1.
Robert Altman
–
Robert Bernard Altman was an American film director, screenwriter, and film producer. He is consistently ranked as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers in American cinema and his style of filmmaking was unique among directors, in that his subjects covered most genres, but with a subversive twist that typically relies on satire and humor to express his personal vision. Altman developed a reputation for being anti-Hollywood and non-conformist in both his themes and directing style, however, actors especially enjoyed working under his direction because he encouraged them to improvise, thereby inspiring their own creativity. He preferred large ensemble casts for his films, and developed a recording technique which produced overlapping dialogue from multiple actors. This produced a natural, more dynamic, and more complex experience for the viewer. He also used highly mobile camera work and zoom lenses to enhance the activity taking place on the screen, critic Pauline Kael, writing about his directing style, said that Altman could make film fireworks out of next to nothing. In 2006, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized Altmans body of work with an Academy Honorary Award and he never won a competitive Oscar despite five nominations. His films MASH, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, and Nashville have been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. Altman is one of the few filmmakers whose films have won the Golden Bear at Berlin, the Golden Lion at Venice, and the Golden Palm at Cannes. Altmans ancestry was German, English and Irish, his grandfather, Frank Altman. Altman had a Catholic upbringing, but he did not continue to follow or practice the religion as an adult, although he has referred to as a sort of Catholic. He was educated at Jesuit schools, including Rockhurst High School and he graduated from Wentworth Military Academy in Lexington, Missouri in 1943. In 1943 Altman joined the United States Army Air Forces at the age of 18, during World War II, Altman flew more than 50 bombing missions as a crewman on a B-24 Liberator with the 307th Bomb Group in Borneo and the Dutch East Indies. Upon his discharge in 1946, Altman moved to California and he worked in publicity for a company that had invented a tattooing machine to identify dogs. He entered filmmaking on a whim, selling a script to RKO for the 1948 picture Bodyguard, Altmans immediate success encouraged him to move to New York City, where he attempted to forge a career as a writer. Having enjoyed little success, in 1949 he returned to Kansas City, in February 2012, an early Calvin film directed by Altman, Modern Football, was found by filmmaker Gary Huggins. Altman directed some 65 industrial films and documentaries before being hired by a businessman in 1956 to write. The film, titled The Delinquents, made for $60,000, was purchased by United Artists for $150,000, while primitive, this teen exploitation film contained the foundations of Altmans later work in its use of casual, naturalistic dialogue
Robert Altman
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Altman in 1983
Robert Altman
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Theatrical release poster for M*A*S*H (1970)
Robert Altman
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Altman at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival
2.
Bob Balaban
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Robert Elmer Bob Balaban is an American actor, author, producer, and director. He was one of the producers nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture for Gosford Park, Balaban was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Eleanor and Elmer Balaban, who owned several movie theatres and later was a pioneer in cable television. His mother acted under the name Eleanor Barry and his uncles were dominant forces in the theatre business, they founded the Balaban and Katz Theatre circuit in Chicago, a chain which included the Chicago and Uptown Theatres. Balabans father, Elmer, and uncle, Harry, founded the H & E Balaban Corporation in Chicago and they later owned a powerful group of television stations and cable television franchises. His uncle Barney Balaban was president of Paramount Pictures for nearly 30 years from 1936-64 and his maternal grandmothers second husband, Sam Katz, was a vice president at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer beginning in 1936. Sam had been partners with Bobs uncles Abe, Barney, John. Sam served as President of the Publix theatre division of Paramount Pictures, Balaban began his college career at Colgate University where he joined Phi Kappa Tau Fraternity and then transferred to New York University. He lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan with his family and his paternal grandparents emigrated from Russia to Chicago, while his mothers family was from Germany, Russia, and Romania. One of his earliest appearances in film was in Midnight Cowboy, prior to that, he filled the role of Linus in the original off-Broadway production of Youre A Good Man, Charlie Brown in 1967. In 1979 he received a Tony Award nomination for his role in The Inspector General, during the 1980s he appeared in films such as Altered States and 2010. He directed the Randy Quaid picture Parents, and the Armin Mueller-Stahl picture The Last Good Time, Balaban appeared in Miami Vice as reporter Ira Stone. In the 1990s, Balaban had a role on the fourth season of Seinfeld as Russell Dalrymple. He also played Warren Littlefield, a real-world NBC executive, in The Late Shift and he continued his ties to Littlefield in 2012 with his performance of Littlefields autobiography, Top of the Rock, Inside the Rise and Fall of Must See TV. In 1999, Balaban made a guest appearance in the sitcom Friends as Phoebe Buffays father Frank in The One With Joeys Bag. In 2010, Balaban appeared as Judge Clayton Horn, the judge who presided over the obscenity trial of Lawrence Ferlinghetti. In 2001, Balaban produced Gosford Park, for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture and he also appeared in the movie as Morris Weissman, a Hollywood producer. He appeared in an episode of Entourage as a known for writing prescriptions for medical marijuana. He directed the film Bernard and Doris, starring Susan Sarandon and he has directed several episodes of the Showtime series Nurse Jackie
Bob Balaban
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Balaban at the 2012
Tribeca Film Festival
3.
Julian Fellowes
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Julian Alexander Kitchener-Fellowes, Baron Fellowes of West Stafford DL, is an English actor, novelist, film director and screenwriter, and a Conservative peer of the House of Lords. Fellowes was born in Cairo, Egypt, the youngest son of Canadian-born Peregrine Edward Launcelot Fellowes and his father was a diplomat and Arabist who campaigned to have Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia, restored to his throne during World War II. Fellowes has three brothers, Nicholas Peregrine James, wordsmith David Andrew, and playwright Roderick Oliver. The house in Chiddingly, which had been owned by the whodunit writer Clifford Kitchin, was within reach of London where his father. Fellowes has described his father as one of that last generation of men who lived in a pat of butter without knowing it and my mother put him on a train on Monday mornings and drove up to London in the afternoon. At the flat shed be waiting in a snappy little cocktail dress with a delicious dinner, a decided influence to arise from this place was the friendship that developed with another family in the village, the Kingsleys. David Kingsley was head of British Lion Films, the responsible for many Peter Sellers comedies. Sometimes glamorous figures would visit the Kingsleys house, Fellowes said that he thinks he learnt from David Kingsley that you could actually make a living in the film business. Fellowes was educated at private schools in Britain including Wetherby School, St Philips School, and Ampleforth College. He read English Literature at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he was a member of Footlights and he studied further at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Fellowes moved to Los Angeles in 1981 and played a number of small TV roles for the two years. Played a part in one of the Tales of the Unexpected and he believed that his breakthrough had come when he was considered to replace Hervé Villechaize as the butler on the TV series Fantasy Island, but the role went to actor Christopher Hewett instead. He was unable to get an audition for the Disney film Baby, Secret of the Lost Legend in Los Angeles, but was offered the role when he was visiting England. When he asked the director why he was not able to get an interview in Los Angeles. After this, Fellowes decided to back to England to further his career. Other notable acting roles included the part of Claud Seabrook in the acclaimed 1996 BBC drama serial Our Friends in the North and the 2nd Duke of Richmond in the BBC drama serial Aristocrats. He portrayed George IV as the Prince Regent for the time in the 1996 adaptation of Bernard Cornwells novel Sharpes Regiment. He also played the part of Kilwillie on Monarch of the Glen and he appeared as the leader of The Hullabaloos in the television adaptation of Arthur Ransomes Coot Club, called Swallows and Amazons Forever
Julian Fellowes
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Lord Fellowes at an event for
Downton Abbey at Paramount Studios, May 2014
4.
Alan Bates
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In 1969, he starred in the Ken Russell film Women in Love with Oliver Reed and Glenda Jackson. He also continued to appear on the stage, notably in the plays of Simon Gray, such as Butley, the family briefly moved to Mickleover, then returned to Allestree. He also saw productions at Derbys Little Theatre, batess stage debut was in 1955, in You and Your Wife, in Coventry. In 1956 he made his West End debut as Cliff in Look Back in Anger, a role he had originated at the Royal Court and he also played the role on television and on Broadway. In the late 1950s Bates appeared in plays for television in Britain. In 1960 he appeared in The Entertainer opposite Laurence Olivier, his first film role, Bates worked for the Padded Wagon Moving Company in the early 1960s while acting at the Circle in the Square Theatre in New York City. In 1969 he starred in Women in Love, Bates was handpicked by director John Schlesinger to star in the film Sunday Bloody Sunday to play Dr. Daniel Hirsh. Bates was held up filming The Go-Between for director Joseph Losey, and had become a father around that time. Around this time he appeared as Col. Vershinin in the National Theatres film of Three Sisters, directed by and he later worked with Olivier for television in the Laurence Olivier Presents version of Harold Pinters The Collection and A Voyage Round My Father. Bates starred in international films as An Unmarried Woman and Nijinsky. On television, his parts included Michael Henchard, the lead in The Mayor of Casterbridge - which he described as his favourite role - in the serial adaptation by Dennis Potter. He continued working in film and television in the 1990s, including the role of Claudius in Mel Gibsons version of Hamlet, in 2001 Bates joined an all-star cast in Robert Altmans critically acclaimed period drama Gosford Park, in which he played the butler Jennings. He later played Antonius Agrippa in the 2004 TV film Spartacus, the film was dedicated to his memory and that of writer Howard Fast, who wrote the original novel that inspired the film Spartacus by Stanley Kubrick. In Otherwise Engaged, his co-star was Ian Charleson, who became a friend, Bates was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1996, and was knighted in 2003. He was an Associate Member of RADA and was a patron of the Actors Centre, Covent Garden, London, Bates was married to Victoria Ward from 1970 until her death in 1992, although they had separated many years earlier. They had twin sons, born in November 1970, the actors Benedick Bates, Tristan died following an asthma attack in Tokyo in 1990. Other sources report Tristan died of an overdose in a public toilet. Bates had numerous homosexual relationships throughout his life, including those with actors Nickolas Grace and Peter Wyngarde, in 1994 Curry died from AIDS in Bates arms
Alan Bates
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Bates in 1975
Alan Bates
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The
Blue Plaque on Alan Bates's childhood home. In association with
The British Film Institute
5.
Charles Dance
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Walter Charles Dance, OBE is an English actor, screenwriter, and film director. Dance typically plays assertive bureaucrats or villains, Charles Dance was born in Redditch, Worcestershire, the son of Eleanor, a cook, and Walter Dance, an engineer. Growing up in Plymouth, he attended Widey Technical School for Boys in Crownhill, Dance was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company during the mid-to-late-1970s and was in many of their productions in London and Stratford-upon-Avon. Later he returned to the RSC to take the role in Coriolanus at Stratford-upon-Avon and Newcastle in 1989. He received rave reviews and a Critics Circle Best Actor award for his performance as the Oxford don C. S. Lewis in William Nicholsons Shadowlands, in the 2007 stage revival. He has also starred in many other British television dramas such as Edward the Seventh, Murder Rooms, Randall and Hopkirk, Rebecca, The Phantom of the Opera, Fingersmith and Bleak House. He also played Guy Spencer, the pro-Hitler propagandist, in the installment of Foyles War. Dance made a guest appearance on the BBC drama series Merlin as the Witchfinder Aredian and he played Havelock Vetinari in the 2010 Sky adaptation of Terry Pratchetts Going Postal. He played the role of Tywin Lannister in HBOs Game of Thrones, based on the Song of Ice, Dance was wooed for the role by the producers whilst filming Your Highness in Belfast. Dance also played Conrad Knox on the British television series Strike Back and he appeared in Paris Connections as the Russian oligarch Aleksandr Borinski. Dance made one of his earliest big screen appearances in the 1981 James Bond film For Your Eyes Only as evil henchman Claus. Though he turned down the opportunity to screen test for the James Bond role, in 1989 he played Bond creator Ian Fleming in Anglia Televisions dramatised biography, Goldeneye. On 30 June 2013, Dance appeared amongst other celebrities in an episode of the BBCs Top Gear as a Star in a Reasonably Priced Car for the debut of the Vauxhall Astra. Dances debut film as a writer and director was Ladies in Lavender, in 2009, he directed his own adaptation of Alice Thomas Elliss The Inn at the Edge of the World. Dance married Joanna Haythorn in 1970 and he became engaged to sculptor Eleanor Boorman in September 2010. They have a daughter, Rose, born in March 2012, Dance was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire on 17 June 2006. He lives in Kentish Town in north London
Charles Dance
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Dance at the London Film and Comic Con, July 2012.
6.
Stephen Fry
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Stephen John Fry is an English comedian, actor, writer, presenter, and activist. While at university, he involved with the Cambridge Footlights. As half of the double act Fry and Laurie, he co-wrote and co-starred in A Bit of Fry & Laurie and also took the role of Jeeves in Jeeves. He was also the long-time host of the BBC television quiz show QI and he has also filmed commercials, including an advertisement where he explains the essence of British culture to foreigners arriving at Londons Heathrow Airport. Fry was born in Hampstead, London, on 24 August 1957, the son of Marianne Eve Fry and Alan John Fry, a British physicist and inventor. The Fry family originates in Dorset, at Shillingstone and Blandford, in the early 1800s, Samuel Fry settled in Surrey, Frys mother is Jewish, but he was not brought up in a religious family. His maternal grandparents, Martin and Rosa Neumann, were Hungarian Jews, rosas parents, who originally lived in Vienna, Austria, were sent to a concentration camp in Riga, Latvia, where they were murdered. His mothers aunt and cousins were sent to Auschwitz and Stutthof, Frys father is English, and his paternal grandmother had roots in Kent and Cheshire. Fry grew up in the village of Booton near Reepham, Norfolk, having moved from Chesham, Buckinghamshire and he has an elder brother, Roger, and a younger sister, Joanna. He was expelled from Uppingham when he was 15 and subsequently from the Paston School, at 17, after leaving Norfolk College of Arts and Technology, Fry absconded with a credit card stolen from a family friend. He had taken a coat when leaving a pub, planning to spend the night sleeping rough and he was arrested in Swindon, and, as a result, spent three months in Pucklechurch Prison on remand. While Fry was in Pucklechurch, his mother had cut out the crossword from every copy of The Times since he had been away, Fry later stated that these crosswords were the only thing that got him through the ordeal. Following his release, he resumed his education at City College Norwich and he scored well enough to gain a scholarship to Queens College, Cambridge. At Cambridge, Fry joined the Cambridge Footlights, appeared on University Challenge, Fry also met his future comedy collaborator Hugh Laurie at Cambridge and starred alongside him in the Footlights Club. Frys career in television began with the 1982 broadcasting of The Cellar Tapes, a second series, retitled Alfresco, was broadcast in 1983, and a third in 1984, it established Fry and Lauries reputation as a comedy double act. In 1983, the BBC offered Fry, Laurie and Thompson their own show, which became The Crystal Cube, undeterred, Fry and Laurie appeared in an episode of The Young Ones in 1984, and Fry also appeared in Ben Eltons 1985 Happy Families series. In 1986 and 1987 Fry and Laurie performed sketches on the LWT/Channel 4 show Saturday Live, forgiving Fry and Laurie for The Crystal Cube, the BBC commissioned, in 1986, a sketch show that was to become A Bit of Fry & Laurie. The programme ran for 26 episodes spanning four series between 1986 and 1995, and was very successful, in a 1988 television special, Blackadders Christmas Carol, he played the roles of Lord Melchett and Lord Frondo
Stephen Fry
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Fry in Happy Birthday to
GNU (2008)
Stephen Fry
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Fry, upper right, rehearsing a student production of
A Midsummer Night's Dream at the
Norfolk College of Arts and Technology in 1975
Stephen Fry
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Fry signing autographs at the
Apple Store,
Regent Street, London, on 3 February 2009
Stephen Fry
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Stephen Fry visits Nightingale House, a care home in London, in December 2009
7.
Michael Gambon
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Sir Michael John Gambon CBE is an Irish-born English actor who has worked in theatre, television and film. He has won four BAFTA TV Awards and three Olivier Awards, Gambon was born in Cabra, Dublin, during World War II. His father, Edward Gambon, was an engineer, and his mother and his father decided to seek work in the rebuilding of London, and so the family moved to Mornington Crescent in north London, when Gambon was five. His father had him made a British citizen, a decision that would later allow Gambon to receive a substantive, rather than honorary, knighthood, brought up as a strict Roman Catholic, he attended St Aloysius Boys School in Somers Town and served at the altar. He then moved to St Aloysius College in Hornsey Lane, Highgate, London and he later moved to North End, Kent, and attended Crayford Secondary School, before leaving with no qualifications at fifteen. He then gained an apprenticeship with Vickers Armstrong as a toolmaker, by the time he was 21, he was a qualified engineer. He kept the job for a year, acquiring a fascination and passion for collecting antique guns, clocks, watches. At age 24, Gambon wrote a letter to Micheál Mac Liammóir and it was accompanied by a CV describing a rich and wholly imaginary theatre career – and he was taken on. Gambon made his professional stage début in the Gate Theatre Dublins 1962 production of Othello, playing Second Gentleman, followed by a European tour. Gambon, along with Robert Stephens, Derek Jacobi and Frank Finlay, was hired as one of the to be renowned and played any number of small roles, appearing on cast lists as Mike Gambon. The company initially performed at the Old Vic, their first production being Hamlet, directed by Olivier and starring Peter OToole. Gambon played for four years in many NT productions, including named roles in The Recruiting Officer and The Royal Hunt of the Sun, working with directors William Gaskill, after three years at the Old Vic, Olivier advised Gambon to gain experience in provincial rep. In 1967, he left the NT for the Birmingham Repertory Company, Gambon was suggested for the role of James Bond in On Her Majestys Secret Service, although he was dismissed for being even less known than George Lazenby who was cast. His rise to fame began in 1974 when Eric Thompson cast him as the vet in Alan Ayckbourns The Norman Conquests at Greenwich. A speedy transfer to the West End established him as a actor, squatting at a crowded dining table on a tiny chair. He is also one of the few actors to have mastered the demands of the vast Olivier Theatre, as Simon Callow once said, Gambons iron lungs and overwhelming charisma are able to command a sort of operatic full-throatedness which triumphs over hard walls and long distances. This was to him in good stead in John Dexters masterly staging of The Life of Galileo in 1980. Hall called him unsentimental, dangerous and immensely powerful, and The Sunday Times called his performance a decisive step in the direction of great tragedy, Great acting, while fellow actors paid him the rare compliment of applauding him in the dressing room on the first night
Michael Gambon
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Gambon in June 2013
8.
Richard E. Grant
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Richard E. Grant is a Swazi-English actor, screenwriter, director and perfumier. Grant was born Richard Grant Esterhuysen in Mbabane, Swaziland and his father, Henrik Esterhuysen, was head of education for the British government administration in the British Protectorate of Swaziland. His father had English and Dutch/Afrikaner ancestry and his mother was of English, as a boy, Grant went to primary school at St Marks, a local government school in Mbabane that had only recently become racially integrated. When Grant was ten years old, he witnessed his mother commit adultery on the seat of a car with his fathers best friend. This event inspired Grant to keep a diary, which he has continued to do ever since. Grant wears a watch on each wrist, one given to him by his dying father and he is a dual citizen of the United Kingdom and Swaziland. Grant attended secondary school at Waterford Kamhlaba United World College of Southern Africa, an independent school just outside Mbabane, Grant studied English and drama at the University of Cape Town. He adopted his name when he moved to Britain as an adult. Grant was a member of the Space Theatre Company in Cape Town before moving to London in 1982 and he later stated, I grew up in Swaziland when it was mired in a 1960s sensibility. The kind of English spoken where I grew up was a period English sound, charles Sturridge, who directed Brideshead Revisited for TV, said, you speak English like someone from the 1950s. Grants first film role was the perpetually inebriated title character in Withnail and I, in 1995, Grant starred as the titular character in Peter Capaldis short film Franz Kafkas Its a Wonderful Life. The film won the 1995 Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film, Grant has twice portrayed the Doctor from Doctor Who, both outside the main continuity. In the comedy sketch Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death, he portrayed a version of the Tenth Doctor and he also voiced a version of the Ninth Doctor for the BBC original animated webcast Scream of the Shalka. The latter had intended to be the official Ninth Doctor prior the revival of the TV series, in August,2012, the BBC announced that Grant would join the cast of Doctor Who for The Snowmen, in which he plays a villain, Dr. Walter Simeon. Grant reprises the role in the series 7 finale, The Name of the Doctor, on 1 December 2006, Grant turned real life investigator when, with the help of BBC Newsnight, he exposed a $98 million scam to sell a bogus AIDS cure. Grant appeared as The Voice in 2+2+2 at American Nights at The Kings Head Theatre, from 3 to 29 July 2007, and in 2008 co-starred in the London-based comedy Filth and Wisdom. In 2008, he made his theatre debut with Opera Australia, playing the role of Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady, at the Theatre Royal. He played Alain Reille in Yasmina Rezas one-act play God of Carnage at the Theatre Royal, Bath, and subsequently at Cheltenham, Canterbury, Richmond, Brighton and Milton Keynes
Richard E. Grant
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Grant at the
British Academy Television Awards 2007 ceremony
Richard E. Grant
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Grant as The Voice for 2+2+2 at Heavy Entertainment, London.
9.
Derek Jacobi
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Sir Derek George Jacobi CBE is an English actor and stage director. A forceful, commanding presence, Jacobi has enjoyed a successful stage career, appearing in such stage productions as Hamlet, Uncle Vanya. He has twice awarded a Laurence Olivier Award, first for his performance of the eponymous hero in Cyrano de Bergerac in 1983. He also received a Tony Award for his performance in Much Ado About Nothing in 1984 and his stage work includes playing Octavius Caesar, Edward II, Richard III and Thomas Becket. He holds a knighthood and has appointed a Knight First Class of the Order of the Dannebrog. His paternal great-grandfather had emigrated from Germany to England during the 19th century, Jacobi describes his childhood as happy. In his teens he went to the Leyton Sixth Form College and became a part of the drama club. While in the sixth-form, he starred in a production of Hamlet, at 18 he won a scholarship to the University of Cambridge, where he read history at St Johns College and earned his degree. Younger members of the university at the time included Ian McKellen, during his studies at Cambridge, Jacobi played many parts including Hamlet, which was taken on a tour to Switzerland, where he met Richard Burton. As a result of his performance of Edward II at Cambridge and he played Laertes in the National Theatres inaugural production of Hamlet opposite Peter OToole in 1963. Olivier cast him as Cassio in the successful National Theatre stage production of Othello and he played Andrei in the NT production and film of Three Sisters, both featuring Olivier. On 27 July 1965, Jacobi played Brindsley Miller in the first production of Peter Shaffers Black Comedy and it was presented by the National Theatre at Chichester and subsequently in London. After eight years at the National Theatre, Jacobi left in 1971 to pursue different roles, in 1972, he starred in the BBC serial Man of Straw an adaptation of Heinrich Manns book Der Untertan, directed by Herbert Wise. Jacobi was increasingly busy with stage and screen acting, but his big breakthrough came in 1976 when he played the role in the BBCs series I. He cemented his reputation with his performance as the stammering, twitching Emperor Claudius, in 1979, thanks to his international popularity, he took Hamlet on a theatrical world tour through England, Egypt, Greece, Sweden, Australia, Japan and China, playing Prince Hamlet. He was invited to perform the role at Kronborg Castle, Denmark, known as Elsinore Castle, in 1978 he appeared in the BBC Television Shakespeare production of Richard II, with Sir John Gielgud and Dame Wendy Hiller. In 1980, Jacobi took the role in the BBCs Hamlet, made his Broadway debut in The Suicide. In 1986, he made his West End debut in Breaking the Code by Hugh Whitemore, starring in the role of Alan Turing, the play was taken to Broadway
Derek Jacobi
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Jacobi onstage performing
A Voyage Round My Father at
Wyndham's Theatre, London (December 2006).
Derek Jacobi
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Jacobi signing autographs after his performance in "Twelfth Night", London, 2009
10.
Kelly Macdonald
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Kelly Macdonald is a Scottish actress, known for her roles in the films Trainspotting, Gosford Park, Intermission, Nanny McPhee, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 and Brave. For the 2005 TV film The Girl in the Cafe, she was nominated for a Golden Globe and she was part of the cast of the famous miniseries State of Play portraying the role of Della Smith. For her role in the 2007 film No Country for Old Men and she went on to star for five seasons in the HBO series Boardwalk Empire as Margaret Thompson, for which she received a 2011 Emmy Award nomination. Macdonalds career began while she was working as a barmaid in Glasgow and she saw a leaflet advertising an open casting session for Trainspotting and decided to audition, winning the part of Diane, the underage seductress to Ewan McGregors Renton. Other roles include Mary ONeary in Two Family House, and an actress playing Peter Pan in Finding Neverland and she had major roles in Robert Altmans British period piece Gosford Park, where she played an aristocrats maid, and in Intermission, as Deirdre. On radio, she portrayed Mary in the 1999 BBC radio drama Lifehouse, based on Pete Townshends abandoned rock opera, some of the songs for which were released on The Whos album Whos Next. On television, her highest profile roles have been in two BBC dramas, the Paul Abbott serial State of Play, and the one-off Richard Curtis piece The Girl in the Café, both of these were directed by David Yates, and both also starred Bill Nighy. Her agent was originally unsure she was right for the latter part and her persistence paid off, however, as she was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. She played the lead in The Merry Gentleman, as Kate Frazier, in 2010, she played her first comedy role, in the British independent romantic comedy film The Decoy Bride. The Decoy Bride was released in 2012, in 2011, she played the Grey Lady in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2, the final instalment of the Harry Potter film franchise. She replaced Nina Young, the actress in the role. In 2012, she provided the voice of Merida, the heroine of the Disney/Pixar film Brave, from 2010 until its ending in 2014, she starred in the HBO crime drama Boardwalk Empire as Margaret Thompson, the wife of Prohibition-era Atlantic City crime boss Nucky Thompson. She appeared in all five seasons of the series, in 2011, she and the rest of the shows cast were awarded the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series. In 2016, she starred in Ricky Gervais Special Correspondents as Claire Maddox, in 2016, she played the lead role in Hated in the Nation, an episode of the anthology series Black Mirror for which she received critical acclaim. On 3 November 2016 Macdonald was featured in the trailer for Danny Boyles T2 Trainspotting confirming she will reprise her role as Diane from the original film and her mother was a garment industry sales executive. In August 2003 Macdonald married musician Dougie Payne, bassist of rock band Travis, the couple have two children, and moved back to their home town of Glasgow in 2014, after living in London and then New York City. Kelly Macdonald at the Internet Movie Database Kelly Macdonald at the TCM Movie Database Kelly Macdonald at the British Film Institutes Screenonline Kelly Macdonald in Skellig on Sky1, Easter 2009
Kelly Macdonald
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Macdonald at the 2007
New York Film Festival
Kelly Macdonald
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Macdonald at the
2007 Toronto International Film Festival
11.
Helen Mirren
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Dame Helen Lydia Mirren DBE is an English actor. The Audience was written by Peter Morgan, who also wrote The Queen, Tingle, Gosford Park, Calendar Girls, The Last Station, Hitchcock, and The Hundred-Foot Journey. She played Victoria Winslow in the action-comedy films Red and Red 2, in 2003, she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for Services to the Performing Arts. In 2013, Mirren was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and she was born Helen Lydia Mironoff at Queen Charlottes and Chelsea Hospital in Hammersmith, west London, the daughter of Kathleen Kitty Alexandrina Eva Matilda and Vasily Petrovich Mironoff. Her mother was English and her father was Russian, originally from Kuryanovo, Mirrens paternal grandfather, Colonel Pyotr Vasilievich Mironov, was in the Imperial Russian Army and fought in the 1904 Russo-Japanese War. He later became a diplomat, and was negotiating a deal in Britain when he. The former diplomat became a London cab driver to support his family and his son, Helen Mirrens father, anglicised the family name to Mirren in the 1950s and changed his name to Basil Mirren. He played the viola with the London Philharmonic before World War II, Mirrens mother was a working-class Londoner from West Ham, East London, and was the 13th of 14 children born to a butcher whose own father had been the butcher to Queen Victoria. Mirren considers her upbringing to have been very anti-monarchist, Mirren was the second of three children, she was born three years after her older sister, Katherine, and also had a younger brother, Peter Basil. Mirren was brought up in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, aged eighteen, she auditioned for the National Youth Theatre and was accepted. By the time she was 20, she was playing Cleopatra in the NYT production of Antony and Cleopatra at the Old Vic, as a result of her work for the National Youth Theatre, Mirren was invited to join the Royal Shakespeare Company. She also appeared in four productions, directed by Braham Murray for Century Theatre at the University Theatre in Manchester, in 1970, the director/producer John Goldschmidt made a documentary film, Doing Her Own Thing, about Mirren during her time with the Royal Shakespeare Company. The film was made for ATV and shown on the ITV Network in the UK and she then rejoined the RSC, playing Lady Macbeth at Stratford in 1974 and at the Aldwych Theatre in 1975. According to Beauman, there were no repercussions for this rebuke of the RSC. Her performance earned her the London critics Plays & Players Best Actress award, beginning in November 1975, Mirren played in West End repertory with the Lyric Theatre Company as Nina in The Seagull and Ella in Ben Travers new farce The Bed Before Yesterday. In 1981, she returned to the Royal Court for the London premiere of Brian Friels Faith Healer, – Michael Coveney, Financial Times, April 1983. On 15 February 2013, at the West Ends Gielgud Theatre she began a turn as Elizabeth II in the World Premiere of Peter Morgans The Audience, the show was directed by Stephen Daldry. In April she was named best actress at the Olivier Awards for her role, a further stage breakthrough came in 1994, in an Yvonne Arnaud Theatre production bound for the West End, when Bill Bryden cast her as Natalya Petrovna in Ivan Turgenevs A Month in the Country
Helen Mirren
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Mirren attends the Moet British Independent Film Awards, December 2014
Helen Mirren
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Mirren at the Orange British Academy Film Awards, 2007
Helen Mirren
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Mirren at the Metropolitan Opera opening in September 2008
Helen Mirren
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Mirren at the 2010 Comic Con in San Diego, 22 July 2010
12.
Jeremy Northam
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Jeremy Philip Northam is an English actor. He has appeared in the films Gosford Park, Emma, Amistad, The Winslow Boy, Enigma, Martin and Lewis and he played Thomas More in the Showtime series The Tudors. He has recently played Anthony Eden in the Netflix series The Crown Northam was born in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, the youngest of four siblings. His mother, Rachel, was a potter and professor of economics, Northam was educated at Bristol Grammar School and Bedford College, University of London now part of Royal Holloway, University of London, and trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. He married Canadian film/television make-up artist Liz Moro in April 2005 and he has appeared frequently in British films such as Carrington, Emma, The Winslow Boy, An Ideal Husband, Enigma and as Welsh actor and singer Ivor Novello in Gosford Park. He made his American film debut in The Net, in 2002 he starred in the film Cypher alongside Lucy Liu. That same year, he portrayed singer Dean Martin in the CBS film Martin and Lewis and golfer Walter Hagen in Bobby Jones, in 2007 and 2008, he portrayed Thomas More on the Showtime series, The Tudors. He played John Brodie Innes in the 2009 film Creation, based on the life of Charles Darwin and he plays British Prime Minister Anthony Eden in the Netflix drama series, The Crown. His audiobook work includes The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis for Harper Audio, for SilkSoundBooks, he recorded The Real Thing and Other Short Stories and The Aspern Papers, both written by Henry James. In 2007 he recorded Gerard Manley Hopkins poems for The Great Poets edition for Naxos Audiobooks. He recorded the audio book Dark Matter and it was released on 21 October 2010, by Orion. Edward Voysey, The Voysey Inheritance, National Theatre Company, Cottesloe Theatre, London,1989 Also appeared in productions of School for Scandal and The Shaughraun, National Theatre Company
Jeremy Northam
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Jeremy Northam
Jeremy Northam
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Jeremy Northam with author Michelle Paver recording Paver’s audio book "Dark Matter"
13.
Clive Owen
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Clive Owen is an English actor who first gained recognition in the United Kingdom for playing the lead role in the ITV series Chancer from 1990 to 1991. He then received critical acclaim for his work in the film Close My Eyes before earning international attention for his performance as a writer in Croupier. In 2005, he won a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Award and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the drama Closer. Owen has since played leading roles in such as Sin City, Derailed, Inside Man, Children of Men. In 2012, he earned his first Primetime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie for his role in Hemingway & Gellhorn. Since 2014, Owen has played Dr. John W. Thackery on the Cinemax medical drama series The Knick, for which he received a Golden Globe Award nomination. The fourth of five brothers, Owen was born in Coventry, West Midlands, in the United Kingdom, to Pamela and Jess Owen, a country and western singer. His father left the family when Owen was three years old, and despite a brief reconciliation when Owen was nineteen, the two have remained estranged, raised by his mother and stepfather, a railway ticket clerk, he has described his childhood as rough. While initially opposed to drama school, he changed his mind in 1984, after a long, Owen graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. After graduation, he won a position at the Young Vic, initially, Owen carved out a career in television. He won critical acclaim for his performances in the Stephen Poliakoff film Close My Eyes about a brother and sister who embark on a love affair. In 1996, he appeared in his first major Hollywood film The Rich Mans Wife alongside Halle Berry before finding international acclaim in a Channel 4 film directed by Mike Hodges called Croupier. In Croupier, he played the role of a struggling writer who takes a job in a London casino as inspiration for his work. In 1999, he appeared as a driver in Split Second. Owen starred in The Echo, a BBC1 drama, before starring in the film Greenfingers and he then appeared in the BBC1 mystery series Second Sight. Owen became well known to North American audiences in the summer of 2001 after starring as The Driver in The Hire and he then appeared in Robert Altmans Gosford Park. He appeared in the 2002 hit The Bourne Identity, in 2003, he reteamed with director Mike Hodges in Ill Sleep When Im Dead. He starred in Beyond Borders as well as King Arthur in King Arthur and he appeared in the Royal National Theatre debut of the hit play Closer, by Patrick Marber, which was produced as a film in 2004
Clive Owen
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Owen at the 2009
Berlin Film Festival.
Clive Owen
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Owen at the Children of Men premiere in
Mexico City, 2006
Clive Owen
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Owen at the
Toronto Film Festival, 2011
14.
Ryan Phillippe
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Matthew Ryan Phillippe is an American actor, director, and writer. In the 2000s, he appeared in films, including Gosford Park, Crash, and war drama Flags of Our Fathers, Breach. In 2010, Phillippe starred as Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Greg Marinovich in The Bang-Bang Club, currently, he stars in the lead role of Bob Lee Swagger in the USA Network thriller drama Shooter. He was married to actress Reese Witherspoon from 1999 to 2007, together, they have a daughter and he also has a daughter from a relationship with actress Alexis Knapp. Phillippe was born in New Castle, Delaware and his mother, Susan, ran a day care center in the familys house, and his father, Richard Phillippe, was a chemist. Phillippe is of part French descent and he attended New Castle Baptist Academy, where he played basketball and soccer, as well as earned a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, he was also the yearbook editor in his senior year. Phillippe also attended and graduated from Barbizon Modeling and Talent Agency in Wilmington, Phillippes acting career began after being signed to Cathy Parker Management in Voorhees, New Jersey. Shortly after he made an appearance in the ABC daytime drama One Life to Live and his character Billy Douglas, whom he played from 1992 to 1993, was the first gay teenager on a daytime soap opera. He was cast in the 1997 horror film, I Know What You Did Last Summer, which co-starred Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze, Jr. and Jennifer Love Hewitt. The film was a success, and led to Phillippe gaining wider renown and being cast in a few more films, including 54 in 1998 opposite Neve Campbell, Salma Hayek. It was a success among its intended audience, cementing Phillippes ability to play characters that require sex appeal. Phillippe can also be seen in the Marcy Playground music video Comin Up From Behind, subsequently, Phillippe had supporting parts in the films Igby Goes Down and Crash, which won the Oscar for Best Picture. His 2003 film The I Inside premiered on cable and his performance was positively received by film critic Richard Roeper, who thought it was Phillippes best performance to date. Phillippes next role was in the thriller Breach, in which he played FBI investigator Eric ONeill opposite Chris Cooper and he has since commented that he believes Cooper to be the best actor America has to offer. He then starred in Chaos, in which he plays an officer, Five Fingers, a drama set in Morocco, Kimberly Peirces Iraq war film Stop-Loss. Next up for Phillippe was a comedic role as Lt. Dixon Piper in MacGruber. It was released in the US and Canada on May 21,2010, as part of the films promotion, Phillippe made his SNL hosting debut on April 17,2010, along with first-time musical performer Kesha. Two days later, on April 19,2010, Phillippe co-hosted WWE Raw with Jonathan Swift and Charo, Phillippe stars as Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Greg Marinovich
Ryan Phillippe
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Phillippe in April 2011
Ryan Phillippe
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Phillippe at the premiere of
The Bang Bang Club, during the
2010 Toronto International Film Festival
15.
Maggie Smith
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Dame Margaret Natalie Smith, CH, DBE, known as Maggie Smith, is an English actress. She has had an extensive, varied career in stage, film, Smith has appeared in over 50 films and is one of Britains most recognisable actresses. Smith began her career on stage at the Oxford Playhouse in 1952 and she received Tony Award nominations for Private Lives and Night and Day, before winning the 1990 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for Lettice and Lovage. Other stage roles include Stratford Shakespeare Festival productions of Antony and Cleopatra and Macbeth, on screen, Smith first drew praise for the crime film Nowhere to Go, for which she received her first BAFTA Award nomination. She has won two Academy Awards, winning Best Actress for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Best Supporting Actress for California Suite and she is one of only six actresses to have won in both categories. She has won a record four BAFTA Awards for Best Actress, a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress, a six-time Oscar nominee, her other nominations were for Othello, Travels with My Aunt, A Room with a View, and Gosford Park. Smith played Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter film series and her honorary awards include the BAFTA Special Award, the BAFTA Fellowship, and the Special Olivier Award. She received the Stratford Shakespeare Festivals Legacy Award in 2012, Smith was born in Ilford, Essex, but moved with her family to Oxford when she was four years old. She is the daughter of Nathaniel Smith, a Newcastle-born public health pathologist who worked at Oxford University, and Margaret, as a child, her parents used to tell Smith the romantic story of how they had met on the train from Glasgow to London via Newcastle. She has older twin brothers, Alistair and Ian, who went to architecture school and she attended Oxford High School until age sixteen, when she left to study acting at the Oxford Playhouse. In 1952, aged 17, under the auspices of the Oxford University Dramatic Society, in 1954, she appeared in the television programme Oxford Accents produced by Ned Sherrin. In 1957, she starred opposite Kenneth Williams in the musical comedy Share My Lettuce, in 1958, she received the first of her 18 BAFTA Film and TV nominations for her role in the film Nowhere to Go. In 1962, Smith won the first of a record five Best Actress Evening Standard Awards for her roles in Peter Shaffers plays The Private Ear and The Public Eye, again opposite Kenneth Williams. She appeared opposite Olivier in Ibsens The Master Builder and played roles in The Recruiting Officer. Her other films at this time included Go to Blazes, The V. I. P. s, The Pumpkin Eater, Hot Millions and Oh. Smith won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the role of the 1969 film The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Vanessa Redgrave had originated the role on stage in London and Zoe Caldwell won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play, the role also won Smith her first BAFTA Award. In 1970, she played the role in Ingmar Bergmans London production of the Ibsen play Hedda Gabler
Maggie Smith
–
Smith in a publicity shot for
Othello, 1965
Maggie Smith
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Maggie Smith at Kensington Garden in 2008
Maggie Smith
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Smith's handprints in
Leicester Square in
West End of London.
16.
Kristin Scott Thomas
–
Dame Kristin Ann Scott Thomas, DBE is an English actress. She won the Best Supporting Actress BAFTA Award for Four Weddings, for her work in the theatre, she has been nominated for the Olivier Award for Best Actress five times, winning in 2008 for the Royal Court revival of The Seagull. Scott Thomas made her debut in the Prince-directed Under the Cherry Moon in 1986, Further film roles include Bitter Moon, Mission, Impossible, The Horse Whisperer, Gosford Park. She has also worked in French cinema, winning the European Film Award for Best Actress for Philippe Claudels Ive Loved You So Long and her other French films include The Valet, Tell No One, Leaving and Sarahs Key. Scott Thomas was born in Redruth, Cornwall, Scott Thomas was brought up as a Roman Catholic. Her childhood home was in Trent, Dorset, England and her mother remarried, to another Royal Navy pilot, who also died in a flying accident, six years after the death of her father. Scott Thomas was educated at Cheltenham Ladies College and St Antonys Leweston in Sherborne, Dorset, on leaving school she moved to Hampstead, London, and worked in a department store. She then began training to be a teacher at the Central School of Speech. On being told she would never be a good enough actress and her breakthrough role was in a 1988 adaptation of Evelyn Waughs A Handful of Dust, where she won an Evening Standard British Film Award for most promising newcomer. This was followed by roles opposite Hugh Grant in Bitter Moon and Four Weddings,1996 saw the release of her most famous role as Katharine Clifton in The English Patient, which gained her Golden Globe and Oscar nominations as well as critical acclaim. This was followed by a period working in Hollywood on films such as The Horse Whisperer with Robert Redford. However, growing disillusioned with Hollywood, she took a year off to give birth to her third child and she reprised the role in New York in September 2008. In summer 2011 Scott Thomas returned to Londons West End to star as Emma in Harold Pinters Betrayal at the Comedy Theatre, the revival was directed by Ian Rickson. Her husband was played by Ben Miles and the triangle was completed by Douglas Henshall. In January 2013, she starred in another Pinter play, Old Times, in 2014 she appeared at The Old Vic in the title role of Sophocless Electra. Scott Thomas also has acted in French films, in 2006, she played the role of Hélène, in French, in Ne le dis à personne, by French director Guillaume Canet. In 2008, Scott Thomas received many accolades for her performance in Il y a longtemps que je taime, including BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2003 Birthday Honours and she was named a Chevalier of the Légion dhonneur by the French Government in 2005
Kristin Scott Thomas
–
Kristin Scott Thomas at the Cabourg Film Festival 2013
Kristin Scott Thomas
–
Scott Thomas at the
2009 Cannes Film Festival.
17.
Emily Watson
–
Emily Margaret Watson, OBE is an English actress. She won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress as Janet Leach for the 2011 ITV television film biopic Appropriate Adult, Watson began her career on stage and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1992. In 2002, she starred in productions of Twelfth Night and Uncle Vanya at the Donmar Warehouse, Watson was born in Islington, London. Her father, Richard Watson, was an architect and her mother, Katharine, was an English teacher at St Davids Girls School and she was brought up as an Anglican. Watson has described her childhood self as a Nice middle class English girl, id love to say I was a rebellious teenager but I wasnt. Watson was educated at St James Independent Schools, in west London and she attended the University of Bristol, where she obtained a BA. Following university, she trained at the Drama Studio London and she later received an MA from Bristol University. Watsons career began on the stage and her theatre credits include The Childrens Hour, Three Sisters, Much Ado About Nothing and The Lady from the Sea. Watson has also worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company in A Jovial Crew, The Taming of the Shrew, Alls Well That Ends Well and her performance was widely acclaimed on both sides of the Atlantic and garnered her an Olivier Award nomination for Uncle Vanya. Watson was virtually unknown until director Lars von Trier chose her to star in his controversial Breaking the Waves after Helena Bonham Carter dropped out at the very last minute. She also played a role in Cradle Will Rock, a story of a theatre show in the 1930s. Though she won the role of Frank McCourts mother in the adaptation of his acclaimed memoir, Angelas Ashes. In 2001, she appeared alongside John Turturro in The Luzhin Defence, in 2004, Watson received a Golden Globe nomination for her role as Peter Sellerss first wife, Anne Howe, in the HBO film The Life and Death of Peter Sellers. 2005 saw Watson starring in four films, Wah-Wah, Richard E, in 2007, she appeared in The Water Horse, Legend of the Deep, an adaptation of the Dick King-Smith childrens novel about the origin of the Loch Ness Monster. Watson considers Ginzburg to be her best recent role, however, in 2011, she played Janet Leach in the ITV two-part film Appropriate Adult, about serial killer Fred West, for which she won a BAFTA. She also received rave reviews for her portrayal of Julie Nicholson in the BBC Drama A Song for Jenny, Watson was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2015 New Year Honours for services to drama. In 2017, she starred in the BBC mini-series Apple Tree Yard, in 2007, Mood Indigo, a script written by Watson and her husband, was optioned by Capitol Films. The film is a story set during the Second World War
Emily Watson
–
Watson at the
British Academy Film Awards in London's
Royal Opera House, February 2007
18.
Patrick Doyle
–
Patrick Doyle is a Scottish film composer. Doyle was born on 6 April 1953 in Uddingston, South Lanarkshire and he is a classically trained composer who studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music, of which he was made a Fellow in 2001. Doyle joined the Renaissance Theatre Company in 1987 as composer and musical director composing for such as Hamlet, As You Like It. The song Non Nobis, Domine from Henry V was subsequently awarded the 1989 Ivor Novello Award for Best Film Theme, in October 1997, shortly after composing for Great Expectations, directed by Alfonso Cuarón, Doyle was diagnosed with leukemia. He managed to complete his work for the animated fantasy Quest for Camelot in hospital whilst undergoing treatment, Patrick Doyle’s Music from the Movies concert, in aid of Leukaemia Research UK was staged at the Royal Albert Hall. It was directed by Kenneth Branagh and included appearances from Emma Thompson, Sir Derek Jacobi, Dame Judi Dench, Alan Rickman, Imelda Staunton, Richard E. Grant, Adrian Lester, and Robbie Coltrane. ASCAP President and Chairman Paul Williams observed, Patrick Doyles extensive body of work is some of the most compelling and his ability to flawlessly cross genres in film, TV and beyond is why he can successfully score everything from Carlitos Way to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. In October 2015, Doyle received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the World Soundtrack Academy during the Gent Film Festival in Belgium, Harry Potter music Patrick Doyle at the Internet Movie Database 2013 interview at FilmScoreMonthly. com 2015 interview at FilmMusicSite. com
Patrick Doyle
–
Doyle being interviewed for The Composers: Full Uncensored Interview, 2013
19.
Andrew Dunn (cinematographer)
–
Andrew William Dunn, BSC, is a British cinematographer. He received the British Academy of Film and Television Arts best cameraman award three times in the 1980s, Andrew Dunn was born in London, England. He started making films in his teens and joined the BBC as a film editor. Dunn’s first film credit was in 1981 for cinematography on the BBC film Andrina,65, Thomson Gale, Detroit, ISBN 978-0-7876-9042-7 Andrew Dunn at the Internet Movie Database
Andrew Dunn (cinematographer)
–
Andrew Dunn
20.
UK Film Council
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The UK Film Council was a non-departmental public body set up in 2000 to develop and promote the film industry in the UK. It was constituted as a company limited by guarantee, owned by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. It was funded from various sources including the National Lottery, john Woodward was the Chief Executive Officer of the UKFC. As at 30 June 2008, the company had 90 full-time members of staff and it distributed more than £160m of lottery money to over 900 films. Lord Puttnam described the Council as a layer of glue thats helped bind the many parts of our disparate industry together. UKFC closed on 31 March 2011, with many of its functions passing to the British Film Institute, however the legal protections offered to English charities like the BFI, meant that its proposals were dismissed in a QCs report as being legally impossible. The UKFC had a mandate that spans cultural, social and economic priorities and this represented a significant change from the UKFCs objectives when it was first established, when it stated its purpose was to create a sustainable UK film industry. The UKFC administered and funded a range of different activities, including, The Development Fund aimed to broaden the quality, range, with £12 million of Lottery funding to invest over three years, the fund aimed to build a talent-driven home for writers, directors and producers. There were two funding programmes, one for first-time feature filmmakers and one for established filmmakers, Awards were made up to £25,000. The fund also offered Signature Awards to help further encourage ambitious and original filmmakers, the New Cinema Fund supported emerging talent and established filmmakers working outside the mainstream, focusing on innovative writing and gifted directors. The fund had £15 million of Lottery money to invest over three years and funded eight to ten feature films each year and it also supported over 100 short films each year through its short film schemes. Four flagship short film schemes operated nationwide, Cinema Extreme, the Completion Fund, The Magic Hour, the remaining short film funding offered by the UK Film Council was administered by the regional screen agencies and the national screen agencies via the Digital Shorts Scheme and Digital Nation. Features produced by the UKFC New Cinema Fund had an average Metacritic score of over 65, the Office of the British Film Commissioner worked to ensure that the UK remained an attractive production base for international films. The programme also provided funds to YourLocalCinema, the Digital Screen Network – a £12 million investment to equip 240 screens in 210 cinemas across the UK with digital projection technology to give UK audiences much greater choice. As the first ever comprehensive training strategy for the British film industry, first Light, a digital short filmmaking scheme that offered children and young people more opportunities to participate in and learn about filmmaking. These were, EM Media, Film London, Northern Film & Media, North West Vision and Media, Screen East, Screen South, Screen West Midlands, Screen Yorkshire and South West Screen. The BFI was responsible for delivering that part of the UKFCs strategy to help UK audiences enjoy the best of British and world cinema. The move also led American actor and director Clint Eastwood to write to the British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne in August 2010 to protest the decision to close the Council
UK Film Council
–
Logo of the UK Film Council
21.
Entertainment Film Distributors
–
Entertainment Film Distributors is a British distributor of independent films in the UK and Ireland for various production companies, currently run by Nigel and Trevor Green. Michael L. Green, their father, was a veteran producer/distributor involved in the industry since the 1930s when he was a teenager. In 1972 he formed Variety the prolific film distributor, in 1978 Green closed Variety and with his two sons Nigel and Trevor formed Entertainment Film Distributors, and was one of the leading forces in UK distribution. Michael L. Green died on 17 June 2003 aged 84 and their first big success was Teen Wolf starring Michael J. Fox. Entertainment also released films for Empire Pictures and New World Pictures, most notably, between 1990 and 2010, Entertainment distributed films made by New Line Cinema along with films from other independent production companies. One of the most notable series of films distributed to date is The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Entertainment Film Distributors have released many BAFTA- and Oscar-winning films including The Departed, Million Dollar Baby, Gosford Park, Brokeback Mountain and The Artist. List of films distributed include, Entertainment Film Distributors at the Internet Movie Database
Entertainment Film Distributors
–
The Water flash logo used from 1987 - 2003
22.
USA Films
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Focus Features is an American film production and distribution company, owned by Comcast through the Universal Filmed Entertainment Group division of its wholly owned subsidiary NBCUniversal. Focus Features distributes independent and foreign films in the United States, Focus Features was formed from the 2002 divisional merger of USA Films, Universal Focus and Good Machine. USA Films was created by Barry Diller in 1999 when he purchased October Films and Gramercy Pictures from Seagram, Focus most successful release in North America to date is Brokeback Mountain, which earned $83 million at the North American box office. However, this is not counting the total of Traffic. Focus most successful release is Burn After Reading, which earned $163.7 million in worldwide gross revenue. The animated film Coraline was also highly profitable for the company and its DVD and movie rights revenues are boosted by cult classics including Wet Hot American Summer. In May 2015, Gramercy Pictures was revived by Focus as a label, that was on action, sci-fi. In February 2016, Focus merged with Universal Pictures International Productions as part of a new strategy to align the acquisition and production of specialty films in the global market. In August 2011, Focus Features launched Focus World, a label focusing on the video on demand market with plans to distribute 15 films per year. List of Focus Features films Rogue FilmDistrict Sony Pictures Entertainment Stage 6 Films Official website Focus Features at the Internet Movie Database
USA Films
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Logo card for Focus Features US
23.
London Film Festival
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The British Film Institute London Film Festival is an annual film festival held in the United Kingdom, running in the second half of October with cooperation from the British Film Institute. It screens more than 300 films, documentaries and shorts from approximately 50 countries, in 1953 a group of critics including Dilys Powell of the The Sunday Times, raised the notion of a film festival for London. They reasoned that with Cannes and Venice, as did Edinburgh, had their own, however, the proposition was squared at the press - giving audience a chance to see movies that dont normally release in British cinemas. Originally to be a festival of festivals, it focused on screening a selection of titles from other European film festivals, including Cannes. The first London Film Festival was conceived by James Quinn, and it was launched after the inauguration of the new NFT on its current site under Waterloo Bridge. It screened only 15-20 films from a selection of directors, including Akira Kurosawa, Satyajit Ray, Yasujirō Ozu, Luchino Visconti. While the programme still retains the feel, it also now shows new discoveries from important. Whilst it continues to be first and foremost a public festival, it is attended by large numbers of film professionals. Importantly, it offers opportunities for people to see films that may not otherwise get a UK screening along with films which will get a release in the near future. Previously a number of awards were presented at the Closing gala, but in 2009, with the aid of some funding from the UK Film Council. The 2009 Festival featured 15 world premieres including Wes Anderson’s first animated feature, in addition to Fantastic Mr. Fox and Up In The Air, George Clooney supported his role in The Men Who Stare At Goats. On August 2016, American distributor A24s Free Fire was chosen to close the 2016 London Film Festival, the Sutherland Trophy – for the most original and innovative first feature in the London Film Festival. Named after the BFI’s patron, this award boasts recipients as noteworthy as Bertolucci, Fassbinder, Godard, the Grierson Award – for the best feature-length documentary in the festival. This award is given jointly by the LFF and the Grierson Trust which commemorates the pioneering Scottish documentary-maker John Grierson, famous for Drifters, the Grierson Trust has a long-standing tradition of recognising outstanding films that demonstrate integrity, originality and technical excellence and social or cultural significance. From 2009, a new standalone awards ceremony was launched which included the awards, Best Film – celebrates creative, original, imaginative, intelligent. BFI Fellowships – the Festival showcases both the work of new film-makers and established ones, and presenting two Fellowships provides a fitting contrast to those Awards recognising new talent, jonathan Caouette 7th FIPRESCI International Critics Award Aaltra, dir. Gustave de Kervern and Benoit Delepine The Alfred Dunhill UK Film Talent Award A Way Of Life, amma Asante 9th Annual Satyajit Ray Award The Woodsman, dir. Nicole Kassell TCM Classic Shorts Award Nits, dir, harry Wootliff The Sutherland Trophy For the Living and the Dead, dir
London Film Festival
–
Films by year (
Films A–Z)
24.
Mystery film
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Mystery film is a genre of film that revolves around the solution of a problem or a crime. It focuses on the efforts of the detective, private investigator or amateur sleuth to solve the mysterious circumstances of an issue by means of clues, investigation, suspense is often maintained as an important plot element. This can be done through the use of the soundtrack, camera angles, heavy shadows, Alfred Hitchcock used all of these techniques, but would sometimes allow the audience in on a pending threat then draw out the moment for dramatic effect. This genre has ranged from early mystery tales, fictional or literary detective stories, a related film subgenre is spy films. Mystery films mainly focus with solving a crime or a puzzle, the mystery generally revolves around a murder which must then be solved by policemen, private detectives, or amateur sleuths. At times the viewer is presented with information not available to the main character, the central character usually explores the unsolved crime, unmasks the perpetrator, and puts an end to the effects of the villainy. The successful mystery film adheres to one of two types, known as Open and Closed. Mystery novels have proven to be a medium for translation into film. The sleuth often forms a leading character, and the plots can include elements of drama, suspense, character development, uncertainty. The locales of the tale are often of a mundane variety. Successful mystery writers can produce a series of books based on the same sleuth character, until at least the 1980s, women in mystery films have often served a dual role, providing a relationship with the detective and frequently playing the part of woman-in-peril. The women in films are often resourceful individuals, being self-reliant, determined. They can provide the triggers for the events follow, or serve as an element of suspense as helpless victims. The earliest mystery films reach back to the silent era, the first detective film is often cited as Sherlock Holmes Baffled, a very short Mutoscope reel created between 1900 and 1903 by Arthur Marvin. It is the film to feature the character of detective Sherlock Holmes. In France, the popular Nick Carter detective novels inspired the first film serial, Nick Carter and this six-episode series was followed with Nouveaux aventures de Nick Carter in 1909. Louis Feuillade created the highly popular Fantômas serial based on the serial novel about Juve. Later detective serials by Feuillade include The Vampires, Judex, Tih Minh, feuillades films, which combined realism, poetic imagery, and pure fantasy, influenced the American The Perils of Pauline, directors such as René Clair, and Surrealists such as André Breton
Mystery film
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Nick Carter, from France, is one of the first mystery-detective film series (1908–1909).
Mystery film
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Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes from the
Granada TV television series (1984-1994).
Mystery film
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The first appearance of Holmes, 1887
Mystery film
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The Thin Man series combined elements of the
screwball comedy film within a complex murder mystery plot.
25.
English country house
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An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were owned by individuals who also owned a town house. This allowed them to time in the country and in the city—hence, for these people. However, the term also encompasses houses that were, and often still are, frequently, the formal business of the counties was transacted in these country houses. With large numbers of indoor and outdoor staff, country houses were important as places of employment for rural communities. In turn, until the agricultural depressions of the 1870s, the estates, of country houses were the hub. However, the late 19th and early 20th centuries were the swansong of the traditional English country house lifestyle, increased taxation and the effects of World War I led to the demolition of hundreds of houses, those that remained had to adapt to survive. While a château or a schloss can be a fortified or unfortified building, if fortified, it is called a castle, but not all buildings with the name castle are fortified. The term stately home is subject to debate, and avoided by historians, as a description of a country house, the term was first used in a poem by Felicia Hemans, The Homes of England, originally published in Blackwoods Magazine in 1827. In the 20th century, the term was popularised in a song by Noël Coward. The books collection of homes also includes George IVs Brighton town palace. The country houses of England have evolved over the last five hundred years, before this time, larger houses were usually fortified, reflecting the position of their owners as feudal lords, de facto overlords of their manors. The Tudor period of stability in the saw the building of the first of the unfortified great houses. Henry VIIIs Dissolution of the Monasteries saw many former ecclesiastical properties granted to the Kings favourites, woburn Abbey, Forde Abbey and many other mansions with abbey or priory in their name became private houses during this period. Other terms used in the names of houses to describe their origin or importance include palace, castle, court, hall, mansion, park, house, manor, and place. Burghley House, Longleat House, and Hatfield House are among the best known examples of the prodigy house. Some of the best known of Englands country houses were built by one architect at one time, Montacute House, Chatsworth House. They finally ran out of funds in the early 20th century, an example of this is Brympton dEvercy in Somerset, a house of many periods that is unified architecturally by the continuing use of the same mellow, local Ham Hill stone
English country house
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The English country house can be vast or comparatively small and of great or little architectural merit.
English country house
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Longleat House was the first country house to open to the public, and also claims the first
safari park outside Africa. As such, it became the first property in what later was known as the Stately Home Industry.
English country house
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Forde Abbey. Many country houses have evolved and been extended over several centuries. Here, the architecture runs from Medieval ecclesiastical to
Palladian and on to
Strawberry Hill Gothic, while at sometime an attempt at unity has been made by the use of
crenelation.
English country house
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Brympton d'Evercy evolved from the Medieval period; its provincial architects are long forgotten. Yet,
Christopher Hussey described it as "The most incomparable house in Britain, the one which created the greatest impression and summarises so exquisitely English country life qualities".
26.
Agatha Christie
–
Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, DBE was an English crime novelist, short story writer and playwright. She is best known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly revolving around her fictional detectives Hercule Poirot. She also wrote the worlds longest-running play, a mystery, The Mousetrap. In 1971 she was made a Dame for her contribution to literature, Christie was born into a wealthy upper-middle-class family in Torquay, Devon. She served in a hospital during the First World War before marrying and starting a family in London and she was initially an unsuccessful writer, but The Mysterious Affair at Styles was published in 1920 featuring Hercule Poirot. Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling novelist of all time and her novels have sold roughly 2 billion copies, and her estate claims that her works come third in the rankings of the worlds most-widely published books, behind only Shakespeares works and the Bible. According to Index Translationum, she remains the most-translated individual author – having been translated into at least 103 languages. And Then There Were None is Christies best-selling novel, with 100 million sales to date, making it the worlds best-selling mystery ever, in 1955 Christie was the first recipient of the Mystery Writers of Americas highest honour, the Grand Master Award. Later the same year, Witness for the Prosecution received an Edgar Award by the MWA for Best Play, in 2013, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was voted the best crime novel ever by 600 fellow writers of the Crime Writers Association. Most of her books and short stories have been adapted for television, radio, video games and comics, Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born on 15 September 1890, into a wealthy upper middle-class family in Ashfield, Torquay, Devon. Her mother, Clara Boehmer, was an Englishwoman who was born in Belfast in 1854 to Captain Frederick Boehmer and Mary Ann West, Clara Boehmer had four brothers, one of whom died young. Captain Boehmer was killed in an accident while stationed on Jersey in April 1863. Under financial strain, she sent Clara to live with her aunt Margaret Miller, the couple lived in Prinsted, West Sussex. Clara stayed with Margaret, and there she met her husband, an American stockbroker named Frederick Alvah Miller. Christies father Frederick was a member of the American upper class and he was considered personable and friendly by those who knew him. He soon developed a relationship with Clara, and they were married in April 1878. Clara soon purchased a villa in Torquay named Ashfield in which to raise her family, Christie described her childhood as very happy. She was surrounded by a series of strong and independent women from an early age
Agatha Christie
–
Agatha Christie as a girl, date unknown
Agatha Christie
–
Dame Agatha Christie
DBE
Agatha Christie
–
Agatha Christie's room at the
Pera Palace Hotel in
Istanbul, where she wrote Murder on the Orient Express
Agatha Christie
–
Blue plaque, 58 Sheffield Terrace,
Holland Park, London
27.
Shepperton Studios
–
Shepperton Studios is a film studio located in Shepperton, Surrey, England with a history dating back to 1931. It is now part of the Pinewood Studios Group, during its early existence the studio was branded as Sound City. Before Shepperton Studios was built, there was Littleton Park, which was built in the 17th century by local nobleman Thomas Wood, the old mansion still stands on the site. Scottish businessman Norman Loudon purchased Littleton Park in 1931 for use by his new company, Sound Film Producing & Recording Studios. The studios, which produced short and feature films, quickly became successful and expanded rapidly. The Ministry of Aircraft Production also took part of the studios for the production of Vickers Wellington bomber components early in the war. After re-opening in 1945, the studios changed hands, when Sir Alexander Korda purchased British Lion Films, he also acquired a controlling interest in Sound City and Shepperton Studios. In January 1955, a new company, British Lion Films Ltd, was formed and Roy and their comedies, such as Im All Right Jack, were produced there, as were dramas from other film-makers such as J. Lee Thompsons The Guns of Navarone. The studios other projects from the decade include Stanley Kubricks Dr Strangelove. Which won the Sound Departments Academy Award, despite the financial ups and downs of British Lion and the changing of hands, the studios remained active until the early 1970s. In 1969, the studios produced 27 films, by 1971 this number had fallen to seven, Production throughout the 1970s was erratic, reaching a low of two films by 1979. A compromise was proposed, and in 1973 the area of the studios was reduced from 60 acres to 20 acres. The studios 1970s credits include Kubricks A Clockwork Orange and Jimmy Perry and David Crofts Dads Army, Richard Attenboroughs Young Winston, in 1978, rock band The Who filmed live concert scenes at Shepperton especially for their documentary The Kids Are Alright. In 1995, the studios were purchased by a consortium headed by Ridley and Tony Scott, which led to an extensive renovation of the studios as well as the expansion and improvement of its grounds. Shepperton Studios has 15 stages, ranging in size from 3,000 square feet to 30,000 square feet, five of which are equipped with interior tanks for water and underwater filming. The childrens TV series Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends was shot on the T Stage from 1984 to 2008, the nearby Little House and surrounding grounds have been used as a filming location for films such as The Omen and The Young Victoria. The studios also have two large backlots, which have recently used to create two castle compounds for the film 47 Ronin. Many films have used Shepperton Studios, including, Thomas & Friends TUGS Red Dwarf Rebecca Dancing on Ice The Crystal Maze Russell Howards Good News You Bet, official history Shepperton Studios Biography Shepperton Studios The Pinewood Studios Group
Shepperton Studios
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Shepperton Studios
Shepperton Studios
–
Street Sign at Shepperton Studios
28.
Focus Features
–
Focus Features is an American film production and distribution company, owned by Comcast through the Universal Filmed Entertainment Group division of its wholly owned subsidiary NBCUniversal. Focus Features distributes independent and foreign films in the United States, Focus Features was formed from the 2002 divisional merger of USA Films, Universal Focus and Good Machine. USA Films was created by Barry Diller in 1999 when he purchased October Films and Gramercy Pictures from Seagram, Focus most successful release in North America to date is Brokeback Mountain, which earned $83 million at the North American box office. However, this is not counting the total of Traffic. Focus most successful release is Burn After Reading, which earned $163.7 million in worldwide gross revenue. The animated film Coraline was also highly profitable for the company and its DVD and movie rights revenues are boosted by cult classics including Wet Hot American Summer. In May 2015, Gramercy Pictures was revived by Focus as a label, that was on action, sci-fi. In February 2016, Focus merged with Universal Pictures International Productions as part of a new strategy to align the acquisition and production of specialty films in the global market. In August 2011, Focus Features launched Focus World, a label focusing on the video on demand market with plans to distribute 15 films per year. List of Focus Features films Rogue FilmDistrict Sony Pictures Entertainment Stage 6 Films Official website Focus Features at the Internet Movie Database
Focus Features
–
Logo card for Focus Features US
29.
Box office
–
A box office or ticket office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through a hole in a wall or window, or at a wicket. By extension, the term is used, especially in the context of the film industry, as a synonym for the amount of business a particular production, such as a film or theatre show. Box office business can be measured in terms of the number of tickets sold or the amount of money raised by ticket sales, the projection and analysis of these earnings is very important for the creative industries and often a source of interest for fans. This is predominant in the Hollywood movie industry, the term is attested since 1786, presumably from sales of boxes. The sense of total sales is attested from 1904, however, first attestation is about 200 years later, making this highly unlikely. Some complain that film industry focus on profit has diminished the attention given to film as an art form, however, analysis of the financial success of films is very influential for the production and funding of future works. In December 2009, with its acquisition of Nielsen EDI for $15 million, measurement company Rentrak became the provider of worldwide box office ticket sales revenue. There are numerous websites that monitor box-office receipts, such as Boxoffice, Box Office India, Box Office Mojo, Koimoi, ShowBIZ Data, for a list of films which are major box-office hits, see List of highest-grossing films. Films that are considered to have been unsuccessful at the box office are called box office bombs or box office flops. For a list of films, see List of box office bombs. To determine if a movie made a profit, it is not correct to directly compare the box office gross with the production budget, the split varies from movie to movie, and the percentage for the distributor is generally higher in early weeks. Usually the distributor gets a percentage of the revenue after first deducting a house allowance or house nut and it is also common that the distributor gets either a percentage of the gross revenue, or a higher percentage of the revenue after deducting the nut, whichever is larger. The following is film industry specific terminology as defined by Box Office Mojo, for films released in North America, box office figures are usually divided between domestic, meaning the United States and Canada, and foreign which includes all other countries. Weekly box office figures are taken to be from Friday through Thursday to allow for the fact that most films are released on a Friday, a large component of this is the weekend box office, defined as the box office receipts from Friday through Sunday. In particular, the box office for the initial week of release. Theaters is the number of theaters in which the movie is showing, since a single theater may show a movie on multiple screens, the total number of screens is used as another measure. The theaters measure is used to determine whether a film is in wide release, meaning at least 600 theaters, occasionally, a film may achieve wide release after an initial limited release, Little Miss Sunshine is an example of this
Box office
–
Box office at the
Iao Theater,
Maui,
Hawaii
Box office
–
Ticket sales booth, Charing Cross Road, London, opposite the Garrick Theatre
Box office
–
Folk Festival box office,
Edmonton,
Alberta
30.
MASH (film)
–
MASH is a 1970 American satirical black comedy war film directed by Robert Altman and written by Ring Lardner, Jr. based on Richard Hookers novel MASH, A Novel About Three Army Doctors. The picture is the feature film in the M*A*S*H franchise. The film depicts a unit of medical personnel stationed at a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War, the film won Grand Prix du Festival International du Film, later named Palme dOr, at 1970 Cannes Film Festival. The film went on to receive five Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, MASH was deemed culturally significant by the Library of Congress and was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. The Academy Film Archive preserved MASH in 2000, the film inspired the popular and critically acclaimed television series M*A*S*H, which ran from 1972 to 1983. The plot is told as a series of vignettes surrounding the life of the namesake Mobile Army Surgical Hospital where it is set. Set in 1951 in South Korea, the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital is assigned two replacements, Captains Hawkeye Pierce and Duke Forrest, who arrive in a stolen Jeep and they are insubordinate, womanizing, mischievous rule-breakers, but they soon prove to be excellent combat surgeons. As the film progresses, further scenes introduce additional characters, other characters arrive after Hawkeye and Duke, and become integrated into camp life, such as surgeon Trapper John and Nurse Margaret Houlihan. After the characters are introduced, which forms the opening act and they are prone to pranks and heavy drinking. The other faction forms around the relationship between Majors Houlihan and Burns, who are both career military personnel. The two factions battle back and forth in a series of pranks and reprisals until Burns is goaded into punching Hawkeye, the removal of Burns changes the camp social dynamic and marks the transition to the third act. Trapper and Hawkeye are removed to Japan to operate on a congressmans son, upon returning to Korea, General Hammond and Colonel Blake organize a friendly football game, with some money thrown into a pot to make bets. Hawkeye and Blake arrange for a plan in order to assure victory, first, they get Henry to apply for a specific neurosurgeon, Dr. Oliver Harmon Jones, a former professional football player for the San Francisco 49ers. Then, they bet half their money up front and keep the ringer out of the first half of the game, during the game, Houlihan uncharacteristically participates as a cheerleader in an effort to fit in. Once the other team racks up some points and becomes confident enough to offer good odds to bet the rest of the money. The 325th has its own ringers, however, and the 4077th fights back with illegal injuries, the game comes down to the last play, in which the quarterback returns the ball to the center, SSgt. Vollmer, who hides the ball under his jersey and runs into the end zone for the winning touchdown, the screenplay, by Ring Lardner, Jr. is different from the original novel. In the DVD audio commentary, Altman describes the novel as pretty terrible and he claims that the screenplay was used only as a springboard
MASH (film)
–
Theatrical release poster
31.
Academy Award
–
The various category winners are awarded a copy of a golden statuette, officially called the Academy Award of Merit, which has become commonly known by its nickname Oscar. The awards, first presented in 1929 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, are overseen by AMPAS, the awards ceremony was first broadcast on radio in 1930 and televised for the first time in 1953. It is now live in more than 200 countries and can be streamed live online. The Academy Awards ceremony is the oldest worldwide entertainment awards ceremony and its equivalents – the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for theater, and the Grammy Awards for music and recording – are modeled after the Academy Awards. The 89th Academy Awards ceremony, honoring the best films of 2016, were held on February 26,2017, at the Dolby Theatre, in Los Angeles, the ceremony was hosted by Jimmy Kimmel and was broadcast on ABC. A total of 3,048 Oscars have been awarded from the inception of the award through the 88th, the first Academy Awards presentation was held on May 16,1929, at a private dinner function at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel with an audience of about 270 people. The post-awards party was held at the Mayfair Hotel, the cost of guest tickets for that nights ceremony was $5. Fifteen statuettes were awarded, honoring artists, directors and other participants in the industry of the time. The ceremony ran for 15 minutes, winners were announced to media three months earlier, however, that was changed for the second ceremony in 1930. Since then, for the rest of the first decade, the results were given to newspapers for publication at 11,00 pm on the night of the awards. The first Best Actor awarded was Emil Jannings, for his performances in The Last Command and he had to return to Europe before the ceremony, so the Academy agreed to give him the prize earlier, this made him the first Academy Award winner in history. With the fourth ceremony, however, the system changed, for the first six ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned two calendar years. At the 29th ceremony, held on March 27,1957, until then, foreign-language films had been honored with the Special Achievement Award. The 74th Academy Awards, held in 2002, presented the first Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, since 1973, all Academy Awards ceremonies always end with the Academy Award for Best Picture. The Academy also awards Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting, see also § Awards of Merit categories The best known award is the Academy Award of Merit, more popularly known as the Oscar statuette. The five spokes represent the branches of the Academy, Actors, Writers, Directors, Producers. The model for the statuette is said to be Mexican actor Emilio El Indio Fernández, sculptor George Stanley sculpted Cedric Gibbons design. The statuettes presented at the ceremonies were gold-plated solid bronze
Academy Award
–
Academy Awards
Academy Award
–
31st Academy Awards Presentations,
Pantages Theatre, Hollywood, 1959
Academy Award
–
81st Academy Awards Presentations,
Dolby Theatre, Hollywood, 2009
Academy Award
–
Pantages Theatre, 2008
32.
British Academy Film Awards
–
The British Academy Film Awards are presented in an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts to honour the best British and international contributions to film. Between 2008 and 2016, the ceremony was held in central London at the Royal Opera House, the 70th British Academy Film Awards were held on 12 February 2017 at the Royal Albert Hall in London. British Academy of Film and Television Arts was founded in 1947 as The British Film Academy, by David Lean, Alexander Korda, Carol Reed, Charles Laughton, Roger Manvell and others. BAFTA stated charitable purpose is to support, develop and promote the art forms of the image, by identifying and rewarding excellence, inspiring practitioners. In addition to awards ceremonies BAFTA runs a year-round programme of educational events including film screenings. BAFTA is supported by a membership of about 6,000 people from the film, television, the Academys awards are in the form of a theatrical mask designed by American sculptor Mitzi Cunliffe, which was commissioned by the Guild of Television Producers in 1955. The ceremony previously took place in April or May and since 2002 it takes place in February in order to precede the Oscars. The awards are open to all nationalities, though there is an award for Outstanding British Film. Only UK films are eligible for the categories of The British Short Film, the Awards ceremony is delayed broadcast on British television the same evening, and across the world for example its shown on BBC America in the United States. It has been broadcast in colour since 1970, the award ceremony is held in London. From 2000 to 2007 the ceremonies took place at the flagship Odeon cinema in Leicester Square, between 2008 and 2016, the ceremonies took place at the Royal Opera House. The 70th Awards in 2017 were held at the Royal Albert Hall, until 2012, the mobile network Orange sponsored the awards and starting in 2013 Oranges parent company, EE, began sponsorship. British Academy of Film and Television Arts British Academy Television Awards Official website BAFTA Awards database Museum of Broadcast Communications, BAFTA IMDB, BAFTA
British Academy Film Awards
–
The location for the
2008 ceremony.
33.
Downton Abbey
–
Downton Abbey is a historical period drama television series created by Julian Fellowes and co-produced by Carnival Films and Masterpiece. It first aired on ITV in the United Kingdom on 26 September 2010, the sixth and final series introduces the rise of the working class during the interwar period and hints towards the eventual decline of the British aristocracy. It was recognised by Guinness World Records as the most critically acclaimed English-language television series of 2011 and it earned the most nominations of any international television series in the history of the Primetime Emmy Awards, with twenty-seven in total. It was the most watched series on both ITV and PBS, and subsequently became the most successful British costume drama series since the 1981 television serial of Brideshead Revisited. By the third series, it had one of the most widely watched television drama shows in the world. On 26 March 2015, Carnival Films and ITV announced that the series would be the last. It aired on ITV between 20 September 2015 and 8 November 2015, the final episode, serving as the annual Christmas special, was broadcast on 25 December 2015. The storyline centres on the fee tail or entail governing the titled elite, as part of the backstory, the main character, Robert, Earl of Grantham, had resolved past financial difficulties by marrying Cora Levinson, an American heiress. Her considerable dowry is contractually incorporated into the comital entail in perpetuity, Robert and Cora have three daughters and no sons. As the eldest daughter, Lady Mary Crawley was to marry her second cousin, the first episode begins as news reaches Downton Abbey that both Grantham heirs perished in the sinking of the Titanic. A distant male cousin, solicitor Matthew Crawley, is from an upper-middle-class family - as his mother reminds him in one of series one. Matthew Crawley becomes the new heir, the plot centres on the relationship between Lady Mary and Matthew, who resists embracing an aristocratic lifestyle. A subplot involves John Bates, Lord Granthams new valet, and Thomas Barrow, Bates and Thomas remain at odds in subsequent series. Barrow works to sabotage Bates after learning he was released from jail for theft. In the story line, Barrow, a gay man in late Edwardian England, aided by Miss OBrien, Lady Granthams personal maid, Barrow is caught stealing, but he joins the British army as a medic. Matthew eventually falls in love with Lady Mary, but she rejects his proposal. Cora becomes pregnant, possibly with an heir, but falls and miscarries after OBrien, mistakenly believing she was to be fired. The series ends just after the Archduke Franz Ferdinands assassination and the outbreak of the First World War in July 1914, the second series comprises eight episodes and runs from the Battle of the Somme in 1916 to the 1918 flu pandemic
Downton Abbey
–
The original cast image
Downton Abbey
–
Highclere Castle, used for interior and exterior filming of Downton Abbey
Downton Abbey
–
Byfleet Manor in Surrey is portrayed as the
dower house
34.
Tom Hollander
–
Thomas Anthony Hollander is an English actor. He began his career in theatre, winning the Ian Charleson Award in 1992 for his performance as Witwoud in The Way of the World at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre. He is known for his roles in films such as Pirates of the Caribbean and In the Loop and drama films such as Enigma, Pride & Prejudice, Gosford Park. He played the role in the sitcom Rev. which won the British Academy Television Award for best sitcom in 2011. He also starred in the BBC series The Night Manager and ITVs Doctor Thorne and he is currently appearing as Henry Carr in a revival of Tom Stoppards play Travesties at the Apollo Theatre in London, directed by Patrick Marber. The play transferred to the West End, with the same cast, after its run at the Menier Chocolate Factory. Hollander has been nominated for an Olivier Award for Best actor for his role in Travesties and he will play Dr. Sorgh in the film Tulip Fever which is due for U. S. release in 2017. The screenplay, also by Stoppard, is an adaptation of Deborah Moggachs historical novel and he will also appear as Garin in Terry Georges historical drama The Promise, his third collaboration with George who also directed him in Some Mothers Son and Whole Lotta Sole. In January 2016, he became an Honorary Fellow of Selwyn College, Cambridge, Hollander was born in Bristol, the son of teachers, and was raised in Oxford. His father is descended from Czech Jews who converted to Catholicism and he attended the Dragon School and then Abingdon School, where he was chief chorister. As a youngster, he was a member of the National Youth Theatre, in 1981, at the age of 14, he won the lead role in a BBC dramatisation of Leon Garfields John Diamond. Hollander read English at Selwyn College, Cambridge and he was actively involved in stage productions as a member of the Footlights and was president of the Marlowe Society. Sam Mendes, a friend and fellow student, directed him in plays while they were at Cambridge. He has worked repeatedly with Michael Gambon and Bill Nighy and is a friend of James Purefoy. Although highly respected as an actor and the recipient of several awards. Hollander portrayed Lord Cutler Beckett, the heavy in Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Mans Chest and Pirates of the Caribbean and he also appeared in the TNT miniseries The Company as Kim Philby, having previously played Guy Burgess in the BBCs Cambridge Spies. He returned to the stage in 2007 with the premiere of Joe Penhalls play Landscape with Weapon at the Royal National Theatre. In 2008 he made a cameo appearance as King George III in the HBO mini-series John Adams
Tom Hollander
–
Hollander in May 2007
35.
First World War
–
World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany
First World War
–
Clockwise from the top: The aftermath of shelling during the
Battle of the Somme,
Mark V tanks cross the
Hindenburg Line,
HMS Irresistible sinks after hitting a
mine in the
Dardanelles, a British
Vickers machine gun crew wears
gas masks during the Battle of the Somme,
Albatros D.III fighters of
Jagdstaffel 11
First World War
–
Sarajevo citizens reading a poster with the proclamation of the
Austrian annexation in 1908.
First World War
–
This picture is usually associated with the arrest of
Gavrilo Princip, although some believe it depicts Ferdinand Behr, a bystander.
First World War
–
Serbian Army
Blériot XI "Oluj", 1915.
36.
Ivor Novello
–
Ivor Novello, born David Ivor Davies, was a Welsh composer and actor who became one of the most popular British entertainers of the first half of the 20th century. He was born into a family and his first successes were as a songwriter. His first big hit was Keep the Home Fires Burning, which was popular during the First World War. His 1917 show, Theodore & Co, was a wartime hit, after the war, Novello contributed numbers to several successful musical comedies and was eventually commissioned to write the scores of complete shows. He wrote his musicals in the style of operetta and often composed his music to the librettos of Christopher Hassall, in the 1920s, he turned to acting, first in British films and then on stage, with considerable success in both. He starred in two silent films directed by Alfred Hitchcock, The Lodger and Downhill, on stage, he played the title character in the first London production of Liliom. Novello briefly went to Hollywood, but he returned to Britain. The best known of these were Glamorous Night and The Dancing Years, from the 1930s, he often performed with Zena Dare, writing parts for her in his works. He continued to write for film, but he had his biggest late successes with stage musicals, Perchance to Dream, Kings Rhapsody and Gays the Word. Novello was born in Cardiff, Wales, to David Davies, a rent collector for the city council, and his wife, Clara Novello Davies, as a boy, Novello was a successful singer in the Welsh Eisteddfod. Another of his mothers associates was Clara Butt, who taught him to sing Abide with Me when he was a boy of six, Novello was educated privately in Cardiff and then in Gloucester, where he studied harmony and counterpoint with Herbert Brewer, the cathedral organist. From there he won a scholarship to Magdalen College School in Oxford and he later said that this prolonged youthful exposure to early sacred choral music had turned his tastes, in reaction, to lush romantic music. Although Brewer had told him he would not have a career in music, Novello from his early youth showed a facility for writing songs, after leaving school, he gave piano lessons in Cardiff, and then moved to London in 1913 with his mother. They took a flat above the Strand Theatre, which became his London home for the rest of his life, in London he found a mentor in Sir Edward Marsh, a well-known patron of the arts. Marsh encouraged him to compose and introduced him to people who could help his career and he adopted part of his mothers maiden name, Novello as his professional surname, although he did not change it legally until 1927. In other respects, the war had less impact on Novello than on many men of his age. He avoided enlistment until June 1916, when he reported to a Royal Naval Air Service training depot as a probationary flight sub-lieutenant. After twice crashing an aeroplane, and with the influence of Marsh, Novello continued to write songs while serving in the RNAS
Ivor Novello
–
Ivor Novello
Ivor Novello
–
Novello's birthplace, in Cowbridge Road East,
Cardiff
Ivor Novello
–
Bobbie Andrews in 1921
Ivor Novello
–
Plaque at Novello's birthplace in Cardiff
37.
Sophie Thompson
–
Sophie Thompson is an English actress who has worked in television, film and theatre. Her film appearances include Four Weddings and a Funeral, Persuasion Dancing at Lughnasa, Gosford Park, and Harry Potter and she also played Stella Crawford in the BBC soap opera EastEnders, for which she won Best Bitch at the Inside Soap awards. Other Olivier nominations include Wildest Dreams, Clybourne Park, and Guys and she is the younger sister of actress and screenwriter Emma Thompson. Big-screen roles include Four Weddings and a Funeral, Eat Pray Love, Emma, Dancing at Lughnasa, Gosford Park, Fat Slags, Relative Values and Morris, Thompson appeared in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in 2010, as Mafalda Hopkirk and Hermione Granger disguised as Hopkirk. Thompson starred alongside popular British comedians Alan Davies, in Jonathan Creek and she has also appeared in Persuasion, Midsomer Murders, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, A Harlots Progress, and Magnolia. She played Miss Bartlett in Andrew Davies 2007 adaptation of E. M. Forsters A Room with a View, Thompson played the role of child abuser Stella Crawford in the BBC One soap opera EastEnders. She came into the show as Phil Mitchells lawyer and they developed a romantic link. Stella later became jealous of Phils relationship with his son Ben, Thompson left EastEnders on 20 July 2007, after the exposure of Stellas evil ways on her wedding day led to the characters suicide. She won the inside soap Best bitch award for her portrayal of Stella, in 2009, Thompson appeared in the BBC One comedy series Big Top. During 2012, Thompson appeared in Love Life and Lightfields, both of which were aired on ITV and her most recent television credits include Detectorists, Professor Branestawm, A Gert Lush Christmas, and Jericho. She also played Kathy/Bev in Dominic Cooks 2011 production of Clybourne Park at The Royal Court, Thompson received an Olivier nomination for Best Actress. In 1996, Thompson played the role of Amy in Sam Mendes acclaimed Donmar Warehouse revival of Company and she also appeared as the Bakers Wife in the Donmars revival of Into the Woods, which garnered her the 1999 Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical. She also played Ophelia in the Renaissance Theatre Company production of Hamlet in 1988 in Birmingham and that production was directed by Sir Derek Jacobi and starred her future brother-in-law Kenneth Branagh as Hamlet, Richard Easton as Claudius and Dearbhla Molloy as Gertrude. A film documentary called Discovering Hamlet was made of the process of producing and rehearsing this play and it was released in 1990, and a DVD version was released in 2010. Thompson took part in Celebrity MasterChef 2014, emerging as the winner beating Jodie Kidd, in 2015, Thompsons recipe book, My Family Kitchen, was published, and her first childrens book, Zoo Boy, was published in 2016. From 1995 to 2015, Thompson was married to actor Richard Lumsden and they have two sons, Ernie James, and Walter Eric. The Missionary … Mission Girl Twenty-One … Francesca Four Weddings and a Funeral … Lydia, Bean … Girlfriend Torvill and Bean,1 episode The Railway Children … Mrs Perks So What Now
Sophie Thompson
–
Sophie Thompson in 2014
38.
Class system
–
Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, and social historians. However, there is not a consensus on the best definition of the class, the precise measurements of what determines social class in society has varied over time. According to philosopher Karl Marx, class is determined entirely by ones relationship to the means of production, the term class is etymologically derived from the Latin classis, which was used by census takers to categorize citizens by wealth, in order to determine military service obligations. In the late 18th century, the class began to replace classifications such as estates, rank. Historically social class and behavior was sometimes laid down in law, definitions of social classes reflect a number of sociological perspectives, informed by anthropology, economics, psychology, and sociology. The major perspectives historically have been Marxism and Structural functionalism, the common stratum model of class divides society into a simple hierarchy of working class, middle class and upper class. For Marx, class is a combination of objective and subjective factors, objectively, a class shares a common relationship to the means of production. Subjectively, the members will necessarily have some perception of their similarity, Class consciousness is not simply an awareness of ones own class interest but is also a set of shared views regarding how society should be organized legally, culturally, socially and politically. These class relations are reproduced through time and this is the fundamental economic structure of work and property, a state of inequality that is normalized and reproduced through cultural ideology. Marxists explain the history of civilized societies in terms of a war of classes between those who control production and those who produce the goods or services in society, in the Marxist view of capitalism, this is a conflict between capitalists and wage-workers. Furthermore, in countries where modern civilisation has become fully developed, an industrial army of workmen, under the command of a capitalist, requires, like a real army, officers and sergeants who, while the work is being done, command in the name of the capitalist. This would mark the beginning of a society in which human needs rather than profit would be motive for production. In a society with democratic control and production for use, there would be no class, no state and no need for financial and banking institutions and money. Max Weber formulated a three-component theory of stratification, that saw social class as emerging from an interplay between class, status and power. Weber believed that class position was determined by a relationship to the means of production. Weber derived many of his key concepts on social stratification by examining the structure of many countries. He noted that contrary to Marxs theories, stratification was based on more than simply ownership of capital, Weber pointed out that some members of the aristocracy lack economic wealth yet might nevertheless have political power. Likewise in Europe, many wealthy Jewish families in lack prestige and honor, Class, A persons economic position in a society
Class system
–
Burmese nobles and servants
Class system
–
Sociology
Class system
–
A symbolic image of three orders of feudal society in Europe prior to the
French Revolution: The rural third estate carrying the clergy and the nobility.
Class system
–
In the United States the lowest stratum of the working class, the
underclass, often lives in urban areas with low-quality
civil services.
39.
Interwar period
–
There were numerous new nations in Eastern Europe, most of them small in size. The United States gained dominance in world finance, by the middle of the decade, prosperity was widespread, with the second half of the decade known, especially in Germany, as the Golden Twenties. The Roaring Twenties highlighted novel and highly social and cultural trends. These trends, made possible by sustained economic prosperity, were most visible in major cities like New York, Chicago, Paris, Berlin, the Jazz Age began and Art Deco peaked. For women, knee-length skirts and dresses became socially acceptable, as did bobbed hair with a marcel wave, the women who pioneered these trends were frequently referred to as flappers. Not all was new, “normalcy” returned to politics in the wake of hyper-emotional wartime passions in the United States, France, and Germany. The leftist revolutions in Finland, Poland, Germany, Austria, Hungary and Spain were defeated by conservatives, but succeeded in Russia, in Italy the fascists came to power under Mussolini after threatening a march on Rome. Most independent countries enacted womens suffrage in the era, including Canada in 1917, Britain in 1918. There were a few countries that held out until after the Second World War. If women could work in factories, it seemed both ungrateful and illogical to deny them a place in the polling booth. But the vote was more than simply a reward for war work. The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Greece did especially well, in advanced economies the prosperity reached middle class households and many in the working class. With radio, automobiles, telephones, and electric lighting and appliances, there was unprecedented industrial growth, accelerated consumer demand and aspirations, and significant changes in lifestyle and culture. The media began to focus on celebrities, especially sports heroes, major cities built large sports stadiums for the fans, in addition to palatial cinemas. The Great Depression was a worldwide economic depression that took place during the 1930s. The timing varied across nations, in most countries it started in 1929 and it was the longest, deepest, and most widespread depression of the 20th century. The depression originated in the United States, after a decline in lofty stock prices. Between 1929 and 1932, worldwide GDP fell by an estimated 15%, by comparison, worldwide GDP fell by less than 1% from 2008 to 2009 during the Great Recession
Interwar period
–
Europe, 1923
Interwar period
–
Population densities in Europe, 1923
40.
British Empire
–
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It originated with the possessions and trading posts established by England between the late 16th and early 18th centuries. At its height, it was the largest empire in history and, for over a century, was the foremost global power. By 1913, the British Empire held sway over 412 million people, 23% of the population at the time. As a result, its political, legal, linguistic and cultural legacy is widespread, during the Age of Discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal and Spain pioneered European exploration of the globe, and in the process established large overseas empires. Envious of the great wealth these empires generated, England, France, the independence of the Thirteen Colonies in North America in 1783 after the American War of Independence caused Britain to lose some of its oldest and most populous colonies. British attention soon turned towards Asia, Africa, and the Pacific, after the defeat of France in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, Britain emerged as the principal naval and imperial power of the 19th century. In the early 19th century, the Industrial Revolution began to transform Britain, the British Empire expanded to include India, large parts of Africa and many other territories throughout the world. In Britain, political attitudes favoured free trade and laissez-faire policies, during the 19th Century, Britains population increased at a dramatic rate, accompanied by rapid urbanisation, which caused significant social and economic stresses. To seek new markets and sources of raw materials, the Conservative Party under Benjamin Disraeli launched a period of imperialist expansion in Egypt, South Africa, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand became self-governing dominions. By the start of the 20th century, Germany and the United States had begun to challenge Britains economic lead, subsequent military and economic tensions between Britain and Germany were major causes of the First World War, during which Britain relied heavily upon its empire. The conflict placed enormous strain on the military, financial and manpower resources of Britain, although the British Empire achieved its largest territorial extent immediately after World War I, Britain was no longer the worlds pre-eminent industrial or military power. In the Second World War, Britains colonies in Southeast Asia were occupied by Imperial Japan, despite the final victory of Britain and its allies, the damage to British prestige helped to accelerate the decline of the empire. India, Britains most valuable and populous possession, achieved independence as part of a larger movement in which Britain granted independence to most territories of the empire. The transfer of Hong Kong to China in 1997 marked for many the end of the British Empire, fourteen overseas territories remain under British sovereignty. After independence, many former British colonies joined the Commonwealth of Nations, the United Kingdom is now one of 16 Commonwealth nations, a grouping known informally as the Commonwealth realms, that share a monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. The foundations of the British Empire were laid when England and Scotland were separate kingdoms. In 1496, King Henry VII of England, following the successes of Spain and Portugal in overseas exploration, Cabot led another voyage to the Americas the following year but nothing was ever heard of his ships again
British Empire
–
A replica of The Matthew,
John Cabot 's ship used for his second voyage to the
New World.
British Empire
–
Flag
British Empire
–
African slaves working in 17th-century
Virginia, by an unknown artist, 1670.
British Empire
–
Fort St. George was founded at
Madras in 1639.
41.
PopMatters
–
PopMatters is an international online magazine of cultural criticism that covers many aspects of popular culture. PopMatters was founded by Sarah Zupko, who had established the cultural studies academic resource site PopCultures. PopMatters launched in the fall of 1999 as a site providing original essays, reviews. Over time, the site went from a publication schedule to a five-day-a-week magazine format, expanding into regular reviews, features. In the fall of 2005, monthly readership exceeded one million, from 2006 onward, PopMatters produced several syndicated newspaper columns for McClatchy-Tribune News Service. As of 2009, there are four different pop culture related columns each week, the PopMatters Book Imprint published Joss Whedon, The Complete Companion, edited by Mary Money, with Titan Books in May 2012. PopMatters publishes content from contributors located around the globe, based in six continents and its staff includes writers from various backgrounds, ranging from academics and professional journalists to career professionals and first time writers. Many of its writers are published authorities in various fields of study, notable former contributors include David Weigel, political reporter for Slate, Steven Hyden, staff writer for Grantland and author of Whatever Happened To Alternative Nation. And Rob Horning, executive editor of The New Inquiry, karen Zarker is the senior editor
PopMatters
–
PopMatters
42.
Salon.com
–
Salon is an American news and opinion website created by David Talbot in 1995 and owned by Salon Media Group. It focuses on U. S. politics, culture, Salons headquarters is located at 870 Market Street San Francisco, California. As of June 2013, its editor-in-chief is David Daley, after previous editor-in-chief Kerry Lauerman stepped down to partner with Larer Ventures on a new startup, lauermans predecessor Joan Walsh stepped down from that position in November 2010 but remained as editor at large. Salon covers a variety of topics, according to the senior contributing writer for the American Journalism Review, Paul Farhi, Salon offers provocative political commentary and lots of sex. In 2008, Salon launched the interactive initiative Open Salon, a social content site/blog network for its readers, originally a curated site with some of its content being featured on Salon, it fell into editorial neglect and was closed in March 2015. Responding to the question, How far do you go with the sensibility to get readers. Former Salon. com editor-in-chief David Talbot said, Is Salon more tabloid-like, yeah, weve made no secret of that. Ive said all along that our formula here is that were a smart tabloid, David Talbot founded Salon and became its original editor-in-chief. He has served stints as CEO, most recently replacing Richard Gingras who left to join Google as head of news products in July 2011. As of May,2016, the companys CEO is Jordan Hoffner, the magazine was founded by the Examiners former arts and features editor David Talbot and launched in November 1995. In its early days readers noticed a specifically Northern California flavor, in an interview in 1996, Talbott agreed, We swim in the soup of San Francisco. There are a lot of odd fish weve plucked out of the Bay here, time magazine named it one of the Best Web Site of 1996. Salon purchased the virtual community The WELL in April 1999, Salon Premium, a pay-to-view content subscription was introduced on April 25,2001. The service signed over 130,000 subscribers and staved off discontinuation of services, on October 9,2003, Michael ODonnell, the chief executive and president of Salon Media Group, said he was leaving the company after seven years because it was time for a change. When he left, Salon. com had accrued $83.6 million in losses since its inception, David Talbot, Salons chairman and editor-in-chief at the time, became the new chief executive. Elizabeth Betsy Hambrecht, then Salons chief financial officer, became the president, in July 2008, Salon launched Open Salon, a social content site and curated blog network. It was nominated for a 2009 National Magazine Award. in the category best interactive feature, on March 9,2015, Salon announced it would be closing Open Salon after six years of hosting a community of writers and bloggers. On June 10,2011, Salon closed its online chat board Table Talk without stating a reason for ending that section of the site
Salon.com
–
Alex Pareene, who wrote about politics for Salon, in New York in 2012
Salon.com
–
Salon
43.
Manor house
–
A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The term is loosely applied to various country houses, frequently dating from the late medieval era. They were sometimes fortified, but this was intended more for show than for defence. Manor houses existed in most European countries where feudalism existed, where they were known as castles, palaces. Many buildings, such as schools, are named Manor, the reason behind this is because the building was or is close to a manor house. The lord of the manor may have several properties within a county or, for example in the case of a feudal baron, spread across a kingdom. A large and suitable building was required within the manor for such purpose, generally in the form of a hall. This also gave the opportunity for the manor house to be cleaned, especially important in the days of the cess-pit. Thus such non-resident lords needed to appoint a steward or seneschal to act as their deputy in such matters, the day-to-day administration was carried out by a resident official in authority at each manor, who in England was called a bailiff, or reeve. Although not typically built with strong fortifications as were castles, many manor-houses were fortified and they were often enclosed within walls or ditches which often also included agricultural buildings. The primary feature of the house was its great hall. A late 16th-century transformation produced many of the smaller Renaissance châteaux of France, the Tudor period of stability in England saw the building of the first of the unfortified great houses, for example Sutton Place in Surrey, circa 1521. During the second half of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and under her successor King James I the first mansions designed by architects not by mere masons or builders, began to make their appearance. Such houses as Burghley House, Longleat House, and Hatfield House are among the best known of this period, nearly every large mediaeval manor house had its own deer-park adjoining, emparked by royal licence, which served primarily as a store of food in the form of venison. Within these licensed parks deer could not be hunted by royalty and this gave them more privacy and space. Court was a suffix which came into use in the 16th century, the obvious origin of the suffix would appear to be that the building was the location where the manorial courts were held. True castles, when not royal castles, were generally the residences of feudal barons, the manor on which the castle was situated was termed the caput of the barony, thus every true ancient defensive castle was also the manor house of its own manor. The suffix -Park came into use in the 18th and 19th centuries, the usage is often a modern catch-all suffix for an old house on an estate, true manor or not
Manor house
–
Ulrichshusen Manor, a 16th-century fortified manor house in
Mecklenburg,
Germany
Manor house
–
Ightham Mote, a 14th-century moated manor house in Kent,
England
Manor house
–
Branicki Palace, an 18th-century palatial manor house in
Poland
Manor house
–
Markenfield Hall,
Ripon,
North Yorkshire, a 14th-century manor house defended by a moat, wall and gatehouse
44.
Novel
–
A novel is any relatively long piece of written narrative fiction, normally in prose, and typically published as a book. The genre has also described as possessing, a continuous. This view sees the novels origins in Classical Greece and Rome, medieval, early modern romance, the latter, an Italian word used to describe short stories, supplied the present generic English term in the 18th century. The romance is a closely related long prose narrative, Romance, as defined here, should not be confused with the genre fiction love romance or romance novel. Other European languages do not distinguish between romance and novel, a novel is le roman, der Roman, il romanzo, a novel is a long, fictional narrative which describes intimate human experiences. Most European languages use the word romance for extended narratives, fictionality is most commonly cited as distinguishing novels from historiography. However this can be a problematic criterion, historians would also invent and compose speeches for didactic purposes. Novels can, on the hand, depict the social, political and personal realities of a place and period with clarity. Even in the 19th century, fictional narratives in verse, such as Lord Byrons Don Juan, Alexander Pushkins Yevgeniy Onegin, vikram Seths The Golden Gate, composed of 590 Onegin stanzas, is a more recent example of the verse novel. Both in 12th-century Japan and 15th-century Europe, prose fiction created intimate reading situations, on the other hand, verse epics, including the Odyssey and Aeneid, had been recited to a select audiences, though this was a more intimate experience than the performance of plays in theaters. A new world of Individualistic fashion, personal views, intimate feelings, secret anxieties, conduct and gallantry spread with novels, the novel is today the longest genre of narrative prose fiction, followed by the novella, short story, and flash fiction. However, in the 17th century critics saw the romance as of epic length, the length of a novel can still be important because most literary awards use length as a criterion in the ranking system. Urbanization and the spread of printed books in Song Dynasty China led to the evolution of oral storytelling into consciously fictional novels by the Ming dynasty, parallel European developments did not occur for centuries, and awaited the time when the availability of paper allowed for similar opportunities. By contrast, Ibn Tufails Hayy ibn Yaqdhan and Ibn al-Nafis Theologus Autodidactus are works of didactic philosophy, in this sense, Hayy ibn Yaqdhan would be considered an early example of a philosophical novel, while Theologus Autodidactus would be considered an early theological novel. Epic poetry exhibits some similarities with the novel, and the Western tradition of the novel back into the field of verse epics. Then at the beginning of the 18th century, French prose translations brought Homers works to a wider public, longus is the author of the famous Greek novel, Daphnis and Chloe. Romance or chivalric romance is a type of narrative in prose or verse popular in the circles of High Medieval. In later romances, particularly those of French origin, there is a tendency to emphasize themes of courtly love
Novel
–
Madame de Pompadour spending her afternoon with a book, 1756.
Novel
Novel
–
Paper as the essential carrier:
Murasaki Shikibu writing her
The Tale of Genji in the early 11th century, 17th-century depiction
Novel
–
Chaucer reciting
Troilus and Criseyde: early-15th-century manuscript of the work at
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
45.
The Rules of the Game
–
The Rules of the Game is a 1939 French film directed by Jean Renoir. It features an ensemble cast of Nora Gregor, Paulette Dubost, Mila Parély, Marcel Dalio, Julien Carette, Roland Toutain, Gaston Modot, Pierre Magnier and Renoir. The Rules of the Game was the most expensive French film up to that time, Renoirs career in France was at its pinnacle in 1939 and The Rules of the Game was eagerly anticipated, however, its premiere was met with scorn and disapproval by both critics and audiences. Renoir reduced the running time from 113 minutes to 85. In October 1939, it was banned by the wartime French government for having an influence over the young. For many years, the 85-minute version was the one available. In 1956, boxes of material were rediscovered and a reconstructed version of the film premiered that year at the Venice Film Festival. Since then, The Rules of the Game has often called one of the greatest films in the history of cinema. Numerous film critics and directors have praised it highly, citing it as an inspiration for their own work, aviator André Jurieux lands at Le Bourget Airfield just outside Paris. He is greeted by his friend Octave, who tells André that Christine – the Austrian-French noblewoman André loves – has not come to greet him, when a radio reporter comes to broadcast Andrés first words upon landing, he explains his sorrow and denounces Christine. She is listening to the broadcast in her Paris apartment, she is attended by her maid, Christine has been married to Robert, Marquis de la Chesnaye for three years. For two years, Lisette has been married to Schumacher – the gamekeeper at Roberts country estate –, Christines past relationship with André is openly known by her husband, her maid and their friend Octave. After Christine and Robert playfully discuss Andrés emotional display and pledge devotion to each another and he arranges to meet his mistress Geneviève the next morning. At Genevièves apartment, Robert says he must end their relationship but invites her to them for a weekend retreat to Robert and Christines country estate, La Colinière. Later, Octave induces Robert to invite André to the estate as well and they joke that André and Geneviève will begin a relationship, thereby solving everyones problems. At the estate, Schumacher is policing the grounds and trying to eliminate rabbits, Marceau – a poacher – sneaks onto the estate to retrieve a rabbit caught in a snare. Before Marceau can escape, Schumacher catches him and begins to escort him from the property when Robert demands to know what is happening, Marceau explains that he can catch rabbits and Robert offers him a job as a servant. Once inside the house, Marceau flirts with Lisette, at a masquerade ball, various romantic liaisons are made
The Rules of the Game
–
theatrical release poster
The Rules of the Game
–
Nora Gregor in 1932. Renoir re-wrote the character Christine for the Austrian actress and fell in love with her during pre-production.
The Rules of the Game
–
Nora Gregor and
Jean Renoir during the rabbit hunt scene. Renoir cut most of his own performance as Octave after the film's negative reception.
The Rules of the Game
–
As a child Renoir's father
Pierre-August Renoir painted him as a hunter, but Renoir thought hunting was cruel and did not film The Rules of the Game 's hunting scene himself.
46.
Charlie Chan in London
–
Charlie Chan in London is a 1934 American mystery film directed by Eugene Forde. The film stars Warner Oland as Charlie Chan and this is the sixth film produced by Fox with Warner Oland as the detective, and the second not to be lost, after The Black Camel. Robert Altmans film Gosford Park, set in 1932, features a character who produces the Chan films for Fox, in order to solve the mystery, he must visit a lavish country manor house in England where the suspects vary from the housekeeper to a lawyer. Events soon indicate that the murderer is still trying to avoid capture
Charlie Chan in London
–
Charlie Chan in London
47.
Ruth Mott
–
Ruth Mott was an English domestic servant who became a television cook and personality. Mott was born Mildred Ruth Pizzey in Yattendon in Berkshire, England in 1917 to Alfred Pizzey, as a child she attended the local school, which was designed by the English architect Alfred Waterhouse. When she left school, at the age of 14, she became a kitchen and scullery maid for the Manor House, Mott was part of a staff of eight, with a wage of £1 and 5 shillings a month. A year later, in 1932, staff cuts saw Mott leaving the employment of the Waterhouse family, in 1936 she moved, this time to Lavington Park in Sussex, before circumstances saw her take up employment for Countess Iveagh at Elveden Hall in Thetford. In 1941, Mott took work at a house in Ashampstead to be closer to her parents home in Yattendon, in 1942 she married Bill Mott, whom she had known since her teen years. Bill was serving in the British Army at the time, and they moved in with her parents to take care of them and Mott took a job collecting insurance premiums for the Prudential. When her daughter, Bertha, was born, Mott became a housewife, Mott took an office job in the day, and catered for local functions in her free time. Mott continued in her catering and office work until 1970 when she was offered a role as cook-housekeeper at Basildon Park near Pangbourne for Lord. Mott continued to work full-time at Basildon Park until 1987 when she was 70 and she died on 28 July 2012 and was survived by her daughter. Mott described the methods she once utilized, such as plucking birds, skinning hares and using coal-range roasting spits, the BBC wished to build on the success of the television show The Victorian Kitchen Garden, which explored how a country garden would be run during Victorian Britain. The second series was called The Victorian Kitchen, and this explored how the produce grown in the garden, by series gardener Harry Dodson, Mott underwent auditions for the role as the head cook and was successful. She was joined on the show by Alison Arnison, who took on the duties of Motts kitchen maid, with no script and using turns of phrase, Mott spoke to the camera describing bygone methods of preparing and cooking food. Mott then found herself in demand with Britains most popular chat shows, Mott contributed for a book accompanying the series, and in 1990 followed this up with her own book, Ruth Motts Favourite Recipes. Mott returned to the BBC in 1993, becoming the cook in The Wartime Kitchen and Garden. Motts reputation as a historical cook resulted in her taking on the role as a consultant for Robert Altmans 2001 film Gosford Park, Ruth Mott at the Internet Movie Database Revisiting The Victorian Kitchen Garden location
Ruth Mott
–
Mott during her BBC role in the Victorian Kitchen
48.
Jude Law
–
David Jude Heyworth Law is an English actor. He has received nominations for two Academy Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, three Golden Globe Awards and two British Academy Awards, winning one. In 2007, he received an Honorary César and was named a Chevalier of the Order of Arts, in 2004, he received Academy Award, Golden Globe Award and British Academy Film Award nominations for his role in Anthony Minghellas epic war film Cold Mountain. Laws other notable films include Gattaca, Enemy at the Gates, artificial Intelligence, Road to Perdition, Alfie, Closer, The Holiday, Contagion, Hugo, Anna Karenina, Side Effects, and The Grand Budapest Hotel. He portrayed Dr. Watson in Guy Ritchies Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock Holmes, Law has also had an accomplished career on stage, and has received nominations for three Laurence Olivier Awards and two Tony Awards. He has performed in several West End and Broadway productions, Law was named after a bit of both in the book Jude the Obscure and the Beatles song Hey Jude. He grew up in Blackheath, an area in the Borough of Greenwich, in 1987, Law began acting with the National Youth Music Theatre. He played various roles in the Edinburgh Fringe-awarded play The Ragged Child, One of his first major stage roles was Foxtrot Darling in Philip Ridleys The Fastest Clock in the Universe. Law went on to appear as Michael in the West End production of Jean Cocteaus tragicomedy Les Parents terribles, for this play, he was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Newcomer, and he received the Ian Charleson Award for Outstanding Newcomer. Following a title change to Indiscretions, the play was reworked and transferred to Broadway in 1995 and this role earned him a Tony Award nomination and the Theatre World Award. In 1989, Law received his first television role, in a film based on the Beatrix Potter childrens book, in 1997, he became more widely known with his role in the Oscar Wilde bio-pic Wilde. Law won the Most Promising Newcomer award from the Evening Standard British Film Awards for his role as Lord Alfred Bosie Douglas, in Andrew Niccols science fiction film Gattaca, Law played the role of a disabled former swimming star living in a eugenics-obsessed dystopia. In Clint Eastwoods Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, the role earned him a Bafta award for Best Supporting Actor. In 2001, Law starred as Russian sniper Vasily Zaytsev in the film Enemy at the Gates, in 2002, he played a mob hitman in Sam Mendess 1930s period drama Road to Perdition. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Talented Mr. Ripley in 1999, both films were directed by Anthony Minghella. Law, an admirer of Sir Laurence Olivier, suggested the actors image be included in the 2004 film Sky Captain, using the science of computer graphics, footage of the young Olivier was merged into the film, playing Dr. Totenkopf, a mysterious scientific genius and supervillain. In 2006, he portrayed the role of Kate Winslets single-parent brother in the film The Holiday, after his appearances in a string of period dramas and science fiction films in the early to mid-2000s, Law said he found it tricky to approach the contemporary role in this film. Like Winslet, the stated, he felt more vulnerable about playing a character who fitted his own look and did not require an accent
Jude Law
–
Jude Law at 2007 Toronto International Film Festival
Jude Law
–
Jude Law, 2013
