Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910),[1] better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. He wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn(1885),[2] the latter often called "The Great American Novel".
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (or, in more recent editions, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) is a novel by Mark Twain, first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885. Commonly named among theGreat American Novels, the work is among the first in major American literature to be written throughout in vernacular English, characterized by local color regionalism. It is told in the first person by Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, a friend of Tom Sawyer and narrator of two other Twain novels (Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer, Detective). It is a direct sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
The book is noted for its colorful description of people and places along the Mississippi River. Set in a Southern antebellum society that had ceased to exist about 20 years before the work was published, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an often scathing satireon entrenched attitudes, particularly racism.
Perennially popular with readers, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has also been the continued object of study by literary critics since its publication. It was criticized upon release because of its coarse language and became even more controversial in the 20th century because of its perceived use of racial stereotypes and because of its frequent use of the racial slur "nigger", despite strong arguments that the protagonist and the tenor of the book are anti-racist.
"Moon River" is a song composed by Henry Mancini with lyrics by Johnny Mercer. It received an Academy Award for Best Original Song for its performance by Audrey Hepburn in the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961).[1] It also won Mancini the 1962 Grammy Award for Record of the Year and won Mancini and Mercer the Grammy Award for Song of the Year.[2] The song has been covered by many other artists.
Moon River - Andy Williams
Enrico Nicola "Henry" Mancini (April 16, 1924 – June 14, 1994)[1] was an Italian-American composer, conductor and arranger, who is best remembered for his film and television scores. Often cited as one of the greatest composers in the history of film,[2][3] he won four Academy Awards, a Golden Globe, and twenty Grammy Awards, plus a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995.
His best known works include the jazz-idiom theme to The Pink Panther film series ("The Pink Panther Theme") and the theme to thePeter Gunn television series. The Peter Gunn theme won the first Grammy Award for Album of the Year. Mancini also had a long collaboration on film scores with the film director Blake Edwards.
Breakfast at Tiffany's is a 1961 American romantic comedy film starring Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard, and featuringPatricia Neal, Buddy Ebsen, Martin Balsam, and Mickey Rooney. The film was directed by Blake Edwards and released byParamount Pictures. It is loosely based on the novella of the same name by Truman Capote.
Hepburn's portrayal of Holly Golightly as the naïve, eccentric café society girl is generally considered to be the actress's most memorable and identifiable role. Hepburn regarded it as one of her most challenging roles, since she was an introvert required to play an extravert.[1] There has been speculation that Holly Golightly is a call girl, which has caused controversy.[2][3]
Breakfast at Tiffany's was received positively at the time, and won two Academy Awards: Best Original Score and Best Original Song for "Moon River." "Moon River" was also selected as the fourth most memorable song in Hollywood history by the American Film Institute in 2004. The film was also nominated for three other Academy Awards: Best Actress for Hepburn, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Art Direction.
In 2012, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.
Breakfast at Tiffany's Opening Scene - HQ
Audrey Hepburn (/ˈɔːdri ˈhɛpˌbɜrn/; born Audrey Kathleen Ruston; 4 May 1929 – 20 January 1993) was a British actress and humanitarian. Recognised as a film and fashion icon, Hepburn was active during Hollywood's Golden Age. She was ranked by theAmerican Film Institute as the third greatest female screen legend in Golden Age Hollywood and was inducted into the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame. Born in Ixelles, a district of Brussels, Hepburn spent her childhood between Belgium, England, and the Netherlands, including German-occupied Arnhem during the Second World War where she worked as a courier for the Dutch resistance and assisted with fundraising. In Amsterdam, she studied ballet with Sonia Gaskell before moving to London in 1948 to continue her ballet training with Marie Rambert and perform as a chorus girl in West End musical theatre productions. She spoke several languages, including English, French, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, and German.
Wide Sargasso Sea is a 1966 postcolonial novel by Dominica-born British author Jean Rhys, who had lived in obscurity after her previous work, Good Morning, Midnight, was published in 1939. She had published other novels between these works, but Wide Sargasso Sea caused a revival of interest in Rhys and her work. It was her most commercially successful novel, benefiting as well by feminist exploration of power relationships between men and women.
The novel is written as a prequel to Charlotte Brontë's noted novel Jane Eyre (1847), describing the background to the marriage that Jane learns about after going to work for Mr. Rochester. It is the story of Antoinette Cosway, a white Creole heiress, from the time of her youth in Jamaica to her unhappy marriage to a certain English gentleman—he is never named by the author. He renames her to a prosaic Bertha, declares her mad, and requires her to relocate to England. Caught in an oppressive patriarchal society in which she fully belongs neither to the white Europeans nor the black Jamaicans, Cosway is Rhys' version of Brontë's devilish "madwoman in the attic." As with many postcolonial works, the novel deals with the themes of racial inequality and the harshness of displacement and assimilation. It is also concerned with power relations between men and women.
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III (March 26, 1911 – February 25, 1983) was an American playwright and author of many stage classics. Along with Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller he is considered among the three foremost playwrights in 20th century American drama.[1]
After years of obscurity, he became suddenly famous with The Glass Menagerie (1944), closely reflecting his own unhappy family background. This heralded a string of successes, including A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), andSweet Bird of Youth (1959). His later work attempted a new style that did not appeal to audiences, and alcohol and drug dependence further inhibited his creative output. His drama A Streetcar Named Desire is often numbered on the short list of the finest American plays of the 20th century alongside Long Day's Journey into Night and Death of a Salesman.[1]
Much of Williams' most acclaimed work was adapted for the cinema. He also wrote short stories, poetry, essays and a volume of memoirs. In 1979, four years before his death, Williams was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.
A Streetcar Named Desire is a 1951 American drama film, with elements of film noir, an adaptation of Tennessee Williams'sPulitzer Prize-winning 1947 play of the same name. It is the story of a southern belle, Blanche Dubois, who, after encountering a series of personal losses, leaves her aristocratic background seeking refuge with her sister and brother-in-law in a dilapidated New Orleans tenement. The Broadway production and cast was converted to film with only minor changes. True to the play, the film is both lyrical and gritty, with complex and contradictory characters. Chief among these was Blanche Dubois who has become a legendary and iconic figure in film history.
Tennessee Williams collaborated with Oscar Saul and Elia Kazan on the screenplay. Kazan, who directed the Broadway stage production also directed the black and white film. Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, and Karl Malden were all cast in their original Broadway roles. Although Jessica Tandy originated the role of Blanche DuBois on Broadway, Vivien Leigh, who had appeared in the London theatre production, was cast in the film adaptation for her star power.[2]
Upon release of the movie, Marlon Brando, virtually unknown at the time of the play’s casting, rose to prominence as a major Hollywood movie star. The film marked the first of Marlon Brando's four consecutive Academy Award nominations for Best Actorand earned an estimated $4,250,000 at the US and Canadian box office in 1951, making it the fifth biggest hit of the year.[3] In 1999, A Streetcar Named Desire was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
U.S. plates index
留言列表
