與FT共進(jìn)午餐：奧利弗?斯通

The grandest hotel in Munich is fighting a losing battle for its dignity against Oktoberfest. In the lift that takes me to Oliver Stone, I feign interest in my phone as an orange Australian woman almost spills out of her dirndl. When I get out at the glass-walled seventh floor of the Bayerischer Hof, the other Bavaria opens up: the red-roof skyline and Gothic monumentalism, the visual echo of Italy.

慕尼黑最宏偉的酒店正艱難地在慕尼黑啤酒節(jié)(Oktoberfest)期間保持自己的尊嚴(yán)。在把我?guī)驃W利弗•斯通(Oliver Stone)的電梯里，一位胖胖的澳大利亞婦女幾乎就要撐破她的緊身連衣裙，我只好盯著自己的手機(jī)看。當(dāng)我走出電梯，到達(dá)拜耶里切酒店(Bayerischer Hof)裝有玻璃幕墻的七樓時(shí)，另一個(gè)巴伐利亞展現(xiàn)在我面前：紅色屋頂?shù)奶祀H線以及哥特式的宏偉建筑，從視覺上讓人想起意大利。

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.

出于財(cái)務(wù)上的原因，斯通選擇在慕尼黑拍攝有關(guān)美國前情報(bào)分析員愛德華•斯諾登(Edward Snowden)的新傳記電影，斯諾登在出逃香港后泄露了美國政府的大規(guī)模監(jiān)聽行為，最終在俄羅斯落腳。我剛參加了面向當(dāng)?shù)孛襟w的放映活動(dòng)，可以證實(shí)《斯諾登》具有典型的斯通風(fēng)格。它敘述了一位愛國青年幻想破滅的過程，就像斯通導(dǎo)演的《生于7月4日》(Born on the Fourth of July)一樣。它絕望地哀嘆美國對其理想的忠實(shí)，就像《野戰(zhàn)排》(Platoon)一樣。它的雄辯力量讓你振作，就像《刺殺肯尼迪》(JFK)一樣。它的傾向性讓你愕然，就像《刺殺肯尼迪》一樣。

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，他頭發(fā)蓬亂，彬彬有禮，身穿一身藍(lán)色西裝，內(nèi)搭白色條紋襯衫，沒有打領(lǐng)帶。已經(jīng)70歲的他行動(dòng)并不快，但帶有一種退休已久的輕量級拳擊手的氣場，濃黑的眉毛透露出深藏不露的爆發(fā)力，不怒自威，就好像在某個(gè)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烏合之眾，還能把兩三個(gè)他們的女人帶走。“周圍的噪音讓我難受，”他咆哮著說，我開始為后面那些嘰嘰喳喳的食客擔(dān)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，午餐是為窩囊廢準(zhǔn)備的，他笑了，就好像從未在餐桌上聽到無數(shù)乏味的小丑重復(fù)他在1987年拍攝的《華爾街》(Wall Street)中的這句臺(tái)詞。“不過，我現(xiàn)在不餓，”他說道，這解釋了他之前已從廚房點(diǎn)了一小份吐司三明治。不過，他愿意喝一點(diǎn)，我們?nèi)豚l(xiāng)隨俗，點(diǎn)了一瓶來自萊茵高地區(qū)的雷司令。菜單上有一些奢華的菜品，包括很難尋覓的意大利面caramelle，但我只點(diǎn)了安康魚，省了前菜，避免與他點(diǎn)的工人午餐那樣的三明治過于不同。

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.”

在斯通的電影中，主角身邊往往有一對父親般的人物，就像《野戰(zhàn)排》片中所說的那樣，爭著“主宰他的靈魂”。現(xiàn)在，他開始像一位父親那樣說起斯諾登。“這個(gè)年輕人懷有很多的信念，你可以說他這樣有些傲慢。但他是美國國家安全局(NSA) 3萬員工中唯一挺身而出的一個(gè)。英格蘭根本沒有告密者。在某些方面，英國甚至更糟，比如政府通信總部(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.”

斯通是在斯諾登流亡莫斯科期間認(rèn)識(shí)斯諾登的，當(dāng)時(shí)他正在為該片做研究。“他是個(gè)不多見的人，他讓我想起隆•科維奇(Ron Kovic，這是湯姆•克魯斯在《生于7月4日》中扮演的角色)，科維奇魄性非凡，從紐約州馬薩波夸(Massapequa)一個(gè)傳統(tǒng)思維的年輕人成長為一個(gè)知名的反戰(zhàn)抗議者。我們大多數(shù)人在年輕時(shí)還沒有這種信念。”

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.

這似乎弄反了規(guī)律：理想通常是年輕時(shí)代的標(biāo)志。傳統(tǒng)思維(或者說面對現(xiàn)實(shí))到后來才會(huì)形成。我想知道，斯通在當(dāng)兵參加越戰(zhàn)這段幫助他形成世界觀的經(jīng)歷之前，是否具有任何自由主義信念?

“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，沒有，”他脫口而出。“我的青少年時(shí)期很保守，我父親是一位共和黨人，堅(jiān)信共和黨的理念。他是一個(gè)高智商的人。我猜他在英國將被稱為Tory。那時(shí)我相信艾森豪威爾和美國方式。去過越南后，我開始質(zhì)疑，因?yàn)槟嵌谓?jīng)歷讓我看破了一切。我看到官僚主義搞砸了太多事情，非常典型的大象怕老鼠。浪費(fèi)，反應(yīng)過頭。”

 . . . 

……

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.

斯通用令人舒緩的深沉沙啞的嗓音娓娓道來，堪稱出口成章，最終你不禁要問，他為何選擇了一個(gè)不用說話的行業(yè)?當(dāng)然，他在拍攝現(xiàn)場對那些桀驁不馴的演員是不會(huì)沉默的，據(jù)說他不會(huì)容忍任何人偷懶。他出生在戰(zhàn)后的紐約，母親是法國人，父親是美國人，以股票經(jīng)紀(jì)人為職業(yè)。他的童年生活就像是一首無云的東海岸田園詩——除了一家人偶爾會(huì)去法國度假，這個(gè)國家讓他具有地中海式氣質(zhì)和激越的性情——直到父母在他16歲時(shí)離婚。

“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.”

“我向來對謊言耿耿于懷，”他回憶道，“我父母的離婚是一個(gè)重大因素，那是在我去越南之前。他們說了謊。我母親把它們稱作‘善意的謊言’。我小時(shí)候覺得他們在一起很美滿，但實(shí)際上不是。了解到實(shí)情讓我震驚。因此我認(rèn)為，這造成了我長大后不信任權(quán)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.

他的父親雖然是共和黨人，但并沒有剝奪兒子享受放蕩不羈的少年時(shí)代的機(jī)會(huì)：年輕的奧利弗被領(lǐng)到一個(gè)妓女那里破了處男身。1965年，他從耶魯大學(xué)(Yale)輟學(xué)，前往越南，回來時(shí)滿懷創(chuàng)作沖動(dòng)。1971年，他從紐約大學(xué)(New York University)電影系畢業(yè)，1978年，他編劇的描寫土耳其監(jiān)獄生活的《午夜快車》(Midnight Express)讓土耳其人不快，1983年出品的貧民窟經(jīng)典《疤面煞星》(Scarface)也是他編劇的。

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.”

在他的事業(yè)巔峰期——接連推出《野戰(zhàn)排》(獲得奧斯卡最佳影片獎(jiǎng))和《華爾街》(主演的邁克爾•道格拉斯(Michael Douglas)贏得奧斯卡最佳男主角獎(jiǎng))——他在編劇和執(zhí)導(dǎo)方面都相當(dāng)多產(chǎn)，這在好萊塢是不尋常的。他筆下的臺(tái)詞風(fēng)格在華麗散文和街頭俚語之間切換自如，就像索爾•貝婁(Saul Bellow)的小說那樣雅俗共賞。當(dāng)我告訴朋友我將采訪他時(shí)，他們常常以斯通電影中的經(jīng)典臺(tái)詞來回應(yīng)：“金錢永不眠，朋友”(Money never sleeps, pal)，“貧窮不再是清高的象征”(There is no nobility in poverty any more)，“活著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.

他的影片有態(tài)度(我肯定導(dǎo)演們會(huì)有更專業(yè)的詞來形容這個(gè)特點(diǎn))。對于家境優(yōu)越的人，他刻畫了身為一個(gè)抱負(fù)多于優(yōu)勢的年輕男子在大城市的處境——渴望有所作為、渴望擠入成功者的行列。“把貧窮、聰明、饑餓的家伙給我，”《華爾街》中從事資產(chǎn)剝離的反面人物戈登•蓋柯(Gordon Gekko)說道，100萬個(gè)騙子歡呼著。他的影片往往不太關(guān)注女性(盡管他娶過3任太太)，也不太注重孩子(盡管他有3個(gè)子女)。我能看出為什么至少有一半人認(rèn)為這一點(diǎn)使他的影片難以接受。但如果你在合適的人生階段和合適的處境觀看《華爾街》或《疤面煞星》，它們會(huì)極大地影響你。

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.”

不過，當(dāng)斯通以老兵才有的“千碼瞪視”眼神直直地看著遠(yuǎn)處的一個(gè)紅屋頂時(shí)，他似乎對自己的國家和好萊塢感到失望。我提出，至少美國通過電影向世界公開自己的陰暗面。他的職業(yè)生涯就是證明。斯通不置可否。“《野戰(zhàn)排》曾多次被否決，《薩爾瓦多》(Salvador)也一樣，”他指的是他執(zhí)導(dǎo)的那部講述美國支持的中美洲軍政府的影片，在《野戰(zhàn)排》之前上映。“《蘭博》(Rambo)賺到了更多的錢。除非美國是影片中的英雄，否則很難被制片廠體制接受。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.

安康魚端上來了，像是高檔酒店該有的樣子。我挑不出什么毛病，但我也記不住這道菜——除了搭配的主食藜麥，因?yàn)樗坪醣砻鳎瓦B堅(jiān)守傳統(tǒng)主食、且以此聞名的巴伐利亞州也已經(jīng)屈從于這種毫無意義的時(shí)髦谷物。在等待斯通時(shí)，我已經(jīng)喝了一杯當(dāng)?shù)氐男←溒【?，我?yīng)該少喝點(diǎn)紅酒，但是我不想在這位海明威式的人物——皮膚黝黑的斯通很好地繼承了那位偉人的親法特征和男子氣概——面前看起來像個(gè)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.”

《斯諾登》中的最精彩臺(tái)詞，是這位充滿糾結(jié)的主人公在自由派抽象理念和深知美國面對的真切威脅之間左右為難，對左翼的女朋友(在她看來答案顯而易見)大發(fā)雷霆。“你生活在童話世界里，凡事沒有后果，沒有人會(huì)受到傷害，”他大喊道。我向斯通提出，她擁有正統(tǒng)觀念人士那種奇特的混雜態(tài)度，一方面對多數(shù)人會(huì)認(rèn)為微不足道的侵犯自由的行為極為敏感，另一方面對恐怖主義和敵對國家滿不在乎。“我不同意你的觀點(diǎn)，但是我能理解，”斯通像一個(gè)外交官那樣禮貌地反駁道，“科爾賓•奧布賴恩(Corbin O’Brian，影片中斯諾登的間諜上司)提出了那些觀點(diǎn)，很多人會(huì)贊同。”

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.

我不確定能在多大程度上深入探討這個(gè)話題。我撰寫政治話題的經(jīng)驗(yàn)告訴我，在最糟糕的情況下，公民自由意志主義可能是某些人的奢侈信條，這些人對秩序抱著想當(dāng)然的態(tài)度，并且在所有文化中都能看到善意，唯獨(dú)他們自己的文化除外。另一方面，坐在我對面的人擁有紫心勛章(Purple Heart)、青銅星章(Bronze Star)、空軍獎(jiǎng)?wù)?Air Medal)、陸軍嘉獎(jiǎng)獎(jiǎng)?wù)?Army Commendation Medal)、國防服役勛章(National Defense Service Medal)、越南服役勛章(Vietnam Service Medal)、越南戰(zhàn)役紀(jì)念章(Vietnam Campaign Medal)和作戰(zhàn)步兵徽章(Combat Infantryman Badge)。他21歲自愿入伍。華盛頓越戰(zhàn)紀(jì)念碑的黑墻上刻著的5.8萬個(gè)名字，證明了當(dāng)年他為國家冒的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)。在爭辯中，不能求助于傳記，而斯通肯定不會(huì)寫(“你可以在其他地方讀到那些內(nèi)容”)。不過，我讓步了。

 . . .  . . .

“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.

“貪婪是個(gè)好東西。”(Greed is good)是一句流傳很廣的臺(tái)詞，這對一句其實(shí)不存在的臺(tái)詞來說很不容易。蓋柯的原話是，貪婪，“在缺少更貼切的詞語的情況下”，是個(gè)好東西。這位《華爾街》中的撒旦在一家陷入困境的紙張企業(yè)的年度股東大會(huì)上提出，貪婪——追求金錢，沒錯(cuò)，但也包括愛、知識(shí)和威望——推動(dòng)著人類前進(jìn)。興高采烈的股東最終支持他，而不是軟弱無能的董事會(huì)。

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.”

換句話說，蓋柯、乃至資本主義，得到了一個(gè)發(fā)言機(jī)會(huì)。斯通在這種細(xì)膩的時(shí)候最優(yōu)秀。在《野戰(zhàn)排》中，“壞爸爸”形象——湯姆•貝倫格(Tom Berenger)飾演的中士，為打贏戰(zhàn)斗而無所不用其極，無論手段多么令人發(fā)指——被允許說出他的邏輯。“有一條應(yīng)該走的路，現(xiàn)實(shí)存在的路，”他在那段讓人不敢把目光轉(zhuǎn)向別處的獨(dú)白中稱，“我就是現(xiàn)實(shí)。”你甚至看到了年輕的志愿兵(以斯通本人為原型)的理想主義被周圍貧窮的義務(wù)兵嘲笑。“我們這里有個(gè)斗士。你先得有錢才會(huì)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.

不知從何時(shí)起，斯通的作品中失去了這種曖昧，這種對另一方論點(diǎn)的尊重?！洞虤⒖夏岬稀泛汀恫际病?W.，講述喬治•W·布什(George W Bush)的崛起)等影片對自己的命題太過肯定。《尼克松》(Nixon)是個(gè)例外(該片同情主人公的艱辛童年)，《挑戰(zhàn)星期天》(Any Given Sunday)完全避免了政治元素。但是《斯諾登》恢復(fù)了說教式的斯通。他似乎對那種接觸現(xiàn)實(shí)世界主題、但不發(fā)表論點(diǎn)的藝術(shù)感到郁悶。在伊拉克戰(zhàn)爭發(fā)動(dòng)13年后，他對有關(guān)這場戰(zhàn)爭的影片沒什么好印象。“《拆彈部隊(duì)》(The Hurt Locker)作為一部扣人心弦的電影來說很好，但是并未觸及更深入的問題。”他的話有一定道理：在越戰(zhàn)后的相同階段，《野戰(zhàn)排》、《現(xiàn)代啟示錄》(Apocalypse Now)和《全金屬外殼》(Full Metal Jacket)已經(jīng)成了我們文化的一部分。

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.

如果說斯通像某位同時(shí)代美國藝術(shù)家的話，那便是唐•德里羅(Don DeLillo)——《紐約書評》(NYRB)曾評價(jià)他是“美國偏執(zhí)派小說的大祭司”。二人都刻畫了這樣一個(gè)國家：美國度過了近200年純真時(shí)光，直到肯尼迪遇刺事件讓單純的美國人認(rèn)識(shí)到了生活的陰暗面。他們的作品暗示，從那時(shí)起，美國的理念被內(nèi)部敵人玷污：深層國家勢力、瘋狂的市場和有如上帝般的科技。偉大的小說至少必須是隱隱約約的。它們暗示，而不明說。斯通把電影當(dāng)作更直接的媒介，這可能會(huì)讓觀眾覺得筋疲力盡。

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.”

喝咖啡時(shí)，我明知故問地提到，他是否寄希望于唐納德•特朗普(Donald Trump)或希拉里•克林頓(Hillary Clinton)會(huì)支持他的訴求。“不。伯尼•桑德斯(Bernie Sanders)支持改革。但現(xiàn)在甚至都沒人提起國家監(jiān)聽的問題。”他從這個(gè)關(guān)于間諜行為的狹窄問題擴(kuò)展到美國在過去幾十年的外交戰(zhàn)略，哀嘆北約(Nato)向俄羅斯邊境擴(kuò)張、以及傳教士般的在海外尋找打擊對象的沖動(dòng)。“歷史告訴我們，力量平衡是可能管用的，”他稱，突然間聽起來像是基辛格一般，“伊朗走自己的路，中國走自己的路，俄羅斯走自己的路。他們無意顛覆西方。”

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，到了現(xiàn)在，他已推斷出，他正在跟一個(gè)傳統(tǒng)思維的人——以及他早期作品的學(xué)生——對話。這對于一個(gè)仍然活躍的藝術(shù)家來說是困難的(想象一位年邁的搖滾巨頭演奏了一個(gè)小時(shí)的新內(nèi)容，而臺(tái)下鴉雀無聲)，但是他們會(huì)習(xí)慣這種現(xiàn)實(shí)。他萌生了一個(gè)豁達(dá)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.

“有本新書你應(yīng)該看一看，”之后我們一起走到他的套房里，他遞過來一本很厚重的書給我看。《奧利弗•斯通經(jīng)驗(yàn)談》(The Oliver Stone Experience)是由美國影評家馬特•佐勒•塞茨(Matt Zoller Seitz)所著的采訪和未曾面世的照片的合輯，這本精裝書剛剛出版。

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.

書中有斯通的精選言論，比如他談到付費(fèi)性啟蒙(“她做愛像牛奶”)和他的父親(“爸爸從不想結(jié)婚。他內(nèi)心里一直是單身”)。還有一張令人心酸的照片，畫面是斯通登上前往越南的飛機(jī)時(shí)，穿著軍裝的他對著鏡頭微笑。他看起來真的像是“童子軍”——他總是聲稱，在那場一團(tuán)糟的戰(zhàn)爭偷走他的幻想前，他一直是童子軍。

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.

我想追問他對那一天的回憶，但是他幾分鐘后就要在記者會(huì)上露面。他還有很多需要發(fā)起的活動(dòng)、需要?jiǎng)裾f的人、需要堅(jiān)持的理想、或許還有需要用作傳教士般影片素材的塵封記憶。我們這里仍然有個(gè)斗士。