Maggie Gyllenhaal

Margalit Ruth Gyllenhaal (/ˈdʒɪlənhɔːl/; born November 16, 1977) is an American actress and filmmaker. Part of the Gyllenhaal family, she is the daughter of filmmakers Stephen Gyllenhaal and Naomi Achs, and the older sister of actor Jake Gyllenhaal.

She began her career as a teenager with small roles in several of her father's films, and appeared with her brother in the cult favorite Donnie Darko (2001). She then appeared in Adaptation, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (both 2002), and Mona Lisa Smile (2003). Gyllenhaal received critical acclaim for her leading performances in the erotic romantic comedy drama Secretary (2002) and the drama Sherrybaby (2006), each of which earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination. After several commercially successful films in 2006, including World Trade Center, she received wider recognition for playing Rachel Dawes in the superhero film The Dark Knight (2008).

For her performance as a single mother in Crazy Heart (2009), she received a nomination for Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She subsequently starred in the comedies and dramas: Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang (2010), Hysteria (2011), and Won't Back Down (2012). Her other roles include a Secret Service agent in the action-thriller White House Down (2013), a musician in Frank (2014), and the title role in the drama The Kindergarten Teacher (2018). In 2021, Gyllenhaal made her writing and directing debut with the psychological drama The Lost Daughter, for which she won the Venice International Film Festival's Best Screenplay Award and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Gyllenhaal has also appeared in five stage productions since 2000, including making her Broadway debut in a revival of The Real Thing. She has starred in several television series, including the BBC political-thriller miniseries The Honourable Woman. For her performance, she won a Golden Globe award for Best Actress, and was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award. She also produced and starred in the HBO period drama series The Deuce (2017–19). Gyllenhaal has been married to actor Peter Sarsgaard since 2009 and they have two children together.

## Early life

Gyllenhaal was born in Manhattan, the daughter of Naomi Achs and Stephen Gyllenhaal. The first name on Maggie's birth certificate is "Margalit", which she did not discover until 2013, when adopting her husband's surname. Margalit (מרגלית) is a Hebrew word meaning "pearl"; some news stories have spelled it "Margolit". She has a younger brother, actor Jake Gyllenhaal, and a half-brother, Luke, from their father's second marriage.

Her father is a film director and poet, and her mother is a screenwriter and director. Her father, a member of the noble Gyllenhaal family, is of Swedish and English ancestry, and was raised in the Swedenborgian religion. Her last native Swedish ancestor was her great-great-grandfather Anders Leonard Gyllenhaal, a descendant of Leonard Gyllenhaal, a leading Swedenborgian who supported the printing and spreading of Swedenborg's writings.

Her mother was born in New York City (growing up in Brooklyn), and is Jewish, from Ashkenazi Jewish families that emigrated from Russia and Poland. Her mother's first husband was Eric Foner, a noted historian and history professor at Columbia University. Gyllenhaal has stated that she "grew up mostly Jewish, culturally", and she identifies as Jewish, though she did not attend Hebrew school. Her parents married in 1977, and filed for divorce in October 2008.

Gyllenhaal grew up in Los Angeles and studied at the Harvard–Westlake prep school. She spent four months as a student at The Mountain School, a semester school for high school juniors in Vermont. In 1995, she graduated from Harvard–Westlake and moved to New York to attend Columbia University, where she studied literature and Eastern religions. She also studied acting for a summer term at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London, England.

## Career

### 1992–2001: Early work

At the age of 15, she made a brief appearance in her father's film Waterland (1992). Soon, she had supporting roles in A Dangerous Woman (1993) and Homegrown (1998), which were directed by her father, which also featured her brother Jake. With their mother, she and Jake appeared in two episodes of Molto Mario, an Italian cooking show on the Food Network. After graduating from college, she had supporting roles in films including Cecil B. Demented (2000) and Riding in Cars with Boys (2001). Gyllenhaal later achieved recognition in her own right playing her real brother's on-screen sister in the indie cult favorite Donnie Darko (2001).

She made her theatrical debut in the Berkeley Repertory Theatre production of Patrick Marber's Closer, for which she received favorable reviews. Production started in May 2000 and ended in mid-July of that year. Gyllenhaal has performed in several other plays, including The Tempest, Antony and Cleopatra, The Butterfly Project, and No Exit.

### 2002–2005: Film breakthrough

Gyllenhaal's breakout role was in the black comedy, Secretary (2002), a film about two people who embark on a mutually fulfilling BDSM lifestyle. The New York Times critic Stephen Holden noted: "The role of Lee, which Maggie Gyllenhaal imbues with a restrained comic delicacy and sweetness, should make her a star." Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote: "Maggie Gyllenhaal, as the self-destructive secretary, is enigmatic and, at moments, sympathetic." The film received generally favorable reviews, and Gyllenhaal's performance earned her the Best Breakthrough Performance by an Actress award from the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures, her first Golden Globe nomination, and an Independent Spirit Award nomination. Secretary was Gyllenhaal's first film role which featured full frontal nudity. Impressed with the script, she initially had reservations about doing the film, which she believed could deliver an anti-feminist message. However, after carefully discussing the script with the film's director, Steven Shainberg, she agreed to join the project. Although insisting Shainberg did not exploit her, Gyllenhaal has said she felt "scared when filming began" and that "in the wrong hands ... even in just slightly less intelligent hands, this movie could say something really weird." Since then, she is guarded about discussing her role in the film, saying only that "despite myself, sometimes the dynamic that you are exploring in your work spills over into your life."Next, she had a supporting role in the comedy-drama Adaptation (2002), a film that tells the story of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's struggle to adapt The Orchid Thief into a film. She later appeared in the unauthorized biography Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002), part of an ensemble cast that included Sam Rockwell, Drew Barrymore, George Clooney, and Julia Roberts. The movie grossed US\$33 million worldwide. That same year, she had a small role in the comedy 40 Days and 40 Nights. In 2003, she co-starred with Julia Roberts in Mona Lisa Smile in the role of Giselle. In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, she revealed the reason for accepting the role was "to play somebody who feels confident in herself as a sexy, beautiful woman". The film generated mostly mixed reviews, with Manohla Dargis of the Los Angeles Times describing it as "smug and reductive". Her next roles were in smaller independent films: Casa de los Babys (2003), is a story about six American women impatiently waiting out their lengthy residency requirements in a South American country before picking up their adoptive babies, and Criminal (2004), a remake of the Argentinian film Nine Queens, with John C. Reilly and Diego Luna. Gyllenhaal plays an honest hotel manager forced to help her crooked brother (Reilly) by seducing one of his victims.

She starred in the HBO film Strip Search (2004), in which she portrayed an American student in China suspected of terrorism. For her role, Gyllenhaal had to perform multiple scenes of full-frontal nudity as the film tackled issues of strip searches. In 2004, Gyllenhaal returned to theater in a Los Angeles production of Tony Kushner's Homebody/ Kabul as Priscilla, the Homebody's daughter, who spends most of the play searching for her elusive mother in Kabul, Afghanistan. Kushner gave her the role in Homebody/ Kabul on the strength of her performance in Closer. Ben Brantley of The New York Times wrote: "Ms. Gyllenhaal provides the essential bridge between the parts of the play's title." John Heilpern of The New York Observer noted that Gyllenhaal's performance was "compelling". Finally in 2004, Gyllenhaal was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Viewed as a sex symbol, she was ranked in the "Hot 100 List" by Maxim magazine in 2004 and 2005.

Gyllenhaal's next film role was in the 2005 comedy-drama Happy Endings, in which she played an adventuress singer who seduces a young gay musician (Jason Ritter) as well as his rich father (Tom Arnold). She recorded songs for the film's soundtrack, calling the role the "roughest, scariest acting ever" and adding she is more natural when singing on screen than when acting. Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly declared Gyllenhaal's performance "as wonderfully, naturally slouchy-sexy as her character is artificial".

### 2006–2009: Comedies, dramas and theatre

Following Happy Endings, Gyllenhaal appeared in five films releases in 2006: Trust the Man, Stranger than Fiction, Monster House, World Trade Center, and Sherrybaby. In Trust the Man, featuring Julianne Moore, David Duchovny, and Billy Crudup, she played Elaine, who has been dating Tobey, Crudup's character, for seven years and has begun to feel that it is time for her to settle down and start a family. The film was critically and financially unsuccessful. Ethan Alter of Premiere felt that the performances by Gyllenhaal and Duchovny were "much more at ease" and concluded with "that's probably because they're  [sic] played these characters many times before". In Stranger than Fiction, Gyllenhaal played a love interest of Harold Crick, played by Will Ferrell. Her performance in the film received favorable reviews; Mike Straka of Fox News wrote: "Gyllenhaal has never been sexier in any film before and her interplay with Ferrell will propel her to more A-list films, leaving her indie-darling days behind, no doubt." She voiced Elizabeth "Zee" in the computer animated horror film Monster House. Gyllenhaal played Allison Jimeno, the wife of Port Authority officer Will Jimeno, in Oliver Stone's World Trade Center, based on the September 11 attacks in New York City. She regarded this as "one of the films she most enjoyed making". The film received favorable reviews and proved to be an international success, earning US\$162 million worldwide.

In Sherrybaby, Gyllenhaal played a young drug-addicted thief trying to put her life in order after prison so she can reconcile with her daughter. During promotion of the film, she noted of her portrayal of the character: "I think she's in such dire straits that all she has are these kind of naive, fierce hopes. And while I was playing the part I was looking for pleasure and hope in everything, even in these really bleak things. And so it was really mostly after I finished the movie that I felt pain." Her performance in the film was well-received; David Germain of the Associated Press wrote, "Gyllenhaal humanizes her so deeply and richly ... that Sherry elicits sympathy even in her darkest and weakest moments", and Dennis Harvey of Variety magazine called her performance "naturalistic". For her performance, Gyllenhaal earned a second Golden Globe Best Actress nomination and won the Best Actress category award at the 2006 Stockholm International Film Festival.

She appeared in The Dark Knight (2008), the sequel to Batman Begins (2005), in which she replaced Katie Holmes as Assistant District Attorney, Rachel Dawes. Gyllenhaal acknowledged her character was a damsel in distress to an extent, but said director Christopher Nolan sought ways to empower her character, so "Rachel's really clear about what's important to her and unwilling to compromise her morals, which made a nice change" from the many conflicted characters she had previously portrayed. The Dark Knight was a critical and commercial success, setting a new opening weekend box office record for North America. With revenue of \$1 billion worldwide, it became the fourth-highest-grossing film of all time, and remains Gyllenhaal's most commercially successful feature to date. In a Salon magazine review of the film, Stephanie Zacharek called Gyllenhaal's character "a tough cookie in a Stanwyck-style bias-cut dress" and stated that "the movie feels smarter and more supple when she's on-screen". IGN film critic Todd Gilchrist wrote, "Gyllenhaal adds real depth and energy to Rachel Dawes".

In addition to film, Gyllenhaal played Yelena Andreevna in the Classic Stage Company's 2009 Off-Broadway production of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya in New York City. The cast also included her husband Peter Sarsgaard. The production, directed by Austin Pendleton, began previews on January 17 and ended its limited run on March 1. Joe Dziemianowicz of the New York Daily News was unenthusiastic about her performance, writing "Gyllenhaal, who was so dynamic as a druggie in the film Sherrybaby, plays Yelena with a slow-mo saunter and monotonous pasted-on smile that makes it seem as if she's been in Sherry's stash." However, Malcolm Johnson of the Hartford Courant was complimentary, noting that she "ultimately blossoms" as the character.

Gyllenhaal agreed to star in the comedy Away We Go (2009), in which she plays a bohemian college professor who is an old friend of John Krasinski's character. The film generated broadly mixed reviews, with Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly describing Gyllenhaal's subplot as "over-the-top". However, A. O. Scott of The New York Times praised Gyllenhaal and co-star Allison Janney for their performances, writing that "both [are] quite funny". Scott concluded with, "Ms. Gyllenhaal's line about sex roles in 'the seahorse community' is the screenplay's one clean satirical bull's-eye". Her next role came in the musical-drama Crazy Heart, in which she played journalist Jean Craddock, who falls for musician Bad Blake, played by Jeff Bridges, whose performance won the Academy Award for Best Actor. The film was acclaimed, as was Gyllenhaal's performance. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone observed that Gyllenhaal was "funny, touching and vital as Jean" and that her part was "conventionally conceived, but Gyllenhaal plays it with a tough core of intelligence and feeling." Her performance earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

### 2010–2020: The Deuce and other work

In addition to acting, she presented 13 episodes of the PBS television series Independent Lens between 2009–10. The program presents documentary films made by independent filmmakers. In 2010, Gyllenhaal appeared in Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang with co-star Emma Thompson, the sequel to the 2005's Nanny McPhee. She played Isabel Green, which required her to speak with an English accent. The feature received generally positive reviews; review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gave the film an approval rating of 76% based on 119 critics. The Sydney Morning Herald complimented Gyllenhaal's realistic accent and ability to capture her English character with ease. It was a reasonable success at the box office, earning \$93 million worldwide.

For her next film, Gyllenhaal starred in the biographical romance Hysteria (2011), which focuses on the events that led to the creation of the vibrator during the Victorian era. The film received a mixed reception; writing for The Guardian, David Cox noted the film's stereotypes and "yelps of delight", and praised Gyllenhaal's English accent. In February 2011, Gyllenhaal starred in another Anton Chekhov Off-Broadway production as the character Masha in Austin Pendleton's Three Sisters at the Classic Stage Company. The play focused on the Prozorov sisters (Gyllenhaal, Jessica Hecht, and Juliet Rylance), who are "unlucky in love, unhappy in the provinces and longing to return to Moscow", as summarized by Bloomberg's Jeremy Gerard. The production began preview performances on January 12, with a limited engagement through March 6.

In 2012, she played mother Jaime Fitzpatrick in the drama Won't Back Down, about a group of parents involved in a parent trigger takeover of a failing school. Next, she appeared alongside Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx, as a Secret Service agent in the action-thriller White House Down (2013). The film was met with mixed reviews and under-performed at the box office. A year later, she starred in the musical comedy Frank, about a man who joins an odd band with a group of bizarre musicians. Gyllenhaal, who also plays a musician, said she initially turned down the role because she did not understand it. However, she changed her mind after the story "stuck with her". The film premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival to favorable opinions; Slant magazine's critic opined that Gyllenhaal has "passive and palpable screen presence". Also that year, she played Hathfertiti in Matthew Barney and Jonathan Bepler's River of Fundament, loosely based on the 1983 novel Ancient Evenings by Norman Mailer.

Gyllenhaal played the lead role as Baroness Nessa Stein, a British-Israeli businesswoman heiress in the BBC political spy thriller television miniseries, The Honourable Woman. The series was well received; Kevin Fallon wrote in the Daily Beast: "Gyllenhaal delivers what might be the most towering, complex, best performance of her career in the miniseries." Time magazine praised the series' pacing, themes, settings, and called Gyllenhaal's performance "remarkable". At the 72nd Golden Globe Awards, she won Best Actress in a Miniseries or Television Film for her performance. The Honourable Woman appeared in a list of The Guardian critics' 30 best television shows of 2014.

In 2016, Gyllenhaal narrated Leo Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina; it was made available for purchase on Amazon's Audible store. In an interview, Gyllenhaal said "Making this, doing this, I feel like it's one of the major accomplishments of my work life." In February 2017, she served as a member of the jury for the 2017 Berlin Film Festival. Returning to film in 2018, Gyllenhaal starred in The Kindergarten Teacher, a drama in which her character becomes obsessed with a student whom she believes is a child prodigy. The film premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, and was distributed via Netflix. It is a remake of the 2014 Israeli film of the same name. The feature opened to mainly popular reviews; The Daily Telegraph critic gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, and thought Gyllenhaal was well-cast, writing "[her] earnest intensity as an actress, gift for fatigue and slightly holier-than-thou authority are key assets here." Although Dennis Harvey of Variety magazine praised her performance, he thought the film lacked "psychological insight".

She served as a producer and starred in the HBO drama series The Deuce, which aired from 2017 to 2019. Gyllenhaal played Eileen "Candy" Merrell, a sex worker during the Golden Age of Porn. The Deuce earned her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress.

### 2021–present

In 2021, Gyllenhaal made her feature directorial debut with the psychological drama The Lost Daughter, which she also produced and wrote. The film received critical acclaim, and had its premiere at the 78th Venice International Film Festival, where Gyllenhaal won the Best Screenplay Award. It received four awards, including Best Feature and Breakthrough Director, as well as one further nomination at the 2021 Gotham Awards. At the 79th Golden Globe Awards, Gyllenhaal received a nomination for Best Director. She then received a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination at the 75th British Academy Film Awards, and the second Academy Award nomination of her career also for Best Adapted Screenplay at the 94th Academy Awards.

## Personal life

In 2002, Gyllenhaal began a relationship with actor Peter Sarsgaard. The couple became engaged in April 2006, and married on May 2, 2009, in a small chapel in Brindisi, Italy. They have two daughters, born October 2006 and April 2012.

## Political views

At the 18th Independent Spirit Awards in 2003, she spoke out against the Iraq war, stating the reason for the invasion was "oil and imperialism". In 2005, Gyllenhaal drew controversy for her statement that the September 11 attacks were "an occasion to be brave enough to ask some serious questions about America's role in the world  ... It is always useful as individuals or nations to ask how we may have knowingly or unknowingly contributed to this conflict." Gyllenhaal took part in Artists United to Win Without War, a campaign started by Robert Greenwald that aimed to advance progressive causes and voicing opposition to the Iraq War.

She and her brother Jake filmed a commercial for Rock the Vote, and visited the University of Southern California to encourage students to vote in the 2004 U.S. presidential election, in which she supported John Kerry. Gyllenhaal supported Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election. She has campaigned on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), an organization her family strongly supports. In June 2013, Gyllenhaal and numerous other celebrities appeared in a video showing support for whistleblower Chelsea Manning.

## Philanthropy

Gyllenhaal is a supporter of Witness, a non-profit organization that uses video and online technologies to expose human rights violations. She co-hosted a benefit dinner with founder Peter Gabriel in November 2007. Gyllenhaal helped raise funds for TrickleUp.org, another non-profit that helps people in poverty to start a micro-enterprise. For one of the fundraisers, Gyllenhaal helped design and promote a necklace that sold for US\$100; all proceeds from sales went to the charity. Since 2008, Gyllenhaal has been supporting the Hear the World Foundation as ambassador. In her role, she advocates for equal opportunities and better quality of life for people with hearing loss. In October 2008, she hosted a fashion show called "Fashionably Natural", which was presented by Gen Art and SoyJoy in Los Angeles. The show featured new designers who worked only with natural and eco-friendly fabrics and materials. Gyllenhaal is an advocate of Planned Parenthood; in 2012 she said, "Women's health is very important to me. It has become such a politicized issue and so I will make every effort to elect officials who believe as strongly as I do that all women [...] have access to quality health care and information."

## Filmography

### Film

### Television

### Theatre

## Awards and nominations

American actress and filmmaker (born 1977)

American people of Polish-Jewish descent

American people of Russian-Jewish descent

Best Miniseries or Television Movie Actress Golden Globe winners

Directors Guild of America Award winners

Independent Spirit Award for Best Director winners


William Utermohlen

William Charles Utermohlen (December 5, 1933 – March 21, 2007) was an American figurative artist known for his late-period self-portraits completed after his 1995 diagnosis of probable Alzheimer's disease. He had developed progressive memory loss beginning about four years before his diagnosis in 1995, and during that time began a series of self-portraits influenced in part by the figurative painter Francis Bacon and cinematographers from the movement of German Expressionism.

Born to first-generation German immigrants in South Philadelphia, Utermohlen earned a scholarship at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA) in 1951. After completing military service, he spent 1953 studying in Western Europe where he was inspired by Renaissance and Baroque artists. He moved to London in 1962 and married the art historian Patricia Redmond in 1965. He relocated to Massachusetts in 1972 to teach art at Amherst College before returning to London in 1975.

Utermohlen died in obscurity on March 21, 2007, aged 73, but his late works have gained posthumous renown. His self-portraits especially are seen as important in the understanding of the gradual effects of neurocognitive disorders.

## Early life

William Charles Utermohlen was born on December 5, 1933, in Southern Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as the only child of first-generation German immigrants. At the time, that section of Philadelphia was split along language lines; his family would have been in the German-speaking part of the city, but inward migration across the United States resulted in their living in the Italian bloc. Due to racial tensions, Utermohlen's parents did not allow him to venture outside of his immediate surrounding. Manu Sharma of STIRworld speculates that his parents' protectiveness may have a factor in the development of his artistic creativity.

He earned a scholarship at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA) in 1951 where he studied under the realist artist Walter Stuempfig. Utermohlen completed his military service in 1953, following two years in the Caribbean. Shortly after, he studied in Europe and travelled through Italy, France and Spain where he was heavily influenced by the works of Giotto and Nicolas Poussin. He graduated from PAFA in 1957 and moved to England, in part because he was attracted to the London art scene. Utermohlen's wife, the art historian Patricia Redmond, said that "when he was art school, he was very pretty, and he was chased around by all the homosexual tutors and everybody else... he didn't care but he didn't fancy them. When he came to England he discovered, amazingly, because the English had always been like this, that we quite liked girlish men."

He attended the Ruskin School of Art in Oxford between 1957 and 1959, where he met the American artist R. B. Kitaj. After leaving Ruskin, he returned to the U.S. for three years. He moved to London in 1962 where he met Redmond, whom he married in 1965. In 1969, his artwork was featured in an exhibition at the Marlborough Gallery. From 1972, Utermohlen taught art at the Amherst College in Massachusetts, where Redmond received her master's degree. By 1975 he had returned England, and lived in London where he gained nationality in 1992.

## Style

His early works are mostly figurative; although James M. Stubenrauch described Utermohlen's early art as "exuberant, at times surrealistic" style of expressionism. For a period in the late 1970s, as a response to the photorealist movement, he printed photographs onto a canvas and painting directly over the photograph. An example of this technique can be seen in Self-Portrait (Split) (1977). He would employ this technique for two portraits of Redmond.

Regarding Utermohlen's art style, Redmond said to The New York Times that "he was never quite in the same time slot with what was going on. Everybody was Abstract expressionist, [while] he was solemnly drawing the figure." She explained in a Studio 360 interview that Utermohlen was "puzzled and worried, because he couldn't work in [a] totally abstract way," as he considered the figure "incredibly important."

### Six cycles

Utermohlen did not explain his work or discuss them with Redmond. She later said that as an art historian, he feared she would interfere with his creative progress. Redmond believes he was "absolutely right" in this approach, and guesses she would have highlighted faults in his work. Most of his early paintings can be grouped into six cycles: Mythological (1962–1963), Cantos (or Dante) (1964–1966), Mummers (1969–1970), War (1972–1973), Nudes (1973–1974), and Conversation (1989–1991).

The Mythological series mainly consist of water scenes. The Dante cycle was inspired by Dante's Inferno, while the art style paintings drew influence from pop art. The War series references the Vietnam War; and according to Redmond the inclusion of isolated soldiers represented his feelings of being an outsider in the art scene. Both Mummers and Conversations were based on early memories; the former, completed between 1968 and 1970, is based on the Mummers Parade of Philadelphia. In a letter from November 1970, Utermohlen stated that the cycle was also created as a "vehicle for expressing my anxiety". Redmond described Mummers as "an empathetic vision of the lower classes, but also his own projected self-image".

The Conversations paintings are described by the French psychoanalyst Patrice Polini as Utermohlen's attempt to describe the events of his life before memory loss. They pre-date his diagnosis, and already indicate the onset of a number of symptoms. Titles such as W9 and Maida Vale reference the names of the district and neighborhood, respectively, that he lived in at the time. The artworks themselves contain more saturated colors and "engaging spacial arrangements", which highlight the actions of the people in the artworks.

## Alzheimer's, late works

Utermohlen experienced memory loss while working on the Conversation series. His symptoms ranged from being unable to remember how to wrap his necktie to being unable to find his way back to his apartment. Between 1993 and 1994, he produced a series of lithographs depicting short stories written by World War I poet Wilfred Owen. The figures were more still and mask-like than the Conversation pieces. They consist of a series of disoriented and wounded soldiers, and are described by his art dealer Chris Boicos as a seeming premonition of the artist's dementia diagnosis made in the following year. By this time, he was often forgetting to show up for teaching appointments.

In 1994 he took on a commission for a family portrait. Around a year later, Redmond took his client to Utermohlen's studio to see the progress, but saw that the portrait had not advanced since their last viewing nine months earlier. Redmond feared Utermohlen was depressed and sought medical advice. He was diagnosed with probable Alzheimer's disease in August 1995 at the age of 61. He was sent to the Queen's Square Hospital where a nurse, Ron Isaacs, became interested in his drawings and asked him to start drawing self-portraits. The first, Blue Skies, was completed between 1994 and 1995, before his diagnosis, and shows him gripping a yellow table in an empty, sparsely described interior. When his neuropsychologist Sebastian Crutch visited Utermohlen in late 1999, he described the painting as depicting the artist trying to hang on and avoid being "swept out" of the open window above. Polini likened the depiction of him holding onto the table to a painter holding onto his canvas, saying that "[i]n order to survive, he must be able to capture this catastrophic moment; he must depict the unspeakable." Blue Skies became Utermohlen's last "large scale" painting.

That year's sketch, A Welcoming Man, shows a disassembled figure that seems to represent his loss of spatial perception. Regarding the sketch, Crutch et al state that "[Utermohlen] acknowledged that there was a problem with the sketch, but did not know what the problem was nor how it could be rectified." He began a series of self-portraits after his diagnosis in 1995. The earliest, the Masks series, are in watercolor and were completed between 1994 and 2001. His last non-self-portrait dates 1997, and was of Redmond. It was titled by Patrice Polini as Pat (Artist's Wife).

### Death

Utermohlen had retired from painting by December 2000, could no longer draw by 2002, and was in the care of the Princess Louise nursing home in 2004. He died of pneumonia at the Hammersmith Hospital on March 21, 2007, aged 73. Redmond said that "really he was dead long before that, Bill died in 2000, when the disease meant he was no longer able to draw."

## Later work

### Self-portraits

His series of self-portraits became increasingly abstract as his dementia progressed, and according to the critic Anjan Chatterjee, describe "haunting psychological self-expressions." The early stages of the disease had not impacted his ability to paint, despite what was observed by Crutch et al. His cognitive disorder is not believed to have been hereditary; aside from a 1989 car accident which left him unconscious for around 30 minutes, Utermohlen's medical history was described by Crutch as "unremarkable". Redmond covered the mirrors in their house because Utermohlen was afraid of what he saw there, and had stopped using them for self-portraits. After Utermohlen's diagnosis, descriptions of his skull became a key aspect of his self-portraits, while the academic Robert Cook–Deegan noticed how as Utermohlen's condition progressed, he "gradually integrates less colour".

The later self-portraits have thicker brushwork than his earlier works. Writing for the Queen's Quarterly, the journalist Leslie Millin noted that the works became progressively more distorted but less colorful. In Nicci Gerrard's 2019 book, What Dementia Teaches Us About Love, she describes the self-portraits as emotional modernism. Sharma suggests that they depict anosognosia, a condition that results both loss of self-recognition and object-recognition.

In Self Portrait (In The Studio) (1996), frustration and fear are evident in his expressions. Xi Hsu speculates that Utermohlen created this self portrait to express that he did not want to be known for his struggles with dementia, and wanted to be known as an artist. His 1996 Self Portrait (With Easel),[^1] shows more confused emotions according to Green et al. Polini describes the appearance of the easel in Self Portrait (With Easel) as akin to prison bars. A 1996 drawing, Broken Figure contains a ghost-like figure which serves as the outline of the fallen body in the drawing. His Self Portrait with Saw (1997) has a serrated carpenter's saw in the far right, which Redmond said invokes an autopsy that would have given a definite diagnosis. Polini noticed how the saw is vertically pointed, similar to a guillotine blade, and wrote that it may symbolise the "approach of a prefigured death". The last self portrait that Utermohlen used a mirror for, Self Portrait (With Easel) (1998) uses the same pose as a 1955 self-portrait. According to Polini, this was the artist's desire to "experience again the old motions of painting."

Erased Self Portrait (1999) was his last attempt at a self-portrait using a paint brush. It took nearly two years to complete and is described by the BBC as "almost sponge like and empty". Head I (2000) shows a head portraying eyes, mouth, and a smudge on the left that appears to be an ear; a crack appearing in the centre of the head. The rest of the portraits are of a blank head, one of them erased. Associated Press' Joann Loviglio describes Utermohlen's final self-portraits as the "afterimages of a creative and talented spirit whose identity appears to have vanished."

### Influences

Redmond describes these works as influenced by German Expressionism, and compares them to artists such as Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Emil Nolde. She explained in New Statesman: "It's odd, because he hardly ever thought of his German ancestry, but toward the end he becomes a kind of German abstract expressionist. He might have been quite amused by that, I think."

Shortly after his diagnosis, he and Redmond travelled to Europe and saw Diego Velázquez's 1650 Portrait of Pope Innocent X, which lead to an interest in Francis Bacon's distorted 1953 version Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X. After his return to England in 1996, he painted Self Portrait (In the Studio), which includes the screaming mouth, a motif borrowed from Bacon's work.

A 2015 Scientific American article which mentioned both Bacon and Utermohlen called Bacon's "distorted faces and disfigured bodies" disturbing. It noted that his works are "so distorted that they violate the brain's expectations for the body", and went on to discuss the possibility that Bacon had dysmorphopsia. When describing Utermohlen's portraits, the writer said that Utermohlen's portraits offered "a window into the artist's" decline, adding that they were "also heartbreaking in that they expose[d] a mind trying against hope to understand itself despite deterioration".

## Legacy

Utermohlen's self-portraits first gained attention after they were described in The Lancet's 2001 case report when the Crutch et al noted that the evident change in artistic ability was "indicative of a process above and beyond normal aging, particularly given his relatively young age at onset". The article further noted that, over five years, the self-portraits showed an "objective deterioration in the quality of the artwork produced". They concluded that the portraits offered "a testament to the resilience of human creativity". Crutch himself said that Utermohlen's works were "more eloquent than anything he could have said with words".

According to Hsu, the portraits are the "highlight of his career". Commenters liken them to those of Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, and Edvard Munch. Sharma compared the self-portraits to the works of English painter Ivan Seal, noting that the latter's works show objects that "[teeter] on the brink of pure recognition and abstraction." Some writers have also likened the self-portraits to the illustrations of Mervyn Peake; although Demetrios J. Sahlas of Peake Studies noted that Peake's works were different to Utermohlen's, because shown in the works is the "preservation of insight". A 2013 article in The Lancet compared his work to Rembrandts self-portraits, and described Utermohlen as "struggling to preserve his self against age" while also fighting against "inexorable neurodegeneration". Giovanni Frazzetto described Utermohlen's self-portraits as similar to the works of Egon Schiele, explaining that the portraits were "evocative of the shrivelled bodies and diaphanous faces" shown in the latter's work.

Sherri Irvin says that the portraits show "remarkable stylistic features, [rewarding] serious efforts of appreciation and interpretation". Irvin notes that their "formal and aesthetic features", the correlation with Utermohlen's earlier works and their "aptness to interpretation", is what makes the portraits "jointly sufficient to connect them in the right way with past art, [despite] the absence of an express[ed] intention about how they are to be regarded."

Alan E. H. Emery believes that the progressive effects of dementia give neurologists "an opportunity to study how the disease affects an artist's work over time", adding that it also provides a unique method of studying detailed change in perception, and how it can be linked to localised brain functions. He concluded by stating that documenting changes over time with neuroimaging could lead to better understanding of dementia. Medical anthropologist Margaret Lock states that the portraits indicate that "there may be many avenues... that suggest ways in which humans can be protected from the ravages of this condition by means of lifelong social and cultural activities."

Purcell stated that Utermohlen's artwork provided viewers with a "unique glimpse into the effects of a declining brain." Researchers at Illinois Wesleyan University state that Utermohlen's self portraits show that "people with AD can have a strong voice through images." The existence of his earlier self-portraits (which allowed viewers to create a time-lapse of his mental decline) and the idea that his works give a rare view into the mind of an Alzheimer's patient were two aspects contributing to his growing popularity. The 2019 short film Mémorable was inspired by the self-portraits and nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 2020.

## Exhibitions

Utermohlen had exhibited long before his diagnosis. His paintings were exhibited at the Lee Nordness Gallery in 1968 and the Marlborough Gallery in 1969; in 1972, the Mummers cycle was displayed in Amsterdam. Utermohlen's posthumous portrait of Gerald Penny was featured in the Gerald Penny 77' Center; earlier that year, he had artworks such as Five Figures in the Mead Art Museum. At their peak, sales of Utermohlen's earlier works ranged from \$3,000 to \$30,000.

His self-portraits have been shown at several exhibitions in the years after his death, including 12 exhibitions from 2006 to 2008. In 2016, the exhibition A Persistence of Memory was shown at the Loyola University Museum of Art in Chicago. The exhibition, which contained 100 artworks from Utermohlen's work, was organised by Pamela Ambrose, who said about his portraits: "If you did not know that this man was suffering from Alzheimer's, you could simply perceive the work as a stylistic change."

Other notable exhibitions include a retrospective at the GV Art gallery in London in 2012, an exhibition at the Chicago Cultural Center in 2008 sponsored by Myriad Pharmaceuticals, and The Later Works of William Utermohlen, shown at the New York Academy of Medicine in 2006, which marked the centenary of Alois Alzheimer first discovering the disease; it was open free to the public. Earlier that year, there was another exhibition at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. His self-portraits have also been shown in Washington, D.C. in 2007, the Two 10 Gallery in London in 2001, Harvard University at Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2005, Boston, and Los Angeles. The self-portraits were exhibited in Sacramento, California in 2008. Utermohlen's artworks were shown in 2016 at the Kunstmuseum Thun in Switzerland. In February 2007, a month before Utermohlen's death, his self-portraits were exhibited at Wilkes University.

## See also

- Everywhere at the End of Time (2016–2019), a series of six concept albums reflecting the stages of dementia
- It's Such a Beautiful Day'' (2012), an experimental film depicting the progressively failing memory and worsening symptoms of the protagonist due to a neurological disease

[^1]: Also titled Self Portrait I and Self Portrait (With Easel–Yellow and Green)

American artist (1933–2007)

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts alumni


Tales of Innocence

Tales of Innocence (Japanese: テイルズオブイノセンス, Hepburn: Teiruzu Obu Inosensu) is an action role-playing game, developed and released for the Nintendo DS and PlayStation Vita. Innocence is the ninth main installment in the Tales series, developed by Alfa System and published by Bandai Namco Games. It was released in December 2007. A remake for the Vita developed by 7th Chord, Tales of Innocence R (テイルズオブイノセンス アール, Teiruzu Obu Inosensu Āru), was released in January 2012. Multiple elements are carried over from previous entries in the series, including the action-based Linear Motion Battle System. Innocence R includes both an updated battle system and additional story content. Both versions remain exclusive to Asia.

Both Innocence and Innocence R focus on Ruca, a merchant's son who encounters a fugitive named Illia. In rescuing her, he discovers he has inherited supernatural powers from his past life. He teams up with Illia and multiple others who have gained similar powers from past lives. The group become involved in the wars consuming the world, along with events pertaining to their past lives and the future of their world.

Innocence began production in 2006 at Alfa System as the next main entry in the Tales series. Developed parallel to the DS spin-off title Tales of the Tempest, the goal was to include all the series' main gameplay and narrative elements despite the limited medium. The character designs were done by Mutsumi Inomata, while the music was composed by series newcomer Kazuhiro Nakamura. Extensive voice acting was included using CRI Middleware's Kyuseishu Sound Streamer compression algorithm. After release, it was decided to remake Innocence for the Vita, using platform-specific gameplay functions, redone voice work and music, and new characters. Japanese singer-songwriter Kokia created the opening theme songs for both versions of Innocence. Both versions have been positively received in Japan, and Western opinions on the two versions of Innocence have been mostly positive.

## Gameplay

As with previous entries in the Tales series, Tales of Innocence is an action role-playing game. The player navigates overworld and town environments, and enters a separate arena-like area during battle. The characters and environments are represented using full 3D graphics and models. Characters gain experience levels using experience points, gained by completing quests and fighting. Side-quests separate from the main narrative can be taken through guilds in various parts of the overworld. As the player completes side-quests, guilds level up with the character, providing extra materials and items. Guilds level up as players complete quests for them, and some of the game's dungeons are directly linked to guild quests. Guilds are also used to communicate with other players using the Nintendo DS' wireless function. Multiplayer allows two players to cooperate in battle. During navigation, extra plot-related or casual conversations with characters called Skits can be triggered by the player. Some character interactions used a choice-based "bonding" system, where a dialogue choice is offered while conversing with another character or during certain story scenes: choosing the right response increases the bond with a character, granting both items and special boons in battle.

As with previous games, Innocence uses an retouched version of the "Linear Motion Battle System" (LMBS), a battle system involving direct control of characters similar to a fighting game. The version used is called the "Dimension Stride LMBS". Full range of movement is available, and when enemies are launched into the air by attacks, characters can jump up after them and continue attacking. Three characters are controllable in battle, with one controlled by the player and two handled by the game's artificial intelligence (AI). There are standard attacks, and more powerful moves called Artes. The player can switch between characters instantly. By stringing attacks together into long combos or successfully defending against attacks, characters charge up their tension gauge. When fully charged, the selected character enters an "awakened" state, allowing their attacks to deal more damage. This state can be maintained as long as the player continues to successfully attack and defend without taking hits. If the right buttons are pressed during this period, the character teams up with the other two and unleashes powerful Artes. In addition to these standard and special attacks, each character can activate Mystic Artes, transforming into a form resembling their past selves to deal high amounts of damage. Defeated enemies drop items and currency that the player must collect before they fade or the battle ends. Whereas previous titles had set roles for characters in battle such as healing or ranged attacks, Innocence allows full customization of both the AI-controlled characters' rough roles and their detailed behavior. Materials gathered in exploration and battle can be fused with the weapons. Different fusions can both make the weapon stronger and grant special abilities, such as poisoning the enemy while striking it.

Innocence R uses altered and improved features and elements from the original, including character displays, the "awakened" character state, and the skit, title, grade and cooking systems. The dungeons are rebuilt, featuring new puzzle elements, switches and the need to push boulders to form pathways and unblock passages. An extra dungeon tied into the extra story content is also added. The game uses an altered battle system under the name "Direct Interface LMBS", which includes a fourth playable character. During battle, the characters can be directly commanded using the PlayStation Vita's touch screen. A second Mystic Arte is included for the old characters and two new ones introduced for the two extra characters. After each battle, characters earn Ability Points (AP). AP are used in each character's skill tree by purchasing abilities and stat boosts. Each character has their own unique skill trees. Another additional element is the "Rave Gauge": players can line up different artes in the battle menu, then unleash them all at once on an enemy during battle. An arena is also open to players, where cameo characters from previous Tales titles can be fought.

## Plot

The world of Innocence is divided between the "divine" world of Devaloka (divided between the regions of Sensus and Ratio) and the lower human world of Naraka. As Devaloka needed human souls to survive, the Sensus general Asura decided to use the Manifest, an artifact created by the ancient Primordial Giant, to merge Devaloka and Naraka. This plan was opposed by many, leading to war between Sensus and Ratio. Asura was aided by the Devalokans Inanna, Orifiel and Sakuya; his sentient sword Durandal; and his dragon companion Vrtra. Asura eventually won, defeating the Ratio general Hypnos in battle. Before he could use the Manifest, Inanna betrayed and stabbed him with Durandal. He kills her before he dies, leaving the unification of Devaloka and Naraka unfinished. Most of Devaloka's population is killed in the process, with the others eventually dying years later. In the present, Naraka is governed by the imperial capital of Regnum and the western country of Garam, who are in a state of war. Added to this is the emergence of "avatars", Devalokans reincarnated in human form who hold supernatural powers. They are hunted and inducted into Regnum's military and used for experimentation or as front line troops in the war.

The story begins when Ruca Milda, the reincarnation of Asura, encounters another avatar Illia Animi, an avatar of Inanna. She is being chased by agents of Regnum. Ruca decides to protect her, awakening his supernatural powers. The two are eventually captured and forced to become fighters on the front lines along with swordsman Spada Belforma, the reincarnation of Durandal. During their time as prisoners, Ruca develops a relationship with Chitose Cxarma, who is a reincarnation of Sakuya and retains her former self's deep love for Asura. Ruca, Illia and Spada eventually escape, briefly encountering the mercenary Ricardo Soldato, who is a reincarnation of Hypnos. The three are eventually joined by Ricardo, along with Ange Serena and Hermana Larmo, the respective reincarnations of Orifiel and Vrtra.

As they travel across the war-torn land, they are confronted by avatars in the service of multiple nations, and Arca - a cult made up of avatars led by a woman known as Mathias. Chitose joins Arca to further their cause of a utopia for avatars, and tries to persuade Ruca to join, causing a rift between them. The conflicts between the groups is further inflamed as more people regain their memories as warriors of Sensus or Ratio, sparking old conflicts. In their adventures, the group works to end the fighting and learn about their past lives. When the full truth is revealed, they decide to fulfill Asura's wishes and unite the two worlds. This brings them into conflict with Mathias, who is revealed to be the incarnation of Asura's wrath at being betrayed, and now wishes to destroy both Devaloka and Naraka. Chitose, consumed by Sakuya's love for Asura, helps Mathias in her task. The party confront Mathias and Chitose in Devaloka's ruined capital, where the Manifest is hidden. They defeat Mathias, and Chitose kills herself in a fit of despair. Ruca then proceeds to use the Manifest to merge Devaloka and Naraka, nullifying the avatars' powers and lessening the chance of future conflicts. The group then returns to their normal lives.

Innocence R mostly preserves the story of Innocence, while adding two further characters: a spearwoman named QQ Selezneva, and a spellcaster named Kongwai Tao. These two belong to different worlds, and enter the world of Innocence through the so-called "Triverse Gate". Kongwai came to "save" two souls (Chitose and the antagonist Hasta Ekstermi, a reincarnation of the demonic spear Gaebolg), while QQ is an archeologist who comes to investigate the world of Innocence. Each enters and leaves the world while leaving the main events mostly unaltered. While they appear to be on friendly terms, a second playthrough reveals that they are bitter enemies who have been playing a "friendship game" while in the world of Innocence. As they return to their world, they part ways, with QQ swearing to kill Kongwai the next time they meet.

### Characters

- Ruca Milda (ルカ・ミルダ, Ruka Miruda) is a merchant's son living in the capital city of Regnum. A student with high school grades, he is naturally shy and often teased by his classmates. He is the reincarnation of the Devalokan Asura (アスラ), general of the Sensus army. Ruca is voiced by Akiko Kimura, and Asura is voiced by Rikiya Koyama.
- Illia Animi (イリア・アニーミ, Iria Anīmi) is an honest and independent village girl who was forced to flee from the Regnum authorities after her powers awaken. She is accompanied by Coda, one of a race called "Myusu" who follows her in order to eat nice food. Illia is the reincarnation of Inanna (イナンナ), a former ally of Asura. Illia is voiced by Yuko Sasamoto, and Inanna is voiced by Atsuko Tanaka.
- Spada Belforma (スパーダ・ベルフォルマ, Supāda Beruforuma) is a swordsman from Regnam, a former noble who was rejected by his family. Spada is the reincarnation of Asura's sentient sword and companion Durandal (デュランダル). Both characters are voiced by Yuji Ueda.
- Ricardo Soldato (リカルド・ソルダート, Rikarudo Sorudato) is a marksman and mercenary who is initially forced to fight Ruca, Illia and Spada. Raised in the middle of war, he is a professional type who takes his job seriously. He is the reincarnation of the Ratio general Hypnos (ヒュプノス). Both characters are voiced by Hiroaki Hirata.
- Ange Serena (アンジュ・セレーナ, Anju Serena) is a priestess who takes in and cares for avatars, using her powers to heal the sick and wounded, earning the nickname of "saint". She acts as an older sister figure to Ruca. She is the reincarnation of Orifiel (オリフィエル), a strategist who defected from Ratio to Sensus. Agne is voiced by Kaori Nazuka, and Orifiel is voiced by Tomokazu Sugita.
- Hermana Larmo (エルマーナ・ラルモ, Erumāna Rarumo) is a street urchin who looks after war orphans in Regnum's sewers. Despite her deprived upbringing, she holds a positive outlook on life. She is the reincarnation of Vrtra (ヴリトラ), an ancient dragon who raised Asura. Both characters are voiced by Yuki Matsuoka.
- QQ Selezneva (キュキュ・セレツネワ, Kyukyu Seretsunewa) and Kongwai Tao (コンウェイ・タウ, Konwei Tao) are two characters introduced in Innocence R. Both traveled from other worlds. While Kongwai is a reserved spellcaster on a secretive mission, QQ is an outgoing, self-proclaimed archeologist fascinated by the technology of Innocence's world. Kongwai is voiced by Kenji Nojima, and QQ is voiced by Saki Fujita.

## Development

Planning and early development of Innocence began between March and April 2006, with full development beginning in late 2006 to early 2007. Total development time came to roughly a year and a half. It was being developed at the same time as Tales of the Tempest, another Tales title for the DS, as the next main entry in the Tales series, as opposed to Tempest which would become a spin-off title. While Tempest was conceived as a "compact" version of a Tales title, Innocence was designed to include all the elements expected from a mainline console title, meaning it was created with very different development goals. Rather than by established Tales developer Namco Tales Studio, Innocence was developed by Alfa System, a Japanese studio that had previously worked on the first two Tales of the World spin-off titles. They were chosen to work on the game because of their previous successful efforts with these spin-offs. It was the company's first title for the DS. While developing the title, the team drew on previous difficulties suffered while developing Tempest to promote a smoother development and better final product. The team tweaked the battle system used for the title so that it felt fresh to series veterans while still retaining its identity. One of these aspects was the new character growth system, which relied on customization more than gaining levels in a linear fashion through experience; the theme behind the creation of this system was "a more profound battle with wider frontage". The team incorporated an updated version of the free-running ability from Tales of the Abyss so players could have maximum freedom in battle.

The game's title was inspired by Ruca's portrayal as an innocent young boy thrust into the world's troubles. Ruca himself was portrayed as a shy and introverted type, unlike many previous Tales protagonists, which were portrayed as outgoing and confident. As well as themes of coexistence common in the Tales series, the team incorporated aesthetics and motifs from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The characters were designed by regular Tales artist Mutsumi Inomata, who almost turned down the offer to work on the title due to scheduling conflicts. She created the cast of Innocence at the same time as that of Tales of Hearts, leading to difficulties with her workload. Inomata's brief was not to emphasise the characters' status as heroes, with Luca being deliberately drawn and designed as a physically weak character. As with previous games, Innocence was given a characteristic genre name. The name for Innocence was . This name was carried over into Innocence R. The game's opening was animated by long-time collaborator Production I.G. Innocence was first announced at a special event in July 2007, alongside ports of Tales of Rebirth and Tales of Destiny as well as Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World for the Wii. Innocence did not receive a localization, remaining a Japan-exclusive title. Despite this, a fan translation group working under the name "Absolute Zero" created an patch for the game that both translated the text, and fixed bugs and glitches.

### Innocence R

At a much later date, members of the team decided to remake Innocence, as fan feedback had pointed out many features they had wanted to include despite putting all that was possible into Innocence. Controlling the characters using the PlayStation Vita's touch screen was included for ease of play, although gameplay features using the Vita's other functions was considered during development. Innocence R was developed by Japanese developer 7th Chord. Innocence R was a ground-up remake, with the "R" in the title standing for "re-imagination", referring to the team's development wish for the gameplay and story. Everything from the coding to the animation was redone. The team hoped that the game would provide a boost to the sales of its prospective platform. Inomata returned in her role as character designer for the new characters, while Mika Murakita joined Odate as a producer. New opening and in-game anime cutscenes were created by Production I.G. Development overlapped with the Vita remake of Hearts, with staff from Innocence R also working on Hearts R.

The existence of Innocence R was first revealed through information from a leaked issue of V Jump about the Tales games that were scheduled to appear at the 2011 Tokyo Game Show. The game's teaser site was officially unveiled shortly after this. The first details and gameplay footage were shown to the public during the show alongside Tales of the Heroes: Twin Brave. Innocence R was heavily promoted by the company, with one campaign involving playing out an animated skit using the outdoor monitors around Shibuya Station. As with the original, Innocence R has not received a localization, making it one of three mainline Tales titles not to be released in the west. The decision not to localize it was influenced by poor marketing feedback from western territories. Later, during an interview involving Hearts R and Tales of Xillia 2, series producer Hideo Baba stated that while the game was never intended for localization, if Hearts R sold well, a localization could be considered.

## Audio

Voice acting in Tempest was restricted to battles. Dissatisfied with this approach, the developers wanted to have full voice acting for Innocence while keeping as many planned features in the game as possible. After some trial and error, and on the verge of scrapping voice acting altogether, the team used CRI Middleware's Kyuseishu Sound Streamer compression algorithm to fit the voice acting into the game alongside the other features. The team first learned of the algorithm in May 2006, when the first prototype of Innocence had already been built. The inclusion of the algorithm forced the team to scrap elements of the first build and restart development. The new prototype was completed in November 2006. The predicted amount of voice recording was estimated at 120 minutes. The final product included 40 minutes more than that. According to Ōdate, approximately 70-80% percent of the main scenario was voiced, with the rest of the game's dialogue using text due to hardware limitations. The voice work took up one gigabit of storage space on the DS card. For Innocence R, the voice acting was re-recorded, with the entire main scenario being voiced. This enabled minor changes to character portrayals, as in the case of Kimura when she was redoing Luca's lines: according to her, she worked to inject a little more energy into Luca's voice. For the two new characters, the team created a fictional language called the "Triverse Language", which the characters' actors sometimes had trouble speaking.

### Music

The music for Innocence was composed by Kazuhiro Nakamura, who had previously worked on the Time Crisis and Tekken series. The tracks were arranged with the help of Taisuke Sawachika. For his work on the game, Nakamura chose a different style of music from that of Motoi Sakuraba, who had handled the majority of previous Tales titles: he used ethnic music to distinguish it from earlier games. For the battle music, he used Sakuraba's battle compositions as a reference while keeping to his own style. The remixed and additional music for Innocence R was again handled and composed by Nakamura.

The theme song for Innocence, "Follow the Nightingale", was created and sung by Japanese singer-songwriter Kokia. She was asked on board by the game's staff as they were favorably impressed by her voice. While composing the song, she was allowed to draw inspiration from storyboards and early footage. The theme and lyrics of "Follow the Nightingale" tie in with the characters' status as people reincarnated in the game's present, focusing on the main protagonist Luca asking why they were reborn. As with some of her earlier songs, she wrote some parts of it in code, with Kokia herself describing them as "perplexing riddle words". For Innocence R, Kokia was brought in again and asked to create a different opening number, "New Day, New Life". For this song, Kokia drew from the opening sequence, where Luca wakes from dreaming of his past life and opens the window. Unlike "Follow the Nightingale", "New Day, New Life" was written entirely in standard Japanese, as she wanted to fully convey Luca's feelings in the song, along with those of Kongwai.

The official soundtrack album, Tales of Innocence Original Soundtrack Another Innocence (テイルズ オブ イノセンス オリジナルサウンドトラック アナザーイノセンス), was released on December 19, 2007. It did not enter the Oricon charts. Reviews of the soundtrack have been mixed to positive. Bryan Matheny, in a review published by Game-OST, said that while the music would satisfy Tales fans, it felt Nakamura had missed the chance of doing something different in the vein of Tales of Legendia. RPGFan's Patrick Gann called the album "solid", and noted several tracks that stood out including the battle and overworld themes. Despite this, he felt that it was "forgettable" compared to other Tales soundtracks. "Follow the Nightingale" was released on November 21, 2007, as a single alongside Innocence's ending song "say goodbye & good day". It reached \#33 in the Oricon charts, and remained in the charts for nine weeks. "New Day, New Life" was released on January 25, 2012. It reached \#29 in the charts, and remained for four weeks.

## Reception

Prior to release, Innocence was reporting to be one of the most pre-ordered role-playing title at Amazon Japan alongside Xbox 360 exclusive Lost Odyssey. The game received an initial shipment of 160,000 copies, with projected sales estimated at 150,000. Innocence reached \#3 in the Japanese sales charts after Wii Fit and Mario Party DS, with estimated opening sales of 104,000 copies. After the first week, sales dropped dramatically, selling only 28,000 units the following week. Ultimately, Innocence was considered a success by the company, selling approximately 246,000 copies and exceeding their sales forecasts for the title. Innocence R reached \#3 in the Japanese sales charts in its opening week, coming behind Armored Core V and Resident Evil: Revelations and selling 54,853 copies. By July of that year, Innocence R was the sixth best-selling title for the Vita, with total sales of 74,718 copies.

Famitsu praised Innocence's high-polygon character models, and the story and characters, which were generally engaging and entertaining. Gameplay was also praised, with the increased freedom of movement in battle being positively noted, along with the breadth of character customization available. Some minor points came in for criticism, such as parts of the game that would be difficult for newcomers, and a lack of explanation for some parts of the story. The score given by the magazine was noted as being the highest given by Famitsu to a Tales game up to that point. Paul Koehler of RPGamer, writing up his impression of the game at TGS 2007, was favorably impressed, calling map navigation "fluid" and saying that the graphics were "one of the better offerings at the show on the DS." Cubed3's Adam Riley was generally positive during his hands-on preview. He called the game's quality acting "amazingly high", praised the amount of voice acting, and saw it as "one of the better-rounded titles in the franchise so far." Comparing the game to Tempest, he said that Innocence made the previous DS game "look amateur in nature." RPGFan's Neal Chandran shared many points of praise with Riley, saying that the game promised to be "both a high quality RPG for Nintendo's DS and a high quality entry to this prolific RPG series."

Innocence R was also well received by Famitsu. General praise to the graphical upgrade over the original version, the rebuilt battle system and added voice acting and story content. Japanese website Game Impress Watch was highly positive, praising the extra characters, updated gameplay and graphics. One minor reservation was that some aspects might be a little difficult or complex for players. The reviewer's closing comment was that it was a role-playing game they would "recommend to anyone". Abraham Ashton Liu of RPGFan was fairly mixed about some aspects of it. While he found aspects of comparing the characters' past and present lives and enjoyed the gameplay and side-characters, he generally found the lead characters irritating. He also found the graphics rather poor for the Vita and saw some gameplay elements as archaic or poorly tuned. In March 2013, Famitsu ranked the top games of 2012, and Innocence R reached 13th place. In July 2014, Innocence R was ranked by Japanese website Inside Games among the top ten popular role-playing games for the Vita.

## Additional media

Multiple pieces of media have been created either to promote or complement the game before and after release. To promote the original title's release, the company created an "Adventure Voice DVD", featuring multiple characters from previous Tales games. Multiple books were created after the game's release, including three guidebooks, a two-part novel adaptation released between January and March 2008, and a three-part weekly series of instruction guidebooks released between November 30 and December 30, 2007. The guidebooks contain gameplay hints, concept art and staff interviews. The game was also adapted into a two-part audio drama. Titled Tales of Innocence Drama CD (テイルズオブイノセンス ドラマCD, Teiruzu Obu Inosensu Dorama CD), the two volumes were released on June 25 and July 25, 2008.

Shortly after the release of Innocence R, Bandai Namco developed and released a free smartphone app and released it through iTunes on January 27, 2012. The app allowed users to play selected songs from Innocence R, as well as view concept art and character profiles. A rhythm game was also included for the tunes, allowing players to post their scores on Twitter. Innocene R was adapted into a manga. It was collected into a single volume and released on May 25, 2012, as Tales of Innocence R Comic Anthology (テイルズオブイノセンス R コミックアンソロジー, Teiruzu Obu Inosensu R Komikku Ansorojī).

2007 video game

Multiplayer and single-player video games

Video games featuring female protagonists