《唐顿庄园》剧本秘方：柔和叙事中突起波澜
《唐顿庄园》剧本秘方：柔和叙事中突起波澜
The fourth season of “Downton Abbey” concluded on Sunday with the servants Mrs. Hughes and Mr. Carson joining hands on a beach as they walked into the water together. It was a serene image that belied a year on this PBS “Masterpiece” period drama that was filled with tumultuous events — a character’s rape and the fallout from it, the introduction of race as a plot point — and, at times, tumultuous audience reaction.
在PBS“经典剧场”中播出的古装剧《唐顿庄园》(Downton Abbey)的第四季于周日完结，最后一幕是仆人休斯(Hughes)与卡森(Carson)在沙滩上携手朝水中走去。在这宁静的一幕下，掩藏着一年的跌宕起伏——角色之一遭到强奸并造成种种后果，种族话题作为一条情节线引入其中——观众的反应也时不时地随之波动。
All of which, said Julian Fellowes, the “Downton Abbey” creator and writer, makes it no different from any other season of this series about British aristocrats and their household staff. It reliably stirs up its audience once or twice a year, but is otherwise as notable for a lack of action as for when it occurs.
《唐顿庄园》的创作人兼编剧朱利安·费罗斯(Julian Fellowes)表示，在这部以英国贵族与家仆为主题的系列剧中，种种波折构成的这一季与之前的几季别无二致。它必然会每年在观众中掀起一两次风浪，但除此之外的波澜不兴与大事发生时的喧嚣一样引人注目。
“ ‘Downton’ is, God knows, a slow burn of a show,” Mr. Fellowes said in a recent telephone interview from London, where he was revising scripts for its coming fifth season.
“上天可鉴，唐顿是部慢热的剧，”身在伦敦的费罗斯最近通过电话接受采访称。他正在为接下来的第五季修改剧本。
If there is any formula, he said, it’s that “we have these fairly lilac-covered, gentle narratives, interweaving. And every now and then — poof — something huge happens.”
他认为，如果说剧本有什么配方的话，那就是“我们让浪漫柔和的叙事交织在一起。然后时不时地，砰，蹦出一桩大事。”
That could surely be said about the episode in which the lady’s maid Anna (played by Joanne Froggatt) was raped by a visiting nobleman’s valet. While the repercussions of the rape played out over several installments, it also angered many viewers, who complained that this dark incident did not fit the tone of “Downton Abbey” and that it had overwhelmed other subplots.
有一集绝对就是这样：小姐的贴身女仆安娜(Anna，乔安妮·弗罗盖特[Joanne Froggatt]饰) 被前来拜访的一名贵族的贴身男仆强奸。虽然强奸事件的影响是在接下来的几集里逐步呈现出来的，但这一情节也惹恼了不少观众。他们抱怨，这么黑暗的事情与《唐顿庄园》的基调不符，还埋没了其他的情节。
Mr. Fellowes countered that Anna’s rape was not “much less of an event” than other dire circumstances that have befallen the Crawley family in the past, like the death of Lady Sybil in childbirth or the car accident that killed Matthew, a new father.
费罗斯反驳，与过去降临到克劳利家族头上的种种遭遇相比，比如西比尔小姐(Lady Sybil)死于生产，以及刚当了爸爸的马修(Matthew)丧生于车轮之下，安娜被强奸一事“差不了多少”。
“It was very important that it should be completely clear that it is not the victim’s fault at all,” Mr. Fellowes said. “This was a chance to make the argument for the innocent rape victim who has done nothing to deserve it.”
“要完全明确一点，这件事根本不是受害者的错，这很重要，”费罗斯说，“无辜的受害者没有做任何活该被强奸的事情，这里是为受害者发声的一个机会。”
“It created this mammoth thing that she and Bates had to get through,” he added, referring to her husband, “and Bates’s response is that he doesn’t love her less. He says himself: If anything, he loves her more.”
谈到安娜的丈夫时，他说，“这件事给她和贝茨(Bates)创造了一个必须跨越的巨大障碍，而贝茨的反应是，对她的爱没有减少一分一毫。用他自己的话说：如果说有什么变化的话，那就是更爱她了。”
Love also created complications for young Lady Rose (Lily James), a Crawley family member who fell into a romance with a black jazz singer, Jack Ross (Gary Carr), that scandalized some family members.
对年轻的罗丝小姐(Lady Rose，莉莉·詹姆斯[Lily James]饰)而言，爱情也制造了诸多麻烦。她是克劳利家族的一员，却与黑人爵士歌手杰克·罗斯(Jack Ross，加里·卡尔[Gary Carr]饰演)陷入爱河，让一些家人深感震惊。
Despite viewers’ criticism that Jack Ross was too easily embraced in rigidly divided 1920s Britain, Mr. Fellowes countered that the character and his treatment accurately reflected that country’s history.
虽然有读者批评，在上世纪20年代阶层严格分化的英国，杰克·罗斯太轻易地就被接纳了，但费罗斯反驳道，这个角色及他所受的待遇精确地反映了英国的历史。
Attitudes toward race were comparatively more liberal than in America, he said, because Britain had its own black communities earlier and abolished slavery sooner, and its upper-class citizens were more accustomed to encountering nonwhites throughout the British Empire.
他说，那个时代，英国对待种族的态度比美国更开放，因为那里的黑人社区更早建立，奴隶制更快被废除，上层社会对在大英帝国各地遇到白人以外的族群也更习以为常。
By the 1920s, Mr. Fellowes said, there would have been “a hell of a lot” of black jazz singers working in London — even those who had affairs with dames and debutantes — but none who would have been allowed to marry into white society.
费罗斯说，到了20年代，伦敦应该有“大把的”黑人爵士歌手，甚至还有人与贵妇或初入社交场合的小姐产生恋情，但无人能获得与白人家族联姻的许可。
“However much people were polite and perfectly happy to have all sorts of people at their parties, there was a rule governing who you settled down with,” he said. “I don’t think we tried to whitewash that.”
他说，“不管人们是多么彬彬有礼、多么高兴地让各色人等参加他们的宴会，总会有一条规矩支配你最后和谁在一起。我认为，我们没有试图粉饰这一点。”
Gareth Neame, an executive producer of “Downton Abbey” and the managing director of Carnival Films, the British studio that produces it, said that Mr. Fellowes has wide latitude to shape each season as he wishes.
嘉年华影业(Carnival Films)的执行董事、《唐顿庄园》的执行制片人加雷斯·尼姆(Gareth Neame)说，费罗斯有很大的自由度来随心塑造每季的剧情。嘉年华公司是出品本剧的英国制片厂。
Before Mr. Fellowes delves into new episodes, “we’ll sit down and debate and discuss at great length all of the characters and the journeys they might take,” Mr. Neame said. “By the time he starts writing, we’ve established the building blocks of where the main characters are going.”
在费罗斯埋头撰写新剧集之前，“我们会坐下来，花大量时间去争论和探讨所有的人物，以及他们可能经历的人生旅程。到他开始动笔的时候，我们已经安排好了主人公的命运主线，”尼姆说。
Though the rape story line generated substantial controversy when it was broadcast in Britain last fall, Mr. Neame said this “was really rather whipped up by the British press.” If anything, he said, reaction was more muted in the United States, where the “Downton” episode was shown opposite the Golden Globes, and “we didn’t get quite the sort of copy space that we did in the U.K.”
去年秋天在英国播出时，强奸剧情引发了巨大的争议，尽管如此，尼姆说，“准确地说，这就是英国媒体的炒作。”他还表示，如果说有什么区别的话，那就是美国人的反应更平和，《唐顿庄园》中的那一集在美国播出时，正好碰上金球奖(Golden Globes)颁奖典礼，而且，“我们的广告规模铺得不像在英国那么大”。
Not all the “Downton” characters suffered needlessly, and some even grew from their adversities, like the hapless Lady Edith (Laura Carmichael), who showed a previously untapped resolve when her lover disappeared, and she found herself unexpectedly pregnant.
并非《唐顿庄园》的每个角色都遭遇了不必要的厄运，有些角色甚至因为逆境而获得成长，比如不幸的伊迪斯小姐(Lady Edith，劳拉·卡尔迈克尔[Laura Carmichael]饰)。当她的恋人消失，却发现自己意外怀孕时，她表现出了此前没有显露的坚强意志。
“These people have to find a way of adapting to the world as it was changing,” Mr. Fellowes said. Lady Edith in particular, he said, is based on women like his great-aunts, who, for their era, “were fairly conventional in their aspirations.” Had Lady Edith been born a generation earlier, he said, she “would just have married a baronet and stayed in Yorkshire.”
费罗斯称，“这些人物必须找到一条途径，以适应不断变化的世界。”以他的太祖母辈亲戚为原型的伊迪斯小姐尤其如此。在那个年代，她们的“愿望相当传统”。他还说，如果伊迪斯小姐提早一代出生，她“可能会和一位准男爵结婚，待在约克郡。”
Mr. Fellowes said he drew encouragement from American television shows like “Mad Men,” which he has been consuming “in huge, boxlike helpings,” and which balance mordant humor and comic subplots with more serious matters.
费罗斯说，他受到了《广告狂人》(Mad Men)等美剧的鼓舞。一直以来，他观看了“大量”这类剧集。它们用严肃的事件来平衡尖刻的幽默和喜剧化的情节。
“One minute, some secretary’s driving a lawn mower over an executive’s foot,” he said. “And the next, Don Draper’s brother is hanging himself.”
他说，“上一分钟，某秘书还开着割草机轧过了一名高管的脚。下一分钟，唐·德雷珀(Don Draper)的弟弟就上吊了。”
Mr. Fellowes has also noticed that American serials like “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad” have tended to run about five to seven seasons before reaching their natural conclusions. Asked if he was starting to contemplate an end game for “Downton Abbey,” Mr. Fellowes said, “I think you have to.”
费罗斯还指出，《广告狂人》和《绝命毒师》(Breaking Bad)等美剧常常会拍上五到七季，最后自然收尾。当被问到他是否正开始为《唐顿庄园》构思结尾时，他说，“我想我必须得这么干。”
“It’s not like a soap opera that can go on for 27 years,” he added.
他还说，“它不是那种能拖上27年的肥皂剧。”
Mr. Neame said he would like “to eventually end the show just before people want us to.” He added, “We won’t be around for 10 years, and we’re doing Year 5 now. So we’re going to be somewhere between 5 and 10.”
尼姆则表示，他希望“恰好赶在观众巴望着我们收尾之前，最终结束这部电视剧。我们不会拖上10年，现在我们已经播了5年。所以，我们打算把它控制在5到10年之间。”
However “Downton Abbey” ends — and he is not yet saying when — Mr. Fellowes said it would be on his terms.
费罗斯还没有透露何时终结《唐顿庄园》。不过，他表示，无论何时，他都一定会让它按照自己的意愿结束。
“It would be unlikely that I would suddenly find, ‘What, we’re not doing it anymore?’ ” he said with mock astonishment. “I think we’d know before. We’ll know in time.”
“不太可能出现那种我突然发问，‘什么，我们不会再继续拍了?’的情况，”他用打趣的讶异语气说。“我想，我们会提前知道结束时间。我们也会及时知道的。”
