Вопрос № 348790 - Английский язык

Joseph Turner, a famous English painter, lived in the 19-th century. His paintings were a great success. One day his favorite dog broke a leg. The artist was very sorry for the dog and wanted it to be well again. He was rich enough to send for the best surgeon in London instead of taking a veterinary.

When the surgeon arrived the artist begged him to help his dog because it was very important for him. Having got to know what the matter was the surgeon felt annoyed, but he treated the dog carefully and soon it was quite well.

The next week the surgeon asked Turner to come to his place. The artist believed that the surgeon wanted to see him in connection with his dog.

Joseph Turner arrived at the appointed time and was shown into the sitting-room. The surgeon met him very warmly and said: “Mr. Turner, I am so glad you’ve come. My door needs painting. I know you are too great a painter for this work, but I beg you to do it. It is so important for me.

Erich Segal is an American author, screenwriter and educator, whose books have popularity with the reading public. Erich Wolf Segal was born in 1937 in Brook Lyn, New York. He attended Harvard University. After graduating from it in 1958 he obtained his master’s degree and a doctorate.

He was a professor of Greek and Latin literature at Harvard University. Now he is teaching at Wolfson College, Oxford. In 1967, from the story by Lee Minoff, he wrote the screenplay for The Beatles 1968 motion picture, Yellow Submarine.

His book “Love Story” became the top selling work of fiction for all of 1970 in the United States. His novels “The Class” (1985), “Doctors” were also bestsellers.

What constitutes the main value of Erich Segal’s books in that the writer helps people become sensitive to everyday problems. He brings up a lot of questions for discussion.

Alexander Sokurov is considered one of the Russia’s best film directors. Sokurov was called one of the top ten contemporary film directors by the European Academy of Film. He, however, has not always been so appreciated in his homeland. His films were not allowed during the late Soviet period.

Sokurov has featured more than 20 films which are valued for their beauty. Watching Sokurov’s film is like a walk through the Hermitage: there is no need to rush through it.

“My work has its foundations in Russian and European literary traditions,” said Sokurov in one of his interviews. I don’t like to create if I don’t have the canon of classic of literature as a support standing behind me.”

One of Sokurov’s latest films, called Moloch, tells the love story of Hitler and Eva Brown. The actors are Russians, the language of the film is German - perhaps, it helps to create the aura of authenticity.

Douglas Coupland is Canadian, born on a Canadian Air Force base near Baden-Baden, Germany, on December 30, 1961. In 1965 his family moved to Vancouver, Canada, where he continues to live and work. Coupland has studied art and design in Vancouver, Canada, Milan, Italy and Sapporo, Japan.

His first novel, “Generation X”, was published in March of 1991. Since then he has published nine novels and several non-fiction books in 35 languages. There are some books that reflect the philosophy of the young: “Microserfs”, “Life after God”, “Girlfriend in a Coma”, “Hey, Nostradamus”, etc.

He has written and performed for the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, England. 2006 marks the premiere of the feature film “Everything’s Gone Green”, his first story written specifically for the screen and not adapted from any previous work.

Douglas Coupland is really an amazing contemporary writer; he paints a vivid picture with words like no one else. He really adequately shows generation X.

Alexander Petrov received the Oscar for the best animated short film, which is an adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea”. “This is my favourite story of Hemingway’s. I think it’s one of the best works of the 20th century,” said the 43-year-old Petrov in his speech.

Petrov began developing the idea of the film in 1994 and the following year proposed it to Montreal Productions Pascal Blais, who accepted the idea. Then the venture was given an official go-ahead - at a budget of almost $ 3,4 million.

Working in Montreal together with his son and cameraman Sergey Rechetnikov, Petrov hand-painted almost 29000 individual frames - literary using his fingertips, to create each scene.

Now, despite his international fame, Petrov is not seeking further work abroad. Instead, he is developing an animation studio and school in his hometown of Yaroslavl to encourage the emergence of a new generation of talents.

Readers of the mid-twentieth century often turned to “the bible of the generation” - the book “The Catcher in the Rye” by D.Salinger. But there are books written later, in the 1980-s and in the early 21st century which are comparable to that one. Such is Sue Townsend’s cycle of books starting from “The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13” written with mild humour and irony and profound psychological insight into the inner world of a teenager.

Sue Townsend was born in Leicester in 1946. She attended Glen Hills school in the early 50s and then went to South Wigston Secondary Modem for Girls. But she left school when she was 15 and changed jobs several times (so she worked as a shop assistant, garage attendant and in a factory)!

Her writing career started when she was 35 - she won the Thames Playwrights Award. Her most famous and best known book is “The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole” (1985) - a diary kept by a 13 year old boy - sort of intellectual. The book was so successful that it was followed by a number of sequels.

She got married when she was 18 and had three children. But her husband left her so she brought them up alone. Sue Townsend later got married again. In 1999 doctors found out she had diabetes and she slowly began losing her sight. Today she is almost blind.