外媒看中國:《一步之遙》用力過猛

Maverick actor-director Jiang Wen continues to jab at Chinese history with a satire about the fallout of an over-the-top beauty contest in '20s Shanghai.
不按常理出牌的導演，同時也是演員的姜文，用20世紀20年代上海言過其實的一起選美比賽的改編電影，繼續在中國歷史上猛敲了一記。

"We should struggle less at home, and expand more ashore," says a character during Gone With The Bullet's first section, in which a Chinese diva triumphs over her US and European counterparts in a rigged beauty pageant in Shanghai. Director Jiang Wen, who co-penned this film with eight other screenwriters, has certainly walked the talk in this line: Gone with the Bullets is an extraordinary mélange of seminal stylistic tropes from abroad, a two-hour-plus journey taking in nods to newsreels, silent slapstick, musicals, film noir and even New Hollywood - not to mention the specific pastiches of The Godfather, Chicago, The Italian Job and even the Bogart-Bacall whistle moment in To Have And Have Not.
“我們不能在家裏掙扎，而要去開拓更多的天地，“《一步之遙》第一部分的一個角色這麼說道，這位國人女星在上海一場內箱操作的選美大賽中，擊敗了她美國和歐洲的競爭對手。導演姜文，和他的八位編劇真的是言出必行：《一步之遙》是外國創意體裁隱喻非凡絕倫一鍋燉，兩個多小時的電影向新聞片，喜劇默片，音樂劇，玄色電影，甚至是新好萊塢電影致敬——且不說《教父》，《芝加哥》，《偷天換日》甚至還有《江湖俠侶》裏比歌的吹口哨場景。

But a mish-mash of references a masterpiece does not make. Unlike his brilliantly barbed, sensitively structured and meticulously multi-layered 2010 hit Let the Bullets Fly, Gone With The Bullets - described as the second installment of a trilogy of gun-slinging satires set in tumultuous, 1920s China - is a sprawling, episodic spectacle reading less like a j'accuse of social malaise, and more like a record of a self-styled auteur's ego going completely into overdrive, as he indulges in shaping his lead character (played by himself) as a misunderstood and victimized idealist, while unleashing a torrent of supposedly clever bites at the hands who feed him.
但是這部致敬傑作的混合物沒有任何意義。不像他才華橫溢的佳作《讓子彈飛》（2010年）裏絕妙的諷刺，敏感的結構和一絲不苟的多層次構架，《一步之遙》——作爲其子彈三部曲的第二部——用吵吵鬧鬧喧囂不堪構起一部諷刺詩集，20世紀20年代的中國——笨拙的前行，插話式的場景看起來不太像是社會疾病的抨擊，更像是自封爲電影導演的自負到徹底失控的一次記錄，因爲他沉浸於塑造他的主角（他自己飾演）成爲一個被誤解的，受到傷害的理想主義者，他用釋放才華激流的方式在飼養他的這羣人手上狠狠咬上了一口。

And the hands have seemingly bitten back, as Jiang has finally gone one step too far with his misanthropy, a trait which used to amuse with his more skilful portrayal as the masses as self-seeking and unwashed in his previous outings like the second-world-war drama Devils on the Doorstep and Let the Bullets Fly.
看上去他是咬回去了，而姜文在他憤世嫉俗的道路上終究是做的太過了，他越發靈巧地刻畫了追逐私利，愚昧不堪的大衆人羣——一如他之前的二戰電影《鬼子來了》和《讓子彈飛》裏那樣，是他帶有取樂意味的特質。

Jiang's character in the film, Ma Zouri, carries a similar life trajectory to Yan Ruisheng, a middle-class man who plotted the murder of a prostitute in Shanghai in 1920.
姜文在電影中的角色馬走日，原型就是閻瑞生——這個中產階級男人在1920年於上海密謀殺害了一名妓女。

What makes Yan's case legendary is not the crime itself, but its fallout: the case at once scandalized and mesmerized the city's chattering classes, with the man's trial and subsequent execution leading to entrepreneurs staging plays, stand-up comedy shows, musicals and even making a film out of the incident. It's perhaps ironic that Jiang is to mock those transforming the so-called Yan Ruisheng affair into entertainment by, well, making a film which transforms the incident into a film comprising scenes reminiscent of stage plays, stand-up comedy and a musical.
讓閻瑞生案名聲大噪的不是因爲這起犯罪本身，而是其附帶後果：上海那些愛好八卦的中上級階層馬上被這個案件震驚和迷住了，由於這個案子，閻瑞生的審訊和隨後的死刑被改編成企業家編排的舞臺劇，單口相聲表演，音樂劇甚至是電影。也許諷刺的就是，姜文想要嘲笑這些所謂的，把閻瑞生一案變成娛樂笑料的改編，將這起案子編成了由懷舊的舞臺劇，單口相聲和音樂劇的雜燴電影。

Now that Jiang has committed an auteur's inevitable ego-driven project about himself and his history - Ma's recollections of a Gallic romance mirrors the director's eight-year marriage with a Frenchwoman, while the materialistic Wanyan Ying and the artistic Wu Liu (played by his own wife) could be seen as Jiang torn between commerce and culture - maybe it's time for Jiang to step off his pedestal, cast his cynicism aside and engage with the real crossfire beyond his own comfort zone, and to reveal the state of mind a population who think they are calling the shots, but are actually only being stood there to be shot at.
如今的姜文已經證明了一位電影導演對於其自身和他的歷史，會有無可避免自尊心驅逐計劃——馬走日法國式的浪漫回憶映射了他和一個法國女人八年的婚姻，而唯物主義者完顏英和藝術家武六（由他妻子飾演）可以被視爲姜文在商業利益和文化追求上的進退維谷——也許是時候讓姜文從他的基座上走下來，把他的玩世不恭扔到一邊，離開他的安全領域去加入真正的火線戰爭，如揭露某些人的心理狀態——那些自認爲在發號施令，實際上卻在站在那被射擊的人。