美国国家公共电台 NPR 'Maudie' Paints Intimate Portrait Of Canadian Painter Maud Lewis

 

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

The movie "Maudie" is the true story of a painter whose work is so exuberant¹ you'd never guess what a difficult life she lived. In a moment, NPR's Susan Stamberg will tell us about the art and legacy² of the real Maud Lewis. But first, our critic Bob Mondello reviews the film.

BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE³: She is tiny, her frame bent⁴, fingers crippled by arthritis⁵, though she's barely in her 30s. Still, it's her brother who looks nervous when he tells Maud she's going to have to stay with their Aunt Ida.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "MAUDIE")

ZACHARY BENNETT: (As Charles Dowley) I sold the house.

SALLY HAWKINS: (As Maud Lewis) Our house?

BENNETT: (As Charles Dowley) Maud, mom left it to me.

HAWKINS: (As Maud Lewis) I'll look after it.

BENNETT: (As Charles Dowley) You can't look after yourself.

HAWKINS: (As Maud Lewis) I'll get a job or something.

BENNETT: (As Charles Dowley) A job - a job doing what?

HAWKINS: (As Maud Lewis) I don't know.

MONDELLO: It's easy to see why her fellow Nova Scotians might underestimate Maud. She walks with a limp, talks tentatively. But she's far from helpless. When the town eccentric comes into the general store looking for a live-in maid, she spies an opportunity.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "MAUDIE")

LAWRENCE BARRY: (As Mr. Davis) What can I do for you, Everett?

ETHAN HAWKE: (As Everett Lewis) I'm looking for a woman.

BARRY: (As Mr. Davis) A what?

HAWKE: (As Everett Lewis) A house maid.

BARRY: (As Mr. Davis) Not the kind of thing we sell.

HAWKE: (As Everett Lewis) Am I an idiot? Well, I need you to write - can you write...

BARRY: (As Mr. Davis) A sign.

HAWKE: (As Everett Lewis) Yeah.

BARRY: (As Mr. Davis) OK.

HAWKE: (As Everett Lewis) Looking for a house maid. Must have her own - what's the word I'm looking for?

BARRY: (As Mr. Davis) Sense of humor?

HAWKE: (As Everett Lewis) No, cleaning tools. Must have her own cleaning tools.

MONDELLO: The sign is barely up before Maud, played pluckily⁶ by Sally Hawkins, has grabbed it and started walking miles to Everett's place. He is a fish peddler, seriously anti-social, living in a wooden shack⁷. Played by an almost unrecognizable Ethan Hawke, Everett is startled when Maud negotiates a tiny pittance⁸ of a salary and starts cleaning, cooking and, though he bridles⁹ at this, adding color to things around the house using leftover¹⁰ house paint.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "MAUDIE")

HAWKE: (As Everett Lewis) Who told you you could paint fairies on the wall?

HAWKINS: (As Maud Lewis) They're not fairies. They're birds.

HAWKE: (As Everett Lewis) Well, who told you you could do that?

HAWKINS: (As Maud Lewis) Well, you did.

HAWKE: (As Everett Lewis) What?

HAWKINS: (As Maud Lewis) You said, make the place look all right. I think it looks all right.

MONDELLO: They're quite the pair - Maudie crabbed¹¹, Everett crabby. Still, there's something about them together that kind of works, partly because Hawkins and Hawke are remarkable¹², partly because the filmmakers let them make much of small things - the looks on their faces, say, when she starts popping bright, cheerfully painted cards in with his bills and a New York visitor offers to pay more for her card than for his fish. The world doesn't give this woman much, but then, not much is required to make her happy.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "MAUDIE")

HAWKINS: (As Maud Lewis) I love a window. The whole of life already framed.

MONDELLO: Maudie's life was so constricted¹³, but her gaze so expansive, as is her movie. I'm Bob Mondello.

Now here's Susan Stamberg with a look at the real Maud's art.

SUSAN STAMBERG, BYLINE: There's no rain in her clouds, no gray in her shadows. Maud Lewis' small paintings are bright with sunshine and filled with blue skies, crystal snow, calm waters. They're pictures of joy. It's folk art. No formal training.

SHANNON PARKER: Often with a very cheeky sense of humor.

STAMBERG: Shannon Parker is curator at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, Halifax. There are 55 Mauds in their permanent collection.

Why do you have that many? Do you have them because she's local or because she's good?

PARKER: I'd say both. She's a local artist who, if we didn't collect them, especially in the beginning, nobody else would have.

STAMBERG: The gallery also has Maud and Everett's house. After they died, the province of Nova Scotia bought the pint-size house and gave it to the gallery. Money was raised to restore it, and in 1998 the house was moved right in. In her final years, Maud told the CBC she rarely left home.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

MAUD LEWIS: Ain't much for travel, anyway.

STAMBERG: Contented¹⁴ right here in my chair, she said.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

LEWIS: (Laughter, unintelligible) I've got a brush in front of me, I'm all right.

STAMBERG: Inside, surrounded by walls, bread boxes, cookie sheets, a stove she'd covered with cheery painted butterflies and tulips and swans - canvas was too expensive and hard to get - Maud also brushed her house paint onto beaver¹⁵ boards and Masonite, all original from her imagination.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

LEWIS: I've never seen any paintings from other artists, you know.

STAMBERG: Hadn't seen other artist's work. She saw what she saw, lots of animals - cows, horses, cats.

PARKER: Oxen with their brilliantly lashed¹⁶ eyes.

STAMBERG: With her gnarled hands, Maud Lewis started out painting 25 cent Christmas cards with her mother. Then came landscapes on the boards.

PARKER: And that she charged originally $2 and eventually up to about $5. She was very hesitant to ask for more money.

STAMBERG: Now they sell for anything from $8,500 to $20,000. She became known in the late 1960s. Passing tourists saw her sign, paintings for sale. There was a magazine article, then the CBC interview. Eventually she couldn't keep up with the demand. She sold her pictures wet. Curator Shannon Parker thinks Maud's popularity, her story, is a work of slow magic.

PARKER: They didn't have a lot of money. They had no running water. They had no electricity. There was a very limited - what she was able to do with her life. And yet her artwork was what she wanted to do. And it's something she was able to do and touched so many other people. That's pretty amazing.

STAMBERG: Pretty amazing. I'm Susan Stamberg, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF LISA HANNIGAN SONG, "LITTLE BIRD")

1 exuberant   

adj.充满活力的；（植物）繁茂的

参考例句：

• Hothouse plants do not possess exuberant vitality.在温室里培养出来的东西，不会有强大的生命力。
• All those mother trees in the garden are exuberant.果园里的那些母树都长得十分茂盛。

2 legacy   

n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西

参考例句：

• They are the most precious cultural legacy our forefathers left.它们是我们祖先留下来的最宝贵的文化遗产。
• He thinks the legacy is a gift from the Gods.他认为这笔遗产是天赐之物。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 bent   

n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的

参考例句：

• He was fully bent upon the project.他一心扑在这项计划上。
• We bent over backward to help them.我们尽了最大努力帮助他们。

5 arthritis   

n.关节炎

参考例句：

• Rheumatoid arthritis has also been linked with the virus.风湿性关节炎也与这种病毒有关。
• He spent three months in the hospital with acute rheumatic arthritis.他患急性风湿性关节炎，在医院住了三个月。

6 pluckily   

adv.有勇气地，大胆地

参考例句：

• He was Brentford's defensive star in pluckily holding out the determined Reading raids for long periods. 他是布伦特福德队的防守明星，长期坚持抗击雷丁队的猛攻。 来自互联网
• A crushing setback, pluckily overcome, is a good plot motif to carry the yarn forward. 如果你的公司曾遭受过一次毁灭性的打击，但你的勇气让公司度过了难关，那么这个情节也很不错，能推动故事的发展。 来自互联网

7 shack   

adj.简陋的小屋，窝棚

参考例句：

• He had to sit down five times before he reached his shack.在走到他的茅棚以前，他不得不坐在地上歇了五次。
• The boys made a shack out of the old boards in the backyard.男孩们在后院用旧木板盖起一间小木屋。

8 pittance   

n.微薄的薪水，少量

参考例句：

• Her secretaries work tirelessly for a pittance.她的秘书们为一点微薄的工资不知疲倦地工作。
• The widow must live on her slender pittance.那寡妇只能靠自己微薄的收入过活。

9 bridles   

约束( bridle的名词复数 )； 限动器； 马笼头； 系带

参考例句：

• The horses were shod with silver and golden bridles. 这些马钉着金银做的鉄掌。

10 leftover   

n.剩货，残留物，剩饭；adj.残余的

参考例句：

• These narrow roads are a leftover from the days of horse-drawn carriages.这些小道是从马车时代沿用下来的。
• Wonder if that bakery lets us take leftover home.不知道那家糕饼店会不会让我们把卖剩的带回家。

11 crabbed   

adj.脾气坏的；易怒的；（指字迹）难辨认的；（字迹等）难辨认的v.捕蟹( crab的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• His mature composi tions are generally considered the more cerebral and crabbed. 他成熟的作品一般被认为是触动理智的和难于理解的。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• He met a crabbed, cantankerous director. 他碰上了一位坏脾气、爱争吵的主管。 来自辞典例句

12 remarkable   

adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的

参考例句：

• She has made remarkable headway in her writing skills.她在写作技巧方面有了长足进步。
• These cars are remarkable for the quietness of their engines.这些汽车因发动机没有噪音而不同凡响。

13 constricted   

adj.抑制的，约束的

参考例句：

• Her throat constricted and she swallowed hard. 她喉咙发紧，使劲地咽了一下唾沫。
• The tight collar constricted his neck. 紧领子勒着他的脖子。

14 contented   

adj.满意的，安心的，知足的

参考例句：

• He won't be contented until he's upset everyone in the office.不把办公室里的每个人弄得心烦意乱他就不会满足。
• The people are making a good living and are contented,each in his station.人民安居乐业。

15 beaver   

n.海狸，河狸

参考例句：

• The hat is made of beaver.这顶帽子是海狸毛皮制的。
• A beaver is an animals with big front teeth.海狸是一种长着大门牙的动物。

16 lashed   

adj.具睫毛的v.鞭打( lash的过去式和过去分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥

参考例句：

• The rain lashed at the windows. 雨点猛烈地打在窗户上。
• The cleverly designed speech lashed the audience into a frenzy. 这篇精心设计的演说煽动听众使他们发狂。 来自《简明英汉词典》