我不看《刺杀金正恩》的理由

As an American, I have spent much of the holiday season wrestling with a difficult political question: should I download The Interview ?

作为一个美国人，这个圣诞/新年假期的大部分时间我都纠结于一个棘手的政治问题：我该不该下载《刺杀金正恩》(The Interview)？

As most of you undoubtedly know by now, the Sony Pictures comedy about a plot to kill the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has emerged as one of the most significant films ever made — for political, rather than cinematic reasons.

大多数读者无疑已经知道，索尼影视娱乐(Sony Pictures)这部关于刺杀朝鲜领导人金正恩(Kim Jong Un)的喜剧，已成为有史以来最重大的电影之一——出于政治原因，而不是电影本身的水平。

Pyongyang, as is its tendency and, one must acknowledge, its right in matters of comedy, didn’t get the joke — and that has led to a series of geopolitical thrills, chills and spills worthy of an action-packed Hollywood blockbuster.

平壤方面出于它的倾向以及（我们必须承认）它在喜剧方面的权利，看不懂这一切都是搞笑，由此引发了一连串地缘政治上的紧张、恐慌和泄密事件，其情节就像一部紧张刺激的好莱坞大片。

Even before the movie was released, Sony’s computers were hacked, embarrassing company emails were leaked, and threats were levelled against theatres set to show The Interview. The studio pulled the picture, but President Barack Obama got into the act and called for greater national resolve — and before you knew it, The Interview was being released online and at a smaller group of stalwart cinemas.

甚至在影片发行前，索尼的电脑就被黑客入侵，难堪的公司邮件遭到泄露，打算上映《刺杀金正恩》的电影院也受到威胁。索尼随后撤下这部影片，但美国总统巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)出来表态，呼吁国民展现更大决心，结果《刺杀金正恩》很快就在网上发布，同时在一小批坚定的电影院得到上映。

This put every American on the spot: we had to decide whether we wanted to watch The Interview. As a fan of old Hollywood westerns, my first inclination was to behave as if I were Gary Cooper in High Noon and show those North Koreans exactly who they were dealing with in these parts. I imagined myself walking up the creaky stairs to my attic, turning on my trusted personal computer and downloading that film — come hell, high water or Axis-of-Evil hackers.

这令每一个美国人陷入尴尬境地：我们得决定自己是否想观看《刺杀金正恩》。作为好莱坞经典西部片的影迷，我的第一倾向是表现得像《正午》(High Noon)中的加里•库柏(Gary Cooper)，让那些朝鲜人好好见识下，在这一带他们是在跟谁打交道。我想象自己走上摇摇欲坠的楼梯，进入我的阁楼，打开我忠心耿耿的个人电脑，开始下载这部电影——不论遇到地狱、洪水，还是“邪恶轴心”的黑客。

But I changed my mind when I remembered something my late grandmother once said in reference to the motion picture business. No one would confuse Mildred Silverman with a contributor to Cahiers du Cinéma, but she knew her way around the movie theatres of her native Brooklyn — and she was capable of pungent film criticism.

但当我想起已故的祖母对电影业的一句评价时，我改变了主意。没人会将我的祖母米尔德丽德•西尔弗曼(Mildred Silverman)误当作《电影手册》(Cahiers du Cinéma)的撰稿人，但在她所居住的纽约市布鲁克林区，她对各家电影院了如指掌，而且她能作出辛辣的影评。

The pearl of wisdom that turned me around in this case came in response to a question from her grandson about why she and two of her comrades had walked out of the 1982 Steven Spielberg film ET, hunted down the theatre manager and recouped in full the money that they had laid out for tickets.

在要不要看《刺杀金正恩》这件事上，令我的转变观点的是她的一句至理名言，这句话来自她对孙子提出的一个问题的答复，问题是：她和两个同伴为什么在看史蒂文•斯皮尔伯格(Steven Spielberg)1982年的电影《ET》时中途退场，找到剧院经理，索要电影票的全额退款？

“What do I care about some little guy?” she replied, in what I took to be a clear reference to the title character (I doubt she was sufficiently familiar with auteur theory to be directing her remarks at Mr Spielberg).

她答复道：“某个小人物有什么值得我关心的？”我认为她明确指的是这部电影的主人公（我怀疑她是否熟悉“导演主创论”，以至于针对斯皮尔伯格发表此言）。

As a guide to movie going, it was inspirational. No matter what was going on in the show business world, my grandmother remained true to herself and her aesthetic principles. When she went to the pictures, as she called them, she was basically looking for entertainment, by which she meant something on the order of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, with words and music by Irving Berlin (“Heaven, I’m in heaven . . .”).

作为看电影的指南，这句话是有启迪的。无论演艺界发生了什么事，我的祖母一直坚守自己的价值观和美学原则。她去电影院看电影时基本是为了娱乐，而她所指的娱乐是弗雷德•阿斯泰尔(Fred Astaire)和金吉•罗杰斯(Ginger Rogers)的歌舞剧，以及欧文•柏林(Irving Berlin)创作的词曲，比如“天堂，我在天堂……”。

Mrs Silverman wasn’t going to allow some “little guy” who didn’t know his top hat from his tails change her mind — and her grandson has decided he isn’t going to permit some not-so-great North Korean leader to influence his. After all, what do I care about some Kim? Who made him Pauline Kael?

我的祖母是不会让一些没有音乐感的“小人物”改变她的想法的，而她的孙子也拿定主意，他不会允许某个不怎么样的朝鲜领导人影响他的喜好。毕竟，我要关心金氏什么？难道他是宝琳•凯尔（Pauline Kael，已故美国影评家——译者注）？

Before The Interview angered the North Koreans, I had little interest in going to see the film; at best, it was the kind of movie I would watch toward the end of a long international plane ride. It would be un-American to give in to communist influence and do otherwise.

在《刺杀金正恩》激怒朝鲜前，我对这部电影几乎毫无兴趣，它最多是我在长途国际航班快到目的地时会看的那类影片。但因某国共产党施加影响而屈服，这种做法不符合美国精神。

I learnt my lesson in this regard a few years ago, when I tried to read The Satanic Verses after threats were made against its author, Salman Rushdie. I felt an obligation to pick up the book — but that really wasn’t the right way to approach it. I never finished the novel.

几年前我在这方面有过教训，那是在萨尔曼•拉什迪(Salman Rushdie)受到威胁后，我试图阅读他写的《撒旦诗篇》(The Satanic Verses)。我觉得自己有义务拿起这本书，但这真的不是把握这类事情的正确方式。我从未读完那本小说。

During the recently concluded festive season, I tried to put aside thoughts of the Kim crowd and the chaos at Sony, and returned for the first time in a while to the US film classic It’s a Wonderful Life, directed by Frank Capra and starring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed.

在刚刚结束的这个节日佳节，我试着将朝鲜那群人的想法和索尼的混乱局面撇到一边，重看已经很久没看过的弗兰克•卡普拉(Frank Capra)导演、吉米•斯图尔特(Jimmy Stewart)和唐娜•里德(Donna Reed)主演的美国经典影片《生活多美好》(It's a Wonderful Life)。

It was time well spent. It was nice to take a break from my day job and watch financial services intermediaries more interested in creating communities than in finding new ways to fleece them. I was also struck this time around by the Sheryl Sandberg-worthy “leaning in” displayed by Reed’s character, Mary Bailey, who twice plays a key role in saving the Bailey Brothers Building & Loan (first by parting with her honeymoon funds during a bank run and then by raising money from her neighbours during her husband’s time of need).

这段时间过得非常有价值。我很高兴可以从日常工作中抽空休息一下，看看金融服务机构更热衷于打造社区，而不是想方设法榨干客户。这次观影还有一点令我触动，里德扮演的玛丽•贝利(Mary Bailey)展示出了谢乐尔•桑德伯格(Sheryl Sandberg)式的“挺身而出”，玛丽在拯救“贝利兄弟建筑及贷款”时两次起到关键作用，第一次是在银行挤兑时拿出她的蜜月基金，第二次是在她丈夫需要时从邻居处筹得资金。

Ultimately, the idea occurred to me that perhaps our country could turn to Capra for help as we deal with the latest provocations from Pyongyang. I’m getting a little above my pay grade here, but I suspect that there are folks in our intelligence community who might be able to write some computer code — or airlift some devices — that would enable us to present It’s a Wonderful Life, dubbed into Korean, for some of those poor souls who live in the north of that peninsula.

最终我产生了一个想法，或许我们国家可以向卡普拉取经，学习如何应对近期来自平壤的挑衅。我这么说可能有点僭越，但我想我们的情报界也许有人能写一些计算机代码，或空运一些设备，让我们将朝鲜语配音的《生活多美好》放给那些居住在朝鲜半岛北方的一些可怜人看。

It would be good to show the people over there — and in other places — that Americans have more on their minds than assassination plots played for laughs. Sometimes we think of angels’ wings and rose petals, and one brother diving into the icy water to save another.

这将是一件好事：向那里（以及其他地方）的人民展示，美国人的脑子里除了专为搞笑而设计的暗杀情节外，还有其他许多念头。有时我们会想到天使的翅膀和玫瑰花瓣，以及一个兄弟为了救另一个兄弟而跳入冰冷刺骨的水里。