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Michael Behagen (born 1952) is an Israeli film director, writer and musician. [1] Behagen was born in 1952 and currently lives in Oregon, Illinois. His most distinguished work so far is considered to be Late Night Stories, a thriller TV series that he wrote and directed. It was aired in Israel in the late 1980s.
Michael Behagen made his first short film The Wind, about the Suez Canal, where he was doing his military service. In 1980, still a student, Michael Behagen wrote and directed Shapiro's Song [2] and won an Ophir Award for the best Israel film director. In 1981, he then graduated from the Tel Aviv University Film department.
In 1986, he directed his first feature film, The Plumber. It is a satirical comedy that tells the story of a plumber who, through a comedy of errors, becomes the Minister of Finance. Surprisingly, he does a better job than the politicians who preceded him. [3]
In 1997 Michael Behagen wrote and directed his 2nd feature film Forever Young, [4] based on the true story of a deadly desert crash that ended four young people's lives. A videotape was found in the crashed vehicle. It included astonishing footage of the last moments of the 4 young men. This terrible accident inflamed Israel so much that people demanded a retelling of the story to understand how it could have happened. [5]
In 1987, Michael Behagen wrote and directed The Cuckoo Clock, the pilot of the Late Night Stories TV series. [6] It took the Israeli TV another year to approve the series. At that time, most Israeli TV movies produced by IBA, the only channel at that time, dealt only with Israeli identity topics. He came up with a series that dealt with intimate fears. Late Night Stories is a TV thriller series of 13 films written, directed, produced and composed by Behagen between 1987 and 1991 and aired in Israel between 1988 and 1991. The English version of the series aired in Germany and Russia.
In "The Cookoo Clock" A young woman awakens on a fateful morning. A crucial meeting is due to take place at the advertising agency where she works. She cannot miss it. Unfortunately she finds herself locked in her twelfth floor apartment in a newly built building. She did ask her husband to lock the door but now she can't find her key.
In "Puppet Show" Nicole is running a traveling puppet show. She keeps all her equipment in an old van. When the van breaks down on an isolated road, she seeks the assistance of an eccentric garagist. Rafael knows this is a simple problem but prefers to complicate matters, encouraging Nicole to spend the night at his remote spot.
In "The Replacement" Alex, an infamously unfaithful dentist, is told by his wife, a sculptor, that she has terminal cancer and only few months to live. Oddly enough Rivi is hardly upset by her impending death but seems obsessed by the guilt of leaving Alex alone. Before long, Rivi presents her husband with a beautiful young model. A bizarre romance flames, with Rivi acting the part of the matchmaker. Suddenly Rivi regrets her action, wondering whether the new-found lovers will continue to bow to her whims. In "Line Up", Yossef Berger comes to the police station complaining that his car was towed from a legal parking space. A policeman asks him a small favor: They're missing one man for a line-up. Berger agrees, but he's in a hurry to get to work. A prominent foreign investor is coming to his brokerage house this morning. During the line-up two witnesses identify Berger as the perpetrator of a murder. Berger discovers that the victim is the foreign investor who arrived earlier than scheduled without informing anyone. Worse than this, Berger had apparently very good reasons to want him dead.
In "The Earring", Ossi, a stunning model, wakes one morning to discover that her ear has grown to abnormal proportions. She sees her doctor who sends her to specialists who ultimately confirm the fact that her ear is indeed growing. Frustrated by the professionals' inability to help, she follows a crazy hunch of her own. She tracks down the old lady who tried to sell her earrings the day before. Ossi learns the hard way that there is more to aesthetics than modern medicine dares to explore. In "David's Lucky Day", David works as an usher. His work is to come into houses of people who could not pay their debts and take their belongings. One day he discovers in 2 different places 2 parts, the head and the body of a very rare and expensive statue. He just needs few hundred bucks to buy it from the man who owns the head. The man who owns the other part is willing to give it to him free because it brought him bad luck. David goes to a Casino boat. He's got only 10 dollars in his pocket, but he does not worry. Nothing can stop him. It is his lucky day.
In "Certain Death", Sander needs an urgent operation to replace his liver, but he does not have the 70,000 dollars necessary for the operation. Tom, a regular customer in Sander's unsuccessful nightclub has just found out that he is very ill and has decided to sell his apartment for 70,000 dollars wishing to end his life as short and as good as he can. Sander realizes that this may be his chance.
In "The Babysitter" Kitty is a young girl looking for a job. She notices an ad in a grocery shop, someone is looking for a babysitter. She goes to the interview. "I have to tell you that my little girl is lovely but for one thing," says the mother, "she is a pyromaniac. She needs to lit fire to everything she sees." Kitty is eager to get the job. Not only does she promise the mother that she does not smoke, but she is also tearing the ad out, so that no one will stand in her way.
In "The Accident", Roni comes to a party with his new girlfriend Debby and with his new Opel Corvet his brother has left him. A young and pretty girl approaches and asks him to take her for a short ride in his car. Unwillingly, Debby agrees to this arrangement. The short ride turns out to be a long and surprising one. In "You love money, don't you?" A wealthy, portly guest checks into a luxury hotel and displays keen interest in a young waitress. He offers her a proposal she can't refuse: A meeting in the lobby for $1,500. She will just have to dress and look completely different.
In "The Housekeeper" Claire is waiting for the housekeeper, but surprisingly she does not come. Some young man comes instead and tells her that Debby is ill and that he has come to replace her. He shows Claire a letter and seems to know everything about the house so that Claire does not have any reason to suspect that something is wrong.
In "Etiquette" Claire is the editor of an etiquette column of a major daily newspaper, but in her own married life she is a crude beast. One night, together with her husband they steal flowers from a cemetery, not wishing to arrive empty-handed at the home of a colleague. It emerges that one has to be much more cautious in dealing with the dead.
In "Blind Date" Benny and Annette meet on a blind date in the romantic atmosphere of a nice café. Annette finds Benny so charming that she invites him to come over. However, when Benny stands up to leave with her, she discovers that the man who has just promised her an unforgettable evening, has a severe physical problem. How can she get out of this unpleasant situation?
Late Night Stories reached an average of 42% rating despite airing late at night. It won praises from critics, and Michael Behagen was nicknamed "The Israeli Hitchcock". [7] Michael Behagen wrote and directed the whole series of 13 episodes. Late Night Stories was distributed worldwide and aired in many countries.
In 2020, he released the feature The Forest. The film follows a family arriving at a forest to film a series about the Baal Shem Tov, while cutting down its trees. Mizmor, the daughter, devastated by the ruined forest, develops a close relationship with a chopped tree, leading her parents to believe she has lost her mind. [8]
In 2023, Behagen released the film "Work from Home". [9] The film follows a young woman living in an isolated house with her grandfather. She chooses to work from home for a large company, believing that staying at home will offer her more protection from external threats. However, she soon learns that the saying "My home is my fortress" can sometimes prove misleading The premiere of the film took place at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque in April 2023 [10]
In 2000, Michael Behagen published his first book, in Hebrew, Lullaby.
In 2004, Michael Behagen began filming The Letter, a documentary film. [11] It is actually the story of Michael Behagen himself who documented the process his family had been going through.
In 2020 Behagen initiated "ayas", an app for a real-time mutual watching in TV with friends. [12]
In 2023, Behagen published his book The Partisan's Daughter. The novel is set during World War II and follows Machale, a Jewish girl who was given to a Polish family in an attempt to save her from the Nazis. When the Polish family tries to get rid of her, she is rescued by Magda, a devout Polish woman who risks her life to save her. Magda adopts Machale as her daughter, and they flee together to Warsaw. After the war, Aaron, Machale's father, returns from the horrors of war and manages to find her. The emotional reunion between the father who survived the Holocaust, the daughter who matured over four years, and the woman who saved her, leads Aaron to make a decision that will irrevocably shatter and upend the lives of all three. [13]
In 2012 the DVD set of Late night stories distributed by "Hatav Hashmini", included the audio CD "late Night Music", composed by Behagen, arranged and perform by him and by Tal Yaniv.
In 2013, Behagen released an audio CD Jewish Good Night, featuring Hasidic Nigunim arranged and performed by Behagen. [14]
Proof is a 2000 play by the American playwright David Auburn. Proof was developed at George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, New Jersey, during the 1999 Next Stage Series of new plays. The play premiered Off-Broadway in May 2000 and transferred to Broadway in October 2000. The play won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play.
Senta Verhoeven is an Austrian-German actress. She received many award nominations for her acting in theatre, film and television; her awards include three Bambi Awards, two Romys, an Adolf Grimme Award, both a Deutscher and a Bayerischer Fernsehpreis, and a Goldene Kamera.
Walk on Water is a 2004 Israeli film directed by Eytan Fox and starring Lior Ashkenazi, Knut Berger, and Caroline Peters. The screenplay was written by Gal Uchovsky. Most of the dialogue is in English, although there is much in Hebrew and German. Its name derives in part from Jesus' walking on water.
Books of Blood is a series of six horror fiction anthologies collecting original stories written by British author, playwright, and filmmaker Clive Barker in 1984 and 1985. Known primarily for writing stage plays beforehand, Barker gained a wider audience and fanbase through this anthology series, leading to a successful career as a novelist. Originally presented as six volumes, the anthologies were subsequently re-published in two omnibus editions containing three volumes each. Each volume contains four, five or six stories. The Volume 1–3 omnibus contained a foreword by Barker's fellow Liverpudlian horror writer Ramsey Campbell. Author Stephen King praised Books of Blood, leading to a quote from him appearing on the first US edition of the book: "I have seen the future of horror and his name is Clive Barker."
All Night Long is a 1962 British neo noir drama film directed by Basil Dearden and starring Patrick McGoohan, Keith Michell, Betsy Blair, Paul Harris, Marti Stevens, and Richard Attenborough. The story by Nel King and Paul Jarrico is an updated version of William Shakespeare's Othello, set in the London jazz scene of the 1960s. The action takes place in a single evening, during an anniversary party. The black-and-white film features performances by several prominent British jazz musicians—among them John Dankworth and Tubby Hayes—as well as the Americans Dave Brubeck and Charles Mingus, who were in the UK in 1961 when filming took place and were recruited to participate.
The Flame of New Orleans is a 1941 American historical comedy film directed by René Clair and starring Marlene Dietrich and Bruce Cabot in his first comedy role. The supporting cast features Roland Young, Andy Devine and Franklin Pangborn. It was made and distributed by Universal Pictures. It was the last of three films Dietrich made with producer Joe Pasternak who called it "in many ways, our most interesting."
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Night Nurse is a comic-book series published by Marvel Comics in the early 1970s. Linda Carter, one of the series' three central characters, previously was the lead of an earlier Marvel series, Linda Carter, Student Nurse, published in 1961. Other central characters included Georgia Jenkins and Christine Palmer; both Linda Carter and Christine Palmer would later be explicitly incorporated into the larger 616 Marvel Universe comics.
The Promise is a 1979 American romantic drama film released by Universal Pictures which starred Kathleen Quinlan, Stephen Collins, and Beatrice Straight. It was directed by Gilbert Cates and produced by Fred Weintraub and Paul Heller. Weintraub and Heller also wrote the source story, which Garry Michael White dramatized; the resultant film was novelized by Danielle Steel. It was remade in India as the Hindi film Yeh Vaada Raha (1982).
Hill 24 Doesn't Answer, the first feature film produced in Israel, is a 1955 Israeli war film directed by Thorold Dickinson. It was entered into the 1955 Cannes Film Festival. The plot revolves around the personal stories of a number of soldiers who are on their way to defend a strategic hill overlooking the road to Jerusalem.
The Slugger's Wife is a 1985 romantic comedy film about a baseball star who falls for a singer. Written by Neil Simon, directed by Hal Ashby and produced by Ray Stark, the film stars Michael O'Keefe, Rebecca De Mornay, and Randy Quaid. It was distributed by Columbia Pictures and released on March 29, 1985.
Letters to Juliet is a 2010 American romantic comedy-drama film starring Amanda Seyfried, Christopher Egan, Gael García Bernal, Vanessa Redgrave and Franco Nero. This was the final film of director Gary Winick before his death on February 27, 2011. The film was released theatrically in North America and other countries on May 14, 2010. The idea for the film was inspired by the 2006 non-fiction book Letters to Juliet, by Lise Eve Friedman and Ceil Jann Friedman, which chronicles the phenomenon of letter-writing to Shakespeare's most famous romantic character.
Michael Pressman is an American film and television producer and director.
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Basil is a 1998 British historical drama film directed by Radha Bharadwaj and starring Christian Slater, Jared Leto, Claire Forlani and Derek Jacobi. It was based on the 1852 novel Basil by Victorian author Wilkie Collins. The adaptation is by Bharadwaj.
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Præsidenten(The President) is a 1919 Danish silent film by Carl Theodor Dreyer. It is the first feature film directed by Dreyer and it is an adaptation of the 1884 novel Der Präsident by Karl Emil Franzos.
The Inner Life of Martin Frost is a 2007 American romantic-mystery drama film written and directed by Paul Auster and starring David Thewlis, Irène Jacob, and Michael Imperioli. The film is about an author who having just completed his fourth novel travels to his friends' vacant country house to spend a few weeks alone. There he meets a beautiful and mysterious woman who inspires him to write a new story. Filmed in Azenhas do Mar in Sintra, Portugal in the spring of 2006, The Inner Life of Martin Frost is Auster's second film as director and fourth as writer. The film premiered at the New Directors/New Films Festival on March 21, 2007, and was released in the United States on September 7, 2007.
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