Un workhouse (foyer de travail), est un lieu qui accueille les personnes incapables de subvenir seules à leur besoin, en échange de leur travail.

Ces foyers furent officiellement crées en 1834, par le Poor Law Amendment Act ("Lois sur les Pauvres") se réfèrent à l'allocation d'une aide financière pour les plus pauvres , mais existaient déjà depuis la old poor law de 1601.

Why Did People Enter the Workhouse?

People ended-up in the workhouse for a variety of reasons. Usually, it was because they were too poor, old or ill to support themselves. This may have resulted from such things as a lack of work during periods of high unemployment, or someone having no family willing or able to provide care for them when they became elderly or sick. Unmarried pregnant women were often disowned by their families and the workhouse was the only place they could go during and after the birth of their child. Prior to the establishment of public mental asylums in the mid-nineteenth century (and in some cases even after that), the mentally ill and mentally handicapped poor were often consigned to the workhouse. Workhouses, though, were never prisons, and entry into them was generally a voluntary although often painful decision. It also carried with it a change in legal status — until 1918, receipt of poor relief meant a loss of the right to vote.

The operation of workhouses, and life and conditions inside them, varied over the centuries in the light of current legislation and economic and social conditions.

Work

Workhouse inmates — at least those who were capable of it — were given a variety of work to perform, much of which was involved in running the workhouse. The women mostly did domestic jobs such as cleaning, or helping in the kitchen or laundry. Some workhouses had workshops for sewing, spinning and weaving or other local trades. Others had their own vegetable gardens where the inmates worked to provide food for the workhouse.

Christmas in the Workhouse

In the era of some workhouse, prior to 1834, Christmas Day was the traditional occasion of a treat for most workhouse inmates. In others workhouses in the 1790s, the Christmas Day (and Whit Sunday) dinner included baked veal and plum pudding or veal and bacon for dinner, roast beef at Christmas, and 1lb. of spiced cake each at each of these festivals. And in others workhouses, at Christmas Day they inmate were allowed roast mutton, plum pudding, best cheese, and ale.

However, in the new union workhouses set up by the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act, things were rather different, at least to begin with. The Poor Law Commissioners ordered that no extra food was to be allowed on Christmas day (or any other feast day). The rules also stated that "no pauper shall be allowed to have or use any wine, beer, or spirituous or fermented liquors, unless by the direction in writing of the medical officer." Despite the lack of festive fare, Christmas Day was (along with Good Friday and each Sunday) one of the special days when no work, except the necessary household work and cooking, was performed by the workhouse inmates.

BIOGRAPHIE

Edward Hopper, an American painter, whose worked highly individualistic and was a landmarks of American realism, was born in the small Hudson River town of Nyack, New York State, on 22 July 1882 and died there in 1967.

He married the painter Josephine Verstille Nivision in 1924.

Edward Hopper remained among the American painters most important. After studied of illustrator, he went to the famous New York School of Arts where he met Robert Henri, a teacher, whose influence is capital. This last encouraged indeed Hopper to paint scenes of the American life. Edward Hopper expressed with poetry the loneliness of the man in this American way of life which developed in the years 1920. The work of Hopper symbolized also the reflection of the Great Depression. In spite of his many voyages in Europe, he remained raincoat with the large currents which revolutionized painting, like the cubism or surrealism. He leaved behind him a final print on American art.

He was inspired by the cinema, for the attitudes of the characters and his paintings reflect and denounce the alienation of the mass culture.

The cinema exerted a certain influence on his work.

His painting has a photographic character:

- plunged

-Low-angle shot

- Of same as framings, effects of lighting and the setting in scene of his painting.

The fabrics of Edward Hopper were a source of inspiration for the scenario writers:

- Like Alfred Hitchcock

Room in New York by Edward Hopper

Mr. Jones likes reading the newspapers and eating cakes made for him by his dear Mrs. Jones.

And Mrs. Jones likes wearing make-up, beautiful lipstick, and wearing a wonderful dress for her husband, and her pastime is playing the piano for long hours.

It was the evening, when Ms. Jones was back home.

There was already his wife in the living room and she was playing the piano. He was at a very important appointment  about his job in the afternoon and he looked angry.

So Mrs. Jones asked him what was happening. But, he took his newspaper and went to sit on the armchair, angry, without saying a word. She asked him if he wasn’t happy about the appointment. But instead of answering he got closer to his newspaper.

After that Mrs. Jones resumed playing the piano as if nothing had happened.

Compared to the other evenings, this night was rather quiet! Neither of them said anything.

And so every evening, Mrs. and Mr. Jones after his workday and dinner, they stay there and they speak sometimes about nothing in particular. Mr. Jones reads his newspaper without paying attention to Mrs. Jones and his wife tries to play the piano.

There are heroes... there are superheroes...and there are hancock a drunkard with superhuman powers, including supersonic flight, invulnerability, immortality, and super-strength. Although he uses his powers to rescue people and stop criminals, his activities inadvertently cause millions of dollars in property damage to his constant intoxication and cynical attitude. As a result, he is routinely jeered by the public and is considered a nuisance by the Los Angeles police department. Hancock frequently ignores court subpoenas and lawsuits from the city of Los Angeles to address the property damage he has caused.

Directed by: Peter Berg

Genre: Action comedy, super-hero, adventure

Starring by: Will Smith, Jason Bateman, and Charlize Theron

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3ts5u_hancock-trailer-officiel-vo_shortfilms

http://www.allocine.fr/video/player_gen_cmedia=18814667.html

If you want to have fun, look at this! It was once about the best movie that I saw...you going to burst out laughing.

The story began over the rooves of a suburbs, it was the morning and the sky was faintly lit. By a shutter we saw a man, Harold Crick, who was asleep and few minutes later the alarm clock of a wristwatch rang. This man, Harold Crick, was a fastidous and a methodical man, he always brushed his teeth, up and down, back and forth, thirty-eight times after wake up at quater past seven, then he got dressed by wearing formal clothes and finally tied his tie in a single windsor.

He should be an accountant at the tax departement that why he keeps counting thaught he doesn't speak much. And now he is extremely worried because he hear the narrator's voice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdriF9RlwZU

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