title: Nuclear fallout

text: The dose that would be lethal to 50% of a population is a common parameter used to compare the effects of various fallout types or circumstances. Usually, the term is defined for a specific time, and limited to studies of acute lethality. The common time periods used are 30 days or less for most small laboratory animals and to 60 days for large animals and humans. The LD figure assumes that the individuals did not receive other injuries or medical treatment.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: In the 1950s, the LD for gamma rays was set at 3.5 Gy, while under more dire conditions of war (a bad diet, little medical care, poor nursing) the LD was 2.5 Gy (250 rad). There have been few documented cases of survival beyond 6 Gy. One person at Chernobyl survived a dose of more than 10 Gy, but many of the persons exposed there were not uniformly exposed over their entire body. If a person is exposed in a non-homogeneous manner then a given dose (averaged over the entire body) is less likely to be lethal. For instance, if a person gets a hand/low arm dose of 100 Gy, which gives them an overall dose of 4 Gy, they are more likely to survive than a person who gets a 4 Gy dose over their entire body. A hand dose of 10 Gy or more would likely result in loss of the hand. A British industrial radiographer who was estimated to have received a hand dose of 100 Gy over the course of his lifetime lost his hand because of radiation dermatitis. Most people become ill after an exposure to 1 Gy or more. The fetuses of pregnant women are often more vulnerable to radiation and may miscarry, especially in the first trimester.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: One hour after a surface burst, the radiation from fallout in the crater region is 30 grays per hour (Gy/h). Civilian dose rates in peacetime range from 30 to 100 µGy per year.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: Fallout radiation decays relatively quickly with time. Most areas become fairly safe for travel and decontamination after three to five weeks.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: For yields of up to 10 kt, prompt radiation is the dominant producer of casualties on the battlefield. Humans receiving an acute incapacitating dose (30 Gy) have their performance degraded almost immediately and become ineffective within several hours. However, they do not die until five to six days after exposure, assuming they do not receive any other injuries. Individuals receiving less than a total of 1.5 Gy are not incapacitated. People receiving doses greater than 1.5 Gy become disabled, and some eventually die.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: A dose of 5.3 Gy to 8.3 Gy is considered lethal but not immediately incapacitating. Personnel exposed to this amount of radiation have their cognitive performance degraded in two to three hours, depending on how physically demanding the tasks they must perform are, and remain in this disabled state at least two days. However, at that point they experience a recovery period and can perform non-demanding tasks for about six days, after which they relapse for about four weeks. At this time they begin exhibiting symptoms of radiation poisoning of sufficient severity to render them totally ineffective. Death follows at approximately six weeks after exposure, although outcomes may vary.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: Late or delayed effects of radiation occur following a wide range of doses and dose rates. Delayed effects may appear months to years after irradiation and include a wide variety of effects involving almost all tissues or organs. Some of the "possible" delayed consequences of radiation injury, with the rates above the background prevalence, depending on the absorbed dose, include carcinogenesis, cataract formation, chronic radiodermatitis, decreased fertility, and genetic mutations.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: Presently, the only teratological effect observed in humans following nuclear attacks on highly populated areas is microcephaly which is the only proven malformation, or congenital abnormality, found in the in utero developing human fetuses present during the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Of all the pregnant women who were close enough to be exposed to the "prompt" burst of intense neutron and gamma doses in the two cities, the total number of children born with microcephaly was below 50. No statistically demonstrable increase of congenital malformations was found among the "later conceived children" born to survivors of the nuclear detonations at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The surviving women of Hiroshima and Nagasaki who could conceive and were exposed to substantial amounts of radiation went on and had children with no higher incidence of abnormalities than the Japanese average.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: The Baby Tooth Survey founded by the husband and wife team of physicians Eric Reiss and Louise Reiss, was a research effort focused on detecting the presence of strontium-90, a cancer-causing radioactive isotope created by the more than 400 atomic tests conducted above ground that is absorbed from water and dairy products into the bones and teeth given its chemical similarity to calcium. The team sent collection forms to schools in the St. Louis, Missouri area, hoping to gather 50,000 teeth each year. Ultimately, the project collected over 300,000 teeth from children of various ages before the project was ended in 1970.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: Preliminary results of the Baby Tooth Survey were published in the November 24, 1961, edition of the journal "Science", and showed that levels of strontium-90 had risen steadily in children born in the 1950s, with those born later showing the most pronounced increases. The results of a more comprehensive study of the elements found in the teeth collected showed that children born after 1963 had levels of strontium-90 in their baby teeth that was 50 times higher than that found in children born before large-scale atomic testing began. The findings helped convince U.S. President John F. Kennedy to sign the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with the United Kingdom and Soviet Union, which ended the above-ground nuclear weapons testing that created the greatest amounts of atmospheric nuclear fallout.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: The baby tooth survey was a "campaign [that] effectively employed a variety of media advocacy strategies" to alarm the public and "galvanized" support against atmospheric nuclear testing, with putting an end to such testing being commonly viewed as a positive outcome for a myriad of other reasons. The survey could not show then at the time, nor in the decades that have elapsed, that the levels of global strontium-90 or fallout in general, were in any way life-threatening, primarily because "50 times the strontium-90 from "before" nuclear testing" is a minuscule number, and multiplication of minuscule numbers results in only a slightly larger minuscule number. Moreover, the Radiation and Public Health Project which currently retains the teeth has had their stance and publications heavily criticized: A 2003 article in "The New York Times" states that the group's work has been controversial and has little credibility with the scientific establishment. Similarly, in an April 2014 article in "Popular Science", Sarah Fecht explains that the group's work, specifically the widely discussed case of cherry-picking data to suggest that fallout from the 2011 Fukushima accident caused infant deaths in America, is "junk science", as despite their papers being peer-reviewed, all independent attempts to corroborate their results return findings that are not in agreement with what the organization suggests. The organization had earlier also tried to suggest the same thing occurred after the 1979 Three Mile Island accident but this was likewise exposed to be without merit. The tooth survey, and the expansion of the organization into attempting the same test-ban approach with US nuclear electric power stations as the new target, is likewise detailed and critically labelled as the "Tooth Fairy issue" by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: In the event of a large-scale nuclear exchange, the effects would be drastic on the environment as well as directly to the human population. Within direct blast zones everything would be vaporized and destroyed. Cities damaged but not completely destroyed would lose their water system due to the loss of power and supply lines rupturing. Within the local nuclear fallout pattern suburban areas' water supplies would become extremely contaminated. At this point stored water would be the only safe water to use. All surface water within the fallout would be contaminated by falling fission products.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: Within the first few months of the nuclear exchange the nuclear fallout will continue to develop and detriment the environment. Dust, smoke, and radioactive particles will fall hundreds of kilometers downwind of the explosion point and pollute surface water supplies. Iodine-131 would be the dominant fission product within the first few months, and in the months following the dominant fission product would be strontium-90. These fission products would remain in the fallout dust, resulting in rivers, lakes, sediments, and soils being contaminated with the fallout.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: Rural areas' water supplies would be slightly less polluted by fission particles in intermediate and long-term fallout than cities and suburban areas. Without additional contamination, the lakes, reservoirs, rivers, and runoff would be gradually less contaminated as water continued to flow through its system.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: Groundwater supplies such as aquifers would however remain unpolluted initially in the event of a nuclear fallout. Over time the groundwater could become contaminated with fallout particles, and would remain contaminated for over 10 years after a nuclear engagement. It would take hundreds or thousands of years for an aquifer to become completely pure. Groundwater would still be safer than surface water supplies and would need to be consumed in smaller doses. Long term, cesium-137 and strontium-90 would be the major radionuclides affecting the fresh water supplies.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: The dangers of nuclear fallout do not stop at increased risks of cancer and radiation sickness, but also include the presence of radionuclides in human organs from food. A fallout event would leave fission particles in the soil for animals to consume, followed by humans. Radioactively contaminated milk, meat, fish, vegetables, grains and other food would all be dangerous because of fallout.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: From 1945 to 1967 the U.S. conducted hundreds of nuclear weapon tests. Atmospheric testing took place over the US mainland during this time and as a consequence scientists have been able to study the effect of nuclear fallout on the environment. Detonations conducted near the surface of the earth irradiated thousands of tons of soil. Of the material drawn into the atmosphere, portions of radioactive material will be carried by low altitude winds and deposited in surrounding areas as radioactive dust. The material intercepted by high altitude winds will continue to travel. When a radiation cloud at high altitude is exposed to rainfall, the radioactive fallout will contaminate the downwind area below.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: Agricultural fields and plants will absorb the contaminated material and animals will consume the radioactive material. As a result, the nuclear fallout may cause livestock to become ill or die, and if consumed the radioactive material will be passed on to humans.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: The damage to other living organism as a result to nuclear fallout depends on the species. Mammals particularly are extremely sensitive to nuclear radiation, followed by birds, plants, fish, reptiles, crustaceans, insects, moss, lichen, algae, bacteria, mollusks, and viruses.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: Climatologist Alan Robock and atmospheric and oceanic sciences professor Brian Toon created a model of a hypothetical small-scale nuclear war that would have approximately 100 weapons used. In this scenario, the fires would create enough soot into the atmosphere to block sunlight, lowering global temperatures by more than one degree Celsius. The result would have the potential of creating widespread food insecurity (nuclear famine). Precipitation across the globe would be disrupted as a result. If enough soot was introduced in the upper atmosphere the planet's ozone layer could potentially be depleted, affecting plant growth and human health.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: Radiation from the fallout would linger in soil, plants, and food chains for years. Marine food chains are more vulnerable to the nuclear fallout and the effects of soot in the atmosphere.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: Fallout radionuclides' detriment in the human food chain is apparent in the lichen-caribou-eskimo studies in Alaska. The primary effect on humans observed was thyroid dysfunction. The result of a nuclear fallout is incredibly detrimental to human survival and the biosphere. Fallout alters the quality of our atmosphere, soil, and water and causes species to go extinct.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: During the Cold War, the governments of the U.S., the USSR, Great Britain, and China attempted to educate their citizens about surviving a nuclear attack by providing procedures on minimizing short-term exposure to fallout. This effort commonly became known as Civil Defense.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: Fallout protection is almost exclusively concerned with protection from radiation. Radiation from a fallout is encountered in the forms of alpha, beta, and gamma radiation, and as ordinary clothing affords protection from alpha and beta radiation, most fallout protection measures deal with reducing exposure to gamma radiation. For the purposes of radiation shielding, many materials have a characteristic "halving thickness": the thickness of a layer of a material sufficient to reduce gamma radiation exposure by 50%. Halving thicknesses of common materials include: 1 cm (0.4 inch) of lead, 6 cm (2.4 inches) of concrete, 9 cm (3.6 inches) of packed earth or 150 m (500 ft) of air. When multiple thicknesses are built, the shielding multiplies. A practical fallout shield is ten halving-thicknesses of a given material, such as 90 cm (36 inches) of packed earth, which reduces gamma ray exposure by approximately 1024 times (2). A shelter built with these materials for the purposes of fallout protection is known as a fallout shelter.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: As the nuclear energy sector continues to grow, the international rhetoric surrounding nuclear warfare intensifies, and the ever-present threat of radioactive materials falling into the hands of dangerous people persists, many scientists are working hard to find the best way to protect human organs from the harmful effects of high energy radiation. Acute Radiation Syndrome (ARS) is the most immediate risk to humans when exposed to ionizing radiation in dosages greater than around 0.1 Gy/hr. Radiation in the low energy spectrum (alpha and beta radiation) with minimal penetrating power is unlikely to cause significant damage to internal organs. The high penetrating power of gamma and neutron radiation, however, easily penetrates the skin and many thin shielding mechanisms to cause cellular degeneration in the stem cells found in bone marrow. While full body shielding in a secure fallout shelter as described above is the most optimal form of radiation protection, it requires being locked in a very thick bunker for a significant amount of time. In the event of a nuclear catastrophe of any kind, it is imperative to have mobile protection equipment for medical and security personnel to perform necessary containment, evacuation, and any number of other important public safety objectives. The mass of the shielding material required to properly protect the entire body from high energy radiation would make functional movement essentially impossible. This has led scientists to begin researching the idea of partial body protection: a strategy inspired by hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). The idea is to use enough shielding material to sufficiently protect the high concentration of bone marrow in the pelvic region, which contains enough regenerative stem cells to repopulate the body with unaffected bone marrow. More information on bone marrow shielding can be found in the Health Physics Radiation Safety Journal article Selective Shielding of Bone Marrow: An Approach to Protecting Humans from External Gamma Radiation, or in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA)'s 2015 report: Occupational Radiation Protection in Severe Accident Management.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: The danger of radiation from fallout also decreases rapidly with time due in large part to the exponential decay of the individual radionuclides. A book by Cresson H. Kearny presents data showing that for the first few days after the explosion, the radiation dose rate is reduced by a factor of ten for every seven-fold increase in the number of hours since the explosion. He presents data showing that "it takes about seven times as long for the dose rate to decay from 1000 roentgens per hour (1000 R/hr) to 10 R/hr (48 hours) as to decay from 1000 R/hr to 100 R/hr (7 hours)." This is a rule of thumb based on observed data, not a precise relation.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: The United States government, often the Office of Civil Defense in the Department of Defense, provided guides to fallout protection in the 1960s, frequently in the form of booklets. These booklets provided information on how to best survive nuclear fallout. They also included instructions for various fallout shelters, whether for a family, a hospital, or a school shelter were provided. There were also instructions for how to create an improvised fallout shelter, and what to do to best increase a person's chances for survival if they were unprepared.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: The central idea in these guides is that materials like concrete, dirt, and sand are necessary to shield a person from fallout particles and radiation. A significant amount of materials of this type are necessary to protect a person from fallout radiation, so safety clothing cannot protect a person from fallout radiation. However, protective clothing can keep fallout particles off a person's body, but the radiation from these particles will still permeate through the clothing. For safety clothing to be able to block the fallout radiation, it would have to be so thick and heavy that a person could not function.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: These guides indicated that fallout shelters should contain enough resources to keep its occupants alive for up to two weeks. Community shelters were preferred over single-family shelters. The more people in a shelter, the greater quantity and variety of resources that shelter would be equipped with. These communities’ shelters would also help facilitate efforts to recuperate the community in the future. Single family shelters should be built below ground if possible. Many different types of fallout shelters could be made for a relatively small amount of money. A common format for fallout shelters was to build the shelter underground, with solid concrete blocks to act as the roof. If a shelter could only be partially underground, it was recommended to mound over that shelter with as much dirt as possible. If a house had a basement, it is best for a fallout shelter to be constructed in a corner of the basement. The center of a basement is where the most radiation will be because the easiest way for radiation to enter a basement is from the floor above. The two of the walls of the shelter in a basement corner will be the basement walls that are surrounded by dirt outside. Cinder blocks filled with sand or dirt were highly recommended for the other two walls. Concrete blocks, or some other dense material, should be used as a roof for a basement fallout shelter because the floor of a house is not an adequate roof for a fallout shelter. These shelters should contain water, food, tools, and a method for dealing with human waste.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: If a person did not have a shelter previously built, these guides recommended trying to get underground. If a person had a basement but no shelter, they should put food, water, and a waste container in the corner of the basement. Then items such as furniture should be piled up to create walls around the person in the corner. If the underground cannot be reached, a tall apartment building at least ten miles from the blast was recommended as a good fallout shelter. People in these buildings should get as close to the center of the building as possible and avoid the top and ground floors.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: Schools were preferred fallout shelters according to the Office of Civil Defense. Schools, not including universities, contained one-quarter of the population of the United States when they were in session at that time. Schools distribution across the nation reflected the density of the population and were often a best building in a community to act as a fallout shelter. Schools also already had organization with leaders set in place. The Office of Civil Defense recommended altering current schools and the construction of future schools to include thicker walls and roofs, better protected electrical systems, a purifying ventilation system, and a protected water pump. The Office of Civil Defense determined 10 square feet of net area per person were necessary in schools that were to function as a fallout shelter. A normal classroom could provide 180 people with area to sleep. If an attack were to happen, all the unnecessary furniture was to be moved out of the classrooms to make more room for people. It was recommended to keep one or two tables in the room if possible to use as a food-serving station.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: The Office of Civil Defense conducted four case studies to find the cost of turning four standing schools into fallout shelters and what their capacity would be. The cost of the schools per occupant in the 1960s were $66.00, $127.00, $50.00, and $180.00. The capacity of people these schools could house as shelters were 735, 511, 484, and 460 respectively.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: The US Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency in coordination with other agencies concerned with public protection in the aftermath of a nuclear detonation have developed more recent guidance documents that build on the older Civil Defense frameworks. Planning Guidance for Response to a Nuclear Detonation was published in 2022 and provided in-depth analysis and response planning for local government jurisdictions.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: Fallout can also refer to nuclear accidents, although a nuclear reactor does not explode like a nuclear weapon. The isotopic signature of bomb fallout is very different from the fallout from a serious power reactor accident (such as Chernobyl or Fukushima).


title: Nuclear fallout

text: The boiling point of an element (or its compounds) is able to control the percentage of that element a power reactor accident releases. The ability of an element to form a solid controls the rate it is deposited on the ground after having been injected into the atmosphere by a nuclear detonation or accident.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: A half life is the time it takes half of the radiation of a specific substance to decay. A large amount of short-lived isotopes such as Zr are present in bomb fallout. This isotope and other short-lived isotopes are constantly generated in a power reactor, but because the criticality occurs over a long length of time, the majority of these short lived isotopes decay before they can be released.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: Nuclear fallout can occur due to a number of different sources. One of the most common potential sources of nuclear fallout is that of nuclear reactors. Because of this, steps must be taken to ensure the risk of nuclear fallout at nuclear reactors is controlled.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: In the 1950s and 60's, the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) began developing safety regulations against nuclear fallout for civilian nuclear reactors. Because the effects of nuclear fallout are more widespread and longer lasting than other forms of energy production accidents, the AEC desired a more proactive response towards potential accidents than ever before. One step to prevent nuclear reactor accidents was the Price-Anderson Act. Passed by Congress in 1957, the Price-Anderson Act ensured government assistance above the $60 million covered by private insurance companies in the case of a nuclear reactor accident. The main goal of the Price-Anderson Act was to protect the multi-billion-dollar companies overseeing the production of nuclear reactors. Without this protection, the nuclear reactor industry could potentially come to a halt, and the protective measures against nuclear fallout would be reduced. However, because of the limited experience in nuclear reactor technology, engineers had a difficult time calculating the potential risk of released radiation. Engineers were forced to imagine every unlikely accident, and the potential fallout associated with each accident. The AEC's regulations against potential nuclear reactor fallout were centered on the ability of the power plant to the Maximum Credible Accident, or MCA. The MCA involved a "large release of radioactive isotopes after a substantial meltdown of the reactor fuel when the reactor coolant system failed through a Loss-of-Coolant Accident". The prevention of the MCA enabled a number of new nuclear fallout preventive measures. Static safety systems, or systems without power sources or user input, were enabled to prevent potential human error. Containment buildings, for example, were reliably effective at containing a release of radiation and did not need to be powered or turned on to operate. Active protective systems, although far less dependable, can do many things that static systems cannot. For example, a system to replace the escaping steam of a cooling system with cooling water could prevent reactor fuel from melting. However, this system would need a sensor to detect the presence of releasing steam. Sensors can fail, and the results of a lack of preventive measures would result in a local nuclear fallout. The AEC had to choose, then, between active and static systems to protect the public from nuclear fallout. With a lack of set standards and probabilistic calculations, the AEC and the industry became divided on the best safety precautions to use.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: This division gave rise to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or NRC. The NRC was committed to 'regulations through research', which gave the regulatory committee a knowledge bank of research on which to draw their regulations. Much of the research done by the NRC sought to move safety systems from a deterministic viewpoint into a new probabilistic approach. The deterministic approach sought to foresee all problems before they arose. The probabilistic approach uses a more mathematical approach to weigh the risks of potential radiation leaks. Much of the probabilistic safety approach can be drawn from the radiative transfer theory in Physics, which describes how radiation travels in free space and through barriers. Today, the NRC is still the leading regulatory committee on nuclear reactor power plants.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: The International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES) is the primary form of categorizing the potential health and environmental effects of a nuclear or radiological event and communicating it to the public. The scale, which was developed in 1990 by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Energy Agency of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, classifies these nuclear accidents based on the potential impact of the fallout:


title: Nuclear fallout

text: The INES scale is composed of seven steps that categorize the nuclear events, ranging from anomalies that must be recorded to improve upon safety measures to serious accidents that require immediate action.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: The 1986 nuclear reactor explosion at Chernobyl was categorized as a Level 7 accident, which is the highest possible ranking on the INES scale, due to widespread environmental and health effects and “external release of a significant fraction of reactor core inventory”. The nuclear accident still stands as the only accident in commercial nuclear power that led to radiation-related deaths. The steam explosion and fires released approximately 5200 PBq, or at least 5 percent of the reactor core, into the atmosphere. The explosion itself resulted in the deaths of two plant workers, while 28 people died over the weeks that followed of severe radiation poisoning. Furthermore, young children and adolescents in the areas most contaminated by the radiation exposure showed an increase in the risk for thyroid cancer, although the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation stated that "there is no evidence of a major public health impact" apart from that. The nuclear accident also took a heavy toll on the environment, including contamination in urban environments caused by the deposition of radionuclides and the contamination of “different crop types, in particular, green leafy vegetables … depending on the deposition levels, and time of the growing season”.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: The nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979 was categorized as a Level 5 accident on the INES scale because of the “severe damage to the reactor core” and the radiation leak caused by the incident. Three Mile Island was the most serious accident in the history of American commercial nuclear power plants, yet the effects were different from those of the Chernobyl accident. A study done by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission following the incident reveals that the nearly 2 million people surrounding the Three Mile Island plant “are estimated to have received an average radiation dose of only 1 millirem above the usual background dose”. Furthermore, unlike those affected by radiation in the Chernobyl accident, the development of thyroid cancer in the people around Three Mile Island was “less aggressive and less advanced”.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: Like the Three Mile Island incident, the incident at Fukushima was initially categorized as a Level 5 accident on the INES scale after a tsunami disabled the power supply and cooling of three reactors, which then suffered significant melting in the days that followed. However, after combining the events at the three reactors rather than assessing them individually, the accident was upgraded to an INES Level 7. The radiation exposure from the incident caused a recommended evacuation for inhabitants up to 30 km away from the plant. However, it was also hard to track such exposure because 23 out of the 24 radioactive monitoring stations were also disabled by the tsunami. Removing contaminated water, both in the plant itself and run-off water that spread into the sea and nearby areas, became a huge challenge for the Japanese government and plant workers. During the containment period following the accident, thousands of cubic meters of slightly contaminated water were released in the sea to free up storage for more contaminated water in the reactor and turbine buildings. However, the fallout from the Fukushima accident had a minimal impact on the surrounding population. According to the Institut de Radioprotection et de Surêté Nucléaire, over 62 percent of assessed residents within the Fukushima prefecture received external doses of less than 1 mSv in the four months following the accident. In addition, comparing screening campaigns for children inside the Fukushima prefecture and in the rest of the country revealed no significant difference in the risk of thyroid cancer.


title: Nuclear fallout

text: Founded in 1974, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was created to set forth international standards for nuclear reactor safety. However, without a proper policing force, the guidelines set forth by the IAEA were often treated lightly or ignored completely. In 1986, the disaster at Chernobyl was evidence that international nuclear reactor safety was not to be taken lightly. Even in the midst of the Cold War, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission sought to improve the safety of Soviet nuclear reactors. As noted by IAEA Director General Hans Blix, "A radiation cloud doesn't know international boundaries." The NRC showed the Soviets the safety guidelines used in the US: capable regulation, safety-minded operations, and effective plant designs. The soviets, however, had their own priority: keeping the plant running at all costs. In the end, the same shift between deterministic safety designs to probabilistic safety designs prevailed. In 1989, the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO) was formed to cooperate with the IAEA to ensure the same three pillars of reactor safety across international borders. In 1991, WANO concluded (using a probabilistic safety approach) that all former communist-controlled nuclear reactors could not be trusted, and should be closed. Compared to a "Nuclear Marshall Plan", efforts were taken throughout the 1990s and 2000s to ensure international standards of safety for all nuclear reactors.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: In economics and industrial design, planned obsolescence (also called built-in obsolescence or premature obsolescence) is a policy of planning or designing a product with an artificially limited useful life or a purposely frail design, so that it becomes obsolete after a certain pre-determined period of time upon which it decrementally functions or suddenly ceases to function, or might be perceived as unfashionable. The rationale behind this strategy is to generate long-term sales volume by reducing the time between repeat purchases (referred to as "shortening the replacement cycle"). It is the deliberate shortening of a lifespan of a product to force people to purchase functional replacements.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: Planned obsolescence tends to work best when a producer has at least an oligopoly. Before introducing a planned obsolescence, the producer has to know that the customer is at least somewhat likely to buy a replacement from them (see brand loyalty). In these cases of planned obsolescence, there is an information asymmetry between the producer, who knows how long the product was designed to last, and the customer, who does not. When a market becomes more competitive, product lifespans tend to increase. For example, when Japanese vehicles with longer lifespans entered the American market in the 1960s and 1970s, American carmakers were forced to respond by building more durable products.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: In 1924, the American automobile market began reaching saturation point. To maintain unit sales, General Motors executive Alfred P. Sloan Jr. suggested annual model-year design changes to convince car owners to buy new replacements each year, with refreshed appearances headed by Harley Earl and the Art and Color Section. Although his concept was borrowed from the bicycle industry, its origin was often misattributed to Sloan. Sloan often used the term "dynamic obsolescence", but critics coined the name of his strategy "planned obsolescence".


title: Planned obsolescence

text: This strategy had far-reaching effects on the automobile industry, product design field and eventually the whole American economy. The smaller players could not maintain the pace and expense of yearly re-styling. Henry Ford did not like the constant stream of model-year changes because he clung to an engineer's notions of simplicity, economies of scale, and design integrity. GM surpassed Ford's sales in 1931 and became the dominant company in the industry thereafter. The frequent design changes also made it necessary to use a body-on-frame structure rather than the lighter, but less easy to modify, unibody design used by most European automakers.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: The origin of the phrase "planned obsolescence" goes back at least as far as 1932 with Bernard London's pamphlet "Ending the Depression Through Planned Obsolescence". The essence of London's plan would have the government impose a legal obsolescence on personal-use items, to stimulate and perpetuate purchasing. However, the phrase was first popularized in 1954 by Brooks Stevens, an American industrial designer. Stevens was due to give a talk at an advertising conference in Minneapolis in 1954. Without giving it much thought, he used the term as the title of his talk. From that point on, "planned obsolescence" became Stevens' catchphrase. By his definition, planned obsolescence was "Instilling in the buyer the desire to own something a little newer, a little better, a little sooner than is necessary."


title: Planned obsolescence

text: The phrase was quickly taken up by others, but Stevens' definition was challenged. By the late 1950s, "planned obsolescence" had become a commonly used term for products designed to break easily or to quickly go out of style. In fact, the concept was so widely recognized that in 1959 Volkswagen mocked it in an advertising campaign. While acknowledging the widespread use of planned obsolescence among automobile manufacturers, Volkswagen pitched itself as an alternative. "We do not believe in planned obsolescence", the ads suggested. "We don't change a car for the sake of change." In the famous Volkswagen advertising campaign by Doyle Dane Bernbach, one advert showed an almost blank page with the strapline "No point in showing the 1962 Volkswagen, it still looks the same".


title: Planned obsolescence

text: In 1960, cultural critic Vance Packard published "The Waste Makers", promoted as an exposé of "the systematic attempt of business to make us wasteful, debt-ridden, permanently discontented individuals". Packard divided planned obsolescence into two sub categories: obsolescence of desirability and obsolescence of function.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: "Obsolescence of desirability", also known as "psychological obsolescence", referred to marketers' attempts to wear out a product in the owner's mind. Packard quoted industrial designer George Nelson, who wrote:


title: Planned obsolescence

text: Design ... is an attempt to make a contribution through change. When no contribution is made or can be made, the only process available for giving the illusion of change is "styling"!


title: Planned obsolescence

text: Contrived durability is a strategy of shortening the product lifetime before it is released onto the market, by designing it to deteriorate quickly. The design of all personal-use products includes an expected average lifetime permeating all stages of development. Thus, it must be decided early in the design of a complex product how long it should last so that each component can be made to those specifications. Since all matter is subject to entropy, it is impossible for anything to last forever: all products will ultimately break down, no matter what steps are taken. Limited lifespan is only a sign of planned obsolescence if the limit is made artificially short.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: The strategy of contrived durability is generally not prohibited by law, and manufacturers are free to set the durability level of their products. While often considered planned obsolescence, it is often argued as its own field of anti-customer practices.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: A possible method of limiting a product's durability is to use inferior materials in critical areas, or suboptimal component layouts which cause excessive wear. Using soft metal in screws and cheap plastic instead of metal in stress-bearing components will increase the speed at which a product will become inoperable through normal usage and make it prone to breakage from even minor forms of abnormal usage. For example, small, brittle plastic gears in toys are extremely prone to damage if the toy is played with roughly, which can easily destroy key functions of the toy and force the purchase of a replacement. The short life expectancy of smartphones and other handheld electronics is a result of constant usage, fragile batteries, and the ability to easily damage them.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: The ultimate examples of such design are single-use versions of traditionally durable goods, such as disposable cameras, where the customer must purchase entire new products after using them just once. Such products are often designed to be impossible to service; for example, a cheap throwaway digital watch may have a case which is sealed in the factory, with no designed ability for the user to access the interior without destroying the watch entirely. Manufacturers may make replacement parts either unavailable or so expensive that they make the product uneconomic to repair. For example, Canon and some HP inkjet printers incorporate a replaceable print head which eventually fails. However, the high cost of a replacement forces the owner to scrap the entire device.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: Other products may also contain design features meant to frustrate repairs, such as Apple's "tamper-resistant" pentalobe screws that cannot easily be removed with common personal-use tools, overuse of glue, as well as denying operation if any third-party component such as a replacement home button has been detected.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: Front loading washing machines often have the drum bearinga critical and wear-prone mechanical component permanently molded into the wash tub, or even have a sealed outer tub, making it impossible to renew the bearings without replacing the entire tub. The cost of this repair may exceed the residual value of the appliance, forcing it to be scrapped.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: Bosch, despite the up to 10-year availability of spare parts declared on websites, assembles in the popular MaxoMixx mixers an easily breaking plastic latch, refusing to sell the replacement latch to the user and proposing to replace the entire drive consisting of many elements as a single spare part, which is almost equivalent to buying a new device.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: According to Kyle Wiens, co-founder of online repair community iFixit, a possible goal for such a design is to make the cost of repairs comparable to the replacement cost, or to prevent any form of servicing of the product at all. In 2012, Toshiba was criticized for issuing cease-and-desist letters to the owner of a website that hosted its copyrighted repair manuals, to the detriment of the independent and home repair market.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: Throughout normal use, batteries lose their ability to store energy, output power, and maintain a stable terminal voltage, which impairs computing speeds and eventually leads to system outages in portable electronics.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: Some portable products highly relied upon in the post-PC era, such as mobile phones, laptops, as well as electric toothbrushes, are designed in a way that denies end-users the ability to replace their batteries after those have worn down, therefore leaving an aging battery trapped inside the device, which limits the product lifespan to its shortest-lived component.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: While such a design can help make the device thinner, it makes it difficult to replace the battery without sending the entire device away for repairs or purchasing an entirely new device. On a device with a sealed back cover, a manual (forced) battery replacement might induce permanent damage, including loss of water-resistance due to damages on the water-protecting seal, as well as risking serious, even irreparable damage to the phone's main board as a result of having to pry the battery free from strong adhesive in proximity to delicate components. Some devices are even built so that the battery terminals are covered by the main board, requiring it to be riskily removed entirely before disconnecting the terminals. The manufacturer or a repair service might be able to replace the battery. In the latter case, this could void the warranty on the device.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: As such, it forces users who wish to keep their device functional longer to limit their use of energy-demanding device functionality and to forego full recharging.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: The practice in phone design started with Apple's iPhones and has now spread out to most other mobile phones with, as of 2022, the exception of Fairphone and Shiftphone offerings. Earlier mobile phones (including water-resistant ones) had back covers that could be opened by the user in order to replace the battery. On 2022-12-09, the EU Parliament reached an agreement to force, from 2026, manufacturers to design all electrical appliances sold in the EU (and not used predominantly in wet conditions) so that consumers can easily remove and replace batteries themselves.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: Obsolescence of desirability or stylistic obsolescence occurs when designers change the styling of products so trendsetting customers will purchase the latest styles.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: Many products are primarily desirable for aesthetic rather than functional reasons. An example of such a product is clothing. Such products experience a cycle of desirability referred to as a "fashion cycle". By continually introducing new aesthetics, and retargeting or discontinuing older designs, a manufacturer can "ride the fashion cycle", allowing for constant sales despite the original products remaining fully functional. Sneakers are a popular fashion industry where this is prevalent—Nike's Air Max line of running shoes is a prime example where a single model of shoe is often produced for years, but the color and material combination ("colorway") is changed every few months, or different colorways are offered in different markets. This has the upshot of ensuring constant demand for the product, even though it remains fundamentally the same.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: Motor vehicle platforms typically undergo a midlife "facelift"—a cosmetic rather than an engineering change for the purpose of cost effectively increasing customer appeal by making previously manufactured versions of the same fundamental product less desirable. The most simplistic way to achieve this outcome is to offer new paint colors.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: To a more limited extent this is also true of some personal-use electronic products, where manufacturers will release slightly updated products at regular intervals and emphasize their value as status symbols. The most notable example among technology products are Apple products. New colorways introduced with iterative “S” generation iPhones (e.g. the iPhone 6S's "Rose Gold") entice people into upgrading and distinguishes an otherwise identical-looking iPhone from the previous year's model.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: Some smartphone manufacturers release a marginally updated model every 5 or 6 months compared to the typical yearly cycle, leading to the perception that a one-year-old handset can be up to two generations old. A notable example is OnePlus, known for releasing T-series devices with upgraded specifications roughly 6 months after a major release device. Sony Mobile utilised a similar tactic with its Xperia Z-series smartphones.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: Planned systemic obsolescence is caused either by the withdrawal of investment, or a product becoming obsolete through continuous development of the system in which it is used in such a way as to make continued use of the original product difficult. Common examples of planned systemic obsolescence include changing the design of screws or fasteners so that they cannot easily be operated on with existing tools, thereby frustrating maintenance. This may be intentionally designed obsolescence, a withdrawal of investment or standards being updated or superseded. For example, serial ports, parallel ports, and PS/2 ports have largely been supplanted or usurped by USB on newer PC motherboards since 2000s.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: In some cases, notification may be combined with deliberate artificial disabling of a functional product to prevent it from working, thus requiring the buyer to purchase a replacement. For example, inkjet printer manufacturers employ smart chips in their ink cartridges to prevent them from being used after a certain threshold (number of pages, time, etc.), even though the cartridge may still contain usable ink or could be refilled (with ink toners, up to 50 percent of the toner cartridge is often still full). This constitutes "programmed obsolescence", in that there is no random component contributing to the decline in function.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: In the Jackie Blennis v. HP class action suit, it was claimed that Hewlett Packard designed certain inkjet printers and cartridges to shut down on an undisclosed expiration date, and at this point customers were prevented from using the ink that remained in the expired cartridge. HP denied these claims, but agreed to discontinue the use of certain messages, and to make certain changes to the disclosures on its website and packaging, as well as compensating affected customers with a total credit of up to $5,000,000 for future purchases from HP.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: Samsung produces laser printers that are designed to stop working with a message about imaging drum replacing. There are some workarounds for users, for instance, that will more than double the life of the printer that has stopped with a message to replace the imaging drum.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: In 2021, Canon disabled the scanning function of its Canon Pixma MG6320 all-in-one printers whenever an ink cartridge was out of ink. A class action lawsuit was filed.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: Another example of programmed obsolescence is making older versions of software (e.g. Adobe Flash Player or YouTube's Android application) unserviceable deliberately, even though they would technically, albeit not economically, be able to keep working as intended.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: Where older versions of software contain unpatched security vulnerabilities, such as banking and payment apps, deliberate lock out may be a risk-based response to prevent the proliferation of malware in those older versions. If the original vendor of the software is no longer in business, then disabling may occur by another software author as in the case of a web browser disabling a plugin. Otherwise, the vendor who owns a software ecosystem may disable an app that does not comply with a key policy or regulation, such as the processing of personal data to protect user privacy, though in other cases, this does not exclude the possibility of "security reasons" being used for fearmongering.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: This could be a problem for the user, because some devices, despite being equipped with appropriate hardware, might not be able to support the newest update without modifications such as custom firmware.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: Additionally, updates to newer versions might have introduced undesirable side effects, such as removed features or compulsory changes, or backwards compatibility shortcomings which might be unsolicited and undesired by users.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: Software companies sometimes deliberately drop support for older technologies as a calculated attempt to force users to purchase new products to replace those made obsolete. Most proprietary software will ultimately reach an end-of-life point at which the supplier will cease updates and support, usually because the cost of code maintenance, testing and support exceed the revenue generated from the old version. As free software and open source software can usually be updated and maintained at lower cost, the end of life date can be later. Software that is abandoned by the manufacturer with regard to manufacturer support is sometimes called "abandonware".


title: Planned obsolescence

text: "Legal obsolescence" refers to the undermining of product usability through legislation, as well as facilitate purchasing a new product by offering benefits.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: For example, governments wanting to increase electric vehicle ownership could increase the replacement rate of cars by subsidising them.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: Several cities such as London, Berlin, Paris, Antwerp and Brussels have introduced low-emission zones (LEZ) banning older diesel cars. People using such cars in these zones must replace them.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: In 2015 the French National Assembly established a fine of up to €300,000 and jail terms of up to two years for manufacturers planning the failure of their products. The rule is relevant not only because of the sanctions that it establishes but also because it is the first time that a legislature recognized the existence of planned obsolescence. These techniques may include "a deliberate introduction of a flaw, a weakness, a scheduled stop, a technical limitation, incompatibility or other obstacles for repair".


title: Planned obsolescence

text: The European Union is also addressing the practice. The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), an advisory body of the EU, announced in 2013 that it was studying "a total ban on planned obsolescence". It said replacing products that are designed to stop working within two or three years of their purchase was a waste of energy and resources and generated pollution. The EESC organised a round table in Madrid in 2014 on 'Best practices in the domain of built-in obsolescence and collaborative consumption' which called for sustainable consumption to be a customer right in EU legislation. Carlos Trias Pinto, president of the EESC's Consultative Commission on Industrial Change supports "the introduction of a labeling system which indicates the durability of a device, so the purchaser can choose whether they prefer to buy a cheap product or a more expensive, more durable product".


title: Planned obsolescence

text: In 2015, as part of a larger movement against planned obsolescence across the European Union, France passed legislation requiring that appliance manufacturers and vendors declare the intended product lifespans, and to inform purchasers how long spare parts for a given product will be produced. From 2016, appliance manufacturers are required to repair or replace, free of charge, any defective product within two years from its original purchase date. This effectively creates a mandatory two-year warranty.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: Shortening the replacement cycle has critics and supporters. Philip Kotler argues that: "Much so-called planned obsolescence is the working of the competitive and technological forces in a free society—forces that lead to ever-improving goods and services."


title: Planned obsolescence

text: Critics such as Vance Packard claim the process is wasteful and exploits customers. With psychological obsolescence, resources are used up making changes, often cosmetic changes, that are not of great value to the customer. Miles Park advocates new and collaborative approaches between the designer and the purchaser to challenge obsolescence in fast-moving sectors such as personal-use electronics. Some people, such as Ronny Balcaen, have proposed to create a new label to counter the diminishing quality of products due to the planned obsolescence technique.


title: Planned obsolescence

text: Russell Jacoby, writing in the 1970s, observes that intellectual production has succumbed to the same pattern of planned obsolescence used by manufacturing enterprises to generate ever-renewed demand for their products.


title: Jon Tenney

text: Jonathan Frederick Tenney (born December 16, 1961) is an American actor. He played Special Agent Fritz Howard in TNT's "The Closer" and continued in its spinoff "Major Crimes".


title: Jon Tenney

text: Tenney was born in Princeton, New Jersey. His mother, Dr. Lillian Sandra Baum, was a psychiatrist, and his father, Frederick Haworth Tenney, was a research physicist. His maternal grandparents were Polish Jewish immigrants, while his paternal forebears were of English ancestry. He received his B.A. degree from Vassar College in 1984, where he majored in drama and philosophy. He later attended The Juilliard School's Drama Division as a member of "Group 19" (1986–1990).


title: Jon Tenney

text: Tenney made his acting debut in a touring production of Mike Nichols' "The Real Thing". He worked steadily on and off-Broadway, and in regional theater. At New York City, his stage credits include "Biloxi Blues", "The Substance of Fire" and "The Heiress". He began working on television, starring in a number of short-lived series, including Steven Bochco's "Brooklyn South", Kristin Chenoweth's sitcom "Kristin", and guest appearances on "Cybill", "Will & Grace", "Murphy Brown", "" and "Get Real". Series with Tenney as a regular were canceled on all four major networks.


title: Jon Tenney

text: From 2005 to 2012, Tenney played Special Agent Fritz Howard, the husband of Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson (Kyra Sedgwick) in TNT's "The Closer". For the 4th season of Lifetime's "The Division" in 2004, he played Hank Riley. When "The Closer" ended he continued to act in its spin-off, "Major Crimes," from 2012 to 2018, with Howard becoming an LAPD deputy chief in the third season. Later, he portrayed Dr. Simon Craig, a love interest of Nora Walker (Sally Field) in "Brothers & Sisters". In 2013, he starred with Rebecca Romijn in TNT's "King & Maxwell", as Sean King, a former Secret Service agent and lawyer who works as a private investigator. The series was canceled after one season. In 2014, he was cast in a recurring role on Shonda Rhimes' drama series "Scandal".


title: Jon Tenney

text: Tenney appeared in several films, including the villainous CEO of Benbrook Oil Company in "" and the friend of Alex Whitman (Matthew Perry) in "Fools Rush In". He also starred in small roles for some films, including "Tombstone", "Beverly Hills Cop III", "Nixon", "Music from Another Room" and the 2009 horror film remake of "The Stepfather". He also appeared in John Cameron Mitchell's film, "Rabbit Hole". He portrayed Martin Jordan in the 2011 superhero film "Green Lantern".


title: Jon Tenney

text: From 1994 to 2003, Tenney was married to Teri Hatcher, with whom he has a daughter, Emerson Rose Tenney. He married producer Leslie Urdang on June 16, 2012.


title: Pather Panchali

text: Pather Panchali (; ) is a 1955 Indian Bengali-language drama film written and directed by Satyajit Ray and produced by the Government of West Bengal. It is an adaptation of Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay's 1929 Bengali novel of the same name, and marked Ray's directorial debut. Featuring Subir Banerjee, Kanu Banerjee, Karuna Banerjee, Uma Dasgupta, Pinaki Sengupta, Chunibala Devi and being the first film in "The Apu Trilogy", "Pather Panchali" depicts the childhood travails of the protagonist Apu and his elder sister Durga amidst the harsh village life of their poor family.


title: Pather Panchali

text: Production was interrupted because of funding problems and it took nearly three years for the film to be completed. The film was shot mainly on location, had a limited budget, featured mostly amateur actors, and was made by an inexperienced crew. The sitar player Ravi Shankar composed the film's soundtrack and score using classical Indian ragas. Subrata Mitra was in charge of the cinematography while editing was handled by Dulal Dutta. Following its premiere on 3 May 1955 during an exhibition at New York's Museum of Modern Art, "Pather Panchali" was released in Calcutta later the same year to an enthusiastic reception. It was a hit at the box-office, yet up until early 1980 had earned a profit of only ₹24 lakh. A special screening was attended by the Chief Minister of West Bengal and the Prime Minister of India. Critics have praised its realism, humanity, and soul-stirring qualities, while others have called its slow pace a drawback, and some have condemned it for romanticising poverty. Scholars have commented on the film's lyrical quality and realism (influenced by Italian neorealism), its portrayal of the poverty and small delights of daily life, and the use of what the author Darius Cooper has termed the "epiphany of wonder", among other themes.


title: Pather Panchali

text: The tale of Apu's life is continued in the two subsequent installments of Ray's trilogy: "Aparajito" ("The Unvanquished", 1956) and "Apur Sansar" ("The World of Apu", 1959). "Pather Panchali" is described as a turning point in Indian cinema, as it was among the films that pioneered the Parallel Cinema movement, which espoused authenticity and social realism. The first film from independent India to attract major international critical attention, it won India's National Film Award for Best Feature Film in 1955, the Best Human Document award at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival, and several other awards, establishing Ray as one of the country's most distinguished filmmakers. It is often featured in lists of the greatest films ever made.


title: Pather Panchali

text: In 1910s Nischindipur, rural Bengal, Harihar Roy earns a meagre living as a "pujari" (priest) but dreams of a better career as a poet and playwright. His wife Sarbajaya cares for their children, Durga and Apu, and Harihar's elderly cousin, Indir Thakrun. Because of their limited resources, Sarbajaya resents having to share her home with the old Indir, who often steals food from their already bare kitchen. At times, Sarbajaya's taunts become offensive, forcing Indir to take temporary refuge in the home of another relative. Durga is fond of Indir and often gives her fruit stolen from a wealthy neighbour's orchard. One day, the neighbour's wife accuses Durga of stealing a bead necklace (which Durga denies) and blames Sarbajaya for encouraging her tendency to steal.


title: Pather Panchali

text: As the elder sibling, Durga cares for Apu with motherly affection but spares no opportunity to tease him. Together, they share life's simple joys: sitting quietly under a tree, viewing pictures in a travelling vendor's bioscope, running after the candy man who passes through, and watching a "jatra" (folk theatre) performed by an acting troupe. Every evening, they are delighted by the sound of a distant train's whistle. One day, they run to catch a glimpse of the train, only to find Indir dead upon return.


title: Pather Panchali

text: Unable to earn a good living in the village, Harihar travels to the city to seek a better job. He promises that he will return with money to repair their dilapidated house. During his absence, the family sinks deeper into poverty, and Sarbajaya grows increasingly lonely and bitter. One day during the monsoon season, Durga plays in the downpour, catches a cold and develops a high fever. Adequate medical care being unavailable, the fever worsens, and on a night of incessant rain and gusty winds, she dies. Harihar returns home and starts to show Sarbajaya the merchandise he has brought from the city. A silent Sarbajaya breaks down at her husband's feet, and Harihar cries out in grief as he discovers that Durga has died. The family decide to leave their ancestral home for Benaras. As they pack, Apu finds the necklace Durga had earlier denied stealing; he throws it into a pond. Apu and his parents leave the village on an ox-cart.


title: Pather Panchali

text: Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay's novel "Pather Panchali" is a classic bildungsroman (a type of coming-of-age story) in the canon of Bengali literature. It first appeared as a serial in a Calcutta periodical in 1928, and was published as a book the next year. The novel depicts a poor family's struggle to survive in their rural ancestral home and the growing up of Apu, the son of the family. The later part of the novel, where Apu and his parents leave their village and settle in Benaras, formed the basis of "Aparajito" ("The Unvanquished", 1956), the second film of the Apu trilogy.


title: Pather Panchali

text: Satyajit Ray (2 May 1921 – 23 April 1992), working as a graphic designer for Signet Press, created the illustrations for an abridged edition of the book in 1944. At that time, Ray read the unabridged novel; Signet's owner D. K. Gupta told Ray that the abridged version would make a great film. The idea appealed to Ray, and around 1946–47, when he considered making a film, he turned to "Pather Panchali" because of certain qualities that "made it a great book: its humanism, its lyricism, and its ring of truth". The author's widow permitted Ray to make a film based on the novel; the agreement was in principle only, and no financial arrangement was made.


title: Pather Panchali

text: The Bengali word "path" literally means path, and "pather" means "of the path". "Panchali" is a type of narrative folk song that used to be performed in Bengal and was the forerunner of another type of folk performance, the "jatra". English translations of the Bengali title include "Song of the Little Road", "The Lament of the Path", "Song of the Road", and "Song of the Open Road".


title: Pather Panchali

text: "Pather Panchali" did not have a script; it was made from Ray's drawings and notes. Ray completed the first draft of the notes during his sea voyage to and from London in 1950. Before principal photography began, he created a storyboard dealing with details and continuity. Years later, he donated those drawings and notes to Cinémathèque Française.


title: Pather Panchali

text: In Apur Panchali (the Bengali translation of "", 1994), Ray wrote that he had omitted many of the novel's characters and that he had rearranged some of its sequences to make the narrative better as cinema. Changes include Indir's death, which occurs early in the novel at a village shrine in the presence of adults, while in the film Apu and Durga find her corpse in the open. The scene of Apu and Durga running to catch a glimpse of the train is not in the novel, in which neither child sees the train, although they try. Durga's fatal fever is attributed to a monsoon downpour in the film, but is unexplained in the novel. The ending of the film—the family's departure from the village—is not the end of the novel.


title: Pather Panchali

text: Ray tried to extract a simple theme from the random sequences of significant and trivial episodes of the "Pather Panchali" novel, while preserving what W. Andrew Robinson describes as the "loitering impression" it creates. According to Ray, "the script had to retain some of the rambling quality of the novel because that in itself contained a clue to the feel of authenticity: life in a poor Bengali village does ramble." For Robinson, Ray's adaptation focuses mainly on Apu and his family, while Bandopadhyay's original featured greater detail about village life in general.


title: Pather Panchali

text: Kanu Banerjee (who plays Harihar) was an established Bengali film actor. Karuna Banerjee (Sarbajaya) was an amateur actress from the Indian People's Theatre Association, and the wife of Ray's friend. Uma Dasgupta, who successfully auditioned for the part of Durga, also had prior theatre experience.


title: Pather Panchali

text: For the role of Apu, Ray advertised in newspapers for boys of ages five to seven. None of the candidates who auditioned fulfilled Ray's expectations, but his wife spotted a boy in their neighbourhood, and this boy, Subir Banerjee, was cast as Apu. (The surname of three of the main actors and two supporting actors happened to be Banerjee, but they were not related to each other). The hardest role to fill was the wizened old Indir. Ray eventually found Chunibala Devi, a retired stage actress living in one of Calcutta's red-light districts, as the ideal candidate. Several minor roles were played by the villagers of Boral, where "Pather Panchali" was filmed.


title: Pather Panchali

text: Shooting started on 27 October 1952. Boral, a village near Calcutta, was selected in early 1953 as the main location for principal photography, and night scenes were shot in-studio. The technical team included several first-timers, including Ray himself and cinematographer Subrata Mitra, who had never operated a film camera. Art director Bansi Chandragupta had professional experience, having worked with Jean Renoir on "The River" (1951). Both Mitra and Chandragupta went on to establish themselves as respected professionals.


title: Pather Panchali

text: Mitra had met Ray on the set of "The River", where Mitra was allowed to observe the production, take photographs and make notes about lighting for personal reference. Having become friends, Mitra kept Ray informed about the production and showed his photographs. Ray was impressed enough by them to promise him an assistant's position on "Pather Panchali", and when production neared, invited him to shoot the film. As the 21-year-old Mitra had no prior filmmaking experience, the choice was met with scepticism by those who knew of the production. Mitra himself later speculated that Ray was nervous about working with an established crew.


title: Pather Panchali

text: Funding was a problem from the outset. No producer was willing to finance the film, as it lacked stars, songs and action scenes. On learning of Ray's plan, one producer, Mr Bhattacharya of Kalpana Movies, contacted author Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay's widow to request the filming rights and get the film made by Debaki Bose, a well-established director. The widow declined as she had already permitted Ray to make the film. The estimated budget for the production was 70,000 (about US$14,613 in 1955). One producer, Rana Dutta, gave money to continue shooting, but had to stop after some of his films flopped.


title: Pather Panchali

text: Ray thus had to borrow money to shoot enough footage to persuade prospective producers to finance the whole film. To raise funds, he continued to work as a graphic designer, pawned his life insurance policy and sold his collection of gramophone records. Production manager Anil Chowdhury convinced Ray's wife, Bijoya, to pawn her jewels. Ray still ran out of money partway through filming, which had to be suspended for nearly a year. Thereafter shooting was done only in intermittent bursts. Ray later admitted that the delays had made him tense and that three miracles saved the film: "One, Apu's voice did not break. Two, Durga did not grow up. Three, Indir Thakrun did not die."


title: Pather Panchali

text: Bidhan Chandra Roy, the Chief Minister of West Bengal, was requested by an influential friend of Ray's mother to help the production. The Chief Minister obliged, and government officials saw the footage. The Home Publicity Department of the West Bengal government assessed the cost of backing the film and sanctioned a loan, given in installments, allowing Ray to finish production. The government misunderstood the nature of the film, believing it to be a documentary for rural uplift, and recorded the loan as being for "roads improvement", a reference to the film's title.


title: Pather Panchali

text: Monroe Wheeler, head of the department of exhibitions and publications at New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), who was in Calcutta in 1954, heard about the project and met Ray. He considered the incomplete footage to be of very high quality and encouraged Ray to finish the film so that it could be shown at a MoMA exhibition the following year. Six months later, American director John Huston visited India for some early location scouting for "The Man Who Would Be King" (eventually made in 1975). Wheeler had asked Huston to check the progress of Ray's project. Huston saw excerpts of the unfinished film and recognised "the work of a great film-maker". Because of Huston's positive feedback, MoMA helped Ray with additional money.


title: Pather Panchali

text: Including the delays and hiatuses in production, it took three years to complete the shooting of "Pather Panchali".


title: Pather Panchali

text: The realist narrative style of "Pather Panchali" was influenced by Italian neorealism and the works of French director Jean Renoir. In 1949 Renoir came to Calcutta to shoot his film "The River" (1951). Ray, a founding member of the Calcutta Film Society (established in 1947), helped him scout for locations in the countryside. When Ray told him about his longstanding wish to film "Pather Panchali", Renoir encouraged him to proceed. In 1950 Ray was sent to London by his employer, the advertising agency D.J. Keymer, to work at their headquarters. During his six months in London, he watched about 100 films. Among these, Vittorio De Sica's neorealist film "Bicycle Thieves" (1948) had a profound impact on him. In a 1982 lecture, Ray said that he had come out of the theatre determined to become a filmmaker. The film made him believe that it was possible to make realistic cinema that was shot on location with an amateur cast.


title: Pather Panchali

text: The international success of Akira Kurosawa's Japanese film "Rashomon" (1950) and Bimal Roy's 1953 Hindi film "Do Bigha Zamin" (which was shot partly on location and was about a peasant family) led Ray to believe that "Pather Panchali" would find an international audience. Ray also had more indigenous influences, such as Bengali literature and the native Indian theatrical tradition, particularly the "rasa" theory of classical Sanskrit drama. Darius Cooper describes the complicated doctrine of "rasa" as " predominantly on feelings experienced not only by the characters but also conveyed in a certain artistic way to the spectator".


title: Pather Panchali

text: The soundtrack of the film was composed by the sitar player Ravi Shankar, who was at an early stage of his career, having debuted in 1939. The background scores feature pieces based on several ragas of Indian classical music, played mostly on the sitar. The soundtrack, described in a 1995 issue of "The Village Voice" as "at once plaintive and exhilarating", is featured in "The Guardian"s 2007 list of 50 greatest film soundtracks. It has also been cited as an influence on The Beatles, specifically George Harrison.


title: Pather Panchali

text: Shankar saw about half the film in a roughly edited version before composing the background score, but he was already familiar with the story. According to Robinson, when Ray met Shankar the latter hummed a tune that was folk-based but had "a certain sophistication". This tune, usually played on a bamboo flute, became the main theme for the film. The majority of the score was composed within the duration of a single night, in a session that lasted for about eleven hours. Shankar also composed two solo sitar pieces—one based on the raga "Desh" (traditionally associated with rain), and one sombre piece based on the raga "Todi". He created a piece based on the raga "Patdeep", played on the tar shehnai, by Dakshina Mohan Tagore to accompany the scene in which Harihar learns of Durga's death. The film's cinematographer, Subrata Mitra, performed on the sitar for parts of the soundtrack.


title: Pather Panchali

text: Ray and his crew worked long hours on post-production, managing to submit it just in time for Museum of Modern Art's "Textiles and Ornamental Arts of India" exhibition of May 1955. The film, billed as "The Story of Apu and Durga", lacked subtitles. It was one of a series of six evening performances at MoMA, including the US debut of sarod player Ali Akbar Khan and the classical dancer Shanta Rao. "Pather Panchali"s MoMA opening on 3 May was well received. A film still of Apu having his hair brushed by his sister Durga and mother Sarbojaya was featured in "The Family of Man", a 1955 MoMA exhibition.


title: Pather Panchali

text: "Pather Panchali" had its domestic premiere at the annual meeting of the Advertising Club of Calcutta; the response there was not positive, and Ray felt "extremely discouraged". Before its theatrical release in Calcutta, Ray designed large posters, including a neon sign showing Apu and Durga running, which was strategically placed in a busy location in the city. "Pather Panchali" was released in Basusree, a Calcutta cinema on 26 August 1955 and received a poor initial response. The screenings started filling up within a week or two, buoyed by word of mouth. It opened again at another cinema, where it ran for seven weeks. A delay in subtitling led to the postponement of the UK release until December 1957. It went on to achieve great success in the US in 1958, running for eight months at the Fifth Avenue Playhouse in New York. It was a record run for the Fifth Avenue cinema. The Bengali government earned a profit of $50,000 from its initial US release, and decades later the film grossed $402,723 from its 2015 limited release. The film reportedly grossed an estimated total of () at the worldwide box office, .


title: Pather Panchali

text: In India the film's reception was enthusiastic. "The Times of India" wrote, "It is absurd to compare it with any other Indian cinema... "Pather Panchali" is pure cinema". Chief Minister Roy arranged a special screening in Calcutta for Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, who came out of the theatre impressed. Despite opposition from some within the governments of West Bengal and India because of its depiction of poverty, "Pather Panchali" was sent to the 1956 Cannes Film Festival with Nehru's personal approval. It was screened towards the end of the festival, coinciding with a party given by the Japanese delegation, and only a small number of critics attended. Although some were initially unenthusiastic at the prospect of yet another Indian melodrama, the film critic Arturo Lanocita found "the magic horse of poetry... invading the screen". "Pather Panchali" was subsequently named Best Human Document at the festival.


title: Pather Panchali

text: Lindsay Anderson commented after the Cannes screening that "Pather Panchali" had "the quality of ultimate unforgettable experience". In subsequent years, critics have given positive reviews. A 1958 review in "Time" described "Pather Panchali" as "perhaps the finest piece of filmed folklore since Robert Flaherty's "Nanook of the North"". In her 1982 book "5001 Nights at the Movies", Pauline Kael wrote, "Beautiful, sometimes funny, and full of love, it brought a new vision of India to the screen". Basil Wright considered it "a new and incontrovertible work of art". James Berardinelli wrote in 1996 that the film "touches the souls and minds of viewers, transcending cultural and linguistic barriers". In 2006 Philip French of "The Observer" called it "one of the greatest pictures ever made". Twenty years after the release of "Pather Panchali", Akira Kurosawa summarised the effect of the film as overwhelming and lauded its ability "to stir up deep passions".


title: Pather Panchali

text: The reaction was not uniformly positive. On seeing the film, François Truffaut is reported to have said, "I don't want to see a movie of peasants eating with their hands." Bosley Crowther, the most influential critic of "The New York Times", wrote in 1958, "Any picture as loose in structure or as listless in tempo as this one is would barely pass as a 'rough cut' with the editors in Hollywood", even though he praised its gradually emerging poignancy and poetic quality. "The Harvard Crimson" argued in 1959 that its fragmentary nature "contributes to the film's great weakness: its general diffuseness, its inability to command sustained attention. For "Pather Panchali", remarkable as it may be, is something of a chore to sit through." Early in the 1980s, Ray was criticised by Nargis Dutt, an Indian parliamentarian and former actress, for "exporting poverty". Darius Cooper writes that while many critics celebrated the Apu trilogy "as a eulogy of third-world culture, others criticized it for what they took to be its romanticization of such a culture". Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic wrote, "its story is simple almost to the point of banality, it is rewarding if taken as a dramatized documentary".


title: Pather Panchali

text: As of May 2021, the film has a 97% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on an aggregate of 69 reviews with an average score of 9.3/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "A film that requires and rewards patience in equal measure, "Pather Panchali" finds director Satyajit Ray delivering a classic with his debut." In 2018 the film earned the 15th spot when BBC released the top 100 foreign language films ever, and filmmaker Christopher Nolan called it "one of the best films ever made."


title: Pather Panchali

text: In the 1990s, Merchant Ivory Productions, with assistance from the Academy Film Archive and Sony Pictures Classics, undertook a project to restore the prints. The restored prints, along with several other Ray films, were released in select US theatres. "Pather Panchali" is available in DVD in Region 2 (DVD region code) PAL and Region 1 NTSC formats. Artificial Eye Entertainment is the distributor of Region 2 while Columbia Tri-Star is the distributor of Region 1 format.


title: Pather Panchali

text: In 2013, the video distribution company The Criterion Collection, in collaboration with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Film Archive, began the restoration of the original negatives of the Apu trilogy, including "Pather Panchali". These negatives had been severely damaged by a fire in London in 1993, and all film cans and fragments belonging to the Ray films were sent to the Motion Picture Academy for storage, where they lay unseen for two decades. It was discovered upon reexamination that, although many parts of the films were indeed destroyed by fire or the effects of age, other parts were salvageable. The materials were shipped to a restoration laboratory in Bologna, Italy: L’Immagine Ritrovata. Over a thousand hours of labor by hand were expended in restoring and scanning the negatives and, in the end, about 40 percent of the "Pather Panchali" negative was restored. (For those parts of the negative that were missing or unusable, duplicate negatives and fine-grain masters from various commercial or archival sources were used.) The Criterion Collection’s own lab then spent six months creating the digital version of all three films, at times choosing to preserve the distinctive look of the films even at the cost of retaining some imperfections.


title: Pather Panchali

text: On 4 May 2015, the restored "Pather Panchali" premiered at the Museum of Modern Art, a little more than 60 years to the day after the film’s world premiere at the same venue. Several days later, all three films opened at New York’s Film Forum, where they were originally scheduled to run for three weeks. Because of overwhelming public demand – with one writer commenting that "audiences can’t seem to get enough" – the films were held over at that theater until 30 June. The trilogy was then sent to be exhibited in many other cities throughout the U.S. and Canada. The restoration work was widely acclaimed, with commentators calling the look of the restored films "gorgeous", "pristine" and "incredible".


title: Pather Panchali

text: Author Andrew Robinson, in the book "The Apu Trilogy: Satyajit Ray and the Making of an Epic" (2010), notes that it is challenging to narrate the plot of "Pather Panchali" and the "essence of the film lies in the ebb and flow of its human relationships and in its everyday details and cannot be reduced to a tale of events." In his 1958 "New York Times" review, Crowther writes that "Pather Panchali" delicately illustrates how "poverty does not always nullify love" and how even very poor people can enjoy the little pleasures of their world. Marie Seton describes how the film intersperses the depiction of poverty and the delights and pleasures of youth. She represents the bond between Durga and Indir, and their fate, as signifying a philosophical core: that both the young and the old die. Seton writes of the film's "lyrical" qualities, noting especially the imagery immediately before the onset of monsoon. Robinson writes about a peculiar quality of "lyrical happiness" in the film, and states that "Pather Panchali" is "about unsophisticated people shot through with great sophistication, and without a trace of condescension or inflated sentiment".


title: Pather Panchali

text: Darius Cooper discusses the use of different "rasa" in the film, observing Apu's repeated "epiphany of wonder", brought about not only by what the boy sees around him, but also when he uses his imagination to create another world. For Cooper, the immersive experience of the film corresponds to this epiphany of wonder. Stephen Teo uses the scene in which Apu and Durga discover railway tracks as an example of the gradual build-up of epiphany and the resulting immersive experience.


title: Pather Panchali

text: Sharmishtha Gooptu discusses the idea that the idyllic village life portrayed in "Pather Panchali" represents authentic Bengali village life, which disappeared during the upheavals of Partition in 1947. She suggests that the film seeks to connect an idealised, pre-partition past with the actual present of partitioned Bengal, and that it uses prototypes of rural Bengal to construct an image of the ideal village. In contrast to this idealism, Mitali Pati and Suranjan Ganguly point out how Ray used eye-level shots, natural lighting, long takes and other techniques to achieve realism. Mainak Biswas has written that "Pather Panchali" comes very close to the concept of Italian neorealism, as it has several passages with no dramatic development, even though the usual realities of life, such as the changing of seasons or the passing of a day, are concretely filmed.


title: Pather Panchali

text: "Pather Panchali" has won many national and international awards. At India's 3rd National Film Awards in 1955, it was named Best Feature Film and Best Bengali Feature Film. The next year, it competed for the Palme d'Or at Cannes, where it won Best Human Document and an OCIC Award – Special Mention. More awards from film festivals across the world followed: the Vatican Award (Rome), the Golden Carbao (Manila), and the Diploma of Merit (Edinburgh) in 1956; the Selznick Golden Laurel for Best Film (Berlin), the Golden Gate for Best Director and Best Picture (San Francisco) in 1957; Best Film (Vancouver), and the Critics' Award for Best Film (Stratford) in 1958. It also won several awards for best foreign-language film: at the National Board of Review Awards 1958; at the Afro Arts Theater, New York, 1959; the Kinema Jumpo Award in Japan, 1966; and the Bodil Award in Denmark, 1969. In 1958 it had been nominated for Best Film at the 11th British Academy Film Awards.


title: Pather Panchali

text: "Sight & Sound", the British Film Institute's (BFI) magazine, has included "Pather Panchali" several times in its Critics' Polls of the greatest-ever films. In 1962, it ranked 11th; in 1992, 6th; and in 2002, 22nd. It also topped the British Film Institute's user poll of "Top 10 Indian Films" of all time in 2002. The magazine ranked the film 42nd in its 2012 critics' poll of "Top 50 Greatest Films of All Time" and 48th in its 2012 directors' poll. In 1998, in a similar critics' poll from Asian film magazine "Cinemaya", "Pather Panchali" was ranked the second-greatest film of all time. "The Village Voice" ranked the film at number 12 (tied with "The Godfather") in its Top 250 "Best Films of the Century" list in 1999, based on a poll of critics. In 2010, The Guardian ranked the film 12th in its list of 25 greatest arthouse films.


title: Pather Panchali

text: "Pather Panchali" was included in various other all-time lists, including "Time Out"s "Centenary Top One Hundred Films" in 1995, the "San Francisco Chronicle" "Hot 100 Films From the Past" in 1997, the "Rolling Stone" "100 Maverick Movies of the Last 100 Years" in 1999, ""The New York Times" Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made" in 2002, the BFI Top Fifty "Must See" Children's Films in 2005, and BFI's "Top 10 Indian Films" of all time. It was included in NDTV's list of "India's 20 greatest films", and in 2013 in CNN-IBN's list of "100 greatest Indian films of all time". The Apu trilogy as a whole was included in film critic Roger Ebert's list of "100 Great Movies" in 2001 and in "Time"s All-Time 100 best movies list in 2005.


title: Pather Panchali

text: "Pather Panchali" was followed by two films that continued the tale of Apu's life—"Aparajito" ("The Unvanquished") in 1956 and "Apur Sansar" ("The World of Apu") in 1959. Together, the three films constitute the Apu trilogy. "Aparajito" portrays the adolescent Apu, his education in a rural school and a Calcutta college. Its central theme is the poignant relationship between a doting mother and her ambitious young son. "Apur Sansar" depicts Apu's adult life, his reaction to his wife's premature death, and his final bonding with his son whom he abandoned as an infant. The sequels also won many national and international awards. Ray did not initially plan to make a trilogy: he decided to make the third film only after being asked about the possibility of a trilogy at the 1957 Venice Film Festival, where "Aparajito" won the Golden Lion. "Apur Panchali" (2014) is a Bengali film directed by Kaushik Ganguly, which depicts the real-life story of Subir Bannerjee, the actor who portrayed Apu in "Pather Panchali". "Aparajito", a 2022 Bengali film directed by Anik Dutta, tells the story of the making of "Pather Panchali".


title: Pather Panchali

text: "Pather Panchali" was the first film made in independent India to receive major critical attention internationally, placing India on the world cinema map. It was one of the first examples of Parallel Cinema, a new tradition of Indian film-making in which authenticity and social realism were key themes, breaking the rule of the Indian film establishment. Although "Pather Panchali" was described as a turning point in Indian cinema, some commentators preferred the view that it refined a "realist textual principle" that was already there. In 1963 "Time" noted that thanks to "Pather Panchali", Satyajit Ray was one of the "hardy little band of inspired pioneers" of a new cinematic movement that was enjoying a good number of imitators worldwide. The film has since been considered as a "global landmark" and "among the essential moviegoing experiences". On 2 May 2013, commemorating Ray's birthday, the Indian version of the search engine Google displayed a doodle featuring the train sequence.


title: Pather Panchali

text: After "Pather Panchali", Ray went on to make 36 more films, including feature films, documentaries and shorts. He worked on scripting, casting, scoring, cinematography, art direction and editing, as well as designing his own credit titles and publicity material. He developed a distinctive style of film-making based, as was the case with "Pather Panchali", on visual lyricism and strongly humanistic themes. Thus, Ray established himself as an internationally recognized auteur of cinema.


title: Jersey Girl (2004 film)

text: Jersey Girl is a 2004 American comedy-drama film written, co-edited and directed by Kevin Smith. It stars Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler with George Carlin (in his final onscreen film appearance before his death), Stephen Root, Mike Starr, Raquel Castro, Jason Biggs and Jennifer Lopez in supporting roles. The film follows a man who must take care of his precocious daughter after her mother dies in childbirth.


title: Jersey Girl (2004 film)

text: It was the first film written and directed by Smith not to be set in the View Askewniverse as well as the first not to feature appearances by Jay and Silent Bob, although animated versions of them appear in the View Askew logo at the beginning of the film and the still version at the end. At $35 million, not including marketing costs, it was then Smith's biggest-budgeted film, and was a box office bomb, grossing just $36 million.


title: Jersey Girl (2004 film)

text: Powerful New York City media publicist Ollie Trinké's wife, Gertrude, dies during childbirth due to an aneurysm. To avoid his grief, he buries himself in his work and ignores his new daughter, Gertie, while his father, Bart, whose own wife died many years earlier, takes a month off from work to take care of her, later returning to work to convince his son to live up to his responsibility as a single parent. Stressed by a crying baby, he insults his client, Will Smith, in front of assembled reporters. He is fired and moves back in with Bart in New Jersey. He eventually apologizes for ignoring Gertie and attributes his public outburst to his grief.


title: Jersey Girl (2004 film)

text: Blacklisted by all of New York City's public relations firms, Ollie has to work as a civil servant in the borough where he now lives. Seven years later, Gertie, now in elementary school, often coaxes him to rent films to watch. At the video store, they meet Maya, a graduate student and one of the clerks, whose uninhibited probing into Ollie's love life almost leads to them having sex. She soon enters their lives.


title: Jersey Girl (2004 film)

text: As part of his job in the borough, Ollie speaks to a group of outraged citizens to win over their approval for a major public works project that will temporarily close a street in the neighborhood. His successful and enjoyable interaction with them makes him realize how much he misses public relations work. He contacts Arthur, his one-time protégé, who sets up a promising interview.


title: Jersey Girl (2004 film)

text: The prospect of moving back to New York City creates tension among Ollie, Gertie, Bart, and Maya, especially when he says that his interview is on the same day as Gertie's school talent show. She angrily yells at him for putting himself before her again, going as far as to say that she hates him and that she wishes he had died instead of her mother. He claims he hates her too, and says she and her mother took his life away and he just wants it back, which shocks everyone. Gertie tearfully runs to her room and a disappointed Bart quietly chastises Ollie for what he said. A few days later, they reconcile, apologizing for their hurtful words, and she accepts that they will be moving to New York City. While waiting to be interviewed, he has a chance encounter with Will Smith. Smith is unaware who Ollie is, but their conversation about work and children persuades Ollie to skip the interview and leave.


title: Jersey Girl (2004 film)

text: Ollie rushes to make it to Gertie's "Sweeney Todd" performance at the last moment. The film ends with him, Gertie, Bart, Maya, and the rest celebrating at the bar. He and Maya hint at possible feelings for each other before Gertie interrupts them. He holds her in his arms and says that they are staying in New Jersey because he decided to not take the job. She asks why he did so if he loved it so much. He then says that he thought he did, but he loves his new life more because being a father to her was the only thing that he was ever really good at.


title: Jersey Girl (2004 film)

text: The film's budget included $10 million for Affleck and $4 million for Lopez. In the original draft of the script, Bruce Willis rather than Will Smith was the cause of (and eventual resolution to) Ollie's problems. Smith wrote the first fifty pages of the script with Bill Murray and Joey Lauren Adams in mind. The film was primarily shot in Highlands, New Jersey. Academy Award-winning Vilmos Zsigmond, its director of photography, was said by Smith to have been "an ornery old cuss who made the crew miserable." Paulsboro, New Jersey served as another of the shooting locations; scenes were shot there at its municipal building, Clam Digger Bar, and high school. Cut from it were scenes at Paulsboro's St. John's Church and Little League Field. The scene in the church was to show the marriage between Ollie and Gertie; it was cut shortly after Affleck and Lopez split up in real life and their scenes were reshot, reducing her part due to concern over the poor box-office reception of "Gigli".


title: Jersey Girl (2004 film)

text: It is the first major theatrical release to include a joke about the September 11 attacks: when Gertie asks to see "Cats", Ollie refuses on the grounds that it is "the second-worst thing to happen to New York City." On the second episode of the podcast "Blow Hard with Malcolm Ingram", Smith tells a story of Malcolm sending him lyrics to "Landslide" by Fleetwood Mac, trying to apologize for an earlier incident. He was so touched by the email that he included the song in the soundtrack.


title: Jersey Girl (2004 film)

text: Jason Mewes, who plays Jay in the View Askewniverse films, was to have a part in the film as "Delivery Guy", but Kevin Smith had temporarily severed ties with him as part of a "tough love" approach to get him to quit using heroin. The role was given to Matthew Maher.


title: Jersey Girl (2004 film)

text: The film is Smith's first to have received a PG-13 rating, rather than an R. According to interviews with Smith in the documentary "This Film Is Not Yet Rated," it was originally given an R, due to the dialogue with Ollie and Maya discussing masturbation in the diner, but the decision was overturned. An extended cut was shown at Kevin Smith's private film festival Vulgarthon in 2005 & 2006. The extended version included much more of the Jennifer Lopez section, Ben Affleck's full speech at city hall, a longer ending, and some music changes. On the film's audio commentary, Smith stated that a longer version would be released within the next year. At a Q&A session in Vancouver in early 2009, Smith said that a release of the extended cut on DVD and Blu-ray Disc is "very possible". It has not been released as of 2020.


title: Jersey Girl (2004 film)

text: The film grossed $25.2 million in North America, and $10.8 million internationally, for a total gross of $36.1 million, against a $35 million budget.


title: Jersey Girl (2004 film)

text: "Jersey Girl" received mixed reviews from critics. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 43% based on 177 reviews, with an average rating of 5.30/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "A surprisingly conventional romantic comedy from Kevin Smith, "Jersey Girl" is warm but often overly sentimental". On Metacritic, the film has a score of 43 out of 100, based on 35 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".