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- NY Times: The Pictures, The Fabrication
By Brigitte Lacombe. Luc Sante
- November 14, 2000
Principal photography has just begun on Martin Scorsese's epic film, "Gangs of New York." (Full disclosure: I'm the movie's historical adviser.) It's being shot in Rome, at Cinecitta. This fact seems to throw nearly everyone. Why Rome? New York City, at last report, was still standing. Yes, but the film is set amid long lost 19th-century slums. Every location had to be built.
Constructed under Mussolini's rule, Cinecitt is vast -- as big as most of Lower Manhattan, with 15 sound stages, tanks that can float ships and even a stretch of pre-existing waterfront (Venice, left over from a previous film). And it is home base for Dante Ferretti, the production designer, his wife, Francesca Lo Schiavo, the set decorator, and an army of artisans.
Ferretti had to materialize the slum called the Five Points with scant documentation: a couple of photographs from the period, a few dozen contemporaneous prints of uncertain reliability, some Jacob Riis photos from 30 or 40 years later. The centerpiece is a brewery, built in the 18th century, that became an immense squat in the 19th. It was never photographed, and although it was depicted in lithographs, they reveal nothing of the interior.
Walking around Ferretti's sets is deeply disorienting, a time-machine experience. If they are not an exact re-creation of Manhattan's lower depths in the mid-19th century, the difference can be no more than academic. The Old Brewery is half upstate barn and half Piranesi prison, with beams the size of trees and a warren of cells furnished with rags and shakedowns. Every building looks not only as if it stood in 1850, but also had stood there for more than half a century already.
Scorsese has been trying to realize "Gangs of New York," inspired by Herbert Asbury's 1927 book, since 1973. Its production has been announced at least twice previously, and the pile of script revisions is approaching six feet. Unlike many other cherished and long-delayed projects, it has succeeded in coming, almost alarmingly, to life. In the process it is bringing to life a time about which we know only twice-told tales and people who left behind little more than their names. To make this lost history palpable requires an act of collective imagination. It wouldn't be pretentious to call the process alchemy.
- Il Messaggero - October 28
A description of the set...a tabloid viewpoint.
- Il Messaggero - October 18
Thanks Annabelle!
Barbara Bouchet mother of Diaz
on the set of Scorsese.
Rome - Barbara Bouchet will play the mother of Cameron Diaz in The Gangs of New York, the movie Martin Scorsese is making in Cinecittà with Leonardo DiCaprio.
This news will be published in the next number of the weekly magazine 'Chi'.
It will be the come-back in 'grand style' of this actress, who's originally from Germany, who left the movie-business 16 years ago, to play in the theatre.
'I went to the casting without make up and with my hair drawn out of my face', la Bouchet tells us, 'After the first takes they told me Scorsese was very happy that I showed up and that he wanted me in his film'.
About her co-stars la Bouchet tells us that Cameron 'is sunny, happy, full of life'. Her impression of DiCaprio is different: 'he is quiet, withdrawn, in defense. I could feel that he was suffering because he cannot live the relaxed life with his contemporaries'
There has also been a hint on some of the sites I have been reading that La Bouchet also stated the big blown out of proportion 'rumor' about Scorsese/Leo and their alleged "problems" is a lie...I have it now!!! Studio 2001 Mag
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FoxNews: Leo Engaged?
Yelled At by Director? Misbehaving on Set?
October 20, 2000
The rumors: Leonardo DiCaprio is engaged to marry model Gisele Bundchen. He was also recently yelled at on-set by director Martin Scorsese on the Italian stage of Gangs of New York. He's either too fat or too thin and is horsing around during working hours.
The reality: All I know is that Scorsese is not the sort of director who invites confrontations. A couple of years ago, before filming Bringing out the Dead, he had to ask screenwriter Paul Schrader to tell Nicolas Cage to keep his performance restrained and not over the top. Scorsese literally took them both to a meal, stood up and said, "Paul has something to tell you." And left. So I doubt he yelled at Leo in public, if at all.
A source close to Leo, one of his defenders, says since all the shooting has been at night, it's unlikely Leo's been cavorting off-set, or in Rome, during the wee hours. As for his engagement, and the rumor that Bundchen had a wedding gown fitted, please, someone: Who gets married in the middle of a grueling international shoot? If Leonardo DiCaprio ever gets married, it will be at Moomba, at midnight, with his pals Vincent LaResca, Jay Ferguson and Tobey Maguire as lads-in-waiting.
One thing Leo could do while he's in Europe: catch a showing of Don's Plum, the movie he and Tobey made for pal director R. D. Robb, then sued to make sure it's never shown in the U.S. The international roll-out is underway.
- Gossip: wedding in Rome, DiCaprio denies.
Leo is shooting, Gisele is trying on dresses:
scenes from a wedding?
Il Messaggero - October 18
We don't suppose the star of Titanic is going to shout the prophesying 'yes' in front of all the TV-cameras of the world. However, there are rumours flying through the air about a Roman wedding. True? False? The people involved deny everything strongly.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Gisele Bündchen, according to the Daily News, could be giving eachother the sacred 'yes' in November in the eternal city. They have invited their mutual families to join them in Rome.
Leonardo, who's making Gangs of New York with Martin Scorsese, is said to have contacted the American Consulate to inform about the documents necessary for a wedding.
Meanwhile Gisele was trying on wedding-dresses at 'Laura Biagiotti'. 'And it had nothing to do with her work'.
The spokesman of DiCaprio has denied that the heartbreaker of Titanic is going to say goodbye to living alone, at least not yet 'Leo and Gisele, they are not even engaged'.
That is not true! We don't know if they will be married, but nobody in the world can deny that Gisele and Leonardo are madly in love. She, the dreamy Brasilian, already came to the eternal city 3 times to meet her 'grande amore'.
How can they deny the truth?
- News from the Miramax Machine...laying a lot of the "rumors" to rest.
- News from Rome this week is all about the newest rumor that Leo has asked Gisele to marry him and there will be a November wedding in Rome. Of course, it's another lie fabricated by the press. Many reports of official denials have surfaced. Here's another one from MSNBC
- Thanks Marcel!
Hi everyone,
my name is Marcel, i am french. I work for a small and indipendent italian films production and i spend most of my time in Cinecittà for work. I'm not working with
Miramax, so i'm not involved in the Gangs of N.Y. shooting, but anyway i have lots of friends that are working with Scorsese and, beeing in Cinecittà, i see everyday how
things are going on there. I've decided to write because of things that i've read on newspaper in this period, and i've decided to write on this board because i know that you
are some of the people who care the most about this film and i really respect you. I am not a DiCaprio-fan, and i know that someone maybe will not believe what i want to
say to you, but that's normal. Anyway i hope you'll trust me. I'm sorry for my english but that is as much as i can do.
99 per cent of what you have read on newspaper is pure invention. Most of the news come from the "Messagero" that is not a tabloid but a sort of:
1) The "fat thing". The Messagero wrote that Leonardo DiCaprio was fat and that Scorsese obliged him not to eat pasta and to do lots of gymnastic. I can assure you and
please belive me, that this is completely and absolutely faulse. He isn't and he wasn't fat, of course he has a personal trainer and he goes to gym everyday but thats
another story, everyone does it, even Cameron Diaz and the rest of the cast. I've also read that he doesn't get up until 11 in the morning: this is really ridicolous. I go to
Cinecittà almost every morning - not today - at around 8 o'clock and he is already there, i leave at 8 in the evening and he is still there. I see him everyday - i've never talk
to him - and he is absolutely fine. I know that everything is going well with the shooting.
2) A friend of mine who works with Dante Ferretti, told me that he has been looking for a house this month, but he didn't find it. I don't know if he is still looking for a house.
He hasn't left Rome besides for the shooting of the Telecom commercial and for two days in Germany to visit some relatives. I really find very difficult that he has gone to
Milan for the fashion week: yesterday morning he was in Cinecittà and just yesterday Giselle said during an interview on italian television that she didn't know if Leonardo
DiCaprio would have gone there to see her. I believe that this is also an invention.
The fact is that everything is fine and normal that newspapers have to create thing to write somenthing. Even the fact that there are everywhere fans waiting for him: i see
10 or 15 people maximum in front of the studios each day - and they are always the same people.
I am not telling you the absolute truth about him in Rome or about the movie, this are just my impressions of what i see everyday and what i know. Nothing else.
- Read about Leonardo's Italian commercial...of course, it was for the environment!!
- From IlMessagero September 19th, 2000
A synopsis of the article from Annabelle.
Next to the set of Gangs the Italian Television has built a Big Brother house, the TV-programme. It's very famous at the moment, and a lot of people are watching it, and loads of money is made with it.
This particular Big Brother house (Grande Fratello means Big Brother) had built a 'tower' that was ruining the skyline of Scorsese's 19th century Gangs of New York set.
So far both groups of people, the very serious Hollywood filmmakers and the completely different TV-people were co-existing, but this issue has changed that. Scorsese wanted the tower to go and they had to take it down. The producers of Big Brother are not happy. The article goes on to mention all the differences between moviemaking and TV-making.
- A Roman evening with Leonardo DiCaprio
Sunday evening on the Piazza del Popolo he will assist to a show. Not only for charity... Leonardo DiCaprio, in Rome for the shooting of the latest film of Scorsese, will be guest at the Sunday evening show of charity organized by Amnesty International. There will be shown the newest collections of some of the greatest Italian stylists, and the most beautiful and famous models. Greedy occasion to check from near if there is really tenderness between Leo and Giselle Bundchen, the Brazilian supermodel that, though only for a brief period, had been at the side of DiCaprio. The last gossips announced a reapproaching between Giselle and her ex, but who knows, the magic Roman night can have its effects. And who knows if there will be also Flavia Vento, who after having announced publicly (?) her love for the beautiful blond man, she now seems to be completely indifferent towards him: too busy because of Venice and her TV appointments for Leo? Let's hope not!
- ROME, TITANIC HARD WORK: From Panorama Magazine online
by Roberto Longoni
Romeo and Juliet introduced him, Titanic consecrated him. Not even 26 years old (on November 11 he will be that age), Leonardo DiCaprio is among the great ones of Hollywood. Born in Los Angeles to an Italian-American and a German, he turned 20 on the big screen, with happy birthday, Mr. Grape. An immediate Oscar nomination. He is now engaged in Gangs of New York, set in the Big Apple of other times, reconstructed at Cinecitta.
The siege never stops. The windows of Suite 801 and the two Mercedes 500 reserved for the superstar in front of the entry of the Hilton Cavalieri are under the constant shooting of the paparazzi and the center of the wait of tens of girls. Pursued, hunted, Leonardo DiCaprio has moved from the Hotel De Russie, where he realized that he was an easy target for the "guns" of the photographers lying in wait for him on the Pincio. Now in front of him he has only the white and red antenna (?) of Monte Mario: the enemies armed with telephoto lenses are down low, in the street.
The last star runs away. On his shoulders, pale and overweight in the last weeks, an unbearable responsibility has fallen: to resusitate, to a Rome that swarms with stars like the beautiful times, the climate of the sweet life (Dolce vita). From him they were expecting scandal, drunkenness, and above all hot flirtation. Even an escape or two with Flavia Vento, who has been seen to be entering the hotel more often (even if the valletta (?) denies it with a huff: "I have been going to the hotel's gym for a year. I don't know DiCaprio and I am not interested in meeting him".) Instead, he is shy and sulky, tries everything to avoid the reports of the tabloids. At times the driver waits for him in the courtyard at the back of the Hilton Cavalieri, at the steering wheel of an empty car, with the motor turned on. Wearing dark glasses even if it is evening, baseball cap lowered on his face, Leonardo DiCaprio crouches down inside. It pulls away without the picket (?) of the fans and the photograhers are not acknowledged. All they can do is imagine him in the 10 million liras per day suite, with three televisions and "idromassaggio ad acqua deionizzata (?).
The girls think about him up there, nearby but unattainable, all alone after the departure of his girlfriend, the Brazilian model Gisele. They imagine he is sad. Instead, Leo does simple things. He watched the new Mission: Impossible II in its original language at a game room (arcade?). Two and a half hours of free escape and 170 thousand liras of expense between pinball machines and videogames. Until the crowds around him caused the bodyguards to intervene to open a passage for him. Game over. End of an such a normal evening.
No bathing with the film star Anita Ekburg, no unbridled dance with strippers. For this California superstar, busy at Cinecitta with the production of Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York, "la dolce vita" is only the title of a film. An old memory. Based on an adjective that to his ears has to evoke the ghost of excess calories. Arriving in Rome from Hollywood with 12 extra kilos, Leonardo has had to submit to a rigorous diet. Alcohol has disappeared from his table. Champagne made a fleeting appearance upon the arrival of his girlfriend. A toast and that was enough. In his glass, the "dolce vita" of Roman life to DiCaprio has the "strong taste" of mineral water (French, possibly). More tasty is the main dish, even if Leo has been forced to reduce the portions of pasta at the restaurant Maccheroni, next to the Pantheon. No starter at the restaurant Passetto, but a concession to the dessert, a combination of forrest fruits and ice cream, after a shrimp cocktail and a fillet with green pepper. Consumed in candlelight, sitting close to Gisele, with the visor of his cap down over his eyes. Then he leaves with a "Grazi" and an illegible autograph in the guestbook among autographs of Harrison Ford and Robert De Niro, he is gone dragging his feet, sporting a long beard and grunge clothing. He hardly glances at the neighboring Navona plaza and immediately goes back to the auto.
At the Hilton gym he is very involved, until at one point he picks up the weights and amuses himself juggling them in front of the mirror, with a cigarette between his lips. But in any case, he has already lost four kilos. Perhaps as a result of the fever that struck him after the filming of the ad for the TIM (whose proceeds, around 4 billion liras, has been donated by the actor to Greenpeace). Three weary days, during which in just a couple of hours he passed from the 30 degrees of Rome to the 4 degrees of the Gran Sasso. A thermal jolt not two, but four times a day: DiCaprio, for an afternoon shower, asked to be brought back to the Hilton and then returned again to the mountains for the sunset. The third evening, Roberto and Francis, the drivers, were exhausted and told him they would be replaced by two colleagues for the return. "No, we are all together" he responded. So the entire party spent the night at Paganico, at Villa Dragonetti, creating chaos in the country.
But the loss of those four kilos can also be credited to the tennis games, in which Leo (who prefers ping-pong) regularly loses to the driver Roberto. One afternoon he returned on purpose from Cinecitta, taking advantage of a pause in the tests, for a game on the hotel's court. The teen heartthob re-entered by the service entry, sheltered from the cars of the photographers and the looks of the fans. A secret tennis game: a sign of one sweet life, all water and sweat.
- Il Messagero, September 13th 2000
Martin takes Leo and Cameron back to the table: «Concentrate, you have not come to Rome to be on vacation» Scorsese (admonishes) DiCaprio and Diaz
by Salvatore Taverna
Chases of the treasure (?) in the ,,eternal City": mopeds that zigzag, paparazzi on position, violent fans. How can you manage to pursue Leonardo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz without being misled? Impossible enterprise. But the trick exists and it is not seen: it's enough to know schedules, passages and places of fun of the stars. It's enough to have a friend in Cinecittà, in the hotel or in the restaurant, and you go as a lady (?) easily. Here is, minute for minute, the day of Leonardo. And that of the blonde and sensual Cameron.
You go, Leo. The superstar of Titanic wakes up at 11:00 a.m. Breakfast in his room with American coffee, milk and cereals. Shower, three bodyguards in front of the door ready to get into action, and they go by limousine towards Cinecittà. The shooting of the film Gangs of New York will begin Monday morning with an invasion of extras. Then what does Leo do in the heart of the Roman studios before? He tests suits with the nice costume designer Sandy Powell.
Then, together with Cameron, he exchanges a series of words with the master: Martin Scorsese. Leo observes the beauty inside and stays almost enchanted. Yes, his glance wanders towards the small houses of New York recreated in a magic way and the panorama by Dante Ferretti, the stage designer of "The Age of Innocence".
The time flies. At 2:00 p.m., pause for lunch. One basket (?) for everybody? Never! The superstars eat separated in their little rooms: she is crazy for the ,,caprese" while he prefers ,, spigola ai ferri" (sea perch). Attention. When Martin wants to tell something important to his ,,children", he calls them together in the restaurant La Cascina, two steps from Cinecittà. Choral lunch, jokes, playful chatters and some suggestions by the master that always end with the same sentence: «Concentrate, children, these are not Roman vacations!».
At 20:00 p.m. Cameron reenters in the De Russie or eats in a villa of friends on the Appia Antica. While he returns to the Hilton: quick shower, a little meal alla Pergola, going out in the night. In other evenings, he prefers to eat a bit at Maccheroni instead, where he drinks wine of Frascati, Al Moro, or at Camponeschi to plunge into the dessert of chocolate.
But as he is a ,,tall child", Leo gets stuck in the videogame room after one hour of gym. For four evenings he is sighted at Extra Ball, on the piazza Pio XI. «How he has fattened up, it doesn't seem to be him any more», Cinzia says, false red hair, bell pants and sneakers. «First he was a ,,doll boy", now with the short beard, the added kilos in and the black glasses he looks like a gangster». What does Leo play? Virtual strike (video football), virtual basket, where he always wins and at Rush (?), meteors launched at high speed. «Boys and girls have struggled to recognize him», Fabio tells, a security man of the amusement arcade. «DiCaprio? He seems to be a different person like that». A few of them recognize him and they don't pay much attention to him.
We change the page and the evening. The other night, Cameron Diaz misleads the bodyguards and, with one female friend of her, she goes to have dinner at the Gusto on the Piazza Augusto Imperatore. She doesn't find a place outside and ascends to the first floor. But our photographer, always in wait, notices that. He waits with patience hidden behind the ancient columns. After the little meal with ravioli and tomatoes and sword fish, Cameron and her friend go out, sure to have misled paparazzi and gorilla (?). Instead, a flood of flashes bursts out. Does she hide herself? No. She jokes, she laughs and she puts herself into position. She whispers in Roman - American: «The Roman paparazzi are always in pole position». Kisses, greetings and the rest of the night she celebrates, with champagne, with her unbelieving friends.
- Leonardo DiCaprio - with baseball cap and glasses at his grandmother Helene`s(thanks Kerstin!)
Hollywood-Star for a short visit in Oer-Erkenschwick
There was hardly any use of the disguise. On Saturday afternoon, when Leonardo DiCaprio arrived in front of the apartment house on Kamp St., in which his grandmother Helene lives, the Hollywood star was certainly recognized despite baseball cap and glasses.
In no time the car was surrounded by autograph hunters from the neighborhood.
Otherwise the secrecy worked out well. No paparazzi, no TV teams got wind of the heartthrob's short visit to Oer-Erkenschwick.
At the moment the actor stays in Rome to shoot the new movie "Gangs of New York" (directed by Martin Scorsese). He used this weekend he had off from shooting to visit his grandmother from Oer-Erkenschwick. His stay at his grandmother's lasted only one night and on Sunday DiCaprio was back on a plane going to Italy.
He also caused a stir in the restaurant of the Stimbergpark Hotel, where both arrived Saturday night around 10 p.m. Hotelier Johann Frugte was totally surprised by the famous guest, too. Nevertheless, he didn't forget to make sure of another dedication for his guestbook. The US-American with Italian-German roots wrote it in German: "Es ist schön, wieder zu kommen, es bringt schöne Erinnerungen zurück" (It's nice to come back, it brings back nice memories)
Leonardo DiCaprio last was at the Stimbergpark Hotel in 1995. When he was younger, he often spent his vacation at Stimberg.
"With a cap and glasses and then the beard, fist I wasn't sure, if it was really him", said Sami Shala who brought the guest from Hollywood a mushroom `schnitzel' with spaetzle (sort of pasta; Swabian) and peas and an apple pancake for dessert.
The star, who is said to have weight problems, ordered a "Diet-Coke", which is called "light" in Germany.
- DiCaprio presents his "model".Translation summary by Mona_Lisa with thanks
Leo will participate in the event on the Piazza del Popolo. His girlfriend Gisele will be on the catwalk; she is at a high point of popularity at the moment. Isn't "Raiuno" a TV channel? I think so, and the event won't be shown live but later. There will also be other stars and for the first time the stylist John Galliano.
Leonardo left Rome for Dusseldorf to visit his Oma on Saturday September 9th. He returned to the Hotel Hilton in Rome on Sunday evening.
Italy Excite News: DiCaprio Together with Cameron Relocate to Hilton
September 09, 2000
Unexpected relocation for Leonardo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz, the two American stars in Rome to make the movie of Martin Scorsese, Gangs of New York. The two actors, after a stay at the Hotel De Russie, in the piazza del Popolo, have preferred to move to the Hilton, on Monte Mario, equipped with an Olympic swimming pool in the green and a luxurious fitness center. Probably at the Hilton, away from the historical center, the two actors can enjoy a great deal of privacy and pass unnoticed by the fans, who the other day forced the actor to escape through the kitchens and from the laundry room (of the Hotel De Russie).
From the archives of Il Messaggero, Saturday, Sept. 2, the day BEFORE the above article was published in that same paper on Sunday, Sept. 3. It wasn't until the next day that "the mysterious blond" was identified as Gisele. It explains why the subsequent article referred to Gisele as Leo's "mysterious blonde" (Gisele was seen at this week's MTV Music Awards with lightened hair.)
Roberta Petronio, Sept. 2
Escape on the stroke of midnight. Escape with a mysterious and blonde girl with whom he dined last night in a restaurant on the Appia Pignatelli. Leonardo DiCaprio has a Roman girlfriend after just a few days in the capital? Last night, the question was asked by many after having seen the star dine at the restaurant "Archaeology" owned by Katia Pittigliani. Sitting at the table with him, both of them protected by the usual escort of bodyguards, was a very beautiful and mysterious girl, with long blonde hair and blue eyes. Very thin, she wore a red top and blue jeans. That is the only description of her by those who had the opportunity to see her. Then, out of nowhere, some papparrazi arrive. The actor smells the danger and asks his escorts to leave, and an emergency plan goes into effect. A large, dark Mercedes pulls up to the side exit of the restaurant and the actor goes out alone. Seconds later, another Mercedes, metallic grey, approaches the main entrance. The girl exits the restaurant quickly. In a lightening flash, she is in the car, lying down on the back seat in order not to be recognized and photographed. The auto speeds off and escapes between the crazy flashbulbs of the photographers, carrying the secret female darling of the American actor."
The rest of the article just talks about Leo leaving the Hotel De Russie in order to get some peace and privacy and how he was moving into a villa (but as we now know, that was proven to be incorrect, he moved into the Hilton Hotel instead.)
September 8, 2000 -The superstar has a fever, but he doesn't stop working. Leonardo Of Caprio is stressed and now he has a fever. Too many activities apart from his work, going out in the evening, restaurants, the warmth of Rome, the commercial shooted in the early morning on the slopes of the Gran Sasso mountain: his body has been submitted to a whole series of appointments of job and the stress has arrived punctually, until it has provoked his fever.
So the other afternoon the American actor has been forced to stay in the hotel (set aside for now the hypothesis of a villa for him, he has preferred the hotel Hilton) for almost all the time, except a short "fuga (flight/escape)" to Cinecittà, very important for Gangs of New York, the film that is prepared to be shooted with Cameron Diaz and the director Martin Scorsese. He has left the hotel with warm clothes at about 17:00 and returned at 19:30.
In front of the entry of the hotel his bodyguard sneezes: «Leo has a cold and I don’t feel very well either. We hope that he’ll recover as soon as possible».
The hero of Titanic, despite the influenza, hasn’t locked in himself. At about 11:00 yesterday, he has gone to Cinecittà heroically, from where he has then returned in the afternoon. The job has priority, despite the influenza, that’s why he is held well under control by two doctors. Instead, all the evening programs have been cancelled. For two days he has stayed in the hotel and he avoids to get into the evening cold, which has probably, together with that of the Gran Sasso, caused the fever. And now he cures himself with many vitamins.
But another epidemic is being spread awry at Monte Mario. It’s that from "star" that has struck dozens of girls staying every day in front of the entry of the hotel of DiCaprio. The road is always carefully guarded by a group of about twenty-year-olds and twentyfive-year-olds, the faithful ones. And Leo knows each of them, by sight.
The other day, after trying hours of waiting for the girls in front of the gates of the hotel, he has made his bodyguard announce that he would go down to satisfy them and to sign autographs. And so he has done, to the enthusiasm of the female admirers. Among them has been for some days also the journalist Rai Letizia Spagnolo, the only one who has managed to penetrate the iron curtain of bodyguards that surrounds the superstar and she has chatted two times with him in the gym of the Hilton.
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