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Robert H. Lieberman is a novelist, film director, and a long-time member of the Physics faculty at Cornell University. [1] Initially he came to Cornell to study to be a veterinarian, but ended up becoming an electrical engineer and doing research in neurophysiology. He has also been professor of mathematics, engineering and the physical sciences and was recently awarded the John M. and Emily B. Clark Award for Distinguished Teaching at Cornell University. [2]
Lieberman was born in the Bronx, to Holocaust survivor parents and brother who fled Vienna in 1938. [3] Most of their relatives who stayed behind were murdered during World War II. [3]
A long-time member of the Cornell University Physics Faculty, he attended Cornell University as an undergraduate (class of ’62), but earned a bachelor's degree from Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn while attending a special advanced program in Electrical Engineering. He returned to Cornell where he received an M.S. and a PhD (ABD) in Bio Physics.
He has two sons, Zorba and Boris, and five grandchildren. [4]
Following its theatrical release, Lieberman’s latest film “Echoes of the Empire - Beyond Genghis Khan”[5] is available on all major streaming services. It has received stellar reviews and is 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Lieberman is presently engaged in a new major film project: an adaptation of his novel “The Nazis, My Father & Me”. The screenplay was written by Lieberman, and the film is moving towards production with French Producer Didier Brunner. [5] Brunner, the “Godfather” of French animation is a five-time Academy Award nominated producer.
Robert H. Lieberman's previous film, “Angkor Awakens” [6] was a New York Times Critics Pick and cited by the Times as “A Blistering Account of Cambodia’s Painful Past.” [7] Repeatedly broadcast on BBC Global News, the film provides a sweeping view ranging from the ancient glory of the Angkor Kingdom to today's modern Cambodia. The film features a rare interview with Cambodia's strongman/Prime Minister Hun Sen. The film has received a 100% positive rating by all critics on Rotten Tomatoes. [8]
Prior to that, Lieberman directed “They Call It Myanmar,” [9] an inside look at Burma and features Nobel Laureate Aung San Sang Suu Kyi. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Times cited it as one of the “top dozen documentaries of 2012.” [10]
His newly released novel “The Boys of Truxton” [11] is set in Upstate New York and deals with a teenager convicted of a heinous crime. In fact, many of Lieberman's novels appear to be set in Ithaca, New York, where he continues to live on a 135-acre (0.55 km2) farm. Ithaca frequently appears in his films, either for setting, detail, or theme. The feature comedy "Green Lights", which he wrote and directed, is the story of a small town swept up into a frenzy by a location scout who is taken for a big film producer. Variety cited the film as “Spectacularly Funny.” [12]
His film Last Stop Kew Gardens [3] is a personal exploration in which he returns to the “small town” within the city of Queens, New York, where he was raised, the child of refugees from Hitler’s Vienna, and spoke German as a first language. The New York Times referred to the film’s screenings as providing a “Rapt Audience.”
In 1985 Lieberman journeyed to Ethiopia to film during the height of the country’s devastating famine. His documentary, “Faces in a Famine” provides a novelist’s eye view of the people who descended on the scene, everything from relief workers and the press to “disaster groupies.” The Christian Science Monitor cited the film as “A vivid, probing, disturbing survey...a unique study.”
Lieberman has been awarded a series of Fulbright Lectureships. The first in 1989 was to lecture at the Academy of Performing Arts and Film in Bratislava, where he witnessed the fall of the Soviet empire. In 2002 he was a resident lecturer with the Mowel Film Fund in Manila. As a Senior Specialist with the Fulbright Program he went to Burma to work with young filmmakers as he would do in Cambodia.
The middle son of parents, Oscar and Gertrude Lieberman, who managed to escape Nazi Vienna in 1938, he grew up in Kew Gardens, Queens. It was here he returned after 50 years to shoot his film “Last Stop Kew Gardens,” and was inspired to write the novel and the screenplay for “The Nazis, My Father & Me.” [13]
Lieberman attended P.S. 99 from 1946 to 1954, this elementary school providing the 1941 setting for “The Nazis, My Father & Me.” He attended Forest Hills High School from 1954 to 1958 where his classmates included the singers Art Garfunkel and Paul Simon. Lieberman has jokingly spoken about how he and Garfunkel were the two best kids in Mr. Pollack’s Physics Class.
Robert H. Lieberman is often confused with another film director of the same name who does not use the middle initial “H.”
Simon & Garfunkel were an American folk rock duo consisting of singer-songwriter Paul Simon and singer Art Garfunkel. They were one of the best-selling music groups of the 1960s, and their biggest hits—including "The Sound of Silence" (1966), "Mrs. Robinson" (1968), "The Boxer" (1969), and "Bridge over Troubled Water" (1970)—reached number one on singles charts worldwide.
Paul Frederic Simon is an American musician, singer, songwriter and actor whose career has spanned six decades. He is one of the most acclaimed songwriters in popular music.
Arthur Ira Garfunkel is an American singer, poet, and actor. He is best known for his partnership with Paul Simon in the folk rock duo Simon & Garfunkel.
Cayuga Heights is a village in Tompkins County, New York, United States and an upscale suburb of Ithaca. The village is in the Town of Ithaca, directly northeast of the City of Ithaca and Cornell University's main campus.
Angkor Wat is a temple complex in Cambodia and is the largest religious monument in the world, on a site measuring 162.6 hectares. Originally constructed as a Hindu temple dedicated to the god Vishnu for the Khmer Empire by King Suryavarman II, it was gradually transformed into a Buddhist temple towards the end of the 12th century; as such, it is also described as a "Hindu-Buddhist" temple.
Alois Brunner was an Austrian Schutzstaffel (SS) SS-Hauptsturmführer who played a significant role in the implementation of the Holocaust through rounding up and deporting Jews in occupied Austria, Greece, Macedonia, France, and finally Slovakia during the Second World War. He was known as Adolf Eichmann's right-hand man.
The post-Angkor period of Cambodia, also called the Middle Period and Dark Age, refers to the historical era from the early 15th century to 1863, the beginning of the French protectorate of Cambodia. As reliable sources are very rare, a defensible and conclusive explanation that relates to concrete events that manifest the decline of the Khmer Empire, recognised unanimously by the scientific community, has so far not been produced. However, most modern historians have approached a consensus in which several distinct and gradual changes of religious, dynastic, administrative and military nature, environmental problems and ecological imbalance coincided with shifts of power in Indochina and must all be taken into account to make an interpretation. In recent years scholars' focus has shifted increasingly towards human–environment interactions and the ecological consequences, including natural disasters, such as flooding and droughts.
Kew Gardens is a neighborhood in the central area of the New York City borough of Queens. Kew Gardens is bounded to the north by the Union Turnpike and the Jackie Robinson Parkway, to the east by the Van Wyck Expressway and 131st Street, to the south by Hillside Avenue, and to the west by Park Lane, Abingdon Road, and 118th Street. Forest Park and the neighborhood of Forest Hills are to the west, Flushing Meadows–Corona Park north, Richmond Hill south, Briarwood southeast, and Kew Gardens Hills east.
The Killing Fields is a 1984 British biographical drama film about the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, which is based on the experiences of two journalists: Cambodian Dith Pran and American Sydney Schanberg. It was directed by Roland Joffé and produced by David Puttnam for his company Goldcrest Films. Sam Waterston stars as Schanberg, Haing S. Ngor as Pran, Julian Sands as Jon Swain, and John Malkovich as Al Rockoff. The adaptation for the screen was written by Bruce Robinson; the musical score was written by Mike Oldfield and orchestrated by David Bedford.
Thai people, Central Thai people or Siamese, T(h)ai Noi people, in a narrow sense, are a Tai ethnic group dominant in Central and Southern Thailand. Part of the larger Tai ethno-linguistic group native to Southeast Asia as well as Southern China and Northeast India, Thais speak the Central Thai language, which is classified as part of the Kra–Dai family of languages. The majority of Thais are followers of Theravada Buddhism.
The Cornell Botanic Gardens is a botanical garden located adjacent to the Cornell University campus in Ithaca, New York. The Botanic Gardens proper consist of 25 acres (10 ha) of botanical gardens and 150 acres (61 ha) of the F. R. Newman Arboretum. The greater Botanic Gardens includes 40 different nature areas around Cornell and Ithaca, covering 4,300 acres (1,700 ha).
Youth Without Youth is a 2007 fantasy drama film written, produced, and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, based on the novella of the same name by Romanian author Mircea Eliade. The film is a co-production between the United States, Romania, France, Italy and Germany. It was the first film that Coppola had directed in ten years, since 1997's The Rainmaker.
Bokator is an ancient battlefield martial art used by ancient Khmer military groups. It is one of the oldest existing fighting systems originating from Cambodia.
Siem Reap is the second-largest city of Cambodia, as well as the capital and largest city of Siem Reap Province in northwestern Cambodia.
Charles Ira Fox is an American composer for film and television. His compositions include the sunshine pop musical backgrounds which accompanied every episode of the 1970s ABC-TV show Love, American Style; the theme song for the late 1970s ABC series The Love Boat; and the dramatic theme music to ABC's Wide World of Sports and the original Monday Night Football; as well as the Grammy-winning hit song "Killing Me Softly with His Song", written in collaboration with Lori Lieberman and Fox's longtime writing partner, Norman Gimbel.
"Mrs. Robinson" is a song by American music duo Simon & Garfunkel from their fourth studio album, Bookends (1968). The song was released as a single on April 5, 1968, by Columbia Records. Produced by the duo and Roy Halee, it is famous for its association with the 1967 film The Graduate. The song was written by Paul Simon, who pitched it to director Mike Nichols alongside Art Garfunkel after Nichols rejected two other songs intended for the film. The Graduate's soundtrack album uses two short versions of "Mrs. Robinson"; a full version was later included on Bookends. The song was additionally released on the Mrs. Robinson EP in 1968, which also included three other songs from the film: "April Come She Will", "Scarborough Fair/Canticle", and "The Sound of Silence".
Far Rockaway High School was a public high school in New York City, at 821 Bay 25th Street in Far Rockaway in the borough of Queens. It operated from 1897 to 2011. Its alumni include three Nobel Prize laureates and convicted fraudster Bernard Madoff.
Theravada Buddhism is the state religion of Cambodia, which has been present since at least the 5th century.
Sachchidanand Sahai is an Indian epigraphist, writer and the scientific advisor to the Government of Cambodia for restoration of Angkor Wat and the Temple of Preah Vihear, known for his knowledge on Khmer civilization. He was honored by the Government of India, in 2012, with the fourth highest Indian civilian award of Padma Shri.