portmanteau
映画「ゴジラ」のハリウッド版GODZILLAが16日に全米で公開され，公開早々から注目を集めているようです。
portmanteauは「（衣類を入れる）旅行かばん」を表す単語ですが，そこからportmanteau wordで「混成語」を意味するようになり，さらにportmanteau自体で「2つ以上の性質を併せ持ったもの」という意味を持つようになりました（『プログレッシブ英和中辞典』小学館）。ここでは「『ゴリラ』と『クジラ』を合わせた言葉」と解釈できます。
日本では7月25日から公開されるようですが，それまでに世界各地でどこまで興行収入を伸ばせるか注目です。（Koyamamoto）
Godzilla: Why Japan loves monster movies
In the manner of Godzilla himself, Hollywood is stomping into Japanese cinema once again. There have been plenty of US remakes of Japanese classics – Seven Samurai became The Magnificent Seven, Ringu became The Ring – but Tinseltown has never quite cracked the tale of the giant, city-smashing lizard. Director Gareth Edwards hopes to change that with his Godzilla, released on 16 May, the 60th anniversary of the cherished monster’s debut from Tokyo’s Toho studios.
The original film, titled Gojira – a portmanteau of ‘gorilla’ and ‘whale’ (kujira) – appeared amid the economic boom of Japan’s post-war period, at a time when H-bomb testing in the Pacific had created a climate of fear about radiation in Japan. The trailer for Edwards’ new Hollywood version alights on a Japanese nuclear plant erupting – rekindling memories of the Fukushima meltdown and the spectre of nuclear catastrophe that engulfed the nation in 2011. But for some, the idea that Godzilla equals atomic horror suggests that non-Western directors may have missed the true point of the kaiju eiga (monster film), genre.
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20140516-giant-lizard-on-the-loose
