美国国家公共电台 NPR In 'Operation Finale,' Ben Kingsley Summons The Evil Of A Holocaust Architect

 

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

It was an undercover operation set in Argentina, 1960. An elite¹ crew of Israeli agents secretly kidnapped one of the world's most notorious war criminals, a Nazi² SS officer hiding in Buenos Aires. His name was Adolf Eichmann, and he was among the major organizers of the Holocaust³, the man responsible for transporting millions of European Jews to death camps. The new film "Operation Finale" is the story of that daring secret mission to capture Adolf Eichmann and bring him to justice.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "OPERATION FINALE")

BEN KINGSLEY: (As Adolf Eichmann) You have no interest in what I have to say unless it confirms what you think you already know. My job was simple - save the country I love from being destroyed.

MARTIN: That's the voice of Sir Ben Kingsley, who plays Eichmann in this movie. It's a far cry from the first time the actor has grappled with the Holocaust in film. Kingsley portrayed⁴ Oskar Schindler's accountant, Itzhak Stern, in the 1993 film "Schindler's List" and Otto Frank in the 2001 miniseries "Anne Frank." He also played the famous Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal in the 1989 movie "Murderers Among Us." But those men were sympathetic characters, heroes even. In "Operation Finale," Kingsley plays a man seen as the very embodiment of evil.

How did you get into his head?

KINGSLEY: I didn't. That was the secret. Let's imagine I'm a portrait artist. This man was in my studio. I had him in one corner, I had my canvas in front of me and I put him directly onto the canvas. I was not a conduit for him. His ideology⁶ was not the guiding force of my performance. The guiding force of my performance was the victims. And his silhouette⁷ was molded by their accusation⁸, by their memory, by their reverberating⁹ grief. But nothing from that man ever touched me or entered me. I simply transferred his image onto canvas - by that, I mean onto film. So he never got close to me. He never got near me. He never infected me.

MARTIN: At the same time, you are remarkably¹⁰ able to - humanize him feels so trite¹¹ and it's not the right word but portray⁵ him in a multi-dimensional way. He is so very ordinary at this point in his life. He's living outside Buenos Aires with his wife. He takes the bus to work every day. How did you strike that balance between the man who was and the man who is when we meet him?

KINGSLEY: Rachel, you use the word humanize, and it's interesting that in fact I did not humanize him. And the tragedy is that these men and women were part of a national movement that mobilized their military, their ideology, their culture, their language, their engineering, to annihilate¹² as many of Europe's Jews as they could. But these people, however difficult it might be for us to swallow, were human beings. And to play them as a two-dimensional comic strip villain¹³ or, you know, a run-of-the-mill baddie would be to do a terrible disservice to history and the memory of those that they murdered. These - for the years of extermination¹⁴ between 1933 and 1945, it was men and women who did this. I didn't - it was not my duty to humanize anything because it was already - tragically¹⁵, it's already human.

MARTIN: Yeah. The Israeli agent who ends up being instrumental in capturing Adolf Eichmann is Peter Malkin, played beautifully by the actor Oscar Isaac. Could you talk us through how the relationship unfolds between Malkin and Eichmann because they do develop one?

KINGSLEY: They are both committed to manipulating the other. This head-on collision of manipulative forces provides the central drama of the film. And fortunately, it is Peter Malkin's restraint that allows Eichmann to get from Buenos Aires to Jerusalem and to stand trial. But the tension between those two characters is palpable, and our discussions about the scenes were minimal¹⁶, Rachel. We hardly spoke¹⁷ about them. They were intuitive. We both came from our corners, if you like, and used our mandate¹⁸ to see us through those scenes. And Chris Weitz, a wonderful, wonderful director, captured I think beautifully the essence of those debates and those manipulative exercises.

MARTIN: Were you glad to be done with the filming because of the weight that it carried?

KINGSLEY: I put down my brushes. I wipe the paint off my hands. I cover my portrait. I leave my studio. The hard part is that now I'm having to talk about it - and it is important that I talk about it - that I can't give him away to the camera. I can't give him away to the canvas. And I find talking about it quite difficult. So I'm not done with it. I would rather I was, but I'm not. So I have - somehow the brushes are put back into my hands and I don't quite know what to do with them. So I'm talking about something that I hope I've let go of forever.

MARTIN: Yeah.

KINGSLEY: It's strange. It's strange.

MARTIN: Over many years of preparing for roles in films about the Holocaust, Sir Ben Kingsley has met with survivors¹⁹. He developed an especially close friendship with the late Nobel laureate and author Elie Wiesel. And Kingsley dedicated²⁰ his performance in "Operation Finale" to him.

KINGSLEY: This is the poem that Elie Wiesel gave to me and signed. He did not dedicate it to me, but the poem is universal. May I read it to you?

MARTIN: Please.

KINGSLEY: (Reading) Let us tell tales. All the rest can wait. All the rest must wait. Let us tell tales. That is our primary obligation. Commentaries will have to come later, lest they replace or becloud what they mean to reveal. Let us tell tales so as to remember how vulnerable man is when faced with overwhelming evil. Let us tell tales so as not to allow the executioner to have the last word. The last word belongs to the victim. It is up to the witness to capture it, shape it, transmit it. Elie Wiesel.

MARTIN: Sir Ben Kingsley - he plays Adolf Eichmann in the new film "Operation Finale," out today.

Thank you so much, Sir Ben.

KINGSLEY: My pleasure.

(SOUNDBITE OF ALEXANDRE DESPLAT'S "MALKIN'S MEMORIES")

1 elite   

n.精英阶层；实力集团；adj.杰出的，卓越的

参考例句：

• The power elite inside the government is controlling foreign policy.政府内部的一群握有实权的精英控制着对外政策。
• We have a political elite in this country.我们国家有一群政治精英。

2 Nazi   

n.纳粹分子，adj.纳粹党的，纳粹的

参考例句：

• They declare the Nazi regime overthrown and sue for peace.他们宣布纳粹政权已被推翻，并出面求和。
• Nazi closes those war criminals inside their concentration camp.纳粹把那些战犯关在他们的集中营里。

3 holocaust   

n.大破坏；大屠杀

参考例句：

• The Auschwitz concentration camp always remind the world of the holocaust.奥辛威茨集中营总是让世人想起大屠杀。
• Ahmadinejad is denying the holocaust because he's as brutal as Hitler was.内贾德否认大屠杀，因为他像希特勒一样残忍。

4 portrayed   

v.画像( portray的过去式和过去分词 )；描述；描绘；描画

参考例句：

• Throughout the trial, he portrayed himself as the victim. 在审讯过程中，他始终把自己说成是受害者。
• The author portrayed his father as a vicious drunkard. 作者把他父亲描绘成一个可恶的酒鬼。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

5 portray   

v.描写，描述；画(人物、景象等)

参考例句：

• It is difficult to portray feelings in words.感情很难用言语来描写。
• Can you portray the best and worst aspects of this job?您能描述一下这份工作最好与最坏的方面吗？

6 ideology   

n.意识形态，(政治或社会的)思想意识

参考例句：

• The ideology has great influence in the world.这种思想体系在世界上有很大的影响。
• The ideal is to strike a medium between ideology and inspiration.我的理想是在意识思想和灵感鼓动之间找到一个折衷。

7 silhouette   

n.黑色半身侧面影，影子，轮廓；v.描绘成侧面影，照出影子来，仅仅显出轮廓

参考例句：

• I could see its black silhouette against the evening sky.我能看到夜幕下它黑色的轮廓。
• I could see the silhouette of the woman in the pickup.我可以见到小卡车的女人黑色半身侧面影。

8 accusation   

n.控告，指责，谴责

参考例句：

• I was furious at his making such an accusation.我对他的这种责备非常气愤。
• She knew that no one would believe her accusation.她知道没人会相信她的指控。

9 reverberating   

回响，回荡( reverberate的现在分词 )； 使反响，使回荡，使反射

参考例句：

• The words are still ringing [reverberating] in one's ears. 言犹在耳。
• I heard a voice reverberating: "Crawl out! I give you liberty!" 我听到一个声音在回荡：“爬出来吧，我给你自由！”

10 remarkably   

ad.不同寻常地，相当地

参考例句：

• I thought she was remarkably restrained in the circumstances. 我认为她在那种情况下非常克制。
• He made a remarkably swift recovery. 他康复得相当快。

11 trite   

adj.陈腐的

参考例句：

• The movie is teeming with obvious and trite ideas.这部电影充斥着平铺直叙的陈腐观点。
• Yesterday,in the restaurant,Lorraine had seemed trite,blurred,worn away.昨天在饭店里，洛兰显得庸俗、堕落、衰老了。

12 annihilate   

v.使无效；毁灭；取消

参考例句：

• Archer crumpled up the yellow sheet as if the gesture could annihilate the news it contained.阿切尔把这张黄纸揉皱，好象用这个动作就会抹掉里面的消息似的。
• We should bear in mind that we have to annihilate the enemy.我们要把歼敌的重任时刻记在心上。

13 villain   

n.反派演员，反面人物；恶棍；问题的起因

参考例句：

• He was cast as the villain in the play.他在戏里扮演反面角色。
• The man who played the villain acted very well.扮演恶棍的那个男演员演得很好。

14 extermination   

n.消灭，根绝

参考例句：

• All door and window is sealed for the extermination of mosquito. 为了消灭蚊子，所有的门窗都被封闭起来了。 来自辞典例句
• In doing so they were saved from extermination. 这样一来却使它们免于绝灭。 来自辞典例句

15 tragically   

adv. 悲剧地，悲惨地

参考例句：

• Their daughter was tragically killed in a road accident. 他们的女儿不幸死于车祸。
• Her father died tragically in a car crash. 她父亲在一场车祸中惨死。

16 minimal   

adj.尽可能少的，最小的

参考例句：

• They referred to this kind of art as minimal art.他们把这种艺术叫微型艺术。
• I stayed with friends, so my expenses were minimal.我住在朋友家，所以我的花费很小。

17 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

18 mandate   

n.托管地；命令，指示

参考例句：

• The President had a clear mandate to end the war.总统得到明确的授权结束那场战争。
• The General Election gave him no such mandate.大选并未授予他这种权力。

19 survivors   

幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The survivors were adrift in a lifeboat for six days. 幸存者在救生艇上漂流了六天。
• survivors clinging to a raft 紧紧抓住救生筏的幸存者

20 dedicated   

adj.一心一意的；献身的；热诚的

参考例句：

• He dedicated his life to the cause of education.他献身于教育事业。
• His whole energies are dedicated to improve the design.他的全部精力都放在改进这项设计上了。