The Conversation is a 1974 American mystery thriller film written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Gene Hackman with supporting roles by John Cazale, Allen Garfield, Cindy Williams, Frederic Forrest, Harrison Ford, Teri Garr and Robert Duvall. The plot revolves around a surveillance expert and the moral dilemma he faces when his recordings reveal a potential murder. Coppola cited the 1966 film Blowup as a key influence. However, since the film was released to theaters just a few months before Richard Nixon resigned as President, he felt that audiences interpreted the film to be a reaction to the Watergate scandal; the Conversation has won critical acclaim and multiple accolades, including the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film, the highest honor at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival. It was nominated for three Academy Awards in 1974 and lost Best Picture to The Godfather Part II, another Francis Ford Coppola film. In 1995, it was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally or aesthetically significant".
Harry Caul is a surveillance expert. Caul is obsessed with his own privacy, he has no friends, his mistress Amy knows nothing about him, his one hobby is playing along to jazz records on a tenor saxophone in the privacy of his apartment. Caul insists that he is not responsible for the actual content of the conversations he records or the use to which his clients put his surveillance activities. However, he is racked by guilt over a past wiretap job; this sense of guilt is amplified by his devout Catholicism. Caul, his colleague Stan and some freelance associates have taken on the task of bugging the conversation of a couple as they walk through crowded Union Square in San Francisco, surrounded by a cacophony of background noise. Amid the small-talk, the couple discuss fears that they are being watched, mention a discreet meeting at a hotel room in a few days; the challenging task of recording this conversation is accomplished by multiple surveillance operatives located in different positions around the square.
After Caul has merged and filtered the different tapes, the final result is a sound recording in which the words themselves are crystal clear, but their meaning remains ambiguous. Caul feels uneasy about what may happen to the couple once the client hears the tape, he plays the tape again and again refining its accuracy. He concentrates on one key phrase hidden under the sound of a street musician: "He'd kill us if he got the chance." Caul reinterprets the speakers' subtle emphasis on particular words in this phrase, trying to figure out their meaning in the light of what he suspects and subsequently discovers. Caul avoids handing in the tape to the aide of the man. Afterward, he finds himself under increasing pressure from the client's aide and is himself followed and bugged; the tape of the conversation is stolen from him in a moment when his guard is down. He goes to the client to find he has received the tapes, learns that the woman in the recording is the client's wife having an affair with the other man in the tapes.
Caul books a hotel room next to one mentioned in the recording of the conversation. He uses equipment to overhear the client in a heated argument with his wife; when he goes to the balcony to watch the events through the windows out of curiosity, he sees what he believes to be the wife being murdered and retreats in shock. Caul attempts to confront the client, but the client is absent. While departing, Caul catches sight of the wife and unharmed, in a limo, he learns that his client was killed in an "accident," and discovers the truth: the couple were talking about killing the woman's husband, the murder Caul witnessed was that of his client and not the wife. Caul gets a phone call from his client's assistant, who tells him not to look any further into the matter, says, "We'll be listening to you." Caul goes on a frantic search for a listening device. He sits amid the wreckage. Coppola has cited Michelangelo Antonioni's Blowup as a key influence on his conceptualization of the film's themes, such as surveillance versus participation, perception versus reality.
"Francis had seen a year or two before, had the idea to fuse the concept of Blowup with the world of audio surveillance."On the DVD commentary, Coppola says he was shocked to learn that the film utilized the same surveillance and wire-tapping equipment that members of the Nixon Administration used to spy on political opponents prior to the Watergate scandal. Coppola has said this is the reason the film gained part of the recognition it has received, but that this is coincidental. Not only was the script for The Conversation completed in the mid-1960s but the spying equipment used in the film was discovered through research and the use of technical advisers and not, as many believed, by revelatory newspaper stories about the Watergate break-in. Coppola noted that filming of The Conversation had been completed several months before the most revelatory Watergate stories broke in the press. Since the film was released to theaters just a few months before Richard Nixon resigned as President, Coppola felt that au
Carole Hodgson is an English sculptor. Hodgson studied at the Wimbledon School of Art from 1957 to 1962 and at the Slade School of Fine Art from 1962 to 1964, she is an Emeritus Professor of Fine Art and Sculpture Kingston University and a fellow of the Royal British Society of Sculptors. For over 40 years, Hodgson has drawn upon the landscape as the central source of inspiration for her work, her distinctive vision of the natural world, expressed with precision and clarity in her sculpture and drawings, reflects a finely tuned sensitivity to her surroundings. Her range of materials and subjects are eclectic taking inspiration from and array of subject matter such as the ancient sculptures of Greece, to the Welsh landscapes. Hodgson has exhibited at the Flowers Gallery, UK since 1973 which culminated in a major retrospective of her work at the gallery in 2015. To accompany the exhibition, Joan Bakewell wrote: We seek the stillness of remote places to soothe our panic at global combust. We find in the deep reaches of rock and ravine a balm to modern anxieties.
Hodgson's work both pays regard to these present sensibilities. Hodgson’s major public sculptures include the River Celebration, commissioned in 1989 for Kingston upon Thames, a bronze sculpture sited on the Old London Road at the Junction of Queen Elizabeth Road, she has had major solo shows in leading museums and galleries in Britain and around the world> A major exhibition of Carole Hodgson’s important works over the last 40 years. ”Retrospective” Flowers Gallery London, 11 February – 14 March 2015 Publications From City to Lake, Angela Flowers British Sculptors of the 20th Century, Ashgate. Carole Hodgson, Momentum. From the Sea to the Wall. Kingston University Press. Media related to Carole Hodgson at Wikimedia Commons Entry for Carole Hodgson on the Union List of Artist Names Flowers Gallery Carole Hodgson British Council / Artists Absolute Arts / Indepth Arts
Albrecht von Thaer was a German General Staff Officer and authorised representative of the last King of Saxony. He came to prominence in connection with his successful participation in the controversial long-distance cavalry exercise between Berlin and Vienna in 1892 and on account of his First World War diaries, when these were published posthumously. Albrecht Georg Otto von Thaer was born in Panten a small town in the flat lands a short distance to the west of Breslau, the eldest of his parents' six recorded children, he grew up with his siblings on his parents' farm at Lublinitz, some distance to the east of Breslau, on the margins of Upper Silesia. His father, Georg Ernst von Thaer, was a land owner and horse breeder, ennobled for his services to agriculture and cattle breeding, his mother from the ranks of the nobility, had been born Franziska von Dresler und Scharfenstein. Her father, Otto von Dresler und Scharfenstein, was a senior government administrator. One of her brothers, Albrecht's maternal uncle, Hermann von Dresler und Scharfenstein became an infantry general who won the Pour le Mérite medal in 1917.
On his father's side Albrecht von Thaer's great grandfather Albrecht Daniel Thaer had been a pioneering agronomist, identified by admirers as the father of modern agriculture. Von Thaer was home schooled, he attended the Gymnasium in Liegnitz. By the time he passed his Abitur in 1888, it was as a pupil at the Liegnitz Ritter-Akademie. Three of his mother's four army officers, he resolved to pursue a career as a cavalry officer, his father insisted that he should first obtain a higher-level academic training and accordingly he embarked on a period as a law student. As a student he became involved with the Young Men's Christian Association and became an active follower of the conservative Christian-Socialist theologian-politician Adolf Stoecker. In 1892 Albrecht von Thaer passed Part I if the State Law Exams at the Berlin state court, after seven terms of study, his studies might have progressed more had he not, been combining them with the cautious beginnings of his military career. During 1890/91 Thaer served a one-year term with the 1st Life Cuirassiers "Great Elector" Regiment, based in Breslau.
On 1 October 1891. He was accepted as a reserve officer, his legal studies concluded, on 16 April 1892 he joined the 7th "von Seydlitz" Cuirassiers in Halberstadt. Here, thanks to his unmilitary educational trajectory, he found himself four years older than colleagues of similar rank who had become army officers via the Cadet Corps route. Thaers' superior, the regimental commander at this point, was Colonel von Runstedt: higher up in the military structure, the Commander General of IV Army Corps was Cavalry General Carl von Hänisch. In Summer 1892 the new Kaiser announced a long distance ride, between Berlin and Vienna, for German cavalry officers. Thaer, only commissioned as a second lieutenant, applied to his supervising officer for permission to participate, wearing the uniform of the Von Seydelitz Cuirassiers; the distance from Berlin to Vienna meant that the exercise would be unique, that it would place considerable demands on the men and horses involved. The responsible cavalry officer, General von Hänisch, doubted that the newly promoted lieutenant, who till had combined his military career with that of a part-time law student, could overcome the challenges involved.
Von Hänisch's concern for the reputation of his cuirassiers was shared by Major-General Willy von Haeseler, commander of the 8th Cavalry Brigade. Despite the doubts of these senior officers, in the end von Thaer was permitted to take part in the event. Albrecht von Thaer was able to compensate for his lack of military experience with knowledge of horses; the precise destination for the exercise was the suburb of Floridsdorf, on the south side of central Vienna. The fastest German rider was First Lieutenant Lord von Reitzenstein of the 4th Cuirassiers "von Driesen", riding "Lippspringe", a Senner mare; the horse died after the race. The second fastest German horse - placed ninth in the overall rankings - was ridden by Albrecht von Thaer, with a total riding time of 78 hours and 45 minutes; the prize money was 1,800 Marks. His horse, a small oriental-Polish grey mare had attracted derision at the start of the race, he had purchased the animal at the Krakow horse market in 1890. She reached the finishing point undamaged apart from signs of "saddle pressure".
Subsequently, Thaer became a squadron leader with the heavy cavalry of the Cuirassier Regiment "Queen" No. 2, based in Pasewalk. From 1 October 1910 he was ordered to Berlin by the General Staff. There he was assigned to the French division, under the command of Hermann von Kuhl. Thaer was made a cavalry officer responsible for matters involving the French cavalry. In 1910 he was promoted to Major. During his time in Berlin Thaer had an enc
Kevin Ojiaku is an Italian male long jumper. Born in Italy by a Nigerian mother and Italian father. Having obtained the IAAF qualification standard, on 27 July 2017 he is selected by Italy national athletics team's technic commissioner, Elio Locatelli, to participate in the 2017 World Championships in Athletics, his Personal Best of 8.20 m, set in 2017, is the 4th best Italian performance and 21h in the 2017 world season list until the beginning of the 2017 World Championships in Athletics. Long jump outdoor: 8.20 m - Turin, 21 May 2017 Long jump indoor: 7.93 m - Ancona, 18 February 2017 Italian all-time lists - long jump Naturalized athletes of Italy Kevin Ojiaku at World Athletics Kevin Ojiaku at FIDAL
Brent is a city in Bibb County, United States. At the 2010 census the population was 4,947. Brent was founded in 1898 along the Gulf, Mobile & Ohio Railroad line in the southern portion of Bibb County, named after surveyor Brent H. Armstrong; the community was incorporated in 1913. On May 27, 1973, Brent was completely destroyed by an F4 tornado during an outbreak of violent weather in the Deep South, killing 5 people and injuring 56 in the area; the tornado was on the ground for 139 miles the longest track to date in Alabama history, beginning just northeast of Demopolis in Hale County and dissipating at Cheaha Mountain in Clay County. Adjacent Centreville received significant damage as well as locations in nearby counties. Brent was able to be rebuilt. Brent is located near the center of Bibb County at 32°56'24.864" North, 87°10'29.935" West. It lies in the Cahaba River valley and is adjacent to the city of Centreville, the county seat, across the Cahaba River from the city. U. S. Route 82 passes through the northern part of town, bypassing the town center, leads northwest 32 miles to Tuscaloosa and southeast 73 miles to Montgomery, the state capital.
According to the U. S. Census Bureau, Brent has a total area of 8.8 square miles, of which 8.8 square miles is land and 0.039 square miles, or 0.34%, is water. The climate in this area is characterized by hot, humid summers and mild to cool winters. According to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Brent has a humid subtropical climate, abbreviated "Cfa" on climate maps; as of the census of 2010, there were 4,947 people, 1,178 households, 788 families residing in the city. The population density was 564 people per square mile. There were 1,323 housing units at an average density of 150.3 per square mile. The racial makeup of the city was 53.5% Black or African American, 45.1% White, 0.1% Native American, 0.0% Asian, 0.5% from other races, 0.6% from two or more races. 2.1 % of the population were Latino of any race. There were 1,178 households out of which 30.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 38.9% were married couples living together, 23.6% had a female householder with no husband present, 33.1% were non-families.
30.7% of all households were made up of individuals and 12.0% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.47 and the average family size was 3.10. In the city, the population was spread out with 15.6% under the age of 18, 10.3% from 18 to 24, 39.4% from 25 to 44, 25.8% from 45 to 64, 8.9% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36.2 years. For every 100 females, there were 209.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 278.8 males. The median income for a household in the city was $35,044, the median income for a family was $42,440. Males had a median income of $43,211 versus $22,010 for females; the per capita income for the city was $16,799. About 14.9% of families and 18.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 25.1% of those under age 18 and 38.4% of those age 65 or over. Brent is governed via the mayor-council system; the city council consists of five members each elected from single member districts. The mayor Bobbie White, is elected by the entire city.
The Alabama Department of Corrections operates the Bibb Correctional Facility in Brent. The United States Postal Service operates the Brent Post Office. Intercity bus service is provided by Greyhound Lines. Charles Cleveland, former professional basketball player for the Philadelphia 76ers The visionary art environment of outsider artist and Methodist minister George Paul Kornegay was based on a hill near Brent. City of Brent official website
Electro Voice is the third solo album by former America member Dan Peek, released in 1986. The first single from the album was a remake of Peek's 1975 hit with America, "Lonely People"; the song reached No. 2 on the contemporary Christian music chart and No. 1 on the Christian Adult chart for four weeks. The title track made the CCM Top 10 and "A New Song" charted on the CCM Adult chart. All songs written except where noted. "Electro-Voice" "A New Song" "Solid Ground" "Not My Will" "Lonely People" "His Master's Voice" "I'll Be Coming Home" "Open Up Your Heart" "The Rapture" "All Things Work Together for Good"