title: Paul Simon

text: Simon & Garfunkel also contributed to the soundtrack of the Mike Nichols film, "The Graduate" (1967), starring Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft. While writing "Mrs. Robinson", Simon toyed with the title "Mrs. Roosevelt". When Garfunkel reported this indecision over the song's name to the director, Nichols replied, "Don't be ridiculous! We're making a movie here! It's Mrs. Robinson!" Simon and Garfunkel returned to the UK in the fall of 1968 and made a church concert appearance at Kraft Hall, which was broadcast on the BBC, and also featured Paul's brother Ed on a performance of the instrumental "Anji".


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon and Garfunkel's relationship became strained, and they split in 1970. At the urging of his wife, Peggy Harper, Simon called Davis to confirm the duo's breakup. For the next several years, they spoke only two or three times a year.


title: Paul Simon

text: In 1970, Simon taught songwriting at New York University. He said he had wanted to teach for a while, and hoped to help people avoid some of the mistakes he had made: "You can teach somebody about writing songs. You can't teach someone how to write a song, I don't think ... I'd go to a course if the Beatles would talk about how they made records because I'm sure I could learn something."


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon pursued solo projects, reuniting occasionally with Garfunkel for various projects. Actor Warren Beatty brought Simon into a solo performance at the Cleveland Arena in April 1972, a benefit concert for the George McGovern 1972 presidential campaign. After that, Beatty obtained the duo's agreement to reunite in mid-June at Madison Square Garden, another political concert called Together for McGovern. Garfunkel joined Simon again on the 1975 Top 10 single "My Little Town". Simon wrote it for Garfunkel, whose solo output Simon felt lacked "bite". The song was included on Simon's album "Still Crazy After All These Years" and Garfunkel's album "Breakaway". Contrary to popular belief, the song is not autobiographical of Simon's early life in New York City. Simon also provided guitar on Garfunkel's 1973 album "Angel Clare", and added backing vocals to the song "Down in the Willow Garden".


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon's album "Paul Simon" was released in January 1972, preceded by his first experiment with world music, the Jamaican-inspired "Mother and Child Reunion". It reached both the American and British Top 5. The album received universal acclaim, with critics praising the variety of styles and the confessional lyrics, reaching number 4 in the U.S. and number 1 in the UK and Japan. It later spawned another Top 30 hit with "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard".


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon's next project was the pop-folk album, "There Goes Rhymin' Simon", released in May 1973. It contained some of his most popular and polished recordings. The lead single, "Kodachrome", was a number 2 hit in America. The follow-up, the gospel-flavored "Loves Me Like a Rock" was even bigger, topping the "Cashbox" charts. Other songs like the weary "American Tune", or the melancholic "Something So Right" (a tribute to Simon's first wife Peggy), became standards in the musician's catalog. Critical and commercial reception for this second album was even stronger than for his debut. At the time, reviewers noted how the songs were fresh and unworried on the surface, while still exploring socially and politically conscious themes on a deeper level. The album reached number 1 on the "Cashbox" album charts. As a souvenir for the tour that came next, it was released as a live album, titled "Live Rhymin'" (1974). The album was moderately successful and displayed some changes in Simon's music style, adopting world and religious music.


title: Paul Simon

text: Highly anticipated, "Still Crazy After All These Years" was his next album. Released in October 1975, and produced by Simon and Phil Ramone, it marked another departure. The mood of the album was darker, as he wrote and recorded it in the wake of his divorce. Preceded by the feel-good duet with Phoebe Snow, "Gone at Last" (a Top 25 hit) and the Simon & Garfunkel reunion track "My Little Town" (a number 9 on "Billboard"), the album was his only number 1 on the "Billboard" charts to date. The 18th Grammy Awards named it the Album of the Year, and Simon's performance the year's Best Male Pop Vocal. With Simon in the forefront of popular music, the third single from the album, "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" reached the top spot of the "Billboard" charts, his only single to reach number 1 on this list. Simon put together a benefit show at Madison Square Garden to raise money for the New York Public Library on May 3, 1976. Phoebe Snow, Jimmy Cliff and the Brecker Brothers also performed. The concert produced over $30,000 for the Library.


title: Paul Simon

text: After three successful studio albums, Simon became less productive during the second half of the 1970s. He dabbled in various projects, including writing music for the film "Shampoo", which became the music for the song "Silent Eyes" on the "Still Crazy" album, and acting (he was cast as Tony Lacey in Woody Allen's film "Annie Hall"). He achieved another hit in this decade, with the lead single of his 1977 compilation "Greatest Hits, Etc.", called "Slip Slidin' Away" (which reached number 5 in the United States).


title: Paul Simon

text: In 1980, Simon released "One-Trick Pony", his debut album with Warner Bros. Records and his first in almost five years. It was paired with the motion picture of the same name, which Simon wrote and starred in. Although it produced his last Top 10 hit with the upbeat "Late in the Evening" (also a number 1 hit on the Radio & Records American charts), the album did not sell well.


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon & Garfunkel included eight songs from Simon's solo career on the set list for their September 19, 1981, concert in Central Park. Five of those were rearranged as duets. Simon performed the other three songs solo. The resulting live album, TV special and videocassette (later DVD) releases were all major hits. It was followed by a world tour and an aborted reunion album, to have been entitled "Think Too Much", which was eventually released (without Garfunkel) as "Hearts and Bones".


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon released "Hearts and Bones" in 1983. This was a polished and confessional album that was eventually viewed as one of his best works, but achieved the lowest sales of Simon's career. "Hearts and Bones" included "The Late Great Johnny Ace", a song partly about Johnny Ace, an American R&B singer, and partly about slain Beatle John Lennon. In January 1985, Simon lent his talent to USA for Africa, and performed on the relief fundraising single "We Are the World".


title: Paul Simon

text: In 1986, Simon was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Music degree from Berklee College of Music, where he has served on the board of trustees.


title: Paul Simon

text: After Simon was given a bootlegged tape of "mbaqanga", South African street music, he decided to record an album of South African music. Simon traveled to Johannesburg where he recorded with African musicians in early 1986. Additional sessions were held in April in New York. The sessions featured many South African acts, particularly Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Simon also collaborated with several American artists, singing a duet with Linda Ronstadt in "Under African Skies", and playing with Los Lobos in "All Around the World or The Myth of Fingerprints". Before leaving for Johannesburg, Simon contributed to "We Are the World", a charity single benefiting African famine relief.


title: Paul Simon

text: "Graceland" became Simon's most successful studio album and his highest-charting album in over a decade. It is estimated to have sold more than 16 million copies worldwide. "Graceland" won the 1987 Grammy for Album of the Year. In 2006, the album was added to the United States' National Recording Registry as "culturally, historically or aesthetically important".


title: Paul Simon

text: Following the success, Simon faced accusations that he had broken the cultural boycott imposed by the rest of the world against the apartheid regime in South Africa by organizations such as Artists United Against Apartheid, anti-apartheid musicians (including Billy Bragg, Paul Weller and Jerry Dammers), as well as James Victor Gbeho (then Ghanaian Ambassador to the United Nations), Simon denied that he had gone to South Africa to "take money out of the country", noting that he paid the black artists and split royalties with them, and was not paid to play to a white audience. The United Nations Anti-Apartheid Committee supported "Graceland", as it showcased black South African musicians and offered no support to the South African government, but the African National Congress protested it as a violation of the boycott. The Congress voted to ban Simon from South Africa, and he was also added to the United Nations blacklist. He was removed from the blacklist in January 1987.


title: Paul Simon

text: Dion's song "Written on the Subway Wall"/"Little Star" from "Yo Frankie" (1989), featuring Simon, peaked at number 97 in October 1990.


title: Paul Simon

text: After "Graceland", Simon extended his roots with the Brazilian music-flavored "The Rhythm of the Saints". Sessions for the album began in December 1989, and took place in Rio de Janeiro and New York. It featured guitarist J. J. Cale, as well as many Brazilian and African musicians. The tone of the album was more introspective and relatively low-key, compared to the mostly upbeat numbers of "Graceland". Released in October 1990, the album received excellent critical reviews and achieved very respectable sales, peaking at number 4 in the U.S. and number 1 in the UK. The lead single, "The Obvious Child" (featuring the Grupo Cultural Olodum), became his last Top 20 hit in the UK and appeared near the bottom of the "Billboard" Hot 100. Although not as successful as "Graceland", "The Rhythm of the Saints" was received as a competent successor and consistent complement on Simon's attempts to explore (and popularize) world music, and also received a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year.


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon's ex-wife Carrie Fisher said in her autobiography "Wishful Drinking", that the song "She Moves On" is about her. It's one of several she claimed, followed by the line, "If you can get Paul Simon to write a song about you, do it. Because he is so brilliant at it."


title: Paul Simon

text: The success of both albums allowed Simon to stage another New York concert. On August 15, 1991, almost a decade after his concert with Garfunkel, Simon staged a second concert in Central Park with African and South American bands. The success of the concert surpassed all expectations, and reportedly over 750,000 people attended one of the largest concert audiences in history. He later remembered the concert as "the most memorable moment in my career." The success of the show led to both a live album and an Emmy-winning TV special. In the middle, Simon embarked on the successful "Born at the Right Time Tour", and promoted the album with further singles, including "Proof" (accompanied with a humorous video that featured Chevy Chase and Steve Martin). On March 4, 1992, he appeared on his own episode of "MTV Unplugged", offering renditions of many of his most famous compositions. Broadcast in June, the show was a success, though it did not receive an album release. Simon and Garfunkel were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.


title: Paul Simon

text: After "Unplugged", Simon's place in the forefront of popular music dropped notably. A Simon & Garfunkel reunion took place in September 1993, and in another attempt to capitalize on the occasion, Columbia released "Paul Simon 1964/1993" in September. A three-disc compilation, it received a reduced version on the two-disc album "The Paul Simon Anthology" one month later. In 1995, he made news for appearing on "The Oprah Winfrey Show", where he performed the song "Ten Years", which he composed specially for the tenth anniversary of the show. Also that year, he was featured on the Annie Lennox version of his 1973 song "Something So Right", which appeared briefly on the UK Top 50 once it was released as a single in November.


title: Paul Simon

text: Since the early stages of the 1990s, Simon was fully involved in "The Capeman", a musical that eventually opened on January 29, 1998. Simon worked enthusiastically on the project for many years and described it as "a New York Puerto Rican story based on events that happened in 1959—events that I remembered." The musical tells the story of real-life Puerto Rican youth Salvador Agron, who wore a cape while committing two murders in 1959 New York, and went on to become a writer in prison. Featuring Marc Anthony as the young Agron, and Rubén Blades as the older Agron, the play received terrible reviews and very poor box office receipts from the very beginning. It closed on March 28, after just 68 performances, a failure that reportedly cost Simon 11 million dollars.


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon recorded an album of songs from the show, which was released in November 1997. It was received with very mixed reviews, though many critics praised the combination of doo-wop, rockabilly and Caribbean music that the album reflected. In commercial terms, "Songs from The Capeman" was a failure. Simon missed the Top 40 of the "Billboard" charts for the first time in his career. The cast album was never released on CD but eventually became available online.


title: Paul Simon

text: After "The Capeman", Simon's career was again in an unexpected crisis. However, entering the new millennium, he maintained a respectable reputation, offering critically acclaimed new material and receiving commercial attention. Simon embarked on a North American tour with Bob Dylan in 1999, with each alternating as the headline act with a "middle section" where they performed together, starting on the first of June and ending September 18. The collaboration was generally well-received, with just one critic, Seth Rogovoy from the "Berkshire Eagle", questioning the collaboration.


title: Paul Simon

text: In an attempt to return successfully to the music market, Simon wrote and recorded a new album very quickly, with "You're the One" arriving in October 2000. The album consisted mostly of folk-pop writing combined with foreign musical sounds, particularly grooves from North Africa. While not reaching the commercial heights of previous albums, it managed to reach both the British and American Top 20. It received favorable reviews, and received a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year. He toured extensively for the album, and one performance in Paris was released to home video.


title: Paul Simon

text: In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, Simon sang "Bridge Over Troubled Water" on "", a multi-network broadcast to benefit the September 11 Telethon Fund and performed "The Boxer" at the opening of the first episode of "Saturday Night Live" after September 11. In 2002, he wrote and recorded "Father and Daughter", the theme song for the animated family film "The Wild Thornberrys Movie". The track was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song.


title: Paul Simon

text: In 2003, Simon and Garfunkel reunited once again when they received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. This reunion led to a US tour—the acclaimed "Old Friends" concert series, followed by a 2004 international encore that culminated in a free concert at the Colosseum in Rome that drew 600,000 people. In 2005, the pair sang "Mrs. Robinson" and "Homeward Bound", plus "Bridge Over Troubled Water" with Aaron Neville, in the benefit concert "From the Big Apple to The Big Easy – The Concert for New Orleans" (eventually released as a DVD) for Hurricane Katrina victims.


title: Paul Simon

text: In 2004, Simon's studio albums were re-released both individually and together in a limited-edition nine-CD boxed set, "Paul Simon: The Studio Recordings 1972–2000". At the time, Simon was already working on a new album with Brian Eno called "Surprise", which was released in May 2006. Most of the album was inspired by the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Iraq invasion and the war that followed. In personal terms, Simon was also inspired by turning 60 in 2001, which he humorously referred to on "Old" from "You're the One". "Surprise" was a commercial hit, reaching number 14 on the "Billboard" 200 and number 4 in the UK. Most critics also praised the album, and many of them called it a comeback. Stephen Thomas Erlewine from AllMusic wrote that "Simon doesn't achieve his comeback by reconnecting with the sound and spirit of his classic work; he has achieved it by being as restless and ambitious as he was at his popular and creative peak, which makes "Surprise" all the more remarkable." The album was supported with the successful Surprise Tour from May to November 2006.


title: Paul Simon

text: In March 2004, Walter Yetnikoff published a book called "Howling at the Moon", in which he criticized Simon personally and for his tenuous business partnership with Columbia Records in the past. In 2007 Simon was the inaugural recipient of the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, awarded by the Library of Congress, and later performed as part of a gala of his work.


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon is one of a small number of performers who are named as the copyright owner on their recordings (most records have the recording company as the named owner of the recording). This noteworthy development was spearheaded by the Bee Gees after their successful $200 million lawsuit against RSO Records, which remains the largest successful lawsuit against a record company by an artist or group. All of Simon's solo recordings, including those originally issued by Columbia Records, are currently distributed by Sony Records' Legacy Recordings unit. His albums were issued by Warner Music Group until mid-2010. In mid-2010, Simon moved his catalog of solo work from Warner Bros. Records to Sony/Columbia Records where Simon & Garfunkel's catalog is. Simon's back catalog of solo recordings would be marketed by Sony Music's Legacy Recordings unit.


title: Paul Simon

text: In February 2009, Simon performed back-to-back shows in New York City at the Beacon Theatre, which had recently been renovated. Simon was reunited with Art Garfunkel at the first show as well as with the cast of "The Capeman". Also playing in the band was "Graceland" bassist Bakithi Kumalo. In May 2009, Simon toured with Garfunkel in Australia, New Zealand and Japan. In October 2009, they appeared together at the 25th anniversary of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The pair performed four of their most popular songs: "The Sound of Silence", "The Boxer", "Cecilia" and "Bridge Over Troubled Water".


title: Paul Simon

text: In October 2009, Dion performed "The Wanderer" with Simon at the 25th Anniversary Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Concert.


title: Paul Simon

text: In April 2010, Simon & Garfunkel performed again in New Orleans at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon released a new song called "Getting Ready for Christmas Day" on November 10, 2010. It premiered on National Public Radio, and was included on the album "So Beautiful or So What". The song samples a 1941 sermon by the Rev. J. M. Gates, also entitled "Getting Ready for Christmas Day". Simon performed the song live on "The Colbert Report" on December 16, 2010. The first video featured J. M. Gates giving the sermon, and his church in 2010 with its display board showing many of Simon's lyrics. The second video illustrates the song with cartoon images.


title: Paul Simon

text: In the premiere show of the final season of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" on September 10, 2010, Simon surprised Oprah and the audience with a song dedicated to her show lasting 25 years (an update of a song he did for her show's 10th anniversary).


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon's album "So Beautiful or So What" was released on the Concord Music Group label on April 12, 2011. The album received high marks from the artist: "It's the best work I've done in 20 years". It was reported that Simon attempted to have Bob Dylan featured on the album.


title: Paul Simon

text: Rounding off his 2011 World Tour (which included the United States, the U.K., the Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany), Simon appeared at Ramat Gan Stadium in Israel in July 2011, making his first concert appearance in Israel since 1983. On the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks (September 11, 2011), Paul Simon performed "The Sound of Silence" at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, site of the World Trade Center.


title: Paul Simon

text: On February 26, 2012, Simon paid tribute to fellow musicians Chuck Berry and Leonard Cohen, who were the recipients of the first annual PEN Awards for songwriting excellence at the JFK Presidential Library in Boston, Massachusetts.


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon released a 25th anniversary box set of "Graceland" on June 5, 2012. It included a remastered edition of the original album, the 2012 documentary film "Under African Skies" the original 1987 "African Concert" from Zimbabwe, an audio narrative "The Story of Graceland" told by Paul Simon, as well as other interviews and paraphernalia. He played a few concerts in Europe with the original musicians to commemorate the anniversary.


title: Paul Simon

text: On December 19, 2012, Simon performed at the funeral of Victoria Leigh Soto, a teacher killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.


title: Paul Simon

text: On June 14, 2013, at Sting's Back to Bass Tour, Simon performed his song "The Boxer" and Sting's "Fields of Gold" with Sting.


title: Paul Simon

text: In September 2013, Simon delivered the Richard Ellmann Lecture in Modern Literature at Emory University.


title: Paul Simon

text: In February 2014, Simon embarked on a joint concert tour titled On Stage Together with English musician Sting, playing 21 concerts in North America. The tour continued in early 2015, with ten shows in Australia and New Zealand, and 23 concerts in Europe, ending on April 18, 2015.


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon appeared during the premiere week of "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" on September 11, 2015. Simon, who performed "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" with Colbert for his surprise appearance, had been promoted prior to the show as "Simon & Garfunkel Tribute Band Troubled Waters". Simon's additional performance of "An American Tune" was posted as a bonus on the show's YouTube channel.


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon also wrote and performed the theme song for the comedian Louis C.K.'s show "Horace and Pete", which debuted January 30, 2016. The song, which can be heard during the show's opening, intermission and closing credits, features only Simon's voice and an acoustic guitar. Simon made a cameo appearance onscreen in the tenth and final episode of the series.


title: Paul Simon

text: On June 3, 2016, Simon released his thirteenth solo studio album, "Stranger to Stranger" via Concord Records"." He began writing new material shortly after releasing his twelfth studio album, "So Beautiful or So What", in April 2011.


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon collaborated with the Italian electronic dance music artist Clap! Clap! on three songs: "The Werewolf", "Street Angel" and "Wristband". Simon was introduced to him by his son, Adrian, who was a fan of his work. The two met up in July 2011 when Simon was touring behind "So Beautiful or So What" in Milan, Italy. He and Clap! Clap! worked together via email over the course of making the album. Simon also worked with longtime friend Roy Halee, who is listed as co-producer on the album. "I always liked working with him more than anyone else," Simon noted. Following the release of the album, Simon noted that "showbiz doesn't hold any interest for me" and discussed future retirement, stating: "I am going to see what happens if I let go".


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon performed "Bridge over Troubled Water" at the 2016 Democratic National Convention on July 25, 2016. He debuted a new version of "Questions for the Angels" with jazz guitarist Bill Frisell on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" on May 24, 2017.


title: Paul Simon

text: On February 5, 2018, Simon announced his retirement from touring in a letter to fans, citing time away from family and the death of longtime guitarist Vincent Nguini as key factors. However, he did not rule out performing live altogether. At the same time, it was announced that he would embark on his farewell concert tour on May 16 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, at Rogers Arena. Homeward Bound – The Farewell Tour encompassed shows across North America and Europe, and Simon played his final concert in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens, New York, on September 22, 2018.


title: Paul Simon

text: On September 7, 2018, Simon released his fourteenth solo studio album, "In the Blue Light", consisting of re-recordings of selected lesser-known songs from his catalog (often altering their original arrangements, harmonic structures and lyrics).


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon announced his return to the live stage to close San Francisco's "Outside Lands" festival on August 11, 2019. With an appearance at the Golden Gate Park event, he planned to donate his net proceeds to local environmental non-profit organization(s).


title: Paul Simon

text: "American Songwriter" magazine honored Dion's "Song for Sam Cooke (Here in America)", featuring Simon, as the "Greatest of the Great 2020 Songs".


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon sold his music publishing catalogue to Sony Music Publishing on March 31, 2021. Simon was previously signed to Universal Music Publishing Group.


title: Paul Simon

text: In an in-depth interview reprinted in "American Songwriter", Simon discusses the craft of songwriting with music journalist Tom Moon. In the interview, Simon explains the basic themes in his songwriting: love, family and social commentary (as well as the overarching messages of religion, spirituality and God in his lyrics). Simon explains the process of how he goes about writing songs in the interview: "The music always precedes the words. The words often come from the sound of the music and eventually evolve into coherent thoughts. Or incoherent thoughts. Rhythm plays a crucial part in the lyric-making as well. It's like a puzzle to find the right words to express what the music is saying."


title: Paul Simon

text: In the late 1990s, Simon wrote and produced a Broadway musical called "The Capeman", which lost $11 million during its 1998 run. In April 2008, the Brooklyn Academy of Music celebrated Paul Simon's works, and dedicated a week to "Songs From the Capeman" with a good portion of the show's songs performed by a cast of singers and the Spanish Harlem Orchestra. Simon himself appeared during the BAM shows, performing "Trailways Bus" and "Late in the Evening". In August 2010, "The Capeman" was staged for three nights in the Delacorte Theatre in New York's Central Park. The production was directed by Diane Paulus and produced in conjunction with the Public Theater.


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon has also dabbled in acting. He played music producer Tony Lacey, a supporting character, in the 1977 Woody Allen feature film "Annie Hall". He wrote and starred in 1980's "One Trick Pony" as Jonah Levin, a journeyman rock and roller. Simon also wrote all the songs in the film. He also appeared on "The Muppet Show" (the only episode to use the songs of one songwriter). In 1990, he played the character of Simple Simon on the Disney Channel TV movie, "Mother Goose Rock 'n' Rhyme".


title: Paul Simon

text: He has been the subject of two films by Jeremy Marre, the first on "Graceland", the second on "The Capeman".


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon was a guest on "The Colbert Report" promoting his book "Lyrics 1964–2008" on November 18, 2008. After an interview with Stephen Colbert, Simon performed "American Tune".


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon performed a Stevie Wonder song at The White House in 2009, at an event honoring Wonder's musical career and contributions.


title: Paul Simon

text: In May 2009, "The Library of Congress: Paul Simon and Friends Live Concert" was released on DVD, via Shout! Factory. The PBS concert was recorded in 2007.


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon has appeared on "Saturday Night Live" 14 times, both as host and musical guest. He was the host for the second episode, which aired on October 18, 1975, following George Carlin, who hosted the first episode. Carlin was a close friend of "SNL" producer Lorne Michaels, who produced the 1977 TV show "The Paul Simon Special", as well as the Simon & Garfunkel concert in Central Park four years later. He was also a friend of former "SNL" star Chevy Chase, who appeared in his video for "You Can Call Me Al" lip syncing the song while Simon looks disgruntled and mimes backing vocals, with the playing of various instruments beside him. (Chase also appeared in Simon's 1991 video for the song "Proof", with Steve Martin.)


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon appeared alongside George Harrison as musical guest on the Thanksgiving Day episode of "SNL" on November 20, 1976. The two performed "Here Comes the Sun" and "Homeward Bound" together, while Simon performed "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" solo earlier in the show. On that episode, Simon opened the show performing "Still Crazy After All These Years" in a turkey outfit, since Thanksgiving was the following week. About halfway through the song, Simon tells the band to stop playing because of his embarrassment. After giving a frustrated speech to the audience, he leaves the stage, backed by applause. Lorne Michaels greets him positively backstage, but Simon is still upset, yelling at him because of the humiliating turkey outfit. This is one of "SNL"s most played sketches.


title: Paul Simon

text: In one "SNL" skit from 1986 (when he was promoting "Graceland"), Simon plays himself, waiting in line with a friend to get into a movie. He amazes his friend by remembering intricate details about prior meetings with passers-by, but draws a complete blank when approached by Art Garfunkel, despite the latter's numerous memory prompts.


title: Paul Simon

text: On an appearance in the late 1980s, he worked with the politician who shared his name, Illinois Senator Paul Simon.


title: Paul Simon

text: On September 29, 2001, Simon made a special appearance on the first "SNL" to air after the September 11, 2001, attacks. On that show, he performed "The Boxer" to the audience and the NYC firefighters and police officers.


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon and Lorne Michaels were the subjects of a 2006 episode of the Sundance Channel documentary series, "Iconoclasts".


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon appeared on the March 9, 2013, episode hosted by Justin Timberlake, as a member of the Five-Timers Club.


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon closed the 40th anniversary "SNL" show on February 15, 2015, with a performance of "Still Crazy After All These Years". Simon also played a snippet of "I've Just Seen a Face" with Sir Paul McCartney during the special's introductory sequence. Much of the Thanksgiving episode from 1976 was shown during the prime-time special.


title: Paul Simon

text: His most recent "SNL" appearance was on the October 13, 2018, episode hosted by Seth Meyers. He was the musical guest and it was his 77th birthday.


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon has won 12 Grammy Awards (one of them a Lifetime Achievement Award) and five Album of the Year Grammy nominations (the most recent for "You're the One" in 2001). He is one of only six artists to have won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year more than once as the main credited artist. In 1998, he was entered in the Grammy Hall of Fame for the Simon & Garfunkel album "Bridge over Troubled Water". He received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song for the song "Father and Daughter" in 2002. He is also a two-time inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as half of Simon & Garfunkel in 1990 and as a solo artist in 2001.


title: Paul Simon

text: In 2001, Simon was honored as MusiCares Person of the Year. The following year, he was one of the five recipients of the annual Kennedy Center Honors, the nation's highest tribute to performing and cultural artists.


title: Paul Simon

text: In 2005, Simon was saluted as a BMI Icon at the 53rd Annual BMI Pop Awards. Simon's songwriting catalog has earned 39 BMI Awards including multiple citations for "Bridge over Troubled Water", "Mrs. Robinson", "Scarborough Fair" and "The Sound of Silence". As of 2005, he has amassed nearly 75 million broadcast airplays, according to BMI surveys.


title: Paul Simon

text: In 2007, Simon received the first annual Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. Named in honor of George and Ira Gershwin, this award recognizes the profound and positive effect of popular music on the world's culture. On being notified of the honor, Simon said, "I am grateful to be the recipient of the Gershwin Prize and doubly honored to be the first. I look forward to spending an evening in the company of artists I admire at the award ceremony in May. I can think of a few who have expressed my words and music far better than I. I'm excited at the prospect of that happening again. It's a songwriter's dream come true." Among the performers who paid tribute to Simon were Stevie Wonder, Alison Krauss, Jerry Douglas, Lyle Lovett, James Taylor, Dianne Reeves, Marc Anthony, Yolanda Adams and Ladysmith Black Mambazo. The event was professionally filmed and broadcast and is now available as "Paul Simon and Friends".


title: Paul Simon

text: In 2010, Simon received an honorary degree from Brandeis University, where he performed "The Boxer" at the main commencement ceremony.


title: Paul Simon

text: In October 2011, Simon was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. At the induction ceremony, he performed "American Tune".


title: Paul Simon

text: When Simon moved to England in 1964, he met Kathleen Mary "Kathy" Chitty (born 1947) on April 12 at the first English folk club he played, the Railway Inn Folk Club in Brentwood, Essex (where Chitty worked part-time selling tickets). She was 16 and he was 22 when they began a relationship. Later that year, they visited the U.S. together, touring mainly by bus.


title: Paul Simon

text: Kathy returned to England on her own, with Simon returning to her some weeks later. When Simon returned to the U.S. with the growing success of "The Sounds of Silence", Kathy, who was quite shy, wanted no part of the success and fame that awaited Simon so they ended their relationship. She is mentioned by name in at least two of his songs: "Kathy's Song" and "America". She is also referred to in "Homeward Bound" and "The Late Great Johnny Ace". There is a photo of Simon and Kathy on the cover of Simon's 1965 album "The Paul Simon Songbook".


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon has been married three times, first to Peggy Harper in 1969. They had a son, Harper Simon, in 1972, and divorced in 1975. Simon wrote about this relationship in the song "Train in the Distance" from his 1983 album "Hearts and Bones".


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon's 1972 song, "Run That Body Down", from his second solo album, casually mentions both himself and his then-wife ("Peg") by name. Paul and Peggy, misheard as Al and Betty by Pierre Boulez, are also referenced in Simon's 1986 hit single "You Can Call Me Al".


title: Paul Simon

text: In the late 1970s, Simon lived in New York City next door to "Saturday Night Live" creator Lorne Michaels, who has been described as Simon's "best friend" during the period.


title: Paul Simon

text: He and Shelley Duvall lived together as a couple for two years until she introduced him to her friend Carrie Fisher; Simon and Fisher then became a couple. Simon's second marriage, from 1983 to 1984, was to Fisher. He proposed to her after a New York Yankees game. The song "Hearts and Bones" was written about their time together, and the song "Graceland" is believed to be about seeking solace from the end of the relationship by taking a road trip. A year after divorcing, Simon and Fisher resumed their relationship, which lasted for several years. The final song in the sequence of three about Fisher is "She Moves On". This song marks the end of the post-marriage relationship, and was a track on Simon's 1990 album "The Rhythm of The Saints".


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon married singer Edie Brickell on May 30, 1992. They have three children: Adrian, Lulu, and Gabriel.


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon and his younger brother, Eddie Simon, founded the Guitar Study Center sometime before 1973. The Guitar Study Center became part of The New School in New York City, sometime before 2002.


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon is an avid fan of the New York Rangers ice hockey team, the New York Knicks basketball team and the New York Yankees baseball team.


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon is a proponent of music education for children. In 1970, after recording his "Bridge Over Troubled Water", at the invitation of the NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, Simon held auditions for a young songwriters' workshop. Advertised in "The Village Voice", the auditions brought hundreds of hopefuls to perform for Simon. Among the six teenage songwriters Simon selected for tutelage were Melissa Manchester, Tommy Mandel and rock/beat poet Joe Linus, with Maggie and Terre Roche (the Roche Sisters), who later sang back-up for Simon, joining the workshop in progress through an impromptu appearance.


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon invited the six teens to experience recording at Columbia studios with engineer Roy Halee. During these sessions, Bob Dylan was downstairs recording the album "Self-Portrait", which included a version of Simon's "The Boxer". Violinist Isaac Stern also visited the group with a CBS film crew, speaking to the young musicians about lyrics and music after Joe Linus performed his song "Circus Lion" for Stern.


title: Paul Simon

text: Manchester later paid homage to Simon with her recorded song "Ode to Paul". Other musicians Simon has mentored include Nick Laird-Clowes, who co-founded the band The Dream Academy. Laird-Clowes has credited Simon with helping to shape the band's biggest hit, "Life in a Northern Town".


title: Paul Simon

text: In 2003, Simon signed on as a supporter of Little Kids Rock, a nonprofit organization that provides free musical instruments and free lessons to children in public schools in the U.S. He sits on the organization's board of directors as an honorary member.


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon is also a major benefactor and one of the co-founders, with Irwin Redlener, of the Children's Health Project and The Children's Health Fund which started by creating specially equipped "buses" to take medical care to children in medically under-served areas, urban and rural. Their first bus was in the impoverished South Bronx of New York City, but they now operate in 12 states including on the Gulf Coast. It has expanded greatly, partnering with major hospitals, local public schools and medical schools and advocating policy for children's health and medical care.


title: Paul Simon

text: In May 2012, Paul Simon performed at a benefit dinner for the Turkana Basin Institute in New York City, raising more than $2 million for Richard Leakey's research institute in Africa.


title: Paul Simon

text: For his 2019 performance at San Francisco's Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival, Simon donated his appearance fee to the San Francisco Parks Alliance and Friends of the Urban Forest.


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon's solo concert albums often have songs he originally recorded with Simon & Garfunkel, and many Simon & Garfunkel concert albums contain songs Simon first recorded on solo albums.


title: Paul Simon

text: Simon has a few songs that appear on compilation albums and nowhere else, such as "Slip Slidin' Away" which appears only on the compilation albums "Negotiations and Love Songs" (1988) and "Greatest Hits, Etc." (1977).


title: 2 Girls 1 Cup

text: 2 Girls 1 Cup is the unofficial nickname of the trailer for Hungry Bitches, a 2007 Brazilian scat fetish pornographic film produced by MFX Media. The trailer features two women defecating into a cup, taking turns in what appears to be consuming the excrement, and vomiting into each other's mouths. "Lovers Theme" by Hervé Roy plays throughout the video.


title: 2 Girls 1 Cup

text: The video became one of the best known shock videos in itself and for the reactions its graphic content elicited from viewers who had not seen it before. Around mid-October 2007, video-sharing sites including YouTube were flooded with videos of the reactions of first-time viewers.


title: 2 Girls 1 Cup

text: Viewers often speculate that the apparent feces are actually food substances such as refried beans, ice cream, or peanut butter. Some speculate that the vomit is real, but was regurgitated before reaching the stomach and does not contain any gastric acids. In the video, the majority of the vomit does not enter the mouths. Pornographer Marco Antônio Fiorito unsuccessfully argued in a criminal court proceeding that the excrement was actually chocolate ice cream.


title: 2 Girls 1 Cup

text: The video originated from a Brazilian distributor and pornographer Marco Antônio Fiorito (born 1 July 1971, in Sao Paulo), who describes himself as a "compulsive fetishist". Fiorito started having interest producing films in 1994, and in 1996, with his wife, Joelma Brito, using her artistic name Letícia Miller, he began a fetish film business and soon moved on to coprophagia. The film was produced by MFX Video, one of several companies owned by Fiorito.


title: 2 Girls 1 Cup

text: Authorities in the United States have branded some of Fiorito's films as obscene and filed charges against Danilo Croce, a Brazilian lawyer living in Florida, listed as an officer of a company distributing Fiorito's films in the United States. Fiorito explained that had he known that selling his films in the U.S. was illegal, he would have stopped. In his declaration he stated "I would have stopped because the money is not the main reason that I make these films." He then added, "I have already made fetish movies with scat/feces using chocolate instead of feces. Many actors make scat films, but they don't agree to eat feces."


title: 2 Girls 1 Cup

text: The first few seconds of the "2 Girls 1 Cup" video contain the text "MFX 1209" (the production code for "Hungry Bitches") and the URL mfxvideo.com, the website of Fiorito's MFX Video, leading some in the media to incorrectly believe the video is one of the many Croce had to surrender to the Department of Justice but was somehow leaked in the process.


title: 2 Girls 1 Cup

text: The popularity of "2 Girls 1 Cup" was aided by a series of reaction videos, that is, videos depicting people reacting to watching it. Many videos exist on YouTube of users showing the original video (off-camera) to their friends and filming their reactions, although some may be staged. Even Joe Rogan, host of "Fear Factor", a show notorious for the disgusting things its contestants are dared to eat, had to turn away in a reaction video posted to his blog. A reaction video starring a Kermit the Frog puppet proved very popular on the community-based website Digg.


title: 2 Girls 1 Cup

text: In January 2008, "Slate" documented the reaction video phenomenon with a slideshow featuring various reactions. Violet Blue, an author, described this website as becoming "the new 'tubgirl' and goatse all in one disgusting moment of choco-poo-love" in a "San Francisco Chronicle" article.


title: 2 Girls 1 Cup

text: Veteran porn star Ron Jeremy walked off while watching the video on "The Playhouse". On the same program, singer Wyclef Jean sat through the whole thing without looking away or showing any apparent reaction, all while eating corn on the cob. Ace Frehley, formerly of Kiss, was shown the video on "The Opie and Anthony Show" in July 2009, and was unfazed, declaring, "Crazier things than that have happened on the road." "Genuine Nerd" Toby Radloff was so disgusted by the clip that he had to immediately watch it again.


title: 2 Girls 1 Cup

text: A short film by guitarist John Mayer to his blog entitled "2 Guys 1 Cup" where Mayer and "Best Week Ever" correspondent Sherrod Small enjoy Pinkberry frozen yogurt in the same manner that the women in the original consumed the feces. Comedian Conan O'Brien created a parody called "One Guy, Two Bowls" starring Andy Richter, which shows Andy eating two bowls of soup. This video was created for O'Brien's comedic website, Conan.XXX. Filmmakers Justin Roiland and Christian Le Guilloux made a five-minute series called "2 Girls, 1 Cup: The Show" for the short film competition site Channel 101. It debuted in first place on 27 January 2008. Canadian comedian Jon Lajoie also made a song named "2 Girls 1 Cup song", which described the activities in the video as if the two women were expressing their love for each other. The music video gained over 10 million views on YouTube.


title: 2 Girls 1 Cup

text: In 2013, German company Media Markt marketed a cupcake maker dubbed "2 Girls 1 Cup-Cake Maker". The product's slogan was that it made cupcakes "So good that it's impossible to film."


title: 2 Girls 1 Cup

text: The first episode of sketch comedy show "Inside Amy Schumer" has a parody in which Amy Schumer auditions for a role in the film.


title: 2 Girls 1 Cup

text: In the media the video has been used as an example of the poor content quality of YouTube and similar video-sharing websites, and their tendency towards deliberately shocking content. "Esquire" magazine showed the video to actor George Clooney during an interview, prompting him to compare it to a rodeo, saying the point of the video was to see "how long you can last". In an episode of "Tosh.0", the entire audience is filmed reacting to this video. Host Daniel Tosh called it the World's Largest Reaction Video in terms of number of people being filmed. The cast of "Avenue Q", responding to The Muppets' version of "Bohemian Rhapsody", made a video of "We Will Rock You"/"We Are the Champions" (known as "We Will Rock Q"), ending with Nicky surfing the internet, finding "2 Girls 1 Cup" (indicated by the soundtrack), and vomiting as the screen fades to black.


title: 2 Girls 1 Cup

text: The Coca-Cola Company referenced the video in a 2010 promotional campaign for Dr Pepper on Facebook. The promotion, which was open to minors, allowed Facebook users to let Dr Pepper publish embarrassing status updates on their profiles in exchange for a chance to win $1,000. One of the possible status updates was "I watched "2 girls one cup" and felt hungry afterwards". Jim Edwards of "BNET" said that Coca-Cola has full responsibility for allowing the situation to occur, arguing that Coca-Cola selected an advertising agency that openly advertised "profane" advertising campaigns and that the Coca-Cola executive who approved the "2 Girls 1 Cup" line failed to do research on what the name meant. The Coca-Cola Company later terminated its relationship with the digital marketing agency responsible for the campaign.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: The Kashmir Files is a 2022 Indian Hindi-language drama film written and directed by Vivek Agnihotri. The film presents a fictional storyline centred around the 1990s exodus of Kashmiri Hindus from Indian-administered Kashmir. It depicts the exodus and the events leading up to it as a genocide, a notion that is widely considered inaccurate by scholars. The film claims that such facts were suppressed by a conspiracy of silence.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: "The Kashmir Files" stars Mithun Chakraborty, Anupam Kher, Darshan Kumar, and Pallavi Joshi. The plot follows a Kashmiri Hindu college student, raised by his exiled grandfather and shielded from the knowledge of the circumstances of the death of his parents. After his grandfather's death, the student, who had come to believe at college that the exodus was benign, becomes driven to uncover the facts of his family's deaths. The plot alternates between the student's quest in the present time, 2020, and his family's travails of thirty years before. The film was released in theatres on 11 March 2022. It has been a commercial success, seemingly benefitting from promotion by India's ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and tax benefits.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: The critical reception of the film was mixed, with the cinematography and acting thought to be compelling, but the storyline attracting criticism for attempting to recast established history and propagating Islamophobia. Supporters have praised the film for showing what they say is an overlooked aspect of Kashmir's history. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and several BJP ministers have praised the film. Theatres across India have witnessed hate speech against Muslims, including incitement to violence. , the film, which cost approximately to to make, had grossed worldwide, becoming the second highest-grossing Hindi film of 2022.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: The plot frequently switches between the contemporary period set in the year 2020 and flashbacks to 1989–1990 throughout the film.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: In 1989–90 Kashmir, Islamic militants storm and banish Kashmiri Hindu Pandits from the Kashmir valley using the slogans "Raliv Galiv ya Chaliv" ("convert (to Islam), leave or die") and "Al-Safa Batte Dafa" ("with god's grace whole Kashmiri Pandit community will leave valley"). Pushkar Nath Pandit, a teacher, fears for the safety of his son Karan, who has been accused by the militants of being an Indian spy. Pushkar requests his friend Brahma Dutt, a civil servant, for Karan's protection. Brahma travels with Pushkar to Kashmir and witnesses the violence against Kashmiri Pandits. He takes up the issue with the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), who suspends Brahma.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: Militant commander Farooq Malik Bitta, also a former student of Pushkar, breaches Pushkar Nath's house. Karan hides in a rice container but is found and shot by Bitta. Pushkar and his daughter-in-law Sharda plead for their lives. Bitta compels Sharda to eat rice soaked in Karan's blood in exchange for their lives. After Bitta and his gang leave the house, Pushkar begs his doctor friend Mahesh Kumar to bring an ambulance and save Karan's life. However, the hospital gets taken over by militants, who forbid the hospital staff from treating non-Muslims. Subsequently, Karan succumbs to injuries from the gunshots.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: To ensure their safety, Pushkar and his family are taken by their journalist friend Vishnu Ram to Kaul, a Hindu poet who maintains a cordial relationship with Muslims. Kaul takes in many Pandits into his home but a group of militants arrives to pick Kaul and his son up under the guise of offering protection. The rest of the Pandits leave the place but are later shocked to find corpses of Kaul and his son hanging from trees.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: The refugee Pandits from the Kashmir valley settle in Jammu and live on meagre ration and in poor conditions. Brahma is appointed as an advisor to the new Governor of J&K. At his request, the Home Minister visits the Jammu camps where Pushkar demands the removal of Article 370 and the resettlement of Kashmiri Pandits. Brahma manages to get Sharda a government job in Nadimarg in Kashmir, and the family moves there.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: One day a group of militants headed by Bitta dress up as members of the Indian Army and arrive at Nadimarg. They start rounding up the Pandits living there. Sharda resists when the militants get hold of her elder son Shiva. Angry Farooq strips her and saws her body in half. He lines up Shiva and the remaining Pandits and shoots them into a mass grave. Pushkar is spared to spread the word about what happened.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: In the present day, Sharda's younger son Krishna is brought up by Pushkar. He believes that his parents had died in an accident. A student of ANU, Krishna is under the influence of professor Radhika Menon who is a supporter of Kashmiri separatism. Pushkar's friends Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh, and police officer Hari Narain, who had served in Kashmir when Karan was killed, recall the events of Kashmir from their memory that Brahma calls a "genocide".


title: The Kashmir Files

text: Krishna contests the ANU's student election. Following the advice of professor Radhika Menon, he holds the Government of India responsible for the issue of Kashmir, much to the anger of Pushkar. Later, when Pushkar dies, Krishna travels to his ancestral home in Kashmir to scatter the ashes per Pushkar's last wish. Menon asks Krishna to record some footage in Kashmir to expose the government's supposed atrocities. With the help of one of Menon's contacts, Krishna meets Bitta and accuses him of being responsible for the situation of the Pandits. But Bitta declares himself to be a new-age Gandhi who is leading a non-violent democratic movement. Bitta claims that it was the Indian Army, who killed Krishna's mother and brother. When Krishna questions Brahma about this claim, Brahma hands him files of newspaper cuttings (collected by Pushkar), reporting that militants, disguised as Indian Army soldiers, had killed them.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: Krishna returns to Delhi and gives his scheduled speech for the university presidential elections to a roaring crowd at the ANU campus. He elaborates on the history of Kashmir and the plight of his family and other Kashmiri Hindu victims that he had discovered from his visit. This shocks his mentor professor Menon and her other students, and Krishna is initially met with resistance and ridicule at the meeting. Some students eventually welcome and applaud Krishna's speech.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: On 14 August 2019, Agnihotri announced the film with its first look poster with an intent to release it on 15 August 2020, coinciding with India's Independence Day. The subject of the film was the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits that took place between the late 80s and early 90s. Agnihotri touted the film to be the second instalment of his trilogy of "untold stories of independent India", which includes the films "The Tashkent Files" (2019) and an upcoming "The Delhi Files". As a part of the production, Agnihotri claimed to have interviewed more than 700 emigrants from the exodus and recorded their stories over a period of two years. Actor Anupam Kher joined the cast as the lead actor of the film in December 2019.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: The first schedule of the film, supposed to take place in March 2020, was called off due the COVID-19 pandemic in India, and was started later the same year in December in Mussoorie. The entire film was shot in 30 days, largely in Mussoorie and Dehradun, along with a week-long shooting schedule in Kashmir, including at Dal Lake. Yograj Singh was removed before the production started in December 2020 for his speeches at the 2020–2021 Indian farmers' protest<ins>,</ins> and Puneet Issar was brought in as the replacement. A line producer, Sarahna died during the production by suicide. The production was wrapped up by 16 January 2021.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: Produced by Tej Narayan Agarwal, Abhishek Agarwal, Pallavi Joshi and Vivek Agnihotri under the banners of Zee Studios, IAmBuddha and Abhishek Agarwal Arts, the film was made on a budget of approximately to .


title: The Kashmir Files

text: The Indian Censor board gave "The Kashmir Files" A certificate, which is restricted to adults (aged 18 and above). According to CBFC, it is a feature film in the genre 'drama' and there is no mention of the film being commercial/documentary in the CBFC records. The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) found the film to contain "strong bloody violence" and certified the film as suitable only for viewers aged 15 years and over. Australian censors gave the film an 18+ plus rating.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: In New Zealand, the censorship clearance was mired in controversy. The film had originally received an R16 classification from the New Zealand Classification Office. However, with the Muslim community raising concerns about potential incitement of Islamophobia, the rating was raised to R18; David Shanks, the Chief Censor of New Zealand, highlighted "the nature and intensity of the violence and cruelty depicted" and defended the new age restriction to be in consistence with Australia and India. Leader of the right-wing New Zealand First party Winston Peters accused the Classification office of censoring the film based on its political content, and was supported by other politicians.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: In Singapore, the film was banned by the censor authority after a consultation with the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth and the Ministry of Home Affairs; the film's "provocative and one-sided portrayal of Muslims" was held to have the potential of disrupting "social cohesion and religious harmony". The ban has been argued as a strong-handed way of protecting the country's secularism, an approach of pre-emptive actions that the People's Action Party, the governing party of Singapore, has long been undertaking to maintain racial and religious societal harmony.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: A public interest litigation (PIL) was filed by an Uttar Pradesh resident which sought a stay on the film's release on grounds that the film may portray the Muslims as killers of the Kashmiri Pandits, presenting what it described as a one-sided view that would hurt the sentiments of Muslims and could trigger violence against Muslims. The PIL was dismissed by the Bombay High Court on grounds that the filer should have challenged the certificate issued to the film by the Central Board of Film Certification. Another lawsuit was filed by the widow of an Indian Armed Forces squadron leader who died during the Kashmir Insurgency. The widow's lawsuit said that the film portrayed a false depiction of events related to her husband and sought a stay on its release. Accordingly, the court restrained the makers from showing the relevant scenes.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: In addition, miscellaneous petitions were filed in various courts to stop the screening on the potential of promoting communal enmity.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: "The Kashmir Files" was set to release theatrically worldwide on 26 January 2022, coinciding with India's Republic Day, but was postponed due to the spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19. It was initially released in over 630 screens in India on 11 March 2022 and was later increased to 4,000 screens.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: The film was premiered for worldwide streaming on ZEE5 from 13 May 2022, in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Indian Sign Language. With this film, ZEE5 became the first OTT platform to release a commercial Bollywood film with an interpretation in the Indian Sign Language. The film also recorded the highest number of views for ZEE5 during its opening weekend and the first week at more than 6 million and 9 million views respectively.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has endorsed and promoted the film in explicit terms, which has led to significant audience at theatres making it a runaway commercial success. Union Minister Smriti Irani was one of the most vocal in promoting it. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has attacked critics in response to negative reviews, claiming that there is a conspiracy to discredit the film, which according to him "reveals the truth"; he met with Agnihotri to congratulate him, as did Home Minister Amit Shah. The BJP Information and Technology Cell, known for being the party's propaganda unit promoted the film with its head raising calls for people to watch it. Pro-government media were also involved in its promotion; "OpIndia" — a pro-Hindutva news portal — published several articles raining praises on the film and questioning the motives of critics as well as opposition parties while television channels hosted multiple shows and debates to the same ends. Following the release of the film, Agnihotri was provided with a Y-category security detail from the Central Reserve Police Force by the Ministry of Home Affairs, based on what an official described as inputs of perceived threat to the director's safety.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: The film was declared tax-free in multiple BJP governed states—Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Bihar and Himachal Pradesh—with calls by several chief ministers and Members of Parliament for "everyone to watch the movie". Assam and Madhya Pradesh granted vacations to government employees and police personnel respectively, if they planned to watch the movie; Assam, Karnataka and Tripura governments held special screenings of the film. In addition, in the states of Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and West Bengal, which have opposition parties in power, BJP legislators have called for their respective state governments to make the film tax-free. Across the country, BJP legislators have bought out screens for audiences to watch the movie for free.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: Shubhra Gupta reviewing for "The Indian Express" rated the film 1.5 out of 5 stars, criticising the film for being uninterested in nuance and describing the film as propaganda aligned with the ruling party, that aimed to stoke the "deep-seated anger" of Pandits. However, she also stated that the film did tap "into the grief of the displaced Pandits," and commended Kher's performance. Rahul Desai reviewing for "Film Companion", found the work to be a "fantasy-revisionist" rant lacking in clarity, craft, and sense where every Muslim was a Nazi and every Hindu, a Jew; with an unconvincing screenplay and weak characters, it was propaganda that strove only to tune in with the Hindu nationalist mood of the nation rather than offer any genuine empathy to the displaced victims.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: Tanul Thakur, reviewing for "The Wire", was scathing: the film—"monotonous", "inert", and boasting of an "objectively poor screenplay"—was set up in an alternate reality and felt like iterations of collected Whatsapp screeds in service of a Hindu majoritarian state and especially Narendra Modi; Agnihotri lured the audience with facts only to distort and communalize them, and target those who are critical of the incumbent political government in India. Asim Ali, reviewing for "Newslaundry", was also critical of the film, finding it to have exploited the sufferings of Kashmiri Pandits in peddling a Hindu Nationalist worldview where no Muslim in Kashmir had any aspiration except persecuting Hindus. Shilajit Mitra of "The New Indian Express" panned the film with a rating of 1 out of 5 stars and castigated Agnihotri for exploiting the suffering of Kashmiri Pandits by doing away with all nuance in service of a "communal agenda".


title: The Kashmir Files

text: Debasish Roy Chowdhury, co-author of "To Kill a Democracy: India's Passage to Despotism", found the film to be a prominent marker of India's "descent into darkness"; rather than offering genuine closure for the Pandits, Agnihotri inflamed hatred against Muslims, secular parties, and liberal media in pursuance of a Hindu Supremacist cause. Nitasha Kaul, a Kashmiri Pandit academic, reviewing for "The News Minute", held the work to be a communal and masculinist propaganda that collapsed the complex politics of Kashmir into a one-sided moral tale palatable to the current Hindutva dispensation in India; Agnihotri appropriated Pandit sufferings to portray all Kashmiri Muslims as barbarian invaders, undeserving of any solidarity. Alpana Kishore, one of the few journalists who had covered Kashmir in the 1990s (as part of Newstrack), found the film to be a set of factual episodes but strung together in a contextless fashion; Agnihotri did not bother to even portray the other side of the divide, and was brazen in pushing a pro-right agenda.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: Suparna Sharma, reviewing for "Rolling Stone India", panned the film with a rating of 1 out of 5 stars: "neither cinematic nor historical", Agnihotri simply attempted to weaponize the tragedy of Kashmiri Pandits in pandering to the current sociopolitical climate. Uninterested in nuance and context, dripping with gore, and pushing an overt pro-right agenda, it was not even well made propaganda. Writing for "The Outlook Magazine", Ashutosh Bharadwaj noted the movie to be deeply insensitive to Muslim claims and memories concerning the exodus; it bore evidence of India's refashioning into a Hindu majoritarian state. Anuj Kumar reviewing for "The Hindu" described the film as being composed of "some facts, some half-truths, and plenty of distortions" with brutally intense visualisations and compelling performances, aimed at inciting hatred against Muslims.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: In contrast, Stutee Ghosh, reviewing for "The Quint", rated the film 3.5 out of 5 and found the film to have made a compelling case for Kashmiri pandits and their "hitherto unaddressed wounds" but wished for more nuance; the cinematography (especially the colour palette), Anupam Kher's acting, and realist depictions were praised in particular. Likewise, Jagadish Angadi of "Deccan Herald" was effusive in his praise — Agnihotri's use of non-linear narratives and strong dialogues, enviable background research, and strong individual performances produced an "intense watch". Avinash Lohana of "Pinkvilla" rated the film 3 out of 5 stars, praising the cast performances—particularly that of Kher—and the behind-the-scenes research, but criticised the lack of balance. Rohit Bhatnagar of "The Free Press Journal" found the screenplay and the individual performances to be sloppy, thus failing to make any mark; however, he admired the effort that went behind the film and rated it 2.5 out of 5 stars.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: The film was an entry at the 53rd International Film Festival of India, held in Goa in November 2022. Chosen for screening at the "Indian Panorama" section, it failed to win any award but sparked adverse reaction from the jury.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: Nadav Lapid, the chief juror, assessing the submissions in a closing speech, singled out the film for pointed criticism: it was "vulgar propaganda", he said, and an "inappropriate [submission]", which had shocked his fellow jury members. In subsequent interviews, Lapid doubled down, highlighting how every single minute of the film could be used as case-exhibits for cinematic propaganda in film studies. Faced with opposition from the Hindu Right, who accused Lapid of denying the exodus of Kashmiri Hindus, he emphasized that the film was not equivalent to the tragedy. Days later, Lapid's fellow jurors — Pascal Chavance, Jinko Gotoh, Sudipto Sen, and Javier Angulo Barturen — came out in support of Lapid's observations; Chavance, in particular, noted how the monolithic caricaturish portrayal of Muslims gave away the film's intentions.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: Reception among Pandits has been mixed with some regarding the film to be a cathartic experience while others have been critical. Journalist Rahul Pandita, who fled from Srinagar during the exodus, said that the experience for Pandits watching the film was like "an emotional catharsis." A Kashmiri Hindu immigrant to New Zealand told "Stuff" that "The Kashmir Files" was a good representation of the exodus, requesting that Muslims watch it to understand the other side of the conflict. President of the Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti (KPSS) Sanjay Tickoo criticized the movie for its misrepresentations and added that this movie is making Kashmir Pandits feel unsafe in the Kashmir Valley.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: The film's director Vivek Agnihotri claims the film to be a depiction of the "truth of Kashmir", when "terrorism seep[ed] in and humanity [was] absent". Its key message — in line with Hindu Right views on the issue — is that what is known as the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits was actually a "genocide" which was kept out of history textbooks and mainstream discourse deliberately. This was achieved by selecting several horrific events known to have occurred over a period of a decade and half, and then depicting them as happening in the course of about a year to one single fictitious family – a "fictional take on real events", as one reviewer labelled it.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: The film's exclusive focus on violence of Muslims on Hindus—with limited attention given to the overall history of human rights abuses in the state—and especially, the painting of all Muslims as active or passive participants in the exodus has been seen as promoting Islamophobia and aiding a Hindu Nationalist cause. The film has also faced charges of historical revisionism and unnuanced storytelling. Several critics have compared Agnihotri with Leni Riefenstahl, a Nazi propagandist. Isaac Chotiner, interviewing Agnihotri for "The New Yorker", summed up the work as an ahistorical exercise in "stigmatization and fearmongering". In response to accusations of propaganda, Agnihotri said: "How can a film on terrorism be propaganda?", adding that "The film is only against terrorism. I have not criticized Muslims." He also denied allegations that the film could create a divide between Hindus and Muslims, calling the allegations "agenda-driven".


title: The Kashmir Files

text: Krishna's father is killed in the film while hiding in a container of rice, an event fashioned after the killing of telecommunications engineer B. K. Ganjoo in 1990. But the additional portrayal of militants forcing his wife to eat the blood-soaked rice was rejected by Ganjoo's brother as 'fiction'; he emphasized that the family was never consulted while making the film. Krishna's mother is raped and killed by cutting her with a mechanical saw, an event fashioned after the killing of unrelated Girija Tikoo, also in 1990. This event juxtaposed in the film with a massacre fashioned after the 2003 Nadimarg massacre in an entirely different time frame under the watch of a Bharatiya Janata Party government. The massacre is depicted in the film as occurring in broad daylight in front of Kashmiri Muslim neighbours as passive participants, in contrast to the real event which happened in the dead of night with silenced guns and no witnesses. Sanjay Tikoo, the head of the Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti, says, "that was not like that; ... no massacre of Kashmiri Pandits took place before [the eyes] of Kashmiri Muslims".


title: The Kashmir Files

text: The film depicts the Jawaharlal Nehru University as an unpatriotic institution sympathetic to terrorism. Article 370 of the Constitution, that granted nominally autonomous status to Jammu and Kashmir and was in effect during the time frame of the film, is named as one of the factors behind the displacement of Kashmiri Pandits. Blame is also attached to Farooq Abdullah, the chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir prior to the 1990 exodus; the former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi; and Indian home minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, a person of Kashmiri heritage. The serving prime minister V. P. Singh (in 1990), and the Bharatiya Janata Party that supported his government, appear to be absolved of responsibility by the film. The central character Krishna Pandit is shown as being provoked by terrorists to turn against the present-day prime minister Narendra Modi. The former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee is also subtly derided for attempting to win the hearts of Kashmiris.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: A Kashmiri separatist militant named Farooq Malik Bitta is depicted in the movie, fashioned after Farooq Ahmed Dar ("Bitta Karate") and Yasin Malik rolled into one. But he is also shown as being involved in the 2003 Nadimarg massacre, which was of neither's doing. The facts of Bitta Karate's long years of incarceration despite a lack of conviction or Malik's eventual conversion to non-violent means of struggle are not mentioned.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: The film's central characters repeatedly blame an Indian National Congress-led government in Delhi for the Kashmir exodus when the film took place during a coalition government supported by the BJP.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: At the theatres, Hindutva activists raised slogans advocating for fatal violence against Kashmiri Muslims as well as Indian Muslims in general. In one instance, calls were made to "[s]hoot the traitors to the nation" by members of the Hindu Jagran Manch, a member of the Sangh Parivar. Agnihotri has defended such cases, citing freedom of expression. In Jammu, a Kashmiri Pandit activist and his family were heckled by a mob of activists allegedly belonging to the BJP, for he had labelled the film exploitative of the Pandit community. Several videos that went viral on social media showed audience members calling for boycotts of Muslim-owned businesses. Indian Muslim journalist Rana Ayyub, felt humiliated and physically unsafe during a screening, and was yelled at by a man to go to Pakistan.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: During the 2022 Ram Navami riots, "The Kashmir Files" is seen to have played a role in inspiring communal passions. In Khargone in Madhya Pradesh, the scene of a woman being cut up by a mechanical saw was recreated with makeshift devices and emblazoned with the slogan, "Wake up Hindus, lest other states in India become Kashmir." A BJP leader declared that, if Hindus did not draw the lesson from "The Kashmir Files", eventually similar films would need to be made about Delhi, Bengal, Kerala and Khargone. The film's version of truth that Muslims formed a blood-thirsty community whole-heartedly supporting militants' assaults was believed liable to be replicated in other parts of India. In the Uttarakhand's Roorkee region, people said that the film enthused them to fight for their "rights". They regarded the local Muslims as jihadis, who were conspiring against the Hindus and tearing the nation apart.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: "The Kashmir Files" opened to box office with a slow start and competed with Prabhas-starrer "Radhe Shyam", which was released on the same day, but has quickly gained higher share of collections within days. The film recorded an earnings of , and in India respectively on its first three days, taking its opening weekend collection to and an estimated in India and overseas, respectively. After the response from the first two days, the screens were increased to 2,000 on 13 March 2022. With a collections growth of 323% on its first Monday compared to the release day, the film broke the record for the highest increase in collections for an Indian film on its first Monday. At the end of the first week, the film earned at the Indian box office. After the response from the first week, the screens were increased to 4,000 on 18 March 2022 and 19 March 2022.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: In an interview with "The New Yorker" in June 2022, Agnihotri stated that ZEE Studios did not have faith in the film and thus the production studio had only released the film in 400 screens; and that the increase in the shows was in response to the audience demand. However, ZEE Studios clarified that the gradual increase in the number of screens was a "pre-decided business strategy" which was also agreed upon by the director.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: The film emerged as a box-office success within its first two days of release. It received massive push in the form of government support, national news coverage, social media forwards and word of mouth and rode on them following its opening weekend. , according to Bollywood Hungama's estimates, the film grossed in India and overseas, for a worldwide gross collection of , making it the second highest grossing Hindi film of 2022. It was the first movie to cross the figure of in aftermath of COVID-19 pandemic in India.


title: The Kashmir Files

text: The film became a major competitor for the Akshay Kumar-starrer "Bachchhan Paandey", which was released one week after "The Kashmir Files", and eroded its box office collections.


title: Shrek

text: Shrek is a 2001 American computer-animated comedy film loosely based on the 1990 book of the same name by William Steig. It is the first installment in the "Shrek" franchise. The film was directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson (in their feature directorial debuts) from a screenplay written by Joe Stillman, Roger S. H. Schulman, and the writing team of Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio. It stars the voices of Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, and John Lithgow. In the film, the ogre Shrek (Myers) finds his swamp overrun by fairy tale creatures banished by Lord Farquaad (Lithgow). With the help of Donkey (Murphy), Shrek agrees to rescue Princess Fiona (Diaz) for Farquaad to regain his swamp.


title: Shrek

text: After purchasing rights to Steig's book in 1991, Steven Spielberg sought to produce a traditionally-animated film adaptation, but John H. Williams convinced him to bring the project to the newly founded DreamWorks in 1994. Jeffrey Katzenberg, along with Williams and Aron Warner, began development on "Shrek" in 1995, immediately following the studio's purchase of the rights from Spielberg. Chris Farley was cast as the voice for the title character, recording most of the required dialogue, but died in 1997 before his work on the film was finished; Myers was hired to replace him, and gave Shrek his iconic Scottish accent. The film was initially intended to be created using motion capture, but after poor test results, the studio hired Pacific Data Images to complete the final computer animation. "Shrek" parodies other fairy tale adaptations, primarily animated Disney films.


title: Shrek

text: "Shrek" premiered at the Mann Village Theatre In Westwood, and was later shown at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, where it competed for the Palme d'Or, making it the first animated film since Disney's "Peter Pan" (1953) to be chosen to do so. The film was theatrically released by DreamWorks Pictures in the United States on May 18, 2001, and grossed over $487 million worldwide, becoming the fourth highest-grossing film of 2001. It was widely praised by critics for its animation, voice performances, soundtrack, writing and humor, which they noted catered to both adults and children. "Shrek" was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and won for Best Animated Feature. It earned six nominations at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), winning for Best Adapted Screenplay.


title: Shrek

text: The film's success helped establish DreamWorks Animation as a competitor to Disney and Pixar in feature film computer animation. Three sequels have been released—"Shrek 2" (2004), "Shrek the Third" (2007), and "Shrek Forever After" (2010)—along with a spin-off film and other productions in the "Shrek" franchise. It is also regarded as one of the most influential animated films of the 2000s. The United States Library of Congress selected "Shrek" for preservation in the National Film Registry in 2020. Plans for a fifth film were cancelled and then revived in 2016, although it has since stalled and has yet to begin production.


title: Shrek

text: Shrek is an anti-social and highly-territorial ogre who loves the solitude of his swamp. His life is interrupted after the dwarfish Lord Farquaad of Duloc exiles a vast number of fairy-tale creatures, who inadvertently end up in the swamp. Angered by the intrusion, Shrek decides to visit Farquaad and demand they be moved elsewhere. He reluctantly allows the talkative Donkey, who was exiled as well, to tag along and guide him to Duloc.


title: Shrek

text: Meanwhile, Farquaad is presented with the Magic Mirror, which tells him that in order to become a king, he must marry a princess. Farquaad chooses Princess Fiona, who is imprisoned in a tower guarded by a dragon. Unwilling to perform the task himself, he organizes a tournament in which the winner will receive the "privilege" of rescuing Fiona. Meanwhile, Shrek and Donkey arrive at Duloc during the tournament. Disgusted by Shrek, Farquaad announces that whoever kills the ogre will be crowned the victor; however, Shrek and Donkey defeat Farquaad's knights with relative ease. An amused Farquaad proclaims them champions and demands that they rescue Fiona. Shrek negotiates to have the fairy-tale creatures relocated if he succeeds, and Farquaad accepts.


title: Shrek

text: Shrek and Donkey travel to the castle and are attacked by the Dragon. Shrek locates Fiona, who is appalled by his lack of romanticism; they flee the castle after rescuing Donkey. When Shrek removes his helmet and reveals he is an ogre, Fiona stubbornly refuses to go to Duloc, demanding Farquaad arrive in person to save her; Shrek carries her against her will. That night, after setting up camp and with Fiona alone in a cave, Shrek confides with Donkey about his frustration with being feared and rejected by others over his appearance. Fiona overhears this and decides to be kind to Shrek. The next day, they encounter Robin Hood and his band of Merry Men; Fiona dispatches them easily with martial arts after they harass the group. Shrek becomes impressed with Fiona, and they begin to fall in love.


title: Shrek

text: When the trio nears Duloc, Fiona takes shelter in a windmill for the evening. Donkey later enters alone and discovers that Fiona has transformed into an ogress. She explains she has been cursed since childhood, forced to transform into an ogress every night, and changing back at sunrise. She tells Donkey that only "true love's kiss" will break the spell and change her to "love's true form". Meanwhile, Shrek is about to confess his feelings to Fiona, when he overhears Fiona referring to herself as an "ugly beast". Believing that Fiona is talking about him, Shrek angrily leaves and returns the next morning with Farquaad. Confused and hurt by Shrek's abrupt hostility, Fiona accepts Farquaad's marriage proposal and requests they be married before nightfall.


title: Shrek

text: Shrek abandons Donkey and returns to his now-vacated swamp. He quickly realizes that despite his privacy, he feels miserable and misses Fiona. Donkey arrives at the swamp and confronts Shrek. During their quarrel, Donkey explains that the "ugly beast" Fiona was referring to was someone else, and urges him to express his feelings for Fiona before she marries. The two reconcile and quickly travel to Duloc by riding Dragon, who Donkey has befriended. Shrek interrupts the wedding just before the ceremony completes and tells Fiona that Farquaad is only marrying her to become king. The sun sets as Fiona transforms into an ogress in front of everyone, causing a surprised Shrek to understand what he overheard.


title: Shrek

text: Outraged and disgusted, Farquaad orders Shrek executed and Fiona detained: The two are saved when Dragon, alongside Donkey, bursts in and devours Farquaad. Shrek and Fiona profess their love and share a kiss. Fiona's curse is broken, although this permanently makes her an ogress against her expectations; Shrek reassures her that he still finds her beautiful. They marry in the swamp with fairy-tale creatures in attendance, then leave for their honeymoon.


title: Shrek

text: At the time DreamWorks was founded, producer John H. Williams got hold of the book from his children and when he brought it to DreamWorks, it caught Jeffrey Katzenberg's attention and the studio decided to make it into a film. Recounting the inspiration of making the film, Williams said:


title: Shrek

text: After buying the rights to the film, Katzenberg quickly put it in active development in November 1995. Steven Spielberg had thought about making a traditionally animated film adaptation of the book before, when he bought the rights to the book in 1991 before the founding of DreamWorks, where Bill Murray would play Shrek and Steve Martin would play Donkey. In the beginning of production, co-director Andrew Adamson refused to be intimidated by Katzenberg and had an argument with him about how much the film should appeal to adults. Katzenberg wanted both audiences, but he deemed some of Adamson's ideas, such as adding sexual jokes and Guns N' Roses music to the soundtrack, to be too outrageous. Adamson and Kelly Asbury joined in 1997 to co-direct the film. However, Asbury left a year later for work on the 2002 film "", and was replaced with story artist Vicky Jenson, although Asbury would later co-direct the sequel. Both Adamson and Jenson decided to work on the film in half, so the crew could at least know whom to go to with specific detail questions about the film's sequences; "We both ended up doing a lot of everything," Adamson said. "We're both kinda control freaks, and we both wanted to do everything."


title: Shrek

text: Some early sketches of Shrek's house were done between 1996 and 1997 using Photoshop, with the sketches showing Shrek first living in a garbage dump near a human village called Wart Creek. It was also thought one time that he lived with his parents and kept rotting fish in his bedroom. Donkey was modeled after Pericles (born 1994; also known as Perry), a real miniature donkey from Barron Park in Palo Alto, California. Raman Hui, supervising animator of "Shrek", stated that Fiona "wasn't based on any real person" and he did many different sketches for her. He had done over 100 sculptures of Fiona before the directors chose the final design. In early development, the art directors visited Hearst Castle, Stratford upon Avon, and Dordogne for inspiration. Art Director Douglas Rogers visited a magnolia plantation in Charleston, South Carolina for inspiration of Shrek's swamp. Planned characters not used in the film include Goldilocks and Sleeping Beauty.


title: Shrek

text: During production, animators who failed while working on other projects, such as "The Prince of Egypt", were often sent to work on "Shrek". The reassignment was known as being "Shreked" and being sent to "the Gulag".


title: Shrek

text: Nicolas Cage was initially offered the role of Shrek but he turned it down because he did not want to look like an ogre. In 2013, Cage explained furthermore: "When you're drawn, in a way it says more about how children are going to see you than anything else, and I so care about that."


title: Shrek

text: Chris Farley was initially hired to voice Shrek, and he had recorded nearly all of the dialogue for the character, but died before completing the project. A story reel featuring a sample of Farley's recorded dialogue was leaked to the public in August 2015. DreamWorks then re-cast the voice role to Mike Myers, who insisted on a complete script rewrite, to leave no traces of Farley's version of Shrek. According to Myers, he wanted to voice the character "for two reasons: I wanted the opportunity to work with Jeffrey Katzenberg; and [the book is] a great story about accepting yourself for who you are."


title: Shrek

text: After Myers had completed providing the voice for the character over the course of 1999 and the film was well into production, a rough cut of the movie was shown to him in February 2000. Myers asked to re-record all of his lines with a Scottish accent, similar to that his mother used when she told him bedtime stories and also used for his roles in other films, such as "So I Married an Axe Murderer" and "". According to the DVD commentary, he had also tried using a Lothar of the Hill People accent and a Canadian accent. After hearing the alternative, Katzenberg agreed to redo scenes in the film, saying, "It was so good we took $4M worth of animation out and did it again." Myers disputed the cost, saying "it didn't cost the studio 'millions of dollars'," as rumored. "What it meant is instead of me going in for ten sessions, I went in for twenty sessions. I got paid the same." Because of Myers voicing the character, more ideas began to come. There were clearer story points, fresher gags and comedy bits. "I got a letter from Spielberg thanking me so much for caring about the character," Myers said. "And he said the Scottish accent had improved the movie."


title: Shrek

text: Another person planned to voice a character in the film was Janeane Garofalo, who was set to star alongside Farley as Princess Fiona. However, she was fired from the project for unexplained reasons. Years later, Garofalo stated "I was never told why [I was fired]. I assume because I sound like a man sometimes? I don't know why. Nobody told me ... But, you know, the movie didn't do anything, so who cares?"


title: Shrek

text: "Shrek" was originally set up to be a live-action/CG animation hybrid with background plate miniature sets and the main characters composited into the scene as motion-captured computer graphics, using an ExpertVision Hires Falcon 10 camera system to capture and apply realistic human movement to the characters. A sizable crew was hired to run a test, and after a year and a half of R & D, the test was finally screened in May 1997. The results were not satisfactory, with Katzenberg stating "It looked terrible, it didn't work, it wasn't funny, and we didn't like it." The studio then turned to its production partners at Pacific Data Images (PDI), who began production with the studio in 1998 and helped "Shrek" get to its final, computer-animated look. At this time, "Antz" was still in production at the studio and effects supervisor Ken Bielenberg was asked by Aron Warner "to start development for "Shrek"". Similar to previous PDI films, PDI used its own proprietary software (like the Fluid Animation System) for its animated movies. For some elements, however, it also took advantage of some of the powerhouse animation software on the market. This is particularly true with Maya, which PDI used for most of its dynamic cloth animation and for the hair of Fiona and Farquaad.


title: Shrek

text: "We did a lot of work on character and set-up, and then kept changing the set up while we were doing the animation," Hui noted. "In "Antz", we had a facial system that gave us all the facial muscles under the skin. In "Shrek", we applied that to whole body. So, if you pay attention to Shrek when he talks, you see that when he opens his jaw, he forms a double chin, because we have the fat and the muscles underneath. That kind of detail took us a long time to get right." One of the most difficult parts of creating the film was making Donkey's fur flow smoothly so that it did not look like that of a Chia Pet. This fell into the hands of the surfacing animators, who used flow controls within a complex shader to provide the fur with many attributes (ability to change directions, lie flat, swirl, etc.). It was then the job of the visual effects group, led by Ken Bielenberg, to make the fur react to environment conditions. Once the technology was mastered, it could be applied to many aspects of the movie, including grass, moss, beards, eyebrows, and even threads on Shrek's tunic. Making human hair realistic was different from Donkey's fur, requiring a separate rendering system and much attention from the lighting and visual effects teams.


title: Shrek

text: "Shrek" has 31 sequences, with 1,288 total shots. Aron Warner said that the creators "envisioned a magical environment that you could immerse yourself into". Shrek includes 36 separate in-film locations to make the world of the film, which DreamWorks claimed was more than any previous computer-animated feature. In-film locations were finalized and, as demonstrated by past DreamWorks animated movies, color and mood was of the utmost importance. The animation was completed in 2000.


title: Shrek

text: "Shrek" is the third DreamWorks animated film (and the only film in the Shrek series) to have Harry Gregson-Williams team up with John Powell to compose the score following "Antz" (1998) and "Chicken Run" (2000). Powell was left out to compose scores for later Shrek films with Gregson-Williams due to a conflict. The score was recorded at Abbey Road Studios by Nick Wollage and Slamm Andrews, with the latter mixing it at Media Ventures and Patricia Sullivan-Fourstar handling mastering.


title: Shrek

text: "Shrek" introduced a new element to give the film a unique feel. The film used pop music and other Oldies to make the story more forward. Covers of songs like "On the Road Again" and "Try a Little Tenderness" were integrated in the film's score. The band Smash Mouth's song "All Star" gained massive popularity due to its usage in the film's opening credits. As the film was about to be completed, Katzenberg suggested to the filmmakers to redo the film's ending to "go out with a big laugh"; instead of ending the film with just a storybook closing over Shrek and Fiona as they ride off into the sunset, they decided to add a song "I'm a Believer" covered by Smash Mouth and show all the fairytale creatures in the film.


title: Shrek

text: Although Rufus Wainwright's version of the song "Hallelujah" appeared in the soundtrack album, it was John Cale's version that appeared in the film; in a radio interview, Rufus Wainwright suggested that his version of "Hallelujah" did not appear in the film due to the "glass ceiling" he was hitting because of his sexuality. An alternative explanation is that, although the filmmakers wanted Cale's version for the film, licensing issues prevented its use in the soundtrack album, because Wainwright was an artist for DreamWorks but Cale was not.


title: Shrek

text: In many places the film references classic movies, predominantly those by Disney. When Tinker Bell falls on Donkey and he says "I can fly" and people around including the Three Little Pigs say "He can fly, he can fly"; this is a reference to Disney's "Peter Pan". Another scene that references Disney media is one in which Donkey says, while flying, "You might have seen a house fly, maybe even a super fly, but I bet you ain't never seen a Donkey fly!". This scene is a reference to the Disney film "Dumbo".<ref name = "A List of Spoofs and References in PDI/DreamWorks Animated Shrek"></ref> The scene where Fiona is singing to the blue bird is a reference to "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". The transformation scene at the end of the film references Disney's "Beauty and the Beast".


title: Shrek

text: When Shrek crosses the bridge to the Castle and says, "That'll do, Donkey, that'll do", this is a reference to the movie "Babe". The scene where Princess Fiona is fighting the Merry Men is a lengthy reference to the film "The Matrix". At the end of the film, the Gingerbread Man at the end with a crutch (and one leg) says "God bless us, everyone" which is a reference to Tiny Tim in "A Christmas Carol".


title: Shrek

text: In the scene where the Magic Mirror gives Lord Farquaad the option to marry three princesses, it parodies popular American television show "The Dating Game" featuring: Cinderella and Snow White. In addition, Lord Farquaad's theme park style kingdom Duloc heavily mimics Disneyland, even in so far as parodying the famous "It's a Small World" musical ride in the scene with the singing puppets. It has been suggested that Lord Farquaad himself is an unflattering parody of then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner, whom producer Katzenberg reportedly dislikes.


title: Shrek

text: A teaser trailer for Shrek was shown in Disney's Dinosaur 2000 Theater AMC on May 19, along with Monsters Inc's Teaser Trailer. Also in that year, IMAX released "CyberWorld" onto its branded large-screen theaters. It was a compilation film that featured stereoscopic conversions of various animated shorts and sequences, including the bar sequence in "Antz". DreamWorks was so impressed by the technology used for the sequence's "stereoscopic translation", that the studio and IMAX decided to plan a big-screen 3D version of "Shrek". The film would have been re-released during the Christmas season of 2001, or the following summer, after its conventional 2D release. The re-release would have also included new sequences and an alternate ending. Plans for this was dropped due to "creative changes" instituted by DreamWorks and resulted in a loss of $1.18 million, down from IMAX's profit of $3.24 million.


title: Shrek

text: Radio Disney was told not to allow any ads for the film to air on the station, stating, "Due to recent initiatives with The Walt Disney Company, we are being asked not to align ourselves promotionally with this new release "Shrek". Stations may accept spot dollars only in individual markets." The restriction was later relaxed to allow ads for the film's soundtrack album onto the network.


title: Shrek

text: On May 7, 2001, Burger King began promotions for the film, giving out a selection of nine exclusive Candy Caddies based on the "Shrek" characters, in Big Kids Meal and Kids Meal orders. Ice cream chain Baskin-Robbins also ran an 8-week promotion of the film, selling products such as Shrek's Hot Sludge Sundae, a combination of Oreo Cookies 'n Cream ice cream, hot fudge, crushed chocolate cookies, whipped cream and squiggly gummy worms, and Shrek Freeze Frame Cake, featuring an image of Shrek and Donkey framed by sunflowers. This was to support the film's DVD/VHS release.


title: Shrek

text: "Shrek" was released by DreamWorks Home Entertainment on VHS and DVD on November 2, 2001. It surpassed ""s record for becoming the fastest-selling DVD ever, selling 2.5 million copies within the first three days of release. Another 4.5 million copies were sold on VHS in the same timespan, making it the biggest opening weekend in retail video since "The Lion King" in 1995. Both releases included "Shrek in the Swamp Karaoke Dance Party", a 3-minute musical short film, that takes up right after "Shrek"s ending, with film's characters performing a medley of modern pop songs.