Kerima Polotan Tuvera, Filipino author and journalist died she was , 85
Kerima Polotan-Tuvera was a Filipino
author died she was , 85.. She was a renowned and highly respected fictionist, essayist,
and journalists, with her works having received among the highest
literary distinctions of the Philippines. Some of her stories have been published under the pseudonym Patricia S. Torres.
(December 16, 1925 – August 19, 2011)
Personal life
Born in Jolo, Sulu, she was christened Putli Kerima. Her father was an army colonel, and her mother taught home economics. Due to her father’s frequent transfers in assignment, she lived in various places and studied in the public schools of Pangasinan, Tarlac, Laguna, Nueva Ecija and Rizal.
She graduated from the Far Eastern University Girls’ High School. In 1944, she enrolled in the University of the Philippines School of Nursing, but the Battle of Manila put a halt to her studies.[2] In 1945, she transferred schools to Arellano University, where she attended the writing classes of Teodoro M. Locsin and edited the first issue of the Arellano Literary Review.[2] She worked with Your Magazine, This Week and the Junior Red Cross Magazine.
In 1949, she married newsman Juan Capiendo Tuvera, a childhood friend and fellow writer,[3] with whom she had 10 children, among them the fictionist Katrina Tuvera.[3]
Writing during the Martial Law years
Between the years 1966 to 1986, her husband served as the executive assistant[3] and speechwriter[1] of then-President Ferdinand Marcos.
Her husband’s work drew her into the charmed circle of the Marcoses. It
was during this time (1969) that Polotan-Tuvera penned the only
officially approved biography of the First Lady Imelda Marcos, Imelda Romualdez Marcos: a biography of the First Lady of the Philippines.[4]
During the years of martial law in the Philippines, she founded and edited the officially approved FOCUS Magazine,[3] as well as the Evening Post newspaper.
Works and awards
Her 1952 short story, (the widely anthologized) The Virgin, won two first prizes: of the Philippines Free Press Literary Awards and of the Palanca Awards.[2]
In 1957, she edited an anthology for the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial
Awards for Literature, which English and Tagalog prize-winning short
stories from 1951 to 1952.[5]
Her short stories “The Trap” (1956), “The Giants” (1959), “The
Tourists” (1960), “The Sounds of Sunday” (1961) and “A Various Season”
(1966) all won the first prize of the Palanca Awards.[2]
In 1966, she published Stories, a collection of eleven stories. In 1970, alongside writing the biography of Imelda Marcos, Polotan-Tuvera collected forty-two of her hard-hitting essays during her years as a staff writer of the Philippines Free Press and published them under the title Author’s Circle.[2] In 1976, she edited the four-volume Anthology of Don Palanca Memorial Award Winners. In 1977, she published another collection of thirty-five essays, Adventures in a Forgotten Country. In the late 1990s, the University of the Philippines Press republished all of her major works.[6]
The 1961 Stonehill Award was bestowed on Polotan-Tuvera[2], for her novel The Hand of the Enemy. In 1963, she received the Republic Cultural Heritage Award, an award discontinued in 2003[7] but was then considered the government’s highest form of recognition for artists at the time. The city of Manila conferred on Polotan-Tuvera its Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan Award, in recognition of her contributions to its intellectual and cultural life.[1]
Death
Polotan-Tuvera died at 85, after a lingering illness.[2] She had suffered a stroke and was wheelchair-bound for the last months of her life.[1] The wake was held at Funeraria Paz Sucat, within Manila Memorial Park.[1]
National Artist for Literature Edith L. Tiempo, a close friend of Polotan-Tuvera died two days after, prompting a grieving among the nation’s writers.[3] The Malacañang Palace through Presidential Spokesperson Edwin Lacierda issued a statement: “The Aquino administration is united in grief with a country that mourns their passing.”[8]
The official statement recognized Polotan-Tuvera’s body of work as “
crucial to the development of Philippine Literary Fiction written from
English” and cited Polotan-Tuvera’s influence on “generations of
writers.”[8]
Rina Jimenez-David of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
described her short stories and novels as “unsentimental and clear-eyed
depictions of heartbreak and disillusion. But her writing was dazzling
and unflinching in its honesty.”[9]
In the eulogy for Polotan-Tuvera, fellow Palanca-winning writer and
friend Rony Diaz said, “The number of books that she has written doesn’t
really matter because all of them contain stories and essays of
compelling beauty and profound wisdom.”[3]
Polotan-Tuvera is survived by her ten children and nineteen grandchildren.[3]
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Raúl Ruiz, Chilean film director (Three Lives and Only One Death, Time Regained), died from pulmonary infection at 70.
Raúl Ernesto Ruiz Pino was an
award-winning experimental Chilean filmmaker, writer and teacher whose
work is best known in France died from pulmonary infection at 70.. He directed over 100 films.
(25 July 1941 – 19 August 2011)
Biography
The son of a ship’s captain and a schoolteacher in southern Chile,
Raúl Ruiz abandoned his university studies in theology and law to write
100 plays with the support of a Rockefeller Foundation
grant. He went on to learn his craft working in Chilean and Mexican
television and studying at film school in Argentina (1964). Back in
Chile, he made his feature debut Three Sad Tigers (1968), sharing the Golden Leopard at the 1969 Locarno Film Festival. He was something of an outsider among the politically oriented filmmakers of his generation such as Miguel Littín and Patricio Guzmán, his work being far more ironic, surrealistic and experimental. In 1973, shortly after the military coup d’état led by the dictator Augusto Pinochet, Ruiz and his wife (fellow director Valeria Sarmiento) fled Chile and settled in Paris, France.[2]
Ruiz soon developed a reputation among European critics and
cinephiles as an avant-garde film magician, writing and directing a
remarkable number of amusingly eccentric though highly literary and
complex low-to-no-budget films in the 1970s and 1980s (often for
France’s Institut national de l’audiovisuel and then for Portuguese producer Paulo Branco). The best known of these are Colloque de chiens (1977, a César Award-winning short which marked the start of Ruiz’s long-term working relationship with Chilean composer Jorge Arriagada), The Suspended Vocation (1978), The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting (1979), On Top of the Whale (1982), Three Crowns of the Sailor (1983), City of Pirates (1983), Manoel’s Destinies (1985), Treasure Island (1985) and Life is a Dream (1986).[3] A special issue of Cahiers du cinéma was devoted to Ruiz in March 1983.[4]
In the 1990s, Ruiz began working with larger budgets and “name” stars like John Hurt in Dark at Noon (1992) and Marcello Mastroianni in Three Lives and Only One Death (1996). The following year, he made Genealogies of a Crime starring Catherine Deneuve, winning the Silver Bear at the 47th Berlin International Film Festival.[5] A second major French actress, Isabelle Huppert, worked with Ruiz on Comedy of Innocence (2000), which was nominated for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. The American John Malkovich acted in the star-studded Marcel Proust adaptation Time Regained (1999) and the somewhat less successful Savage Souls (2001) and Klimt (2006). That Day (2003) was the fourth and last Ruiz film to be shown in the main competition of the Cannes Film festival.[6] He also made forays into the English-language mainstream with the thrillers Shattered Image (1998) and A Closed Book
(2010). In the final decade of his life, Ruiz wrote and directed
several low-budget productions in his native Chile, but his final
international triumph was the Franco-Portuguese epic Mysteries of Lisbon (2010), which won the Silver Shell for Best Director at the San Sebastián International Film Festival and also France’s prestigious Louis Delluc Prize.[7]
Over the years, Ruiz taught his own particular brand of film theory, which he explained in his two books Poetics of Cinema 1: Miscellanies (1995) and Poetics of Cinema 2
(2007), and actively engaged in film and video projects with university
and film school students in many countries, including the US, France,
Colombia, Chile, Italy and Scotland.[8]
Ruiz died in August 2011 as a result of complications from a lung
infection, having successfully undergone a liver transplant in early
2010 after being diagnosed with a life-threatening tumour. The
Presidents of France and Chile both praised him.[9][10] The Church of Saint George-Paul in Paris held a memorial service which was attended by many notable friends, including Catherine Deneuve, Chiara Mastroianni, Melvil Poupaud, Paulo Branco, Arielle Dombasle, Michel Piccoli and Jorge Edwards.
Ruiz’s body was then returned to Chile to be buried as specified in his
will and a National Day of Mourning was declared in Chile.[11]
Ruiz’s final completed feature Night Across the Street (2012) was selected to be screened posthumously in the Directors’ Fortnight section of the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.[12][13] His widow Valeria Sarmiento, who was also his collaborator and frequent editor for several decades, is completing The Lines of Wellington (2012), the Napoleonic epic that Ruiz was preparing when he died.[14]
Filmography
- La maleta (1963) – short film lost and completed in 2008
- Le retour (1964) – unfinished short film
- El tango del viudo (1967) – unfinished
- Tres tristes tigres [Three Sad Tigers] (1968)
- La catanaria (1969)
- Militarismo y tortura (1969) – short film
- ¡Qué hacer! (1970)
- La colonia penal [The Penal Colony] (1970)
- Ahora te vamos a llamar hermano (1971) – short film
- Nadie dijo nada (1971)
- Los minuteros (1972) – short film
- Poesía popular: La teoría y la práctica (1972) – short film
- La expropiación [The Expropriation] (1972)
- Abastecimiento (1973) – short film
- Palomita blanca [Little White Dove] (1973)
- El realismo socialista (1973)
- Palomita brava (1973) – short film
- Diálogos de exiliados [Dialogues of Exiles] (1975)
- Sotelo (1976) – short film
- Utopia (1976)
- Colloque de chiens (1977) – short film
- Les divisions de la nature (1978) – short film
- La vocation suspendue [The Suspended Vocation] (1978)
- Petit manuel d’histoire de France (1979)
- Jeux (1979)
- De grands événements et de gens ordinaires [Of Great Events and Ordinary People] (1979)
- Images de débat (1979)
- L’hypothèse du tableau volé [The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting] (1979)
- Zig-Zag – le jeu de l’oie (une fiction didactique à propos de la cartographie) (1980) – short film
- La ville nouvelle (1980) – short film
- Fahlstrom (1980) – short film
- Musée Dali (1980)
- L’image en silence (1980)
- Le borgne (1980)
- Teletests (1980) – short film
- The Territory (1981)
- Images de sable (1981) – short film
- Ombres chinoises (1982) – short film
- Querelle des jardins (1982) – short film
- Le petit théâtre (1982) – short film
- Het dak van de Walvis [On Top of the Whale] (1982)
- Bérénice (1983)
- La ville de Paris (1983)
- Lettre d’un cinéaste ou Le retour d’un amateur de bibliothèques [Letter from a Library Lover] (1983) – short film
- Les trois couronnes du matelot [Three Crowns of the Sailor] (1983)
- La ville des pirates [City of Pirates] (1983)
- Voyages d’une main (1984)
- Régime sans pain (1984)
- Point de fuite [Vanishing Point] (1984)
- Les destins de Manoel [Manoel's Destinies/Manoel on the Island of Marvels] (1985)
- L’Île au trésor [Treasure Island] (1985)
- La présence réelle (1985)
- L’éveillé du pont de l’Alma [The Insomniac on the Bridge] (1985)
- Richard III (1986)
- Mémoire des apparences [Life is a Dream] (1986)
- Dans un miroir (1986)
- Mammame (1986)
- Brise-glace (1987)
- La chouette aveugle [The Blind Owl] (1987)
- Le professeur Taranne (1987)
- Allegoria (1988)
- Tous les nuages sont des horloges (1988)
- Il pozzo dei pazzi (1989) – short film
- Derrière le mur (1989)
- Hub (1989)
- The Golden Boat (1990)
- La novela errante (1990) – unfinished
- A TV Dante (Cantos 9-14) (1991)
- Las soledades (1992) – short film
- L’oeil qui ment [Dark at Noon] (1992)
- Fado majeur et mineur [Fado, Major and Minor] (1994)
- Wind Water (1995) – short film
- Trois vies et une seule mort [Three Lives and Only One Death] (1996)
- Généalogies d’un crime [Genealogies of a Crime] (1997)
- Le film à venir (1997) – short film
- Shattered Image (1998)
- Le temps retrouvé [Time Regained] (1999)
- Comédie de l’innocence [Comedy of Innocence] (2000)
- Combat d’amour en songe [Love Torn in a Dream] (2000)
- Les Âmes fortes [Savage Souls] (2001)
- Miotte vu par Raúl Ruiz (2002)
- Cofralandes, rapsodia chilena [Cofralandes, Chilean Rhapsody] (2002)
- Ce jour-là [That Day] (2003)
- Une place parmi les vivants [A Place Among the Living/A Taste for Murder] (2003)
- Vertige de la page blanche [Vertigo of the Blank Page] (2003)
- Días de campo [Days in the Country] (2004)
- Le domaine perdu [The Lost Domain] (2005)
- Klimt (2006)
- Le Don (2007) – short film
- La Recta Provincia (2007)
- Litoral (2008)
- La maison Nucingen [Nucingen House] (2008)
- Agathopedia (2008)
- El pasaporte amarillo [The Yellow Passport] (2009)
- A Closed Book [Blind Revenge] (2010)
- L’estate breve (2010)
- Mistérios de Lisboa [Mysteries of Lisbon] (2010)
- Ballet aquatique (2011)
- La noche de enfrente [Night Across the Street] (2012)
- As Linhas de Torres [The Lines of Wellington] (2012) (conceived by Ruiz, completed by Valeria Sarmiento)
Bibliography
- Raoul Ruiz (1995). Poétique du cinéma. Dis Voir. ISBN 2-906571-37-7. (French).
- Raul Ruiz (1995). Poetics of Cinema 1: Miscellanies. Dis Voir. ISBN 2-906571-38-5. Translated by Brian Holmes.
- Raoul Ruiz; Benoît Peeters (2002). Le Transpatagonien. Impressions nouvelles. ISBN 2-906131-55-5. (French).
- Raoul Ruiz (2006). Poétique du cinéma 2. Dis Voir. ISBN 978-2-914563-27-7. (French).
- Raul Ruiz (2007). Poetics of Cinema 2. Dis Voir. ISBN 978-2-914563-25-3. Translated from the Spanish by Carlos Morreo.
- Raoul Ruiz (2008). A la poursuite de l’île au trésor. Dis Voir. ISBN 978-2-914563-39-0. (French). Translated into English as: Raul Ruiz (2008). In Pursuit of Treasure Island. Dis Voir. ISBN 978-2-914563-41-3.
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Jimmy Sangster, British director and screenwriter (Hammer Films), died when he was 83
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James Henry Kinmel Sangster was an English screenwriter and director, known for his work for horror film producers Hammer Film Productions, including scripts for The Curse of Frankenstein (the first British
horror movie to be shot in colour) and Dracula (US: Horror of Dracula).[2]
(2 December 1927 – 19 August 2011)
Sangster originally worked as a production assistant at the studio, as well as assistant director, second unit director and production manager. After Hammer Films Productions’ success with The Quatermass Xperiment, Sangster was approached to write The Curse of Frankenstein,
to which he said, “I’m not a writer. I’m a production manager.”
According to Sangster, Hammer Films’ response was, “Well, you’ve come up
with a couple of ideas and if we like it, we’ll pay you. If we don’t
like it, we won’t pay you. You’re being paid as a production manager, so
you can’t complain.”[3] He later turned to direction with The Horror of Frankenstein and Lust for a Vampire (both 1970) for the studio, but with far less success. His third (and last) film as director was 1972′s Fear in the Night, which resurrected the psychological woman-in-peril thriller Sangster had begun with his script for Taste of Fear in 1961. All three of these films featured actor Ralph Bates, one of Hammer’s best-known actors of the latter period of the company.
Sangster scripted and produced two films for Bette Davis, The Nanny (1965) and The Anniversary (1968).
Other scriptwriting credits included The Siege of Sidney Street (1960) which starred Donald Sinden and in which Sangster appeared as Winston Churchill.
He is survived by his third wife, the actress Mary Peach and by a son from an earlier marriage, Mark James Sangster [4] and two grandchildren, Claire and Ian Sangster.[citation needed]
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Vilem Sokol, American conductor and music professor, died from cancer at 96 .
Vilem Sokol was a Czech-American conductor and professor of music at the University of Washington from 1948 to 1985,
where he taught violin, viola, conducting, as well as music
appreciation classes directed primarily toward non-music majors Vilem Sokol, American conductor and music professor, died from cancer at 96 .
(May 22, 1915 – August 19, 2011)
He was
conductor of the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestras from 1960 to 1988,[2][3] and principal violist of the Seattle Symphony
from 1959 to 1963. He was the featured soloist with the Seattle
Symphony for subscription concerts held March 7 and 8, 1960, performing Harold in Italy by Hector Berlioz.
Sokol was raised in Ambridge, Pennsylvania. At the age of 15, he studied with Otakar Ševčík in Boston. He received a bachelor’s degree in music from Oberlin College in 1938, where he studied violin with Raymond Cerf, and studied for one year on scholarship with Jaroslav Kocián at the State Conservatory of Music in Prague. He studied under a fellowship grant at the Juilliard School in New York City.[2]
Upon his return from Prague, he taught at Shorter College in Rome, Georgia
for two years. He returned in 1941 to Oberlin College to pursue
graduate work, but was drafted when the United States entered the Second World War. He served in Miami Beach, Florida, Lincoln, Nebraska and Biloxi, Mississippi.
Following his discharge in 1945, he returned to Oberlin College to
continue his graduate work. Before coming to Seattle, he taught at the University of Kentucky (1946–7), and the Kansas City Conservatory of Music (1947–8), which has been part of the University of Missouri–Kansas City since 1959.
Sokol was one of the first American teachers to meet Shinichi Suzuki and apply aspects of his teaching method.[3][6]
On August 19, 2011, Sokol died, aged 96, in Seattle, Washington from cancer.[7]
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Bob Flanigan, American singer (The Four Freshmen) and musician died he was , 84
Robert L. “Bob” Flanigan was an American tenor vocalist and founding member of The Four Freshmen, a jazz vocal group died he was , 84.
(August 22, 1926 – May 15, 2011)
Flanigan, who was born in Greencastle, Indiana, was a respected trombonist, and also played bass guitar with the outfit for several decades, beginning on September 20, 1948, and sang the top part. After retiring from performing in 1992, Flanigan maintained the band’s name and was responsible for the group’s changing cast of performers.
Flanigan died of congestive heart failure at his home in Las Vegas, Nevada, on May 15, 2011, aged 84.[1]
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Who is Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins?
Who is Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins? The entertainment and acting world knows him as Anthony Hopkins, a Welsh actor of film, stage and television. Considered to be one of the greatest living actors,[1][2][3] Hopkins is perhaps best known for his portrayal of cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs (for which he received the Academy Award for Best Actor), its sequel Hannibal, and its prequel Red Dragon. Other prominent film credits include The Lion in Winter, Magic, The Elephant Man, 84 Charing Cross Road, Dracula, Legends of the Fall, The Remains of the Day, Amistad, Nixon, and Fracture. Hopkins was born and brought up in Wales. Retaining his British citizenship, he became a U.S. citizen on 12 April 2000.[4] Hopkins’ films have spanned a wide variety of genres, from family films to horror. As well as his Academy Award, Hopkins has also won three BAFTA Awards, two Emmys, a Golden Globe and a Cecil B. DeMille Award.
Hopkins was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1993 for services to the arts.[5] He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2003, and was made a Fellow of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 2008.[6][7]
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Early life
Hopkins was born 31 December 1937 in Margam, Port Talbot, Wales, the son of Muriel Anne (née Yeats) and Richard Arthur Hopkins, a baker.[8] His schooldays were unproductive; he found that he would rather immerse himself in art, such as painting and drawing, or playing the piano, than attend to his studies. In 1949, to instill discipline, his parents insisted he attend Jones’ West Monmouth Boys’ School in Pontypool, Wales. He remained there for five terms and was then educated at Cowbridge Grammar School in the Vale of Glamorgan, Wales.[9]
Hopkins was influenced and encouraged to become an actor by Welsh compatriot Richard Burton (who was also born at Neath Port Talbot), whom he met briefly at the age of 15. To that end, he enrolled at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in Cardiff, Wales, from which he graduated in 1957.[5] After two years in the British Army doing his national service, he moved to London where he trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.[10]
Career
Roles
Hopkins made his first professional stage appearance in the Palace Theatre, Swansea in 1960 with Swansea Little Theatre’s production of Have A Cigarette.
In 1965, after several years in repertory, he was spotted by Sir Laurence Olivier, who invited him to join the Royal National Theatre.[5] Hopkins became Olivier’s understudy, and filled in when Olivier was struck with appendicitis during a production of August Strindberg‘s The Dance of Death. Olivier later noted in his memoir, Confessions of an Actor, that, “A new young actor in the company of exceptional promise named Anthony Hopkins was understudying me and walked away with the part of Edgar like a cat with a mouse between its teeth.”[11]
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| Hopkins as Richard I in The Lion in Winter |
Despite his success at the National, Hopkins tired of repeating the same roles nightly and yearned to be in films. He made his small-screen debut in a 1967 BBC broadcast of A Flea in Her Ear. In 1968, he got his break in The Lion in Winter playing Richard I, along with Peter O’Toole, Katharine Hepburn, and future James Bond star Timothy Dalton, who played Philip II of France.
Although Hopkins continued in theatre (most notably at the National Theatre as Lambert Le Roux in Pravda by David Hare and Howard Brenton and as Antony in Antony and Cleopatra opposite Judi Dench as well as in the Broadway production of Peter Shaffer‘s Equus, directed by John Dexter) he gradually moved away from it to become more established as a television and film actor. His Pierre Bezukhov for the BBC War and Peace (1972) was particularly memorable. He has since gone on to enjoy a long career, winning many plaudits and awards for his performances. Hopkins was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 1987, and a Knight Bachelor in 1993.[12][13] In 1996, Hopkins was awarded an honorary fellowship from the University of Wales, Lampeter.[14] Hopkins received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2003.[6]
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| Hopkins as Burt Munro in The World’s Fastest Indian |
Hopkins has stated that his role as Burt Munro, whom he portrayed in his 2005 film The World’s Fastest Indian, was his favourite. He also asserted that Munro was the easiest role that he had played because both men have a similar outlook on life.[15]
In 2006, Hopkins was the recipient of the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement.[16] In 2008, he received the BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award.[7]
Hopkins portrayed Odin, the father of Thor, in the film adaptation of Marvel Comics’ Thor.[17] On 24 February 2010, it was announced that Hopkins had been cast in the supernatural thriller The Rite, which was released on January 28, 2011. He played a priest who is “an expert in exorcisms and whose methods are not necessarily traditional”.[18] An agnostic, he wrote a line–”Some days I don’t know if I believe in God or Santa Clause or Tinkerbell”–into his character in order to identify with it.[19]
Acting style
Hopkins is renowned for his preparation for roles. He has indicated in interviews that once he has committed to a project, he will go over his lines as many times as is needed (sometimes upwards of 200) until the lines sound natural to him, so that he can “do it without thinking”. This leads to an almost casual style of delivery that belies the amount of groundwork done beforehand. While it can allow for some careful improvisation, it has also brought him into conflict with the occasional director who departs from the script, or demands what the actor views as an excessive number of takes. Hopkins has stated that after he is finished with a scene, he simply discards the lines, not remembering them later on. This is unlike others who usually remember their lines from a film even years later.[20] Richard Attenborough, who has directed Hopkins on five occasions, found himself going to great lengths during the filming of Shadowlands (1993) to accommodate the differing approaches of his two stars (Hopkins and Debra Winger), who shared many scenes. Whereas Hopkins, preferring the spontaneity of a fresh take, liked to keep rehearsals to a minimum, Winger rehearsed continuously. To allow for this, Attenborough stood in for Hopkins during Winger’s rehearsals, only bringing him in for the last one before a take. The director praised Hopkins for “this extraordinary ability to make you believe when you hear him that it is the very first time he has ever said that line. It’s an incredible gift.”[11]
Renowned for his ability to remember lines, Hopkins keeps his memory supple by learning things by heart such as poetry, and Shakespeare.
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| Steven Spielberg |
In Steven Spielberg‘s Amistad, Hopkins astounded the crew with his memorisation of a seven-page courtroom speech, delivering it in one go. An overawed Spielberg couldn’t bring himself to call him Tony, and insisted on addressing him as Sir Anthony throughout the shoot.[10]
In addition, Hopkins is a gifted mimic, adept at turning his native Welsh accent into whatever is required by a character. He duplicated the voice of his late mentor, Laurence Olivier, for additional scenes in Spartacus in its 1991 restoration. His interview on the 1998 relaunch edition of the British TV talk show Parkinson featured an impersonation of comedian Tommy Cooper. Hopkins has said acting “like a submarine” has helped him to deliver credible performances in his thriller movies. He said, “It’s very difficult for an actor to avoid, you want to show a bit. But I think the less one shows the better.”[21]
Hannibal Lecter
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| Hopkins as Hannibal lecter in The Silence of the Lambs |
Perhaps Hopkins’ most famous role is as the cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1991, opposite Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling, who won for Best Actress. The film won Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. It is one of the shortest lead performances to win an Oscar, as Hopkins only appears on screen for little over 16 minutes.[9] Hopkins reprised his role as Lecter twice in Hannibal (2001) and Red Dragon (2002). His original portrayal of the character in The Silence of the Lambs has been labelled by the American Film Institute as the number-one film villain.[22] At the time he was offered the role, Hopkins was making a return to the London stage, performing in M. Butterfly. He had come back to Britain after living for a number of years in Hollywood, having all but given up on a career there, saying, “Well that part of my life’s over; it’s a chapter closed. I suppose I’ll just have to settle for being a respectable actor poncing around the West End and doing respectable BBC work for the rest of my life.”[11]
Hopkins played the iconic villain in adaptations of the first three of the Lecter novels by Thomas Harris. The author was reportedly very pleased with Hopkins’ portrayal of his antagonist. However, Hopkins stated that Red Dragon would feature his final performance as the character, and that he would not reprise even a narrative role in the latest addition to the series, Hannibal Rising.
Personal life
As of 2007, Hopkins resides in Los Angeles. He had moved to the United States once before during the 1970s to pursue his film career, but returned to London in the late 1980s. However, he decided to return to the U.S. following his 1990s success. Retaining his British citizenship, he became a naturalized U.S. citizen on 12 April 2000, and celebrated with a 3,000-mile road trip across the country.[14]
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| Anthony Hopkins and Stella Arroyave |
Hopkins has been married three times. His first two wives were Petronella Barker (1967–1972) and Jennifer Lynton (1973–2002). He is now married to Colombian-born Stella Arroyave. He has a daughter from his first marriage, Abigail Hopkins (b. 20 August 1968), who is an actress and singer.
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| Hopkins daughter Abigail Hopkins |
He has offered his support to various charities and appeals, notably becoming President of the National Trust’s Snowdonia Appeal, raising funds for the preservation of the Snowdonia National Park in North Wales, and to aid the Trust’s efforts to purchase parts of Snowdon. A book celebrating these efforts, Anthony Hopkins’ Snowdonia, was published together with Graham Nobles. Hopkins has been a patron of the YMCA centre in his hometown of Port Talbot, South Wales for more than 20 years, having first joined the YMCA in the 1950s.[23] Hopkins also takes time to support other various philanthropic groups. He was a Guest of Honour at a Gala Fundraiser for Women in Recovery, Inc., a Venice, California-based non-profit organization offering rehabilitation assistance to women in recovery from substance abuse. Although he resides in Malibu, California he is also a volunteer teacher at the Ruskin School of Acting in Santa Monica, California.
Hopkins has attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings,[24] since suddenly stopping drinking in 1975. As stated to TMZ in October 2010, Hopkins is a vegetarian. In 2008, he embarked on a weight loss program, and by 2010, he had lost 80 pounds.[25]
Hopkins is a prominent member of environmental protection group Greenpeace and as of early 2008 featured in a television advertisement campaign, voicing concerns about Japan‘s continuing annual whale hunt.[26] Hopkins has been a patron of RAPt (Rehabilitation for Addicted Prisoners Trust) since its early days and helped open their first intensive drug and alcohol rehabilitation unit at Downview (HM Prison) in 1992.
He is an admirer of the comedian Tommy Cooper. On 23 February 2008, as patron of the Tommy Cooper Society, the actor unveiled a commemorative statue in the entertainer’s home town of Caerphilly, South Wales. For the ceremony, Hopkins donned Cooper’s trademark fez and performed a comic routine.[27]
Other work
In 1986, he released a single called “Distant Star”, which peaked at #75 in the UK Singles Chart.[28]
In 2007, he announced he would retire temporarily from the screen to tour around the world.[29] Hopkins has also written music for the concert hall, in collaboration with Stephen Barton as orchestrator. These compositions include The Masque of Time, given its world premiere with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in October 2008, and Schizoid Salsa.[30]
In 1990, Hopkins directed “Dylan Thomas: Return Journey” which was his directing debut for the screen. In 1996, he directed August, an adaptation of Chekhov‘s Uncle Vanya set in Wales. His first screenplay, an experimental drama called Slipstream, which he also directed and scored, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2007.
Hopkins is a fan of the BBC sitcom Only Fools and Horses, and once remarked in an interview how he would love to appear in the series. Writer John Sullivan saw the interview, and with Hopkins in mind created the character Danny Driscoll, a local villain. However, filming of the new series coincided with the filming of The Silence of the Lambs, making Hopkins unavailable. The role instead went to Roy Marsden.[31]
Awards
Besides his win for The Silence of the Lambs, Hopkins has been Oscar-nominated for The Remains of the Day (1993), Nixon (1995) and Amistad (1997).
Hopkins won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in 1973 for his performance as Pierre Bezukhov in the BBC’s production of War and Peace, and additionally for The Silence of the Lambs and Shadowlands. He received nominations in the same category for Magic and The Remains of the Day and as Best Supporting Actor for The Lion in Winter.
He won Emmy Awards for his roles in The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case and The Bunker, and was Emmy-nominated for The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Great Expectations.[32] He won the directing and the acting award, both for Slipstream, at Switzerland’s Locarno International Film Festival.
Hopkins became a Fellow of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) at the Orange British Academy Film Awards in February 2008.[33]
In 1979, Anthony Hopkins became an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music, London.[34]
Filmography
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Who is Michael Fred Phelps
Phelps won eight medals in the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, which tied him with Soviet gymnast Alexander Dityatin for the most medals of any type in any one Olympics.[2]
Overall, Phelps has won thirteen Olympic medals (eleven gold, two bronze): eight at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens (six gold, two bronze) and five at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games (all gold),[3] which gave him the most gold medals of any Olympic athlete of the modern Olympic era.
Phelps’ international titles, along with his various world records, have resulted in him being awarded the World Swimmer of the Year Award in 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007 and American Swimmer of the Year Award in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, and 2007.
So far, Phelps has won a total of 45 career medals: 37 golds, 6 silvers and 2 bronze. This includes all the Championships he has competed in: The Olympics, the World Championships, and the Pan Pacific Championships.
Phelps has qualified to compete in eight swimming events at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, and is attempting to surpass fellow US swimmer Mark Spitz‘s record of seven gold medals at one Olympics.
In his youth, Phelps was diagnosed with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).[4] He started swimming at age seven, partly because of the influence of his sisters and partly to provide him with an outlet for his restless energy. He blossomed quickly as a swimmer, and by the age of 10 held a national record for his age group. More age group records followed, and Phelps’ rapid improvement culminated in his qualifying for the 2000 Summer Olympics at the age of 15.[6]
In November 2004, at the age of 19, Phelps was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol in Salisbury, Maryland. He pleaded guilty to driving while impaired the following month and was granted probation before judgment and ordered to serve 18 months probation, fined $250, obligated to speak to high schoolers about drinking and driving and had to attend a Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) meeting.[7][8] Questioned about the incident later that month by Matt Lauer on the Today Show, Phelps said it was an “isolated incident” and that he had “definitely let myself down and my family down…I think I let a lot of people in the country down.”[4]
Between 2004 and 2008, Phelps attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, studying sports marketing and management. In May 2008, Phelps said he intends to return to Baltimore following the 2008 Olympics, joining Bob Bowman there when he leaves the University of Michigan, saying, “I’m not going to swim for anybody else. I think we can both help the North Baltimore Athletic Club go further. I’m definitely going to be in Baltimore next year.” The club has announced that Bowman is leaving the University of Michigan to become the club’s CEO.[9]
In a front page illustrated article profiling Phelps on the eve of the 2008 Summer Olympics, The Baltimore Sun described the hometown swimmer as “a solitary man” with a “rigid focus” at the pool prior to a race, but afterwards “a man incredibly invested in the success of the people he cares about”.[4] Bowman told a Sun interviewer, “He’s unbelievably kind-hearted”, recounting Phelps’ interaction with young children after practices.[4]
In 2003, Phelps broke his own world record in the 400 m individual medley (4:09.09) and in June, he broke the world record in the 200 m individual medley (1:56.04). Then on July 7, 2004, Phelps broke his own world record again in the 400 m individual medley (4:08.41) during the U.S. trials for the 2004 Summer Olympics.
In 2004, Phelps left North Baltimore Aquatic Club with Bob Bowman to train at the University of Michigan for Club Wolverine.
See also: Swimming at the 2004 Summer Olympics and 2004 Summer Olympics
Event
Results
Time
400 m individual medley
Gold Medal, World Record
4:08.26[11]
100 m butterfly
Gold Medal, Olympic Record
51.25[12]
200 m freestyle
Bronze Medal, American Record
1:45.32[13]
200 m butterfly
Gold Medal, Olympic Record
1:54.04[14]
200 m individual medley
Gold Medal, Olympic Record
1:57.14[15]
4 x 100 m freestyle relay
Bronze Medal
3:14.62[16]
4 x 200 m freestyle relay
Gold Medal, American Record
7:07.33[17]
4 x 100 m medley relay
Gold Medal, World Record
3:30.68[18]
Who is Michael Fred Phelps
Phelps won eight medals in the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, which tied him with Soviet gymnast Alexander Dityatin for the most medals of any type in any one Olympics.[2]
Overall, Phelps has won thirteen Olympic medals (eleven gold, two bronze): eight at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens (six gold, two bronze) and five at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games (all gold),[3] which gave him the most gold medals of any Olympic athlete of the modern Olympic era.
Phelps’ international titles, along with his various world records, have resulted in him being awarded the World Swimmer of the Year Award in 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007 and American Swimmer of the Year Award in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, and 2007.
So far, Phelps has won a total of 45 career medals: 37 golds, 6 silvers and 2 bronze. This includes all the Championships he has competed in: The Olympics, the World Championships, and the Pan Pacific Championships.
Phelps has qualified to compete in eight swimming events at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, and is attempting to surpass fellow US swimmer Mark Spitz‘s record of seven gold medals at one Olympics.
In his youth, Phelps was diagnosed with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).[4] He started swimming at age seven, partly because of the influence of his sisters and partly to provide him with an outlet for his restless energy. He blossomed quickly as a swimmer, and by the age of 10 held a national record for his age group. More age group records followed, and Phelps’ rapid improvement culminated in his qualifying for the 2000 Summer Olympics at the age of 15.[6]
In November 2004, at the age of 19, Phelps was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol in Salisbury, Maryland. He pleaded guilty to driving while impaired the following month and was granted probation before judgment and ordered to serve 18 months probation, fined $250, obligated to speak to high schoolers about drinking and driving and had to attend a Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) meeting.[7][8] Questioned about the incident later that month by Matt Lauer on the Today Show, Phelps said it was an “isolated incident” and that he had “definitely let myself down and my family down…I think I let a lot of people in the country down.”[4]
Between 2004 and 2008, Phelps attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, studying sports marketing and management. In May 2008, Phelps said he intends to return to Baltimore following the 2008 Olympics, joining Bob Bowman there when he leaves the University of Michigan, saying, “I’m not going to swim for anybody else. I think we can both help the North Baltimore Athletic Club go further. I’m definitely going to be in Baltimore next year.” The club has announced that Bowman is leaving the University of Michigan to become the club’s CEO.[9]
In a front page illustrated article profiling Phelps on the eve of the 2008 Summer Olympics, The Baltimore Sun described the hometown swimmer as “a solitary man” with a “rigid focus” at the pool prior to a race, but afterwards “a man incredibly invested in the success of the people he cares about”.[4] Bowman told a Sun interviewer, “He’s unbelievably kind-hearted”, recounting Phelps’ interaction with young children after practices.[4]
In 2003, Phelps broke his own world record in the 400 m individual medley (4:09.09) and in June, he broke the world record in the 200 m individual medley (1:56.04). Then on July 7, 2004, Phelps broke his own world record again in the 400 m individual medley (4:08.41) during the U.S. trials for the 2004 Summer Olympics.
In 2004, Phelps left North Baltimore Aquatic Club with Bob Bowman to train at the University of Michigan for Club Wolverine.
See also: Swimming at the 2004 Summer Olympics and 2004 Summer Olympics
Event
Results
Time
400 m individual medley
Gold Medal, World Record
4:08.26[11]
100 m butterfly
Gold Medal, Olympic Record
51.25[12]
200 m freestyle
Bronze Medal, American Record
1:45.32[13]
200 m butterfly
Gold Medal, Olympic Record
1:54.04[14]
200 m individual medley
Gold Medal, Olympic Record
1:57.14[15]
4 x 100 m freestyle relay
Bronze Medal
3:14.62[16]
4 x 200 m freestyle relay
Gold Medal, American Record
7:07.33[17]
4 x 100 m medley relay
Gold Medal, World Record
3:30.68[18]
Who is Ai Weiwei?
Who is Ai Weiwe? The chinese world knows him Ai, he is a Chinese artist and activist, who is also active in architecture, curating, photography, film, and social and cultural criticism.[1][2] Ai collaborated with Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron as the artistic consultant on the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Olympics.[3] In addition to showing his art he has investigated government corruption and cover-ups. He was particularly focused at exposing an alleged corruption scandal in the construction of Sichuan schools that collapsed during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. He intensively uses the internet to communicate with people all over China, especially the young generation.[4] On 3 April 2011 police detained him at Beijing airport. His studio in the capital was sealed off, and his staff interrogated pursuant to official allegations of “economic crimes”. On 20 April Ai was appointed Visiting Professor of the University of the Arts in Berlin.[5]
Life and work
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Ai Qing |
Aj was born August 28, 1957 and his father was a Chinese poet Ai Qing, who was denounced during the Anti-Rightist Movement and in 1958 sent to a labour camp in Xinjiang with his wife, Gao Ying.[6] Ai Weiwei was one year old at the time and lived in Shihezi for 16 years. In 1975 the family returned to Beijing.[7]
In 1978, Ai enrolled in the Beijing Film Academy and attended school with Chinese directors Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou.[8] In 1978, he was one of the founders of the early avant garde art group the “Stars”, together with Ma Desheng, Wang Keping, Huang Rui, Li Shuang, Zhong Acheng and Qu Leilei. The group disbanded in 1983.[9] Yet Ai Weiwei participated in regular Stars group shows, The Stars: Ten Years, 1989 (Hanart Gallery, Hong-Hong and Taipei), and a retrospective exhibition in Beijing in 2007:Origin Point (Today Art Museum, Beijing).
From 1981 to 1993, he lived in the United States, mostly in New York, creating conceptual art by altering readymade objects.[9] While in New York, he studied at Parsons School of Design.[10] f In 1993, Ai returned to China because his father became ill.[11] Back in Beijing, he helped establish the experimental artists’ Beijing East Village and published a series of three books about this new generation of artists: Black Cover Book (1994), White Cover Book (1995), and Gray Cover Book (1997).[12]
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| The Black Cover Book |
Ai Weiwei is co-founder and Artistic Director of China Art Archives & Warehouse (CAAW), founded in 1997, Beijing. It is a contemporary art archive and experimental gallery that concentrates on experimental art from the People’s Republic of China, initiates and facilitates exhibitions and other forms of introductions inside and outside China.[13] The building is designed by Ai Weiwei.
In 1999, Ai moved to Caochangdi, in the northeast of Beijing, and built a studio house, his first architectural project. Since he was getting more involved with architecture, he founded the architecture studio FAKE Design, in 2003.[14]
In 2000, he co-curated the art exhibition Fuck Off with curator Feng Boyi in Shanghai, China.[15]
Ai Weiwei and HHF Architects designed a private residence in upstate New York in 2006. According to the New York Times, the residence, completed in 2008, is “extraordinarily refined” and designed to incorporate a large, contemporary Chinese art collection.[16][17] In 2010, Wallpaper magazine nominated the home for its Wallpaper Design Awards category: Best New Private House.[18]
On 15 March 2010 he took part in Digital Activism in China: A discussion between Ai Weiwei, Jack Dorsey (founder of Twitter) and Richard MacManus, hosted by The Paley Media Center in New York.[19]
Ai Weiwei is married to artist Lu Qing.[6]
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| Lu Qing |
Exhibitions
Ai’s artwork has been exhibited in China, Japan, Korea, Australia, United Kingdom, Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Ireland, Israel, Brazil and the United States.
Ai Weiwei’s work was included in the 48th Venice Biennale in Italy (1999), 1st Guangzhou Triennale in China (2002), 1st Monpellier Biennial of Chinese Contemporary Art in France (2005), The 2nd Guangzhou Triennial (2005), Busan Biennial in Korea (2006), The 5th Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art in Australia (2006), Documenta 12 in Germany (2007), Liverpool Biennial International 08 in the United Kingdom (2008), 2010 Venice Architecture Biennale and the 29th Sao Paulo Biennial in Brazil (2010).
Fairytale is the title of Ai Weiwei’s contribution for Documenta 12 in 2007. For this project Ai Weiwei brought 1001 people from all over China to a small town in Germany called Kassel. They were chosen through an open invitation he posted on his blog.[20] Ai even designed clothes, luggage and a temporary home in an old textile factory. He let them wander around the city during the exhibition time of three months. The participants were divided into five groups that each stayed in Kassel for eight days. According to Philip Tinari the primary design object here is not the clothing or suitcases but the participants’ experiences, even their spirits.[14] During the exhibition his monumental outdoor sculpture titled Template, made of wooden doors and windows from destroyed Ming and Qing Dynasty houses (1368–1911), collapsed after a storm.[21] In 2008 he curated the architecture project Ordos 100 in Ordos City, Inner Mongolia. He invited 100 architects from all over the world (29 countries) to participate in this project.[22]
Ai curated the exhibition The State of Things, together with Belgian artist Luc Tuymans. It was shown at the Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels from 18 October 2009 to 10 January 2010 and at the National Art Museum in Beijing from 1–30 May 2010.[23]
From October 2009 to January 2010 Ai Weiwei exhibited So Sorry at Haus der Kunst in Munich, Germany. This solo exhibition showed Ai Weiwei’s largest retrospective to date.[24] The title refers to the thousands of apologies expressed recently by governments, industries, and financial corporations worldwide in an effort to make up for tragedies and wrongdoings – though often withhout shouldering the consequences or the desire to acknowledge let alone repair. Saying sorry – or not saying it – is in the headlines everywhere and thus also in China.[25] For this show Ai Weiwei created the installation Remembering on Haus der Kunst’s façade. It was made out of 9000 children’s backpacks. They spell out the sentence ‘She lived happily for seven years in this world’ in Chinese characters. This is a quote from a mother whose child died in the Sichuan earthquake in 2008. Ai Weiwei said: “The idea to use backpacks came from my visit to Sichuan after the earthquake in May 2008. During the earthquake many schools collapsed. Thousands of young students lost their lives, and you could see bags and study material everywhere. Then you realize individual life, media, and the lives of the students are serving very different 
purposes. The lives of the students disappeared within the state propaganda, and very soon everybody will forget everything.”[26]
On 25 July 2009 Ai Weiwei opened his solo show According to What? at Tokyo’s Mori Art Museum, Japan. This exhibition presented 26 works, most made over the past decade.[27]
In December 2009, Ai Weiwei had a small exhibition at the Comme des Garcons store in Hong Kong.[28]
From March to September 2010, Ai exhibited Barely Something, an exhibition curated by Roger M. Buergel, the director of Documenta12, at the Museum DKM in Duisburg, Germany.[29]
In October 2010, Sunflower Seeds was installed at the Tate Modern Turbine Hall, London. The work consists of one hundred million porcelain “seeds,” each individually hand-painted in the town of Jingdezhen by 1,600 Chinese artisans, and scattered over a large area of the exhibition hall.[30] The artist was keen for visitors to walk across and roll in the work to experience and contemplate the essence of his comment on mass consumption, Chinese industry, famine and collective work. However, on 16 October, Tate Modern stopped people from walking on the exhibit due to health liability concerns over the porcelain dust.[31] In February 2011, a 220-pound (100 kg) pile from Sunflower Seeds sold for $559,394 (well above its high estimate of $195,000) at Sotheby’s in London.[32]
Despite the artist’s absence, Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads opened on May 4, 2011, at the Pulitzer Fountain outside the Plaza Hotel in New York City, where they will be shown until July. The heads copy 18th century heads in the gardens of the Old Summer Palace, or Yuanmingyuan, near Beijing. They were ransacked by British and French troops during the Second Opium War of 1860, some of them resurfacing in 2000. A Guggenheim curator read Ai’s words, “Without freedom of speech there is no modern world, just a barbaric one.”[33]
Awards
In March 2010 Ai Weiwei received an Honorary Doctorate Degree from the Faculty of Politics and Social Science, University of Gent, Belgium.[34]
In September 2010 he received Das Glas der Vernunft (The Prism of Reason), Kassel Citizen Award, Kassel, Germany.[35]
Ai Weiwei was ranked 13 in ArtReview‘s guide to the 100 most powerful figures in contemporary art: Power 100, 2010.[36]
Beijing National Stadium
Ai was commissioned as the artistic consultant for design, collaborating with the Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron, for the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Summer Olympics, also known as the “Bird’s Nest.”[37] Although ignored by the Chinese media, he had voiced his anti-Olympics views.[2] He later distanced himself from the project, saying, “I’ve already forgotten about it. I turn down all the demands to have photographs with it,” saying it is part of a “pretend smile” of bad taste.[38][39] In August 2007 he also accused those choreographing the Olympic opening ceremony, including Steven Spielberg and Zhang Yimou, of failing to live up to their responsibility as artists. Ai said “It’s disgusting. I don’t like anyone who shamelessly abuses their profession, who makes no moral judgment.”[40] In February 2008, Spielberg withdrew from his role as advisor to the 2008 Summer Olympics.[41][42] When asked why he participated in the designing of the Bird’s Nest in the first place, Ai replied “I did it because I love design.”[43]
Sichuan earthquake student casualties investigation
On 15 December 2008, Ai Weiwei supported an investigation into student casualties in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake started by another Chinese artist. The investigation aimed to compile a list of students killed in the earthquake by 12 May 2009, the earthquake’s first anniversary.[44] As of 14 April 2009, the list had accumulated 5,385 names.[45] Ai published the collected names as well as numerous articles documenting the investigation on his blog which was shut down by Chinese authorities in May 2009.[46] He also posted his list of names of schoolchildren who died on the wall of his office at FAKE Design in Beijing[47]
Ai Weiwei suffered headaches and claimed he had difficulty concentrating on his work since returning from Chengdu in August 2009, where he was beaten by the police for trying to testify for Tan Zuoren, a fellow investigator of the shoddy construction and student casualties in the earthquake.
On 14 September 2009, Ai was diagnosed to be suffering internal bleeding in a hospital in Munich, Germany, and the doctor arranged for emergency brain surgery.[48] The cerebral hemorrhage is believed to be linked to the police attack.[49][50]
According to the Financial Times, in an attempt to force Ai to leave the country, two accounts used by him had been hacked in a sophisticated attack on Google in China dubbed Operation Aurora, their contents read and copied; his bank accounts were investigated by state security agents who claimed he was under investigation for “unspecified suspected crimes”.[51]
Shanghai studio controversy
In November 2010, Ai was placed under house arrest by the Chinese police. He said this was to prevent the planned party to mark the demolition of his newly built Shanghai studio from taking place.[52]
The building was designed and built by Ai upon encouragement and persuasion from a “high official [from Shanghai]” as part of a new cultural area designated by Shanghai Municipal authorities; Ai would have used it as a studio and to teach architecture courses. But now Ai has been accused of erecting the structure without the necessary planning permission and a demolition notice has been ordered, even though, Ai said, officials had been extremely enthusiastic, and the entire application and planning process was “under government supervision”. According to Ai, a number of artists were invited to build new studios in this area of Shanghai because officials wanted to create a cultural area.[53]
On 3 November 2010 Ai said the government had informed him two months earlier that the newly completed studio would be knocked down because it was illegal. Ai complained that this was unfair, as he was “the only one singled out to have my studio destroyed.” The Guardian reported Ai saying Shanghai municipal authorities were ‘frustrated’ by documentaries on subjects they considered sensitive:[53] two of the better known ones featured Shanghai resident Feng Zhenghu, who lived in forced exile for three months in Narita Airport, Tokyo; another well known documentary focussed on Yang Jia, who murdered six Shanghai police officers.[54]
In the end, the party took place without Weiwei’s presence; his supporters feasted on river crab, an allusion to “harmony”, and a euphemism used to jeer official censorship. Ai was released from house arrest the next day.[55]
Like other activists and intellectuals, Ai was prevented from leaving China in late 2010. Ai suggested that the authorities wanted to prevent him from attending the ceremony in December 2010 to award the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to fellow dissident Liu Xiaobo.[56] Ai said that he had not been invited to the ceremony, and was attempting to travel to Korea for a meeting when he was told that he could not leave for reasons of national security.[57]
In the evening of 11 January 2011, Ai’s studio was demolished in a surprise move by the local government.[58][59]
2011 arrest
South China Morning Post reports that Ai received at least two visits from the police, the last being on 31 March – three days before his detention – apparently with offers of membership to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. A staff member recalled that Ai had mentioned receiving the offer earlier, “[but Ai] didn’t say if it was a membership of the CPPCC at the municipal or national level, how he responded or whether he accepted it or not.”[60]
On 24 February, amid an online campaign for Middle East-style protests in major Chinese cities by overseas dissidents, Ai posted on his Twitter account: “I didn’t care about jasmine at first, but people who are scared by jasmine sent out information about how harmful jasmine is often, which makes me realize that jasmine is what scares them the most. What a jasmine!”[61][62]
On 3 April, Ai was arrested just before catching a flight to Hong Kong and his studio facilities were searched.[64] A police contingent of approximately 50 officers came to his studio, threw a cordon around it and searched the premises. They took away laptops and the hard drive from the main computer; along with Ai, police also detained eight staff members and Ai’s wife, Lu Qing. Police also visited the mother of Ai’s two year-old son.[65] While state media originally reported on 6 April that Ai was arrested at the airport because “his departure procedures were incomplete,”[66] the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on 7 April that Ai was arrested under investigation for alleged economic crimes.[67] Then, on 8 April, police returned to Ai’s workshop to examine his financial affairs.[68] On 9 April, Ai’s accountant, as well as studio partner Liu Zhenggang and driver Zhang Jingsong, disappeared,[69] while Ai’s assistant Wen Tao has remained missing since Ai’s arrest on 3 April.[70] Ai’s wife said that she was summoned by the Beijing Chaoyang district tax bureau, where she was interrogated about his studio’s tax on 12 April.[60] A Beijing-controlled newspaper in Hong Kong announced that Ai was under arrest for tax evasion, bigamy, and spreading indecent images on the internet. Supporters said “the article should be seen as a mainland media commentary attacking Ai, rather than as an accurate account of the investigation.”[71]
Response to Ai’s arrest
Analysts and other activists said Ai had been widely thought to be untouchable, but Nicholas Bequelin from Human Rights Watch suggested that his arrest, calculated to send the message that no one would be immune, must have had the approval of someone in the top leadership.[72] International governments, human rights groups and art institutions, among others, have called for Ai’s release, while Chinese officials have yet to notify Ai’s family of his whereabouts.[73]
State media started describing Wei as a ‘deviant and a plagiarist’ in early 2011.[74] The China Daily subsidiary, the Global Times editorial on 6 April 2011 attacked Wei, saying “Ai Weiwei likes to do something “others dare not do.” He has been close to the red line of Chinese law. Objectively speaking, Chinese society does not have much experience in dealing with such persons. However, as long as Ai Weiwei continuously marches forward, he will inevitably touch the red line one day.”[75] Two days later, the journal scorned Western media for questioning Ai’s charge as a “catch-all crime”, and denounced the use of his political activism as a “legal shield” against everyday crimes. It said “Ai’s detention is one of the many judicial cases handled in China every day. It is pure fantasy to conclude that Ai’s case will be handled specially and unfairly.”[76] Frank Ching expressed in the South China Morning Post that how the Global Times could radically shift its position from one day to the next was reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland.[77]
Michael Sheridan of The Times suggested that Ai had offered himself to the authorities on a platter with some of his provocative art, particularly photographs of himself nude with only a ‘horse‘ hiding his modesty – with a caption『草泥马挡中央』. The term possesses of a double meaning in Chinese: one possible interpretation was given by Sheridan as: “Fuck your mother, the party central committee”.[63]
Ming Pao in Hong Kong reacted strongly to the state media’s character attack on Ai, saying that authorities had employed “a chain of actions outside the law, doing further damage to an already weak system of laws, and to the overall image of the country.”[74]
The United States and European Union protested Ai’s detention.[78] The international arts community also mobilised petitions calling for the release of Ai: “1001 Chairs for Ai Weiwei” was organized by Creative Time of New York that calls for artists to bring chairs to Chinese embassies and consulates around the world on 17 April 2011, at 1 pm local time “to sit peacefully in support of the artist’s immediate release.”[79][80] Artists in Hong Kong,[81] Germany[81] and Taiwan demonstrated and called on Ai to be released.[82]
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and the International Council of Museums, who organised petitions, said they had collected more than 90,000 signatures calling for the release of Ai Weiwei.[83]
On 13 April 2011, a group of European intellectuals led by Václav Havel had issued an open letter to Wen Jiabao, condemning the arrest and demanding the immediate release of Ai Weiwei. The signatories include Ivan Klima, Jiří Gruša, Jáchym Topol, Elfriede Jelinek, Adam Michnik, Adam Zagajewski, Helmuth Frauendorfer; Bei Lin (Chinese:贝岭), a Chinese poet in exile drafted and also signed the open letter.[84]
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