美国国家公共电台 NPR Biography Captures The Charisma And Confidence Of Photographer Inge Morath

 

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Next we have the story of Inge Morath, a woman who escaped Nazi¹ Germany, became a glamorous² globetrotting photographer and married the playwright³ Arthur Miller⁴. She's the subject of a biography now, and NPR special correspondent Susan Stamberg has the story of a woman who rose from the ashes of World War II.

SUSAN STAMBERG, BYLINE⁵: When she came to NPR for an interview in 1987, Inge Morath was charming and spirited.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

INGE MORATH: I'm fascinated by the necessity of quick decisions.

STAMBERG: She made them with her Leica camera, a bit of photojournalism, portraits, fashion shots and picture stories for magazines. She took publicity⁶ stills for Marilyn Monroe's last movie, "The Misfits."

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE MISFITS")

MARILYN MONROE: (As Roslyn Taber) No, the trouble is I always end up back where I started - never had anybody much. Here I am.

STAMBERG: It was in 1960 on the set of "The Misfits" that she met the film's screenwriter, Arthur Miller. Inge's biographer Linda Gordon says Miller wrote the movie for his wife.

LINDA GORDON: Miller's relationship with Marilyn Monroe was already falling apart, and Marilyn Monroe herself was in very, very bad shape. And many of the people around the films thought it was a miracle that they actually got this film together.

STAMBERG: Little of that struggle showed up in Morath's photos.

GORDON: Inge took some very, very beautiful and sympathetic photographs of Marilyn Monroe. But Miller had struck her as intensely interesting, and he was quite impressed.

STAMBERG: They had an affair. In 1962, they married and stayed married for 40 years until Inge's death in 2002. She was a supportive partner for Miller, something Marilyn could never be.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

STAMBERG: Do you ever - have you in subsequent years wished you'd paid more attention to her then?

This is from my 1987 interview with Morath.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

STAMBERG: As a woman who'd been in the presence of an earlier wife, I mean, looking...

MORATH: Yes.

STAMBERG: ...Looking back at it that way...

MORATH: Well, no. I think you have to be yourself even if you are the first, the second or the third wife. If you try to take over anything or imitate anything, I think it would be a disaster.

GORDON: She was a woman of extraordinary self-confidence.

STAMBERG: Again, biographer Linda Gordon.

GORDON: One sees that throughout her life - both self-confidence as a photographer, as a person but also as her own sexual being.

STAMBERG: Lots of affairs, magnetic personality, gracious.

GORDON: She was just a person who drew you in.

STAMBERG: As a young woman, Inge Morath had a rough time in Germany during the war.

GORDON: After Allied⁷ bombs started falling heavily on Berlin and landing very near the ammunitions factory where she was a forced worker, she joined columns of hundreds, probably thousands, of people on foot just leaving Berlin.

STAMBERG: Biographer Gordon says Inge walked 455 miles to her parents in Salzburg, Austria. They were Nazi sympathizers. Their daughter was not. In Paris after the war, Inge got a job at Magnum, the elite⁸ photo agency founded by the great pioneers of photojournalism, Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson.

GORDON: She was doing secretarial work. She was editing contact sheets. She was even cleaning the office space.

STAMBERG: And getting interested in photography. Cartier-Bresson was her mentor⁹. After auditioning¹⁰, Magnum made her their first full-time¹¹ female member. With her camera, Inge followed her passion for travel. In Spain, she wangled her way into the dressing¹² room of the great toreador Antonio Ordonez. Her 1954 photo shows him preparing for combat - bare muscled chest, skin-tight, sequinned and embroidered¹³ pants. It took chutzpah to get into his dressing room. Women there were considered bad luck.

GORDON: In fact, to get into that space, she half-jokingly made a completely outrageous¹⁴ argument. She said, I'm wearing pants when I work; therefore, I'm neither man nor woman.

STAMBERG: In Seville, Morath put on a flamenco costume and climbed up on a chair to shoot dancers whirling to the music in their layered red and white skirts and petticoats.

GORDON: The image is so saturated¹⁵ with red and white. And you only see these people from the waist down. The energy is there. She has captured the movement but with a camera just slow enough so that some of the picture is blurred¹⁶ as you see the skirts whirling around.

STAMBERG: Linda Gordon's illustrated¹⁷ biography of Morath has a handful of great pictures. But outside of photography circles, she's little known for her craft.

How do you think she would feel about always being in a sentence that also includes Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe?

GORDON: Well, I think she was resigned to it. I do not like the fact that many people only know of her as a wife of Arthur Miller and the wife immediately after Marilyn Monroe. But my impression is that she was pretty - pretty copacetic about it.

STAMBERG: Could be Inge Morath's confidence again, propelling her through another life passage. I'm Susan Stamberg, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

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 glamorous   

adj.富有魅力的；美丽动人的；令人向往的

参考例句：

• The south coast is less glamorous but full of clean and attractive hotels.南海岸魅力稍逊，但却有很多干净漂亮的宾馆。
• It is hard work and not a glamorous job as portrayed by the media.这是份苦差，并非像媒体描绘的那般令人向往。

3 playwright   

n.剧作家，编写剧本的人

参考例句：

• Gwyn Thomas was a famous playwright.格温·托马斯是著名的剧作家。
• The playwright was slaughtered by the press.这位剧作家受到新闻界的无情批判。

4 miller   

n.磨坊主

参考例句：

• Every miller draws water to his own mill.磨坊主都往自己磨里注水。
• The skilful miller killed millions of lions with his ski.技术娴熟的磨坊主用雪橇杀死了上百万头狮子。

5 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。

6 publicity   

n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告

参考例句：

• The singer star's marriage got a lot of publicity.这位歌星的婚事引起了公众的关注。
• He dismissed the event as just a publicity gimmick.他不理会这件事，只当它是一种宣传手法。

7 allied   

adj.协约国的；同盟国的

参考例句：

• Britain was allied with the United States many times in history.历史上英国曾多次与美国结盟。
• Allied forces sustained heavy losses in the first few weeks of the campaign.同盟国在最初几周内遭受了巨大的损失。

8 elite   

n.精英阶层；实力集团；adj.杰出的，卓越的

参考例句：

• The power elite inside the government is controlling foreign policy.政府内部的一群握有实权的精英控制着对外政策。
• We have a political elite in this country.我们国家有一群政治精英。

9 mentor   

n.指导者，良师益友；v.指导

参考例句：

• He fed on the great ideas of his mentor.他以他导师的伟大思想为支撑。
• He had mentored scores of younger doctors.他指导过许多更年轻的医生。

10 auditioning   

vi.试听（audition的现在分词形式）

参考例句：

• She was auditioning for the role of Lady Macbeth. 她试演了麦克佩斯夫人的角色。
• Which part are you auditioning for? 你试音什么角色？ 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 full-time   

adj.满工作日的或工作周的，全时间的

参考例句：

• A full-time job may be too much for her.全天工作她恐怕吃不消。
• I don't know how she copes with looking after her family and doing a full-time job.既要照顾家庭又要全天工作，我不知道她是如何对付的。

12 dressing   

n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料

参考例句：

• Don't spend such a lot of time in dressing yourself.别花那么多时间来打扮自己。
• The children enjoy dressing up in mother's old clothes.孩子们喜欢穿上妈妈旧时的衣服玩。

13 embroidered   

adj．绣花的

参考例句：

• She embroidered flowers on the cushion covers. 她在这些靠垫套上绣了花。
• She embroidered flowers on the front of the dress. 她在连衣裙的正面绣花。

14 outrageous   

adj.无理的，令人不能容忍的

参考例句：

• Her outrageous behaviour at the party offended everyone.她在聚会上的无礼行为触怒了每一个人。
• Charges for local telephone calls are particularly outrageous.本地电话资费贵得出奇。

15 saturated   

a.饱和的，充满的

参考例句：

• The continuous rain had saturated the soil. 连绵不断的雨把土地淋了个透。
• a saturated solution of sodium chloride 氯化钠饱和溶液

16 blurred   

v.（使）变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）难以区分；模模糊糊；迷离

参考例句：

• She suffered from dizziness and blurred vision. 她饱受头晕目眩之苦。
• Their lazy, blurred voices fell pleasantly on his ears. 他们那种慢吞吞、含糊不清的声音在他听起来却很悦耳。 来自《简明英汉词典》

17 illustrated   

adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• His lecture was illustrated with slides taken during the expedition. 他在讲演中使用了探险时拍摄到的幻灯片。
• The manufacturing Methods: Will be illustrated in the next chapter. 制作方法将在下一章说明。