百年50部英文烧脑电影赏析:[32]Secret Window 秘窗

Successful author Mort Rainey（Johnny Depp）suffers a psychotic break when he catches his wife, Amy（Maria Bello）having an affair. He procrastinates finalizing the divorce by retreating to his secluded cabin in the rural town of Tashmore Lake in upstate New York. Depressed and suffering from writer's block, Mort is confronted one day by the mysterious John Shooter（John Turturro）, a Mississippi dairy farmer who accuses him of plagiarism. Shooter leaves his manuscript Sowing Season which he alleges was copied. Mort dismisses Shooter as mentally ill and throws the book away, but his cleaning lady digs it out of the trash and presents it back to him. With his curiosity piqued, Mort reads the story and is surprised to discover its resemblance to his own story Secret Window. During his walk the following day, Mort is accosted by Shooter when he explains his story was published years before Shooter's existed. He is given a three-day ultimatum by Shooter to provide the proof. That night, Mort finds Chico, his Australian Cattle Dog, stabbed to death with a screwdriver in his neck. Mort immediately suspects Shooter and reports the incident to Sheriff Dave Newsome（Len Cariou）, who reacts with little enthusiasm. Mort then drives to his house where his estranged wife Amy is living to obtain a copy of the book and stews outside as he watches her leave with her new lover Ted Milner（Timothy Hutton）. In New York City, Mort contacts Ken Karsch（Charles S. Dutton）, a private investigator he used before. Ken travels to Tashmore Lake to watch over the cabin and to interview Tom Greenleaf（John Dunn Hill）, the only witness to Mort and Shooter's conversation. Amy later calls saying their house was burned down, consequently destroying the copy of the book to prove his case against Shooter. He begins to suspect Ted of hiring Shooter to harass him because of their shared animosity towards one another.
Shooter shows up again, this time demanding Mort fix the story's ending, and Mort feigns agreement. The next morning, Mort is perplexed to find his Jeep Cherokee idling in his driveway（with Pall Mall cigarette butts smoldering in the ashtray）when he leaves for his appointment with Ken. He shows up late to the diner where they planned to meet, but learns from a cashier that Ken never showed up at all. Back at the cabin, Mort receives a call from Shooter requesting a private meeting in the woods and when he arrives he finds Ken and Tom dead in Tom's truck. Shooter indicates he has implicated Mort in the murders, requiring Mort to cover up the crime by running the truck into a water-filled stone quarry, losing his watch in the process.
Mort's literary agent sends a copy of the magazine with his published story via UPS and Mort picks it up at the post office. When he arrives home with the magazine he opens it to find that the specific pages containing the story have been cut out. Mort's “inner voice” tells him that since the magazine was in a sealed package, Shooter couldn't have tampered with it. Prompting from his own conscience leads Mort to realize that Shooter is merely a figment of his imagination; brought to life through Mort's dissociative identity disorder and created to carry out malevolent tasks like killing Chico, Ken and Tom and burning down the house. Just as Mort comes to realize his psychosis, Amy coincidentally arrives to get his signature to finalize the divorce settlement. She finds the cabin disheveled, with the word “shooter” carved throughout and suspects Mort's drinking as the cause. Mort suddenly reveals himself and Amy is struck by fear when she spots a carving explaining that “shooter” actually implies Mort's desire to “shoot her.” Mort, now wearing Shooter's hat and speaking with a southern accent, chases Amy outside to her car and stabs her in the ankle to prevent her from leaving. Ted arrives shortly afterwards and Amy watches helplessly as Mort ambushes and beheads him with a shovel. Mort then recites the ending in Shooter's version of the story as he murders Amy.
With Amy and Ted dead, Mort recovers from his writer's block and becomes less reclusive, even though he is now the town pariah, a fact he seems blissfully unaware of despite obvious rebuffs. Dave stops by the cabin to advise Mort he is the prime suspect of Amy and Ted's disappearance and will be arrested once the bodies are found, but Mort nonchalantly dismisses the threat. Dave leaves and Mort again recites the “perfect” ending to his story as he dines on an ear of fresh corn from his garden, hinting that Amy and Ted's bodies are buried in the ground beneath the corn crops, and that the corn is breaking down the nutrients from the bodies so they will decompose and the police will never find them.
知名作家莫特·雷尼（约翰尼·德普饰）在他抓到自己的妻子艾米（玛丽亚·贝罗饰）有外遇后患上了精神病。为拖延离婚，他退居到他在纽约北部塔什莫尔湖郊外幽静的小木屋里。由于创作思路受阻，作家深感沮丧和痛苦。一天，密西西比神秘的奶农约翰·苏特（约翰·特托罗饰）和莫特当面对质，指责他剽窃了他的创作。苏特留下他所说的被剽窃的手稿《播种季节》。莫特赶走了苏特，说他有精神病，并把手稿扔了。但他的清洁女工从垃圾中收拾出手稿，并把它还给了他。他的好奇心被激起，读了这个故事，惊讶地发现，它和他自己的故事《秘窗》竟然如此相像。

第二天莫特在散步时，苏特来和他搭话。莫特解释说，在苏特的故事出现之前，他的故事已经发表好几年了。苏特给了他为期三天的最后通牒，来提供证据。那晚，当莫特找到他的澳洲牧牛犬奇哥时，发现有人用螺丝刀扎在它的脖子上刺死了它。莫特立即怀疑是苏特干的，并向司法长官大卫·纽斯姆报告了这件事，他无动于衷。后来莫特驱车来到和他已经分居的妻子艾米的住地，取他这本书的副本。看到她和她的新情人泰德·米尔纳（蒂莫西·哈顿饰）一起离去，莫特在外面忧虑了很久。在纽约，莫特联系到了肯·卡尔施（查尔斯·达顿饰），一个他之前用过的私家侦探。肯前往塔什莫尔湖，监视小木屋并走访汤姆·格林立夫（约翰·邓恩·希尔饰），他是莫特和苏特谈话的唯一目击者。后来艾米打来电话说他们的房子被烧毁了，所以他用来对抗苏特的这本书的副本也被毁掉了。他开始怀疑泰德雇来苏特骚扰他，原因是他们对彼此的怨恨。
苏特再次出现，这次他要求莫特修改这个故事的结局，莫特假装同意。第二天早晨，当莫特出发去和肯约会时，他困惑地发现（由于帕尔摩烟头在烟灰缸里慢慢燃烧）他的切诺基吉普在路上熄火了，他赶到约好的餐厅时已经迟到了。但他从收银员那里了解到肯根本就没来过。回到小木屋后，他接到了苏特的电话，要求和他在林子里私下约见。当他赶到那里时，他发现肯和汤姆都死在了汤姆的卡车上，苏特指出莫特与谋杀案有牵连，要求莫特为掩盖罪行，把卡车开向充水采石场，并在这个过程中丢掉他的手表。
莫特的文学杂志的代理人通过UPS快递给他寄送了一本他发表过那个故事的杂志，莫特到邮局把它取了回来。当他带着杂志回到家，打开时发现，刊登他的故事的那几页已被剪掉。莫特内心的声音告诉他，杂志是密封包装，苏特不可能插手。莫特意识到，苏特只是他想象出来的一个人物，是莫特的分裂性人格障碍赋予的生命，并由他实施了像杀害奇哥、肯和汤姆以及烧毁房子之类的恶毒行为。
就在莫特意识到他有精神病的同时，艾米碰巧来找他在离婚协议书上签字。她发现小屋里很邋遢，“苏特”一词刻得到处都是，怀疑是莫特喝酒后所为。莫特突然出现，当艾米发现一处雕刻说明“苏特”实际上暗示了莫特想要“杀了她”的欲望时，她很恐惧。现在，莫特戴着苏特的帽子，用南方口音讲话，追赶着艾米，在她的车的外面刺伤了她的脚踝，以阻止她离开。之后不久，当泰德赶到后，艾米无助地看着莫特伏击了他，用铲子铲掉了他的头。后来，莫特在杀死艾米的时候，朗诵了苏特版本的故事结局。
艾米和泰德死了，莫特恢复了他的写作灵感，变得不再那么深居简出，即使他现在是镇上不受欢迎的人，遭到明显的冷落，他看上去似乎还是很惬意，大卫来到小屋，警告莫特他是艾米和泰德失踪案的主要嫌犯，一旦尸体被发现，就会逮捕他。但莫特冷冷地驳斥了这个威胁。大卫走了，莫特进餐，在吃花园里长出来的新鲜谷穗时，他再次朗诵了他的故事的完美结局，暗示艾米和泰德的尸体埋在谷物的下面，谷物分解了尸体的养分。他们会被分解，警察永远不会找到他们。

procrastinate［prəu'kræstineit］vt. 耽搁，延迟
pique［pi:k］vt. 刺激；激怒
ultimatum［ˌʌlti'meitəm］n. 最后通牒；最后结论；基本原理
screwdriver［'skru:ˌdraivə］n. 螺丝刀
animosity［ˌæni'mɔsəti］n. 憎恶，仇恨，敌意
perplexed［pə'plekst］adj. 困惑的；不知所措的
malevolent［mə'levələnt］adj. 恶毒的；有恶意的；坏心肠的
coincidentally［kəuˌinsi'dentli］adv. 巧合地；一致地
blissfully［'blisfuli］adv. 幸福地；充满喜悦地
nonchalantly［'nɔnʃələntli］adv. 冷淡地，漠不关心地
重点掌握
■ …the specific pages containing the story have been cut out.
cut out是英语中一个常用固定搭配，其词义丰富，在文中是“切去，割去，剪去”的意思，比如：The doctor cut out his tonsils. 医生切除了他的扁桃腺。cut out还有“停止；中断；关掉”的意思，比如：Let's cut out the talking and get back to work!咱们别聊天了，回去干活吧！
cut out常用于口语中，是“击败；取代；排挤”、“戒除，停止服用”的意思，比如：I have decided to cut out smoking and drinking. 我已决定戒烟戒酒。

Johnny Depp Interviewed by www.ivillage.co.uk
Your new film, Secret Window, has you playing a writer living in an isolated setting with a strange man（John Turturro）stalking you...
It's almost like having my own worst private nightmares come true（laughs）. I'm paranoid about being watched, and so playing someone who's basically being stalked was a very weird experience.
The producers must be quite happy that suddenly the star of their film has got a huge amount of visibility from Pirates and the Oscar nomination.
Yeah, it's kind of a nice bonus and I think the film（Secret Window）deserves to find an audience. But the truth is that I've never purposely tried to make unsuccessful movies. I simply wanted to make interesting films, which often means that you're not going to be playing action heroes or romantic leads, because often the substance to those kinds of characters is very thin. And as an actor, I like having something to think about when I'm working and I truly enjoy the process of creating a character.
Does your current box-office standing mean that you're tempted to take advantage of your success and make some big movies now which you might have turned down before?
No. I pretty much spent most of my career doing everything I could not to become a star and play romantic leads. I've been running away from my celebrity for so long now that I don't think I'm suddenly going to go down that road even if a lot of money is getting thrown my way. I'd still rather play interesting characters than go down the movie-star route. The only thing I really care about is what a wonderful life I have with Vanessa and our children — my work only interests me to the point where I can be creative in some way. You won't see me flying my own private jet to Aspen or skiing in Switzerland with the aristocracy（laughs）. 在你的新电影《秘窗》中，你扮演的是一个生活在偏僻之地的作家，有个陌生的男人（约翰·特托罗）追踪你……
就像是我自己的最大的一个恶梦成真（笑）。我是个对于被监视有偏执狂的人，所以扮演一个大多时候被跟踪的人，是一段非常奇怪的经历。
制作人一定非常高兴，突然，他们电影的明星因《女海盗》得到了大幅度的曝光和奥斯卡提名。
是的，这是个不错的褒奖，我认为这部电影（《秘窗》）理应找到自己的观众。但事实上，我从未故意不想让电影成功。我只是想拍有趣的电影，这通常意味着你不会去演动作片英雄或浪漫主角，因为往往那种角色的内容非常单薄。作为演员，我喜欢在工作时动脑筋，我真正享受创作角色的过程。
你们当前坚挺的票房，是否意味着你会试图利用你们的成功，现在拍一些之前你可能会拒绝的大片？
不会。我职业生涯的大部分时间都在试图尝试一切事情，而不是做电影明星或扮演浪漫主角。我一直在逃避自己的名人效应，已经很久了。即使走这条路会有很多钱等着我，我也不想突然转向这条路。和走电影明星路相比，我还是宁愿扮演有趣的人物。我唯一真正关心的事情是我、瓦内萨和我们的孩子的生活有多美好，我的工作让我唯一感兴趣的一点，是我可以在某些方面创新。你不会看到我和上流社会一起坐私人飞机飞到亚斯本或去瑞士滑雪（笑）。

文·瑞姆斯因计划冲突而无法出演本片。
凭借《加勒比海盗：黑珍珠号的诅咒》，约翰尼·德普取得了巨大成功，为了乘胜而上，制片方将本片提前一个月上映。
约翰尼·德普的台词“This is not my beautiful house. This is not my beautiful wife. Anymore”出自Talking Heads乐队Qnce in a Lifetime的歌词。