LIVING DANGEROUSLY : THE ADVENTURES OF MERIAN C. COOPER, THE CREATOR OF KING KONG

Book ID/图书代码： 01240005B05478

English Summary/英文概要： Early in this enthralling book, Mark Cotta Vaz refers to a defining moment of Merian Cooper’s early life. A "moment of becoming" is the way he describes it. I know exactly what that means because I experienced my own moment of becoming at the age of 9 - I saw a movie Merian Cooper made called King Kong. That film was made 28 years before I was born, yet it’s power and magic had such a profound and instant effect on my young imagination. From that day on I wanted to do nothing else with my life than make movies - movies like King Kong. Watching that film propelled me into a love of making movies and learning how to do visual effects, the very stuff of movie magic.
Another 34 years passed, and today I find myself putting finishing touches on my own remake of King Kong. It has been a case of third time lucky. I tried to remake it several years ago, after finishing The Frighteners, but it was canned, and we went onto The Lord of the Rings instead. But an even earlier failed attempt happened at the age of 12 when I made a small stop-motion Kong puppet - using my mother’s fur stole, a cardboard model of the Empire State Building, and a New York skyline painted on an old bedsheet. I still have them - sentimental relics of a life long journey I’ve taken, inspired my a man I never met - Merian C Cooper. I also got inspired by Planet of the Apes—apes again!—and sculpted and molded a latex ape mask that I once wore while sitting in the back seat of the school bus on the way to school. I was making faces at this car following the bus and didn’t realize the driver was one of the school teachers. As the bus pulled into the school yard, she parked and stormed to the bus as we were getting out and demanded my ape mask, confiscated it right there. I guess some people are impervious to the allure of movie magic.

Chinese Summary/中文概要： 随着Peter Jackson重新执导当年由梅里安C. 库珀编剧的《金刚》即将于十二月与观众见面，这本热闹、震撼心肺的有关电影先驱梅里安C. 库珀的传记定会引起世人关注-----1933的原版《金刚》就是由他做制作人和导演的。Mark Cotta Vaz（《“超人总动员”的艺术》的作者）很精准地捕捉到了库珀在电影创作上的神奇魔力，而库珀本人也是个传奇人物。他早年在美国海军学院读书，但后来中途退学了，1916年时参加了追捕墨西哥著名的革命党人潘乔·维拉的行动。1912年有一篇报纸文章是这样描述他的二战经历的：“要是拿所有的华沙人跟这位美国王牌飞行员比的话，他们就好象站在了巨人的脚下。他两次被击落，两次不得不忍受战俘营中的肮脏、悲惨境遇，两次被报道说已阵亡。”库珀和他的好搭档欧尼斯特B. 舍德萨克一起周游世界，拍摄了无数纪录片，1927年他因为拍摄了那部票房巨片《青稞酒》而获得了奥斯卡提名，之后就一百八十度大转变，开始戏剧电影拍摄。被大家戏称为“活人发动机”的库珀在接管了RKO制作室之后，在二战爆发时他加入了美国非虎队，后被晋升为美国空军准将。1952年，库珀开创了西涅拉玛型立体声宽银幕电影，他因此得到了1953年的奥斯卡荣誉奖。多亏Vaz的潜心研究和娴熟的写作技巧，这位生活在自己电影世界里的魅力无限的库珀将掀开他的神秘面纱，他不再是那位模糊、隐晦永远让我们感觉遥遥不可及的大人物了。
Peter Jackson在读完这本传记后是这样对编辑说的:
“我的确从头至尾得把这本书看完了，我很喜欢它，真是太棒了。能够最后了解到那么多年来一直围绕着这位电影大师的疑团和传奇故事的真相，我真得很开心。我相信要是库珀能够看到我们现在拍摄的电影的话，他一定会莞尔一笑，此刻的工作非常辛苦，但我希望过去的那种冒险和真挚情感能够被保留下来。”更多

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