影劇篇

When Artists Distort History

(1) King Richard III was a monster. He poisoned his wife, stole the throne from his two young nephews and ordered them to be smothered in the Tower of London. Richard was a sort of Antichrist the King — “that bottled spider, that pois’nous bunch-back’d toad.?

(2) Anyway, that was Shakespeare’s version. Shakespeare did what the ______ does: he turned history into a vivid, articulate, organized dream — repeatable nightly. He put the crouch-back? onstage, and sold tickets.

(3) And who would say that the real Richard known to family and friends was not identical to Shakespeare’s memorably loathsome creation? The actual Richard went dimming into the past and vanished. When all the eye-witnesses are gone, the artist’s imagination begins to conjure?.

(4) Variations on the King Richard Effect are at work in Oliver Stone’s JFK. Richard Ⅲ was art, but it was propaganda too. Shakespeare took the details of his plot from Tudor historians who wanted to blacken Richard’s name. Several centuries passed before other historians began to write about Richard’s virtues and suggest that he may have been a victim of Tudor malice and what is the cleverest ______ of all: art.

(5) JFK is a long and powerful discourse about the death of the man Stone keeps calling “the slayed young king.” What are the rules of Stone’s game? Is Stone functioning as commercial entertainer? Propagandist? Documentary filmmaker? Historian? Journalist? Fantasist? Sensationalist? Paranoid conspiracy-monger?? Lone hero crusading? for the truth against a corrupt Establishment? Answer: some of the above.

(6) The first superficial effect of JFK is to raise angry little scruples? like wounds in the conscience. Wouldn’t it be absurd if a generation of younger Americans, with no memory of 1963, were to form their ideas about John Kennedy’s assassination from Oliver Stone’s report of it? But worse things have happened — including, perhaps, the Warren Commission report?

(7) Stone’s movie and the Warren report are interestingly symmetrical: the Warren Commission was insensi-tively, one might say pathologically?, unsuspicious, while in every scene of the Stone film conspiracy theories move painfully underfoot like snakes. In a strange way, the two reports balance one another out. It may be ______ to accord Stone’s movie a status coequal with the Warren report. On the other hand, the Warren report has endured through the years as a monolith? of obscure suppression, a smooth tomb of denial. Stone’s movie, for all its wild gesticulations?, at least refreshes the memory and gets a long-cold curiosity and contempt glowing again.

(8) The irresponsibility of the Warren report somehow makes one less indignant about Stone’s methods and the 500 kitchen sinks that he has heaved into his story. His technique is admirable as storytelling and now and then preposterous as historical inquiry. But why should the American people expect a moviemaker to assume ______ for producing the last word on the Kennedy assassination when the government, historians and news media have all pursued the subject so imperfectly?

(9) Stone uses a suspect, mixed art form, and JFK raises the familiar ethical and historical problems of docu-drama?. But so what? Artists have always used public events as raw material, have taken history into their imagi-nations and transformed it. The fall of Troy vanished into the Iliad. The Battle of Borodino found its most memorable permanence in Tolstoy’s imagining of it in War and Peace.

(10) Especially in a world of insatiable electronic storytelling, real history procreates, endlessly conjuring new versions of itself. Public life has become a metaphysical breeder of fictions. Watergate became an almost con-tinuous television miniseries — although it is interesting that the movie of Woodward and Bernstein’s All The President’s Men stayed close to the known facts and, unlike JFK, did not validate dark guess.

(11) Some public figures have a story magic, and some do not. Richard Nixon possesses an indefinable, em-barrassed dark gleam that somehow fascinates. And John Kennedy, despite everything, still has the bright glam-our that works best of all. Works, that is, except when the subject is his assassination. That may be a matter still too sacred, too raw and unassimilated. The long American passivity about the death in Dallas may be a sort of hypnosis? — or a grief that hardened into a will not to know. Do not let daylight in upon magic.

(12) Why is Stone’s movie different from any other imaginative treatment of history? Is it because the assassi-nation of John Kennedy was so traumatic?, the bady boomers’ End of Childhood? Or that Americans have santi-fied it as official tragedy, a title that confers immunity from irreligious revisionists who would reopen the grave? Are artists and moviemakers by such logic prohibited from stories about the Holocaust? The Holocaust, of course, is known from the outset to be a satanic plot. For some reason — a native individualism, maybe — many Americans resist dark theories about J.F.K.’s death, and think those retailing them are vending foreign, anarchist goods. Real Americans hate conspiracies as something unclean.

(13) Perhaps the memory of the assassination is simply too fresh. An outraged movie like Stone’s intrudes upon a semipermanent mourning. Maybe the subject should be embargoed? for some period of time, withheld from artists and entertainers, in the same way the Catholic Church once declined to consider sainthood until the person in question had been dead for 50 years.

【參考譯文】論藝術(shù)家扭曲史實(shí)

(1)英王理查三世是個(gè)魔鬼。他毒死了自己的妻子，篡奪原屬于兩個(gè)年輕侄兒的王位，還下令在倫敦塔中讓他們窒息而死。理查可說是一位撒旦似的國王——“那瓶中的蜘蛛，那陰毒的駝背蟾蜍�！�

(2)至少這是莎士比亞的說法。莎士比亞所做的只是劇作家的本分：把歷史轉(zhuǎn)變?yōu)轷r明、清晰、條理分明的夢(mèng)——可以每晚上演。他把這個(gè)駝背怪物搬上臺(tái)，賣票給人看。

(3) 又有誰敢說在親朋好友眼中的真正的理查不是這樣，和莎翁創(chuàng)造出來的那個(gè)令人厭惡得難以忘懷的劇中人物不同？真正的理查，隨著歷史遠(yuǎn)去而了無蹤跡。所有的目擊證人都已不在了，藝術(shù)家的想像力就開始施展魔力了。

(4) 在奧利佛?斯通的《誰殺了肯尼迪》中可以看到這種“理查國王效應(yīng)”的變奏。《理查三世》是藝術(shù)，但也是宣傳：莎翁劇情的細(xì)節(jié)取材自同時(shí)期的都鐸王朝的歷史家，而這些人蓄意丑化理查的形象。要過好幾百年才有別的歷史家出來記述理查的好處，并且暗示理查可能是都鐸王朝惡意宣傳的犧牲品，也是最巧妙的陰謀——藝術(shù)——的犧牲品。

(5) 《誰》片是有力的長篇大論，主題是一位人物的死亡——斯通一直稱為“遇害的青年國王”的那個(gè)人。期通的把戲到底用的是哪種規(guī)則？他是扮演提供商業(yè)化娛樂的角色？還是宣傳家？紀(jì)錄片電影制作者？歷史家？記者？幻想家？危言聳聽者？有偏執(zhí)狂的陰謀論者？獨(dú)行俠式的英雄，為真理出征，挑戰(zhàn)腐敗的體制？答案：以上有些是。

(6) 《誰》片所造成的第一種比較表面化的效果，就是激起觀眾憤怒的原則問題的小抗議，好像良心上的一道道鞭痕：如果年輕一代的美國人，不復(fù)記得1963（肯尼迪遇刺年代），對(duì)于肯尼迪遇刺案的觀念全憑斯通的報(bào)道，這不是太荒謬了嗎？可是比這更糟的事也不是沒發(fā)生過——也許包括華倫委員會(huì)報(bào)告在內(nèi)。

(7)斯通的電影和華倫委員會(huì)的報(bào)告形成有趣的對(duì)稱：華倫委員會(huì)是反應(yīng)遲鈍，毫無疑心，幾乎可以說到了病態(tài)的地步：而在斯通電影的每一場戲中，陰謀論像蛇一樣在腳下到處竄動(dòng)。這兩種報(bào)告很微妙地可以互相平衡。當(dāng)然，把斯通的片子賦予和華倫報(bào)告相同的地位，有點(diǎn)不倫不類。反過來說，華倫報(bào)告歷經(jīng)多年至今，像一塊巨石般，隱隱壓抑著所有不同的說法，好像一座平滑的墳?zāi)�，泰然否定一切。斯通的片子雖然從頭到尾比手劃腳，十分夸張，至少讓人重溫舊事，讓觀眾心中早已冷卻的好奇與輕蔑重新燒了起來。

(8) 因?yàn)槿A倫報(bào)告如此不痛不癢，所以讓觀眾似乎比較能忍受斯通的手法與他搬到電影中的堆積如山的垃圾。從說故事的角度來看，他的手法高明，從調(diào)查史實(shí)的角度來看則不時(shí)顯得荒謬�？墒钦�府、歷史學(xué)家與新聞媒體追查這個(gè)主題都無法令人滿意，美國人又怎能指望一位電影人來負(fù)責(zé)對(duì)肯尼迪遇刺案下斷語？

(9) 斯通采用的藝術(shù)形態(tài)是紀(jì)錄劇情片，這種形態(tài)血統(tǒng)不純正，可靠性也令人懷疑�！墩l》片也再度引起關(guān)于紀(jì)錄劇情片的道德性、歷史性問題。可是這又怎樣？藝術(shù)家一向都采用公共事件做原始素材，把歷史納入想象中加以改造。特洛伊城的陷落淹沒在《伊利亞特》中。波羅金諾之役能夠不朽，永為后人追憶的，不是史實(shí)，而是托爾斯泰在《戰(zhàn)爭與和平》中的想象。

(10)尤其在電子媒體無止境渴求故事的今日，真實(shí)歷史不斷創(chuàng)造、繁衍出千奇百怪的新版本。公共人物的生活好像成了虛構(gòu)故事的哺育者。水門事件爆發(fā)后，變成幾乎不間斷的電視迷你劇集——不過有一點(diǎn)頗堪玩味：描寫伍華德與伯恩斯坦揭發(fā)水門事件的《大陰謀》一片緊守已知的事實(shí)，不像《誰》片把陰暗的揣測當(dāng)真。

⑾ 有些公共人物有成為故事的魅力，有些則不然。尼克松有一種不可名狀的、好像要掩飾什么的陰暗的光芒，產(chǎn)生一種莫明的吸引力。肯尼迪不論如何還是有他燦爛的光彩，最適合編故事�；蛟S應(yīng)該說，他遇刺這個(gè)故事除外。這個(gè)主題可能還是太神圣、太生硬，還沒有消化完畢。美國人長久以來對(duì)達(dá)拉斯市那宗死亡事件一直處于被動(dòng)、消極狀態(tài)，這可能是一種催眠——也可能是悲痛化為不愿去了解的意志。神奇的事物不要攤在陽光下。

⑿ 斯通的電影和別人利用歷史做想象的素材為什么感覺不同？是否因?yàn)榭夏岬嫌龃淘斐商�深的心理�?chuàng)痛，象征了嬰兒潮一代童年的結(jié)束？還是因?yàn)槊绹�人把它�?dāng)做國家悲劇供奉起來，使它得以免于被褻瀆神明的翻案者從墳?zāi)怪型诔鰜�？依此邏輯，藝術(shù)家與電影人是否就禁止用納粹大屠殺來做故事材料？當(dāng)然，納粹大屠殺不同，打從一開始很清楚就是撒旦式的情節(jié)。許多美國人不知何故——也許天生的個(gè)人主義的關(guān)系吧——會(huì)排斥關(guān)于肯尼迪之死的陰謀論，而且認(rèn)為兜售陰謀論的人是在販賣外國無政府主義的貨物。真正的美國人好像把陰謀看成不潔的事物而討厭它。

⒀ 也許只是因?yàn)閷?duì)刺殺肯尼迪案的記憶還太鮮明了。像斯通這種忿忿不平的電影侵犯到美國人近乎永恒的哀悼。也許這個(gè)題材應(yīng)該禁用一段時(shí)間，不準(zhǔn)藝術(shù)家和娛樂界人士使用，就像天主教從前不愿考慮把死亡未滿50年的人封為圣徒一樣。

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