英语 英语 日语 日语 韩语 韩语 法语 法语 德语 德语 西班牙语 西班牙语 意大利语 意大利语 阿拉伯语 阿拉伯语 葡萄牙语 葡萄牙语 越南语 越南语 俄语 俄语 芬兰语 芬兰语 泰语 泰语 泰语 丹麦语 泰语 对外汉语

新视野大学英语 读写教程第四册 unit2-a

时间:2005-12-13 16:00来源:互联网 提供网友:1234567890   字体: [ ]
特别声明:本栏目内容均从网络收集或者网友提供,供仅参考试用,我们无法保证内容完整和正确。如果资料损害了您的权益,请与站长联系,我们将及时删除并致以歉意。
    (单词翻译:双击或拖选)

  Charlie Chaplin
He was born in a poor area of south London. He wore his mother's old red stockings cut down for ankle socks. His mother was temporarily declared mad. Dickens might have created Charlie Chaplin's childhood. But only Charle Chaplin could have created the great comic character of " the Tramp ", the little man in rags who gave his creator permanent fame.
Other countries — France, Italy, Spain, even Japan and Korea — have provided more applause (and profit) where Chaplin is concerned than the land of his birth. Chaplin quit Britain for good in 1913 when he journeyed to America with a group of performers to do his comedy act on the stage where talent scouts1 recruited him to work for Mack Sennett, the king of Hollywood comedy films.
Sad to say, many English people in the 1920's and 1930's thought Chaplin's Tramp a bit, well, " crude ". Certainly middle-class audiences did; the working-class audiences were more likely to clap for a character who revolted against authority, using his wicked little cane2 to trip it up, or aiming the heel of his boot for a well-placed kick at its broad rear. All the same, Chaplin's comic beggar didn't seem all that English or even working class. English tramps didn't sport tiny moustaches, huge pants or tail coats: European leaders and Italian waiters wore things like that. Then again, the Tramp's quick eye for a pretty girl had a coarse way about it that was considered, well, not quite nice by English audiences — that's how foreigners behaved, wasn't it? But for over half of his screen career, Chaplin had no screen voice to confirm his British nationality.
Indeed, it was a headache for Chaplin when he could no longer resist the talking movies and had to find "the right voice" for his Tramp. He postponed3 that day as long as possible: in Modern Times in 1936, the first film in which he was heard as a singing waiter, he made up a nonsense language which sounded like no known nationality. He later said he imagined the Tramp to be a college-educated gentleman who'd come down in the world. But if he'd been able to speak with an educated accent in those early short comedy movies, it's doubtful if he would have achieved world fame. And the English would have been sure to find it "odd". No one was certain whether Chaplin did it on purpose but this helped to bring about his huge success.
He was an immensely talented man, determined4 to a degree unusual even in the ranks of Hollywood stars. His huge fame gave him the freedom — and, more importantly, the money — to be his own master. He already had the urge to explore and extend a talent he discovered in himself as he went along. "It can't be me. Is that possible? How extraordinary," is how he greeted the first sight of himself as the Tramp on the screen.
But that shock roused his imagination. Chaplin didn't have his jokes written into a script in advance; he was the kind of comic who used his physical senses to invent his art as he went along. Lifeless objects especially helped Chaplin make "contact" with himself as an artist. He turned them into other kinds of objects. Thus, a broken alarm clock in the movie The Pawnbroker5 became a "sick" patient undergoing surgery; boots were boiled in his film The Gold Rush and their soles eaten with salt and pepper like prime cuts of fish (the nails being removed like fish bones). This physical transformation6, plus the skill with which he executed it again and again, are surely the secrets of Chaplin's great comedy.
He also had a deep need to be loved — and a corresponding fear of being betrayed. The two were hard to combine and sometimes — as in his early marriages — the collision between them resulted in disaster. Yet even this painfully-bought self-knowledge found its way into his comic creations. The Tramp never loses his faith in the flower girl who'll be waiting to walk into the sunset with him; while the other side of Chaplin makes Monsieur Verdoux, the French wife killer7, into a symbol of hatred8 for women.
It's a relief to know that life eventually gave Charlie Chaplin the stable happiness it had earlier denied him. In Oona O'Neill Chaplin, he found a partner whose stability and affection spanned the 37 years age difference between them that had seemed so threatening that when the official who was marrying them in 1942, turned to the beautiful girl of 17 who'd given notice of their wedding date and said, "And where is the young man?" — Chaplin, then 54, had cautiously waited outside. As Oona herself was the child of a large family with its own problems, she was well-prepared for the battle that Chaplin's life became as unfounded rumors9 of Marxist sympathies surrounded them both — and, later on, she was the center of rest in the quarrels that Chaplin sometimes sparked in their own large family of talented children.
Chaplin died on Christmas Day 1977. A few months later, a couple of almost comic body-thieves stole his body from the family burial chamber10 and held it for money: the police recovered it with more efficiency than Mack Sennett's clumsy Keystone Cops would have done. But one can't help feeling Chaplin would have regarded this strange incident as a fitting memorial — his way of having the last laugh on a world to which he had given so many.
(Words: 909)


点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 scouts e6d47327278af4317aaf05d42afdbe25     
侦察员[机,舰]( scout的名词复数 ); 童子军; 搜索; 童子军成员
参考例句:
  • to join the Scouts 参加童子军
  • The scouts paired off and began to patrol the area. 巡逻人员两个一组,然后开始巡逻这个地区。
2 cane RsNzT     
n.手杖,细长的茎,藤条;v.以杖击,以藤编制的
参考例句:
  • This sugar cane is quite a sweet and juicy.这甘蔗既甜又多汁。
  • English schoolmasters used to cane the boys as a punishment.英国小学老师过去常用教鞭打男学生作为惩罚。
3 postponed 9dc016075e0da542aaa70e9f01bf4ab1     
vt.& vi.延期,缓办,(使)延迟vt.把…放在次要地位;[语]把…放在后面(或句尾)vi.(疟疾等)延缓发作(或复发)
参考例句:
  • The trial was postponed indefinitely. 审讯无限期延迟。
  • The game has already been postponed three times. 这场比赛已经三度延期了。
4 determined duszmP     
adj.坚定的;有决心的
参考例句:
  • 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。
5 pawnbroker SiAys     
n.典当商,当铺老板
参考例句:
  • He redeemed his watch from the pawnbroker's.他从当铺赎回手表。
  • She could get fifty dollars for those if she went to the pawnbroker's.要是她去当铺当了这些东西,她是可以筹出50块钱的。
6 transformation SnFwO     
n.变化;改造;转变
参考例句:
  • Going to college brought about a dramatic transformation in her outlook.上大学使她的观念发生了巨大的变化。
  • He was struggling to make the transformation from single man to responsible husband.他正在努力使自己由单身汉变为可靠的丈夫。
7 killer rpLziK     
n.杀人者,杀人犯,杀手,屠杀者
参考例句:
  • Heart attacks have become Britain's No.1 killer disease.心脏病已成为英国的头号致命疾病。
  • The bulk of the evidence points to him as her killer.大量证据证明是他杀死她的。
8 hatred T5Gyg     
n.憎恶,憎恨,仇恨
参考例句:
  • He looked at me with hatred in his eyes.他以憎恨的眼光望着我。
  • The old man was seized with burning hatred for the fascists.老人对法西斯主义者充满了仇恨。
9 rumors 2170bcd55c0e3844ecb4ef13fef29b01     
n.传闻( rumor的名词复数 );[古]名誉;咕哝;[古]喧嚷v.传闻( rumor的第三人称单数 );[古]名誉;咕哝;[古]喧嚷
参考例句:
  • Rumors have it that the school was burned down. 有谣言说学校给烧掉了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Rumors of a revolt were afloat. 叛变的谣言四起。 来自《简明英汉词典》
10 chamber wnky9     
n.房间,寝室;会议厅;议院;会所
参考例句:
  • For many,the dentist's surgery remains a torture chamber.对许多人来说,牙医的治疗室一直是间受刑室。
  • The chamber was ablaze with light.会议厅里灯火辉煌。
本文本内容来源于互联网抓取和网友提交,仅供参考,部分栏目没有内容,如果您有更合适的内容,欢迎点击提交分享给大家。
------分隔线----------------------------
顶一下
(33)
97.1%
踩一下
(1)
2.9%
最新评论 查看所有评论
发表评论 查看所有评论
请自觉遵守互联网相关的政策法规,严禁发布色情、暴力、反动的言论。
评价:
表情:
验证码:
听力搜索
推荐频道
论坛新贴