電影重現奧巴馬伕婦的第一次約會(2)

Like Michelle and Barack’s journey through Chicago, the poem raises a cluster of ideas — literary, political, philosophical — about Barack, suggesting where he’s at and where he’s going.

與米歇爾和巴拉克在芝加哥的旅程一樣，這首詩反映出巴拉克在文學、政治和哲學方面的觀點——表明他身在何處，將去往哪裏。坦恩顯然仔細研究過巴拉克的真實生活，來作爲創作靈感的來源。

Mr. Tanne has clearly made a close study of his real-life inspirations, yet his movie is soon hostage to the couple’s history. His characters feel on loan and, despite his actors, eventually make for dull company because too many lines and details serve the great-man-to-be story rather than the romance.

不過他的電影很快受制於這對伴侶的歷史。儘管他選用了很好的演員，但這些角色感覺像是臨時借來的，最終淪爲乏味的陪襯，因爲有太多臺詞和細節是爲他後來成爲偉人做鋪墊，而不是爲了講述這段戀情。

At the art show, when Barack explains that the painter Ernie Barnes did the canvases featured in the sitcom “Good Times,” it isn’t just a guy trying to impress a date; it’s a setup for another big moment.

在藝術展上，巴拉克提到厄尼•巴恩斯(Ernie Barnes)的那幅油畫曾經出現在情景喜劇《好時光》(Good Times)裏——這不只是要展現一個努力給約會對象留下好印象的人，而是爲了給另一個重要時刻做鋪墊。

Ms. Sumpter’s enunciation has a near-metonymic precision suggestive of Mrs. Obama’s, while Mr. Sawyers’s gestural looseness, playful smile and lanky saunter will be familiar.

桑普特的談吐很容易讓人聯想起奧巴馬伕人，而索耶斯放鬆的姿態、調皮的微笑和瘦長的體態更是讓人覺得熟悉。

Mr. Sawyers has the better, more satisfying role, partly because of who he plays, though also because Barack is more complex and vulnerable. He is the one with the thorny father issues who is trying to win over the girl (the audience, the nation).

索耶斯的角色更好、更令人滿意的一個原因是他飾演的是巴拉克，不過也是因爲巴拉克更復雜、更脆弱。他是那個在父親的問題上經歷坎坷、正努力贏取那個姑娘（乃至觀衆和整個國家）芳心的人。

He’s hard to resist even if, by the time he takes Michelle to a community meeting in a housing project — where the aspirations of the family in “Good Times” meet their real-world counterpart — his words sound like footnotes in a political biography.

你很難抗拒他，儘管他帶着米歇爾參加一個住房項目的社區會議時——《好時光》中那個家庭的願望出現在了現實世界裏——他的話聽起來像是一本政治傳記的腳註。

Mr. Obama wrote one such book, “The Audacity of Hope,” in which he describes this first date in a scene that’s echoed in the movie. “I asked if I could kiss her,” Mr. Obama writes, before cutting loose his smooth operator: “It tasted of chocolate.”

奧巴馬寫過這樣一本書：《無畏的希望》(The Audacity of Hope)，他在其中描述了第一次約會的情景——電影中也有這一幕。“我問她我能不能親她，”奧巴馬寫道。

It’s no surprise that Mr. Obama is a better writer than Mr. Tanne and has a stronger sense of drama. But it’s too bad that while Mr. Obama’s story about his date has tension, a moral and politics, Mr. Tanne’s has plaster saints.

然後顯現出他很會甜言蜜語的一面：“那感覺像品嚐巧克力。”奧巴馬當然是比坦恩更擅於寫作，有更強的戲劇感。不過，糟糕的是，奧巴馬關於那次約會的故事有道德和政治方面的張力，而坦恩的故事裏只有道德完人。

Abraham Lincoln was long dead when John Ford polished the presidential halo in the 1939 film “Young Mr. Lincoln.” Mr. Obama hasn’t even left office, but the cinematic hagiography has begun.

約翰•福特(John Ford)在1939年的影片《青年林肯》(Young Mr. Lincoln)中給這位總統塗上光環時，亞伯拉罕•林肯(Abraham Lincoln)早已過世。而奧巴馬尚未離任，將他描繪成聖人的電影就已經上映了。