美国国家公共电台 NPR LA Is Grim, And Nicole Kidman Is Grizzled, In 'Destroyer'

 

NOEL KING, HOST:

This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Noel King.

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

And I'm David Greene. Nicole Kidman has been pretty busy. She is currently starring in three movies, as the queen of Atlantis in "Aquaman," as a supportive mother in the drama "Boy Erased¹" and as a broken-down LAPD detective in "Destroyer." That last one - a dark thriller² - comes out tomorrow. And let's just say it's a counterpoint to Christmas cheer.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DESTROYER")

NICOLE KIDMAN: (As Erin Bell) I'm taking these with me.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) What? Hey.

KIDMAN: (As Erin Bell) Yeah. You want them back, call me with names.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Don't do it, fool.

KIDMAN: (As Erin Bell) Call me with names.

GREENE: NPR's Mandalit del Barco interviewed Kidman and her director, Karyn Kusama, about the making of "Destroyer."

MANDALIT DEL BARCO, BYLINE³: In "Destroyer," Nicole Kidman looks like a hot mess - puffy, red eyes, dull, disheveled hair, no makeup⁴, weather-beaten.

In the opening scene, her character, LAPD Detective Erin Bell, lumbers⁵ out of the car she slept in all night. She hobbles like a wounded animal to a crime scene along the concrete bank of the LA River.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DESTROYER")

KIDMAN: (As Erin Bell) Who is it?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) No ID, no idea.

DEL BARCO: The raspy-voiced cop in a black leather jacket peers at a corpse⁶ with tattoos⁷.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DESTROYER")

KIDMAN: (As Erin Bell) What about if I know who did this?

DEL BARCO: The film flashes back to when she was undercover with a gang planning a heist. And now, she hunts an old nemesis⁸. Here's Kidman's take on her character.

KIDMAN: I mean, Erin is complicated and damaged, angry, shameful⁹. When you meet her, she's on the road to trying to atone¹⁰ for a lot of the bad choices she's made and the things she's done that have caused damage to others.

DEL BARCO: Her character is in every scene of the film. She alternates between trying to counsel her wayward daughter...

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DESTROYER")

KIDMAN: (As Erin Bell) I need to be able to find you.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #4: (As character) Why?

KIDMAN: (As Erin Bell) Because I just do.

DEL BARCO: ...To brutally¹¹ fist fighting her foes¹².

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DESTROYER")

KIDMAN: (As Erin Bell, grunting).

She's tough, and she's capable of fighting, and she's capable of using weapons. And she's got demons¹³ as well.

DEL BARCO: Kidman says director Karyn Kusama had her prepare for the role by watching footage of wild coyotes.

KIDMAN: These female coyotes with their young'uns, and they're around the - in Silver Lake, around the reservoir, and they were shot by drones. And she had this footage, and I watched that. And that actually really penetrated¹⁴ my performance, strangely enough.

CLAUDIA PUIG: This is definitely the anti-Mary Poppins. But it's a very well-made thriller.

DEL BARCO: Claudia Puig is president of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.

PUIG: It's very unusual for a woman to play the sort of hard-bitten, often amoral detective that we see a lot of men play. It's a pretty twisted and dark movie to go see on Christmas Day, but maybe the day after.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DESTROYER")

KIDMAN: (As Erin Bell) I just want to talk.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #5: (As character) I don't know why you're...

KIDMAN: (As Erin Bell) Stop.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #5: (As character) You don't need to do this.

DEL BARCO: Detective Erin Bell chases down informants and travels through parts of Los Angeles rarely seen on film. In fact, the same location manager from "La La Land" scouted¹⁵ sites for "Destroyer" - skid¹⁶ row, a colossal¹⁷ self-storage facility between freeways, an old Chinese diner in the gritty MacArthur Park area.

(SOUNDBITE OF ENGINE REVVING)

DEL BARCO: As we drive around revisiting locations, director Karyn Kusama gives her vision of LA.

KARYN KUSAMA: Chaos¹⁸, beauty, ugliness, awe-inspiring transcendental grace. What makes Los Angeles so interesting is it's not just, frankly¹⁹, a beautiful city. In fact, there are many parts of it that are quite hard to look at, and then you can find yourself in some sort of pocket of paradise.

DEL BARCO: Kusama takes me and my editor Nina Gregory to a hidden patch of land where she shot a chase scene at night. We climb a rickety wooden staircase to get to a ridge²⁰ in Elysian Park. So from here, you can see the Hollywood sign.

KUSAMA: Yeah. We're pretty high, actually, right now in the city.

(SOUNDBITE OF GUNSHOTS)

DEL BARCO: Is that gunshots or fireworks?

KUSAMA: LAPD training - that's where they shoot.

DEL BARCO: Fitting.

KUSAMA: Yes (laughter). It is. It is.

DEL BARCO: With the sounds of the police academy firing range and a freight train in the distance, we walk through the forested area on an uneven²¹ concrete trail past graffiti-carved pine trees.

KUSAMA: There's prescription²² pill bottles and needles and old, broken-down baby carriages. I mean, it's an intense spot. And at night, it gets very intense.

(SOUNDBITE OF FOOTSTEPS)

DEL BARCO: We climb to the top of the hill to a grand vista²³.

KUSAMA: And here's Dodger²⁴ Stadium. Then you turn around, and there's downtown LA.

DEL BARCO: Wow, this is amazing.

KUSAMA: It is pretty great, right? And, yet, it's just abandoned. Here we are, standing²⁵ alone at the top of this perch²⁶ in urban LA.

DEL BARCO: Kusama's previous films include "Girlfight," from 2000, about female boxers²⁷. She directed the supernatural horror comedy "Jennifer's Body" and, most recently, a thriller called "The Invitation." All have strong female characters. She calls "Destroyer" a sunlit noir.

KUSAMA: Because so much of it is outside, and it's just so blindingly bright. Erin Bell proves to be both the detective and the femme fatale. In traditional noirs, women are tremendous troublemakers²⁸ and very important agents in the story, but they're never the lead. And in this case, she gets to be both.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

DEL BARCO: Kusama says "Destroyer" also harkens back to films from the 1970s, like "Klute."

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "KLUTE")

JANE FONDA: (As Bree Daniels) Why do I still want to trick?

DEL BARCO: And "Taxi Driver."

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "TAXI DRIVER")

ROBERT DE NIRO: (As Travis Bickle) You talking to me?

DEL BARCO: And "Dog Day Afternoon."

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DOG DAY AFTERNOON")

AL PACINO: (As Sonny) He wants to kill me so bad he can taste it. Attica. Attica. Attica.

DEL BARCO: Kusama says with flawed, morally ambiguous, alienated²⁹ antiheroes, those films reflected the political climate of the times. She sees "Destroyer" in that same vein³⁰.

KUSAMA: It's much more about a feeling of despair, a sense of frustration³¹ with the larger culture and a sense that most regular people are marginalized by the system.

I feel a tremendous amount of that right now every day, and this is my way of trying to grapple with it because I like watching a character make some terrible mistakes and make small steps toward being morally accountable, taking some personal responsibility for her own actions. And, you know, that's something I think we could all use seeing more examples of.

DEL BARCO: In a year where the biggest box office successes have starred superheroes and dinosaurs³², "Destroyer" offers up a grim dose of reality for Christmas. Mandalit del Barco, NPR News, Los Angeles.

(SOUNDBITE OF THEODORE SHAPIRO'S "ECSTASY")

1 erased   

v.擦掉( erase的过去式和过去分词 )；抹去；清除

参考例句：

• He erased the wrong answer and wrote in the right one. 他擦去了错误答案，写上了正确答案。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He removed the dogmatism from politics; he erased the party line. 他根除了政治中的教条主义，消除了政党界限。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 thriller   

n.惊险片，恐怖片

参考例句：

• He began by writing a thriller.That book sold a million copies.他是写惊险小说起家的。那本书卖了一百万册。
• I always take a thriller to read on the train.我乘火车时，总带一本惊险小说看。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 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？

5 lumbers   

砍伐（lumber的第三人称单数形式）

参考例句：

• Carefully she covers them and lumbers away. 它把这些卵仔细地盖好，然后慢吞吞地走开了。
• Research shows that the intrinsic frequency of hole defect lumbers is little lower than standard lumbers. 研究表明，含有孔洞试件的固有频率与标准试件相比略低一些，但差别不大。

6 corpse   

n.尸体，死尸

参考例句：

• What she saw was just an unfeeling corpse.她见到的只是一具全无感觉的尸体。
• The corpse was preserved from decay by embalming.尸体用香料涂抹以防腐烂。

7 tattoos   

n.文身( tattoo的名词复数 )；归营鼓；军队夜间表演操；连续有节奏的敲击声v.刺青，文身( tattoo的第三人称单数 )；连续有节奏地敲击；作连续有节奏的敲击

参考例句：

• His arms were covered in tattoos. 他的胳膊上刺满了花纹。
• His arms were covered in tattoos. 他的双臂刺满了纹身。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 nemesis   

n.给以报应者，复仇者，难以对付的敌手

参考例句：

• Uncritical trust is my nemesis.盲目的相信一切害了我自己。
• Inward suffering is the worst of Nemesis.内心的痛苦是最厉害的惩罚。

9 shameful   

adj.可耻的，不道德的

参考例句：

• It is very shameful of him to show off.他向人炫耀自己，真不害臊。
• We must expose this shameful activity to the newspapers.我们一定要向报社揭露这一无耻行径。

10 atone   

v.赎罪，补偿

参考例句：

• He promised to atone for his crime.他承诺要赎自己的罪。
• Blood must atone for blood.血债要用血来还。

11 brutally   

adv.残忍地，野蛮地，冷酷无情地

参考例句：

• The uprising was brutally put down.起义被残酷地镇压下去了。
• A pro-democracy uprising was brutally suppressed.一场争取民主的起义被残酷镇压了。

12 foes   

敌人，仇敌( foe的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• They steadily pushed their foes before them. 他们不停地追击敌人。
• She had fought many battles, vanquished many foes. 她身经百战，挫败过很多对手。

13 demons   

n.恶人( demon的名词复数 )；恶魔；精力过人的人；邪念

参考例句：

• demons torturing the sinners in Hell 地狱里折磨罪人的魔鬼
• He is plagued by demons which go back to his traumatic childhood. 他为心魔所困扰，那可追溯至他饱受创伤的童年。 来自《简明英汉词典》

14 penetrated   

adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式

参考例句：

• The knife had penetrated his chest. 刀子刺入了他的胸膛。
• They penetrated into territory where no man had ever gone before. 他们已进入先前没人去过的地区。

15 scouted   

寻找，侦察( scout的过去式和过去分词 )； 物色（优秀运动员、演员、音乐家等）

参考例句：

• They scouted around for a shop that was open late. 他们四处寻找，看看还有没有夜间营业的商店。
• They scouted around for a beauty parlour. 他们四处寻找美容院。

16 skid   

v.打滑 n.滑向一侧；滑道 ，滑轨

参考例句：

• He braked suddenly,causing the front wheels to skid.他突然剎车，使得前轮打了滑。
• The police examined the skid marks to see how fast the car had been travelling.警察检查了车轮滑行痕迹，以判断汽车当时开得有多快。

17 colossal   

adj.异常的，庞大的

参考例句：

• There has been a colossal waste of public money.一直存在巨大的公款浪费。
• Some of the tall buildings in that city are colossal.那座城市里的一些高层建筑很庞大。

18 chaos   

n.混乱，无秩序

参考例句：

• After the failure of electricity supply the city was in chaos.停电后，城市一片混乱。
• The typhoon left chaos behind it.台风后一片混乱。

19 frankly   

adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说

参考例句：

• To speak frankly, I don't like the idea at all.老实说，我一点也不赞成这个主意。
• Frankly speaking, I'm not opposed to reform.坦率地说，我不反对改革。

20 ridge   

n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭

参考例句：

• We clambered up the hillside to the ridge above.我们沿着山坡费力地爬上了山脊。
• The infantry were advancing to attack the ridge.步兵部队正在向前挺进攻打山脊。

21 uneven   

adj.不平坦的，不规则的，不均匀的

参考例句：

• The sidewalk is very uneven—be careful where you walk.这人行道凹凸不平—走路时请小心。
• The country was noted for its uneven distribution of land resources.这个国家以土地资源分布不均匀出名。

22 prescription   

n.处方，开药；指示，规定

参考例句：

• The physician made a prescription against sea- sickness for him.医生给他开了个治晕船的药方。
• The drug is available on prescription only.这种药只能凭处方购买。

23 vista   

n.远景，深景，展望，回想

参考例句：

• From my bedroom window I looked out on a crowded vista of hills and rooftops.我从卧室窗口望去，远处尽是连绵的山峦和屋顶。
• These uprisings come from desperation and a vista of a future without hope.发生这些暴动是因为人们被逼上了绝路，未来看不到一点儿希望。

24 dodger   

n.躲避者；躲闪者；广告单

参考例句：

• They are tax dodgers who hide their interest earnings.他们是隐瞒利息收入的逃税者。
• Make sure she pays her share she's a bit of a dodger.她自己的一份一定要她付清--她可是有点能赖就赖。

25 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

26 perch   

n.栖木，高位，杆；v.栖息，就位，位于

参考例句：

• The bird took its perch.鸟停歇在栖木上。
• Little birds perch themselves on the branches.小鸟儿栖歇在树枝上。

27 boxers   

n.拳击短裤；（尤指职业）拳击手( boxer的名词复数 )；拳师狗

参考例句：

• The boxers were goaded on by the shrieking crowd. 拳击运动员听见观众的喊叫就来劲儿了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The boxers slugged it out to the finish. 两名拳击手最后决出了胜负。 来自《简明英汉词典》

28 troublemakers   

n.惹是生非者，捣乱者( troublemaker的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He was employed to chuck out any troublemakers. 他受雇把捣乱者赶走。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She had automatically labelled the boys as troublemakers. 她不假思索地认定这些男孩子是捣蛋鬼。 来自《简明英汉词典》

29 alienated   

adj.感到孤独的，不合群的v.使疏远( alienate的过去式和过去分词 )；使不友好；转让；让渡（财产等）

参考例句：

• His comments have alienated a lot of young voters. 他的言论使许多年轻选民离他而去。
• The Prime Minister's policy alienated many of her followers. 首相的政策使很多拥护她的人疏远了她。 来自《简明英汉词典》

30 vein   

n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络

参考例句：

• The girl is not in the vein for singing today.那女孩今天没有心情唱歌。
• The doctor injects glucose into the patient's vein.医生把葡萄糖注射入病人的静脉。

31 frustration   

n.挫折，失败，失效，落空

参考例句：

• He had to fight back tears of frustration.他不得不强忍住失意的泪水。
• He beat his hands on the steering wheel in frustration.他沮丧地用手打了几下方向盘。

32 dinosaurs   

n.恐龙( dinosaur的名词复数 )；守旧落伍的人，过时落后的东西

参考例句：

• The brontosaurus was one of the largest of all dinosaurs. 雷龙是所有恐龙中最大的一种。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Dinosaurs have been extinct for millions of years. 恐龙绝种已有几百万年了。 来自《简明英汉词典》