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讀《FT·金融時報》學(xué)英語:當(dāng)情人節(jié)遇上《愛樂之城》

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2018年09月27日

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From Feb.13 to 15, the Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia.The men sacrificed a goat and a dog, then whipped women with the hides of the animals they had just slain.Young women would actually line up for the men to hit them.They believed this would make them fertile.
在每年的2月13日到2月15日,羅馬人在一起慶祝牧神節(jié)。男人們會殺一頭羊和一只狗作為祭品,然后就用剛剝下來的獸皮抽打女人。年輕姑娘們排成一排,等待男人們來打她們。她們認為這樣她們就能夠繁育后代了。

The brutal fete included a matchmaking lottery, in which young men drew the names of women from a jar.The couple would then be, um, coupled up for the duration of the festival—or longer, if the match was right.
在這個殘忍的節(jié)日中,其中一個環(huán)節(jié)是配對抽彩,年輕小伙子們從罐子里抽出女人的名字。接下來,這對男女將在節(jié)日期間成為情侶。如果恰好點對了鴛鴦譜,那么他們可能在一起更長時間。

The ancient Romans may also be responsible for the name of our modern day of love.Emperor Claudius II executed two men—both named Valentine—on Feb.14 of different years in the 3rd century A.D.Their martyrdom was honored by the Catholic Church with the celebration of St.Valentine's Day.
我們今天的“情人節(jié)”的名稱的由來也與古羅馬人有關(guān)。公元3世紀某兩年的2月14日,羅馬皇帝克勞迪亞斯二世先后處死了兩個人,他們都叫Valentine。天主教會為紀念這二人的犧牲,特設(shè)了圣瓦倫節(jié)(St.Valentine's Day)。
——NPR News



在如今吃飯看電影壓馬路的約會模式下,想必正式登上熒屏的《愛樂之城》將會成為許多情侶(以及單身狗和愛電影人士)的不二之選,畢竟這部電影在金球獎嶄露頭角之后,又成為英國學(xué)院獎(BAFTA)大贏家,而且還是2017年沖擊奧斯卡的大熱門。接下來FT記者通過采訪導(dǎo)演達米恩·查澤雷(Damien Chazelle)帶你了解電影背后的故事。


Music came before the movies.Born in Rhode Island, Chazelle pursued drumming at school before studying film-making at Harvard, where he met composer Justin Hurwitz, who has provided the scores for all his films so far.Whiplash, only Chazelle's second film, took the top prizes at the Sundance Film Festival and went on to scoop three Oscars—for sound mixing, editing, and for JK Simmons as Best Supporting Actor.
電影源于音樂。查澤雷生于羅德島,上學(xué)時就喜歡擊鼓,之后在哈佛大學(xué)學(xué)習(xí)電影制作。在哈佛大學(xué),他結(jié)識了作曲家賈斯汀·赫維玆,迄今為止查澤雷的所有電影配樂都出自于這位作曲家。查澤雷的第二部電影《爆裂鼓手》就在圣丹斯電影節(jié)拔得頭籌,并且勢頭不減,繼續(xù)摘得三項奧斯卡獎項,分別是混音獎、剪輯獎,還有J·K·西蒙斯的最佳男配角獎。

But Chazelle knew full well that many ascendant film-makers have experienced whiplash of another kind: seeing their careers take off only to be quickly rear-ended by the fast-moving and fickle movie business.“Right after Sundance, my producers and I in LA were frantically setting up meetings for La La Land because you're worried that the window is going to close any minute,” he recalls.
但是查澤雷深知,很多青云直上的電影制作者都經(jīng)歷過另一種疼痛,那就是親眼見證他們的事業(yè)騰飛,卻很快埋沒在迅速發(fā)展、變幻無常的電影大潮中。他回憶說:“圣丹斯電影節(jié)過后,我和我的制片人們迅速在洛杉磯集結(jié),舉行會議籌備《愛樂之城》,因為你會擔(dān)心這扇機會之窗隨時有可能關(guān)上。”

It helped that Chazelle already had the script for La La Land in his pocket.In fact, while many assumed Whiplash to be his debut, he had already made one jazz-flavoured musical, his 2009 student film Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench.
查澤雷已經(jīng)擁有了《愛樂之城》的劇本,這有如天助。許多人認為《爆裂鼓手》是他的處女作,實際上,他已經(jīng)制作了一部爵士表演風(fēng)格的音樂喜劇。2009年他還是學(xué)生時,他就制作了電影《公園長凳上的蓋伊和艾德琳》。

That, however, had not been the easiest ride: “One time, I stepped into a theatre where you just sense the whole theatre, it's about 300 people, are just buzzing with vitriol, because they were so angry with the movie.You'd think I'd made torture porn or something—it was a jazz musical.”
不過這還不是他最早的嘗試,他說:“有一次,我走進一家劇院,在那里面,大概有300人,大家都在吐槽,因為他們對這部電影充滿憤怒。你可能認為我拍了一部讓人備受煎熬的色情片或者什么的,但其實是一部爵士音樂劇。”

But it clearly wasn't enough to put him off revisiting the genre, and La La Land is super-confident film-making on a grand scale, with big, showstopping musical numbers, daring shifts in tone, sweeping camera moves and a dizzying final crescendo-montage.
但是,顯而易見,這次失敗并沒能阻止他在這個領(lǐng)域繼續(xù)嘗試,《愛樂之城》就是一部極其自信的大制作,宏大精彩的音樂,大膽的音調(diào)轉(zhuǎn)換,大規(guī)模的鏡頭移動,以及最后令人眩暈的漸強的蒙太奇的運用。



One of La La Land's strengths is that, for all its old-fashioned flourishes, it inhabits an LA that is recognisably contemporary and at least partly grounded in reality.Chazelle himself lived the outsider experience of both Gosling and Stone's characters: the struggling musician and the greenhorn with movie-world aspirations.“I moved to LA… played some drums and got fired from the band I was playing in.At the same time, I was trying to turn out scripts, and none of them were going anywhere,” he recalls.
《愛樂之城》的優(yōu)勢之一就是,雖然劇情老套,但故事發(fā)生在當(dāng)代的洛杉磯,而且至少有一部分是有現(xiàn)實依據(jù)的。查澤雷自己也體驗過高斯林和斯通所扮演角色的生活:既是一個窘迫的音樂家又是一個懷有電影夢想的愣頭青。他回憶道:“我搬到洛杉磯,在樂隊擊鼓,然后被樂隊炒魷魚。同時,我試著寫劇本,但一個也沒成功。”

As a result the movie captures the allure of LA but is not blind to its dead ends.“You develop this relationship to the city at the time, and it was a tense relationship…an alternately inspiring and crushing experience.”
因此,電影中既表現(xiàn)了洛杉磯的吸引力,也沒有忽略其令人絕望的一面。“你為當(dāng)時的這座城市創(chuàng)造了這段愛情,這是一段令人緊張的愛情,或者說令人振奮、心跳加速的體驗。”

The same could be said of La La Land, which, though undeniably romantic, proves to be more of an emotional rollercoaster than some reviews might have you believe.“Every time I make a movie and I think it's a bummer, people say it's happy,” Chazelle observes.
《愛樂之城》也是一樣,毫無爭議,它非常浪漫,但是,相比令你深信的一些影評,它更加注重情感的波折,像一個過山車。查澤雷說:“我每次做電影時,我認為電影很沮喪,人們卻認為它很快樂。”

“If you're trained to be smiling and laughing for the first chunk of the movie…you don't see the knife coming,” says Chazelle.But he insists that his real intention was to reflect the vicissitudes of life.“I felt like there was a way that the joy and the heartbreak could coexist.”
查澤雷表示:“如果你在電影的第一部分跟著情節(jié)笑了起來,那么你就不會意識到即將到來的刀子。”不過他堅持說他的真實意圖是表現(xiàn)每況愈下的生活。“我認為快樂與心碎會以某種方式并存。”

Here, too, Chazelle may have drawn on personal experience.He married his Harvard sweetheart Jasmine McGlade in 2010 but the couple divorced in 2014.In Whiplash the main protagonist breaks off a relationship that threatens to get in the way of his drumming, and in La La Land one of the key dramatic moments involves a choice between pursuing professional or romantic dreams.Does he think there has to be a trade-off?
查澤雷在這里也借用了他的個人經(jīng)歷。2010年,他與他的大學(xué)戀人Jasmine McGlade結(jié)婚,卻在2014年遭遇離婚。在《爆裂鼓手》當(dāng)中,主人公結(jié)束了一段阻礙他的擊鼓事業(yè)的感情,而在《愛樂之城》中,關(guān)鍵的戲劇性的情節(jié)之一就是在事業(yè)與愛情之間的選擇。是不是他認為這兩者之間一定存在權(quán)衡呢?

“I've only recently been lucky enough to feel like they don't have to be mutually exclusive,” he says.“But I was, for a large part of my life, that kind of hermit, a little bit like Ryan's character at the beginning of the movie: ‘Fuck the world, I'm going to stay in my room and write the next great American screenplay'.”
他說:“只有近期,我才足夠幸運,能夠感受到這兩者不是互相排斥的。但是,在我前大半輩子,我都是抱著一種遁世的態(tài)度,有點像電影開頭時瑞恩所飾角色那樣:‘靠,我要待在屋里,寫出美國下一個偉大的劇本'。”



Certainly he now seems to be living the Hollywood dream, working with the likes of Stone, Gosling and musician John Legend.Does he still get star-struck? “Yes, I do.I'm star-struck right now,” he says, referring to his audience with the FT.In that case, I say, he really does have a low threshold.“I still get it quite easily…I was talking with Ryan about another project just earlier today, and in my head I pinched myself.I get to make movies with this guy? What?”
的確,似乎現(xiàn)在他就生活在好萊塢之夢中,和斯通、高斯林和音樂家約翰·傳奇這樣的人一起工作。那他現(xiàn)在還會特別傾慕明星么?他說:“嗯,我現(xiàn)在就傾慕著明星”,指的是他的觀眾,他跟FT說道。這樣看來,他真的很平易近人。“我的確很容易崇拜明星,今天早些時候我在跟瑞恩討論另一個項目,我就想自己掐自己一下,我在跟這個大明星一起拍電影?真的么?”

It's refreshing to meet a director who still seems genuinely unjaded, even giddy, about being able to explore his fantasies in the big sandbox of Hollywood.But I wonder if his youth ever works against him.
能遇到這樣一個導(dǎo)演真是讓人精神一振。他充滿熱情、真實、不做作,甚至還有點嬉皮笑臉。他馬上就要在好萊塢這片土地上創(chuàng)造奇跡了。但是我想知道他的年輕是否是某種阻礙。

“There are instances where I wasn't taken seriously,” he says.But, given Hollywood's “obsession with the new and the young”, he reckons the effect is “net neutral”.
“有些時候我沒被當(dāng)回事兒,”他說。不過既然好萊塢“對新人和年輕人十分著迷”,他認為這些影響“純中性”。

One thing that might help, I suggest, would be having a Best Director or Best Picture Oscar under his belt.“To beat people with it physically?” he laughs.“It's too heavy to do that with.” I've never held one, I tell him, but he may soon.For a moment he looks unusually reticent.With La La Land the big Oscar favourite, surely he can't avoid talking about it.“I try not to,” he says.Does he dare even think about it? A pause.“Yes.”
我認為,如果他能把奧斯卡最佳導(dǎo)演或者最佳影片獎收入囊中,那將對他十分有利。他笑著說:“要我拿小金人去砸人么?那太重了。”我告訴他,我從沒捧過一尊小金人,不過他可能快了。有那么一小會兒,他看起來異常沉默?!稅蹣分恰烦蔀閵W斯卡最大熱門,他肯定無法避免談?wù)撨@件事。他說:“我努力不談及這件事。”那他敢想一想么?他沉默一下,說了句:“嗯。”

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