Holly老師的英語新天地

以下來個幾組完整的Part2及Part3 Questions之參考答案，幫助考生腦力激盪囉！加油J

Notes

Helpful Ideas and Useful Words and Expressions

Talk about your favourite film

• Ø  My favourite film is Gone With the Wind. The famous actress and actor Vivian Leigh and Clark Gable acted as Scarlet and Rhett Butler. Both of them acted very well. The story was very touching. It happened during the American civil war. It was about love and war. I was deeply touched by Scarlet’s love for Ashley and Rhett’s love for Scarlet. In both cases the love was unrequited and hopeless. This was, I think, the most attractive part, because it was tragic. When I watched the movie I hoped that Scarlet could realize how deeply Rhett loved her and repay his love. I cried when at the end of the movie their daughter, Bonnie, died and Rhett left Scarlet even though Scarlet had realized how she had loved him without knowing it all the time. The most tragic thing is that no one can really understand what love is. Scarlet loved Rhett, but she didn’t know that. She thought she still loved Ashley, so did Rhett. Ashley stood in the way of their marriage, like a shadow that couldn’t be waved away. I also admire Scarlet. I think she is a brave, independent, courageous, and intelligent woman, though she is selfish and willful.
• Ø  One film that I enjoyed watching is A Time for Dancing which was produced in America. I saw it a year ago. This film was very moving and inspiring. And up to now I can recall all its plots and wonderful acting vividly. Well, it began like this. Sam and Jules have been friends since they were six, as close as friends can be, or so they think. But they are about to learn there is much more to find out about themselves and each other when a crisis teaches them there is a time for loving, a time for living, and a time for dancing.

In some ways, Sam and Jules couldn’t be more different. Sam, the only child of a hardworking single mom, has somewhat of a dark outlook on life. On the other hand, Jules is full of hope and joy. All she has ever wanted to do is dance. Jules has one goal in mind, to attend Julliard and study dance when she graduates from high school and spends all of her energy and free time in the studio, thriving on the arduous training routine she has undertaken.

Unfortunately, Jules is diagnosed with an illness that could threaten not only her aspirations to dance, but her life as well. As she throws herself into her struggle to survive, she gathers her strength to live what is left of her life to the fullest. She wants to feel everything — to love, to live, to dance. She nails her audition. She is ready to let it go. At the same time, Sam can feel Jules everywhere, pushing her on to believe that anything is possible, that she too can find her time for dancing.

Follow-up Questions

1. What kind of film do you like to see? // Why?

2. Do your friends also like this kind of film? // Why?

Part 3

1.   What kind of film do people generally like seeing in your country? // What influence do they have on people?

2. Do you often go to the cinema? // What do you think of seeing films at the cinema?

3. What do you think are the characteristics of films in your country?

4. What do people generally think about American films?

5. What films did you use to see when you were small child? // What have you seen since you grew up? // Why is there such a change?

6. What do you think of the new generation of directors in your country?

7. What do you think of the future of films in your country?

8. What aspects about films are very important? // How should they be improved?

9. Why should computer animation or special effect be used for shooting films? // Have you ever seen such a film with special effect shots before?

10. What do you think makes a director successful?

Reference

4   What do people generally think about American films?

• Ø  Hollywood films have occupied the whole world film market since 1970s. They are characterized by “high cost, high technology, great production and dazzling stars” and they have always been supported by the Oscars. There are many good Hollywood films that have been appreciated very much by all kinds of people in this world. Of course, different people have their own taste for films. The audience likes to watch Hollywood films, not because they are from Hollywood, but because there is something they like in these films. If directors can make their films interesting, artistic, and up to the audience’s taste, then they can win popularity for sure.
• Ø  Well, it seems to me that there is quite an interesting phenomenon about films throughout the world nowadays. People do not admire those Hollywood films blindly as usual, but focus more on those European and Asian films. Probably, native films are awakening and rising. People come to realize that there are many more emotions worth being concerned about, many more possibilities for the future being thought about, and many more ideas worth being believed. And all these have been reflected in films made in other countries. What’s more, the most important thing is that people found that Hollywood would not be the standard of films. And this would naturally push forward film development in other countries.

8   What aspects very important? // How should they be improved?

• Ø  Films should have their own characteristics. Films can be about common daily life; the theme can be about love and death. So long as a particular film is distinctive, it is bound to be an eternal highlight. All directors think about films is to reflect life itself and make them distinctive. Then they can compete with American ones with their own features that cannot be found in American films.
• Ø  Although Hollywood films are still popular with the audiences, they will sooner or later be fed up with those high-tech films, and the film industry will come back to the themes on human’s emotion and sensibility. Those brilliant old Indian films still remain fresh in people’s memory. So directors should again pay more attention to the exquisite description of human’s emotion and sensation as well as its fantasies and conflicts of the plot.
• Ø  Different people have their own tastes for films. The audience likes to watch Hollywood films, not because they are from Hollywood, but because there is something they like in these films. If directors can make their films interesting, artistic, and up to audience’s taste, then they can win popularity for sure.

9   Why should computer animation or special effects be used for shooting films? // Have you ever seen such a film with special effect shots before?

• Ø  When computer animation or special effects are used for shooting films, the very vivid effects can be made. For example, film directors can take submarine sights by means of a glass-box equipment. They can also overprint the negatives of a person, clouds and mist to show him mounting clouds and riding mist. The new version of Sun Wukong is a good case in point. It’s really very exciting with all those vivid scenes. No wonder all the audience, whether old or young, love it as their favourite. Indeed, the digitalization of film and television is just beginning, yet it has a promising future of wide application. With strong technical support, there will be a brilliant future for digital film and TV making.

10  What do you think makes a director successful?

• Ø  Well, actually, almost all of the famous directors, despite their different backgrounds, have something in common. It was not the professional training in filmmaking that turned them into first-rate directors, but rather, it was their obsession with films, or sometimes, an accidental occasion, that made them what they are today. To these talents, the films they made are their individual interpretation of the outside world. It is this very persistent individuality that pushes their films to the fore as a new force.

Additional topic-related information

1   About the new generation of Taiwanese directors

• Ø  The new generation of directors can be said to be those who were responsible for the “new wave” cinema which began its course during the early 1980s. These directors include Hou Hsiao Hsien, Edward Yang, Tsai Ming-Liang and Ang Lee. While films from the l960s and 1970s tended to be in the genre of sloppy romances, grade B kung fu movies, and propaganda oriented drama, the new generation of directors wanted to give a genuine local flavour to their films, producing films that more realistically depicted rural and urban life in Taiwan. In particular there was a focus an examining the effects of social and economical changes in the last 5 decades, resulting in films like A Borrowed Life where a grown adult, Wen-Jian, reflects on the lasting effects which Japanese rule, pre World War II, had on his father’s life. While the content focus of new wave films differs from previous generation films, the tradition of using literary works as a source of adaptation for screen plays, remained unchanged. These new wave films have generated a lot of international interest and many of them, including Vivre L’amour and The Wedding Banquet, have picked up awards at renowned international film festivals such as the Venice Film Festival. Since then however, a “second” new wave cinema has been on the rise with directors planning to shift force to the various complexities of contemporary life rather than taking a nostalgic historical approach.

2   About Eat, Drink, Man, Woman — directed by Ang Lee.

• Ø  Internationally acclaimed as one of the greatest contemporary film makers, the films of Taiwan born, US trained Ang Lee, have received phenomenal responses from audiences all over the world.

In the early part of his career, Lee was most renowned for his film triology Pushing Hands (1991), The Wedding Banquet (1993), and Eat, Drink, Man, Woman (1994). Central themes in the films include cultural identity, family dynamics, in particular the role of the patriarchal father, and food.

The Wedding Banquet, received an academy award nomination as the best foreign language film, while Ear, Drink, Man, Woman won an Oscar nomination for best foreign language film.

The plot of Eat, Drink, Man, Woman Ang Lee’s first film in Taiwan, revolves around the lives of retired widow master chef and his three unattached daughters, with a focus on the disconnection experienced between the father and his daughters.

Food is a central theme in the film as it provides a common ground for them, with sunday dinner being a time when they get together and share the goings on of their lives, which is kept deliberately separate throughout the film, with each other.

With the stereotyped difficulty that Chinese people have with expressing their feelings, the focus on food acts as a surrogate for unexpressed feelings. The overall significance of food lies in the age old Chinese expression “eat drink and be human” which the father contemplates with a trusted friend during the course of the film.

With a string of successes including Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and the controversial Brokeback Mountain, Ang Lee has put Taiwan firmly on the international map in the field of film making.

3   About Travelling Birds — fascinating shots — directed by Jacques Perrin.

• Ø  Travelling Birds is produced by famous France director Jacques Perrin. At all times, flying is a dream to everybody. There is nobody who wouldn’t like to fly with birds. At the end of the last century, a Canadian realized his dream of flying by setting two wings and it was he who made director Jacques Perrin set to shoot the documentary Travelling Birds.

However, a documentary like this is really time-consuming to produce. A film crew consisting of more than 300 members accompanied the life of these birds of passage for three years around the world, through the changing seasons. They followed the birds’ migration route and the fascinating film of breathtaking beauty is the result.

This documentary was made without any computer animation or tricks. The fascinating film shots, however, were really a reflection of the miraculous natural world. The producer showed us the love, friendship and kinship that exist in the birds’ world.

This is by no means a simple documentary film, but one that is full of the producer’s love and value for nature and other creatures. After the show, the audience applauded spontaneously, which lasted for as long as one minute. Another lively world of creature that was presented by the film revealed the understanding and commitment to Life in this world.