芬尼根的守灵 / Passage from James Joyce's FINNEGANS WAKE(1966)

Director: Mary Ellen Bute
Year: 1956-1966
(Based on the play by Mary Manning)


Mary Ellen Bute(1906-1983): 以拍抽象短片为主，从imdb上看，这是她最后一部作品，一拍就拍了10年。特效之类的不算太多，Mary Bute自己又是animator，所以这十年该是花在对书的理解和融合上了，更多请看：http://www.awn.com/mag/issue1.2/articles1.2/moritz1.2.html

With Ted Nemth(left), Parábola(1937)

开篇摘自乔伊斯：
"One great part of every human existence is passed in a state which cannot be rendered sensible by the use of wide-awake language, cut-and-dry grammar and go-ahead plot." --JAMES JOYCE

下面是by director:
FINNEGANS WAKE deals with the nightworld, with the subsconscious, and with dreams. Joyce felt that during the night man must redeem himself by means of a quest; must refresh his powers through sleep, which takes him beyond himself into a world without definition. Man's goal is lucidity, a fresh awakening. The quest carries him through all history, which seems to be a constant process of waking. It is some of this universal element which we have tried to capture in this first film based on any of Joyce's major work.

Finnagan - otherwise known as H. C. Earwicker, or Here Comes Everybody - has two sons, Shem and Shaun who are also conflicting parts of himself which invade him; and his daughter Iseult, who is a younger manifestation of his wife, Anna Livia Plurabelle(ALP), who is also his soul and the River Liffey. Finnegan must come to terms with these parts of himself, realize the dangers inherent in their extreme forms, and experience his "reunited selfdom," in order to "Wake" up.


这段话对理解电影有很大帮助，拙译了一下：
《芬尼根的守灵》是一本关于夜世界，潜意识以及梦境的书。乔伊斯认为在夜间，人必须通过探求来救赎自己；必须通过睡眠恢复力量，睡眠则将人带入一个无穷无尽的世界。人的最终目的是为了觉醒，为了一次全新的复苏。探求伴随人类穿越整个历史，这似乎是人类一种恒久不变的复苏过程。在这首部 (注: 也是迄今唯一一部) 改编自乔伊斯主要作品的影片中，我们尝试着捕捉这种宇宙过程的一部分。

芬尼根 － 也叫H.C.Earwicker (注：Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker / H.C.E / Here Comes Everybody) － 有两个儿子，一个叫Shem一个叫Shaun，象征着HCE自身两个互相冲突的对立体；他还有一个女儿叫Iseult，象征着年轻版本的妻子Anna Livia Plurabelle (注：ALP, Plurabelle又可拆为plural-belle不知有没有什么另外含义) 。妻子ALP同时又是HCE的灵魂(精神、意识)，也是利菲河 (注：都柏林一条河，古称Anna Livia) 的化身。芬尼根必须接受和适应这些化身部分，觉察存于极端形态中的威胁，并且经历“自我统一”，才能“苏醒”。



16 SNAPSHOTS 用暴风截的:

观后感：
看了两遍，明白自己等级也只能看看电影，放弃了买原版书的打算。台词充满了排比，头韵，尾韵 (还有些叫不出名) 等修辞，多为古英语，偶尔夹杂着其它语系，想必原书此类现象更甚。就影片本身而言，没发生“期望越大失望越大”的现象，气氛到位，特别是开头Finnegan跌死 ("the fall"，片中为从床上跌落，而非书中从墙上摔落) 到守灵开始动画效果。至于书评所说，HCE和妻子ALP象征Adam和Eve,片中能看得出这点的只有开头riverrun的时候了。开头和结尾采用了原书的衔接："riverrun, past Eve and Adam's..." (片头) , "A way a lone a last a loved a long the..." (片尾) 。最后在各种代表“生生不息”的场景和HCE在背景光中不断向屏幕微笑走来中结束。

能把书读完不易，理解分析研究它更不易，至于把这么复杂这么恐怖的一本书压缩到短短90分钟的时间里，就算花10年去做也要掉不少头发了 [由于政治原因，Andrzej Zulawski拍《银色星球》(Na srebrnym globie, 1977-1987) 也花了十年] 。只觉由演员说出台词不够有意思，如果加入大量旁白和内心独白配合会更好，当然只针对我的个人口味。欧洲那批哲学家导演也许更适合此类题材。;P 据说Mel Gibson也要拍一部Finnegans Wake，没见动静，不知怎么样了。

很多很多年以后，人类智商高出现在许多之时，不知语言是会丰富还是简化，Finnegans Wake对他们来说会是通俗易懂还是生涩复杂？