You know a Christopher Nolan protagonist when you see him. He is a man caught in a trap of his own intricate construction, lost in the maelstrom of a guilty obsession. He may not wear that obsession on his skin like Leonard Shelby, the amnesia-stricken avenger in “Memento,” or parade his demons in as symbolic a fashion as Bruce Wayne does in the “Dark Knight” trilogy. But whether he skulks about in film-noir shadows or blasts forth into dimensions unknown, every Nolan antihero risks becoming the architect of his own obliteration, a cruel fate that may well consume others in its wake.当你看到诺兰电影的主角时，你就会对诺兰有进一步认识。诺兰导演都是一个深陷自己精心设计的陷阱，迷失在罪恶的执念漩涡中的人。他可能不会像《记忆碎片》中失忆的复仇者伦纳德·谢尔比那样将这种执念表现得淋漓尽致，也不会像《黑暗骑士》三部曲中的布鲁斯·韦恩那样以象征性的方式展现自己的心魔。但是，无论他是在黑色电影的阴影中潜行，还是在未知的空间中突破，每一个诺兰的反英雄角色都有可能成为自己毁灭的始作俑者，而这种残酷的命运很可能会吞噬其他人。None of which is to suggest that J. Robert Oppenheimer, the pioneering theoretical physicist who became known as “the father of the atomic bomb,” was ever an obvious choice of subject for this filmmaker. Much as Nolan may enjoy contemplating the end of the world, it’s telling that his past flirtations with the apocalypse — the uninhabitable Earth of “Interstellar,” the nuclear climax of “The Dark Knight Rises” — have been consigned to the relatively safe terrain of blockbuster fiction. With the exception of “Dunkirk,” his bravura thriller about a pivotal early chapter of World War II, Nolan has largely steered clear of historical events and famous figures. He practices a cinema of heady ideas, mind-churning metaphysics and rug-pulling narrative gamesmanship — not an intuitive fit with the more traditional conventions of the Hollywood biopic.罗伯特·奥本海默，这位被誉为“原子弹之父”的开创性理论物理学家，从来都不是这位电影人的不二之选。尽管诺兰可能很喜欢思考世界末日，但他过去对世界末日的调侃——《星际穿越》中不适宜居住的地球、《黑暗骑士崛起》中的核爆发——都被归入了大片小说中相对安全的领域。除了《敦刻尔克》这部讲述二战早期关键环节的惊险片之外，诺兰在很大程度上避开了历史事件和著名人物。他的电影中充斥着令人兴奋的想象力、汹涌澎湃的形而上学和令人瞠目结舌的叙事技巧，这与好莱坞传记片的传统套路并不直接契合。One of the many satisfactions of “Oppenheimer,” Nolan’s intellectually thrilling new film, is that it succeeds in locating some of those conventions within another of his ingeniously constructed narrative labyrinths. A straightforward adaptation might begin with the man’s meteoric ascent into the top ranks of American physicists, build to his leadership of the four-year, $2-billion Manhattan Project and climax with the horrific conflagrations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It would end, perhaps, with the bitter, disillusioning coda of Oppenheimer’s postwar career, during which he would speak out against nuclear proliferation but never express public regret for the bomb’s Japanese casualties.诺兰的新片《奥本海默》令人烧脑，这部影片的众多令人满意之处之一就是，它成功地将其中的一些惯例融入了诺兰巧妙构建的另一个叙事迷宫之中。如果直接改编，可能会从奥本海默一跃成为美国顶级物理学家开始，到他领导历时四年、耗资 20 亿美元的曼哈顿计划，再到广岛和长崎的原子弹轰炸达到高潮。也许，奥本海默的战后生涯将以痛苦、幻灭的结局结束，在此期间，他将公开反对核扩散，但从未公开对原子弹造成的日本人伤亡表示过遗憾。
- protagonist [proˈtæɡənɪst]：（戏剧的）主角; （故事的）主人公
- apocalypse [əˈpɑkəlɪps]：世界毁灭; 大灾变; 末世
- gamesmanship [ˈɡemzmənˌʃɪp]：竞赛时使用的虽不光明但不犯规的方法
- labyrinth [ˈlæbərɪnθ]：迷宫; 难解的事件
编辑：ETTBL
翻译：Shaw Henry
材料来源：Los Angeles Times
*配图取自网络，仅供学习分享使用，侵删
