Ingrid Bergman was born in Stockholm, Sweden, on August 29, 1915. Her mother died when she was only 2 and her father died when she was 12. She went then to live with an elderly uncle.
At 18, after school graduation, the lonely and shy girl decided to become an actress. In 1934 she debuted in the Swedish film Munkbrogreven. Three years later she married Dr. Peter Lindstrom and in 1938 she gave birth to a daughter, Friedel Pia. In May, 1939, she arrived in New York to do a remake of Intermezzo. The beginning of WWII in Europe urged her and her family to return to America in 1940. In 1942 came out Casablanca and the picture made her a star of the first rank. Her acting in the next film For Whom the Bells Tolls (1943) won her an Academic Award nomination. In late 1943 she began working on Gaslight, which won her the 1944 Academy Award.
She returned to Europe after the scandalous publicity surrounding her affair with italian director Roberto Rosselini during the filming of Stromboli (1950). In the same month the film was released she gave birth to a boy, Robertino. A week after her son was born she divorced Dr. Lindstrom and married Rosselini in Mexico.
In June, 1952, she gave birth to the twin daughters Isabella and Isotta. From 1951 to 1955 she and her husband did a series of films that were badly received. Tired and convinced that she would never make a succesfull film with Rosselini, she returned to Hollywood and triumphed in Anastasia (1956), for which she received another Oscar.
In 1957 she divorced Rosselini and the next year she got married to Lars Schmidt, a theatrical entrepreneur from a wealthy swedish shipping family. She received a third Oscar for her role in Murder of the Orient Express (1974).
By 1975 she got divorced again. In 1978 she starred Ingmar Bergman's Autumn Sonata. In the late 1970s she first discovered the symptoms of cancer and had undergone a mastectomy. Her last role was in the television film A Woman Called Golda (1981). For it, she won (posthumously) television's Emmy Award as outstanding actress in a mini-series. She died in London, on August 29, 1982, after having a small birthday party with a few friends.
"I was informed that you were the most beautiful woman ever to come to Casablanca. That is a gross understatement." -Captain Renault (Claude Rains) to Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman), Casablanca (1942)
Casablanca (1942) is an American romance film produced by Warner Bros.-First National Pictures, set in the Vichy-controlled Moroccan city of Casablanca during World War II. The film was directed by Michael Curtiz and stars Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine and Ingrid Bergman as Ilsa Lund. It focuses on Rick's conflict between, in the words of one character, love and virtue: he must choose between his love for Ilsa and doing the right thing, helping her and her Resistance leader husband escape from Casablanca to continue his fight against the Nazis.
Although it was an A-list movie, with established stars and first-rate writers, no one involved with its production expected Casablanca to be anything out of the ordinary;[1] it was just one of dozens of pictures being churned out by Hollywood every year. The film was a solid, if unspectacular, success in its initial release, taking advantage of the publicity from the Allied invasion of North Africa. Despite a changing assortment of screenwriters frantically adapting an unstaged play to keep barely ahead of production, and Bogart attempting his first romantic lead role, Casablanca won three Academy Awards in 1943, including Best Picture. The characters, quotations, and music have become iconic, and Casablanca has grown in popularity as time has gone by. It now consistently ranks near the top of lists of the greatest films of all time.
Gender: Female Religion: Roman Catholic Race or Ethnicity: White Sexual orientation: Straight Occupation: Actor, Activist
Nationality: France Executive summary: Voulez-vous danser avec moi?
Arguably film's first sex kitten, Brigitte Bardot grew up in a wealthy, conservative French Catholic family. She was named for her mother's favorite doll, and as a child wore braces on her teeth and glasses to correct astigmatism. Bardot began studying ballet at the age of five, and at 13 she danced alongside Leslie Caron at the Conservatoire Nationale de Danse. At 14, she blossomed and was photographed for the cover of Elle magazine. At 15, Bardot met her future first ex-husband Roger Vadim, and attempted suicide when her parents refused permission for her to marry until she was 18. They married when she turned 18, and divorced five years later.
She moved from modeling to acting, and played a 17-year-old nymphet (at 22) in Vadim's And God Created Woman, a role that made Bardot known internationally. She embodied a natural yet innocent sexuality that was a precursor to the sexual liberation movement of the 1960s. The actress eschewed the Catholic principles of her childhood, saying "It is better to be unfaithful than to be faithful without wanting to be." Brigitte Bardot was one of the first women to wear a bikini, and later she and her friends would be the first to sunbathe topless at St. Tropez in the late 1960s. She was the first international star to be as popular as any homegrown pinup in the US.
Long prone to depression, Bardot has attempted suicide multiple times. "I really wanted to die at certain periods in my life. Death was like love, a romantic escape. I took pills because I didn't want to throw myself off my balcony and know people would photograph me lying dead below." On her 26th birthday she attempted her most publicly known suicide attempt, swallowing a bottle of sleeping pills and slitting her wrists.
Bardot retired from films at 39, to focus on her love of animals and her increasingly odd political activism. She sold her home, her jewels, and other personal effects in 1986 to start the Brigitte Bardot Foundation, which works for animal rights across the world. She has been outspoken to the point of causing international offense on the behalf of animals, and once stole a mynah bird on a French street because its owner, whom she beat with an umbrella, was "abusing" it by giving it a hamburger and fries.
Political incorrectness has dogged Bardot in recent years, being fined by the French government no fewer than four times in recent years for "inciting hatred" with her books. Her views that gays are "fairground freaks", that racially mixed marriages are an abomination, and that France is being "Islamized" have been problematic, as has her denunciation of the ritual slaughter of sheep during the Muslim feast of Eid. Bardot was an outspoken supporter of France's failed fascist presidential candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Father: Charles Bardot ("Pilou", engineer) Mother: Anne-Marie Mucel Bardot (homemaker) Sister: Marie-Jean Bardot ("Mijarout") Husband: Roger Vadim (film director, m. 1952, div. 1957) Husband: Jacques Charrier (French actor, b. 1936, m. 1959, div. 1962)) Son: Nicholas Charrier Husband: Gunter Sachs (millionaire, heir to Fichtel & Sachs) Husband: Bernard d'Ormale (right wing, allegedly racist politician) Boyfriend: Serge Gainsbourg (singer) Boyfriend: Sacha Distel Boyfriend: Jean-Louis Trintignant (actor) Boyfriend: Luis Miguel Gonzalez Lucas (matador) Boyfriend: Marlon Brando Boyfriend: Warren Beatty Boyfriend: Mick Jagger Boyfriend: Sean Connery
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society Media and Arts Advisory Board Inciting Racial Hatred for her book A Cry in the Silence, 2003 Inciting Racial Hatred for her book Pluto's Square, convicted 2000 Inciting Racial Hatred convicted 1998 Inciting Racial Hatred convicted 1997 Suicide Attempt 28-Sep-1960 Suicide Attempt 1949 Risk Factors: Breast Cancer, Vegetarian, Smoking, Homophobia, Depression, Nudism
FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR Rum Runners (31-Oct-1971) Shalako (26-Sep-1968) Spirits of the Dead (17-May-1968) Viva María! (22-Nov-1965) Contempt (29-Oct-1963) A Very Private Affair (31-Jan-1962) The Truth (2-Nov-1960) Love Is My Profession (17-Sep-1958) ...And God Created Woman (28-Nov-1956) Helen of Troy (25-Jan-1956) Les grandes manoeuvres (25-Oct-1955) Doctor at Sea (26-Sep-1955) Act of Love (17-Dec-1953)
painting by John William Waterhouse -"The Lady of Shalott" 1888
"The Lady of Shalott" is a Victorian poem by the English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892). Like other early poems— "Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere," and "Galahad"— the poem recasts Arthurian subject matter loosely based on medieval sources and takes up some themes that would become more fully realized in Idylls of the King where the tale of Elaine is recounted.
Tennyson wrote two versions of the poem, one published in 1833, of twenty stanzas, the other in 1842 of nineteen stanzas. It was loosely based on the Arthurian legend of Elaine of Astolat, as recounted in a thirteenth-century Italian novella entitled Donna di Scalotta (No. lxxxi in the collection Cento Novelle Antiche), with the earlier version being closer to the source material than the later. Tennyson focused on the Lady's "isolation in the tower and her decision to participate in the living world, two subjects not even mentioned in Donna di Scalotta."
The first four stanzas describe a pastoral setting. The Lady of Shalott lives in an island castle in a river which flows to Camelot, but little is known about her by the local farmers.
And by the moon the reaper weary, Piling sheaves in uplands airy, Listening, whispers, " 'Tis the fairy The Lady of Shalott." Stanzas five through eight describe the lady's life. She has been cursed, and so must constantly weave a magic web without looking directly out at the world. Instead, she looks into a mirror which reflects the busy road and the people of Camelot which pass by her island.
She knows not what the curse may be, And so she weaveth steadily, And little other care hath she, The Lady of Shalott. Stanzas nine through twelve describe "bold Sir Lancelot" as he rides past, and is seen by the lady.
All in the blue unclouded weather Thick-jewell'd shone the saddle-leather, The helmet and the helmet-feather Burn'd like one burning flame together, As he rode down to Camelot. The remaining seven stanzas describe the effect of seeing Lancelot on the lady; she stops weaving and looks out her window toward Camelot, bringing about the curse.
Out flew the web and floated wide- The mirror crack'd from side to side; "The curse is come upon me," cried The Lady of Shalott. She leaves her tower, finds a boat upon which she writes her name, and floats down the river to Camelot. She dies before arriving at the palace, and among the knights and ladies who see her is Lancelot.
"Who is this? And what is here?" And in the lighted palace near Died the sound of royal cheer; And they crossed themselves for fear, All the Knights at Camelot; But Lancelot mused a little space He said, "She has a lovely face; God in his mercy lend her grace, The Lady of Shalott."
An imagining as it were. Lena Headey is the Lady of Shalott. Gerard Butler is Lancelot. Loreena McKennitt sings The Lady of Shalott, the adaptation from the Alfred Tennyson Poem
Bellini Francesco Hayez Tizian Jean Honoré Fragonard Félix Vallotton Salvador Dali René Magritte Amedeo Modigliani Rembrandt van Rijn Tamara de Lempicka Gustave Courbet Guercino Peter Paul Rubens Edgar Degas Pierre-Auguste Renoir Edouard Manet Edvard Munch Lucas Cranach the Elder Vincent van Gogh Gustave Courbet Botero Diego Velázquez August Macke Paul Delvaux Diego Rivera Joan Miró Jacopo Tintoretto Francisco de Goya Jean Antoine Watteau Boticello Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Paul Gauguin Guido Cagnacci Bazille Otto Griebel Franz von Stuck Jacopo Zucchi Bartholomeus Spranger Raphael Man Ray
1.Pure Beauty Personae (in order of appearance): Tut Anch Amon, Myron, Socrates, Praxitiles, Plato, Apollo, Dionysos, Friedrich Nietzsche, Lysippos, Polykleitos, Vitruvius
2.Complicated Beauty Personae (in order of appearance): Beatus of Liébana, Van Limburg brothers, Piero della Fransesca, Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht Dürer, Ptolemeus, Copernicus, Michelangelo Buonarotti, Angelo Brozino, Parmigianino, Gianlorenzo Bernini, Caravaggio, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Antonio Canova
3.Disorderly Beauty Personae (in order of appearance): Immanuel Kant, Angelica Kauffman, Charles-Auguste Mengin, Louwrens Hanedoes, Caspar Wolf, Caspar David Friedrich, Johann Heinrich Füssli, Josef Israëls, Rudolf Valentino, Louise Brooks, Rita Hayworth, Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Liz Taylor, Edouard Manet, Gustav Klimt, Alexander Archipenko, Egon Schiele, Pablo Picasso, Paul Delvaux, Willem de Kooning, Mel Ramos, Francis Bacon, Josef Beuys, Marlene Dumas, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Susan Sontag, John M. Coetzee
Music: Domenico Cimarosa (1749-1801) Concerto in C gr. t. oboe and strings
Alexandru Darida was born in 1955 in Transylvania, one of the most fascinating parts of Romania. He grew up in the picturesque and breathtakingly beautiful countryside surrounded by the legend of Dracula's castle.
The foundation of Darida's accomplishments and international recognition was established at the Ecole de Belle Art in Romania. He expanded the dimensions of his artistic expression through further study at the Benadetti Liberal Academy of Art in Rome and the American Academy of Art in Chicago. Through his extensive travel, Darida has studied the art of the great Masters from Botticelli to Picasso at many of the art museums of Europe.
His work has been featured at the Young Images Gallery in Rome, Municipal Galleries across Romania, Tribune Gallery, Dales Gallery and the National Museum of Art in Bucharest, Romania. Additionally, his paintings were featured at a 1999 exhibit in Washington, D.C. sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution and Romanian Embassy. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the Formello-Roma International Prize for Painting.
Darida’s ability to stay in touch with his childhood allows him to translate his vision into chromatics of rich glowing colors with an inner luminosity reminiscent of another world. His paintings emerge from his passion for music and philosophy, and a restless temperament craving to discover an ideal of purity which is vanishing in our century. Darida’s magnificent paintings speak to our better nature, pointing the path to a brighter world just over the horizon, a world of universal love, peace and understanding.
Nadine studied Illustration and earned her BFA with Distinction at the California College of Arts and Crafts in 1999. She continued her studies in film and animation at Expression College for Digital Arts, graduating with high honors. Nadine has previously been part of the art department of Industrial Light & Magic, has been an art director in children's book publishing, and continues to freelance and pursue personal projects.
Her award-winning animated short Elegy has screened at several major festivals including Slamdance, and the Los Angeles International Short Film Festival, and won the Special Jury Award for Animation at South by Southwest (SXSW).
Nadine's artwork from the children's book The Flight of the Sunflower exhibited at the New York Society of Illustrators "The Original Art" juried show, celebrating the fine art of children's book illustration.
Her client list includes Dee La Duke (CBS), Kerner Optical, Freedom of Teach, Scholastic Books, Sugar Hill Records, Lieberman Productions, Rearden Studios, Utne Reader.
A Bay Area native, she is blissfully happy to still be living in San Francisco by the sea, listening to the foghorns at night. In her spare time she likes to climb rocks, tinker on the piano, and is attempting to learn how to tango.
--Nadine Takvorian created this short animation using a combination of traditional techniques and digital techniques. Elegy has won numerous awards at short film festivals.
Easter is the most important celebration of the Romanian people and it is preceded by numerous preparations and rituals.
Flowers Saturday (Lazarus’ Saturday) Palm Day (Flowers Day) Great Thursday Great Friday Easter (in 2008: April 27rd) The Small Fountain Good People’s Easter
Flowers Saturday (Lazarus’ Saturday) Lazarus, the character whose name was given to this day can have various meanings. He is thought to be either the brother of Martha and Mary, who was resurrected by Jesus, prior to His entrance in Jerusalem, either Lazarus the poor, either „Lazarica” (a Romanian diminutive of Lazarus), who died craving for pies.
According to a legend originating in Bucovina, once upon a time there were two brothers, one possessing great wealth, while the other, named Lazarus, could barely make enough money for living. The latter, in spite of his financial misery, had also contacted a strange disease, consisting of odious blisters that covered his entire body. The other people began to avoid him; even his wife left him.
Meanwhile, the rich brother was thriving and he decided to marry, throwing a lavish party. Lazarus, however, was not invited. Desperate and starved, poor Lazarus went to his brother’s gate, imploring him for a place at his table. The rich man called him a beggar, denying the family relationship. Upon hearing this dreadful thing, Lazarus sat down and burst into tears. At this time the dogs noticed his misery and started to bring him food remains, fallen under the tables from the wedding party. The brother didn’t allow this to continue, commanding the servants to tie down the dogs.
After the party had ended, when the guests were leaving, the fiddlers noticed Lazarus and, despite they knew he couldn’t reward their effort, started singing, reminding him of the times when he had a better financial status. Hearing the songs, the rich man went outside and began making fun of the fiddlers, telling them that all they would receive will be, at best, some blisters. When the fiddlers finished singing, Lazarus indeed rewarded them this way, saying that this was the only thing in his possession. Embarrassed, the singers accepted his gift. On their way, they noticed the blisters had transformed into golden coins. Cheerful, the fiddlers mentioned to Lazarus’ wife about what had happened. Angry, she went to her former husband, criticizing him and announcing her wedding to another man. Hearing all these things, Lazarus advised her to pray before she would leave her house, facing the four directions, each one at a time.
However, in her wedding day, the woman forgot about the advice and left with her new husband, in his carriage pulled by six horses. But she reminded somewhere along the road and started to pray. While she was praying, she saw the horse and the carriage disappearing and noticed that she had arrived in strange lands. She realized then that her new husband was the Devil. Even if she had only traveled for some minutes, she needed three years for returning to her village.
Meanwhile, Lazarus was dying. He asked his rich brother to help him, but this replied that he had no fear of death or God. Thus Lazarus died and the angels took him to heaven.
When the rich man had to die, the devils burnt all his fortune, impaled him with a fork and threw him into the bottoms of the hell so hard that he bounced back, thus getting a glimpse of what was happening in heaven. There was Lazarus, enjoying the ultimate peace. The bad man begged him to ask God for his forgiveness, but Lazarus remembered all the evil deeds he had been subjected to on earth and refused even to throw some water on his brother, letting him burn in hell. The moral is obvious…
Another symbol of this Saturday is Lazarica. In Walachia there is a custom called “Lazarel” or “Lazarica”. In the morning of this day, several 6 to 12 years old girls gather and choose the youngest of them. The chosen one will wear white bride clothes and will decorate her hair with jasmine flowers. The girls go to the houses of the village and they form a circle in the front of one of the windows. The so-called bride, also named “Lazarita”, sits in the center of the circle and makes a few steps back and forward. Meanwhile, the other girls are singing about Lazarus. The legend goes that he was a young man who had asked his mother to bake him bread. As she refused, Lazarus left for the forest with his flock. He climbed a tree in order to shake its leaves down for the sheep, but the branch he was sitting on broke and he fell to his death. His three sisters, seeing that he doesn’t come home, went searching for him. Finding him dead, they mourn him, bathed him in milk and buried him. Other version of the legend tells that Lazarus himself made the branch break. The girls who execute the ritual of “Lazarita”, also known as “bride”, are given eggs or money by the ones to whom they sang.
According to another story, Lazarus was a little boy who was craving for pies. As his mother did not have enough time for baking him pies, the boy died, on a Saturday. His mother mourned him and asked God not to forgive the women who don’t bake pie in Lazarus’ Saturday.
That is the reason for which the women bake pies on this day, doling them to the poor ones, especially to the families with little children. The pies are also baked in the memory of Lazarus the poor, who prays to God for the forgiveness of the human sins.
In Maramures region a small wheat bread is baked. Also called “grain flower”, it is divided between the family members, as it is believed that the ones who taste it will meet again on the other realm.
In Transylvania and Banat, in the evening of this day, girls place a mirror and the shirt they will wear the next day under a pear tree, so that the sun will rise above them. These objects are then used for love and health spells.
This is also the time when the girls plant flowers, thinking they will grow quickly. For the same reason, in some regions fruit trees are not planted, as it is believed they will only make flowers, not fruits.
It is also said that on this day the dead are awaiting at the heaven gates.
Palm Day (Flowers Day)
A week before the Easter, the Flowers Day (Romanian: “Florii”) is celebrated. This was initially dedicated to the Roman goddess Flora, but then it was celebrated in the memory of the Jesus’ entrance to Jerusalem.
This day is the celebration of the nature revival, when the willows, the fruit trees and the flowers bloom. The willow plays a very important role in the rituals.
The legend goes that, while Jesus was crucified, His mother left, crying, in the search of her son, wearing iron boots and a steel rod. On her journey she arrived at a river and asked a willow to help her cross it. As the willow made a bridge for her, Mary put a blessing on it, stating that its wood could not be transformed into coal and that its branches would be taken to church every year.
That is why, on this day people bring flowers and willow branches to the church, for being sanctified by the priest. With the willow branches, symbol of spring and fertility, cows and little children are touched, in order to grow and bloom as the willow. The holy branches are then placed near the icons or above the door and are used throughout the year as a medicine or for protection against the natural disasters.
It is also believed that the people who wear the willow branches as a belt will not suffer of loin aches; who eats three catkins will not suffer of throat aches.
The willow is also used in commercial purposes – before taking the animals to the market for selling, they must be touched with the willow branches, to please the buyers.
Another use of the catkins is for protection against the storms and hail. In the summer, when the weather is bad, catkins are placed on the fire, so that the resulting smoke would drive away lightning and thunders.
Anybody who swallows a sanctified catkin will be healthy and light as the willow flowers.
People must not work on this day and the table must remain laid all the time. Even it is fast, fish may be eaten.
It is also a day for commemorating the dead, when the burial places are cleaned and willow branches are put above.
As it is believed the nettles begin to bloom, they aren’t used as food anymore, this being called the “nettle’s wedding”. The nettles, eaten especially during the fast, are considered a very healthy food. In some regions, “nettle’s wedding” is on Annunciation day or on the Thursday before the Easter.
It is said that if the frogs can be heard until this day, the next summer will be beautiful. The weather on the Easter will be similar to the one from this day.
Great Thursday
The Thursday before the Easter is called “the Great Thursday”, “the Thursday of sufferings” or “the black Thursday”.
Girls and women must finish sewing the new blouses for the Easter until this day. Otherwise they will be punished by Joimarita, a mythical woman who beats or burns them. She is believed to take the laziest girls at her home and eat them. Another (not so cruel) version goes that Joimarita spells those girls, so that they wouldn’t be able to work all the year.
According to the Romanian tradition, skies, graves, doors of heaven and hell open this day. The dead return to pass the Easter near the loved ones. They will remain at their old houses until the Saturday before the Rusalii, when pies and bowls are doled for their souls. It is believed that the spirits sit on the roofs or in the yards. As it is still quite cold, fires must be lighted in the morning and in the evening, so that the dead could have light and heat. The fires are lighted for every soul or it is only lighten a fire for all the dead souls. The brushwood can only be gathered by children, pure girls and old women, a day before and only by hand (they must not be cut). On the way home they must not be let down and will be placed on a fence or on another object until morning, when the fire will be lighted.
Chairs with blankets are also put near the fire, as it is believed that some souls will sit on chairs and other will sit on the ground. Girls and women carry water buckets to the graves or to the fire, for the dead that will sit there.
Most of the women paint the eggs on the Great Thursday. In Walachia the eggs are painted on Wednesday and taken to the church on Thursday. They are let there until the Easter, as it is believed that they won’t alter. In other regions, twelve red painted eggs are taken to the church until the Easter and they are buried then at the village boundaries, so that the hail wouldn’t come upon it.
Laundry can not be done this day, so that the dead won’t receive the dirty water, but the things that had been doled in their memory.
Great Friday
The Friday before the Easter is called the Great Friday. Also named “the Friday of sufferings”, it is the day when Jesus was crucified. People don’t eat on this day, as it is believed that doing that they will be healthy and they will know they’ll dye three days before.
The tradition recommends that you step on a piece of iron when you wake up, in order to be protected from bruises. If you bathe in the river before the sun rises, you won’t suffer from bone illness. In Bucovina it is said that who bathes three times in a cold river will be healthy all year long.
People go to church to confess.
Bread may not be baked, the earth may not be ploughed and trees may not be planted, as they won’t fruit.
Easter
The Easter is the most important celebration of the Romanian people and it is preceded by numerous preparations and rituals.
It’s a must for the people to have a clean house and have all the ritual foods ready. This is why the cleaning starts on Great Thursday. Men, who are usually working in the field or at the forest, will remain home starting with this day and will take out the thrash, fix the fence, cut wood, bring water, butcher the lambs. Women are the ones that paint and decorate the eggs, do the laundry and generally clean the house.
Because it’s a good thing to have a new piece of clothing on the Easter, girls and young wives start to sew shirts for them and also for their parents, brothers, husbands or children, with about two weeks in advance.
Traditional Easter food
The eggs are painted starting with Thursday. Initially the only accepted color was red, but in time other colors were also applied – yellow, green, blue and even black. In the villages the paint is still obtained from plants.
The eggs are usually first painted yellow, because the other colors will look better when applied over it. Blue painted eggs are an exception.
In Banat, the first painted egg is called a „try”. In the Easter morning it’s shared between the children residing in that house.
The yellow eggs, also called „galbineala”, „galbinare”, „galbinete” sau „galbinele” (in Romanian “galben” means “yellow”) are painted with an extract of wild apple tree bark and leaves, different kinds of willow or onion leaves.
Red eggs, also called “rosele”, “rusele” or “rosetele” (in Romanian “rosu” means “red”) are colored with a paint obtained from red alder tree bark, cinnamon, oregano or amber.
The paint for the green eggs, also called “verdete” (in Romanian “verde” means “green”) is obtained from pasque flower, sunflower seeds or nettles.
The blue eggs, also called “albastrele” (in Romanian “albastru” means “blue”) are painted with an extract of sunflower, pasque flower and woods. These are boiled in borsch, in which bluestone had been put. These eggs are not first painted yellow, like the others, being directly obtained from white, unpainted eggs.
The black eggs are also called “negrele” or “negrete” (in Romanian “negru” means “black”) and remind of the Jesus’ sufferings on the cross. The paint is obtained from woods, black alder and nut tree bark. These eggs are obtained from eggs first painted yellow and then red.
The most interesting traditional eggs are the decorated eggs (in Romanian they are called “oua incondeiate”, “oua impiestrite”, “oua inchiestrite”). Special instruments are used for decorating them. These take the form of very thin and round sticks and are called “chisita (bijara)”, “matuf (motoc)” or “festeleu”. The “festeleu” is a sharp stick made of beech wood. At one end it has linen or cotton little pieces. The “festeleu” is soaked in melted wax. In contact with the surface of the egg, little dots will appear.
The most used decorative motifs for these eggs are: the lost path (on which the souls of the dead walk toward the judgment), the cross, the fir or oak leaf. In Walachia the saw and the plough are also drawn and in Moldavia the lightning and the fork. Various plants, animals and kinds of crosses are also drawn.
According to the Romanian tradition, if on Saturday before the Easter you place an egg (on which you have drawn something every day, beginning with the middle of the Fast) on a garbage dump, you’ll see an animal (usually a dog) trying to take that egg. You shouldn’t let it take it, as it will return for it and grant you any wish you have.
”Pasca”, a special Easter cake, is baked on Great Thursday, but especially on Saturday, so it wouldn’t alter until Easter. It has a round shape (reminding little Jesus’ diapers) or a rectangular one (the shape of His grave). In some regions “pasca” is also baked on St. George Day.
A legend from Bucovina goes that the “pasca” has been done from the times when Jesus was traveling to the world together with his apostles. They remained a night at a peasant house and when they left, he put food in their bags. The apostles asked Jesus when the Easter is and He replied that the Easter would be when they would find corn bread in their bags. Looking in the bags, they noticed the peasant had given them exactly corn bread, so that they knew it was Easter time.
The “pasca” can be simple, with jagged margins, or it can have dough braids. The middle braid is cross-shaped, reminding of Jesus’ crucifixion. This is called a “cross pasca”. The simple “pasca” is for the family, while the “cross pasca” is taken to the church, in order to be sanctified. Small “pasca” (“pascute”) are baked for the little children.
Among the ingredients are pot cheese, egg yolk, raisins and sometimes sugar and cinnamon.
The shells of the eggs used for the “pasca” are thrown in a river. This action has two explanations. It is believed that the hens are protected this way of the hawks. The major explanation is, however, the ancient belief that the shells are taken by the river to the country of the Good People, announcing them the Easter has came.
The cakes (called “cozonaci”) have a round or rectangular long shape, symbolizing Jesus’ grave.
The traditional Easter lamb also symbolizes Jesus. In Banat region, the remains of the sacrificed lamb are buried under an apple or a pear tree, in order that the family should be healthy.
Saturday night, when all the cleaning and preparations in the house are done, the steak, the pies and the cakes are put on the table, in the “clean room”.
Before going to the church, people wash themselves in a bowl with water, where red painted eggs and silver and golden coins were also put. They believe that this way they will be as glowing and healthy as the eggs and they will be clean and will have more money, due to the silver and golden coins.
After they clean and dress the new clothes, the people take a bowl with “pasca”, eggs and steak and go to the church, where the aliments will be sanctified. Only the ill old men and little children remain at home, as it is said that who can go to the church on Easter night, but he doesn’t do it, will get ill.
A fire is lighted near the church and it will be kept for all the three Easter days. In some regions, when the roosters announce the midnight, the man who watches the fire shuts with his rifle, calling the people to the church. The bells are also ringed at midnight.
People hold lighted candles during the religious mass and only put them out when they return home, after they enter the house and make crosses. These Easter candles are kept for the times of danger, when they will have a protective function.
At home, people first taste the anaphora and then sit to the table. They first eat some of the sanctified aliments and only then the rest. In some regions, rabbit or fish meat is first eaten, believing that these animals will confer to the people some of their agility. The shepherds and the other persons who are away from home on Easter day eat willow or apple tree buds instead of anaphora.
There’s the custom of knocking the eggs. It is believed that those who knock their eggs will see each other on the other world, after death. In the first day of Easter, eggs are only knocked with the top. On Monday they can be knocked top to the bottom and on the next days they can be knocked any way. The first ones to knock their eggs are the parents, one to the other, then the children to the parents and then the other relatives and friends. According to the tradition, the one whose egg cracks first is weaker and he will die quicker. He must give his egg to the winner; otherwise he will eat its egg rotten on the other world.
Eggs are knocked until the third Easter day, until the “Ispas” or until the “Great Sunday”.
The most beautiful painted eggs are emptied of their content and used as decorations, being put on a rope and then hanged near the icons or in other places.
It is supposed that a child born on Easter, at the time when bells ring, will be lucky all his life.
The man that dies on the Easter day or in the next week is blessed, his soul heading straight to heaven, as the skies are believed to be opened at this time.
On the Easter day one must not sleep, because it is said that he will be sleepy all year long. Also touching salt directly is not recommended, a belief stating that the hands of the one who does it will transpire during the summer.
It is said that three candles burn in the sky during the three days of the Easter.
In some regions (Bucovina, Transylvania), there is a tradition called “the wetting”. On Monday morning, the boys take a bucket of water and go to the houses of the unmarried girls. If they found them sleeping, the boys throw water on them. As it is believed that those girls will marry soon, they reward the boys who had wetted them by giving them the most beautiful decorated eggs and “pasca” or cake. In some places, the boys catch the girls when they go out from the house and take them to the fountain or to the river, where they wet them, even throwing them in the water.
According to one of the legends, once upon a time a Christian girl was heading toward the market, carrying a basket of eggs, in order to sell them. On her way she met a pagan girl who wanted to buy her eggs, but lacked the appropriate money. The girl asked her to accompany her home, thus being able to pay. On their way the Christian girl tried to convert the pagan to her religion, but she resisted. “I will believe in Christ only if these eggs here will turn red.” To their amazement, that very thing happened and the girls fainted in fear. Some nearby boys noticed them and tried to revive them, splashing the girls with water. Upon their awakening, the girls offered the red eggs to the boys, as a thank you gift.
On Monday and Tuesday the married couple go to their relatives, bringing them “pasca”, announcing them Christ’s revival. Usually, the younger people go to the oldert ones.
The Small Fountain
In some regions, on the Friday before the Easter week, water springs are searched for, wells are built and cleaned. All these are done as it is believed that those springs and fountain will have plenty of water and won’t dry.
The Good People’s Easter (Dead People’s Monday)
The Good People’s Easter is celebrated a week after the Easter, on Monday, right after Thomas’ Sunday. In the Romanian tradition, the Good People are the ancient’s spirits, which live between the two worlds, where Saturday’s water spills into the Earth. The Good People are religious people and fast each time they should, according to the traditions. However they are not aware of the day when Easter is celebrated until they see remains of the painted eggs on the water, about eight days later.
According to the legend, the Good People have a small stature, do not wear any kind of clothes and are covered by hair. The boys are taken care of by the mothers until they are able to live by themselves. After that, they live in isolation, fasting and praying along the other men. They meet with the women only one time each year, on Good People’s Easter.
In gratitude for the dead, packages containing red painted eggs and pies are placed on the graves and candles are lighted.
"The objective is to present the Hystory through Art, passing by Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, The Middle Age, The Renaissance, The Baroque, The Romantism, The Enlightenment, The Pre-Modern Era, ... The art of Ancient Greece is one of her greatest gifts to posterity.But when one thinks of Ancient Rome ...... her gladiators, her government, or perhaps her armies are the conspicuous mementos. True, the vividly colored murals at Pompeii are spectacular. So are the murals in neighboring towns, also preserved by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D. But Pompeii and its neighbors were gay seaside resorts, only provincial cousins of Rome. According to descriptions by Roman historians, the wall paintings in Rome itself far surpassed these from Pompeii. Indeed, it is probably because there is little else that survives to compare with it, that we prize the art of Pompeii and its neighbors so highly. Is this to say, then, that Roman art has little merit, that it is a second-rate rerun of the glorious Greek art which preceded it? The relative merits of Greek and Roman art have been debated by scholars for centuries. Let's leave the debate to the scholars and turn instead to a more meaningful way in which all art may be judged: that is, as a reflection of the culture that produced it. Just as pop art, like it or not, will give future ages a meaningful image of our society and its values ... ... so Roman art is an excellent indicator of what mattered to people in Roman times. And just as our tastes change and develop in succeeding generations, so did those of Ancient Rome. The changes were reflected in simple things, like hair styles ... and dress ... and in more complicated things, like housing ... places of worship ... and imperial monuments. Changes in taste can also be seen in portraiture--from the idealistic, on the left, to the realistic on the right ... and in the subject matter depicted in household and public decoration from elaborate mythological scenes ... to simple decorative motifs. As you follow this brief discussion of the development and decline of Ancient Rome, you'll be able to spot many other aspects of this civilization where new ideas supplanted old, and then often were returned to."
From wikipedia: Greta Garbo (September 18, 1905 – April 15, 1990) was a Swedish-born actress during Hollywood's silent film period and part of its Golden Age.
Regarded as one of the greatest and most inscrutable movie stars ever produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and the Hollywood studio system, Garbo received a 1955 Honorary Oscar "for her unforgettable screen performances" and in 1999 was ranked as the fifth greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute
Early life Garbo was born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson in Stockholm, Sweden, the youngest of three children of Karl Alfred Gustafsson (1871–1920) and Anna Lovisa Johansson (1872–1944).Garbo's older sister and brother were Alva and Sven.
Becoming an actress When Garbo was 14 years old, her father, to whom she was extremely close, died. She was forced to leave school and go to work. Her first job was as a soap lather-girl in a barbershop. She states in the book Garbo On Garbo (p. 33) that her relationship with her mother was not strained.
She then became a clerk at the department store PUB in Stockholm, where she would also model for newspaper advertisements. Her first motion picture aspirations came when she appeared in two short film advertisements (the first for the department store where she worked). They were eventually seen by comedy director Erik Arthur Petschler and he gave her a part in his upcoming film Peter The Tramp in 1922.
From 1922 to 1924, she studied at the prestigious Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm. While there, she met director Mauritz Stiller. He trained her in cinema acting technique, gave her the stage name "Greta Garbo", and cast her in a major role in the silent film Gösta Berlings Saga (English: The Story of Gösta Berling) in 1924, a dramatization of the famous novel by [Nobel Prize for Literature] Nobel Laureate, Selma Lagerlöf. She starred opposite Swedish film actor Lars Hanson and then appeared in the German film Die Freudlose Gasse - The Joyless Street.
She and Stiller were brought to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer by Louis B. Mayer when Gösta Berlings Saga caught his attention. On viewing the film, Mayer was impressed with Stiller's direction, but was much more taken with Garbo's acting and screen presence. According to Mayer's daughter, Irene, with whom he screened the film, it was the gentle feeling and expression that emanated from her eyes which so impressed her father. Unfortunately, her relationship with Stiller came to an end as her fame grew and he struggled in the studio system. He was fired by MGM and returned to Sweden in 1928, where he died soon after.
The Rite of Spring, commonly referred to by its original French title, Le Sacre du printemps (Russian: Весна священная, Vesna svjaščennaja) is a ballet with music by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, which was first performed in 1913. While the Russian title literally means "Sacred Spring", the English title is based on the French title under which the work was premiered, although sacre is more precisely translated as "consecration". It has the subtitle "Pictures from Pagan Russia" (French: Tableaux de la Russie païenne).
The Rite of Spring is a series of episodes depicting a wild pagan spring ritual: "... the wise elders are seated in a circle and are observing the dance before death of the girl whom they are offering as a sacrifice to the god of Spring in order to gain his benevolence," said Stravinsky, of the imagery that prompted the genesis of the work. Though the music is capable of standing alone, and was a great success in the concert hall, in conception it is inextricably tied to the action on stage. The Rite is divided into two parts with the following scenes (there are many different English translations of the original titles; the ones given are Stravinsky's preferred wording[citation needed] followed by the original French in parenthesis):
Part I: Adoration of the Earth
Introduction The Augurs of Spring (Dances of the Young Girls) (Les augures printaniers, Danses des adolescentes) Ritual of Abduction (Jeu du rapt) Spring Rounds (Round Dance) (Rondes printanières) Ritual of the Rival Tribes (Jeu des cités rivales) Procession of the Sage (Cortège du sage) The Sage (Adoration of the Earth) (Le sage) Dance of the Earth (Danse de la terre)
Part II: The Sacrifice
Introduction Mystic Circles of the Young Girls (Cercles mystérieux des adolescentes) The Glorification of the Chosen One (Glorification de l'Élue) Evocation of the Ancestors (Évocation des ancêtres) Ritual Action of the Ancestors (Action rituelle des ancêtres) Sacrificial Dance (The Chosen One) (Danse sacrale (l'Élue)) Though the melodies draw upon folklike themes designed to evoke the feeling of songs passed down from ancient time, the only tune Stravinsky acknowledged to be directly drawn from previously-existing folk melody is the opening, first heard played by the solo bassoon. Several other themes, however, have been shown to have a striking similarity to folk tunes appearing in the Juskiewicz anthology of Lithuanian folk songs.
"I wake up around noon, light a cigarette, get a cup of coffee, sit in the bathtub for an hour and daydream, and I usually come up with some ideas... It's a very irresponsible life. The only decisions I make are about the notes I'm writing."-- Hans Zimmer
"My job is to look for something that doesn't exist yet in the film. I work a lot with friends --like Penny Marshall or Tony Scott-- so when Tony starts a movie, I know about it years before it starts shooting, and I hear the story every time I see him. So when I see the movie I find out what's left of the story he told me about, and what actually happened while he was shooting. And then I try to get back to the original reason why we were doing that movie. With music, you can express things far better, so what you try and do is express the things they haven't done eloquently. 'Yo, motherfucker!' is not a terribly eloquent line; I could write something much better."-- Hans Zimmer
"I don't drive, so one of my assistants drives me to my writing room, and I have a calendar on the wall telling me how much time I have left, and how far behind I am. I look at it and panic, and decide which scene to work on. And you sit there plonking notes until something makes sense, and you don't think about it any more. Good tunes come when you're not thinking about it."--Hans Zimmer
"I have all these computers and keyboards and synthesizers, and I rattle away. For instance, with The Lion King I wrote over four hours' worth of tunes, and they were really pretty --but totally meaningless. So in the end I came up with material I liked. We worked on The Lion King for four years, but I wasn't toying until the last three-and-a-half weeks properly. On Crimson Tide, on the other hand, I just went in and within seconds I knew what I wanted."--Hans Zimmer
Born September 12th, 1957 in Frankfurt, Germany, Hans Zimmer is a pioneer in the use of digital synthesizers, advanced computer technology, electronic keyboards and their successful integration with the traditional orchestra in music for film and television. Moving to London in the 1970's, Zimmer began composing jingles for "Air Edel Associates" and teamed up with Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes as "The Buggles" to produce the worldwide hit, Video Killed the Radio Star and subsequent album The Age of Plastic. By 1980, Zimmer was pioneering the use of computers live on stage while working with the group Ultravox. Then he enjoyed a period of stardom in Italy with the avant garde band "Krisma" before returning to London to develop his next project with Warren Cann of Ultravox, culminating in a series of unique concerts at the London Planetarium.
It was shortly after this that Zimmer met and began working with the film composer Stanley Myers. Realizing the importance of incorporating the two musical forms, electronic and classical, they set up "Lillie Yard Studio" in London with the very latest state of the art musical technology. Zimmer continued to work out of "Lille Yard Studio" as his partnership with Myers strengthened. They worked very successfully on Jerzy Skolimovshi's Moonlighting, Success is the Best Revenge and The Lightship, Nicholas Roeg's Insignificance, and The Castaway. They then went on the compose the music for the box office hit My Beautiful Launderette (Best Picture - Evening Standard Awards).
In 1986, he worked solo on Working Title's Vardo and he then went on to partner with Ryuichi Sakamoto and David Byrne to produce the soundtrack for the award winning epic The Last Emperor. This was followed by another teaming with Stanely Myers for the score to Nature and the Beast. He then wrote scores for Philip Saville's Wonderland and Paperhouse for director Bernard Rose at Working Title. For Vestron, he then composed the music for the Faye Dunaway, Klaus Maria Brandauer feature Burning Secret. In 1988 he was asked to compose the music for a small budget, ground breaking film about South Africa, A World Apart. Based on a true story, this film was not just a coming of age for the voice of the struggle, but a turning point in Zimmer's career. As a result, he was asked to write the Oscar nominated score for the box office smash Rain Man. The following year, he composed the scores for Ridley Scott's Black Rain and another Best Picture recipient, Driving Miss Daisy.
Zimmer would go on to score Paramount's race car drama Days of Thunder, John Schlesinger's Pacific Heights, Peter Weir's GreenCard (Golden Globe for Best Comedy), Ridley Scott's Thelma & Louise, Ron Howard's fireman epic, Backdraft, Richard Donner's film Radio Flyer, and Franc Roddman's mountaineering thriller, K-2. John Avildsen's The Power of One allowed Zimmer a unique opportunity to write both songs and music with a South African lyricist to create haunting tribal anthems. In 1992-1993, Zimmer would contribute to Penny Marshall's A League of Their Own and Calendar Girl, Barry Levingson's Toys (a score overshadowed by Enya songs), Point of No Return, True Romance, and he finished with the Disney surprise hit Cool Runnings, which did blistering business at both the box office and in the charts. Around his Academy Award winning success for The Lion King, Zimmer completed Bille Augusts' House of the Spirits, Nine Months (for which he wrote the theme before production started) and Something to Talk About.
Two enormously popular soundtracks by Zimmer were released in 1995. The score for John Boorman's Beyond Rangoon combines ethnic pipes and voice with synthesizer. Later in the year, the submarine thriller Crimson Tide was a huge success at the box office and Zimmer received high praise for his choral, action-packed score (including a Grammy win). Zimmer responded by writing a wealth of material for seven films in 1996, by far his most active. John Woo's Broken Arrow would have cues reused in the blockbuster film Scream. He next wrote two themes for the summer hit The Rock with Harry Gregson-Williams and produced a short recording for The Fan. His score for The Preacher's Wife, unreleased on commercial album, was nominated for an Academy Award, and he continued with what he considers his best score, Two Deaths. Other releases of the year included The Whole Wide World and Muppet Treasure Island. After contributing to Smilla's Sense of Snow, Zimmer's career hit an even higher gear, with the 1997 electronic score for The Peacemaker showing off his high octane, powerful synthesizer and choral writing in full force.
The 1997-1998 awards season represented the peak of Zimmer's award recognition in the decade. After a sweet score for As Good As It Gets, Zimmer would coordinate the massive DreamWorks musical The Prince of Egypt and finish 1998 with The Thin Red Line. While all three were nominated for Academy Awards, none of them won. After a break from large projects in 1999, Zimmer hit the charts running once again with The Road to El Dorado, Mission: Impossible 2, and the monumentally successful Gladiator for Ridley Scott in 2000. The latter two featured compositions and performances by Lisa Gerrard which launched record sales to a level that would ensure Zimmer comfortable wealth for his lifetime. After completing An Everlasting Piece for a fee of $1, he would enter the world of Hannibal and offer yet another album success. Later in 2001, Zimmer provided the music for Pearl Harbor, which was met with criticism and was overshadowed by the main song of the film, and Black Hawk Down, which was generally considered too experimental for mainstream listeners.
After teaming with Bryan Adams for yet another animated picture in 2002, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, Zimmer dove head-first into The Ring, which offered him a long-awaited opportunity to further establish himself in the horror genre. He continues collaborating with his Media Ventures colleagues well into the 2000's, with the ethnically charged Tears of the Sun and The Last Samurai in 2003. Among the projects that Zimmer almost scored in the past decade, but didn't, included 1492: Conquest of Paradise (Vangelis), The Client (Howard Shore), and Enemy of the State (Harry Gregson-Williams).
Exploding into the world of film music after several years as a member of a 1980's rock band, Hans Zimmer has become a pioneer of the dynamic mix between synthesized and orchestral styles. His scores are broadly thematic, ethnically diverse, and immensly popular with a younger generation of film music fans. His Los Angeles based music studio, Media Ventures, is, as he deems it, a "School of Sound," and offers young, talented composers a place to jump-start their careers in Hollywood. He has collaborated with many of his friends, colleagues, and students for his scores after 1995. "I like working in a collaborative way," he says. "I'm not very ego-driven about being 'The Composer.' Whoever brings in great ideas should be welcomed." These collaborations culminated into an award-winning score for the blockbuster Gladiator in 2000, translating into one of the best selling film score albums of all time.
Zimmer and his producing partner, Jay Rifkin, custom built the Media Ventures studio complex in Santa Monica for the writing and production of music for film, television, and commercials. Composers best known for working with Zimmer are Mark Mancina, John Powell, Harry Gregson-Williams, Nick Glennie-Smith, Jeff Rona, Klaus Badelt, and Lisa Gerrard, some of whom travel from around the globe to work on projects for which Zimmer is the primary composer. In addition to his composing work, Zimmer heads DreamWorks' film music division. His appointment marks the first time that a composer has headed the music department of a major studio since the days of Dimitri Tiomkin at MGM and Alfred Newman at Twentieth Century Fox. So large is Zimmer's influence on audiences and potential buyers of film music albums, some record labels put Zimmer's name first and foremost on score albums for which he only played a minor coordinating role.
Among his roughly 100 feature film works, Zimmer has received major awards nominations for Rain Man, The Lion King, Crimson Tide, The Preacher's Wife, As Good As It Gets, The Prince of Egypt, The Thin Red Line, and Gladiator. While mainstream fans best know Zimmer for his Disney and DreamWorks animated picture scores, fans and industry insiders in the film music world credit Crimson Tide as a turning point in both Zimmer's career and the scoring business. The Grammy-winning score, often heard in trailers since, was a departure from the norm, making use of digital synthesizers, electronic keyboards, and the latest computer technology to digitally produce a rousing score with traditional orchestral arrangements. In the decade since, Zimmer has expanded his use of percussion and vocalists in ethnic and electronic arrays unheard in the history of film music.
His personality is different than those of many other mainstream composers; he is reluctant to perform his work in public, and does not conduct his own scores. Inspired by Ennio Morricone's The Mission, Zimmer is known to peacefully experiment on his Yamaha synthesizers with a cup of coffee nearby. One of his biggest fans (after first hearing Crimson Tide) is director and producer Steven Spielberg, whose friendship and loyalty toward John Williams is perhaps the only reason why Zimmer has not become a regular for Spielberg-directed films. Born in 1957, Zimmer still has many active years of teaching and scoring to come. His innovative integration of digital and orchestral elements will likely earn him continued success well into the digital age of film music.
FROM WIKIPEDIA: Easter Parade is a 1948 musical film starring Fred Astaire and Judy Garland. It features music by Irving Berlin, including some of Astaire and Garland's best-known songs, such as "Steppin' Out With My Baby" and "We're a Couple of Swells."
The film won the 1948 Academy Award for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture. It also received the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Written American Musical
Plot summary: Don Hewes (Fred Astaire), a Broadway star, is out buying Easter presents for his sweetheart, starting with a hat and some flowers ("Happy Easter"). Then he goes into a toy shop, and buys a cuddly Easter rabbit, after persuading a young boy to part with it and buy a set of drums instead ("Drum Crazy"). He takes the gifts to his dancing partner, Nadine Hale (Anne Miller). She explains that she has had an offer for a show, which would feature her as a solo star. Don tries to change her mind, and it looks as if he has succeeded ("It Only Happens When I Dance With You"), until an old friend of Don's, Johnny (Peter Lawford), turns up. Nadine reveals that she and Don are no longer a team. It becomes obvious that Nadine is attracted to Johnny.
Angry, Don brags that he does not need Nadine and that he can make a star out the next dancer he meets. That turns out to be a girl named Hannah Brown (Judy Garland). She performs a duet, singing a musical number with a member of the band (Norman S. Barker) on trombone, "I Want to Go Back to Michigan." The next morning, Don tries to turn Hannah into a copy of Nadine, teaching her to dance the same way and buying her dresses in a similar style. However, Hannah makes several mistakes and the show is a fiasco.
Hannah meets Johnny, who is instantly attracted to her and performs "A Fella With An Umbrella." Don realizes his mistake and starts over from scratch, creating routines more suited to Hannah's personality. Hannah sings "I Love A Piano", and she and Don work out a dance routine that proves much more successful than their earlier performance. The duo also perform "Snookie-Ookums", "The Ragtime Violin", and "When That Midnight Choo-Choo Leaves For Alabam".
At an audition for Ziegfeld Follies, where they perform "Midnight Choo-Choo", they meet Nadine, who is starring in the show. Hannah learns that Nadine is Don's former dancing partner, and demands to know if they were in love. Don hesitates, and Hannah runs out of the rehearsal, where she encounters Johnny. They go out to dinner. Back at the hotel, Don reveals that he has turned down the Ziegfeld show - Hannah and Nadine do not belong in the same show. At dinner with Johnny, after a comical routine by the waiter, Johnny reveals that he has fallen in love with Hannah, but Hannah says that she is in love with Don; she even admits to deliberately making mistakes when they rehearse so that she can be with him longer.
Meanwhile, Nadine's show opens, and Don goes to see it ("Shakin' The Blues Away"). He is the only member of the audience who seems unimpressed. Hannah goes to dinner at Don's, only to have him suggest a rehearsal. She is upset and tells him that he's "nothing but a pair of dancing shoes" and that he doesn't see her as a woman, but as a dancing aid. Hannah is particularly annoyed that Don doesn't notice her new clothes and all the effort she has made for him. She turns to walk out, but Don stops her as he finally realizes that he loves Hannah and they embrace. The couple take part in a variety show, with a solo by Don ("Steppin' Out With Ma Baby"), and then the most famous number in the film ("A Couple of Swells"), in which Don and Hannah play a pair of street urchins with vivid imaginations.
Don and Hannah go out to celebrate after the show, and end up watching Nadine perform. Nadine is mad with jealousy when the audience gives Don and Hannah a round of applause as they come in. Nadine is the star dancer in "The Girl On The Magazine Cover". The song features an ingenious stage act, in which women appear against backdrops that look like the covers of contemporary magazines. Nadine herself appears on the cover of Harper's Bazaar. Afterwards, she insists that Don perform one of their old numbers with her for old times sake - "It Only Happens When I Dance With You (Reprise)". When Don reluctantly agrees, Hannah becomes upset and runs out.
She ends up at the bar where she and Don first met. There she pours out her troubles to Mike, the bartender ("Better Luck Next Time"). Later that night, Don tries to explain that he was forced to dance with Nadine, but Hannah will not listen. She thinks Don used her to make Nadine jealous and win her back. Don tells her that he'll wait all night for her to forgive him, but just as Hannah opens the door, Don is kicked out of her building by the doorman, who has heard his yelling. Eventually, Don's apologies reach her and she arrives unexpectedly at his house the following morning, as if the argument had never happened. She brings gifts as well, including an Easter rabbit inside a new top hat. Don is a little confused by this turn of events, but is persuaded by his valet that he should just listen to Hannah and go out. As they walk in the Easter parade, photographers, echoing a scene with Nadine from the beginning of the film, take their pictures and Don proposes to her ("Easter Parade").
Cast Judy Garland as Hannah Brown Fred Astaire as Don Hewes. Gene Kelly was originally cast, but he was injured just prior to production and Astaire, who had announced his retirement from film, was coaxed back to replace him. (Astaire would "retire" several more times over the next decade, but he would also go on to make a number of additional classic musicals in between retirements.) Peter Lawford as Jonathan Harrow III Ann Miller as Nadine Hale. This film marked the major MGM debut of tap-dancer Miller (who had previously been under contract to RKO), replacing Cyd Charisse, who had to bow out of the production. Jules Munshin as François Clinton Sundberg as Mike the bartender
Musical numbers: All songs by Irving Berlin
"Happy Easter" "Drum Crazy" "It Only Happens When I Dance With You" "I Want to Go Back to Michigan" "A Fella with an Umbrella" "Vaudeville Montage: I Love A Piano / Snookey Ookums / The Ragtime Violin / When the Midnight Choo-Choo Leaves for Alabam'" "Shakin' the Blues Away" "Steppin' Out with My Baby" "A Couple of Swells" "The Girl on the Magazine Cover" "Better Luck Next Time" "Easter Parade" One musical number, a seductive performance of "Mr. Monotony" by Garland wearing the top half of a tuxedo and nylon tights (a style of dress which would become something of a trademark in later years after she wore the same outfit in 1950's Summer Stock), was cut from the film as it was deemed too risqué for a film supposedly set in 1912. Audiences finally got to see this number in the 1990s when an edited version was included in the 1994 compilation film That's Entertainment! III. The complete number was first seen as part of the extras on the VHS and Laser Disc special edition versions the following year. When Easter Parade was released to DVD, several minutes of outtakes, raw footage, and alternate takes of this performance were included in addition to the footage previously released.
"More Than Words" is a ballad written and originally performed by rock band Extreme. It is built around intricate acoustic guitar work by Nuno Bettencourt and the vocals of Gary Cherone (with harmony vocals from Bettencourt), it was released in 1990 on the album Extreme II: Pornograffiti. The song was a departure from the funk metal that had permeated the band's style previous to its release. On March 23, 1991, "More Than Words" entered the US Billboard Hot 100 at number 81 and soon after reached number one. Though they had made a few European charts before, this brought the band to their first mainstream success in the United States. Extreme followed "More Than Words" with another power ballad, "Hole-Hearted," which was slightly faster paced than "More Than Words," but nevertheless topped at number 4 in the United States.
Even years after its release, "More Than Words" has retained popularity as a romantic ballad. Cover versions of "More Than Words" include:
BBMak in 1999-2000, on their first debut album, released in Asia in 1999, and as a b-side in 1999 from United Kingdom 'Back here' single. Westlife in 1999, on their first album, Westlife David Cassidy in 2003 for the album A Touch of Blue Walters & Kazha in 2005, as a live performance Frankie J in 2005, as a single The song itself asks the person to whom it is addressed to show love through "more than words." Given its context as a song on Pornograffitti, a concept album about a decadent and corrupt society, it could be interpreted as a cynical plea for sex, though most listeners interpret it as being about emotional intimacy.
The video for "More Than Words" was parodied by Weird Al Yankovic for his original song, "You Don't Love Me Anymore." Also Amateur Transplants wrote a comedic song to the same tune as "More Than Words" entitled "Northern Birds" which may be found on their 2006 album "We Are So Bad"
Saying I love you Is not the words I want to hear from you It's not that I want you Not to say, but if you only knew How easy it would be to show me how you feel More than words is all you have to do to make it real Then you wouldn't have to say that you love me Cos I'd already know What would you do if my heart was torn in two More than words to show you feel That your love for me is real What would you say if I took those words away Then you couldn't make things new Just by saying I love you
More than words
Now I've tried to talk to you and make you understand All you have to do is close your eyes And just reach out your hands and touch me Hold me close don't ever let me go More than words is all I ever needed you to show Then you wouldn't have to say that you love me Cos I'd already know
What would you do if my heart was torn in two More than words to show you feel That your love for me is real What would you say if I took those words away Then you couldn't make things new Just by saying I love you
