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.  
Why does DeMille fail to count among great directors of the age?

选项 A、His style appears weird nowadays.
B、His reputation has long been in dispute.
C、His stories may not appeal to audience today.
D、His shooting technique has dropped behind.

答案C

解析 细节题。根据第七段的相关内容,戴米尔之所以常常被遗漏在当代杰出导演的名单之外,主要的原因是他的影片都是历史剧和圣经故事,这不是当代所流行的,引不起现代观众的兴趣。故[C]项的表述符合文意。[A]项的关键词是style“风格”,而原文主要是从题材的角度解释,并未提到风格,故可排除。[B]项内容不仅不能解释戴米尔遭遗漏的原因,并且也与全文的主旨和观点抵触,因为第六段末尾暗示对他的评价不应拘泥于一些缺点,因此[B]项错误。[D]项的内容也未在第七段提及,不能用于解释他遭遗忘的原因,故[D]项也.应排除。
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