Novels to read in high school literature

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副标题: The Unfilmed Original Screenplay
作者: Lorraine Hansberry
译者: Lee, Spike 注解
出版社: Signet
出版年: 1995-04-01
页数: 256






中文名：日光下的葡萄乾
英文名：A Raisin in the Sun
时间：2008年
类别：剧情
片长：131 Min
导演：Kenny Leon
主演：桑娜·莱瑟 Sanaa Lathan .....Beneatha Younger
　　　约翰·斯塔莫斯 John Stamos .....Carl Lindner
　　　Audra McDonald .....Ruth Younger
　　　Phylicia Rashad .....Lena Younger
　　　西恩·帕特里克·汤玛斯 Sean Patrick Thomas .....George
　　　Sean P. Diddy Combs .....Walter Lee Younger
　　　比尔·努恩 Bill Nunn .....Bobo
　　　宝拉·布德罗 Paula Boudreau
　　　David Oyelowo .....Asagai
　　　Elle Downs .....Cocktail Waitress
　　　Justin Martin .....Travis
　　　Alexandra Cheron .....Anna
　　　Ron C. Jones .....Willy
　　　Emily Swiss .....Priscilla
　　　Paul Stephen .....North Shore Businessman
地区：美国
语言：英语
字幕：英文

剧情简介：
　
　　主人公一家在1950年代搬到了芝加哥。原本是非洲后裔的他们，必须要与贫穷和种族歧视作斗争，同时还要解决家庭的内部矛盾。虽然烦恼并不会自动消减，但日子总会慢慢好起来的。

《烈日當頭　劇情簡介》- 渥特，一名為生計煩惱的男子，和妻兒、母親及妹妹同住在一小小的公寓裡。每天在狹隘的空間中為改善生活品質而努力的渥特，這天竟然意外的得到一筆錢……這對渥特一家人市說是好消息，還是麻煩的開始呢??

《A Raisin in The Sun》的故事是围绕着一个黑人家庭展开的，但整部作品的思想却没有被局限在这个特定的族群范畴之内。

60年代美国正迎来民权运动的小高潮，随着越战的开始，此起彼伏的反战运动和黑人民权运动在美国遍地开花，女权主义也在美国兴起，艺术文艺界对相关题材的创作也逐渐趋于成熟。《A Raisin in The Sun》就是这个时期的产物，1959年年仅29岁的黑人女作家Lorraine Hansberry根据自己的生活创作了这部著名的百老汇戏剧作品。

当时担任男主角的是在美国社会第一个被普遍推崇的黑人演员Sidney Poitier（第一个获得奥斯卡（1964）最佳男主角的黑人演员，奥斯卡（2002）终身成就奖），该剧目一经公映便引起了强烈的反响，据后来采访编剧Lorraine Hansberry侄女的时候她谈到，当时剧场座无虚席，大人们在看表演时议论纷纷，他们对剧本创作的大胆表示惊讶，而后是感同身受的激动，很多人都留下了眼泪。

在现代这样一部看似不应存在任何问题的电影，在当初那种社会环境下还是步履维艰，以致后来将这部戏剧作品的原班人马走上电影舞台时，还颇费了一番周章。当时的很多电影审查制度，让1961年版的《A Raisin in The Sun》多少损失了一些锐气。

很多年过去了，《A Raisin in The Sun》还是会经常出现在美国百老汇的舞台上，人们还是会一次又一次的感动。在2007年《A Raisin in The Sun》的电影版又再一次的进入了拍摄进程，这次他们要将这部剧的全貌向世人一一展现。

电影制片方首先挑选的剧组人员可能大家都很难猜到，曾经被Sidney Poitier演得出神入化的男主角Walter Lee Younger，他们这次选择由一个最多只是客串演出的说唱歌手扮演，这个人就是P. Diddy，演职员表中他的名字是Sean Combs。当时很多剧组人员听到这一消息都显出了几分怀疑，而之后的拍摄过程中，饰演母亲的演员Phylicia Rashad，竟然给出了这样的评价“Sean是我见过很少的几位拍戏如此认真的演员”。制片方不仅让P. Diddy担任男主角，还邀请他加入执行制片人的行列，参与影片的大部分决策。P. Diddy在整部影片中的表现对于一名业余演员来说已经算是优秀了，在很多激烈情感表达的段落中，会让人有眼前一亮的感觉，甚至会说这个人是P. Diddy吗？在部分对白较多的场景里，有些表现又会显得细节不够，略显平淡。超越Sidney Poitier的Walter Lee Younger可能性不大，但这次P. Diddy的表演也是可以给良好评分的。

《A Raisin in The Sun》的导演选择也颇让人惊讶，他们选择了曾经导演过该剧剧场版的Kenny Leon执导。大家应该不难想象，剧场和电影具有完全不同的拍摄方法。电影要考虑的镜头运用和场景设计等等内容，Kenny Leon都需要重新思考。电影最终出来的效果还是很棒的，80%的室内场景，让观众体验了一次剧场版的表演细节，为了电影版特别加入的几段室外戏，让整部作品更贴近电影观众的欣赏要求，可谓是锦上添花。

《A Raisin in The Sun》的主要情节是男主人公Walter Lee Younger在几天内的心灵成长。Younger一家人，祖母、女儿、儿子、儿媳、孙子，共同生活在一个贫民单元中，即将降临在这个家庭的是祖父一万美元的死亡赔偿金。面对如此可观的一笔财产，Walter Lee开始准备改变自己人生的计划。除男主角之外，另一个值得注意的角色就是，当时新一代女性思想代表，妹妹的角色，她并不屈从于现有的生活，不愿嫁给拥有财富的丈夫后便失去自我，她想以后当一名医生，喜欢尝试各种新鲜事物，对祖辈生活的非洲也充满着浓厚的兴趣。在当时影片上映后，有人就评论，这个妹妹的角色就是作者Lorraine Hansberry在写自己。
如开始所讲，《A Raisin in The Sun》并不是一部局限于种族的作品，全世界所有的人都可以在这部作品中领会到作者要表达的内容，它告诉人们生活该如何继续，面对困境的选择。

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Arthur Miller

萨勒姆的女巫(The Crucible)

    最负盛名的美国剧作家阿瑟·密勒最具争议的当代经典，故事取材于1692年发生在北美马萨诸塞州萨勒姆镇曾经轰动一时的“逐巫案”，被搬上话剧舞台之后，半个世纪以来它在世界各地频繁上演，并于1996年被其女婿，奥斯卡影帝丹尼尔·戴－路易斯主演了该剧的好莱坞电影版，大获成功。

    小镇上流传着一个谣言，魔鬼造访了萨勒姆。嫉妒与报复在萨勒姆四处弥散。很多无辜的人被诬陷并被送上了绞刑架。约翰与女佣阿碧格有过暧昧关系，女主人伊丽莎白将阿碧格辞退，伊丽莎白因此被心怀叵测的阿碧格伺机诬陷报复，她也被指控为与魔鬼来往而被判绞刑。约翰为了救出妻子不得已说出了真相。





激情年代(The Crucible)剧情

Test

Some years ago, Americans envisioned a future that would evolve predictably from the past as a type of extension of the familiar.

With the sixties, however, our idyllic dreams were shattered and new visions began to form. 1984, written in 1948 and published in 1949, was intended as a warning against totalitarian tendencies rather than as a prophetic work. Now that the year 1984 has passed, many may scoff at the warning, but those who do would be wise to look at the present a bit more closely. Currently, we have subliminal messages, two-way televisions, computer viruses threatening to endanger our much depended-upon information systems (with possible global impact), and countries all over the world committing atrocities against their own people. Recent political campaigns have shown us explicitly the extent to which propaganda has corrupted our own language. Politicians have perfected their own type of “Newspeak.”



The World in (George Orwell's) 1984   


In George Orwell’s dystopian novel ‘1984’, the world is ruled by three superstates:
• Oceania covers the entire continents of America and Oceania and the British Isles, the main location for the novel, in which they are referred to as ‘Airstrip One’.
• Eurasia covers Europe and (more or less) the entire Soviet Union.
• Eastasia covers Japan, Korea, China and northern India.
Unfortunately, there’s not much ‘super’ to these states except their size. All three are totalitarian dictatorships. Oceania’s ideology is Ingsoc (English Socialism), Eurasia’s Neo-Bolshevism and Eastasia’s is the Obliteration of the Self (one imagines some kind of buddhist-inspired fascism. If one can). These ideologies are very similar, but the people are not informed of this.
The three states are in a perpetual state of warfare – sometimes two against one, sometimes all three against each other. These wars are fought in the disputed territories, running from North Africa over the Middle East and southern India to Southeast Asia.
And yet…
And yet the war might just not even be real at all. It’s clear that the Oceanic media are one-sided and fabricate ‘facts’. A dissident book central to ‘1984’ suggests the two other powers may actually be a fabrication of the government of Oceania, which would make it the world government.  Or, on the other side of the scale of thinkable alternatives: Airstrip One is not an outpost of a greater empire, but the sole territory under the command of Ingsoc, which fabricates eternal global war to keep its people permanently mobilised, scrutinised and  on rations.
This map taken from Wikipedia’s ’1984′ page.

http://bigthink.com/ideas/21115

Test

Introduction

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini was published in 2003. Initially published by
Riverhead Books, an imprint of Penguin, The Kite Runner was said to be the first
novel written in English by an Afghan writer, and the book appeared on many book
club reading lists. The novel is set in Afghanistan from the late 1970s to 1981 and the
start of the Soviet occupation, then in the Afghan community in Fremont, California
from the 1980s to the early 2000s, and finally in contemporary Afghanistan during the
Taliban regime.
The Kite Runner is the story of strained family relationships between a father and a
son, and between two brothers, how they deal with guilt and forgiveness, and how
they weather the political and social transformations of Afghanistan from the 1970s to
2001. The Kite Runner opens in 2001. The adult narrator, Amir, lives in San Francisco
and is contemplating his past, thinking about a boyhood friend whom he has betrayed.
The action of the story then moves backward in time to the narrator's early life in
Kabul, Afghanistan, where he is the only child of a privileged merchant. Amir's
closest friend is his playmate and servant Hassan, a poor illiterate boy who is a
member of the Hazara ethnic minority. The Kite Runner, a coming-of-age novel, deals
with the themes of identity, loyalty, courage, and deception. As the protagonist Amir
grows to adulthood, he must come to terms with his past wrongs and adjust to a new
culture after leaving Afghanistan for the United States.
The novel sets the interpersonal drama of the characters against the backdrop of the
modern history of Afghanistan, sketching the political and economic toll of the
instability of various regimes in Afghanistan; from the end of the monarchy to the
Soviet-backed government of the 1980s to the fundamentalist Taliban government of
the 1990s. The action closes soon after the fall of the Taliban and alludes to the rise of
Hamid Karzai as leader of a new Afghan government in the wake of the events of
September 11, 2001.