

text: On October 29, 2018, it was announced that DuVernay would be working with the estate of Prince to direct a biopic covering his life for Netflix. However, in August 2019, DuVernay quit as director due to "creative differences."


title: Ava DuVernay

text: On June 29, 2020, Netflix announced a six-episode series, created by Ava DuVernay and Colin Kaepernick, titled "Colin in Black & White", centering on Kaepernick's youth and various events in his life that has led him to be the activist he is today.


title: Ava DuVernay

text: On February 11, 2020, news reports speculated about Ava DuVernay possibly co-producing and directing a Nipsey Hussle documentary for Netflix.


title: Ava DuVernay

text: In October 2020, her next film, "", an adaptation of Isabel Wilkerson's book, was officially announced for Netflix.


title: Ava DuVernay

text: In September 2013, DuVernay started a podcast series called "The Call-In," a series of phone conversations recorded by AFFRM of Black filmmakers of feature narrative and documentary work. DuVernay talks about her goals with "The Call-In:" "For people of color and women filmmakers, so often the questions we get asked are about being a woman or a person of color. So The Call-In was a space where we could just talk about craft."


title: Ava DuVernay

text: On October 27, 2013, DuVernay gave one of the Executive Keynote addresses for Film Independent, a non-profit organization that produces the Film Independent Spirit Awards and the Los Angeles Film Festival, at their 2013 Film Independent Form, a three-day event. She was one of two keynote speakers along with the chief executive officer of Netflix, Ted Sarandos.


title: Ava DuVernay

text: DuVernay, in a keynote address at the 2015 SXSW Film Festival, shared that she was the seventh person asked to direct "Selma" and described her experience at the 2015 Oscars, while being an honor to attend, was just "a room in L.A."


title: Ava DuVernay

text: In February 2018 it was announced that DuVernay, along with producer Dan Lin and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, had launched the Evolve Entertainment Fund. The fund's mission is to promote inclusion and provide an opportunity for under-served communities to pursue a dream in the entertainment industry.


title: Ava DuVernay

text: Since May 2019, DuVernay has cohosted "The Essentials", a weekly film series on Turner Classic Movies, with Ben Mankiewicz. DuVernay has appeared in wraparounds each Saturday night on the channel, discussing a wide range of films, including "Marty", "Ashes and Embers", "Harlan County, USA" and "La Pointe Courte".


title: Ava DuVernay

text: DuVernay has two primary areas of interest: the first, exploring the intricacies of the Black American family, particularly "Black women's agency and subjectivity" within the family and within a racist, patriarchal society. The second, is exploring the injustices that have affected, and have continued to affect, Black families and communities throughout history.


title: Ava DuVernay

text: A lot of her filmography works within both of these areas of interest simultaneously. For example, "Selma", a film about an important historical march and a film about Martin Luther King Jr., makes a huge effort to center and explore the important female activists that played a role in the event: ""Selma" does afford viewers with a variegated window into the lives of a few of the Black women that participated...Each woman is shown within the film to propel the Selma campaign--sometimes in the background, other times in the foreground, yet always in practically indispensable ways." DuVernay has made it a focus of her activist filmmaking to center Black women in her work.


title: Ava DuVernay

text: One of the social issues that DuVernay repeatedly returns to in her work is mass incarceration and the effects of incarceration on African American communities. This is the main topic of her Netflix documentary, "13th", which finds the roots of mass incarceration in the legal end of slavery. The film moves chronologically through history, keeping "a running total of the rapidly rising incarceration numbers since the 1970s; it works to contextualize these rising digits with a grand narrative that weaves together the racist, political, and financial motivations that paved the nation's way to mass incarceration." DuVernay's television work addresses this as well: "When They See Us" depicts the ways in which the U.S. justice system targets Black people and other people of color, and in her show "Queen Sugar" one of the primary characters "is a convicted felon whose prison past makes it difficult for him to find a job and puts an ongoing strain on his relationship with his family." This is an issue that DuVernay returns to again and again in her work.


title: Ava DuVernay

text: "Middle of Nowhere", encapsulates both of DuVernay's areas of interest: it puts a Black woman at the center of its narrative and depicts the ways in which incarceration affects her life and the life of her family. This fictional story shows the ways in which incarceration infiltrates the lives of even those who are not in prison through close association with someone who is incarcerated. This issue is particularly relevant to Black women as a vast majority of America's prisoners are Black and male: "burdens of carceral care fall most heavily on those intimately tied to the incarcerated as partners, spouses, parents, and children--demographics that are often marginalized."


title: Ava DuVernay

text: The cinematography and staging of the film emphasizes the protagonist, Ruby's, own entrapment via association to incarceration. Ruby puts her life on hold to provide emotional, legal, and financial support for her incarcerated husband, Derek. In Marquita Smith's analysis of the film, she explains that "carceral logic dictates that those who desire to maintain contact with incarcerated spouses...must endure an often invisible form of punishment...which criminalizes caring for the incarcerated." When Ruby visits Derek, the camera takes special notice of the ways in which her own freedoms and bodily autonomy are restricted within the prison: "the camera follows the various examination acts, lingering on Ruby's body parts as they are inspected." Lastly, there is a visual parallel drawn between the women who are visiting and the inmates. The women are often shown in lines and shot from behind fences and bars. They are herded into the visitation room in a way that parallels the male prisoners. DuVernay frames Ruby in a larger context of incarceration and its peripheral effects by showing her among a community of women whose situations parallel Ruby's. We see Ruby riding the bus to the prison with many other women, most of whom are Black, waiting in line with these women, and eventually being shuffled into the meeting area with these women. In the scene where Ruby visits Derek on their anniversary after hearing that he is up for parole, the camera pans over many other couples who sit in the visiting room with them- "by panning to show the various families in the visitation room before focusing on the protagonist, the film enables viewers to see beyond Ruby's individual happiness and recognize the importance of intimacy for the collective."


title: Scott Wolf

text: Scott Richard Wolf (born June 4, 1968) is an American actor. He is known for his roles in the television series "Party of Five" as Bailey Salinger, as Jake Hartman in "Everwood", as Chad Decker in "V" and as Carson Drew in "Nancy Drew". In film, he is best known for the cult classics "Go" and "Double Dragon" .


title: Scott Wolf

text: Wolf was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He is the son of Susan (née Levy) and Steven Wolf, a health care executive. Wolf was raised in a Reform Jewish family. He grew up in West Orange, New Jersey, and graduated in 1986 from West Orange High School. His cousin is Josh Wolf.


title: Scott Wolf

text: Wolf attended George Washington University and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in finance in 1991. He also became a Brother of the Alpha Epsilon Pi Fraternity.


title: Scott Wolf

text: Wolf is known for his role as Bailey Salinger on "Party of Five". On both "Everwood" and the short-lived "The Nine", he portrayed a doctor, and he portrayed Dr. Scott Clemmens on NBC's "The Night Shift". He made guest appearances as himself on "Action" and "Kids Inc." His sole Broadway theatre credit to date is "Side Man". He has also made a few brief appearances on "", as Rax, a Balmeran.


title: Scott Wolf

text: In 2019, Wolf was cast in the lead role of Carson Drew in The CW drama series "Nancy Drew". He took over the role from Freddie Prinze Jr., who played the character in the original unaired pilot episode.


title: Scott Wolf

text: Wolf was engaged to Alyssa Milano in 1993, but they separated after a year and a half. In 2002, he began dating Kelley Marie Limp, an alumna of MTV's "", after meeting her through mutual friend Joel Goldman in New York City. They married on May 29, 2004, before temporarily living in Santa Monica, California. They have three children, sons born in February 2009, and November 2012, and a daughter born 2014, and the family resides in Vancouver.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: The Fourth Crusade (1202–1204) was a Latin Christian armed expedition called by Pope Innocent III. The stated intent of the expedition was to recapture the Muslim-controlled city of Jerusalem, by first defeating the powerful Egyptian Ayyubid Sultanate, the strongest Muslim state of the time. However, a sequence of economic and political events culminated in the Crusader army's 1202 siege of Zara and the 1204 sack of Constantinople, the capital of the Greek Christian-controlled Byzantine Empire, rather than Egypt as originally planned. This led to the partitioning of the Byzantine Empire by the Crusaders.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: The Republic of Venice contracted with the Crusader leaders to build a dedicated fleet to transport their invasion force. However, the leaders greatly overestimated the number of soldiers who would embark from Venice, since many sailed from other ports, and the army that appeared could not pay the contracted price. In lieu of payment, the Venetian Doge Enrico Dandolo proposed that the Crusaders back him in attacking the rebellious city of Zadar (Zara) on the eastern Adriatic coast. This led in November 1202 to the siege and sack of Zara, the first attack against a Catholic city by a Catholic Crusader army. The city was then brought under Venetian control. When the Pope heard of this, he temporarily excommunicated the Crusader army.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: In January 1203, en route to Jerusalem, the Crusader leadership entered into an agreement with the Byzantine prince Alexios Angelos to divert their main force to Constantinople and restore his deposed father Isaac II Angelos as emperor, who would then add his support to their invasion of Jerusalem. On 23 June 1203, the main Crusader army reached Constantinople, while other contingents (perhaps a majority of all crusaders) continued to Acre.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: In August 1203, following the siege of Constantinople, Alexios was crowned co-emperor. However, in January 1204 he was deposed by a popular uprising, depriving the Crusaders of their promised bounty payments. Following the murder of Alexios on 8 February, the Crusaders decided on the outright conquest of the city. In April 1204, they captured and plundered the city's enormous wealth. Only a handful of the Crusaders continued to the Holy Land thereafter.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: The conquest of Constantinople was followed by the fragmentation of the Byzantine Empire into three states centered in Nicaea, Trebizond and Epirus. The Crusaders then founded several new Crusader states, known as "Frankokratia", in former Byzantine territory, largely hinged upon the Latin Empire of Constantinople. The presence of the Latin Crusader states almost immediately led to war with the Byzantine successor states and with the Bulgarian Empire. The Nicaean Empire eventually recovered Constantinople and restored the Byzantine Empire in 1261.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: The Fourth Crusade is considered to have solidified the East–West Schism. The crusade dealt an irrevocable blow to the Byzantine/Roman Empire, contributing to its decline and fall.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: Between 1176 and 1187, the Ayyubid sultan Saladin conquered most of the Crusader states in the Levant. Jerusalem was lost to the Ayyubids following the siege of Jerusalem in 1187. The Crusader states were then reduced by Saladin to little more than three cities along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea: Tyre, Tripoli and Antioch.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: The Third Crusade (1189–1192) was launched in response to the fall of Jerusalem, with the goal of recovering the city. It successfully reclaimed an extensive territory, effectively reestablishing the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Although Jerusalem itself was not recovered, the important coastal towns of Acre and Jaffa were. On 2 September 1192, the Treaty of Jaffa was signed with Saladin, bringing the crusade to an end. The truce would last for three years and eight months.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: The crusade had also been marked by a significant escalation in longstanding tensions between the feudal states of western Europe and the Byzantine Empire. During the crusade, Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor, had almost besieged Constantinople because of the failure of the Byzantines to provide him with safe passage across the Dardanelles. The Byzantines for their part suspected him of conspiring with the breakaway Byzantine provinces of Serbia and Bulgaria. King Richard I of England also seized the breakaway Byzantine province of Cyprus. Rather than return it to the Empire (and realizing his inability to govern it), he sold the island to the Knights Templar.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: Saladin died on 4 March 1193, before the expiration of the truce, and his empire was contested and divided between three of his sons and two of his brothers. The new ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Henry II of Champagne, signed an extension of the truce with Egyptian Sultan al-Aziz Uthman. In 1197, the peace was interrupted by the arrival of the German Crusade of 1197. Without the permission of Henry, the Germans attacked the territory of al-Adil I of Damascus, who responded by attacking Jaffa. The sudden death of Henry prevented the relief of the port and the city was taken by force. The Germans did, however, succeed in capturing Beirut in the north.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: Henry was succeeded by Aimery of Cyprus, who signed a truce with al-Adil of five years and eight months on 1 July 1198. The truce preserved the status quo: Jaffa remained in Ayyubid hands, but its destroyed fortifications could not be rebuilt; Beirut was left to the crusaders; and Sidon was placed under a revenue-sharing condominium. Before the expiration of the new truce on 1 March 1204, al-Adil succeeded in uniting the former empire of Saladin, acquiring Egypt in 1200 and Aleppo in 1202. As a result, his domains almost completely surrounded the diminished Crusader states.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: Constantinople had been in existence for 874 years at the time of the Fourth Crusade and was the largest and most sophisticated city in Christendom. Almost alone amongst major medieval urban centres, it had retained the civic structures, public baths, forums, monuments, and aqueducts of classical Rome in working form. At its height, the city was home to an estimated population of about half a million people protected by thirteen miles of triple walls. Its planned location made Constantinople not only the capital of the surviving eastern part of the Roman Empire but also a commercial centre that dominated trade routes from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea, China, India and Persia. As a result, it was both a rival and a tempting target for the aggressive new states of the west, notably the Republic of Venice.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: In 1195, the Byzantine Emperor Isaac II Angelos was deposed in favour of his brother by a palace coup. Ascending as Alexios III Angelos, the new emperor had his brother blinded (a traditional punishment for treason, considered more humane than execution) and exiled. Ineffectual on the battlefield, Isaac had also proven to be an incompetent ruler who had let the treasury dwindle and outsourced the navy to the Venetians. His actions in wastefully distributing military weapons and supplies as gifts to his supporters had undermined the empire's defenses. The new emperor was to prove no better. Anxious to shore up his position, Alexios bankrupted the treasury. His attempts to secure the support of semi-autonomous border commanders undermined central authority. He neglected his crucial responsibilities for defence and diplomacy. The emperor's chief admiral (his wife's brother-in-law), Michael Stryphnos, reportedly sold the fleet's equipment down to the very nails to enrich himself.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: Pope Innocent III succeeded to the papacy in January 1198, and the preaching of a new crusade became the prime goal of his pontificate, expounded in his bull "Post miserabile". His call was largely ignored by the European monarchs: the Germans were struggling against Papal power, and England and France were still engaged in warfare against each other. However, due to the preaching of Fulk of Neuilly, a crusading army was finally organised at a tournament held at Écry-sur-Aisne by Count Thibaut of Champagne in 1199. Thibaut was elected leader, but he died in 1201 and was replaced by Boniface of Montferrat.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: Boniface and the other leaders sent envoys to Venice, Genoa, and other city-states in 1200 to negotiate a contract for transport to Egypt, the stated objective of their crusade; one of the envoys was the future historian Geoffrey of Villehardouin. Earlier crusades focused on Palestine had involved the slow movement of large and disorganised land hosts across a generally hostile Anatolia. Egypt was now the dominant Muslim power in the eastern Mediterranean but also a major trading partner of Venice. An attack on Egypt would clearly be a maritime enterprise, requiring the creation of a fleet. Genoa was uninterested, but in March 1201 negotiations were opened with Venice, which agreed to transport 33,500 crusaders, a very ambitious number. This agreement required a full year of preparation on the part of the Venetians to build numerous ships and train the sailors who would man them, all the while curtailing the city's commercial activities. The crusading army was expected to consist of 4,500 knights (as well as 4,500 horses), 9,000 squires, and 20,000 foot-soldiers.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: The majority of the crusading army that set out from Venice in early October 1202 originated from areas within France. It included men from Blois, Champagne, Amiens, Saint-Pol, the Île-de-France, and Burgundy. Several other regions of Europe sent substantial contingents as well, such as Flanders and Montferrat. Other notable groups came from the Holy Roman Empire, including the men under Martin, abbot of Pairis Abbey and Bishop Conrad of Halberstadt, together in alliance with the Venetian soldiers and sailors led by the doge, Enrico Dandolo. The crusade was to be ready to sail on 24 June 1203 and make directly for the Ayyubid capital, Cairo. This agreement was ratified by Pope Innocent, with a solemn ban on attacks on Christian states.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: There was no binding agreement among the crusaders that all should sail from Venice. Accordingly, many chose to sail from other ports, particularly Flanders, Marseille, and Genoa. By May 1202, the bulk of the crusader army was collected at Venice, although with far smaller numbers than expected: about 12,000 (4–5,000 knights and 8,000 foot soldiers) instead of 33,500. The Venetians had performed their part of the agreement: there awaited 50 war galleys and 450 transportsenough for three times the assembled army. The Venetians, under their aged and blind Doge Dandolo, would not let the crusaders leave without paying the full amount agreed to, originally 85,000 silver marks. The crusaders could only initially pay 35,000 silver marks. The Doge threatened to keep them interned unless full payment was made so a further 14,000 marks were collected, and that only by reducing the crusaders to extreme poverty. This was disastrous to the Venetians, who had halted their commerce for a great length of time to prepare this expedition. In addition, about 14,000 men or as many as 20–30,000 men (out of Venice's population of 60–100,000 people) were needed to man the entire fleet, placing further strain on the Venetian economy.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: Dandolo and the Venetians considered what to do with the crusade. It was too small to pay its fee, but disbanding the force gathered would harm Venetian prestige and cause significant financial and trading loss. Dandolo, who joined the crusade during a public ceremony in the church of San Marco di Venezia, proposed that the crusaders pay their debts by intimidating many of the local ports and towns down the Adriatic, culminating in an attack on the port of Zara in Dalmatia. The city had been dominated economically by Venice throughout the 12th century but had rebelled in 1181 and allied itself with King Emeric of Hungary and Croatia. Subsequent Venetian attempts to recover control of Zara had been repulsed, and by 1202 the city was economically independent, under the protection of the King.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: King Emeric was Catholic and had himself taken the cross in 1195 or 1196. Many of the crusaders were opposed to attacking Zara, and some, including a force led by the elder Simon de Montfort, refused to participate altogether and returned home or went to the Holy Land on their own. While the Papal legate to the Crusade, Cardinal Peter of Capua, endorsed the move as necessary to prevent the crusade's complete failure, the Pope was alarmed at this development and wrote a letter to the crusading leadership threatening excommunication.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: In 1202, Pope Innocent III, despite wanting to secure papal authority over Byzantium, forbade the crusaders of Western Christendom from committing any atrocious acts against their Christian neighbours. However, this letter, delivered by Peter of Lucedio, may not have reached the army in time. The bulk of the army arrived at Zara on 10–11 November 1202 and the attack proceeded. The citizens of Zara made reference to the fact that they were fellow Catholics by hanging banners marked with crosses from their windows and the walls of the city, but nevertheless the city fell on 24 November 1202 after a brief siege. There was extensive pillaging, and the Venetians and other crusaders came to blows over the division of the spoils. Order was achieved, and the leaders of the expedition agreed to winter in Zara, while considering their next move. The fortifications of Zara were demolished by the Venetians.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: When Innocent III heard of the sack, he sent a letter to the crusaders excommunicating them and ordering them to return to their holy vows and head for Jerusalem. Out of fear that this would dissolve the army, the leaders of the crusade decided not to inform their followers of this. Regarding the Crusaders as having been coerced by the Venetians, in February 1203 he rescinded the excommunications against all non-Venetians in the expedition.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: The commercial rivalry between the Republic of Venice and the Byzantine Empire and the living memory of the Massacre of the Latins did much to exacerbate the feeling of animosity among the Venetians towards the Romans. According to the Chronicle of Novgorod Doge Enrico Dandolo had been blinded by the Emperor Manuel I Comnenus while part of an embassy to Constantinople in 1171, and accordingly held personal enmity towards the Byzantines.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: Boniface of Montferrat, meanwhile, had left the fleet before it sailed from Venice, to visit his cousin Philip of Swabia. The reasons for his visit are a matter of debate; he may have realized the Venetians' plans and left to avoid excommunication, or he may have wanted to meet with the Byzantine prince Alexios IV Angelos, Philip's brother-in-law and the son of the recently deposed Byzantine emperor Isaac II Angelos. Alexios IV had recently fled to Philip in 1201 but it is unknown whether or not Boniface knew he was at Philip's court. There, Alexios IV offered to pay the entire debt owed to the Venetians, give 200,000 silver marks to the crusaders, 10,000 Byzantine professional troops for the Crusade, the maintenance of 500 knights in the Holy Land, the service of the Byzantine navy to transport the Crusader Army to Egypt, and the placement of the Eastern Orthodox Church under the authority of the Pope, if they would sail to Byzantium and topple the reigning emperor Alexios III Angelos, brother of Isaac II. This offer, tempting for an enterprise that was short on funds, reached the leaders of the Crusade on 1 January 1203 as they wintered at Zara. Doge Dandolo was a fierce supporter of the plan; however, in his earlier capacity as an ambassador to Byzantium and someone who knew the finer details of how Byzantine politics worked, it is likely he knew the promises were false and there was no hope of any Byzantine emperor raising the money promised, let alone raising the troops and giving the church to the Holy See. Count Boniface agreed and Alexios IV returned with the Marquess to rejoin the fleet at Corfu after it had sailed from Zara. Most of the rest of the crusade's leaders, encouraged by bribes from Dandolo, eventually accepted the plan as well. However, there were dissenters. Led by Renaud of Montmirail, those who refused to take part in the scheme to attack Constantinople sailed on to Syria. The remaining fleet of 60 war galleys, 100 horse transports, and 50 large transports (the entire fleet was manned by 10,000 Venetian oarsmen and marines) sailed in late April 1203. In addition, 300 siege engines were brought along on board the fleet. Hearing of their decision, the Pope hedged and issued an order against any more attacks on Christians unless they were actively hindering the Crusader cause, but he did not condemn the scheme outright.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: When the Fourth Crusade arrived at Constantinople on 23 June 1203, the city had a population of approximately 500,000 people, a garrison of 15,000 men (including 5,000 Varangians), and a fleet of 20 galleys. For both political and financial reasons, the permanent garrison of Constantinople had been limited to a relatively small force, made up of elite guards and other specialist units. At previous times in Byzantine history when the capital had come under direct threat, it had been possible to assemble reinforcements from frontier and provincial forces. On this occasion, the suddenness of the danger posed by the Fourth Crusade put the defenders at a serious disadvantage. The main objective of the crusaders was to place Alexios IV on the Byzantine throne so that they could receive the rich payments he had promised them. Conon of Bethune delivered this ultimatum to the Lombard envoy sent by the Emperor Alexios III Angelos, who was the pretender's uncle and had seized the throne from the pretender's father Isaac II. The citizens of Constantinople were not concerned with the cause of the deposed emperor and his exiled son; hereditary right of succession had never been adopted by the empire and a palace coup between brothers was not considered illegitimate in the way it would have been in the West. First the crusaders attacked and were repulsed from the cities of Chalcedon and Chrysopolis, suburbs of the great city. They won a cavalry skirmish in which they were outnumbered, defeating 500 Byzantines with just 80 Frankish knights.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: To take the city by force, the crusaders first needed to cross the Bosphorus. About 200 ships, horse transports, and galleys delivered the crusading army across the narrow strait, where Alexios III had lined up the Byzantine army in battle formation along the shore, north of the suburb of Galata. The Crusader knights charged straight out of the horse transports, and the Byzantine army fled south. The Crusaders followed and attacked the Tower of Galata, which held the northern end of the massive chain that blocked access to the Golden Horn. The Tower of Galata held a garrison of mercenary troops of English, Danish, and Italian origin. On 6 July the largest ship in the crusaders' fleet, the "Aquila" (Eagle), broke the chain. A section of it was then sent to Acre to boost the defences in the Holy Land.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: As the crusaders laid siege to the Tower of Galata, the defenders routinely attempted to sally out with some limited success, but often suffered bloody losses. On one occasion the defenders sallied out but were unable to retreat back to the safety of the tower in time, the Crusader forces viciously counterattacked, with most of the defenders being cut down or drowning in the Bosporus in their attempts to escape. The tower was swiftly taken as a result. The Golden Horn now lay open to the Crusaders, and the Venetian fleet entered. The Crusaders sailed alongside Constantinople with 10 galleys to display the would-be Alexios IV, but from the walls of the city citizens taunted the puzzled crusaders, who had been led to believe that they would rise up to welcome the young pretender Alexios as a liberator.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: On 11 July, the Crusaders took positions opposite the Palace of Blachernae on the northwest corner of the city. Their first attacks were repulsed, but on 17 July, with four divisions attacking the land walls while the Venetian fleet attacked the sea walls from the Golden Horn, the Venetians took a section of the wall of about 25 towers, while the Varangian guard held off the Crusaders on the land wall. The Varangians shifted to meet the new threat, and the Venetians retreated under the screen of fire. The fire destroyed about of the city and left some 20,000 people homeless.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: Alexios III finally took offensive action, leading 17 divisions from the St. Romanus Gate, vastly outnumbering the crusaders. Alexios III's army of about 8,500 men faced the Crusaders' seven divisions (about 3,500 men), but his courage failed, and the Byzantine army returned to the city without a fight. The unforced retreat and the effects of the fire greatly damaged morale, and the disgraced Alexios III abandoned his subjects, slipping out of the city and fleeing to Mosynopolis in Thrace. The Imperial officials quickly deposed their runaway emperor and restored Isaac II, robbing the crusaders of the pretext for attack. The crusaders were now in the quandary of having achieved their stated aim while being debarred from the actual objective, namely the reward that the younger Alexios had (unbeknownst to the Byzantines) promised them. The crusaders insisted that they would only recognize the authority of Isaac II if his son was raised to co-emperor, and on 1 August the latter was crowned as Alexios Angelos IV, co-emperor.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: Alexios IV realised that his promises were hard to keep. Alexios III had managed to flee with 1,000 pounds of gold and some priceless jewels, leaving the imperial treasury short on funds. At that point the young emperor ordered the destruction and melting of valuable Byzantine and Roman icons in order to extract their gold and silver, but even then he could only raise 100,000 silver marks. In the eyes of all Greeks who knew of this decision, it was a shocking sign of desperation and weak leadership, which deserved to be punished by God. The Byzantine historian Nicetas Choniates characterized it as "the turning point towards the decline of the Roman state".


title: Fourth Crusade

text: Forcing the populace to destroy their icons at the behest of an army of foreign schismatics did not endear Alexios IV to the citizens of Constantinople. In fear of his life, the co-emperor asked the crusaders to renew their contract for another six months, to end by April 1204. Alexios IV then led 6,000 men from the Crusader army against his rival Alexios III in Adrianople. During the co-emperor's absence in August, rioting broke out in the city and a number of Latin residents were killed. In retaliation armed Venetians and other crusaders entered the city from the Golden Horn and attacked a mosque (Constantinople at this time had a sizable Muslim population), which was defended by Muslim and Byzantine residents . In order to cover their retreat the Westerners instigated the "Great Fire", which burnt from 19 to 21 August, destroying a large part of Constantinople and leaving an estimated 100,000 homeless.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: In January 1204, the blinded and incapacitated Isaac II died, probably of natural causes. Opposition to his son and co-emperor Alexios IV had grown during the preceding months of tension and spasmodic violence in and around Constantinople. The Byzantine Senate elected a young noble Nicolas Canabus as emperor, in what was to be one of the last known acts of this ancient institution. However he declined the appointment and sought church sanctuary.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: A nobleman Alexios Doukas (nicknamed Mourtzouphlos) became the leader of the anti-crusader faction within the Byzantine leadership. While holding the court rank of "protovestilarios", Doukas had led Byzantine forces during the initial clashes with the crusaders, winning respect from both military and populace. He was accordingly well-placed to move against the increasingly isolated Alexios IV, whom he overthrew, imprisoned, and had strangled in early February. Doukas then was crowned as Emperor Alexios V. He immediately moved to have the city fortifications strengthened and summoned additional forces to the city.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: The crusaders and Venetians, incensed at the murder of their supposed patron, demanded that Mourtzouphlos honour the contract that Alexios IV had promised. When the Byzantine emperor refused, the Crusaders assaulted the city once again. On 8 April Alexios V's army put up a strong resistance, which did much to discourage the crusaders. The Byzantines hurled large projectiles onto the enemy siege engines, shattering many of them. Bad weather conditions were a serious hindrance to the crusaders. A fierce wind blew from the shore and prevented most of the ships from drawing close enough to the walls to launch an assault. Only five of the wall's towers were actually engaged and none of these could be secured; by mid-afternoon it was evident that the attack had failed.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: The Latin clergy discussed the situation amongst themselves and settled upon the message they wished to spread through the demoralised army. They had to convince the men that the events of 9 April were not God's judgment on a sinful enterprise: the campaign, they argued, was righteous and with proper belief it would succeed. The concept of God testing the determination of the crusaders through temporary setbacks was a familiar means for the clergy to explain failure in the course of a campaign. The clergy's message was designed to reassure and encourage the Crusaders. Their argument that the attack on Constantinople was spiritual revolved around two themes. First, the Greeks were traitors and murderers since they had killed their rightful lord, Alexios IV. The churchmen used inflammatory language and claimed that "the Greeks were worse than the Jews", and they invoked the authority of God and the pope to take action.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: Although Innocent III had again demanded that they not attack, the papal letter was suppressed by the clergy, and the crusaders prepared for their own attack, while the Venetians attacked from the sea. Alexios V's army stayed in the city to fight, along with the imperial bodyguard, the Varangians, but Alexios V himself fled during the night. An attempt was made to find a further replacement emperor from amongst the Byzantine nobility, but the situation had now become too chaotic for either of the two candidates who came forward to find sufficient support.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: On 12 April 1204, the weather conditions finally favoured the crusaders. A strong northern wind aided the Venetian ships in coming close to the walls, and after a short battle approximately seventy crusaders managed to enter the city. Some were able to knock holes in the walls, large enough for only a few knights at a time to crawl through; the Venetians were also successful at scaling the walls from the sea, though there was fighting with the Varangians. The Anglo-Saxon "axe bearers" had been amongst the most effective of the city's defenders, but they now attempted to negotiate higher wages from their Byzantine employers, before dispersing or surrendering. The crusaders captured the Blachernae section of the city in the northwest and used it as a base to attack the rest of the city. While attempting to defend themselves with a wall of fire, however, they burned even more of the city. This second fire left 15,000 people homeless. The crusaders completely took the city on 13 April.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: The crusaders sacked Constantinople for three days, during which many ancient and medieval Greco-Roman works of art were stolen or ruined. Many of the civilian population of the city were killed and their property looted. Despite the threat of excommunication, the crusaders destroyed, defiled and looted the city's churches and monasteries. It was said that the total amount looted from Constantinople was about 900,000 silver marks. The Venetians received 150,000 silver marks that were their due, while the crusaders received 50,000 silver marks. A further 100,000 silver marks were divided evenly up between the crusaders and Venetians. The remaining 500,000 silver marks were secretly kept back by many crusader knights.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: When Innocent III heard of the conduct of his pilgrims he was filled with shame and rage, and he strongly rebuked them.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: The main army that sailed from Venice to Constantinople experienced several waves of defections as men sought to fulfill their vows independently of the leadership. Most of them sailed directly from ports in Apulia (southern Italy) to Acre. According to Villehardouin, the majority of those who set out on the Fourth Crusade went to the Holy Land, while only a minority participated in the attack on Constantinople. Villehardouin, however, regarded those who went to the Holy Land as deserters of the main army and its leadership and he may have exaggerated their number in order to magnify the accomplishments of the minority that besieged Constantinople.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: Modern historians have tended to disregard Villehardouin's claims. Steven Runciman thought that only a "tiny proportion" and Joshua Prawer only some "pitiful remnants" of the original army arrived in the Holy Land. Recent studies suggest that the number was substantial but shy of a majority. Of the 92 named individuals who took the crusader vow in Villehardouin's account, between 23 and 26 of them went to the Holy Land. The rate of "desertion" seems highest among the French faction. Only about a tenth of the knights who had taken the cross in Flanders arrived to reinforce the remaining Christian states in the Holy Land, but over half of those from the Île-de-France did. All told, about 300 knights with their retinues from northern France made it to the Holy Land. Of the contingents from Burgundy, Occitania, Italy and Germany we have less information, but there were certainly defections among the Occitan and German contingents.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: A large sum of money raised by the preacher Fulk of Neuilly did reach the Holy Land. Before his death in May 1202, Fulk gave the money to the Abbey of Cîteaux. Abbot Arnaud Amalric sent it to Acre in two installments. It was used to repair walls, towers and other defences that had been damaged by the earthquake of May 1202. A second wall was even added at Acre sometime before 1212.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: Several crusaders, instead of going on to Venice, turned south at Piacenza in the summer of 1202 intending to go directly to the Holy Land from ports in southern Italy. Among them were Vilain of Nully, Henry of Arzillières, Renard II of Dampierre, Henry of Longchamp and Giles of Trasignies with their retinues. They do not seem to have been acting in concert or travelling together. Ultimately, several hundred knights and accompanying infantry reached the Holy Land via south Italian ports. The force was so small that King Aimery of Jerusalem refused to break his truce with the Ayyubids to allow them to go to war, despite the pleas of Renard, who was fulfilling the crusading vow of the late Count Theobald III of Champagne and possessed ample funds. As a result, eighty crusaders under Renard decided to go to the Principality of Antioch, which had no such truce. Advised against such a move, they were ambushed on the road and all but Renard were killed or captured. Renard remained in captivity for thirty years.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: When the crusade was diverted to Zara, many crusaders returned home or else remained behind in Italy. Some bypassed the Venetian fleet and found other means of going to the Holy Land. Geoffrey of Villehardouin, the historian's nephew, was one of them. Stephen of the Perche, was prevented from going with the main army on account of illness. Upon his recovery in March 1203, he took ship in southern Italy and travelled directly to the Holy Land with many others who had remained behind, including Rotrou of Montfort and Yves of La Jaille. Stephen re-joined the main army after the fall of Constantinople.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: Following the siege of Zara, more contingents abandoned the main army. The crusaders sent Robert of Boves as an envoy to the pope, but after his mission was done he went straight to the Holy Land. Abbot Martin of Pairis joined him on the trip to Rome and afterwards took ship for Palestine at Siponto. Martin arrived in Acre on 25 April 1203 in the midst of an outbreak of plague. According to the "Devastatio Constantinopolitana", after the decision was made at Zara to place Alexios IV on the throne of Constantinople, the leaders of the crusade granted permission for about 1,000 men to leave and find their own way to the Holy Land. In fact, about 2,000 men abandoned the main army at that stage. Most of them were among the poorer crusaders, and two ships carrying them sank with loss of life. The German crusader Garnier of Borland also abandoned the main army after Zara.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: From Zara, an official embassy, led by Renaud of Montmirail, was dispatched to the Holy Land. It included Hervé of Châtel, William III of Ferrières, Geoffrey of Beaumont and the brothers John and Peter of Frouville. They were supposed to return to the main army within fifteen days of accomplishing their mission. In fact, they remained in the Holy Land and did not return until after the fall of Constantinople.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: In the winter of 1203–1204, Simon V of Montfort led a large contingent of defectors disgusted with the attack on Zara and opposed to the Constantinople venture. He and his men had even avoided the ruins of Zara and camped in Hungary. Among Simon's followers were his brother, Guy of Montfort; the Yvelinois Simon V of Neauphle, Robert IV Mauvoisin and Dreux II of Cressonsacq; Abbot Guy of Vaux-de-Cernay; and the unnamed abbot of Cercanceaux. Shortly afterwards they were joined by Enguerrand II of Boves. They marched up the coast from Zara back to Italy and then down the Italian coast, where they embarked for Palestine.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: For reasons unknown, Baldwin of Flanders divided his forces, leading half to Venice himself and sending the other half by sea. The Flemish fleet left Flanders in the summer of 1202 under the command of John II of Nesle, Thierry of Flanders and Nicholas of Mailly. It sailed into the Mediterranean and, according to the chronicler Ernoul, attacked and captured an unnamed Muslim city on the African coast. The city was left in the hands of the Livonian Brothers of the Sword and the fleet went on to Marseille, where it wintered in 1202–1203. There the fleet was joined by a number of French crusaders, including Bishop Walter II of Autun, Count Guigues III of Forez, Bernard IV of Moreuil, Henry of Arraines, Hugh of Chaumont, John of Villers, Peter Bromont and the brothers Walter and Hugh of Saint-Denis and their retinues.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: The pilots of Marseille had more experience sailing out of sight of land than those of any other Mediterranean port, having been doing it since the mid-12th century. In summer, they could make the trip to Acre in fifteen days. They possessed a fleet sufficient to transport the army of Richard the Lionheart on the Third Crusade in 1190. It was also a cheaper and more accessible port for the French contingent.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: Baldwin sent orders to his fleet in Marseille to sail at the end of March 1203 and rendezvous with the Venetian fleet off Methoni. His messengers must also have brought news of the decision to go to Constantinople before proceeding to the Holy Land. For this reason the Flemish leaders may have opted to ignore the rendezvous and sail directly to Acre. It is also possible that they kept the rendezvous, but not finding the Venetian fleet (which did not get to Methoni before May) went on to Acre alone. They probably arrived there before Martin of Pairis on 25 April 1203. At least a part of the fleet stopped at Cyprus, where Thierry of Flanders made a claim on the island in the name of his wife, the Damsel of Cyprus, daughter of Isaac Doukas Komnenos, former emperor of Cyprus. Thierry, his wife and those knights that had supported him were ordered by Aimery to leave his kingdom, so they went to the Kingdom of Armenia, homeland of Thierry's mother-in-law.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: The Flemish crusaders in Acre encountered the same difficulty as Renard of Dampierre. King Aimery was unwilling to break his truce for the sake of such a small army. The crusaders, therefore, split up. Some entered the service of the Principality of Antioch and others that of the County of Tripoli. Bernard of Moreuil and John of Villers joined Renard of Dampierre and were captured along with him. John of Nesle went to the aid of Armenia and thus found himself fighting some of his former comrades, since Armenia and Antioch were then at war. Sometime before 5 November 1203, however, the truce was broken. The Muslims seized two Christian ships and in retaliation, the Christians had seized six Muslim ships. The Flemish crusaders returned to the Kingdom of Jerusalem to fight.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: On 8 November, Martin of Pairis and Conrad of Swartzenberg were sent to the main army, then besieging Constantinople, to press for it to continue on to the Holy Land now that the truce was broken. The envoys arrived on 1 January 1204, but the army was in the midst of heavy fighting and nothing came of their embassy.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: According to a subsequent treaty, the empire was apportioned between Venice and the leaders of the crusade, and the Latin Empire of Constantinople was established. Boniface was not elected as the new emperor, although the citizens seemed to consider him as such; the Venetians thought he had too many connections with the former empire because of his brother, Renier of Montferrat, who had been married to Maria Komnene, empress in the 1170s and 1180s. Instead, they placed Baldwin of Flanders on the throne. Boniface went on to found the Kingdom of Thessalonica, a vassal state of the new Latin Empire. The Venetians also founded the Duchy of the Archipelago in the Aegean Sea. Meanwhile, Byzantine refugees founded their own rump states, the most notable of these being the Empire of Nicaea under Theodore Laskaris (a relative of Alexios III), the Empire of Trebizond, and the Despotate of Epirus.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: The Latin Empire was soon faced with a number of enemies. Besides the individual Byzantine rump states in Epirus and Nicaea, and the also Christian Bulgarian Empire, there was also the Seljuk Sultanate. The Greek states fought for supremacy against both the Latins and each other.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: During the ensuing half-century, the unstable Latin Empire siphoned off much of Europe's crusading energy. The legacy of the Fourth Crusade was the deep sense of betrayal felt by the Greek Christians. With the events of 1204, the schism between the Churches in the East and West was not just complete but also solidified.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: Assessing the disastrous resuts of the expedition he had started, Pope Innocent III spoke against the crusaders thus:


title: Fourth Crusade

text: Various Latin–French lordships throughout Greece in particular, the Duchy of Athens and the principality of the Morea provided cultural contacts with western Europe and promoted the study of Greek. There was also a French cultural work, notably the production of a collection of laws, the "Assises de Romanie". The "Chronicle of Morea" appeared in both French and Greek (and later Italian and Aragonese) versions. Impressive remains of Crusader castles and Gothic churches can still be seen in Greece. Nevertheless, the Latin Empire always rested on shaky foundations. Constantinople was re-captured by the Nicaean Greeks under Michael VIII Palaeologos in 1261, and commerce with Venice was re-established.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: The prominent medievalist Sir Steven Runciman wrote in 1954: "There was never a greater crime against humanity than the Fourth Crusade." The controversy that has surrounded the Fourth Crusade has led to diverging opinions in academia on whether its objective was indeed the capture of Constantinople. The traditional position, which holds that this was the case, was challenged by Donald E. Queller and Thomas F. Madden in their book "The Fourth Crusade" (1977).


title: Fourth Crusade

text: Constantinople was considered as a bastion of Christianity that defended Europe from the advancing forces of Islam, and the Fourth Crusade's sack of the city dealt an irreparable blow to this eastern bulwark. Although the Greeks retook Constantinople after 57 years of Latin rule, the Byzantine Empire had been crippled by the Fourth Crusade. Reduced to Constantinople, north-western Anatolia, and a portion of the southern Balkans, the empire fell to the Ottoman Turks who captured the city in 1453.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: Eight hundred years later, Pope John Paul II twice expressed sorrow for the events of the Fourth Crusade. In 2001, he wrote to Christodoulos, Archbishop of Athens, "It is tragic that the assailants, who set out to secure free access for Christians to the Holy Land, turned against their brothers in the faith. The fact that they were Latin Christians fills Catholics with deep regret." In 2004, while Bartholomew I, Patriarch of Constantinople, was visiting the Vatican, John Paul II asked, "How can we not share, at a distance of eight centuries, the pain and disgust." This has been regarded as an apology to the Greek Orthodox Church for the massacres perpetrated by the warriors of the Fourth Crusade.


title: Fourth Crusade

text: In April 2004, in a speech on the 800th anniversary of the city's capture, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I formally accepted the apology. "The spirit of reconciliation is stronger than hatred," he said during a liturgy attended by Roman Catholic Archbishop Philippe Barbarin of Lyon, France. "We receive with gratitude and respect your cordial gesture for the tragic events of the Fourth Crusade. It is a fact that a crime was committed here in the city 800 years ago." Bartholomew said his acceptance came in the spirit of Pascha. "The spirit of reconciliation of the resurrection... incites us toward reconciliation of our churches."


title: Fourth Crusade

text: The Fourth Crusade was one of the last of the major crusades to be launched by the Papacy, though it quickly fell out of Papal control. After bickering between laymen and the papal legate led to the collapse of the Fifth Crusade, later crusades were directed by individual monarchs, mostly against Egypt. One subsequent crusade, the Sixth, succeeded in restoring Jerusalem to Christian rule for 15 years.


title: The Goldfinch (film)

text: The Goldfinch is a 2019 American drama film directed by John Crowley. It was written by Peter Straughan, who adapted the 2013 novel "The Goldfinch" by Donna Tartt. It stars Ansel Elgort as Theodore Decker, whose life changes after his mother dies in a terrorist bombing at a museum and a dying man convinces him to take a famous painting called "The Goldfinch" from the museum. Oakes Fegley, Aneurin Barnard, Finn Wolfhard, Sarah Paulson, Luke Wilson, Jeffrey Wright, and Nicole Kidman appear in supporting roles.


title: The Goldfinch (film)

text: The novel's film rights were sold to Warner Bros. and RatPac Entertainment in July 2014, with ICM Partners brokering the deal. Two years later, Crowley was hired to direct the film adaptation, and Elgort was selected to portray the lead role. Most of the remaining cast joined from October 2017 to January 2018. Filming began in New York City in January 2018 and moved to Albuquerque in April 2018 for the rest of the production.


title: The Goldfinch (film)

text: "The Goldfinch" premiered at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival and was theatrically released in the United States on September 13, 2019, by Warner Bros. Pictures. It was a box-office bomb, with estimated losses for the studio as high as $50 million, and received generally negative reviews that criticised the plot and narrative, though the cinematography and performances received praise.


title: The Goldfinch (film)

text: Thirteen-year-old Theodore Decker's mother is killed in a bombing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. In the aftermath of the explosion, a dying man urges him to take a painting—"The Goldfinch—"and his engraved ring. Theo is placed into foster care with the Barbours, the family of his best friend Andy. Theo becomes close to Mrs. Barbour, who encourages his interest in antiques and art.


title: The Goldfinch (film)

text: It is revealed that Theo and his mother were supposed to see Theo's school principal that day because the school said he and classmate Tom Cable had been smoking cigarettes. They were early, so his mother took Theo to the museum on the day of the explosion. Theo blames himself for his mother's death.


title: The Goldfinch (film)

text: Theo locates the antiques shop of James "Hobie" Hobart, whose partner Welton "Welty" Blackwell (the dying man from the museum) gave the ring to Theo to return. Hobie allows Theo to visit Pippa, Welty’s niece who was injured in the bombing, and the children bond before Pippa is sent to live with her aunt in Texas. Andy hints that his parents are considering adopting Theo. However, Theo's estranged father Larry, claiming to be newly sober, arrives with his girlfriend Xandra to relocate Theo to Las Vegas. Theo brings "The Goldfinch" and keeps it hidden.


title: The Goldfinch (film)

text: In Las Vegas, Theo befriends Boris, a Ukrainian classmate who introduces him to drugs and alcohol. Larry ends up in gambling debt and tries to have Theo to transfer his education fund to a banking account but ultimately fails.


title: The Goldfinch (film)

text: After Theo and Boris take LSD, Theo learns that Larry was killed in a drunk-driving accident. When Xandra berates him for his apparently apathetic response to his father's death, Theo runs away to New York, taking Xandra's dog Popper and the painting. Theo tries to convince Boris to come with him, but Boris kisses him and runs away. Hobie allows Theo to live with him.


title: The Goldfinch (film)

text: Eight years later, Theo has made Hobie’s shop successful, selling his restored antiques. He runs into Andy's older brother Platt, who reveals that Andy and their father were killed in a boating accident. Theo visits the ailing Mrs. Barbour and reconnects with her daughter Kitsey. Reeve, a disgruntled art dealer, confronts Theo for selling him a fake. Having deduced that Theo stole "The Goldfinch", Reeve accuses him of using it as collateral to finance his shop. Unbeknownst to anyone else, Theo keeps the wrapped painting in a storage locker.


title: The Goldfinch (film)

text: Theo becomes engaged to Andy's younger sister Kitsey, but harbors a secret love for Pippa, who now lives in London with her boyfriend Everett. Theo catches Kitsey cheating on him with Tom Cable, but they remain engaged, as Theo is close to Mrs. Barbour and Kitsey is permissive toward his drug habit. Theo tells Hobie the truth about selling his restorations as “real” forgeries. Pippa visits Theo and they confess their feelings for each other, but she tearfully rejects him, citing the instability caused by their shared childhood trauma.


title: The Goldfinch (film)

text: Seeking drugs at a bar, Theo is reunited with Boris, who reveals he had stolen "The Goldfinch" from Theo years prior and had used it as collateral to finance his crimal career, before it was then in turn stolen from him. After a visit from Reeve, a heartbroken Hobie confronts Theo for the theft and loss of "The Goldfinch".


title: The Goldfinch (film)

text: At Theo's and Kitsey's engagement party, Boris arrives with a plan to recover "The Goldfinch". Theo accompanies him to Amsterdam, where Boris seizes the painting at gunpoint, but they are ambushed by another pair of criminals. Boris kills one of them but is shot. Theo is forced to kill the other assailant, while another man escapes with the painting.


title: The Goldfinch (film)

text: Theo tries to die by suicide in his hotel room, but is rescued by Boris. Boris explains that he called in a tip to the police about the painting's location, and that during the subsequent raid, the authorities recovered the painting as well as other stolen art, including a Rembrandt. Boris persuades Theo that it was all for the greater good.


title: The Goldfinch (film)

text: In July 2014, film rights to the novel were sold to Warner Bros. Pictures and RatPac Entertainment with ICM Partners brokering the deal. Two years later, John Crowley was hired to direct the film adaptation. In August 2017, Warner Bros. finalized a deal with Amazon Studios to co-finance the adaptation, where Amazon would invest in more than a third of the project's budget and obtain streaming rights to the picture on its Prime service, while Warner Bros. would distribute the film in theaters worldwide.


title: The Goldfinch (film)

text: On October 4, 2017, after a two-month casting search, Ansel Elgort was cast in the lead role of Theodore "Theo" Decker, following his breakout turn in "Baby Driver". On the same day, cinematographer Roger Deakins revealed to "Variety" that "The Goldfinch" was his next project after "Blade Runner 2049". Later that month, in light of his recent performance in "Dunkirk", Aneurin Barnard was cast as Boris. On November 15, Sarah Paulson was cast as Xandra. By late November, Trevor Gureckis was hired as the film's composer. In December 2017, Willa Fitzgerald and Ashleigh Cummings joined the cast. During the same month, Kelley Dixon from "Breaking Bad" and "Better Call Saul" was enlisted to be the film's editor. In January 2018, Jeffrey Wright, Luke Wilson, Finn Wolfhard, and Luke Kleintank joined the cast. Later that month, the rest of the cast was announced as principal production commenced.


title: The Goldfinch (film)

text: Principal photography began in New York on January 23, 2018, before moving to Albuquerque on April 3, 2018 for the rest of production.


title: The Goldfinch (film)

text: Footage from the film was first shown at CinemaCon on April 2, 2019. The first official images were released on May 28, 2019, as well as the first official teaser poster of the film. The first official trailer was released on May 29, 2019. About six months prior to its release, following test screenings, Warner Bros. knew the film would possibly perform poorly and in turn "dramatically" trimmed their prospective marketing plan.


title: The Goldfinch (film)

text: "The Goldfinch" premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 8, 2019. It was released in cinemas the United States on September 13, 2019, after previously being set for October 11.


title: The Goldfinch (film)

text: "The Goldfinch" grossed $5.3 million in the United States and Canada, and $4.1 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $9.4 million, against a production budget of around $45 million.


title: The Goldfinch (film)

text: In the United States and Canada, the film was released alongside "Hustlers" and was originally projected to gross $5–8 million from 2,542 cinemas in its opening weekend. However, after making just $870,000 on its first day, estimates were lowered to below $3 million. It went on to debut to just $2.6 million, the sixth-worst saturated opening of all-time for a film playing on over 2,500 screens. Following its poor opening, many publications had already labeled the film a box-office bomb and estimated it would lose as much as $50 million ($25–30 million for Warner Bros. and $16–18 million for Amazon Studios). The film plunged 71% in its second weekend to $770,000.


title: The Goldfinch (film)

text: On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on 228 reviews with an average rating of . The site's critical consensus reads, "Beautifully filmed yet mostly inert, "The Goldfinch" mishandles its source material, flattening a complex narrative into a largely uninvolving disappointment." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 40 out of 100, based on 41 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.


title: The Goldfinch (film)

text: A.O. Scott, writing for the "New York Times", said the film "looks and sounds like a movie without quite being one. It's more like a Pinterest page or a piece of fan art, the record of an enthusiasm that is, to the outside observer, indistinguishable from confusion." Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" called it "a botch job for the ages" and said it "appears to be adapting the Cliff’s Notes version of the book instead of the book itself, producing an unplayable series of scene snippets".


title: Jai alai

text: Jai alai (: ) is a sport involving bouncing a ball off a walled-in space by accelerating it to high speeds with a hand-held wicker "cesta". It is a variation of Basque pelota. The term "jai alai", coined by Serafin Baroja in 1875, is also often loosely applied to the fronton (the open-walled playing area) where matches take place. The game, whose name means "merry festival" in Basque, is called "cesta-punta" ("basket tip") in the Basque Country. The sport is played worldwide, but especially in Spain, France, and in various Latin American countries.


title: Jai alai

text: The court for jai alai consists of walls on the front, back and left, and the floor between them. If the ball (called a "pelota" in Spanish, "pilota" in Standard Basque) touches the floor outside these walls, it is considered out of bounds. Similarly, there is also a border on the lower of the front wall that is also out of bounds. The ceiling on the court is usually very high, so the ball has a more predictable path. The court is divided by 14 parallel lines going horizontally across the court, with line 1 closest to the front wall and line 14 the back wall. In doubles, each team consists of a frontcourt player and a backcourt player. The game begins when the frontcourt player of the first team serves the ball to the second team. The winner of each point stays on the court to meet the next team in rotation. Losers go to the end of the line to await another turn on the court. The first team to score 7 points (or 9 in Superfecta games) wins. The next highest scores are awarded "place" (second) and "show" (third) positions, respectively. Playoffs decide tied scores.


title: Jai alai

text: A jai alai game is played in round robin format, usually between eight teams of two players each or eight single players. The first team to score 7 or 9 points wins the game. Two of the eight teams are in the court for each point. The server on one team must bounce the ball behind the serving line, then with the cesta "basket" hurl it towards the front wall so it bounces from there to between lines 4 and 7 on the floor. The ball is then in play. The ball used in jai alai is hand crafted and consists of metal strands tightly wound together and then wrapped in goat skin. Teams alternate catching the ball in their (also hand crafted) cesta and throwing it "in one fluid motion" without holding or juggling it. The ball must be caught either on the fly or after bouncing once on the floor. A team scores a point if an opposing player:


title: Jai alai

text: The team scoring a point remains in the court and the opposing team rotates off the court to the end of the list of opponents. Points usually double after the first round of play, once each team has played at least one point. When a game is played with points doubling after the first round, this is called "Spectacular Seven" scoring.


title: Jai alai

text: The players frequently attempt a "chula" shot, where the ball is played off the front wall very high, then reaches the bottom of the back wall by the end of its arc. The bounce off the bottom of the back wall can be very low, and the ball is very difficult to return in this situation.


title: Jai alai

text: Since there is no wall on the right side, all jai alai players must play right-handed (wear the cesta on their right hand), as the spin of a left-handed hurl would send the ball toward the open right side.


title: Jai alai

text: The Basque government promotes "jai alai" as "the fastest sport in the world" because of the speed of the ball. The sport once held the world record for ball speed with a 125–140 g ball covered with goatskin that traveled at , performed by José Ramón Areitio at the Newport, Rhode Island Jai Alai, until it was broken by Canadian 5-time long drive champion Jason Zuback on a 2007 episode of Sport Science with a golf ball speed of .


title: Jai alai

text: The sport can be dangerous, as the ball travels at high velocities. It has led to injuries that caused players to retire and fatalities have been recorded in some cases.


title: Jai alai

text: Jai alai is a popular sport within the Latin American countries and the Philippines from its Hispanic influence. It was one of the two gambling sports from Europe, the other being horse racing, in the semi-colonial Chinese cities of Shanghai and Tianjin, and was shut down after the communist victory there. The jai alai arena in Tianjin's former Italian Concession was then confiscated and turned into a recreation center for the city's working class.


title: Jai alai

text: Jai alai was played in Manila at the Manila Jai Alai Building, one of the most significant Art Deco buildings in Asia that was demolished in 2000 by the Manila city government. Earlier in 1986, jai alai was banned nationwide because of problems with game fixing. However, jai alai returned to the country in March 2010. In 2011, jai-alai was briefly shut down in the province of Pangasinan when it was found to have links to illegal jueteng gambling, but it was resumed after a court order.


title: Jai alai

text: In the United States, jai alai enjoyed some popularity as a gambling alternative to horse racing, greyhound racing, and harness racing, and was particularly popular in Florida and Connecticut, where the game was used as a basis for Parimutuel betting. Florida at one point had at least six frontons throughout the state: Dania Beach, Fort Pierce, Jasper, Casselberry, Miami, and Reddick. However, only 1 fronton remains open.


title: Jai alai

text: The first jai alai fronton in the United States was located in St. Louis, Missouri, operating around the time of the 1904 World's Fair. The first fronton in Florida opened at the site of Hialeah Race Course near Miami in 1924. The fronton was relocated to its present site in Miami near Miami International Airport. The Miami Jai-Alai Fronton was the biggest in the world with a record audience of 15,502 people on 27 December 1975. and Dania Jai Alai which closed in November 2021. Seasonal facilities were located at Fort Pierce, Ocala and Hamilton. The Tampa Jai Alai fronton opened in 1952 and operated until 1998. Inactive jai alai permits were also located in Tampa, Daytona Beach, West Palm Beach, and Quincy. One Florida fronton, in Melbourne, was converted from jai alai to greyhound racing, although it later closed.


title: Jai alai

text: Professional Jai-Alai frontons no longer exist in the northeastern and western United States, waning as other gambling options became available. In Connecticut, frontons in Hartford and Milford permanently closed, while the fronton in Bridgeport was converted to a greyhound race track, which too later closed. In 2003, the fronton at Newport Jai Alai in Newport, Rhode Island, was converted into Newport Grand, a slot machine and video lottery terminal parlor, which closed permanently in August 2018.


title: Jai alai

text: Jai alai enjoyed a brief and popular stint in Las Vegas with the opening of a fronton at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino; however, by the early 1980s the fronton was losing money and was closed by MGM Grand owner Kirk Kerkorian. The MGM Grand in Reno also showcased jai alai for a very short period (1978–1980).


title: Jai alai

text: After the 1968 season, players returned home and threatened not to come back unless the owners improved their work conditions. The owners, however, offered the same terms and started hiring inexperienced players instead of the world-class stars. The public did not notice the change. Later strikes were placated with salary rises.


title: Jai alai

text: In 1988–1991, the "International Jai-Alai Players Association" held the longest strike in American professional sport. The owners substituted with Americans raised locally, while the strikers picketed the courts for years. The players, 90% of them Basque, felt insecure submitted to the will of their employers. Spain was no longer a poor conservative country and the new generation of players were influenced by leftist Basque nationalism. The strike ended with an agreement. Meanwhile, Native American casinos and state lotteries had appeared as an alternative to jai-alai betting.


title: Jai alai

text: In an effort to prevent the closure of frontons in Florida, the Florida State Legislature passed HB 1059, a bill that changed the rules regarding the operation and wagering of poker in a Pari-Mutuel facility such as a jai alai fronton and a greyhound and horseracing track. The bill became law on August 6, 2003.


title: Jai alai

text: In the mid-to-late 20th century, games could draw 5,000 spectators, a figure that fell to as few as 50 by 2017.


title: Jai alai

text: Although the sport has been in decline in America for several years, the first public amateur jai alai facility was built in the United States in 2008, in St. Petersburg, Florida, with the assistance of the city of St. Petersburg and private funding from Jeff Conway (Laca).


title: Jai alai

text: In addition to the amateur court in St. Petersburg, The American Jai-Alai Foundation offers lessons. Its president, Victor Valcarce, was a pelotari at Dania Jai-Alai (MAGO) and was considered the best "pelota de goma" (rubber ball) player in the world. Sponsored in North Miami Beach, Florida which was once owned by World Jai-Alai as a school that, in 1972, produced the greatest American pelotari, Joey Cornblit.


title: Jai alai

text: During the late 1960s, in addition to North Miami Amateur, at least one other amateur court from International Amateur Jai-Alai in South Miami professional players emerged at World Jai-Alai, regarded as the first American pelotari who turned pro in 1968 and enjoyed a lengthy career. In the 1970s and early 1980s, Orbea's Jai-Alai in Hialeah featured four indoor courts. Two of the courts played with hard rubber balls ("pelota de goma") were shorter than a standard court (, respectively) and used for training players and amateur leagues. In addition, two courts were played with the regulation pelota (hardball / "pelota dura"), one short in length () and one regulation length (). Orbea's also sold equipment such as cestas and helmets.


title: Jai alai

text: Retired players visited and played as well as highly skilled amateurs, pros from Miami Jai-Alai and various other professional frontons operating at the time. The contributions of the South Miami, North Miami, Orbea, and, later, the Milford amateur courts to what is generally considered to be the golden age of the amateur jai-alai player and the sport in the United States are impressive. In the late 1980s, at least one other amateur court was constructed in Connecticut.


title: David Yates

text: David Yates (born 8 October 1963) is an English film director, producer and screenwriter, who has directed feature films, short films, and television productions. He is best known for directing the final four films in the "Harry Potter" series and the first three films of its prequel series, "Fantastic Beasts". His work on the "Harry Potter" series brought him critical and commercial success along with accolades, such as the British Academy Britannia Award for Excellence in Directing.


title: David Yates

text: Yates directed various short films and became a television director early in his career. His credits include the six-part political thriller "State of Play" (2003), for which he won the Directors Guild of Great Britain Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement, the adult two-part documentary drama "Sex Traffic" (2004) and the Emmy Award-winning television film "The Girl in the Café" (2005).


title: David Yates

text: Yates is a founding member of Directors UK. He has had a close partnership with Warner Bros. as a director and producer.


title: David Yates

text: David was born on 8 October 1963 in St Helens, Lancashire, England. His parents died when he was young. Raised in the village of Rainhill, Yates was inspired to pursue a career in filmmaking after watching Steven Spielberg's 1975 movie "Jaws". Yates's mother bought him a Super 8mm camera. He used this to shoot various films in which his friends and family featured. One such film, "The Ghost Ship", was shot on board the vessel where his uncle worked as a cook. He attended Grange Park High School, St Helens College and then the University of Essex. Yates said that he "used to skive off college all the time" and never expected to join university before being surprised by his A-Level exam results. While at the University of Essex, Yates formed the Film and Video Production Society. He graduated with a BA in Government in 1987.


title: David Yates

text: In 1988, Yates made his first film "When I Was a Girl" in Swindon. The film entered the festival circuit where it was named Best Short Film at the San Francisco International Film Festival. It contributed towards Yates's acceptance into the National Film and Television School in 1989 and led to the BBC hiring him to direct "Oranges and Lemons", a short drama film in 1991. Before completing film school, he began to direct, produce and write the screenplay to the dramatic short "The Weaver's Wife". He also made his fourth short film, "Good Looks", which was presented at the Chicago International Film Festival. After graduating in 1992, Yates directed an episode of the film studies programme "Moving Pictures".


title: David Yates

text: From 1994 to 1995, Yates directed several episodes of the ITV police procedural "The Bill" before directing and producing three episodes of the television documentary "Tale of Three Seaside Towns" alongside producer Alistair Clarke. The programme followed media personalities Russell Grant, Honor Blackman and Pam Ayres visiting and exploring the South Coast towns of Brighton, Eastbourne and Weymouth. Yates directed his fifth short film "Punch" before making his feature film debut in 1998 with the release of the independent historical-drama film "The Tichborne Claimant". The film, which was shown at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, was written by Joe Fisher and based on the true events of the Tichborne Case. It starred Stephen Fry and Robert Hardy and was shot on location in Merseyside and on the Isle of Man.


title: David Yates

text: Yates returned to television in 2000 to direct the episodes of "Greed", "Envy" and "Lust" for the BBC miniseries "The Sins", starring Pete Postlethwaite, as well as "The Way We Live Now", the four-part television adaptation of the novel of the same name by Anthony Trollope. Yates shared the British Academy Television Award for Best Drama Serial with screenwriter Andrew Davies and producer Nigel Stafford-Clark at the 2002 BAFTA Awards.


title: David Yates

text: One year later, Yates attended the 56th BAFTA Awards with a British Academy Film Award nomination for Best Short Film for the fourteen-minute production, "Rank", which expressed the social elements of racism, friendship and adolescence through the story of a street gang that cross Glasgow to witness the arrival of a group of Somali refugees. Yates said that even though "The Way We Live Now" was "a very big production" and "enormous fun to do", "Rank" was an opportunity to "shake all that off" and "get back to [his] roots". Of the casting, Yates said that he "wanted to use non-actors to tell the story, to create a reality ... the kids we cast in Glasgow had never done a film before." The film was noted for its gritty style and cinematography, with a review from "Eye For Film" stating that "such intelligent use of camera and cast lifts Yates out of the pool of promising young directors into the front line of genuine hopefuls. This work demands respect."


title: David Yates

text: The 2003 six-part thriller "State of Play" was Yates's next achievement. Yates collected the TV Spielfilm Award at the Cologne Conference in Germany and won the Directors Guild of Great Britain Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement. The serial was recognised by various award ceremonies, receiving the Peabody Award for Broadcasting Excellence and being presented with two British Academy Television Craft Awards. The quality of the serial sparked Hollywood film bosses to consider adapting it into a film, with producer Andrew Hauptman declaring that "it's a blistering political thriller and we want to make an equally blistering movie." "State of Play" is regarded by critics from "The Guardian" and "The Times" as one of the best British television dramas of the 2000s.


title: David Yates

text: Yates directed the television adaptation of nine-year-old Daisy Ashford's novel "The Young Visiters", starring Jim Broadbent alongside Hugh Laurie. According to a review by "Variety" magazine for BBC America, Yates and his team yielded "a warm and surprisingly unsentimental production that has 'evergreen' written all over it".


title: David Yates

text: In 2004, Yates's two-part drama "Sex Traffic" was broadcast on Channel 4. It won eight BAFTA Awards including Best Editing for Mark Day, who regularly worked with Yates on many of his television projects and short films. Day commented on his collaboration with Yates saying that "we are very good friends because we have spent so much time together". He also said, "David shoots in a similar style from piece to piece, although this wasn’t quite as frantic as "State of Play"." Yates was nominated for another Directors Guild of Great Britain Award for his direction of "Sex Traffic" and won his second BAFTA for Best Drama Serial at the British Academy Television Awards. Being a British-Canadian production, "Sex Traffic" gained four wins at Canada's annual television award ceremony, the Gemini Awards, including Best Dramatic Miniseries. Spanning across two parts, the three-hour-long drama reveals how the trafficking of young women into slavery is a big business which operates throughout Europe; both parts were acclaimed for their "shocking" portrayal of such a sensitive topic.


title: David Yates

text: Also in 2004, Yates was involved in plans for a film adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's novel "Brideshead Revisited" for Warner Independent Pictures. He was set to work with Paul Bettany, Jude Law and Jennifer Connelly on the project, but pulled out in the later stages due to constant budget issues affecting the film's production.


title: David Yates

text: Yates then directed Richard Curtis' script to "The Girl in the Café", a television film starring Bill Nighy and Kelly Macdonald. In June 2005, the film was aired on the BBC in Britain and was also broadcast in the United States on Home Box Office. "The Girl in the Café" achieved three wins at the Emmy Awards, including the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Made for Television Movie, and gained a total of four nominations including Outstanding Directing for Yates.


title: David Yates

text: During the period of working on plans for "Brideshead Revisited", Yates was told by his agent that he had made the director shortlist for the fifth film in the "Harry Potter" series and that Warner Bros. was eyeing him to direct. He was then shortly after confirmed to direct "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" by Warner Bros. Pictures, with production scheduled to begin in early 2006. When asked how Yates got the job, producer David Heyman ("a big fan" of Yates's television work) said that "actors in David's television projects give their best performance, often of their career. It's important to keep pushing the actors, particularly the young ones on each "Potter" film. This is a political film, not with a capital P, but it's about teen rebellion and the abuse of power. David has made films in the U.K. about politics without being heavy handed."


title: David Yates

text: Before production began, Yates invited "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" director Mike Newell to a pub and "picked his brains about what it was going to be like to step into someone's shoes on a movie of this scale". The first scene that Yates shot featured a giant interacting with human characters. The scene was the very first high-scale visual effects piece Yates filmed in his career. After the film's post-production material was well received by the studio, Yates was chosen to direct the sixth film, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince", which according to Yates was going to be "a cross between the chills of "Prisoner of Azkaban" [the third film in the series] and the fantastical adventure of "Goblet of Fire"".


title: David Yates

text: In 2007, "Order of the Phoenix" opened to positive reviews and commercial success. Yates won the title of Best Director at the Empire Awards and collected the People's Choice Award from the European Film Academy. However, the film was criticised by fans of the series for having the shortest running time out of the five released instalments; Yates said that the original director's cut was "probably over three hours", resulting in much footage being cut, condensed and edited to fit within the studio's preferred time frame.


title: David Yates

text: During production of "Half-Blood Prince", Warner Bros. executive Alan F. Horn announced that the seventh and final novel in the series, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", was to be split into two cinematic parts with Yates, once again, as the director. Yates spoke of the decision to appoint him as the director of the final films, remarking that "they wanted to do a "Harry Potter" that felt ... more grown up. What's smart about the studio and the producers is they have always wanted to push it a bit. Chris Columbus did a wonderful job of casting and making this world incredibly popular. But rather than do more of the same, they said, 'Let's bring in Alfonso Cuarón and let him run with it. Then later, let's bring in David Yates, who's done all this hard-hitting stuff on TV.' It's a testament to their ambition to try to keep the franchise fresh. The bizarre thing is, I did one [film] and they asked me to stay for three more, so obviously they liked something."


title: David Yates

text: "Half-Blood Prince" was released in 2009 and became the only film in the series to earn an Academy Award nomination for Best Cinematography. Yates worked alongside French cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel on, what Yates called, extensively colour grading the "incredibly rich" picture by making it look "very European" and drawing influences from the Dutch painter Rembrandt. The film garnered a mix of accolades and was acclaimed for its stylised character-driven approach, but some fans complained about the script's deviation from the novel and the film's slight romantic comedy nature. In response to this criticism, renowned BAFTA member and film critic Mark Kermode praised Yates's direction and ranked the film "second best" in the series, behind "Prisoner of Azkaban".


title: David Yates

text: Yates began to film "Deathly Hallows – Part 1" and "Deathly Hallows – Part 2" back-to-back in early 2009 and finished reshoots in late 2010. He stated that he had shot the two parts of the final adaptation differently, with Part 1 being a "road movie" and "quite real", "almost like a vérité documentary", while Part 2 is "more operatic, colourful and fantasy-oriented", a "big opera with huge battles." Yates reshot the final scene of the "Harry Potter" series at Leavesden Studios after the original version, filmed at London King's Cross railway station, did not meet his expectations. In the film, the scene takes place at the magical Platform 9¾.