美国国家公共电台 NPR 'He's Not A Leading Man': A Casting Director On Rembrandt's Self-Portraits

'He's Not A Leading Man': A Casting Director On Rembrandt's Self-Portraits

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Los Angeles is pretty star struck these weeks before the Oscars, as usual. But over in nearby Pasadena, a crowd of art lovers is visiting this 400-plus-year-old star painter at the Norton Simon Museum. It's the 17th-century Dutch master Rembrandt. A pair of self-portraits made in his early 30s are the focus. NPR special correspondent Susan Stamberg paid the young painter a visit.

SUSAN STAMBERG, BYLINE¹: To do any art story, you interview the curator. For this one, I brought in a second expert, not in art but in faces. In her work, she looks at thousands of them. And her gut² reaction, how she feels about what she sees, can lead to movie and TV roles.

MARGERY SIMKIN: This wouldn't be somebody that could be a bad guy.

STAMBERG: Margery Simkin is a casting director. She's found actors for "Avatar," "Top Gun," "Field Of Dreams." Right now, TV's "Star Trek³: Discovery."

SIMKIN: There's a softness. There's a kindness in his eyes.

STAMBERG: She's looking, for the first time, at a self-portrait Rembrandt made in the late 1630s when he was a young man on the move. At 32ish - hard to pin down a specific date - his artistic⁴ star was rising. He's gotten a solid reputation in Amsterdam as a portrait painter at a time when portraits were the rage. In this one of himself, Rembrandt looks right at us, his forehead furrowed⁵ a bit in concentration. He has a pale, reddish mustache, a smudge of goatee, a dark brown jacket and a soft cap.

GLORIA WILLIAMS SANDER: You know, the velvet⁶ cap is something that most people were wearing in the 16th century.

STAMBERG: Curator Gloria Williams Sander says by Rembrandt's century, the 17th, it was passe.

WILLIAMS SANDER: But because he appropriated it, because he's becoming such a well-known artist, he quickly set a fashion that exists today where the beret is associated with the painter.

STAMBERG: He did that?

WILLIAMS SANDER: Yes, and all of his peers followed him within years.

STAMBERG: Less interested in costume than character, casting director Margery Simkin is still studying Rembrandt's eyes. Kind, she said, and...

SIMKIN: There's a tremendous intelligence in his eyes.

STAMBERG: And if she were to cast him, what kind of role would he play?

SIMKIN: It would be a white-collar job, the manager of the baseball team and not the baseball player.

STAMBERG: Too fleshy for an athlete. He didn't buff up for his portrait.

SIMKIN: It's not particularly flattering. He hasn't gone out of his way to make himself look hunkier.

STAMBERG: A character actor, she thinks.

SIMKIN: He's not a leading man.

STAMBERG: He's not a leading man. And he doesn't improve much with age. That is clear in the second painting at Norton Simon, on loan from the National Gallery, London, and shown in the U.S. for the first time. Rembrandt made it two years after the other one. In "Self Portrait At The Age Of 34," he's changed.

SIMKIN: There is an arrogance⁷ in this one. Yeah. He looks much snobbier.

STAMBERG: Curator Sander says there's a reason.

WILLIAMS SANDER: He is a success, and that's exactly how he wants to portray⁸ himself.

STAMBERG: He is working at his peak, has money, nice clothes, a better brown, velvety-looking coat.

WILLIAMS SANDER: With a fur lining⁹ along the collar and silk-striped sleeve.

STAMBERG: His cap is flatter and broader, trimmed with a gold chain. His vest and shirt are prettily¹⁰ embroidered¹¹. But, again...

WILLIAMS SANDER: This is not the way a 17th-century Amsterdam Dutchman would have portrayed¹² herself on the streets.

STAMBERG: Rembrandt's clothes would have been worn in much earlier times by earlier masters, the Italian artists Titian and Raphael. He has painted himself into the pantheon of Renaissance¹³ gods as their equal, or maybe even their rival.

WILLIAMS SANDER: In rivaling them, while acknowledging them, he demonstrated his own inventiveness, his imagination, his ability to go beyond to the next step.

STAMBERG: That's self-confidence - chutzpah, really. But it's going to change. These two self-portraits were made when 30-something Rembrandt was in the middle of his life. He's literally¹⁴ middle-age. He will die some 30 years later in debt, broken, destitute¹⁵, buried in an unmarked pauper's grave. The artist will trace all that on canvas - 80 painted self-portraits, at least 20 more drawings and prints. Why so many? Well, it wasn't vanity, curator Sander says. The self-portraits were like a diary.

WILLIAMS SANDER: Keeping track of himself at stages in his life.

STAMBERG: Never flattering, never less than a relentless¹⁶ observer, and one of the greatest painters the world has ever seen.

SIMKIN: For me, he looks like he's drinking more in this one. He's more flushed.

STAMBERG: At the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, where casting director Margery Simkin, the storyteller, and curator Gloria Williams Sander, with her scholarship, cannot stop talking about what they see. I'm Susan Stamberg, NPR News.

SIMKIN: But I just wonder if the snobby¹⁷-ness had something to do with his decline. You know? All right, enough. He's being so snobby. He's charging so much. He's being so difficult about doing the work. To heck with him. We're going to go on to somebody else. I'm just saying.

WILLIAMS SANDER: No, that's a good point.

SIMKIN: (Laughter).

WILLIAMS SANDER: It's a good point.

1 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。

2 gut   

n.[pl.]胆量；内脏；adj.本能的；vt.取出内脏

参考例句：

• It is not always necessary to gut the fish prior to freezing.冷冻鱼之前并不总是需要先把内脏掏空。
• My immediate gut feeling was to refuse.我本能的直接反应是拒绝。

3 trek   

vi.作长途艰辛的旅行；n.长途艰苦的旅行

参考例句：

• We often go pony-trek in the summer.夏季我们经常骑马旅行。
• It took us the whole day to trek across the rocky terrain.我们花了一整天的时间艰难地穿过那片遍布岩石的地带。

4 artistic   

adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的

参考例句：

• The picture on this screen is a good artistic work.这屏风上的画是件很好的艺术品。
• These artistic handicrafts are very popular with foreign friends.外国朋友很喜欢这些美术工艺品。

5 furrowed   

v.犁田，开沟( furrow的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Overhead hung a summer sky furrowed with the rash of rockets. 头顶上的夏日夜空纵横着急疾而过的焰火。 来自辞典例句
• The car furrowed the loose sand as it crossed the desert. 车子横过沙漠，在松软的沙土上犁出了一道车辙。 来自辞典例句

6 velvet   

n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的

参考例句：

• This material feels like velvet.这料子摸起来像丝绒。
• The new settlers wore the finest silk and velvet clothing.新来的移民穿着最华丽的丝绸和天鹅绒衣服。

7 arrogance   

n.傲慢，自大

参考例句：

• His arrogance comes out in every speech he makes.他每次讲话都表现得骄傲自大。
• Arrogance arrested his progress.骄傲阻碍了他的进步。

8 portray   

v.描写，描述；画(人物、景象等)

参考例句：

• It is difficult to portray feelings in words.感情很难用言语来描写。
• Can you portray the best and worst aspects of this job?您能描述一下这份工作最好与最坏的方面吗？

9 lining   

n.衬里，衬料

参考例句：

• The lining of my coat is torn.我的外套衬里破了。
• Moss makes an attractive lining to wire baskets.用苔藓垫在铁丝篮里很漂亮。

10 prettily   

adv.优美地；可爱地

参考例句：

• It was prettily engraved with flowers on the back.此件雕刻精美，背面有花饰图案。
• She pouted prettily at him.她冲他撅着嘴，样子很可爱。

11 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。

12 portrayed   

v.画像( portray的过去式和过去分词 )；描述；描绘；描画

参考例句：

• Throughout the trial, he portrayed himself as the victim. 在审讯过程中，他始终把自己说成是受害者。
• The author portrayed his father as a vicious drunkard. 作者把他父亲描绘成一个可恶的酒鬼。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

13 renaissance   

n.复活，复兴，文艺复兴

参考例句：

• The Renaissance was an epoch of unparalleled cultural achievement.文艺复兴是一个文化上取得空前成就的时代。
• The theme of the conference is renaissance Europe.大会的主题是文艺复兴时期的欧洲。

14 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

15 destitute   

adj.缺乏的；穷困的

参考例句：

• They were destitute of necessaries of life.他们缺少生活必需品。
• They are destitute of common sense.他们缺乏常识。

16 relentless   

adj.残酷的，不留情的，无怜悯心的

参考例句：

• The traffic noise is relentless.交通车辆的噪音一刻也不停止。
• Their training has to be relentless.他们的训练必须是无情的。

17 snobby   

a.虚荣的

参考例句：

• Can I really tell my snobby friends that I now shop at-egads-Walmart? 天呐，我真得好意思告诉那帮势利的朋友们我在沃尔玛买东西？