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The Madness of King George

The Madness of King George is a 1994 British biographical comedy drama film directed by Nicholas Hytner and adapted by Alan Bennett from his own 1991 play The Madness of George III. It tells the true story of George III of Great Britain's deteriorating mental health, and his equally declining relationship with his eldest son, the Prince of Wales, particularly focusing on the period around the Regency Crisis of 1788–89. Two text panels at the end of the film note that the colour of the King's urine suggests that he was suffering from porphyria, adding that the disease is "periodic, unpredictable and hereditary."

The Madness of King George won the BAFTA Awards in 1995 for Outstanding British Film and Best Actor in a Leading Role for Nigel Hawthorne, who was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. The film won the Oscar for Best Art Direction and was also nominated for Oscars for Best Supporting Actress for Mirren and Best Adapted Screenplay. Helen Mirren also won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress and Hytner was nominated for the Palme d'Or.

In 1999, the British Film Institute voted The Madness of King George the 42nd greatest British film of all time.

Plot
King George III's bout of madness in 1788 touched off the Regency Crisis of 1788 and triggered a power struggle between factions of Parliament under the Tory Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger and the reform-minded Leader of the Opposition Charles James Fox.

At first, the King's behaviour appears mildly eccentric. He is deeply concerned with the wellbeing and productivity of Great Britain and exhibits an encyclopaedic knowledge of the families of even the most obscure royal appointments. He is devoted to his loving wife, Queen Charlotte, and their large brood of 15 children. However, he is growing more unsettled, partly over the loss of America. His memory fails, his behaviour becomes erratic and hypersexual, he talks and talks, and his urine turns blue.

George, Prince of Wales, aggravates the situation, knowing that he will be named regent if the King becomes incapacitated. George chafes under his father's relentless criticism, and yearns for greater freedom, particularly when it comes to choosing a wife. He married the woman everyone believes to be his mistress, Mrs. Fitzherbert, in a secret ceremony in 1785. Without his father's consent, the marriage is illegal. Even with consent, it would remove him from the succession, because Fitzherbert is a Catholic. He knows that he has the moral support of Fox, whose agenda includes abolition of the slave trade and friendlier relations with America. Knowing how to exacerbate the King's behaviour, the Prince arranges a concert of music by Handel. The King reacts as expected, interrupting the musicians, speaking lasciviously to Lady Pembroke, and finally assaulting his son.

In a private moment, the King tells Charlotte that he knows something is wrong. They are brutally interrupted when the Prince has them separated, supposedly on the advice of physicians. Led by the Prince of Wales' personal physician, Dr. Warren, the King is treated using the medical practices of the time, which focus on the state of his urine and bowel movements and include painful cupping and purgatives.

Lady Pembroke recommends Dr. Francis Willis, who cured her mother-in-law. Willis uses novel procedures. At his farm in Lincolnshire, patients work to gain “a better opinion of themselves.” He observes to an equerry “To be curbed, thwarted, stood up to, exercises the character.” When the King insults him, foully, he is strapped into a chair and gagged. He will be restrained whenever he “swears and indulges in meaningless discourse” and “does not strive every day and always towards his own recovery”.

When the Prince has the King transferred to Kew, Charlotte watches as her beloved, bearded and wearing a soiled diaper and a straitjacket, struggles against being put in the coach. “Until you can govern yourself, you're not fit to govern others. And until you do so, I shall govern you,” Willis says. At Kew, the King spits soup at Willis, but gains control under the physician's intractable gaze. Later, the King, properly dressed, feeds himself to a round of applause from staff—but the delusions persist.

The Whig opposition confronts Pitt's increasingly unpopular Tory government with a proposal that would give the Prince powers of regency. Baron Thurlow, the Lord Chancellor, obtains and suppresses proof of the marriage. Fox wins, and the Regency Bill is printed. Thurlow comes to see the King and joins in a moving reading of King Lear. “I have remembered how to seem...” the King muses. “What, what!” an expression he has not used in 6 months. His urine is yellow.

Thurlow and the King arrive at Parliament in time to thwart the bill. The King forces the Prince to admit his marriage and to put away Fitzherbert. With the crisis averted, all those who have witnessed his suffering are summarily dismissed, including Greville. Fitzroy observes: “To be kind does not commend you to kings.”

Cheering crowds welcome the royal family to St. Paul's Cathedral. Willis stands by, but the King dismisses him.

“We must be a model family,” he declares; George wants “something to do.” “Smile at the people, wave at them. Let them see that we're happy. That's why we're here.” Saluting, Willis disappears into the crowd, where Mrs. Fitzherbert also smiles, wistfully.

Production
Alan Bennett insisted that director Nicholas Hytner and actor Nigel Hawthorne should be cast in the film version, after having acted in the play.

Title change
In adapting the play to film, the director Nicholas Hytner changed the name from The Madness of George III to The Madness of King George for American audiences, to clarify George III's royalty. A popular explanation developed that the change was made because there was a worry that American audiences would think it was a sequel and not go to see it, assuming they had missed "I" and "II". An interview revealed: "That's not totally untrue," said Hytner, laughing. "But there was also the factor that it was felt necessary to get the word King into the title."

Filming locations
Principal photography took place from 11 July to 9 September 1994. The film was shot at Shepperton Studios and on location at:
 * Arundel Castle, Arundel, West Sussex
 * Divinity School, Oxford
 * Broughton Castle, Banbury, Oxfordshire
 * Eton College, Eton, Berkshire
 * Royal Naval College, Greenwich
 * St Paul's Cathedral, London
 * Syon House, Brentford, Middlesex
 * Thame Park, Oxfordshire
 * Wilton House, Wilton, Wiltshire

Box office
The Madness of King George was the second highest-grossing British film of the year, behind Shallow Grave, with a gross of £4.6 million in the UK. It debuted strongly at the US box office and went on to gross $15,238,689 in the United States and Canada and $27.4 million worldwide.

Critical response
The film received largely positive reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 94% score based on 47 reviews, with an average of 7.8/10. The site's consensus states: "Thanks largely to stellar all-around performances from a talented cast, The Madness of King George is a funny, entertaining, and immensely likable adaptation of the eponymous stage production."

Reviewing for Variety, Emanuel Levy praised the film, writing: "Under Hytner's guidance, the cast, composed of some of the best actors in British cinema, rises to the occasion... Boasting a rich period look, almost every shot is filled with handsome, emotionally charged composition".

John Simon of The National Review wrote, "The Madness of King George III has survived the transfer from stage to screen, and emerges equally enjoyable on film." Simon praised the leading actors and most of the supporting cast, except for Carter's portrayal of Fox, which he said lacked charisma.

Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic wrote, "For those who, like myself, were disappointed in the play, the film contains pleasant surprises, all of them resulting from differences between the two arts."

Year-end lists

 * 2nd – Peter Rainer, Los Angeles Times
 * 8th – National Board of Review
 * 10th – Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
 * Top 10 runner-ups (not ranked) – Janet Maslin, The New York Times
 * Best of the year (not ranked) - Michael Medved, Sneak Previews

title: The Madness of King George


text:
Nobody's Fool (1994 film)

Nobody's Fool is a 1994 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Robert Benton, based on the 1993 novel of the same name by Richard Russo. It stars Paul Newman, Jessica Tandy, Melanie Griffith, Dylan Walsh, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Gene Saks, Josef Sommer, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Philip Bosco and Bruce Willis.

It was Paramount's final production under its Paramount Communications ownership (being sold to the original Viacom in July 1994) as well as Tandy's final film performance before her death on September 11, 1994. For his performance, Newman received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actor and Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role as well as for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama, in addition to a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay for Benton at the 67th Academy Awards.

Plot
Donald "Sully" Sullivan is a stubborn old reprobate living in the peaceful, snowy northern New York state village of North Bath. He freelances in the construction business, usually with his dim-witted friend Rub by his side. He is often at odds with Carl Roebuck, a local contractor, suing him at every opportunity for unpaid wages and disability. Sully's one-legged lawyer Wirf is inept, and his lawsuits are repeatedly dismissed. As a way to irritate him, Sully openly flirts with Carl's wife Toby at every opportunity (which she enjoys). He is a regular at the Iron Horse Saloon, where he often has drinks and plays cards with Wirf, Carl, Rub, Jocko the town pharmacist, and Ollie Quinn, the town's Chief of Police.

A running joke is the repeated theft of Carl's snowblower. Sully steals it to get back at Carl for his latest failed lawsuit. Carl steals it back, placing it in the yard at his construction business guarded by his doberman pinscher guard dog. Sully, after drugging the dog, steals it a second time. Carl takes it back a final time, and leaves the dog, who is now skittish due to his drugging, at Sully's childhood home for him to find.

Sully is a tenant in the home of the elderly Miss Beryl, his 8th grade teacher, whose banker son Clive strongly urges her to kick him out and sell the house. Family complications of his own develop for Sully with a visit from Peter, his estranged son who is a jobless professor at odds with his wife. While he and Sully reconstruct their relationship, Sully begins a new one with young grandson Will. Peter's sudden everyday presence does not sit well with Rub, but Sully tells him that although Peter is his son, Rub is still his best friend. Meanwhile, Clive is on the verge of a lucrative deal to build an amusement park in North Bath. However, the deal unexpectedly falls through when the promoter turns out to be a con man, and Clive quietly skips town in shame since he used his bank's resources to help finance the amusement park.

After being jailed for punching a police officer named Raymer who has been persecuting him, Sully's luck seems to be all bad. But his son and grandson start to warm up to him, and his fortune takes a turn for the better when his horse racing trifecta ticket wins. Even the lovely Toby expresses a willingness to leave Carl, mostly due to his constant womanizing, and run away with Sully to Hawaii. Sully realizes he can't leave his grandson and thanks Toby for considering him, just before she leaves for the airport. In the end, Sully is pretty much back where he began, boarding at Miss Beryl's. But now he is a little richer, both financially and in his soul, he's a new dog owner, and he has become the picture of contentment.

Production
The setting for both the book and movie, the fictional North Bath, New York, is based on the city of Ballston Spa, New York, in Saratoga County, New York, just east of Gloversville, where Russo grew up. The real Ballston Spa was overshadowed by neighboring Saratoga Springs, just as North Bath was eclipsed by the fictional Schuyler Springs. Nobody's Fool was filmed in the Hudson Valley city of Beacon, which was paid a $40,000 location fee for services and inconveniences. Production began in November 1993 and concluded in February 1994. The Iron Horse Bar, located on N. 7th Street in Hudson, NY, is now the Governor's Tavern; and the Diner is now The Grazin' Diner on Warren Street, just around the corner in Hudson.

Bruce Willis reportedly agreed to a substantial pay cut to appear in the film, accepting the SAG-AFTRA scale of $1,400 per week at a time when the actor was earning roughly $15 million for his action movies. His name appears only in the closing credits.

Box office
Nobody's Fool was given a limited release on December 23, 1994, earning $92,838 in six theaters. The film was given a wide release on January 13, 1995, earning $7,142,691 over its opening weekend in 792 theaters. The film ultimately grossed $39,491,975 in the US and Canada.

Critical response
Nobody's Fool was well received by film critics. The film maintains a 91% rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes based on reviews from 55 critics. The site's consensus states: "It's solidly directed by Robert Benton and stacked with fine performances from an impressive cast, but above all, Nobody's Fool is a showcase for some of Paul Newman's best late-period work." On Metacritic the film has a score of 86 out of 100 based on reviews from 28 critics.

Todd McCarthy of Variety wrote: "Nobody's Fool is a gentle, flavorsome story of a loose-knit, dysfunctional family whose members essentially include every glimpsed citizen of a small New York town. Fronted by a splendid performance from Paul Newman as a spirited man who has made nothing of his life, Robert Benton's character-driven film is sprinkled with small pleasures; the dramatic developments here don't take place in the noisy, calamitous manner that is customary these days. Desson Howe of The Washington Post similarly remarked: "Nobody's Fool is so eloquently straightforward, it practically sings to the soul. A story about very real people caught in the everyday woes and worries of a small Upstate New York town, it shows the kind of character traits, tics and from-the-heart chatter you wish there was more of in the movies. Jonathan Rosenbaum of The Chicago Reader also wrote: "This is the first Robert Benton movie I've really liked — and possibly my favorite Paul Newman performance since The Hustler. Conceived somewhat in the spirit of Chekhov's stories, Nobody's Fool ambles along semiplotlessly, focusing on the petty love-hatreds that link people together in small towns and the everyday orneriness that keeps them alive...it has both the poetry and the authenticity of failure."

Paul Newman was particularly praised by critics. Caryn James of The New York Times described the star's performance as "the single best of this year and among the finest he has ever given". Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote: "I have been watching Paul Newman in movies all of my life. He is so much a part of the landscape of modern American film that sometimes he is almost invisible: He does what he does with simplicity, grace and a minimum of fuss, and so I wonder if people even realize what a fine actor he is.

Year-end lists

 * 3rd – John Hurley, Staten Island Advance
 * 5th – Michael MacCambridge, Austin American-Statesman
 * 7th – National Board of Review
 * 10th – Janet Maslin, The New York Times
 * Top 10 (listed alphabetically, not ranked) – Jimmy Fowler, Dallas Observer
 * Top 10 (listed alphabetically, not ranked) – Bob Ross, The Tampa Tribune
 * "The second 10" (not ranked) – Sean P. Means, The Salt Lake Tribune
 * Honorable mention – Glenn Lovell, San Jose Mercury News
 * Honorable mention – Jeff Simon, The Buffalo News

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Nobody's Fool (1994 film)


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Joaquin Miller

Cincinnatus Heine Miller (September 8, 1837 – February 17, 1913), better known by his pen name Joaquin Miller, was an American poet, author, and frontiersman. He is nicknamed the "Poet of the Sierras" after the Sierra Nevada, about which he wrote in his Songs of the Sierras (1871).

Early years and family
Joaquin Miller's parents were Hulings Miller and Margaret (née Witt), who married January 3, 1836, in Union County, Indiana. Their second son, Cincinnatus Hiner Miller, was born in 1837 near Union County, Indiana. For unknown reasons, Miller later claimed his birth date was November 10, 1841. He said he was born in Millersville, Indiana, a town he claimed was founded by his father, while on a wagon heading west. After leaving Union County, Miller's father then moved the family to Grant County, Indiana to a location near the Mississinewa River and near the Miami Indian Reservation. Besides adopting the pen name "Joaquin", he later changed his middle name from Hiner to Heine to evoke the German poet Heinrich Heine.

While Miller was a young boy, probably between 1850 and 1852, his family moved to Oregon and settled in the Willamette Valley, establishing a farm in what would become Lane County.

As a young man, he moved to northern California during the California Gold Rush years, and had a variety of adventures, including spending a year living in a Native American village, and being wounded in a battle with Native Americans. A number of his popular works, Life Amongst the Modocs, An Elk Hunt, and The Battle of Castle Crags, draw on these experiences. He was wounded in the cheek and neck with an arrow during this latter battle, recuperating at the Gold Rush-era mining town of Portuguese Flat.

Wanderings and early writings
He accompanied William Walker on the latter's 1855 filibustering expedition to Nicaragua. In the spring of 1857, Miller took part in an expedition against the Pit River Tribe after they killed a white man on Pit River. Years later, he claimed that he had sided with the Native Americans and was run out of town for it. He was widely rumored to have married an Indian woman, possibly a Wintu woman who nursed him back to health after he was wounded by Modocs, and to have fathered with her a daughter named Cali-Shasta, or "Lily of the Shasta." Although Miller soon left the area to pursue other adventures, in the 1870s he sought out Cali-Shasta, then in her teens, and took her to San Francisco to be educated by his friend Ina Coolbrith. Contemporaries believed that Miller's "Indian wife" was the woman later kidnapped by Modocs and held in captivity for some years until rescued by a man named Jim Brock (whom she married), but when "Amanda Brock" died in 1909, Miller denied news reports describing his supposed romance with her. He credited her with saving his life, but said she had always been a platonic friend.

Spending a short time in the mining camps of northern Idaho, Miller found his way to Canyon City, Oregon by 1864 where he was elected the third Judge of Grant County. His old cabin in Canyon City is still standing.

Miller's exploits included a variety of occupations: mining-camp cook (who came down with scurvy from only eating what he cooked), lawyer and a judge, newspaper writer, Pony Express rider, and horse thief. On July 10, 1859, Miller was caught stealing a horse gelding valued at $80, a saddle worth $15, and other items. He was jailed briefly in Shasta County for the crime, and various accounts give other incidents of his repeating this crime in California and Oregon. Miller earned an estimated $3,000 working as a Pony Express rider, and used the money to move to Oregon. With the help of his friend, Senator Joseph Lane, he became editor of the Democratic Register in Eugene, a role he held from March 15 to September 20, 1862. Though no copies survive, it was known as sympathetic to the Confederacy until it was forced to shut down because of its treasonable character. That year, Miller married Theresa Dyer on September 12, 1862, in her home four days after meeting her in Port Orford, Oregon. He had corresponded with her after exchanging poems with her for critique and chasing away a competing suitor. She published poetry under the pen name "Minnie Myrtle" and later, as Minnie Myrtle Miller. The couple had three children: Maud, George, and Henry, although Miller would later claim the baby Henry was not his own.

In 1868, Miller paid for the publication of 500 copies of his first book of poetry, Specimens. It was unnoticed and Miller gave away more copies than he sold. Few have survived. The author's despair and disappointment was reflected in his second book, Joaquin et al., the next year.

Dyer filed for divorce on April 4, 1870, claiming they had a third child, Henry Mark, the year before and that Miller was "wholly" neglectful. The court declared them divorced on April 19 and Dyer was granted custody of the baby while the two older children were left in the care of her mother. Miller was ordered to pay $200 per year in child support. Miller believed the divorce prevented him from being nominated for a seat on the Oregon Supreme Court. He never denied her charges that he was neglectful of her and their children and was rarely home. He also may have had an affair with actress Adah Isaacs Menken shortly into the marriage.

Travels
Miller had sent a copy of Joaquin, et al. to Bret Harte, who offered advice that he avoid "faults of excess" and encouragingly wrote, "you are on your way to become a poet." The next summer, July 1870, Miller traveled to San Francisco with borrowed money and there befriended Charles Warren Stoddard and Ina Coolbrith. Stoddard was the first to meet him at the dock and, as he recalled, Miller's first words to him were, "Well, let us go and talk with the poets."

Miller went to England, where he was celebrated as a frontier oddity. There, in May 1871, Miller published Songs of the Sierras, the book which finalized his nickname as the "Poet of the Sierras". It was well received by the British press and members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, particularly Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Michael Rossetti.

While in England, he was one of the few Americans invited into the Savage Club along with Julian Hawthorne, son of Nathaniel Hawthorne. The younger Hawthorne referred to Miller as "a licensed libertine" but admitted to finding him "charming, amiable, and harmless". Rather abruptly, Miller left England in September 1871 and landed in New York. At the encouragement of family, he made his way to Easton, Pennsylvania to visit his dying brother before returning to Oregon; his father died shortly thereafter. Miller eventually settled in California, where he grew fruit and published his poems and other works.

In 1877, Miller adapted his First Fam'lies of the Sierras into a play, The Danites, or, the Heart of the Sierras. It opened on August 22 in New York with McKee Rankin as the main character. The anti-Mormon play, which featured Danites hunting the daughter of one of the murderers of Joseph Smith, became one of the most commercially successful in a series of anti-Mormon dramas at the time. The Spirit of the Times, however, attributed its success to curious audience members expecting a disastrous failure and instead discovering a good show: "The play proved to possess more than ordinary merit, and if it is not a great work, it is decidedly not a very bad one." The Danites was extended from a run of only a few days to one of seven straight weeks before moving to another theatre and, ultimately, was performed to such a degree that it rivaled the popularity of Uncle Tom's Cabin. It was published in book form later in 1877. Miller later admitted that he regretted the anti-Mormon tone.

Miller married for a third time on September 8, 1879 to Abigail Leland, in New York City.

Later years and death
In 1886, Miller published The Destruction of Gotham, a book which was one of the earliest to depict a prostitute as a heroine. That year, he moved to Oakland, California, and built a home for himself he nicknamed "The Abbey" on property he called "The Hights" [sic]. He remained there until his death in 1913.

Japanese poet Yone Noguchi came to The Hights in 1894 and spent the next four years there as an unpaid laborer in exchange for room and board. While living there, he published his first book, Seen or Unseen; or, Monologues of a Homeless Snail (1897). Though he referred to Miller as "the most natural man", Noguchi reflected on those years as his most difficult in the United States and later fictionalized his experience in The American Diary of a Japanese Girl.

In 1897, Miller traveled to the Yukon as a newspaper correspondent. He saw Alaska for the first time on July 30. His dispatches, many of which were written before reaching Alaska, incorrectly implied an easy and inexpensive trip. Miller himself nearly froze to death; two toes were lost to frostbite.

Miller died on February 17, 1913, surrounded by friends and family. His last words were recorded as "Take me away; take me away!" The poet had asked to be cremated by friends in the funeral pyre he built at The Hights with no religious ceremony and without being embalmed. His wishes were mostly ignored and the funeral on February 19 drew thousands of curious onlookers. The preacher who spoke referred to Miller as "the last of America's great poets." On May 23, members of the Bohemian Club of San Francisco and the Press Club returned to Miller's funeral pyre to burn the urn which contained his ashes, allowing them to scatter. He had left no will and his estate — estimated at $100,000 — was divided between his wife, Abigail and daughter, Juanita.

Critical response and reputation
Miller was championed, although not enthusiastically, by Bret Harte and Ambrose Bierce. In his time, Miller was known for his dishonesty and womanizing. Bierce, his friend and contemporary, said of him, "In impugning Mr. Miller's veracity, or rather, in plainly declaring that he has none, I should be sorry to be understood as attributing a graver moral delinquency than he really has. He cannot, or will not, tell the truth, but he never tells a malicious or thrifty falsehood." Miller's response was, "I always wondered why God made Bierce."

Called the "Poet of the Sierras" and the "Byron of the Rockies", he may have been more of a celebrity in England than in his native U.S. Much of his reputation, however, came not from his poetry but from the image he created for himself by capitalizing on the stereotypical image of Western frontiersmen. As poet Bayard Taylor bitterly noted in 1876, British audiences "place the simulated savagery of Joaquin Miller beside the pure and serene muse of Longfellow." Critics made much of Miller's poor spelling and rhymes; he once rhymed "Goethe" and "teeth". Henry Cuyler Bunner satirized the error in a poem titled "Shake, Mulleary, and Go-ethe". Miller himself once admitted, "I'm damned if I could tell the difference between a hexameter and a pentameter to save my scalp."

The Westminster Review referred to Miller's poetry as "Whitman without the coarseness". For a time, Miller's poem "Columbus" was one of the most widely known American poems, memorized and recited by legions of schoolchildren. Miller is remembered today, among other reasons, for lines from his poem in honor of "Burns and Byron":

 * In men whom men condemn as ill
 * I find so much of goodness still.
 * In men whom men pronounce divine
 * I find so much of sin and blot
 * I do not dare to draw a line
 * Between the two, where God has not.

Legacy
A historical marker for his birthplace was unveiled October 10, 1915, on U.S. 27 north of Liberty in Union County, Indiana. Joaquin Miller Cabin is located in Washington, DC. The Hights, the Oakland home Miller built at the end of his life, was purchased by the city of Oakland in 1919, and is known as the Joaquin Miller House, located in Joaquin Miller Park. It is a designated California Historical Landmark. He planted the surrounding trees and he personally built, on the eminence to the north, his own funeral pyre and monuments dedicated to Moses, General John C. Frémont, and the poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Several schools in California are named for him, including Miller Middle School in San Jose, Joaquin Miller Elementary School in Oakland, and Joaquin Miller Elementary School in Burbank.

Joaquin Miller is portrayed by Sean McClory in the Death Valley Days 13th season episode "Magic Locket", which portrays Ina Coolbrith and the love of her life. Actor George Paulsin portrayed a youthful Joaquin Miller in the Death Valley Days episode "Early Candle Lighten", hosted by Dale Robertson. The episode, which aired April 24, 1970, marked Paulsin's first screen appearance and the last of the series' 452 episodes. In the story line, a cook at a gold camp in the Arizona Territory faces hanging for stealing nuggets from the miners. His assistant, "Nat Miller", played by Paulsin, thinks he can save his life by bringing the cook's sister from Tucson. It was at this gold camp that Miller perfected his penchant for western poetry.

In the 1978 British miniseries Lillie, actor Bruce Boa as Miller startles guests when Lillie Langtry arrives at a ball by scattering rose petals in her path.

In 2012, artist Mark Oliver created a large statue called "Joaquin's Book" in Hoo Hoo Park in McCloud, California. The location is near where Miller lived with the Wintus.

List of works

 * Specimens (1868)
 * Joaquin et al. (1869)
 * Pacific Poems (1871)
 * Songs of the Sierras (1871)
 * Songs of the Sun-Lands (1873)
 * Life Amongst the Modocs (1873)
 * Arizonian (1874)
 * First Fam'lies of the Sierras (1875–76)
 * The One Fair Woman (1876)
 * The Baroness of New York (1877)
 * The Danites (1878)
 * Songs of Italy (1878)
 * Shadows of Shasta (1881)
 * How to Win in Wall Street (1881) pseud. "A Successful Operator"
 * Memorie and rime (1884)
 * The Destruction of Gotham (1886)
 * Songs of the Soul (1896)
 * True Bear Stories (1900)
 * Chants for the Boer (1900)
 * The Complete Poetical Works of Joaquin Miller (1902)
 * As It Was in the Beginning (1903)
 * The Building of the City Beautiful (1905)
 * Light: A Narrative Poem (1907)
 * Joaquin Miller's Poems, with an introduction and autobiography (6 vols., San Francisco, 1909–1910)
 * The Danites in the Sierras (1910)
 * 49: The Gold-Seekers of the Sierras (1910)
 * An Elk Hunt
 * The Battle of Castle Crags

title: Joaquin Miller


text:
Talk:Capitals of the Netherlands

This is simply not true. While the government resides in The Hague, the Dutch contitution clearly states that Amsterdam is the capital. I propose to remove this page. User:Prasenberg

title: Talk:Capitals of the Netherlands


text:
Mr. Holland's Opus

Mr. Holland's Opus is a 1995 American drama film directed by Stephen Herek, produced by Ted Field, Robert W. Cort, and Michael Nolin, and written by Patrick Sheane Duncan. The film stars Richard Dreyfuss in the title role of Glenn Holland, a dedicated high-school music teacher who attempts to compose his own music while struggling to balance his job and life with his wife and profoundly deaf son. The cast also includes Glenne Headly, Olympia Dukakis, William H. Macy, and Jay Thomas.

The film was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay in 1995. Richard Dreyfuss received nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama and the Academy Award for Best Actor.

Plot
In the fall of 1964, 30-year-old Glenn Holland is a successful and talented musician and composer from Portland, Oregon. He switches gears, taking a position as a music teacher at John F. Kennedy High School so that he can spend more time with his young wife Iris and work on his symphony. The film covers his 30-year teaching career, set amongst the changes in American society.

Holland at first struggles in his new job, but learns how to connect with his students by using rock and roll and other popular music to convince them that music is a fun and worthwhile pursuit. He becomes a popular teacher at the school and rises to the task of creating a school marching band with help from the football coach, Bill Meister, with whom he becomes lifelong friends. Holland persuades principal Helen Jacobs to maintain funding for the school's arts programs, despite a shrinking budget and the objections of vice principal Gene Wolters.

The time Holland devotes to his classes, the marching band, orchestra, productions and mentoring both struggling and talented students leaves him little time to work on his symphony, or to spend with his family. When his son, Cole, is found to be deaf, he is severely disappointed that he will never be able to share his love of music. He fails to learn American Sign Language properly, leaving him unable to communicate with his son and creating a rift between him and Iris, who has to raise Cole mostly by herself. As the years progress, Holland grows closer to his students at Kennedy High and more distant from his own son. An argument with his teenage son finally makes Holland realize the error of his ways and he learns to communicate with his son and help him visualize the music he can't hear, and repairs his relationship with his wife.

In 1995, Wolters (who is now the principal) shuts down the school's arts programs, citing further cuts from the Education Board and the need to prioritize reading, writing and math, and Holland is laid off as a result. Holland makes an impassioned plea to the Board to no avail and becomes despondent, believing that his teaching career has amounted to nothing. On his last day, Holland's wife and son, now a teacher himself, help him clear out his office and quietly leave the otherwise empty school. Passing the auditorium Holland finds it is packed full of current and former students who greet him with a standing ovation. Gertrude Lang, a struggling clarinetist from Holland's first year teaching, now Governor of Oregon, gives a speech praising Mr. Holland, that his legacy is more than just the symphony; it is all the people he has helped and influenced, all the lives he has touched, over 30 years. She joins past members of the school's orchestra, who have been practicing the symphony in secret, on stage. Mr. Holland conducts them in its premiere performance.

Cast

 * Richard Dreyfuss as Glenn Holland, a composer who becomes a music teacher at John F. Kennedy High School.
 * Glenne Headly as Iris Holland, Glenn's wife.
 * Jay Thomas as Bill Meister, the gym teacher and coach of John F. Kennedy High School's football & wrestling teams who befriends Glenn.
 * Olympia Dukakis as Principal Helen Jacobs, the principal of John F. Kennedy High School, who retires in 1972.
 * William H. Macy as Vice Principal Gene Wolters, the vice-principal of John F. Kennedy High School who later becomes principal in 1972.
 * Jean Louisa Kelly as Rowena Morgan, a talented singer who seeks to embark on a showbiz career.
 * Joanna Gleason as Gertrude Lang, an aspiring clarinet player who eventually becomes the Governor of Oregon.
 * Alicia Witt as younger Gertrude Lang
 * Damon Whitaker as Bobby Tidd, one of Glenn's students.
 * Forest Whitaker as adult Bobby Tidd (uncredited)
 * Terrence Howard as Louis Russ, a football player and wrestler who becomes a bass drum player in the marching band.
 * Alexandra Boyd as Sarah Olmstead, a drama teacher.
 * Anthony Natale as Coltrane "Cole" Holland (age 28), Glenn and Iris's son, who is 90% deaf.
 * Joseph Anderson as Coltrane "Cole" Holland (age 15)
 * Nicholas John Renner as Coltrane "Cole" Holland (age 6)
 * Beth Maitland as Deaf School Principal, the principal of a deaf school that Cole is enrolled in.

Production
The movie was written by Patrick Sheane Duncan, directed by Stephen Herek, and was filmed in and around Portland, Oregon, with many exterior and interior scenes taking place at Ulysses S. Grant High School. Other scenes were filmed in Portland's St. Johns neighborhood and Hollywood District.

Archival footage
Archival footage seen in the film includes:

 * Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech
 * Robert and John F. Kennedy
 * Woodstock
 * Vietnam War
 * Richard Nixon's resignation speech
 * The Rocky Horror Picture Show
 * Saturday Night Fever
 * Stop Making Sense
 * Murder of John Lennon
 * Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Park

Music
The film features an orchestral score by Michael Kamen and many pieces of classical music. Kamen also wrote An American Symphony ("Mr. Holland's Opus"), the work on which Mr. Holland is shown working throughout the movie. Kamen's arrangement won the 1997 Grammy for Best Instrumental Arrangement.

Soundtrack releases
Two soundtrack albums were released for this film in January 1996. One is the original motion picture score, and includes all of the original music written for the film by Michael Kamen. The second album is a collection of popular music featured in the film:

 * 1) "Visions of a Sunset" – Shawn Stockman (of Boyz II Men)
 * 2) "1-2-3" – Len Barry
 * 3) "A Lover's Concerto" – The Toys
 * 4) "Keep On Running" – Spencer Davis Group
 * 5) "Uptight (Everything's Alright)" – Stevie Wonder
 * 6) "Imagine" – John Lennon
 * 7) "The Pretender" – Jackson Browne
 * 8) "Someone to Watch Over Me" – Julia Fordham
 * 9) "I Got a Woman" – Ray Charles
 * 10) "Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)" – John Lennon
 * 11) "Cole's Song" – Julian Lennon and Tim Renwick
 * 12) An American Symphony ("Mr. Holland's Opus") – London Metropolitan Orchestra and Michael Kamen

Box office
In the United States, gross domestic takings totaled US$82,569,971. International takings are estimated at US$23,700,000, for a gross worldwide takings of $106,269,971. Rental totals reached $36,550,000 in the US. Although the film is included among 1995 box-office releases (it ranks as the 14th-most successful film of that year), it was only released in a few theatres in New York and Los Angeles on December 29, 1995, because Disney felt, accurately, that Richard Dreyfuss' performance had a good chance of getting an Oscar nomination if it beat that year's in-theatre deadline.

Critical
The film holds a 75% "Fresh" rating from 28 reviews at Rotten Tomatoes. The site's consensus states: "A feel-good story brought to life by a terrific ensemble cast, Mr. Holland's Opus plucks the heartstrings without shame -- and with undeniable skill." CinemaScore reported that audiences gave the film a rare "A+" grade. The New York Times film review cited Dreyfuss for "a warm and really touching performance"; Variety also called his performance "quite effective and surprisingly restrained". Variety further noted the "nostalgic aura" that permeates the film, "which encourages viewers to think fondly of — and pay tribute to — the one teacher in their lives who made a difference". Roger Ebert gave the film 3 1/2 out of 4 stars, commending its starring and supporting casts and agreeing with the film's message of the ability of high school teachers to inspire their students, as well as the importance of cultural offerings on the curriculum.

Writer Patrick Sheane Duncan was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay at the 53rd Golden Globe Awards. Dreyfuss was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama.

The Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation
Inspired by the motion picture, its composer, Michael Kamen, founded The Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation in 1996 as his commitment to the future of music education.

Musical version
A world premiere musical version adapted from Duncan's screenplay was staged from August 12 to September 17, 2022 at the Ogunquit Playhouse in Ogunquit, Maine. Book, lyrics and direction are by Tony Award winner BD Wong with music by Wayne Barker.

title: Mr. Holland's Opus


text:
Nixon (film)

Nixon is a 1995 American epic historical drama film directed by Oliver Stone, produced by Clayton Townsend, Stone, and Andrew G. Vajna. The film was written by Stone, Christopher Wilkinson, and Stephen J. Rievele, with significant contributions from "project consultants" Christopher Scheer and Robert Scheer. The film tells the story of the political and personal life of former U.S. President Richard Nixon, played by Anthony Hopkins.

The film portrays Nixon as a complex and, in many respects, admirable, though deeply flawed, person. Nixon begins with a disclaimer that the film is "an attempt to understand the truth [...] based on numerous public sources and on an incomplete historical record."

The cast includes Anthony Hopkins, Joan Allen, Annabeth Gish, Marley Shelton, Bai Ling, Powers Boothe, J. T. Walsh, E. G. Marshall, James Woods, Paul Sorvino, Bob Hoskins, Larry Hagman, Ed Harris and David Hyde Pierce, plus archival appearances from political figures such as President Bill Clinton in television footage from the Nixon funeral service.

The film received generally favorable reviews from critics, with Hopkins' performance receiving particular praise. Despite this, the film grossed just $13.7 million worldwide against a $44 million budget, making it one of the year's biggest box-office bombs as well as Stone's lowest-grossing presidential biopic to date. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards: Best Actor (Anthony Hopkins), Best Supporting Actress (Joan Allen), Best Original Score (John Williams) and Best Original Screenplay.

This was Stone's second of three films about the American presidency, made four years after JFK, about the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and followed 13 years later by W., about George W. Bush.

Plot
In 1972, the White House Plumbers break into The Watergate and are subsequently arrested.

Eighteen months later in December 1973, Richard Nixon's Chief of Staff, Alexander Haig, brings Nixon audio tapes for Nixon to listen to. The two men discuss the Watergate scandal and the resulting chaos. After discussing the death of J. Edgar Hoover, Nixon uses profanity when discussing John Dean, James McCord, and others involved in Watergate. As Haig turns to leave, Nixon asks Haig why he has not been given a pistol to commit suicide like an honorable soldier.

A majority of the movie is told through flashbacks of Nixon's tapes.

Nixon starts the taping system, which triggers memories that begin a series of flashbacks within the film. The first begins on June 23, 1972, about one week after the break-in, during a meeting with H. R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman and Dean. Ehrlichman and Dean leave, and Nixon speaks the "smoking gun" tape to Haldeman.

Henry Kissinger plays a major role in the film, beginning as a respected professor and later as National Security Adviser and Secretary of State. Throughout the film, there is a battle with Nixon and his staff over who Kissinger actually is—is he a leaker who only cares about his reputation in the press, or is he a loyal subject who follows the president's orders? Although many cabinet members blame Kissinger for the leaks, Nixon cannot turn his back on him.

While at the height of his political career, Nixon thinks back to childhood and how his parents raised him and his brothers. Two of his brothers died of tuberculosis at a young age and this deeply impacted the president.

The film covers most aspects of Nixon's life and political career and implies that he and his wife abused alcohol and prescription medications. Nixon's health problems, including his bout of phlebitis and pneumonia during the Watergate crisis, are also shown; his heavy use of medications is sometimes attributed to these.

The film also hints at some kind of responsibility, real or imagined, that Nixon felt towards the John F. Kennedy assassination through references to the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the implication being that the mechanisms set into place for the invasion by Nixon during his term as Dwight D. Eisenhower's vice president spiraled out of control to culminate in Kennedy's assassination and, eventually, Watergate.

The film ends with Nixon's resignation and departure from the lawn of the White House on the helicopter, Marine One. Real-life footage of Nixon's state funeral in Yorba Linda, California plays out over the extended end credits, and all living ex-presidents at the time—Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush—as well then-president Bill Clinton, are shown in attendance.

First family

 * Anthony Hopkins as Richard Nixon
 * Joan Allen as Pat Nixon
 * Annabeth Gish as Julie Nixon Eisenhower
 * Marley Shelton as Tricia Nixon Cox

White House staff and cabinet

 * James Woods as H. R. Haldeman, the Chief of Staff and Nixon's closest advisor. Woods talked Stone into giving him the part, a role that the director had planned to offer Ed Harris.
 * J. T. Walsh as John Ehrlichman, Domestic Affairs Advisor, he is the first to notice the president's paranoia and thinks Nixon is breaking the law.
 * Paul Sorvino as Henry Kissinger, National Security Advisor and later Secretary of State, he is rumored to be self-serving and a leaker.
 * Powers Boothe as General Alexander Haig, a U.S. Army General who served under Henry Kissinger as Deputy National Security Advisor and later the president's White House Chief of Staff during the Watergate scandal.
 * E. G. Marshall as John N. Mitchell, Nixon's longtime friend and later Attorney General, whom he refers to as "family". He is the first to be set up to take the fall for Watergate.
 * David Paymer as Ron Ziegler, White House Press Secretary that Nixon pushes around, both literally and figuratively.
 * David Hyde Pierce as John Dean, White House Counsel and the first to testify in front of Congress on Watergate and the cover up.
 * Kevin Dunn as Charles Colson, White House Counsel and later Director of Public Liaison, also a close advisor to Nixon.
 * Saul Rubinek as Herbert G. Klein, Nixon's campaign press secretary in 1960 and 1962; then the Director of Communications.
 * Fyvush Finkel as Murray Chotiner, one of Nixon's mentors and chairman of his campaigns in 1960, 1962, 1968, and 1972.
 * Tony Plana as Manolo Sanchez, Nixon's valet and a trusted contact.
 * James Karen as William P. Rogers, Nixon's Secretary of State who urges Nixon not to bomb Cambodia. Nixon thinks he is weak and a leaker and excludes him on international meetings, deferring to Kissinger instead.
 * Richard Fancy as Melvin Laird, Secretary of Defense who concurs with Rogers to not bomb Cambodia.

Nixon family

 * Mary Steenburgen as Hannah Milhous Nixon, Richard's passive but strong Quaker mother.
 * Tony Goldwyn as Harold Nixon, Richard's brother who dies of tuberculosis.
 * Tom Bower as Francis Nixon, Richard's overbearing and rough father.
 * Sean Stone as Donald Nixon, Richard's younger brother.
 * Joshua Preston as Arthur Nixon
 * Corey Carrier as adolescent Richard Nixon
 * David Barry Gray as young adult Richard Nixon

White House plumbers

 * Ed Harris as E. Howard Hunt, a former CIA operative who was attached to the Bay of Pigs and becomes a White House "plumber". He starts to blackmail the administration and tells John Dean to get out while he can.
 * John Diehl as G. Gordon Liddy
 * Robert Beltran as Frank Sturgis

Other cast members

 * Bob Hoskins as J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI.
 * Brian Bedford as Clyde Tolson, Hoover's partner and Deputy FBI Director.
 * Madeline Kahn as Martha Beall Mitchell, John Mitchell's crazy and gregarious wife who insists Dick Nixon was nothing but a crook and ruined her family name. In real life, Martha made several phone calls to reporters over Watergate and her husband.
 * Edward Herrmann as Nelson Rockefeller, a wealthy presidential candidate in 1964. He warns Nixon of being too extreme in his ideology. Though not depicted in the movie, Rockefeller would become Gerald Ford's Vice President.
 * Dan Hedaya as Trini Cardoza, based upon Bebe Rebozo, close advisor to Nixon.
 * Bridgette Wilson as Sandy
 * Ric Young as Mao Zedong, the ruler of Communist China.
 * Bai Ling as Mao's interpreter
 * Boris Sichkin as Leonid Brezhnev, a Soviet leader.
 * Sam Waterston as Richard Helms (scenes present only in director's cut), the Director of the CIA who knows more about Nixon than Nixon feels comfortable knowing. The two of them go back to the Bay of Pigs fiasco.
 * Tony Lo Bianco as Johnny Roselli, a gangster Nixon knew in Cuba who was attached to the Castro assassination attempt.
 * George Plimpton as the President's lawyer.
 * Larry Hagman as "Jack Jones" - Unlike some other characters in the film who represent actual people, Jack Jones, a billionaire investment banker and real estate tycoon, is a composite character, who is emblematic of "big business" in general. The character may be a reference to Nixon's meetings with Clint Murchison, Sr., although he also illuminates Nixon's relationships with Howard Hughes, H. L. Hunt and other entrepreneurs.
 * Michael Chiklis as the TV director
 * Jack Wallace as the football coach
 * John C. McGinley as the salesmen in the Dept. Of Labor training film
 * James Pickens Jr. as an audience agitator

Origins
Eric Hamburg, former speechwriter and staff member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, got the idea of a film about Nixon after having dinner with Oliver Stone. Originally, Oliver Stone had been developing two projects – the musical Evita and a movie about Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. When neither was made, Stone turned his attention to a biopic about Richard Nixon. The former President's death on April 22, 1994, was also a key factor in Stone's decision to make a Nixon film. He pitched the film to Warner Bros., but, according to the director, they saw it, "as a bunch of unattractive older white men sitting around in suits, with a lot of dialogue and not enough action".

In 1993, Hamburg mentioned the idea of a Nixon film to writer Stephen J. Rivele with the concept being that they would incorporate all of the politician's misdeeds, both known and speculative. Rivele liked the idea and had previously thought about writing a play exploring the same themes. Hamburg encouraged Rivele to write a film instead and with his screenwriting partner, Christopher Wilkinson, they wrote a treatment in November 1993. They conceived of a concept referred to as "the Beast", which Wilkinson describes as "a headless monster that lurches through postwar history," a metaphor for a system of dark forces that resulted in the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr., the Vietnam War, and helped Nixon's rise to power and his fall from it as well. Stone said in an interview that Nixon realizes that "the Beast" "is more powerful than he is. We can't get into it that much, but we hint at it so many times—the military-industrial complex, the forces of money". In another interview, the director elaborates, "I see the Beast in its essence as a System ... which grinds the individual down ... it's a System of checks and balances that drives itself off: 1) the power of money and markets; 2) State power, Government power; 3) corporate power, which is probably greater than state power; 4) the political process, or election through money, which is therefore in tow to the System; and 5) the media, which mostly protects the status quo and their ownership's interests." It was this concept that convinced Stone to make Nixon and he told Hamburg to hire Rivele and Wilkinson. Stone commissioned the first draft of the film's screenplay in the fall of 1993. Rivele and Wilkinson delivered the first draft of their script on June 17, 1994, the anniversary of the Watergate scandal. Stone loved the script but felt that the third act and the ending needed more work. They wrote another draft and delivered it on August 9, the 20th anniversary of Nixon's resignation.

Pre-production
Stone immersed himself in research with the help of Hamburg. With Hamburg and actors Hopkins and James Woods, Stone flew to Washington, D.C., and interviewed the surviving members of Nixon's inner circle: lawyer Leonard Garment and Attorney General Elliot Richardson. He also interviewed Robert McNamara, a former Secretary of Defense under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. The director also hired Alexander Butterfield, a key figure in the Watergate scandal who handled the flow of paper to the President, as a consultant to make sure that the Oval Office was realistically depicted, former deputy White House counsel John Sears, and John Dean, who made sure that every aspect of the script was accurate and wrote a few uncredited scenes for the film. Butterfield also appears in a few scenes as a White House staffer. To research their roles, Powers Boothe, David Hyde Pierce and Paul Sorvino talked to their real-life counterparts, but J.T. Walsh decided not to contact John Ehrlichman because he had threatened to sue after reading an early version of the script and was not happy with how he was portrayed. Hopkins watched a lot of documentary footage on Nixon. At night, he would go to sleep with the Nixon footage playing, letting it seep into his subconscious. Hopkins said, "It's taking in all this information and if you're relaxed enough, it begins to take you over."

Stone originally had a three-picture deal with Regency Enterprises which included JFK, Heaven and Earth, and Natural Born Killers. After the success of Killers, Arnon Milchan, head of Regency, signed Stone for three more motion pictures. Stone could make any film up to a budget of $42.5 million. When Stone told Milchan that he wanted to make Nixon, Milchan, who was not keen on the idea, told the director that he would only give him $35 million, thinking that this would cause Stone to abandon the project. Stone took the project to Hungarian financier Andrew G. Vajna who had co-financing deal with Disney. Vajna's company, Cinergi Pictures, were willing to finance the $38 million film. This angered Milchan who claimed that Nixon was his film because of his three-picture deal with Stone and he threatened to sue. He withdrew after Stone paid him an undisclosed amount. Stone was finalizing the film's budget a week before shooting was to begin. He made a deal with Cinergi and Disney's Hollywood Pictures in order to supply the $43 million budget. To cut costs, Stone leased the White House sets from Rob Reiner's film The American President.

Casting
The studio did not like Stone's choice to play Nixon. They wanted Tom Hanks or Jack Nicholson – two of Stone's original choices. The director also considered Gene Hackman, Robin Williams, Gary Oldman and Tommy Lee Jones. Stone met with Warren Beatty but Beatty declined as he felt that "Nixon was not treated compassionately". Stone cast Hopkins based on his performances in The Remains of the Day and Shadowlands. Of Hopkins, Stone said, "The isolation of Tony is what struck me. The loneliness. I felt that was the quality that always marked Nixon." When the actor met the director he got the impression that Stone was "one of the great bad boys of American pop culture, and I might be a fool to walk away." What convinced Hopkins to ultimately take on the role and "impersonate the soul of Nixon were the scenes in the film when he talks about his mother and father. That affected me." Hopkins wore a hair piece and false teeth "to hint at a physical resemblance to Nixon".

When Beatty was thinking about doing the film, he insisted on doing a reading of the script with an actress and Joan Allen was flown in from New York City. Afterwards, Beatty told Stone that he had found his Pat Nixon.

Principal photography
The film began shooting on May 1, 1995, but there was a week of pre-shooting at the end of April to film scenes that would be used as part of a mock documentary about Nixon's career. Early on during principal photography, Hopkins was intimidated by the amount of dialogue he had to learn, that was being added and changed all the time as he recalled, "There were moments when I wanted to get out, when I wanted to just do a nice Knots Landing or something." Sorvino told him that his accent was all wrong. Sorvino claims he told Hopkins that he thought "there was room for improvement" and that he would be willing to help him. Woods says that Sorvino told Hopkins that he was "doing the whole thing wrong" and that he was an "expert" who could help him. Woods recalls that Sorvino took Hopkins to lunch and then he quit that afternoon. Hopkins told Stone that he wanted to quit the production but the director managed to convince him to stay. According to the actors, this was all good-natured joking. Woods said, "I'd always tell him how great he was in Psycho. I'd call him Lady Perkins all the time instead of Sir Anthony Hopkins."

In Spring of 1994, Time magazine reported that an early draft of the screenplay linked Nixon to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The facts contained in the script were based on research from various sources, including documents, transcripts and hours of footage from the Nixon White House. Dean said about the film's accuracy: "In the larger picture, it reflected accurately what happened." Stone addressed the criticism of fictional material in the film, saying, "The material we invented was not done haphazardly or whimsically, it was based on research and interpretation." John Taylor, head of the Nixon Presidential Library, leaked a copy of the script to Richard Helms, former Director of the CIA, who threatened to sue the production. In response, Stone cut out all scenes with Helms from the theatrical print and claimed that he did for "artistic reasons" only to reinstate this footage on the home video release.

During the post-production phase, Stone had his editors in three different rooms with the scenes from the film revolving from one room to another, "depending on how successful they were". If one editor wasn't successful with a scene then it went to another. Stone said that it was "the most intense post- I've ever done, even more intense than JFK" because they were screening the film three times a week, making changes in 48–72 hours, rescreening the film and then making another 48 hours of changes.

Music
The score was composed by John Williams, who previously worked with Stone on Born on the Fourth of July and JFK.

Box office
In its opening weekend, Nixon grossed a total of $2.2 million in 514 theaters in the United States and Canada. The film grossed a total of $13.6 million in the United States and Canada, less than its $44 million budget.

Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes Nixon has a 75% approval rating, based reviews from 63 critics, with an average score of 6.8/10. The site's consensus states: "Much like its subject's time in office, Nixon might have ended sooner—but what remains is an engrossing, well-acted look at the rise and fall of a fascinating political figure." Metacritic gave the film a score of 66 based on 22 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "B" on scale of A+ to F.

Two days before the film was released in theaters, the Richard Nixon Library and birthplace in Yorba Linda, California issued a statement on behalf of the Nixon family, calling parts of the film "reprehensible" and that it was designed to "defame and degrade President and Mrs. Nixon's memories in the mind of the American public." This statement was based on a published copy of the script. The statement also criticized Stone's depiction of Nixon's private life, that of his childhood, and his part in planning the assassination of Fidel Castro. Stone responded that his "purpose in making the film, Nixon was neither malicious nor defamatory", and was an attempt to gain "a fuller understanding of the life and career of Richard Nixon – the good and the bad, the triumphs and the tragedies, and the legacy he left his nation and the world." Walt Disney's daughter, Diane Disney Miller, wrote a letter to Nixon's daughters saying that Stone had "committed a grave disservice to your family, to the Presidency, and to American history." Stone does not see his film as the definitive statement on Nixon but as "a basis to start reading, to start investigating on your own."

Some critics took Stone to task for portraying Nixon as an alcoholic, though Stone says that was based on information from books by Stephen Ambrose, Fawn Brodie, and Tom Wicker. Film critic Roger Ebert praised the film for how it took "on the resonance of classic tragedy. Tragedy requires the fall of a hero, and one of the achievements of Nixon is to show that greatness was within his reach." Ebert also placed the film on his list of the top ten films of the year. Janet Maslin from The New York Times praised Anthony Hopkins' performance and "his character's embattled outlook and stiff, hunched body language with amazing skill."

Mick LaSalle in the San Francisco Chronicle, felt that "the problem here isn't accuracy. It's absurdity. Hopkins' exaggerated portrayal of Nixon is the linchpin of a film that in its conception and presentation consistently veers into camp". Richard Corliss, in his review for Time, also had a problem with Hopkins' portrayal: "Hopkins, though, is a failure. He finds neither the timbre of Nixon's plummy baritone, with its wonderfully false attempts at intimacy, nor the stature of a career climber who, with raw hands, scaled the mountain and was still not high or big enough." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone wrote: "It's gripping psychodrama — just don't confuse Nixon with history."

Accolades
Entertainment Weekly ranked Nixon No. 40 on their "50 Best Biopics Ever" list and one of the 25 "Powerful Political Thrillers".

Home media
The theatrical cut of the film was released on DVD on June 15, 1999. A director's cut was released on DVD as part of an Oliver Stone boxset in 2001, running 212 mins and including 28 minutes of previously deleted scenes restored. Much of the added time consists of two scenes: one in which Nixon meets with Central Intelligence Agency director Richard Helms (played by Sam Waterston) and another on Tricia Nixon's wedding day, where J. Edgar Hoover persuades Nixon to install the taping system in the Oval Office. The Director's Cut was released individually on DVD in 2002. The Director's Cut was re-released by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment (branded as Hollywood Pictures Home Entertainment) on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on August 19, 2008, with the first anamorphic widescreen version of the film in North America.

title: Nixon (film)


text:
Mindset

A mindset is an established set of attitudes of a person or group concerning culture, values, philosophy, frame of mind, outlook, and disposition. It may also arise from a person's worldview or beliefs about the meaning of life.

Some scholars claim that people can have multiple types of mindsets. Some of these types include a growth mindset, fixed mindset, abundance mindset, and positive mindset among others that form the make up of a person's overall mindset.

More broadly, scholars have found mindset is associated with a range of functional effects in different areas of people's lives. This includes influencing a person's capacity for perception by functioning like a filter, a frame of reference, a meaning-making system, and a pattern of perception. Mindset is described as shaping a person's capacity for development by being associated with passive or conditional learning, incremental or horizontal learning, and transformative or vertical learning. Mindset is also believed to influence a person's behavior, having deliberative or implemental action phases, as well as being associated with technical or adaptive approaches to leadership.

A mindset could create an incentive to adopt (or accept) previous behaviors, choices, or tools, sometimes known as cognitive inertia or groupthink. When a prevailing mindset is limiting or inappropriate, it may be difficult to counteract the grip of mindset on analysis and decision-making.

In cognitive psychology, a mindset is the cognitive process activated in a task. In addition to the field of cognitive psychology, the study of mindset is evident in the social sciences and other fields (such as positive psychology). Characteristic of this area of study is its fragmentation among academic disciplines.

History
Numerous scholars have identified mindset history as being a critical gap in contemporary literature and also in current approaches to mindset education and training.

The first dedicated review of mindset history found that mindset psychology has a century-long history of explicit research and practice, with its origin phase taking place between 1908 and 1939, early inquiries occurring between 1940 and 1987, and contemporary bodies of work emerging in and beyond 1988. This review also identified some of the traditions of research and practice that are closely related to the origins and history of mindset psychology, some of which span back hundreds and thousands of years. Then, there are the lineages of research and practice that did not explicitly use the term mindset, but which bear some resemblance to it and are in some way related to this history. Peter Gollwitzer conducted explorations of mindset since the 1990s. Gollwitzer's contributions include his theory of mindset and the mindset theory of action phases.

Politics
A political example is the "Cold War mindset" in the U.S. and the USSR, which included belief in game theory, in a chain of command in control of nuclear materials, and in the mutual assured destruction of both in a nuclear war. This mindset prevented an attack by either country, but deterrence theory has made assessments of the Cold War mindset a subject of controversy.

Modern military theory attempts to challenge entrenched mindsets in asymmetric warfare, terrorism, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. These threats are "a revolution in military affairs", requiring rapid adaptation to new threats and circumstances.

Systems theory
Building on Magoroh Maruyama's concept of mindscape, mindset includes a cultural and social orientation: hierarchical and egalitarian individualism, hierarchical and egalitarian collectivism, hierarchic and egalitarian synergism, and hierarchical and egalitarian populism.

Collective mindset
Collective mindsets are described in Edwin Hutchins's Cognition in the Wild (1995) and Maximilian Senges' Knowledge Entrepreneurship in Universities (2007). Hutchins analyzed a team of naval navigators as a cognitive unit or computational system, and Senges explained how a collective mindset is part of university strategy and practice.

Parallels exist in collective intelligence and the wisdom of the crowd. Zara said that since collective reflection is more explicit, discursive, and conversational, it needs a good Gestell.

Erik H. Erikson's analysis of group-identities and what he calls a "life-plan" is relevant to a collective mindset. Erikson cites Native Americans who were meant to undergo a reeducation process to instill a modern "life-plan" which advocated housing and wealth; the natives' collective historic identity as buffalo hunters was oriented around such fundamentally different motivations that communication about life plans was difficult.

An institution is related to collective mindset; an entrepreneurial mindset refers to a person who "values uncertainty in the marketplace and seeks to continuously identify opportunities with the potential to lead to important innovations". An institution with an entrepreneurial philosophy will have entrepreneurial goals and strategies. It fosters an entrepreneurial milieu, allowing each entity to pursue emerging opportunities. A collective mindset fosters values which lead to a particular practice. Hitt cites the five dimensions of an entrepreneurial mindset as "autonomy, innovativeness, risk taking, proactiveness, and competitive aggressiveness".

Theories
The study of mindsets includes definition, measurement, and categorization. Scholars in the same discipline differ.

Mindset agency
Sagiv and Schwarts defined cultural values to explain the nature, functions, and variables which characterize mindset agency. They posited three bipolar dimensions of culture, based on values: cognitive (embedded or autonomous), figurative (mastery or harmony), and operative (hierarchical or egalitarian).

Mindscape theory
The Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) measures psychological functions which, paired with social attitudes, combine to generate personality types that may be evaluated by exploring individual preferences. Maruyama's mindscape theory measures individuals on a scale of characteristics and places them into one of four personality categories.

Fixed and growth mindsets
According to Carol Dweck, individuals can be placed on a continuum according to their views of where ability originate, from a fixed to a growth mindset. An individual's mindset affects the "motivation to practice and learn".

People with a fixed mindset believe that "intelligence is static", and little can be done to improve ability. Feedback is seen as "evaluation of their underlying ability" and success is seen as a result of this ability, not any effort expended. Failure is intimidating, since it "suggests constraints or limits they would not be able to overcome". Those with a fixed mindset tend to avoid challenges, give up easily, and focus on the outcome. They believe that their abilities are fixed, and effort has little value.

Those with a growth mindset believe that "intelligence can be developed", and their abilities can be increased by learning. They tend to embrace challenges, persevere in the face of adversity, accept and learn from failure, focus on process rather than outcome, and see abilities as skills which are developed through effort. Feedback and failure are seen as opportunities to increase ability, signaling the "need to pay attention, invest effort, apply time to practice, and master the new learning opportunity".

Grit, a personality trait combining determination and perseverance, is related to a growth mindset. Keown and Bourke discussed the importance of a growth mindset and grit. Their 2019 study found that people with lower economic status had a greater chance of success if they had a growth mindset and were willing to work through tribulation.

Much of Dweck's research was related to the effect of a student's mindset on classroom performance. For students to develop a growth mindset, a nurturing classroom culture must be established with appropriate praise and encouragement. According to Dweck, "Praising students for the process they have engaged in—the effort they applied, the strategies they used, the choices they made, the persistence they displayed, and so on—yields more long-term benefits than telling them they are 'smart' when they succeed". Teachers need to design meaningful learning activities for their students: "The teacher should portray challenges as fun and exciting, while portraying easy tasks as boring and less useful for the brain".

A second strategy to promote a growth mindset in the classroom is more explicit, establishing personal goals, and having students "write about and share with one another something they used to be poor at and now are very good at." Hinda Hussein studied the positive effect of reflective journal writing on students' growth mindset; journaling can improve a student's conceptual knowledge and enhance the understanding of their thoughts. Dweck has identified the word "yet" as a valuable tool to assess learning. If a teacher hears students saying that they are not good at something or cannot do something, they should interject "not yet" to reinforce the idea that ability and motivation are fluid.

Dweck and Jo Boaler indicate a fixed mindset can lead to sex differences in education, which can partially explain low achievement and participation by minority and female students. Boaler builds on Dweck's research to show that "gender differences in mathematics performance only existed among fixed mindset students". Boaler and Dweck say that people with growth mindsets can gain knowledge. Boaler said, "The key growth mindset message was that effort changes the brain by forming new connections, and that students control this process. The growth mindset intervention halted the students' decline in grades and started the students on a new pathway of improvement and high achievement".

L. S. Blackwell presented research in 2015 exploring whether growth mindsets can be promoted in minority groups. Blackwell builds on Dweck's research, observing minority groups and finding that "students with a growth mindset had stronger learning goals than the fixed mindset students." These students "had much more positive attitudes toward effort, agreeing that 'when something is hard, it just makes me want to work more on it, not less. Students with a fixed mindset were more likely to say that "if you're not good at a subject, working hard won't make you good at it” and “when I work hard at something, it makes me feel like I'm not very smart".

Dweck's research on growth and fixed mindsets is useful in intervening with at-risk students, dispelling negative stereotypes in education held by teachers and students, understanding the impacts of self-theories on resilience, and understanding how praise can foster a growth mindset and positively impact student motivation. There has also been movement towards the application of Dweck's mindset research in non-academic environments, such as the workplace. Other scholars have conducted research building on her findings. A 2018 study by Rhew et al. suggested that a growth-mindset intervention can increase the motivation of adolescent special-education participants. A 2019 study by Wang et al. suggested that substance use has adverse effects on adolescent reasoning. Developing a growth mindset in these adolescents was shown to reduce this adverse effect. These studies illustrate how educators can intervene, encouraging a growth mindset, by allowing students to see that their behavior can be changed with effort. Criticism has been directed at "growth mindset" and related research, however. Moreau et al. (2019) suggest "that overemphasizing the malleability of abilities and other traits can have negative consequences for individuals, science, and society."

Follow up research after the release of her book has led Dweck to be quoted as saying "Nobody has a growth mindset in everything all the time." along with the acknowledgement of the reality of the false growth mindset, and the truer growth mindset. One of Dweck's concerns being that educators were giving praise based on effort alone, when the results gained did not she believe merit praise. Researchers noted adults within a study "who agree with growth mindset, but do not behave as though they believe ability can change" as holding a false growth mindset.

Students and teachers
Elements of personality (such as sensitivity to mistakes and setbacks) may predispose toward a particular mindset, which can be developed and reshaped through interactions. In a number of studies, Dweck and her colleagues noted that alterations in mindset could be achieved through "praising the process through which success was achieved", "having [college aged students] read compelling scientific articles that support one view or the other", or teaching junior-high-school students "that every time they try hard and learn something new, their brain forms new connections that, over time, make them smarter."

Much research in education focuses on a student's ability to adopt a growth mindset, and less attention is paid to teachers' mindsets and their influence on students. Hattie writes, "Differing mindsets, or assumptions, that teachers possess about themselves and their students play a significant role in determining their expectations, teaching practices, and how students perceive their own mindset."

A study by Patrick and Joshi explored how teachers explain growth and fixed mindsets, with two major findings in 150 semi-structured interviews. First, they found that teachers' prior beliefs about learning and students influenced how they engaged with their mindsets. Second, they found that many teachers oversimplified growth and fixed mindsets as positive and negative traits.

A study conducted by Fiona S. Seaton (2018) examined the impact of teacher training to influence mindset. The teachers in this study had six training sessions, and Seaton found that the sessions had an impact on their mindsets which was sustained three months afterward. The results of this study suggest that adult mindsets are malleable, and can shift with appropriate supports.

Benefit mindset
In 2015, Ashley Buchanan and Margaret L. Kern proposed a benefit mindset: an evolution of the fixed and growth mindsets. The benefit mindset describes society's leaders, who promote individual and collective well-being: people who discover their strengths to contribute to causes greater than the self. They question why they do what they do, positioning their actions within a purposeful context.

Global mindset
Originating from the study of organizational leadership and coinciding with the growth of multinational corporations during the 1980s, organizations observed that executive effectiveness did not necessarily translate cross-culturally. A global mindset emerged as an explanation. Cross-cultural leaders were hypothesized to need an additional skill, ability, or proficiency (a global mindset) to be effective regardless of culture or context. Cultural agility refers to such a need. A defining characteristic of the study of global mindset is the variety with which scholars define it, but they typically agree that global mindset and its development increase global effectiveness for individuals and organizations.

Abundance and scarcity
People with an abundance mindset believe that there are enough resources for everyone, and see the glass as half-full; those with a scarcity mindset believe that there is a limited number of resources, and see the glass as half-empty. Mehta and Zhu found that an "abundance mindset makes people think beyond established functionalities to explore broadly for solutions, thereby heightening creativity. In contrast, a scarcity mindset induces functional fixedness, thereby reducing creativity."

Productive and defensive mindsets
According to Chris Argyris, organizations have two dominant mindsets: productive and defensive. The productive mindset is hinged in logic, focused on knowledge and its certifiable results – a decision-making mindset which is transparent and auditable.

The defensive mindset is closed, self-protective and self-deceptive. It does not see the greater good, but centers on individual defense; truth, if perceived as harmful to the person concerned, would be denied. This may allow personal growth, but no organizational growth or development.

Deliberative and implemental mindsets
The deliberative and implemental mindsets are part of the decision making process in goal setting and goal striving. When someone has a deliberative mindset, they are considering a variety of actions and have not yet settled on what they are going to do. This person will tend to be open to alternative options when presented and will explore ideas until they have decided upon a course of action. This mindset is connected to the idea of goal setting.

After someone narrows down their options and makes a commitment to follow a particular path, they will have an implemental mindset. People with an implemental mindset are less open to alternative courses of action because they have already decided what they are going to do and now focus more energy on goal striving, rather than goal setting.

The deliberative mindset has been recognized as important for coming to conclusions in order to make a well-planned goal, but it has negative consequences for goal striving once a goal is already in place. On the other hand, the implemental mindset helps people to focus their behavior in a particular direction; this can be detrimental for someone who has not spent sufficient time with a deliberative mindset.

Promotion and prevention mindsets
The promotion and prevention mindsets are motivational orientations that are focused on the outcomes or consequences of behavior. People with a promotion mindset focus on achievement and accomplishment. Those with a prevention mindset pay closer attention to avoiding negative outcomes. They act more out of a sense of obligation and the fulfillment of duty than to seek any sort of reward. Both of these mindsets can be caused or influenced by individual disposition or by environmental stimuli. Those who are dispositionally in a promotion mindset seek to make good things happen, and situations that encourage a promotion mindset are those in which there is a promise of gain. Those with a dispositional prevention mindset believe that they need to keep bad things from happening, and situations conducive to the prevention mindset are those in which the idea of duty is emphasized.

Those with a promotion mindset are characterized as being eager and quick to act. They take initiative and move to cause improvements towards their ideal state. People with a prevention mindset are characterized as being cautious and careful, avoiding risks and any course of action that could potentially cause failure in reaching a goal.

Criticism
In 2019 a larger randomized controlled trial by the Education Endowment Foundation for growth mindset training showed no significant increase in numeracy or literacy. A 2024 study showed that growth mindset scales by Carol Dweck have psychometric comparability, however this study showed no connection between growth mindset and goal achievement.

Dual mentality

 * Bounded rationality
 * Elitism
 * Ethical egoism
 * Game theory

 * Good and evil
 * Property dualism
 * Rational irrationality

title: Mindset