美国国家公共电台 NPR A Photographer Gets Old — Over And Over — In 'The Many Sad Fates'

A Photographer Gets Old — Over And Over — In 'The Many Sad Fates' 

play pause stop mute unmute max volume 00:0007:10repeat repeat off Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser¹ to a recent version or update your Flash plugin. SCOTT SIMON, HOST: 

A friend of Phillip Toledano the photographer says, he is the most self-absorbed person I've ever met. But he wears it well.

"The Many Sad Fates Of Mr. Toledano" is a new short film in which the photographer, with the assistance of makeup² artists, fortune tellers³ and psychics⁴, disguises himself as the various fates life might one day hold for him - to become a drunken stumblebum on the street, a white-collar criminal cuffed⁵ and taken away by police or a lonely senior feeding a small dog from his plate.

Or it's an art project Phil Toledano began after the dementia and death of his father.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE MANY SAD FATES OF MR. TOLEDANO")

PHILLIP TOLEDANO: I guess, then, I started thinking a lot about the thing that I'm working on now, the idea of the way in which life is so full of right angles. There are so many possibilities ahead of you. And you just have no sense of what they're like.

SIMON: "The Many Sad Fates Of Mr. Toledano" was an official selection at the Tribeca Film Festival. It's now a video on Op-Docs of The New York Times. It's directed by Joshua Seftel. And Phil Toledano slow joins us from New York. Thanks so much for being with us.

TOLEDANO: Thank you so much for having me.

SIMON: What was your frame of mind as you went through this three-year project?

TOLEDANO: When I work on projects, they have sort of a gravitational pull. I'm compelled to do them. And often, I'm not sure why I'm compelled to do them until I finish them. But everyone who is important to me had died in my family - my mother, my father, my aunt, my uncle - in the last three years.

And then my daughter was born. And so my life felt entirely⁶ different. And I felt entirely alone. And I had always been a very lucky person. I've had wonderful parents. And they've given me everything. And when you are lucky, you always assume you'll continue to be lucky. And when your life takes a sharp turn, it's shocking, and it's surprising.

And that was the impetus⁷ behind this project. I just - I was so surprised by the idea that things could go wrong. And I know it sounds so entirely self-absorbed. But I loved my parents dearly. And the idea that they were going to suddenly die - it's a concept we all understand. But the reality seems unreal.

So when my mother did die, and I found myself taking care of my father, it was not something I'd imagined at all. And that got me obsessed⁸ about, what other dark turns might life have in store for me?

SIMON: Let me ask about some of the - and my terminology⁹ might fall short here - some of the poses that you adopt?

TOLEDANO: Sure.

SIMON: A drunken man on a train platform.

TOLEDANO: Yes.

SIMON: Were you conscious of people looking at you or not looking at you? - come to think of it.

TOLEDANO: That's the most fascinating thing about this entire project. It's not the end result. What was interesting about it and what was extraordinary for me was the idea - the way in which the world sees you differently.

As you age over a period of 30 or 40 or 50 years, you age incrementally¹⁰. And you don't see how the world sees you differently. But when you go from 45 to, say, 95, and you're a man in a wheelchair being pushed by a nurse, then you realize how radically¹¹ differently the world sees you. You are refuse. You are nothing when you're an octogenarian in a wheelchair.

When you're a drunkard on a train platform, you are avoided. When you are obese¹², you're looked at differently. When you're homeless, you're looked at differently. So for me, that was the power - I'm not claiming I know what it feels like, exactly. But I have a tiny sense of what it's like to feel how the world sees you differently.

SIMON: You mentioned being the man in the wheelchair. In some ways, I found this the most heart-rending in that you had a caretaker who was just on his smartphone.

TOLEDANO: Right.

SIMON: He was ignoring you.

TOLEDANO: Well, that photograph was the first photograph I took for the whole series. And that picture I shot fairly soon after my father died. And that was exactly what I would do with my dad. I would take him to the park in his wheelchair. And then he would fall asleep. And I would text my friends. So, essentially¹³, in that picture, I'm being my father. And it was the hardest picture I had to take.

SIMON: At one point, you become a man - looks like he's being bored to death in a cubicle¹⁴ farm.

TOLEDANO: (Laughter) Well, it's funny. You picked up on all the interesting images. People oft ask me, what's the most frightening picture for me? And for me, it's the man in an office because - what does that mean if I'm in an office? It means I've failed as an artist.

SIMON: I think a lot of people will find it most upsetting to look at the pose of you as a man who has apparently¹⁵ slit¹⁶ open his wrists in a bathtub.

TOLEDANO: Yes.

SIMON: That would signify what to you?

TOLEDANO: I guess I had nothing else to live for.

SIMON: See, for some people, that would be the most difficult thing of all - to not have a character they could play - but to simply be still and alone with yourself. I don't mean to bring it up all over again.

(LAUGHTER)

TOLEDANO: No. I mean, for me, in some ways, that was the easiest because I just had to lie there. I mean, I - look, I don't like being in front of the camera. I don't like acting¹⁷. I don't like having my picture taken. I don't like how much it costs. I don't like the production that was involved. But that image was curiously¹⁸ peaceful to make.

SIMON: Now, is that because maybe a lot of us fear death less than we fear insignificance¹⁹?

TOLEDANO: I think so. I think - other than a tragic²⁰ or terrible death, I think that the idea that your life might not work out the way you want it to work out - I think that's more frightening - certainly was to me. I mean, this project is not really - it's not about death. It's about the right angles in life.

SIMON: I wonder if, in some ways, applying yourself to this for three years was a form of recovery.

TOLEDANO: Oh, absolutely. I did a body of work with my father called "Days With My Father." And it was about me and my dad taking care of each other, in a way, when he had dementia. And with that work, I realized that I had discovered a way to have a dialogue with myself, a way to make sense of things that were happening to me in my life.

And so I did a series of projects after that - and maybe is the final iteration of that, as a way of trying to make sense of the things that life does to us.

SIMON: Phil Toledano, who stars in various disguises in the new short film "The Many Sad Fates Of Mr. Toledano," thanks so much for being with us.

1 browser   

n.浏览者

参考例句：

• View edits in a web browser.在浏览器中看编辑的效果。
• I think my browser has a list of shareware links.我想在浏览器中会有一系列的共享软件链接。

2 makeup   

n.组织；性格；化装品

参考例句：

• Those who failed the exam take a makeup exam.这次考试不及格的人必须参加补考。
• Do you think her beauty could makeup for her stupidity?你认为她的美丽能弥补她的愚蠢吗？

3 tellers   

n.（银行）出纳员( teller的名词复数 )；（投票时的）计票员；讲故事等的人；讲述者

参考例句：

• The tellers were calculating the votes. 计票员正在统计票数。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The use of automatic tellers is particularly used in large cities. 在大城市里，还特别投入了自动出纳机。 来自辞典例句

4 psychics   

心理学，心灵学； （自称）通灵的或有特异功能的人，巫师( psychic的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• One week later, I got cops and psychics on my front door. 一礼拜后，警察跟通灵人站到了我家大门口。
• Even now Directorate Psychics and powerful drugs are keeping the creature pacified. 即使是现在，联邦部队的精神力和威力强大的药剂还在让这个生物活在沉睡之中。

5 cuffed   

v.掌打，拳打( cuff的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She cuffed the boy on the side of the head. 她向这男孩的头上轻轻打了一巴掌。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Mother cuffed the dog when she found it asleep on a chair. 妈妈发现狗睡在椅子上就用手把狗打跑了。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

6 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

7 impetus   

n.推动，促进，刺激；推动力

参考例句：

• This is the primary impetus behind the economic recovery.这是促使经济复苏的主要动力。
• Her speech gave an impetus to my ideas.她的讲话激发了我的思绪。

8 obsessed   

adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的

参考例句：

• He's obsessed by computers. 他迷上了电脑。
• The fear of death obsessed him throughout his old life. 他晚年一直受着死亡恐惧的困扰。

9 terminology   

n.术语；专有名词

参考例句：

• He particularly criticized the terminology in the document.他特别批评了文件中使用的术语。
• The article uses rather specialized musical terminology.这篇文章用了相当专业的音乐术语。

10 incrementally   

adv.逐渐地

参考例句：

• Incrementally update the shared dimensions used in this cube. 增量更新此多维数据集中使用的共享维度。 来自互联网
• Grand goals are inspiring, but be sure to approach them incrementally. 辉煌的目标令人鼓舞，但一定要逐步实现。 来自互联网

11 radically   

ad.根本地，本质地

参考例句：

• I think we may have to rethink our policies fairly radically. 我认为我们可能要对我们的政策进行根本的反思。
• The health service must be radically reformed. 公共医疗卫生服务必须进行彻底改革。

12 obese   

adj.过度肥胖的，肥大的

参考例句：

• The old man is really obese,it can't be healthy.那位老人确实过于肥胖了，不能算是健康。
• Being obese and lazy is dangerous to health.又胖又懒危害健康。

13 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

14 cubicle   

n.大房间中隔出的小室

参考例句：

• She studies in a cubicle in the school library.她在学校图书馆的小自习室里学习。
• A technical sergeant hunches in a cubicle.一位技术军士在一间小屋里弯腰坐着。

15 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

16 slit   

n.狭长的切口；裂缝；vt.切开，撕裂

参考例句：

• The coat has been slit in two places.这件外衣有两处裂开了。
• He began to slit open each envelope.他开始裁开每个信封。

17 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

18 curiously   

adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地

参考例句：

• He looked curiously at the people.他好奇地看着那些人。
• He took long stealthy strides. His hands were curiously cold.他迈着悄没声息的大步。他的双手出奇地冷。

19 insignificance   

n.不重要；无价值；无意义

参考例句：

• Her insignificance in the presence of so much magnificence faintly affected her. "她想象着他所描绘的一切，心里不禁有些刺痛。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹
• It was above the common mass, above idleness, above want, above insignificance. 这里没有平凡，没有懒散，没有贫困，也没有低微。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

20 tragic   

adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的

参考例句：

• The effect of the pollution on the beaches is absolutely tragic.污染海滩后果可悲。
• Charles was a man doomed to tragic issues.查理是个注定不得善终的人。