美国国家公共电台 NPR In 'Minding The Gap,' Skateboarding Is The Least Of The Pain

 

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

In the new documentary film "Minding the Gap," we see a message hand-painted on a smashed skateboard. It says, "This device cures heartache." There's a lot of heartache in this movie. And if skateboarding doesn't cure it, it offers an essential escape for the troubled young men we meet in the film.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "MINDING THE GAP")

ZACK MULLIGAN: To other people, it's funny - haha. You know, oh, these guys are crazy. But in reality, I think it's a control thing. You [expletive] have to control the most minute, small details to make you feel normal in a world that's not normal.

KEIRE JOHNSON: I could seriously be on the verge¹ of having a [expletive] mental breakdown². But as long as I'm able to go skate, then I'm completely fine.

BLOCK: That's Zack Mulligan and Keire Johnson, who were skateboarding friends growing up in Rockford, Ill. The filmmaker is Bing Liu, a fellow skateboarder from Rockford. We watch all three of them grappling with the lasting³ trauma⁴ of growing up with abusive fathers and stepfathers.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "MINDING THE GAP")

BING LIU: You see any violence in your household when you were growing up?

MULLIGAN: I don't know, man. That's a tough question. It's hard. It's - depends on what you determine as violent.

BLOCK: And filmmaker Bing Liu joins me now from Chicago. Welcome to the program.

LIU: Thanks for having me.

BLOCK: Both Zack and Keire are so open and raw in talking to you. They're describing really, really painful memories of being abused by their fathers growing up. How did you gain their trust? How did you get them to open up that way?

LIU: With Keire, he just needed to talk about it. And he didn't even realize he needed to. Our first conversation on camera together was me asking him about his father and him just opening up about how he both was super angry and hurt by his father but also respects and loves him and misses him because he had recently passed away. And then that relationship just sort of blossomed from there.

For Zack, it was like - skateboarding is so difficult. It's just - there's a very high barrier to entry because of that. There's no real easy way to do it besides just failing over and over again and having a lot of bruises⁶ and broken bones. And so he sort of took that idea, I think, and put it into this project. He, you know, early on was like, you know, whatever you capture, you capture.

BLOCK: There's a part in the film where Keire is talking about the pain of skateboarding, and, really, it becomes a metaphor⁷ for him of his relationship with his father. Let's listen to part of that.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "MINDING THE GAP")

JOHNSON: I get mad skateboarding, like, a lot. But at the end of the day, I love it so much that I can't stay mad at it.

LIU: It hurts you.

JOHNSON: Yeah. So did my dad, but I love him to death.

BLOCK: Do you remember what you were thinking when you heard Keire tell you that?

LIU: I was blown away. I mean, it was one of the most poetic⁸ things that I've ever heard. And it was so accidental. It was just what struck him to say at the moment. But it was very much just what most of the film is about.

BLOCK: I suppose part of what made it easier for them to open up is that this is your story, too. Your own vulnerability is a really important part of the movie. You didn't know your dad, but you describe your stepfather beating you and your brother up and your mom. And there are just wrenching⁹ scenes where you sit down with your mom to talk to her about that.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "MINDING THE GAP")

LIU: Did you know that the first time I was ever alone with him, that's when he...

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: You...

LIU: ...Grabbed me?

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: He did - wait, what?

LIU: The first time I was ever alone with him was the first time he...

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: He beat you?

LIU: ...Grabbed me and beat me, yeah.

BLOCK: What was it you were hoping to hear from her in those conversations?

LIU: You know, one of the coping mechanisms¹⁰ that many children have when they go through trauma or violence in the household is they just block it out. And that was something that I unwittingly learned as a child. And it does help you a lot as a kid. It helps you just be able to bear an existence where you go home, and you feel like you're walking on eggshells all the time. So, you know, by the time I became a young adult, it was like I couldn't even have conversations with my mom without forgetting what was even said after the conversation because I was just on such a heightened, you know, triggered level of anxiety, and just, you know, resisting remembering what was even being said in the present. And so, in a weird¹¹ way, having all those cameras there - well, I wanted to capture my own vulnerability to put myself in the film. But I also wanted to have this objective document that I couldn't forget.

BLOCK: There's a part of the interview with your mom where she says, I wish I could do it over. I cannot believe he is that bad. And the look on your face is one of just, I think, real disbelief. Like, you kind of can't come to terms with what she's saying there.

LIU: I mean, I know on an intimate level both that it's not her fault - but on an emotional level, like the child me is very much like, well, it's your fault. Like, you let this happen to me, Mom. You're supposed to protect me. And so that - a statement like that, you know, just immense, intense regret from her is like - it's just incredibly painful to hear as a son.

BLOCK: How much of this story do you think is a story about Rockford, Ill? It's a working-class city near Chicago - high crime, high unemployment, people moving away. Does that filter into the overall violence, do you think, of you and your friends?

LIU: I want to be careful about not blaming some of these issues on Rockford, Ill. And that's partly why I took such care in depicting¹² it. But Rockford very much is the fabric¹³ of this story. It's the backdrop to it. You know, one of the opening scenes, you see these skateboarders flying around the city. And it's like, where are all the cars at...

BLOCK: Yeah.

LIU: ...You know? People used to...

BLOCK: They're skateboarding right down the middle of the street, yeah. And there are no cars...

LIU: Yeah, but like...

BLOCK: ...To block their path.

LIU: ...Downtown. And this is a city of 150,000. It's not a small city. And so in feedback screenings earlier on, people would ask like, where - did you, like, shut down the city? Like, how did you get all the cars to stop driving? Well, I was like, well, the '80s economy got all those cars to stop driving. So I had to, you know, find a way to show the Rust⁵ Belt aspect of the city.

BLOCK: You know, we're talking about all of this really, really heavy, painful stuff. But we should say that parts of the movie are just purely¹⁴ joyful¹⁵. The scenes where we see Zack and Keire skateboarding - pure freedom and liberation. It must have been really, really fun to shoot.

LIU: It was. I mean, it was just as much of a release for me as it was for them, probably. That's the first thing that I started filming - was skateboarding. And yeah, it was a lot of fun. I was actually running on foot a lot of the times. And it's at eye level. So it's not glorifying¹⁶ the tricks. It's more about, you know, how the world flies past you, and you glide¹⁷ like water as a skateboarder.

BLOCK: Bing Liu's documentary "Minding The Gap" is in select theaters and streaming now on Hulu. Bing, thanks so much.

LIU: Thank you.

1 verge   

n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• She was on the verge of bursting into tears.她快要哭出来了。

2 breakdown   

n.垮，衰竭；损坏，故障，倒塌

参考例句：

• She suffered a nervous breakdown.她患神经衰弱。
• The plane had a breakdown in the air,but it was fortunately removed by the ace pilot.飞机在空中发生了故障，但幸运的是被王牌驾驶员排除了。

3 lasting   

adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持

参考例句：

• The lasting war debased the value of the dollar.持久的战争使美元贬值。
• We hope for a lasting settlement of all these troubles.我们希望这些纠纷能获得永久的解决。

4 trauma   

n.外伤，精神创伤

参考例句：

• Counselling is helping him work through this trauma.心理辅导正帮助他面对痛苦。
• The phobia may have its root in a childhood trauma.恐惧症可能源于童年时期的创伤。

5 rust   

n.锈；v.生锈；(脑子)衰退

参考例句：

• She scraped the rust off the kitchen knife.她擦掉了菜刀上的锈。
• The rain will rust the iron roof.雨水会使铁皮屋顶生锈。

6 bruises   

n.瘀伤，伤痕，擦伤( bruise的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He was covered with bruises after falling off his bicycle. 他从自行车上摔了下来，摔得浑身伤痕。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The pear had bruises of dark spots. 这个梨子有碰伤的黑斑。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 metaphor   

n.隐喻，暗喻

参考例句：

• Using metaphor,we say that computers have senses and a memory.打个比方，我们可以说计算机有感觉和记忆力。
• In poetry the rose is often a metaphor for love.玫瑰在诗中通常作为爱的象征。

8 poetic   

adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的

参考例句：

• His poetic idiom is stamped with expressions describing group feeling and thought.他的诗中的措辞往往带有描写群体感情和思想的印记。
• His poetic novels have gone through three different historical stages.他的诗情小说创作经历了三个不同的历史阶段。

9 wrenching   

n.修截苗根，苗木铲根（铲根时苗木不起土或部分起土）v.（猛力地）扭( wrench的现在分词 )；扭伤；使感到痛苦；使悲痛

参考例句：

• China has been through a wrenching series of changes and experiments. 中国经历了一系列艰苦的变革和试验。 来自辞典例句
• A cold gust swept across her exposed breast, wrenching her back to reality. 一股寒气打击她的敞开的胸膛，把她从梦幻的境地中带了回来。 来自汉英文学 - 家（1-26） - 家（1-26）

10 mechanisms   

n.机械( mechanism的名词复数 )；机械装置；[生物学] 机制；机械作用

参考例句：

• The research will provide direct insight into molecular mechanisms. 这项研究将使人能够直接地了解分子的机理。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He explained how the two mechanisms worked. 他解释这两台机械装置是如何工作的。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 weird   

adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的

参考例句：

• From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来，他好像有点怪。
• His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。

12 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。

13 fabric   

n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织

参考例句：

• The fabric will spot easily.这种织品很容易玷污。
• I don't like the pattern on the fabric.我不喜欢那块布料上的图案。

14 purely   

adv.纯粹地，完全地

参考例句：

• I helped him purely and simply out of friendship.我帮他纯粹是出于友情。
• This disproves the theory that children are purely imitative.这证明认为儿童只会单纯地模仿的理论是站不住脚的。

15 joyful   

adj.欢乐的，令人欢欣的

参考例句：

• She was joyful of her good result of the scientific experiments.她为自己的科学实验取得好成果而高兴。
• They were singing and dancing to celebrate this joyful occasion.他们唱着、跳着庆祝这令人欢乐的时刻。

16 glorifying   

赞美( glorify的现在分词 )； 颂扬； 美化； 使光荣

参考例句：

• I had no intention of either glorifying or belittling Christianity, merely the desire to understand it. 我并没有赞扬基督教或蔑视它的立意，我所想的只是了解它。
• You are glorifying a rather mediocre building. 你正在美化一栋普普通通的建筑。

17 glide   

n./v.溜，滑行；(时间)消逝

参考例句：

• We stood in silence watching the snake glide effortlessly.我们噤若寒蝉地站着，眼看那条蛇逍遥自在地游来游去。
• So graceful was the ballerina that she just seemed to glide.那芭蕾舞女演员翩跹起舞，宛如滑翔。