2006年VOA标准英语-Tribeca Film Festival Debuts with 9/11 Mov

By Barbara Schoetzau
New York
26 April 2006

The Fifth annual Tribeca Film Festival has opened in New York. For the first time, the massive festival will show films

dealing¹ with the event that led to its creation: the September 11, 2001 attacks.

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Tribeca Film Festival  
  

Actor Robert DeNiro and two associates started the film festival just months after the attacks to reinvigorate the Tribeca

neighborhood, just north of the World Trade Center. Mr. De Niro was born nearby and has business interests, including a

restaurant, in the area.

The Festival opened Tuesday evening with United 93, a film that recounts the events aboard the airplane that crashed into a

Pennsylvania field after passengers prevented the hijackers from hitting their target. It has been a controversial choice,

but Robert De Niro thinks it was also an obvious choice."

"Flight 93, if it was not opening the festival, it would seem strange," he said. "You cannot not be touched by it. It is a

very, very good movie and very direct, simple. I think it is important to see because it is kind of a playback of what

happened."

United 93   
  
The topic is still so sensitive that the debut² of United 93 provoked front page stories in New York newspapers. Several other

films at the festival also focus on the events of 9/11.

One, The Saint of 9/11, is a documentary about Father Mychal Judge, the chaplain of the New York City Fire Department, who

died in the collapse³ of one of the towers. Another documentary, Heart of Steel, tells the story of the volunteers who banded

together immediately after the attack to search for survivors⁴ and help clear the wreckage⁵.

Festival co-founder Jane Rosenthal says it is time for filmmakers to deal with the subject.

"September 11th was the most photographed event in the world and I think that the media has shown the events and the stories

have come out over and over again," she said. "I think it is time. After a number of years artists digest it, whether of not

it is a novelist or a sculptor⁶ or filmmaker. I think it is very important to see a filmmaker's point of view. In terms of why

now? Why not now?"

In five years, Tribeca has since grown into a major film festival with films for every taste. There will be outdoor films,

movies for children, documentaries, foreign films, movies from major Hollywood studios and movies made by independent

filmmakers. Every year, the festival also celebrates old films that are important to the history of cinema.

This year the festival is boasting 764 screenings of more than 270 films of every genre⁷ from more than two dozen nations,

including China, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Sri Lanka and Turkey.

Executive director Peter Scarlett and his staff viewed 4,100 films before narrowing down to 270. But he says they all have a

common thread.

"We use the criteria⁸ does the film change my life in any way? Does it change the way I look at the world? Does it amuse me or

give me goose bumps or does it move me? Is it something I have not seen before," he said. "That is what the 270 films in this

program have in common this year."

The festival has become a community event, as was intended, with street parties and family festivities throughout its

two-week run.

Actor-director Ed Burns, a Tribeca resident, is debuting⁹ his latest film, The Groomsman. He says the film festival is a boon¹⁰

to the community and to independent filmmakers.

"In speaking with other New York-based filmmakers we all love that fact that we now have our film festival," he said. "As a

resident of Tribeca from before the film festival, I have seen over the course of five years what the festival has meant to

my neighborhood, especially the years immediately following 9/11. There was a lot of talk about 'people are going to start to

move out of Tribeca, restaurants were going to close, retail¹¹ shops were going to be vacant.' You walk around the neighborhood

now and you see that the opposite is true. There is construction on every corner. You cannot get a reservation at

restaurants. A big part of that has to do with this festival."

Much of the film festival's emphasis is on documentaries and films that deal with serious topics. But it is the red-carpet

appearance of famous movie stars that has fans lining¹² the streets. This year fans are sure to be on the lookout¹³ for Tom

Cruise and John Travolta, who will attend the openings of their newest movies.

 

1 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。

2 debut   

n.首次演出，初次露面

参考例句：

• That same year he made his Broadway debut, playing a suave radio journalist.在那同一年里，他初次在百老汇登台，扮演一个温文而雅的电台记者。
• The actress made her debut in the new comedy.这位演员在那出新喜剧中首次登台演出。

3 collapse   

vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做了一次彻底的调查分析。

4 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

5 wreckage   

n.（失事飞机等的）残骸，破坏，毁坏

参考例句：

• They hauled him clear of the wreckage.他们把他从形骸中拖出来。
• New states were born out of the wreckage of old colonial empires.新生国家从老殖民帝国的废墟中诞生。

6 sculptor   

n.雕刻家，雕刻家

参考例句：

• A sculptor forms her material.雕塑家把材料塑造成雕塑品。
• The sculptor rounded the clay into a sphere.那位雕塑家把黏土做成了一个球状。

7 genre   

n.(文学、艺术等的)类型，体裁，风格

参考例句：

• My favorite music genre is blues.我最喜欢的音乐种类是布鲁斯音乐。
• Superficially,this Shakespeare's work seems to fit into the same genre.从表面上看， 莎士比亚的这个剧本似乎属于同一类型。

8 criteria   

n.标准

参考例句：

• The main criterion is value for money.主要的标准是钱要用得划算。
• There are strict criteria for inclusion in the competition.参赛的标准很严格。

9 debuting   

初次表演，初次登台（debut的现在分词形式）

参考例句：

• New debuting analog thermostat welding machine, easy to operate. 新登场模拟式调温电焊台，操作简单。
• With the new tablet device that is debuting next week, Apple Inc. 苹果公司的新型平板电脑将于下周发布。

10 boon   

n.恩赐，恩物，恩惠

参考例句：

• A car is a real boon when you live in the country.在郊外居住，有辆汽车确实极为方便。
• These machines have proved a real boon to disabled people.事实证明这些机器让残疾人受益匪浅。

11 retail   

v./n.零售；adv.以零售价格

参考例句：

• In this shop they retail tobacco and sweets.这家铺子零售香烟和糖果。
• These shoes retail at 10 yuan a pair.这些鞋子零卖10元一双。

12 lining   

n.衬里，衬料

参考例句：

• The lining of my coat is torn.我的外套衬里破了。
• Moss makes an attractive lining to wire baskets.用苔藓垫在铁丝篮里很漂亮。

13 lookout   

n.注意，前途，瞭望台

参考例句：

• You can see everything around from the lookout.从了望台上你可以看清周围的一切。
• It's a bad lookout for the company if interest rates don't come down.如果利率降不下来，公司的前景可就不妙了。