《華爾街之狼》中的那些紙醉金迷的派對

‘TIS the season of office parties, but there won’t be many this Christmas which are as elaborately debauched as those in “The Wolf of Wall Street”. In Martin Scorsese’s riotous new biopic, no dress-down Friday is complete without black-tied waiters serving champagne, crowds of prostitutes, near-naked marching bands, games of dwarf-tossing and white powder by the barrel-load.

“現在正值辦公室派對的季節，但是今年聖誕節並不會見到多少電影《華爾街之狼》中那種紙醉金迷的派對。”在馬丁·斯科塞斯浮華喧囂的新傳記片中，如果沒有出現端着香檳的黑領結服務生、成羣結隊的妓女、近乎裸體的軍樂隊、扔侏儒的遊戲和成桶的白粉，便裝星期五就不算完整。

The master of the revels is the film’s protagonist and unrepentant narrator, Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio), upon whose self-aggrandising meMoir the film is based. In his early 20s he joins a major stockbroking firm, but his coked-up mentor (Matthew McConaughey) has barely finished his introductory pep-talk—“Move your money from your client’s pocket into your pocket”—before Black Monday comes around and Belfort is laid off. When he can’t find another job on Wall Street, he resorts to selling penny stock from a boiler room in Long Island. He develops such a taste for aggressive and disingenuous cold-calling that he sets up his own company, Stratton Oakmont. His staff consists of a crack-smoking furniture salesman (Jonah Hill) and the various drop-outs he knows from school. Everyone is willing to follow the scripts he gives them, and they are just as willing to ignore his various illegal practices. Soon Stratton Oakmont is raking in millions—as well as attracting the attention of a doggedly disapproving FBI agent (Kyle Chandler).

這場狂歡派對的主人公就是電影的主角、毫不悔改的旁白者喬丹·貝爾福特（萊昂納多·迪卡普里奧飾演），這部電影正是改編於他自吹自擂的回憶錄。他在20歲出頭加入股票經紀公司，不過他沉迷毒品的導師（馬修·麥康納飾演）剛做完入職宣傳——“這行就是把錢從客戶的口袋裏放進你自己的口袋”，黑色星期一就從天而降，貝爾福特遭到解僱。他在華爾街找不到其他工作，只好在長島的鍋爐房裏賣低價股票。他學會了主動出擊，假模假式地撥打推銷電話，成立了自己的斯特拉頓奧克芒公司。他的手下包括吸毒的傢俱推銷員（喬納·希爾飾演）和他在學校裏認識的輟學生。每個人都情願按照他提供的劇本演戲，對他的各種不法行爲視而不見。不久，斯特拉頓奧克芒公司就賺取了百萬美元的收入——也引來了固執的聯邦調查局探員（凱爾·錢德勒飾演）的注意。

Mr Scorsese is less disapproving. Having last made a children’s film, “Hugo”, perhaps he was in the mood for some swaggering, testosterone-drenched, adult-oriented entertainment. Whatever the reason, “The Wolf of Wall Street” is his most exuberant and overtly comic film: a frequently hilarious, manically energetic cavalcade of drug cocktails, naked blondes, helicopter crash-landings, and obscene spending sprees. It isn’t just studded with wild parties; the whole film is a wild party.

斯科塞斯本人並不反對貝爾福特的所作所爲。在拍完兒童電影《雨果》後，也許他想要執導一部狂妄自負、充滿男子氣概的成人化娛樂片。無論如何，《華爾街之狼》都是他最活力四射、歡樂有趣的電影：頻繁出現的滑稽鏡頭，瘋狂刺激的毒品雞尾酒、赤身裸體的金髮女郎、轟鳴着陸的直升機，還有縱情聲色的瘋狂消費。這並不僅是一部充滿狂歡派對的電影，這部電影本身就是瘋狂派對。

Still, the rowdiest parties are also the most tiring. “The Wolf of Wall Street” is, essentially, a string of hair-raising anecdotes, and while all of them are funny, outrageous and masterfully told, very few of them advance the plot or deepen the characterisation, so they become exhausting. It takes about half an hour for the hard-working Dr Jekyll to mutate into a hedonistic Mr Hyde, and from then on the film just keeps charging from one orgy to the next until the inevitable day when the FBI agent makes his move. It’s a wisp of a narrative, given the three-hour running time—Mr Scorsese’s longest ever.

然而，最喧鬧的派對也最讓人厭倦。實際上，《華爾街之狼》表現了一連串驚心動魄的奇聞軼事，儘管這些情景風趣搞笑、荒唐離譜、敘事巧妙，卻只有少數場景有助於推動情節的進展，挖掘角色的深度，因此讓人變得疲憊不堪。這部電影只花了半個小時的時間，就把辛勤工作的傑奇博士變成縱情享樂的海德先生，然後就是接二連三的狂歡盛宴，直到聯邦調查局探員採取行動，走向不可避免的結局。本片的敘事情節乏善可陳，片長卻達到三個小時——這是斯科塞斯有史以來最長的電影。

Anyone who’s seen “Raging Bull” or “Goodfellas” will be waiting for the film to dig beneath the surface of the alpha-male anti-hero, and expose the self-loathing that makes him so reliant on drugs, prostitutes and designer suits. But the screenplay (by Terence Winter) is too carried away by the bacchanalian bad behaviour to concern itself with Belfort’s psyche. Instead, it presents him much as he’d present himself, and leaves the moralising to the viewer.

看過電影《憤怒的公牛》或《好傢伙》的觀衆，都會期待這部電影深入挖掘反英雄表象下的內涵，暴露讓主角沉迷於毒品、妓女和名牌西服的自我厭惡。但是泰倫斯·溫特的劇本描寫縱酒狂歡的筆墨過多，無心關注貝爾福特的心理狀態。反之，這部電影用貝爾福特自己的方式呈現了他的形象，把道德說教留給了觀衆。

Why is “The Wolf of Wall Street” so soft on Belfort? Maybe it’s because Mr Scorsese, too, was a New Yorker from an unglamorous background who barged into the big time with motormouthed assurance before developing a severe cocaine addiction. When Belfort is shown handing out scripts to his employees, and pumping them up with inspirational speeches, he could be a film director himself: the uninhibited, live-wire Mr DiCaprio sometimes even looks and sounds like a younger Mr Scorsese. But whatever the similarities between Mr Scorsese and Belfort, the latter was still nothing more than a dissolute swindler—and that’s about all the film has to say on the matter. Still, it is possible to enjoy the rip-roaring party Mr Scorsese has thrown him without feeling that he is interesting enough to deserve it.

爲什麼《華爾街之狼》對貝爾福特如此縱容？或許是因爲斯科塞斯也是出身平凡的紐約人，憑藉出衆的口才成爲大導演，沉迷於可卡因不能自拔。片中貝爾福特向員工分發腳本，用鼓舞人心的演說激勵他們，他可能就象徵着導演本人：放蕩不羈、活力四射的迪卡普里奧，容貌和言辭都如同年輕的斯科塞斯。然而，無論斯科塞斯和貝爾福特有多麼相像，貝爾福特依然是個放浪形骸的騙子——這就是電影要體現的主題。儘管如此，觀衆仍可以享受斯科塞斯全力打造的這場喧囂派對，不會感到他足夠有趣配得上這場盛宴。