Crisis and disaster are meat and drink to the cinema and were in steady supply for years after the financial meltdown. But what do moviemakers do when the news is recovery – however slow – and that is no news at all, let alone drama? It is almost nostalgic to see Woody Allen, in his new, acclaimed Blue Jasmine, release a financial fraudster into his plot, played by Alec Baldwin, like the last swallow of summer, perhaps preparing to follow his fellows to warmer climes.
危机和灾难是电影创作的源泉，它们在爆发金融危机之后的几年里不断涌现。但是当经济复苏（无论多么缓慢）成了新闻主题、而那算不上新闻（更别提戏剧了）时，导演该怎么办？看到伍迪?艾伦(Woody Allen)在其广受好评的新作《蓝色茉莉》(Blue Jasmine)中塑造的的金融骗子（由亚历克?鲍德温(Alec Baldwin)扮演），人们难免会有怀念之情——这种角色就像夏日里的最后一只燕子，或许准备追随同伴前往更为温暖的地区。
“Follow that meltdown.” This is what film audiences do, in their way. Blue Jasmine subtly includes a new meltdown with the old – personal breakdown. The heroine is driven to unstable, delusional behaviour by the husband’s crimes and disgrace. Look around and see the breakdown motif quietly stealing into movies, from Tom Hardy’s imploding hero who loses a career and family overnight in Stephen Knight’s forthcoming Locke – Knight created Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?, the boom-and-bust TV quiz show, before becoming a screenwriter and director – to Robert Redford as a lone yachtsman literally all at sea in JC?Chandor’s All Is Lost, premiered at Cannes, the filmmaker’s one-man-against-the-ocean follow-up to his Wall Street ensemble drama, Margin Call.
电影观众们以自己的方式“关注危机”。《蓝色茉莉》巧妙地将新危机与老一套的个人危机结合起来。女主角由于丈夫的犯罪和不光彩行为而举止乖戾。看一看最近上映的电影，危机已悄然成为主题，从斯蒂芬?奈特(Stephen Knight)在《洛克》(Locke)（即将上映）中塑造的一夜之间失去事业和家庭的悲剧英雄——由汤姆?哈迪(Tom Hardy)扮演，到JC?尚多尔(JC?Chandor)在其执导的《一切尽失》(All Is Lost)中塑造的一位在海上孤零零一人的帆船运动员——由罗伯特?雷德福(Robert Redford)扮演。奈特在成为剧作家和导演之前，曾设计了答题闯关类电视节目《谁想成为百万富翁？》。在戛纳首映的《一切尽失》，是尚多尔继反映华尔街众生态的《利益风暴》(Margin Call)之后，执导的一部描述一个人在汪洋大海中求生的影片。
Redford was once the movie world’s Jay Gatsby, of course (in the 1974 film of F?Scott Fitzgerald’s novel). In 2013, Gatsby has returned to our screens, that career fraudster turned romantic hero. Is his comeback the sign of a mellower, more understanding approach to white-collar crime – or just a sign that we are moving on and there are bigger, more amplified dramas that can derive, closely or distantly, from business chicanery?
当然，雷德福曾经扮演过杰伊?盖茨比(Jay Gatsby)，那是在1974年版本的改编自F?斯科特?菲茨杰拉德(F?Scott Fitzgerald)小说的影片中。2013年，盖茨比被重新搬上荧幕——在这部影片中，职业骗子变成了浪漫的英雄。他的回归是标志着白领以一种更温和、更能让人理解的方式犯罪？还是仅仅标志着我们已经与时俱进，可以从商业欺诈行为演绎出更大、更夸张的戏剧？
If there is a new “meltdown” in movie narratives, it may be one that pours two different but complementary avenues of potential box office gold. Both are responses, or counter-reactions, to the financial crisis. One is the solo crack-up drama. The other is a kind of warning cry saying to us: “Hey, perhaps you’ve been looking the wrong way.”
如果电影的情节主线有一种新的“融合”，那就是运用两种不同但互补的叙述来赢得潜在的票房佳绩。两种都是对金融危机的回应或反应。一个是单纯的危机影片，另一个是某种针对我们的警告性呐喊：“嗨，或许你们看错了方向。”
Maybe it is not the bigwig brokers and braces-wearers we should be monitoring today: it is the youngsters right under our noses. They are running loose. They are internet-savvy; money-savvy; adventure-hungry; mischief-hungry. Some of them have picked up their elders’ bad habits. Be dishonest if it works, if it is a little glamorous, and if you can get away with it.
或许我们如今应该监督的并不是大牌经纪人和戴着牙套的人，而是近在眼前的年轻人。他们无法无天。他们熟悉互联网，能挣会花，渴望冒险和喜欢恶作剧。其中一些人继承了他们父辈的坏习惯。如果不诚实管用，如果不诚实能够吸引人，如果不诚实不受惩罚，那么他们就会不诚实。
Look at The Bling Ring. Look at Spring Breakers. Look even at the new Runner Runner, where Princeton student Justin Timberlake runs a borderline criminal online campus gambling racket and then aspires to meet the barely older internet casino king (Ben Affleck), offshore with his youngster courtiers in Costa Rica.
看看《珠光宝气》(The Bling Ring)，看看《春假》(Spring Breakers)，甚至新上映的《逆转王牌》(Runner Runner)。在《逆转王牌》中，普林斯顿大学(Princeton)的高材生贾斯汀?廷伯莱克(Justin Timberlake)经营着一个校园赌博网站，游走在犯罪的边缘，后来又渴望去国外会见比他大不了多少的网络赌王本?阿弗莱克(Ben Affleck)——阿弗莱克和他的手下住在哥斯达黎加。
Older people today are scared of the moment when younger people’s knowledge – of just about everything – overtakes older people’s. The young are fast learners and are catching up. It is a paranoia one can see at work in InRealLife, Beeban Kidron’s new documentary about net-obsessed teenagers. Almost every 13-year-old knows more about the internet than almost every 53-year-old. And you don’t need to have seen Alex Gibney’s documentary, We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks, to know that a young army computer nerd – Bradley Manning – can all but bring down the Pentagon.
现在的老年人害怕年轻人（在几乎所有领域的）知识超过自己的那一天到来。年轻人学习东西很快，而且不断进步。人们可以在《现实生活》(InRealLife)中看到这种偏执。《现实生活》是由比阪?基德隆(Beeban Kidron)新拍摄的一部描述青少年沉溺于互联网的纪录片。几乎每个13岁的青少年都比几乎每个53岁的老年人更熟悉互联网。你不必看阿里克斯?基尼(Alex Gibney)的纪录片《我们偷窃秘密：维基解密的故事》(We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks)，也可以知道一个年轻的电脑迷士兵——布拉德利?曼宁(Bradley Manning)——差不多就能摧毁五角大楼。
Kids running amok with their limbs and bodies we are used to. Kids running amok with their brains is new and terrifying. To the fantasy-prone alarmists of Moviedom it is a fresh world jihad, ready to challenge civilisation. The science fiction film Elysium makes a metaphor of it. It envisages a solar system in which older, richer people have gone off-world to populate a giant space station, turning it into a “safe” and luxurious retreat, full of rich condos and golf courses. It looks like a Donald Trump dream – or nightmare, according to your taste.
我们习惯于看到孩子们疯跑，但看到孩子们用脑子胡思乱想是一种令人害怕的新体验。对喜欢幻想的电影界人士来说，这是一个全新的、随时挑战人类文明的圣战世界。科幻电影《极乐世界》(Elysium)对此进行了绝佳的比喻。在该影片想象中的一个太阳系中，较为年长的富人离开地球，居住在一个巨大的空间站中，并将它转变为一个“安全”而奢华的极乐空间，里面全是高级公寓和高尔夫球场。它看起来就像是一个唐纳德?特朗普(Donald Trump)的梦想或者噩梦——这取决于你的品味。
Down on earth remain the resentful, ingenious troublemakers. The young, insurgent, dispossessed. They are as clever as the Elysium-dwellers with less resource. They can build or brainstorm any device to tackle space, time, the cosmos. So it is only a matter of time before they take over that other world and prove, finally, that there is no such thing as security any more in the universe, except of their choosing. Cracking banks, from inside or outside, is for old people. Give a youngster a computer and he can crack absolutely anything.
依然留在地球上的，是那些愤愤不平、具有创新才能的捣乱者。这些年轻人桀骜不驯，无依无靠。他们和极乐空间居民一样聪明，只是资源较少。他们可以建造或者想出处理空间、时间和宇宙问题的各种设备。因此他们接管极乐世界只是时间问题，并最终证明，除非他们愿意，否则宇宙再不会有安全的概念。老年人才会从内部或外部破坏银行。给年轻人一台计算机，他绝对可以破坏一切。