《犹胜我的文字》中英文完整版 ____________________________________________________________________ More Powerful Than My Words (犹胜我的文字) [中时人间] 断背山 影音重现记 ◎安妮．普露 ◎宋瑛堂／译 (2006.03.05) ____________________________________________________________________ 斑痕累累的咖啡壶 小说<断背山>作者谈电影《断背山》 (译文完整刊载於2006三月号印刻文学生活志) 怀俄明‧安妮普露 (Annie Proulx)‧文 温哥华‧宋瑛堂‧译 ____________________________________________________________________ "More powerful than my words" (by Annie Proulx) February 4, 2006 ANNIE PROULX, the author of Brokeback Mountain, doubted her story of illicit love in rural Wyoming could ever be filmed. Then she saw Ang Lee's movie and was overwhelmed. AS A STUDENT OF history and a writer of fiction, I have focused my interest on social and economic change in rural communities - Vermont, Newfoundland, Texas, Wyoming. I am something of a geographic determinist, believing that regional landscapes, climate and topography dictate local cultural traditions and kinds of work, and thereby the events on which my stories are built. Landscape is central to this rural fiction. I have been interested in the disappearance of dairy hill farms in New England, the collapsing fishing industry in Atlantic Canada and the slow fade of cattle-ranching in the west. 我热爱研读历史、撰写小说，兴趣集中在乡村社群的社会与经济变迁，地 点包括佛蒙州、纽芬兰、德州、怀俄明州。我可以说是地理决定论者，相 信一地的景观、气候与地形能主宰当地文化传统与工作类型，而我创作的 事件也构筑在这些事物之上。这种乡村小说以自然景观为中心。我一向有 兴趣书写的背景包括新英格兰区丘陵酪农业的消失、加拿大的大西洋沿岸 渔业的倾颓过程，以及美国西部牧牛业的缓蚀现象。 Close Range contains nine stories, including Brokeback Mountain, ostensibly concerned with the Wyoming landscape and making a living in hard, isolated livestock-raising communities dominated by white masculine values, but also holding subliminal fantasies. Most of the stories are loosely based on historical events, such as the botched castration in People in Hell Just Want a Drink of Water. 《怀俄明州故事集》(Close Range: Wyoming Stories) 一书收录九则短篇 小说，《断背山》是其中之一。《怀俄明州故事集》表面上的主题是怀俄 明的自然景观，主角是白种男性价值观宰制的当地畜牧社群，故事探讨当 地人在孤立环境中刻苦求生的事迹，但篇篇故事中也隐含想像。这些故事 中，多数概略以史实为根据，如《身居地狱但求杯水》中描写的阉割失败 故事。 Brokeback was not connected to any one incident but based on a coalescence of observations over many years, small things here and there.Some time in early 1997 the story took shape. One night in a bar upstate I had noticed an older ranch-hand, maybe in his late 60s, obviously short on the world's luxury goods. Although spruced up for Friday night, his clothes were a little ragged, boots stained and worn. I had seen him around, working cows, helping with sheep, taking orders from a ranch manager. He was muscular in a stringy kind of way. He leaned against the back wall and his eyes were fastened, not on the dozens of handsome and flashing women in the room, but on the young cowboys playing pool. Maybe he was following the game, maybe he knew the players, maybe one was his son or nephew, but there was something in his expression, a kind of bitter longing, that made me wonder if he was country gay. Then I began to consider what it might have been like for him - not the real person against the wall, but for any ill-informed, confused not-sure-of-what-he-was-feeling youth growing up in homophobic rural Wyoming. A few weeks later, I listened to the vicious rant of an elderly bar-cafe owner who was incensed that two "homos" had come in the night before and ordered dinner. She said that if her bar regulars had been there (it was darts tournament night), things would have gone badly for them. Brokeback was constructed on the small but tight idea of a couple of home-grown country kids, opinions and self-knowledge shaped by the world around them, finding themselves in emotional waters of increasing depth. I wanted to develop the story through a kind of literary sostenente. 《断背山》与单一事件并无关联，但创作的根据是经过多年的观察点滴融 合而成。故事成型的时间点落在一九九七年初。某天晚上，我在怀州北部 一间酒吧注意到一名老牧场工，大约年近七十。他显然欠缺奢侈品，尽管 在周五晚盛装找乐子，衣服仍稍嫌褴褛，皮靴肮脏破旧。在这之前，我在 附近见过他照顾母牛、帮忙赶羊、听任一名牧场经理的指挥。他的身材细 瘦，筋肉结实。他背靠着酒吧後方的墙壁，现场有数十名清秀佳人与美女， 他的视线却固定在打撞球的年轻牛仔。也许他认识撞球手，也许其中一人 是他的儿子或甥侄，但他的表情透露出一种殷切渴望的意念，让我怀疑他 是乡村型的同性恋者。随後我开始思索他生长的情境——我指的并非背靠 酒吧墙的这人，而是泛指所有生长於仇视同性恋的怀州乡下、资讯贫乏、 意识混沌、不确定内心感觉的年轻人。几星期後，我聆听一位经营餐饮酒 吧的老妇人抱怨，她说前晚店里来了两个「homo」（译注﹕英文的homo带 有严重贬意）吃晚餐，让她火冒三丈。她还说，假如当时店里坐了常客 （那一夜举办飞镖锦标赛），那两人肯定有苦头受。《断背山》的骨架小 巧而紧致，围绕着两名土生土长的乡下男孩，思想与自觉皆由四周环境形 塑，两人却发现涉足渐行渐深的情感水域。我当时希望透过一种文学 sostenente（支架）来推演故事。 The early 1960s seemed the right period. The two characters had to have grown up on isolated hard-scrabble ranches and were clearly homophobic themselves, especially the Ennis Del Mar character. Both wanted to be cowboys, be part of the Great Western Myth, but it didn't work out that way; Ennis never got to be more than a rough-cut ranch hand and Jack Twist chose rodeo as an expression of cowboy. Neither was ever a top hand, and they met herding sheep, animals most real cowpokes despise. Although they were not really cowboys (the word cowboy is often used derisively in the west by those who do ranch work), the urban critics dubbed it a tale of two gay cowboys. No. It is a story of destructive rural homophobia. Although there are many places in Wyoming where gay men did and do live together in harmony with the community, it should not be forgotten that a year after this story was published, Matthew Shepard was tied to the buck fence outside the most enlightened town in the state, Laramie, home of the University of Wyoming. Note too the fact that Wyoming has the highest suicide rate in the country, and that the preponderance of those people who kill themselves are elderly single men. 场景设定在六○年代初似乎对味。两位主角必定生长於孤立而困苦的牧场， 显然自己也仇视同性情慾，恩尼司尤其忌讳。两人都想当牛仔，想成为西 部大迷思的一分子，无奈事与愿违﹔恩尼司充其量只是粗犷的牧场工，杰 克则走上牛仔竞技的路，过过牛仔瘾。两人皆成不了气候。後来两人牧羊 时结识，而正牌牧牛工多数鄙视牧羊的差事。虽然两人并非真正牛仔（在 美国西部牧场业界，「牛仔」一词通常贬多於褒），城市影评人却标榜 《断背山》是两名同志牛仔的故事。不对。本片叙述的是具摧毁暴力的乡 村恐同情结。怀州不乏同志家庭与邻里和谐相处的例子，过去与现代皆然， 但我们不应该忘记，《断背山》一文刊载後一年，却发生同性恋青年马修‧ 薛坡德（Matthew Shepherd）遭人捆绑於围篱桩凌迟的惨案，案发地点忝 为怀州大学的所在地乐壤弥（Laramie），也是全州思想最开明的城市。 同样值得一提的是，怀俄明亦是全美自杀率最高的一州，而自戕的案主多 数为单身老汉。 In my mind, isolation and altitude - the fictional Brokeback Mountain, a place empowering and inimical - began to shape the story. The mountain had to force everything that happened to these two young men. I have many times heard Wyomingites who have gone east for one reason or another, talk about how badly they missed their natural terrain, the long sight-lines, the clear thin air, how claustrophobic were trees and how dead the atmosphere without the constant flow of wind, and I find it so myself. It seemed to me that the story could balance only on love, something all humans need and give, whether to one's children, parents, or a lover of the opposite or same sex. I wanted to explore long-lasting love and its possible steep price tag, homophobic antipathy and denial. These characters did something that, as a writer, I had never experienced - they began to get very damn real. Usually I deal in obedient characters who do what they are told, but Jack and Ennis soon seemed more vivid than many of the flesh-and-blood people around me and there emerged an antiphonal back-and-forth relationship between writer and character. I've heard other writers mention this experience, but it was the first time for me. 在我脑海中，孤立与高山这两个特点开始虚构出《断背山》，而这座山具 有触发潜力的作用，也可随时反目成仇，发生在两名年轻主人翁身上的一 切必然源自这座山。我时常听见为了种种原因而东迁的怀州人有感而发， 他们深切怀念老家的天然山水、绵长的视觉线、清澈淡薄的空气，认为树 林令他们产生密室恐惧症，而缺乏徐徐不间断的清风令大气层死气沉沉。 我也有同感。我认为本故事唯一能与大自然抗衡的事物只有爱，而爱是普 世人类需要并付出的东西，无论对象是个人的子女、双亲或同性异性爱人 皆然。我想探讨历久不衰的爱与可能付出的惨痛代价，探讨仇视同性恋的 情结与否认性向的坚持。我知道这故事将充满禁忌却仍执意动笔。故事中 的人物冒出了一种现象，而这种现象是我从事文字工作至今未曾体会过的 经验——这些角色开始变得活灵活现。我应对的角色通常对我言听计从， 但杰克与恩尼司不久却变得比我周遭许多血肉之躯更为生龙活虎，进而与 我建立起文人与虚构人物间的应答轮唱关系。我听过文字工作者提及这种 经验，如今却首度发生在我身上。 As I worked on the story over the following months, scenes appeared and disappeared. (The story went through more than 60 revisions.) The mountain encounter had to be, shall we say "seminal"? - and brief. One spring, years before, I had been in the Big Horns and noticed distant flocks of sheep on great empty slopes. From the heights, I had been able to see 100 miles and more to the plains. In such isolated high country, away from opprobrious comment and watchful eyes, I thought it would be plausible for the characters to get into a sexual situation. That's nothing new or out of the ordinary; livestock workers have a blunt and full understanding of the sexual behaviours of man and beast. High lonesome situation, a couple of guys - expediency sometimes rules, and nobody needs to talk about it and that's how it is. One old sheep rancher, dead now, used to say he always sent up two men to tend the sheep "so's if they get lonesome they can poke each other". From that perspective Aguirre, the hiring man, would have winked and said nothing, and Ennis' remark to Jack that this was a one-shot deal would have been accurate. 接下来几个月，我撰写这篇故事期间添加了部分场景，也让有些场景消失 （这一篇历经超过六十次改写）。 山上邂逅的过程必须——姑且用「萌生 情愫」（译注﹕seminal一语双关，可做「初期的」与「精液的」解释）这 词吧——而且稍纵即逝。从前有一年春天，我来到大角山区（Big Horns）， 留意到远方大片空旷的山坡地上有几群羊。登高望远的我极目可见一百多 哩外的平原。在如此与世隔绝的高山区，远离狂言怒骂与有色眼镜，我认 为文中人可能产生情慾激荡。这种事既不新奇也不稀罕﹔与牲畜为伍的工 作者完全能谅解人兽之间的性互动。男男置身寂寥的山峦之间，有时只图 将就，事後双方绝口不提，就这麽简单。一位老牧羊工生前常说，他习惯 一次派两男上山赶羊，「如果觉得寂寞，两人可以互戳。」假设从这个角 度来看，文中雇用两男牧羊的阿吉瑞会眨一眼示意，不予置喙，而恩尼司 对杰克表示仅此一次的说法也没错。 The complicating factor was that they both fell into once-in-a- lifetime love. I strove to give Jack and Ennis depth and complexity and to mirror real life by rasping that love against societal norms that both men obeyed, both of them marrying and begetting children, both loving their children, and, in a way, their wives. Many gay men marry and have children and are good fathers. Because this is a rural story, family and children are important. Most stories (and many films) I have seen about gay relationships take place in urban settings and never have children in them. The rural gay men I know like children, and if they don't have their own, they usually have nephews and nieces who claim a big place in their hearts. For both characters to marry women enlarges the story and introduces two young wives who move from innocence and happy trust to some pretty hard lessons about real life. Alma and Lureen give the story a universal connection, for men and women need each other, sometimes in unusual ways. 让情况复杂化的因素是，两人产生了终身难得的恋情。我极力为杰克与恩 尼司制造纵深与复杂性，也极力映照真实生活，方法是让恋情与两人遵奉 的社会准则产生摩擦，让两人各自成家生子，疼爱小孩，就某种意义而言 也爱妻子。许多男同性恋结婚生子，照样是好父亲。由於本故事的背景是 乡野，家庭与儿女更形重要。我见过以同志关系为主题的多数小说（以及 许多电影），场景皆设定在都会区，而且从未生儿育女。我所知的乡村男 同志喜欢小孩，如果自己膝下犹虚，通常侄甥辈会在他们心中划出大片势 力范围。若让两名男主角各与女人结婚，不仅能横向扩充故事，也能介绍 两名女子的变化——从无知清纯、欢心信任的少妇，演变为苦尝人世辛酸 的人妻。艾尔玛与露琳使本故事获得不分男女的回响，因为男人与女人互 相需要对方，有时候需要的方式逸出常态。 It was a hard story to write. Sometimes it took weeks to get the right phrase or descriptor for particular characters. I remember vividly that driving on Owl Canyon road in Colorado down over the state line one afternoon and thinking about Jack Twist's father, the expression "stud duck", which I had heard somewhere, came to me as the right way to succinctly describe that hard little man, and a curve in the road became the curve that killed Ennis' parents. The scene for the kiss when Jack and Ennis reunite after four years occurred in its entirety as I drove past the Laramie cement plant - so much for scenery. In fact, I did most of the writing while I was driving. The most difficult scene was the paragraph where, on the mountain, Ennis holds Jack and rocks back and forth, humming, the moment mixed with childhood loss and his refusal to admit he was holding a man. This paragraph took forever to get right, and I played Charlie Haden's and Pat Metheny's Spiritual, from their album Beyond the Missouri Sky (short stories) uncountable times, trying to get the words. I was trying to write the inchoate feelings of Jack and Ennis, the sad impossibility of their liaison, which for me was expressed in that music. To this day, I cannot hear that track without Jack and Ennis appearing before me. The scraps that feed a story come from many cupboards. 这故事难写。有时为了替某角色找出贴切的文句或描述词，往往一斟酌就 耗上数星期。我至今仍印象鲜明的是，某日下午，我从科罗拉多州开车上 猫头鹰峡谷路，越过州际线，心里想着杰克的父亲，这时我不知在何处听 过的「老大公鸭」一词浮现脑海，我认为用来描述这个铁石心肠的矮子简 洁有力，而猫头鹰峡谷路的弯道也成了恩尼司双亲断魂之地。至於杰克与 恩尼司睽违四年後重逢热吻的一幕，全部灵感来自我开车途经乐壤弥水泥 厂的时候——称不上是美景。事实上，我从事「写作」通常利用的是开车 时间。最困难的一幕是恩尼司在山上搂着杰克哼歌摇摆，那一刻混合了童 年失怙的情绪与拒绝承认自己抱的是男人的矛盾。这一个段落，我怎麽写 也觉得不对劲，只好反覆播放查理‧海登与帕特‧麦席尼专辑Beyond the Missouri Sky (Short Stories)里的Spiritual，听了无数次，尽量从中 汲取灵感。我想捕捉的是杰克与恩尼司内心初具雏形的情愫、两人关系的 悲苦无奈，而这首歌正能为我表达出这些意境。直至今日，每听到这首曲 子时，杰克与恩尼司必定现身我眼前。哺育一则故事的残肴往往来自许多 碗橱。 I WAS AN AGEING FEMALE writer, married too many times, and though I have a few gay friends, there were things I was not sure about. I talked with a sheep rancher to be sure that it was historically accurate to use a couple of white ranch kids as flock-tenders in the early '60s, for I knew that in previous decades it had been mostly Basques who did this job, and today it is often men from the South American countries. But jobs were scarce in Wyoming in that period and even married couples with children got hired to herd sheep. One of my oldest friends, Tom Watkin, with whom I once published a rural newspaper, read and commented on the story as it developed. I thought too much about this story. It was supposed to be Ennis who had dreams about Jack, but I had dreams about both of them. I still had little distance from it when it was published in The New Yorker on October 13, 1997. I expected letters from outraged religio-moral types but instead got them from men, quite a few of them Wyoming ranch hands and cowboys and the fathers of men, who said "you told my story", or "I now understand what my son went through". I still, eight years later, get those heart-wrenching letters. 我是个年迈的文字工作者，结离婚纪录多不胜数，虽然拥有几位同志朋友， 有时动笔时仍难免产生疑虑。我访问过一名牧羊业者，以确定六○年代初 的业者有无可能雇用两名白人青年赶羊，因为我知道，六○年代前的几十 年，牧羊人多半是巴斯克人（编按﹕Basque，原居於庇里牛斯山麓的民族）， 而现在通常由南美洲男人包办牧羊业。然而那段时期怀州工作难找，即使 带了小孩的已婚夫妇也有可能受雇看羊。我曾与汤姆‧瓦特金（Watkin） 发行过一份乡村报纸，他是我最老的朋友之一。在我创作《断背山》的过 程中，曾承蒙他阅读指教。这个故事让我朝思暮想，原本应该是恩尼司梦 见杰克，现在却成了我梦见他们两人。一九九七年十月十三日发表於《纽 约客》杂志後，我仍不肯释怀。我本以为会接到震怒的宗教道德人士挞伐 的信件，但来信者却是男人，其中相当多数属於怀州牧场工与牛仔，以及 儿子已成人的父亲。他们说「你道出了我的故事」或是「我总算明了我儿 子的苦衷」。时过八载，我仍不时接到这类令人心痛如绞的信件。 When I got Diana Ossana's and Larry McMurtry's request to option the story for a film with money from their own pockets - unusual for screen-writers - I was immediately beset with doubts. I simply did not think this story could be a film: it was too sexually explicit for presumed mainstream tastes, the general topic of homophobia was a hot potato unless gingerly skirted, and, given Hollywood actors' reluctance to play gay men, it would likely be difficult to find a good cast, not to say a director. It was only because I trusted Larry's and Diana's writing skills, film experience, and especially Larry's incomparable knowledge of the west's mores and language that I signed the contract. It didn't take them long. Within a few months I was reading their powerful screenplay constructed from the story, but richly augmenting it, adding new flesh to its long bones, filling out the personalities, introducing a little humour and new characters who moved the story along its close-set rails. Yes, the screenplay was beautiful, but my worries continued. What producers would be interested in a story about homophobic gay Wyoming ranch hands? What actors would have the guts to do this? What director would take the risk? How severely would the screenplay be clawed to pieces? The freedom-granting, yet hostile, landscape, of course, would be utterly lost, and with it, the literal grounding of the story. I thought the screenplay was as far as the movie would go, and I wasn't sorry 剧作家自掏腰包买下改编权是少有的情形。赖瑞‧麦克默吉与黛安娜‧欧杉 纳自费向我要求买下《断背山》的改编剧本权时，我立即充满疑虑。我根本 不认为这故事能拍成电影，原因有三﹕第一、据推测，主流品味无法接受如 此露骨的情色描绘﹔第二、如不谨慎闪躲的话，仇视同性恋的大主题将成为 烫手的山芋﹔第三、好莱坞演员不愿饰演男同志（尽管许多男同志演起异性 恋来精彩万分），届时可能很难凑出合适的演员阵容，物色导演更是难上加 难。我信任赖瑞与黛安娜的改编技巧与拍片经验，尤其认为赖瑞对西部风俗 道德与语言的掌握力无人能比，因此才签下合约。他们的动作很快。短短几 几个月後，我拜读到两人改编的剧本，不仅大受感动，也发现剧本让原文丰 富不少，为长长的骨架增添新血肉，充实了人物个性，带入些许幽默与新角 色，提升剧情推演的步调。剧本改编得漂亮没错，我仍感到忧心忡忡。这剧 本刻划的是排斥同性情慾的同志牧场工，有什麽样的制作人会感兴趣﹖什麽 样的演员有胆饰演﹖什麽样的导演愿冒这个险﹖开拍之後，剧本会支离破碎 得多严重﹖能解放人心却时而残酷不仁的景观，无疑将被遗漏，而随之付诸 东流的是故事的文学根基。我以为电影列车开到剧本这一站後必定停摆。果 真如此，我也不觉得遗憾。 Screen-writers almost always deal with adapting novels to film, and necessarily great chunks are excised, crunched, plots straitjacketed, dialogue transmuted into television-speak. This was different. Larry and Diana were working with a short story that came with a sturdy framework. But there was not enough there. I write in a tight, compressed style that needs air and loosening to unfold into art. They had to invent, enlarge and imagine. It was, in a real way, a collaboration. I began to wonder why movie people didn't prefer short stories to novels, since the opportunity for original work is built in. 剧本作家改编为电影的材料几乎清一色是小说，因此有必要大幅切除、压 缩内容，将原有情节绑手绑脚，对话也质变为电视语言。这一次不同。赖 瑞与黛安娜改编的素材是架构坚实的短篇小说，可供改编的内容反而不够 多。我的写作风格属於紧凑、浓缩，需要灌注空气并加以松绑，以开展为 艺术品，因此他们必须捏造、扩张并想像。实际而言，改编本片剧本的工 作等於是与原作携手创作。我开始纳闷的是，为何电影人不弃长篇而就短 篇，因为改编短篇小说时，本身就具有剧作家原创的空间。 Over the next few years, several producers and directors appeared on the horizon, but there were problems with all of them. Larry liked an interesting young filmmaker who had made a funny and original short feature. I met this fellow in Tucson, liked him, and hoped he would understand the place and the characters. We arranged to meet again in Wyoming so he could look at the terrain and possible scene sites. He came with a photographer, adviser, location person and others. That meeting turned into something I think of as "The Wyoming Death Trip". From the start, everywhere the tender-hearted city-folk looked there was a dead animal. First, it was deer by the side of the highway, then squashed rabbits on the tarmac. We stopped at a sheep-herder's home quarters. He was out with the sheep, but, as it was spring, there was a makeshift pen with a few dozen bum lambs in it. One of the film entourage spied a dead lamb by the side of the fence and freaked. He decided (erroneously) that the lambs were starving to death, and, a man of action, rustled around until he found a bag of feed, poured some into a pan and set it in the pen. Keith, the ranch hand showing us around, blanched. I suggested we leave the lambs, hoping the sheep-herder paid to look after them would not pursue us with a machete. We went to an untenanted house that might work as Ennis' and Alma's place. But as soon as we stepped inside, there, near the hem of a long curtain that reached the floor, lay a dead mouse. We finished the day at a lonely ranch house outside Ucross called "the old Childress place". Empty for years, the crawl space below was a haven for rattlesnakes, the interior home to other animals needing shelter. We looked into a dusty room with a hole in the ceiling where once the stovepipe exited. The Los Angeles people sucked in their breaths as one, for on the floor lay the dried remains of a rabbit, discarded by an owl. That was it. These urban people just did not get it that Wyoming has a lot of wildlife and that the wildlife sometimes gets dead. Animals and rural places were clearly alien to them, and just as clearly I knew they could not make this film. And I pretty much gave up on the whole idea. It wasn't going to happen because there were no producers or directors who understood the rural west, the rural anything. Old story. 接下来几年间，陆续有几位制作人与导演表示兴趣，但每一个人都遇到了 问题。赖瑞看上了一位年轻电影人，他的背景很有意思，曾拍过一支有趣 而别具创意的短片。我在突桑与他碰面，很欣赏他，希望他能了解实地与 剧中角色，因此安排他来怀州，由我带他参观山水与可能的拍片地点。他 带了摄影师、顾问、地点探勘者以及其他人员。现在回忆起来，我将那次 的见面昵称为「怀州死亡之旅」。从一开始，这群细神经的城市人所见之 处必定出现动物死屍。首先是一头鹿，被撞死在公路边，然後是柏油路面 上被压扁的几只兔子。我们来到一位牧羊人的住家。他正好外出放羊，但 当时是春天，一座临时羊栏内关了几十头bum lamb。电影人之一瞧见了围 栏边死了一头小羊，大惊失色，认定（误认）整群小羊有被饿死之虞。坐 而言不如起而行的他四处翻找，终於拖出一袋饲料，在平底锅里倒了一些， 放进围栏里。带我们参观的牧场工吉斯（Keith）气得脸色发白。我提议大 家别管小羊的死活，只希望领薪水的牧羊人别拿开山刀来追杀我们。我们 找到一间无人居住的房子，可能用来当作恩尼司与艾尔玛的家，屋里有一 道长长的落地窗帘，我们踏进屋里，第一眼就看见窗帘边躺了一只死老鼠。 那天最後一站位於优克罗斯基金会（Ucross）旁的孤寂牧场屋，基金会称 之为「秋崔斯老家」，已多年无主，地板下的空间成了响尾蛇的温床，屋 内则躲了寻求蔽荫的其他动物。我们探进一间尘封的房间，天花板有个洞， 原本是火炉烟囱的出口处。这群洛杉矶人不约而同吸气後憋住，因为横陈 地板上的是猫头鹰抛下的死兔乾屍。就此打住。这群城市人无法理解怀州 到处是野生动物，而野生动物陈屍是常见的景象。显而易见的是，对他们 而言，动物与乡野是陌生的景象，而同样显而易见的是，我知道他们拍不 成这部片子。我差不多已经死心了。故事无法搬上大银幕，因为没有制作 人或导演能理解西部乡野，无法体会任何乡野。这不是什麽新闻。 A long time later, Focus films showed interest. That was encouraging, as it, in an earlier incarnation known as Good Machine, had produced the successful film version of The Laramie Project. I had met one of the people involved with that film in Denver one night, and we had gone up the street looking for a CD of Jim White's Wrong-Eyed Jesus!, which was a great favourite of mine at that time. So I was inclined towards Focus. They were suggesting Ang Lee as the director, and I thought, here we go again. Could a Taiwanese-born director, probably a thorough-going urbanite, who had recently recreated The Hulk, understand Wyoming and the subterranean forces of the place? I doubted it. But the wheels were rolling now. I didn't know what to expect and tried not to think about it. 过了许久，Focus公司表现出兴趣，我感到鼓舞，因为Focus的前身是好机 器公司(Good Machine)，曾成功将「真相拼图」（The Laramie Project） 改编成电影。在这之前，我曾在丹佛与该片工作人员之一认识，两人上街 寻找吉姆‧怀特的《耶稣看走眼》。这片CD是我当时最喜欢的专辑。所以 我锺意Focus。他们提议请李安执导，那时我心想，不会吧。一个出身台湾 的导演，也许是彻头彻尾的都市人，最近才将《绿巨人浩克》搬上大银幕， 他凭什麽能领会怀州和潜藏本地的地力﹖我真心怀疑。但制片的巨轮已开 始滚动。我愈想愈茫然，因此尽量别去想。 On a New York visit I met James Schamus briefly, and Ang Lee in a funky boite far downtown. I was nervous about meeting Ang Lee, despite his reputation as brilliant and highly skilled. Would we have anything to say to each other? Were the cultural gaps surmountable? We smiled and made small talk for a while and then, reassured by something in his quietness, I said that I was very afraid about this story, that making stories sometimes took me into off-limits places and that I feared the film would not follow that path. He said that he was afraid, too, that it would be extremely difficult to make into a film. He said he had recently lost his father. I remembered from my mother's death, a few years earlier, the vast hole in the world that opened and could not be pulled closed. I had a glimmering that Ang Lee might use his sorrow creatively, transferring a personal sense of loss to this film about two men for whom things cannot work out, that he might be able to show the grief and anger that builds when we must accept severe emotional wounding. I felt we both knew that this story was risky and that he wanted to take the story on, probably for the creative challenge and, perhaps, (though he didn't say so) for the gasping euphoria when you get into unknown but hard-driving imaginative projects. However slender, there was a positive connection. 有一次我前往纽约，与詹姆士‧谢慕斯（James Schamus）短暂会晤，然後 在曼哈顿南端一家充满奇趣的小餐厅与李安见面。虽然素闻李安精明能干， 见面前我仍不免紧张。我们两个找得到话题吗﹖文化鸿沟是否难以跨越﹖ 我们面带微笑闲聊了片刻，接着，他的寡言让我壮起胆子，我向他坦承自 己为这故事非常担忧，坦承编写小说的过程有时引领我进入禁区，而现在 我担心改编成电影後，剧情无法随原着恣意擅闯。他说他也很担心，他认 为这故事改编成电影的困难度极高。他说他最近丧父。我忆起几年前母亲 过世时，彷佛天地之间开了一个大洞，再也无法合拢。遇见李安後，我心 生一线希望，认为李安或许能将悲伤化为创作力，将个人伤痛转移到这部 两男苦恋成空的电影。我期许他诠释出面对惨重的情伤时堆积内心的那种 悲愤。我认为我俩心知这故事的风险度高，而他也愿意接下这份战帖，也 许看上的是创意的挑战，也许（虽然他并未明言）为的是希望享受前景不 明却必须用尽想像力的计划时那种大口喘气的欣快感。尽管两人搭起的连 线细微，总算是条具正面意义的连线。 Later, there were some disagreements. In the written story the motel scene, after a four-year hiatus, stood as central. During their few hours in the Motel Siesta, Jack's and Ennis' paths were irrevocably laid out. In the film that Ang Lee already had shaped in his mind, the emotional surge contained in that scene would be better shifted to a later point and melded with the men's painful last meeting. I didn't understand this until I saw the film in September 2005 and recognised the power of this timing. Although I have always known that films and books have different rises and falls, different shapes, it's easier to know that in the abstract than on the killing ground. At some point, I wrote a letter pleading for the motel scene, which went for naught. It was out of my hands, no longer my story, but Ang Lee's film. And so I said goodbye to Jack and Ennis and got on with other work. 後来我们略有意见相左的现象。依照原着，分隔四年後住进汽车旅馆的一 幕具有中心意涵。杰克与恩尼司在午睡汽车旅馆共度数小时之间，已为两 人分别铺下不归路。李安已在脑里完成布局後，认为那一幕的情绪高潮最 好向後推移，融入两人痛苦的最後私会。我一直不了解他的用意何在。後 来我在二○○五年九月看了电影，总算体会到导演如此安排所产生的剧力。 虽然我一向知道电影与原着的剧情起伏不一，转折形态也互异，实际经历 到两者之间的冲突时才知道多难割舍。拍片过程中，我曾写信恳求导演保 留汽车旅馆那一幕，结果不了了之。我无计可施，《断背山》已经不是我 的故事，而成了李安的电影。因此我向杰克与恩尼司道别，埋头进行其他 工作。 Before I finally saw the film, I had heard from Larry and Diana that it was very good, that the language was intact, that the actors were superb. But I was not prepared for the emotional hammering I got when I saw it. The characters roared back into my mind, larger and stronger than they had ever been. Here it was, the point that writers do not like to admit; film can be more powerful than the written word. I realised that if Ang Lee had been born in Barrow or Novosibirsk it would likely have been the same. He understands human feelings and is not afraid to walk into dangerous territory. Seeing the film disturbed me. I felt that, just as the ancient Egyptians had removed a corpse's brain through the nostril with a slender hook before mummification, the cast and crew of this film, from the director down, had gotten into my mind and pulled out images. Especially did I feel this about Heath Ledger, who knew better than I how Ennis felt and thought, whose intimate depiction of that achingly needy ranch kid builds with frightening power. It is an eerie sensation to see events you have imagined in the privacy of your mind, and tried hopelessly to transmit to others through little black marks on a page, loom up before you in an overwhelming visual experience. I realised that I, as a writer, was having the rarest film trip: my story was not mangled but enlarged into huge and gripping imagery that rattled minds and squeezed hearts. 在我看见电影之前，我听赖瑞与黛安娜称赞电影很棒，对话是原音重现， 演员的演技也令人激赏。只是，我进戏院前并没有心理准备，不知情绪即 将大受撞击。原着的角色轰然重回脑海，比原本的角色更大更强。行笔至 此，我必须坦承一点，而这一点，文字工作者并不喜欢承认﹔在我们这个 时代，电影可以拍得比文字更具威力。我恍然大悟，就算李安出生在巴罗 （编按﹕Barrow，位於美国阿拉斯加州最北端）或新西伯利亚，结果可能 一样。他能洞悉人类的七情六慾，而且不怕走进危险领域。欣赏这部电影 扰乱了我的情绪。古代埃及人制作木乃伊之前，必须以细钩伸入屍体的鼻 孔钩出脑袋，而这正是我对此片观後感的写照。我感觉本片的演员与工作 人员，从导演以降，全深入了我的心灵，钩出一格格的画面。希斯莱杰给 我的感受特别深刻。他比我更能体会恩尼司的心境与想法，能细腻勾勒出 渴望受人疼爱的小牧场工，而且愈演冲击力愈惊人。原本是在私密的脑中 想像出的情境，极力透过书页上的小黑点向他人传达影像未果，如今却活 生生呈现眼前，带来一份排山倒海的视觉经验，这是一种异样的感受。我 明了到，身为文字创作者的我体验到至为罕有的电影之旅﹕我的原着非但 未受肢解，反而茁壮为巨大而动人心弦的意象，震撼了大脑，压挤了人心。 The film is intensely Wyoming. Although it was shot mostly in Alberta, the production designer Judy Becker toured Texas and Wyoming, noting landforms and long views. So visually accurate is the film that a few weeks after I saw it for the first time, I was driving through the Sierra Madre. It was a windless, brilliant day, the aspen lit by slant-handed autumnal light; hunting season and time for the fall shove-down when stockmen with Forest Service allowances move their cows and sheep to the lower slopes before the early storms. As I came around a corner I had to stop to let a band of sheep cross the highway. In the trees on the upslope stood a saddled horse, bedroll tied on behind, rifle in scabbard; behind it stood a laden packhorse. No rider in sight. I thought I would wait a minute and see if Jack or Ennis might come out of the trees; then I shook my head, feeling wacky to have tangled the film and reality, and pretty sure that neither character was going to show. 这部电影分秒涨满了怀俄明。李安让动物死屍入镜，也加入精彩的斗殴镜 头，忠实呈现西部风情。虽然本片拍摄地点大半在加拿大的亚伯大省，制 片设计师茱蒂‧贝克事前周游德州与怀州，记下地形地物与广角景观。由 於场景设计实在逼真，观赏电影後几星期，我开车途经母山，那天的天气 晴朗无风，山杨木在斜射的秋阳下闪耀，此时正值狩猎季节，领森林处津 贴的牧场工在秋天开始赶牛羊下山，趁提早报到的风雪来袭前下山到海拔 较低的山坡。我驶过一个转角，不得不停车让羊群穿越公路。路边上坡的 树林里站了一匹马，背着马鞍，後面捆着铺盖卷，步枪放在枪套中﹔这匹 马的後方站了另一匹，背满了货物。四处不见马主。我本想稍等一会儿， 看看杰克或恩尼司会不会走出树林﹔但我随即摇摇头，暗骂自己精神失常， 居然分不清电影与现实。我相当确定他俩不会现身。 Aside from the two-faced landscape, aside from the virtuoso acting, aside from the stunning and subtle make-up job of ageing these two young men 20 years, an accumulation of very small details gives the film authenticity and authority: Ennis' dirty fingernails in a love scene; the old highway sign "entering Wyoming" not seen here for decades; the slight paunch Jack develops as he ages; the splotch of nail polish on Lureen's finger in the painful telephone scene; her mother's perfect Texas hair, Ennis and Jack sharing a joint instead of a cigarette in the 1970s; the switched-around shirts; the speckled enamel coffee pot; all accumulate and convince us of the truth of the story. 除了诡谲的景观，除了精湛的演技，除了让两位青年瞬间老化二十岁的惊 人巧妙化妆术，凡事注重小细节的态度为本片堆砌出真实性与权威﹕恩尼 司在一场激情戏中的脏指甲﹔已匿迹数十年的「进入怀俄明」公路标识﹔ 随年岁增长，杰克小腹微凸﹔令人心痛的一幕中，露琳在电话上通报消息， 指甲蔻丹醒目﹔露琳母亲烫整得服服贴贴的德州发型﹔恩尼司与杰克在一 九七○年代轮流抽大麻而非香烟﹔内外调换的衬衫﹔斑痕累累的珐琅咖啡 壶﹔全数钜细靡遗呈现之後，让观众相信本故事的真实性。就算有些人怀 疑年轻男子应该不会在白雪皑皑的山峦间谈情说爱，却不会有人不信斑痕 累累的咖啡壶的存在，而如果咖啡壶属实，其余皆然。 ____________________________________________________________________ 以下是我的几点注释： ◎ [注一]：《More powerful than my words (犹胜我的文字)》一文由 Annie Proulx 於 2006.2.4 发表，宋瑛堂的中文翻译版节录部份以 《断背山 影音重现记》的标题刊登於 2006.3.5 中国时报，完整中译 全文以《斑痕累累的咖啡壶》为标题，副标题为：小说<断背山>作者 谈电影《断背山》，刊载於 2006 三月号印刻文学生活志。另一个中 文节译版本由关影所译，《Ang_Lee》版上有贴过，请搜寻「More powerful than my words」。 ◎ [注二]：Annie 说最困难的一幕是她在写恩尼司在山上搂着杰克哼歌 摇摆那一段：当时我反覆播放查理‧海登与帕特‧麦席尼专辑 Beyond the Missouri Sky (Short Stories) 里的 Spiritual，听了无数次， 尽量从中汲取灵感。我想捕捉的是杰克与恩尼司内心初具雏形的情愫、 两人关系的悲苦无奈，而这首歌正能为我表达出这些意境。直至今日， 每听到这首曲子时，杰克与恩尼司必定现身我眼前。 我已经把 pat metheny & charlie haden - spiritual.mp3 这首歌上 传到下列网址，请笑纳，我觉得这首曲子跟《断背山》很搭，也非常 适合拿来做《断背山》的 Music Video。 http://s17.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3O0EMXYY9BSVO0K2MQLS7I1E6U ◎ [注三]：Focus (焦点影业) 是环球的子公司，近来的电影艺术成就都 很高，颇受好评，几乎可说是品质保证。Focus 的前身是好机器公司 (Good Machine)，主管是 James Schamus，《断背山》角逐第78届奥 斯卡入围最佳影片，如果得奖，就是两位制片人 James Schamus 和 Diana Ossana (编剧之一) 上台领奖。James Schamus 和 Good Machine 跟李安是有革命情感的，我记得从《喜宴》甚至《推手》的 时候他们就已经合作了，当时李安是个小导演，Good Machine 是个小 公司，《喜宴》在柏林影展得到金熊奖，以至於海外版权的大卖，是 双方合作一个重要的胜利，关於他们一起合作的奋斗史详情请参考 《十年一觉电影梦》。这次 Focus 表达对《断背山》的兴趣，并推荐 李安当导演，应该从十三年前同为同志电影的《喜宴》就可看出脉络。 ◎ [注四]：好机器公司 (Good Machine)，曾成功将「真相拼图」（The Laramie Project）改编成电影。The Laramie Project 台湾翻译为 《同志死亡事件》，另一部相关的电影就是《仇恨之罪（The Matthew Shepard Story）2002》，Annie 在本文中也有提到这件事。我之前在 《Ang_Lee》版发表过几篇介绍这两部电影的文章，请搜寻作者 「Davidgood」或关键字「怀俄明」。 ~~ By Davidgood ~~ -- Everything. Everyone. Everywhere. End...or Eternity? 结束...还是永恒... ~~ For《Six Feet Under》 ~~ --

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