在长沙，刚从乡里回来的hui man说，现在乡里的生活比城市舒服。乡里的地大、宽敞，小孩子活动范围广，乡里乡亲见的多，与整天呆在房子里、大部分时间只与父母、祖父母相处的城里小孩相比，乡里的孩子更活泼、大方。

城市的生活压力很大，住房、喝水样样都要钱。早上一睁眼，就要掂着上班、赚钱。而乡里的生活轻松很多。割稻子之类的农活，出钱请收割机之类的机器做，稻谷直接送到家。女人的大部分时间在麻将桌上。打麻将也不在家里，在麻将馆，有人端茶送水，自己连煮水的活也省了。

This summer, Keanu Reeves, Adam Sandler and Luke Wilson joined the firm of Newman Finney Harrelson Holden Douglas Cooper Gere & Karloff. They're not architects, but they've all played one.

Dating back to the silents, when screenwriters seek a profession to connote an artistic bent and a degree of elan, they often as not turn to architecture. Unlike a painter or poet -- to which the adjective "starving" is, for good reason, attached -- architects are assumed to have an earning capacity that would allow them to live large on the screen. The perception of architects as cool is evident in "There's Something About Mary," when Matt Dillon pretends to be one in an attempt to impress Cameron Diaz. （默片时期：收入可观，生活优越）

"With architects, you have an image of someone above reproach and not damaged, the way lawyers and judges and even doctors have been," says film historian Robert Osborne, the genial host of Turner Classic Movies.

"There are very, very few professions that still have a ring of heroism about them, and architecture is one of the few that does. If an architect is portrayed going off the deep end, it's always because they are so committed to what they're doing and that's an honorable thing. And it's one of the last manly professions -- you are building something outdoors." （有英雄主义情结）

In October, the cable channel will present a series of films about architects, including "The Fountainhead," starring Gary Cooper as an idealist who refuses to change a single detail on his modernist designs and -- well -- goes off the deep end; "The Towering Inferno," with Paul Newman as the prideful creator of the world's tallest skyscraper, which, unfortunately, goes up in flames; and "Strangers When We Meet," capturing Kirk Douglas in the act of building a dream house in the Los Angeles hills. Super modern for the time, 1960, the home actually was constructed during filming and is still standing. "Strangers" also screens next month at the San Francisco Main Library, part of a film program sponsored by the American Institute of Architects. （现代主义时期：理想主义、固执己见）

These men are portrayed as passionate in every sense of the word. As a benefactor who falls for Howard Roark in "The Fountainhead" but fears she will never have him to herself, Patricia Neal tells him, "I wish I had never seen your skyscraper." Laughing, Osborne recalls her reading the line "in such a lusty way, you know she equates sexuality with his building." Likewise, the zeal Newman and Douglas have for their work spills over into their love lives. Arriving in San Francisco for a party to inaugurate his glass monolith, Newman immediately heads for Faye Dunaway's bed. Scenes of Douglas carrying on a hot extra-marital affair with Kim Novak are juxtaposed with his house rising from the ground. And "The Belly of an Architect" opens with Brian Dennehy making torrid love on a train through Italy.

"Passion for your work does carry over to a passion in real life," says John Powers, a practicing architect for 35 years. "I don't know of any architect who has not been passionate about life, particularly trying to figure out how to design one's own life." The notion of them as catnip to women appears often on celluloid. Albert Finney has Audrey Hepburn and Jacqueline Bisset vying for him in "Two for the Road'' -- and that's before he's even made a name for himself. Richard Gere must make a tough choice between Sharon Stone and Lolita Davidovich in "Intersection."

More recently, Keanu Reeves becomes an obsession for Sandra Bullock in "The Lake House" and Luke Wilson is Uma Thurman's object of desire in "My Super Ex-Girlfriend." Donald MacDonald, whose architectural firm is working on the new eastern span of the Bay Bridge, remembers seeing William Holden as an architect in "The World of Suzie Wong" 45 years ago. "I was interested in seeing the world and that's what he was doing. I went 'wow,' he gets a beautiful woman besides."

MacDonald thinks Hollywood is on solid ground equating sex with architecture. "When you come up with an original design, something really unique, it is almost like having sex. You get a high out of it." （60s：充满激情、爱生活、爱美女）

The visual aspects of the profession are another reason it appeals to screenwriters. "With an architect, you get to see plans, models, construction sites and buildings being built," said "Click" co-writer Mark O'Keefe, explaining why he chose that occupation for Adam Sandler. "You wouldn't want to watch a Web-based consultant in bio-tech or a derivatives trader do whatever incomprehensible thing they do at their computers. （干活看得见）

"Architecture and the act of building have a lot of metaphorical power. Building something good seems admirable in itself, beyond what it pays as work. Architecture also has a bit of the common touch, which is important for a movie hero." （有权力，受人尊敬）

Steve Koren, who collaborated on "Click" and used to write for "Seinfeld," added that "you can reflect a lot about a character through the choices an architect needs to make. He can be very creative, like Frank Gehry, or wildly bored because he's being forced to build a gas station. But say you're not even looking to get that deep with the profession. You're just looking for a job for your leading man. 'Architect' has a positive spin. I mean Mr. Brady from 'The Brady Bunch' was an architect."

"When so much creative energy goes into something that is in the future, you just have to come at it in an optimistic and hopeful way," says John Kriken, who is with Skidmore Owings & Merrill in San Francisco. "I have rarely met an architect who I would consider to be a real negative personality or cynical, as you might find in the law profession where they feed off their cynicism." （乐观，阳光）

But architects aren't always portrayed in a favorable light. Boris Karloff is a devil-worshiper in the 1934 horror classic "The Black Cat." Holed up in a castle he built, he murders a woman and keeps her body in a glass coffin for close observation. While Woody Harrelson's treatment of the opposite sex in "Indecent Proposal" isn't as dastardly, he does sell his wife's sexual favors to Robert Redford for $1 million. In his defense, Harrelson is having a tough time making ends meet and has to resort to teaching, holding forth on legendary designer Louis Kahn. （阴暗、邪恶）

The preponderance of male architects onscreen reflects real life, although the number of women in the field has increased in recent years. Virginia Madsen plays an architect in "Firewall" and Michelle Pfeiffer is one in the romantic comedy "One Fine Day," but their occupations are peripheral to the storylines. (In a bit of movie trivia, Pfeiffer made her screen debut 26 years ago in "Falling in Love Again," starring Elliott Gould as a frustrated architect who hides his drawings inside his bookkeeping ledger.) （男性多于女性）

This summer's crop of architects doesn't measure up to past standards. Wilson devotes far more of his time to dumping his superwoman-girlfriend than to architectural renderings. Sandler happily slashes his designs for a luxury hotel and restaurant in order to advance at his firm.

"Architects once were portrayed as sophisticates and what has happened to them both in reality and on film is that they are now seen as just ordinary folk, kind of a hack or bumbler," says one longtime San Francisco architect, who has observed that the field no longer attracts the best and the brightest because there are so many other avenues to be creative that are far more lucrative. （近来：落地了）

The trend of downgrading the profession continues later this year with Anthony LaPaglia as the title character in "The Architect," a builder of a dangerous complex who gets into a row with an activist living there. On Sept. 1, "The Quiet" arrives in theaters starring Martin Donovan as a designer with a dark side. It's a familiar role for the actor. He appears in the 1998 "Heaven" as a compulsive boozer and gambler who practices architecture in between. Donovan's character sold insurance in the original draft of "The Quiet." （继续走下坡路）

"His job did not play as big a role in the storytelling as it does now," says co-screenwriter Abdi Nazemian. "We wanted every character to have this image they portray to the world and the secret they keep to themselves, so we thought of making him an architect because architecture ultimately is about creating an exterior façade for a life."

"The Quiet" depends on audiences' positive image of the profession, an image fostered in part by movies. Nazemian just received a copy of a dating advice book written by a friend. "She has this great line -- you always have to find out everything about your men, even if they seem perfect on the outside, like an architect." （里外不一，－－可怜的建筑师）

Here's a selected filmography of movies featuring architects, available on DVD: