美国国家公共电台 NPR Sam Mendes On '1917,' A World War I Story Inspired By His Grandfather

 

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Lance Corporals Blake and Schofield are two British soldiers given an uncommon¹ mission in the midst of World War I - deliver a message that could save lives.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "1917")

COLIN FIRTH: (As General Erinmore) Your orders are to get to the second by crossing 1 mile southeast of the town of Auguste (ph). Deliver this to Colonel MacKenzie. It is a direct order to call off tomorrow morning's attack. If you don't, we will lose two battalions² - 1,600 men, your brother among them.

SIMON: Colin Firth as a general. Dean-Charles Chapman and George MacKay are the two soldiers assigned to move across a hellscape of gouged-out trenches³, burnt ruins, fat rats and war's wreckage⁴ in the film "1917." Sam Mendes directs from a script co-written with Krysty Wilson-Cairns. It's shot by Roger Deakins.

Sam Mendes, OBE, the Oscar-winning director and James Bond's favorite director, joins us in our studios. Thanks so much for being with us.

SAM MENDES: It's a pleasure.

SIMON: Film is dedicated⁵ to your grandfather Alfred Mendes, whose experience, I guess, fired your imagination. Tell us how it led to this film.

MENDES: Well, my granddad fought in the first world war from 1916 to 1918. He enlisted⁶ as a 17-year-old. And for years, he didn't tell the stories of his experiences in the Great War - didn't tell his own children.

SIMON: We should explain. He became a novelist, too.

MENDES: He was a storyteller. And it wasn't till his mid-70s that he decided⁷ he was going to tell the stories of what happened to him when he was in his teenage years. And there was one particular story he told us of being tasked to carry a single message through no man's land in dusk in the winter of 1916.

He was a small man, and they used to send him with messages because he ran 5 1/2 feet, and the mist used to hang at about 6 feet in no man's land. So he wasn't visible above the mist. And that stayed with me, and that was the story I found I wanted to tell.

SIMON: The film is presented as kind of a single, seamless take. The camera almost never stops moving. Why was it important to you to try and tell the story that way?

MENDES: Well, once I'd had the idea that it was two hours of real time, it seemed like a natural thing to lock the audience together with the central characters in a way that they gradually began to realize consciously, or unconsciously, they couldn't get out of. It operates more like a ticking-clock thriller⁸ in a way. And so to experience every second passing with the men seemed like a great idea.

SIMON: One of the many images in the film that just bore into you - the enormous mounds⁹ of things, stuff that war manages to leave behind - you know, the piles of brass¹⁰ mortar¹¹ casings, rubble¹², the fields, the carcasses of horses, human beings. A lot goes into war, doesn't it?

MENDES: Yeah. This is a war that finished - ended over a hundred years ago, and we are still so aware of it and the generation of men that went missing. If you go to the Somme and you go to these places, which are very, very moving - these beautifully kept memorials to the fallen - the number of unmarked graves is what strikes you, just white crosses everywhere. And it struck me as very appropriate, therefore, that the two men we should follow are unknown in a sense, you know? It's the first time that I've been on a set and found myself moved by the event that we were depicting¹³ rather than anything in the movie. I mean, honestly, a movie set's the least moving place in the world, you know? It's just full of technicians and equipment. But I found myself lost in it on several occasions.

SIMON: I have to ask about the rats.

MENDES: Yeah.

SIMON: Most cunning group of rats.

MENDES: Brilliantly trained.

SIMON: Is that what it is? I mean, you - they do seem to respond to order.

MENDES: I just should say this now. No rats were harmed in the making of this film (laughter).

SIMON: I saw this. And, of course, you root against them. But, I mean, they do...

MENDES: The rats are, in a way, the residents of the land. It's the humans who are passing through. And rats aside, I mean, the fact that this retreat happens in the spring of 1970 meant that we could make another personality in the movie, another character in the movie, which was nature - that despite the destruction of the humans, nature will win out. Nature will push back through those leaves on the trees again and blossom in the orchards¹⁴. And nature will come back and laugh at the ants that are making such destruction, wreaking¹⁵ such havoc¹⁶ across the landscape.

SIMON: There's a very difficult and beautiful scene in the movie, the soldier and a baby. My God, that took my breath away.

MENDES: Yeah.

SIMON: What put it in the film?

MENDES: (Laughter) Well, I started writing the script October 2017, exactly 100 years after the movie takes place. And my daughter was born a month earlier. So my youngest child was very much in the house. And I suppose it has something to do with that. And I found it very difficult to shoot because, you know, this poor, little creature - Ivy¹⁷ (ph), her name was - you know, she's not aware she's in a movie. And the way she behaved in the scene was so moving.

But, yeah, it's about the collateral¹⁸ damage of war. And I think that when you see what's happening to the civilian¹⁹ life, the sense of the French towns that were destroyed, the kind of lost world, really, of northern France that was all utterly²⁰ erased²¹ to the ground in that war - and those scenes were really disturbing and upsetting to shoot, but they seemed important.

SIMON: This movie's already been nominated for awards, presumably will be nominated for others. Is it difficult to contemplate²² awards for telling a story that is so bound up with human suffering?

MENDES: It depends on your perspective on awards. If the awards are why you do it, then yes. If you remember that awards are designed to make audiences go to see movies in the cinema, then no. I want people to go and see this movie in cinema. I'm very much embraced the fact that it's up for awards because it means it's part of the year-end dialogue. And to have an opinion about it, you've got to go and see it.

And these movies are difficult to make now. You know, you are up against superhero movies and franchises²³ and animated²⁴ films. And if you make a movie of scale that you want people to see in the cinema with no big stars in the leads, you know, you have to take everything you can get. And if being part of the awards discussion is part of that, then good. You know, it is, and you have - we have to keep reminding ourselves, a way of promoting films.

SIMON: What makes you want to do a film, do you think?

MENDES: Masochism on a large scale, I think.

SIMON: (Laughter).

MENDES: You get a feeling inside you, a kind of Christmas Eve feeling. And it's more and more difficult to find things that drag you away from your family and the things that, you know, matter most. But I felt this one - it was part of me. It was part of my childhood. It was part of my family history. And I felt compelled to tell it in a way that I've rarely felt before. Without that, the months and months of, you know, frustration²⁵ and crazy goals that you set yourself, one of which being to make a movie like this in one shot, would seem to be, you know, really pointless. But somehow, it was a rewarding experience and worth all the sacrifices.

SIMON: Sam Mendes - his film "1917" - thank you so much for being with us.

MENDES: It's a great pleasure. Thank you.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

1 uncommon   

adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的

参考例句：

• Such attitudes were not at all uncommon thirty years ago.这些看法在30年前很常见。
• Phil has uncommon intelligence.菲尔智力超群。

2 battalions   

n.（陆军的）一营（大约有一千兵士）( battalion的名词复数 )；协同作战的部队；军队；（组织在一起工作的）队伍

参考例句：

• God is always on the side of the strongest battalions. 上帝总是帮助强者。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Two battalions were disposed for an attack on the air base. 配置两个营的兵力进攻空军基地。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

3 trenches   

深沟，地沟( trench的名词复数 )； 战壕

参考例句：

• life in the trenches 第一次世界大战期间的战壕生活
• The troops stormed the enemy's trenches and fanned out across the fields. 部队猛攻敌人的战壕，并在田野上呈扇形散开。

4 wreckage   

n.（失事飞机等的）残骸，破坏，毁坏

参考例句：

• They hauled him clear of the wreckage.他们把他从形骸中拖出来。
• New states were born out of the wreckage of old colonial empires.新生国家从老殖民帝国的废墟中诞生。

5 dedicated   

adj.一心一意的；献身的；热诚的

参考例句：

• He dedicated his life to the cause of education.他献身于教育事业。
• His whole energies are dedicated to improve the design.他的全部精力都放在改进这项设计上了。

6 enlisted   

adj.应募入伍的v.（使）入伍， （使）参军( enlist的过去式和过去分词 )；获得（帮助或支持）

参考例句：

• enlisted men and women 男兵和女兵
• He enlisted with the air force to fight against the enemy. 他应募加入空军对敌作战。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

7 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。

8 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。

9 mounds   

土堆，土丘( mound的名词复数 )； 一大堆

参考例句：

• We had mounds of tasteless rice. 我们有成堆成堆的淡而无味的米饭。
• Ah! and there's the cemetery' - cemetery, he must have meant. 'You see the mounds? 啊，这就是同墓，”——我想他要说的一定是公墓，“看到那些土墩了吗？

10 brass   

n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器

参考例句：

• Many of the workers play in the factory's brass band.许多工人都在工厂铜管乐队中演奏。
• Brass is formed by the fusion of copper and zinc.黄铜是通过铜和锌的熔合而成的。

11 mortar   

n.灰浆，灰泥；迫击炮；v.把…用灰浆涂接合

参考例句：

• The mason flushed the joint with mortar.泥工用灰浆把接缝处嵌平。
• The sound of mortar fire seemed to be closing in.迫击炮的吼声似乎正在逼近。

12 rubble   

n.（一堆）碎石，瓦砾

参考例句：

• After the earthquake,it took months to clean up the rubble.地震后，花了数月才清理完瓦砾。
• After the war many cities were full of rubble.战后许多城市到处可见颓垣残壁。

13 depicting   

描绘，描画( depict的现在分词 )； 描述

参考例句：

• a painting depicting the Virgin and Child 一幅描绘童贞马利亚和圣子耶稣的画
• The movie depicting the battles and bloodshed is bound to strike home. 这部描写战斗和流血牺牲的影片一定会取得预期效果。

14 orchards   

（通常指围起来的）果园( orchard的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• They turned the hills into orchards and plains into granaries. 他们把山坡变成了果园，把平地变成了粮仓。
• Some of the new planted apple orchards have also begun to bear. 有些新开的苹果园也开始结苹果了。

15 wreaking   

诉诸（武力），施行（暴力），发（脾气）( wreak的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Coal mining is a messy business, often wreaking terrible environmental damage nearby. 采矿是肮脏的行业，往往会严重破坏周边环境。
• The floods are wreaking havoc in low-lying areas. 洪水正在地势低洼地区肆虐。

16 havoc   

n.大破坏，浩劫，大混乱，大杂乱

参考例句：

• The earthquake wreaked havoc on the city.地震对这个城市造成了大破坏。
• This concentration of airborne firepower wrought havoc with the enemy forces.这次机载火力的集中攻击给敌军造成很大破坏。

17 ivy   

n.常青藤，常春藤

参考例句：

• Her wedding bouquet consisted of roses and ivy.她的婚礼花篮包括玫瑰和长春藤。
• The wall is covered all over with ivy.墙上爬满了常春藤。

18 collateral   

adj.平行的；旁系的；n.担保品

参考例句：

• Many people use personal assets as collateral for small business loans.很多人把个人财产用作小额商业贷款的抵押品。
• Most people here cannot borrow from banks because they lack collateral.由于拿不出东西作为抵押，这里大部分人无法从银行贷款。

19 civilian   

adj.平民的，民用的，民众的

参考例句：

• There is no reliable information about civilian casualties.关于平民的伤亡还没有确凿的信息。
• He resigned his commission to take up a civilian job.他辞去军职而从事平民工作。

20 utterly   

adv.完全地，绝对地

参考例句：

• Utterly devoted to the people,he gave his life in saving his patients.他忠于人民，把毕生精力用于挽救患者的生命。
• I was utterly ravished by the way she smiled.她的微笑使我完全陶醉了。

21 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》

22 contemplate   

vt.盘算，计议；周密考虑；注视，凝视

参考例句：

• The possibility of war is too horrifying to contemplate.战争的可能性太可怕了，真不堪细想。
• The consequences would be too ghastly to contemplate.后果不堪设想。

23 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

24 animated   

adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的

参考例句：

• His observations gave rise to an animated and lively discussion.他的言论引起了一场气氛热烈而活跃的讨论。
• We had an animated discussion over current events last evening.昨天晚上我们热烈地讨论时事。

25 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。