- published: 29 Jul 2013
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Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky (/ˈbrɒdski/; Russian: Ио́сиф Алекса́ндрович Бро́дский, IPA: [ɪˈosʲɪf ɐlʲɪˈksandrəvʲɪtɕ ˈbrotskʲɪj]; 24 May 1940 – 28 January 1996) was a Russian and American poet and essayist.
Born in Leningrad in 1940, Brodsky ran afoul of Soviet authorities and was expelled ("strongly advised" to emigrate) from the Soviet Union in 1972, settling in America with the help of W. H. Auden and other supporters. He taught thereafter at universities including Yale, Columbia, Cambridge and Michigan.
Brodsky was awarded the 1987 Nobel Prize in Literature "for an all-embracing authorship, imbued with clarity of thought and poetic intensity". He was appointed United States Poet Laureate in 1991.
Brodsky was born into a Jewish family in Leningrad. He was a descendant of a prominent and ancient rabbinic family Schorr (Shor). His direct male-line ancestor is Joseph ben Isaac Bekhor Shor. His father, Aleksandr Brodsky, was a professional photographer in the Soviet Navy and his mother, Maria Volpert Brodsky, was a professional interpreter whose work often helped to support the family. They lived in communal apartments, in poverty, marginalized by their Jewish status. In early childhood Brodsky survived the Siege of Leningrad where he and his parents nearly died of starvation; one aunt did die of hunger. He later suffered from various health problems caused by the siege. Brodsky commented that many of his teachers were anti-Semitic and that he felt like a dissident from an early age. He noted "I began to despise Lenin, even when I was in the first grade, not so much because of his political philosophy or practice...but because of his omnipresent images."
Actors: Alisa Freyndlikh (actress), Aleksandr Lenkov (actor), Svetlana Kryuchkova (actress), Sergei Yursky (actor), Sergey Dreyden (actor), Sergey Barkovskiy (actor), Yuri Arabov (writer), Andrey Khrzhanovskiy (director), Andrey Khrzhanovskiy (writer), Andrey Khrzhanovskiy (producer), Aleksei Devotchenko (actor), Aleksandr Bargman (actor), Artyom Smola (actor), Artyom Vasilev (producer), Mikhail Gavrilov (miscellaneous crew),
Genres: Biography,Actors: Timothy Hutton (producer), Bob Corff (miscellaneous crew), Lew Temple (actor), David Strathairn (actor), Bill Sage (actor), Dixie Jones (miscellaneous crew), Bill Smitrovich (actor), James Tolkan (actor), Afemo Omilami (actor), Maury Chaykin (actor), Mike Pniewski (actor), Anthony Mackie (actor), Timothy Hutton (actor), Bruce Resnik (miscellaneous crew), Aaron Lee Lopez (miscellaneous crew),
Plot: Successful New York attorney Sam Leibowitz travels to the South in 1933 to defend nine young black men accused of raping two women on an Alabama freight train. In the spring of 1931 nine black hoboes were pulled off an Alabama freight train and arrested for allegedly raping two young white women in a gondola car. Ranging in ages from twelve to twenty years, they were quickly tried and sentenced to the electric chair. News of their convictions spread and the plight of the Scottsboro Boys became a 'cause celebre' that fueled the fire of socialism worldwide, forcing an appeal to the United States Supreme Court and resulting in new trials for all nine defendants. New Yorker Samuel Leibowitz, a savvy and self-assured defense lawyer with an impressive string of courtroom victories, agreed to represent the accused at their retrials in Decatur, Alabama. His journey into the Deep South symbolized the polarity of the times and set in motion a legal battle that ultimately changed the course of American jurisprudence. The Scottsboro case was a tragic chapter in American history and a story of epic injustice. From their arrest in 1931 to the release of the last Scottsboro defendant in 1950, the rights of nine young black men were violated. In this century in America, we face many of the same racial prejudices and human rights issues that existed almost seventy-five years ago. The names have changed, but the rhetoric that convicted the Scottsboro Nine remains virtually the same. Heavens Fall attempts to examine the cultural and political differences that divide us. It is my hope that by looking into the hearts and minds of the Scottsboro participants, black and white, North and South, powerful and impoverished, we may come to a better understanding of each other.
Keywords: based-on-true-story, independent-film, interracial-relationship, interracial-sex