电影《飞黄腾达》爆冷？真相在荧幕外

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本文为MATI同学翻译习作，首发在公众号“双语译术”，网址：https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/8JUtQtP6UOC36hfYg_UKfA

Why Did ‘The Apprentice’ Bomb? Maybe Because the Most Chilling Thing About Donald Trump Is Offscreen

电影《飞黄腾达》爆冷？真相在荧幕外

“The Apprentice” is a movie that presents itself as incendiary, but as well-done as it is, it’s closer in spirit to an old made-for-TV movie. As abomb-tossing cultural buzz film, it was probably always destined tobe a tempest in a teapot. But then something took place, in connection with it, that really was quite dramatic.

《飞黄腾达》看似很有话题性，也的确制作精良，但拍得却像是搬不上荧幕的老式电影。作为近期的爆火热点，《飞黄腾达》可能注定是雷声大雨点小。而随后的波折，却相当戏剧化。

After generating its share of Cannes buzz, the movie couldn’t find a distributor. No one wanted to touch it. The Trump campaign made legal threats against the film, centering on a scene of sexual assault (an accusation that was denied in 2015 by Ivana Trump). And this created a ripple effect.

影片在戛纳电影节上备受瞩目，但没有一个发行商敢接手这块烫手山芋。电影中涉及特朗普性侵前妻的情节，而伊凡娜在2015年便已撤回指控。对此，特朗普的竞选团队威胁将对该电影提起法律诉讼。这进而造成了一系列连锁反应。

Yet it wasn’t just the matter of a potential lawsuit. Back in May and June, the fear had already begun to coalesce that Trump would be the next president (Joe Biden getting kicked out of the race was, at this point, not even a gleam in the Democratic establishment’s eye), and the distributors were scared of recrimination. What if Trump did become president? What would he do to them?

与这部电影扯上关系，除了有吃官司的风险，还可能受到未来总统的特殊关照。早在五六月人们开始恐慌，特朗普可能真的再次登上总统宝座。(毕竟此时民主党还没想到让拜登退选这一招)。而发行商们又担心遭到报复——毕竟，如果特朗普真的当上了总统，又会怎么料理他们呢？

This was a deeply chilling phenomenon to behold. I have no great investment in “The Apprentice,” a movie I liked but didn’t love (I thought that despite its entertaining and perceptive qualities, it never succeeded in penetrating Trump’s mystery). But after all the bullshit and fear that I have ever witnessed in the movie industry (fear of failure, fear of making the wrong decision, fear of getting into trouble for elevating art over formula and commerce), I had never seen anything quite like this. Simply put: People were already thinking and acting as if they were living under an authoritarian regime.

这事儿想想就让人不寒而栗。我觉得《飞黄腾达》这部电影还算不错，但不代表我对它有太大的期待。尽管它兼具娱乐性和洞见，但并未参透特朗普的本质。我目睹过电影行业的种种荒唐狗血，也深知从业者心中的恐惧，但这种情况我还是第一次见。人们的心态行为，仿佛已经生活在专制统治之下。

Really, though, with the election looming and the fate of America hanging in the balance, what could be more superficially relevant — and less actually relevant — than a movie like “The Apprentice”? The film is supposed to be a study of how Donald Trump came into his ruthless behavior. But while the Trump the movie shows us is unscrupulous and disloyal,nothing he does can hold a candle to the danger he now poses with every election denial, every promise to continue his reign as an agent of chaos.

如今总统之争已进入白热化阶段，美国的命运正岌岌可危。这部电影表面上看起来与大选密切相关，实际上却无关紧要。电影本应挖掘特朗普如何一步步变成了残酷政客。影片里的特朗普已经是毫无底线、背信弃义，但跟他如今否认选举结果、扬言要做搅局者继续掌权的危险比起来，简直是小巫见大巫。

And that threat is incarnated in the fact that “The Apprentice” almost wasn’t released. You might say that I’m quibbling, since the movie played wide this weekend. You might say that the system, in the end, worked. However, the fact that everyone in mainstream Hollywood was scared to touch “The Apprentice” should tell you something. This wasn’t simply an anomaly. Right now, it feels like it could be an ominous preview of coming attractions.

《飞黄腾达》险些无法上映恰恰体现了此人的危险。你可能觉得我在小题大做，毕竟这部电影不还是成功上映了吗？民主制度最终还是战胜了强权。但好莱坞主流电影公司都对其避之不及，多少能说明一些问题。这并非特例，此时此刻，这更像是一场不祥的预告。

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