百年50部英文烧脑电影赏析:[43]The Butterfly Effect 蝴蝶效应

In the year 2002, Evan Treborn（Ashton Kutcher）frequently suffers from blackouts, often at moments of high stress. As a young child（played by Logan Lerman）and adolescent（played by John Patrick Amedori）, Evan suffered many severe sexual abuse and psychological traumas. These traumas include being forced to take part in child pornography, being strangled by his mentally-ill father, causing an accident with dynamite with his friends, and seeing his dog being burned by his friend. Seven years later, while “entertaining” a girl in his dorm room, he realizes that when he reads from his adolescent journals, he can travel back in time, and is able to “redo” parts of his past. His time traveling episodes account for the frequent blackouts he experienced as a child However; there are consequences to his choices that propagate back to his present life, his alternate personal futures progress from college student, to prisoner, to amputee. His efforts are driven by the desire to undo the most unpleasant events of his childhood which coincide with his mysterious blackouts, including saving his childhood sweetheart Kayleigh（Amy Smart）from being molested by her father（Eric Stoltz）and tormented by her sadistic brother（William Lee Scott）.
The actions he takes, and enables others to take during his blackouts, change the timeline in the new future where he awakes. As he continues to do this he realizes that even though his intentions are good, his actions have unforeseen consequences. Moreover, the assimilation of dozens of years' worth of new memories from the alternate timelines causes him brain damage and severe nosebleeds. Ultimately, he decides that his attempts to alter the past end up only harming those he cares about, and realizes that the main cause of everyone's suffering in all the different timelines is himself. At the conclusion of the film, Evan purposely travels back in time one final time to the first day he met Kayleigh. Before this, Evan learns that Kayleigh had a choice to either stay with her mom or her dad. Because she wanted to stay with Evan, she decided to stay with her dad, which caused all the problems in the first place. By scaring her away, Evan makes sure that she goes with her mom, thus allowing her to never be a part of his life. Through this, Evan finally succeeds in saving her life. He then destroys all of his journals and memories so that he is not ever tempted again to make any more changes.

The film ends eight years in the future with Evan leaving an office building in Manhattan and passing Kayleigh on a crowded sidewalk, They alternately pause and turn after spotting and passing each other. After a moment of hesitation, Evan lets her walk away without speaking to her.
公元2002年，埃文·特里伯恩（阿什顿·库彻饰）在承受巨大压力时，经常会发生暂时性失忆。当他是个孩子（罗根·勒曼饰）和青少年（约翰·帕特里克·阿梅多利饰）时，埃文遭受了许多严重的性侵犯和心理创伤。这些灾难包括被迫参与儿童色情、差点被他患有精神病的父亲掐死、与他的朋友制造了爆炸事件、看见他的狗被他的朋友烧死。七年后，他与一个女孩在他的宿舍中玩时，他发现当他阅读年少时的日记时，他可以回到过去，并能改变过去。他的时间旅行的片段填补了他还是一个孩子时的那些暂时性失忆的片段。然而，他的选择会被传导到自己现在的生活中，产生了成为大学生、囚犯、截肢者等几种不同的未来。他这样做是为了能够消除他童年时伴随着他的暂时性失忆一起发生的那些最不愉快的事件，包括避免他童年时的心上人凯蕾（艾米·斯马特饰）被其父亲（埃里克·斯托尔兹饰）骚扰，以及避免被她的虐待狂哥哥（威廉姆·李·斯科特饰）折磨。 在他失去意识期间，他的行为与其他人的反应，会在他醒来后生成新的未来。当他不断这样做了几次后，他意识到即使他的意图是好的，行为也会造成不可预料的后果。而且，由于历史的改变而产生的十几年新记忆的同步，会造成他脑子的损伤，并引起严重的流鼻血。最终，他发现，他每次试图改变历史，都只会伤害他关心的人，并意识到，让每个人在不同历史中都痛苦的原因正是他自己。
在电影的结尾，他有意回到了第一次遇到凯蕾那天。在此之前，他得知凯蕾可以选择是与她妈妈还是与她爸爸住一起。因为她想与埃文在一起，所以决定留在她爸爸身边，而这正是一切问题的源头。埃文通过吓唬她，让她去与她的妈妈一起生活，并因此使得她从此不再是他生活的一部分。通过这种方法，埃文终于成功地挽救了她的生命。然后他摧毁了他所有的日记与能引起回忆的物品，以确保他无法再试着做任何改变。
电影的结尾发生在八年后，埃文离开曼哈顿的一间办公室并与凯蕾在拥挤的便道上擦肩而过。在彼此擦肩而过之后，他们交替停下来回头看对方。经过片刻的犹豫，埃文什么都没有说，就这样让她走了。

dynamite［'dainəmait］n. 炸药；具有潜在危险的人（或物）
adolescent［ˌædəu'lesnt］adj. 青春期的；未成熟的
blackout［'blækaut］n. 灯火管制；灯火熄灭；暂时的意识丧失
amputee［æmpjʊ'ti:］n. 被截肢者
timeline［'taimlain］n. 时间轴；时间线；大事年表
consequence［'kɔnsiˌkwəns］n. 结果；重要性；推论
tempt［tempt］vt. 诱惑；引起；冒……的风险；使感兴趣
hesitation［ˌhezi'tei∫ən］n. 犹豫
重点掌握
■ … he can travel back in time,...
in time是英语中一个固定短语，常见的意思是“及时，按时”，比如：If taken in time , the medicine will be effective. 如果及时服用，这药是很有效的。在这里是指“在时间中（旅行）”。此外，in time还有“迟早；终于；后来；最后”、“合拍子，有节奏地”、“到底，究竟”的意思，比如：The murderer will in time be brought to justice. 杀人凶手迟早会受到法律的制裁。

Ashton Kutcher and Amy Smart Interviewed by Rebecca Murray
What attracted you to The Butterfly Effect?
Amy Smart: I know what attracted me was, first of all, the script was an original story ［and］well written. It was so fascinating. It definitely affected me when I read it. And it was the greatest challenge I'd seen yet, as an actor, to do. That is what initially drew me to it. Ashton Kutcher: This script, when I got it, it was in the form that we shot it for the most part. We changed the ending a little bit, but it was pretty much there. I thought that it was kind of a fantastic metaphor for life, and pretty enlightening. I also spoke with the directors before I decided to sign on. They had a really clear, concise vision of what they wanted to do stylistically, and what they wanted from the story. The opportunity to play a character that's blind to the trauma that takes place in his life, and then the violence that is in the movie I thought was a fantastic metaphor for how blind we are as a society, and as a people, to the things that actually do happen on a day-to-day basis, and how we kind of just block them out And whether it be through our media or whatever, we go, “Oh, it's not happening in my world, so it's not happening.” In the movie there's a great representation of the violence with the kids, and the pedophilia, and these kinds of things. The guys could have taken the easy road, and you know, kind of squeamishly cut around, but they weren't afraid of it.
是什么吸引你们加入《蝴蝶效应》？
Amy Smart（艾米·斯马特）：我知道吸引我的，首先是，剧本是一个原创的故事，写得不错。它是如此迷人。当我读到它时，它的确影响了我。而且它是我见过的最大的挑战，作为演员，去表演。这就是最初它吸引我的地方。
阿什顿·库彻：这个剧本，我拿到手的时候，大部分是以我们拍摄的形式出现的。我们改动了一些结局，但大部分还是很好地保留着。我认为这是一种奇异生命的比喻，很有启发性。在我决定签合同之前，我还跟导演谈过。他们有着很清楚、很简洁的图景，在风格上他们想怎样处理，从故事中他们想要什么。有机会扮演一个看不到他生活的创伤的角色。电影里的暴力，我以为是种了不起的比喻，作为一个社会，作为一个人，我们是多么的盲目。其实这些事情都确实发生在日常生活的基础上，我们只是屏蔽了它。无论是通过我们的媒体或无论何种媒介我们会说“哦，这没发生在我的世界里，所以它就没发生。”影片中孩子的暴力有很大的代表性，还有恋童癖之类的事情。那些人本可以走上坦途，你知道，有些恶心受惊的部分被剪掉了，但他们并不为此害怕。

影片的灵感来源于著名的混沌理论“蝴蝶效应”。意思即一件表面上看来毫无关系、非常微小的事情，可能带来巨大的改变。
为了准备角色，阿什顿·库彻广泛地研究了心理学、精神病学和混沌理论。
伊万的日记本封面和《七宗罪》中约翰·多伊的一样。两部影片都是新线公司出品的。