Text 3. Spirited away

Viewing Hayao Miyazaki ’s[2] Spirited Away, I was struck by a quality between generosity and love. On earlier viewings I was caught up by the boundless imagination of the story. This time I began to focus on the elements in the picture that didn’t need to be there. Animation is a painstaking process, and there is a tendency to simplify its visual elements. Miyazaki, in contrast, offers complexity. His backgrounds are rich in detail, his canvas embraces space liberally, and it is all drawn with meticulous attention. We may not pay much conscious attention to the corners of the frame, but we know they are there, and they reinforce the remarkable precision of his fantasy worlds.

Spirited Away is surely one of the finest of all animated films, and it has its foundation in the traditional bedrock of animation, which is frame-by-frame drawing. Miyazaki began his career in that style, but he is a realist and has permitted the use of computers for some of the busywork. But he personally draws thousands of frames by hand. “ We take handmade cell animation and digitize it in order to enrich the visual look, ” he told me in 2002, “ but everything starts with the human hand drawing. ” That’s what I mean by generosity and love. Miyazaki and his colleagues care enough to lavish as much energy on the less significant parts of the frame.

The story of Spirited Away has been populated with limitless creativity. Has any film ever contained more different kinds of beings that we have never seen anywhere before? Miyazaki’s imagination never rests.

His story involves a 10-year-old girl named Chihiro [3], who isn’t one of those cheerful little automatons that populate many animated films. She is described by many critics as “sullen”. Yes, and impatient and impetuous, as she’s stuck in the back seat during a long drive to a house her parents want to examine. Her father loses the way in a dark forest, and the road seems to end at the entrance to a tunnel. Investigating it, they find it leads to an abandoned amusement park.This is the beginning of an extraordinary adventure.

Miyazaki says he made the film specifically for 10-year-old girls. That is why it plays so powerfully for adult viewers. Movies made for “everybody” are actually made for nobody in particular. Movies about specific characters in a detailed world are spellbinding because they make no attempt to cater to us; they are defiantly, triumphantly, themselves. As I watched the film again, I was spellbound as much as by any film I consider great. That helps explain why Spirited Away grossed more than “ Titanic ” in Japan.

I was so fortunate to meet Miyazaki at the 2002 Toronto film festival. I told him I love the “ gratuitous motion ” in his films; instead of every movement being dictated by the story. “ We have a word for that in Japanese, ” he said. “ It’s called ‘ma’ [4]. Emptiness. It’s there intentionally. ” He clapped his hands three or four times. “ The time in between my clapping is ‘ma’. If you just have non-stop action with no breathing space at all, it’s just busyness. ”

I think that helps explain why Miyazaki’s films are more absorbing than the frantic action in a lot of American animation. “ The people who make the movies are scared of silence ” he said. “ What really matters is the underlying emotions. ”

(http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-spirited-away-2002)

7. Match the phrases from Text 3 (1-7) with their definitions (a-g); use them in your summary. Try to translate the phrases into Russian.

1.A painstaking process; 2.A bedrock of sth; 3.Frame-by-frame drawing; 4.Cell animation; 5.To cater to smb; 6.To gross; 7.Gratuitous.

a)creating each movement of the scene by hand; b)done without a reason; c)to please someone by giving something they want; d)an action employing great thoroughness; e)to earn a sum of money before taxes have been taken out; f)the basic principles of sth; g)a traditional form of animation implying the use of frames;

8. Find the equivalents of the following expressions in Text 3, give the Russian translations. Use them in your summary.

1) scrupulous	3) to make an effort	5) impulsive
2) kindness and liberality	4) countless	6) gripping

9. Translate Paragraph 2 of Text 3 from English into Russian beginning with “Spirited Away is surely one of the finest…” up to “…on the less significant parts of the frame”.

TEXT 4. INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS [5]

Quentin Tarantino ’s InglouriousBasterds is a big, bold, audacious war movie that will annoy some, startle others and demonstrate once again that he’s the real thing, a director of quixotic delights. For starters, he provides World War II with a much-needed alternative ending.

From the title, ripped off from a 1978 B-movie, to the Western sound of the EnnioMorricone opening music, the film embeds Tarantino’s love of the movies. The deep, rich colors of 35mm film provide tactile pleasure. A character at the beginning and end, not seen in between, brings the story full circle. The “basterds” themselves, savage fighters dropped behind Nazi lines, are an unmistakable nod to The Dirty Dozen (1967).

And above all, there are three iconic characters, drawn broadly and with love: the Hero, the Nazi and the Girl. These three, played by Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz and Melanie Laurent, are seen with that Tarantino’s knack of taking a character and making it The Character, definitive, larger than life, approaching satire in its intensity. Let’s say they feel bigger than most of the people we meet in movies.

The story begins in Nazi-occupied France, early in the war, when the Nazi arrives at an isolated dairy farm where he believes the farmer is hiding Jews. He’s right, and a young woman named Shosanna – the Girl – flees into the woods. It is for this scene, and his performance throughout the movie, that Christoph Waltz deserves an Oscar nomination. He creates a character unlike any Nazi — indeed, anyone at all — I’ve seen in a movie: evil, sardonic, ironic, mannered, absurd.

The Hero is Brad Pitt, starring as Lt. Aldo Raine. He is played by Pitt as a broad caricature of a hard-talking Southern boy who wants each of his men to bring him 100 Nazi scalps. For years, his band improbably survives in France and massacres Nazis. Pitt’s version of Italian is worthy of a Marx brother[6].

A Tarantino film resists categorization. InglouriousBasterds is no more about war than Pulp Fiction is about — what the hell is it about? Of course nothing in the movie is possible, except that it’s so bloody entertaining.

After I saw InglouriousBasterds at Cannes, although I was writing a daily blog, I resisted giving an immediate opinion about it. I knew Tarantino had made a considerable film, but I wanted it to settle, and to see it again. I’m glad I did. Like a lot of real movies, you relish it more the next time. Immediately after Pulp Fiction played at Cannes, Quentin asked me what I thought. “ It’s either the best film of the year or the worst film, ” I said. I hardly knew what the hell had happened to me. The answer was: the best film. Tarantino films have a way of growing on you. It’s not enough to see them once.

(http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/inglourious-basterds-2009)

10. Match the phrases from Text 4 (1-7) with their definitions (a-g); use them in your summary. Try to translate the phrases into Russian.

1)Audacious 2)To rip off 3)Savage 4)Performance 5)To massacre 6)A considerable film 7)To relish

a)to steal something; b)acting in a film or in a play; c)to kill a lot of people; d)cruel, extremely violent; e)a motion picture that is worth reading; f)to get great pleasure and satisfaction from something; g)done with extreme confidence, despite risks and difficulties.

11. Find the equivalents of the following expressions in Text 4, give the Russian translations. Use them in your summary.

1) idealistic	3) to link sth	5) to kill
2) a chip film	4) an ability to do sth	6) to begin being liked

12. Translate Paragraph 7 of Text 4 from English into Russian beginning with “After I saw InglouriousBasterds at Cannes…” up to “…not enough to see them once”.

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