伍迪・艾倫新片《魔力月光》的誘人魔力

Woody Allen's 'Magic in the Moonlight' stars Emma Stone as a psychic medium, Sophie Baker, and CoLin Firth as a master magician who sets out to debunk her. Ms. Stone is entrancing, whether Sophie is in or out of her trance state, and so is the movie as a whole.

在伍迪・艾倫(Woody Allen)執導的影片《魔力月光》(Magic in the Moonlight)中，艾瑪・斯通(Emma Stone)飾演靈媒師索菲・貝克(Sophie Baker)，科林・弗思(Colin Firth)飾演一位試圖揭穿索菲・貝克真面目的魔術大師。無論索菲意識清醒的時候還是神叨叨的時候，斯通的表演都令人着迷，而整部影片看起來也是如此。

The time is the 1920s and the setting is the Côte d'Azur, basking in the gauzy warmth of Darius Khondji's cinematography. Mr. Firth's conjuror, a haughty Englishman named Stanley Crawford, has come to the south of France at the request of an old friend and fellow magician, Howard Burkan (Simon McBurney). Howard worries that a rich American family is being fleeced by the alluring Sophie, and Stanley, who performs under the stage name of Wei Ling Soo, makes a specialty of unmasking fake psychics. (Wei Ling Soo is a riff on Chung Ling Soo, the stage name of an American, William Ellsworth Robinson, who also exposed fake psychics, and who died on stage from a bullet wound when a trick went disastrously wrong.)

影片的背景設定在上世紀20年代的法國蔚藍海岸，整部影片浸淫在達賴厄斯・甘地(Darius Khondji)拍攝技術所營造的煦暖之中。弗思飾演一個名叫斯坦利・克勞福德(Stanley Crawford)的傲慢自大的英國魔術師，他應一位魔術師老友霍華德・布爾坎(Howard Burkan)之邀來到法國南部。霍華德由西蒙・麥克伯尼(Simon McBurney)飾演。霍華德擔心一個富有的美國家庭被誘人的索菲欺騙了，而斯坦利擅長揭穿假靈媒術。斯坦利的藝名叫魏連蘇(Wei Ling Soo)。魏連蘇這個名字借用了一位揭穿假靈媒術的美國人威廉・埃爾斯沃思・魯賓遜(William Ellsworth Robinson)的藝名程連蘇(Chung Ling Soo)。這位美國人在表演過程中魔術出現災難性的失誤，他被槍擊中而死在了舞臺上。

The conjuror behind the camera has often used magic and magicians in his movies, most recently a fortune teller in 'You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger.' He keeps us waiting before he brings Sophie on-to heighten suspense about whether she could be the real thing, and to establish scowling, snarling Stanley as her adversary. 'You're a genius with all the charm of a typhus epidemic,' Howard says with wry fondness, but that barely begins to describe him, or to hint at the pleasures of Mr. Firth's performance.

伍迪・艾倫常常在自己執導的影片中使用魔術和魔術師，最近一次是在一部名爲《遭遇陌生人》(You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger)的影片中塑造了一個算命師。他令觀衆等待很久才讓索菲亮相，目的是爲索菲是否爲貨真價實的靈媒師增加懸念，同時把愁眉苦臉、動輒大吼的斯坦利設定爲她的對手。霍華德懷着扭曲的好感說：“你是一個天才，像傷寒一樣令人無法抗拒”。但這絲毫無法概括他的全部，也無法顯示出弗思的表演給人帶來的愉悅。

Stanley is full of himself to the bursting point, and a superb comic character-a pessimist searching furtively for hope; a steely rationalist and male chauvinist riding for a romantic fall. If there's a sense that we've encountered him before, it's not accidental. He's Henry Higgins redux, with speech patterns that sometimes echo Rex Harrison's; at any moment he could break into 'I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face.' (Mr. Firth pulls off a trick of his own by appearing young enough to make us overlook-if we're inclined to do so-the 28-year age difference between him and Ms. Stone.)

斯坦利是一個自負到爆的傢伙，一個超級搞笑的角色，同時也是一個悄悄尋找希望的悲觀主義者；斯坦利還是一個堅定的理性主義者，同時兼具浪漫情懷的大男子主義者。如果你覺得斯坦利似曾相識也並不奇怪。弗思曾飾演過希金斯(Henry Higgins)一角，其說話的方式有時候和雷克斯•哈里森(Rex Harrison)有相似之處；他隨時都可能來插上一句“我已經適應了她的臉”。（弗思在自己的臉上施了魔法，讓自己顯得年輕，好讓大家忽視他和斯通之間28歲的年齡差距。）

The movie opens on a black screen, as Woody Allen movies often do, with a tinny orchestra playing the old Cole Porter song 'You Do Something to Me.' From the moment Stanley first sets eyes on Sophie, she does something to him that can't be explained by her lovely face or her wide, earnest eyes, which never narrow in the face of his insults. Whatever Sophie may be up to, Ms. Stone is the real thing, a comedienne of classically flawless delicacy. Watching Sophie in action, Stanley denies the existence of a sixth sense, but Mr. Allen has long had one about matching exceptional actors with roles that allow them to transcend themselves. Now Ms. Stone has earned her turn, and it's hard to say which is more delicious, Sophie's intricate duels with Stanley, who grows dumbfounded by her clairvoyance, or her oscillations between hooded mystic and hearty American, a high-spirited gal from Kalamazoo.

和伍迪•艾倫一貫的風格一樣，該片一開場屏幕上就是一片漆黑，同時伴以細微的樂聲，演奏的是科爾•波特(Cole Porter)的《You Do Something to Me》。從斯坦利第一次將目光投向索菲開始，斯坦利就被索菲給迷倒了，箇中原因無法用她那精緻的面孔和熱情的大眼睛所能解釋，面對斯坦利的無禮，索菲從不曾眯起那雙大眼睛。不管片中的索菲想要幹什麼，斯通卻是一個真正傳統意義上完美無瑕的喜劇女演員。通過觀察索菲的表現，斯坦利否定了第六感的存在。但伍迪•艾倫一直認爲，對於演技超羣的演員，應配以可以讓他們超越自身的角色。如今斯通贏得了這樣的機會，很難說哪一處更精彩，到底是索菲與斯坦利（斯坦利逐漸被索菲的洞察力所懾服）的對手戲呢，還是索菲在戴頭巾的神祕人和熱心的美國人之間的切換。

'Magic in the Moonlight' is filled with flavorsome performances: Mr. McBurney's Howard; Eileen Atkins as Stanley's Aunt Vanessa; Marcia Gay Harden as Sophie's mother; Hamish Linklater as her fatuous suitor; Jacki Weaver as her wealthy sponsor, or her mark. The production is minor in its scale, but not in its substance, which amounts to a summing up of themes that Mr. Allen has explored throughout his creative life: his abiding pessimism, his relentless questioning-often couched as kidding on the square-of life's meaning. It's all the more remarkable, then, that the film's most powerful magic lies in its unquenchable playfulness. Think of it as a 97-minute séance that draws you in, spins you around, subverts your suppositions, levitates your spirits and leaves you giddy with delight.

《魔力月光》名角雲集：西蒙•麥克伯尼飾演霍華德；阿特金斯(Eileen Atkins)飾演斯坦利的姑媽瓦妮莎(Vanessa)；馬西婭•蓋伊•哈登(Marcia Gay Harden)飾演索菲的母親；哈米什•林克萊特(Hamish Linklater)飾演索菲的追求者；傑姬•韋弗(Jacki Weaver)飾演支持索菲的贊助商。該片規模不大，但內涵不可謂不豐富，幾乎可算集伍迪•艾倫所有創造性作品之大成：一直不變的悲觀主義，以及對生命意義的不斷拷問，這種拷問有時是以嚴肅搞笑的方式呈現的。更引人注目的是，該片最大魔力在於其讓人無法控制的喜劇效果。這部97分鐘的片子十分引人入勝，它會將你迷得暈頭轉向、會讓你大跌眼鏡、讓你放鬆情緒，還能讓你開心不已。