title: The Mask (1994 film)

text: "The Mask"s visual effects were handled by Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) and Dream Quest Images. The sequences in the film which involved computer animation were supervised by ILM animation director Wes Takahashi. There were a lot of VFX scenes that had to be cut for budget. Make-up effects artist Greg Cannom realized Carrey's exaggerated facial expressions were part of his essence, and didn't want them lost behind makeup.


title: The Mask (1994 film)

text: Swing music featured prominently in the film, and Royal Crown Revue made an on-screen cameo, which in turn influenced the swing revival later in the decade.


title: The Mask (1994 film)

text: "The Mask: Music From the New Line Cinema Motion Picture" was released on July 26, 1994, on Chaos Records through Sony Music Entertainment. It features music from Xscape, Tony! Toni! Toné!, Vanessa Williams, Harry Connick Jr., Carrey himself and more. The songs "Cuban Pete" and "Hey Pachuco" were also used for the trailer of the 1997 Disney film "Flubber".


title: The Mask (1994 film)

text: The record labels TriStar Music and Epic Soundtrax released an orchestral score soundtrack to "The Mask" after the original soundtrack's release. The score was composed and conducted by Randy Edelman, performed by the Irish Film Orchestra, recorded at Windmill Lane Studios Ireland.


title: The Mask (1994 film)

text: The film was a box-office success, grossing $119 million domestically and over $350 million worldwide, becoming the second-highest grossing superhero movie at that time, behind "Batman". In terms of global gross compared to budget, the film became the most-profitable comic book movie of all time, and remained so until 2019, when "Joker" surpassed it. "The Mask" is one of three films featuring Carrey (the others being "" and "Dumb and Dumber") released in 1994 that helped launch the actor to superstardom; "The Mask" was the most successful of these three films both critically and commercially.


title: The Mask (1994 film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes the film has a "Certified Fresh" approval rating of 80% based on reviews from 54 critics, with an average rating of 6.5/10. The site's consensus states: "It misses perhaps as often as it hits, but Jim Carrey's manic bombast, Cameron Diaz's blowsy appeal, and the film's overall cartoony bombast keep "The Mask" afloat." Metacritic gave it a weighted average score of 56 out of 100 based on reviews from 12 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.


title: The Mask (1994 film)

text: On the television program "At the Movies", Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert gave the film "two thumbs up". In his column, Ebert, who was underwhelmed by his performance in "Ace Ventura", thought Carrey found "a perfect vehicle" in "The Mask". He also praised the art design and called Diaz "a true discovery".


title: The Mask (1994 film)

text: The film was nominated for Best Visual Effects at the 67th Academy Awards, but lost to "Forrest Gump." Carrey was nominated for a Golden Globe but also a Razzie Award (for "Worst New Star").


title: The Mask (1994 film)

text: The film was released on VHS and Laserdisc on January 18, 1995 and on DVD on March 26, 1997. The VHS version included the "Space Ghost Coast to Coast" episode "The Mask", which featured interviews with Jim Carrey and Chuck Russell. It was later released on Blu-ray Disc on December 9, 2008. It was the most rented title in the UK for the year with 3.8 million rentals.


title: The Mask (1994 film)

text: An animated television series, entitled "The Mask: Animated Series", was made over 54 episodes from 1995 to 1997, with Rob Paulsen as Stanley Ipkiss, his alter-ego The Mask, and Neil Ross as Kellaway. Its final episode was a crossover with "The Mask" and another Jim Carrey character, Ace Ventura. This would later continue in an episode of the "" cartoon series.


title: The Mask (1994 film)

text: A video game based on the movie, also titled "The Mask", was released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System by Black Pearl Software.


title: The Mask (1994 film)

text: After the success of the original, a sequel film was planned, with magazine "Nintendo Power" offering readers a chance, via sweepstakes, to win a cameo role in the film. Carrey eventually bailed on the project, forcing, amongst other things, "Nintendo Power" to give the winner of the contest the equivalent cash value instead. A standalone sequel, "Son of the Mask", featuring neither Carrey nor Diaz, was eventually released in 2005, but it was a critical and commercial failure upon release, and the franchise was put on hold indefinitely. The film is considered one of the worst films ever made.


title: The Mask (1994 film)

text: On the possibility of a direct sequel to the 1994 film with Carrey reprising the role of Stanley Ipkiss and Diaz as Tina Carlyle, Mike Richardson said in a 2014 interview, "We've been talking about reviving "The Mask", both in film and in comics. We've had a couple of false starts".


title: The Harder They Fall (2021 film)

text: The Harder They Fall is a 2021 American Western film directed by Jeymes Samuel (in his feature directorial debut), who co-wrote the screenplay with Boaz Yakin. The film stars Jonathan Majors, Idris Elba, Zazie Beetz, Regina King, Delroy Lindo, Lakeith Stanfield, RJ Cyler, Danielle Deadwyler, Edi Gathegi, and Deon Cole. It is one of few Westerns whose principal cast members are all black. Its characters are loosely based on real cowboys, lawmen, and outlaws of the nineteenth-century American West.


title: The Harder They Fall (2021 film)

text: "The Harder They Fall" premiered at the BFI London Film Festival on October 6, 2021. It received a limited release on October 22, 2021, prior to streaming on Netflix on November 3. The film received generally positive reviews for its ensemble cast as well as Samuel's direction and score.


title: The Harder They Fall (2021 film)

text: 11-year-old Nat Love is eating dinner with his parents when Rufus Buck and his associate Cortez arrive. Nat's father begs Buck for forgiveness but Buck guns down Nat's parents and then carves a cross into his forehead.


title: The Harder They Fall (2021 film)

text: Twenty years later, Love finds and kills Cortez. Meanwhile, his partners, sharpshooter Bill Pickett and quick draw Jim Beckwourth, ambush the Crimson Hood gang and steal their haul from a recent bank robbery. The lone survivor tells them the $25,000 they have stolen belongs to Buck. Love travels to meet his former lover Mary Fields, who runs a chain of saloons. Pickett brings news of the heist to Love.


title: The Harder They Fall (2021 film)

text: Buck's gang, led by Trudy Smith and Cherokee Bill, forcefully free Buck from a train leaving from Yuma Territorial Prison. They reveal Buck has been pardoned, and they have been paid to kill the corrupt U.S. Army soldiers guarding the prison car. After slaughtering the soldiers, Buck and his gang arrive in their former stronghold of Redwood City, now run by Buck's associate, Sheriff Wiley Escoe. Learning that Escoe has used the position to profit at the expense of the town, Buck brutally pistol whips him and orders him to leave town. Buck gathers the townspeople and after killing a naysayer, demands that they raise $50,000 to save Redwood, threatening to kill and burn the property of any who resist.


title: The Harder They Fall (2021 film)

text: U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves arrests Love after a standoff in a saloon. However, Reeves reveals to Love that Buck has been released, and he offers him a chance for revenge. Love's gang, accompanied by Fields and her friend and enforcer, Cuffee, arrive and insist on joining. They encounter Escoe, who tells them Buck has returned to Redwood. Fields volunteers to scout Redwood under the cover of offering to buy Smith's saloon. Love proposes marriage to Fields, but she turns him down.


title: The Harder They Fall (2021 film)

text: When Fields arrives in Redwood, Smith takes her prisoner and beats her. Love's gang arrives, and Love joins Fields in captivity to save her life. Smith has Love beaten, and he in turn asks Buck to release Fields. Buck demands Love return the money he stole plus $10,000 as 'interest', requiring him to rob a bank in a white town. Love and Cuffee rob the bank without killing anyone and escape. However, the group recognizes that Buck is unlikely to release Fields willingly, so they devise a plan to rig a decoy wagon with dynamite.


title: The Harder They Fall (2021 film)

text: They enter Redwood and the decoy wagon is destroyed, killing some of Buck's gang. Love prepares to hand over the money, but is interrupted by Cherokee Bill preparing to shoot him in the back. Beckwourth intervenes, challenging Bill to a quick draw showdown. Bill shoots and kills Beckwourth before he can finish counting down, causing a gunfight to erupt. Love, Reeves, Pickett, and Cuffee kill most of Buck's gang, and the money is destroyed in another explosion. Escoe infiltrates Buck's house but is killed by Buck, while Pickett and Love are wounded.


title: The Harder They Fall (2021 film)

text: Fields is freed by Cuffee and pursues Smith, who she defeats in a hand-to-hand fight. Pickett is shot in the back by Bill, who is subsequently killed by Cuffee in a quick draw confrontation. Love finds Buck, who is unwilling to defend himself. Buck reveals that they are half-brothers, and that their father was once an abusive outlaw who killed his first wife (Buck's mother) when she tried to protect her son. After leaving Buck, their father eventually repented and married another woman and had Nat. He further indicates that driving Love to outlawry was his true act of revenge against their father. Love reluctantly kills Buck and closes his eyes out of respect.


title: The Harder They Fall (2021 film)

text: Love and his companions bury Pickett and Beckwourth, alongside another grave marked "Nat Love". Cuffee joins Reeves as a deputy. Cuffee and Reeves ride off in one direction and Love and Fields in another. A woman holding a bowler hat, presumably Trudy Smith, looks at them from a distance.


title: The Harder They Fall (2021 film)

text: The film's original working title was "The Notorious Nine". The film was announced in July 2019, when Jonathan Majors was cast to star in it. Musician Jeymes Samuel co-wrote and directed the film. Idris Elba would join in November, and Jay-Z, who would produce the film, was announced to be writing original music for the film. By September 2020, Zazie Beetz, Lakeith Stanfield, Delroy Lindo and Regina King would be among new cast members added to the film.


title: The Harder They Fall (2021 film)

text: Filming had been scheduled to begin in March 2020 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, but was delayed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Cynthia Erivo, Wesley Snipes and Sterling K. Brown, who were initially cast, had to exit due to the delays caused by the pandemic. Filming commenced in September 2020, but was paused on October 15 after a background actor tested positive for COVID-19.


title: The Harder They Fall (2021 film)

text: The film had its world premiere at the BFI London Film Festival on October 6, 2021. It also screened at the Montclair Film Festival on October 22, 2021. It received a limited release on October 22, 2021, prior to streaming on Netflix on November 3.


title: The Harder They Fall (2021 film)

text: An original soundtrack and a film score composed by Jeymes Samuel, were released on October 29, 2021 and January 14, 2022, respectively.


title: The Harder They Fall (2021 film)

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 87% of 181 critics gave the film a positive review, with an average rating of 7.5/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "It isn't as bold and fearless as its characters, but "The Harder They Fall" fills its well-worn template with style, energy, and a fantastic cast." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 68 out of 100 based on 41 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: The Day After Tomorrow

text: The Day After Tomorrow is a 2004 American science fiction disaster film directed, co-produced, and co-written by Roland Emmerich. Based on the 1999 book "The Coming Global Superstorm" by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber, the film stars Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, Sela Ward, Emmy Rossum, and Ian Holm. It depicts catastrophic climatic effects following the disruption of the North Atlantic Ocean circulation. A series of extreme weather events usher in global cooling and lead to a new ice age.


title: The Day After Tomorrow

text: Originally slated for release in the summer of 2003, "The Day After Tomorrow" premiered in Mexico City on May 17, 2004, and was released in the United States on May 28, 2004. A major commercial success, the film became the sixth-highest-grossing film of 2004. Filmed in Toronto and Montreal, it is the highest-grossing Hollywood film made in Canada (adjusted for inflation). It received mixed reviews upon release, with critics highly praising the film's special effects but criticizing its writing and numerous scientific inaccuracies.


title: The Day After Tomorrow

text: Jack Hall, an American paleoclimatologist, and his colleagues Frank and Jason, drill for ice-core samples in the Larsen Ice Shelf for the NOAA, when the ice shelf suddenly splits away. At a UN conference in New Delhi, Jack discusses his research showing that climate change could cause an ice age, but US Vice President Raymond Becker dismisses his concerns. Professor Terry Rapson, an oceanographer of the Hedland Centre in Scotland, befriends Jack over his views of an inevitable climate shift. When several buoys in the Atlantic Ocean show a severe ocean temperature drop, Rapson concludes Jack's theories are correct. Jack's and Rapson's teams, along with NASA meteorologist Janet Tokada, build a forecast model based on Jack's research. Jack tries to get Becker to consider evacuations in the northern states, but Becker again refuses.


title: The Day After Tomorrow

text: A massive tropical depression develops in the northern hemisphere. This splits into three gigantic hurricane-like superstorms above Canada, Scotland, and Siberia, that siphons frozen air from the upper troposphere into their center, flash-freezing anything caught in their eyes with temperatures below . It is confirmed by Jack that the force of the storm is so strong and the effects are estimated to be so severe that the entire Northern Hemisphere would be in a new ice age once it ends. The weather worsens across the world: Tokyo is struck by a giant hail storm, Los Angeles is devastated by a tornado outbreak, and three helicopters sent to rescue the British Royal family from Balmoral Castle crash in Scotland after their fuel lines and crew freeze when they fly into their superstorm's eye.


title: The Day After Tomorrow

text: In New York City, Jack's son Sam, along with his friends Brian Parks and Laura Chapman, participate in an academic decathlon, where they meet a new friend, J.D. The North American superstorm creates a massive tsunami-like storm surge that quickly inundates Manhattan, forcing Sam's group to seek shelter at the New York Public Library, but not before Laura accidentally cuts her leg. While cellphone communications are down, Sam is able to contact Jack and his mother Lucy, a physician, through a working payphone. Jack advises Sam to stay inside and warm, as the storm will only get worse, and promises to rescue him. Rapson and his team perish in the European storm. Lucy remains in a hospital caring for bed-ridden children, where she and her patients are eventually rescued by the authorities.


title: The Day After Tomorrow

text: Upon Jack's suggestion, President Blake orders the southern states to be evacuated into Mexico, while the northern ones are doomed to be hit by the superstorm, but are warned by the government to seek shelter and stay warm. The Mexicans close the border until Blake agrees to cancel all Central and Latin American debt to the USA. Jack, Jason, and Frank make their way to New York against all odds. In Pennsylvania, Frank falls through the skylight of a mall that had become covered in snow and sacrifices himself by cutting his rope to prevent his friends from falling in after him.


title: The Day After Tomorrow

text: In the library, most survivors, as well as those from other structures, decide to head south once the floodwater outside freezes, in spite of Sam's warnings. Only a few survivors end up heeding Sam's advice to stay put and burn books to stay warm as the temperatures drop. Meanwhile, in Mexico, Becker is informed that Blake's motorcade got caught in the superstorm and all involved, including the President, have perished.


title: The Day After Tomorrow

text: Laura later develops blood poisoning from her injury, whereupon Sam, Brian, and J.D. scour a Russian cargo vessel that had drifted earlier into the city for penicillin, fending off a pack of escaped wolves from the Central Park Zoo, narrowly escaping back to the library as the eye of the North American superstorm shortly passes over and completely freezes Manhattan. Likewise, Jack and Jason take shelter in an abandoned restaurant.


title: The Day After Tomorrow

text: Days later, the superstorms dissipate. After finding many civilians, including those who left the library, frozen to death, Jack and Jason successfully reach the library, finding Sam's group alive. Jack then sends a radio message to US forces in Mexico.


title: The Day After Tomorrow

text: In his first address as the new president from the US embassy in Mexico, Becker apologizes on The Weather Channel for his ignorance, admits his mistake and sends helicopters to rescue survivors in the Northern States. Jack and Sam's group are picked up in Manhattan, where many people have survived. On the International Space Station, astronauts look down in awe at Earth's transformed surface, now with ice sheets extending across the entire northern hemisphere, remarking that the "air never looked so clear".


title: The Day After Tomorrow

text: "The Day After Tomorrow" was inspired by "Coast to Coast AM" talk-radio host Art Bell and Whitley Strieber's book, "The Coming Global Superstorm", and Strieber wrote the film's novelization. To choose a studio, writer Michael Wimer created an auction, with a copy of the script being sent to all major studios along with a term sheet. They had a 24-hour window to decide whether to produce the movie with Roland Emmerich directing, and Fox Studios was the only studio to accept the terms.


title: The Day After Tomorrow

text: "The Day After Tomorrow" was filmed predominantly in Montreal and Toronto, with some footage also shot in New York City and Chiyoda, Tokyo. Filming ran from November 7, 2002, until October 18, 2003.


title: The Day After Tomorrow

text: "The Day After Tomorrow" features 416 visual effects shots, with nine effects houses, notably Industrial Light & Magic and Digital Domain, and over 1,000 artists, working on the film for over a year. Although a miniature set was initially considered according to the behind-the-scenes documentary, for the destruction of New York, effects artists instead utilized a 13-block-sized, LIDAR-scanned 3D model of Manhattan, with over 50,000 scanned photographs used for building textures. Due to its overall complexity and a tight schedule, the storm surge scene required as many as three special effects vendors for certain shots, with the digital water created by either Digital Domain or small effects house Tweak Films, depending on the shot.


title: The Day After Tomorrow

text: Similarly, the opening flyover of Antarctica was also computer-generated, created by digitally scanning miniature iceberg models created out of sculpted styrofoam; the falling pieces of ice as the shelf cracks were entirely hand-animated. Created by the effects company Hydraulx, the scene is to date likely the longest all-CG shot in film history, surpassing the space zoom-out from the opening of "Contact" (1997).


title: The Day After Tomorrow

text: The score soundtrack for the film was composed by Harald Kloser and released by Varèse Sarabande and Fox Music.


title: The Day After Tomorrow

text: The film came in second at the US box office behind "Shrek 2" over its four-day Memorial Day opening and grossed $85,807,341. It led the per-theater average, with a four-day average of $25,053 (compared to "Shrek 2" four-day average of $22,633).


title: The Day After Tomorrow

text: At the end of its theatrical run, the film had grossed $186,740,799 domestically and $544,272,402 worldwide. It was the second-highest opening-weekend film not to lead at the box office; "Inside Out" surpassed it in June 2015.


title: The Day After Tomorrow

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, 45% of 220 critics gave the film a positive review, with an average rating of 5.30/10. The website's critics consensus reads: ""The Day After Tomorrow" is a ludicrous popcorn thriller filled with clunky dialogue, but spectacular visuals save it from being a total disaster." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 47 out of 100 based on 38 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade "B" on an A+ to F scale.


title: The Day After Tomorrow

text: Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" described the film as "profoundly silly", but nonetheless said the film was effective and praised the special effects. He gave it three stars out of four.


title: The Day After Tomorrow

text: Emmerich did not deny that his casting of a weak president and the resemblance of vice-president Kenneth Welsh to Dick Cheney were intended to criticize the climate change policy of the George W. Bush administration. Responding to claims of insensitivity in his inclusion of scenes of a devastated New York City less than three years after the September 11 attacks, Emmerich said that it was necessary to showcase the increased unity of people in the face of disaster because of the attacks.


title: The Day After Tomorrow

text: Some scientists criticized the film's scientific aspects. Paleoclimatologist and professor of earth and planetary science at Harvard University Daniel P. Schrag said, "On the one hand, I'm glad that there's a big-budget movie about something as critical as climate change. On the other, I'm concerned that people will see these over-the-top effects and think the whole thing is a joke ... We are indeed experimenting with the Earth in a way that hasn't been done for millions of years. But you're not going to see another ice age – at least not like that." J. Marshall Shepherd, a research meteorologist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, expressed a similar sentiment: "I'm heartened that there's a movie addressing real climate issues. But as for the science of the movie, I'd give it a D minus or an F. And I'd be concerned if the movie was made to advance a political agenda." According to University of Victoria climatologist Andrew Weaver, "It's "The Towering Inferno" of climate science movies, but I'm not losing any sleep over a new ice age, because it's impossible."


title: The Day After Tomorrow

text: Patrick J. Michaels, a former research professor of environmental science at the University of Virginia who rejected the scientific consensus on global warming, called the film "propaganda" in a "USA Today" editorial: "As a scientist, I bristle when lies dressed up as 'science' are used to influence political discourse." College instructor and retired NASA Office of Inspector General senior special agent Joseph Gutheinz called "The Day After Tomorrow" "a cheap thrill ride, which many weak-minded people will jump on and stay on for the rest of their lives" in a "Space Daily" editorial.


title: The Day After Tomorrow

text: Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, an expert on thermohaline circulation and its effect on climate, said after a talk with scriptwriter Jeffrey Nachmanoff at the film's Berlin preview:


title: The Day After Tomorrow

text: Clearly this is a disaster movie and not a scientific documentary, [and] the film makers have taken a lot of artistic license. But the film presents an opportunity to explain that some of the basic background is right: humans are indeed increasingly changing the climate and this is quite a dangerous experiment, including some risk of abrupt and unforeseen changes ... Luckily it is extremely unlikely that we will see major ocean circulation changes in the next couple of decades (I'd be just as surprised as Jack Hall if they did occur); at least most scientists think this will only become a more serious risk towards the end of the century. And the consequences would certainly not be as dramatic as the 'superstorm' depicted in the movie. Nevertheless, a major change in ocean circulation is a risk with serious and partly unpredictable consequences, which we should avoid. And even without events like ocean circulation changes, climate change is serious enough to demand decisive action.


title: The Day After Tomorrow

text: Environmental activist and "Guardian" columnist George Monbiot called "The Day After Tomorrow" "a great movie and lousy science".


title: The Day After Tomorrow

text: In 2008, Yahoo! Movies listed "The Day After Tomorrow" as one of its top-10 scientifically inaccurate films. It was criticized for depicting meteorological phenomena as occurring over the course of hours, instead of decades or centuries. A 2015 "Washington Post" article reported on a paper published in "Scientific Reports" which indicated that global temperatures could drop relatively rapidly ( over an 11-year period) due to a temporary shutdown of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation caused by global warming.


title: The Day After Tomorrow

text: The film was released on VHS and DVD by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment on October 12, 2004, and was released in high-definition video on Blu-ray in North America on October 2, 2007, and in the United Kingdom on April 28, 2008, in 1080p with a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio track and few bonus features. DVD sales were $110 million, bringing the film's gross to $652,771,772.


title: John Cassavetes

text: John Nicholas Cassavetes ( ; December 9, 1929 – February 3, 1989) was an American actor, film director, and screenwriter. First known as a television and film actor, Cassavetes also helped pioneer American independent cinema, writing and directing movies financed partly by income from his acting work. AllMovie called him "an iconoclastic maverick", while "The New Yorker" suggested in 2013 that he "may be the most influential American director of the last half century."


title: John Cassavetes

text: As an actor, Cassavetes starred in notable Hollywood films throughout the 1950s and 1960s, including "Edge of the City" (1957), "The Dirty Dozen" (1967), and "Rosemary's Baby" (1968). He began his directing career with the 1959 independent feature "Shadows" and followed with independent productions such as "Faces" (1968), "Husbands" (1970), "A Woman Under the Influence" (1974), "Opening Night" (1977), and "Love Streams" (1984). He intermittently continued to act and direct on studio projects such as Elaine May's "Mikey and Nicky" (1976) and his own directorial works "A Child is Waiting" (1963), "Minnie and Moskowitz" (1971), and "Gloria" (1980).


title: John Cassavetes

text: Cassavetes's films employed an actor-centered approach which prioritized raw character relationships and "small feelings" while rejecting traditional Hollywood storytelling, method acting, or stylization. His films became associated with an improvisational, cinéma vérité aesthetic. He collaborated frequently with a rotating group of actors and crew members, including his wife Gena Rowlands and friends Peter Falk, Ben Gazzara, and Seymour Cassel. Many of his films were shot and edited in his and Rowlands' own Los Angeles home.


title: John Cassavetes

text: For his role in "The Dirty Dozen", Cassavetes received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. As a filmmaker, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for "Faces" (1968) and the Academy Award for Best Director for "A Woman Under the Influence" (1974). The Independent Spirit Awards named the John Cassavetes Award in his honor.


title: John Cassavetes

text: Cassavetes was born in New York City, the son of Greek American actress Katherine Cassavetes (née Demetre), who was to be featured in some of his films, and Greek immigrant Nicholas John Cassavetes (), who was born in Larissa to Aromanian parents from the village of Vrysochori. He had an elder brother. Members of the Cassavetes family later settled in Volos and Zagora. His early years were spent with his family in Greece; when he returned at the age of seven, he spoke no English. He was raised on Long Island, New York. He attended Port Washington High School (now known as Paul D. Schreiber Senior High School) from 1945 to 1947 and participated in "Port Weekly" (the school paper), "Red Domino" (interclass play), football, and the "Port Light" (yearbook).


title: John Cassavetes

text: Cassavetes attended Blair Academy in New Jersey and spent a semester at Plattsburgh, New York's Champlain College before being expelled due to his failing grades. He spent a few weeks hitchhiking to Florida and then transferred to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, encouraged by recently enrolled friends who told him the school was "packed with girls". He graduated in 1950 and met his future wife Gena Rowlands at her audition to enter the Academy in 1953. They were married four months later in 1954. He continued acting in the theater, took small parts in films, and began working on television in anthology series such as "Alcoa Theatre".


title: John Cassavetes

text: By 1956, Cassavetes had begun teaching an alternative to method acting in his own workshop—co-founded with friend Burt Lane in New York City—in which performance would be based on character creation, rather than backstory or narrative requirements. Cassavetes particularly scorned Lee Strasberg's Method-based Actors Studio, believing that the Method was "more a form of psychotherapy than of acting" which resulted in sentimental cliches and self-indulgent emotion. In contrast to the Actors Studio's "moody, broody anguish", the Cassavetes-Lane approach held that acting should be an expression of creative joy and exuberance, with emphasis put on the character's creation of "masks" in the process of interacting with other characters.


title: John Cassavetes

text: Shortly after opening the workshop, Cassavetes was invited to audition at the Actors Studio, and in response he and Lane devised a prank: they claimed to be performing a scene from a recent stage production but in fact improvised a performance on the spot, fooling an impressed Strasberg. Cassavetes then fabricated a story about his financial troubles, prompting Strasberg to offer him a full scholarship to the Studio; Cassavetes promptly rejected it, feeling that Strasberg couldn't know anything about acting to have been so easily fooled by the two ruses. It's worth noting that the Actors Studio has always been free to its members, has never charged for tuition, and therefore the claim of an offer of a "scholarship" by Strasberg is apocryphal.


title: John Cassavetes

text: An improvisation exercise in the workshop inspired the idea for his writing and directorial debut, "Shadows" (1959; first version 1957). Cassavetes raised the funds for the production from friends and family, as well as listeners to Jean Shepherd's late-night radio talk-show "Night People". His stated purpose was to make a film about modest-income “little people”, unlike Hollywood studio productions, which focused on stories about wealthy people. Cassavetes was unable to gain American distribution of "Shadows", but it won the Critics Award at the Venice Film Festival. European distributors later released the movie in the United States as an import. Although the box-office returns of "Shadows" in the United States were slight, it did gain attention from the Hollywood studios.


title: John Cassavetes

text: Cassavetes played bit-parts in B pictures and in television serials, until gaining notoriety in 1955 as a vicious killer in "The Night Holds Terror," and as a juvenile delinquent in the live TV drama "Crime in the Streets". Cassavetes would repeat this performance credited as an “introducing” lead in the 1956 film version, which also included another future director, Mark Rydell, as his gang mate. His first starring role in a feature film was "Edge of the City" (1957), which co-starred Sidney Poitier. He was briefly under contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and co-starred with Robert Taylor in the western "Saddle the Wind", written by Rod Serling. In the late 1950s, Cassavetes guest-starred in Beverly Garland's groundbreaking crime drama, "Decoy", about a New York City woman police undercover detective. Thereafter, he played Johnny Staccato, the title character in a television series about a jazz pianist who also worked as a private detective. In total he directed five episodes of the series, which also features a guest appearance by his wife Gena Rowlands. It was broadcast on NBC between September 1959 and March 1960, and then acquired by ABC; although critically acclaimed, the series was cancelled in September 1960. Cassavetes would appear on the NBC interview program, "Here's Hollywood".


title: John Cassavetes

text: In 1961 Cassavetes signed a seven-year deal with Paramount. Cassavetes directed two movies for Hollywood in the early 1960s – "Too Late Blues" (1961) and "A Child Is Waiting (1963)". "A Child Is Waiting (1963)" starred Burt Lancaster and Judy Garland. He also starred in the CBS western series "Rawhide", in the episode "Incident Near Gloomy River" (1961). In the 1963–1964 season he was cast in the ABC medical drama about psychiatry, "Breaking Point". In 1964, he again co-starred with his wife, this time in an episode of "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour" anthology program, and in 1965, he appeared on ABC's western series, "The Legend of Jesse James". In the same year, he also guest-starred in the World War II series "Combat!", in the episode "S.I.W.", and as the insane nuclear scientist Everett Lang in "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea", season 2, episode "The Peacemaker".


title: John Cassavetes

text: With payment for his work on television, as well as a handful of film acting jobs, he was able to relocate to California and to make his subsequent films independent of any studio, as "Shadows" had been made. The films in which he acted with this intention include Don Siegel's "The Killers" (1964), the motorcycle gang movie "Devil's Angels" (1967), "The Dirty Dozen" (1967), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, the Guy Woodhouse lead originally intended for Robert Redford in Roman Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby" (1968), and "The Fury" (1978). Cassavetes portrayed the murderer in a 1972 episode of the TV crime series "Columbo", titled "Étude in Black". Cassavetes and series star Peter Falk had previously starred together in the 1969 mob action thriller "Machine Gun McCain".


title: John Cassavetes

text: "Faces" (1968) was the second film to be both directed and independently financed by Cassavetes. The film starred his wife Gena Rowlands—whom he had married during his struggling actor days—John Marley, Seymour Cassel and Val Avery, as well as several first-time actors, such as lead actress Lynn Carlin and industry fringies like Vince Barbi. It depicts the slow disintegration of a contemporary marriage. The film reportedly took three years to make, and was made largely in the Cassavetes home. "Faces" was nominated for three Academy Awards: Best Original Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress. Around this time, Cassavetes formed "Faces International" as a distribution company to handle all of his films.


title: John Cassavetes

text: In 1970, Cassavetes directed and acted in "Husbands", with actors Peter Falk and Ben Gazzara. They played a trio of married men on a spree in New York and London after the funeral of one of their best friends. Cassavetes stated that this was a personal film for him; his elder brother had died at the age of 30.


title: John Cassavetes

text: "Minnie and Moskowitz" (1971), about two unlikely lovers, featured Rowlands and Cassel. "A Woman Under the Influence" (1974) stars Rowlands as an increasingly troubled housewife. Rowlands received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, while Cassavetes was nominated for Best Director. In "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie" (1976), Gazzara plays a small-time strip-club owner with an out-of-control gambling habit, pressured by mobsters to commit a murder to pay off his debt.


title: John Cassavetes

text: In "Opening Night" (1977), Rowlands plays the lead alongside Cassavetes; the film also stars Gazzara and Joan Blondell. Rowlands portrays an aging film star named Myrtle Gordon, who is working in the theater and suffering a personal crisis. Alone and unloved by her colleagues, afraid of aging and always removed from others due to her stardom, she succumbs to alcohol and hallucinations after witnessing a young fan accidentally die. Ultimately, Gordon fights through it all, delivering the performance of her life in a play. Rowlands won the Silver Bear for Best Actress at the 28th Berlin International Film Festival for her performance.


title: John Cassavetes

text: Cassavetes directed the film "Gloria" (1980), featuring Rowlands as a Mob moll who tries to protect an orphan boy whom the Mob wants to kill, which earned her another Best Actress nomination. In 1982, Cassavetes starred in Paul Mazursky's "Tempest," which co-starred Rowlands, Susan Sarandon, Molly Ringwald, Raúl Juliá and Vittorio Gassman.


title: John Cassavetes

text: Cassavetes penned the stage play "Knives", the earliest version of which he allowed to be published in the 1978 premiere issue of "On Stage", the quarterly magazine of the American Community Theatre Association, a division of the American Theatre Association. The play was produced and directed as one of his "Three Plays of Love and Hate" at Hollywood, California's Center Theater in 1981. The trio of plays included versions of Canadian playwright Ted Allan's "The Third Day Comes" and "Love Streams," the latter of which served as the blueprint for Cassavetes's 1984 film of the same name.


title: John Cassavetes

text: Cassavetes made the Cannon Films-financed "Love Streams" (1984), which featured him as an aging playboy who suffers the overbearing affection of his recently divorced sister. It was entered into the 34th Berlin International Film Festival where it won the Golden Bear. The film is often considered Cassavetes's "last film" in that it brought together many aspects of his previous films. He despised the film "Big Trouble" (1986), which he took over during filming from Andrew Bergman, who wrote the original screenplay. Cassavetes came to refer to the film as "The aptly titled 'Big Trouble,'" since the studio vetoed many of his decisions for the film and eventually edited most of it in a way with which Cassavetes disagreed.


title: John Cassavetes

text: In January 1987, Cassavetes was facing health problems, but he wrote the three-act play "Woman of Mystery" and brought it to the stage in May and June at the Court Theater.


title: John Cassavetes

text: Cassavetes worked during the last year of his life to produce a last film that was to be titled "She's Delovely". He was in talks with Sean Penn to star, though legal and financial hurdles proved insurmountable and the project was forgotten about until after Cassavetes's death, when his son Nick finally directed it as "She's So Lovely" (1997).


title: John Cassavetes

text: A long-term alcoholic, Cassavetes died on February 3, 1989, at the age of 59, from complications of cirrhosis of the liver. He is buried at Westwood Village Memorial Park cemetery in Los Angeles.


title: John Cassavetes

text: At the time of his death, Cassavetes had amassed a collection of more than 40 unproduced screenplays, as well as a novel, "Husbands". He also left three unproduced plays: "Sweet Talk", "Entrances and Exits" and "Begin the Beguine", the last of which, in German translation, was co-produced by Needcompany of Belgium and Burgtheater of Vienna, and premiered on stage at Vienna's Akademietheater in 2014.


title: John Cassavetes

text: Cassavetes is the subject of several biographies. "Cassavetes on Cassavetes" is a collection of interviews collected or conducted by Boston University film scholar Ray Carney, in which the filmmaker recalled his experiences, influences and outlook on the film industry. In the Oscar 2005 edition of "Vanity Fair", one article features a tribute to Cassavetes by three members of his stock company, Rowlands, Gazzara and Falk.


title: John Cassavetes

text: Many of Cassavetes's films are owned by Faces Distribution, a company overseen by Gena Rowlands and Julian Schlossberg, distributed by Jumer Films (Schlossberg's own company), with additional sales and distribution by Janus Films. In September 2004, The Criterion Collection produced a Region 1 DVD box set of his five independent films: "Shadows", "Faces", "A Woman Under the Influence", "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie" and "Opening Night". Also featured in the set is a documentary about the life and works of Cassavetes, "A Constant Forge", a booklet featuring critical assessments of the director's work and tributes by old friends. Criterion released a Blu-ray version of the set in October 2013. In 2005, a box set of the same films was released in Region 2 by Optimum Releasing. The Optimum DVD of "Shadows" has a voice-over commentary by Seymour Cassel. Then, in 2014, the Faces/Jumer library became the property of Shout! Factory, which acquired the films' holding parent company, Westchester Films.


title: John Cassavetes

text: Cassavetes's son Nick followed in his father's footsteps as an actor and director, adapting the "She's Delovely" screenplay his father had written into the 1997 film "She's So Lovely", which starred Sean Penn, as John Cassavetes had wanted. Alexandra Cassavetes directed the documentary "" in 2004, and in 2006 served as 2nd Unit Director on her brother Nick's film, "Alpha Dog". Cassavetes's younger daughter Zoe wrote and directed the 2007 film "Broken English", featuring Rowlands and Parker Posey.


title: John Cassavetes

text: "The New Yorker" wrote that Cassavetes "may be the most influential American director of the last half century"—this in announcing that all the films he directed, plus others he acted in, were being screened in a retrospective tribute at the Brooklyn Academy of Music throughout July 2013.


title: John Cassavetes

text: The Independent Spirit Awards named one of their categories after Cassavetes, the Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award.


title: John Cassavetes

text: A one-person show about John Cassavetes titled "Independent" premiered at Essential Theatre in Atlanta in August 2017. The play was written by John D. Babcock III and starred actor Dan Triandiflou as Cassavetes.


title: John Cassavetes

text: The song "What's Yr Take on Cassavetes?" by the band Le Tigre is about John Cassavetes and questions whether he can be considered a feminist.


title: John Cassavetes

text: The song "Cassavetes" by the band Fugazi parallels John Cassavetes's independence from the film industry with the band's own independence from the record industry. In concert, singer Guy Picciotto introduced it as "a song about making your own road."


title: John Cassavetes

text: Cassavetes's films aim to capture "small feelings" often repressed by Hollywood filmmaking, emphasizing intimate character examination and relationships rather than plot, backstory, or stylization. He often presented difficult characters whose inner desires were not easily understood, rejecting simplistic psychological or narrative explanations for their behavior. Cassavetes also disregarded the "impressionistic cinematography, linear editing, and star-centred scene making" fashionable in Hollywood and art films. Instead, he worked to create a comfortable and informal environment where actors could freely experiment with their performances and go beyond acting clichés or "programmed behaviors."


title: John Cassavetes

text: Cassavetes also rejected the dominance of the director's singular vision, instead believing each character must be the actor's "individual creation" and refusing to explain the characters to his actors in any significant detail. He claimed that "stylistic unity drains the humanity out of a text [...] The stories of many different and potentially inarticulate people are more interesting than a contrived narrative that exists only in one articulate man's imagination." He frequently filmed scenes in long, uninterrupted takes, explaining that:The drama of the scenes comes naturally from the real passage of time lived by the actors [...] The camera isn't content to just follow the characters' words and actions. I focus in on specific gestures and mannerisms. It's from focusing on these little things—the moods, silences, pauses, or anxious moments—that the form arises.


title: John Cassavetes

text: Cassavetes also said that he strove "to put [actors] in a position where they may make asses of themselves without feeling they're revealing things that will eventually be used against them."


title: John Cassavetes

text: The manner in which Cassavetes employed improvisation is frequently misunderstood: with the exception of the original version of "Shadows", his films were tightly scripted. However, he allowed actors to interpret characters in their own way, and often rewrote scripts based on the results of rehearsals and performances. He explained that "I believe in improvising on the basis of the written word and not on undisciplined creativity."


title: John Cassavetes

text: Cassavetes said: "The hardest thing for a film-maker, or a person like me, is to find people … who really want to do something … They've got to work on a project that's theirs." This method differs greatly from the 'director run' sets of big-budget Hollywood productions.


title: John Cassavetes

text: According to Marshall Fine, "Cassavetes, who provided the impetus of what would become the independent film movement in America … spent the majority of his career making his films 'off the grid' so to speak … unfettered by the commercial concerns of Hollywood. To make the kind of films he wanted to make, it was essential to work in this 'communal', 'off the grid' atmosphere because Hollywood's "basis is economic rather than political or philosophical", and no Hollywood executives were interested in Cassavetes's studies of human behaviour. He mortgaged his house to acquire the funds to shoot "A Woman Under the Influence", instead of seeking money from an investor who might try to change the script so as to make the film more marketable.


title: John Cassavetes

text: Cassavetes was passionate about a wide range of music, from jazz to classical to rock, saying "I like all music. It makes you feel like living. Silence is death."


title: John Cassavetes

text: For the soundtrack of "Shadows", Cassavetes worked with jazz composer and musician Charles Mingus and Shafi Hadi to provide the score. Mingus's friend, Diane Dorr-Dorynek, described Cassavetes's approach to film-making in jazz terms:


title: John Cassavetes

text: The script formed the skeleton around which the actors might change or ad lib lines according to their response to the situation at the moment, so that each performance was slightly different. A jazz musician works in this way, using a given musical skeleton and creating out of it, building a musical whole related to a particular moment by listening to and interacting with his fellow musicians. Jazz musicians working with actors could conceivably provide audiences with some of the most moving and alive theater they have ever experienced.


title: John Cassavetes

text: When asked by André S. Labarthe during the making of "Faces" whether he had the desire to make a musical film, Cassavetes responded he wanted to make only one musical, Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment".


title: John Cassavetes

text: Cassavetes worked with Bo Harwood from 1970 to 1984 on six films in several different capacities, even though Harwood had initially only signed on to do "a little editing" for "Husbands", and "a little sound editing" for "Minnie and Moskowitz". Harwood composed poignant music for Cassavetes's following three films, and was also credited as "Sound" for two of them. During these projects Harwood wrote several songs, some with Cassavetes contributing lyrics and rudimentary tunes.


title: John Cassavetes

text: During his work with Cassavetes, Harwood claimed the notoriously unpredictable director preferred to use the "scratch track" version of his compositions, rather than to let Harwood refine and re-record them with an orchestra. Some of these scratch tracks were recorded in Cassavetes's office, with piano or guitar, as demos, and then eventually ended up in the final film. While this matched the raw, unpolished feel that marks most of Cassavetes's films, Harwood was sometimes surprised and embarrassed.


title: John Cassavetes

text: The relationship between Harwood and Cassavetes ended amicably. When asked by documentarian Michael Ventura during the making of Cassavetes's last film "Love Streams", what he had learned from working with Cassavetes, Harwood replied:


title: John Cassavetes

text: I learned a lot through John. I've done a lot of editing for him. Picture editing, sound editing, music editing, shot sound, composed score, and I've learned a lot about integrity ... I think you know what I mean. You know, thirty years from now, I can say I rode with Billy the Kid.


title: American Crime Story

text: American Crime Story is an American anthology true crime television series developed by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, who are also executive producers, alongside Brad Falchuk, Nina Jacobson, Ryan Murphy, and Brad Simpson. The series is the second installment in the "American Story" media franchise, following "American Horror Story." Each season is presented as a self-contained miniseries and is independent of the events in other seasons. Alexander and Karaszewski did not return after the first season, but retain executive-producer credits. In the United States, the series is broadcast on FX.


title: American Crime Story

text: The first season, subtitled "", chronicled the murder trial of O. J. Simpson, and was based on the book "The Run of His Life: The People v. O. J. Simpson" by Jeffrey Toobin. It premiered on February 2, 2016. The second season, subtitled "", chronicled the murder of designer Gianni Versace by spree-killer Andrew Cunanan, and based on the book "Vulgar Favors" by Maureen Orth. It premiered on January 17, 2018, and concluded on March 21, 2018. The third season, subtitled "", chronicles the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal, and is based on the book "A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal That Nearly Brought Down a President", also by Toobin. It premiered on September 7, 2021.


title: American Crime Story

text: A season based on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, had been in development, but in February 2019 FX announced that the idea had been abandoned. A potential fourth season, tentatively titled "Studio 54", which would focus on the rise and fall of Studio 54 owners Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, is in development.


title: American Crime Story

text: Based on Jeffrey Toobin's "The Run of His Life: The People v. O. J. Simpson", the season explores the O. J. Simpson (Cuba Gooding Jr.) murder case as well as the combination of prosecution confidence, defense wiliness, and the Los Angeles Police Department's history with the city's African-American community that gave a jury what it needed: reasonable doubt.


title: American Crime Story

text: The season also stars Sterling K. Brown as Christopher Darden, Kenneth Choi as Lance Ito, Christian Clemenson as Bill Hodgman, Bruce Greenwood as Gil Garcetti, Nathan Lane as F. Lee Bailey, Sarah Paulson as Marcia Clark, David Schwimmer as Robert Kardashian, John Travolta as Robert Shapiro, and Courtney B. Vance as Johnnie Cochran.


title: American Crime Story

text: Based on Maureen Orth's "Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace, and the Largest Failed Manhunt in U.S. History", the season examines the July 1997 assassination of legendary fashion designer Gianni Versace (Édgar Ramírez) by sociopathic spree killer Andrew Cunanan (Darren Criss).


title: American Crime Story

text: The Clinton–Lewinsky scandal served as the basis for the third season of the series, "Impeachment", following the ensuing events during Clinton's presidency, based on Jeffrey Toobin's book "A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal That Nearly Brought Down a President".


title: American Crime Story

text: The season stars Sarah Paulson as Linda Tripp, Beanie Feldstein as Monica Lewinsky, Clive Owen as Bill Clinton, Margo Martindale as Lucianne Goldberg, Edie Falco as Hillary Clinton, and Annaleigh Ashford as Paula Jones. Originally slated to premiere in September 2020, the network pushed back the air date due to Murphy's schedule and later due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The network previously considered pushing back the air date due to the 2020 election. The season premiered on September 7, 2021.


title: American Crime Story

text: On October 7, 2014, it was announced that FX had ordered a ten-episode season of "American Crime Story" developed by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski and executive produced by Alexander, Karaszewski, Ryan Murphy, and Brad Falchuk, the latter two of whom cocreated such series as "Nip/Tuck", "Glee", "American Horror Story", "Scream Queens", and "Pose". Murphy also directed the pilot episode. Other executive producers are Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson. Co-executive producers are Anthony Hemingway and D. V. DeVincentis. All ten episodes were expected to be written by Alexander and Karaszewski. The series was previously in development at Fox but later moved to the company's sibling cable network FX.


title: American Crime Story

text: A season titled "Katrina" was announced to be the series' second season, initially said to be using Douglas Brinkley's book "The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast" as the primary source material, with Annette Bening cast as Kathleen Blanco, Matthew Broderick as Michael D. Brown, and Dennis Quaid as George W. Bush. However, it was later announced that the source material had changed to Sheri Fink's book "Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital", and the season would take an unflinching look at the decisions doctors made at Memorial Medical Center. Sarah Paulson was due to star as Dr. Anna Pou, who was on duty at the hospital when Katrina struck. Cuba Gooding Jr. and Courtney B. Vance were set to return after their participation in the first season, but after the source material was changed, only Paulson was set to star, with the other actors such as Bening, Broderick, and Quaid leaving the project. However, it was said the producers would try to find new characters for at least some of those actors already cast.


title: American Crime Story

text: The so-called "Katrina" season was originally planned to be the second season of the series, with "The Assassination of Gianni Versace" following as the third. However, in June 2017, it was announced that "Katrina" would not begin production until early 2018 and that "Versace" would air in early 2018, replacing "Katrina" as the show's second installment. In early February 2019, John Landgraf acknowledged that the "Katrina" storyline was cancelled and won't be the subject of any season of the series.


title: American Crime Story

text: "The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story" was picked up on October 18, 2016, and was announced as the third season of the series, following the season about "Katrina". The announcement also revealed that English author Tom Rob Smith would be the writer of multiple episodes of the season, including the first two, while executive producer Ryan Murphy would be directing the season premiere. Following the airing of the 's finale in April 2016, it was revealed that series creators Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski would not be returning for the second season. However, in June 2017, it was announced that "Katrina" would not begin production until early 2018 and that "Versace" would air in early 2018, replacing "Katrina" as the show's second installment.


title: American Crime Story

text: In January 2017, it was announced that a fourth season was in development, to air after "Katrina". It was to cover the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal and the ensuing events during Clinton's presidency, based on Jeffrey Toobin's book "A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal That Nearly Brought Down a President". However, in April 2018, Murphy revealed that the season was scrapped and no longer in development.


title: American Crime Story

text: On August 6, 2019, it was announced that the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal season was back in development as the third season of the series and that it would be titled "Impeachment". The season began production in October 2020, despite the original release date slated as September 27, 2020. Lewinsky herself signed on as a co-producer. Later that month, it was announced that the character of Hillary Clinton would appear in the series, but that she would not have a significant role.


title: American Crime Story

text: On August 13, 2021, shortly before the premiere of season 3 "Impeachment", it was announced that a potential fourth season, tentatively entitled "Studio 54," was in development. This season would focus on the rise and fall of Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager and their Studio 54 nightclub during the 1970s leading up to Rubell and Schrager's eventual tax fraud conviction.


title: American Crime Story

text: For season 1, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Sarah Paulson were the first to be cast as Simpson and Marcia Clark, respectively. Subsequently, David Schwimmer was cast as Robert Kardashian. In January 2015, it was reported that John Travolta had joined the cast as Robert Shapiro; he would also serve as producer. In February 2015, Courtney B. Vance joined the series as Johnnie Cochran. In March 2015, it was announced that Connie Britton would co-star as Faye Resnick. April 2015 saw the casting of Sterling K. Brown as Christopher Darden, Jordana Brewster as Denise Brown, and Kenneth Choi as Judge Lance Ito. In May 2015, it was confirmed Selma Blair would be portraying Kris Kardashian Jenner. In July 2015, it was announced Nathan Lane had joined the cast as F. Lee Bailey.


title: American Crime Story

text: In February 2017, Annette Bening joined the cast of the ultimately unproduced "Katrina" as Kathleen Blanco, while Matthew Broderick was cast as Michael D. Brown. That same month, Édgar Ramírez and Darren Criss joined the cast of "The Assassination of Gianni Versace" as Gianni Versace and Andrew Cunanan, respectively. Initial reports announced that Lady Gaga would portray Donatella Versace in "The Assassination of Gianni Versace", but Murphy confirmed that they were false. Penélope Cruz was later cast in the role. In April 2017, it was announced that Ricky Martin had joined the cast of "The Assassination of Gianni Versace" as Antonio D'Amico, Versace's longtime partner. On April 28, 2017, Annaleigh Ashford was seen filming on the set of "The Assassination of Gianni Versace" with Criss. On June 21, 2017, it was announced that Ashford's role in the series would be as Elizabeth Cote, a friend of Cunanan's since high school. On May 5, 2017, Murphy posted a photo on Instagram of Criss and Max Greenfield on the set of the season. On June 21, 2017, it was announced that Finn Wittrock would play Jeffrey Trail, Cunanan's first victim.


title: American Crime Story

text: In February 2017, Ryan Murphy revealed that Sarah Paulson was to star in "Impeachment", but not as Hillary Clinton. In August 2019, it was revealed that Sarah Paulson, Beanie Feldstein, and Annaleigh Ashford would star as Linda Tripp, Monica Lewinsky, and Paula Jones, respectively. On November 15, 2019, it was reported that Oscar-nominated actor Clive Owen will be playing the role of Bill Clinton along with Anthony Green set to portray Al Gore. In January 2020, it was announced that Billy Eichner would play the role of journalist Matt Drudge and Betty Gilpin would portray conservative media pundit Ann Coulter. In March 2021, it was announced that Edie Falco would play Hillary Clinton. In June 2021, Colin Hanks joined the cast. In August 2021, it was announced that Gilpin had exited the season due to scheduling conflicts and would be replaced by Cobie Smulders.


title: American Crime Story

text: Principal photography for season one began on May 14, 2015, in Los Angeles, California. According to set photos, principal photography of "Versace" began at the beginning of May 2017, in Miami, Florida. Paulson revealed in an interview on "Ellen" that filming for season three is set to begin in Los Angeles, California. On November 13, 2020, Sarah Paulson confirmed the start of production.


title: American Crime Story

text: In October 2015, FX released its first promotional trailer for "The People v. O. J. Simpson", showing an Akita dog whining, walking from its residence onto a sidewalk to bark, then walking back to its residence, leaving behind bloody paw prints. Later that month another teaser was released, wherein the first actual footage of Travolta as Shapiro was shown. In the teaser, Shapiro is about to ask Simpson (whose face is unseen) if he is responsible for the murder of Simpson's ex-wife. In the next short teaser that was released, Simpson (again unseen) is taking a lie detector test.


title: American Crime Story

text: In November, two new teasers were released. The first shows Simpson writing his attempted suicide letter, while a voice-over by Gooding, Jr. narrates. The second shows the police chasing Simpson's white Ford Bronco, while dozens of fans cheer for him.


title: American Crime Story

text: The first full trailer was released in December, along with a poster for the season. The trailer included Simpson sitting in the childhood bedroom of Kim Kardashian and contemplating suicide while Robert Kardashian tries to stop him.


title: American Crime Story

text: In September 2017, FX released the first promotional teaser for "The Assassination of Gianni Versace", showing doves sitting outside Versace's former mansion and flying away when two gunshots ring out. A second teaser was released that same month, depicting Versace's sister Donatella placing flowers on a casket.


title: American Crime Story

text: The series first premiered worldwide in Canada on FX on February 2, 2016. In the Philippines, the series premiered on February 3, 2016, on CT. In India, the series premiered on STAR World Premiere HD and Hotstar on February 8, 2016. The first series premiered in the United Kingdom on February 15, 2016. The second series began on February 28, 2018, on BBC Two. In Israel, the series premiered on February 22, 2016. In Australia, the series' first season was promoted as a "miniseries" under the title "The People vs OJ Simpson" and premiered on Network Ten on March 6, 2016, before concluding on May 8, 2016. The series aired at 10:15 p.m. on Thursdays on RTÉ One in Ireland from October 2016.


title: American Crime Story

text: The first 2 seasons were made available on Netflix worldwide excluding Canada and German-speaking Europe (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) in February 2017. However, on March 1, 2022, the show was pulled from Netflix globally, shifting to Hulu in united states the same month. It has also started to shift to Disney+ internationally and Star+ In Latin America.


title: American Crime Story

text: The first season of "American Crime Story" has received critical acclaim. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gave the season an approval rating of 97%, based on 74 reviews, with an average rating of 8.7/10. The site's critical consensus reads, ""The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story" brings top-shelf writing, directing, and acting to bear on a still-topical story while shedding further light on the facts – and provoking passionate responses along the way." On Metacritic, the season has a score of 90 out of 100, based on 45 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".


title: American Crime Story

text: The second season of "American Crime Story" received positive reviews. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gave the season an approval rating of 89%, based on 61 reviews, with an average rating of 7.09/10. The site's critical consensus reads, ""The Assassination of Versace" starts with a bang and unfurls slowly, moving backward through an intricate (and occasionally convoluted) murder mystery anchored by a career-defining performance from Darren Criss." On Metacritic, the season has a score of 74 out of 100, based on 34 critics, indicating "Generally favorable reviews".


title: American Crime Story

text: The third season of "American Crime Story" received positive reviews. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gave the season an approval rating of 69%, based on 71 reviews. The site's critical consensus reads, ""Impeachment" can't seem to decide whether it's unearthing the humanity of a presidential scandal or indulging the mythology of its media circus, but Beanie Feldstein and Sarah Paulson's performances ring true in the midst of all the noise." On Metacritic, the season has a score of 61 out of 100, based on 34 critics, indicating "Generally favorable reviews".


title: Arthur Schopenhauer

text: Arthur Schopenhauer ( , ; 22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work "The World as Will and Representation" (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the phenomenal world as the product of a blind noumenal will. Building on the transcendental idealism of Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), Schopenhauer developed an atheistic metaphysical and ethical system that rejected the contemporaneous ideas of German idealism. He was among the first thinkers in Western philosophy to share and affirm significant tenets of Indian philosophy, such as asceticism, denial of the self, and the notion of the world-as-appearance. His work has been described as an exemplary manifestation of philosophical pessimism.


title: Arthur Schopenhauer

text: Though his work failed to garner substantial attention during his lifetime, Schopenhauer had a posthumous impact across various disciplines, including philosophy, literature, and science. His writing on aesthetics, morality, and psychology have influenced many thinkers and artists. Those who have cited his influence include philosophers Emil Cioran, Friedrich Nietzsche and Ludwig Wittgenstein, scientists Erwin Schrödinger and Albert Einstein, psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, writers Leo Tolstoy, Herman Melville, Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse, Machado de Assis, Jorge Luis Borges, Marcel Proust and Samuel Beckett, and composers Richard Wagner, Johannes Brahms, Arnold Schoenberg and Gustav Mahler.


title: Arthur Schopenhauer

text: Arthur Schopenhauer was born on 22 February 1788, in Danzig (then part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth; present-day Gdańsk, Poland) on Heiligegeistgasse (present day Św. Ducha 47), the son of Johanna Schopenhauer (née Trosiener; 1766–1838) and Heinrich Floris Schopenhauer (1747–1805), both descendants of wealthy German-Dutch patrician families. While they came from a Protestant background, neither of them was very religious; both supported the French Revolution, and were republicans, cosmopolitans and Anglophiles. When Danzig became part of Prussia in 1793, Heinrich moved to Hamburg—a free city with a republican constitution. His firm continued trading in Danzig where most of their extended families remained. Adele, Arthur's only sibling, was born on 12 July 1797.


title: Arthur Schopenhauer

text: In 1797, Arthur was sent to Le Havre to live with the family of his father's business associate, Grégoire de Blésimaire. He seemed to enjoy his two-year stay there, learning to speak French and fostering a life-long friendship with Jean Anthime Grégoire de Blésimaire. As early as 1799, Arthur started playing the flute.


title: Arthur Schopenhauer

text: In 1803, he accompanied his parents on a European tour of Holland, Britain, France, Switzerland, Austria and Prussia. Viewed as primarily a pleasure tour, Heinrich used the opportunity to visit some of his business associates abroad.


title: Arthur Schopenhauer

text: Heinrich offered Arthur a choice: he could stay at home and start preparations for university, or he could travel with them and continue his merchant education. Arthur chose to travel with them. He deeply regretted his choice later because the merchant training was very tedious. He spent twelve weeks of the tour attending school in Wimbledon, where he was disillusioned by strict and intellectually shallow Anglican religiosity. He continued to sharply criticize Anglican religiosity later in life despite his general Anglophilia. He was also under pressure from his father, who became very critical of his educational results.


title: Arthur Schopenhauer

text: In 1805, Heinrich drowned in a canal near their home in Hamburg. Although it was possible that his death was accidental, his wife and son believed that it was suicide. He was prone to anxiety and depression; each becoming more pronounced later in his life. Heinrich had become so fussy, even his wife started to doubt his mental health. "There was, in the father's life, some dark and vague source of fear which later made him hurl himself to his death from the attic of his house in Hamburg."


title: Arthur Schopenhauer

text: Arthur showed similar moodiness during his youth and often acknowledged that he inherited it from his father. There were other instances of serious mental health history on his father's side of the family. Despite his hardship, Schopenhauer liked his father and later referred to him in a positive light. Heinrich Schopenhauer left the family with a significant inheritance that was split in three among Johanna and the children. Arthur Schopenhauer was entitled to control of his part when he reached the age of majority. He invested it conservatively in government bonds and earned annual interest that was more than double the salary of a university professor. After quitting his merchant apprenticeship, with some encouragement from his mother, he dedicated himself to studies at the Ernestine Gymnasium, Gotha, in Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. While there, he also enjoyed social life among the local nobility, spending large amounts of money, which deeply concerned his frugal mother. He left the Gymnasium after writing a satirical poem about one of the schoolmasters. Although Arthur claimed that he left voluntarily, his mother's letter indicates that he may have been expelled.


title: Arthur Schopenhauer

text: Arthur spent two years as a merchant in honor of his dead father. During this time, he had doubts about being able to start a new life as a scholar. Most of his prior education was as a practical merchant and he had trouble learning Latin; a prerequisite for an academic career.


title: Arthur Schopenhauer

text: His mother moved away, with her daughter Adele, to Weimar—then the centre of German literature—to enjoy social life among writers and artists. Arthur and his mother did not part on good terms. In one letter, she wrote: "You are unbearable and burdensome, and very hard to live with; all your good qualities are overshadowed by your conceit, and made useless to the world simply because you cannot restrain your propensity to pick holes in other people." His mother, Johanna, was generally described as vivacious and sociable. She died 24 years later. Some of Arthur's negative opinions about women may be rooted in his troubled relationship with his mother.


title: Arthur Schopenhauer

text: Arthur moved to Hamburg to live with his friend Jean Anthime, who was also studying to become a merchant.


title: Arthur Schopenhauer

text: He moved to Weimar but did not live with his mother, who even tried to discourage him from coming by explaining that they would not get along very well. Their relationship deteriorated even further due to their temperamental differences. He accused his mother of being financially irresponsible, flirtatious and seeking to remarry, which he considered an insult to his father's memory. His mother, while professing her love to him, criticized him sharply for being moody, tactless, and argumentative, and urged him to improve his behavior so that he would not alienate people. Arthur concentrated on his studies, which were now going very well, and he also enjoyed the usual social life such as balls, parties and theater. By that time Johanna's famous salon was well established among local intellectuals and dignitaries, the most celebrated of them being Goethe. Arthur attended her parties, usually when he knew that Goethe would be there—although the famous writer and statesman seemed not even to notice the young and unknown student. It is possible that Goethe kept a distance because Johanna warned him about her son's depressive and combative nature, or because Goethe was then on bad terms with Arthur's language instructor and roommate, Franz Passow. Schopenhauer was also captivated by the beautiful Karoline Jagemann, mistress of Karl August, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, and he wrote to her his only known love poem. Despite his later celebration of asceticism and negative views of sexuality, Schopenhauer occasionally had sexual affairs—usually with women of lower social status, such as servants, actresses, and sometimes even paid prostitutes. In a letter to his friend Anthime he claims that such affairs continued even in his mature age and admits that he had two out-of-wedlock daughters (born in 1819 and 1836), both of whom died in infancy. In their youthful correspondence Arthur and Anthime were somewhat boastful and competitive about their sexual exploits—but Schopenhauer seemed aware that women usually did not find him very charming or physically attractive, and his desires often remained unfulfilled.


title: Arthur Schopenhauer

text: He left Weimar to become a student at the University of Göttingen in 1809. There are no written reasons about why Schopenhauer chose that university instead of the then more famous University of Jena, but Göttingen was known as more modern and scientifically oriented, with less attention given to theology. Law or medicine were usual choices for young men of Schopenhauer's status who also needed career and income; he chose medicine due to his scientific interests. Among his notable professors were Bernhard Friedrich Thibaut, Arnold Hermann Ludwig Heeren, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, Friedrich Stromeyer, Heinrich Adolf Schrader, Johann Tobias Mayer and Konrad Johann Martin Langenbeck. He studied metaphysics, psychology and logic under Gottlob Ernst Schulze, the author of "Aenesidemus", who made a strong impression and advised him to concentrate on Plato and Immanuel Kant. He decided to switch from medicine to philosophy around 1810–11 and he left Göttingen, which did not have a strong philosophy program: besides Schulze, the only other philosophy professor was Friedrich Bouterwek, whom Schopenhauer disliked. He did not regret his medicinal and scientific studies; he claimed that they were necessary for a philosopher, and even in Berlin he attended more lectures in sciences than in philosophy. During his days at Göttingen, he spent considerable time studying, but also continued his flute playing and social life. His friends included Friedrich Gotthilf Osann, Karl Witte, Christian Charles Josias von Bunsen, and William Backhouse Astor Sr.


title: Arthur Schopenhauer

text: He arrived at the newly founded University of Berlin for the winter semester of 1811–12. At the same time, his mother had just begun her literary career; she published her first book in 1810, a biography of her friend Karl Ludwig Fernow, which was a critical success. Arthur attended lectures by the prominent post-Kantian philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte, but quickly found many points of disagreement with his ; he also found Fichte's lectures tedious and hard to understand. He later mentioned Fichte only in critical, negative terms—seeing his philosophy as a lower-quality version of Kant's and considering it useful only because Fichte's poor arguments unintentionally highlighted some failings of Kantianism. He also attended the lectures of the famous Protestant theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher, whom he also quickly came to dislike. His notes and comments on Schleiermacher's lectures show that Schopenhauer was becoming very critical of religion and moving towards atheism. He learned by self-directed reading; besides Plato, Kant and Fichte he also read the works of Schelling, Fries, Jacobi, Bacon, Locke, and much current scientific literature. He attended philological courses by August Böckh and Friedrich August Wolf and continued his naturalistic interests with courses by Martin Heinrich Klaproth, Paul Erman, Johann Elert Bode, Ernst Gottfried Fischer, Johann Horkel, Friedrich Christian Rosenthal and Hinrich Lichtenstein (Lichtenstein was also a friend whom he met at one of his mother's parties in Weimar).


title: Arthur Schopenhauer

text: Schopenhauer left Berlin in a rush in 1813, fearing that the city could be attacked and that he could be pressed into military service as Prussia had just joined the war against France. He returned to Weimar but left after less than a month, disgusted by the fact that his mother was now living with her supposed lover, Georg Friedrich Konrad Ludwig Müller von Gerstenbergk (1778–1838), a civil servant twelve years younger than her; he considered the relationship an act of infidelity to his father's memory. He settled for a while in Rudolstadt, hoping that no army would pass through the small town. He spent his time in solitude, hiking in the mountains and the Thuringian forest and writing his dissertation, "On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason". He completed his dissertation at about the same time as the French army was defeated at the Battle of Leipzig. He became irritated by the arrival of soldiers in the town and accepted his mother's invitation to visit her in Weimar. She tried to convince him that her relationship with Gerstenbergk was platonic and that she had no intention of remarrying. But Schopenhauer remained suspicious and often came in conflict with Gerstenbergk because he considered him untalented, pretentious, and nationalistic. His mother had just published her second book, "Reminiscences of a Journey in the Years 1803, 1804, and 1805", a description of their family tour of Europe, which quickly became a hit. She found his dissertation incomprehensible and said it was unlikely that anyone would ever buy a copy. In a fit of temper Arthur told her that people would read his work long after the "rubbish" she wrote was totally forgotten. In fact, although they considered her novels of dubious quality, the Brockhaus publishing firm held her in high esteem because they consistently sold well. Hans Brockhaus (1888–1965) later claimed that his predecessors "saw nothing in this manuscript, but wanted to please one of our best-selling authors by publishing her son's work. We published more and more of her son Arthur's work and today nobody remembers Johanna, but her son's works are in steady demand and contribute to Brockhaus'[s] reputation." He kept large portraits of the pair in his office in Leipzig for the edification of his new editors.


title: Arthur Schopenhauer

text: Also contrary to his mother's prediction, Schopenhauer's dissertation made an impression on Goethe, to whom he sent it as a gift. Although it is doubtful that Goethe agreed with Schopenhauer's philosophical positions, he was impressed by his intellect and extensive scientific education. Their subsequent meetings and correspondence were a great honor to a young philosopher, who was finally acknowledged by his intellectual hero. They mostly discussed Goethe's newly published (and somewhat lukewarmly received) work on color theory. Schopenhauer soon started writing his own treatise on the subject, "On Vision and Colors", which in many points differed from his teacher's. Although they remained polite towards each other, their growing theoretical disagreements—and especially Schopenhauer's extreme self-confidence and tactless criticisms—soon made Goethe become distant again and after 1816 their correspondence became less frequent. Schopenhauer later admitted that he was greatly hurt by this rejection, but he continued to praise Goethe, and considered his color theory a great introduction to his own.


title: Arthur Schopenhauer

text: Another important experience during his stay in Weimar was his acquaintance with Friedrich Majer—a historian of religion, orientalist and disciple of Herder—who introduced him to Eastern philosophy (see also Indology). Schopenhauer was immediately impressed by the "Upanishads" (he called them "the production of the highest human wisdom", and believed that they contained superhuman concepts) and the Buddha, and put them on a par with Plato and Kant. He continued his studies by reading the "Bhagavad Gita", an amateurish German journal "Asiatisches Magazin" and "Asiatick Researches" by the Asiatic Society. Schopenhauer held a profound respect for Indian philosophy; although he loved Hindu texts, he never revered a Buddhist text but regarded Buddhism as the most distinguished religion. His studies on Hindu and Buddhist texts were constrained by the lack of adequate literature, and the latter were mostly restricted to Theravada Buddhism. He also claimed that he formulated most of his ideas independently, and only later realized the similarities with Buddhism.


title: Arthur Schopenhauer

text: Schopenhauer read the Latin translation and praised the Upanishads in his main work, "The World as Will and Representation" (1819), as well as in his "Parerga and Paralipomena" (1851), and commented,In the whole world there is no study so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanishads. It has been the solace of my life, it will be the solace of my death.


title: Arthur Schopenhauer

text: As the relationship with his mother fell to a new low, in May 1814 he left Weimar and moved to Dresden. He continued his philosophical studies, enjoyed the cultural life, socialized with intellectuals and engaged in sexual affairs. His friends in Dresden were Johann Gottlob von Quandt, Friedrich Laun, Karl Christian Friedrich Krause and Ludwig Sigismund Ruhl, a young painter who made a romanticized portrait of him in which he improved some of Schopenhauer's unattractive physical features. His criticisms of local artists occasionally caused public quarrels when he ran into them in public. Schopenhauer's main occupation during his stay in Dresden was his seminal philosophical work, "The World as Will and Representation", which he started writing in 1814 and finished in 1818. He was recommended to the publisher Friedrich Arnold Brockhaus by Baron Ferdinand von Biedenfeld, an acquaintance of his mother. Although Brockhaus accepted his manuscript, Schopenhauer made a poor impression because of his quarrelsome and fussy attitude, as well as very poor sales of the book after it was published in December 1818.


title: Arthur Schopenhauer

text: In September 1818, while waiting for his book to be published and conveniently escaping an affair with a maid that caused an unwanted pregnancy, Schopenhauer left Dresden for a year-long vacation in Italy. He visited Venice, Bologna, Florence, Naples and Milan, travelling alone or accompanied by mostly English tourists he met. He spent the winter months in Rome, where he accidentally met his acquaintance Karl Witte and engaged in numerous quarrels with German tourists in the Caffè Greco, among them Johann Friedrich Böhmer, who also mentioned his insulting remarks and unpleasant character. He enjoyed art, architecture, and ancient ruins, attended plays and operas, and continued his philosophical contemplation and love affairs. One of his affairs supposedly became serious, and for a while he contemplated marriage to a rich Italian noblewoman—but, despite his mentioning this several times, no details are known and it may have been Schopenhauer exaggerating. He corresponded regularly with his sister Adele and became close to her as her relationship with Johanna and Gerstenbergk also deteriorated. She informed him about their financial troubles as the banking house of A. L. Muhl in Danzig—in which her mother invested their whole savings and Arthur a third of his—was near bankruptcy. Arthur offered to share his assets, but his mother refused and became further enraged by his insulting comments. The women managed to receive only thirty percent of their savings while Arthur, using his business knowledge, took a suspicious and aggressive stance towards the banker and eventually received his part in full. The affair additionally worsened the relationships among all three members of the Schopenhauer family.


title: Arthur Schopenhauer

text: He shortened his stay in Italy because of the trouble with Muhl and returned to Dresden. Disturbed by the financial risk and the lack of responses to his book he decided to take an academic position since it provided him with both income and an opportunity to promote his views. He contacted his friends at universities in Heidelberg, Göttingen and Berlin and found Berlin most attractive. He scheduled his lectures to coincide with those of the famous philosopher G. W. F. Hegel, whom Schopenhauer described as a "clumsy charlatan". He was especially appalled by Hegel's supposedly poor knowledge of natural sciences and tried to engage him in a quarrel about it already at his test lecture in March 1820. Hegel was also facing political suspicions at the time, when many progressive professors were fired, while Schopenhauer carefully mentioned in his application that he had no interest in politics. Despite their differences and the arrogant request to schedule lectures at the same time as his own, Hegel still voted to accept Schopenhauer to the university. Only five students turned up to Schopenhauer's lectures, and he dropped out of academia. A late essay, "On University Philosophy", expressed his resentment towards the work conducted in academies.


title: Arthur Schopenhauer

text: After his tenure in academia, he continued to travel extensively, visiting Leipzig, Nuremberg, Stuttgart, Schaffhausen, Vevey, Milan and spending eight months in Florence. Before he left for his three-year travel, Schopenhauer had an incident with his Berlin neighbor, 47-year-old seamstress Caroline Louise Marquet. The details of the August 1821 incident are unknown. He claimed that he had just pushed her from his entrance after she had rudely refused to leave, and that she had purposely fallen to the ground so that she could sue him. She claimed that he had attacked her so violently that she had become paralyzed on her right side and unable to work. She immediately sued him, and the process lasted until May 1827, when a court found Schopenhauer guilty and forced him to pay her an annual pension until her death in 1842.


title: Arthur Schopenhauer

text: Schopenhauer enjoyed Italy, where he studied art and socialized with Italian and English nobles. It was his last visit to the country. He left for Munich and stayed there for a year, mostly recuperating from various health issues, some of them possibly caused by venereal diseases (the treatment his doctor used suggests syphilis). He contacted publishers, offering to translate Hume into German and Kant into English, but his proposals were declined. Returning to Berlin, he began to study Spanish so he could read some of his favorite authors in their original language. He liked Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Lope de Vega, Miguel de Cervantes, and especially Baltasar Gracián. He also made failed attempts to publish his translations of their works. A few attempts to revive his lectures—again scheduled at the same time as Hegel's—also failed, as did his inquiries about relocating to other universities.


title: Arthur Schopenhauer

text: During his Berlin years, Schopenhauer occasionally mentioned his desire to marry and have a family. For a while he was unsuccessfully courting 17-year-old Flora Weiss, who was 22 years younger than himself. His unpublished writings from that time show that he was already very critical of monogamy but still not advocating polygyny—instead musing about a polyamorous relationship that he called "tetragamy". He had an on-and-off relationship with a young dancer, Caroline Richter (she also used the surname Medon after one of her ex-lovers). They met when he was 33 and she was 19 and working at the Berlin Opera. She had already had numerous lovers and a son out of wedlock, and later gave birth to another son, this time to an unnamed foreign diplomat (she soon had another pregnancy but the child was stillborn). As Schopenhauer was preparing to escape from Berlin in 1831, due to a cholera epidemic, he offered to take her with him on the condition that she left her young son behind. She refused and he went alone; in his will he left her a significant sum of money, but insisted that it should not be spent in any way on her second son.


title: Arthur Schopenhauer

text: Schopenhauer claimed that, in his last year in Berlin, he had a prophetic dream that urged him to escape from the city. As he arrived in his new home in Frankfurt, he supposedly had another supernatural experience, an apparition of his dead father and his mother, who was still alive. This experience led him to spend some time investigating paranormal phenomena and magic. He was quite critical of the available studies and claimed that they were mostly ignorant or fraudulent, but he did believe that there are authentic cases of such phenomena and tried to explain them through his metaphysics as manifestations of the will.


title: Arthur Schopenhauer

text: Upon his arrival in Frankfurt, he experienced a period of depression and declining health. He renewed his correspondence with his mother, and she seemed concerned that he might commit suicide like his father. By now Johanna and Adele were living very modestly. Johanna's writing did not bring her much income, and her popularity was waning. Their correspondence remained reserved, and Arthur seemed undisturbed by her death in 1838. His relationship with his sister grew closer and he corresponded with her until she died in 1849.


title: Arthur Schopenhauer

text: In July 1832 Schopenhauer left Frankfurt for Mannheim but returned in July 1833 to remain there for the rest of his life, except for a few short journeys. He lived alone except for a succession of pet poodles named Atman and Butz. In 1836, he published "On the Will in Nature". In 1836, he sent his essay "On the Freedom of the Will" to the contest of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and won the prize for the following year. He sent another essay, "On the Basis of Morality", to the Royal Danish Society for Scientific Studies, but did not win the prize despite being the only contestant. The Society was appalled that several distinguished contemporary philosophers were mentioned in a very offensive manner, and claimed that the essay missed the point of the set topic and that the arguments were inadequate. Schopenhauer, who had been very confident that he would win, was enraged by this rejection. He published both essays as "The Two Basic Problems of Ethics". The first edition, published in 1841, again failed to draw attention to his philosophy. In the preface to the second edition, in 1860, he was still pouring insults on the Royal Danish Society. Two years later, after some negotiations, he managed to convince his publisher, Brockhaus, to print the second, updated edition of "The World as Will and Representation". That book was again mostly ignored and the few reviews were mixed or negative.


title: Arthur Schopenhauer

text: Schopenhauer began to attract some followers, mostly outside academia, among practical professionals (several of them were lawyers) who pursued private philosophical studies. He jokingly referred to them as "evangelists" and "apostles". One of the most active early followers was Julius Frauenstädt, who wrote numerous articles promoting Schopenhauer's philosophy. He was also instrumental in finding another publisher after Brockhaus declined to publish "Parerga and Paralipomena", believing that it would be another failure. Though Schopenhauer later stopped corresponding with him, claiming that he did not adhere closely enough to his ideas, Frauenstädt continued to promote Schopenhauer's work. They renewed their communication in 1859 and Schopenhauer named him heir for his literary estate. Frauenstädt also became the editor of the first collected works of Schopenhauer.


title: Arthur Schopenhauer

text: In 1848, Schopenhauer witnessed violent upheaval in Frankfurt after General Hans Adolf Erdmann von Auerswald and Prince Felix Lichnowsky were murdered. He became worried for his own safety and property. Even earlier in life he had had such worries and kept a sword and loaded pistols near his bed to defend himself from thieves. He gave a friendly welcome to Austrian soldiers who wanted to shoot revolutionaries from his window and as they were leaving he gave one of the officers his opera glasses to help him monitor rebels. The rebellion passed without any loss to Schopenhauer and he later praised Alfred I, Prince of Windisch-Grätz for restoring order. He even modified his will, leaving a large part of his property to a Prussian fund that helped soldiers who became invalids while fighting rebellion in 1848 or the families of soldiers who died in battle. As Young Hegelians were advocating change and progress, Schopenhauer claimed that misery is natural for humans and that, even if some utopian society were established, people would still fight each other out of boredom, or would starve due to overpopulation.


title: Arthur Schopenhauer

text: In 1851, Schopenhauer published "Parerga and Paralipomena", which contains essays that are supplementary to his main work. It was his first successful, widely read book, partly due to the work of his disciples who wrote praising reviews. The essays that proved most popular were the ones that actually did not contain the basic philosophical ideas of his system. Many academic philosophers considered him a great stylist and cultural critic but did not take his philosophy seriously. His early critics liked to point out similarities of his ideas to those Fichte and Schelling, or to claim that there were numerous contradictions in his philosophy. Both criticisms enraged Schopenhauer. He was becoming less interested in intellectual fights, but encouraged his disciples to do so. His private notes and correspondence show that he acknowledged some of the criticisms regarding contradictions, inconsistencies, and vagueness in his philosophy, but claimed that he was not concerned about harmony and agreement in his propositions and that some of his ideas should not be taken literally but instead as metaphors.


title: Arthur Schopenhauer

text: Academic philosophers were also starting to notice his work. In 1856, the University of Leipzig sponsored an essay contest about Schopenhauer's philosophy, which was won by Rudolf Seydel's very critical essay. Schopenhauer's friend Jules Lunteschütz made the first of his four portraits of him—which Schopenhauer did not particularly like—which was soon sold to a wealthy landowner, Carl Ferdinand Wiesike, who built a house to display it. Schopenhauer seemed flattered and amused by this, and would claim that it was his first chapel. As his fame increased, copies of paintings and photographs of him were being sold and admirers were visiting the places where he had lived and written his works. People visited Frankfurt's "Englischer Hof" to observe him dining. Admirers gave him gifts and asked for autographs. He complained that he still felt isolated due to his not very social nature and the fact that many of his good friends had already died from old age.


title: Arthur Schopenhauer

text: He remained healthy in his own old age, which he attributed to regular walks no matter the weather and always getting enough sleep. He had a great appetite and could read without glasses, but his hearing had been declining since his youth and he developed problems with rheumatism. He remained active and lucid, continued his reading, writing and correspondence until his death. The numerous notes that he made during these years, amongst others on aging, were published posthumously under the title "Senilia". In the spring of 1860 his health began to decline, and he experienced shortness of breath and heart palpitations; in September he suffered inflammation of the lungs and, although he was starting to recover, he remained very weak. The last friend to visit him was Wilhelm Gwinner; according to him, Schopenhauer was concerned that he would not be able to finish his planned additions to "Parerga and Paralipomena" but was at peace with dying. He died of pulmonary-respiratory failure on 21 September 1860 while sitting at home on his couch. He died at the age of 72 and had a funeral conducted by a Lutheran minister.


title: Arthur Schopenhauer

text: Schopenhauer saw his philosophy as an extension of Kant's, and used the results of Kantian epistemological investigation (transcendental idealism) as starting point for his own. Kant had argued that the empirical world is merely a complex of appearances whose existence and connection occur only in our mental representations. Schopenhauer did not deny that the external world existed empirically but followed Kant in claiming that our knowledge and experience of the world is always indirect. Schopenhauer reiterates this in the first sentence of his main work: "The world is my representation ("Die Welt ist meine Vorstellung")". Everything that there is for cognition (the entire world) exists simply as an object in relation to a subject—a 'representation' to a subject. Everything that belongs to the world is, therefore, 'subject-dependent'. In Book One of "The World as Will and Representation", Schopenhauer considers the world from this angle—that is, insofar as it is representation.