《藍色茉莉》引人追憶 誰是好萊塢的新惡人

Crisis and disaster are meat and drink to the cinema and were in steady supply for years after the financial meltdown. But what do moviemakers do when the news is recovery – however slow – and that is no news at all, let alone drama? It is almost nostalgic to see Woody Allen, in his new, acclaimed Blue Jasmine, release a financial fraudster into his plot, played by Alec Baldwin, like the last swallow of summer, perhaps preparing to follow his fellows to warmer climes.

危機和災難是電影創作的源泉，它們在爆發金融危機之後的幾年裏不斷涌現。但是當經濟復甦（無論多麼緩慢）成了新聞主題、而那算不上新聞（更別提戲劇了）時，導演該怎麼辦？看到伍迪?艾倫(Woody Allen)在其廣受好評的新作《藍色茉莉》(Blue Jasmine)中塑造的的金融騙子（由亞歷克?鮑德溫(Alec Baldwin)扮演），人們難免會有懷念之情——這種角色就像夏日裏的最後一隻燕子，或許準備追隨同伴前往更爲溫暖的地區。

“Follow that meltdown.” This is what film audiences do, in their way. Blue Jasmine subtly includes a new meltdown with the old – personal breakdown. The heroine is driven to unstable, delusional behaviour by the husband’s crimes and disgrace. Look around and see the breakdown motif quietly stealing into movies, from Tom Hardy’s imploding hero who loses a career and family overnight in Stephen Knight’s forthcoming Locke – Knight created Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?, the boom-and-bust TV quiz show, before becoming a screenwriter and director – to Robert Redford as a lone yachtsman literally all at sea in JC?Chandor’s All Is Lost, premiered at Cannes, the filmmaker’s one-man-against-the-ocean follow-up to his Wall Street ensemble drama, Margin Call.

電影觀衆們以自己的方式“關注危機”。《藍色茉莉》巧妙地將新危機與老一套的個人危機結合起來。女主角由於丈夫的犯罪和不光彩行爲而舉止乖戾。看一看最近上映的電影，危機已悄然成爲主題，從斯蒂芬?奈特(Stephen Knight)在《洛克》(Locke)（即將上映）中塑造的一夜之間失去事業和家庭的悲劇英雄——由湯姆?哈迪(Tom Hardy)扮演，到JC?尚多爾(JC?Chandor)在其執導的《一切盡失》(All Is Lost)中塑造的一位在海上孤零零一人的帆船運動員——由羅伯特?雷德福(Robert Redford)扮演。奈特在成爲劇作家和導演之前，曾設計了答題闖關類電視節目《誰想成爲百萬富翁？》。在戛納首映的《一切盡失》，是尚多爾繼反映華爾街衆生態的《利益風暴》(Margin Call)之後，執導的一部描述一個人在汪洋大海中求生的影片。

Redford was once the movie world’s Jay Gatsby, of course (in the 1974 film of F?Scott Fitzgerald’s novel). In 2013, Gatsby has returned to our screens, that career fraudster turned romantic hero. Is his comeback the sign of a mellower, more understanding approach to white-collar crime – or just a sign that we are moving on and there are bigger, more amplified dramas that can derive, closely or distantly, from business chicanery?

當然，雷德福曾經扮演過傑伊?蓋茨比(Jay Gatsby)，那是在1974年版本的改編自F?斯科特?菲茨傑拉德(F?Scott Fitzgerald)小說的影片中。2013年，蓋茨比被重新搬上熒幕——在這部影片中，職業騙子變成了浪漫的英雄。他的迴歸是標誌着白領以一種更溫和、更能讓人理解的方式犯罪？還是僅僅標誌着我們已經與時俱進，可以從商業欺詐行爲演繹出更大、更誇張的戲劇？

If there is a new “meltdown” in movie narratives, it may be one that pours two different but complementary avenues of potential box office gold. Both are responses, or counter-reactions, to the financial crisis. One is the solo crack-up drama. The other is a kind of warning cry saying to us: “Hey, perhaps you’ve been looking the wrong way.”

如果電影的情節主線有一種新的“融合”，那就是運用兩種不同但互補的敘述來贏得潛在的票房佳績。兩種都是對金融危機的迴應或反應。一個是單純的危機影片，另一個是某種針對我們的警告性吶喊：“嗨，或許你們看錯了方向。”

Maybe it is not the bigwig brokers and braces-wearers we should be monitoring today: it is the youngsters right under our noses. They are running loose. They are internet-savvy; money-savvy; adventure-hungry; mischief-hungry. Some of them have picked up their elders’ bad habits. Be dishonest if it works, if it is a little glamorous, and if you can get away with it.

或許我們如今應該監督的並不是大牌經紀人和戴着牙套的人，而是近在眼前的年輕人。他們無法無天。他們熟悉互聯網，能掙會花，渴望冒險和喜歡惡作劇。其中一些人繼承了他們父輩的壞習慣。如果不誠實管用，如果不誠實能夠吸引人，如果不誠實不受懲罰，那麼他們就會不誠實。

Look at The Bling Ring. Look at Spring Breakers. Look even at the new Runner Runner, where Princeton student Justin Timberlake runs a borderline criminal online campus gambling racket and then aspires to meet the barely older internet casino king (Ben Affleck), offshore with his youngster courtiers in Costa Rica.

看看《珠光寶氣》(The Bling Ring)，看看《春假》(Spring Breakers)，甚至新上映的《逆轉王牌》(Runner Runner)。在《逆轉王牌》中，普林斯頓大學(Princeton)的高材生賈斯汀?廷伯萊克(Justin Timberlake)經營着一個校園賭博網站，遊走在犯罪的邊緣，後來又渴望去國外會見比他大不了多少的網絡賭王本?阿弗萊克(Ben Affleck)——阿弗萊克和他的手下住在哥斯達黎加。

Older people today are scared of the moment when younger people’s knowledge – of just about everything – overtakes older people’s. The young are fast learners and are catching up. It is a paranoia one can see at work in InRealLife, Beeban Kidron’s new documentary about net-obsessed teenagers. Almost every 13-year-old knows more about the internet than almost every 53-year-old. And you don’t need to have seen Alex Gibney’s documentary, We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks, to know that a young army computer nerd – Bradley Manning – can all but bring down the Pentagon.

現在的老年人害怕年輕人（在幾乎所有領域的）知識超過自己的那一天到來。年輕人學習東西很快，而且不斷進步。人們可以在《現實生活》(InRealLife)中看到這種偏執。《現實生活》是由比阪?基德隆(Beeban Kidron)新拍攝的一部描述青少年沉溺於互聯網的紀錄片。幾乎每個13歲的青少年都比幾乎每個53歲的老年人更熟悉互聯網。你不必看阿里克斯?基尼(Alex Gibney)的紀錄片《我們偷竊祕密：維基解密的故事》(We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks)，也可以知道一個年輕的電腦迷士兵——布拉德利?曼寧(Bradley Manning)——差不多就能摧毀五角大樓。

Kids running amok with their limbs and bodies we are used to. Kids running amok with their brains is new and terrifying. To the fantasy-prone alarmists of Moviedom it is a fresh world jihad, ready to challenge civilisation. The science fiction film Elysium makes a metaphor of it. It envisages a solar system in which older, richer people have gone off-world to populate a giant space station, turning it into a “safe” and luxurious retreat, full of rich condos and golf courses. It looks like a Donald Trump dream – or nightmare, according to your taste.

我們習慣於看到孩子們瘋跑，但看到孩子們用腦子胡思亂想是一種令人害怕的新體驗。對喜歡幻想的電影界人士來說，這是一個全新的、隨時挑戰人類文明的聖戰世界。科幻電影《極樂世界》(Elysium)對此進行了絕佳的比喻。在該影片想象中的一個太陽系中，較爲年長的富人離開地球，居住在一個巨大的空間站中，並將它轉變爲一個“安全”而奢華的極樂空間，裏面全是高級公寓和高爾夫球場。它看起來就像是一個唐納德?特朗普(Donald Trump)的夢想或者噩夢——這取決於你的品味。

Down on earth remain the resentful, ingenious troublemakers. The young, insurgent, dispossessed. They are as clever as the Elysium-dwellers with less resource. They can build or brainstorm any device to tackle space, time, the cosmos. So it is only a matter of time before they take over that other world and prove, finally, that there is no such thing as security any more in the universe, except of their choosing. Cracking banks, from inside or outside, is for old people. Give a youngster a computer and he can crack absolutely anything.

依然留在地球上的，是那些憤憤不平、具有創新才能的搗亂者。這些年輕人桀驁不馴，無依無靠。他們和極樂空間居民一樣聰明，只是資源較少。他們可以建造或者想出處理空間、時間和宇宙問題的各種設備。因此他們接管極樂世界只是時間問題，並最終證明，除非他們願意，否則宇宙再不會有安全的概念。老年人才會從內部或外部破壞銀行。給年輕人一臺計算機，他絕對可以破壞一切。