返回網站

每日英語跟讀 Ep.K047: A Fresh Take on a 1934 ‘Murder’克莉絲蒂經典偵探小說 「東方快車謀殺案」重拍

· 每日跟讀單元 Daily English,國際時事跟讀Daily Shadowing

每日英語跟讀 Ep.K047: A Fresh Take on a 1934 ‘Murder’

A gruesome murder has been committed on a train in the middle of the night. Only 13 occupants of the carriage could have committed the dastardly deed. Was it a) the Russian princess; b) the American widow; c) the English governess; or d) the Hungarian count? Or any of the nine other multinational posh people and their servants rubbing shoulders on the luxury locomotive, snowbound in the middle of Eastern Europe, with a brilliant Belgian detective inconveniently in their midst?

一宗可怕的謀殺案在夜半的火車上發生。只有13名旅客可能犯下這惡行。是a)俄羅斯公主;b)美國寡婦;c)英國女家教;或d)匈牙利伯爵呢?抑或是其他9位來自各國的紳士淑女和他們的僕人,眾人在受困東歐中部大雪的豪華火車車廂裡摩肩擦踵,這其中還碰巧有個厲害的比利時偵探?

Chances are this sounds familiar. It’s the setup for one of the most famous detective stories in the world: Agatha Christie’s 1934 novel “Murder on the Orient Express,” which has sold millions of copies. It was made into a sumptuous 1974 movie, directed by Sidney Lumet with the starriest of casts (Lauren Bacall, Sean Connery, Ingrid Bergman!). It has been adapted for television, stage and radio. There is a Japanese television version and a computer game.

這聽起來或許耳熟能詳。這是全球最著名偵探小說之一的場景:阿嘉莎.克莉絲蒂1934年的小說「東方快車謀殺案」,銷售數以百萬本計。導演薛尼·盧梅1974年翻拍成豪華版電影,有最耀眼的明星陣容(洛琳·白考兒、史恩·康納萊、英格麗·褒曼!),另並改編成電視劇、舞台劇和廣播劇,且有日本電視劇版本和一款電玩遊戲。

All this meant that Kenneth Branagh, the director and star of the new film version, which opened in the United States on Friday with the starriest of casts (Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Penélope Cruz, Judi Dench!), had his own mystery to solve. How do you reinvent one of the world’s best-loved whodunits for a new era? Branagh’s solution was to modify, and sometimes entirely change, character and plot details in ways that may dismay purists but that he felt would give the piece a more contemporary resonance.

這意味最新版本電影的導演兼主角肯尼斯·布萊納必須拿出一套解開謎團的獨到功夫,新片11月11日在美國上映,仍然有最耀眼的卡司(強尼·戴普、蜜雪兒·菲佛、潘妮洛普·克魯茲、茱蒂·丹契!)你要如何在新的世代詮釋最受世人喜愛的偵探小說呢?布萊納的方法是把角色與劇情細節進行修飾,時而甚至完全予以改變,這麼做或許會令純粹主義者沮喪,他卻覺得更能讓作品引起當代人的共鳴。

“There is always the thorny issue of who will know the plot and how can we divert them,” Branagh said in a telephone interview. “We knew we had to get people’s attention for a recalibrated character in Poirot,” Christie’s idiosyncratic Belgian detective.

布萊納接受電話訪問時說:「總會碰到有些人已經知道劇情,你該如何轉移他們的注意力,讓他們覺得有趣的棘手問題。我們知道,我們必須吸引人們注意經過修改的角色白羅(克莉絲蒂創造的怪異的比利時偵探)。」

To that end, Branagh and the scriptwriter, Michael Green, begin the movie with a showdown at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, as the detective solves another mystery. “I wanted to embrace the exotic and worldly side of Christie, to come into the big, hot open skies and find a new Poirot, our ticket for an exotic adventure,” Branagh said.

為達此目的,布萊納與編劇麥可·格林以偵探在耶路撒冷西牆解開一個對決謎團的方式,揭開電影序幕。布萊納說:「我想擁抱克莉絲蒂奇異與入世的一面,進入那既大又熱的開放天空,找到一個新的白羅,這是我們奇異冒險的門票。」

With an opening that has Poirot tripping up an escaping villain in a positively James Bond-esque manner, Branagh immediately established the detective as a far more dashing man of action than the novel’s small hero “muffled up to the ears of whom nothing was visible but a pink-tipped nose and the two points of an upward curled mustache.”

這個開場讓白羅以絕對詹姆士·龐德的方式逼逃犯露出馬腳,布萊納也立刻將這位偵探塑造成遠比原著中小號英雄瀟灑的行動派男子漢;原著中的小號英雄「衣服直蓋到耳朵,除了一個粉紅鼻子,以及上捲的兩綹髭鬚,什麼都看不見」。

Source article: https://paper.udn.com/udnpaper/POH0067/320990/web/

🏆通勤學英語15mins.Today榮獲

  • Apple Podcast 2020年十大熱門節目
  • KKBox 2020年十大Podcast風雲榜 (唯一語言學習Podcast)
  • Himalaya 人氣票選播客總冠軍 

每日英語跟讀Podcast,就在http://www.15mins.today/daily-shadowing
每週Vocab精選詞彙Podcast,就在https://www.15mins.today/vocab
每週In-TENSE文法練習Podcast,就在https://www.15mins.today/in-tense

用email訂閱就可以收到通勤學英語節目更新通知。