美国国家公共电台 NPR 'Femininity Is Not Weakness,' Jessica Chastain Says Of 'Zookeeper's Wife'

 

LOURDES GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

In the new film, "The Zookeeper's Wife," Jessica Chastain plays Antonina Zabinska. It's World War II. And along with her husband, Antonina runs the Warsaw Zoo. She has a way with animals, but she's leery of humans.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE ZOOKEEPER'S WIFE")

JESSICA CHASTAIN: (As Antonina Zabinski) You can never tell who your enemies are or who to trust. Maybe that's why I love animals so much. You look in their eyes, and you know exactly what's in their hearts.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: As the horrors of Nazi¹ rule in Poland unfold, Antonina is slowly transformed, and she ultimately helps rescue hundreds of Jews from the Warsaw ghetto². "The Zookeeper's Wife" is based on the 2007 book of the same name. It's a true story drawn³ from Antonina's journals. Director Niki Caro and Jessica Chastain joined us to talk about what drew them to the material.

CHASTAIN: Antonina was always a healer. She believed every living creature was equal and deserved respect and love and honor as miracles. But it was really important - when playing the character, I didn't want the decision to be so easy because I feel like that undervalues the courage that she had.

In that time period, if you were to give even a Jewish person a glass of water, you would be shot. Your children would be shot. And so for her to make the decision to hide people, it just meant that she was risking the lives of her children. But I don't know that there was another way for Antonina because she really was a healer.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Niki Caro, this is a seminal⁴ period in World War II history - the Warsaw ghetto, the German invasion. What did you want to get across about this particular moment in time?

NIKI CARO: I saw in this material a new kind of Holocaust⁵ movie, if you like, because it was a woman's perspective and about a woman's experience of war. I wanted to honor that and Antonina - her compassion⁶, her courage - but also the manner with which she created sanctuary⁷.

It wasn't just that she was hiding people inside of her zoo at great risk to herself. It was the fact that she wanted these people not just to survive, but to survive with their dignity and their humanity intact. So she was bringing them music and art, a small amount of creature comforts and luxury. And this sensitivity to the human spirit I really wanted to bring through in this movie within the context of Holocaust and the war.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Obviously, the other big characters in this are the animals themselves and how Antonina interacts with them and also just how the Jewish community gets pulled in and put into these animal pens from this terrible place which is the Warsaw ghetto. Can you talk about that interplay between how the animals are treated and how the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto are treated?

CARO: One of the very interesting things about this story for me was the tension between what is human and what is animal. What is a cage, and what is sanctuary? And, yes, the Warsaw ghetto is the biggest cage of all.

And there is a moment in the movie where we see the banality⁸ of evil and tremendous inhumanity where a Polish couple walking by the streets of Warsaw taking photos of one another outside as if it was some kind of grotesque⁹ attraction as if they might have been at a zoo in fact.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I thought that was a very modern touch, by the way - the sort of selfies in front of something unimaginable.

CARO: It is, and yet that comes from documentary accuracy from some of the research that me and my team did in getting ready to make this movie.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Since you're both here, I'd like to get your views a little bit more broadly on where you feel women in film are, specifically women directors and women leads to make a movie like this, which focuses on the female experience in conflict.

CHASTAIN: It's not just in terms of female filmmakers. You have to also look at studio heads. You have to look at writers. And also, what no one seems to talk about is critics. I find it very interesting when, you know, 90 percent of the critics that review films are men. How is that helpful when trying to create stories from a feminine point of view?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: I think you're mentioning this because some of the critics of this film have said, why is Antonina the hero when her husband is the one going off and fighting and smuggling¹⁰ Jews out of the ghetto? Why focus on her story when he's the real hero? Is that what you're getting at?

CHASTAIN: Actually, I'm going to let Niki take this one.

CARO: Yeah, yeah. I want this one so badly.

(LAUGHTER)

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Take it away.

CARO: Look, this is what it is. Most movies about war are from the male point of view, but wars are fought by both genders¹¹. And Antonina's war was fought with compassion. Now that is no less relevant of a perspective on war than the other. We are more used to men fighting with guns and bombs. And those sequences are very effective. But in a woman's story, in a story about "The Zookeeper's Wife," she is the hero of that story. And her contribution was equally powerful as her husband's.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Jessica?

CHASTAIN: We need to understand that femininity is not weakness. And our society, for some reason, equates¹² the two. And in my personal opinion, I think it's exceptionally brave to fight violence with love and, perhaps, even more scary to not have a weapon in your hand and just try to heal others. And I'm so proud to be part of a story that inspires that. And I hope society, the world will start to value femininity and women's stories.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Jessica Chastain, Niki Caro, thank you so much for being with us.

CARO: Thank you.

CHASTAIN: Thank you very much.

(SOUNDBITE OF MARK ORTON'S "THE RETURN")

GARCIA-NAVARRO: "The Zookeeper's Wife" is out now.

1 Nazi   

n.纳粹分子，adj.纳粹党的，纳粹的

参考例句：

• They declare the Nazi regime overthrown and sue for peace.他们宣布纳粹政权已被推翻，并出面求和。
• Nazi closes those war criminals inside their concentration camp.纳粹把那些战犯关在他们的集中营里。

2 ghetto   

n.少数民族聚居区，贫民区

参考例句：

• Racism and crime still flourish in the ghetto.城市贫民区的种族主义和犯罪仍然十分猖獗。
• I saw that achievement as a possible pattern for the entire ghetto.我把获得的成就看作整个黑人区可以仿效的榜样。

3 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

4 seminal   

adj.影响深远的；种子的

参考例句：

• The reforms have been a seminal event in the history of the NHS.这些改革已成为英国国民保健制度史上影响深远的一件大事。
• The emperor's importance as a seminal figure of history won't be diminished.做为一个开创性历史人物的重要性是不会减弱的。

5 holocaust   

n.大破坏；大屠杀

参考例句：

• The Auschwitz concentration camp always remind the world of the holocaust.奥辛威茨集中营总是让世人想起大屠杀。
• Ahmadinejad is denying the holocaust because he's as brutal as Hitler was.内贾德否认大屠杀，因为他像希特勒一样残忍。

6 compassion   

n.同情，怜悯

参考例句：

• He could not help having compassion for the poor creature.他情不自禁地怜悯起那个可怜的人来。
• Her heart was filled with compassion for the motherless children.她对于没有母亲的孩子们充满了怜悯心。

7 sanctuary   

n.圣所，圣堂，寺庙；禁猎区，保护区

参考例句：

• There was a sanctuary of political refugees behind the hospital.医院后面有一个政治难民的避难所。
• Most countries refuse to give sanctuary to people who hijack aeroplanes.大多数国家拒绝对劫机者提供庇护。

8 banality   

n.陈腐；平庸；陈词滥调

参考例句：

• Neil's ability to utter banalities never ceased to amaze me.每次我都很惊讶，尼尔怎么能讲出这么索然无味的东西。
• He couldn't believe the banality of the question.他无法相信那问题竟如此陈腐。

9 grotesque   

adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物）

参考例句：

• His face has a grotesque appearance.他的面部表情十分怪。
• Her account of the incident was a grotesque distortion of the truth.她对这件事的陈述是荒诞地歪曲了事实。

10 smuggling   

n.走私

参考例句：

• Some claimed that the docker's union fronted for the smuggling ring.某些人声称码头工人工会是走私集团的掩护所。
• The evidence pointed to the existence of an international smuggling network.证据表明很可能有一个国际走私网络存在。

11 genders   

n.性某些语言的（阳性、阴性和中性，不同的性有不同的词尾等）( gender的名词复数 )；性别；某些语言的（名词、代词和形容词）性的区分

参考例句：

• There are three genders in German: masculine, feminine and neuter. 德语中有叁性：阳性、阴性和中性。 来自辞典例句
• Japan was fourth among the genders of foreign students. 日本在二十个留美学生输送地中列第四位。 来自互联网

12 equates   

v.认为某事物（与另一事物）相等或相仿( equate的第三人称单数 )；相当于；等于；把（一事物） 和（另一事物）等同看待

参考例句：

• He equates success with material wealth. 他认为成功等同于物质财富。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• This equates to increased and vigor, better sleep and sharper mental acuity. 也就是说可以起到增强活力，改善睡眠，提高心智的作用。 来自互联网