金融時報:《林肯》載入史冊

《林肯》載入史冊

FT影評作家Nigel Andrews解釋為什么《林肯》是載入影史的偉大作品。

測試中可能遇到的詞匯和知識：

plinth[pl?nθ] n.雕像底座

Lilliputian[,lili'pju:?j?n]《格列佛游記》中的小人國人；

scaffolding['skæf??ld??] n.腳手架

the 13th Amendment 影片主要講的是林肯推動第13修正案在眾院通過的臺前幕后。法案內(nèi)容：“第一款：在合眾國境內(nèi)或?qū)俸媳妵茌牭娜魏蔚胤剑粶?zhǔn)有奴隸制或強制勞役，惟用于業(yè)經(jīng)定罪的罪犯作為懲罰除外。第二款：國會有權(quán)以適當(dāng)立法實施本條。”

whipping 原意是鞭打，這里是“軟硬兼施迫使本黨議員投票”，今天的英美等國議會黨團中都有“黨鞭”party whip來督導(dǎo)本黨議員投票。

browbeat ['bra?bi?t] v.恫嚇，嚇唬

intimism ['intimiz?m] n.(文藝作品)描繪內(nèi)心感情的風(fēng)格

grandstanding ['grændstændi?] n.嘩眾取寵；炫耀

chicanery [??'ke?n?r?] n.狡辯；欺騙

Thaddeus Stevens 權(quán)力巨大的激進派共和黨眾議員，是戰(zhàn)爭籌款、通過第13修正案，以及戰(zhàn)后重建的領(lǐng)袖，是影片著重刻畫的人物。

spellbind['spelba?nd] v.用符咒迷惑

Cinema review: Lincoln(excerpts) (458 words)

History sets a man on a plinth. Biography’s job, on page or screen, is to take him off it and render him human. In Lincoln director Steven Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner – reluctant to lose the myth while chasing the man – achieve what may be cinema’s most accomplished bid to have it both ways. One moment the makers are like Lilliputians running around their Gulliver: ambitious painterly compositions, sculptural gestures, inspirational music, all the aesthetic scaffolding required to portray Daniel Day-Lewis’s president as a giant among immortals. The next moment – or often the same moment – they give him a human nearness, a warmth of idiom and a touching, believable vulnerability.

Their snapshot of history, boldly miniature, is taken during Lincoln’s last but enduring major political initiative: the bid to pass the 13th Amendment decreeing the abolition of slavery. Anyone who believes that “whipping” is a modern political phenomenon needs to study it in action here. Basing their scenes on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Lincoln tome Team of Rivals, Spielberg and Kushner depict the often frantic, frequently borderline-corrupt lobbying, bribing and browbeating that preceded the passage of the emancipation bill.

It proves a miraculous match between movie and subject. On screen, grand cinema gets into bed with a busy, breathless intimism and scurries of promiscuous interaction between co-stars distinguished enough, normally, to be granted their own moments of sovereign grandstanding. In history Lincoln tried to preserve his outward honour and high gravitas while licensing, if not practising, weeks of low political chicanery and backroom brokering. The end justifies the means? Try to argue that it didn’t, in Washington back in January 1865.

The cast is a surge of top Hollywood character actors determined to transcend their beards, hairpieces and funny costumes. It is amazing that we soon know who all these people are historically, not simply that they are Tommy Lee Jones in a curly wig (Thaddeus Stevens), Sally Field in a mob cap (Mrs Lincoln) or James Spader with a paunch and spade beard (chief bully of reluctant yea-voters). It is more amazing that we come to care who they are.

Daniel Day-Lewis is now an official screen phenomenon. He played a scheming, grandiloquent American power broker in There Will Be Blood. Here he plays another and the actor is unrecognisable. Reedy, husky, high-voiced – as sources insist Lincoln was – this Abe still makes a table shake with his passionate conviction and can still spellbind a listener (a cobra transfixing its victim) with a seemingly trivial anecdote that subtly identifies and impales the point he wants to persuade us with. By stepping into history without fear, favour or any overfamiliar biopic folly, Lincoln, handsome, often thrilling, and movingly human, goes into history as a major movie achievement.

請根據(jù)你所讀到的文章內(nèi)容，完成以下自測題目：

1.What is true about Abraham Lincoln?

A. He was once a general before elected as president.

B. He was the first Republican president of US.

C. His Emancipation Proclamation finally ended slavery.

D. He received the highest electoral college votes possible and won the presidency.

答案(1)

2.What can we learn from the movie?

A. “Whipping” is quite normal in modern-day politics.

B. Doris Goodwin’s Team of Rivals tells lot about internal political battles of Lincoln.

C. Borderline-corrupt lobbying, bribing and browbeating were used to get the amendment passed.

D. All of above.

答案(2)

3.What does this mean:

Try to argue that it didn’t, in Washington back in January 1865.

A. Lincoln allowed political chicanery and backroom brokering to get the bill passed.

B. "The end justifies the means" was a famous saying in 1865.

C. "The end justifies the means" was at least OK under this circumstance.

D. Many people argued that "The end justifies the means" is not correct in 1865.

答案(3)

4.According to the writer, why does the movie Lincoln "go into history as a major movie achievement"?

A. reluctant to lose the myth while chasing the man···

B. all the aesthetic scaffolding required to portray Lewis’s president as a giant among immortals···

C. they give him a human nearness, a touching, believable vulnerability···

D. the snapshot is taken during Lincoln’s last but enduring major political initiative···

答案(4)

* * *

(1) 答案：B.He was the first Republican president of US.

解釋：他也是現(xiàn)代共和黨的創(chuàng)始人之一。ACD都不正確。在當(dāng)選之前，他沒有任何軍事指揮經(jīng)驗。《解放黑奴宣言》只是一個軍事措施，直到1865年第13修正案通過才真正在法律上終結(jié)了奴隸制。 林肯連任的得票是212:11，是史上最大的總統(tǒng)選舉勝利之一，不過喬治·華盛頓的兩次全票當(dāng)選是前無古人后無來者。

(2) 答案：D.All of above.

解釋：ABC三項都是正確的。女歷史學(xué)家古德溫這本書全名叫做Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln，漢語譯做《林肯與勁敵幕僚》。 主要講的是林肯和他內(nèi)閣的故事，內(nèi)閣中有多位比他更資深、更知名的、最初都不服他的黨內(nèi)大佬。但是最后他憑借自己的戰(zhàn)略眼光和人格魅力化敵為友。

(3) 答案：C."The end justifies the means" was at least OK under this circumstance.

解釋：顯然，“目的可以為手段辯護”，或說“為了一定的目的可以不擇手段”，是很有爭議的說法。 作者這句反問式的話，意思就是，在1865這種戰(zhàn)爭年代、特殊時期，林肯打法律的擦邊球、用些不太光明正大的手段，是沒啥問題的。A正確但不能解釋這句話。

(4) 答案：A.reluctant to lose the myth while chasing the man…

解釋：作者在本文開頭和結(jié)尾都強調(diào)了斯皮爾伯格是塑造了一個既有光輝形象，又有著人性（尤其是弱點）一面的林肯。BCD都只是提到了其中一面。作者在第一段中說，這一刻，電影刻畫了A，另外一刻或是同一刻，又展示了C。