《星際穿越》里的宗教與政治

《星際穿越》里的宗教與政治

Ross Douthat: It’s a pleasure to be back with you, here in the fall movie season’s eye-of-the-storm moment, when we get a chance to take a breath and catch up on all the prestige movies released before Thanksgiving — or, you know, take the kids to “Penguins of Madagascar,” depending — before the Christmas hurricane arrives. And I’m going to start us off by talking about the biggest, most ambitious and in certain ways the most political of the fall releases that made landfall last month: Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar.”

羅斯·多賽特：很高興回來(lái)，在這個(gè)秋季檔風(fēng)平浪靜的風(fēng)暴眼時(shí)刻，我們有機(jī)會(huì)趕在圣誕的電影颶風(fēng)到來(lái)之前，深吸一口氣，把在感恩節(jié)前上映的所有佳片都給看了——或者你懂的，要是有孩子的話，恐怕就只得帶孩子去看《馬達(dá)加斯加的企鵝》(Penguins of Madagascar)了。我就從上個(gè)月上畫的秋季檔中最具影響力、最具企圖心、從某些方面來(lái)說(shuō)也最為政治的電影——克里斯托弗·諾蘭 (Christopher Nolan)的《星際穿越》(Interstellar)說(shuō)起吧。

By way of preamble: I am not a true believer in the Church of Nolan; I’m more like a churchgoer who appreciates the beauty of the liturgy but cocks his head skeptically during the sermon and dissents from several crucial doctrines. To me, he’s the master of the near-great film: I have never not been entertained by a Nolan movie, but I’ve also never come away thinking, “that was, at last, a masterpiece.” His closest-to-perfect film, “Memento,” is too much of a claustrophobic stunt to earn that title, and the movies that set his wildest fans to raving — “Inception” and above all “The Dark Knight” — are impressive blockbusters ill-served by the attempt to elevate them into the cinematic equivalent of Shakespeare. Watch “Inception” as a heist movie, and it’s great; watch it as an exploration of dreams and the unconscious, and … no. Likewise “The Dark Knight,” in which Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker is several degrees more brilliant than the movie’s larger meditation on politics, leadership and terrorism. (I’m in the small camp that actually preferred “The Dark Knight Rises.”)

讓我先說(shuō)明一點(diǎn)：我不是諾蘭教的信徒;我更多是那種會(huì)去教堂領(lǐng)略禮拜儀式之美，但在牧師布道過(guò)程中會(huì)充滿狐疑地把頭歪向一側(cè)，對(duì)幾條關(guān)鍵性的教義還會(huì)持有異議的人。在我看來(lái)，他是拍攝近乎偉大之作的大師：諾蘭的電影總能帶給我娛樂，但我從來(lái)不會(huì)說(shuō)，“終于，他拍出了一部杰作”。他最接近完美的作品《記憶碎片》(Memento)更多是一部幽閉恐怖癥的噱頭之作，所以難以擔(dān)當(dāng)杰作頭銜;而那些令他的瘋狂粉絲們贊不絕口的電影——《星際穿越》，尤其是《黑暗騎士》(The Dark Knight)——雖然是給人留下深刻印象的大片，但也不是大師之作。把《星際穿越》當(dāng)成一部強(qiáng)盜片來(lái)看，它還是很不錯(cuò)的;但如果把它視為對(duì)夢(mèng)境和潛意識(shí)世界的探索，那就……馬馬虎虎了?！逗诎凋T士》也是這樣，扮演小丑的希斯·萊杰(Heath Ledger)的演技，要比這部電影對(duì)政治、領(lǐng)導(dǎo)力和恐怖主義的思考要來(lái)得更為耀眼幾度。(我也屬于更偏愛《黑暗騎士崛起》[The Dark Knight Rises]的那個(gè)小陣營(yíng)。)

I sometimes feel like I should be more of a believer, though, because Nolan is pretty clearly one of the more politically conservative A-list directors working in Hollywood today. This isn’t just my idiosyncratic opinion: There are obvious, true-to-the-script reasons his “Batman” movies were slammed as apologias for fascism and hailed as defenses of George W. Bush’s war on terror. But neither take was quite right: In reality, those films were apologias for an old-fashioned sort of Toryism, as British as Nolan himself, which defends basic civic order against corrupt, radical and nihilistic alternatives and lionizes to-the-manor-born aristocrats insofar as they take up for the common people’s interests.

但有時(shí)候，我覺得自己應(yīng)該多給諾蘭捧捧場(chǎng)，因?yàn)楹茱@然，他是當(dāng)今在好萊塢打拼的頂級(jí)導(dǎo)演中政治立場(chǎng)偏保守的。這并非我的個(gè)人觀點(diǎn)：出于顯而易見的原因，有人批評(píng)他的蝙蝠俠系列是對(duì)法西斯主義的辯解，也有人認(rèn)可它是對(duì)喬治布什發(fā)動(dòng)的反恐戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)的辯護(hù)。但這兩種看法都不完全正確：事實(shí)上，對(duì)于一個(gè)像諾蘭這么英范兒的人，這些電影是對(duì)一種老式的保守主義的辯解，這種保守主義捍衛(wèi)基本的公民秩序，反對(duì)腐敗、激進(jìn)的和無(wú)政府主義的選擇，把站在普通大眾利益一邊的、莊園出生的貴族視作重要人物。

And this is part of what makes the politics of “Interstellar” quite interesting, because Nolan’s space-exploration movie is right-wing in a different, much more American key than the “peace, order and noblesse oblige” Toryism of the “Batman” trilogy. In my review for National Review, I suggested that this is the kind of movie that you might expect Peter Thiel, the libertarian tech mogul and frequent critic of what he sees as a loss of imagination and technological ambition in the West, to bankroll and support: “Interstellar” opens in a world where the textbooks have been rewritten to pretend that the moon landings were a Cold War propaganda stunt, and it ends in a world where … well, I don’t think it gives anything away to tell people that the title doubles as the movie’s vision of the human future. Which makes it basically a long brief for the proposition that human beings — and especially Americans, and especially Americans played by Matthew McConaughey — can do just about anything they set their minds to do, and that the biggest threat to our future isn’t overreach or arrogance or technological blowback (the atmospheric “blight” threatening the planet in the movie is very conspicuously not the same thing as man-made climate change, to some viewers’ great disappointment) but defeatism, declinism and self-doubt.

這是令《星際穿越》的政治立場(chǎng)顯得相當(dāng)有趣的原因之一，因?yàn)榕c蝙蝠俠三部曲“和平、秩序和貴族責(zé)任”的保守主義相比，諾蘭的這部宇宙探索電影，以一種截然不同的、更為美國(guó)化的基調(diào)呈現(xiàn)出右翼色彩。在我給《國(guó)民評(píng)論》(National Review)寫的影評(píng)中提出，你很有可能會(huì)以為該片是彼特·蒂爾(Peter Thiel)這種信奉自由主義、對(duì)于那些在他看來(lái)表明西方缺乏想象力和技術(shù)野心的事務(wù)時(shí)常提出批評(píng)的的技術(shù)大佬，會(huì)出錢出力的電影類型：《星際穿越》一片始于這樣一個(gè)世界——教科書被重寫，假裝登月是冷戰(zhàn)的宣傳噱頭;而結(jié)束于……好吧，我認(rèn)為指出片名表明了該片對(duì)于人類未來(lái)的看法，應(yīng)該也不能算是劇透之舉吧。這使得該片成了這樣一個(gè)議題的長(zhǎng)篇簡(jiǎn)報(bào)：人類，尤其是美國(guó)人、尤其是馬修·麥康納(Matthew McConaughey )扮演的那種美國(guó)人，可以去做任何他們?cè)谛睦锵露Q心要去完成的事情，對(duì)于人類未來(lái)的最大威脅，不是來(lái)自于不自量力、自以為是或者技術(shù)所造成的出人意料之外的惡果(另一些觀眾大感失望的是，電影里肆虐全球的、大氣引發(fā)的“枯死病”威脅與人為的氣候變化顯然不是一回事)，而是失敗主義、衰落主義和對(duì)自我的懷疑。

My fundamental sympathies are more Tory than libertarian, but I still liked Nolan’s foray into Apollo-era American optimism — not least because Thiel and others have a plausible case, I think, that a lot of contemporary sci-fi really has become dystopian to a fault. Especially at the movies, and especially where space exploration is concerned: Whether it’s the predators of the “Alien” franchise or just the cold, dark night of “Gravity” and “Apollo 13,” a lot of contemporary space-faring stories make the cosmos seem like something best left unexplored. So to me the long middle section of “Interstellar,” where McConaughey and Co. are hopscotching from one strange planet to another in search of a new home for the human race, was a welcome and, yes, even inspiring callback to golden-age sci-fi.

基本上我更支持保守主義，而非自由主義;但我仍然喜歡諾蘭對(duì)于阿波羅時(shí)代美國(guó)的樂觀主義的嘗試——尤其是因?yàn)?，蒂爾之流有一個(gè)在我看來(lái)不過(guò)貌似有理的論點(diǎn)，就是當(dāng)代的許多科幻作品已經(jīng)變得過(guò)于反烏托邦。尤其是在電影中，而且尤其是在關(guān)于宇宙探索相關(guān)的電影中：無(wú)論是《異形》(Alien)系列中的掠奪者，還是《地心引力(Gravity)和《阿波羅13號(hào)》(Apollo 13)里的黑夜，許多當(dāng)代的太空探索故事，令宇宙看來(lái)似乎是最好不要去侵?jǐn)_的地方。所以在我看來(lái)，《星際穿越》中間很長(zhǎng)一部分關(guān)于麥康納一行人從一個(gè)陌生的星球跑到另一個(gè)星球?qū)ふ疫m合人類居住的新家，是對(duì)黃金時(shí)代的科學(xué)作品的接受，是的，甚至是其鼓舞人心的回歸。

I only wish I’d liked the ending better: Once again, Nolan’s pretensions got the better of his entertainer’s craft; he seems to have felt the need to imitate or outdo Stanley Kubrick’s “2001,” to deliver a big reveal that somehow marries the mystical and the material, when he would have been better off just sticking with his astronauts and their adventures. So once again, and perhaps predictably, my verdict on a Nolan movie is “near-great.” How about yours?

我只是希望結(jié)尾能再好一些就好了：又一次，諾蘭的抱負(fù)戰(zhàn)勝了他的娛樂技巧;他本可以專注于他的宇航員及他們的冒險(xiǎn)，但他似乎覺得只有模仿或者戰(zhàn)勝斯坦利·庫(kù)布里克(Stanley Kubrick)的《2001太空漫游》(2001)，才能傳達(dá)出一個(gè)結(jié)合了神秘性和物質(zhì)性的大啟示。所以，再一次的，或許應(yīng)該說(shuō)是果不其然，這是一部在我看來(lái)“幾乎偉大”的諾蘭電影。你的看法呢?

Frank Bruni: I’m glad you started with “Interstellar,” because, wow, that is one chewy movie. It’s about the (quantifiable!) power of love. It’s about the tug of family. It’s about parental guilt. It’s about filial rage. It’s about faith. It’s about doubt. It’s about human glory. It’s about human treachery.

弗蘭克·布魯尼：我很高興你從《星際穿越》開始，因?yàn)椋?，這可是一部很有嚼頭的電影。它關(guān)乎愛的力量(而且是可以量化的!)，關(guān)乎家庭的牽絆，關(guān)乎父親的自責(zé)，關(guān)乎子女的憤怒，關(guān)乎信仰，關(guān)于懷疑，關(guān)于人類榮耀，關(guān)于人類背叛。

Oh, yeah, and in the midst of all that, a whole lot of travel through space occurs.

哦，對(duì)了，貫穿這一切的，還有很多的太空旅行。

I’m astounded by Nolan’s ambition, and I’m struck by how his own drive, manifest in the fact and scope and spectacle of the movie, complements one of its principal arguments, which is that we can’t and shouldn’t turn our backs on the grandest of goals. Nolan, a director who dreams bigger than just about any other director out there, has made a movie about a band of would-be saviors who are dreaming bigger than everyone around them.

我被諾蘭的抱負(fù)震住了，打動(dòng)我的是，他在電影的細(xì)節(jié)、電影眼界和壯觀場(chǎng)面中所展現(xiàn)出的推動(dòng)力，完全對(duì)得起電影的一個(gè)主要論點(diǎn)，即：我們不能也不應(yīng)該背棄那些最為宏大的目標(biāo)。諾蘭，一個(gè)比任何同行都更加勇于夢(mèng)想的導(dǎo)演，拍攝了一部關(guān)于一群想要成為拯救者、一群比周遭所有人都更敢于夢(mèng)想的人的電影。

But I find its politics a bit more ambiguous or flexible or protean or noncommittal (choose your adjective) than you do. I’m amused by this zest to label it conservative, although I understand how hungry conservatives must be to claim a Hollywood A-list director (or, for that matter, star). Sure, Nolan’s “Batman” movies lend themselves to some of the interpretations you present. And, yes, “Interstellar” fudges on what’s causing the terrible weather that troubles the planet, declining to cast its lot with global warming.

但是我覺得它的政治傾向比你所認(rèn)為的更模糊，或者說(shuō)更靈活、更多變、更不明說(shuō)(你選一個(gè)形容詞吧)。這么多人愿意給它貼上保守主義的標(biāo)簽，我覺得很有意思;雖然我能理解保守主義者一定會(huì)急于宣稱一位好萊塢一級(jí)大導(dǎo)演(甚至大明星)是他們這邊的。當(dāng)然，諾蘭的《蝙蝠俠》系列讓人們有了你剛才說(shuō)的那些解讀。而且的確，《星際穿越》在地球氣候?yàn)?zāi)難的根源問題上說(shuō)得不明確，沒有在全球變暖問題上發(fā)表觀點(diǎn)。

But that strikes me as an artistic decision, and a prudent one at that, not a policy position. Nolan clearly didn’t set out to make a polemic about climate change, and I’m guessing that he understood that any digression in that direction might eclipse the movie’s other interests.

但我覺得這是一種藝術(shù)上的選擇，同時(shí)也是一個(gè)穩(wěn)妥的選擇，而不代表政策立場(chǎng)。諾蘭顯然并沒打算大談特談氣候變化，我猜他知道，任何這方面的題外話都有可能遮蔽這部電影的其他亮點(diǎn)。

He did, however, make a movie that rues the dangers of ignoring and devaluing science and erudition. And while plenty of liberals ignore science — look at the alarmingly low vaccination rates for children of affluent parents in Hollywood enclaves that lean Democratic — there are more examples right now of conservatives committing that error and even suggesting that too much trust in science breeds too little respect for God. I’ll point you to Senator James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican soon to be the chairman of the Senate’s Committee on Environment and Public Works, who argues against man-made climate change by citing biblical verse and who said: “God’s still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous.”

不過(guò)，他的確拍了一部對(duì)忽視和貶低科學(xué)與學(xué)術(shù)知識(shí)的危害表示遺憾的影片。雖然很多自由派人士漠視科學(xué)——看看在推崇民主黨的好萊塢圈子里，富有的明星有多不愛給自己的子女接種疫苗就知道了——但目前有更多例子可以證明，保守派人士犯了同樣的錯(cuò)誤，他們甚至提出，對(duì)科學(xué)的太過(guò)信任導(dǎo)致了對(duì)上帝的大不敬。比方說(shuō)，很快就會(huì)當(dāng)上參議院環(huán)境與公共事務(wù)委員會(huì)(Senate’s Committee on Environment and Public Works)主席的俄克拉何馬州共和黨參議員詹姆斯·英霍夫(James Inhofe)，曾援引圣經(jīng)經(jīng)文來(lái)反駁氣候變化人為論，他還說(shuō)過(guò)：“上帝依然存在。有人認(rèn)為我們?nèi)祟惪梢愿淖兩系蹖?duì)氣候的安排，這種傲慢的想法在我看來(lái)非常離譜。”

There are additional aspects of “Interstellar” that don’t seem to be particularly conservative or at least easily politically defined. Although I saw the movie more than a month ago and have grown a bit fuzzy on details, I believe that its vision of how the human race will wind up transplanted to, and replicating on, a distant planet is not one that reproductive puritans would endorse. There’s certainly more lab equipment and disembodied fluid in the equation than, say, Catholic doctrine smiles upon. And here again, we have a portrait of science not as a challenge to God or the “natural” order of things but as our salvation.

《星際穿越》在另外一些方面似乎沒有很強(qiáng)的保守派色彩，或者說(shuō)，至少很難在政治上加以界定。我是在一個(gè)月前看的這部片子，對(duì)一些細(xì)節(jié)的記憶已經(jīng)有些模糊了，但我認(rèn)為，它關(guān)于人類如何遷徙到一個(gè)遙遠(yuǎn)的星球上去，并在那里繁衍的設(shè)想，無(wú)法得到重視生育的清教徒們的認(rèn)同。此種復(fù)雜的情況必然要涉及到太多的實(shí)驗(yàn)設(shè)備和脫離身體的體液，這種做法可以說(shuō)與天主教的教義并不相符。此外，我們又一次看到，科學(xué)并未被描述成向上帝或者萬(wàn)物之“自然”秩序發(fā)起挑戰(zhàn)的角色，而是人類的救贖。

Beyond which, “Interstellar” is very much about the profound sacrifices that an individual must make for the sake of a larger community. (Several spoilers are about to come. Beware!) The greater good trumps even the nuclear family, and so McConaughey must tuck himself into a spaceship and lose himself in the cosmos even if the passage-of-time physics of this means that he leaves the earth before he gets to see his daughter turn into Jessica Chastain — a thrill that no parent should be denied! — and doesn’t return until she’s already become Ellen Burstyn.

除了這些，《星際穿越》還著重闡述了個(gè)人為了集體的利益而做出的極大犧牲。(接下來(lái)會(huì)有一些劇透，當(dāng)心!)大集體的利益甚至重于小家庭，因此麥康納 (McConaughey)必須登上宇宙飛船，進(jìn)而迷失在宇宙之中，盡管關(guān)于時(shí)間流逝的物理理論意味著他在女兒變成杰西卡·查斯坦(Jessica Chastain)之前就要離開地球——任何家長(zhǎng)都有權(quán)見證這激動(dòng)人心的轉(zhuǎn)變——而等到他回來(lái)的時(shí)候，她已經(jīng)變成艾倫·伯斯汀(Ellen Burstyn)了。

Yes, “Interstellar” says that a person’s greatness should never be underestimated, belittled, shackled. But I’m not sure Ayn Rand would have grooved to Nolan’s vision. This is ultimately a movie about our shared investments, our overlapping and entwined destinies. It’s about the triumph of Matthew McConaughey’s quivering munificence over Matt Damon’s clenched selfishness. Out there on the surrealistic tundra of that distant planet where they grapple, it isn’t just two of cinema’s foremost hunks doing battle. It’s a contest of different impulses, different ideologies, and I don’t think they fit as neatly into any political scheme as some of the movie’s analysts would like.

沒錯(cuò)，《星際穿越》要傳達(dá)的信息是，一個(gè)人的偉大永遠(yuǎn)也不應(yīng)該被低估、被無(wú)視、被束縛。但我不確定安·蘭德(Ayn Rand)是否會(huì)同意諾蘭的觀點(diǎn)。說(shuō)到底，這部電影講的是我們共同的付出，以及我們相互重疊與交織的命運(yùn)。它講的是馬修·麥康納(Matthew McConaughey)令人感動(dòng)的寬宏大量戰(zhàn)勝了馬特·達(dá)蒙(Matt Damon)死抓著不放的自私自利。他們倆在那遙遠(yuǎn)星球的超現(xiàn)實(shí)主義凍原上的搏斗，可不僅僅是兩個(gè)影壇大猛男之間的較量。這同時(shí)也是不同追求、不同意識(shí)形態(tài)之間的較量，而且我認(rèn)為它們并不像有些影評(píng)人所樂見的那樣，與任何政治圖謀相契合。

Douthat: I’ll cop to always being a little overeager to discover political kindred spirits in an industry that isn’t exactly thick with them, but I don’t think I’m reaching that far with my read on Nolan’s politics. Put it this way: If a filmmaker made a movie that put Tea Party rhetoric in the mouth of its villain, I think it would be fair to read that as a liberal message (and, indeed, most conservative pop culture critics would). So it’s reasonable to read the class-war, Occupy Wall Street rhetoric that Bane spews in “The Dark Knight Rises” the same way — as a right-leaning filmmaker’s none-too-subtle dig at certain of-the-moment left-wing ideas. Again, I think a lot of the left-wing critiques of the “Batman” movies were overdrawn or off the mark, but I don’t think folks at Salon or Jacobin were wrong to recognize a kind of ideological adversary in the man behind the trilogy.

多賽特：我不得不承認(rèn)，我常常有點(diǎn)過(guò)于急切地想要在一個(gè)政治知音并不多見的行當(dāng)里發(fā)掘知音，但我覺得自己對(duì)于諾蘭的看法不算太離譜。這么說(shuō)吧：如果一個(gè)導(dǎo)演拍了一部電影，并借片中反派之口說(shuō)出茶黨(Tea Party)的辭令，我覺得據(jù)此解讀出自由派的意味還算公平(事實(shí)上，很多保守派流行文化評(píng)論人士是會(huì)這樣做的)。因此，我們似乎也可以用同樣的方式來(lái)解讀貝恩(Bane)在《黑暗騎士崛起》(The Dark Knight Rises)中滔滔不絕地說(shuō)出的與階級(jí)斗爭(zhēng)和占領(lǐng)華爾街(Occupy Wall Street)有關(guān)的辭令——把它們當(dāng)成一個(gè)偏右翼電影人對(duì)當(dāng)下某些左翼觀點(diǎn)的明顯挖苦。同樣，我認(rèn)為許多來(lái)自左翼的對(duì)《蝙蝠俠》系列電影的評(píng)論有過(guò)于夸張之嫌，或者說(shuō)有些離題，但我并不認(rèn)為在《蝙蝠俠》三部曲背后的男人身上看到意識(shí)形態(tài)沖突的《Jacobin》雜志以及新聞網(wǎng)站Salon的那些左翼人士人是錯(cuò)誤的。

But I also agree with your emendation to my point about “Interstellar”: Nolan’s sci-fi vision, despite occasional spiritual-ish elements, is basically right-wing in a libertarian rather than a religious or socially conservative key. I don’t know if I’d quite describe the film as a proof that its director is a “die-hard materialist,” as this Dissolve essay does — there’s too much gooey stuff in there about the cosmic power of Love — but at the very least he’s at pains to try to keep his biggest mysteries somehow natural rather than divine, even when doing so requires a kind of jerry-rigging that I thought made the ending less perfect than it could have been. And yes, part of the movie’s optimistic vision, especially at the end, is also plainly transhumanist in a way that libertarians tend to appreciate but most religious conservatives consider, well, suspect to say the least. (Which is another reason I name-checked Peter Thiel’s ideas in discussing the film, since some of his anti-stagnationist seed money has gone to transhumanist projects — though, to bring things full circle, he’s also some sort of religious believer as well.

但我也同意你對(duì)我的《星際穿越》觀點(diǎn)做出的修正：諾蘭的科幻構(gòu)想雖然偶有帶宗教色彩的元素，但基本上是自由意志主義的右翼，而不是宗教或社會(huì)保守主義的調(diào)子。我不知道自己能否像Dissolve網(wǎng)站上的一篇文章那樣，把該片說(shuō)成是一個(gè)證據(jù)，證明了導(dǎo)演是個(gè)“鐵桿唯物主義”——片中有太多黏糊糊的、關(guān)于愛的宇宙能量的東西了——但是最起碼，他煞費(fèi)苦心，試圖把片中最大的謎團(tuán)解釋為一種自然力量，而非神跡，即使這樣做需要進(jìn)行一些牽強(qiáng)附會(huì)，致使我覺得片子的結(jié)尾本來(lái)可以很完美，現(xiàn)在就沒有那么完美了。是的，該片的部分樂觀幻像，尤其是最后階段，明顯也是超人類主義的，自由意志主義者往往會(huì)贊賞它，但大多數(shù)的宗教保守派至少可以說(shuō)是懷疑它。(我之所以在討論這部電影時(shí)談到彼得·蒂爾[Peter Thiel]想法，這也是另一個(gè)原因，因?yàn)樗岩恍┯脕?lái)反停滯論的種子資金投入到了超人類主義的項(xiàng)目里——雖然，話又說(shuō)回來(lái)，他也算是某種宗教信徒。)

I’ll save further rambling about science and society for a future column (that’s what they’re for, right?) and pivot to a different kind of transhumanism — the kind on display in two of the best-reviewed movies of the last month, “Birdman” and “Nightcrawler,” whose contrasting titles nail their differences quite neatly. The former has a “Batman” link, since it’s about a movie star played by Michael Keaton who used to play Bat — sorry, Birdman in the 1990s, and who gave the superhero thing up in search of more self-serious work, a choice that’s led him to the theater (he’s doing a self-scripted, self-starring Raymond Carver adaptation on Broadway) and to the brink of what seems like a nervous breakdown … unless, of course, the telekinetic powers he thinks he’s developing (while the voice of Birdman growls in his head) are actually somehow real, a possibility that the movie does not at all exclude. I’m still trying to figure out what I thought about it (besides the wish that Michael Keaton, Ed Norton and Naomi Watts could appear together in about 60 more movies), but my provisional capsule summary is that this is “Black Swan” for relative optimists, which I’m pretty sure counts as praise. (At the very least it’s the best — and least ponderous — work that the director, Alejandro González Iñárritu, has done in English.)

我打算把科學(xué)和社會(huì)方面的討論放在以后的專欄文章里(專欄就是用來(lái)做這個(gè)的，對(duì)吧?)，現(xiàn)在轉(zhuǎn)到另外一種超人類主義上——它出現(xiàn)在上個(gè)月評(píng)價(jià)最好的電影《鳥人》(Birdman)和《夜行者》(Nightcrawler)里，這兩個(gè)對(duì)比感強(qiáng)烈的片名一目了然地體現(xiàn)了它們的差異。前者有《蝙蝠俠》 (Batman)的元素，因?yàn)樗闹鹘鞘且粋€(gè)電影明星，由邁克爾·基頓(Michael Keaton)扮演，他曾經(jīng)在上世紀(jì)90年代扮演蝙——對(duì)不起，扮演鳥人，后來(lái)放棄了拍超級(jí)英雄電影，尋找自己認(rèn)為更加嚴(yán)肅的工作，這個(gè)選擇把他帶到了劇院(他以雷蒙德·卡佛[Raymond Carver]的一部作品為藍(lán)本，自編自演了一部百老匯戲劇)，也把他帶到了精神崩潰的邊緣......當(dāng)然，除非他覺得自己正在獲得的隔空取物能力(鳥人的咆哮在他的腦海里回響)是真有其事，電影并沒有完全排除這種可能性。我仍在試圖厘清我對(duì)這個(gè)問題的想法(除了希望邁克爾·基頓，愛德華·諾頓和娜奧米·沃茨一起出演另外60部電影之外)，但我暫時(shí)得出的結(jié)論是，這是給相對(duì)樂觀者看的《黑天鵝》(Black Swan)，這么說(shuō)肯定是在稱贊它。(至少，這是導(dǎo)演亞利桑德羅·岡薩雷斯·伊納里多[Alejandro González Iñárritu]迄今最好的——也是最沉悶的——英語(yǔ)電影。)

In “Nightcrawler,” meanwhile, what’s being transcended are a different kind of human limits — not physical but moral, when Jake Gyllenhaal’s creepy, bug-eyed revenant makes a devil’s bargain with a City of Angels cable-news producer (Rene Russo) to supply the bleeds-and-leads footage that her limping newscast desperately needs. If “Birdman” sometimes felt a little too opaque and artsy, “Nightcrawler” sometimes feels too on-the-nose, and also a bit dated in the targets of its moral outrage. (That local-TV news is exploitative was a big insight 20 years ago; now it feels a bit like attacking tape decks or VHS.) But Russo is really fantastic, and reason enough to see the film. (As an aside: I’m saving my thoughts on the “Hunger Games” cycle for a future Moviegoers, but I wholeheartedly endorse this argument, from Vulture’s Kyle Buchanan, that an “unboring” Oscars would see both Russo and Jennifer Lawrence nominated for their “Nightcrawler” and “Mockingjay” work.)

而在《夜行者》中，是另外一種人類極限被超越了——不是身體上的，而是精神上的。杰克·吉倫哈爾(Jake Gyllenhaal)有著可怕的凸眼造型，他與“天使之城”(City of Angels)的有線新聞制片人(蕾妮·羅素[Rene Russo]扮演)做成一筆魔鬼交易，為她處于困境的新聞節(jié)目提供亟需的熱點(diǎn)素材。如果說(shuō)《鳥人》有時(shí)讓人感覺捉摸不透，顯得撲朔迷離，那么《夜行者》有時(shí)就感覺太直白了，而且在其道德義憤的目標(biāo)定位上有點(diǎn)陳舊。(地方電視新聞節(jié)目利用別人的遭遇來(lái)生財(cái)，這個(gè)觀點(diǎn)在20年前很引人注目，現(xiàn)在感覺有點(diǎn)像是在攻擊磁帶錄音機(jī)或家用錄像機(jī))。但羅素真的演得很棒，就算是只為了看她，這部電影都值得一看。(順便說(shuō)一句：我為《饑餓游戲》[Hunger Games]最新一集寫的影評(píng)會(huì)放在Moviegoers專欄上，但我完全贊同Vulture網(wǎng)站上凱爾·布坎南[Kyle Buchanan]的說(shuō)法，即只有羅素和詹妮弗·勞倫斯[Jennifer Lawrence]憑借《夜行者》和《饑餓游戲：嘲笑鳥》獲得提名，這屆奧斯卡才會(huì)“不無(wú)聊”)

Gyllenhaal is all-in but pretty much one note — he’s a sociopath from the moment we meet him till the end — while his older co-star offers something much more recognizably, well, human: a mix of desperation and corruption, and a portrayal of how easily the two can feed each other.

吉倫哈爾很投入，但缺乏變化——從我們第一眼看到他，直到最后一刻，他都是個(gè)反社會(huì)者——而羅素展現(xiàn)的人性遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)更加明顯：絕望混合著墮落，而且還向我們展示了二者可以怎樣彼此助長(zhǎng)。

I think you’ve seen both. What say you about them? Oscar, Oscar, or thumbs down?

我想你已經(jīng)看過(guò)這兩部電影呢。你對(duì)它們有何看法呢?奧斯卡，奧斯卡，還是很差勁呢?

Bruni: Ross, you’re going to be shocked, but, well, I disagree with you.

布魯尼：羅斯，這可能會(huì)讓你很震驚，但是，唉，我不同意你的看法。

About Rene Russo, that is. Now I want to be clear: I love me some Rene Russo. I have seen the remake of “The Thomas Crown Affair” several times — and mostly because of her. From the moment she appears until the final seconds, you can’t take your eyes off her. And it isn’t simply because she never looked more gorgeous. It’s because she thrums with life: with hunger for her quarry, with anger about his elusiveness, with anticipatory sorrow for how he is probably going to break her heart. And yet the performance never becomes showy.

就是關(guān)于蕾妮·羅素的看法。我先聲明：我愛她的一些作品。她主演的翻拍版《偷天游戲》(The Thomas Crown Affair)我看過(guò)好幾遍——主要就是為了看她。從她一出場(chǎng)，直到最后幾秒鐘，你的目光就是無(wú)法離開她。這不僅是因?yàn)樗龔奈聪衲菢用利悐Z目，也是因?yàn)樗呀巧莼盍耍核{(diào)查事情時(shí)的專注，他的飄忽不定讓她產(chǎn)生的憤怒，感到他可能會(huì)讓她心碎時(shí)的悲傷。而且，她永遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)演得過(guò)分花哨。

In “Nightcrawler” she’s never showy enough, at least not for me. I kept wondering what an actress with more acid in her could have done with the part. I kept thinking of Faye Dunaway. It’s funny: Dunaway is the point of reference for Russo’s performance in “Crown,” having played Russo’s role in the original. And Dunaway is again the point of reference for Russo’s performance in “Nightcrawler,” which is, in its way, “Network” Lite. Or, rather, “Network”-meets-“Taxi Driver” Lite.

在《夜行者》中，她一直都不夠花哨，至少對(duì)我來(lái)說(shuō)不夠。我一直好奇，讓一個(gè)更尖酸的女演員來(lái)演這個(gè)角色會(huì)怎樣。我老是想到菲·唐納薇(Faye Dunaway)。有意思的是，唐納薇是羅素在《偷天游戲》中的表現(xiàn)的參照對(duì)象，因?yàn)樵谧畛醯陌姹局校?羅素的那個(gè)角色是由唐納薇扮演的。而在《夜行者》中，這一幕再次上演?！兑剐姓摺菲鋵?shí)是口味較輕的《網(wǎng)絡(luò)》(Network)，或者說(shuō)是《網(wǎng)絡(luò)》和《出租車司機(jī)》加起來(lái)的輕口味版本。

Now to a point of agreement: I found “Nightcrawler” dated as well. That’s the perfect word. (See, Ross, I can praise you, too! Just don’t get used to it.) The movie is a hell of a ride, executed with style, and my interest never flagged, but it’s all about local TV news and one man’s view of it as the pinnacle of all excitement and glamour. And I hardly know anyone who watches those newscasts anymore! The movie might have made more sense with Gyllenhaal as a blogger. Or a guy who Tweets. Or an addict for Instagram.

現(xiàn)在來(lái)說(shuō)說(shuō)我們兩個(gè)的共識(shí)。我發(fā)現(xiàn)《夜行者》也有些過(guò)時(shí)。這個(gè)詞恰到好處。(看到了吧，羅斯，我也會(huì)夸你的!不過(guò)可別習(xí)以為常)。電影非常棒，處理的很得體，但它所有的激越和魅力都來(lái)自地方電視新聞，以及一個(gè)男性對(duì)這些新聞的看法。我基本上不知道誰(shuí)會(huì)看這些新聞節(jié)目!如果把吉倫哈爾設(shè)定成一個(gè)博客用戶，或是一個(gè)Twitter用戶，再或是一個(gè)對(duì)Instagram上癮的人，電影可能會(huì)更有意思。

“Birdman” for me had a similarly dislocating, disruptive element, and it was those disembodied voice-overs from, well, the Keaton character’s dark alter ego? His “Birdman” past? His father-in-law in Wichita? They didn’t work for me.

對(duì)我來(lái)說(shuō)，《鳥人》也有同樣定位不當(dāng)、混亂的元素。此外，那些飄忽的旁白，是基頓扮演的那個(gè)角色的某個(gè)陰暗的第二自我嗎?還是過(guò)去當(dāng)鳥人時(shí)的他?抑或是他身在威奇托的岳父?這些設(shè)定都沒法打動(dòng)我。

But, wow, the rest of the movie worked, and for the same reason that a previous movie of Iñárritu’s, “21 Grams,” did. He gives amazing actors juicy parts and then carves out the right space and enough time for those actors and those parts to breathe. He has a special kind of patience.

不過(guò)，電影的其他部分可真不錯(cuò)啊，就像伊納里圖之前的電影《21克》(21 Grams)一樣。他賦予了優(yōu)秀的演員以飽滿的角色，然后又給了這些演員和角色適當(dāng)?shù)目臻g和足夠的時(shí)間，讓他們變得鮮活起來(lái)。他有一種特殊的耐心。

I thought Norton was astonishing and I thought Emma Stone was a revelation and Watts is always fantastic. And of course I took special interest in the bits with Lindsay Duncan as the theater critic of The New York Times. Her interactions with Keaton’s character are preposterous, but Duncan has the right amount of poisonous fun with them. She should have traded places with Russo in “Nightcrawler.”

我覺得諾頓令人驚嘆，艾瑪·斯通(Emma Stone)讓人大開眼界，瓦茨也總是那么出色。當(dāng)然，我對(duì)林賽·鄧肯(Lindsay Duncan)飾演的《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》戲劇評(píng)論人有著特殊的興趣。她和基頓的角色之間的互動(dòng)很荒唐，但她從中找到了不多不少的惡毒樂趣。她應(yīng)該愿意交換羅素在《夜行者》中的角色。

Is there an Oscar in that group of “Birdman” performers? I wouldn’t bet against it. I’d give Norton Best Supporting Actor in a flash, and I noticed that the National Board of Review did precisely that on Tuesday. The board decreed a tie for Best Actor between Oscar Isaac, for “A Most Violent Year,” and Keaton, for “Birdman.” Keaton also won best actor this week at the Gotham Awards, for independent films.

《鳥人》的演員中會(huì)有人獲奧斯卡獎(jiǎng)嗎?我不會(huì)打賭說(shuō)沒有。要讓我決定的話，我會(huì)不假思索把最佳男配角給諾頓，而且我注意到，國(guó)家評(píng)論協(xié)會(huì) (National Board of Review)在周二的確這么做了。在國(guó)家評(píng)論協(xié)會(huì)的評(píng)比中，出演《至暴之年》(A Most Violent Year)的奧斯卡·伊薩克(Oscar Isaac)和《鳥人》中的基頓共享最佳男演員獎(jiǎng)項(xiàng)。本周，在面向獨(dú)立影片的哥譚獎(jiǎng)(Gotham Awards)上，基頓也收獲了最佳男演員獎(jiǎng)。

But I’m less wowed by Keaton than by Benedict Cumberbatch in “The Imitation Game.” He’s absolutely terrific, though the movie is otherwise a tad too neat and clean for my tastes. I craved something messier, something that got under the skin and elicited more than a genteel sigh or the littlest rumor of a tear.

但和基頓相比，我更欣賞《模仿游戲》(The Imitation Game)中的本尼迪克特·康伯巴奇(Benedict Cumberbatch)。他簡(jiǎn)直太棒了，不過(guò)在其他方面，對(duì)我的品味來(lái)說(shuō)，這部電影有些太小清新了。我渴望那種更雜亂，更現(xiàn)實(shí)的東西，它們引發(fā)的不僅僅是優(yōu)雅的嘆息或是一滴微不足道的眼淚。

“The Imitation Game” did get me to thinking about two issues that both of us have written about and that get addressed in The Times frequently: diversity and education. In the movie, which depicts the life of Alan Turing, he’s something of a grouch and a bit of a snob and a through-and-through oddball. He’s also furtively gay in an era when that was broadly seen as a perversion and an affliction. He doesn’t fit in; he’s more easily ignored than embraced. And there are indeed plenty of people poised to ostracize and exile him.

《模仿游戲》并未讓我思考我們兩人經(jīng)常寫文章論述、《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》也頻頻提及的兩個(gè)問題：多樣性和教育。電影描述了艾倫·圖靈(Alan Turing)的一生。在影片中，他有些忿忿不平，也有些勢(shì)利，還是一個(gè)徹頭徹尾的怪人。在那個(gè)同性戀被廣泛視為一種變態(tài)和疾病的年代，他暗地里還是一名男同性戀。他和其他人合不來(lái)，更容易被忽略，而非被接納。同時(shí)，的確有很多人準(zhǔn)備排擠他，驅(qū)逐他。

But he just so happens to be integral to the end of a devastating, epically bloody, unimaginably costly war. He’s someone with knowledge and gifts that the world can’t do without. And I wondered, as I watched the movie, how close we came to not getting that knowledge or those gifts. I wondered how many visionaries and geniuses we’ve been denied — and how many we continue to deny ourselves — because of our talent for putting people in boxes, because of an insufficient effort to free people from those boxes, and because we’re not dedicated and smart about letting as many people as possible reach their potential.

但他恰巧對(duì)結(jié)束那場(chǎng)毀滅性的、傷亡慘烈、代價(jià)昂貴到超乎想象的戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)不可或缺。世界離不開他的知識(shí)和天賦。而在看電影的時(shí)候我心想，我們已經(jīng)落到這步田地，就快不能理解那種知識(shí)或那種天賦了。我想，有多少具有遠(yuǎn)見和天賦的人被我們拒絕——至今還在繼續(xù)拒絕——全因?yàn)槲覀冭滂羝鹚藖?lái)才華橫溢，因?yàn)槲覀儾粔蚣?xì)致和聰明，不能讓盡可能多的人發(fā)揮自己的潛能。