Comedian Foxx Praised for Oscar Worthy Performance in Ray

By Alan Silverman
Funny man Jamie Foxx turns in a serious performance that could earn him an Oscar nomination¹, starring in a film biography of musical genius Ray Charles. Alan Silverman has a look at Ray.
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The sounds of Ray Charles punctuated² the last half of the twentieth century and turned on the world to soul music. Ray tells his story: how, as boy growing up in rural Florida Ray Charles Robinson loses his sight to glaucoma.
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In a world of touch and sound, Ray begins to hear and feel music: from the country songs on the radio to the nearby honky tonk saloon where the old piano man lets the young boy try his hands on the keyboard.
Leaving Florida as a young man, Ray finds work in blues³ clubs, eventually gets "discovered" and starts making records.
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The rest, as they say, is history; but to tell his story, Jamie Foxx had to get the approval of Ray Charles himself. Foxx describes their first meeting, about two years ago, at Charles' recording⁴ studio in Los Angeles.
"Ray came in and grabbed my hands and says 'Yes, these are strong fingers.' Then we went straight to the piano. He said 'If you can play the blues, you can do anything.' So we started singing the blues back and forth⁵ to each other. So he's playing this phrase and I hit the wrong note and he said 'Why would you hit that? Why would you do that, man? Why?.' I said 'I don't know.' He said 'It's right underneath⁶ your fingers. The notes are right underneath your fingers.' So I used that as a metaphor⁷ for the whole movie: that life is notes underneath our fingers. We just have to take the time to find out which notes to play in order to get our music out there."
A classically trained pianist, Foxx says it was important to the portrayal⁸ that he was not just acting⁹ when he sat down to the piano.
"You've seen biographical pictures about music before and it looks hokey; so we would get in the mindset that we actually have a gig tomorrow. I would be in the room all night for hours getting ready for this gig that I'm playing. We're doing 'Let The Good Times Roll' and I wanted to make sure we had every nuance¹⁰ of the performance down. We had a real band from New Orleans that we would even be playing with between takes. To nail it was fun [and] to hear people who were working at the theater when Ray Charles was there say "that was really how it went" . . . to see them sit down and really get caught up in the concert once you get that feeling . . . the music makes you want to sing it. Those are great songs."
But Foxx does not sing them; he skillfully lip-syncs to the actual vintage Ray Charles studio sessions and concert recordings¹¹.
"Well, I had to have Ray Charles singing. These are masterpieces," explains director Taylor Hackford, who worked with Charles for 15 years to bring the story to the screen, says there was never a question about using anything but the real music.
"I was trying to make a different kind of musical: not a singing, dancing musical, but a piece that talks about life impacting art. The fact is that I believe Ray Charles's life and the things he went through in his life are the reasons that he was such a genius. I asked him "Ray, do you think you would be where you are today and the artist you are today if you hadn't gone blind?" He said "That's a really good question and I don't know. Probably not." So there are 35 songs in this film and you have to tell the story with Ray Charles's music. That's who the man was. That's what he defined himself as."
It is also a story of a demanding perfectionist, an unfaithful husband and a heroin¹² addict¹³; and Hackford says those darker sides also had to be in the film.
"The great gift Ray Charles gave to me was he said 'Taylor, I'm no angel and I don't have to be depicted¹⁴ that way. Just tell the truth.' “
Ray Charles died in June of 2004, just as production on the film was nearly finished; and Jamie Foxx believes he was pleased by how it came out.
"He was walking into the sunset: this movie took 15 years to get it together [and] he viewed the movie in his own way before he passed. He got his kids together before he passed. He did all the different things that we would want to do if we were leaving. . . he did all of those things in the right way."
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Ray also features Kerry Washington as Bea, the woman he married; and Regina King plays Margie Hendrix, lead singer of the Raelets and his longtime lover on the road.
Alan Silverman for the Voice Of America in Hollywood.

注释：
punctuate 强调
glaucoma 青光眼
underneath 在……下面
portrayal 描写，刻画
biographical 传记的
nuance 细微差别
lip-syncs 对口型
vintage 早期的，最佳的
masterpiece 杰作

1 nomination   

n.提名，任命，提名权

参考例句：

• John is favourite to get the nomination for club president.约翰最有希望被提名为俱乐部主席。
• Few people pronounced for his nomination.很少人表示赞成他的提名。

2 punctuated   

v.（在文字中）加标点符号，加标点( punctuate的过去式和过去分词 )；不时打断某事物

参考例句：

• Her speech was punctuated by bursts of applause. 她的讲演不时被阵阵掌声打断。
• The audience punctuated his speech by outbursts of applause. 听众不时以阵阵掌声打断他的讲话。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 blues   

n.抑郁，沮丧；布鲁斯音乐

参考例句：

• She was in the back of a smoky bar singing the blues.她在烟雾弥漫的酒吧深处唱着布鲁斯歌曲。
• He was in the blues on account of his failure in business.他因事业失败而意志消沉。

4 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

5 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

6 underneath   

adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面

参考例句：

• 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。

7 metaphor   

n.隐喻，暗喻

参考例句：

• Using metaphor,we say that computers have senses and a memory.打个比方，我们可以说计算机有感觉和记忆力。
• In poetry the rose is often a metaphor for love.玫瑰在诗中通常作为爱的象征。

8 portrayal   

n.饰演；描画

参考例句：

• 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。

9 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• 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。

10 nuance   

n.(意义、意见、颜色)细微差别

参考例句：

• These users will easily learn each nuance of the applications they use.这些用户会很快了解他们所使用程序的每一细微差别。
• I wish I hadn't become so conscious of every little nuance.我希望我不要变得这样去思索一切琐碎之事。

11 recordings   

n.记录( recording的名词复数 )；录音；录像；唱片

参考例句：

• a boxed set of original recordings 一套盒装原声录音带
• old jazz recordings reissued on CD 以激光唱片重新发行的老爵士乐

12 heroin   

n.海洛因

参考例句：

• Customs have made their biggest ever seizure of heroin.海关查获了有史以来最大的一批海洛因。
• Heroin has been smuggled out by sea.海洛因已从海上偷运出境。

13 addict   

v.使沉溺；使上瘾；n.沉溺于不良嗜好的人

参考例句：

• He became gambling addict,and lost all his possessions.他习染上了赌博，最终输掉了全部家产。
• He assisted a drug addict to escape from drug but failed firstly.一开始他帮助一个吸毒者戒毒但失败了。

14 depicted   

描绘，描画( depict的过去式和过去分词 )； 描述

参考例句：

• Other animals were depicted on the periphery of the group. 其他动物在群像的外围加以修饰。
• They depicted the thrilling situation to us in great detail. 他们向我们详细地描述了那激动人心的场面。