- published: 29 May 2012
- views: 18983
Ralph Waldo Ellison (March 1, 1914 – April 16, 1994) was an American novelist, literary critic, scholar and writer. He was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Ellison is best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953. He also wrote Shadow and Act (1964), a collection of political, social and critical essays, and Going to the Territory (1986).
Ralph Ellison, named after Ralph Waldo Emerson, was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, to Lewis Alfred Ellison and Ida Millsap. Research by Lawrence Jackson, one of Ellison's biographers, has established that he was born a year earlier than had been previously thought. He had one brother named Herbert Millsap Ellison, who was born in 1916. Lewis Alfred Ellison, a small-business owner and a construction foreman, died when Ralph was three years old from stomach ulcers he received from an ice-delivering accident. Many years later, Ellison would find out that his father hoped he would grow up to be a poet.
In 1933, Ellison entered the Tuskegee Institute on a scholarship to study music. Tuskegee's music department was perhaps the most renowned department at the school, headed by the conductor William L. Dawson. Ellison also had the good fortune to come under the close tutelage of the piano instructor Hazel Harrison. While he studied music primarily in his classes, he spent increasing amounts of time in the library, reading up on modernist classics. He specifically cited reading T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land as a major awakening moment for him.
Actors: Patrick Michael Strange (actor), Patrick Michael Strange (actor), Tom Townsend (actor), Dave Cooperman (actor), Dave Cooperman (actor), Kendra North (actress), Bruce Allen Dawson (actor), Bruce Allen Dawson (actor), Bruce Allen Dawson (actor), Bruce Allen Dawson (actor), Sharon Carpenter-Rose (actress), Sharon Carpenter-Rose (actress), Kevin Tan (actor), Sharon Carpenter-Rose (actress), Sharon Carpenter-Rose (actress),
Plot: Lives and Deaths of the Poets spoofs and parodies incidents taken from the lives of famous writers, artists, and musicians (collectively "Poets") throughout history. Comprising a series of approximately 50 comic vignettes, the movie is the fictional story of what really did not happen to these famed Poets, who have so enriched all of our lives.
Keywords: emperor-nero, independent-film, musician, nudity, parody, poet, sketch-comedy, spoof, writerActors: Patricia Clarkson (actress), Joseph Vitarelli (composer), Andrea Kalin (producer), Andrea Kalin (director), Andrea Kalin (writer), David Grossbach (editor), James McBride (actor), Reynolds Price (actor), Oliver Lukacs (producer), James Mirabello (producer), Amy Bloom (actress), Juanett T. Davis (actress), Brantley M. Dunaway (actor), Wanakhavi Wakhisi (editor), Karen Simon (actress),
Plot: In the grip of the Great Depression, unemployed men and women joined an unlikely WPA program to document America in guidebooks and interviews. With the Federal Writers' Project, the government pitted young, untested talents against the problems of everyday Americans. From that experience, some of America's great writers found their own voices, and discovered the Soul of a People.
Genres: Documentary,Actors: Nicholas Hammond (actor), Bryce Menzies (producer), Bryce Menzies (miscellaneous crew), Shaun Miller (miscellaneous crew), Claire Danes (actress), Pauline Burt (miscellaneous crew), Miranda Richardson (actress), Rose Byrne (actress), Garry McDonald (actor), Tony Gibbs (miscellaneous crew), Cezary Skubiszewski (composer), William Zappa (actor), Felix Williamson (actor), Sophie Fabbri-Jackson (miscellaneous crew), Lee Smith (editor),
Plot: Precocious, bohemian teenager Placid Lake, finishes high school and decides to do the one thing that will annoy his new age parents the most--go straight! With a few weeks spent reading a library of self-help manuals, Placid has it all sorted out--and he has the haircut and the cheap suit to prove it. Can Placid Lake retire his rage in the pursuit of beige; embrace conformity and leap on the fast track to corporate success. Will his 'brainiac' friend Gemma be able to talk him out of this economic rationalist madness? And will poor Doug and Sylvia survive the ignominy of having a son with a burgeoning future in insurance? Never underestimate the evil of banality.
Keywords: adolescent-boy, australia, blow-job, bully, bullying, cemetery, character-name-in-title, coming-of-age, directorial-debut, family-relationships