金融时报:与魔鬼订约的电影大师

与魔鬼订约的电影大师

莱妮·瑞芬斯塔尔，是一位杰出的电影导演，在电影美学和拍摄技巧方面有巨大贡献的人。她最著名、最宏大、最有感染力的作品，却让她成为众矢之的。因为，她“与魔鬼签订了浮士德式契约”。

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

Leni Riefenstahl 莱妮·瑞芬斯塔尔(1902－2003)，德国女电影导演，主要作品有宣扬纳粹的《意志的胜利》和《奥林匹亚》等纪录片。

socialite ['səʊʃəlaɪt] n.社会名流

Triumph of the Will 《意志的胜利》，1935年上映的著名纪录片，纳粹以无限经费支持她拍摄，影片以无与伦比的艺术表现力和感染力塑造了希特勒的救世主形象。

the Third Reich 第三帝国，即纳粹德国

kitschy ['kɪtʃɪ] adj.低级庸俗的

abominate [ə'bɒmɪneɪt] v.憎恨，痛恨

diffident ['dɪfɪd(ə)nt] adj.羞怯的

pentagram ['pentəgræm] n.五角星

Goebbels 戈培尔

repudiate [rɪ'pjuːdɪeɪt] v.否定，断绝关系

Jesuitically [dʒe,zju'itikəli] adv.耶稣会地，阴险地

Faustian pact 浮士德式的协议，即出卖灵魂给魔鬼

Monstrous talent (405 words)

By Nigel Andrews, FT film critic.

How do you deal with a monster? Leni Riefenstahl was a multiple achiever on a frightening scale. She was an actress-dancer, a film-maker, a socialite and social climber, a propagandist for Nazism, and late in life a successful photographer. She had talent, even if some might deem it, in film critic Dilys Powell’s words, ”an appalling talent”.

By the end of a long life - she died at 101 - the director of Triumph of the Will, the Third Reich’s great hour in the artistic sun, was vilified for almost everything she did. Susan Sontag wrote the essay ”Fascinating Fascism”. Sontag’s thesis was that Riefenstahl blindly worshipped the strong, the beautiful, the dominant.

Triumph of the Will is great film-making. It is pointless to attack it as less and pointless to try to pull down its monumentality with words like ”shallow”, ”vulgar” or ”kitschy”. Great art can be made in terrible causes.

Riefenstahl might be thought to have met her match in biographer Steven Bach, who in an earlier life ran United Artists.

There is the same sense of a civilised flailing in his approach to Riefenstahl. Should he respect this woman or abominate her? Bach is not sure and it shows. This is the position we have met in every Riefenstahl book: a diffident stand-off, with the author staying inside his pentagram of decent liberal enlightenment, deploring here, admiring there.

Yet Bach writes well and researches well. For Leni he found unpublished interviews with the film-maker and followed these up with his own interviews with survivors. This is a fuller, rounder portrait, even if the main features show no change.

Bach also has a knack for the pithy phrase. In isolating reasons why Riefenstahl was remarkable, he cites a comment from Goebbels’ deputy Fritz Hippler: ”No one else in Germany had the right to decide alone what to film.” Exactly. And this film-maker was a woman, a non-party member and, quite possibly Bach reminds us, of Jewish descent.

It remains a stunning story. Riefenstahl spent the second half of her life repudiating, or Jesuitically seeking to justify, the things she had done in the first half. But she had signed a Faustian pact. It was too bad for her that the Devil was thrown out of power, a decade after her signing, and she was left with all the infamy and none of the rewards.

请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：

1.This article is most likely to be a piece of?

A. obituary

B. book review

C. film critique

D. history research paper

答案(1)

2.What can best describe Riefenstahl's present-day public image?

A. A monstrous talent.

B. An appalling talent.

C. A shallow propagandist.

D. A successful photographer.

答案(2)

3.Why Bach's book is different from other Riefenstahl books?

A. It is not differnt.

B. He provided a diffident stand-off.

C. He interviewed with surviving related people.

D. He found out that Reni was possibly of Jewish descent.

答案(3)

4.What was "the Faustian pact" for Leni?

A. Being a socialite and social climber.

B. Depicting "Fascinating Fascism" through her movies.

C. Blindly worshipping the strong, the beautiful, the dominant.

D. Spending the second half of her life seeking to justify the first half.

答案(4)

* * *

(1) 答案：B.book review

解释：从哪里可以看出这是篇书评？ 第四段有这么一句：Riefenstahl···met her match in biographer Steven Bach。另外，倒数第四段的一句This is the position we have met in every Riefenstahl book... 以及下一段的Yet Bach writes well and researches well. 这本书是瑞芬斯塔尔的传记，中文版叫做《极权制造：莱妮·瑞芬斯塔尔的一生》

(2) 答案：A.A monstrous talent.

解释：正如标题所示。we have met in every Riefenstahl book: deploring here, admiring there.

(3) 答案：C.He interviewed with surviving related people.

解释：This is a fuller, rounder portrait, even if the main features show no change. 也就是说这本书主要的基调和态度没有什么特别之处，但是发现了一些老的未经发表的瑞芬斯塔尔的访谈，并亲自采访了一些相关人员。这提供了一个更完整的画面。

(4) 答案：B.Depicting "Fascinating Fascism" through her movies.

解释：这四项都不是什么好事，但是B显然是最具争议、最毁她形象的“与魔鬼订约”的行为。 瑞芬斯塔尔回忆自己是怎样被希特勒震撼，并主动请缨要求做点事的： “我听到他那句‘我的德国同胞们’那一刹那，我眼前一亮，如同神谕出现，永生难忘，就像地球在我眼前无尽地绵延，并突然从中间裂成两半，喷射出巨大的水柱，直冲云霄，使得地球颤抖。当时，我似乎瘫痪了。”