真爱一生

原载于：墨神的凡龛 http://www.thinkjam.org/mercury/archives/2005/03/eiecie2005ie.html

上周看的电影《红字》（The Scarlet Letter，1995），触动很深。或许一些专家尤其文学人士带着原著的条框去定格她的时候，会有众多的非议。但是从电影以及改编剧本的角度来看，不可否认《红字》算是成功之作。

她没有完全照搬霍桑小说的原貌，事实上，想要完全照搬也是不可能的。小说从海斯特受到公审开始，而电影却为她补充了一段前因，使故事更完整，人物行为和性格更突出更具特点。我认为，这段海斯特来岛，不惧欺辱，不理会他人眼光，以及丛林巧遇阿瑟牧师等等的安排都为后来打下了坚实的伏笔，这种伊甸园般的场景，一见钟情的相遇与后来受审，以致丈夫回来后的压抑痛苦形成鲜明的对比，是谓欲抑先扬吧。……

…… 另一方面，小说以人物心理的刻画为主，主人公海斯特身上的红字与阿瑟心中的红字，甚至作为新一代小珠儿本身就是红字的象征，三条线索一齐发展，丈夫不断的对牧师进行心上的拷问，两个有情人也因为相爱是过错备受煎熬。当然，一部电影是无法通篇展示心理活动的，于是电影《红字》中导演将这种心理活动具象化，用阿瑟的自责行为，丈夫的复仇计划等等呈现给观众，这就是电影语言的不同之处。全篇以小珠儿的口气画外音叙述，结尾也让有情人终成眷属，不过最后阿瑟还是由于过度的自责和内疚英年早逝，海斯特也没有再和别人在一起－－“或许这就是上帝对他们的惩罚吧”。其实经历过这么多矢志不渝的忠贞爱情，最后能够正大光明在一起，一天已是足以，更何况月月年年，不正是那句老话“两情若是长久时，又岂在朝朝暮暮”。据说，结尾还是按照Dami Moore的意见修改的呢。似乎与原著已经相距甚远，可是影片所表现的精神和想表达的内涵还是与原著如出一辙殊途同归了

巨喜欢男主角Gary Oldman演的阿瑟牧师，温文尔雅的外表下是一颗炙热的心，他有知识有风度有思想有理想，他希望以真诚打动印第安部落“邻居们”，避免战争，他把圣经翻译成他们的文字，想与他们共享教义，他深入部落帮助他们，与他们结为朋友。可是统治者们竟然利用他的真诚和友谊妄想消灭异族。他才华出众是少女们的偶像，他与海斯特偶遇一见倾心。他们戏剧性的在聚会上被多次引荐，他们一个漂亮骄傲，一个风度翩翩，他们有共同的爱好－－读书，他们更能看穿彼此的心。怎奈海斯特已嫁作他人妇，于是俩人小心翼翼的相处着，苦苦压抑着真挚的情感。她不去想他，他前往遥远的部落传道，一切的自禁只为忘记，或许稍许渐淡相思。可是真正的情感却在这种“禁”中一触即发。Gary Oldman将角色的情感用表情甚至眼神和气质表现的淋漓尽致，让我们的心与他一起流泪流血，一起在禁中煎熬。

我也“禁”了几天，总想认真写篇blog，可是感情还草草未准备妥当，直到这种感觉突然迸发时，就象海斯特听到了丈夫的死讯，那种欣狂还略显自责的的情感，于是我将即日的压抑喷发出出来，历练、凝固成一首“禁”。

禁
（2005.3.9）
谁用发丝捆绑住灵魂
心痛得呼吸都变得无力
谁的尺子试探着距离
遥远的无法测量的缝隙

谁用双手包裹住抗拒
怎么还能听见风的叹息
谁的信仰践踏着心灵
如何能萌生出春的痕迹

锁不住的心 情不自禁
忘了谁的谁 又想起谁的背影

谁用眼光锁住了神奇
神奇般望穿了铜墙铁壁
谁的剪影住进了圣经
圣经点燃了似火爱情

谁用美丽来点缀衣襟
衣襟织绘着猩红的字
谁的勇气刺破了禁令
碎片散落了一地的光阴

锁不住的心 情不自禁
忘了谁的谁 又重回谁的记忆

早就有人说过，文字和电影是不同的表达方式。表达方式的不同也让内容发生了变化，有些时候，这种变化甚至发生在本质精神上和核心人物的性格上。
我觉得，一个好的电影改编。首先的要求这个导演驾驭大场面的能力。像名著，多数时候是波澜壮阔的篇章，错综复杂的情节和性格深沉的人物组成的。如果没有驾驭能力，就要顾此失彼。再者，他还要有很好的把握影像表达的素质。不过，最最重要的，是这个改编者的思想深度，也就说他可以和原作者达到什么样的精神沟通。
回过头来说《红字》。
如果不是因为我看了书，我觉得我实际上没有那么多的耐心看一部离自己很远，很多地方看不明白的一部长达两个多小时的阴沉电影。不过，说实话，现在的节奏这么快，人们追求的是速食的快乐。我能在上下班的地铁上阅读完这本书也是一件奇迹。就我本人来说，基本上是没享受到什么阅读的快乐。不过，名著的魅力并不是用你看了这本书能获得多少快乐的来体现的。
虽说我更喜欢电影，但是也不得不承认，电影和书基本上是南辕北辙了。
在小说中，海斯特白兰是在宗教和环境的压抑下生存不得不伪装起坚强来反击的，电影中的这个女人，从头到尾都很强。那种强，不但体现在体魄上还有精神上，甚至可以说，有很多女权意识的萌动在里面。在电影的最后，海斯特问：我为什么要留在这？为他们所接受，为他们所驯服？然后，这个女人毅然决然的要离开。事实上，根据我的理解，既然小说发生的背景是一个受压抑的阴暗年代，那么，那个时候的女人是根本不可能说走就走的。电影增加了海斯特独立意识觉醒的光辉，这是原作者内心隐隐的想要表达却囿于时代和思想的局限没有表达出来的。于是，海斯特的形象固然光辉了，可是却有些不现实。那种年代，如果女人生出了这种思想，我想，只有被钉在耻辱架上问吊的唯一结局。
电影给了黛米摩尔太多戏，让我觉得这就是一部女人的励志史诗。小说中的海斯特从始至终就认为自己是罪恶的，但是电影中她昂起了高傲的头，从没承认过自己的爱情是罪恶。
我更喜欢电影，是因为故事发生的年代太久远，故事发生的背景我不甚了解。我更愿意接受电影中有几个具有同情心的妇女在帮助海斯特，更愿意接受在海斯特受训的时候牧师走上前去，还有，最后，在海斯特生死攸关的时刻，他站出来说，我爱这个女子，我是这个孩子的父亲，在神的眼中我是这孩子的父亲。这其实已经颠覆了原著中丁梅斯代尔的全部人格。在原著中，他虚弱，他懦弱，他伪善，他冷酷甚至残忍。明明敢爱为何不敢承担责任？圣坛的光辉吸引着他使他不能放弃自己高洁的名声。说起他在肉里陷刻红字和鞭挞自己，与其说这是他对爱情的忏悔不如说这个宗教的腐朽毒液侵蚀后的必然结果。他对海斯特毫无怜悯，反而认为他们是或许诱惑堕落的一对，这一切都有悖他自认为圣洁的内心。这才是他痛苦的根源。
那些泯灭人性的清教教条，是霍桑想要控诉的，但最终他含而不露。也许是没勇气也许是自己也没有看到自己内心这种诉求。因为人性的纠结和深厚历史的纵贯，这部小说得以名垂青史。
或者可以说，电影改编不成功，因为内涵和精髓有些离题甚远。不过，我倒认为这更符合现在的人欣赏的视角。电影的最后，牧师和白兰以及珠儿一家三口走了，这是一个很美好的结局。总而言之，人们希望通过电影得到的，是美好的享受和期盼，而原著的精髓就是一个十足的悲剧。
推崇电影。可是，想要领略名著的魅力还是去看原著。

  The film “The Scarlet Letter” tells a story of a brave woman. We call her “Hide”. She had married, but her husband was older than her and she didn't love him. One day, she came to a town of the USA and met a young priest. The priest's sermons lecture touched her heart deeply. And that, Hide's charm also moved the priest, they were fallen in love. Hide was pregnant. For this reason, she was accused of “adultery” and forced to wear clothes with “The Scarlet Letter”. But she was brave and unrepentant. She borne the baby, and lived hardened. With the help of the Indians, she got the happiness finally.

   Hide is touched my heart deeply. The woman is so brave and loyalty. She always conviction the love of the priest and full of virtue, even under the harsh realities. The letter “A” stands for shame first, but Hide makes it stand for “able”、“angle” by her brave. She strives for true love. She is a soldier who struggling with the feudal tradition!

  In the end of this film, the “Scarlet Letter” was throwing away. it is stand for the beginning of Hide's new happy live.

   May be in her heart, the “Scarlet Letter” was stand for "Amour"...

    All the encounters are reunions after a long separation in the world. I guess, Hester and Arthur must have seen much affliction before they meet each other. Their love sprouts like the seed of evil, and bursts into bloom.
     Red roses in prison, which offer the fragrance and fragile beauty to the dying prisoners, have already predicted a vivid metaphor at the beginning. Love is beautiful, like rose; yet love is cold and painful, like its thorn.
    I don’t understand the treatise on Good and Evil in transcendentalism of Emerson, I don’t understand the concept of salvation in the Bible, more don’t understand the puritan tradition in the United States. The scarlet letter, for me, is not only a piece of love history, but also a confession related to the original sin. With the fall of Adam and Eve, human beings are originally sinful. The Bible tells us love covers over all wrongs. Moreover, the innocent is not the one to blame. A kind-hearted and honest couple, once trapped in the puzzle of extramarital affair, they are destined to walk into a dilemma——since the flame of love and the perfection of morality mostly can’t live together. As in Paradise Lost, the hero and heroine choose to suicide in their blissful love.
    There are no ugly loves, nor handsome prisons. For Arthur, Hester is undoubtedly beauteous in looks, and seductive in personality. For Hester, when Arthur says I love you affectionately to her, she can feel the love that he bears patiently in this man’s eyes and hands, even silence. In their seven years, determination, hypocrisy, and self-deception are all human nature; in their whole life, long waiting, sense of guilt, and endurance for the contempt are all atonement. In my eyes, Hester veritably has the right to say love although her purity and courage deviate from morality and ethics. Love is colder than death——their love is holy but miserable, like the sacrificial offerings on the altar.
    The bible says that love can bear all things, hope all things, and endure all things. Miss Hester keeps silence for their forbidden love for seven years, while Mr. Arthur pays for this piece of virtueless love at the cost of his life. Who dares to say that the affection between Hester and Arthur is not true love? Common customs tear their bodies apart, but their souls will stay together forever. They feel each other in their stomachs, and they enjoy the ecstasy of sex. Who dares to say that sex doesn’t mean love? There is no doubt that Pearl is the crystal of their love.
    Love is a kind of curse, and love is a lonely carnival. The Scarlet Letter not merely tells the process of romantic love, it tells the ending of love——more accurately the consequence of love that knocks on everyone’s soul. When Arthur falls down on the scaffold due to the heavy burden in mind, when Hester’s ashes are buried beside Arthur after many years, have they ever regretted for the things they had done, including love and the confession of love? Love is colder than death——Hester and Arthur break the curse——chains of morality, and the sublimation of their love burns all the people’s eyes.
    With a bloody letter A on his naked chest, Arthur died in Hester’s arms——he is finally released. However, his deep love for Hester will never disappear. The moment when Arthur eventually stands in front of the multitude and shouts loudly I LOVE THIS WOMAN, we witness a scene of extraordinary love, and the shameful letter A is endowed with new meaning.
    Every character in the book is adorned with a letter A. Hester and Arthur are the undertakers of A. Those righteous people in New England who propose to punish Hester with A——they are the makers of A. And those crowds of onlookers are witnesses of A. Hester’s husband is a dirty dog——he is the enquirer of A. Little Pearl is compared to the fruit of sin, and she is the savior of A. I think the scarlet letter A can be considered as Adultery, Able, Admirable, Amour, Angel, Advance, and even America.
    In the end, Hawthorne writes, On a field, sable, the letter A, gules. I seem to see a woman kneel on the wasteland, in front of her there is a tomb. The woman is so devout that she looks like a statue of a nun. She firmly believes that there will be a new era some day, a bright and heavenly era.
    Love is colder than death. Hester and Arthur, have already lost their names, bodies and souls.
    Now, maybe I should go to read Moby Dick by Melville. That’s for Hawthorne.