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Theatrical release poster
Sarah Green
Nicolas Gonda
Hanan Townshend
Emmanuel Lubezki
A. J. Edwards
Keith Fraase
Shane Hazen
Christopher Roldan
Mark Yoshikawa
Brothers K Productions
September 2, 2012 (2012-09-02) (Venice)
April 12, 2013 (2013-04-12) (United States)
$2.7 million[1][2]
To the Wonder is a 2012 American experimental romantic drama film written and directed by Terrence Malick and starring Ben Affleck, Olga Kurylenko, Rachel McAdams, and Javier Bardem. Filmed in Oklahoma and Paris, the film chronicles a couple who, after falling in love in Paris, struggle to keep their relationship from falling apart after moving to the United States.
The film premiered in competition at the 2012 Venice Film Festival,[3] where it was nominated for the Golden Lion Award, it received mixed reactions at its premiere in Venice, but was awarded the SIGNIS Award at the same festival.[4] The film continued to polarize critics upon its theatrical release, with many praising Malick's direction and Lubezki's cinematography, though finding the narrative emotionally unsatisfying.[5]
2 Cast
3.2 Filming
3.3 Post-production
6.1 Critical response
6.2 Top ten lists
6.3 Accolades
Plot[edit]
Neil (Ben Affleck) is an American traveling in Europe who in Paris meets and falls in love with Marina (Olga Kurylenko), a Ukrainian divorcée who is living with her 10-year-old daughter Tatiana (Tatiana Chiline). Basking in their new romance, the lovers travel to Mont St. Michel, the island abbey off the coast of Normandy. Neil makes a commitment to Marina, inviting her to relocate with Tatiana to his native Oklahoma. Neil takes a job as an environmental inspector, and Marina settles into her life in the United States. After some time, the couple's passionate romance cools. Marina finds solace with the Catholic priest Father Quintana (Javier Bardem), who is undergoing his own crisis of faith. Tatiana begins to feel homesick due to not having made friends at her school, and complains that Neil is not her real father; some time later, Marina tells Neil that her visa has expired, and she and her daughter return to France.
Continuing his work as an environmental inspector, Neil reconnects with Jane (Rachel McAdams), a childhood friend. Jane tells Neil very quietly that her farm is going bankrupt because her former husband encumbered it with his huge gambling debt. Neil begins a romance with Jane. Back in France, after giving Tatiana back to her father (Marina's former husband), Marina finds she misses Oklahoma and is unable to find a job. Due to Neil's unwillingness to commit to Jane, their relationship disintegrates.
Returning to Oklahoma, Marina reconnects with Neil; the couple marry in a civil ceremony. After going to the doctor to discuss removing an intrauterine device in order to be able to conceive, Marina begins to feel isolated again. Although they also had a religious wedding ceremony, the couple's relationship begins to deteriorate. Meanwhile, Father Quintana ministers to prisoners and local people. One day, Marina approaches Charlie (Charles Baker), a carpenter who had given her a wind harp, she follows him to a motel where the two have a tryst. While in a drive-through at a fast food restaurant, Marina confesses the event to Neil and asks his forgiveness. In anger, Neil pulls over and leaves Marina stranded by the road. Shortly after, Neil returns to pick her up.
Neil later seeks counselling from Father Quintana. Marina appears to have borne a child since her encounter with Charlie but there is ambiguity about the identity of its father. Neil accompanies the priest as he ministers to the poor, learning forgiveness and humility. Eventually offering Marina forgiveness, Neil kneels before her and kisses her hands. Neil and Marina appear to divorce, and they are last seen together as he leaves her at an airport. Marina tells him, "I want to keep your name".
The film's closing moments depict Father Quintana in his work tending the aged, the poor and the imprisoned with voice-over from the priest reciting a variation of the prayer of St. Patrick ("Christ with me. Christ before me. Christ behind me..."). A few years later, Neil is seen with what looks like his family. Marina is shown walking in a rain-drenched, pastoral setting. In a state of ecstatic discovery, she turns to see a brilliant, golden light pass over her face. "The Wonder" – Mont Saint-Michel – remains rooted to the earth with its spire piercing heaven.
Cast[edit]
Ben Affleck as Neil
Olga Kurylenko as Marina
Rachel McAdams as Jane
Javier Bardem as Father Quintana
Tatiana Chiline as Tatiana
Charles Baker as Charles
Romina Mondello as Anna
When announced in February 2010, the film was set to co-star Christian Bale.[6] Bale ultimately dropped out of the production and was replaced by Ben Affleck; Rachel McAdams also joined the cast.[7]
As with its predecessor, The Tree of Life, and its successor, Knight of Cups, the film's conception and plot stem from autobiographical elements: Terrence Malick met his second wife Michèle Morette in Paris in the early 1980s, and the couple lived in Oklahoma for a period prior to their separation.[8]
Filming[edit]
When the film entered production it did not have a title, and was referred to by the crew as Project D.[9] Filming took place primarily in Bartlesville and Pawhuska, Oklahoma, the latter the center of the Osage Nation, and began in September 2010.[10][11] Additional shooting took place in early 2011 in Bartlesville and Paris, France.[12][13]
Malick and his crew adopted an experimental approach. Actors described working without a screenplay or the use of lights.[12][14] Olga Kurylenko described the shooting process as more like a dance performance than traditional acting, stating: "What he always said was, 'Keep moving, keep moving. Don't stop.' If I ever stopped, he'd poke me to keep going."[15] Likewise, cinematographer on the film, Emmanuel Lubezki, was given instructions to be "in the eye of the hurricane" — in the middle of a scene, constantly interacting with the characters.[15] Lubezki called the film "abstract", and described it as being less tied to theatrical conventions and more purely cinematic than any prior film directed by Malick.[9]
Post-production[edit]
Malick handed out works of literature to his editing team for inspiration, such as Flaubert's Madame Bovary and Walker Percy's The Moviegoer;[15] also referenced to his editors was a phrase found in Margaret A. Doody's introduction to Samuel Richardson's 1740 novel Pamela. The phrase "radiant zigzag becoming", became an unofficial motto for the film's editing team during post-production.[15] Also referenced during the editing of the film were the French New Wave films Jules and Jim by Truffaut (the score of which was used as part of a temp soundtrack) and Godard's Breathless, Pierrot le Fou, and Vivre Sa Vie,[15] they were chosen for their elliptical narrative and editing styles which Malick hoped his editing team would embrace.[15]
Typical of a Malick project, a lot of actors who worked on the film were eventually cut during post-production. Jessica Chastain, Rachel Weisz, Amanda Peet, Barry Pepper and Michael Sheen were originally part of the film, but no footage of their performances was kept for the final cut.[16]
Music composed by Hanan Townshend. Other selections include:
Berlioz: Harold in Italy, Op. 16, II
Wagner: Parsifal, Prelude to Act I
Shostakovich, Piano Concerto#2
P. Tchaikovsky, The Seasons
Rachmaninov, The Isle of the Dead, Op. 29
Arvo Pärt, Fratres for eight cellos
J.S. Bach, Cantata BWV 142, Alleluia
Symphony No. 3 (Górecki), Lento—Cantabile-semplice.
E. Rautavaara, Cantus arcticus
After a world premiere on September 2, 2012, as an official selection of the 69th Venice Film Festival, the film screened at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival.[17][18] Shortly after, Magnolia Pictures acquired distribution rights to the film;[19] the film was released in a limited release and through video on demand on April 12, 2013.[20]
The film opened with $130,000 in select screens and was in the top ten iTunes rentals the week of its opening, it ended up with an approximate worldwide gross of $2,783,139.[21]
Critical response[edit]
The film received mixed reviews from critics.[22] On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 46% approval rating based on 162 reviews, with an average rating of 5.7 out of 10. The site's consensus reads, "To the Wonder demonstrates Terrence Malick's gift for beautiful images, but its narrative is overly somber and emotionally unsatisfying."[5] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 58 out of 100 based on 41 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[22]
To the Wonder was the final film reviewed by Roger Ebert prior to his death on April 4, 2013, his review was published two days later. He awarded it three and a half out of four stars, stating:
" A more conventional film would have assigned a plot to these characters and made their motivations more clear. Malick, who is surely one of the most romantic and spiritual of filmmakers, appears almost naked here before his audience, a man not able to conceal the depth of his vision.[23] "
Several reviewers welcomed the religious themes of the film.[24][25][26] Dawn LaValle, writing for First Things, summarizes: "To the Wonder startles us into realizing that the world is shot through, positively charged, with [divine] presence. Whether that presence is fructifying love or slinking destruction stands as an accusing question throughout the film."[27] Likewise, the Jury which awarded To the Wonder the SIGNIS Award at the Venice Film Festival, said of the film: "The film's rich composition, textured direction, and its use of light bring together elements of divinity and humanity ultimately creating a sacramental experience which reveals God's gift of unconditional love."[4]
Top ten lists[edit]
The film appeared on a few critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2013.[28]
1st – Richard Brody, The New Yorker[28]
1st – Reverse Shot[28]
1st – Nick Pinkerton, Sundance Now[28]
8th – Keith Uhlich, Time Out New York[28][29]
Accolades[edit]
List of accolades
Award / Film festival
69th Venice Film Festival Golden Lion Terrence Malick Nominated
SIGNIS Award Terrence Malick Won
^ "To The Wonder (2013)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2013-08-17.
^ "To The Wonder (2013) - International Box Office Results - Box Office Mojo". boxofficemojo.com. Retrieved 6 March 2015.
^ "2012 Official Selection". La Biennale di Venezia. Archived from the original on 2012-07-29. Retrieved 2012-07-26.
^ a b "SIGNIS". www.signis.net. Retrieved 2016-02-16.
^ a b "To The Wonder". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
^ "Terrence Malick to shoot romantic drama". Film Nation Entertainment. 2010-02-03. Archived from the original on 2013-12-16. Retrieved 2012-05-14.
^ Sneider, Jeff (2010-08-12). "Exclusive: Ben Affleck, Rachel Weisz Join Terrence Malick's Next Movie". The Wrap. Retrieved 2012-05-14.
^ "The Ghost Dance". The Whale-Ship Globe. Retrieved 2013-08-31.
^ a b Macnab, Geoffrey; Lubezki, Emmanuel (July 2011). "The Light Fantastic". Sight & Sound. BFI. 21 (7): 22–23.
^ "Malick Movie Confirmed for Oklahoma, Shooting Begins". Rockville Music Magazine. 2010-09-17. Retrieved 2012-07-26.
^ Polacca, Benny (2010-10-19). "Untitled film starring Ben Affleck shot in downtown Pawhuska". Osage News. Archived from the original on 2013-01-13. Retrieved 2012-07-26.
^ a b Smith, Michael (2011-03-25). "Tulsa stockbroker lucks into acting role with Ben Affleck". Tulsa World. Retrieved 2012-07-26.
^ Chitwood, Adam (2011-05-28). "New Details on Terrence Malick's Romantic Drama Starring Ben Affleck". Collider. Retrieved 2012-07-26.
^ Weintraub, Steve (2011-01-05). "Barry Pepper Exclusive Interview". Collider. Retrieved 2012-07-26.
^ a b c d e f "Radiant Zigzag Becoming: How Terrence Malick and His Team Constructed To the Wonder". Vulture. Retrieved 2016-02-12.
^ "Barry Pepper, Michael Sheen & Amanda Peet Also Cut From Terrence Malick's 'To The Wonder'". The Playlist. 2012-08-29. Retrieved 2012-08-30.
^ "2 September". La Biennale di Venezia. Archived from the original on 15 August 2012. Retrieved 9 August 2012.
^ "To the Wonder". TIFF. Archived from the original on 27 July 2012. Retrieved 26 July 2012.
^ Fleming Jr, Mike (28 September 2012). "Toronto: Magnolia Pictures Acquires Terrence Malick's 'To The Wonder'". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved 23 March 2016.
^ Schaefer, Sandy (8 March 2013). "'To the Wonder' Trailer: A Love Story by Terrence Malick". ScreenRant.com. Retrieved 23 March 2016.
^ "To The Wonder (2013)". Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Retrieved 13 November 2014.
^ a b "To the Wonder". Metacritic. Retrieved 14 March 2017.
^ Ebert, Roger (6 April 2013). "To the Wonder". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 17 August 2013.
^ O'Hehir, Andrew. "Pick of the week: Terrence Malick's rapturous, religious love story". Salon.com. Salon. Retrieved 17 August 2014.
^ Michaelson, Jay. "To the Wonder: Terrence Malick's Mystical Lens: Once again, Malick proves he is the filmmaker who depicts religion better than anyone else".
^ Linker, Damon. "Terrence Malick's moving Christian message — and film critics' failure to engage with it". theweek.com. The Week. Retrieved 17 August 2014.
^ "To the Wonder: Terrence Malick and the Fecundity of Commitment". First Things. Retrieved 6 March 2015.
^ a b c d e "Metacritic: 2013 Film Critic Top Ten Lists". Metacritic. Retrieved May 20, 2017.
^ "Best of 2013: Best films of 2013". Time Out New York. Retrieved May 20, 2017.
Official Magnolia Pictures site
To the Wonder on IMDb
To the Wonder at Box Office Mojo
To the Wonder at Metacritic
To the Wonder at Rotten Tomatoes
Films directed by Terrence Malick
Badlands (1973)
Days of Heaven (1978)
The Thin Red Line (1998)
The New World (2005)
The Tree of Life (2011)
To the Wonder (2012)
Knight of Cups (2015)
Voyage of Time (2016)
Song to Song (2017)
A Hidden Life (2019)
Lanton Mills (1969)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=To_the_Wonder&oldid=902022610"
2010s romantic drama films
American films
American romantic drama films
Films set in France
Films set in Paris
Films set in Oklahoma
Films shot in France
Films shot in Paris
Films shot in Oklahoma
French-language films
SIGNIS is a Roman Catholic lay ecclesial movement for professionals in the communication media, including press, television, video, media education and new technology. It is a non-profit organization with representation from over 100 countries, it was formed in November 2001 by the merger of International Catholic Organization for Cinema and Audiovisual and International Catholic Association for Radio and Television. At its World Congress in Quebec in 2017, SIGNIS welcomed former member organisations of the International Catholic Union of the Press; the word SIGNIS is a combination of the words SIGN and IGNIS. It is not an acronym; the Holy See has recognized SIGNIS as an International Association of the Faithful, has included the "World Catholic Association for Communication known as SIGNIS" in its Directory of International Associations of the Faithful, published by the Pontifical Council for the Laity. Before the dissolution of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, the governing body of SIGNIS included a representative of this pontifical council, another department of the Roman Curia.
OCIC, Unda and SIGNIS had members and consultors in the Pontifical Council of Social Communications. In June 2015 Pope Francis established a new dicastery of the Roman Curia with authority over all communications offices of the Holy See and the Vatican City State, including the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, Holy See Press Office, Vatican Internet Service, Vatican Radio, Vatican Television Center, Osservatore Romano, Vatican Press, Photograph Service, Vatican Publishing House. A representative of this new Secretariat for Communications is part of the governing body of SIGNIS. SIGNIS has consultative status with UNESCO, the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, in Geneva and New York City and the Council of Europe. SIGNIS is a worldwide network working in media, with the aim of alerting Christians to the importance of human communication in every culture, encouraging them to speak out in this sector. SIGNIS, which represents Catholic media in all the governmental and nongovernmental organizations and institutions, is committed to lobbying for policies to encourage communications that respect Christian values and human rights.
The Mission of SIGNIS is: "To engage with media professionals and support Catholic Communicators to help transform our cultures in the light of the Gospel by promoting Human Dignity and Reconciliation." The Catholic Church has a long history of engagement with the media of communications, from the liturgy itself, in manuscripts and print publishing, in painting and music. But with the emergence and spread of new popular media in the latter half of the 19th century, the Church faced new challenges. In the 19th century Catholics considered the press, in the 20th century cinema, radio, to be powerful modern popular media that could influence worldviews and moral values. Many Catholics, including Pope Gregory XVI and Pope Pius IX, did not trust modernity, the popular media were no exception. Gregory XVI published in 1832 his encyclical Mirari Vos: on Liberalism and Religious Indiffertism that Experience shows from earliest times, that cities renowned for wealth and glory perished as a result of this single evil, namely immoderate freedom of opinion, license of free speech, desire for novelty.
Here We must include that harmful and never sufficiently denounced freedom to publish any writings whatever and disseminate them to the people, which some dare to demand and promote with so great a clamor. We are horrified to see what monstrous doctrines and prodigious errors are disseminated far and wide in countless books and other writings which, though small in weight, are great in malice. In fact, they blamed them for the declining influence of religion in society. Modernity did not introduce technological and scientific innovations. Pope Pius IX in 1864 condemned modernity, liberalism and "pestilential books and newspapers"; however Pope Leo XIII wanted to build a bridge between the Church and the modern world and started to promote Thomism, the theology based on that of Thomas Aquinas in an attempt to see if it might help to solve modern problems. In 1888, Leo XIII wrote that unconditional freedom of publication could be tolerated. On, in the 1920s, Pope Pius XI encouraged the growth of Catholic Action: professional Catholics working and acting in the secular world including that of the modern media.
As a fruit of the contemporary Catholic Action, UCIP was founded in Belgium in 1927. A year the Office Catholique Internationale du Cinéma came into being in The Netherlands, the Bureau Catholic International de Radiodiffusion in Germany. In 1946 BCIR became the international professional Catholic association for radio and television, Unda. OCIC, Unda and UCIP had similar objectives: to bring together Catholics working as professionals in the media; the interest of Catholics in the press and in the new media was understandable. They saw the opportunities offered by the mass media to present their views and opinions on life and the world and so they became involved in promoting education and values; these professional Catholic lay
Paris is the capital and most populous city of France, with an area of 105 square kilometres and an official estimated population of 2,140,526 residents as of 1 January 2019. Since the 17th century, Paris has been one of Europe's major centres of finance, commerce, fashion and the arts; the City of Paris is the centre and seat of government of the Île-de-France, or Paris Region, which has an estimated official 2019 population of 12,213,364, or about 18 percent of the population of France. The Paris Region had a GDP of €681 billion in 2016, accounting for 31 percent of the GDP of France, was the 5th largest region by GDP in the world. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit Worldwide Cost of Living Survey in 2018, Paris was the second most expensive city in the world, after Singapore, ahead of Zurich, Hong Kong and Geneva. Another source ranked Paris as most expensive, on a par with Singapore and Hong-Kong, in 2018; the city is a major rail and air-transport hub served by two international airports: Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly.
Opened in 1900, the city's subway system, the Paris Métro, serves 5.23 million passengers daily, is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro. Gare du Nord is the 24th busiest railway station in the world, the first located outside Japan, with 262 million passengers in 2015. Paris is known for its museums and architectural landmarks: the Louvre was the most visited art museum in the world in 2018, with 10.2 million visitors. The Musée d'Orsay and Musée de l'Orangerie are noted for their collections of French Impressionist art, the Pompidou Centre Musée National d'Art Moderne has the largest collection of modern and contemporary art in Europe; the historical district along the Seine in the city centre is classified as a UNESCO Heritage Site. Popular landmarks in the centre of the city include the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris and the Gothic royal chapel of Sainte-Chapelle, both on the Île de la Cité. Paris received 23 million visitors in 2017, measured by hotel stays, with the largest numbers of foreign visitors coming from the United States, the UK, Germany and China.
It was ranked as the third most visited travel destination in the world in 2017, after Bangkok and London. The football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris; the 80,000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros. Paris will host the 2024 Summer Olympics; the 1938 and 1998 FIFA World Cups, the 2007 Rugby World Cup, the 1960, 1984, 2016 UEFA European Championships were held in the city and, every July, the Tour de France bicycle race finishes there. The name "Paris" is derived from the Celtic Parisii tribe; the city's name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology. Paris is referred to as the City of Light, both because of its leading role during the Age of Enlightenment and more because Paris was one of the first large European cities to use gas street lighting on a grand scale on its boulevards and monuments.
Gas lights were installed on the Place du Carousel, Rue de Rivoli and Place Vendome in 1829. By 1857, the Grand boulevards were lit. By the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps. Since the late 19th century, Paris has been known as Panam in French slang. Inhabitants are known in French as Parisiens, they are pejoratively called Parigots. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the area's major north–south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité; the Parisii minted their own coins for that purpose. The Romans began their settlement on Paris' Left Bank; the Roman town was called Lutetia. It became a prosperous city with a forum, temples, an amphitheatre. By the end of the Western Roman Empire, the town was known as Parisius, a Latin name that would become Paris in French. Christianity was introduced in the middle of the 3rd century AD by Saint Denis, the first Bishop of Paris: according to legend, when he refused to renounce his faith before the Roman occupiers, he was beheaded on the hill which became known as Mons Martyrum "Montmartre", from where he walked headless to the north of the city.
Clovis the Frank, the first king of the Merovingian dynasty, made the city his capital from 508. As the Frankish domination of Gaul began, there was a gradual immigration by the Franks to Paris and the Parisian Francien dialects were born. Fortification of the Île-de-la-Citie failed to avert sacking by Vikings in 845, but Paris' strategic importance—with its bridges prevent
Le Mont-Saint-Michel is an island and mainland commune in Normandy, France. The island is located about one kilometer off the country's northwestern coast, at the mouth of the Couesnon River near Avranches and is 7 hectares in area; the mainland part of the commune is 393 hectares in area so that the total surface of the commune is 400 hectares. As of 2015, the island has a population of 50; the island has held strategic fortifications since ancient times and since the 8th century AD has been the seat of the monastery from which it draws its name. The structural composition of the town exemplifies the feudal society that constructed it: on top, the abbey and monastery; the commune's position—on an island just a few hundred metres from land—made it accessible at low tide to the many pilgrims to its abbey, but defensible as an incoming tide stranded, drove off, or drowned would-be assailants. The Mont remained unconquered during the Hundred Years' War; the reverse benefits of its natural defence were not lost on Louis XI, who turned the Mont into a prison.
Thereafter the abbey began to be used as a jail during the Ancien Régime. One of France's most recognisable landmarks, visited by more than 3 million people each year, the Mont Saint-Michel and its bay are on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites. Over 60 buildings within the commune are protected in France as monuments historiques. Now a rocky tidal island, the Mont occupied dry land in prehistoric times; as sea levels rose, erosion reshaped the coastal landscape, several outcrops of granite emerged in the bay, having resisted the wear and tear of the ocean better than the surrounding rocks. These included Lillemer, the Mont Dol and Mont Tombe called Mont Saint-Michel. Mont Saint-Michel consists of leucogranite which solidified from an underground intrusion of molten magma about 525 million years ago, during the Cambrian period, as one of the younger parts of the Mancellian granitic batholith; the Mont has a circumference of about 960 m and its highest point is 92 m above sea level. The tides can vary at 14 metres between highest and lowest water marks.
Popularly nicknamed "St. Michael in peril of the sea" by medieval pilgrims making their way across the flats, the mount can still pose dangers for visitors who avoid the causeway and attempt the hazardous walk across the sands from the neighbouring coast. Polderisation and occasional flooding have created salt marsh meadows that were found to be ideally suited to grazing sheep; the well-flavoured meat that results from the diet of the sheep in the pré salé makes agneau de pré-salé, a local specialty that may be found on the menus of restaurants that depend on income from the many visitors to the mount. The connection between the Mont Saint-Michel and the mainland has changed over the centuries. Connected by a tidal causeway uncovered only at low tide, this was converted into a raised causeway in 1879, preventing the tide from scouring the silt around the mount; the coastal flats have been polderised to create pastureland, decreasing the distance between the shore and the island, the Couesnon River has been canalised, reducing the dispersion of the flow of water.
These factors all encouraged silting-up of the bay. On 16 June 2006, the French prime minister and regional authorities announced a €200 million project to build a hydraulic dam using the waters of the Couesnon and the tides to help remove the accumulated silt, to make Mont Saint-Michel an island again; the construction of the dam began in 2009. The project includes the removal of the causeway and its visitor car park. Since 28 April 2012, the new car park on the mainland has been located 2.5 kilometres from the island. Visitors can use shuttles to cross the causeway. On 22 July 2014, the new bridge by architect Dietmar Feichtinger was opened to the public; the light bridge allows the waters to flow around the island and improves the efficiency of the now operational dam. The project, which cost €209 million, was opened by President François Hollande. On rare occasions, tidal circumstances produce an high "supertide"; the new bridge was submerged on 21 March 2015 by the highest sea level for at least 18 years, as crowds gathered to snap photos.
The original site was founded by an Irish hermit. Mont Saint-Michel was used in the sixth and seventh centuries as an Armorican stronghold of Gallo-Roman culture and power until it was ransacked by the Franks, thus ending the trans-channel culture that had stood since the departure of the Romans in 460. From the fifth to the eighth century, Mont Saint-Michel belonged to the territory of Neustria and, in the early ninth century, was an important place in the marches of Neustria. Before the construction of the first monastic establishment in the 8th century, the island was called Mont Tombe. According to a legend, the archangel Michael appeared in 708 to Aubert of Avranches, the bishop of Avranches, instructed him to build a church on the rocky islet. Unable to defend his kingdom against the assaults of the Vikings, the king of the Franks agreed to grant the Cotentin
Benjamin Géza Affleck-Boldt is an American actor, director and screenwriter. His accolades include two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, two BAFTA Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, he began his career as a child and starred in the PBS educational series The Voyage of the Mimi in 1984, before a second run in 1988. He appeared in the independent coming-of-age comedy Dazed and Confused and various Kevin Smith films, including Chasing Amy and Dogma. Affleck gained wider recognition when he and childhood friend Matt Damon won the Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for writing Good Will Hunting, which they starred in, he established himself as a leading man in studio films, including the disaster drama Armageddon, the romantic comedy Forces of Nature, the war drama Pearl Harbor, the spy thriller The Sum of All Fears. After a career downturn, during which he appeared in Daredevil and Gigli, Affleck received a Golden Globe nomination for his performance in the noir biopic Hollywoodland.
His directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone, which he co-wrote, was well received. He directed, co-wrote, starred in the crime drama The Town. For the political thriller Argo, which he directed, co-produced, starred in, Affleck won the Golden Globe and BAFTA Award for Best Director, the Golden Globe, BAFTA, Academy Award for Best Picture, he starred in the psychological thriller Gone Girl in 2014. In 2016, Affleck began playing Batman in the DC Extended Universe, starred in the action thriller The Accountant, directed and acted in the gangster drama Live by Night. Affleck is the co-founder of the Eastern Congo Initiative, a grantmaking and advocacy-based nonprofit organization, he is a stalwart member of the Democratic Party. Affleck and Damon are co-owners of the production company Pearl Street Films, his younger brother is actor Casey Affleck, with whom he has worked on several films, including Good Will Hunting and Gone Baby Gone. Benjamin Géza Affleck-Boldt was born on August 1972, in Berkeley, California.
His family moved to Massachusetts when he was three, living in Falmouth, where his brother Casey was born, before settling in Cambridge. His mother, Christopher Anne "Chris", was a Harvard-educated elementary school teacher, his father, Timothy Byers "Tim" Affleck, was an aspiring playwright who made a living as a carpenter, auto mechanic, electrician and janitor at Harvard. In the mid-1960s, he had been an stage manager with the Theater Company of Boston. During Affleck's childhood, his father had a self-described "severe, chronic problem with alcoholism", Affleck has recalled him drinking "all day... every day". He and his younger brother attended Al-Anon support meetings from a young age, his parents divorced when he was 12, he and Casey lived with their mother. His father continued to drink, spent two years homeless; when Affleck was 16, his father moved to Indio, California, to enter a rehabilitation facility and, after gaining sobriety, he lived at the facility for many years while working as an addiction counselor.
Affleck was raised in a politically active, liberal household. He and his brother were surrounded by people who worked in the arts attended theater performances with their mother, were encouraged to make their own home movies; the brothers auditioned for roles in local commercials and film productions because of their mother's friendship with a Cambridge-area casting director, Affleck first acted professionally at the age of seven. His mother saved his wages in a college trust fund, hoped her son would become a teacher, worrying that acting was an insecure and "frivolous" profession. David Wheeler, a family friend, was Affleck's acting coach and described him as a "very bright and intensely curious" child; when Affleck was 13, he filmed a children's television program in Mexico and learned to speak Spanish during a year spent traveling around the country with his mother and brother. As a Cambridge Rindge and Latin high school student, Affleck acted in theater productions and was inspired by drama teacher Gerry Speca.
During this time he became close friends with Matt Damon. Although Damon was two years older, the two had "identical interests", traveled to New York together for acting auditions, they saved their acting earnings in a joint bank account to buy airline tickets. While Affleck had high SAT scores, he was an unfocused student with poor attendance, he spent a few months studying Spanish at the University of Vermont, chosen because of its proximity to his then-girlfriend, but left after fracturing his hip while playing basketball. At 18, Affleck moved to Los Angeles, studying Middle Eastern affairs at Occidental College for a year and a half. Affleck acted professionally throughout his childhood but, in his own words, "not in the sense that I had a mom that wanted to take me to Hollywood or a family that wanted to make money from me... I kind of chanced into something." He first appeared, at the age of seven, in a local independent film called Dark Side of the Street, directed by a family friend. His biggest success as a child actor was as the star of the PBS children's series The Voyage of the Mimi and The Second Voyage of the Mimi, produced for sixth-grade science classes.
Affleck worked "sporadically" on Mimi from the age of eight to fifteen in both Massachusetts and Mexico. As a teenager, he appeared in the ABC after school special Wanted: A Perfect Man, the television film Hands of a Stranger, a 1989 Burger King commercial. After high school, Affleck moved briefly
Pierrot le Fou
Pierrot le Fou is a 1965 French New Wave film directed by Jean-Luc Godard, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina. The film is based on the 1962 novel Obsession by Lionel White, it was Jean-Luc Godard's tenth feature film, released between Alphaville and Masculin, féminin. The film was the 15th highest-grossing film of the year with a total of 1,310,580 admissions in France; the film was selected as the French entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 38th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee. Ferdinand Griffon is unhappily married and has been fired from his job at a TV broadcasting company. After attending a mindless party full of shallow discussions in Paris, he feels a need to escape and decides to run away with ex-girlfriend Marianne Renoir, leaving his wife and children and bourgeois lifestyle. Following Marianne into her apartment and finding a corpse, Ferdinand soon discovers that Marianne is being chased by OAS gangsters, two of whom they escape. Marianne and "Pierrot" – the unwelcome nickname meaning "sad clown", which Marianne gives to Ferdinand during their time together – go on a travelling crime spree from Paris to the Mediterranean Sea in the dead man's car.
They lead an unorthodox life, always on the run. When they settle down in the French Riviera after burning the dead man's car and sinking a second car into the Mediterranean Sea, their relationship becomes strained. Pierrot ends up reading books and writing in his diary. Marianne becomes bored by their living situation and insists they return to town, where they meet one of their pursuers in a nightclub; the gangsters waterboard Pierrot and depart. In the confusion and Pierrot are separated, he settles in Toulon while she searches for him. After their eventual reunion, Marianne uses Pierrot to get a suitcase full of money before running away with her real boyfriend Fred, to whom she had referred as her brother. Pierrot shoots Marianne and Fred paints his face blue and decides to blow himself up by tying sticks of red and yellow dynamite to his head, he regrets this at the last second and tries to extinguish the fuse, but he fails and is blown up. Like many of Godard's films, Pierrot le fou features characters who break the fourth wall by looking into the camera.
It includes startling editing choices. The film has many of the characteristics of the dominant pop art movement, making constant disjunctive references to various elements of mass culture. Like much pop art the film uses visuals drawn from cartoons and employs an intentionally garish visual aesthetic based on bright primary colors. Sylvie Vartan was Godard's first choice for the role of Marianne but her agent refused. Godard considered Richard Burton to play the role of Ferdinand but gave up the idea; as with many of Godard's movies, no screenplay was written until the day before shooting, many scenes were improvised by the actors in the final acts of the movie. The shooting took place over two months, starting in the French riviera and finishing in Paris. Toulon served as backdrop for the film's denouement, photography for which included footage of the storied French battleship Jean Bart. Jean-Pierre Léaud was an uncredited assistant director on the movie; the American film director in the party scene is Sam Fuller as himself.
The Criterion Collection has released Pierrot le fou on Blu-ray Disc in September 2008. It was one of its first titles released on Blu-ray Disc. However, the Blu-ray Disc was discontinued after Criterion lost the rights to StudioCanal; the 1962 Ford Galaxie, driven into the water and sunk was Godard's own. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes the film received an 85% "Certified fresh" approval rating, based on 39 reviews collected with an average rating of 7.8/10. The website's critical consensus: "Colorful and overall beguiling, Pierrot Le Fou is arguably Jean-Luc Godard's quintessential work." The twentieth episode of the anime series Cowboy Bebop shares its title with Pierrot le Fou. The episode focuses on an assassin known as Mad Pierrot Tongpu, who targets show protagonist Spike Spiegel. List of submissions to the 38th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film List of French submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film Pierrot le Fou on IMDb Pierrot le Fou at Le Film Guide Pierrot le Fou at AllMovie Pierrot le Fou at Rotten Tomatoes Pierrot le fou: Self-Portrait in a Shattered Lens an essay by Richard Brody at the Criterion Collection
Oklahoma is a state in the South Central region of the United States, bordered by Kansas on the north, Missouri on the northeast, Arkansas on the east, Texas on the south, New Mexico on the west, Colorado on the northwest. It is the 28th-most populous of the fifty United States; the state's name is derived from the Choctaw words okla and humma, meaning "red people". It is known informally by its nickname, "The Sooner State", in reference to the non-Native settlers who staked their claims on land before the official opening date of lands in the western Oklahoma Territory or before the Indian Appropriations Act of 1889, which increased European-American settlement in the eastern Indian Territory. Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory were merged into the State of Oklahoma when it became the 46th state to enter the union on November 16, 1907, its residents are known as Oklahomans, its capital and largest city is Oklahoma City. A major producer of natural gas and agricultural products, Oklahoma relies on an economic base of aviation, telecommunications, biotechnology.
Both Oklahoma City and Tulsa serve as Oklahoma's primary economic anchors, with nearly two thirds of Oklahomans living within their metropolitan statistical areas. With ancient mountain ranges, prairie and eastern forests, most of Oklahoma lies in the Great Plains, Cross Timbers, the U. S. Interior Highlands, a region prone to severe weather. More than 25 Native American languages are spoken in Oklahoma, ranking third behind Alaska and California. Oklahoma is on a confluence of three major American cultural regions and served as a route for cattle drives, a destination for Southern settlers, a government-sanctioned territory for Native Americans; the name Oklahoma comes from the Choctaw phrase okla humma meaning red people. Choctaw Nation Chief Allen Wright suggested the name in 1866 during treaty negotiations with the federal government on the use of Indian Territory, in which he envisioned an all-Indian state controlled by the United States Superintendent of Indian Affairs. Equivalent to the English word Indian, okla humma was a phrase in the Choctaw language that described Native American people as a whole.
Oklahoma became the de facto name for Oklahoma Territory, it was approved in 1890, two years after the area was opened to white settlers. The name of the state is Pawnee: Uukuhuúwa, Cayuga: Gahnawiyoˀgeh. In the Chickasaw language, the state is known as Oklahomma', in Arapaho as bo'oobe'. Oklahoma is the 20th-largest state in the United States, covering an area of 69,899 square miles, with 68,595 square miles of land and 1,304 square miles of water, it lies in the Great Plains near the geographical center of the 48 contiguous states. It is bounded on the east by Arkansas and Missouri, on the north by Kansas, on the northwest by Colorado, on the far west by New Mexico, on the south and near-west by Texas. Much of its border with Texas lies along a failed continental rift; the geologic figure defines the placement of the Red River. The Oklahoma panhandle's Western edge is out of alignment with its Texas border; the Oklahoma/New Mexico border is 2.1 miles to 2.2 miles east of the Texas line. The border between Texas and New Mexico was set first as a result of a survey by Spain in 1819.
It was set along the 103rd meridian. In the 1890s, when Oklahoma was formally surveyed using more accurate surveying equipment and techniques, it was discovered the Texas line was not set along the 103rd meridian. Surveying techniques were not as accurate in 1819, the actual 103rd meridian was 2.2 miles to the east. It was much easier to leave the mistake than for Texas to cede land to New Mexico to correct the surveying error; the placement of the Oklahoma/New Mexico border represents the true 103rd meridian. Cimarron County in Oklahoma's panhandle is the only county in the United States that touches four other states: New Mexico, Texas and Kansas. Oklahoma is between the Great Plains and the Ozark Plateau in the Gulf of Mexico watershed sloping from the high plains of its western boundary to the low wetlands of its southeastern boundary, its highest and lowest points follow this trend, with its highest peak, Black Mesa, at 4,973 feet above sea level, situated near its far northwest corner in the Oklahoma Panhandle.
The state's lowest point is on the Little River near its far southeastern boundary near the town of Idabel, which dips to 289 feet above sea level. Among the most geographically diverse states, Oklahoma is one of four to harbor more than 10 distinct ecological regions, with 11 in its borders—more per square mile than in any other state, its western and eastern halves, are marked by extreme differences in geographical diversity: Eastern Oklahoma touches eight ecological regions and its western half contains three. Although having fewer ecological regions Western Oklahoma contains many relic species. Oklahoma has four primary mountain ranges: the Ouachita Mountains, the Arbuckle Mountains, the Wichita Mountains, the Ozark Mountains. Contained within the U. S. Interior Highlands region, the Ozark and Ouachita Mountains are the only major mountainous region between the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians. A portion of the Flint Hills stretches into north-central Oklahoma, near the state's eastern border, The Oklahoma Tourism & Recreation Department regards Cavanal Hill as the world's tallest hill.
The semi-arid high
Jessica Michelle Chastain is an American actress and producer. She is known for her portrayals of strong-willed women in films with feminist themes. Chastain's accolades include a Golden Globe Award and two Academy Award nominations. Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2012. Born and raised in Sacramento, Chastain developed an interest in acting from a young age. In 1998, she made her professional stage debut as Shakespeare's Juliet. After studying acting at the Juilliard School, she was signed to a talent holding deal with the television producer John Wells, she was a recurring guest star in several television shows, including Order: Trial by Jury. She took on roles in the stage productions of Anton Chekhov's play The Cherry Orchard in 2004 and Oscar Wilde's tragedy Salome in 2006. Chastain made her film debut in the drama Jolene, gained wide recognition in 2011 for starring roles in half a dozen films, including the dramas Take Shelter and The Tree of Life.
Her performance as an aspiring socialite in The Help earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 2012, she won a Golden Globe Award and received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress for playing a CIA analyst in the thriller Zero Dark Thirty. Chastain made her Broadway debut in a revival of The Heiress in the same year, her highest-grossing releases came with the science fiction films Interstellar and The Martian, she continued to receive critical acclaim for her performances in the dramas A Most Violent Year, Miss Sloane, Molly's Game. Chastain is the founder of the production company Freckle Films, created to promote diversity in film, she is vocal about mental health issues, as well as gender and racial equality. She is married to fashion executive Gian Luca Passi de Preposulo, with. Jessica Michelle Chastain was born on March 24, 1977, in Sacramento, California, to Jerri Renee Hastey and rock musician Michael Monasterio, her parents were both teenagers.
Chastain is reluctant to publicly discuss her family background. She has two brothers, her sister Juliet died by suicide in 2003 following years of drug abuse. Chastain was raised in Sacramento by Michael Hastey, a fire-fighter, she has said. She shares a close bond with her maternal grandmother, whom she credits as someone who "always believed in me". Chastain first developed an interest in acting at the age of seven, after her grandmother took her to a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, she would put on amateur shows with other children, considered herself to be their artistic director. As a student at the El Camino Fundamental High School in Sacramento, Chastain struggled academically, she was a loner and considered herself a misfit in school finding an outlet in the performing arts. She has described how she used to miss school to read Shakespeare, whose plays she became enamored with after attending the Oregon Shakespeare Festival with her classmates. With too many absences during her senior year in school, Chastain did not qualify for graduation, but obtained an adult diploma.
She attended Sacramento City College from 1996 to 1997, during which she was a member of the institution's debate team. Speaking about her early childhood, Chastain has said: I with a single mother who worked hard to put food on our table. We did not have money. There were many nights, it was a difficult upbringing. Things weren't easy for me growing up. In 1998, Chastain finished her education at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and made her professional stage debut as Juliet in a production of Romeo and Juliet staged by TheatreWorks, a company in the San Francisco Bay Area; the production led her to audition for the Juilliard School in New York City, where she was soon accepted and granted a scholarship funded by the actor Robin Williams. In her first year at the school, Chastain suffered from anxiety and was worried about being dropped from the program, spending most of her time reading and watching movies, she remarked that her participation in a successful production of The Seagull during her second year helped build her confidence.
She graduated from the school with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 2003. Shortly before graduating from Juilliard, Chastain attended an event for final-year students in Los Angeles, where she was signed to a talent holding deal by the television producer John Wells, she relocated to Los Angeles, started auditioning for jobs. She found the process difficult, which she believed was due to other people finding her difficult to categorize as a redhead with an unconventional look. In her television debut, The WB network's 2004 pilot remake of the 1960s gothic soap opera Dark Shadows, she was cast as Carolyn Stoddard; the pilot was directed by P. J. Hogan; that year, she appeared as a guest performer on the medical drama series ER playing a woman she described as "psychotic", which led to her getting more unusual parts such as accident victims or the mentally ill. She went on to appear in such roles in a few other television series from 2004 to 2007, including Veronica Mars, Close to Home and Law & Order: Trial by Jury.
In 2004, Chastain took on the role of Anya, a virtuous young woman, in a Williamstown Theatre Festival production of Anton Chekhov's play The C
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