时间:2018-12-02 作者:英语课 分类:2017年NPR美国国家公共电台11月


英语课

 


DAVID GREENE, HOST:


In 2003, an obscure, independent film called "The Room" opened in movie theaters here in LA. It was intended to be a serious melodrama 1 about friendship, love, betrayal. Instead, it was shockingly bad - a baffling storyline, uncomfortably long romantic scenes and the acting 2. "The Room" was a cinematic disaster - a hilarious 3 cinematic disaster.


(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE ROOM")


TOMMY WISEAU: (As Johnny) Oh, hi, Mark. God.


You betrayed me. You're not good. You're just a chicken - cheep, cheep, cheep, cheep, cheep, cheep, cheep.


You are tearing me apart, Lisa.


GREENE: OK. That is the voice of the romantic lead, Tommy Wiseau. He also directed and produced and wrote "The Room." And it turns out Wiseau, with his hulking physique and his long mane of jet-black hair and his indistinguishable accent, well, he inadvertently sparked a cult 4 phenomenon. So when comedy duo James Franco and Seth Rogen heard about it, they knew they had to make a movie about the movie.


SETH ROGEN: I think consistently very few things are funnier than a bunch of people really trying hard and treating something with very high stakes that is ultimately incredibly dumb.


GREENE: Their new film is called "The Disaster Artist," and it's based on a tell-all book co-authored by one of "The Room's" stars. Now, James Franco, he kind of became obsessed 5 with "The Room." It was partly the cult-like quality of this thing. Over the years, people have flocked to midnight screenings. There have been roaring sold-out crowds.


JAMES FRANCO: It's an event. It's an event.


GREENE: It's an event.


ROGEN: Yeah. It's like the modern, like - it's like a "Rocky Horror Picture Show" type thing, yeah.


GREENE: Well, Seth Rogen, can you - I'm wondering if you're going to be the voice of reason here. This is seen as such a horrible movie. Like, did you see the Hollywood story and the appeal that James was seeing?


ROGEN: At first, I think my instinct was that maybe, like...


FRANCO: James is too excited.


ROGEN: No, it - well, I wanted to make sure that - to me, what became the most entertaining idea, honestly, is we put a huge amount of thought into it (laughter).


FRANCO: Yeah.


GREENE: And James Franco sure did put a lot of thought into it, and I want to make sure you're following us here. In the new movie, James Franco is playing this eccentric dude who's making a bad movie. Seth Rogen is playing his script supervisor 6. And if these guys were trying to recreate this disaster, well, I think they kind of nailed it.


(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE DISASTER ARTIST")


FRANCO: (As Tommy Wiseau) Let's go. Let's go, Sandy. Come on.


ROGEN: (As Sandy Schklair) All right, let's roll, set, ready and action.


FRANCO: (As Tommy Wiseau) What line? What is the line?


ROGEN: (As Sandy Schklair) I did not hit her. It's not true.


GREENE: All right, and here's where it gets even wackier. James Franco directs this new movie as well, and he was driving everyone absolutely crazy on set because he refused to break out of character.


FRANCO: He could not be in the same room with me.


ROGEN: No, I couldn't deal with it.


FRANCO: (Laughter) Like...


ROGEN: I just couldn't stop laughing because it was, like, you looked insane. You were - it was just crazy. Like...


GREENE: Why were you so determined 7 to stay in that character, James?


FRANCO: I think it really helped the vibe on set, you know, because, like...


ROGEN: Yeah, it did. It made it so weird 8, but it also gave everyone a taste of what it would feel like to work on a movie directed by Tommy (laughter).


GREENE: I just - for people who don't know this whole cult classic, I want to just play a quick scene. This is from the real movie "The Room," and it's a mundane 9 scene where Tommy is going to buy a dozen red roses.


ROGEN: Oh, God.


FRANCO: The most famous scene.


(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE ROOM")


WISEAU: (As Johnny) Hi.


UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: (As character) Can I help you?


WISEAU: (As Johnny) Yeah. Can I have a dozen red roses, please?


UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: (As character) Oh, hi, Johnny. I didn't know it was you. Here you go.


WISEAU: (As Johnny) That's me. How much is it?


UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: (As character) It'll be $18.


WISEAU: (As Johnny) Here you go. Keep the change. Hi, doggie.


UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: (As character) You're my favorite customer.


WISEAU: (As Johnny) Thanks a lot. Bye.


UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: (As character) Bye-bye.


GREENE: Oh, wow. So that's Tommy playing Johnny, his character.


(LAUGHTER)


ROGEN: It's like each line systemically makes no sense.


(LAUGHTER)


ROGEN: Like, nothing anyone is saying pertains 10 to anything else. It makes no sense.


GREENE: Let me just ask you guys this - I - this is really bad acting we just heard.


ROGEN: Yes.


GREENE: You guys presumably spend a lot of your life trying to be good actors. So...


ROGEN: I try really hard.


(LAUGHTER)


GREENE: How hard is it to try to act badly?


FRANCO: When you're playing parts that are bad - like, recreating really bad scenes, but they're very specific scenes...


ROGEN: Yeah.


FRANCO: ...And so in fact, the way to do it was to put as much care into accurately 11 capturing - down to, like, the blink and the, you know, the head movement.


GREENE: So it takes good acting to totally, accurately recreate something like bad acting.


FRANCO: Yes, for sure.


GREENE: I mean, this - your movie is coming out in, you know, at a very particular moment in time in Hollywood. I mean, there's rightly all this attention on sexual harassment 12 and worse. And, I mean, when you watch the original "Room," it's hard not to think that this guy was a total misogynist 13 in many ways.


ROGEN: Oh, yeah. The movie is incredibly misogynistic 14.


FRANCO: Yeah.


ROGEN: And that is - that's a - I mean, yeah - and we don't shy away from portraying 15 how that created a toxic 16 work environment and how nightmarish it would have been and is on a lot of sets. I mean, I think we show it in its incredibly raw form. I think Tommy wasn't sexually interested in the women that he was degrading, but I think it was more just a power maneuver 17 for him. Yeah, I mean, I think that it is a - I mean, we didn't know it at the time, but it is a very, like, real portrayal 18 of the type of things that happen on a lot of movie sets I think.


GREENE: I just think about you guys - I mean, probably at some point in your lives, you could relate to struggling filmmakers, struggling actors. Is that the touchstone of what you wanted to do here? You know, say what you want to about this guy, he had a vision, and all these years later, like, for better or for worse, he's still out there.


FRANCO: There are a lot of things that we were going for, and a large chunk 19 of this story is the struggle of - everybody that wants to be an artist, it's a universal struggle. I know what it was like to, you know, come to Hollywood, have these dreams, believe that, you know, movies and acting would, you know, save me and fulfill 20 me and just wanting to do it with every fiber 21 of my being and, like, devoting all of my life and time to that. I understand that feeling. And so part of it was a portrait of that, a portrait of a dreamer albeit 22 through a weird, you know, wacky lens of Tommy Wiseau. I think people really somehow are getting in touch with the passion that is underneath 23 it. The fact that Tommy put his heart and soul into it, that I think is the secret sauce animating 24 all of this and keeping it alive.


ROGEN: Yeah.


GREENE: Seth Rogen and James Franco - their new movie is "The Disaster Artist." Guys, thanks a lot. It's been great talking to you.


ROGEN: Thank you.


FRANCO: Thank you.


(SOUNDBITE OF MLADEN MILICEVI'S "THE ROOM")



1 melodrama
n.音乐剧;情节剧
  • We really don't need all this ridiculous melodrama!别跟我们来这套荒唐的情节剧表演!
  • White Haired Woman was a melodrama,but in certain spots it was deliberately funny.《白毛女》是一出悲剧性的歌剧,但也有不少插科打诨。
2 acting
n.演戏,行为,假装;adj.代理的,临时的,演出用的
  • Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她,她只是假装的。
  • During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代,她的表演生涯黯然失色。
3 hilarious
adj.充满笑声的,欢闹的;[反]depressed
  • The party got quite hilarious after they brought more wine.在他们又拿来更多的酒之后,派对变得更加热闹起来。
  • We stop laughing because the show was so hilarious.我们笑个不停,因为那个节目太搞笑了。
4 cult
n.异教,邪教;时尚,狂热的崇拜
  • Her books aren't bestsellers,but they have a certain cult following.她的书算不上畅销书,但有一定的崇拜者。
  • The cult of sun worship is probably the most primitive one.太阳崇拜仪式或许是最为原始的一种。
5 obsessed
adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的
  • He's obsessed by computers. 他迷上了电脑。
  • The fear of death obsessed him throughout his old life. 他晚年一直受着死亡恐惧的困扰。
6 supervisor
n.监督人,管理人,检查员,督学,主管,导师
  • Between you and me I think that new supervisor is a twit.我们私下说,我认为新来的主管人是一个傻瓜。
  • He said I was too flighty to be a good supervisor.他说我太轻浮不能成为一名好的管理员。
7 determined
adj.坚定的;有决心的
  • I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
  • He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。
8 weird
adj.古怪的,离奇的;怪诞的,神秘而可怕的
  • From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来,他好像有点怪。
  • His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。
9 mundane
adj.平凡的;尘世的;宇宙的
  • I hope I can get an interesting job and not something mundane.我希望我可以得到的是一份有趣的工作,而不是一份平凡无奇的。
  • I find it humorous sometimes that even the most mundane occurrences can have an impact on our awareness.我发现生活有时挺诙谐的,即使是最平凡的事情也能影响我们的感知。
10 pertains
关于( pertain的第三人称单数 ); 有关; 存在; 适用
  • When one manages upward, none of these clear and unambiguous symbols pertains. 当一个人由下而上地管理时,这些明确无误的信号就全都不复存在了。
  • Her conduct hardly pertains to a lady. 她的行为与女士身份不太相符。
11 accurately
adv.准确地,精确地
  • It is hard to hit the ball accurately.准确地击中球很难。
  • Now scientists can forecast the weather accurately.现在科学家们能准确地预报天气。
12 harassment
n.骚扰,扰乱,烦恼,烦乱
  • She often got telephone harassment at night these days.这些天她经常在夜晚受到电话骚扰。
  • The company prohibits any form of harassment.公司禁止任何形式的骚扰行为。
13 misogynist
n.厌恶女人的人
  • He quickly gained the reputation of being a misogynist.他很快地赢得了“厌恶女性者”的这一名声。
  • Nice try,but you're a misanthrope,not a misogynist.不错了,你讨厌的是世界,不是女人。
14 misogynistic
  • And it brings out everything that is most noxious and misogynistic about the right. 而且,这种情绪也流露出右派思想中最为保守有害,歧视女性的那一面。 来自互联网
15 portraying
v.画像( portray的现在分词 );描述;描绘;描画
  • The artist has succeeded in portraying my father to the life. 那位画家把我的父亲画得惟妙惟肖。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Ding Ling was good at portraying figures through careful and refined description of human psychology. 《莎菲女士的日记》是丁玲的成名作,曾引起强烈的社会反响。 来自汉英文学 - 中国现代小说
16 toxic
adj.有毒的,因中毒引起的
  • The factory had accidentally released a quantity of toxic waste into the sea.这家工厂意外泄漏大量有毒废物到海中。
  • There is a risk that toxic chemicals might be blasted into the atmosphere.爆炸后有毒化学物质可能会进入大气层。
17 maneuver
n.策略[pl.]演习;v.(巧妙)控制;用策略
  • All the fighters landed safely on the airport after the military maneuver.在军事演习后,所有战斗机都安全降落在机场上。
  • I did get her attention with this maneuver.我用这个策略确实引起了她的注意。
18 portrayal
n.饰演;描画
  • His novel is a vivid portrayal of life in a mining community.他的小说生动地描绘了矿区的生活。
  • The portrayal of the characters in the novel is lifelike.该书中的人物写得有血有肉。
19 chunk
n.厚片,大块,相当大的部分(数量)
  • They had to be careful of floating chunks of ice.他们必须当心大块浮冰。
  • The company owns a chunk of farmland near Gatwick Airport.该公司拥有盖特威克机场周边的大片农田。
20 fulfill
vt.履行,实现,完成;满足,使满意
  • If you make a promise you should fulfill it.如果你许诺了,你就要履行你的诺言。
  • This company should be able to fulfill our requirements.这家公司应该能够满足我们的要求。
21 fiber
n.纤维,纤维质
  • The basic structural unit of yarn is the fiber.纤维是纱的基本结构单元。
  • The material must be free of fiber clumps.这种材料必须无纤维块。
22 albeit
conj.即使;纵使;虽然
  • Albeit fictional,she seemed to have resolved the problem.虽然是虚构的,但是在她看来好象是解决了问题。
  • Albeit he has failed twice,he is not discouraged.虽然失败了两次,但他并没有气馁。
23 underneath
adj.在...下面,在...底下;adv.在下面
  • Working underneath the car is always a messy job.在汽车底下工作是件脏活。
  • She wore a coat with a dress underneath.她穿着一件大衣,里面套着一条连衣裙。
24 animating
v.使有生气( animate的现在分词 );驱动;使栩栩如生地动作;赋予…以生命
  • Nature has her animating spirit as well as man who is nature's child. 大自然就象它的孩子――人类一样,有活生生的灵魂。 来自辞典例句
  • They were doubtlessly the animating principle of many hours that superficially seemed vacant. 在表面看来无所事事的许多时刻中,它们无疑是活跃的因素。 来自辞典例句
学英语单词
agricultural emulsifier No.600
annual allowance
ash colour body
atomic resonance line
bathygadus garretti
cerellatron
cessationist
character display unit
character flaw
combining tee T
crune
decemvirates
decrescendoed
dial phones
dicriminalize
dictyostelids
disarthrosis
dome nut
dominant product
door widely open
drilling platforms
duck gizzard spiced
Eschau
family Liparidae
farysia olivacea
five-tire car
fore-slow
frame drum
genus sclerodermas
Google Alerts
grass-earth
Gross-Hehlen
gutter market
heading axis
heater cathode leakage
helicosporium nematosporum
Hiburi-shima
holder in due corse
instrumental roles
invoice outward
Inzegmir
iwconfig
Jack Pudding
keratolysis neonatorum
Lahmu
lay emphasis up on
liquid-gas distributor
liquor pericardii
locking ring mount
logarithmic unit
Lottigna
lubricating compounds
macrophthalmus serenei
Manari
monoeciously
nafi
native-americans
no bit
nonformalizable
nonprecise
oil supply line
open-cell foam
operating earning rate
over-riding
periblems
pit working line
point-focused electron gun
pointing control
prehepaticus
primary local membr-ance
production break
promulging
Put you in mind
restabilization
rub someone's nose in it
russian monetary units
scopulary organelle
secondin'
selection of stars
sketchball
slimline type
small and medium-sized enterprise
specification statement
stator ring
Suiko
sulphuricacid
supplementarity
tabular
tele-robotics
televisings
toplin
toxophilic
transitological
treble agent
trutch
twibit
uncorporated
USDAW
wassenburg
wicked problems
wild oat grasses
wing-handed