电影重现奥巴马夫妇的第一次约会(2)

Like Michelle and Barack’s journey through Chicago, the poem raises a cluster of ideas — literary, political, philosophical — about Barack, suggesting where he’s at and where he’s going.

与米歇尔和巴拉克在芝加哥的旅程一样，这首诗反映出巴拉克在文学、政治和哲学方面的观点——表明他身在何处，将去往哪里。坦恩显然仔细研究过巴拉克的真实生活，来作为创作灵感的来源。

Mr. Tanne has clearly made a close study of his real-life inspirations, yet his movie is soon hostage to the couple’s history. His characters feel on loan and, despite his actors, eventually make for dull company because too many lines and details serve the great-man-to-be story rather than the romance.

不过他的电影很快受制于这对伴侣的历史。尽管他选用了很好的演员，但这些角色感觉像是临时借来的，最终沦为乏味的陪衬，因为有太多台词和细节是为他后来成为伟人做铺垫，而不是为了讲述这段恋情。

At the art show, when Barack explains that the painter Ernie Barnes did the canvases featured in the sitcom “Good Times,” it isn’t just a guy trying to impress a date; it’s a setup for another big moment.

在艺术展上，巴拉克提到厄尼•巴恩斯(Ernie Barnes)的那幅油画曾经出现在情景喜剧《好时光》(Good Times)里——这不只是要展现一个努力给约会对象留下好印象的人，而是为了给另一个重要时刻做铺垫。

Ms. Sumpter’s enunciation has a near-metonymic precision suggestive of Mrs. Obama’s, while Mr. Sawyers’s gestural looseness, playful smile and lanky saunter will be familiar.

桑普特的谈吐很容易让人联想起奥巴马夫人，而索耶斯放松的姿态、调皮的微笑和瘦长的体态更是让人觉得熟悉。

Mr. Sawyers has the better, more satisfying role, partly because of who he plays, though also because Barack is more complex and vulnerable. He is the one with the thorny father issues who is trying to win over the girl (the audience, the nation).

索耶斯的角色更好、更令人满意的一个原因是他饰演的是巴拉克，不过也是因为巴拉克更复杂、更脆弱。他是那个在父亲的问题上经历坎坷、正努力赢取那个姑娘（乃至观众和整个国家）芳心的人。

He’s hard to resist even if, by the time he takes Michelle to a community meeting in a housing project — where the aspirations of the family in “Good Times” meet their real-world counterpart — his words sound like footnotes in a political biography.

你很难抗拒他，尽管他带着米歇尔参加一个住房项目的社区会议时——《好时光》中那个家庭的愿望出现在了现实世界里——他的话听起来像是一本政治传记的脚注。

Mr. Obama wrote one such book, “The Audacity of Hope,” in which he describes this first date in a scene that’s echoed in the movie. “I asked if I could kiss her,” Mr. Obama writes, before cutting loose his smooth operator: “It tasted of chocolate.”

奥巴马写过这样一本书：《无畏的希望》(The Audacity of Hope)，他在其中描述了第一次约会的情景——电影中也有这一幕。“我问她我能不能亲她，”奥巴马写道。

It’s no surprise that Mr. Obama is a better writer than Mr. Tanne and has a stronger sense of drama. But it’s too bad that while Mr. Obama’s story about his date has tension, a moral and politics, Mr. Tanne’s has plaster saints.

然后显现出他很会甜言蜜语的一面：“那感觉像品尝巧克力。”奥巴马当然是比坦恩更擅于写作，有更强的戏剧感。不过，糟糕的是，奥巴马关于那次约会的故事有道德和政治方面的张力，而坦恩的故事里只有道德完人。

Abraham Lincoln was long dead when John Ford polished the presidential halo in the 1939 film “Young Mr. Lincoln.” Mr. Obama hasn’t even left office, but the cinematic hagiography has begun.

约翰•福特(John Ford)在1939年的影片《青年林肯》(Young Mr. Lincoln)中给这位总统涂上光环时，亚伯拉罕•林肯(Abraham Lincoln)早已过世。而奥巴马尚未离任，将他描绘成圣人的电影就已经上映了。