The Passive Voice into Russian.
DOES THE GUINNESS BOOK KNOW EVERYTHING?
Cinema also has its own records fixed in The Guinness Book. The longest film running 85 hours of screen time is “The Cure of Insomnia” (1987) directed by John Henry Timmis. The movie has no plot, instead consisting of artist L. D. Groban reading his lengthy poem of the same name over the course of three and a half days. The animated comedy series “The Simpsons” is now the longest running sitcom in the world. The film that became a screen-life-champion was “Emmanuelle”. It was screened since the 26th of June 1974 till the 26th of February 1985 in one cinema house in Paris. The most popular human screen character is Sherlock Holmes. This part has been played by more than 75 actors in 254 films since 1890. However, Sherlock is not the overall most portrayed literary character in film. That title belongs to the non-human character Dracula, who has been portrayed in 272 films. The greatest number of costumes designed was for the film “Quo Vadis?” (1951). You just cannot imagine it! There were 32 thousand costumes used. For many years the record number of costumes changed in one film by one actress (65 ones) has belonged to Elizabeth Taylor in “Cleopatra” (1963). Today the record is held by Madonna for her 85 changes in “Evita”, 1996). The most cruel film (23 murders and 245 acts of violence during 109 minutes of screen time) is “Rambo III”.
The youngest Oscar nominee was Shirley Temple born in 1929. She was awarded this prize in 1934 when she was a five-year-old girl. The youngest director of a professionally made feature length film mentioned in The Guinness Book is Kishan Shrikanth born 1996, who directed his film, when he was 9 years old. Three films were given 11 Oscars. The first to achieve the record was “Ben-Hur” shot in 1959. It was followed by “Titanic” shot in 1997 and “ The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” shot in 2003. All the tree films were made in the USA. The multi-language independent feature film “The Owner” (2012) was directed by 25 directors from 13 countries. The film follows a backpack on its journey around the world, interweaving a variety of cultures, languages and film styles into one single narrative. Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999) could be considered the world’s most demanding movie director ever. Universally regarded as one of the greatest movie directors who ever lived, he directed several all-time classics such as “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968), “A Clockwork Orange” (1971) and “The Shining” (1980). While making “The Shining” Kubrick asked the actress Shelley Duvall to do 127 takes in one scene.
But cinema is not only an art, it is also a kind of business. And taken as business it has its own records. In monetary terms, the USA still has by far the world’s most profitable cinema industry, with over $11 billion in domestic box-office takings, Japan is currently second with $2.5 billion and India remains in third place, with $2.2 billion. India is the world’s most prolific film-making nation, with approximately 800 to 1,000 feature films produced each year by the “Bollywood” film industry based in Mumbai. This is roughly double the number of films produced by Hollywood each year. The most expensive movie made is “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” (2007), which had an estimated production budget of around $300 million. The most successful movie in the history of world cinema is James Cameron’s “Avatar” shot in 2009. It holds the record of the biggest gross received from the distribution of a film. It achieved the box-office triple, topping first the foreign chart, then the world chart and finally the domestic one. It grossed a global total of $2,768,463,014 setting a record as the first movie to gross over $2 billion. One more record by “Avatar” is fixed in Guinness Book: the first 3D movie to win Best Cinematography Oscar. Tom Cruise? Harrison Ford? Johnny Depp? You can be forgiven for thinking any one of these three would be Hollywood’s highest-grossing actor. But no, it turns out the crown belongs to somebody known for an altogether different kind of career. Samuel L. Jackson is the highest-grossing actor of all time, with an amazing $7.42billion to his name. The 62-year-old star has appeared in a string of films in a career spanning four decades in big-budget hits like “Jurassic Park” and “Star Wars: Attack of the Clones” and many others. “Harry Potter” star Emma Watson has been named the highest grossing actress of the decade by the Guinness World Records for starring in six successful films. She was just 11 when the first film “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” came out and earned her millions. After five sequels, she has managed to gross an average of $753.7 million each, the highest average box-office gross for an actress. “The Guinness Book of World Records” is planned to be adapted into an adventure narrative film by Warner Bros.
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The Guinness Book of World Records is an encyclopedia of various facts, names and events that have only one thing in common: each of them is a record. It can be a record of weight or height, speed or strength, the sum of money paid on the auction or stolen from a bank.
The person who has been awarded the greatest number of prizes (32 ones) given by the US Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1929 is Walt Disney. Katherine Hapburn (1907-2003) was awarded 4 Oscars for playing the main parts in 4 films: “Morning Glory” shot in 1933; “Guess Who Is Coming to Dinner” shot in 1967; “The Lion in Winter” shot in 1968; “On Golden Pond” shot in 1981.
By the way, do you know why the prize itself is called “Oscar”? The origin of this most prestigious prize is very curious. When the first statuettes given to the best film-makers were exhibited at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences the executive secretary of this institution exclaimed in great surprise: “Fantastic! It looks exactly like my uncle Oscar.” So the prize was given the name of Oscar Pierce from Texas.
