与FT共进午餐：奥利弗•斯通
慕尼黑最宏伟的酒店正艰难地在慕尼黑啤酒节(Oktoberfest)期间保持自己的尊严。在把我带向奥利弗•斯通(Oliver Stone)的电梯里，一位胖胖的澳大利亚妇女几乎就要撑破她的紧身连衣裙，我只好盯着自己的手机看。当我走出电梯，到达拜耶里切酒店(Bayerischer Hof)装有玻璃幕墙的七楼时，另一个巴伐利亚展现在我面前：红色屋顶的天际线以及哥特式的宏伟建筑，从视觉上让人想起意大利。
For financial reasons, Munich is where Stone filmed his new biopic of Edward Snowden, the former US intelligence analyst who exposed his government’s use of mass surveillance while absconding to Hong Kong and, eventually, Russia. I have come from a local press screening and can confirm that Snowden is a Stone film. It charts a young patriot’s disillusionment, like Born on the Fourth of July. It despairs of America’s fidelity to its ideals, like Platoon. It rouses you with its force of argument, like JFK, and appals you with its tendentiousness, like JFK.
出于财务上的原因，斯通选择在慕尼黑拍摄有关美国前情报分析员爱德华•斯诺登(Edward Snowden)的新传记电影，斯诺登在出逃香港后泄露了美国政府的大规模监听行为，最终在俄罗斯落脚。我刚参加了面向当地媒体的放映活动，可以证实《斯诺登》具有典型的斯通风格。它叙述了一位爱国青年幻想破灭的过程，就像斯通导演的《生于7月4日》(Born on the Fourth of July)一样。它绝望地哀叹美国对其理想的忠实，就像《野战排》(Platoon)一样。它的雄辩力量让你振作，就像《刺杀肯尼迪》(JFK)一样。它的倾向性让你愕然，就像《刺杀肯尼迪》一样。
Stone arrives, wild of hair and polite of mood in a blue suit and tieless white striped shirt. Although, at 70, he is not a swift mover, he has the formidable carriage of a long-retired cruiserweight and a heavy brow that speaks of dark potential, as though on the right night, after the sixth bourbon, he could clear a bar of brawlers and take two or three of their women home into the bargain. “Ambient noise drives me nuts,” he growls, and I fear for the chattering diners behind us.
斯通到了，他头发蓬乱，彬彬有礼，身穿一身蓝色西装，内搭白色条纹衬衫，没有打领带。已经70岁的他行动并不快，但带有一种退休已久的轻量级拳击手的气场，浓黑的眉毛透露出深藏不露的爆发力，不怒自威，就好像在某个命中注定的晚上，在他喝完第6杯波旁威士忌后，他能打倒一酒吧吵吵嚷嚷的乌合之众，还能把两三个他们的女人带走。“周围的噪音让我难受，”他咆哮着说，我开始为后面那些叽叽喳喳的食客担心。
I propose that lunch is for wimps and he smiles as though he has not heard the line from a thousand wearisome jokers over the table since he released Wall Street in 1987. “I’m not feeling hungry, though,” he says, which explains the measly toasted sandwich on his plate, ordered earlier from the kitchen. He will drink, however, and we cleave to the host nation by summoning a Riesling from Rheingau. There are some flash items on the menu — including caramelle, a hard-to-find genre of pasta — but I go for the monkfish with no starter to avoid too great a disparity with his workmanlike dish.
我提出，午餐是为窝囊废准备的，他笑了，就好像从未在餐桌上听到无数乏味的小丑重复他在1987年拍摄的《华尔街》(Wall Street)中的这句台词。“不过，我现在不饿，”他说道，这解释了他之前已从厨房点了一小份吐司三明治。不过，他愿意喝一点，我们入乡随俗，点了一瓶来自莱茵高地区的雷司令。菜单上有一些奢华的菜品，包括很难寻觅的意大利面caramelle，但我只点了安康鱼，省了前菜，避免与他点的工人午餐那样的三明治过于不同。
In Stone’s films, the lead character often has a pair of father figures vying for what in Platoon is called “possession of his soul”. And today he starts to talk of Snowden as a father might. “This young man has a tremendous amount of conviction and you can say he is arrogant to have that. But he is the only one of 30,000 people working at the National Security Agency who came forward. There were no whistleblowers in England. They’re even worse in England in some ways, the GCHQ.”
在斯通的电影中，主角身边往往有一对父亲般的人物，就像《野战排》片中所说的那样，争着“主宰他的灵魂”。现在，他开始像一位父亲那样说起斯诺登。“这个年轻人怀有很多的信念，你可以说他这样有些傲慢。但他是美国国家安全局(NSA) 3万员工中唯一挺身而出的一个。英格兰根本没有告密者。在某些方面，英国甚至更糟，比如政府通信总部(GCHQ)。”
Stone got to know Snowden in his Moscow exile as he did research for the film. “He’s a singular man and he reminds me of Ron Kovic [played by Tom Cruise in Born on the Fourth of July], who had the guts to go from a conventional-thinking young man in Massapequa to a major antiwar protester. At a young age, most of us don’t have those convictions yet.”
斯通是在斯诺登流亡莫斯科期间认识斯诺登的，当时他正在为该片做研究。“他是个不多见的人，他让我想起隆•科维奇(Ron Kovic，这是汤姆•克鲁斯在《生于7月4日》中扮演的角色)，科维奇魄性非凡，从纽约州马萨波夸(Massapequa)一个传统思维的年轻人成长为一个知名的反战抗议者。我们大多数人在年轻时还没有这种信念。”
This seems the wrong way round: ideals are usually a mark of youth. Convention — or the mugging by reality — comes later. I wonder whether Stone had any liberal convictions before his own formative experience as a soldier in Vietnam.
这似乎弄反了规律：理想通常是年轻时代的标志。传统思维(或者说面对现实)到后来才会形成。我想知道，斯通在当兵参加越战这段帮助他形成世界观的经历之前，是否具有任何自由主义信念?
“Oh no,” he replies, like a hair-trigger. “I grew up as a conservative and my father was a Republican, strongly so. A very intelligent man. He’d be called a Tory, I guess. I believed in Eisenhower and the American way. I questioned it after Vietnam because I was numbed-out from the experience. I saw a series of screw-ups that were bureaucratic and typical of an elephant among mice. Waste, overreaction.”
“哦，没有，”他脱口而出。“我的青少年时期很保守，我父亲是一位共和党人，坚信共和党的理念。他是一个高智商的人。我猜他在英国将被称为Tory。那时我相信艾森豪威尔和美国方式。去过越南后，我开始质疑，因为那段经历让我看破了一切。我看到官僚主义搞砸了太多事情，非常典型的大象怕老鼠。浪费，反应过头。”
. . .
……
Coherent paragraphs cascade out of Stone in a soothing husk until you wonder why he chose a line of work that involves no talking, other than to recalcitrant actors on set, where he is said to brook no slackers. He was born in postwar New York City to a French mother and an American father, who worked as a stockbroker. His life was a cloudless east-coast idyll — interspersed with holidays to France, a country that is all over his Mediterranean mien and radical sensibility — until they divorced when he was 16.
斯通用令人舒缓的深沉沙哑的嗓音娓娓道来，堪称出口成章，最终你不禁要问，他为何选择了一个不用说话的行业?当然，他在拍摄现场对那些桀骜不驯的演员是不会沉默的，据说他不会容忍任何人偷懒。他出生在战后的纽约，母亲是法国人，父亲是美国人，以股票经纪人为职业。他的童年生活就像是一首无云的东海岸田园诗——除了一家人偶尔会去法国度假，这个国家让他具有地中海式气质和激越的性情——直到父母在他16岁时离婚。
“What I was always concerned about was lies,” he remembers. “My parents’ divorce was a big factor and that was way before Vietnam. There were lies being told. ‘White lies’, my mother called them. I felt they were very happy together and they weren’t. It was shocking to find out. So I think you grow up distrusting authority.”
“我向来对谎言耿耿于怀，”他回忆道，“我父母的离婚是一个重大因素，那是在我去越南之前。他们说了谎。我母亲把它们称作‘善意的谎言’。我小时候觉得他们在一起很美满，但实际上不是。了解到实情让我震惊。因此我认为，这造成了我长大后不信任权威。”
His father was not so Republican as to deny his son the perks of a bohemian boyhood: young Oliver was taken to a prostitute to dispense with his virginity. He dropped out of Yale in 1965, went to Vietnam and came back with an urge to create. In 1971, he graduated in film at New York University and, by the turn of the 80s, he was upsetting the Turks with his portrayal of their prisons in Midnight Express and writing the ghetto classic Scarface.
他的父亲虽然是共和党人，但并没有剥夺儿子享受放荡不羁的少年时代的机会：年轻的奥利弗被领到一个妓女那里破了处男身。1965年，他从耶鲁大学(Yale)辍学，前往越南，回来时满怀创作冲动。1971年，他从纽约大学(New York University)电影系毕业，1978年，他编剧的描写土耳其监狱生活的《午夜快车》(Midnight Express)让土耳其人不快，1983年出品的贫民窟经典《疤面煞星》(Scarface)也是他编剧的。
At his peak, during the back-to-back of Platoon (which claimed the Oscar for Best Picture) and Wall Street (Best Actor for Michael Douglas), he was unusual in Hollywood for writing as much as he was directing. His script style traversed purple prose and street slang, switching from high to low registers like a Saul Bellow sentence. When I told friends I was going to interview him, I often got a Stone-movie epigram by way of reply: “Money never sleeps, pal”, “There is no nobility in poverty any more”. “Every day above ground is a good day.”
在他的事业巅峰期——接连推出《野战排》(获得奥斯卡最佳影片奖)和《华尔街》(主演的迈克尔•道格拉斯(Michael Douglas)赢得奥斯卡最佳男主角奖)——他在编剧和执导方面都相当多产，这在好莱坞是不寻常的。他笔下的台词风格在华丽散文和街头俚语之间切换自如，就像索尔•贝娄(Saul Bellow)的小说那样雅俗共赏。当我告诉朋友我将采访他时，他们常常以斯通电影中的经典台词来回应：“金钱永不眠，朋友”(Money never sleeps, pal)，“贫穷不再是清高的象征”(There is no nobility in poverty any more)，“活着的每一天都是好日子”(Every day above ground is a good day)。
His films had — and I am sure auteurs would have a more technical word for it — attitude. For a privileged person, he nailed what it is to be young and male in a big city with more aspirations than advantages, aching to do something, aching to get in. “Gimme guys who are poor, smart and hungry,” says Gordon Gekko, the asset-stripping villain of Wall Street, and a million hustlers cheered. His films tend not to make a big deal of women, though he has married three, or children, though he has fathered as many. I can see why at least half the population would find them hard work. But if you happen upon Wall Street or Scarface at the right time of life, in the right circumstances, they fill your world.
他的影片有态度(我肯定导演们会有更专业的词来形容这个特点)。对于家境优越的人，他刻画了身为一个抱负多于优势的年轻男子在大城市的处境——渴望有所作为、渴望挤入成功者的行列。“把贫穷、聪明、饥饿的家伙给我，”《华尔街》中从事资产剥离的反面人物戈登•盖柯(Gordon Gekko)说道，100万个骗子欢呼着。他的影片往往不太关注女性(尽管他娶过3任太太)，也不太注重孩子(尽管他有3个子女)。我能看出为什么至少有一半人认为这一点使他的影片难以接受。但如果你在合适的人生阶段和合适的处境观看《华尔街》或《疤面煞星》，它们会极大地影响你。
Yet, as his veteran’s thousand-yard stare fixes on a red roof in the middle distance, Stone seems down about his country, and about Hollywood. At least America airs its dirty laundry to the world via its films, I offer. His own career is proof. Stone quibbles. “Platoon was passed on repeatedly, as was Salvador,” he says, referencing his film about US-backed juntas in Central America, a proto-Platoon. “Rambo was making more money. Unless America is the hero of the film, it is hard to make it within the studio system. You have to put it together cheaply.”
不过，当斯通以老兵才有的“千码瞪视”眼神直直地看着远处的一个红屋顶时，他似乎对自己的国家和好莱坞感到失望。我提出，至少美国通过电影向世界公开自己的阴暗面。他的职业生涯就是证明。斯通不置可否。“《野战排》曾多次被否决，《萨尔瓦多》(Salvador)也一样，”他指的是他执导的那部讲述美国支持的中美洲军政府的影片，在《野战排》之前上映。“《兰博》(Rambo)赚到了更多的钱。除非美国是影片中的英雄，否则很难被制片厂体制接受。你不得不走低成本制作的道路。”
The monkfish arrives and turns out to be what you would expect from a swish hotel. I cannot fault it, nor will I ever remember it, except for the supporting presence of quinoa that suggests even Bavaria, legendary for its commitment to old staples, has succumbed to this pointless grain. Having already drunk a local wheat beer while waiting for Stone, I should limit my intake of the wine but I do not want to look like a chump in front of this Hemingway figure, this swarthy heir to the great man’s Francophile machismo.
安康鱼端上来了，像是高档酒店该有的样子。我挑不出什么毛病，但我也记不住这道菜——除了搭配的主食藜麦，因为它似乎表明，就连坚守传统主食、且以此闻名的巴伐利亚州也已经屈从于这种毫无意义的时髦谷物。在等待斯通时，我已经喝了一杯当地的小麦啤酒，我应该少喝点红酒，但是我不想在这位海明威式的人物——皮肤黝黑的斯通很好地继承了那位伟人的亲法特征和男子气概——面前看起来像个笨蛋。
In Snowden’s best line, the conflicted protagonist, tugged between liberal abstractions and knowledge of the authentic threats against America, blows up at a right-on girlfriend for whom it is all so obvious. “You live in a fairytale world where there are no consequences and nobody gets hurt,” he shouts. I suggest to Stone that she has the bien pensant’s odd mix of hypersensitivity to infractions of freedom that most people would think trivial, and insouciance about terrorism and hostile states. “I don’t agree with you but I understand,” counters Stone, the diplomat. “Corbin O’Brian [Snowden’s spymaster in the film] makes those arguments, which a lot of people would agree with.”
《斯诺登》中的最精彩台词，是这位充满纠结的主人公在自由派抽象理念和深知美国面对的真切威胁之间左右为难，对左翼的女朋友(在她看来答案显而易见)大发雷霆。“你生活在童话世界里，凡事没有后果，没有人会受到伤害，”他大喊道。我向斯通提出，她拥有正统观念人士那种奇特的混杂态度，一方面对多数人会认为微不足道的侵犯自由的行为极为敏感，另一方面对恐怖主义和敌对国家满不在乎。“我不同意你的观点，但是我能理解，”斯通像一个外交官那样礼貌地反驳道，“科尔宾•奥布赖恩(Corbin O’Brian，影片中斯诺登的间谍上司)提出了那些观点，很多人会赞同。”
I am not sure how far to push this. My experience of writing about politics tells me that civil-libertarianism can, at its worst, be the luxury creed of people who take order for granted and see goodwill in every culture other than their own. On the other hand, I am talking to a man with the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star, the Air Medal, the Army Commendation Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, the Vietnam Service Medal, the Vietnam Campaign Medal and the Combat Infantryman Badge. He volunteered for the draft aged 21. Fifty-eight thousand names on a black wall in Washington attest to the risk he took for his country. In argument, there can be no appeal to biography, and Stone certainly does not make it (“You can read about that stuff elsewhere”). Still, I give way.
我不确定能在多大程度上深入探讨这个话题。我撰写政治话题的经验告诉我，在最糟糕的情况下，公民自由意志主义可能是某些人的奢侈信条，这些人对秩序抱着想当然的态度，并且在所有文化中都能看到善意，唯独他们自己的文化除外。另一方面，坐在我对面的人拥有紫心勋章(Purple Heart)、青铜星章(Bronze Star)、空军奖章(Air Medal)、陆军嘉奖奖章(Army Commendation Medal)、国防服役勋章(National Defense Service Medal)、越南服役勋章(Vietnam Service Medal)、越南战役纪念章(Vietnam Campaign Medal)和作战步兵徽章(Combat Infantryman Badge)。他21岁自愿入伍。华盛顿越战纪念碑的黑墙上刻着的5.8万个名字，证明了当年他为国家冒的风险。在争辩中，不能求助于传记，而斯通肯定不会写(“你可以在其他地方读到那些内容”)。不过，我让步了。
. . . . . .
“Greed is good.” The words have travelled as well as any in cinema, which is some feat for a line that does not exist. Gekko says greed, “for lack of a better word”, is good. At the annual general meeting of a troubled paper company, the Lucifer of Wall Street mounts the argument that greed — for money, yes, but also for love, knowledge, prestige — is what pushes our species forward. Rapturous shareholders end up backing him over their flabby board.
“贪婪是个好东西。”(Greed is good)是一句流传很广的台词，这对一句其实不存在的台词来说很不容易。盖柯的原话是，贪婪，“在缺少更贴切的词语的情况下”，是个好东西。这位《华尔街》中的撒旦在一家陷入困境的纸张企业的年度股东大会上提出，贪婪——追求金钱，没错，但也包括爱、知识和威望——推动着人类前进。兴高采烈的股东最终支持他，而不是软弱无能的董事会。
In other words, Gekko, and by extension capitalism, gets a hearing. Stone is at his best when he is nuanced. In Platoon, the “bad” father figure, a sergeant played by Tom Berenger who will do anything, however heinous, to win the war, is allowed to make his case. “There’s the way it ought to be and there’s the way it is,” he says, in a monologue you cannot look away from. “I am reality.” You even see the idealism of the young volunteer soldier, modelled on Stone himself, being mocked by the poor conscripts around him. “What we got here is a crusader. You got to be rich in the first place to think like that.”
换句话说，盖柯、乃至资本主义，得到了一个发言机会。斯通在这种细腻的时候最优秀。在《野战排》中，“坏爸爸”形象——汤姆•贝伦格(Tom Berenger)饰演的中士，为打赢战斗而无所不用其极，无论手段多么令人发指——被允许说出他的逻辑。“有一条应该走的路，现实存在的路，”他在那段让人不敢把目光转向别处的独白中称，“我就是现实。”你甚至看到了年轻的志愿兵(以斯通本人为原型)的理想主义被周围贫穷的义务兵嘲笑。“我们这里有个斗士。你先得有钱才会那么想。”
Somewhere along the way, this ambiguity, this regard for the other side of an argument, drained out of Stone’s work. Films such as JFK and W, about the rise of the younger George Bush, were too sure of their theses. Nixon, with its sympathy for its subject’s harsh childhood, was an exception, and Any Given Sunday avoided politics altogether. But Snowden revives the more didactic Stone. He seems frustrated by art that touches on real-world subjects without making an argument. Thirteen years after the Iraq war, he is not much taken with the films about it. “Hurt Locker was good as a tension movie but didn’t deal with the larger issues.” He has a point: at an equivalent stage after Vietnam, Platoon, Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket were part of our culture.
不知从何时起，斯通的作品中失去了这种暧昧，这种对另一方论点的尊重。《刺杀肯尼迪》和《布什》(W.，讲述乔治•W·布什(George W Bush)的崛起)等影片对自己的命题太过肯定。《尼克松》(Nixon)是个例外(该片同情主人公的艰辛童年)，《挑战星期天》(Any Given Sunday)完全避免了政治元素。但是《斯诺登》恢复了说教式的斯通。他似乎对那种接触现实世界主题、但不发表论点的艺术感到郁闷。在伊拉克战争发动13年后，他对有关这场战争的影片没什么好印象。“《拆弹部队》(The Hurt Locker)作为一部扣人心弦的电影来说很好，但是并未触及更深入的问题。”他的话有一定道理：在越战后的相同阶段，《野战排》、《现代启示录》(Apocalypse Now)和《全金属外壳》(Full Metal Jacket)已经成了我们文化的一部分。
If Stone resembles any American artist of his generation, it is Don DeLillo, “chief shaman of the paranoid school of American fiction”, as the NYRB once had him. Both men paint a country that was nearing its 200th year of innocence when the Kennedy assassination acquainted a simple people with the darker edges of life. Ever since, their work implies, the idea of America has been sullied by enemies within: the deep state, rampant markets, God-like technology. Great novels at least have to be elliptical. They suggest without stating. Stone uses films as a more direct medium and it can be exhausting for the audience.
如果说斯通像某位同时代美国艺术家的话，那便是唐•德里罗(Don DeLillo)——《纽约书评》(NYRB)曾评价他是“美国偏执派小说的大祭司”。二人都刻画了这样一个国家：美国度过了近200年纯真时光，直到肯尼迪遇刺事件让单纯的美国人认识到了生活的阴暗面。他们的作品暗示，从那时起，美国的理念被内部敌人玷污：深层国家势力、疯狂的市场和有如上帝般的科技。伟大的小说至少必须是隐隐约约的。它们暗示，而不明说。斯通把电影当作更直接的媒介，这可能会让观众觉得筋疲力尽。
Over coffee, I ask him if he sees much hope for his cause in Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, already knowing the answer. “No. Bernie Sanders came out for reform. But now there’s not even talk of the surveillance state.” He takes the cue to expand from the narrow question of espionage to America’s foreign strategy over the past few decades, lamenting the expansion of Nato to Russia’s border and the missionary itch to go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. “History teaches us that balance of power can work,” he says, sounding Kissingerian all of a sudden. “Iran goes its way, China goes its way, Russia goes it way. They’re not interested in subverting the west.”
喝咖啡时，我明知故问地提到，他是否寄希望于唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)或希拉里•克林顿(Hillary Clinton)会支持他的诉求。“不。伯尼•桑德斯(Bernie Sanders)支持改革。但现在甚至都没人提起国家监听的问题。”他从这个关于间谍行为的狭窄问题扩展到美国在过去几十年的外交战略，哀叹北约(Nato)向俄罗斯边境扩张、以及传教士般的在海外寻找打击对象的冲动。“历史告诉我们，力量平衡是可能管用的，”他称，突然间听起来像是基辛格一般，“伊朗走自己的路，中国走自己的路，俄罗斯走自己的路。他们无意颠覆西方。”
By now, however, he has deduced that he is talking to a conventional-thinking man — and a student of his earlier work. This can be tough for a still-active artist to hear (imagine the ageing rock giant playing an hour of new material to silence) but they get used to it. He has a magnanimous idea.
然而，到了现在，他已推断出，他正在跟一个传统思维的人——以及他早期作品的学生——对话。这对于一个仍然活跃的艺术家来说是困难的(想象一位年迈的摇滚巨头演奏了一个小时的新内容，而台下鸦雀无声)，但是他们会习惯这种现实。他萌生了一个豁达的想法。
“There is a new book you ought to see,” and he walks me over to his suite to hand over a heavy volume for my perusal. The Oliver Stone Experience is a handsome compilation of interviews and unseen photographs by the American film aficionado Matt Zoller Seitz that has just come out.
“有本新书你应该看一看，”之后我们一起走到他的套房里，他递过来一本很厚重的书给我看。《奥利弗•斯通经验谈》(The Oliver Stone Experience)是由美国影评家马特•佐勒•塞茨(Matt Zoller Seitz)所著的采访和未曾面世的照片的合辑，这本精装书刚刚出版。
There are choice quotes from Stone about that paid-for sexual initiation (“She makes love like milk”) and his father (“Dad never wanted to marry. He was a bachelor in his heart”). There is also a poignant photo of Stone smiling for the camera in army fatigues as he boards a plane to Vietnam. He really does look like the “boy scout” he always claims to have been before a botched war stole his illusions.
书中有斯通的精选言论，比如他谈到付费性启蒙(“她做爱像牛奶”)和他的父亲(“爸爸从不想结婚。他内心里一直是单身”)。还有一张令人心酸的照片，画面是斯通登上前往越南的飞机时，穿着军装的他对着镜头微笑。他看起来真的像是“童子军”——他总是声称，在那场一团糟的战争偷走他的幻想前，他一直是童子军。
I want to press him on his memories of that day but he has a press conference in a few minutes. There are campaigns to wage, people to persuade, ideals to uphold and perhaps old memories to harness into missionary films. What we got here, still, is a crusader.
我想追问他对那一天的回忆，但是他几分钟后就要在记者会上露面。他还有很多需要发起的活动、需要劝说的人、需要坚持的理想、或许还有需要用作传教士般影片素材的尘封记忆。我们这里仍然有个斗士。
