Study and Discussion

1. Study the extra-linguistic features of the text: Bjork’s personality, information about “Dancer in the Dark” and its director Lars von Trier, ideological characteristics and aesthetic orientation of the film.

2. How do you understand the meaning of the article title? Why does the author use the antithesis in the title?

3. The film director managed to combine two extreme styles: one, documentary melodrama, the other an all-singing, all-dancing Hollywood musical. Find examples in the text to illustrate this specific feature.

4. What common is between Bjork and her character Selma?

5. How do the facts of Bjork’s biography characterize her?

6. What did Bjork mean by the phrase “As far as I’m concerned, I killed a man that summer”?

7. What effect may the film produce on the audience according to the article?

Exercises and Assignments

I. What are the features of publicist style? Does the given review meet the requirements of this style? Point out the peculiarities that bring the text closer to the artistic style.

II. Analyze the semantic space of the text: pick out keywords for the following thematic groups:

– success;

– hard work;

– cinematography.

III. Study the vocabulary of the article. Which words have an especially strong semantic and emotive power?

IV. What vocabulary do the words petite and folie à deux belong to? What is their function in the context? Give their synonyms and translation.

V. Find the epithets in the text describing:

– personality;

– feelings and emotions;

– film and music.

VI. What role does antithesis play in the review? Give examples from the text.

VII. Why is the conjunction and italicized in the sentence “For some of us, however, it’s possible to love it and hate it”? What group of stylistic devices does italic type belong to?

VIII. Speak on the imagery of the text and the stylistic devices used to convey it.

IX. Translate the following set expressions and supply the context from the article:

to hurl oneself into, glimmer of hope, in the best sense of the word, to fight like cats and dogs, hand-to-hand combat, in grips.

X. Match each word from the first column with a synonym from the second column. Use these words in the sentences of your own.

1) appall	a) discolor
2) discordant	b) humiliate
3) odd	c) cut
4) avert	d) strange
5) surrender	e) turn away
6) chop	f) capitulation
7) bleach	g) shock
8) martyr	h) contradictory
9) mortify	i) sufferer

XI. Match each of the words in the first column with a suitable definition from the second column and give their translation.

1) glimpse 2) awe 3) sham 4) curtsy 5) folie à deux 6) gingham 7) set

a) lightweight plain-woven cotton cloth, typically checked in white and a bold color b) a thing that is not what it is purported to be c) a woman’s or girl’s formal greeting made by bending the knees with one foot in front of the other d) the place or area in which filming is taking place or a play is performed e) a feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder f) delusion or mental illness shared by two people in close association g) a momentary or partial view

XII. Paraphrase the following sentences from the text.

1. She’s performing with­out a net, working on raw, unfiltered feeling.

2. This petite woman in the red and white gingham dress is a far cry from Selma, though both talk with the same lilting, won­derfully odd Icelandic-British accent.

3. A child of ‘60s parents, raised communally in Reykjavik, the intense, single-minded Bjork released her first album at age 11, achieved international success as the lead singer of the Sugarcubes, and even greater acclaim for her techno-inspired solo albums.

4. Rumors flew that they had fought like cats and dogs, that she walked off the set because he was brutalizing her emotionally.

5. It’s the way he uses his talent that makes me uneasy: there’s an emotional sadism in von Trier – toward his martyred, mortified heroines as well as toward the audience – that leaves a queasy aftertaste.

XIII. Trace an etymology of the following nouns and give their translation of Russian origin:

naive, aura, amateur, prize, festival.

XIV. Fill in the gaps choosing a suitable synonym from the synonymic raw. Change the grammar form of a word if necessary.

Artless, ingenuous, naive, natural, simple, unaffected, unsophisticated

1. It is of the essence of such talk that it should be ________ and attractive, not professional or didactic (Benson). 2. Nothing is more ________ than greatness; indeed, to be ________ is to be great (Emerson). 3. Father has set a dog on him. A less ________ character would be silent about such passages… but that is not his quality (Wells). 4. Sophia, the ________ ninny, had actually supposed that her walking along a hundred yards of pavement with a god by her side was not going to excite remark (Bennett). 5. Italian civilization had, in short, everything to dazzle the imagination of ________ northerners emerging into a period of prosperity (Eliot). 6. He hated to seem heavy or profound or anything but ________ and spontaneous to Cecily (Wells). 7. He was extremely simple and ________ in his attitude, and readily approachable (MacCallum).

Little, microscopic, miniature, petite, teeny-tiny

1. He enjoyed the ________ vices and luxuries – coffee, fresh water, women (Lawrence). 2. It is a bit incongruous that such a ________ woman should write such huge tomes (Fisher). 3. One day this ________ woman put on her ________ bonnet and went out of her ________ house to take a ________ walk (Fairy Tale). 4. No matter how ________ his wage, he forced himself to save a dollar or two a year (Stone). 5. It was one of the ________ Italian cities… all compact and complete, on the top of a mountain (Smith).

Cheat, counterfeit, deceit, fraud, imposture, humbug, sham

1. Several of the gallery’s paintings reputed to be the work of Rubens and Rembrandt were ________. 2. If I passed myself off on Miss Carew as a gentleman, I should deserve to be exposed as a ________ (Shaw). 3. We may take it as undisputed that Swinburne… did something that had not been done before, and that what he did will not turn out to be a ________ (Eliot). 4. He smiled, in his worldliest manner. But the smile was a ________ (Bennett). 5. What ________ we are, who pretend to live for beauty, and never see the down (Smith). 6. Indians held that the basest trickery or ________ was dishonorable if directed against a foe (Amer. Guide Series). 7. She had the illusion that she was not really a married woman and a housemistress, but only a kind of ________ (Bennett).

Destiny, doom, fate, lot, portion

1. He either fears his ________ too much, or his deserts are small, that dares not put it to the touch to gain or lose it all (Montrose). 2. Lawrence was… unescapably an artist… There were moments when he wanted to escape from his ________ (Huxley). 3. It was her unhappy ________ to be made more wretched by only affection which she could not suspect (Conrad). 4. …So has my ________ been meted out to me; and… I have… been able to comprehend some of the lessons hidden in the heart of pain (Wilde). 5. Involution is as much a law of nature as evolution. There is no escape from this ________ (Inge).