附魔师怎么快速升级:克里斯托弗·诺兰和《盗梦空间》（双语）

克里斯托弗·诺兰和《盗梦空间》（双语）

亦真亦幻的梦境之旅：克里斯托弗·诺兰和《盗梦空间》

（原载于《大学英语新锐英语》 2011年第一期）

《盗梦空间》自上映以来好评如潮，连一向苛刻的各大影评网和评论家也不吝赞美之辞。导演克里斯托弗·诺兰用丰富的细节、错综复杂的叙事将观众带入潜意识的迷宫，创造了一个超现实主义的世界，在真实与非真实的多重层面上对观众构成了挑战。《盗梦空间》在折磨完人们的脑神经后，彻底向故弄玄虚的平庸之作道了永别。诺兰创作《盗梦空间》有着怎样的缘起？影片中蕴含了哪些科学知识？本文将一一解析。

By Tudor Vieru

卓言 选 孔媛媛 译 medium

Inception, which cost $150-million-plus US to make, earned a healthy $760 million US at the box office world wide during its opening weekend, proving that epic and sci-fi aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive in the movie industry. It’s both a tremendously challenging and tremendously rewarding movie, the type that will have audiences talking—and debating—long after the credits roll. The director and scriptwriter is Christopher Nolan—a blockbuster auteur who has made bigness his medium.

耗资1.5亿多元制作的《盗梦空间》上映第一周内全球票房就达到了76亿美元，证明了史诗片和科幻片并非相互排斥。这部电影既是巨大的挑战，同时又带来了丰厚的回报，即使在幕布落下很久之后，它仍会激起观众的热论和争辩。这部电影的导演兼编剧是克里斯托弗·诺兰，作为一名风格导演，他擅长制作大片，所拍影片反响强烈。

Born in 1970, British director Christopher Nolan began making movies the age of seven with his father’s Super-8mm camera. While studying English Literature at University College London, Nolan discovered the two loves of his life—his long-time producing partner and wife Emma Thomas, and cinematic storytelling. “While I was making films with the college film society, I started thinking about the narrative freedoms that authors had enjoyed for centuries and it seemed to me that filmmakers should enjoy these freedoms as well.”

来自英国的导演克里斯托弗·诺兰出生于1970年，7岁就开始用父亲的Super8摄影机拍片了。在伦敦大学学院学习英国文学时，诺兰找到了两个他一生钟情的挚爱——他的长期合作伙伴，同时也是自己的妻子埃玛·托玛斯和电影叙事。“在大学的电影社团里拍电影时，我开始思索作家们享有了几个世纪之久的叙述自由。我认为，电影导演也应该拥有这些自由。”

For a decade, Nolan has built a body of work out of how we define our identity and our reality: the self-created memory of Memento; the existential magic trick at the climax of The Prestige; Batman’s surrender to what people need to believe in The Dark Knight. Inception finds him again in that familiar territory—and the result is something almost as thrilling to contemplate as it is to watch. The film is about the world of dreams, and its possible applications in certain circumstances. “I wanted to do this for a very long time; it’s something I’ve thought about off and on since I was sixteen,” remarked Nolan. “I wrote the first draft of this script seven or eight years ago but it goes back much further, this idea of approaching dreams and the dream life as another state of reality.”

十年来，诺兰从人们如何确定自己的身份和现实为出发点，完成了大量作品：《记忆碎片》中的自造记忆；《致命魔术》高潮时的生死魔术；《黑暗骑士》中蝙蝠侠最终屈服于人们所信仰的真理。在《盗梦空间》里他又一次回到了自己熟悉的领域——而这次观众不仅在观看时领略了惊险刺激，就连想起来也依然激动难平。这部电影讲述了梦境的世界及其应用于某些情况的可能性。“我很早就想拍这个题材的电影了；我从十六岁起就时不时地会思考这个问题，”诺兰说，“七八年前我就写好了剧本的第一稿，但着手探讨梦境，以及梦是另一种状态下的现实这样的想法，很早以前就有了。”

There is a sense of déjà vu associated with the picture as Cobb (the name of the hero) is also the name of the pivotal apartment burglar in Nolan’s feature debut Following (1998), and some of the filming took place at the architectural school located at Christopher Nolan’s alma mater, University College London. Influenced by Dark City (1998), The Matrix (1999), The Thirteenth Floor (1999), and Memento (2000), all of which explored the concept “that the world around you might not be real”, Nolan creatively struggled with the screenplay over a ten-year period.

这部影片让人有似曾相识的感觉。比如科布（电影中男主角的名字）也是诺兰1998年的电影处女作《追随》中一个关键人物的名字，在那部电影里科布是个入室行窃的小偷。此外，一些镜头是在克里斯托弗·诺兰的母校——伦敦大学的建筑学院拍摄的。诺兰的《移魂都市》（1998）、《黑客帝国》（1999）、《十三度凶间》（1999）和《记忆碎片》（2000）等影片都探索了“周围的世界可能不真实”这一概念，在这些影片的影响下，诺兰用了十多年的时间，发挥创造性反复修改完善（盗梦的）剧本。

The solution arrived when Leonardo DiCaprio attached himself to the production. “I’ve incorporated a huge number of his ideas,” said the director. “Leo’s very analytical, particularly from the character point of view, but also on how the entire story is going to function and relate to his character… I think it’s improved the project enormously. The emotional life of the character now drives the story more than it did before.”

当莱昂纳多·迪卡普里奥加入进来时，（剧本创作的）问题解决了。“我加入了很多他的想法，”导演说，“利奥非常善于分析，特别是从剧中人物的角度进行分析，而且也善于分析整个故事将如何发展，如何与他的角色相关联……我认为这很大程度上完善了电影剧本。跟过去相比，现在角色感情生活的添加更能推动故事的发展。”

Impressed with Christopher Nolan’s previous films, especially Insomnia (2002) and Memento, Leonardo DiCaprio was a willing collaborator. “Complex and ambiguous are the perfect way to describe the story,” said DiCaprio. “And it’s going to be a challenge to ultimately pull it off. But that is what Chris Nolan specializes in. He has been able to convey really complex narratives that work on a multitude of different layers simultaneously… and make it entertaining and engaging throughout.” Pressed to explain the project, Nolan replied, “The film deals with levels of reality, and perceptions of reality which is something I’m very interested in. It’s an action film set in a contemporary world but with a slight science fiction bent to it.”

由于克里斯托弗·诺兰之前的影片，特别是《白夜追凶》（2002）和《记忆碎片》给他留下了深刻印象，莱昂纳多·迪卡普里奥非常愿意与诺兰合作。“复杂、含糊是讲述这个故事的最佳方式，”迪卡普里奥说，“完全把它讲好会很难，但那正是克里斯?诺兰所擅长的。他能够把极其复杂的同时发生在很多不同层面的故事讲述出来，而且讲得至始至终都引人入胜、扣人心弦。”在人们要他解释一下该电影时，诺兰回应道：“影片涉及了不同层面的现实，而我对对于现实的不同理解很感兴趣。这是一部背景设定在现代社会中的动作片，但也有点科幻片的味道。

Contemplating what drew him to the story in the first place, Nolan observed, “I always find myself gravitating to the analogy of a maze. Think of film noir and if you picture the story as a maze, you don’t want to be hanging above the maze watching the characters make the wrong choices, because it’s frustrating. You actually want to be in the maze with them, making the turns at their side, that keeps it more exciting.”

回忆起是什么开始让他想到创作这个故事时，诺兰说：“我一直着迷于迷宫的类比。想想黑色电影，如果把电影故事设置成一个迷宫，你不会愿意吊在迷宫上空，看着角色们做出错误的选择，因为那会让人非常沮丧。事实上，你更想呆在迷宫里面，和他们一起做出选择，那样更让人激动。”

These should be enough for any movie-lover to ask for—but Nolan gives us more. The emotional weight he adds to Cobb’s tale pushes Inception to another level, one in which questions the way we shape our reality balance the excitement.

这些应该足够满足任何电影爱好者的期待了——然而诺兰却超出了我们的期望。他在科布身上增加的感情因素把《盗梦空间》推向了另外一种境界，人们开始质疑自己想象现实的方式，而这使得影片不仅仅是激动人心的。

Here is an overview of the science that informed the idea behind the movie.

电影背后的一些概念有着科学知识作支撑，以下是对这些科学知识的概述。

The major plot in this movie is heavily reliant on the notion that two or more people can share the same dream. While this is indeed uncommon, it’s not impossible. Identical twins have reported being able to share dreams, and they are not the only ones capable of the feat. Long-married couples can do it too, as can people who have gone through shattering experiences together. Researchers believe that these events are what allow the individuals to meet each other in a common dream, by priming their brains for the job.

这部电影的主要情节很大程度上依赖于这样一种观念：两个或两个以上的人们可以分享相同的梦境。尽管这非常不寻常，但并不是完全不可能的。据报道，同卵双胞胎可以有相同的梦境，而且他们并不是唯一可以这样做的人。结婚多年的夫妻也能做到，那些共同经历过一些事件片段的人们也可以。研究人员认为，这些事件为人们的大脑做好了准备，使他们在共同的梦境中遇见彼此。

Another central point in “Inception” is that ideas can be stolen from a person’s unconscious mind during dreams. Here is where the shared dream comes in. A team of specialists called “extractors” goes into the mind of a target, and then attempt to recover the idea. Sleep scientists say that this is entirely true, although the experience is extremely personal for each individual. That is to say, daily experiences are indeed included in what people dream, but they associate with already-existing ideas and thoughts in patterns that are unique, like fingerprints.

《盗梦空间》中的另外一个要点是，人们想法可以在其做梦时即无意识的状态下被盗取。这就是相同梦境存在的意义。一组被称为“盗梦者”的专家进入目标人物的意识，试图提取人们的想法。睡眠科学家宣称这是完全真实的，尽管每个人的经验都是极其个体化的。也就是说，日常经验确实包含在人们的梦境中，但它们与已有的想法、观念相关联，其各自的关联方式是独有的，就像指纹一样。

The third plot device is the job a team of extractors (led by Leonardo DiCaprio as Dom Cobb) needs to do. They are given the task of implementing a dream into the mind of a target, rather than extract information that is already there. In sleep science, this is something that can be done on a regular basis, and the mechanism for it is extremely simple. Say, for instance, that you need to take an important decision, but find it hard to decide on a solution. If you want the answer to come from a dream, simply write down all other problems that are bugging you the night before you go to sleep.

第三个桥段是一个“盗梦小组”（由莱奥纳多·迪卡普里奥饰演的多姆·科布领导）的工作。他们这次接受了一个任务，把梦境移植入目标人物的大脑中，而不是从已有的梦境中提取信息。在睡眠科学中，这在通常情况下可以完成的，原理也非常简单。例如，你需要做一个重要的决定，但很难做出决策。如果你想要在梦境中找到答案，只要在睡前一晚写下困扰你的问题就好了。

Scientists explain that this will help the brain give you the answer you are looking for, in the sense that it will not have to process the excess information too. This will in turn give it ample opportunity to dream about the problem you want the answer to. In the end, a large part of the seemingly-science-fiction plot devices we’ve seen in Inception could seem to be a stretch, but in reality they are far from it. However, it’s doubtful that we’ll encounter real-life extractors any time soon.

科学家解释说这会有助于大脑给出你所寻求的答案，因为这样它就不需要处理多余的信息。这可以给它大量的机会转而处理你渴求解答的问题。最后，我们在《盗梦空间》中看到的大部分类似科幻片的情节设置看起来似乎是言过其词的，但在现实中却并非如此。不过，我们在短时间内是否能碰到真正的盗梦者是很值得怀疑的。

Inception is sure to set the benchmark for science fiction and action movies to follow, and puts Christopher Nolan and his stars on a pedestal for movie creativity and greatness.

《盗梦空间》定会为以后的科幻和动作影片设下标杆，而克里斯托弗·诺兰和剧中的影星也会因为影片的伟大和创造性为后人所推崇。

healthy 〈口〉相当多的，相当大的

epic 史诗式电影，多为耗资巨大、场面壮观的电影巨作，有着广泛的社会历史背景，情节跨度大，题材广泛，如电影《乱世佳人》（Gone with the Wind）、《勇敢的心》（Brave Heart）等

credit （电影的）片尾字幕，摄制人员名单

blockbuster 流行大片

auteur （具有自己独特风格的）导演

Super-8mm 一种家用摄影机的胶片格式

University College London 伦敦大学学院，创建于1826年，英格兰最古老的大学之一

déjà vu 似曾经历的错觉

pull it off 〈口〉做成，成功

bent 倾向

film noir 黑色电影，法国批评家将犯罪片和匪帮片归结为黑色电影类型，因为起初法国的犯罪小说大都是黑色封面。黑色电影大多兼有侦探、匪帮、城市戏剧影片的风格，其背后潜伏着股悲观的黑色的暗流

inform 渗透入，赋特征于

feat 行为，技艺

stretch 过度的使用，滥用，歪曲

pedestal （尤指作为偶像崇拜的）显要地位

外研社官方博客：http://blog.sina.com.cn/fltrp19