百万美元宝贝电影欣赏(英文版)

Million Dollar Baby

班级：英语三班学号：20088084 姓名：张艺

Clint Eastwood always explores the darker side of human nature and the duality of man. His dark hero of Unforgiven, William Munny, tries to repent only to be thrust back into that violent world he knows so well. His regretful Frank Horrigan of In The Line Of Fire and his womanizing Steve Everett of True Crime also want redemption.

Eastwood's Frankie Dunn of Million Dollar Baby is the most conflicted, weathered and vulnerable he's ever played. When he weeps in a darkened church it's like watching a house of cards begin to fall. This is a man whose had a regretful past and can't run away from the curve balls life has thrown at him. Frankie Dunn is like most of us where we eventually get punished for our good deeds.

The funny thing is that Million Dollar Baby is not a boxing movie despite the way it's being advertised like a female version of Rocky. Yes, Hilary Swank's Maggie trains to be a boxer under the guidance of Clint Eastwood's Frankie Dunn. Yes, Morgan Freeman is Scrap, Frankie's tough friend and ex boxer. Yes, the bulk of it takes place in a boxing gym. Yes, there are numerous boxing matches. Despite all this it's still not a boxing movie.

When you see it you'll be surprised by the utter humanity in the piece. This film runs very deep and you will care for the three main characters. Eastwood gives us something we rarely get in films today. He gives us real people.

The film is about the triumph of the human spirit, the emotional world we try to hide from that eventually sucks us all in, our compassionate hearts, and the difficult decisions we face when it comes to those we care about. It's about friendship, trust,

and the bonds of the heart that are unavoidable. It is a true masterpiece.

Hilary Swank is all fire and guts as Maggie. Her intensity and commitment has guided her to another Academy Award. She knows she's poor, she accepts it, and she pushes forward despite her limitations. This is not to say she can't be hurt. We watch her eyes well up a few times and truly feel her pain despite the fact that she is as tough as they come. Morgan Freeman, who finally won a long overdue and well deserved Oscar, plays Scrap with the perfect combination of toughness and compassion. He knows the situation from every angle and his narration of the film rings true.

See this film. It deserves it's accolades because it's about real characters and it's directed with honesty, warmth, and true pain. Clint Eastwood gets better with age and his films reflect the days of real movie making. The sets are simple, the characters are complex, and the story moves in a pace closer to real life than any other director could reach. Eastwood has been called the Hemingway of Film making. You don't get more real than that. It was great seeing this natural storyteller take home his second Oscar for Best Director and Picture.

"Million Dollar Baby" has great characters, but it doesn't glorify them. It has a wonderful story, but it never tries to impress you. The photography, score and direction is superb, but never distracting. What this movie is, if I have to call it something, is passion. Passion for film-making, passion for storytelling, passion for its characters, passion for its actors, and passion for its story and the means at which it will go to tell it. Amazing.

Frankie Dunn (Clint Eastwood) owns a messy boxing gym which is populated, mostly, by downbeat losers who he spends some time training. He runs it with his friend and former student Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris (Morgan Freeman), who now lives contently at a room in the gym. One day a young woman named Maggie (Hilary

Swank) walks in, looking for a manager and trainer. Frankie shafts her immediately ("girly, tough ain't enough"). Frankie has bigger things on his hands. He's managing a fighter who has a shot at a title bout.

But Frankie is old and weathered and not an appealing manager, so the fighter leaves him. Frankie is broken by this; it is another in a long line of rejections and separations. We can tell that, at this time in his life, he only gets really close with those he's training (Scrap is the only exception). We can tell that his loneliness – and a bit of persuasion from Scrap – cause him to agree to teach Maggie. Teach, that is the agreement, not manage. But, by the end of the film he will have devoted his life to her.

So the rest of the story follows these two people. There is no real 'plot' that you could describe in a trailer because it is constantly changing…it is not the inspiring underdog story you may think of it as. No, what it's 'about' is these characters, and how they react to the circumstances around them, which change with each scene.

Narrating the story is Scrap, speaking like he's looking back to a time long ago when everything has passed. His voice seems flat, deadpan, but there is a working of subtle sorrow in it. Scrap is a sad human being, he sees himself as the result of missed opportunities in the past, and so he spends his time helping the others, offering them his wise advice, with a tone of deadpan humor and even cockiness. Scrap knows what should be done, and what will happen regardless, and he is sort of okay with everything, in a sort of passive way. But the man also knows what's right and he has a deep, inner strength which is displayed in one scene in particular where you just have to cheer. It is an intriguing character, and personally I think it's Freeman's best performance.

And Eastwood's best too. He is an elderly man; some might say too elderly to still be working. After all, most people are retired by his age. But if you had to guess when

you're watching this film, you would never, ever say the man is seventy-four. You would say something closer to the sixties, because the man has such amazing energy and dedication, and above all, he has talent. It's been forty long years since "A Fist Full of Dollars" and film has come a long way, and so has this man. At seventy-four, passed all those years as an action hero, nearing what's could be the end of his career, Eastwood has made his best movie. I really, really hope he has time to make many more.

As for Swank, well, she must have found something big that she shared with her character, because this is not acting, it is existing. Swank is Maggie. That's all there is too it. This could be the movie she will be remembered for.

So, "Million Dollar Baby" is a masterpiece. I saw it last night when it opened in my city, and everyone else was seeing "White Noise", and I was shaking my head. Everyone who is even remotely interested in movies should see this one, just so they can know how movies are supposed to be made. I'm trying to think, and there is not a single thing here where Eastwood went wrong. The acting, directing, writing, score, cinematography…they all accomplish precisely what they're supposed to with sublime perfection. Many of these aspects will certainly receive Oscars and all of them should.

You may cry through this film, you may cheer. Whatever the case, you will love it.

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