VOA标准英语2010年-Everything Is Not What It Seems on 'Sh

A U.S. Marshal investigates a crime at an isolated¹ asylum² for the criminally insane; but not everything is what it seems to be at first in "Shutter⁴ Island," the new film from acclaimed⁵ director Martin Scorcese. Leonardo DiCaprio and Sir Ben Kingsley co-star in the tense psychological thriller⁶ based on a novel by Dennis Lehane.

Alan Silverman | Hollywood 27 February 2010

Leonardo DiCaprio in the film 'Shutter Island,' directed by Martin Scorcese

The time is 1954. The place is a fog-shrouded, desolate⁷ island off the coast of Massachusetts. There, in buildings dating back more than a century, psychiatrists⁹ attempt to treat …and possibly heal …a dangerous assortment¹⁰ of patients.

Marshal Teddy Daniels enters this shadowy world because one of the patients (although he keeps calling them 'prisoners') has mysteriously vanished.

The more he investigates, the deeper the mystery gets and the harder it becomes to separate the sane³ from the insane... or the victims from the perpetrators.

Since the start of his career, director Martin Scorcese has explored people and violence with films like "Taxi Driver," "Raging Bull," "Goodfellas" and the Oscar-winning "The Departed."  With "Shutter Island" Scorcese navigates¹¹ the shadowy, occasionally invisible line between reality and imagination:

"It was revealed to be many different realities and, without giving away too much, there are certainly different levels with the characters," Scorcese said. "The doctor appears one way, in scene four it's another way, in scene 10 it's something else and it is something that intrigued¹² me a great deal so I sort of gave myself to the material along with the actors. I didn't quite know where we would be at any given time and I think we discovered this as we went along."

"This film depends on you not knowing where you are at in any given situation," said Leonardo DiCaprio.

He said even though they had all read the script, he and the rest of the cast were often kept off-balance while making the film because of those multiple realities.

"It was like a giant jigsaw¹³ puzzle and the more we started to unearth¹⁴ and peel back the onion of who this guy was and what happened to him in the past and trying to truly understand the reason why he would be so obsessed¹⁵ with a specific case …once we start to uncover these things about him we realized that once we explain one set of circumstances we needed to go even further with another set of circumstances," he continued.  "For one thing to be believable we needed to push another story line even further. We realized we had to push certain boundaries and there were a few weeks there that were, I have to say, some of the most hard-core filming experiences I have ever had and it was pretty intense."

Mark Ruffalo plays Teddy's partner in the investigation¹⁶ and Sir Ben Kingsley is Dr. Cawley, the psychiatrist⁸ who runs the hospital. Kingsley was fascinated by how the story explores mental health care from half-a-century ago when techniques now viewed as barbaric were commonplace.

"What did emerge was an extraordinary level of tenderness between the characters," he said. "Even though, as Leo pointed¹⁷ out, it looks like a thriller, the glue that holds it together is varying levels of tenderness: for your wife, for your child, for your patient, for your friend."

Mixed in are harrowing memories shared by a generation of World War II veterans, like DiCaprio's character, as well as the Cold War tensions affecting so many lives in the 1950s. DiCaprio admits that talking about the film is difficult because revealing too much could spoil surprises that await the audience.

"This film is very much a thriller in a lot of ways with a surprise ending and with terrifying elements to it and very much a genre¹⁸ piece; but at the end of the day it is what Martin Scorcese does best and that is portraying¹⁹ something about humanity and human nature and who we are as people," he said. "That is what makes it stand out and different than just being a normal genre piece …to me, anyway."

The "Shutter Island" cast also features Michelle Williams as the Marshal's tragic²⁰ wife. Emily Mortimer and Patricia Clarkson are characters he encounters at the hospital trying to unravel²¹ the mystery (before it unravels²² him); and screen veteran Max Von Sydow plays a brilliant psychiatrist whose own past may harbor dark secrets.
 

1 isolated   

adj.与世隔绝的

参考例句：

• His bad behaviour was just an isolated incident. 他的不良行为只是个别事件。
• Patients with the disease should be isolated. 这种病的患者应予以隔离。

2 asylum   

n.避难所，庇护所，避难

参考例句：

• The people ask for political asylum.人们请求政治避难。
• Having sought asylum in the West for many years,they were eventually granted it.他们最终获得了在西方寻求多年的避难权。

3 sane   

adj.心智健全的，神志清醒的，明智的，稳健的

参考例句：

• He was sane at the time of the murder.在凶杀案发生时他的神志是清醒的。
• He is a very sane person.他是一个很有头脑的人。

4 shutter   

n.百叶窗；(照相机)快门；关闭装置

参考例句：

• The camera has a shutter speed of one-sixtieth of a second.这架照像机的快门速度达六十分之一秒。
• The shutter rattled in the wind.百叶窗在风中发出嘎嘎声。

5 acclaimed   

adj.受人欢迎的

参考例句：

• They acclaimed him as the best writer of the year. 他们称赞他为当年的最佳作者。
• Confuscius is acclaimed as a great thinker. 孔子被赞誉为伟大的思想家。

6 thriller   

n.惊险片，恐怖片

参考例句：

• He began by writing a thriller.That book sold a million copies.他是写惊险小说起家的。那本书卖了一百万册。
• I always take a thriller to read on the train.我乘火车时，总带一本惊险小说看。

7 desolate   

adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂

参考例句：

• The city was burned into a desolate waste.那座城市被烧成一片废墟。
• We all felt absolutely desolate when she left.她走后，我们都觉得万分孤寂。

8 psychiatrist   

n.精神病专家；精神病医师

参考例句：

• He went to a psychiatrist about his compulsive gambling.他去看精神科医生治疗不能自拔的赌瘾。
• The psychiatrist corrected him gently.精神病医师彬彬有礼地纠正他。

9 psychiatrists   

n.精神病专家，精神病医生( psychiatrist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• They are psychiatrists in good standing. 他们是合格的精神病医生。 来自辞典例句
• Some psychiatrists have patients who grow almost alarmed at how congenial they suddenly feel. 有些精神分析学家发现，他们的某些病人在突然感到惬意的时候几乎会兴奋起来。 来自名作英译部分

10 assortment   

n.分类，各色俱备之物，聚集

参考例句：

• This shop has a good assortment of goods to choose from.该店各色货物俱全，任君选择。
• She was wearing an odd assortment of clothes.她穿着奇装异服。

11 navigates   

v.给（船舶、飞机等）引航，导航( navigate的第三人称单数 )；（从海上、空中等）横越；横渡；飞跃

参考例句：

• Dolpins also navigates by some kind of echo system. 原来海豚也是借助某种回声系统寻向的。 来自辞典例句
• Navigates in menus, lists, choice screens and into edited texts. 可以操纵菜单、列表、屏幕选项和进入编辑文本。 来自互联网

12 intrigued   

adj.好奇的，被迷住了的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的过去式)；激起…的兴趣或好奇心；“intrigue”的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• You've really intrigued me—tell me more! 你说的真有意思—再给我讲一些吧！
• He was intrigued by her story. 他被她的故事迷住了。

13 jigsaw   

n.缕花锯，竖锯，拼图游戏；vt.用竖锯锯，使互相交错搭接

参考例句：

• A jigsaw puzzle can keep me absorbed for hours.一副拼图就能让我沉醉几个小时。
• Tom likes to work on jigsaw puzzles,too.汤姆也喜欢玩拼图游戏。

14 unearth   

v.发掘，掘出，从洞中赶出

参考例句：

• Most of the unearth relics remain intact.大多数出土文物仍保持完整无损。
• More human remains have been unearthed in the north.北部又挖掘出了更多的人体遗骸。

15 obsessed   

adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的

参考例句：

• He's obsessed by computers. 他迷上了电脑。
• The fear of death obsessed him throughout his old life. 他晚年一直受着死亡恐惧的困扰。

16 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。

17 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

18 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。

19 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

20 tragic   

adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的

参考例句：

• The effect of the pollution on the beaches is absolutely tragic.污染海滩后果可悲。
• Charles was a man doomed to tragic issues.查理是个注定不得善终的人。

21 unravel   

v.弄清楚（秘密）；拆开，解开，松开

参考例句：

• He was good with his hands and could unravel a knot or untangle yarn that others wouldn't even attempt.他的手很灵巧，其他人甚至都不敢尝试的一些难解的绳结或缠在一起的纱线，他都能解开。
• This is the attitude that led him to unravel a mystery that long puzzled Chinese historians.正是这种态度使他解决了长期以来使中国历史学家们大惑不解的谜。

22 unravels   

解开，拆散，散开( unravel的第三人称单数 )； 阐明； 澄清； 弄清楚

参考例句：

• Khrushchev's Cold War unravels the tangled contradictions in his leadership of the Communist Party. 赫鲁晓夫的冷战》这本书揭示出赫鲁晓夫作为共产党的领袖，面临着一些棘手的问题。