美国国家公共电台 NPR Two Ways Of Documenting Uncertainty: 'All This Panic' And 'God Knows Where I Am'

 

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

Two documentaries told in two very different ways. First, "All This Panic" takes a fly-on-the-wall approach with its teenage subjects - no narration¹. And then "God Knows Where I Am" teases out its story as if it were a mystery novel. Critic Bob Mondello sees parallels between the two films.

BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE²: Teenage sisters Dusty and Ginger³ and their buddy⁴ Lena begin "All This Panic" tooling around Brooklyn on their bikes while pondering the great questions of our age.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "ALL THIS PANIC")

UNIDENTIFIED GIRL #1: Do you think if you could, like, go back and start high school over knowing everything you know now about, like, high school, would you?

MONDELLO: Well, the great questions of their age maybe. These kids are figuring out boyfriends, weekends, lives, things in general. Ginger has artistic⁵ inclinations⁶.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "ALL THIS PANIC")

GINGER: I did a school play. And I really liked it. And I had fun. And I liked that you can use your emotions to control how someone else feels. It's almost like a superpower.

MONDELLO: Her best friend Lena has had a rough home life, from which she escapes by planning.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "ALL THIS PANIC")

LENA: For a long time, I thought I'd be a philosophy professor. And for a long time before that, I thought I'd be an actor/baker. And I would video chat with China.

MONDELLO: Lena also copes by being comparatively responsible, even rescuing her pals⁷, whether they want rescuing or not.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "ALL THIS PANIC")

UNIDENTIFIED GIRL #2: Don't touch my phone or call my parents ever again.

LENA: You were vomiting⁸.

UNIDENTIFIED GIRL #2: Who cares? Everyone vomits⁹. It's a party.

LENA: Not everyone vomits.

MONDELLO: Also responsible is Sage¹⁰, the one African-American girl in their circle, one of the few in their school, in fact. Sage has thought deeply about who she is and about how she's viewed.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "ALL THIS PANIC")

SAGE: There's just so many weird¹¹ things that come along with being, like, a teenage feminist¹² because the teenage body is so over-sexualized, a teenage female body especially. People want to see you, but they don't want to hear what you have to say.

MONDELLO: Married filmmakers Jenny Gage¹³ and Tom Betterton did want to hear what these girls had to say. They got close to them as Brooklyn neighbors and spent three years following them as they matured and began to separate from parents and to forge their own identities. The camera captures intimate moments with musing¹⁴, chattering¹⁵ young women who, as all this panic goes on, seem not so much consumed by panic as by motion, dancing in a club, running on a beach, hopping¹⁶ a subway or a cab, exploring trajectories¹⁷.

The first word spoken in "God Knows Where I Am" set a very different tone.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "GOD KNOWS WHERE I AM")

LORI SINGER: (As Linda Bishop¹⁸) Dear God, please save me. I'm trying, but I don't know what to do.

MONDELLO: Linda Bishop kept a journal of her final days, a journal that was found next to her body in a New Hampshire farmhouse¹⁹. And it said her death was the result of domestic abuse. How did she end up in that vacant house? The filmmakers start where the police did - with no information, just what they think may be a crime scene.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "GOD KNOWS WHERE I AM")

MATTHEW NELSON: There was a body in the room. There was a chair and two notebooks. Looked like whoever was deceased on the floor had been writing a journal. And I started reading those journals.

MONDELLO: We do too, in effect.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "GOD KNOWS WHERE I AM")

SINGER: (As Linda Bishop) Sunday, October 7, 8:15 a.m., Fenbrook (ph) Farm.

MONDELLO: Off-screen actress Lori Singer gives Linda a voice.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "GOD KNOWS WHERE I AM")

SINGER: (As Linda Bishop) Finally feel caught up on my sleep.

MONDELLO: It is her story, after all. And in her journals, she tells it beautifully.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "GOD KNOWS WHERE I AM")

SINGER: (As Linda Bishop) Nice view from this chair to the west.

MONDELLO: The images that accompany these words are still but hardly lifeless.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "GOD KNOWS WHERE I AM")

SINGER: (As Linda Bishop) A cardinal²⁰ and a chickadee on top of a lilac outside the window.

MONDELLO: The camera roves the grounds, painting a portrait of solitary²¹ quiet, visiting an apple tree that provided virtually the only sustenance²² Linda had for months.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "GOD KNOWS WHERE I AM")

SINGER: (As Linda Bishop) Decent apples. I picked four to bring back.

MONDELLO: At which point the police tell us something startling.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "GOD KNOWS WHERE I AM")

NELSON: If you read that journal, you would have thought that she was isolated²³ in some hidden valley and there was nobody around to help her. But that night when we were here, I made a mental note from the window that - of the room where she was found, and I could watch the big-screen TV of the next-door neighbor.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: She was that close to safety and being assisted. Then why didn't she get help?

MONDELLO: Filmmaking brothers Todd and Jedd Weider, who produced Alex Gibney's Oscar-winning documentary "Taxi To The Dark Side" about torture in the Middle East, are making their joint²⁴ debut²⁵ as directors here. An unexplained death is again their subject, but they're not just solving the mystery behind it. They are doing that by getting us inside Linda's head, giving us a sense of how she saw the world as it closed in on her - the loneliness, the ever slowing pace of a life ebbing²⁶.

"God Knows Where I Am" turns out to be every bit as much a story of panic as "All This Panic." But where teenagers flail²⁷, Linda is resigned - her tragic²⁸ story, a study in stillness and ultimately in silence. I'm Bob Mondello.

(SOUNDBITE OF MEDESKI MARTIN AND WOOD SONG, "QUEEN BEE")

1 narration   

n.讲述，叙述；故事；记叙体

参考例句：

• The richness of his novel comes from his narration of it.他小说的丰富多采得益于他的叙述。
• Narration should become a basic approach to preschool education.叙事应是幼儿教育的基本途径。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 ginger   

n.姜，精力，淡赤黄色；adj.淡赤黄色的；vt.使活泼，使有生气

参考例句：

• There is no ginger in the young man.这个年轻人没有精神。
• Ginger shall be hot in the mouth.生姜吃到嘴里总是辣的。

4 buddy   

n.（美口）密友，伙伴

参考例句：

• Calm down,buddy.What's the trouble?压压气，老兄。有什么麻烦吗？
• Get out of my way,buddy!别挡道了，你这家伙！

5 artistic   

adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的

参考例句：

• The picture on this screen is a good artistic work.这屏风上的画是件很好的艺术品。
• These artistic handicrafts are very popular with foreign friends.外国朋友很喜欢这些美术工艺品。

6 inclinations   

倾向( inclination的名词复数 )； 倾斜； 爱好； 斜坡

参考例句：

• She has artistic inclinations. 她有艺术爱好。
• I've no inclinations towards life as a doctor. 我的志趣不是行医。

7 pals   

n.朋友( pal的名词复数 )；老兄；小子；（对男子的不友好的称呼）家伙

参考例句：

• We've been pals for years. 我们是多年的哥们儿了。
• CD 8 positive cells remarkably increased in PALS and RP(P CD8+细胞在再生脾PALS和RP内均明显增加(P 来自互联网

8 vomiting   

吐

参考例句：

• Symptoms include diarrhoea and vomiting. 症状有腹泻和呕吐。
• Especially when I feel seasick, I can't stand watching someone else vomiting." 尤其晕船的时候，看不得人家呕。”

9 vomits   

呕吐物( vomit的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• A baby vomits milk from repletion. 婴儿吃饱会吐奶。
• An active volcano vomits forth smoke and lava. 活火山喷出烟雾和熔岩。

10 sage   

n.圣人，哲人；adj.贤明的，明智的

参考例句：

• I was grateful for the old man's sage advice.我很感激那位老人贤明的忠告。
• The sage is the instructor of a hundred ages.这位哲人是百代之师。

11 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。

12 feminist   

adj.主张男女平等的，女权主义的

参考例句：

• She followed the feminist movement.她支持女权运动。
• From then on,feminist studies on literature boomed.从那时起，男女平等受教育的现象开始迅速兴起。

13 gage   

n.标准尺寸，规格；量规，量表 [=gauge]

参考例句：

• Can you gage what her reaction is likely to be?你能揣测她的反应可能是什么吗？
• It's difficult to gage one's character.要判断一个人的品格是很困难的。

14 musing   

n. 沉思，冥想 adj. 沉思的, 冥想的 动词muse的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• "At Tellson's banking-house at nine," he said, with a musing face. “九点在台尔森银行大厦见面，”他想道。 来自英汉文学 - 双城记
• She put the jacket away, and stood by musing a minute. 她把那件上衣放到一边，站着沉思了一会儿。

15 chattering   

n. （机器振动发出的）咔嗒声，(鸟等)鸣，啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的，啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• The teacher told the children to stop chattering in class. 老师叫孩子们在课堂上不要叽叽喳喳讲话。
• I was so cold that my teeth were chattering. 我冷得牙齿直打战。

16 hopping   

n. 跳跃 动词hop的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• The clubs in town are really hopping. 城里的俱乐部真够热闹的。
• I'm hopping over to Paris for the weekend. 我要去巴黎度周末。

17 trajectories   

n.弹道( trajectory的名词复数 )；轨道；轨线；常角轨道

参考例句：

• To answer this question, we need to plot trajectories of principal stresses. 为了回答这个问题，我们尚须画出主应力迹线图。 来自辞典例句
• In the space program the theory is used to determine spaceship trajectories. 在空间计划中，这个理论用于确定飞船的轨道。 来自辞典例句

18 bishop   

n.主教，（国际象棋）象

参考例句：

• He was a bishop who was held in reverence by all.他是一位被大家都尊敬的主教。
• Two years after his death the bishop was canonised.主教逝世两年后被正式封为圣者。

19 farmhouse   

n.农场住宅（尤指主要住房）

参考例句：

• We fell for the farmhouse as soon as we saw it.我们对那所农舍一见倾心。
• We put up for the night at a farmhouse.我们在一间农舍投宿了一夜。

20 cardinal   

n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的

参考例句：

• This is a matter of cardinal significance.这是非常重要的事。
• The Cardinal coloured with vexation. 红衣主教感到恼火，脸涨得通红。

21 solitary   

adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士

参考例句：

• I am rather fond of a solitary stroll in the country.我颇喜欢在乡间独自徜徉。
• The castle rises in solitary splendour on the fringe of the desert.这座城堡巍然耸立在沙漠的边际，显得十分壮美。

22 sustenance   

n.食物，粮食；生活资料；生计

参考例句：

• We derive our sustenance from the land.我们从土地获取食物。
• The urban homeless are often in desperate need of sustenance.城市里无家可归的人极其需要食物来维持生命。

23 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。

24 joint   

adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合

参考例句：

• I had a bad fall,which put my shoulder out of joint.我重重地摔了一跤，肩膀脫臼了。
• We wrote a letter in joint names.我们联名写了封信。

25 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。

26 ebbing   

（指潮水）退( ebb的现在分词 )； 落； 减少； 衰落

参考例句：

• The pain was ebbing. 疼痛逐渐减轻了。
• There are indications that his esoteric popularity may be ebbing. 有迹象表明，他神秘的声望可能正在下降。

27 flail   

v.用连枷打；击打；n.连枷（脱粒用的工具）

参考例句：

• No fence against flail.飞来横祸不胜防。
• His arms were flailing in all directions.他的手臂胡乱挥舞着。

28 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。