《疑犯追踪》主创诺兰深度解析灵感来源与争议焦点

英语自学网

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        Jonathan Nolan has been, at least in part, responsible for some of the biggest movies of the last decade. Working with his brother Christopher, Nolan scripted both The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises, as well as cult classics Memento and The Prestige.乔纳森·诺兰（Jonathan Nolan）负责制作过，起码参与制作了过去十年中几部最成功电影作品。他与哥哥克里斯托弗·诺兰（Christopher Nolan）不仅共同创作了《蝙蝠侠：黑暗骑士》（Dark Knight）以及《蝙蝠侠：黑暗骑士崛起》（The Dark Knight Rises）的剧本，还写出了《记忆碎片》（Memento）和《致命魔术》（The Prestige）这两部悬疑经典。
        He’s recently been working on his own, as creator and showrunner of Channel 5’s crime thriller, Person of Interest, the first season of which is released on Blu-Ray and DVD this week, our review is here.最近，他又有了一份新工作，那就是担任他自己开发的罪案美剧《疑犯追踪》（Person of Interest）的主创与监制。该剧第一季的蓝光碟和DVD已于本周正式发售。
        We recently spoke to Nolan to promote the release, and during our conversation he spoke about the creeping impact of surveillance on our society, the comparisons between superhero stories and classical epics, and the enjoyment he feels collaborating with other people.值此之际，HeyUGuys网站专门去采访了诺兰。他在采访中聊到了监控给我们社会带来的可怕影响，探讨了超级英雄故事与传奇史诗的对比关系以及与他人合作的愉快经历。
        HeyUGuys: What was the origin of Person of Interest, when did it come about?
        Jonathan Nolan: I lived in the UK until I was 11, and then moved to the states. At that point we had CCTV cameras everywhere in London, then I move to the states and they didn’t have them anywhere. It was a big difference, and it got me fascinated with the idea of surveillance, and the idea of who’s watching. There are the cameras, but who’s on the other side of them.HeyUGuys（以下简称为H）：《疑犯追踪》最初的创意来自哪里？你是什么时候产生灵感的？
        乔纳森·诺兰（以下简称为N）：我11岁移民来美国之前一直都住在英国，那时候伦敦街头随处可见监控摄像机，后来我搬到美国却发现这儿几乎看不到监控摄像头的踪影。这种情况和英国简直是天壤之别，我当时就对监控这个概念很着迷，很好奇是谁监视着我们。我们都知道监控设备的存在，但镜头背后是什么呢？
       

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        So for you it’s about the surveillance culture rather than exploring people going off and acting upon what they see?
        I think it’s about both. I’m fascinated with the world becoming a quite considerably stranger place, while looking the same on the outside.H：如此说来，比起探究人们对所看到之事做出的反应，其实你对监控文化更感兴趣？
        N：两者兼而有之吧。归根结底，当今世界正在朝着一个相当奇怪的方向变化才是我最感兴趣的。不过从表面来看，这个世界似乎还是一样。
        There’s a degree of distrust of government in the series as well.
        Absolutely. I think there should be a healthy distrust. It’s not a political decision so much as a recognition that our capacity, and our government’s capacity to keep an eye on us; and honestly, lately more than the government, companies like Google and Facebook that make me wonder. Their capacity to surveil us far outstrips the laws, and outpaces the laws that we’ve enacted to keep track of them.
        There’s a problem, and a growing problem, and it’s not going to get better any time soon. By the time the laws have been changed to reflect – privacy laws are a fascinating example. In the states right now, at the very least, and I haven’t kept pace with privacy laws in the UK – but in the states, there’s virtually zero protection. Nothing. Our information’s spewing into this pile, and we don’t really have a great idea who controls it and what they do with it. And frankly by the time the laws have been changed to give a little more transparency about what’s happening with that – Let me give you an example: do you have an iPhone?H：《疑犯追踪》还体现了对政府的一定程度的不信任。
        N：没错。我认为大家都应该对政府保留健康的不信任度。这不是什么政治立场，而是对我们自身能力的了解，对政府服务大众能力的认知。说实话，比起政府，像谷歌和脸书那样的网络公司现在更让我好奇。这些公司监视我们的本领比法律大多了，并且发展速度超过了制约它们的法律的立法速度。
        这就是个问题，一个越发严重的问题，一个近期无法完全解决的问题。其实针对这些问题，法律也有所改善，隐私法就是一个极好的例子。但目前至少在美国，因为我并没有随时了解英国隐私法的近况，我们的个人隐私几乎没有得到任何保护。根本没有保护措施。个人信息被大量需要，而我们一点也不了解谁负责管理这些机密信息，他们又将怎样使用我们的隐私；可是增强信息管理透明度的法律还没出台。我来给你举个例子吧，你用iphone么？
        I have an Android.
        It’s roughly the same thing. Google in many ways is an admirable company, any company whose internal slogan is, ‘don’t be evil’, it’s sort of self-evident. There’s great capacity there to do evil. The people there are very idealistic and interesting people, but the capacity that Google already has, using your phone to abuse that information – it’s really just a question of who’s running the company, and what they’re doing with that information. It’s not about insidious threat, I think it’s more of a creeping threat, where you’re monitored and surveiled in ways that Orwell couldn’t possibly have dreamt of.H：我用安卓手机。
        N：基本上是一样的。谷歌从许多方面来说都是一家令人钦佩的公司，而任何一家这样的公司的内部口号都是“别做坏事”，这是不言而喻的。这样的公司有足够大的能力去做坏事。在那里工作的人们很有趣并怀揣理想主义，但谷歌已然具备了通过你的电话肆意使用信息的能力，而谁在运作着这家公司，他们会把这些信息用来做什么，这就是问题所在了。这并不是一种潜在危险，我觉得这更像是一种令人毛骨悚然的威胁，你被到处监视，其系统监视的方式是连奥威尔（Orwell）做梦都想不到的。（诺兰指作家乔治·奥威尔的作品《一九八四》中虚构的监视设备“电幕”。）
        Do you do a lot of investigation into these things, and the technology behind it.
        We do a fair amount of research, and the writers here – we have a big writing staff, and I think we’ve corrupted all of them to see the world in a slightly different, darker way, suddenly exchanging e-mails with each other about the latest developments. It’s overwhelming. There’s so much of it, it’s such a groundswell here. People for the most part getting on with their lives, they don’t really pay attention.
        We’re at the advent of this, and I don’t see much future in this, but you have domestic law enforcement agencies: municipal law enforcement agencies, at least, agitating to get their own drones. Again, I think that’s kind of a blip on the radar, but it’s fascinating none the less. We’re in an arms race here with surveillance that we – we being civilian consumers, regular people – are definitely losing.H：你对这些事与其背后的科技做了很多调查吗？
        N：我们确实做了大量的研究，还有编剧们——我们拥有一个庞大的编剧团队，最近我们用电子邮件交流的时候，突然发现他们的世界观都发生了细微的变化，变得有些黑暗了。现在我们这儿的世界观发生了翻天覆地的变化。人们习惯了信息被滥用的生活，他们并没有真正注意到这方面的问题。
        我们的隐私岌岌可危，虽然我无法从中预料到未来会如何，但至少国内的市政执法机构会拥有无人机进行监控。再有，我觉得隐私就像雷达上闪现的一个光点，即使如此也足够吸引大家的目光。我们身处军备竞争和监视系统的环境之中，作为平民消费者和普通人的身份正在消失。

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        You mention the large writing staff. How is it for you working with a large team of people, and given how closely you two collaborate, do you miss having Christopher casting an eye over things?
        I do occasionally get his eye on things, I directed my first episode in the second season, which aired here in January, and Chris was nice enough to take a look at it, take a look at my cut. He pops in occasionally and looks at stuff. I’ve always looked at his stuff, he’s always looked at mine, it’s often tricky.
        But yeah, when I started the show he was off shooting The Dark Knight Rises, so I was on my own, but the great fun of television is collaboration, which I’ve always enjoyed with Chris, and in television collaboration is the order of the day, every day. You just couldn’t make a show – not an American network show, where you’ve got to do 22 or 23 episodes a year, which is roughly making an episode every two weeks – you have to get over your own bullshit and your own preciousness, and just get in with the writing staff and figure out how to make it work. And it’s great fun, really great fun.H：你刚提到了庞大的编剧团队。请问这么多人的团队是怎样为你工作的？鉴于你和兄长克里斯托弗的无间合作，你会在工作中想念他在身旁的日子吗？
        N：他确实会偶尔来看看我，我执导第二季第一集时，就是这里（英国）一月播出的那集，克里斯托弗很贴心地来看望我，并看了我的剪辑。他偶尔来我这儿探班。我们经常会探对方的班，感觉很有意思。
        不过刚开始制作这部电视剧时，克里斯正在进行《蝙蝠侠前传3：黑暗骑士崛起》的拍摄，于是我只好单干，然而制作电视剧的乐趣就在于享受与他之间的合作，合作也是制作电视剧中最重要的。你做的并不是在美国网络上播出的一场表演，你一年得做22或23集，基本上每两周就要完成一集。你的好想法坏想法都必须付诸行动，与编剧团队交流并最后找到实现的方法。这真的好玩。
        It strikes me that you have a billionaire and a crime fighter. You seem to be touching on ground you’ve already touched on before. Is that because the themes are universal, or because you’re taking inspiration from Batman?
        Absolutely. I’ve been working in comic book movies for ten years, and what happens when you do three movies – I started working on Batman Begins in September 2000, so when you’re working on comic book movies for ten years, you get into that key. But beyond that, you also do a lot of thinking in that word, that sort of heightened vein. I came out of that experience – I’m very proud of that story that we told in the Batman universe, and I felt strongly, along with Chris, that this last film should be our last film in that universe, but for me I had a great deal more to say about urban crime and vigilantism.
        For Americans at least, and it’s funny, it translates into some parts of the world, but not to others – the whole superhero thing absolutely dominated the box office for years now, and it’s sort of American mythos. It fulfilled a similar function to the way Greek tragedy or Homeric Epics have done for cultures since time immemorial: it’s an exploration of morality and crime and virtue – exploring the question of at what cost doing the right thing, but also playing in that fun, slightly heightened territory of super villains, and the American city as a kind of an urban playground, or jungle, or arena.
        And absolutely, I’m fascinated by the fact that frankly, while you’ve had the explosion of creative energy, and money in the superhero realm in film, but at least in this country it has yet to translate into something, map onto anything in television. Americans for the most part, if not drawn to naturalism exactly, at the very least for their crime shows, for the most part have preferred a slightly more naturalistic, slightly more grounded edge to conventional criminal procedurals, whereas our show is unabashedly, unashamedly sci-fi, cyberpunk crime procedural.H：在剧里，你同时拥有一个亿万富翁和一个正义战士。这一点让我很震撼。你似乎是在重复你曾经做过的事情。是因为这是个亘古不变的主题，还是因为你从蝙蝠侠（Batman）身上获得了灵感？
        N：当然。我从事漫画改编电影已经十年了，当你在做三部电影的时候，你会怎么样？——我从2000年9月开始《蝙蝠侠：侠影之谜》（Batman Begins）的工作，所以说若你将十年时间致力于漫画电影，你就会沉迷于这个主题了。但除此之外，你仍然需要对细节多加思考，要有清晰的脉络——这是我的经验之谈。对于我们在蝙蝠侠的世界里讲述的故事，我感到很自豪，我和克里斯都深深觉得，上一部电影（指《蝙蝠侠：黑暗骑士崛起》）应该是我们在这个世界里的最终章。但就我个人而言，关于城市犯罪和治安我还有很多想要表达的。
        很有趣的一点是，至少对美国人而言，这已经被代入到了这个世界的某些部分中，但对其他国家的人来说不是这样——超级英雄类的电影已经统治票房多年了，这也算是一种美国式神话了。这类电影对文化的影响类似于希腊悲剧或是荷马史诗在古老的时代所发挥的作用，是对道德、罪恶和贞操的探索——探索要做正确的事情会付出什么代价。但同时也用有趣的方式来表现，稍稍将超级恶棍的领地和美国某个城市夸大为城市游乐场、或是丛林、又或者是竞技场。
        坦白说，在以超级英雄为主题的电影里，当你有了创造性思维的爆发和资金，你还需要代入一些东西，然后在屏幕上反映出来，至少在美国是这样的。这一事实毫无疑问让我很着迷。美国人大多要求真实的描绘出本能，至少在他们的罪案片中，多半会比较倾向于多一点本能，多一点行走在传统犯罪行为边缘。由此看来我们的剧集是当之无愧的，当之无愧的科幻、网络朋克犯罪。
        Do you find that, now that you’re doing this on-going series, that when you’re working on other projects ideas bleed into it, or belled across from it, into other projects?
        A little bit. My focus has largely been on the show for the last couple of years, but there is a fun kismet where ideas collide with one another. The thing about television, the thing I enjoy about it so much, Is that you have to generate so many ideas, so many stories about the world you get to explore. And one of the fun things about working in TV is that you can bring to – whenever something bad happened to you as a writer, you reach a moment where you say to yourself, ‘I can write about it’. It’s the silver lining in any experience.
        I think that collision between ideas coming out of this universe, and the interplay with the other worlds I’m working in, yeah, there’s a fair amount. It’s more, honestly the problem with American broadcast television being 22 or 23 episodes, it’s more a question of ‘what have you got’, ‘OK, here you go’, ‘ that was last week, what have you got now?’. You’re sort of taking everything at a conversation with all the things in your life: the story you read in the newspaper this morning, the book that you just read, the anecdote you just heard, it’s all getting thrown into the blender.H：你现在制作的这部剧集会启发你对其他作品的灵感吗？反之，在其他作品上会获得对这部剧的想法吗？
        N：有时会。这几年我的工作重心都放在《疑犯追踪》上。有趣的是，灵感相互碰撞会产生意想不到的效果。我之所以这么热爱电视，一方面是因为它迫使我萌生许多想法，促使我去探索这个世界，并以此为基础创造许多故事；另一方面是因为作为编剧遇到困难时，你可以告诉自己“我可以写好的”，继续坚持写下去就能克服困难。这个“雨后总能见彩虹”的道理适用于任何事。
        我认为同一领域中的想法会互相碰撞，并且不同领域的想法也会相互作用，在很大程度上都是这样。老实说，美剧每季一般都有22或23集，问题就在于一味地编情节而忽视了剧情的连贯性。制片和编剧间的对话往往是这样的——“你有什么想法？”“这个想法可行”“这是上周用过的，你还有什么好点子吗”对话间可能会提到早上在报纸上看到的故事、最近正在看的书、刚听到的趣闻……恨不得用上所有的毕生所见所闻把剧情搞成一锅大杂烩。