美国国家公共电台 NPR The Hollywood Black List Turns Overlooked Scripts Into Oscar Movies

 

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: 

This week Oscar nominations¹ came out and, like many years, several of the films had something in common. "Arrival," "Jackie," "Manchester By The Sea" and "Hell Or High Water" all appeared on Hollywood's Black List. This Black List is actually a good thing. It's an anonymous² survey, and Alex Wagner writes about it in The Atlantic. Hi, Alex.

ALEX WAGNER: Hi, Ari.

SHAPIRO: Briefly³ explain what this Black List is.

WAGNER: Well, so The Black List is not the blacklist that a lot of Americans may be familiar with, a sort of witch hunt that took place in Hollywood in the '40s and '50s. It is the...

SHAPIRO: The anti-communist - yeah.

WAGNER: Exactly. It is the invention of a former - young - film industry executive named Franklin Leonard, who on a whim⁴ decided⁵ to ask his Rolodex the central question that is asked in Hollywood - what scripts have you read that are good? It doesn't mean the most bankable scripts in Hollywood, but the scripts that had the most compelling character-driven plots, the ones they couldn't put down, and the ones that also weren't yet being made into movies.

SHAPIRO: To what extent can this list really be an antidote⁶ to the overwhelming flood of blockbuster, action, comic book, superhero, sequel-based, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera movies?

WAGNER: A surprising number of scripts from The Black List actually get made into movies, about a third of them. And a lot of the Oscar nominees⁷ that we see every year come from The Black List, so it's definitely a talent clearinghouse, if you will. But the thing that I realized in the course of reporting this story, Ari, is that this does not account for the majority of Hollywood's output.

In this day and age, the lion's share of films made by Tinseltown are tent pole franchises⁸ that will do well overseas, but The Black List is really powerful and can change the careers of young writers or people who are new to Hollywood. Once you have a script on The Black List, even if that script isn't turned into a movie, your writing career definitely has juice. And that's an important thing as we talk about the American narrative⁹ and who gets to tell these stories and the ways in which we bring people into the Hollywood talent pool.

SHAPIRO: Right, there has been so much conversation about diversity in Hollywood. And to some extent I'm sure the scripts in The Black List do better than Hollywood in general, and yet the people vetting¹⁰ those scripts on The Black List are still, you know, the agents, the managers, the Hollywood people. Is it really a solution to the problem?

WAGNER: Yes and no. So Franklin Leonard set out to hopefully grab a more diverse pool of writers on The Black List, that hasn't really been the case. Sort of as a rejoinder to that or maybe to compliment the survey itself, he's developed a Black List screenwriting - scriptwriting service, and that allows anybody anywhere in the world to post their screenplay to the website for a small fee and have it reviewed by a number of industry professionals. In that way it sort of changes the power paradigm¹¹, it changes the gatekeeping.

And more fundamentally, it doesn't necessitate¹² that screenwriters move to Los Angeles and work in an industry mailroom. That is a livelihood¹³ and a move that very few Americans can make, and they tend to be wealthier and better educated Americans that have either the family resources to support their meager¹⁴ salaries or the networks to get in with the studios.

SHAPIRO: She did a ton of interviews for this piece in The Atlantic, people on the inside and the outside all over Hollywood, and I wonder if at the end of the day you took away that The Black List is a good solution to the problems that plague Hollywood or just evidence of how huge those problems are that even something as influential¹⁵ as The Black List really can't change the direction of this massive steamship¹⁶?

WAGNER: So I guess I was a little bit heartened and a little bit despondent¹⁷, if you will. It's - Hollywood's a huge machine, and the people that are still greenlighting the majority of films tend to be overwhelmingly white and overwhelmingly male. "The Hunger Games" almost didn't really get made because people didn't believe in a film that had a female teenage protagonist¹⁸. "The Butler" barely got made, it was basically crowdsource funding from 40 people because no studio would fund it.

SHAPIRO: And that was even after Oprah was on board. This was not some little-known project.

WAGNER: Exactly. I mean, "Slumdog Millionaire" very nearly went straight to DVD because the people who are deciding whether to get behind a movie are coming from a very specific place, and that is problematic and that requires systemic change. And as far as anyone in the industry being really very invested in creating that change and that disruption and allocating¹⁹ resources towards it, I just didn't see it.

SHAPIRO: That's Alex Wagner of CBS News and The Atlantic. Her new article is called "The Hollywood list Everyone Wants To Be On." Thanks, Alex.

WAGNER: Thanks, Ari.

(SOUNDBITE OF DEVENDRA BANHART SONG, "BABY")

1 nominations   

n.提名，任命( nomination的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Nominations are invited for the post of party chairman. 为党主席职位征集候选人。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Much coverage surrounded his abortive bids for the 1960,1964, and 1968 Republican Presidential nominations. 许多消息报道都围绕着1960年、1964年和1968年他为争取提名为共和党总统候选人所做努力的失败。 来自辞典例句

2 anonymous   

adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的

参考例句：

• Sending anonymous letters is a cowardly act.寄匿名信是懦夫的行为。
• The author wishes to remain anonymous.作者希望姓名不公开。

3 briefly   

adv.简单地，简短地

参考例句：

• I want to touch briefly on another aspect of the problem.我想简单地谈一下这个问题的另一方面。
• He was kidnapped and briefly detained by a terrorist group.他被一个恐怖组织绑架并短暂拘禁。

4 whim   

n.一时的兴致，突然的念头；奇想，幻想

参考例句：

• I bought the encyclopedia on a whim.我凭一时的兴致买了这本百科全书。
• He had a sudden whim to go sailing today.今天他突然想要去航海。

5 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

6 antidote   

n.解毒药，解毒剂

参考例句：

• There is no known antidote for this poison.这种毒药没有解药。
• Chinese physicians used it as an antidote for snake poison.中医师用它来解蛇毒。

7 nominees   

n.被提名者，被任命者( nominee的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• She's one of the nominees. 她是被提名者之一。 来自超越目标英语 第2册
• A startling number of his nominees for senior positions have imploded. 他所提名的高级官员被否决的数目令人震惊。 来自互联网

8 franchises   

n.（尤指选举议员的）选举权( franchise的名词复数 )；参政权；获特许权的商业机构（或服务）；（公司授予的）特许经销权v.给…以特许权，出售特许权( franchise的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• TV franchises will be auctioned to the highest bidder. 电视特许经营权将拍卖给出价最高的投标人。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Ford dealerships operated as independent franchises. 福特汽车公司的代销商都是独立的联营商。 来自辞典例句

9 narrative   

n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的

参考例句：

• He was a writer of great narrative power.他是一位颇有记述能力的作家。
• Neither author was very strong on narrative.两个作者都不是很善于讲故事。

10 vetting   

n.数据检查[核对，核实]v.审查（某人过去的记录、资格等）( vet的现在分词 )；调查；检查；诊疗

参考例句：

• Scripts had to be submitted to Ministry of Information officials for vetting. 必须把脚本提交给信息部官员审查。 来自互联网
• Their purpose in clicking deeper into a site is one of vetting. 他们深入点击网站的目的是一种诊疗。 来自互联网

11 paradigm   

n.例子，模范，词形变化表

参考例句：

• He had become the paradigm of the successful man. 他已经成为成功人士的典范。
• Moreover,the results of this research can be the new learning paradigm for digital design studios.除此之外，本研究的研究成果也可以为数位设计课程建立一个新的学习范例。

12 necessitate   

v.使成为必要，需要

参考例句：

• Your proposal would necessitate changing our plans.你的提议可能使我们的计划必须变更。
• The conversion will necessitate the complete rebuilding of the interior.转变就必需完善内部重建。

13 livelihood   

n.生计，谋生之道

参考例句：

• Appropriate arrangements will be made for their work and livelihood.他们的工作和生活会得到妥善安排。
• My father gained a bare livelihood of family by his own hands.父亲靠自己的双手勉强维持家计。

14 meager   

adj.缺乏的，不足的，瘦的

参考例句：

• He could not support his family on his meager salary.他靠微薄的工资无法养家。
• The two men and the woman grouped about the fire and began their meager meal.两个男人同一个女人围着火，开始吃起少得可怜的午饭。

15 influential   

adj.有影响的，有权势的

参考例句：

• He always tries to get in with the most influential people.他总是试图巴结最有影响的人物。
• He is a very influential man in the government.他在政府中是个很有影响的人物。

16 steamship   

n.汽船，轮船

参考例句：

• The return may be made on the same steamship.可乘同一艘汽船当天回来。
• It was so foggy that the steamship almost ran down a small boat leaving the port.雾很大，汽艇差点把一只正在离港的小船撞沉。

17 despondent   

adj.失望的，沮丧的，泄气的

参考例句：

• He was up for a time and then，without warning,despondent again.他一度兴高采烈，但忽然又情绪低落下来。
• I feel despondent when my work is rejected.作品被拒后我感到很沮丧。

18 protagonist   

n.(思想观念的)倡导者；主角，主人公

参考例句：

• The protagonist reforms in the end and avoids his proper punishment.戏剧主角最后改过自新并避免了他应受的惩罚。
• He is the model for the protagonist in the play.剧本中的主人公就是以他为模特儿创作的！

19 allocating   

分配，分派( allocate的现在分词 )； 把…拨给

参考例句：

• Administrative practice generally follows the judicial model in allocating burdens of proof. 在分配举证责任方面，行政实践通常遵循司法模式。
• A cyclical multiplexing technique, allocating resources in fixed-time slices. 以固定的时间片分配资源的循环复用技术。