Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program

The Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program under the Civil Affairs and Military Government Sections of the Allied armies was established in 1943 to help protect cultural property in war areas during and after World War II. The group of approximately 400 servicemembers and civilians worked with military forces to safeguard historic and cultural monuments from war damage, and as the conflict came to a close, to find and return works of art and other items of cultural importance that had been stolen by the Nazis or hidden for safekeeping.

Many of the men and women of the MFAA, also known as Monuments Men, went on to have prolific careers. Largely art historians and museum personnel, they had formative roles in the growth of many of the United States’ greatest cultural institutions, including the National Gallery of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the New York City Ballet, as well as in museums and other institutions in Europe.

Formation

The Monuments Men

The Monuments Men is a 2014 American-Germanwar film directed by George Clooney, written and produced by Clooney and Grant Heslov. The film stars Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban, Hugh Bonneville, and Cate Blanchett. It is loosely based on the non-fiction book The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History by Robert M. Edsel and Bret Witter. The film follows an Allied group from the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program that is given the task of finding and saving pieces of art and other culturally important items before their destruction or theft by the Nazis during World War II.

The Monuments Men was co-produced by Columbia Pictures (in association with 20th Century Fox) and Babelsberg Studio, and released on February 7, 2014. It received mixed critical reviews and grossed $155 million worldwide.

Plot

In 1943 during World War II, the Allies are making good progress driving back the Axis powers in Italy. However, Frank Stokes (George Clooney) persuades the American President that victory will have little meaning if the artistic treasures of Western civilization are lost in the fighting. Stokes is directed to assemble an Army unit nicknamed the "Monuments Men", comprising seven museum directors, curators, and art historians to both guide Allied units and search for stolen art to return it to its rightful owners.

George Clooney

George Timothy Clooney (born May 6, 1961) is an American actor, screenwriter, producer, director, and activist. He has received three Golden Globe Awards for his work as an actor and two Academy Awards, one for acting and the other for producing.

Clooney made his acting debut on television in 1978, and later gained wide recognition in his role as Dr. Doug Ross on the long-running medical drama ER from 1994 to 1999, for which he received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations. While working on ER, he began attracting a variety of leading roles in films, including the superhero film Batman & Robin (1997) and the crime comedy Out of Sight (1998), in which he first worked with director Steven Soderbergh, who would become a long-time collaborator. In 1999, he took the lead role in Three Kings, a well-received war satire set during the Gulf War.

In 2001, Clooney's fame widened with the release of his biggest commercial success, the heist comedy Ocean's Eleven, the first of the film trilogy, a remake of the 1960 film with Frank Sinatra as Danny Ocean. He made his directorial debut a year later with the biographical spy comedy Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and has since directed the historical drama Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), the sports comedy Leatherheads (2008), the political drama The Ides of March (2011), and the war film The Monuments Men (2014).

Matt Damon

Matthew Paige "Matt" Damon (/ˈdeɪmən/; born October 8, 1970) is an American actor and filmmaker. Born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Damon began his acting career by appearing in high school theater productions and he made his professional acting debut in the film Mystic Pizza (1988). He came to prominence in 1997 when he and Ben Affleck wrote and starred in Good Will Hunting, which won them the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and the Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay and earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. He received further praise for his roles as the eponymous character in Saving Private Ryan (1998), the antihero in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), a fallen angel in Dogma, and received critical acclaim for performances in dramas such as Syriana (2005) and The Good Shepherd, as well as his role as a villain in the neo-noir crime drama The Departed (2006).

Damon is also known for his starring roles as Jason Bourne in the Bourne film series (2002–present).For his supporting role as rugby player Francois Pienaar in Invictus (2009) and his leading role as an astronaut stranded on Mars in The Martian (2015), he has received Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor and Best Actor, respectively. Damon's leading role in The Martian won him the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. He has also received BAFTA, Golden Globe, and SAG nominations for Behind the Candelabra (2013) and three Emmy nominations for producing Project Greenlight

Jimmy Kimmel

James Christian "Jimmy" Kimmel (born November 13, 1967) is an American television host, producer, writer, comedian, voice actor, musician and radio personality. He is the host and executive producer of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, a late-night talk show that premiered on ABC in 2003. Kimmel also hosted the 64th Primetime Emmy Awards on September 23, 2012.

Prior to hosting Jimmy Kimmel Live!, he was best known as the co-host of Comedy Central's The Man Show and Win Ben Stein's Money. Kimmel has also produced such shows as Crank Yankers, Sports Show with Norm Macdonald, and The Andy Milonakis Show.

Early life

Kimmel was born in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up in the neighborhood of Mill Basin the eldest of three children of Joan (née Iacono), a homemaker, and James John Kimmel, an IBM executive.

He is, and was raised, Catholic, and as a child served as an altar boy. Kimmel's mother is of Italian ancestry; two of his paternal great-great-grandparents were German emigrants, and his family's surname was "Kümmel" several generations back. The family moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, when he was nine years old. He graduated from Ed W. Clark High School.