In 1926, while filming The King of Kings, director Cecil B. DeMille moved his cast and crew to Catalina Island, off the coast of

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问题     In 1926, while filming The King of Kings, director Cecil B. DeMille moved his cast and crew to Catalina Island, off the coast of California. There, he housed everyone in tents to promote a sense of community on the project.
    Not everyone was happy with the tents, including H. B. Warner, the actor playing Christ. One day, in the middle of a scene, a yacht sailed into camera range. When an enraged DeMille learned that the yacht belonged to his leading man, he said, "If I thought Mr. Warner needed a yacht, I’d have brought my own. Just who does he think he is?"
    "Jesus Christ, sir," replied a crew member.
    DeMille digested this and then said, "That puts me at something of a disadvantage, doesn’t it?"
    Mark it down as one of the very few times anyone ever got the better of Cecil B. DeMille.
    The superb film historian Scott Eyman includes this anecdote in his admiring and exhaustive new DeMille biography, Empire of Dreams, a life of the man who forged our idea of Hollywood. Eyman labors to unlock the contradictions in DeMille’s puzzling personality, or at least to put some flesh on the legend. Good as Eyman is, it’s uphill all the way. DeMille was a master showman onscreen and off. He ruled with a despot’s hand and a hambone’s instincts. Nearly all of our cliches about imperious movie directors come straight from him. Struggling to penetrate DeMille’s facade, Eyman never gets much beyond establishing that the filmmaker was an autocrat on the set and a kindly man at home(though one with three mistresses). But there is almost no time—or reason—to tabulate flaws.
    For an unparalleled half century, DeMille was one of the most powerful, successful producer-directors in Hollywood. And yet, on contemporary lists of great directors, he often goes unmentioned. His historical and biblical epics are no longer the fashion, with nothing to offer a modern audience.
    His fellow directors are wiser about DeMille’s accomplishments. Martin Scorsese claims that only Steven Spielberg knows as much as DeMille about manipulating crowds onscreen. Better yet, DeMille at his best always knew how to make a movie move. The special effects in The Ten Commandments look clunky today, but the story never flags. Every scene sets up the next, and the film holds your interest whether you like it or not. Cecil B. DeMille was a storyteller of genius—a genius without shame, but a genius just the same.  
The story about DeMille is intended to______.

选项 A、make a comment of DeMille as a director
B、introduce the topic through vivid details
C、represent the character as mild and humorous
D、show DeMile’s tight relation with his crew

答案B

解析 篇章题。本题的解答关键在于抓住讲述轶事的文字之后的过渡段。这个单句段的意思是:戴米尔这样隐忍别人的调侃,是非常少见的。由此可以大致看出戴米尔性格的基本特点。而此后,作者就借助艾曼写的传记内容,对戴米尔的性格进行了评述。因此,前面讲述轶事的目的是以一种更形象生动的方式引出文章的话题,故[B]项是答案。选项[A]项的错误在于作者此时并没有做出任何评论,更谈不上评价戴米尔作为导演的好坏。[D:项所述与轶事的内容相反,他不仅没有发火,还难得地调侃了一句,即使他与剧组关系紧张,也不能以此事为证。[C]项中的represent the character是正确的,作者的确呈现了人物性格,只不过他的性格绝对不是温和幽默,而是专横跋扈。
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