Film Review of Spotlight

The film is about the Boston Globe’s 2002 exposé onthe Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal. It portrays a group of dogged and righteous journalists who speak for the voice-goes-unheard. The film is a saga of expansion, paced with immense care, demonstrating how the reports of child abused by Catholic clergy slowly broadened and unfurled. This film won the Oscar not only because of its excellent cast but also the well-selected lines, the controversial theme and the shocking impact.

Words:different people choose different words

The main characters in this film have different personalities. So the ways they speak are different. For example,Michael Rezendes, the pushy and restive reporter of the crew, always speaks straightforward without any consideration. When his boss turns his proposal down, he yells: "We gotta nail the scumbags…Not a priest or a Cardinal or a freaking pope." It shows his attitude towards the scandal and his flaming anger. While his boss Walter Robinson always stays cool and calm and looks on the full scope. He knows his roles in different social stage. He can give a brief but humorous speech when saying goodbye to his former colleague, he says: "Although I take issues with your reference to my seniority…departure…"When he cheers with his friend, he says"Sláinte".He chooses formal words in this situation. As the leader of his team, he keeps the full scope at heart. He likes to remind his team to "get the whole system".To some extent, what he says shows what he does.

Culture: Catholicism has a great impact on Americans

The United States has the largest English-speaking Catholic population. And the Catholic Church uses a lot of special words and phrases, which have a clear meaning to Catholics, or to most of them. It gradually affects the words and expressions in their language. For example, in this movie, there are plenty of words associated with Catholicism, like priest,parish,bishop,archdiocese,clergy etc. When we dig deeper, we can know the profound impact of religion on English. Some expressions are surprisingly rooted in religion. For example, the traditional farewell good-bye turns out to be a shortening of the sentence"God be with you". Holiday originally means "holy day", descending from the Old English haligdaeg. It could be quite interesting to take a close look at.

Subtitle: translation is generally correct but mistake happens

The translated subtitle is fairly good. For example,"a shoddy construction outfit"is translated into“豆腐渣工程”;"a barrel of laughs"is“开心果”;"He said, she said."is“人云亦云”etc. But it still has rooms for improvement. Like the sentence"Gutsy call for the first day"can be translated into“新官上任三把火”, which ,I think, is better than“第一天上任就这么有魄力”."work in somewhere before the jump"is mistranslated into“在他们斥责我们之前完成”, which should be“把这个加在换页之前”. Although there are some mistakes, the subtitle is pretty good in general.

Figure of Speech: rhetorical devices are mainly applied

1. Antithesis

“It might take a village to raise a child,” grumbles lawyer Mitchell Garabedian,“But it also takes a village to abuse one.”It sounds reasonable and convincing.

2. Metonymy

"reach for the bottle or needle"is a metonymy: the"bottle"refers to wine while the"needle"refers to drugs.

3.Sarcasm

"Did you ever talk to anyone?"Sacha asks a gay victim named Joe.

"Like who?” Joe asks. “A priest?"The sarcasm used here rubs salt to his wounds.

In conclusion,spotlight pays tributes to those people who fight for justice, cry for unfairness and seek for hope.Their courage and persistence really shake the world.