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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
Amber1: Hello, I’m Amber and this is bbclearningenglish.com.
In Entertainment today, we listen to a review of a new film called ‘The Hoax2’.
(A hoax is a deception3 – a trick to make people believe something is true when
it is not.)
‘The Hoax’ is based on a true story – how, in 1971, a struggling writer called
Clifford Irving persuaded a leading American publishing house that he had
obtained a series of unprecedented4 interviews with the ultra-reclusive,
immensely powerful, superstar billionaire Howard Hughes and that he was
sitting on the book of the century – Howard Hughes’s memoirs5. There was a
huge amount of interest in the book because Howard Hughes was also a
Hollywood producer, aviator6, industrialist7 and playboy and he had been a
recluse8 for 15 years. A million-dollar deal was struck and the book printing
began. But then, Howard Hughes broke his silence to reveal that he’d never
even heard of Clifford Irving, and that the book was not genuine – it was ‘a
fake’!
Clifford Irving is played by the actor Richard Gere, who has a star track record
for playing attractive but extremely dishonest characters. Critics agree that
Gere is great, and so is his co-star, Alfred Molina, but what about the rest of
the movie?
Here’s the film critic Nigel Andrews who says the film is fairly clever and
convincing – he says ‘this is the film that you almost think does the trick, but
doesn’t quite!’ If something ‘does the trick’, it has the necessary or desired
effect. He says there are some ‘spurious’ – some not genuine - things
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happening in the film, ‘to amp it up’ – to amplify9 the story, to make it make it
more exciting and meaningful than it really is.
As you listen, try to catch any of the ways the film links to – is ‘plugged into’ –
the Zeitgeist, the ideas of a particular time and place – in this film – that’s
America in the 1970s.
Nigel Andrews
‘This is the film that you almost think does the trick, but doesn’t quite! There are a whole lot
of specious10 and rather spurious attempts to amp it up into a kind of greater resonance11 than
arguably the particular story has. I mean, for instance, it’s plugged into the Watergate
Zeitgeist in order to give an extra charge of kind of epochal paranoia12 because we’re in the 70s.
And there’s a whole lot of stuff with sort of secret agents and so on, which doesn’t quite add
up. The strength is Richard Gere’s performance.’
Amber: So Nigel Andrews says ‘The Hoax’ is plugged into ‘Watergate’, a huge
political scandal, and to the fears and ‘paranoia’ of the time, of the ‘epoch’. But
he says that none of this makes the film believable or convincing - he says it
‘doesn’t quite add up’, it doesn’t quite make sense.
Listen again.
Nigel Andrews
‘This is the film that you almost think does the trick, but doesn’t quite! There are a whole lot
of specious and rather spurious attempts to amp it up into a kind of greater resonance than
arguably the particular story has. I mean, for instance, it’s plugged into the Watergate
Zeitgeist in order to give an extra charge of kind of epochal paranoia because we’re in the 70s.
And there’s a whole lot of stuff with sort of secret agents and so on, which doesn’t quite add
up. The strength is Richard Gere’s performance.’
Amber: Nigel Andrews goes on to say that the film is almost too accurate when it
comes to creating the 1970s – it’s like watching ‘a museum record’ he says!
Then he jokes about how someone – a very clever researcher using the internet
– has noticed … what?
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Nigel Andrews
‘I think he doesn’t get it wrong – I think that’s part of the problem! I think it’s like watching a
museum record of what someone thinks is the 1970s and you can’t fault the individual details.
Some absolutely ingenious burrower13 into the internet exposed the fact that every time Gere
and Molina go into town, the same cars are parked in the same place! And it has that feel!’
Amber: So there are the same 1970s cars parked in the same place throughout different
scenes – and this makes the film seem a little stiff, like a ‘museum record’.
Nigel Andrews
‘I think he doesn’t get it wrong – I think that’s part of the problem! I think it’s like watching a
museum record of what someone thinks is the 1970s and you can’t fault the individual details.
Some absolutely ingenious burrower into the internet exposed the fact that every time Gere
and Molina go into town, the same cars are parked in the same place! And it has that feel!’
Amber: Now let’s recap the language we focussed on.
a hoax – a deception
if something ‘does the trick’, it has the necessary or desired effect
‘to amp it up’ – to amplify something, to make something more exciting and
meaningful than it really is
the Zeitgeist - the ideas of a particular time and place
to add up – to make sense
More entertainment news stories and language explanations next time at
bbclearningenglish.com
1 amber | |
n.琥珀;琥珀色;adj.琥珀制的 | |
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2 hoax | |
v.欺骗,哄骗,愚弄;n.愚弄人,恶作剧 | |
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3 deception | |
n.欺骗,欺诈;骗局,诡计 | |
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4 unprecedented | |
adj.无前例的,新奇的 | |
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5 memoirs | |
n.回忆录;回忆录传( mem,自oir的名词复数) | |
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6 aviator | |
n.飞行家,飞行员 | |
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7 industrialist | |
n.工业家,实业家 | |
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8 recluse | |
n.隐居者 | |
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9 amplify | |
vt.放大,增强;详述,详加解说 | |
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10 specious | |
adj.似是而非的;adv.似是而非地 | |
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11 resonance | |
n.洪亮;共鸣;共振 | |
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12 paranoia | |
n.妄想狂,偏执狂;多疑症 | |
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13 burrower | |
借钱人; 借用人,剽窃者 | |
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