The cancellation of Sun TV will bring consequences to the small but important efforts to bring transparency to China’s transitional authoritarian regime.

Further reading on the current political and cultural status of China:

A Nobel Prize speech before and after censorship from the Chinese state apparatus

From Marti:

News coverage of the court hearing on the University’s plans for Mauna Kea characterized our opposition to the plan as anti-development.  It said:

“(opponents) want to block new development on the mountain by stopping approval of the management plan.”

As one of our kupuna pointed out, actually the motivation is all the University’s part.  She said

“advocates for more telescopes on the summit want the UH CMP rushed to completion in order to move forward with several new development plans.”

While it is true that as long as there is no plan there is no TMT, that is not the desired outcome for the plan.  We’re not trying to block the plan to stop TMT.

What we do want is the opportunity to have a real plan–one that arises out of a transparent process and allows communities to articulate a public vision for the future of these extremely important public trust lands. That is what a public planning process is supposed to do. The point is that we have been denied the kind of critical, public and open discussion that would lead to such a plan. In its place, we are being told to shut up and accept a plan that was written by the university and driven by its interest in telescope development and telescope dollars.

We have long said that we want a fair opportunity to talk through and determine together how astronomy and cultural practice and natural conservation coexist–in what form, by what rules, and with what limits–on the summit. This is not an unreasonable ask. The University is wasting precious public education dollars on motion after motion in this case, because they are unwilling to compromise in any way on their development plans. For the University, this case is all about TMT. For advocates of the mountain, this case is not about TMT at all. It is about our standing, and the right of the people of Hawai’i to determine the future of a unique, irreplaceable summit that is part of Hawai’i’s public trust.

Click here to read the article from the Hawaii Tribune Herald.

From Marti:

Yesterday morning, the Third Circuit Court heard oral arguments on the University of Hawaii’s motion to dismiss our appeal for a contested case hearing on the University’s new management plan for Mauna Kea.

Though we are still waiting for the judge’s ruling, the hearing made one thing clear: supporters of this “CMP” also support more telescopes (and more desecration and destruction) on the sacred summit.  Less than a dozen people sign-waved outside the Hilo courthouse during the hearing with pre-printed signs that said “Mauna Kea TMT Yes!”  If you ever doubted the connection between more telescopes and the University’s CMP, then yesterday’s demonstration of support for the “Thirty Meter Telescope” at a hearing on the CMP should make it clear that the University wrote this CMP to facilitate telescope construction on Mauna Kea.  Indeed, the CMP does not speak to any limitations on telescopes or a carrying capacity for the summit.

…unless, of course, if by “TMT” they meant “Too Many Telescopes.”

And, Mahalo Nunui!! This is just a little shout out to all of those who took time out of their workday to sit in solidarity with us before the judge.  Mahalo for your unwavering support.

Want to help? Click here to sign up for action alerts and receive regular court updates. And click over here to donate directly to the Mauna Kea Legal Defense Fund.

I sat down in the room where the contact group on numbers was supposed to meet, after a bit of a delay. After more of a delay, the co-chair announced that they were waiting for the CMP meeting (a meeting of Parties to the Kyoto Protocol) to finish, which was discussing similar issues. Somewhat later, the co-chair announced that the contact group meeting would not be happening at this time, because the CMP had been suspended.

I will probably have more to say on this later. Yesterday, the Conference of Parties (COP) to the UNFCCC was suspended. A number of countries: Australia, Tuvalu, Japan, Costa Rica, and the US, had made proposals on the legal form for a new agreement under the convention. Tuvalu’s was the most interesting, calling for no more than 1.5 degrees of temperature rise and stabilisation at 350ppm or less. This was strongly supported by the small island states, and many countries in the Sahel. The proposal to form a contact group to discuss this was blocked by Saudi Arabia, China, India, and a bunch of other oil exporting countries. This led yesterday to Tuvalu suspending the COP. It is possible that the suspension of the CMP is related to this matter.

Frustrations filled this morning’s CMP plenary as parties could not reach a consensus. The agenda item of discussion was amendments to the Kyoto Protocol. Numerous amendments were proposed by the following countries: Tuvalu, Australia, Columbia, Papa New Guinea, Japan, Czech Republic, Bolivia, Belize, New Zealand, Philippines, and Non-Annex Countries. The tabled amendments included extending the commitment period beyond 2012, requiring developed countries to commit to 40% emission reduction targets of 1990 levels by 2020, giving legal authority to the compliance board, and setting up funding for adaptation and mitigation. With these amendments on the table, Tuvalu proposed the setting up of a contact group to discuss issues regarding these amendments. Much support was voiced for this option. However, much support was also voiced for the option presented by China to allow the  ad hoc working group of the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) to work on developing amendments agreed on by all parties. Without consensus the President made the decision to suspend this agenda item until Saturday. Tuvalu immediately rejected this decision indicating that consensus must be reached sooner than Saturday if COP15 is to be successful, therefore the meeting should continue until a decision regarding the proposed amendments has been made. Again many countries supported Tuvalu. China yet again proposed another option: to scope down issues in the CMP and therefore moving amendment related discussions to be dealt with by the AWG-KP. After a ten minute break in which the President talked with party members, a final decision was to suspend the agenda item until Saturday.

Our feelings were that we cannot wait on this until Saturday. Nothing has been done to date and nothing will be done until next week if a decision on amendments cannot be made soon. Unless a miracle happens next week, the outlook of this conference is grim.

Following the CMP meeting, Tyler and Sylvie spoke with representatives from Tuvalu who supported our feelings. They felt that the President was intentionally stalling to make a decision. Speculation indicates that since the President is Danish, she may be influenced by the release of the “Danish Text” indicating that Denmark is only interested signing their agreement.

In the CMP and COP meetings, Canada and the US have yet to turn on their microphones. If you want to know Canada’s opinion on these matters, as we do, contact Jim Prentice at Minister@ec.gc.ca and urge him to give Canada a voice. We’ll do what we can here in Copenhagen.

Comprehensive Metabolic Panel

[I wrote this last year for something else - maybe sort of interesting given there's been news recently about Intels' Larrabee]

Thread-Level Parallelism and the UltraSPARC T1/T2

For a long period of time, increases in performance of CPUs were achieved by maximising sequential performance. This was achieved by increasing the instructions/cycle, using ever deeper, multi-issue pipelines and ever more speculative execution – thus extracting ever more instruction-level parallelism (ILP) from blocks of code, at ever higher clock rates. [3][4][5][6] Processors such as the DEC Alpha 21264, MIPS R12000 and Intel Pentium 4 were the result of this. As an example, the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition featured a 4-issue, out-of-order, 31 stage pipeline, and clocked at up to 3.2GHz, consuming 130W in the process.[4]

Unfortunately, though this approach served the processor industry well throughout the 1990s and most of the 2000s, its doom had already been foretold. David Wall showed empirically that there were practical limits to the amount of ILP available[1]. These limits were surprisingly low for many typical codes – between 4 and 10. Others observed that the disparity in the growth of CPU compute power, relative to memory access times, was increasing at such a rate that the latter would govern system performance ever more – dubbed the “memory wall”[2]. This meant all the gains made by complex, ILP-extracting logic would eventually be reduced to nothing, relative to the time spent waiting on memory.

Faced with these apparent hard limits on the gains that could be had from ILP, other levels of parallelism were investigated. Tullsen et al argued for thread-level parallelism (TLP): extracting parallelism by issuing instructions to multiple functional units from multiple threads of execution.[8] This is sometimes called “Chip Multi-Threading” or CMT. Olukotun et al, of the Computer Systems Laboratory of MIPS’ birthplace, argued that multiple, simpler processor-cores on a chip would be a more efficient use of the transistor budget for a chip than a single, complex, super-scalar core.[3] This is sometimes called “Chip Multi-Processing” or CMP.

Intel added CMT to their P4 CPUs, calling it “Hyper-Threading”. While it improved performance on many workloads, it was known to reduce performance on single-threaded numerical loads. Intels’ Core/Core2 Duo range are not CMT, but are CMP (being multi-core).

A 3rd, more practical factor would also come into play: Energy usage.[4][6] If an ILP-maximising processor is less efficient than a TLP-maximising processor, then the latter can potentially save a significant amount of energy. If the memory-wall means complex ILP logic will be to no avail, then ditching that logic should save power without affecting performance (in the aggregate).

In 2006, Sun released a brand new implementation of UltraSPARC, the T1 – codenamed “Niagara”. Like several other server-orientated processors, the UltraSPARC T1 was both CMP and CMT, having up to 8 cores, each core handling 4 threads. The Niagara differed reasonably radically from those other offerings in that it was designed specifically with the “memory wall” in mind, as well as power-consumption. To this end, rather than using complex, super-scalar processor cores, the T1 cores instead were very simple. Each core is single-issue, in-order, non-speculative and just 6 stages deep. The pipeline is the classic 5-stage RISC pipeline, with a “Thread Select” stage added between IF and ID. Each core is therefore relatively slow compared to a traditional super-scalar design. The T1 clocks at 1 to 1.2GHz due to the short pipeline. Rather than trying to mask memory latency with speculation, the T1 switches processing to another thread. So, when given a highly-multithreaded workload, the T1 can make very efficient use of both its compute and memory resources by amortising the memory-wait time for any one thread across the execution time of a large number of other threads. Thread selection is the only speculative logic in the T1. It is aimed at highly threaded, memory/IO bound workloads (e.g. the server half of client/server). [4] [5][6]

This approach has additional benefits. Less speculation means fewer wasted cycles. Rather than spending design time on complex, stateful logic to handle speculation and out-of-order issue, the designers can instead concentrate on optimising the chip’s power usage. The many-core approach also physically distributes heat better. The T1 uses just 72W, compared to the 130W of the P4EE, despite the T1s greater transistor count, and much higher peak performance/Watt on server work-loads. [5][6]

The T1 has just one FPU, shared by all cores. This a weakness for which the T1 has been much criticised. Indiscriminate use of floating-point by programmers, particularly less sophisticated ones, is not unheard of in target applications like web-applications (PHP, etc.). The T1 may not perform at all well in such situations. The T1 core also includes a ‘Modular Arithmetic Unit’ (MAU) to accelerate cryptographic operations.

In late 2007, Sun released the UltraSPARC T2. This CPU is very similar to T1. Changes include a doubling of number of threads per core to 8; an additional execution unit per-core and 2 issues per cycle; an 8-stage pipeline; an FPU per core (fixing the above major sore-point of the T1); and the ability to do SMP.[11] This allows for at least 32 cores and 256 threads in a single server (4-way SMP). A single CPU T2 system soon held the SPECWeb world record.[13]

Intel have gone down a somewhat similar path with their Atom processor – a very simple x86 CPU with CMT, but there are no CMP versions of it (yet).[10] Intel are also working on a massively-CMP x86 CPU, called “Larrabee”, using simple, in-order cores.[9] This will have 16 or more cores initially. It is to be aimed at the graphics market, rather than as a general-purpose CPU. Caveon offer the ‘OCTEON’, a MIPS64 based CMP, with up to 16 cores, targetted at networking/communications applications.[12]

To date there are no other simple-core, massively-CMP,CMT processors available as general-purpose systems other than systems using the UltraSPARC T1 and T2. The simple-core, massively-CMP/CMT approach it uses is undoubtedly the future, given the long-standing research results and more recent practical experience. It may take longer for such chips to become prevalent as desktop CPUs though, given the need to continue to expend transistors to maintain high sequential performance for existing, commonly minimally-threaded desktop software.

1. “Limits of Instruction-Level Parallelism“, Wall, DEC WRL researc report, 1993

2. “Hitting the Memory Wall: Implications of the Obvious“, Wulf, Mckee, Computer Architecture News, 1995

3. “The Case for a Single-Chip Multiprocessor“, Olukotun, Nayfeh, Hammond, Wilson, Chang, IEEE Computer, 1996

4. “Performance/Watt: The New Server Focus” (2005), James Laudon 1st Workshop on Design, Architecture and Simulation of CMP (dasCMP), 2005.

5. “Niagara: a 32-way multithreaded Sparc processor” Kongetira, Aingaran, Olukotun, IEEE Micro, 2005,

6. “A Power-Efficient High-Throughput 32-Thread SPARC Processor“, Leon, Tam, Weisner, Schumacher, IEEE Solid-State Circuits, 2007,

8. “Simultaneous Multithreading: Maximizing On-Chip Parallelism“, Tullsen, Eggers, Levy. 22nd An. Int. Symposium on Comp. Arch., 1995.

9. “Larrabee: a many-core x86 architecture for visual computing“, Seiler, et al. ACM Transactions on Graphics, Aug 2008.

10. http://www.intel.com/products/processor/atom/index.htm

11. “UltraSPARC T2: A Highly-Threaded, Power-Efficient, SPARC SOC“, Shah, et al. A-SSCC, 2007.

12. http://www.cavium.com/OCTEON_MIPS64.html

13. http://blogs.sun.com/bmseer/entry/sun_s_even_faster_specweb2005

Auxiliary Sources for Thread-Level Parallelism:

• http://view.eecs.berkeley.edu/wiki/Main_Page
• http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2006/EECS-2006-183.html
• http://developers.sun.com/solaris/articles/chip_multi_thread.html
• http://blogs.sun.com/travi/?entry=ultrasparc_t1_utilization_explained
• “High-Performance Throughput Computing“

*** This post applies to those of us who took the LEED NC v2.2 AP exam prior to the LEED v3 debut – LEED APs without a specialty. My examples list dates for people who passed the test prior to July 31, 2009. If you need date information for later test times, please let me know and I will post them.

The GBCI literature is confusing to say the least. There are about 12 places to look and they all overlap or contradict each other. If for no other reason than to organize my own thoughts, I need to post a clear explanation of how to maintain my credentials. Hopefully this will help someone else as well.

There are 3 options… with 3 very different price tags.

OPTION 1 | ‘I have no desire to spend any more money. I just want to be recognized as a LEED AP.’

cost? $$$ zero dollars spent

what do I do? Don’t do a thing. If you passed before July 31, 2009, you have until July 30, 2011 to decide to not do anything. After that, options 2 and 3 on this list are no longer available to you.

what will happen? You will be listed in the LEED AP directory indefinitely without specialty.

Pros? No more money spent. No more time spent. And you still get to use ‘LEED AP’ in your signature.

Cons? Over time, without a specialty designated to your credential… it will become outdated. People in the field will notice that you have the kind of LEED credential that was earned before 2009 and does not require any continuing education. They may begin to question your knowledge. But this won’t happen for a few years probably.

OPTION 2 | ‘I just spent a huge amount of time and money to get here. I want to have a lasting credential without retesting for anything.’ I chose this option, by the way.

cost? $$$ the price of maintaining your credential through continued education. (follow my posts if you want to find cheap ones!)

what do I do? Log in to ‘My Credentials’ on the GBCI website. Under the heading ‘Current Options’, scroll down to the second group of options. Select the option that allows you to enroll in ‘prescriptive credentialing maintenance’. Read and sign everything. Next, read my post about CMP options and begin your 30 hours of fun (finish before summer 2011).

what will happen? At the end of your reporting period, assuming all of your educational credits have been approved, you will be listed as a LEED AP with a specialty in Building Design and Construction (BD&C).

Pros? Only 30 hours of time, plus the number of hours it takes you to find cheap classes to take. Depending on your bargain hunting skills, you could get away with spending very little or a lot. I’m aiming for very little.

Cons? If you had intended to use your AP credential towards a job in LEED Homes or Neighborhood Design, you might be better off with a specialty that reflects one of those interests. In which case, please move on to Option 3.

OPTION 2 | ‘I’m really interested in LEED Homes or Neighborhood Development. I’d like to be recognized especially in one of those fields.’

cost? $$$ the price of retesting under a specialty exam PLUS the price of maintaining one or both credentials over the years to come.

what do I do? Log in to ‘My Credentials’ on the GBCI website. Under the heading ‘Current Options’, scroll down to the second group of options. Select the option that allows you to enroll in ‘a new specialty examination’. Chose a new specialty; Read and sign everything. Then start studying again.

what will happen? Once you pass your specialty exam, you will be listed as a LEED AP with a specialty in whichever you chose. You will still have to maintain this credential, and if you want you can maintain the BD&C specialty as well (which you would have obtained through Option 2).

Pros? You will be special! You will have a credential which accurately reflects your interests and/or field of work, possibly earning you a higher salary.

Cons? You enter into study hell once again, and you fork out the ridiculously high testing fee once again.

Ok, I’m here. I made it. I’m a LEED AP. Now what?

I like to break things down into 3’s when I feel a bit lost. So here’s my 3 big goals for the future regarding the use of this new credential:

1. Get smarter: I am not under the illusion that my studying days are over. They are only just beginning. Maintaining my credentials will require ongoing education (and quite a bit of money) in order to prove my continued worth as a leader in the sustainable building field. The GBCI’s Credentialing Maintenance Program (CMP) requires me to complete a confusing number of hours over a vaguely defined spread of LEED-related issues. I’ll need to clarify and post about this to understand it better. Check back later.

2. Get experienced: I am located in Italy, which is not a country seething with LEED projects. There are a few, however, and I have made some steps towards familiarizing myself with other LEED Italia professionals. I am even listed as a LEED AP on the Green Building Council of Italy’s website. While LEED Italy is still in its infancy, I am also trying to learn a bit about Casa Clima and Itaca – two of the other rating schemes used here in Italy.

3. Get recognized: For me, this means growing our new business to the point where we have a comfortable client base and a good reputation for quality architectural designs. I’d like to use my LEED AP credential as a tool for initiating conversations that would otherwise be overlooked in this somewhat traditional and rural setting (rural Reggio Emilia, Italy).

For now, I think these are reasonable (but general) goals. Over the next few months, I hope to post about more specific ways to achieve them.

O Centro de Congressos da Alfândega do Porto, que em 1998 acolheu a VIII Cimeira Ibero-americana, precisa de um hotel de apoio, defendeu o presidente da Associação para o Museu dos Transportes e Comunicações (AMTC), Carlos Brito.

Em entrevista à agência Lusa, Carlos Brito lamentou que, 11 anos depois da cimeira, ainda não tenha sido concretizada a transferência do edifício da Alfândega para a associação que gere o centro de congressos e o Museu dos Transportes e Comunicações.

Para Carlos Brito, o edifício da Alfândega do Porto, “talvez o maior do concelho” e com uma localização privilegiada junto ao Rio Douro, merecia uma maior atenção das autoridades locais e nacionais.

“Se se quiser fazer aqui um centro de congressos importante, terá que se fazer um hotel, que não precisa de ser muito grande”, afirmou.

O responsável salientou que o edifício já recebe todos os anos “300 mil visitantes”, mas, para se desenvolver enquanto centro de congressos, precisa de acessos desimpedidos, quando há um evento de interesse mundial, e do um hotel de apoio.

Segundo Carlos Brito, a construção do hotel, num dos extremos do edifício ou num dos parques de estacionamento, deverá resultar de um “entendimento” entre as várias entidades envolvidas, nomeadamente a Câmara do Porto, o Estado e a Refer.

O presidente da AMTC considerou “fundamental a presença do rio” como factor diferenciador da Alfândega quando comparado com outras possíveis localizações de centros de congressos.

“Ter o Rio Douro como vizinho é qualquer coisa de muito diferente de outros centros mundiais”, frisou.

Carlos Brito reconheceu que os actuais acessos são melhores, mas criticou a Câmara do Porto por encerrar a “marginal” para corridas pedestres em dias de eventos de nível mundial na Alfândega.

O presidente da AMTC defendeu ainda melhores ligações a Gaia, nomeadamente através a construção de uma ponte comercial pedestre, destacando a importância de uma renovação concertada das duas margens do Rio Douro.

Fonte Lusa

In case any of you are keeping a running list of Things I Hate, I am about to enlighten you as to the Number One Thing I Hate, so get ready to add this to the top of your list.  Ready?

CHRISTMAS MUSIC.

I hate Christmas music more than I can even bear to describe to you.  Okay, not ALL Christmas music.  Just the traditional Christmas hymns/carols/what-have-you.  I’d rather sit at the DMV wedged between a giant, smelly old man and a screaming baby than listen to Joy To The World on repeat.

The ONE Christmas-y song that I not only tolerate but actually enjoy is Of The Father’s Love Begotten.  So that is the piece my orchestra will be playing for the Christmas concert (arranged by Michele Robeson-Howard for piano and strings).  I spent a good long time last night arranging all the parts so they were easy enough for my high schoolers to play (read: no shifting, no tricky bowing, no eighth notes, etc), and this morning we read through it in class.

Close behind on my list of Things I Hate is the following:

Sitting through orchestra while my kids attempt to sight read.  First of all, the piece is all screwed up, meter-wise.  It’s in 6/4, then 4/4, then 3/4, then 5/4, then 6/4 again…rinse and repeat.  And even though at the beginning I told them, probably fifteen times, that THE QUARTER NOTE STAYS CONSTANT, regardless, every time the meter changed, everyone would freak out and the rhythm would be in complete upheaval.  This is frustrating, in case anyone was wondering.  Second of all, these kids have no concept of key signature, so I’m constantly reminding them when to play F sharp or C natural, except that I can’t even just tell them PLAY F SHARP.  I have to tell them USE YOUR HIGH SECOND FINGER because – this is a true story – I asked one of my high schoolers to play an F sharp for me on her violin, and SHE DIDN’T KNOW WHERE IT WAS.  This is disconcerting, to say the least.

Anyway, so I’ve decided to revamp my entire orchestra class.  This idea is inspired by CMP (Comprehensive Musicianship through Performance), and I’m hoping to help my kids grasp all the different concepts of music WHILE still rehearsing for our performances.  I blame myself as much as I blame their former or present music teachers, because I should be building in theory and history and appreciation.  It’s just so hard with only 43 minutes a day.  I had the best of intentions at the beginning of the school year, but then once I realized how quickly 43 minutes goes by, I pushed all my grand ideas to the side because I wanted to focus on nothing but performing.  However, I realize what a disservice I’m doing by just insisting they learn and fix their individual parts instead of teaching them all the different facets of music and then having them apply that knowledge to their orchestra pieces.

GAH.  So, to recap:

Things I Hate

1. Christmas music
2. Sight reading
3. My current teaching method

Wait.  But there is one thing I love about Christmas.  I love that I can now wear all my Christmas underwear without feeling seasonally inappropriate (because who are we kidding, I wear those things in the heat of summer, since really, a) underwear is underwear, whether it has candy canes on it or not, and b) no one sees my underwear anyway, so I’m really the only one who knows and/or cares that it’s red and green and also July).  So there’s that.  Plus, Christmas brings a nice long break for me.  Done with school on December 18th and don’t have to go back until January 4th.  Boo. Ya.

Intervenção na Reunião do Comitê Executivo do Conselho Mundial da Paz – Damasco, Síria, 22 a 25 de outubro de 2009

Queridas companheiras, queridos companheiros.

            É com grande alegria que instalamos a Reunião do Comitê Executivo do Conselho Mundial da Paz, a primeira desde a memorável Assembléia de Caracas, realizada em abril do ano passado. Muito nos honra que esta reunião tenha lugar em Damasco, capital da República Árabe Síria, auspiciada pelo Conselho Sírio da Paz e contando com o apoio generoso do povo sírio e do seu governo, liderado pelo presidente Bashar Assad. A Síria destaca-se no mundo árabe como um país que defende firmes posições em defesa da paz e da justa solução para o conflito árabe-israelense, especialmente a questão palestina e é uma trincheira na luta contra os planos sionistas e imperialistas na região. Desde logo, ao abrir os trabalhos desta reunião, manifestamos a plena solidariedade do Conselho Mundial da Paz ao povo e ao governo da Síria em sua justa e legítima luta pela recuperação das Colinas de Golan, território sírio usurpado pela agressão militar israelense de 1967 e até hoje sob ocupação.

            Estimados Camaradas,

            O período transcorrido desde a Assembléia de Caracas é sumamente rico em acontecimentos de importância para a nossa luta pela paz, por um mundo justo e solidário, livre do domínio e da hegemonia das grandes potências imperialistas.

            De uma maneira geral, permanecem em ação os fatores que geram instabilidade e conflitos, continuam graves as ameaças à paz mundial e à segurança internacional. Prosseguem em agravamento contradições sociais, próprias de um sistema econômico e político que se tornou um obstáculo ao desenvolvimento, à cooperação internacional, ao progresso social. Continuam em execução planos de domínio do mundo por forças imperialistas, prosseguem a militarização, os ataques às liberdades, as violações de direitos políticos e econômicos dos povos, o menoscabo do direito internacional, a agressão à soberania nacional.

            Um dos fenômenos mais salientes do quadro internacional no período que nos separa da Assembléia de Caracas, foi a eclosão da crise econômica e financeira do capitalismo, reveladora dos sérios impasses e limites históricos de um sistema econômico e social baseado na exploração e opressão dos trabalhadores. Tal crise afigura-se como sistêmica, estrutural, grave, profunda e duradoura. É responsável pelo aumento da miséria entre os trabalhadores e pelo ainda maior debilitamento dos países pobres.

            Um mundo em crise é um mundo propenso a conflitos, mormente quando esta crise tem em seu epicentro a maior economia do planeta – a dos EUA – e quando este país, o mais influente politicamente e mais poderoso militarmente começa a exibir sinais de declínio e emergem novos pólos de poder econômico e geopolítico. Uma superpotência hegemônica em declínio tende a ser mais agressiva na defesa de seus interesses e privilégios espalhados pelo mundo.

            Outro fato marcante na situação internacional ocorrido depois da Assembléia do CMP de Caracas, foi a eleição de Barak Obama como novo presidente dos Estados Unidos, em novembro de 2008. Uma aparatosa máquina de propaganda visando a maquiar a imagem do imperialismo fabricou a ilusão de que ocorrerão mudanças de rumos na situação internacional, que se traduziriam na abertura de uma nova era de paz, convivência democrática entre as nações, segurança, respeito ao direito internacional, vigência dos direitos humanos e restauração do multilateralismo sob a égide de uma Organização das Nações Unidas reformada e pró-ativa na solução pacífica dos conflitos.

            Mas o movimento pela paz não se deve permitir ilusões. Mesmo considerando as diferenças de métodos e estilos entre os partidos Democrático e Republicano e o perfil distinto do presidente Obama comparativamente ao seu antecessor, o qual passou à história como o mais agressivo e antidemocrático presidente dos Estados Unidos, moralmente condenado como fautor de crimes de guerra contra a humanidade, devemos analisar os fenômenos com objetividade para procurar entender o que está em curso na realidade dos Estados Unidos e internacional.

            O objetivo explícito de Barack Obama, manifestado desde a campanha eleitoral do ano passado, é recuperar a liderança mundial dos Estados Unidos, em todos os domínios – político, diplomático, econômico e militar. “Para triunfar -disse Barack Obama durante a campanha eleitoral – necessitamos de uma liderança que entenda a conexão entre nossa economia e nossa força no mundo. Nós ouvimos frequentemente acerca de dois debates – um em segurança nacional e outro sobre a economia – mas é uma distinção falsa. Devemos ser fortes em casa e fortes no exterior – essa é a lição de nossa história. Nossa economia apóia nosso poder militar e aumenta nosso nível diplomático, e esses são os cimentos da liderança americana no mundo. Agora, devemos renovar a competitividade americana para apoiar nossa segurança e liderança global”. (Discurso de campanha na Virgínia, em 22 de outubro de 2008). Em outro pronunciamento na mesma campanha eleitoral, Obama anunciou o objetivo de “fazer deste século outro século dos Estados Unidos”.

            A profundidade da crise do capitalismo, que tem seu epicentro nos Estados Unidos, as fragilidades estruturais da economia do país, as dívidas, os déficites gêmeos, a deterioração do padrão dólar, os sinais de declínio da hegemonia econômica norte-americana no mundo, a gravidade da crise social, as dificuldades da agenda política interna e sobretudo as derrotas sofridas no terreno internacional fazem com que o novo presidente busque novos métodos para exercer a hegemonia norte-americana. O imperialismo estadunidense se isolou tanto e tornou-se alvo da legítima revolta dos povos, que hoje busca apresentar-se com nova imagem. Por isso, o novo presidente, já no discurso de posse, em 20 de janeiro deste ano, falou de “restaurar as fortes alianças e a diplomacia americana”, o que leva alguns a falarem sobre as condições para o exercício do “poder brando” e do “poder inteligente”.

            Os primeiros meses do novo presidente têm sido, assim, marcados na área externa por uma combinação de pragmatismo, cautela, habilidade política em face de problemas delicados, muita retórica, ações pendulares e grandes operações de marketing político. O presidente Obama refere-se criticamente à política de instalação de colônias na Cisjordânia, mas reafirma o compromisso com a “segurança” de Israel, mantém a ajuda militar e autoriza a participação do exército norte-americano em exercícios militares conjuntos com o exército israelense. Anuncia que fechará o campo de concentração de Guantánamo, relaxa alguns aspectos mais odiosos do bloqueio a Cuba, mas em seguida prorroga a vigência da lei que autoriza o bloqueio à revolucionária Ilha. Participa de reunião de cúpula com chefes de Estado de toda a América Latina, preconiza o início de uma nova época nas relações hemisféricas, mas continua a fustigar e provocar os governos antiimperialistas nomeadamente os da Venezuela e da Bolívia. Num quadro geral de avanços progressistas, durante este ano ocorreu o golpe de Estado em Honduras, país centro-americano que gradualmente incorporava-se aos processos de integração solidária e passava por avanços democráticos. Ainda como exemplo dos movimentos pendulares, a nova Administração dos Estados Unidos, anuncia a revogação do plano de instalação do escudo anti-mísseis na República Tcheca e na Polônia, mas  simultaneamente proclama que os Estados Unidos continuam comprometidos com um sistema de defesa com mísseis antibalísticos.

            Essencialmente, a situação internacional não registra progressos em favor da paz, no que diz respeito às ações dos Estados Unidos e seus aliados, nem à diminuição das tensões ou focos de conflitos.

            As chamas da guerra continuam a arder no Iraque sob ocupação das tropas estadunidenses. O anúncio do plano de retirada a longo prazo não contribuiu para estabilizar a situação. A presença de tropas de ocupação continua a provocar escaramuças militares e incidentes políticos.

            O novo governo estadunidense defende a continuidade da chamada “guerra ao terrorismo”, deslocando o seu centro para o Afeganistão. O Pentágono e o Departamento de Estado são unívocos na opinião de que é necessário enviar mais tropas e destinar maiores recursos para ganhar a guerra no Afeganistão e confrontar a crescente ameaça da Al Qaeda na fronteira com o Paquistão. A Guerra do Afeganistão, herança maldita do governo de George W. Bush, vai convertendo-se cada vez mais na guerra de Obama. No último dia 20 de setembro, o presidente dos EUA declarou que esta guerra não tem prazo para acabar. “Eu não tenho um prazo final para a retirada” do Afeganistão, disse ele em entrevista a um programa televisivo.

            Nesse mesmo dia, o jornal “The Washington Post” divulgou documento escrito pelo general Stanley McChrystal, comandante das forças norte-americanas e da OTAN no Afeganistão e enviado ao secretário da Defesa dos Estados Unidos, Robert Gates, em 30 de agosto, afirmando que os Estados Unidos precisam enviar mais tropas ao Afeganistão a fim de evitar uma derrota. “O fracasso em prover recursos adequados (mais tropas) resulta no risco de um conflito mais longo, mais mortes, custos mais elevados, e em última instância, uma perda de apoio político. Qualquer um desses riscos, por sua vez, pode resultar no fracasso da missão”.

            O general propõe acelerar o aumento do número de soldados. A meta atual é expandir o contingente de 92 mil para 134 mil até dezembro de 2011. Sua proposta é atingir esse nível até outubro de 2010.

            Seguindo o mesmo curso de primazia militar, os Estados Unidos têm quase um milhar de bases militares espalhadas pelo mundo. O novo governo propôs o aumento dos gastos militares, que correspondem à quase totalidade dos gastos de todos os demais países somados. O Orçamento militar da Casa Branca foi incrementado em 4%, ao passo que foi aumentada também a verba destinada a financiar as guerras do Iraque e do Afeganistão (mais 75,5 bilhões de dólares para 2009 e mais 130 bilhões de dólares para o ano de 2010).

            Ultimamente passou para o centro da política do imperialismo norte-americano o aumento da presença militar na América Latina e no Caribe, como o demonstram o relançamento da Quarta Frota, no apagar das luzes do governo de George W. Bush, e o acordo militar entre os Estados Unidos e a Colômbia, já sob o governo Obama, que prevê a instalação de sete bases militares  da superpotência do Norte nesse país sul-americano. Por este acordo, as forças armadas estadunidenses utilizarão três instalações militares colombianas nas regiões de Malambo, na costa norte do Caribe, ao lado da Venezuela, Palanquero, no rio Magdalena, a 100 km  a noroeste de Bogotá, no centro do país, e Apiay, nas planícies orientais, próximo à fronteira brasileira .  A estas se agregam as bases de Tolemaida, no centro do país, e Larandia, perto da fronteira com o Equador. A iniciativa prevê ainda a utilização da base naval da Baía de Málaga e a de Cartagena, na Costa do Caribe, por navios de guerra dos Estados Unidos. Com duração de dez anos, o acordo permitirá que os norte-americanos tenham 1.400 homens, entre civis e militares na Colômbia e contará com investimentos da ordem de 5 bilhões de dólares. Com muita propriedade, o líder cubano, companheiro Fidel Castro, chamou essas bases militares de “sete punhais no coração da América”. O presidente venezuelano Hugo Chávez também denunciou em termos contundentes:

            “Queremos denunciar que este fato é parte de um plano político e militar, orquestrado para acabar com o projeto da União das Nações Sul-americanas (UNASUL), além de ser a maior ameaça neste momento histórico, para as infinitas riquezas que jazem em nosso continente, isto é: o ouro negro, nosso petróleo; o ouro azul, as grandes reservas acuiferas; o ouro verde, nossa Amazônia” (Carta do presidente Hugo Chávez aos presidentes dos países que compõem a UNASUL, 10 de agosto de 2009). No mesmo documento, o presidente da República Bolivariana da Venezuela assinalou: “Seria um grave erro pensar que a ameaça é apenas contra a Venezuela; dirige-se a todos os países do Sul do continente. Geopoliticamente estamos ao sul da hegemonia e é uma realidade que, transcendendo a tendência política dos governos do mundo, o problema da guerra diz respeito a toda a humanidade”.

            Os Estados Unidos reativaram a Quarta Frota de sua Marinha de Guerra num momento em que a América Latina ruma para a consolidação de um bloco regional que se caracteriza pelas posturas solidárias, independentes e soberanas, construindo fóruns regionais como o Mercosul, a Unasul, a Alba e o Conselho de Defesa Sul-Americano, afastando-se objetivamente da tutela estadunidense. Acrescente-se que em meio a este processo foi derrotada a tentativa dos Estados Unidos de impor à América Latina a criação de uma Área de Livre Comércio, a ALCA.

            Outra movimentação recente do imperialismo estadunidense no sentido de aumentar sua presença militar no mundo foi a criação do Comando Africano, ou AFRICOM, num quadro em que são numerosas as bases militares de países imperialistas europeus e em que crescem as ameaças de intervenção sob o pretexto de solucionar os conflitos internos no Sudão.

            Entre os fatos marcantes ocorridos desde a Assembléia de Caracas, destaca-se a reunião da cúpula da OTAN, em Estrasburgo e Kehl, que reuniu na fronteira franco-germânica os chefes de estado e de governo dos 28 países membros, em 4 de abril do ano em curso. O acontecimento teve a pompa e a circunstância da celebração do 60º aniversário da Aliança Atlântica. A declaração conjunta reafirmou o novo “conceito estratégico”, adotado no início dos anos 1990, novo conceito que não significa a alteração do seu caráter agressivo, antes pelo contrário, reforça esse caráter e amplia o raio de ação, que não se circunscreve mais à região do Atlântico Norte.  Foi baseada nesse novo conceito que a OTAN agrediu a Iugoslávia, expandiu-se para o Leste europeu, participa da guerra do Afeganistão  e imiscuiu-se no conflito do Cáucaso.

            No quadro da militarização e das ameaças à paz mundial e à segurança internacional destaca-se ainda o chamado dossiê nuclear. Apesar da retórica sobre desarmamento e não proliferação, é inalterada a essência da política imperialista: monopólio das armas nucleares combinado com chantagem contra os países que buscam poder dissuasão ou usar a energia nuclear para fins pacífico. É sobre esta base que permanecem as ameaças à República Popular Democrática da Coréia e ao Irã.

            O tema ganhará destaque ainda maior, porquanto se realizará em maio de 2010 a Conferência das Nações Unidas sobre a Revisão do Tratado de não Proliferação Nuclear. Reafirmamos a posição histórica do CMP ratificada na Assembléia de Caracas: “Os povos do mundo continuam confrontados com a ameaça da guerra nuclear, representada pela política dos Estados Unidos de ataque nuclear preventivo… A eliminação das armas nucleares é uma urgente tarefa de toda  a humanidade. Hoje, cresce em todo o mundo o apelo para a abolição das armas nucleares. O CMP exige que todos os países detentores de armas nucleares dêem passos concretos para a abolição dos seus arsenais nucleares em face da Conferência dobre a Revisão do Tratado de não Proliferação Nuclear. Além disso, o CMP apela à realização de ações pelo desarmamento geral em todo o mundo”.

            Com essa perspectiva o CMP deve preparar-se para participar de ações, movimentos, conferências, seminários relacionados com a Conferência das Nações Unidas, levando a esses fóruns as opiniões constantes da Declaração da Assembléia de Caracas. 

Companheiras e companheiros.

            O fato mais grave que abalou o mundo e comoveu a humanidade no período que nos separa da Assembléia de Caracas foi a criminosa agressão israelense contra o povo palestino entre dezembro de 2008 e janeiro de 2009. Uma agressão que se afigurou como um verdadeiro genocídio, um hediondo crime de lesa-humanidade. Durante os ataques à Faixa de Gaza, mais de 1.400 palestinos foram assassinados, um terço dos quais crianças. Os ataques foram desferidos contra a população civil indefesa. Não é casual que tenham recebido a firme condenação dos povos e que as Nações Unidas tenham acabado de aprovar o relatório que condena Israel como responsável por crimes de guerra.

            O Oriente Médio continua vivendo situação tensa e explosiva. Apesar das palavras conciliatórias do presidente dos Estados Unidos, ainda não foi dado nenhum sinal de que outra política será aplicada em relação ao Oriente Médio. A rigor nada se alterou em essência quanto aos chamados planos de reestruturação do Oriente Médio através dos quais, sob o pretexto de democratizar a região, pretende-se moldar regimes dóceis e submissos para facilitar a consecução de objetivos estratégicos de domínio desta importante região, rica em recursos energéticos.

            O escopo da política norte-americana para a região é muito amplo. Estende-se ao norte da África e à Ásia Central, chegando até o Paquistão, foco possível de novos conflitos e terreno vulnerável à ação intervencionista estadunidense.

            O Estado de Israel, principalmente depois da eleiçã de mais um governo da direita sionista, aumenta sua arrogância e intransigência. Super-armado e contando com o indeclinável apoio do imperialismo norte-americano, aumenta sua política agressiva, intensifica a instalação de assentamentos nos territórios palestinos, impõe condições inaceitáveis aos palestinos, exige acima de tudo o reconhecimento do Estado judaico com a primazia à segurança de Israel, não disfarçando mais o objetivo de fazer de Israel um Estado étnico e religioso, o que implica a expulsão dos palestinos da sua terra. Nega liminarmente o reconhecimento de um Estado Palestino livre e independente, com território contínuo, capital em Jerusalém e forças armadas próprias. E comporta-se de maneira intransigente com relação ao repatriamento dos refugiados, matéria sobre a qual há resolução das Nações Unidas.

            Israel desrespeita e viola sistematicamente o direito internacional e as resoluções da ONU concernentes ao conflito árabe-israelense, como a Resolução 242 que estabelece a total retirada de Israel de todos os territórios árabes ocupados em 1967. 

     A agressividade israelense volta-se também contra outros países árabes. Em 2006 a aviação israelense bombardeou sistematicamente o Líbano, numa outra guerra genocida que a então secretária de Estado dos Estados Unidos comparou às “dores do parto do novo Oriente Médio”.

            Problema dos mais agudos na crise do Oriente Médio, é a continuação da criminosa ocupação dos territórios sírios das Colinas de Golan, fruto de uma agressão militar. O governo sírio, por sua indeclinável posição em defesa da causa palestina, da causa árabe, da unidade das forças progressistas árabes, é alvo constante de manobras estadunidenses e israelenses visando ao seu isolamento internacional. A devolução de Golan à Síria é um justo clamor desta nação. Os lutadores pela paz e o movimento antiimperialista em todo o mundo sentem-se no dever de hipotecar irrestrita solidariedade ao povo e ao governo da Síria merece o indeclinável apoio de todos os que lutam pela recuperação das Colinas de Golan.

            Também a sistemática campanha antiiraniana movida pelo imperialismo estadunidense, instrumentalizando artificialmente a questão democrática e hipocritamente a questão nuclear, cria novos elementos de tensão e agrava ainda mais a situação na região.

Companheiras e companheiros,

            Gostaria de ressaltar também que a Reunião do Comitê Executivo do CMP realiza-se quando o povo cubano celebra o 50º aniversário da sua Revolução, reafirmando os valores da resistência e da luta, assim como o empenho para construir uma nova sociedade.

            Em todo este contexto, o Conselho Mundial da Paz reafirma sua condenação às estratégias guerreiras do imperialismo norte-americano e seus aliados, à militarização e todas as ameaças à paz. Exige a retirada das tropas de ocupação do Iraque e do Afeganistão e a libertação da Palestina, com a criação do seu estado nacional. Manifesta indeclinável solidariedade com os povos latino-americanos na luta por sua independência e soberania, pela democracia e a integração, contra a ingerência do imperialismo estadunidense, contra a Quarta Frota e as bases militares na Colômbia e em todos os países da região. 

Companheiras e companheiros,

            Foi nesse cenário que o Conselho Mundial da Paz desenvolveu a sua atividade, na qual procurou aplicar as resoluções e o plano de ação aprovados na Assembléia de Caracas.

As perspectivas para a atividade do CMP são promissoras.

            A luta pela paz continuará tendo caráter estratégico no cenário internacional, o que torna necessário um CMP fortalecido, capaz de liderar uma ampla frente de contestação às políticas imperialistas, à guerra e às bases militares.

            É necessário incrementar a capacidade de iniciativa política, desenvolvendo campanhas próprias e ações que permitam um amplo engajamento em torno de lutas reais nas regiões, além de participar e cooperar com articulações unitárias e coalizões de movimentos de massas.

            Devemos perseverar na valorização dos espaços institucionais, como os existentes no sistema das Nações Unidas, fazer destes espaços tribunas para nossas lutas e opiniões.

            Desafio a enfrentar permanentemente é o de fortalecer o funcionamento interno, com a incorporação de novos membros, maior dinâmica das coordenações regionais, valorização dos fóruns como instânciaa de elaboração e uma dinâmica de trabalho coletivo.

            Com a ajuda de todas as organizações integrantes, continuaremos esforçando-nos para melhorar as ferramentas de comunicação, aperfeiçoar o sistema de financiamento do CMP e persistir nos esforços para o resgate da memória do CMP.

Companheiras e companheiros,

            No próximo ano o CMP completa 60 anos de sua existência, um percurso glorioso, em que deu inestimável contribuição à luta dos povos pela paz. Façamos do ano de 2010 o ano do fortalecimento do CMP, comemorando condignamente o seu 60º aniversário, lançando um programa de lutas e um plano de atividades que permitam acumular forças e preparar um salto qualitativo desta organização que é uma trincheira destacada na luta antiimperialista e pela paz.

Bom trabalho a todos. Muito obrigada.

 Socorro Gomes

Presidenta do Conselho Mundial da Paz

Damasco, Síria, 22 de outubro de 2009

I hear there’s no time like the present, so here I am!  My first blog.  My name is Katie and in 7 weeks I’ll be celebrating my birthday.  Yes, if you did the math correctly that’s right after Christmas, something I’ve always enjoyed…(sense the sarcasm!). I’m very excited about this birthday because I know this is the year/decade of opportunity for me.   2010, here I come!

For the last decade of my life I have lived in Georgia and have had the pleasure of working for 2 great corporations managing meetings, events, tradeshows and sponsorships all over the world.  I have also run a marathon, played a ton of tennis, gone on an amazing mission trip to South Africa, passed the CMP exam, tasted amazing wines in Napa (Silver Oak, a personal favorite!), swam with dolphins in Acapulco, snorkeled the Baths in Tortola, rang in the New Year in Times Square, climbed to the top of the Eiffel Tower, rode on a gondola in Venice, picked apples on a beautiful farm in Somerset, England, skied in the Swiss Alps and swam in the waters of  Mallorca, Spain just to name a few.

So you ask, why should I be excited about a fresh new decade after that great one?  Well, recently I was ‘displaced’, as some would say, from my employer due to the economy.  Devastating and scary, yet exciting and full of opportunities!  I have just realized the world is my oyster and I get to decide where and how to make my next pearl.  Wow!

Here’s to the next 10 years and just the beginning of my story!

Those who were on the set recall that Hitchcock’s famous attention to detail was heightened more than ever on Vertigo. The color the visuals the perfomances- everything had to be perfect.

(Vertigo DVD- Newly restored version / Production Notes)

Alfred Hitchcock was the director who had already known everything he wanted to do with his movie, and see on the big screen even before the shooting process. He knew whom he wanted to work with, where he wanted to shoot his scenes and so on. Sometimes he even found the shooting process quite boring, because in his head the film was ready, he just had to explain the actors what he wanted to see from them.

Every single act, item, effect is planned in the film.

“Hitchcock was a wonderful director. I remember he came up to me that first day and it made me laugh, because he said, “Now Barbara, look up,” and I’d looked up. And he’d say,” Now look down,” and I looked down. And “Now look left” I’d looked left, than he’d say, “CUT! Very good, you see,” So that was that.”

Barbara Bel Geddes, (Vertigo DVD/ Obsessed with Vertigo)

Every picture  I worked with him on was always storyboarded. Hitchcock was the only director I’ve known who never looked throught a camera. He didn’t even stand close to the camera. He would say, “You’ve got three-incher on then and you cut there.” He’d tell them where they cut and he’d always be right. He just transformed himself into the camera eye.

Peggy Robertson - Script Supervisor

On the other hand Kim Novak says:

Technical points were his main thing.  He’d always look through the lens to watch your performance, unlike directors who sit off to the side. You’d never have a sense looking at his face how he thought it was going.  He was the camera and I always felt comfortable with the camera.  It was always difficult to have a director off to the side.

Whether he looked through the lens or not, he knew all the ingredients for a good movie recipe!

On the internet there is an interesting page ( http://www.borgus.com/think/hitch.htm ),  where is a list of the most significant film techniques that were used by Alfred Hitchcock written by Jeff Bays, December 2007. (He is a graduate of the Webster University School of Communications, and is an award-winning radio producer and independent filmmaker. )

Jeff Bays writes a list which includes 13 steps to get closer to Alfred Hitchcock’s film techniques:

1. It`s the Mind of the audience

2. Frame for emotion

3. Camera is mot a camera

4. Dialogue Means Nothing

5. Point of view editing

6. Montage Gives you control

7. Keep the story simple

8. Characters must break Cliche

9. Use humor to add Tension

10. Two things happening at once

11. Suspense is Information

12. Surprise and twist

13. Warning: May cause MacGuffin

I would like to have a closer look at Jeff Bays’ 5th and 6th step:

5th step: The Point of view editing

Putting an idea into the mind of the character without explaining it in dialogue is done by using a point-of-view shot sequence. This is subjective cinema. You take the eyes of the characters and add something for them to look at.

You can edit back and forth between the character and the subject as many times as you want to build tension. The audience won’t get bored.  This is the most powerful form of cinema, even more important than acting.  To take it even further have the actor walk toward the subject.  Switch to a tracking shot to show his changing perspective as he walks. The audience will believe they are sharing something personal with the character.  This is what Hitchcock calls “pure cinema.” (Truffaut)

Note: If another person looks at the character in point-of-view they must look directly at the camera.

The point of view editing puts the audience as active as the leader character. We can see the actor to look something, then we see what he is seeing, than we are back to the actor and see his reaction. In Vertigo when Jimmy Stewart is detect after Kim Novak for long minutes, there is no dialogue, only shot after shot with the point of view editing technique. That is what he called and believed in: Pure cinema.

6th step: Montage give you control

Hitchcock said  “transferring the menace from the screen into the mind of the audience.” (Schickel)  The famous shower scene in Psycho uses montage to hide the violence.  You never see the knife hitting Janet Leigh.  The impression of violence is done with quick editing, and the killing takes place inside the viewer’s head rather than the screen.  Also important is knowing when not to cut. (Truffaut)

In this short interview Hitchcock shows us how the meaning of the shots can easily be changed. The key is always in the mind of the audience!

Research:

youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCAE0t6KwJY

http://www.borgus.com/think/hitch.htm

Vertigo DVD/ Obsessed with Vertigo

Vertigo DVD- Newly restored version / Production Notes

Questions arising:

1. What details the other 11 steps on the list contains?

2. The Psycho scene become famous because the audience saw a real murder in the cinema. Logically we use our imagination… can the modern cinema destroy our imagination?

3. Who is/was Truffaut, Schickel? What connection did they have with Hitchcock?

“Where Vertigo was first released, it was not one of it`s greatest hits. But time does things to movies & the way we see them. But along the way it was almost lost to us forever.” James C. Katz & Robert A. Harris (Restoration Producer)

Restoration team James C. Katz (left) and Robert A. Harris.

We chose Vertigo as a candidate for reservation for 2 reasons:

Number 1- It`s a great film. It`s one of the most important films ever made.

Number 2-The film elements themselves, both picture and sound, were in dire need of preservation.

The film was last released theatrically in 1984, and the audiences have not seen on the big screen for 12 years.

At first they had to do: lots of research, put all the elements together and decide whether they can do the restoration at all. (There are many films that are not possible to restore)

“When we first opened  the cans on Vertigo, basically what we found was a faded negative. Virtually looked as though the negative had been dragged on the floor before it had been printed, and we had differential shrinkage between the yellow, cyan and magenta separation masters, which really led us to restore the film in a totally different manner.”

” To preserve a film is a phone call, a purchase order, a lab order. To restore a film is a year or two years of work and a major commitment.”

Robert A. Harris

Universal would commit more than a million dollars to the restoration of Vertigo. The restoration took  2 years. They were restoring more than a thousand pieces of film negative & using original technicolor prints of reference, they experiement with modern film stocks and proecessing techniques to recreate the precise visual texture Hitchcock intended for every shot.

Vertigo was photographed in a Paramount process called Vista Vision which was an extremely high quality process which was normally reduction-printed to 35-millimeter. Vista Vision went through the camera from right to left. It was horizontal and it was a double-frame 35-millimeter image then they had converting it to 70 mm /D.T.S. (large format)!

Harris: Vertigo was shot in Vistavision, a negative twice the size of 35 millimeter. It lends itself perfectly to 70 millimeter. It’s really being seen [now] in large format the way it was photographed, the size it was photographed, for the first time in 38 years. There are things you’re going to see in this film that have never been seen before. You can see details – I’ll give you one example. When Judy steps [across her apartment toward Ferguson] as Madeleine once again, you see the muscles in her cheeks twitching and her lips moving, and you could not see that in 35 millimeter.

They left a new 65-millimeter preservation negative. They left a 65-millimeter duplicating positive. Hopefully it will last at least 200 years.

In 1996, the film was given a lengthy and controversial restoration and re-released to theaters. The new print featured restored color and newly created audio, utilizing modern sound effects mixed in DTS digital surround sound. In October 1996, the restored Vertigo premiered at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco, exhibited for the first time in DTS and 70 mm, a format with a similar frame size to the VistaVision system in which it was originally shot.

Audiences are going to see a film that Hitchcock never saw. They’re going to see a 70 millimeter DTS version of a 1958 classic. People who think they’ve seen the film haven’t seen the film. We hope audiences that don’t know how it ends will come and see this version. It looks as good as this picture has in 30 years.

James C. Katz

Because of the restoration, we can see a huge bruise on Kim Novak`s knee as Jimmy Stewart pulls her out of San Francisco Bay.

(http://imgs.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2008/06/15/dd-vertigo06_fortp_421804763.jpg)

Awesome and brilliant, Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo was recently restored, and its power is immense. Jimmy Stewart never did finer work, and Hitchcock’s masterpiece, though its meaning may be lost on many, reveals a man at his most obsessed — an apt metaphor for Hitch himself. The restored Vertigo features vibrant colors and a crystal clear soundtrack, but it’s the tale of Stewart’s heights-fearing detective who gets caught up with the woman he’s investigating that makes Vertigosuch a treat. Old San Francisco has never looked more devious, and Hitchcock has never been better.

A film review by Christopher Null – Copyright © 1996 Filmcritic.com

He kept fiendish control of the movies he made, planning shots down to the tiniest details before he arrived on the set. But when it came to caring for the film negatives and soundtrack recordings — the proof of his genius — Alfred Hitchcock was the man who didn’t know too much.

”Hitch was ill-advised,” says producer James Katz, who has made a minicareer of salvaging great movies in partnership with restoration expert Robert Harris. They’ve already snatched such vintage mega-productions as My Fair Lady and Spartacus from the ravages of neglect, and two years ago Universal Pictures commissioned them to work their makeover magic on Vertigo, Hitchcock’s 1958 masterwork of sexual fetishism starring James Stewart in a series of cold sweats and Kim Novak in a series of hot outfits. What Katz and Harris uncovered was more shocking than the plot twists: Reel after reel of film materials was kinky, shrunken, torn, faded, mottled, or decomposing to vinegar. In a few more years, what remained might have been Vertigone.

Turning 1,300 separate pieces of original camera negative into a new negative and prints goes beyond complicated, but even the least techno-centric moviegoer will recognize the spellbinding quality of the results in the big-screen, major-city venues booked for Vertigo’s rerelease over the next two months: Have Jimmy Stewart’s eyes ever looked so blue, or San Francisco so dreamily gorgeous?

The restorers’ most impressive wizardry, though, is sonic. Because they found high-fidelity stereo tracks for Bernard Herrmann’s soaring score, they ”made the music another major star of the movie,” says Katz. And therein lay a major snag. Once remixed in thundering DTS digital stereo, the orchestrations all but drowned out the tinny sound effects in surviving prints. That meant they had to be researched and rerecorded from scratch — from the proper pitch of a Karmann Ghia engine (for the car Barbara Bel Geddes’ character drives) to the make of pistol a cop fires in the movie’s thrillingly noisy initial chase.

While mixing sound levels, Katz and Harris worked from Hitchcock’s own dubbing notes. And when that failed to settle judgment calls, they sought out a still-living master: Martin Scorsese pronounced the surf in one Golden Gate scene ”too loud.” The waters receded, but the restoration’s expanded sound field still makes Vertigo a more bracing plunge than it’s ever been.

Brush Up You Hitchcock by Steve Daly

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,294640,00.html

My mother saw Vertigo in her childhood, and last week she saw the Newly Restored version. She did not feel the difference. It is unquestionable, that the restoration was a good step. We are lucky to have a masterpiece like Vertigo. My point is: the old and the new version have the same Hitchcock feeling.

Question:

Is there a significant difference between the old Vertigo and the Newly restored Vertigo?

Researches:

Vertigo Newly Restored DVD / Obsessed with Vertigo

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertigo_(film)#Restoration

http://www.filmcritic.com/misc/emporium.nsf/reviews/Vertigo

http://www.bernardherrmann.org/articles/smith/vertigo/