托福阅读真题+题目+答案：The Documentary Film in the United States

托福阅读真题+题目+答案：The Documentary Film in the United States

In the United States, the nonfiction film was primarily defined and sustained by the travelogue, which was filmed in foreign lands and shown at lectures and sideshows to introduce audiences to different cultures and exotic locations. In 1904, at the St. Louis Exposition, George C. Hale's Tours and Scenes of the World was particularly successful but did not reach the mythic proportions of the film made from President Teddy Roosevelt's African safaris or Robert Scott's expedition to the South Pole. These kinds of travelogues appealed to the American public because they demonstrated a spirit of enterprise and adventure. This outlook underpins the Romantic tradition of filmmaking that begins with travelogues of the American West and comes to its fullest expression in the films of Robert Flaherty. It is he who most embodies the development of the documentary form as an objective tool of ethnography- -the scientific study of other cultures from a position "within" the community- -and anthropology.

1.According to paragraph 1, what made the nonfiction travelogue popular with the American public?

O It explained the historical background of different cultures.

O It showed people's initiative and courage.

O It corrected misunderstandings about other cultures.

O It was used as a substitute for foreign travel.

His film Nanook of the North (1922), a study of Inuits of northern Canada, is acknowledged as one of the most influential films within the genre. ⬛ It perhaps provides us with all the clues we require to define both the documentary and its acceptable limits. ⬛ Flaherty's films, which have been called“authored" films, are made with a specific intent: not merely to record the lives of the Inuits but to recall and restage a former, more“primitive" era of Inuit life. ⬛ This nostalgic intent only serves to mythologize Inuit life and to some extent remove it from its real context, thus calling into question some of the inherent principles that we may assume are crucial in determining documentary "truth." ⬛

2.It can be inferred from paragraph 2 that one of the the importance of

O mythologizing people's lives

O including information about past eras

O recording the lives of primitive peoples'*

O portraying people with historical accuracy of documentary truth is

Although Flaherty was an advocate of the use of lenses that could view the subject from a long distance so as not to affect unduly the behavior of the natives, and he filmed long, uninterrupted scenes at one time without stopping the camera instead of using complex editing, it is his intervention in the material that is most problematic when evaluating Nanook as a key documentary. Flaherty was not content merely to record events; he wanted to dramatize actuality by filming aspects of Inuit culture that he knew of from his earlier travels into the Hudson Bay area between 1910 and 1916. For example, he rebuilt igloos to accommodate camera equipment and organized parts of Inuit lifestyle to suit the technical requirements of filming under these conditions. In another of his documentaries, Moana (1926), Flaherty staged a ritual tattooing ceremony among the Samoan Islanders, recalling a practice that had not been carried out for many years. In Man of Aran (1935) shark hunts were also staged and did not characterize the contemporary existence of the Aran Islanders.

3.Why does the author mention “moana"?

O To argue that some modern cultures retain practices of an earlier time

O To suggest that not all of Flaherty's work is concerned with Inuit culture

O To provide an example of how Flaherty dramatized the culture he was documenting

O To illustrate how Flaherty organized the environment to suit the technical requirements of filming

4.According to paragraph 3, why did Flaherty film his subjects from a distance?

O To allow for more intervention in the film material

O To limit the effect of filming on natural Inuit behavior

O To reduce the number of editing changes later required

O To document a wide variety of aspects of Inuit culture

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