Bright Young Things
- Szczegóły
- Nadrzędna kategoria: Filmy
- Kategoria: Recenzje filmowe z Guardiana
Artykuł pochodzi z pisma "Guardian"
Evelyn Waugh disliked the cinema and loathed television, but has been treated better by the latter. On the small screen there was a fine, too brief version of Sword of Honour by Giles Cooper in the Sixties, John Mortimer's prestigious, over-extended Brideshead Revisited, and a decent Scoop, adapted by William Boyd. The cinema has come up with a disastrous Hollywood treatment of The Loved One, a crude British Decline and Fall (called Decline and Fall of a Bird Watcher), a dull, faithful A Handful of Dust, and now an affectionate but flat adaptation of Waugh's second novel, Vile Bodies, as Bright Young Things, the directorial debut of Stephen Fry.
Published in 1930, Vile Bodies was likened by several critics at the time to a series of hit-and-miss revue sketches centring on the antics and endless partying of the hedonistic upper classes, about whom Waugh, as a snobbish hanger-on from lower down the social ladder, had mixed feelings. He himself came to dislike the novel, thinking it poorly constructed and second-hand. Remaining generally faithful to the book, Fry has forged a coherent if thin narrative, moving a few years on to the mid-Thirties.
Adam, its dim, Candide-like hero (Stephen Campbell Moore), a well-connected but penniless young man, attempts to raise the money to marry the flighty Nina (Emily Mortimer) by writing (his manuscript is seized by the customs at Dover), gambling (a big wager goes astray) and journalism (as a gossip columnist inventing fake celebrities). Fry has thrown out the amusing scenes involving the production of a ludicrous film about John Wesley, but retained the equally dated, less funny ones concerning Mrs Ape, an American evangelist inspired by Amy Semple McPherson. He has also reduced to a single brief appearance the conspiratorial Jesuit, Father Rothschild. His best laughs come from Dan Aykroyd's browbeating Canadian newspaper tycoon Lord Monomark, a clever caricature of Lord Beaverbrook.
Fry has dropped Waugh's occasional heavy-handed moralising. But he has retained and made very specific the apocalyptic ending in which a terrible war involving biological weapons is visited on a wicked world. Waugh retains his aloof ironic stance to the end, but Fry sees in the Second World War the possibility of a redemptive experience for Adam and Nina. The result is disconcertingly sentimental. One recalls a better, funnier film made in 1945, The Rake's Progress, about the redemption of a Thirties playboy (Rex Harrison) through sacrifice on the battlefield. It takes in much of Bright Young Things but within a larger social context.
VOCABULARY:
affectionate - uczuciowy, tkliwy
aloof - zdystansowany, powściągliwy
to browbeat - wymuszać (na kimś zrobienie czegoś), zastraszać
to come up with - proponować, przedstawić coś publicznie
conspiratorial tu: konspirujcy; także: konspiracyjny, spiskowy
crude - prymitywny, niedojrzały; także: brutalny, niedelikatny, surowy, bezceremonialny, szorstki
decent - przyzwoity, porządny
dim - ciemny, mroczny, także: przyćmiony, przygaszony, zamazany, niewyraźny, matowy, osłabiony, przyciszony, mętny, przytępiony, pesymistyczny
directorial debut - debiut reżyserski
disastrous - fatalny, katastrofalny,
disconcertingly - niepokojąco, żenująco, kłopotliwie
flat - płaski, spłaszczony (także przenośnie), nudny
flighty - kapryśna, zmienna, niestała
to forge - wykuwać (stworzyć)
to go astray - zgubić się, zawieruszyć się, zagubić się
hanger-on - pochlebca (pl: Hangers-on)
heavy-handed moralising - ciężkie moralizatorstwo
hit-and-miss - If something is hit-and-miss you cannot depend on it to be of good quality, on time, accurate, etc. - zawodny, niepewny, o zmiennej jakości
Jesuit - jezuita
to liken - porównywać, przyrównywać
to loathe - nienawidzić, nie cierpieć
ludicrous - śmieszny, absurdalny, groteskowy
over-extended - zbyt rozwlekły, zbyt obszerny
penniless - bez grosza
redemptive experience - odkupieńcze doświadczenie
to retain - utrzymywać, zachowywać, zatrzymywać, trzymać
revue - rewia
sacrifice on the battlefield - poświęcenie na polu walki
to seize - konfiskować, zajmować, przejmować, zabierać
sketch - skecz
social ladder - drabina społeczna, hierarchia społeczna
specific - szczególny, specjalny
stance - postawa, pozycja, stanowisko
tycoon - potentat finansowy, magnat
well-connected - posiadający wiele znajomości
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