text:
Styles & Movements
Transition to Sound
Modern Cinema
Art vs. Business
Process of Filmmaking
Soviet Montage
Gangsters Films
Mystery Films
Weimar Cinema
From Sound to WWII: 1931-1940
"At the end of the 1920s the cinema underwent a revolution. The centre of this revolution was the introduction of synchronized sound dialogue, but it affected other areas as well, leaving very few untouched. It was a revolution that began in America and spread inexorably to the rest of the world, though certain aspects of it had a specific European inflection and some remote corners of the world did not feel the effects of any of it for some time.
Sound affected film form and the structure of the industry in equal measure. The old silent comedy was replaced by the wisecracking of Mae West and the Marx Brothers. Playwrights and script-writers assumed a new importance. An entirely new genre, the musical film, came into being. The integration of music on to the sound-track brought massive redundancies among theatre musicians but it also meant that exhibition conditions became standardized since the film was now the same wherever it was shown. Visual styles became cramped by the inflexible new technology. Hollywood suffered a temporary set-back in overseas markets because audiences demanded dialogue in their own language. Since in the early years of sound all dialogue had to be recorded live, the practice grew up of making films in multilingual versions, with different actors, until the institution of dubbing in the mid-1930s made it superfluous.
The main effect of the coming of sound was a consolidation of the studio system, both at the level of production and at that of the overall organization of the industry. Films became an increasingly industrial product, while the boundaries of the industry extended to overlap with the burgeoning music recording business.
While the coming of sound can be seen as a phenomenon internal to the cinema and music industries, it coincided with important events in the world outside. The Soviet montage cinema fell victim to Stalinist accusations of formalism as much as to technological developments. The rise of Fascism in Europe affected not only the Fascist countries themselves but the political culture of resistance in western Europe. Experimental film-makers turned increasingly to documentary and to themes of social and international struggle. In the late 1930s the Japanese attack on China was followed by Germany's invasion of successively Czechoslovakia, Poland, the Low Countries, and France, until by the end of 1941 the whole world was engulfed in the Second World War." [3]
The Popular Art of French Cinema
The advent of sound in 1929 inaugurated what is usually called the classic French cinema. "The coming of sound took the French film industry by surprise. Though the French cinema was artistically rich in the 1920s, Hollywood was dominant and production had dropped to fifty-five films in 1926. Additionally, though French scientists had invented sound systems as early as 1900, none had been patented, so that American and German systems had to be imported.
The first French sound films (L'eau du Nil - 1928, Le collier de la reine - 1929) were little more than silent films with extra sound passages. It took René Clair's Sous les toits de Paris (Under the Roofs of Paris, 1930), shot for the German firm Tobis at the Epinay studios, to put French sound film on the map. Initially a flop in France, this populist tale about a street singer (Albert Préjean) became a huge world-wide success. Not only did it use sound and music imaginatively, but it popularized a nostalgic vision of old Paris and its 'little people', which subsequently characterized many French films." [3]
"It is the 'classic' rather than the 'modern' label that seems on the whole more appropriate to the cinema of the 1930s - partly because so many of the French films now thought of as 'classics' date from this period, partly because it was characterised by the dominance of the classic industrial model of production. This was nowhere near as closely integrated in France as in the United States. Any national cinema in this period, however, was to some extent forced to define itself in relation to Hollywood, and the examples of Gaumont and Pathé - still major names in France - illustrate how important a factor the industrialisation of the medium was. Both companies, however, were to lose out to the USA in the 'trade wars', Pathé selling off its factory to Eastman-Kodak and Gaumont pyrrhically merging with MGM. Without the state and governmental support it was to enjoy in later years, this was a difficult period for French cinema.
Sound had a more conservative effect than we might imagine, for the opportunity to transfer literary and theatrical classics to the screen was liberally used, leading to a large number of uninspired journeyman adaptations. Moreover, despite a 1932 governmental decree that dubbing of foreign films into French had to be done in France with French personnel, widespread fears were expressed that American cultural colonialism of the world could proceed unimpeded and French screens would be flooded with foreign imports. The justification for such fears is nowadays, of course, all too plain to see; but the French film industry, and the French state, have always shown great tenacity in defending what is often known as France's 'cultural exception', and even without large-scale governmental assistance in the 1930s the industry's artisanal structure and largely successful resistance to the Depression were to ensure the production of many outstanding films." [5]
The Late Silent Era
Silent Hollywood
The Advent of Sound
Hollywood's Transition to Sound
From Sound to WWII
Hollywood's Classical Period
The Post-Classical Era
March's Birthdays
Jennifer Jones (03/02)
Jean Harlow (03/03)
Lotte Eisner (03/05)
Henry Travers (03/05)
Claire Trevor (03/08)
Juliette Binoche (03/09)
Takashi Shimura (03/12)
Googie Withers (03/12)
Rita Tushingham (03/14)
Lawrence Tierney (03/15)
Isabelle Huppert (03/16)
Jerry Lewis (03/16)
Robert Young (03/16)
Gary Sinise (03/17)
Glenn Close (03/19)
Kent Smith (03/19)
Holly Hunter (03/20)
Gary Oldman (03/21)
Florenz Ziegfeld (03/21)
Joseph Schildkraut (03/22)
Joan Crawford (03/23)
Steve McQueen (03/24)
Simone Signoret (03/25)
Maria Schneider (03/27)
Gloria Swanson (03/27)
Quentin Tarantino (03/27)
Michael York (03/27)
Dirk Bogarde (03/28)
"The coming of sound put an end to the avant-garde, but silent film directors, like René Clair, Jean Renoir, Jacques Feyder, Marie Epstein and Jean Benoit-Levy, Julien Duvivier, Jean Gremillon, Abel Gance, and Marcel L'Herbier, smoothly made the transition and became prominent directors in the 1930s and beyond; they were joined by newcomers like Carné (Feyder's assistant) and the Spanish emigré Jean Vigo, who tragically died in 1934." [3]
"It is possible to see how a filmmaker such as René Clair may have been more justified than might now appear in lamenting the loss of the silent cinema's originality and universality. Clair, nevertheless, adapted rapidly enough to become the French cinema's first, and (apart from Jacques Demy) to this day only, leading director of musical comedies. Sous les toits de Paris (1930) is, as its title suggests, an evocation of the picturesque 'people's Paris' that was to figure importantly in films of the period, culminating in Renoir's Le crime de Monsieur Lange (1936). À nous la liberté (1931) satirises the very mass-production technologies of entertainment that made it possible, with its scenes in a prison and a phonograph factory structurally almost indistinguishable from each other. Le million (1931) choreographs the frantic search for a missing lottery ticket; even from so apparently Arcadian a world as Clair's, the economy of pleasure is rarely absent. Clair's work may now appear slightly fey and insubstantial, but the visual verve of À nous la liberté in particular, and its satirisation of the nascent modern entertainment industry of which the film is itself an example, do not deserve the neglect into which they have latterly fallen.
Jean Vigo made only two films of any length before his death at the age of 29 in 1934. Zéro de conduite (1933) had to be left partially incomplete because his time in the studio ran out, and L'Atalante (1934) was not a script of his choosing. Yet the first film's evocation of a revolt in a boys' boarding school, and the second's tale of life on a canal barge, have nothing of the journeyman about them; cinema as dream - the Surrealists' ideal - here reaches an apotheosis. Zéro de conduite was banned by the government virtually on release, perhaps surprisingly considering the innocence of its central characters' uprising (they use no weapons more deadly than tiles torn from the school roof). Yet we should remember that the 1930s was a decade of intense social instability in France, threatened with recession in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash and for much of the decade at risk from German expansionism. The brief interlude of the left-wing Popular Front government, which introduced paid holidays and the 40-hour working week before its downfall, came to stand out in popular memory as a moment of solidarity and togetherness amid a decade of turmoil. L'Atalante owes much of its impact to the extraordinary performance of Michel Simon as the barge-hand Père Jules. L'Atalante is among the most visually striking films of its period, thanks to the superb camerawork of Boris Kaufman in the night-time and dream sequences in particular. It was a comparative failure at the box office, though its classic status is now unquestioned." [5]
"The novelty of sound prompted the two most popular genres of the early 1930s: musicals and filmed theatre. Apart from Clair's Le million, À nous la liberté and Quatorze juillet (14 July, 1932), in which he bent genre conventions to suit his own auteurist preoccupations, musicals tended to be 'straight' filmed operettas.
But, internationally, the 1930s are especially associated with the more gritty Poetic Realism. Based on realist literature or original scripts and usually set in working-class milieux, Poetic Realist films featured pessimistic narratives and night-time settings, and a dark, contrasted, visual style prefiguring American film noir. The doomed universe of Poetic Realist films was said to reflect the gloomy morale of the immediate pre-war years. There is some truth in this, though Carné, like many politically conscious directors of the time, had earlier espoused the more hopeful ideology of the Popular Front, the left-centre alliance in power from 1936 to 1938, which spurred a remarkable rallying of intellectuals and artists, including film-makers." [3]
The decade that was ending had been a productive one for the cinema. The Conseil superieur du cinema, set up in 1931, had shown the beginnings of state and governmental interest in this (comparatively) new art form, and the founding of the Cinematheque frangçise in 1936 went on to reinforce this, providing the institutional context within which generations of young critics and film-makers would get to know not only French, but European and American cinema. Popular magazines like Pour vous and Cinémonde were read weekly by millions, while the writing of learned film histories had begun, from left-wing (Georges Sadoul) and right-wing (Maurice Bardeche and Robert Brasillach) historians alike. Between 94 and 158 films were produced each year during the decade (not counting 1939 which, for obvious reasons, was 'incomplete'), and something of the order of 225.000.000 admissions were annually recorded. There were exciting plans for the future put forward during the Popular Front - for the reorganization of the whole industry, and for an international film festival at Cannes. The war put a sharp stop to all this.
Film in Fascist Italy
"The years before WWI saw the expansion and consolidation of Italian cinema, not only in Italy, but also in the European and North American markets. The outbreak of WWI in 1914 interrupted this vital period of Italian filmmaking and initiated a critical period of stasis so that in the 1920s Italy lost much of its prewar international market share. Many Italian studios went bankrupt, unable to compete with Hollywood products in the Italian market after WWI. In an attempt at self-defense, Italian studios organized into the Unione Cinematografica Italiana, a conglomerate that subsisted until 1927." [1]
Sound came late to an Italian cinema already deep in the throes of a crisis precipitated by the influx of German and American silents. Only fifteen features were made in Italy in 1925, prompting Stefano Pittaluga (1887—1931) to merge Italy's three major studios — Italia, Cines and Palatina — into the Societa Anonima Stefano Pittaluga (SASP), with the aim of establishing a national cinema based on the Hollywood model. In 1927, Mussolini granted SASP exclusive distribution rights to the films made by L'Unione Cinematografica Educativa (LUCE), the state newsreel and documentary service that he himself had founded in 1924 to exploit the power of what he considered to be 'the strongest weapon' of the century. However, with Pittaluga's death in 1931 the Italian cinema once more found itself in danger of submersion beneath the swelling tide of imports." [2]
The first Italian sound film released was a musical comedy La canzone dell'amore (Song of Love, 1930) by Mario Righetti from a treatment (Il silenzio) by playwright Luigi Pirandello. It was also the year of the lowest production (14 features) since the early days of the cinema. Sound allowed the Italian film industry, like many industries in Europe suffering from competition with Hollywood, to offer a product in a national tongue. The themes and style of the contemporary Italian national cinema truly begin in this period and the regime's attitudes toward the cinema changed accordingly. By the mid-1930s, Mussolini was identified with a placard proclaiming that the cinema was l'arma piu forte (the strongest weapon), although it has not been established that Mussolini ever actually made the statement. Mussolini's son Vittorio took an active interest in producing and screenwriting as well as editing the journal Cinema. The government founded the Venice Film Festival in conjunction with the XVIII Biennale (Biannual) Art exposition, with the film competition becoming an annual event in 1932. The regime also added the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia (CSC) film school in Rome in order to further develop the national film industry. The first president of CSC was the noted film theorist Luigi Chiarini, who would later direct features such as Via delle cinque lune (Five Moons Street, 1942). Joining him in lecturing were Umberto Barbaro (1902–1959), Alessandro Blasetti (1900–1987), and Francesco Pasinetti (1911–1949). The CSC numbered future directors among its students, including Giuseppe De Santis (1917–1997), Luigi Zampa (1905–1991), Pietro Germi (1914–1974), Roberto Rossellini (1906–1977), and Michelangelo Antonioni (1912–2007). In 1937, the CSC began publishing a film journal Bianco e Nero (White and Black). In the same year, Cinecitta (Cinemacity), one of the world's largest film studios, was inaugurated by Mussolini in Rome for the development of a national film industry to bring the culture of Rome to the world. Several important future directors and scriptwriters worked at Cinecitta or on Vittorio Mussolini's journal Cinema in those years including Cesare Zavattini (1902–1989), Vittorio De Sica (1901-1974, Alberto Lattuada (1914–2005), Rossellini, Antonioni, Giuseppe De Santis, and Luchino Visconti (1906–1976). The Italian professional cinema of the late 1930s became a raining ground for postwar Italian film directors." [1]
The comparative autonomy of the industry did not make the Italian cinema free of propaganda. LUCE's documentaries and newsreels extolled Mussolini's regime, and some explicitly Fascist features were made. The tenth anniversary of the party's founding led to two commemorative films, Camicia nera (Black Shirt, 1933) and Vecchia Guardia (The Old Guard, 1934), somewhat similar in thrust to Germany's Hans Westmar. Italy's invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 inspired several propagandistic works, such as Lo Squadrone bianco (The White Squadron , 1936), as did Mussolini's support of Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War. Fascist policies were more indirectly glorified in patriotic historical spectacles like 1860 (1934) and Scipione L'Africano (1937).
Although most Fascist intellectuals hated communism, many shared Goebbels's admiration for Soviet films. They hoped that Italian films could move toward a nationalistic, propagandistic cinema. These 'fascists of the left' particularly welcomed epic spectacle. The masses, they hoped, would burst with pride at the sight of tumultuous battles in Spain, of Rome's elephants charging into heathen hordes, and of camels crossing Ethiopia. The regime, however, often disapproved of the spectacles' portrayal of the party. In addition, many of the films were financial disappointments. Not until World War II did a strongly propagandistic streak emerge in Italian cinema. Before then, a cinema of distraction was the norm.
Two popular genres flourished. Italian studios turned out romantic melodramas, typically set among the rich. When presented in a glossy modern decor, these were known as white-telephone films. A prototype was Gennaro Righelli's La canzone dell'amore (Song of Love, 1930), with later examples being Mario Camerini's T'amero sempre (I Will Love You Always , 1933) and Goffredo Alessandrini's Noi vivi (We the Living, 1942). An outstanding entry is Max Ophuls's La Signora di tutti (Everybody's Lady, 1934), a mordant critique of the star-making machinery of the publicity industry.
The other major genre of the era was comedy. As in other countries, sound film quickly brought forth romantic comedies built around infectious tunes. Sound also encouraged dialect humor, and many successful comedians - Ettore Petrolini, Vittorio De Sica, Totò came to cinema from music halls and regional theater. De Sica moved into mainstream romantic comedy in such Cines products as Gli uomini, che mascalzoni... (What Scoundrels Men Are, 1932). II Signor Max (Mr. Max, 1937), in which De Sica portrays a poor man pretending to be rich, proved him to be a top boxoffice attraction. Later, Aldo Fabrizi's Roman dialect comedy yielded him a comparable success. The postwar Neorealist movement owed a large debt to popular comedy: De Sica became a major Neorealist director, and Fabrizi's teaming with Anna Magnani in Campo de' fiori (Field of Flowers, 1943) looked ahead to Rossellini's Roma, città aperta (Rome-Open City, 1946)." [4]
Quota Quickies and the British Studios
"Long subjected to Hollywood saturation by the universal appeal of the silents, non-English-speaking cinemas were given the opportunity to erect language barriers by the coming of spoken dialogue. Yet the national film industry that was initially most rejuvenated by the advent of sound was Britain's. By the mid-i930s, despite remaining the biggest foreign market for American pictures, Britain ranked among the world's three largest film producers, although it enjoyed few international successes and much of its quota-driven, shoestring output was tailored for domestic consumption." [2]
"What enabled the British film industry to expand at this relatively late date? Midway through the 1920s, fewer than 5 percent of the features released in Great Britain originated domestically. Responding to this situation, in 1927 the government passed the Quota Act. It required that distributors make at least a certain percentage of British films available and that theaters devote a minimum portion of screen time to such films. The percentages were to rise over ten years, to 20 percent by 1937." [4]
"The American studios would now have to pay for their dominance by financing the production of a quota of British films while also taking some back for exhibition in the United States. In the event Warner Bros. and Paramount were the only two companies to set up serious production subsidiaries in Britain to fulfil their quota requirements. The rest made 'Quota quickies' - films shot to satisfy the terms of the Act but often financed at a rate per foot and barely intended to be screened. These gained British pictures an even worse name with audiences, though their production provided a useful training ground for future directors, such as Michael Powell. Many quota quickies sat unseen on distributors' shelves, or made up the second half of double features; spectators often walked out after seeing the American film. One estimate in 1937 suggested that half again as many features were released in the United Kingdom as in America, even though the British market was not even a third the size of the American market.
The years immediately following the Act witnessed the confused frenzy of the industry's conversion to sound, the impact of which the 1927 Act had not considered. Sound caught some productions in mid-stream. Alfred Hitchcock's Blackmail (1929) was reshot in sections to incorporate synchronized sound. Promotional material urged 'See and Hear It. Our Mother Tongue as it Should BeSpoken!' Multilingual versions of various productions were pushed through. E. A. Dupont's Atlantic (1929) about the sinking of the Titanic was made at Elstree in three languages, with three casts, for distribution in Germany and France as well as at home. Similarly Michael Balcon scheduled Anglo-German film productions with Erich Pommer at Ufa. British film producers Victor Saville, Herbert Wilcox, and the young Basil Dean visited Hollywood to get the gist of the newly expanded medium. Michael Balcon and Alexander Korda devised Anglo-American co-productions to take advantage of American improvements in camera blimping and microphoning." [3]
"The British studio system came to resemble a less stable version of Hollywood's. There were a few large, vertically integrated companies, several midsize firms that did not own theaters, and many small independent producers. Some firms, particularly the smaller ones, concentrated on quota quickies. Other British firms opted to produce films with moderate budgets, aimed at generating a modest profit solely in Britain. A few tried making expensive films, hoping to break into the American market. Although all these companies competed with each other to some extent, they formed a loose oligopoly. Bigger firms commonly rented studio space to each other and to small independents. The quota requirements made room for all.
The two main firms, Gaumont-British and British International Pictures (BIP) had been formed during the silent era but now expanded significantly. BIP's new studio was the biggest of several in the London suburb of Elstree, which came to be called "the British Hollywood." (As with studios in Los Angeles, British studios were scattered about the outskirts of London.) Both firms practiced a division of labor similar to that used in the Hollywood system, though BIP was particularly noted for rigidly adhering to production roles and discouraging employees' creativity. Both had extensive backlots where large sets could be built. Gaumont-British and BIP were roughly comparable to the Hollywood Majors in that both were vertically integrated, distributing films and owning theater chains.
There was also a group of smaller firms, somewhat similar to Hollywood's Minors: British and Dominion (headed by Herbert Wilcox), London Film Productions (Alexander Korda), and Associated Talking Pictures (Basil Dean). All produced, some distributed, but none owned theaters. Wilcox's policy was to make modest films in his studio at Elstree, targeting the British market. Dean called Associated Talking Pictures' Ealing facility "the studio with the team spirit," encouraging filmmakers to make high-quality pictures, often from stage plays." [4]
"The arrival of talkies dramatically changed the audience's experience of cinema. The expense of conversion caused many independently owned cinemas to go out of business, but the emergence of the combines ABC and Gaumont-British, plus the general popularity of cinema, led to a cinema-building boom, while ticket prices remained low. The 1930s were a period of general increase in the standard of living, despite the slow-down in industrial production. Unemployment seems to have had little effect upon cinema adInissions, even among those who were most affected by it. Audiences were by all accounts poorer, working-class Britons, with urban young people and women (particularly in the afternoon) being the most frequent attenders, and the female population's opinion was carefully monitored by exhibitors as a guide to profits. Contemporary surveys indicate that cinema's appeal lay in its provision of a form of escape, a site for courtship, and a mode of social currency, being able to talk about what you had seen. The main competing entertainment for this audience was variety, in which several of the more popular British film stars of the 1930s initially made their names: Gracie Fields, George Formby, Will Hay, Frank Randle, Sid Field, Tommy Trinder, and the Crazy Gang. The links between the worlds of film and variety were close and some of the exhibition circuits owned halls which still staged variety, while others promoted mixed, 'kine-variety' presentations.
As the decade progressed there was an expansion of cinema-building and cinema-going into middle-class suburbs. 'Super' cinemas constructed in the West End, the suburbs of London, and other major cities of Britain often had cafes, dance halls, and sometimes Palm Court orchestras attached to them, making cinema-going a still more diversionary experience. Attractions often included a Mighty Wurlitzer organ with accompanying lighting sequences and sound effects, or complex lobby entertainment and promotion. The general increase in cinema numbers meant there was more likelihood of a picture house in every neighbourhood, like a local pub or church, serving a wider sector of the population. Working-class audiences generally preferred American-made films over British ones, which they found too poshtalking and slower in pace.
However, there were zones of widespread appeal in British film-making of the 1930s, linked to the possibilities offered by synchronized sound. In the United States sound technology was invigorating old genres and creating new ones: the musical, the gangster film, the screwball comedy. In Britain, sound transformed feature film production in three areas: the suspense cinema of Alfred Hitchcock; musical comedy, especially the popular films of Jessie Matthews, Gracie Fields, Will Hay, and George Formby; and the epic film of empire or historical pageant, accomplished most spectacularly by Alexander Korda's London Films." [3]
"Korda was the most prominent and influential of British producers in the early 1930s. A Hungarian émigré who had already produced and directed in Hungary, Austria, Germany, Hollywood, and France, he formed London Film in 1932 to make quota quickies for Paramount. Soon, however, he switched to a big-budget approach, hoping to crack the American market. He leased a studio and in 1933 contracted to make two films for United Artists. The first, The Private Life of Henry VIII. (1933) provided a breakthrough for Korda and the British film industry. The film was enormously successful at home, and its profits in the United States topped those of any previous British release. Charles Laughton won a best-actor Academy Award and became an international star. UA signed to distribute sixteen more Korda films.
The new possibility of synchronized singing drew the tradition of music hall variety into a more complex relation with cinema, sometimes in self-reflexive form as in Old Bones of the River (1938), Will Hay's parody of Sanders of the River. The most successful films of this genre were those starring Gracie Fields, then at the height of her popularity.
The production boom made higher-quality filmmaking possible. In 1931, Gaumont-British gained control of a smaller firm, Gainsborough. With it came the talented producer Michael Balcon, who supervised filmmaking for both companies. Despite pressure from the owners to make films with "international" appeal, Balcon favored fostering distinctive stars and directors who could make specifically British films. These often did better than some of the more expensive, but lifeless, costume films. Balcon also signed Alfred Hitchcock to a contract with Gaumont-British. Since his success with the early talkie Blackmail (1929), Hitchcock had moved from company to company, trying several genres, including comedies and even a musical. At Gaumont-British (and its subsidiary Gainsborough), he returned to his element, making six thrillers, from the The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) to The Lady Vanishes (1938). Hitchcock would become identified with this genre throughout his long career." [4]
"The question of cinema's social impact and its role in class relations had become more urgent in the 1930s as the mass unemployed voice became louder, and as sound cinema itself brought the question of class to the fore, given the intensity with which class was coded through spoken accent. A network of film societies and film journals burgeoned, intensively screening and discussing recent Soviet cinema. There was a socialist film movement, organized around independent cinemas and working men's clubs, which made documentaries and distributed Soviet films. In 1933 the British Film Institute was set up with a specifically educational mandate, again distributing documentary work. There was also a flourishing documentary film-making movement, funded by a variety of organizations from the Empire Marketing Board to the gas supply industry, and inspired above all by John Grierson's General Post Office Film Unit. All this activity helped develop a seriousness for film as a social force, a concern which was to spread further into feature filmmaking and which was to be hastened by the overhaul of the expiring 1927 Quota Act, and by the building ideological pressures of wartime.
In the reconstituted Cinematographic Films Act of 1938, films with a labour cost of under £7,500 would no longer qualify for quota, a statute designed to improve quality. The old clause that 75 per cent of the wages paid on any film must go to British citizens was relaxed, and the rule that the scenario had to be written by a Briton was omitted. Both changes allowed greater use of American stars and technicians and encouraged American majors to invest in film-making in Britain more extensively, a trend that was to pave the way for Korda's MGM-London Films deal whose first release was Perfect Strangers (1945). The increased presence of American film-making helped boost the currency of the social problem film, a narrative genre well established in the USA which provided an outlet for the desire for a socially conscious cinema. MGM's first British production under the new agreements was King Vidor's The Citadel (1938), based on A. J. Cronin's novel, a story condemning the practice of private medicine in a Welsh mining community. Two more miners' films quickly followed: Carol Reed's direction of Cronin's The Stars Look Down (1940) and Michael Balcon's production of The Proud Valley (1939) at Ealing, starring Paul Robeson and directed by Pen Tennyson. At the same time Victor Saville shot a highly successful version of Winifred Holtby's South Riding (1938), about corruption on a district planning board which jeopardizes new housing projects and school facilities for working people." [3] By the end of the 1930s, Britain's film industry had passed through its crisis, and its situation looked promising. World War II was to give it a further boost.
The German Cinema Under the Nazis
"The National Socialists came to power in January 1933. In the confrontational politics that defined the Weimar Republic, however, they had been exerting indirect influence on the cinema through disruptions of left-leaning films and patronage of ideologically conservative ones. One of the most notorious incidents involved the American film All Quiet on the Western Front (Lewis Milestone, 1930) based on Erich Maria Remarque's novel Im Westen nichts Neues, a pacifist war story told from the perspective of German soldiers. Although the novel had been read by millions and its depictions verified as authentic representations of the war by German officers, the film met with right-wing resistance. Demonstrations by brown-shirted Nazi paramilitary units disrupted exhibition of All Quiet on the Western Front at its premier in Berlin in 1931. Historians question the spontaneity of the disruptions and attribute them to political agitation by Joseph Goebbels, who denounced the film as "unpatriotic" and "Jewish." According to reports, Nazis had bought half of the tickets to the second showing of the movie. When the police tried to quell the disturbance caused by exploding stink bombs and the freeing of a pack of white mice in the auditorium, paramilitary thugs overwhelmed the police. Subsequently, rather than crack down on the Nazis, the government banned the film. Yet when a similar incident arose with exhibition of a right-wing film, Das Flötenkonzert von Sanssouci (The Flute Concert of Sanssouci, Gustav Ucicky, 1930), the police evicted the left-wing protestors and allowed the movie to continue." [6]
"Like Stalin, Hitler was a movie fan; he cultivated friendships with actors and filmmakers and often screened films as after-dinner entertainment. Even more fascinated with the cinema was his powerful minister of propaganda, Dr. Josef Goebbels, who controlled the arts during the Nazi era. Goebbels watched films every day and socialized with filmmakers. In 1934, he gained control of censorship, and until the end of the war he personally examined every feature film, short, and newsreel that was released. Despite his hatred of communism, Goebbels admired Eisenstein's Potemkin for its powerful propaganda, and he hoped to create an equally vivid cinema expressing Nazi ideas." [4]
"He also publicly criticized German filmmakers for making inferior films. When he first became minister of propaganda with the Nazi takeover of Germany, Goebbels assured members of the film industry they need not be fearful of his policies. His audience may have indeed felt there was no cause to worry, as the films he mentioned in his talk as his favorites had been directed by Jewish filmmakers and moreover focused on themes of adultery, individualism, and rebellion. Within a month of his speech, however, Jews were being purged from the industry; within three months a general ban against employing Jews was in place. At the same time, films from the Weimar Republic and from abroad that had visibly Jewish influence were banned from exhibition. One year later, in January 1934, the government decreed that everyone working in film, from production to distribution to exhibition (mom and pop type movie houses were exempt), had to join the Reichsfilmkammer (Ministry of Film) to continue working in the industry. Jews could not be members of this organization, which finished the process of excluding them from film work.
Film under Nazi leadership did not become a monolith immediately after Adolf Hitler came to power. Goebbels exerted control to ban Jewish participation, and he instituted a policy of precensorship, by requiring that projects be submitted to a film advisor in the Ministry of Film. In spite of such precensorship requirements, studios retained a degree of autonomy, deciding which films to produce within the prescribed rules. The minister of propaganda was fond of using a metaphor of an orchestra to describe his film policy, explaining that not all members of an orchestra play the same instrument but also that no one has the right to play whatever music he wants during a concert. Ufa, Tobis-Film, and Bavaria-Film, the three largest studios, continued as separate studios until 1937, even though they were subject to tight management by the minister of propaganda. Even after 1937 the separate companies retained some autonomy over their film production. Not until the early 1940s did Ufa subsume the other studios. Such freedom within the system notwithstanding, Goebbels exercised almost total control of what was produced and, once it was produced, what could be released to be shown on German screens. He suggested stories and actors. Conversely, he also vetoed ideas and stars. The actress Margot Hielscher reputedly received fewer parts after turning down Goebbels's advances. According to Leni Riefenstahl she had to seek Hitler's intervention after Goebbels had rejected her as director of Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the Will, 1935).
If companies retained autonomy in their choice of films to produce, viewers had little to none in what they saw. Besides the censorship of German films from the Weimar Republic, foreign films were also banned, sometimes because they had Jews in the cast, sometimes because of the themes. The American film Nana, for example, was banned because its story tells of a soldier visiting a prostitute, which violated the military's sensibilities and honor code. The number of movies coming from America declined steadily until 1939, after which there was a universal ban on importing films from Hollywood. From early in the takeover, Goebbels voiced an opinion on the state of German films. He criticized their quality and suggested they stop showing Nazis marching across the screen, referring to his dislike of two German films at the time, S.A.-Mann Brand (S.A. Man Brand, Franz Seitz, 1933) and Hans Westmar (Hans Westmar, Franz Wenzlar, 1933), which portray the brown shirts marching, fighting, and arresting scores of citizens. The only film depicting the brown shirts to win his approval was Hitlerjunge Quex (Hitler Youth Quex, Hans Steinhoff, 1933), which, like Goebbels's favorite movie Battleship Potemkin, uses the language of film to appeal to the emotions of the audience. Hitlerjunge Quex places Nazi symbolism in the background, allowing the apotheosis that closes the film to develop from the story rather than be superimposed from without, as Goebbels had apparently found to be the problem with the films of Seitz and Wenzlar.
In his speeches, Goebbels again and again praised the potential for films to teach. Beginning in 1934, short cultural–political films became mandatory viewing by members of the Hitlerjugend, to which most youth belonged. In addition the German newsreel, which Ufa, Tobis-Film, and Fox continued to produce after the Nazis came to power, directed public attention to what the Nazis considered newsworthy. The documentary Der ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew, Fritz Hippler, 1940) had a double purpose. On the one hand it appealed to strains of anti-Semitism among viewers in order to build support for the Nazis' program of persecution against the Jews. On the other hand the film represented Jewish culture as a danger that had to be eliminated. Yet whenever Goebbels spoke of cinema's power to inform the public, he warned about making obviously tendentious and manipulative movies. His comment on avoiding overt symbols of Nazi militarism, mentioned above, was made in 1933. Four years later he admonished an audience of film professionals that "the moment that propaganda becomes visible, it loses its effect." Four years after that, in 1941, when the war had been underway for two years, he encouraged his listeners to edify their viewers since art "prepares them [the people] for life" but he cautioned that "it is advisable to disguise the didactic objective." Considering Goebbels's remarks, it is hardly surprising that most of the 1,100 feature films made while the Nazis were in power were not explicit propaganda. Certainly, they reflected the conservative values of Nazi ideology, and they portrayed characters in accord with accepted stereotypes for positively and negatively valued characters. Removed from the historical context, however, many of the films could be enjoyed as entertainment, which is perhaps why they had a second life on German television after the war." [6]
"For modern audiences, the most famous filmmaker of the Nazi era is Leni Riefenstahl. "She had started as an actress in the silent era and had directed herself in one sound feature, The Blue Light (1932), starring as a mountain sprite. The most forceful and eloquent propaganda pieces of the period were undoubtedly Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the Will, 1935) and Olympia (1938).
Personally selected by Hitler on the strength of her work in mountain films, Riefenstahl (1902-2003) was presented with thirty cameras, a crew of more than 120, unlimited financial resources and the guaranteed co-operation of the Nazi hierarchy in order to record the 1934 Party rally at Nuremberg. Special elevators, platforms, ramps and tracks were provided so that the cameras would miss nothing of the spectacle choreographed by Albert Speer. The result of eight months' editing, Triumph of the Will blended the architecture of the city, the rally arena and the Congress Hall with mass human geometric patterns to convey the power and universality of Nazism, while cleverly angled close-ups enhanced the messianic status of the Fuihrer.
Making innovative use of telephoto lenses and slow motion, and with eighteen months in post-production, Olympia was an account of the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games that played down the cult of personality in favour of that of the physique, itself a key tenet of Nazism. Clearly, Riefenstahl's films stand in stark contrast to the crudely propagandist features made during the war. Nevertheless, her detractors insist that she was politically committed to her work, although she always maintained that she was simply a film-maker engaged in the production of art." [2]
Soviet Cinema Under Stalin
"Soviet filmmakers were caught in a similar form-versus-content dilemma throughout the 1930s as a result of Stalin's insistence on the cinema of Socialist Realism. Its imposition coincided with the arrival of sound, and opportunities for experimentation were thus greatly reduced, although most of the great directors of the silent era made accomplished transitions." [2]
"At the end of the 1920s Soviet film enjoyed a well-deserved world-wide reputation, but within a short time the fame and influence of the great directors was lost; the golden age was brief and the eclipse sudden and long lasting. The coming of the sound film made the famous Soviet montage outdated, and therefore was a factor in the decline. But far more important in destroying the reputation of the Soviet cinema were the political changes that took place in the early 1930s." [3]
"The First Five-Year Plan centralized the Soviet film industry under one company, Soyuzkino, in 1930. The purpose was to make the industry more efficient and to free the USSR from having to import equipment and films. In order to dominate the home market, the film industry had to boost the number of films being made. By 1932, new factories were supplying the necessary raw stock, and the conversion to sound had been accomplished with little help from abroad. Low production and inefficiency, however, remained problems.
The period from 1930 to 1945 also saw a tightening of controls on the types of films being made. Boris Shumyatsky became head of Soyuzkino at its formation. He was directly responsible to the country's leader, Joseph Stalin, who took a great interest in the cinema. Shumyatsky favored entertaining and easily comprehensible films, and under his regime the avant-garde Montage movement died out. In 1935, he oversaw the introduction of the doctrine of Socialist Realism into the cinema.
From 1928, Joseph Stalin ruled the USSR as an absolute dictator, and harsh repression enforced government policy. The secret police ferreted out dissent in all walks of life. The government conducted "purges," whereby party members who were considered not to support Stalin wholeheartedly were expelled, imprisoned, exiled, or executed. This reign of terror peaked during 1936 to 1938, with "show trials" in which party leaders made scripted confessions of their participation in "counterrevolutionary" activities.
Socialist Realism was an aesthetic approach introduced at the 1934 Soviet Writers' Congress. A. A. Zhdanov, a cultural official, explained,
Comrade Stalin has called our writers engineers of human souls. What does this mean? What duties does the title confer upon you? In the first place, it means knowing life so as to be able to depict it truthfully in works of art, not to depict it in a dead, scholastic way, not simply as "objective reality," but to depict reality in its revolutionary development.
The central tenet of Socialist Realism was 'partiinost' (roughly, "party-mindedness"). That is, artists had to propagate the Communist party's policies and ideology. The models for this were the European realist novelists of the nineteenth century. Authors like Honore de Balzac and Stendhal had criticized bourgeois society. Of course, Soviet authors were not supposed to be critical of socialist society. Unlike critical realism, Socialist Realism was based on a second tenet: 'narodnost'. This term (roughly, "peoplecenteredness") means that artists should depict the life of ordinary people in a sympathetic way.
Socialist Realist artworks were supposed to be free from formalism, stylistic experiments or complexities that would make them hard to understand. Thus Socialist Realism ruled out the Montage style of filmmaking. In order to serve the party and the people, art was supposed to educate and provide role models, particularly in portraying a "positive hero." The realism in Socialist Realism was based in part on Frederick Engels's equation of truth with the "reproduction of typical characters in typical circumstances." For Stalinists, typical designated traits associated with communist ideals, not with the way things actually are. This means that many Socialist Realist artworks give an optimistic, idealized image of Soviet society, far removed from actual life under Stalin. As party goals changed over the years, so did Socialist Realism, and proper artistic methods were endlessly debated.
Writers and artists in all media were required to serve the Communist party's goals in their work and to follow a set of vague official tenets. This policy would remain more or less strictly in force until the mid-1950s. Artists were forced to accept Socialist Realism as the only correct style. Sergei Eisenstein's early mentor, the foremost theatrical director of the 1910s and 1920s, Vsevolod Meyerhold, disappeared during the 1936-1938 purges. Major writers like Sergei Tretyakov and Isaac Babel were secretly executed. Composer Dmitri Shostakovich chafed under the Socialist Realist doctrine but had to obey it. Film soon took up the new doctrine.
Socialist Realism became official policy in the cinema in January 1935, at the All-Union Creative Conference of Workers in Soviet Cinema. The film Chapayev, which had premiered only two months earlier, was referred to throughout the conference. By contrast, Eisenstein was singled out for attack, in an obvious effort to discredit the Montage movement. Other "formalist" directors were forced to admit past "mistakes"; Lev Kuleshov declared, "Like my other colleagues whose names are linked with a whole series of failed productions, I want, whatever the cost, to be, and I shall be, an outstanding revolutionary artist but I shall only be one when my flesh and blood, my whole organism and being are merged with the cause of the Revolution and the Party." Despite this self-abasement, Kuleshov also offered an eloquent defense of the beleaguered Eisenstein.
Filmmakers could not hope to keep a low profile. Stalin was extremely interested in the cinema, viewing many films in his private quarters. Shumyatsky, as Stalin's direct representative, ruled the industry. There was an elaborate censorship apparatus, whereby film scripts had to be reviewed repeatedly before being accepted. After shooting began, films could also be revised or shelved at any stage. This cumbersome bureaucratic system, and the fact that most scripts were rejected, slowed output; throughout the 1930s, the number of finished films remained far below the total planned. A film might take years to make, undergoing minute ideological scrutiny. The most spectacular case of such interference came with Eisenstein's first Soviet sound project, Bezhin lug (Bezhin Meadow), which Shumyatsky shelved in 1937." [4]
"Between 1933 and 1940 inclusive, Soviet studios made 308 films. Of these 54 were made for children, including some of the best films of the decade. such as Mark Donskoi's Gorky trilogy. These films were didactic and aimed to educate children in the Communist spirit by showing, for example, the difficult life of children in capitalist countries, their heroic struggle, and, most importantly and frequently, the importance of the collective. Historical spectacles became especially frequent in the second half of the decade, as the regime paid increasing attention to rekindling patriotism by old-fashioned appeals to national glory. These films were made about heroes such as Alexander Nevsky, Peter the Great, or Marshal Suvorov, and were often shamelessly anachronistic: Pugachev and Stenka Razin, for example, two Cossack rebels, were shown analysing class relations in Marxist terms and before their executions consoling their followers by predicting the coming of a great and glorious revolution.
Sixty-one films dealt with the Revolution and Civil War. These included such well-known films as Chapayev (1934), directed by Sergei and Georgi Vasiliev, the most popular and perhaps best film of the decade; Kozintsev and Trauberg's Maxim trilogy (1938-40); and Alexander Zarkhi and Iosif Kheifits's Deputat Baltiki (The Baltic Deputy, 1936). Each national republic that had a studio made at least one film on the establishment of Soviet power. The rest ofthe films were set in the contemporary world. Of these only twelve took place in a factory - a remarkably small number when one considers the significance of economic propaganda in the Soviet agenda. Film-makers seem to have found it difficult to make interesting films about workers and tended to avoid them. By contrast seventeen took place on a collective farm, many of them musical comedies - giving rise to the impression that life in the countryside was a never-ending round of dancing and singing. Film-makers, and presumably audiences, liked exotic locales and many films were made about the exploits of explorers, geologists, and pilots; between 1938 and 1940 alone, eight films had pilots as heroes." [3]
"Hoping to boost production and create a popular cinema, Shumyatsky decided to build a "Soviet Hollywood." He spent two months touring the American studios in 1935 and determined to replicate their technical sophistication and efficiency. His grand expansion project progressed during 1937, but it was never completed. Indeed, Shumyatsky never raised production to the level called for in the Five-Year Plans. While over a hundred films were scheduled in most years, actual release figures remained modest. After ninety-four films came out in 1930, releases steadily declined to a low of thirty-three in 1936 and averaged about forty-five for the next few years.
Ironically, the final result of Shumyatsky's policies was his own arrest in January 1938. One of the reasons cited for his removal from power was the waste of money and talent in the abandonment of Eisenstein's Bezhin Meadow. He became the film world's most prominent victim of the purges when he was executed later in 1938. From that point on, Stalin played an even more central role in making decisions about the ideological acceptability of films." [4]
"The fundamental cause ofthe decline in the number of films made and exhibited in the Soviet Union was censorship. The authorities set ever more stringent requirements that made film-making cumbersome and time-consuming (particularly if the Party line changed during the making of the film). Making a film in the Soviet Union took much longer than in the west, or than it had done in the 1920s.
From the late 1930s until his death in 1953, Stalin became the supreme censor, who personally saw and approved every film released. Like Goebbels in Nazi Germany, he micro-managed the cinema, suggesting changes in titles, supporting favoured directors and actors, and reviewing scripts. Through its insistence on making every film accessible even to the least literate, the obstacles put in the way of artistic experiment, and the denunciation of every trace of individual style as 'formalist', the regime destroyed the talent of great artists.
Film-makers contributed to the climate of denunciation by justifying it. In this respect, no prominent director with the exception of Kuleshov, who stopped making films after 1933, has a very good record. Eisenstein made his film Bezhin lug (Bezhin Meadow, 1935-7) on the basis of a story by Pavel Morozov, its purpose being to justify the son's betrayal of his father. In Dovzhenko's Aerograd (1935) a man shoots his friend because he turned out to be a traitor. In Partiynyy bilet ('The Party Card',1936 directed by Ivan Pyryev), perhaps the single most distasteful film of the decade, the wife shoots her husband, who was the hidden enemy. Vstrechny ('Counterplan', 1932 - directed by Sergei Yutkevich) was about the necessity of fighting saboteurs, while Fridrikh Ermler's Velikiy grazhdanin ('The Great Citizen', 1938) related the Stalinist version of the murder of Kirov and the great purge trials. (During the making of The Great Citizen four people associated with it were arrested.) In a period of terror and confusion none of these directors seems to have actively tried to avoid involvement in making these films. Everyone was under threat if they failed to conform and many were at least partially convinced of the rightness of what they were doing." [3]
The Studio System in Japan
"Sound was introduced into Japan in 1931, sparking a series of business wars that culminated in the foundation of three zaibatsu, or production companies, which, with the exception of the custom of directorial tutelage, were essentially replicas of the Hollywood majors. Coincidental was the emergence of a number of important sub-genres within the gendai-geki, including the haho-mono (the mother-film), the nansensu (nonsense comedy) and the sarariman ('salaryman' drama). However, the most striking development during this period was the willingness of film-makers to experiment, whether with combinations of Western dramaturgies and Japanese poetic conventions or with visual styles. Although adhering to continuity editing, the Japanese delighted in breaching the 180° axis. Similarly, they made greater use of location shooting, oncoming action, dislocated camera movement, wide-angle lenses and deep space." [2]
"Britain 's studios failed to achieve the stability of Hollywood's, but Japan's film industry succeeded. Its growth after the 1923 Tokyo earthquake and the advent of talking pictures strengthened a studio system much like America's. Two large, vertically integrated companies, Nikkatsu and Shochiku, dominated several smaller firms. Despite the Depression and the increased expense of sound-film production, feature output remained high (400 to 500 per year in the early 1930s), and new theaters were constantly being built. Most important, Japan was virtually the only country in which U.S. films did not overshadow the domestic product. Nikkatsu and Shochiku could profit from showing Hollywood films in their theaters while limiting American penetration of the market.
A third major player entered the game in 1934. Ichiro Kobayashi, a show-business entrepreneur who mounted extravagant stage revues, formed Toho (Tokyo Takarazuka Theater Company) by buying and merging two small companies specializing in talkies. Along with creating Toho as a production firm, Kobayashi erected movie theaters in Japan's major cities. While bringing Toho's production up to speed, Kobayashi used imported films to build up attendance at his theaters. He also hired many major directors, such as Teinosuke Kinugasa and the swordfight specialist Masahiro Makino. Toho became Shochiku's chief competitor. Nonetheless, the two vertically integrated companies cooperated to keep Hollywood at bay. Shochiku began to buy up smaller firms to keep pace with Toho, and the expenses of sound filming forced marginal production houses out of business. The industry consequently became more centralized in the course of the 1930s, with three majors and six to ten lesser firms.
The audience's appetite for films remained keen. The Depression was easing by the mid-1930s, and movies had become a central part of urban life. After the 1923 earthquake, the rebuilding of Tokyo had created a westernized popular culture, and the passion for western clothes, jazz, whiskey, and fads continued throughout the 1930s. Japanese moviegoers were as familiar with Harold Lloyd and Greta Garbo as they were with their own stars.
By common consent, the two most influential Japanese directors of the 1930s were Yasujiro Ozu and Kenji Mizoguchi. They contrasted in almost every way. Ozu worked only for Shochiku, wherea s Mizoguchi began with Nikkatsu and became a free-lance. Ozu started in comedies and shomin-geki, and he maintained an everyday humor in virtually all of his films. Mizoguchi, whose first films were melodramas, probed every situation for grim psychological and social implications. Ozu was a master of editing and static, closely framed shots, whereas Mizoguchi cultivated a style of long-shot framings, long takes, and camera movements. On the set, Ozu was quietly insistent, while Mizoguchi exploded into demonic tantrums. Ozu and Mizoguchi illustrate how the Japanese studio system permitted directors an enormous range of originality.
Avoiding the strict division of labor practiced in Hollywood, Shochiku and Nikkatsu had cultivated a cadre system in which the director and scriptwriter had considerable control over their projects. Supervision tended to be even less stringent at smaller firms. Toho favored a producer system, which, like that of Hollywood in the 1930s, placed a producer in charge of several directors at the same time. While Toho films did have a somewhat glossier, mass-manufactured look, directors could still work in idiosyncratic ways at most studios before 1938. After that, they had to face the demands of a nation engaged in total war." [4]
[1] Carlo Celli & Marga Cottino-Jones, A New Guide to Italian Cinema (Palgrave Macmilan, 2007) pp 26-28
[2] David Parkinson, History of Film (World of Art) (Thames and Hudson, 1996) pp 121-26, 134-45
[3] Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, The Oxford History of World Cinema (Oxford University Press, 1996) pp 344-48, 361-65, 374-81, 389-93, 413-19
[4] Kristin Thompson & David Bordwell, Film History: An Introduction (McGraw-Hill, 2003) pp 239-48, 261-64, 271-72
[5] Phil Powrie & Keith Reader, French Cinema: A Student's Guide (Bloomsbury Academic, 2002) pp 7-13
[6] Robert C. Reimer & Carol J. Reimer, Historical Dictionary of German Cinema (Scarecrow Press, 2008) pp 9-13
divadaniela © 2012-2018 Sitemap


text:
#ifndef VSymbolSpace_Interface
#define VSymbolSpace_Interface

/************************
 *****  Components  *****
 ************************/

#include "VTransient.h"

#include "VkSetOfFactoryReferences.h"

/**************************
 *****  Declarations  *****
 **************************/

#include "VSymbol.h"

/*************************
 *****  Definitions  *****
 *************************/

class VSymbolSpace : public VTransient {
//  Construction
public:
    VSymbolSpace ();

//  Destruction
public:
    ~VSymbolSpace ();

//  Access/Query/Display
public:
    unsigned int cardinality () const {
	return m_iSymbolSet.cardinality ();
    }
    VSymbol *operator[] (unsigned int xSymbol) const {
	return xSymbol < cardinality () ? m_iSymbolSet[xSymbol].referent () : 0;
    }
    void DisplayBindings () const;

//  Symbol Lookup
public:
    VSymbol *locate (char const *pString) {
	unsigned int xSymbol;
	return m_iSymbolSet.Locate (pString, xSymbol) ? (VSymbol*)m_iSymbolSet[xSymbol] : 0;
    }

//  Symbol Insertion
public:
    VSymbol *locateOrAdd (char const* pString) {
	unsigned int xSymbol;
	m_iSymbolSet.Insert (pString, xSymbol);
	return m_iSymbolSet[xSymbol];
    }
    VSymbol *operator[] (char const* pString) {
	return locateOrAdd (pString);
    }

//  Symbol Deletion
public:
    unsigned int Delete (char const* pString) {
	return m_iSymbolSet.Delete (pString);
    }

//  State
protected:
    VkSetOfFactoryReferences<VSymbol> m_iSymbolSet;
};

#endif

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Servicios de técnicos de FortiCare
Demos de productos
Descargas de producto
Comuníquese con soporte
Soporte técnico del producto
Cursos de formación técnica
Centros de formación autorizados
Academia de seguridad de red
Los socios deben inscribirse aquí
Registro de usuarios públicos/finales aquí
Profesionales de ciberseguridad
Inteligencia frente a las principales amenazas
Biblioteca de iconos
Biblioteca de videos de Fortinet
Alianzas Ecosistema
Encuentre a un socio de Fortinet
Login de socio
Centros de información ejecutiva
Premios de la industria
Respuesta de Fortinet a la COVID-19
Redes basadas en la seguridad
Nuestras redes basadas en la seguridad proporcionan conectividad segura de alto rendimiento entre usuarios, aplicaciones y dispositivos en la nube.
El Security Fabric de Fortinet ofrece un enfoque unificado que es amplio, integrado y automatizado.
Seguridad de red
Borde de servicio de acceso seguro (SASE)
Administración y análisis
Telecomunicaciones/Proveedor de servicios
Educación primaria y secundaria
Medios y entretenimiento
SCADA/Control industrial
Administración unificada de amenazas
Infraestructura segura
Switching seguro
Conectividad 4G
Conectividad segura
Proteger aplicaciones en la nube
Protección de usuarios
Controle los costos
Proveedor de servicio
Empoderamiento de los socios de servicios administrados de seguridad para que presten servicios integrales de alto margen para los casos de uso que abarcan aplicaciones de múltiples nubes, implementaciones en empresas locales y sucursales.
Servicio administrado de Secure SD-WAN
Proveedores de servicios de seguridad administrados (MSSP)
Seguridad del operador móvil
Seguridad dinámica en la nube
Nuestra seguridad dinámica en la nube proporciona protección en todos los entornos de nube, incluida la nube híbrida, pública y privada.
Nube pública
Nube privada
Aplicaciones y seguridad SaaS
Seguridad de correo electrónico
Controlador de aplicación web
Operaciones de seguridad basadas en IA
Las operaciones de seguridad basadas en IA proporcionan la respuesta y corrección más rápidas que incluyen inteligencia y conocimientos de amenazas personalizables y procesables.
Aislamiento del navegador
Análisis del comportamiento del usuario y de la entidad (UEBA)
Protección de endpoint
Protección de endpoint con EDR
Acceso de confianza cero
Nuestra red de acceso de confianza cero permite la identificación de todos los usuarios, aplicaciones y dispositivos dentro y fuera de la red.
Acceso de red
Seguridad del NAC e IoT
Administración de identidad y acceso
Teléfonos y voz
Seguridad de video basada en la red
Autenticación de usuario
Recursos y documentación
A virtual private network (VPN) is a secure network that enables internet users to hide their Internet Protocol (IP) address to securely browse the web and access content from other countries. A succinct description of what is VPN is it enables people to access the internet securely while remaining anonymous online.
VPNs are often required because Wi-Fi networks can be insecure, which could risk users exposing their personal information to cyber criminals. The VPN hides a user's location and online activity and retains their privacy through encrypted secure tunnels.
A VPN does that by disguising the user's online location, making it appear as if they are connecting to the internet from another country. This enables a user to get around geographical restrictions on streaming websites and watch content from different countries. They are also able to protect themselves on untrusted Wi-Fi networks, gain online anonymity, and torrent files securely.
How a VPN Works
A VPN works by routing a device's internet connection through a private service rather than the user's regular internet service provider (ISP). The VPN acts as an intermediary between the user getting online and connecting to the internet by hiding their IP address.
Using a VPN creates a private, encrypted tunnel through which a user's device can access the internet while hiding their personal information, location, and other data. All network traffic is sent through a secure connection via the VPN. This means that any data transmitted to the internet is redirected to the VPN rather than from the user's computer.
When the user connects to the web using their VPN, their computer submits information to websites through the encrypted connection created by the VPN. The VPN then forwards that request and sends a response from the requested website back to the connection.
How Does a VPN Work in Practice?
A VPN masks a user's true location to the one they set their VPN to. This enables them to access content or websites typically restricted to that region. For example, a user in the U.S. can set their location to the United Kingdom and watch content from streaming websites aimed at British audiences. A U.S. citizen can also continue streaming their favorite shows even when they are away from the country on holiday.
Let us take a look at some of the common uses of VPNs.
Protecting Browsing History
ISPs and web browsers can track everything a user does while connected to the internet. They also keep a history of the websites users visit and tie that information to the IP address used, then often issue targeted advertisements related to that search information or even sell users' browsing data. Keeping these details secret can be really important to people, especially if they are using a shared device or web browser.
A VPN enables users to keep search information—such as medical conditions, required surgery or treatment, travel plans, or even gift idea research—private and prevents their ISP and web browser from serving related ads.
Securing IP Address and Location Data
An IP address is the internet's equivalent of the return address on a handwritten letter. Therefore, anyone that knows a user's IP address can access the information they have searched for on the internet and where they were when they searched for it. Furthermore, a user's search history can be viewed if they connect to a web browser on a public or work computer.
VPNs use IP addresses that do not belong to a user, which enables them to connect to and browse the web anonymously while maintaining their privacy online. Using a VPN also enables users to prevent their search history data from being collected, viewed, and sold.
Hiding Streaming Location
Streaming services like Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, and Netflix offer different content to users located in different countries. Using a VPN enables a streaming customer to access the content intended for people living in different countries regardless of their actual location.
It can also enable a user to access a streaming subscription they have in their home country while traveling. For example, a user on holiday in another country could use a VPN to set their location to the U.S. and stream their favorite sports team's live game.
Protecting Devices
A VPN is also crucial to protecting users' devices, such as computers, laptops, smartphones, and tablets, from being intercepted by cyber criminals. Bad actors often target devices that connect to the internet on specific networks, such as a public Wi-Fi network. A VPN helps a user mask their device's location and protect the data on it from being seen by a potential hacker.
Ensuring Internet Freedom
A VPN enables people to protect themselves from government surveillance by hiding their browsing history. As long as their VPN provider does not log browsing history, which some do, users can rest assured that their freedom on the internet is protected.
VPN Encryption—All You Need To Know
"Do VPNs really work?" is a fair question, and anyone asking should know they do. VPNs use encryption to keep internet users secure and their data private. A VPN works based on encryption, which hides the true meaning of information. This ensures data cannot be read unless someone unlocks it with a password, known as an encryption key. When using a VPN, the encryption key protecting a user's data and web activity is only known by their computer and VPN server.
VPN services use various types of encryption processes, but encryption, in a nutshell, typically creates a secure tunnel in which the user's data is encoded. Data is encrypted into unreadable code as it moves between the user's computer and the VPN server. The device connects to the local network the VPN is connected to, which masks the user's IP address as belonging to a server from the VPN provider.
VPN Protocols
All VPN services use VPN protocols to ensure they provide users with the fastest and most secure internet connection. VPN protocols use a combination of encryption and transmission standards to determine how a user's data is transported between their device and the VPN server.
Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP)
PPTP is one of the oldest protocols still active on the internet. Created by Microsoft, it uses the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) control channel and Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE) tunneling protocol. It relies on the Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP), which is a Layer 2 communications protocol directly between two routers, to implement security functionalities.
PPTP is fast and simple to deploy but only really applicable to people using older Windows operating systems. It also has several well-known security issues, so any VPN that only uses PPTP should be avoided.
Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP)
This protocol combines PPTP with the Layer 2 Forwarding (L2F) tunneling protocol. It strengthens the data tunnel provided by PPTP but does not provide users with encryption or privacy capabilities. As a result, the protocol is typically bundled with a security protocol such as Internet Protocol security (IPsec).
Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol (SSTP)
SSTP is a VPN tunnel created by Microsoft and is a much more secure option. It transports PPP traffic through the secure sockets layer/transport layer security (SSL/TLS) channel, which provides encryption, key negotiation, and traffic integrity checking. As such, only the two parties that transmit the data are able to decode it. Using this over the TCP port 443 ensures that SSTP can travel through most firewalls and proxy servers.
Internet Key Exchange Version 2 (IKEv2)
IKEv2 handles request and response actions to ensure traffic is secure and authenticated, usually using IPsec. It establishes the security attributes of the device and server, then authenticates them, and agrees which encryption methods to use. It supports 256-bit encryption and allows the use of popular ciphers such as Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), Camellia, and ChaCha20. IKEv2 is mostly used to secure mobile devices, in which it is particularly effective.
OpenVPN is widely considered the best open-source VPN technology available. The free software uses pre-shared certificates, secret keys, and usernames and passwords to authenticate every device or server. It uses the open secure sockets layer (OpenSSL) encryption library and TLS, in addition to a custom protocol utilizing SSL/TLS for key exchange. OpenVPN offers the same protection as established protocols but on a wider scale.
How Fortinet Can Help
Fortinet enables organizations to build secure networks and implement their cloud-first strategies with the FortiGate IPsec/SSL VPN solutions. These scalable, high-performance VPNs ensure organizations maintain consistent security policies and access control across all their applications, devices, and users, regardless of their location.
The FortiGate VPNs provide secure communication between multiple endpoints and networks through IPsec and SSL technologies. This ensures they protect data while it is in motion at high speed, which helps organizations and users to not fall victim to data breaches or threats like man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks.
Learn more about Fortinet today
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
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Living in Pasadena
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2018 Pasadena EDC Strategic Plan
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We are here to support your business growth. If you need help starting a business, we can assist with that as well. Whether you are in search of a new location, help capturing a business opportunity, resources or incentives, our economic development staff is here to assist you. Explore some of the business resources listed here and reach out for information on how to take advantage of them.
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Mentoring and other assistance to small businesses through partnership with the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Starting & Managing Your Business
Guides provided by the U.S. Small Business Administration for every stage of business.
Texas Business Advisor
Business start-up information offered by the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts.
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Offered as part of Texas.gov (formerly TexasOnline), provides citizens, local government, and state agencies with a single, secure structure to conduct business online.
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Information provided by the Texas Economic Development Division within the Governor's Office, includes information on business structure, EINs, business taxes, and employer requirements.
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Friends and relatives gathered to share this special occasion with our Diamond - 60 Years - Couple, Margaret and Michael Hussey.
A lot of family came over from Ireland to join in the festivities and share this specail occasion. A wonderful message was received from the Queen.
Pictured with Michaell, his son, who will be celebrating his 60th birthday soon ........!
Friends at Alex enjoy sharing the very grand tea, lovely salmon and cucumber sandwiches and lush cream cakes - they love a reason to get the china out and what better way to share with friends on such an occasion.
Open house with tea and cakes on offer all day and a classical singer called Natalie Visiting.
They do know how to get out the china and put on music, it will be a great atomosphere, so do stop by.
Red tulips were very popular with the lady residents and Nora is positively glowing with this gift.
The children did enjoy visiting us again and will be back to sing some songs next term after their summer musical production.
Even the gents can enjoy flowers and this was a lovely bouquet, presented by the children after a special mass at the local church.
Priory school visited us previously bringing flowers, they know what joy they can bring!
'I especially love seeing the old and young together and the joy of giving and sharing is captured so well on this picture of the 'flower' visit.' said the care home manager.
Even this lady resident who wasnt able to get to the lounge was able to appreciate the flowers (almost disappearing behind them) i can see her smiling and her visitor is too.
We look forward to the next visit by Priory School and thank them for coming to share their flowers with us at Alexandra House.
Quizzical? Maybe Bella's ready to go back to Gran Gill. So lovely of Gill to share her grandaughter Bella with us all.
Eleanor, our oldest resident (102 years) at Alexandra House, is enjoying wearing her Easter Bonnet, which she made herself. She had good training as she was in service to royalty.
Eileen and George Hands also like getting the China out and having proper tea, which includes chocolate eclairs!
Music is a frequent occurence here, as Stewart comes along monthly, to play and the residents enjoy the jolly atmosphere he creates with his playing.
Activity Coordinator Trayce Pullen got organised with lots of materials, wool, pictures, cut outs, etc to stimulate the residents on their creative day.
Our ladies below, show that concentration is key when dealing with wool!
This lady shows how she can master this delicate operation, which looks very involved - we would love to know what the outcome is!
These psychedelic flowers resulted from some of the creativity. It's good to have a bright finished output like this.
Another artistic activity involved carefully painting in stencils for a Cinderella dress.
The Cinderella Dress is to be displayed in a glass case at Nottingham train station.
Once again concentration and accuracy is required.
Melbourne House - A place called home to many and now a creative centre in Aspley!
After their artistic afternoon in, it is rewarding to get out and go to an afternoon Tea Dance. Pauline and Jean enjoy the change of scene and some tea too.


text:
Q: Auto restart batch file upon exit from batch Currently I have a batch file running:
cd "C:\Users\chriscrutt\Desktop\"
:loop
Start /w yeet.bat
goto loop

This runs "yeet.bat". Sometimes the command prompt will crash but I need it to automatically restart. That is why I used "/w" but it requires me to manually input "N" when it asks: Terminate batch job (Y/N)? Is there a way to make it so it automatically restarts or so it will automatically say "N" to restart it?
This is how it goes. I run the bat file which runs the yeet file which runs the other program. the code for "yeet.bat" is
title ETHBTC
cd "C:\Users\chriscrutt\Google Drive\gekkoETHBTC"
node gekko

When i do "node gekko" it runs the bot.

A: This code do what you want: each time that yeet.bat ends for any reason it is restarted again "immediately and automatically".
cd "C:\Users\chriscrutt\Desktop\"
:loop
Start yeet.bat | set /P "="
goto loop

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Troops of 8 Division, Nigerian Army, on Exercise EGWU EKE III, in conjunction with other security agencies have recovered dangerous weapons from criminals and political thugs in Sokoto State.
According to a statement by the Director, Army Public Relations, Brig Gen Sani Usman, the development has contributed immensely to peaceful security situation in the State.
Gen Usman further disclosed that troops on joint stop and search patrol patrol with other security agencies, arrested 16 persons suspected to be political thugs armed with dangerous weapons along Illela-Danfulani-Gwadabawa road.
"The suspects were arrested armed with 27 axes and 16 customised sticks. While still conducting the search, a prominent politician in the state and a serving Senator, came to the scene and ordered his mobile police escorts to release them.
"In the process, the Department of State Service operative was molested and his clothes torn. The patriotic and professional officer still held on to the seized weapons.
Similarly, another prominent politician from Zamfara State had earlier tried to influence the investigation of arrested armed poltical thugs.
These undue pressures and attempts to interfere with the conduct of the Exercise for selfish reasons are indeed worrisome and disturbing and will not be tolerated,".
The Army spokesman frowned at the undue intervention of mischief politicians while reiterating the commitments of the Nigerian Army which he said "has always been professional, impartial and apolitical and will continue to be so".
Recall that since the launching of Exercise Egwu Eke III in January 2019, Nigeria Army troops have succeeded in arresting thugs armed with dangerous weapons across the various political parties, without fear or favour.


text:
Q: Do I need a comma after landscaper? During my college years, I worked as a landscaper becoming increasingly drawn to the wild plants and their uses in folk medicine.

A: I think a comma here is highly desirable, if not strictly necessary from a grammatical point of view.  The difference is that "becoming increasingly drawn to the wild plants and their uses in folk medicine" is a adding extra information, not qualifying "landscaper" (that is to say, this clause does not answer the question "what kind of lanscaper?").  In speech, a brief pause would be necessary here, and I would add the comma to indicate this (as @Carlo_R has commented).


text:
How changing a spice production system increases benefits
From tree-climbing vines like vanilla and pepper, to actual trees like cinnamon and nutmeg, many spices actually come from the forest. They are ideally suited for cultivation in an agroforestry system. Growing spices in this way can increase farm income, profitability and economic stability, while providing key benefits for future-oriented businesses throughout the supply chain.
Regenerative agroforestry is known for its environmental and social benefits and it has been used in some of the world's largest restoration projects as an extensive system. But, when done right, it is also ideal for intensive production – farming focused on maximizing yields for profitability. Companies like Dutch spice importer Verstegen Spices are investing in it because it can be more productive and more profitable than conventional and monocrop agricultural practices.
"Intensive" production; a marriage between high productivity and sustainability
It is common to assume that "high productivity" and "sustainability" or "regeneration" do not go together. But this does not have to be the case.
Combining different tree crops in agroforestry systems can lead to more efficient use of the same space – because different crops make use of different resources and growing conditions. If crops can be combined to minimise competition between species and maximise their positive interactions, the productivity per unit of land increases: we can "intensify" production.
The model farm for white pepper designed by reNature for Verstegen Spices and their local partner PT CAN in Bangka, Indonesia, contains 25% fewer pepper (Piper nigrum) plants than a typical monoculture. But it also contains over 200 timber and fruit trees like durian, mango and avocado. Because the pepper is likely to benefit from interactions with the trees in the system, the combined production of pepper and fruit is expected to be greater than in monocultures.
Many spices are ideally suited to these sorts of systems. For example, the vanilla (Vanilla planifolia) vine thrives in a forest with shade, while cinnamon (Cinnamomum spp.) is a small tree that can be productive in the same conditions. We can therefore integrate higher trees and crops into spice plantations, or integrate spices as extra crops in non-spice plantations, like rubber. Thus creating a new 'forest' with multiple layers of canopy.
Providing income from the start
The idea is to increase the farmer's total income overall through selling more than one product. However, it takes time before trees like durian, mango and avocado produce enough. Therefore short-term crops such as corn, pumpkin, banana and pineapple are mixed in between and can be sold in the first 3 years before the pepper matures. Where a monoculture pepper farm will only provide income after three years, this system is producing income from the first year.
Local markets offer a variety of products. Image: Pexels.
Spices can also be mixed with tree crop plantations to provide income more quickly than in monocropping situations. For example, in rubber plantations, harvesting only begins after approximately 7 years. This leads to cash flow shortages and often forces farmers to maintain plantations for longer than their optimum productive lifespan.
Increasing profitability in the end
A high income is of no use if there is no profit at the end of the season. That's why many "high productivity" conventional systems (large fields with only one crop) often leave farmers with just enough money to support their families. Labour, fertilisers and pesticides are the most significant costs that farmers face in today's production. Year after year.
In Bangka, the white pepper production also depends on these yearly inputs. As a result, the amount of money returning to a farmer's pocket is little compared to their overall income. The agroforestry system reduces dependency on these costs by building natural soil fertility and reducing pest pressures, saving the farmer money.
Warmer sea temperature may intensify rainfall in the Indonesian region. Image: Pexels
Ready for the climate change and price fluctuations
Agroforestry also reduces the impacts of extreme variations in weather, for instance, by helping to retain soil moisture during dry periods. This is important as climate change increases the intensity of extreme weather such as drought in spice-producing regions like Indonesia. Decreasing losses from these extremes can be a "make-or-break" for farmers economically.
Another benefit is that agroforestry can help farmers maintain income even in the face of price volatility. For example, as international pepper prices rise and fall, farmers' income also increases or decreases dramatically. This uncertainty makes it impossible for farmers to rely on a single crop. Diversification means that even when pepper prices are low, income will still be generated through sale of fruit and other crops such as timber.
Agroforestry as business incentive
These many economic benefits not only help the farmer, but have important implications for businesses throughout spice supply chains. But rapid transition to agroforestry in agricultural systems takes considerable time, energy and financial investment. The economic advantages to the farmer are clear – but what is the business incentive for an off-taker to support these changes?
For a spice importer like Verstegen, supporting farmers for long-term productivity also secures the future of their business. Destructive conventional practices reduce pepper production over the long term, and make it more vulnerable to shocks. This has a direct impact on Verstegen's supply of products. Investment in regenerative agroforestry greatly reduces this business risk, while also building long-term trusting relationships with farmers and local partners.
Working together for a sustainable future Image: Verstegen
Left to right: Gilmee Davids, Michel Driessen (Verstegen) Hatami Nugraha (PT Can)
The long-term continuity of Verstegen's business depends directly on their ability to source high-quality products into the future. Investment in agroforestry is not just a matter of social or environmental responsibility, it is a matter of future commercial viability.
Businesses like Verstegen can work together with farmers to change the face of spice production from economic uncertainty to an industry that supports livelihoods and thriving rural economies. An important action that benefits all.
indonesiaWhite Pepper
Samantha Sutton
How can we transition to regenerative land-use, faster?
The History of Regenerative Agriculture
Tom Lovett
How cattle can save the Amazon
Temidayo Paul
Insights on Kenya
We'll let you know once a month of our developments:


The final track of 1971's "Who's Next" album became something of an opposition anthem to President Richard Nixon's re-election campaign. Democrat George McGovern won only Massachusetts and D.C. So you could say the nation got fooled again, though Nixon later resigned when faced with conviction and removal from office by the Senate after his impeachment.
There's no presidential election this year. But you'd never know from Donald Trump's campaign schedule—a rally nearly every night in advance of the midterm elections. He could talk about the humming economy and low unemployment rate. Instead, the president has turned to his 2016 playbook, stoking fears about immigration, demonizing Democrats and lying about virtually everything that pops into his head and out of his mouth.
Will voters be fooled again?
The president's pathological mendacity has accelerated as he feverishly tries to forestall a Democratic takeover of the House of Representatives. From out of nowhere Trump promises a middle-class tax cut, having finally realized that last year's corporate and those-who-need-it-least tax cut impresses almost no one who's not worth millions. His so-called middle-class gift will pass by Nov. 1, he says. Never mind that Congress is not in session and won't be until after the elections. In the lame-duck session, we'll be lucky if Congress avoids shutting down the government because Trump hasn't gotten his way on the border wall Mexico was going to pay for. A golden-oldie lie from 2016. So now Trump counters with more immigration whoppers.
The Democrats, he says, are paying for the caravan of Central American immigrants making its way to our border. He adds with zero evidence that Middle East terrorists hide in their midst. Right. Democrats are paying undocumented immigrants to give Republicans a campaign issue to run on. That lie is almost as preposterous as Trump's claim that Democrats colluded with the Russians in 2016. What? To seal Hillary Clinton's defeat? So Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell could steal a Supreme Court pick?
McConnell, at least, is telling the truth in one respect. He says that because of the Republican-spiked deficit, up 17% since the rich-get-richer tax cut, we must cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Trump said he'd protect those entitlements. A lie in waiting. As for guaranteeing insurance coverage for pre-existing conditions, kiss it good-bye if Republicans retain full control of Congress. After all, Trump promised to preserve that, too.
Trump is a champion prevaricator in terms of sheer impunity and volume. But as for telling credible lies, he's transparently NOT believable. Many of his falsehoods are proven so by previous statements he's made live on TV or on video. How gullible does he think Americans are? He probably figures we're just dumb enough not to vote. He may have something there. People who say their vote won't make a difference should not complain about the government they deserve with their non-participation. It's like complaining about not winning $1.5 billion in the Mega Millions when you didn't bother to buy a ticket.
The lottery's a longshot. But elections, not so much. Especially when millions who wouldn't ordinarily vote decide it matters too much to sit this one out—and not get fooled again.
Early voting begins Oct. 25 in Maryland. On the ticket for Eastern Shore voters is Jesse Colvin, a reasonably progressive Democrat, running against incumbent Republican Andy Harris, a physician who voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act and to end Medicare as we know it.
That's what Republicans do—if we let them.
Steve Parks, now living in Easton, is a retired journalist who worked for Newsday on Long Island and The Sun in Baltimore among other newspapers.
Scare tactics. The same BS that CNN, MSNBC and NBC feed us every day. This is the same scare tactic Obama used against Romney. The revolt against politics-as-usual brought Trump into the White House–warts and all.
Meanwhile, the Dems rail against the tax cut while the SALT limits the Republicans shoved into the bill have done more damage to the rich than the Dems ever did. And I am still waiting for a definition of what a "fair tax" is. Maybe it's 17% on over a million in income that Obama paid his first year as president. Or 18% for his second year: he never paid over 20% in taxes while in office. And I discover this information from an article in an organization related to collecting antique clocks rather than in the news. Unfortunately, the press had their heads up Obama's arse that they suffered brain damage. Until the press reports such stuff will I be concerned over Trump revealing his taxes.
It is unfortunate that there is no news outlet in this country that can be depended upon to provide reliable, unbiased information. Fox is to the right as the others are to the left. Meanwhile, folks turn to Facebook to get their news. We have grown into a country of idiots who are too lazy to dig into the facts and rely upon logic rather than emotion. All of these end-of-the-world scare tactics have run out of steam.
"We won't get fooled again" indeed, by which party? I am sick and tired of the pomposity… from both sides.
causing it and the GOP are the ones in your words "who have their heads up Trump's…".
You lost me there, James.
BTW, the NY Times, Washington Post, and The Guardian are all credible sources of fact-based news.


text:
assert_exit 78 start_flow_unsafe . --saved-state-fetcher "local" --saved-state-no-fallback

assert_ok "$FLOW" stop

# If there is an invalid saved state file, --saved-state-no-fallback makes Flow
# give up.
echo "definitely not a real saved state file" > .flow.saved_state
echo "" > .flow.saved_state_file_changes
assert_exit 78 start_flow_unsafe . --saved-state-fetcher "local" --saved-state-no-fallback

assert_ok "$FLOW" stop