法国小说家加缪写于1942年的小说《局外人》，以主人公默尔索的自述开始：“今天，妈妈死了。也许是昨天，我不知道。”这个开篇表现了主人公对母亲死讯的冷漠和无所谓，而作为荒诞文学的象征，则表现了加缪所揭示的“自我不是自己家里的主人”的现代荒诞感。这部小说在1957年获得诺贝尔文学奖，这意味着二战后世界对荒诞感的普遍认同。
也是在1942年，年仅10岁的伊丽莎白·泰勒牵着母亲的手走进了好莱坞的明星世界。戏剧演员出身的母亲虽然声称这位1932年出生的女儿生下来“长着一张似乎将永远长不开的皱折的脸”，但是目标明确、意志坚定地要将这只“丑小鸭”铸造成银幕世界的璀璨明星。
今年3月23日，美国洛杉矶时间当日凌晨1点28分，泰勒以79岁高龄去世。当天出版的《纽约时报》发表了署名顾索（M.Gussow）的长篇纪念文章《好莱坞魅力的绚烂巅峰》，把她描绘为一个天使与魔鬼的混合体，在她的生命中，贪婪和慈善，忠贞和滥情，既矛盾又因果地联系着。该文指出，在对泰勒的纷繁歧异的评价中，一致的评价是“她的美”，称她为“美的化身”。让这个“美的化身”在这个世界显形，就是泰勒母亲当年的梦想。
与《局外人》的主人公默尔索在荒诞感中表现的对生命的根本性的冷漠相反，泰勒79岁的生命是一种凤凰浴火式的热烈。在她的八次失败的婚姻中，她总是以玩火般的热烈去追求她的爱情，用她自己的话说，“如撞了鬼一样”。她自认“幸运一生”，而其“幸运”的含义不仅包括她获得了令他人难以企望的美貌、声望、财富、荣耀和爱情，而且包括遭受数不清的疾病和多次生死轮回。
泰勒在人生多方面的非常富有，也带给她超人的奢侈和贪婪。对她的身体，她同样采取奢侈的消费态度，甚至于不惜伤害健康。这种态度，与二战后、尤其是1960年代美国的文化反叛思潮是相联系的；作为一种女性的“自我解放”，它又暗合了女性主义主张的“梅杜莎女妖的反叛”。因为男权文化传统把女性身体禁闭在“优美的镜像”中，所以，女性主义就主张用“愉悦肉体和带侵犯性”的“反审美的叛逆”击破传统的“女性美”的镜像。
我们看到，无论在银幕中还是在生活中，泰勒都不断向世界展示着她的“叛逆的身体”。但是，正如她的电影表演总是遵循“直觉”而非观念，她的生活也总是在自我的激情和直觉的自然限度内进行，并没有在“无限反叛”的时代观念引导下展现为极端或过度的自我颠覆。正因为如此，泰勒无论在生活中，还是在银幕上，都保持了激情和秩序的内在平衡。如果我们将泰勒的艺术人生解读为一出古希腊悲剧，凭借尼采的悲剧哲学，我们可以说，她的热烈和冒险正是酒神精神的生命沉醉，而她的美则是静穆明丽的日神精神的化身。
在《纽约时报》的叙述中，作为“美的化身”，泰勒的面庞是完美对称的，“她没有一个角度是有缺陷的，而她的眼睛有着极深澈的紫罗兰色”。这是一个西方古典女性美的理想形象，这个形象的原型是古希腊雕塑中的维纳斯神像，其美学原则是比例、均衡、圆润、光洁和优雅。尽管泰勒在生活中和银幕上都留下了多变殊异的形象，然而，“她不是变色龙”，她烙印在人们心灵中的形象，永远是她的如希腊大理石雕像一样均衡、莹丽的面庞，还有那月影下的如千古深海一样静谧的双眸，给人一种超尘出世的温馨和莹洁之美。在泰勒的身上，形象的多变与美丽的永恒，正好印证了柏拉图在2400多年前指出的，“美本身是永恒统一的”。
20世纪后半期，经过持续的反叛之后，充斥于艺术世界的是丑陋、怪诞、残破和变态。“美”不仅不再是艺术的本质要素，而且成为被拒绝的“荒谬之物”。美国美学家丹托在2001年《美的荒谬》一文中总结20世纪的艺术演变时指出：“如果有任何东西能成为艺术品，美就不能再成为艺术定义的一部分，因为这是一个确定的事实：没有任何东西是美的。”
在反审美的当代艺术背景上，泰勒的艺术人生是以“美的化身”重新定义艺术。当代世界对泰勒的推崇，揭示了当代文化中一个深层的意识，这个意识比本文开始讲述的现代荒诞感更深刻，它是人类对“美本身”的根本需要和梦想。
20世纪是艺术不断对美进行革命的时代，叛逆和荒诞主导了艺术。然而，因为有了泰勒的美的表现，我们的生命理想才不会被无限的叛逆和致命的荒诞呑食。我们也可以说，泰勒的艺术人生正体现了加缪从荒谬中揭示的积极的存在意义：一个真正的荒谬哲学家，是拒绝荒谬的。
伊丽莎白·泰勒告诉我们：美是不死的梦。
（东方早报，2011-03-29）
A Lustrous Pinnacle of Hollywood Glamour
By MEL GUSSOW
Published: March 23, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/24/movies/elizabeth-taylor-obituary.html?_r=1&hp
Elizabeth Taylor, the actress who dazzled generations of moviegoers with her stunning beauty and whose name was synonymous with Hollywood glamour, died on Wednesday in Los Angeles. She was 79.
A spokeswoman at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center said Ms. Taylor died at 1:28 a.m. Pacific time. Her publicist, Sally Morrison, said the cause was complications of congestive heart failure. Ms. Taylor had had a series of medical setbacks over the years and was hospitalized six weeks ago with heart problems.
In a world of flickering images, Elizabeth Taylor was a constant star. First appearing on screen at age 10, she grew up there, never passing through an awkward age. It was one quick leap from “National Velvet” to “A Place in the Sun” and from there to “Cleopatra,” as she was indelibly transformed from a vulnerable child actress into a voluptuous film queen.
In a career of some 70 years and more than 50 films, she won two Academy Awards as best actress, for her performances as a call girl in “BUtterfield 8” （1960） and as the acid-tongued Martha in “Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” （1966）。 Mike Nichols, who directed her in “Virginia Woolf,” said he considered her “one of the greatest cinema actresses.”
When Ms. Taylor was honored in 1986 by the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Vincent Canby wrote in The New York Times, “More than anyone else I can think of, Elizabeth Taylor represents the complete movie phenomenon — what movies are as an art and an industry, and what they have meant to those of us who have grown up watching them in the dark.”
Ms. Taylor's popularity endured throughout her life, but critics were sometimes reserved in their praise of her acting. In that sense she may have been upstaged by her own striking beauty. Could anyone as lovely as Elizabeth Taylor also be talented? The answer, of course, was yes.
Given her lack of professional training, the range of her acting was surprisingly wide. She played predatory vixens and wounded victims. She was Cleopatra of the burnished barge; Tennessee Williams's Maggie the cat; Catherine Holly, who confronted terror suddenly last summer; and Shakespeare's Kate. Her melodramatic heroines would have been at home on soap operas.
Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who directed her in “Suddenly, Last Summer” and “Cleopatra,” saw her for the first time, in Cannes, when she was 18. “She was the most incredible vision of loveliness I have ever seen in my life,” he said. “And she was sheer innocence.”
Mankiewicz admired her professionalism. “Whatever the script called for, she played it,” he said. “The thread that goes through the whole is that of a woman who is an honest performer. Therein lies her identity.”
It was also Mankiewicz who said that for Ms. Taylor, “living life was a kind of acting,” that she lived her life “in screen time.”
Beauty Incarnate
Marilyn Monroe was the sex goddess, Grace Kelly the ice queen, Audrey Hepburn the eternal gamine. Ms. Taylor was beauty incarnate. As the director George Stevens said when he chose her for “A Place in the Sun,” the role called for the “beautiful girl in the yellow Cadillac convertible that every American boy, some time or other, thinks he can marry.”
There was more than a touch of Ms. Taylor herself in the roles she played. She acted with the magnet of her personality. Although she could alter her look for a part — putting on weight for Martha in “Virginia Woolf” or wearing elaborate period costumes — she was not a chameleon, assuming the coloration of a character. Instead she would bring the character closer to herself. For her, acting was “purely intuitive.” As she said, “What I try to do is to give the maximum emotional effect with the minimum of visual movement.”
Sometimes her film roles seemed to be a mirror image of her life. More than most movie stars, she seemed to exist in the public domain. She was pursued by paparazzi and denounced by the Vatican. But behind the seemingly scandalous behavior was a woman with a clear sense of morality: she habitually married her lovers. People watched and counted, with vicarious pleasure, as she became Elizabeth Taylor Hilton Wilding Todd Fisher Burton Burton Warner Fortensky — enough marriages to certify her career as a serial wife. Asked why she married so often, she said, in an assumed drawl: “I don't know, honey. It sure beats the hell out of me.”
In a lifetime of emotional and physical setbacks, serious illnesses and accidents, and several near-death experiences, Ms. Taylor was a survivor. “I've been lucky all my life,” she said just before turning 60. “Everything was handed to me. Looks, fame, wealth, honors, love. I rarely had to fight for anything. But I've paid for that luck with disasters.” At 65, she said on the ABC program “20/20”： “I'm like a living example of what people can go through and survive. I'm not like anyone. I'm me.”
Her life was played out in print: miles of newspaper and magazine articles, a galaxy of photographs and a shelf of biographies, each one painting a different portrait. “Planes, trains, everything stops for Elizabeth Taylor, but the public has no conception of who she is,” said Roddy McDowall, who was one of her earliest co-stars and a friend for life. “People who damn her wish to hell they could do what they think she does.”
There was one point of general agreement: her beauty. As cameramen noted, her face was flawlessly symmetrical; she had no bad angle, and her eyes were of the deepest violet.
One prominent and perhaps surprising dissenter about her looks was Richard Burton, who was twice her husband. The notion of his wife as “the most beautiful woman in the world is absolute nonsense,” he said. “She has wonderful eyes,” he added, “but she has a double chin and an overdeveloped chest, and she's rather short in the leg.”
On screen and off, Ms. Taylor was a provocative combination of the angel and the seductress. In all her incarnations she had a vibrant sensuality. But beneath it was more than a tinge of vulgarity, as in her love of showy jewelry. “I know I'm vulgar,” she said, addressing her fans with typical candor, “but would you have me any other way?”
For many years she was high on the list of box-office stars. Even when her movies were unsuccessful, or, late in her career, when she acted infrequently, she retained her fame: there was only one Liz （a nickname she hated）， and her celebrity increased the more she lived in the public eye. There was nothing she could do about it. “The public me,” she said, “the one named Elizabeth Taylor, has become a lot of hokum and fabrication — a bunch of drivel — and I find her slightly revolting.”
Late in life she became a social activist. After her friend Rock Hudson died, she helped establish the American Foundation for AIDS Research and helped raise money for it. In 1997, she said, “I use my fame now when I want to help a cause or other people.”
Twice she had leading roles on Broadway, in a 1981 revival of Lillian Hellman's “Little Foxes” and two years later in No?l Coward's “Private Lives,” with Burton, then her former husband. In the first instance she won critical respect; in the second she and Burton descended into self-parody. But theater was not her ideal arena; it was as a movie star that she made her impact.
In a life of many surprises, one of the oddest facts is that as an infant she was considered to be an ugly duckling. Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor was born in London on Feb. 27, 1932, the second child of American parents with roots in Kansas. Her father, Francis Lenn Taylor, was an art dealer who had been transferred to London from New York; her mother, the former Sara Viola Warmbrodt, had acted in the theater in New York, under the name Sara Sothern, before she was married. （Her brother, Howard, was born in 1929.） At birth, her mother said, her daughter's “tiny face was so tightly closed it looked as if it would never unfold.”
Elizabeth spent her early childhood in England. It was there, at 3, that she learned to ride horseback, a skill that helped her win her first major role. Just before World War II, the family moved to the United States, eventually settling in Beverly Hills.
An Inauspicious Start
Ms. Taylor's mother shared with her daughter a love of movies and encouraged her to act. Elizabeth made her movie debut in 1942 as Gloria Twine in a forgettable film called “There's One Born Every Minute,” with Carl Switzer, best known as Alfalfa, the boy with the cowlick in the “Our Gang” series. The casting director at Universal said of her: “The kid has nothing.” Despite that inauspicious debut, Sam Marx, an MGM producer who had known the Taylors in England, arranged for their daughter to have a screen test for “Lassie Come Home.” She passed the audition. During the filming, in which Ms. Taylor acted with Roddy McDowall, a cameraman mistakenly thought her long eyelashes were fake and asked her to take them off.
The power of her attraction was evident as early as 1944, in “National Velvet.” MGM had for many years owned the film rights to the Enid Bagnold novel on which that film was based but had had difficulty finding a child actress who could speak with an English accent and ride horses. At 12, Elizabeth Taylor met those requirements, though she was initially rejected for being too short. Stories circulated that she stretched herself in order to fill the physical dimensions of the role: Velvet Brown, a girl who was obsessed with horses and rode one to victory in the Grand National Steeplechase. “I knew if it were right for me to be Velvet,” she said, “God would make me grow.”
In one scene her horse, which she called the Pie, seemed to be dying, and Ms. Taylor was supposed to cry — the first time she was called on to show such emotion on screen. Her co-star was Mickey Rooney, a more experienced actor, and he gave her some advice on how to summon tears: pretend that her father was dying, that her mother had to wash clothes for a living and that her little dog had been run over. Hearing that sad scenario, Ms. Taylor burst out laughing at the absurdity. When it came time to shoot the scene, she later said: “All I thought about was the horse being very sick and that I was the little girl who owned him. And the tears came.”
Ms. Taylor gave a performance that, quite literally, made grown men and women weep, to say nothing of girls who identified with Velvet. In his review of the film in The Nation, James Agee, otherwise a tough-minded critic, confessed that the first time he had seen Ms. Taylor on screen he had been “choked with the peculiar sort of adoration I might have felt if we were both in the same grade of primary school.”
She was, he said, “rapturously beautiful.”
“I think that she and the picture are wonderful, and I hardly know or care whether she can act or not.”
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