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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
Try as she might, Bram Stoker's widow couldn't kill 'Nosferatu'
The world's first vampire2 movie premiered 100 years ago. After a long copyright battle, Florence Stoker, widow of the author of Dracula, asked for all copies of Nosferatu to be destroyed. Were they?
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The world's first full-length vampire film, "Nosferatu," premiered in Germany 100 years ago today. And like a vampire, the film itself seems unable to die, but not for lack of trying. NPR's Avery Keatley has more.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
AVERY KEATLEY, BYLINE4: Before the public premiere of "Nosferatu" 100 years ago in Berlin, the audience was primed with an ominous5 advertisement for the film. Nosferatu does not die. You want to see a symphony of horror? You may expect more. But no one could have expected how "Nosferatu" would turn out to be a curse to its very makers6.
The film is a loose adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula." We follow our hero, Hutter, who visits Count Orlok's castle. Orlok is overcome with desire for Hutter's wife, Ellen. And Hutter discovers that Orlok is, in fact, the terrible Nosferatu.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
KEATLEY: Nosferatu brings plague and death to their town before Ellen sacrifices herself, allowing Nosferatu to suck her blood until the sun rises. When day breaks, Ellen is dead and Nosferatu is transfigured into a puff7 of smoke. While that may sound like pretty typical vampire lore3, Nosferatu was the first vampire to be vanquished8 by sunlight.
LOKKE HEISS: Whatever else "Nosferatu" does, you can credit that movie for creating that new aspect of vampires9.
KEATLEY: That's film scholar Lokke Heiss. He says "Nosferatu" was a relative success and slated10 for multiple screenings, but...
HEISS: Very quickly after the film was screened and it first premiered, Prana, the company that produced it, got into some business trouble.
KEATLEY: Prana Film went bankrupt just a few months after "Nosferatu" premiered. And then came Florence Stoker, Bram Stoker's widow, who was living in London.
HEISS: Florence Stoker received the program of the Berlin premiere. And on the program, it said this was adapted from Bram Stoker's "Dracula."
KEATLEY: Florence realized that this freely adapted film was violating copyright and costing her royalties11.
BRENT REID: Her husband had died. She's a widow. So she was pretty much entirely12 reliant on her husband's legacy13.
KEATLEY: That's silent film writer and researcher Brent Reid. He says with few options available to her, Stoker decided14 to act.
REID: She went for it. She went after it in the same sense that she would have gone after anybody who she felt was ripping off her husband's work.
KEATLEY: What ensued was a years-long international legal battle between Florence Stoker and the company that took over Prana after they went belly15 up. After years of appeals, bankruptcies16 and liquidations, Florence changed course and requested instead that all copies and negatives of "Nosferatu" be destroyed. And eventually, the German court ruled in her favor. But no one ever provided any physical evidence that the film had actually been destroyed.
REID: There's no one original complete print, but there are certainly lots that are more or less complete and some that are fragments.
KEATLEY: Those handful of prints that survived eventually made their way to film archives and museums in Germany, France and New York. And film preservationists took up the painstaking17 task of restoring Count Orlok to his original glory.
REID: Our current versions of "Nosferatu" that exist today are patchwork18 compilations19 of all of those prints. It's literally20 been piecing together the film, almost frame by frame.
KEATLEY: Like the film, the original score that accompanied "Nosferatu" also had to be pieced back together.
GILLIAN ANDERSON: The word silent has meant to many people that it was silent, which is far, far from the truth. The fact of the matter is that the sound, the music, was 50% of the experience.
KEATLEY: That's silent film conductor Gillian Anderson. The original composer, Hans Erdmann, had published other suites21 derived22 from his score of "Nosferatu."
ANDERSON: I had to try and piece together where this music went with what part of the film.
KEATLEY: Her reconstructed score is what you've been hearing throughout this piece.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
KEATLEY: Florence Stoker's mission to have the film destroyed seems to have only contributed to its mythology23. Here's Brent Reid again.
REID: It retains its power to bewitch and entertain and horrify24 as much as it did a hundred years ago. Count Orlok is immortal25.
KEATLEY: That century-old warning was true after all. Nosferatu does not die.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
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n.抄本,誊本,副本,肄业证书 | |
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vampire
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n.吸血鬼 | |
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lore
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n.传说;学问,经验,知识 | |
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byline
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n.署名;v.署名 | |
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ominous
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adj.不祥的,不吉的,预兆的,预示的 | |
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makers
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n.制造者,制造商(maker的复数形式) | |
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puff
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n.一口(气);一阵(风);v.喷气,喘气 | |
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vanquished
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v.征服( vanquish的过去式和过去分词 );战胜;克服;抑制 | |
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vampires
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n.吸血鬼( vampire的名词复数 );吸血蝠;高利贷者;(舞台上的)活板门 | |
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slated
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用石板瓦盖( slate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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royalties
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特许权使用费 | |
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entirely
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ad.全部地,完整地;完全地,彻底地 | |
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legacy
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n.遗产,遗赠;先人(或过去)留下的东西 | |
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decided
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adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的 | |
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belly
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n.肚子,腹部;(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分,膛 | |
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bankruptcies
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n.破产( bankruptcy的名词复数 );倒闭;彻底失败;(名誉等的)完全丧失 | |
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painstaking
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adj.苦干的;艰苦的,费力的,刻苦的 | |
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patchwork
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n.混杂物;拼缝物 | |
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compilations
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n.编辑,编写( compilation的名词复数 );编辑物 | |
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literally
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adv.照字面意义,逐字地;确实 | |
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suites
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n.套( suite的名词复数 );一套房间;一套家具;一套公寓 | |
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derived
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vi.起源;由来;衍生;导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 );(从…中)得到获得;源于;(从…中)提取 | |
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23
mythology
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n.神话,神话学,神话集 | |
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horrify
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vt.使恐怖,使恐惧,使惊骇 | |
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immortal
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adj.不朽的;永生的,不死的;神的 | |
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