英语听力Unit 5 The Silver Screen
LISTENING Listen to the interview with Mr Malcolm Langland
Today,on our program of the history of mordern theater film.
We'll interview Mr Malcolm Langland.
He is a famous actor who plays the leading part
in the new Shakespeare play in London.
"Welcome to studio,Mr Langland."
"Thank you.It's a pleasure to be here."
"As the first question
I should like to ask you how your career in the theater started."
"Have you always wanted to be an actor?"
"No,I'm not really.When I was a student I hope to become a teacher."
"I sometimes dreams of being a famous star
but I grow up in a small town in the west.
People there don't have big dreams.
When I was young,I looked only what I saw was possible in our small town.
We live far away from the big cities.
We didn't even have a theater.
Films were shown in the school library,there wasn't a lot to do.
"When you were 18 years old you went to university in Lebanon.
You studied law,why didn't you study art?"
"Because my father didn't want me to study art.
He said that I could never find a good job as an art student.
My father wanted me to study medicine or engineering.
Well,I chose to study law,It was boring to me.
In my free time,I joined the students'club.
I spent many many evenings there.
We used to sing,dance and act on the stage."
"And when did you decide to become an actor?"
"When I met my wife Meryl in the students club.
She made me live in university and start a career with her in the thearter."
"You had a job in the theater before planning your first film.
How did that come about?
"In the first film I acted I was only given a small part.
It was the dream machine."
Keanu introduced me to the director.
I was only a beginning actor and didn't have any experience.
It was a small beginning but it was the beginning of my career.
英语口语SPEAKING
Ask questions about the place where they grew up,the time when they were young,
the reasons why they chose their jobs and about their career.
Meryl Streep was born in a small village in American in 1949.
After high school Meryl went to study at a famous drama school.
While still a student,she played roles in many plays.
After graduating,she went to New York,where she started working as an actress
and won the Theater World Award for her role in a play.
Meryl Streep made her first film,called Julia in 1977.
A few years later,
she won her first Oscar as Best Actress for the film Kramer vs Kramer(1979).
During the 1980s and 1990s she won many more prizes while acting in famous films
such as Sophie's Choice(1982),
Out of Africa(1985)and Music of the Heart(1999).
Meryl Streep got married in 1978 and has a son and three daughters.
Keanu Reeves was born in Lebanon in 1964.
He grew up in Toronto and left high school without a degree when he was seventeen.
In the beginning he took many small jobs to make money.
When he was twenty years old,he acted in his first film,called Wolfboy(1984).
In 1986 he moved to Hollywood to live with his stepfather,who is a film director.
After acting in many cheap films for a few years,
he was asked to play a role in the film Speed in 1994.
This film quickly made him famous.
Since then Keanu Reeves has acted in more than twelve films such as
The Matrix (1999),Sweet November (2001)and Hardball (2001).
阅读理解READING GETTING TO KNOW STEVEN SPIELBERG
Steven Spielberg, whose mother was a music teacher,
was born in 1946 in a small town in America
He started making short films when he was still a young boy.
He made his first real film when he was twelve.
This was a film in which Spielberg used real actors instead of toys.
He wrote the scripts for the films himself.
In 1959 Spielberg won a prize for a short film which he made
when he was thirteen years old.
A few years later, when he was sixteen,he made a film called Firelight.
When Spielberg was young,his dream was to go to the Film Academy,but he could't.
The reason why he could not go there was that his grades were too low.
After studying English he got a small job at a film studio.
Here he worked on a short film,
which won him a job as the youngest film director in the world.
This was the moment
when Spielberg's career really took off Jaws(1975),
one of his first films,was a real blockbuster.
It is about a big white shark that attacks swimmers who are spending their holidays in a small village by the sea.
Many people who saw the film
were afraid to swim in the sea when they remembered the scenes in which people were eaten by the shark.
Spielberg has made two films about creatures that come to the earth from outer space.
For example,ET(1982)is about a young boy called Elliott
who makes friends with a small creature from outer space
and helps him to find a way to go home.
The world of adults is cold.
Scientists want to find ET to cut him into pieces to do research.
But in the world of children and the world where ET comes from,
love and friendship are the most important things in life.
Jurassic Park,which Spielberg made in 1993,
is about a park where a very rich man keeps different kinds of dinosaurs.
When the park is hit by a storm,things start going wrong.
The film becomes very exciting when the children are hunted by meat-eating dinosaurs.
After these highly successful films Spielberg made several follow-ups of Jaws and Jurassic Park.
His later films such as Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan
are about the cruelty of war.
In his war films,he has shown that love and peace will win over war in the end.
Steven Spielberg is one of the top directors in the film industry
and also has many fans in China.
When asked about the secret of his success,
He met Cate Capshaw,who is an actress,when he was working on one of his films.
After that it still took seven years before they finally got married.
The couple has seven children in all.
综合技能INTEGRATING SKILLS
Reading and writing NOT ONE LESS
Zhang Yimou's film "Not One Less"tells a simple but moving story.
Mr Gao, the only teacher of the Shuiquan Primary School,
has to stay away for a month to take care of his sick mother.
The village leader,
Mr Tian,asks Wei Minzhi to take Mr Gao's place until he comes back
Minzhi is only a 13-year-old girl who has finishied her primary school.
When she is asked to do the job, she says she can read,write and sing.
She gets the job because there is nobody else in the village who can take it.
The most important thing for young Minzhi
is not to lose any more pupils from the school
-NOT ONE LESS-before Mr Gao returns!
At first Minzhi doesn't know what her students need to learn.
And she doesn't know how to keep them quiet in class.
She writes the lessons onto the blackboard
and then makes her students copy them into their notebooks.
She tries to keep the students in the classroom
by locking them up in the classroom and running after those who escape.
The naughtiest pupil in her class is an 11-year-old boy named Zhang Huike
He causes trouble for Minzhi almost every day.
Perhaps you think Minzhi will be happy when Huike runs away from school.
No!When she hears that Huike has gone to town,
she becomes very worried and determines to bring Huike back safely.
Minzhi wants to go to town,but she can't afford to buy a bus ticket.
All the other pupils do their best to help her get onto a bus without a ticket.
When Minzhi has to get off the bus,she walks till she finally reaches the town.
She looks everywhere but cannot find Huike.
Then she decides to ask the TV station for help.
She wants them to let her appear live on the air,hoping that Huike will see her.
She waits at the gate of the TV station for two days till the boss calls her.
When Huike sees the crying Minzhi on television,
he himself starts crying,but he is also happy to see her.
At last,both Minzhi and Huike go back to their village
together with the people from the TV station.
Many people like this film not just because the story itself is moving,
but also because most of the people in the film
use their real names and play themselves.文本来源于在线英语听力室