金融时报:《林肯》载入史册

《林肯》载入史册

FT影评作家Nigel Andrews解释为什么《林肯》是载入影史的伟大作品。

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

plinth[plɪnθ] n.雕像底座

Lilliputian[,lili'pju:ʃjən]《格列佛游记》中的小人国人；

scaffolding['skæfəʊldɪŋ] n.脚手架

the 13th Amendment 影片主要讲的是林肯推动第13修正案在众院通过的台前幕后。法案内容：“第一款：在合众国境内或属合众国管辖的任何地方，不准有奴隶制或强制劳役，惟用于业经定罪的罪犯作为惩罚除外。第二款：国会有权以适当立法实施本条。”

whipping 原意是鞭打，这里是“软硬兼施迫使本党议员投票”，今天的英美等国议会党团中都有“党鞭”party whip来督导本党议员投票。

browbeat ['braʊbiːt] v.恫吓，吓唬

intimism ['intimizəm] n.(文艺作品)描绘内心感情的风格

grandstanding ['grændstændiŋ] n.哗众取宠；炫耀

chicanery [ʃɪ'keɪnərɪ] n.狡辩；欺骗

Thaddeus Stevens 权力巨大的激进派共和党众议员，是战争筹款、通过第13修正案，以及战后重建的领袖，是影片着重刻画的人物。

spellbind['spelbaɪnd] 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.

请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：

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.

解释：他也是现代共和党的创始人之一。ACD都不正确。在当选之前，他没有任何军事指挥经验。《解放黑奴宣言》只是一个军事措施，直到1865年第13修正案通过才真正在法律上终结了奴隶制。 林肯连任的得票是212:11，是史上最大的总统选举胜利之一，不过乔治·华盛顿的两次全票当选是前无古人后无来者。

(2) 答案：D.All of above.

解释：ABC三项都是正确的。女历史学家古德温这本书全名叫做Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln，汉语译做《林肯与劲敌幕僚》。 主要讲的是林肯和他内阁的故事，内阁中有多位比他更资深、更知名的、最初都不服他的党内大佬。但是最后他凭借自己的战略眼光和人格魅力化敌为友。

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

解释：显然，“目的可以为手段辩护”，或说“为了一定的目的可以不择手段”，是很有争议的说法。 作者这句反问式的话，意思就是，在1865这种战争年代、特殊时期，林肯打法律的擦边球、用些不太光明正大的手段，是没啥问题的。A正确但不能解释这句话。

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

解释：作者在本文开头和结尾都强调了斯皮尔伯格是塑造了一个既有光辉形象，又有着人性（尤其是弱点）一面的林肯。BCD都只是提到了其中一面。作者在第一段中说，这一刻，电影刻画了A，另外一刻或是同一刻，又展示了C。