Director: Tim Blake Nelson
Cast:
Edward Norton … Bill Kincaid / Brady Kincaid
Keri Russell … Janet
Susan Sarandon … Daisy Kincaid
用一句老套的话说,这是一个关于人如何找到自我的故事。比尔·金凯德是个名校教授,过着体面的生活,功成名就的他非常羞愧于提及自己的家庭:父亲走私,母亲吸毒,弟弟种植大麻、贩毒……平日里,他和家庭没有来往,已经有12年没有与母亲说过话。他花费了不少时间和精力改掉了自己庸俗的南部口音。就在他刚刚接到哈佛大学的聘用邀请,准备大干一番的时候,他突然接到了双胞胎弟弟布莱迪被谋杀的消息,于是,他前往老家去参加其葬礼。出乎他意料的是,弟弟并没有死,他活得好好的,他发现自己被骗了,但他想离开此地就不那么容易了。而接下来他遇到的人与事也让他心甘情愿地留了下来。
美式发音 适合泛听
It Makes Perfect Sense
明智之选
(Bill is having lunch with two professors in Cambridge.)
Dean Sorenson: I read some biographical material on you last week, Bill. You, you come from humble beginnings.
Bill: I do, yeah.
Dean Sorenson: Where was it? Omaha?
Bill: Oklahoma.
Dean Sorenson: Oh, why don’t you, why don’t you have an accent?
Bill: With some considerable effort, I lost it.
Dean Sorenson: And your father was a 1)bootlegger…
Bill: It was my grandfather, actually.
Dean Sorenson: Fantastic!
Bill: Why fantastic?
Dean Sorenson: I don’t know. So many of us were trained for this life. Fancy private schools, parents in2)academia. I’m always astounded by those who made their own way.
Bill: Oh, thank you. My family is a bit 3)eccentric. I found discipline in books.
Prof. Levy: Well, you’re probably wondering why Dean Sorenson is here.
Dean Sorenson: Bill, we’d like to offer you a position in the law school.
Bill: You can’t be serious.
Dean Sorenson: We’ve been wanting to incorporate more philosophy into the curriculum. And when we 4)got wind of your 5)hesitancy in transferring up from Brown in classics, we came up with the idea of letting you create your own institute for our law students.
Bill: I…I don’t even know how to begin to respond. That is such a 6)precipitous offer.
Prof. Levy: Savor it. Digest it. Moments like this come too seldom in life.
Bill: I…I’ll say.
Prof. Levy: We all want you here, Bill. You’ve crafted your career diligently. It makes absolute sense as your next step.
(比尔与两名教授正在剑桥用午餐。)
索伦森院长:我上周看了一些你的简历材料,比尔,你出身卑微。
比尔:对。
索伦森院长:你的家乡在哪儿?奥马哈?
比尔:俄克拉荷马州。
索伦森院长:哦,那你怎么……你怎么没口音?
比尔:在我不懈的努力之下,它消失了。
索伦森院长:你父亲是名走私贩……
比尔:事实上是我爷爷。
索伦森院长:太棒了!
比尔:怎么讲?
索伦森院长:我也不知道。我们这种人的人生大多如出一辙:豪华的私立学校,父母也在学术界。看到自己闯出一片天的人,我总是很吃惊。
比尔:谢谢。我的家庭是有点古怪,我的一切都源于书本。
利维教授:你可能不知道索伦森院长为何而来。
索伦森院长:比尔,我们想请你来法学院任职。
比尔:你不是开玩笑吧?
索伦森院长:我们一直想加大哲学在课程中的比重,所以一听说你在犹豫是否离开布朗大学古典学系,我们就想出这么一个主意,由你来为我们法学院的学生创立一个系。
比尔:我……我不知该如何回应。这个消息来得太突然了。
利维教授:慢慢品味这感觉,这种美妙的时刻,人生没几回。
比尔:的确如此。
利维教授:我们都很欢迎你,比尔。你的辛勤耕耘已卓有成效,而这正是你眼下的明智之选。
Once You’ve Got It All Solved
假如一切皆已看破
(At his hometown, Bill meets a woman poet who returned home after college and loves to catch fish with her bare hands.)
Janet: So, where do you live now?
Bill: Providence, Rhode Island. Why, why would you come back here?
Janet: It’s where I wanna write. I teach for money.
Bill: There’s a college?
Janet: High school, here in town.
Bill: High school?
Janet: I tried the 7)tenure track, but college students are already too culturally informed. Close their minds.
Bill: How come there weren’t more girls like you back in Hugo?
Janet: Maybe you didn’t know how to look.
Bill: You have a spiritual 8)aversion to 9)monofilament?
Janet: This is the way it was done a thousand years ago.
Bill: I think I can understand that.
Janet: You still leavin’ tomorrow?
Bill: I think so.
Janet: I’ll miss you.
Bill: And we barely even know each other.
Janet: You have not known what you are,
You have 10)slumber'd upon yourself all your life,
Your eyelids have been the same as closed most of the time,
What you have done returns already in 11)mockeries,
The mockeries are not you,
Underneath them and within them, I see you 12)lurk,...
Bill: Who is that?
Janet: 13)Walt Whitman.
Bill: I don’t think I’ve never imagined hearing him recited to me by a girl 14)gutting a 40-pound catfish.
Janet: That’s exactly how he should be recited. He wrote without rhyme or 15)meter. Free verse…use whatever he felt inside, coming out in its own 16)intricate rhythm. Pure, unashamed passion, without definable restriction.
Bill: I’m sorry, see, I…I have a few issues with that.
Janet: Why?
Bill: Because some have dared to suggest that even poetry has rules.
Janet: Or you make your own.
Bill: Right there, that’s the part I never bought into.
Janet: Because?
Bill: Because if everybody runs around, making their own rules, how can you find what’s true? There is nothing…there’s nothing to rely on.
Janet: One night, I split my 17)cicada skin, 18)devoured your leaves, knowing no poison, no law of nourishment, in that 19)larval blindness, a hunger finally true.
Bill: Who’s that?
Janet: That’s me. Maybe what’s true is in front of us, and we’re moving toward it without even knowing it’s there. Once you think you’ve got it all solved, what’s left?
(回到家乡后,比尔认识了一名大学毕业后回到老家,喜欢徒手捕鱼的女诗人。)
珍妮特:那你现在住在哪儿?
比尔:罗得岛的普罗维登斯。那你为什么回来?
珍妮特:这是我想写东西的地方。我以教书谋生。
比尔:大学老师?
珍妮特:镇上的高中。
比尔:高中?
珍妮特:我也曾尝试过去大学教书,但大学生的文化已经定型,心智早已关闭了。
比尔:为什么在雨果像你这样的女孩子这么少?
珍妮特:也许是因为你不会寻找。
比尔:你对使用鱼竿有反感吗?
珍妮特:人们用这种方法已经有上千年了。
比尔:那个我能理解。
珍妮特:你明天就走吗?
比尔:应该是吧。
珍妮特:我会想你的。
比尔:我们还只是萍水相逢而已。
珍妮特:你还不知道自己是个怎样的人
此生你都在沉沉睡梦之中
你的眼睑始终低垂
过去的所为已对你作出嘲弄
可笑的并非是你
在这些嘲讽背后,我看见你蓄势待发……
比尔:谁写的?
珍妮特:沃尔特·惠特曼。
比尔:真没有想到,一个正在给一条40磅大鲶鱼开膛破肚的女孩居然向我朗读他的诗句。
珍妮特:其实这倒正合适。他的诗不讲究押韵和格律,是自由体……他怎么想就怎么写,形成自己复杂而又独特的韵律。情感真挚坦诚,无拘无束。
比尔:抱歉,嗯,我对此有不同看法。
珍妮特:怎么了?
比尔:因为有人曾斗胆说过,即便写诗也得有一定的规则。
珍妮特:或者自成一格。
比尔:恰恰是这一点我不能苛同。
珍妮特:为什么呢?
比尔:因为如果大家纷纷建立起自己的规则,那哪个才是正确的呢?那样就没有……没有什么依据可循了。
珍妮特:那一夜,我蜕下蝉的外壳,啖噬着你的枝叶,知道那没有毒,也没有滋养的规则,以幼虫的盲目,唯有饥饿才是真实。
比尔:谁写的?
珍妮特:是我。也许真理就在我们面前,我们也正向它靠近,只是不知道它在那里。如果有一天你觉得一切皆已看破,那还有什么意思呢?
You’ve Got It All Figured Out
世事皆洞明
(Bill visits his mother in a rest home.)
Bill: Well, you’ve got a nice view.
Mother: I like watching the storms come in. You used to get so scared of ’em. Do ya still?
Bill: I don’t think anything like that scares me anymore.
Mother: If you aren’t scared these days, you aren’t alive.
Bill: I’m sure many people would agree with you.
Mother: Coming here didn’t scare you?
Bill: Yeah, maybe a little.
Mother: Why?
Bill: I didn’t come here to have that conversation, Daisy.
Mother: So one minute you were there, and then you were gone. What happened?
Bill: No, I’m serious, I’m really…really not gonna do this.
Mother: Why, Billy? Billy, why?
Bill: All right. Because we needed a mother, and not another friend to get f**ked up with.
Mother: I could be both.
Bill: But you weren’t both.
Mother: Are you saying that I didn’t raise you?
Bill: I don’t know what the f**k you were doing.
Mother: Reading every book you read, every paper you wrote, even when they were beyond me.
Bill: I didn’t need you to tell me I was smart. I needed guidance.
Mother: You never needed anything.
Bill: Brady did.
Mother: You don’t have to tell me about Brady. I…I don’t need to be reminded. Don’t you think I know that every time he comes here?
Bill: All I ever wanted was a tiny taste of something resembling a normal and rational life.
Mother: Where everything’s a lie?
Bill: Do you know that I actually went away to school and took a class in the culture of the 60s, just to try to understand the way you lived, the…the choices that you made, just to…to try to make sense out of all that new freedom, and…and 20)upheaval and f**king 21)anarchy? Ya know, and the problem is you tore everything down, but you were too lazy to actually to build anything as an alternative.
Mother: As usual, you’ve got it all figured out. Am I ever gonna to see you again?
Bill: I don’t know. I don’t think so.
Mother: I’m sorry.
Bill: Yeah, me, too.
(比尔去养老院见母亲。)
比尔:这里风景不错。
母亲:我喜欢在这儿看着暴风雨的到来。你以前很怕风雨大作的天气,现在还怕吗?
比尔:现在那种事我已经不怕了。
母亲:如今没有恐惧,就不算真正活着。
比尔:我想很多人都会同意这种说法。
母亲:你不怕来这儿看我吗?
比尔:是,可能还是有点。
母亲:为什么?
比尔:我到这儿来不是和你谈论这个的,黛西。
母亲:你的心思刚才还在,转眼就飘离了。发生了什么事?
比尔:别,说真的,我真的……真的不想讨论这个问题。
母亲:比利,为什么?比利,到底为什么?
比尔:好吧,因为我们需要的是位母亲,而不是和我们鬼混的狐朋狗友。
母亲:我可两者兼顾呀。
比尔:但你没有做到。
母亲:你是说我没有抚养你们吗?
比尔:我不知道你当时在鬼混什么。
母亲:我读了你读的每一本书,看你写的每一篇论文,那些我完全看不懂的我也看了。
比尔:我不用你来告诉我说我很聪明,我需要有人引导。
母亲:你什么都不需要。
比尔:但布莱迪需要啊。
母亲:别跟我提布莱迪,我……我不需要别人提醒,他每次来看我不都在提醒我吗?
比尔:我一直想要的只是稍微正常而理智一点的生活。
母亲:可那种生活充满了谎言。
比尔:你知道吗,我以前在学校特意修过一门关于六十年代文化的课,就是为了理解你的生活方式,理解你作出的那些选择,理解那些新自由主义、剧变,还有那些无政府主义的意义。你知道吗,问题在于,你毁了一切,而你又太懒惰,不愿做出任何努力找到弥补的替代品。
母亲:如以往那样,你自己把一切都弄明白了。我以后还能见到你吗?
比尔:我不知道,我想不会了吧。
母亲:我很难过。
比尔:我也是。
I Left Because of My Own Fears
我因为自身的恐惧而离开
(Bill’s brother was killed when fighting with other drug dealers. Bill speaks at the funeral.)
Bill: I was born just a few minutes before my brother, Brady. He lived life on his own terms, indifferent to fear, either his own, or those of others. And, let’s be honest, by any normal measure, my brother was a criminal and 22)colossal f**kup. But, in the years that we were together, when we were growing up, he gave me the happiest, freest times that I will ever know. I don’t know why it took me so long to realize that. I left 23)Little Dixie because of my own fears. My greatest regret is that I never told him how difficult that really was.
(弟弟在与其他人争夺贩毒地盘时终被枪杀,在弟弟的葬礼上,比尔感慨万千。)
比尔:我只比我弟弟布莱迪早出生几分钟,他坚持自己的生活方式,从不畏惧,不论是他自己,还是其他人。说实话,在任何人眼里,我弟弟就是个罪犯和超级混蛋。但是,我们一起度过的那段时光,我们一起长大的日子,是我过得最幸福、最自由的时光,之后再也不会有这种日子了。我不知道为什么我到今天才明白这一点。我因为自身的恐惧而离开小迪克西,而最让我后悔的,就是没能告诉他,抛下这一切对我来说是那么艰难。
They Still Happened
世事照旧
Mother: Billy, fixin’ to rain.
Bill: Thanks, Mom. (To Janet) I...I think I’m just gonna to sit here for a while.
Janet: In the rain?
Bill: I used to be so scared of these summer storms. And then when I went east, I missed them. I was so frightened, I used to hide in the closet and cover my ears. And I hated that. So I went to the library and I studied them, learned everything I could about them. How they happened, what made them happen, the name of every cloud.
Janet: And?
Bill: They still happened.
Janet: Mind if I stay out here with you?
Bill: I wish you would.
母亲:比利,要下雨了。
比尔:谢谢,妈妈。(对珍妮特)我……我想在这里坐一会儿。
珍妮特:在雨里吗?
比尔:我过去很害怕夏季暴风雨,去了东部后,不禁又想念这种天气。我以前很害怕,总是躲在壁橱里捂住耳朵,我讨厌那样。所以我去图书馆研究暴风雨,要弄明白关于它的一切,研究它发生的原理、产生的原因、每种云的名字。
珍妮特:之后呢?
比尔:暴风雨还是照常发生。
珍妮特:我在这里陪你,不介意吧?
比尔:我希望你能这么做。
翻译:旭文
