VOA标准英语2010年-Girl's Ghost Helps Solve Murder in 'Th

"My name is Salmon¹, like the fish … first name, Susie. I was 14 years old when I was murdered on December 6, 1973."

Susie Salmon seems like a typical teenager on the brink² of a life filled with so many experiences like the blush of first love.

But fate has a different plan for her. On the way home from school she takes a short cut through a barley³ field where she is startled by a neighbor, Mr. Harvey.

It will be her last encounter on this Earth. Caught in some in-between place, Susie's spirit watches as her family copes with their loss and her murderer goes on with his life. The title comes from one of her thoughts during this time: "These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections - sometimes tenuous⁴, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent - that happened after I was gone."

Dreamworks
Saoirse Ronan as Susie Salmon in The Lovely Bones

Saoirse Ronan stars as Susie Salmon. The Irish actress, now 16 years old, first gained international acclaim⁵ for her performance in the 2007 drama Atonement.

"I have never felt so much responsibility with a character as I have with The Lovely Bones," Ronan says.

She explains that not only is her character seen or heard in just about every scene of the film, but also there was the original novel's worldwide legion of fans to consider.

"More than anything else I was just worried that I wasn't portraying⁶ her to her full potential," explains Ronan. "I think it's important for everyone that Susie is the way she should be. Of course, people are going to have different ideas of what she should be like … the readers, really. It was something that was always on my mind."

Dreamworks
Stanley Tucci as murderer, George Harvey in scene from The Lovely Bones

American actor Stanley Tucci co-stars as the murderer: a mundane⁷ character almost invisible to his neighbors.

"The more real he is and the more subtle he is then the more terrifying he is," says Tucci. "The more banal⁸ he is, the more terrifying he is. There is no doubt and I'll say without question that it was the most difficult thing I've ever done as an actor."

Dreamworks
Director Peter Jackson on the set of the movie

Peter Jackson directs and is also the co-writer of the film script, which he admits is no substitute for the vastly more detailed⁹ novel by Alice Seybold.

"To me, to adapt a book is not a question of producing a carbon copy of the book," he notes. "It is a personal impression that Philippa Boyens, Fran Walsh and myself - the three of us wrote the screenplay. We read the book; we responded to aspects of the book, especially emotional themes and things it had to say about the afterlife … that aspect of it, which is very personal to anybody. That's what we responded to. So to me, no adaptation can ever be perfect. It is impossible. You don't make a movie for the fans of the book. You just can not do that."

Most of those readers interpret Susie's spirit observing events from an afterlife … a heaven, if you will; but Jackson insists it is not that simple.

"Certainly we did not want to make a film that casts judgment¹⁰ on people's religious beliefs," Jackson says. "That wasn't at all the motivation for making the movie. What we do in the movie is [have] the scene at the end with the golden light there which I shot in a deliberately¹¹ clichéd, recognizable way that people get the idea heaven is there. That is, indeed, the goal, which Susie has: to get out of this weird¹², trapped place that she is and to actually move on. That golden light represents where she and everyone else moves on to, so the idea is you can put whatever you choose into that golden light. If you are religious then obviously that is what you put in there. If you are not religious, you can imagine something else. And if you don't believe there is anything there at all then probably it is not the movie you should go see, I guess."

"I wasn't gone. I was alive in my own perfect world, but in my heart I knew it wasn't perfect. My murderer still haunted me."

The Lovely Bones also features Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz as Susie's bereaved¹³ parents. Rose McIver is her younger sister, who uncovers the truth about Susie's fate; and Susan Sarandon plays their flamboyant¹⁴ grandmother. The film's Earthly locations were shot in the US state of Pennsylvania; director Jackson used his native New Zealand for the ethereal scenes of the world beyond.

1 salmon   

n.鲑，大马哈鱼，橙红色的

参考例句：

• We saw a salmon jumping in the waterfall there.我们看见一条大马哈鱼在那边瀑布中跳跃。
• Do you have any fresh salmon in at the moment?现在有新鲜大马哈鱼卖吗？

2 brink   

n.(悬崖、河流等的)边缘，边沿

参考例句：

• The tree grew on the brink of the cliff.那棵树生长在峭壁的边缘。
• The two countries were poised on the brink of war.这两个国家处于交战的边缘。

3 barley   

n.大麦，大麦粒

参考例句：

• They looked out across the fields of waving barley.他们朝田里望去,只见大麦随风摇摆。
• He cropped several acres with barley.他种了几英亩大麦。

4 tenuous   

adj.细薄的，稀薄的，空洞的

参考例句：

• He has a rather tenuous grasp of reality.他对现实认识很肤浅。
• The air ten miles above the earth is very tenuous.距离地面十公里的空气十分稀薄。

5 acclaim   

v.向…欢呼，公认；n.欢呼，喝彩，称赞

参考例句：

• He was welcomed with great acclaim.他受到十分热烈的欢迎。
• His achievements earned him the acclaim of the scientific community.他的成就赢得了科学界的赞誉。

6 portraying   

v.画像( portray的现在分词 )；描述；描绘；描画

参考例句：

• The artist has succeeded in portraying my father to the life. 那位画家把我的父亲画得惟妙惟肖。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Ding Ling was good at portraying figures through careful and refined description of human psychology. 《莎菲女士的日记》是丁玲的成名作，曾引起强烈的社会反响。 来自汉英文学 - 中国现代小说

7 mundane   

adj.平凡的；尘世的；宇宙的

参考例句：

• I hope I can get an interesting job and not something mundane.我希望我可以得到的是一份有趣的工作，而不是一份平凡无奇的。
• I find it humorous sometimes that even the most mundane occurrences can have an impact on our awareness.我发现生活有时挺诙谐的，即使是最平凡的事情也能影响我们的感知。

8 banal   

adj.陈腐的，平庸的

参考例句：

• Making banal remarks was one of his bad habits.他的坏习惯之一就是喜欢说些陈词滥调。
• The allegations ranged from the banal to the bizarre.从平淡无奇到离奇百怪的各种说法都有。

9 detailed   

adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的

参考例句：

• He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
• A detailed list of our publications is available on request.我们的出版物有一份详细的目录备索。

10 judgment   

n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见

参考例句：

• The chairman flatters himself on his judgment of people.主席自认为他审视人比别人高明。
• He's a man of excellent judgment.他眼力过人。

11 deliberately   

adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地

参考例句：

• The girl gave the show away deliberately.女孩故意泄露秘密。
• They deliberately shifted off the argument.他们故意回避这个论点。

12 weird   

adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的

参考例句：

• From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来，他好像有点怪。
• His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。

13 bereaved   

adj.刚刚丧失亲人的v.使失去（希望、生命等）( bereave的过去式和过去分词)；（尤指死亡）使丧失（亲人、朋友等）；使孤寂；抢走（财物）

参考例句：

• The ceremony was an ordeal for those who had been recently bereaved. 这个仪式对于那些新近丧失亲友的人来说是一种折磨。
• an organization offering counselling for the bereaved 为死者亲友提供辅导的组织

14 flamboyant   

adj.火焰般的，华丽的，炫耀的

参考例句：

• His clothes were rather flamboyant for such a serious occasion.他的衣着在这种严肃场合太浮夸了。
• The King's flamboyant lifestyle is well known.国王的奢华生活方式是人尽皆知的。