title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: His young apprentices have all run away to the town square, where a wrongly convicted criminal is about to be tortured and executed. Kirill talks to Theophanes, and the artist, impressed by the monk's understanding and erudition, invites him to work as his apprentice on the decoration of the Cathedral of the Annunciation in Moscow. Kirill refuses at first, but then accepts the offer on the condition that Theophanes will personally come to the Andronikov Monastery and invite Kirill to work with him in front of all the fraternity and Andrei Rublev, who is renowned for his icon painting in the outside world, an admiration shared by Kirill and Theophanes.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: A short while later at the Andronikov Monastery, a messenger arrives from Moscow to ask for assistance in decorating the cathedral, as arranged, but instead of Kirill, he propositions Andrei. Both Daniil and Kirill are agitated by the recognition that Andrei receives. Daniil refuses to accompany Andrei and reproaches him for accepting Theophanes’ offer without considering his fellows, but soon repents of his temper and tearfully wishes Andrei well when the younger monk comes to say goodbye to his friend. Kirill is jealous of Andrei and, in a fit of anger, decides to leave the monastery for the secular world, throwing accusations of greed in the face of his fellow monks, who also dismiss him. Kirill stumbles out of the monastery into the snowy countryside and is followed by his dog, but, in anger, he savagely beats it with his walking stick and leaves it for dead.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: Andrei leaves for Moscow with his young apprentice Foma (Mikhail Kononov). While walking in the woods, Andrei and Foma have a conversation about Foma's flaws, and in particular lying. Foma confesses to having taken honey from an apiary, after Andrei notices his cassock is sticky, and he smears mud on his face to soothe a bee sting.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: While Foma has talent as an artist, he is less interested in the deeper meaning of his work and more concerned with the practical aspects of the job, like perfecting his azure, a color which at the time was often considered unstable to mix. They encounter Theophanes in the forest, and the old master sends Foma away, unimpressed by his attitude to art. As he leaves, the apprentice finds a dead swan; after poking it with a stick, he admires its wing and fantasizes about having a bird's-eye view.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: In the forest, Andrei and Theophanes argue about religion, while Foma cleans his master's paint brushes. Theophanes argues that the ignorance of the Russian people is due to stupidity, while Andrei says that he doesn't understand how he can be a painter and maintain such views. This section contains a Passion Play, or a reenactment of Christ's Crucifixion, on a snow-covered hillside which plays out as Andrei recounts the events of Christ's death and expresses his belief that the men who crucified him were obeying God's will and loved him.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: Camping for the night on a riverbank, Andrei and Foma are collecting firewood for their traveling party when Andrei hears the distant sounds of celebration further upstream in the woods. Going to investigate, he comes upon a large group of naked pagans who are conducting a lit-torch ritual for Kupala Night. Andrei is intrigued and excited by the behaviour of the pagans but is caught spying on a couple making love, tied to the crossbeam of a hut, his arms raised in a mockery of Jesus' crucifixion, and is threatened with drowning in the morning.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: A woman named Marfa (Nelly Snegina), dressed only in a fur coat, approaches Andrei. After explaining to Andrei, who lashes her with prejudice, that her people are persecuted for their beliefs, she drops her coat, kisses Andrei and then unties him. Andrei runs away and is lost in the dense woods, scratching his face. The next morning Andrei returns to his group, with Daniil now present, and as they leave on their boats a group of soldiers appear on the riverbank chasing after several of the pagans, including Marfa. In the struggle, her lover is captured, but she manages to escape by swimming naked into the river, passing right by Andrei's boat. He and his fellow monks look away in shame.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: Andrei and Daniil are working on the decoration of a church in Vladimir. Although they have been there for two months the walls are still white and bare. A messenger, Patrikei (Yuri Nikulin), arrives with word from the Bishop, who is furious, to say they have until autumn to finish the job. On a nearby road in the middle of a field of flowers Andrei confides to Daniil that the task disgusts him and that he is unable to paint a subject such as the "Last Judgement" as he doesn't want to terrify people into submission. He comes to the conclusion that he has lost the ease of mind that an artist needs for his work. Foma, impatient and wanting to work, resigns and leaves Andrei's group to take up the offer of painting a smaller, less prestigious church.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: Stone carvers and decorators of Andrei's party have also been working on the Grand Duke's mansion. The Prince is dissatisfied with the work done, and wants it to be redone, more in line with his tastes, but the workers already have another job, which is to help set up the mansion of the Grand Duke's brother, and they promptly refuse and leave, after indignantly proclaiming that the Grand Duke's brother will have a much more splendid home than he himself. While walking on a path through a nearby forest towards the mansion of their client, the artisans are assaulted by soldiers sent by the Grand Duke, and their eyes are gouged out, leaving them incapable of practicing their craft.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: Back at the church, Andrei is dismayed by the news of the attack on the artisans and angrily throws paint and smears it on one of the walls. Sergei (Vladimir Titov), a young apprentice who escaped the assault unharmed, reads a random section of the bible aloud, at Daniil's request, concerning women. A young woman, Durochka (Irma Raush), whose name identifies her as a holy fool, or Yurodivy, wanders in to take shelter from the rain and is upset by the sight of the paint on the wall. Her feeble-mindedness and innocence inspires in Andrei the idea to paint a feast.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: While the Grand Duke is away in Lithuania, his power-hungry younger brother forms an allegiance with a group of Tatars and raids Vladimir. In a flashback, the Grand Duke and his brother attend a religious service in a church, and the rivalry and animosity between them is clear. The invasion of the combined armed forces, their men on horseback, results in great carnage: the city is burned, the citizens murdered and women raped and killed. One scene shows a horse falling from a flight of stairs.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: Foma, who is in the midst of the chaos, narrowly escapes being killed in the city by a Russian soldier and escapes into the nearby countryside, but as he is crossing a river he is shot in the back with an arrow and killed. The Tatars force their way into the barricaded church, now fully decorated with Andrei's paintings, where the majority of the citizens have taken refuge. The Tatars show no mercy and massacre the people inside and burn all the painted wooden altarpieces. Andrei, who is also in the church, saves Durochka from being raped by a Russian soldier by killing him with an axe. The bishop's messenger Patrikei is also present; he is tortured with fire to make him reveal the location of the city's gold, which he refuses to do. After being repeatedly burned with a flaming torch, he has hot liquid metal from a melted crucifix poured into his mouth silencing his screams. Then he is dragged away feet first, tied to a horse.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: In the aftermath only Andrei and Durochka are left alive in the church. Andrei imagines a conversation with the dead Theophanes the Greek, lamenting the loss of his work and the cruelty of mankind, while Durochka distractedly plaits the hair of a dead woman. Andrei decides to give up painting and takes a vow of silence to atone for his killing of another man.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: Andrei is once again at the Andronikov Monastery as famine and war grip the country. He no longer paints and never speaks, and keeps Durochka with him as a fellow companion in silence.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: In the same monastery, refugees discuss the problems plaguing their respective home towns, and one man who appears starts telling, in a broken voice, of his escape from Vladimir. He is recognized by a younger monk as the long absent Kirill. He has suffered during his time away from the monastery and begs the father superior to allow him to return. His wish is granted after much pleading and initial rejection, but he is instructed to copy out the holy scriptures 15 times in penance.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: Soon, a group of Tatars stops at the monastery while traveling through the region, much to the concern of Andrei and Kirill who have experienced their brutality first hand. Durochka, however, is too simple-minded to understand or remember what the Tatars did and is fascinated by the shining breastplate carried by one of them. The group taunt and play with her, but the Tatar takes a liking to her, putting his horned helmet on her head and dressing her in a blanket, promising to take her away with him as his eighth, and only Russian, wife.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: Andrei attempts to stop her from leaving, but she is delighted with the Tatar's gifts, and she rides away with the Tatars. Kirill approaches Andrei and talks to him for the first time since their departure from the monastery, and he assures him that Durochka won't be in any danger, as harming a holy fool is considered bad luck and a great sin, and that she will be let go. Andrei still does not speak, despite Kirill's despaired pleading, and continues his menial work of carrying large hot stones from a fire with tongs to heat water for the monastery, but drops the stone in the snow.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: This episode concerns Boriska, (Nikolai Burlyayev) the young son of an expert bellmaker. Men have been sent by the prince to search out Boriska's father in order to ask him to cast a bronze bell for a church. Instead, they come upon Boriska, who tells them that the area has been ravaged by a plague, and that his father, as well as all his family, is dead. He furthermore tells them that he is the only one who possesses the secret, delivered by his father at his death bed, of casting a quality bronze bell, and asks them to take him with them, as he is, by his own contention, the only person left alive who can complete the task successfully. The men are initially dismissive, but soon agree, and Boriska is put in charge of the project.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: At the site, Boriska contradicts and challenges the instincts of the workers in choosing the location of the pit, the selection of the proper clay, the building of the mold, the firing of the furnaces and finally the hoisting of the bell. The workers soon complain to him that his father treated them differently and one worker, who refuses his orders, is flogged in punishment. The process of making the bell grows into a huge, expensive endeavour with many hundreds of workers and Boriska makes several risky decisions, guided only by his instincts; soon, even he doubts the project's prospective success. Andrei, who has arrived on the scene, silently watches Boriska during the casting, and the younger man notices him too.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: During the bell-making, the "skomorokh" (jester) from the first sequence makes a reappearance amongst the crowds who have come to watch the bell being raised up and, seeing Andrei, he threatens to kill him, mistaking him for Kirill, his denouncer of years past. Kirill's implication of the man led to him being imprisoned and tortured. Kirill soon arrives and intervenes on behalf of the silent Andrei and later privately confesses to Andrei that his sinful envy of his talent dissipated once he heard Andrei had abandoned painting and that it was he who had denounced the "skomorokh". Kirill then criticizes Andrei for allowing his God-given talent for painting to go to waste and pleads with him to resume his artistry, but receives no response.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: As the bell-making nears completion, Boriska's confidence slowly transforms into a stunned, detached disbelief that he's seemingly succeeded at the task. As the furnaces are opened and the molten metal pours into the mould, he privately asks God for help. The work crew takes over as Boriska makes several attempts to fade into the background of the activities. After completion, the bell is hoisted into its tower and the Grand Duke and his entourage arrive for the inaugural ceremony as the bell is blessed by a priest. As the bell is prepared to be rung, some Italian ambassadors in the royal entourage express their doubt over the prospective success of its ringing. It is revealed that Boriska and the work crew know that if the bell fails to ring, the Grand Duke will have them all beheaded. (It is also overheard that the Grand Duke has already had his brother, the one who raided Vladimir, beheaded.)


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: There is a quiet, agonizing tension among the crowd as the foreman slowly coaxes the bell's clapper back and forth, nudging it closer to the lip of the bell with each swing. A pan across the assembly reveals the white-robed Durochka, leading a horse and preceded by a child which is, presumably, hers, as she walks through the crowd. At the critical moment the bell rings perfectly, and she smiles. After the ceremony, Andrei finds Boriska collapsed on the ground, sobbing. He admits his father never actually told him his bell-casting secret. Andrei, impressed by the effect the successful ringing has had on the rejoicing crowd, realizes the joy that his own art might bring. He comforts Boriska, breaking his vow of silence and telling the boy that they should carry on their work together: “You’ll cast bells. I’ll paint icons.” Andrei then sees Durochka, the boy and the horse walk off across a muddy field in the distance. The eighth part of the film ends with this scene and it is followed by an epilogue.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: The "epilogue" is the only part of the film in color and shows time-aged, but still vibrant, details of several of Andrei Rublev's actual icons. The icons are shown in the following order: "Enthroned Christ", "Twelve Apostles", "The Annunciation", "Twelve Apostles", "Jesus entering Jerusalem", "Birth of Christ", "Enthroned Christ", "Transfiguration of Jesus", "Resurrection of Lazarus", "The Annunciation", "Resurrection of Lazarus", "Birth of Christ", "Trinity", "Archangel Michael", "Paul the Apostle", "The Redeemer". The final scene crossfades from the icons and shows four horses standing by a river in thunder and rain.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: In 1961, while working on his first feature film "Ivan's Childhood", Tarkovsky made a proposal to Mosfilm for a film on the life of Russia's greatest icon painter, Andrei Rublev. The contract was signed in 1962 and the first treatment was approved in December 1963. Tarkovsky and his co-screenwriter Andrei Konchalovsky worked for more than two years on the script, studying medieval writings and chronicles and books on medieval history and art. In April 1964 the script was approved and Tarkovsky began working on the film. At the same time the script was published in the influential film magazine "Iskusstvo Kino", and was widely discussed among historians, film critics and ordinary readers. The discussion on "Andrei Rublev" centered on the sociopolitical and historical, and not the artistic aspects of the film.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: According to Tarkovsky, the original idea for a film about the life of Andrei Rublev was due to the film actor Vasily Livanov. Livanov proposed to write a screenplay together with Tarkovsky and Konchalovsky while they were strolling through a forest on the outskirts of Moscow. He also mentioned that he would love to play Andrei Rublev. Tarkovsky did not intend the film to be a historical or a biographical film about Andrei Rublev. Instead, he was motivated by the idea of showing the connection between a creative character's personality and the times through which he lives. He wanted to show an artist's maturing and the development of his talent. He chose Andrei Rublev for his importance in the history of Russian culture.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: Tarkovsky cast Anatoly Solonitsyn for the role of Andrei Rublev. At this time Solonitsyn was an unknown actor at a theater in Sverdlovsk. According to Tarkovsky everybody had a different image of the historical figure of Andrei Rublev, thus casting an unknown actor who would not remind viewers of other roles was his favoured approach. Solonitsyn, who had read the film script in the film magazine "Iskusstvo Kino", was very enthusiastic about the role, traveled to Moscow at his own expense to meet Tarkovsky and even declared that no one could play this role better than him. Tarkovsky felt the same, saying that "with Solonitsyn I simply got lucky". For the role of Andrei Rublev he required "a face with great expressive power in which one could see a demoniacal single-mindedness". To Tarkovsky, Solonitsyn provided the right physical appearance and the talent of showing complex psychological processes. Solonitsyn would continue to work with the director, appearing in "Solaris", "Mirror", and "Stalker", and in the title role of Tarkovsky's 1976 stage production of "Hamlet" in Moscow's Lenkom Theatre. Before his death from cancer in 1982, Solonitsyn was also intended to play protagonist Andrei Gorchakov in Tarkovsky's 1983 Italian-Russian co-production "Nostalghia", and to star in a project titled "The Witch" which Tarkovsky would significantly alter into his final production, "The Sacrifice".


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: According to Johnson, filming did not begin until April 1965, one year after approval of the script, with J. Hoberman reporting a slightly earlier date of September 1964 for the start of filming in his film essay for the Criterion collection release of the film. The initial budget was 1.6 million Rbls, but it was cut several times to one million roubles (In comparison, Sergei Bondarchuk's "War and Peace" had a budget of eight and half million roubles). As a result of the budget restrictions several scenes from the script were cut, including an opening scene showing the Battle of Kulikovo. Other scenes that were cut from the script are a hunting scene, where the younger brother of the Grand Duke hunts swans, and a scene showing peasants helping Durochka giving birth to her Russian-Tatar child. In the end the film cost 1.3 million Rbls, with the cost overrun due to heavy snowfall, which disrupted shooting from November 1965 until April 1966. The film was shot on location, on the Nerl River and the historical places of Vladimir/Suzdal, Pskov, Izborsk and Pechory.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: Tarkovsky chose to shoot the main film in black and white and the epilogue, showing some of Rublev's icons, in color. In an interview he motivated his choice with the claim that in everyday life one does not consciously notice colors. Consequently, Rublev's life is in black and white, whereas his art is in color. The film was thus able to express the co-dependence of an artist's art and his personal life. In a 1969 interview, Tarkovsky stated that the flying man in the prologue is "the symbol of daring, in the sense that creation requires from man the complete offering of his being. Whether one wishes to fly before it has become possible, or cast a bell without having learned how to do it, or paint an icon – all these acts demand that, for the price of his creation, man should die, dissolve himself in his work, give himself entirely."


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: The color sequence of Rublev's icons begins with showing only selected details, climaxing in Rublev's most famous icon, "The Trinity". One reason for including this color finale was, according to Tarkovsky, to give the viewer some rest and to allow him to detach himself from Rublev's life and to reflect. The film finally ends with the image of horses at river in the rain. To Tarkovsky horses symbolized life, and including horses in the final scene (and in many other scenes in the film) meant that life was the source of all of Rublev's art.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: The first cut of the film was known as "Andrei Passion" (, "Strasti po Andryeyu", "The Passion according to Andrei"), though this title was not used for the released version of the film. The first cut of the film was over 195 minutes in length prior to being edited down to its released length. The first cut was completed in July 1966. Goskino demanded cuts to the film, citing its length, negativity, violence, and nudity. After Tarkovsky completed this first version, it would be five years before the film was widely released in the Soviet Union. The ministry's demands for cuts first resulted in a 190-minute version. Despite Tarkovsky's objections expressed in a letter to Alexey Romanov, the chairman of Goskino, the ministry demanded further cuts, and Tarkovsky trimmed the length to 186 minutes.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: Robert Bird in his analysis of the comparison of the first cut of the film to the final Tarkovsky cut of the edited film summarized the editing process stating: "The most conspicuous cuts were the most graphic shots of the stonemasons' gouged-out eyes, the burning cow, and the horse being lanced (although its horrific fall remained). Four embedded scenes of flashbacks or fantasies were also cut completely: Foma's fantasy of flight in episode two, Andrei's reminiscence of the three monks under a rain-soaked oak tree in episode four, the younger prince's fantasy of humiliating the Grand Duke in episode five, and Boriska's recollection of the bellfounding in episode seven. All in all, I have counted thirty-six shots which were completely deleted in the 185-minute version of Andrei Rublev, and about eighty-five which were considerably abbreviated, including nine very long takes which are split each into two or more parts. The total number of shots went from 403 to 390, with the average shot length dropping from 31" to 28". The only sequence which remained inviolable was the Epilogue in color."


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: Several scenes within the film depict violence, torture and cruelty toward animals, which sparked controversy at the time of release. Most of these scenes took place during the raid of Vladimir, including one showing the blinding and the torture of a monk. The scenes involving cruelty toward animals were largely simulated. For example, during the Tatar raid of Vladimir a cow is set on fire. In reality the cow had an asbestos-covered coat and was not physically harmed; however, one scene depicts the real death of a horse. The horse falls from a flight of stairs and is then stabbed by a spear. To produce this image, Tarkovsky injured the horse by shooting it in the neck and then pushed it from the stairs, causing the animal to falter and fall down the flight of stairs. From there, the camera pans off the horse onto some soldiers to the left and then pans back right onto the horse, and we see the horse struggling to get its footing having fallen over on its back before being stabbed by the spear. The animal was then shot in the head afterward off camera. This was done to avoid the possibility of harming what was considered a less expendable, highly prized stunt horse. The horse was brought in from a slaughterhouse, killed on set, and then returned to the abattoir for commercial consumption. In a 1967 interview for "Literaturnoe obozrenie", interviewer Aleksandr Lipkov suggested to Tarkovsky that "the cruelty in the film is shown precisely to shock and stun the viewers. And this may even repel them." In an attempt to downplay the cruelty Tarkovsky responded: "No, I don't agree. This does not hinder viewer perception. Moreover we did all this quite sensitively. I can name films that show much more cruel things, compared to which ours looks quite modest."


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: The film premiered with a single screening at the Dom Kino in Moscow in 1966. Audience reaction was enthusiastic, despite some criticism of the film's naturalistic depiction of violence. But the film failed to win approval for release from Soviet censors; the Central Committee of the Communist Party wrote in its review that "the film's ideological erroneousness is not open to doubt." "Andrei Rublev" was accused of being "anti-historical" in its failure to portray the context of its hero's life: the rapid development of large cities and the struggle against the Mongols. In February 1967, Tarkovsky and Alexei Romanov complained that the film was not yet approved for a wide release but refused to cut further scenes from the film.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: "Andrei Rublev" was invited to the Cannes Film Festival in 1967 as part of a planned retrospective of Soviet film on occasion of the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution. The official answer was that the film was not yet completed and could not be shown at the film festival. A second invitation was made by the organizers of the Cannes Film Festival in 1969. Soviet officials accepted this invitation, but they only allowed the film to screen at the festival out of competition, and it was screened just once at 4 A.M. on the final day of the festival. Audience response nevertheless was enthusiastic, and the film won the FIPRESCI prize. Soviet officials tried to prevent the official release of the film in France and other countries, but were not successful as the French distributor had legally acquired the rights in 1969.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: In the Soviet Union, influential admirers of Tarkovsky's work—including the film director Grigori Kozintsev, the composer Dmitri Shostakovich and Yevgeny Surkov, the editor of "Iskusstvo Kino"—began pressuring for the release of "Andrei Rublev". Tarkovsky and his second wife, Larisa Tarkovskaya, wrote letters to other influential personalities in support of the film's release, and Larisa Tarkovskaya even went with the film to Alexei Kosygin, then the Premier of the Soviet Union.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: Despite Tarkovsky's refusal to make further cuts, "Andrei Rublev" finally was released on December 24, 1971, in the 186-minute 1966 version. The film was released in 277 prints and sold 2.98 million tickets. When the film was released, Tarkovsky remarked in his diary that in the entire city not a single poster for the film could be seen but that all theaters were sold out.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: Despite the cuts having originated with Goskino's demands, Tarkovsky ultimately endorsed the cut of the film over the original 205-minute version:


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: Nobody has ever cut anything from Andrei Rublev. Nobody except me. I made some cuts myself. In the first version, the film was 3 hours and 20 minutes long. In the second — 3 hours 15 minutes. I shortened the final version to 3 hours 6 minutes. I am convinced the latest version is the best, the most successful. And I only cut certain overly long scenes. The viewer doesn't even notice their absence. The cuts have in no way changed the subject matter nor what was important in the film for us. In other words, we removed overly long scenes which had no significance. We shortened certain scenes of brutality in order to induce psychological shock in viewers, as opposed to a mere unpleasant impression that would only destroy our intent. All my friends and colleagues who, during long discussions, were advising me to make those cuts turned out right in the end. It took me some time to understand it. At first, I got the impression they were attempting to pressure my creative individuality. Later I understood that this final version of the film more than fulfils my requirements for it. And I do not regret at all that the film has been shortened to its present length.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: The original 1966 version of the film titled as "The Passion According to Andrei" was published by The Criterion Collection in 2018 and released in both DVD and Blu-Ray format.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: In 1973, the film was shown on Soviet television in a 101-minute version that Tarkovsky did not authorize. Notable scenes that were cut from this version were the raid of the Tatars and the scene showing naked pagans. The epilogue showing details of Andrei Rublev's icons was in black and white as the Soviet Union had not yet fully transitioned to color TV. In 1987, when "Andrei Rublev" was once again shown on Soviet TV, the epilogue was once again in black and white, despite the Soviet Union having completely transitioned to color TV. Another difference from the original version of the film was the inclusion of a short explanatory note at the beginning of the film, detailing the life of Andrei Rublev and the historical background. When the film was released in the U.S. and other countries in 1973, the distributor Columbia Pictures cut it by an additional 20 minutes, making the film an incoherent mess in the eyes of many critics and leading to unfavorable reviews.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: In the mid-1990s, Criterion Collection released the first-cut 205-minute version of "Andrei Rublev" on LaserDisc, which Criterion re-issued on DVD in 1999 (Criterion advertises this version as the "director's cut" despite Tarkovsky's stated preference for the 186-minute version). According to Tarkovsky's sister, Marina Tarkovskaya, one of the editors of the film, Lyudmila Feiginova, secretly kept a print of the 205-minute cut under her bed. Criterion's producer of the project stated that the video transfer was sourced from a film print that filmmaker Martin Scorsese had acquired while visiting Russia. In 2016, a Blu-ray version of the film was released in the United Kingdom using the 186-minute version preferred by Tarkovsky. Criterion released both the first and final cut of the film on DVD and Blu-ray in September 2018.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: "Andrei Rublev" won several awards. In 1969, the film was screened at the Cannes Film Festival. Due to pressure by Soviet officials, the film could only be shown out of competition, and was thus not eligible for the Palme d'Or or the Grand Prix. Nevertheless, it won the prize of the international film critics, FIPRESCI. In 1971 "Andrei Rublev" won the Critics Award of the French Syndicate of Cinema Critics, and in 1973 the Jussi Award for Best Foreign Film.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: "Andrei Rublev" has an approval rating of 95% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 42 reviews, and an average rating of 8.92/10.The website's critical consensus states, ""Andrei Rublev" is a cerebral epic that filters challenging ideas through a grand scope -- forming a moving thesis on art, faith, and the sweep of history".


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: J. Hoberman, a film critic for "The Village Voice", summarized the early reception of the film in the film notes included in the Criterion DVD release of the film stating: "Two years later (in 1973), "Rublev" surfaced at the New York Film Festival, cut another 20 minutes by its American distributor, Columbia Pictures. Time (magazine) compared the movie unfavorably to "Dr. Zhivago"; those other New York reviewers who took note begged off explication, citing Rublev's apparent truncation."


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: The film is referenced in Tarkovsky's two films that followed this one. It is first referenced in "Solaris", made in 1972, by having an icon by Andrei Rublev being placed in the main character's room. It is next referenced by having a poster of the film being hung on a wall in "Mirror", made in 1975.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: In 1995, The Vatican placed "Andrei Rublev" on their list of 45 "great films". "The Village Voice" ranked the film at number 112 in its Top 250 "Best Films of the Century" list in 1999, based on a poll of critics.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: The film was Voted at No. 77 on the list of "100 Greatest Films" by the prominent French magazine "Cahiers du cinéma" in 2008. In 2010, "Andrei Rublev" tied for second in a U.K. newspaper series of the "Greatest Films of All Time" as voted by critics from "The Guardian" and "The Observer". Also in 2010, the film topped the list of The Guardian's "25 Best arthouse films of all time".


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: Also in 2010, the Toronto International Film Festival released its "Essential 100" list of films in which "Andrei Rublev" also placed No. 87.


title: Andrei Rublev (film)

text: In 2011, director Joanna Hogg listed it as a film that changed her life. In the 2012 Sight & Sound polls, it was ranked the 26th-greatest film ever made in the critics' poll and 13th in the directors' poll. In the earlier 2002 version of the list the film ranked 35th among critics and 24th among directors. In Critics poll by the same magazine it ranked 11th and 24th in 1982 and 1992 respectively. In 2018 the film ranked at number 40 on the BBC's list of the 100 greatest foreign-language films, as voted on by 209 film critics from 43 countries.


title: Robert Picardo

text: Robert Alphonse Picardo (born October 27, 1953) is an American actor. He is best known for playing the Cowboy in "Innerspace", Coach Cutlip on "The Wonder Years", Captain Dick Richard on the ABC series "China Beach", the on "" and Richard Woolsey in the "Stargate" franchise. He is a frequent collaborator of Joe Dante and is a member of The Planetary Society's Board of Directors.


title: Robert Picardo

text: Picardo was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Joe Picardo. Robert is of Italian heritage, with his father's family originating from Montecorvino Rovella, Salerno, and his mother's parents originally from Bomba in Abruzzo. He graduated from William Penn Charter School in 1971 and originally entered Yale University as a pre-medical student, but opted to act instead. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in drama from Yale University.


title: Robert Picardo

text: Picardo is an accomplished singer. While he was at Yale University, he was a member of the Society of Orpheus and Bacchus, the second longest running undergraduate a cappella group in the United States. Also while at Yale, he had a major role in the 1973 European premiere production of Leonard Bernstein's "Mass" in Vienna, conducted by John Mauceri. The production was televised by ORF and broadcast on PBS during the 1970s. His singing has also been incorporated into his role in "Star Trek: Voyager".


title: Robert Picardo

text: After earning his degree, he enrolled at the Circle in the Square Professional Theater Workshop. He waited tables for a few years until his theatrical work started to take off around 1976. His first breaks were appearing in the David Mamet play "Sexual Perversity in Chicago", and with Diane Keaton in "The Primary English Class".


title: Robert Picardo

text: During the 1988–1991 television seasons, Picardo was simultaneously seen on the ABC Vietnam series "China Beach" in the role of Dr. Dick Richard, and the ABC series "The Wonder Years" in the role of Coach Cutlip. He is among a small group of television actors to achieve notice on two television series at the same time.


title: Robert Picardo

text: Picardo made his feature film debut as Eddie Quist, the serial killer werewolf in the Joe Dante film "The Howling" (1981). He also had a recurring role in the sitcom "Alice" and played a doctor on an episode of "The Golden Girls". He played a number of roles in Dante's family science fiction film "Explorers" (1985), and later appeared in Dante's "The 'Burbs", "", "Matinee", "", "Small Soldiers" and "Innerspace". Picardo often plays roles under layers of prosthetic latex, having also played the swamp-dwelling Meg Mucklebones in Ridley Scott's film "Legend". He also had a small role as a funeral director in John Landis's "Amazon Women on the Moon". He voices Pfish in two Pfish & Chip shorts as seen on Cartoon Network's "What-A-Cartoon! Show". Picardo also portrays the voice and face of the robotic Johnny Cab in "Total Recall". He appeared in one episode of "ER" in 1995 as Abraham Zimble (Season 2 - Episode 6, "Days Like This").


title: Robert Picardo

text: In 1993, Picardo had a brief role as Joe "The Meat Man" Morton, a butcher and neighbor to Tim Allen's character on the sitcom "Home Improvement".


title: Robert Picardo

text: In 2001, he guest starred in the "7 Days" episode "Revelation", purporting to be a time traveler from seven years in the future.


title: Robert Picardo

text: In 2007, he played Principal White in "". In 2007, he starred in the independent feature film by director Russ Emanuel, "P.J.", alongside John Heard and Vincent Pastore. He also starred in Russ Emanuel's "Chasing the Green" in 2008, with William Devane, Jeremy London and Ryan Hurst.


title: Robert Picardo

text: Picardo appeared on "Kojak" in a 1977 episode, "E-Ring", as a media rep in The Pentagon, as an enraged father in "Cold Case", and as a police officer in "". He was a recurring guest star in two episodes of Season 7 of "Smallville".


title: Robert Picardo

text: Away from acting, from 1999 to 2015, Picardo was a member of the Board of Directors' Advisory Council of The Planetary Society; beginning in 2015, he was elected to the Board of Directors itself.


title: Robert Picardo

text: Other career highlights include performing in Leonard Bernstein's "Mass" during its European debut tour, performing with the Yale University Society of Orpheus & Bacchus a cappella singing group as an undergraduate, and appearing in dozens of other television and film roles, including the film "Our Last Days as Children".


title: Robert Picardo

text: Picardo performed the voice of Loki in the Xbox 360 video game "Too Human". In 2009, he also appeared in "Pushing Daisies", "Chuck" and "Castle". Also in 2009, he played the lead role in the independent psychological thriller film "Sensored". In 2010, Picardo had a cameo in the final episode of "Persons Unknown", as a member of "the program"'s governing board. Picardo also voices Robert McNamara in "" in campaign and in the 'Zombie mode' after completing campaign on the one map, "FIVE". Picardo appeared in four episodes of "The Mentalist" from 2012 through 2013 as Jason Cooper, a lieutenant of cult leader Bret Styles.


title: Robert Picardo

text: Picardo also appeared on a season 6 episode of "Supernatural" titled "Clap Your Hands if You Believe", as a leprechaun.


title: Robert Picardo

text: In May 2014, Cartoon Hangover announced Picardo as a guest voice actor in the second season of "Bravest Warriors", in the episode "The Parasox Pub".


title: Robert Picardo

text: In 2017, Picardo played Lt. Kitan's father Prof. Ildis Kitan in the first season episode of "The Orville" titled "Firestorm", and reprised the role in the 2019 episode "Home" together with John Billingsley who played Doctor Phlox in Star Trek: Enterprise.


title: Robert Picardo

text: From 1995 to 2001, he played the role of the (EMH) in the television series "". Before being accepted for this role, Picardo initially auditioned for the role of Neelix. He later also directed two episodes. In the series, his character finally chose the name "Joe", after both the name of his wife's grandfather and Picardo's own father.


title: Robert Picardo

text: He played additional copies of the role of the EMH in the 1996 film "" and the 1997 "" episode "Doctor Bashir, I Presume?" He also played Dr. Lewis Zimmerman, the creator of the EMH, in episodes of "Deep Space Nine" and "Voyager".


title: Robert Picardo

text: In 2007 and 2008, was a multi-city tour with John de Lancie. Picardo and de Lancie narrated around the orchestral performance, explaining the history of the music in "Star Trek".


title: Robert Picardo

text: In 2004, he began playing the recurring role of International Oversight Advisory (IOA) member Richard Woolsey in both "Stargate SG-1" and "Stargate Atlantis". His first appearance in those series was in the Stargate SG-1 episode "Heroes (Part 2)".


title: Robert Picardo

text: On February 5, 2008, it was announced that Picardo would be joining the regular cast of "Stargate Atlantis" full-time for the series' fifth and final season. He took over the role of mission commander of the Atlantis Expedition.


title: Terminal illness

text: Terminal illness or end-stage disease is a disease that cannot be cured or adequately treated and is expected to result in the death of the patient. This term is more commonly used for progressive diseases such as cancer, dementia or advanced heart disease than for injury. In popular use, it indicates a disease that will progress until death with near absolute certainty, regardless of treatment. A patient who has such an illness may be referred to as a terminal patient, terminally ill or simply as being terminal. There is no standardized life expectancy for a patient to be considered terminal, although it is generally months or less. Life expectancy for terminal patients is a rough estimate given by the physician based on previous data and does not always reflect true longevity. An illness which is lifelong but not fatal is a chronic condition.


title: Terminal illness

text: Terminal patients have options for disease management after diagnosis. Examples include caregiving, continued treatment, palliative and hospice care, and physician-assisted suicide. Decisions regarding management are made by the patient and their family, although medical professionals may offer recommendations of services available to terminal patients.


title: Terminal illness

text: Lifestyle after diagnosis varies depending on management decisions and the nature of the disease, and there may be restrictions depending on the condition of the patient. Terminal patients may experience depression or anxiety associated with impending death, and family and caregivers may struggle with psychological burdens. Psychotherapeutic interventions may alleviate some of these burdens, and is often incorporated into palliative care.


title: Terminal illness

text: Because terminal patients are aware of their impending deaths, they have time to prepare for care, such as advance directives and living wills, which have been shown to improve end-of-life care. While death cannot be avoided, patients can strive to die a good death.


title: Terminal illness

text: By definition, there is not a cure or adequate treatment for terminal illnesses. However, some kinds of medical treatments may be appropriate anyway, such as treatment to reduce pain or ease breathing.


title: Terminal illness

text: Some terminally ill patients stop all debilitating treatments to reduce unwanted side effects. Others continue aggressive treatment in the hope of an unexpected success. Still others reject conventional medical treatment and pursue unproven treatments such as radical dietary modifications. Patients' choices about different treatments may change over time.


title: Terminal illness

text: Palliative care is normally offered to terminally ill patients, regardless of their overall disease management style, if it seems likely to help manage symptoms such as pain and improve quality of life. Hospice care, which can be provided at home or in a long-term care facility, additionally provides emotional and spiritual support for the patient and loved ones. Some complementary approaches, such as relaxation therapy, massage, and acupuncture may relieve some symptoms and other causes of suffering.


title: Terminal illness

text: Terminal patients often need a caregiver, who could be a nurse, licensed practical nurse or a family member. Caregivers can help patients receive medications to reduce pain and control symptoms of nausea or vomiting. They can also assist the individual with daily living activities and movement. Caregivers provide assistance with food and psychological support and ensure that the individual is comfortable.


title: Terminal illness

text: The patient's family may have questions and most caregivers can provide information to help ease the mind. Doctors generally do not provide estimates for fear of instilling false hopes or obliterate an individual's hope.


title: Terminal illness

text: In most cases, the caregiver works along with physicians and follows professional instructions. Caregivers may call the physician or a nurse if the individual:


title: Terminal illness

text: Most caregivers become the patient's listeners and let the individual express fears and concerns without judgment. Caregivers reassure the patient and honor all advance directives. Caregivers respect the individual's need for privacy and usually hold all information confidential.


title: Terminal illness

text: Palliative care focuses on addressing patients' needs after disease diagnosis. While palliative care is not disease treatment, it addresses patients' physical needs, such as pain management, offers emotional support, caring for the patient psychologically and spiritually, and helps patients build support systems that can help them get through difficult times. Palliative care can also help patients make decisions and come to understand what they want regarding their treatment goals and quality of life.


title: Terminal illness

text: Palliative care is an attempt to improve patients' quality-of-life and comfort, and also provide support for family members and carers. Additionally, it lowers hospital admissions costs. However, needs for palliative care are often unmet whether due to lack of government support and also possible stigma associated with palliative care. For these reasons, the World Health Assembly recommends development of palliative care in health care systems.


title: Terminal illness

text: Palliative care and hospice care are often confused, and they have similar goals. However, hospice care is specifically for terminal patients while palliative care is more general and offered to patients who are not necessarily terminal.


title: Terminal illness

text: While hospitals focus on treating the disease, hospices focus on improving patient quality-of-life until death. A common misconception is that hospice care hastens death because patients "give up" fighting the disease. However, patients in hospice care often live the same length of time as patients in the hospital. A study of 3850 liver cancer patients found that patients who received hospice care, and those who did not, survived for the same amount of time. In fact, a study of 3399 adult lung cancer patients showed that patients who received hospice care actually survived longer than those who did not. Additionally, in both of these studies, patients receiving hospice care had significantly lower healthcare expenditures.


title: Terminal illness

text: Hospice care allows patients to spend more time with family and friends. Since patients are in the company of other hospice patients, they have an additional support network and can learn to cope together. Hospice patients are also able to live at peace away from a hospital setting; they may live at home with a hospice provider or at an inpatient hospice facility.


title: Terminal illness

text: Terminal patients experiencing pain, especially cancer-related pain, are often prescribed opioids to relieve suffering. The specific medication prescribed, however, will differ depending on severity of pain and disease status.


title: Terminal illness

text: There exist inequities in availability of opioids to terminal patients, especially in countries where opioid access is limited.


title: Terminal illness

text: A common symptom that many terminal patients experience is dyspnea, or difficulty with breathing. To ease this symptom, doctors may also prescribe opioids to patients. Some studies suggest that oral opioids may help with breathlessness. However, due to lack of consistent reliable evidence, it is currently unclear whether they truly work for this purpose.


title: Terminal illness

text: Depending on the patient's condition, other medications will be prescribed accordingly. For example, if patients develop depression, antidepressants will be prescribed. Anti-inflammation and anti-nausea medications may also be prescribed.


title: Terminal illness

text: Some terminal patients opt to continue extensive treatments in hope of a miracle cure, whether by participating in experimental treatments and clinical trials or seeking more intense treatment for the disease. Rather than to "give up fighting," patients spend thousands more dollars to try to prolong life by a few more months. What these patients often do give up, however, is quality of life at the end of life by undergoing intense and often uncomfortable treatment. A meta-analysis of 34 studies including 11,326 patients from 11 countries found that less than half of all terminal patients correctly understood their disease prognosis, or the course of their disease and likeliness of survival. This could influence patients to pursue unnecessary treatment for the disease due to unrealistic expectations.


title: Terminal illness

text: For patients with end stage kidney failure, studies have shown that transplants increase the quality of life and decreases mortality in this population. In order to be placed on the organ transplant list, patients are referred and assessed based on criteria that ranges from current comorbidities to potential for organ rejection post transplant. Initial screening measures include: blood tests, pregnancy tests, serologic tests, urinalysis, drug screening, imaging, and physical exams.


title: Terminal illness

text: For patients who are interested in liver transplantation, patients with acute liver failure have the highest priority over patients with only cirrhosis. Acute liver failure patients will present with worsening symptoms of somnolence or confusion (hepatic encephalopathy) and thinner blood (increased INR) due to the liver's inability to make clotting factors. Some patients could experience portal hypertension, hemorrhages, and abdominal swelling (ascites). Model for End Stage Liver Disease (MELD) is often used to help providers decide and prioritize candidates for transplant.


title: Terminal illness

text: Physician-assisted suicide (PAS) is highly controversial, and legal in only a few countries. In PAS, physicians, with voluntary written and verbal consent from the patient, give patients the means to die, usually through lethal drugs. The patient then chooses to "die with dignity," deciding on his/her own time and place to die. Reasons as to why patients choose PAS differ. Factors that may play into a patient's decision include future disability and suffering, lack of control over death, impact on family, healthcare costs, insurance coverage, personal beliefs, religious beliefs, and much more.


title: Terminal illness

text: PAS may be referred to in many different ways, such as aid in dying, assisted dying, death with dignity, and many more. These often depend on the organization and the stance they take on the issue. In this section of the article, it will be referred to as PAS for the sake of consistency with the pre-existing Wikipedia page: Assisted Suicide.


title: Terminal illness

text: In the United States, PAS or medical aid in dying is legal in select states, including Oregon, Washington, Montana, Vermont, and New Mexico, and there are groups both in favor of and against legalization.


title: Terminal illness

text: Some groups favor PAS because they do not believe they will have control over their pain, because they believe they will be a burden on their family, and because they do not want to lose autonomy and control over their own lives among other reasons. They believe that allowing PAS is an act of compassion.


title: Terminal illness

text: While some groups believe in personal choice over death, others raise concerns regarding insurance policies and potential for abuse. According to Sulmasy et al., the major non-religious arguments against physician-assisted suicide are quoted as follows:


title: Terminal illness

text: Again, there are also arguments that there are enough protections in the law that the slippery slope is avoided. For example, the Death with Dignity Act in Oregon includes waiting periods, multiple requests for lethal drugs, a psychiatric evaluation in the case of possible depression influencing decisions, and the patient personally swallowing the pills to ensure voluntary decision.


title: Terminal illness

text: Physicians and medical professionals also have disagreeing views on PAS. Some groups, such as the American College of Physicians (ACP), the American Medical Association (AMA), the World Health Organization, American Nurses Association, Hospice Nurses Association, American Psychiatric Association, and more have issued position statements against its legalization.


title: Terminal illness

text: The ACP's argument concerns the nature of the doctor-patient relationship and the tenets of the medical profession. They state that instead of using PAS to control death: "through high-quality care, effective communication, compassionate support, and the right resources, physicians can help patients control many aspects of how they live out life's last chapter."


title: Terminal illness

text: Other groups such as the American Medical Students Association, the American Public Health Association, the American Medical Women's Association, and more support PAS as an act of compassion for the suffering patient.


title: Terminal illness

text: In many cases, the argument on PAS is also tied to proper palliative care. The International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care issued a position statement arguing against considering legalizing PAS unless comprehensive palliative care systems in the country were in place. It could be argued that with proper palliative care, the patient would experience fewer intolerable symptoms, physical or emotional, and would not choose death over these symptoms. Palliative care would also ensure that patients receive proper information about their disease prognosis as not to make decisions about PAS without complete and careful consideration.


title: Terminal illness

text: Many aspects of medical care are different for terminal patients compared to patients in the hospital for other reasons.


title: Terminal illness

text: Doctor–patient relationship are crucial in any medical setting, and especially so for terminal patients. There must be an inherent trust in the doctor to provide the best possible care for the patient. In the case of terminal illness, there is often ambiguity in communication with the patient about his/her condition. While terminal condition prognosis is often a grave matter, doctors do not wish to quash all hope, for it could unnecessarily harm the patient's mental state and have unintended consequences. However, being overly optimistic about outcomes can leave patients and families devastated when negative results arise, as is often the case with terminal illness.


title: Terminal illness

text: Often, a patient is considered terminally ill when his or her estimated life expectancy is six months or less, under the assumption that the disease will run its normal course based on previous data from other patients. The six-month standard is arbitrary, and best available estimates of longevity may be incorrect. Though a given patient may properly be considered terminal, this is not a guarantee that the patient will die within six months. Similarly, a patient with a slowly progressing disease, such as AIDS, may not be considered terminally ill if the best estimate of longevity is greater than six months. However, this does not guarantee that the patient will not die unexpectedly early.


title: Terminal illness

text: In general, physicians slightly overestimate the survival time of terminally ill cancer patients, so that, for example, a person who is expected to live for about six weeks would likely die around four weeks.


title: Terminal illness

text: A recent systematic review on palliative patients in general, rather than specifically cancer patients, states the following: "Accuracy of categorical estimates in this systematic review ranged from 23% up to 78% and continuous estimates over-predicted actual survival by, potentially, a factor of two." There was no evidence that any specific type of clinician was better at making these predictions.


title: Terminal illness

text: Healthcare during the last year of life is costly, especially for patients who used hospital services often during end-of-life.


title: Terminal illness

text: In fact, according to Langton et al., there were "exponential increases in service use and costs as death approached."


title: Terminal illness

text: Many dying terminal patients are also brought to the emergency department (ED) at the end of life when treatment is no longer beneficial, raising costs and using limited space in the ED.


title: Terminal illness

text: While there are often claims about "disproportionate" spending of money and resources on end-of-life patients, data have not proven this type of correlation.


title: Terminal illness

text: The cost of healthcare for end-of-life patients is 13% of annual healthcare spending in the U.S. However, of the group of patients with the highest healthcare spending, end-of-life patients only made up 11% of these people, meaning the most expensive spending is not made up mostly of terminal patients.


title: Terminal illness

text: Many recent studies have shown that palliative care and hospice options as an alternative are much less expensive for end-of-life patients.


title: Terminal illness

text: Coping with impending death is a hard topic to digest universally. Patients may experience grief, fear, loneliness, depression, and anxiety among many other possible responses. Terminal illness can also lend patients to become more prone to psychological illness such as depression and anxiety disorders. Insomnia is a common symptom of these.


title: Terminal illness

text: It is important for loved ones to show their support for the patient during these times and to listen to his or her concerns.


title: Terminal illness

text: People who are terminally ill may not always come to accept their impending death. For example, a person who finds strength in denial may never reach a point of acceptance or accommodation and may react negatively to any statement that threatens this defense mechanism.


title: Terminal illness

text: Depression is relatively common among terminal patients, and the prevalence increases as patients become sicker. Depression causes quality of life to go down, and a sizable portion of patients who request assisted suicide are depressed. These negative emotions may be heightened by lack of sleep and pain as well. Depression can be treated with antidepressants and/or therapy, but doctors often do not realize the extent of terminal patients' depression.


title: Terminal illness

text: Because depression is common among terminal patients, the American College of Physicians recommends regular assessments for depression for this population and appropriate prescription of antidepressants.


title: Terminal illness

text: Anxiety disorders are also relatively common for terminal patients as they face their mortality. Patients may feel distressed when thinking about what the future may hold, especially when considering the future of their families as well. It is important to note, however, that some palliative medications may facilitate anxiety.


title: Terminal illness

text: Caregivers may listen to the concerns of terminal patients to help them reflect on their emotions. Different forms of psychotherapy and psychosocial intervention, which can be offered with palliative care, may also help patients think about and overcome their feelings. According to Block, "most terminally ill patients benefit from an approach that combines emotional support, flexibility, appreciation of the patient's strengths, a warm and genuine relationship with the therapist, elements of life-review, and exploration of fears and concerns."


title: Terminal illness

text: Terminal patients' families often also suffer psychological consequences. If not well equipped to face the reality of their loved one's illness, family members may develop depressive symptoms and even have increased mortality. Taking care of sick family members may also cause stress, grief, and worry. Additionally, financial burden from medical treatment may be a source of stress.


title: Terminal illness

text: Discussing the anticipated loss and planning for the future may help family members accept and prepare for the patient's death. Interventions may also be offered for anticipatory grief. In the case of more serious consequences such as depression, a more serious intervention or therapy is recommended.


title: Terminal illness

text: Grief counseling and grief therapy may also be recommended for family members after a loved one's death.


title: Terminal illness

text: When dying, patients often worry about their quality of life towards the end, including emotional and physical suffering.


title: Terminal illness

text: In order for families and doctors to understand clearly what the patient wants for themselves, it is recommended that patients, doctors, and families all convene and discuss the patient's decisions before the patient becomes unable to decide.


title: Terminal illness

text: At the end of life, especially when patients are unable to make decisions on their own regarding treatment, it is often up to family members and doctors to decide what they believe the patients would have wanted regarding their deaths, which is often a heavy burden and hard for family members to predict. An estimated 25% of American adults have an advance directive, meaning the majority of Americans leave these decisions to be made by family, which can lead to conflict and guilt. Although it may be a difficult subject to broach, it is important to discuss the patient's plans for how far to continue treatment should they become unable to decide. This must be done while the patient is still able to make the decisions, and takes the form of an advance directive. The advance directive should be updated regularly as the patient's condition changes so as to reflect the patient's wishes.


title: Terminal illness

text: Some of the decisions that advance directives may address include receiving fluids and nutrition support, getting blood transfusions, receiving antibiotics, resuscitation (if the heart stops beating), and intubation (if the patient stops breathing).


title: Terminal illness

text: It is highly recommended by many research studies and meta-analyses for patients to discuss and create an advance directive with their doctors and families.


title: Terminal illness

text: One of the options of care that patients may discuss with their families and medical providers is the do-not-resuscitate (DNR) order. This means that if the patient's heart stops, CPR and other methods to bring back heartbeat would not be performed. This is the patient's choice to make and can depend on a variety of reasons, whether based on personal beliefs or medical concerns. DNR orders can be medically and legally binding depending on the applicable jurisdiction.


title: Terminal illness

text: Decisions like these should be indicated in the advance directive so that the patient's wishes can be carried out to improve end-of-life care.


title: Terminal illness

text: A variety of symptoms become more apparent when a patient is nearing death. Recognizing these symptoms and knowing what will come may help family members prepare.


title: Terminal illness

text: During the final few weeks, symptoms will vary largely depending on the patient's disease. During the final hours, patients usually will reject food and water and will also sleep more, choosing not to interact with those around them. Their bodies may behave more irregularly, with changes in breathing, sometimes with longer pauses between breaths, irregular heart rate, low blood pressure, and coldness in the extremities. It is important to note, however, that symptoms will vary per patient.


title: Terminal illness

text: Patients, healthcare workers, and recently bereaved family members often describe a "good death" in terms of effective choices made in a few areas:


title: Terminal illness

text: In the last hours of life, palliative sedation may be recommended by a doctor or requested by the patient to ease the symptoms of death until they die. Palliative sedation is not intended to prolong life or hasten death; it is merely meant to relieve symptoms.


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: Geraldine Anne Ferraro (August 26, 1935 March 26, 2011) was an American politician, diplomat, and attorney. She served in the United States House of Representatives from 1979 to 1985, and was the Democratic Party's vice presidential nominee in the 1984 presidential election, running alongside Walter Mondale; this made her the first female vice-presidential or presidential nominee representing a major American political party. She was also a journalist, author, and businesswoman.


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: Ferraro grew up in New York City and worked as a public school teacher before training as a lawyer. She joined the Queens County District Attorney's Office in 1974, heading the new Special Victims Bureau that dealt with sex crimes, child abuse, and domestic violence. In 1978 she was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where she rose rapidly in the party hierarchy while focusing on legislation to bring equity for women in the areas of wages, pensions, and retirement plans.


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: In 1984, former vice president and presidential candidate Walter Mondale, seen as an underdog, selected Ferraro to be his running mate in the upcoming election. In doing so Ferraro also became the first widely recognized Italian American to be a major-party national nominee. The positive polling the Mondale-Ferraro ticket received when she joined soon faded, as damaging questions arose about her and her businessman husband's finances and wealth and her Congressional disclosure statements. In the general election, Mondale and Ferraro were defeated in a landslide by incumbent President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George H. W. Bush.


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: Ferraro twice ran campaigns for a seat in the United States Senate from New York, in 1992 and in 1998, both times starting as the front-runner for her party's nomination before losing in the primary election. She served as the Ambassador to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights from 1993 until 1996 during the presidential administration of Bill Clinton. She also continued her career as a journalist, author, and businesswoman, and served in the 2008 presidential campaign of Senator Hillary Clinton. Ferraro died on March 26, 2011, from multiple myeloma, 12 years after being diagnosed.


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: Geraldine Anne Ferraro was born on August 26, 1935, in Newburgh, New York, the daughter of Antonetta L. Ferraro (née Corrieri), a first-generation Italian American seamstress, and Dominick Ferraro, an Italian immigrant (from Marcianise, Campania) and owner of two restaurants. She had three brothers born before her, but one died in infancy and another at age three. Ferraro attended the parochial school Mount Saint Mary's in Newburgh when she was young. Her father died of a heart attack in , when she was eight. Ferraro's mother soon invested and lost the remainder of the family's money, forcing the family to move to a low-income area in the South Bronx while Ferraro's mother worked in the garment industry to support them.


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: Ferraro stayed on at Mount Saint Mary's as a boarder for a while, then briefly attended a parochial school in the South Bronx. Beginning in 1947, she attended and lived at the parochial Marymount Academy in Tarrytown, New York, using income from a family rental property in Italy and skipping seventh grade. At Marymount Ferraro was a member of the honor society, active in several clubs and sports, voted most likely to succeed, and graduated in 1952. Her mother was adamant that she get a full education, despite an uncle in the family saying, "Why bother? She's pretty. She's a girl. She'll get married." Ferraro attended Marymount Manhattan College with a scholarship while sometimes holding two or three jobs at the same time. During her senior year she began dating John Zaccaro of Forest Hills, Queens, who had graduated from Iona College with a commission in the U.S. Marine Corps. Ferraro received a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1956; she was the first woman in her family to gain a college degree. She also passed the city exam to become a licensed school teacher.


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: Ferraro began working as an elementary school teacher in public schools in Astoria, Queens, "because that's what women were supposed to do." Unsatisfied, she decided to attend law school; an admissions officer said to her, "I hope you're serious, Gerry. You're taking a man's place, you know." She earned a Juris Doctor degree with honors from Fordham University School of Law in 1960, going to classes at night while continuing to work as a second-grade teacher at schools such as P.S. 57 during the day. Ferraro was one of only two women in her graduating class of 179. She was admitted to the bar of New York State in .


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: Ferraro became engaged to Zaccaro in and married him on , 1960. He became a realtor and businessman. She kept her birth name professionally, as a way to honor her mother for having supported the family after her father's death, but used his name in parts of her private life. The couple had three children, Donna (born 1962), John Jr. (born 1964), and Laura (born 1966). They lived in Forest Hills Gardens, Queens, and in 1971, added a vacation house in Saltaire on Fire Island. They would buy a condominium in Saint Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands in 1983.


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: While raising the children, Ferraro worked part-time as a civil lawyer in her husband's real estate firm for 13 years. She also occasionally worked for other clients and did some "pro bono" work for women in family court. She spent time at local Democratic clubs, which allowed her to maintain contacts within the legal profession and become involved in local politics and campaigns. While organizing community opposition to a proposed building, Ferraro met lawyer and Democratic figure Mario Cuomo, who became a political mentor. In 1970, she was elected president of the Queens County Women's Bar Association.


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: Ferraro's first full-time political job came in , when she was appointed Assistant District Attorney for Queens County, New York, by her cousin, District Attorney Nicholas Ferraro. At the time, women prosecutors in the city were uncommon. Grumblings that she was the beneficiary of nepotism were countered by her being rated as qualified by a screening committee and by her early job performance in the Investigations Bureau. The following year, Ferraro was assigned to the new Special Victims Bureau, which prosecuted cases involving rape, child abuse, spouse abuse, and domestic violence. She was named head of the unit in 1977, with two other assistant district attorneys assigned to her. In this role, she became a strong advocate for abused children. She was admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court Bar in 1978.


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: As part of the D.A. office, Ferraro worked long hours, and gained a reputation for being a tough prosecutor but fair in plea negotiations. Although her unit was supposed to turn over cases which were bound for trial to another division, she took an active role in trying some cases herself, and juries were persuaded by her summations. Ferraro was upset to discover that her superior was paying her less than equivalent male colleagues because she was a married woman and already had a husband. Moreover, Ferraro found the nature of the cases she dealt with debilitating; the work left her "drained and angry" and she developed an ulcer. She grew frustrated that she was unable to deal with root causes, and talked about running for legislative office; Cuomo, now Secretary of State of New York, suggested the United States Congress.


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: Ferraro ran for election to the U.S. House of Representatives from New York's 9th Congressional District in Queens in 1978, after longtime Democratic incumbent James Delaney announced his retirement. The location for the television series "All in the Family", the district, which stretched from Astoria to Ozone Park was known for its ethnic composition and conservative views. In a three-candidate primary race for the Democratic nomination, Ferraro faced two better-known rivals, the party organization candidate, City Councilman Thomas J. Manton and Patrick Deignan. Her main issues were law and order, support for the elderly, and neighborhood preservation. She labeled herself a "'small c' conservative" and emphasized that she was not a bleeding-heart liberal; her campaign slogan was "Finally, A Tough Democrat". Her Italian heritage also appealed to ethnic residents in the district. She won the three-way primary with 53 percent of the vote, and then captured the general election as well, defeating Republican Alfred A. DelliBovi by a 10-percentage-point margin in a contest in which dealing with crime was the major issue and personal attacks by DelliBovi were frequent. She had been aided by $130,000 in campaign loans and donations from her own family, including $110,000 in loans from Zaccaro, of which only $4,000 was legal. The source and nature of these transactions were declared illegal by the Federal Election Commission shortly before the primary, causing Ferraro to pay back the loans in , via several real estate transactions. In 1979, the campaign and Zaccaro paid $750 in fines for civil violations of election law.


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: Despite being a newcomer to the House, Ferraro made a vivid impression upon arrival and quickly found prominence. She became a protégé of House Speaker Tip O'Neil, established a rapport with other House Democratic leaders, and rose rapidly in the party hierarchy. She was elected to be the Secretary of the House Democratic Caucus for 1981–1983 and again for 1983–1985; this entitled her to a seat on the influential Steering and Policy Committee. In 1983, she was named to the powerful House Budget Committee. She also served on the Public Works and Transportation Committee and the Post Office and Civil Service Committee, both of which allowed Ferraro to push through projects to benefit her district. In particular, she assisted the successful effort of the Ridgewood and Glendale neighborhoods to get their ZIP codes changed from Brooklyn to their native Queens. Male colleagues viewed her with respect as someone who was tough and ambitious and in turn she was, as "The New York Times" later wrote, "comfortable with the boys".


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: Ferraro was active in Democratic presidential politics as well. She served as one of the deputy chairs for the 1980 Carter-Mondale campaign. Following the election, she served actively on the Hunt Commission that in 1982, rewrote the Democratic delegate selection rules; Ferraro was credited as having been the prime agent behind the creation of superdelegates. By 1983, she was regarded as one of the up-and-coming stars of the party. She was the Chairwoman of the Platform Committee for the 1984 Democratic National Convention, the first woman to hold that position. There she held multiple hearings around the country and further gained in visibility.


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: While in Congress, Ferraro focused much of her legislative attention on equity for women in the areas of wages, pensions, and retirement plans. She was a cosponsor of the 1981 Economic Equity Act. On the House Select Committee on Aging, she concentrated on the problems of elderly women. In 1984, she championed a pension equity law revision that would improve the benefits of people who left work for long periods and then returned, a typical case for women with families. The Reagan administration, at first lukewarm to the measure, decided to sign it to gain the benefits of its popular appeal.


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: Ferraro also worked on some environmental issues. During 1980, she tried to prevent the federal government from gaining the power to override local laws on hazardous materials transportation, an effort she continued in subsequent years. In , she led passage of a Superfund renewal bill and attacked the Reagan administration's handling of environmental site cleanups.


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: Ferraro took a congressional trip to Nicaragua at the start of 1984, where she spoke to the Contras. She decided that the Reagan Administration's military interventions there and in El Salvador were counterproductive towards reaching U.S. security goals, and that regional negotiations would be better.


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: In all, Ferraro served three two-year terms, being re-elected in 1980 and 1982. Her vote shares increased to 58 percent and then 73 percent and much of her funding came from political action committees. While Ferraro's pro-choice views conflicted with those of many of her constituents as well as the Catholic Church to which she belonged, her positions on other social and foreign policy issues were in alignment with the district. She broke with her party in favoring an anti-busing amendment to the Constitution. She supported deployment of the Pershing II missile and the Trident submarine, although she opposed funding for the MX missile, the B-1B bomber, and the Strategic Defense Initiative.


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: While in the House, Ferraro's political self-description evolved to "moderate". In 1982, she said her experiences as assistant district attorney had changed some of her views: "... because no matter how concerned I am about spending, I have seen first hand what poverty can do to people's lives and I just can't, in good conscience, not do something about it." For her six years in Congress, Ferraro had an average 78 percent "Liberal Quotient" from Americans for Democratic Action and an average 8 percent rating from the American Conservative Union. The AFL–CIO's Committee on Political Education gave her an average approval rating of 91 percent.


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: As the 1984 U.S. presidential election primary season neared its end and Walter Mondale became the likely Democratic nominee, the idea of picking a woman as his vice-presidential running mate gained considerable momentum. The National Organization for Women and the National Women's Political Caucus pushed the notion, as did several top Democratic figures such as Speaker Tip O'Neill. Women mentioned for the role included Ferraro and Mayor of San Francisco Dianne Feinstein, both of whom were on Mondale's five-person short list.


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: Mondale selected Ferraro to be his vice-presidential candidate on , 1984. She stated, "I am absolutely thrilled." The Mondale campaign hoped that her selection would change a campaign in which he was well behind; in addition to attracting women, they hoped she could attract ethnic Democrats in the Northeast U.S. who had abandoned their party for Reagan in 1980. Her personality, variously described as blunt, feisty, spirited, and somewhat saucy, was also viewed as an asset. In turn, Mondale accepted the risk that came with her inexperience.


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: As Ferraro was the first woman to run on a major party national ticket in the United States, and the first Italian American, her nomination at the 1984 Democratic National Convention was one of the most emotional moments of that gathering, with female delegates appearing joyous and proud at the historic occasion. In her acceptance speech, Ferraro said, "The daughter of an immigrant from Italy has been chosen to run for vice president in the new land my father came to love." Convention attendees were in tears during the speech, not just for its significance for women but for all those who had immigrated to America. The speech was listed as number 56 in American Rhetoric's Top 100 Speeches of the 20th Century.


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: Ferraro gained immediate, large-scale media attention. At first, journalists focused on her novelty as a woman and her poor family background, and their coverage was overwhelmingly favorable. Nevertheless, Ferraro faced many press questions about her foreign policy inexperience, and responded by discussing her attention to foreign and national security issues in Congress. She faced a threshold of proving competence that other high-level female political figures have had to face, especially those who might become commander-in-chief; the question "Are you tough enough?" was often directed to her. Ted Koppel questioned her closely about nuclear strategy and during "Meet the Press" she was asked, "Do you think that in any way the Soviets might be tempted to try to take advantage of you simply because you are a woman?"


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: The choice of Ferraro was viewed as a gamble, and pundits were uncertain whether it would result in a net gain or loss of votes for the Mondale campaign. While her choice was popular among Democratic activists, polls immediately after the announcement showed that only 22 percent of women were excited about Ferraro's selection, versus 18 percent who agreed that it was a "bad idea". By a three-to-one margin, voters thought that pressure from women's groups had led to Mondale's decision rather than his having chosen the best available candidate. Nonetheless, in the days after the convention Ferraro proved an effective campaigner, with a brash and confident style that forcefully criticized the Reagan administration and sometimes almost overshadowed Mondale. Mondale had been 16 points behind Reagan in polls before the pick, and after the convention he pulled even for a short time.


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: By the last week of July, however, questions—due initially to reporting by "The New York Times"—began about Ferraro's finances, the finances of her husband, John Zaccaro, and their separately filed tax returns. (While the Mondale campaign had anticipated some questions, it had only spent 48 hours on vetting Ferraro's family's finances.) This was also the first time the American media had to deal with a national candidate's husband.


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: Ferraro said she would release both their returns within a month, but maintained she was correct not to have included her husband's financial holdings on her past annual Congressional disclosure statements. The media also reported on the FEC's past investigation into Ferraro's 1978 campaign funds. Although Ferraro and Zaccaro's finances were often interwoven on paper, with each half partners in Zaccaro's company, Ferraro had little knowledge of his business, or even how much he was worth. Zaccaro did not understand the greater public exposure that his wife's new position brought to their family, and resisted releasing his financial information. On , Ferraro announced that her husband would not in fact be releasing his tax returns, on the grounds that to do so would disadvantage his real estate business and that such a disclosure was voluntary and not part of election law. She joked, "So you people married to Italian men, you know what it's like."


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: The tax announcement dominated television and newspapers, as Ferraro was besieged by questions regarding her family finances. Furthermore, her remark about Italian men brought criticism for ethnic stereotyping, especially from fellow Italian Americans. As she later wrote, "I had created a monster." Republicans saw her finances as a "genderless" issue that they could attack Ferraro with without creating a backlash, and some Mondale staffers thought Ferraro might have to leave the ticket. The "New York Tribune", followed by "The Philadelphia Inquirer" and a few other mainstream newspapers, went even further in their investigations, reporting that Zaccaro was the landlord of a company owned by pornography tycoon and Gambino crime family member Robert DiBernardo. Many other newspapers minimized their coverage of possible connections between Zaccaro and the mob, however, and law enforcement officials downplayed the allegations.


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: A week after her previous statement, Ferraro said Zaccaro had changed his mind and would indeed release his tax records, which was done on . The full statements included notice of payment of some $53,000 in back federal taxes that she owed due to what was described as an accountant's error. Ferraro said the statements proved overall that she had nothing to hide and that there had been no financial wrongdoing. The disclosures indicated that Ferraro and her husband were worth nearly $4 million, had a full-time maid, and owned a boat and the two vacation homes. Much of their wealth was tied up in real estate rather than being disposable income, but the disclosures hurt Ferraro's image as a rags-to-riches story. Ferraro's strong performance at an press conference covering the final disclosure—where she answered all questions for two hours—effectively ended the issue for the remainder of the campaign, but significant damage had been done. No campaign issue during the entire 1984 presidential campaign received more media attention than Ferraro's finances. The exposure diminished Ferraro's rising stardom, removed whatever momentum the Mondale–Ferraro ticket gained out of the convention, and delayed formation of a coherent message for the fall campaign.


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: Sharp criticism from Catholic Church authorities put Ferraro on the defensive during the entire campaign, with abortion opponents frequently protesting her appearances with a level of fervor not usually encountered by pro-choice Catholic male candidates such as Mario Cuomo and Ted Kennedy. In a 1982 briefing for Congress, Ferraro had written that "the Catholic position on abortion is not monolithic and there can be a range of personal and political responses to the issue." Ferraro was criticized by Cardinal John O'Connor, the Catholic Archbishop of New York, and James Timlin, the Bishop of Scranton, for misrepresenting the Catholic Church's position on abortion. After several days of back-and-forth debate in the public media, Ferraro finally conceded that, "the Catholic Church's position on abortion is monolithic" but went on to say that "But I do believe that there are a lot of Catholics who do not share the view of the Catholic Church". Ferraro was also criticized for saying that Reagan was not a "good Christian" because, she said, his policies hurt the poor. To defend Ferraro, the pro-choice group Catholics for a Free Choice placed an October 7, 1984, full-page ad in "The New York Times" titled "A Catholic Statement on Pluralism and Abortion".


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: Ferraro drew large crowds on the campaign trail, many of whom wished to see the history-making candidate in person, who often chanted, "Ger-ry! Ger-ry!" Mondale and Ferraro rarely touched during their appearances together, to the point that he would not even place his palm on her back when they stood side by side; Ferraro later said this was because anything more and "people were afraid that it would look like, 'Oh, my God, they're dating.'".


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: There was one vice-presidential debate between Congresswoman Ferraro and Vice President George H. W. Bush. Held on , the result was proclaimed mostly even by the press and historians; women voters tended to think Ferraro had won, while men, Bush. At it, Ferraro criticized Reagan's initial refusal to support an extension to the Voting Rights Act. Her experience was questioned at the debate and she was asked how her three terms in Congress stacked up with Bush's extensive government experience. To one Bush statement she said, "Let me just say first of all, that I almost resent, Vice President Bush, your patronizing attitude that you have to teach me about foreign policy." She strongly defended her position on abortion, which earned her applause and a respectful reply from her opponent. In the days leading up to the debate, Second Lady of the United States Barbara Bush had publicly referred to Ferraro as "that four-million-dollar—I can't say it, but it rhymes with 'rich'." Barbara Bush soon apologized, saying she had not meant to imply Ferraro was "a witch". Peter Teeley, Vice President Bush's press secretary, said of Ferraro just prior to the debate, "She's too bitchy. She's very arrogant. Humility isn't one of her strong points and I think that comes through." Teeley declined to apologize for the remark, saying it had no sexist implications and the Ferraro campaign was being "hypersensitive" in complaining about it.


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: On October 18 the "New York Post" accurately reported that Ferraro's father had been arrested for possession of numbers slips in Newburgh shortly before his death, and inaccurately speculated that something mysterious had been covered up about that death. Ferraro's mother had never told her about his arrest; she had been also arrested as an accomplice but released after her husband's death. The printing of the story led Ferraro to state that "Post" publisher Rupert Murdoch "does not have the worth to wipe the dirt under [my mother's] shoes."


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: Ferraro's womanhood was consistently discussed during the campaign; one study found that a quarter of newspaper articles written about her contained gendered language. Throughout, Ferraro kept campaigning, taking on the traditional running mate role of attacking the opposition vigorously. By the end, she had traveled more than Mondale and more than Reagan and Bush combined.


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: On November 6, Mondale and Ferraro lost the general election in a landslide. They received only 41 percent of the popular vote compared to Reagan and Bush's 59 percent, and in the Electoral College won only Mondale's home state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia. The ticket even lost Ferraro's congressional district, which had long been one of the more conservative districts in New York City; it tended to vote Republican in presidential races. Ferraro's presence on the ticket had little measurable effect overall. Reagan captured 55 percent of women voters and about the same share of Catholic voters, the latter being the highest level yet for a Republican presidential candidate. Of the tenth of voters who decided based on the vice-presidential candidates, 54 percent went to Mondale–Ferraro, establishing that Ferraro provided a net gain to the Democrats of 0.8 percent. Reagan's personal appeal and campaign themes of prosperity and "It's morning again in America" were quite strong, while Mondale's liberal campaign alienated Southern whites and northern blue-collar workers who usually voted Democratic. Political observers generally agree that no combination of Democrats could have won the election in 1984. Mondale himself would later reflect that "I knew that I was in for it with Reagan" and that he had no regrets about choosing Ferraro.


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: After the election, the House Ethics Committee found that Ferraro had technically violated the Ethics in Government Act by failing to report, or reporting incorrectly, details of her family's finances, and that she should have reported her husband's holdings on her Congressional disclosure forms. However, the committee concluded that she had acted without "deceptive intent", and since she was leaving Congress anyway, no action against her was taken. Ferraro said, "I consider myself completely vindicated." The scrutiny of her husband and his business dealings presaged a trend that women candidates would face in American electoral politics.


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: Ferraro is one of only four U.S. women to run on a major party national ticket. The others are Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee; Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee; and United States Senator for California Kamala Harris, the 2020 Democratic vice-presidential nominee and the first to be on a winning ticket.


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: The campaign did lead to the greater adoption of the honorific "Ms." Although "The New York Times" refused to use it at the time for her, the paper's iconoclastic columnist and language expert William Safire became convinced it ought to be part of the English language by the case of Ferraro, who was a married woman who used her birth surname professionally rather than her husband's (Zaccaro). Safire wrote in August 1984 that it would be equally incorrect to call her "Miss Ferraro" (as she was married) or "Mrs. Ferraro" (as her husband was not "Mr. Ferraro", although this is the formulation the "Times" used), and that calling her "Mrs. Zaccaro" would confuse the reader. Two years after the campaign, the "Times" finally changed its policy and began using "Ms."


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: Ferraro had relinquished her House seat to run for the vice-presidency. Her new-found fame led to an appearance in a Diet Pepsi commercial in 1985. She published "Ferraro: My Story", an account of the campaign with some of her life leading up to it, in . It was a best seller and earned her $1 million. She also earned over $300,000 by giving speeches.


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: Despite the one-sided national loss in 1984, Ferraro was still viewed as someone with a bright political future. Many expected her to run in the 1986 United States Senate election in New York against first-term Republican incumbent Al D'Amato, and during 1985 she did Upstate New York groundwork towards that end. A Senate candidacy had been her original plan for her career, before she was named to Mondale's ticket. But in , she said she would not run, due to an ongoing U.S. Justice Department probe on her and her husband's finances stemming from the 1984 campaign revelations.


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: Members of Ferraro's family were indeed facing legal issues. Her husband John Zaccaro had pleaded guilty in , to fraudulently obtaining bank financing in a real estate transaction and had been sentenced to 150 hours of community service. Then in , he was indicted on unrelated felony charges regarding an alleged 1981 bribery of Queens Borough President Donald Manes concerning a cable television contract. A full year later, he was acquitted at trial. The case against him was circumstantial, a key prosecution witness proved unreliable, and the defense did not have to present its own testimony. Ferraro said her husband never would have been charged had she not run for vice president. Meanwhile, in , the couple's son John had been arrested for possession and sale of cocaine. He was convicted, and in , sentenced to four months' imprisonment; Ferraro broke down in tears in court relating the stress the episode had placed on her family. Ferraro worked on an unpublished book about the conflicting rights between a free press and being able to have fair trials. Asked in , whether she would have accepted the vice-presidential nomination had she known of all the family problems that would follow, she said, "More than once I have sat down and said to myself, oh, God, I wish I had never gone through with it ... I think the candidacy opened a door for women in national politics, and I don't regret that for one minute. I'm proud of that. But I just wish it could have been done in a different way."


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: Ferraro remained active in raising money for Democratic candidates nationwide, especially women candidates. She founded the Americans Concerned for Tomorrow political action committee, which focused on getting ten women candidates elected in the 1986 Congressional elections (eight of whom would be successful). During the 1988 presidential election, Ferraro served as vice chair of the party's Victory Fund.


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: She also did some commentating for television. Ferraro was a fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics from 1988 to 1992, teaching in-demand seminars such as "So You Want to be President?" She also took care of her mother, who suffered from emphysema for several years before her death in early 1990.


title: Geraldine Ferraro

text: By October 1991, Ferraro was ready to enter elective politics again, and ran for the Democratic nomination in the 1992 United States Senate election in New York. Her opponents were State Attorney General Robert Abrams, Reverend Al Sharpton, Congressman Robert J. Mrazek, and New York City Comptroller and former Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman. Abrams was considered the early front-runner. The D'Amato campaign feared facing Ferraro the most among these, as her Italian ancestry, effective debating and stump speech skills, and her staunch pro-choice views would eat into several of D'Amato's usual bases of support. Ferraro emphasized her career as a teacher, prosecutor, congresswoman, and mother, and talked about how she was tough on crime. Ferraro drew renewed attacks during the primary campaign from the media and her opponents over Zaccaro's finances and business relationships. She objected that a male candidate would not receive nearly as much attention regarding his wife's activities. Ferraro became the front-runner, capitalizing on her star power from 1984, and using the campaign attacks against her as an explicitly feminist rallying point for women voters. As the primary date neared, her lead began to dwindle under the charges, and she released additional tax returns from the 1980s to try to defray the attacks.