編劇談《唐頓莊園》劇中角色的未來及大結局

The fifth season finale of “Downton Abbey” tugged at many heartstrings, and we’re not talking about Lord Grantham’s mistaken case of angina. (Stop reading here if you wish to avoid spoilers.)

《唐頓莊園》第五季的最終集動人心絃，我們不是說格蘭瑟姆伯爵被弄錯的心絞痛（如果你擔心劇透，就不要再往下看了）。

In one fell swoop, the Dowager Countess (Maggie Smith) abandoned any thought of rekindling a past infatuation with the Russian Prince Kuragin, and Isobel Crawley (Penelope Wilton) closed the door on her engagement to Lord Merton. Love bloomed in the servants’ quarters, where the stately Mr. Carson (Jim Carter) at long last proposed to the kindly Mrs. Hughes (Phyllis Logan).

老伯爵遺孀（瑪吉·史密斯[Maggie Smith]飾），突然放棄了和俄羅斯克拉更王子愛火重燃的念頭，伊莎貝爾·克勞利（Isobel Crawley，佩妮洛普·威爾頓[Penelope Wilton]飾）拒絕與默登爵爺訂婚。戀愛之花在僕人們當中盛開，莊嚴的卡森先生（on，吉姆·卡特[Jim Carter]飾）終於向和藹的休斯女士（Mrs. Hughes，菲利斯·羅根[Phyllis Logan]飾）求婚。

These turns of fate, seen on Sunday’s installment of this PBS “Masterpiece” period drama, are only the latest to have been flung at the noble Crawleys and their household staff by Julian Fellowes, the creator and writer of “Downton Abbey.”

PBS臺每週日的“傑作”欄目都要播放《唐頓莊園》這部時代劇，這些命運的轉折便是劇中高貴的克勞利一家及僕人們最新的經歷，該劇由朱利安·費羅斯(Julian Fellowes)擔任主創和編劇。

Speaking by telephone from his home in Dorset, England, Mr. Fellowes discussed the developments of the past season and what the future might hold for “Downton” and its characters. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.

費羅斯在英格蘭多賽特家中接受了電話採訪，談起第五季劇情的發展，以及《唐頓莊園》和劇中角色的未來。下面是經過編輯和縮寫的對話。

Q. The season finale brought resolutions to many of the show’s potential romantic pairings. How do you decide who gets a happy ending and who doesn’t?

問：這一季的最後一集給劇中很多潛在的浪漫關係帶來了最終結果。誰能得到幸福，誰不能，你是怎麼決定的？

A. Happiness is quite a difficult concept when you have an ongoing drama. What you can’t do is have everything go right. Then you’re just left with a couple saying, “Did you have a good day, darling?” “Terrific, why don’t you sit down while I get dinner?”

答：劇還在繼續拍，所以幸福是一個很難說的東西。你不能把一切都安排得那麼好。然後讓一對情侶說，“親愛的，你今天過得好嗎？”“好極了，我吃飯的時候你就不能坐下來嗎？”

Q. So we shouldn’t assume it will all go smoothly for Mrs. Hughes and Mr. Carson?

問：所以休斯夫人和卡森先生之間也不可能一帆風順了？

A. Well, you know, “Downton” is a bumpy path. [laughs]

答：這個，你知道，《唐頓莊園》是一條坎坷的道路（笑）。

Q. Were there larger points you were trying to make with these couplings?

問：通過這些情侶，你想表達的重點是什麼？

A. With Violet, what she enjoyed from seeing Kuragin again was that sense of being loved, of being a desirable woman. It reminded her of her great passion for him when she was young, but also the nearness that she came to making a great mistake that would’ve wrecked everything. For Isobel and Lord Merton, they’re very well suited, but when people are in love with each other and the children of one of them are being impossible, very often they do not understand how important this is going to be to their relationship in the coming years.

答：對於維奧萊特來說，她與克拉更重逢時，內心更享受那種被愛的感覺，感覺自己是個嫵媚動人的女人。這讓她想起自己年輕時對他的熱情，但也讓她想起，她差點犯下能毀掉一切的大錯。至於伊莎貝爾和默頓爵爺來說，他們倆非常般配，但當兩人相愛，而他們某人的一個孩子卻不能接受時，他們通常不能理解這對他們在未來幾年裏的關係有多麼重要。

Q. After several tumultuous seasons, there’s still no closure for Anna and Bates. Why do you torment them in particular?

問：經歷了動盪的幾季，安娜和貝茨之間仍然沒有結果。你爲什麼要這麼折磨他們。

A. I think in life there are people who are unlucky — the bread always falls with the butter side down. Edith is an example of that. Bates and Anna have that, with a key difference, which is that they have a very strong love with each other. Anna is one of the most admirable characters in the series. She’s come from a tough childhood, we know now, and yet she hasn’t allowed it to distort her. We live in this great excuse generation, where nothing’s ever your own fault and everything’s always because someone was terrible to you. I think that our lives are the result of our own choices, and when I see that in action I really admire it.

答：我想生活中總有那種特別不幸的人，他們喝涼水都塞牙。伊迪絲就是一個例子。貝茨和安娜也是，他們雖然深愛對方，但有着重要的分歧。安娜是劇中最可愛的角色之一。我們現在知道，她有非常艱苦的童年，但她並沒有因此而變得性格扭曲。我們是給自己找藉口的一代人，一切都不是你的錯，一切都是因爲別人對你不好。但我覺得我們的生活是由於我們自己選擇的結果，當我看到這種例子，我真的格外敬仰。

Q. Is Tom Branson, who decided to move to Boston, gone from the series for good?

問：湯姆·布倫森(Tom Branson)要搬到波士頓去了，他會永遠告別劇集嗎？

A. Oh, no, I never answer those questions. [laughs]

答：不，不，我從來不回答這種問題（笑）。

Q. It can sometimes feel, week to week, that there are not many plot developments on “Downton Abbey,” and then there’s a tidal wave of them in the finale. Is this a deliberate strategy on your part?

問：有時候，周復一週，人們會覺得《唐頓莊園》裏面情節的發展不太充分，然後最終集就掀起了驚風駭浪。這是你故意採取的策略嗎？

A. It’s a reluctance on my part to allow a real — or realish — narrative to develop into a soap opera. A soap opera has many, many incidents. People are being shot and stabbed and knifed. They’re dying in childbirth, having abortions, having their houses broken into, being attacked by vandals. We do, on “Downton,” have extreme cases, but not very many of them. And we have a lot of reaction to them, because that seems to me truer to life. That’s what I would like to tell myself, anyway.

答：我不太願意在肥皂劇裏採取真實或者仿真的敘事方式。肥皂劇裏會發生很多很多意外。有人被槍打了，有人被刀子捅了。人物死於生孩子、做流產、房子被搶劫、被流氓攻擊。在《唐頓莊園》裏確實發生了極端的事情，但並不算太多。我們對此很保守，因爲這對我來說是更忠於生活。不管怎麼說，我是這麼告訴我自己的。

Q. This season, we saw Lady Rose’s Jewish suitor and his family contend with anti-Semitism. Was that plot inspired by real history?

問：這一季，羅斯夫人的猶太求婚者和他的家人與反猶主義坐蔸正，這個情節是受現實歷史啓發嗎？

A. There was, here, at that time, a kind of universal, upper-class assumption of superiority. People didn’t mind if you came to their house or you shot their pheasants, you ate their dinners or went to their daughter’s dances. But, my God, they didn’t want you to marry her. I felt it as a Catholic when I was young. One of my first girlfriends was from a fairly senior Jewish family. They were a very nice family — I’m still friendly, actually, with the girl and her brother. But her parents wanted a Jewish husband. And it’s a very strange feeling when you realize that people don’t like you because of what you are.

答：當時的上層社會有一種普遍存在的傲慢情緒。人們不在乎你到他們的家裏去、打他們領地裏的野雞，在他們家裏吃晚餐或者參加他們女兒的舞會。但是，天哪，他們不希望你娶他們的女兒。我是個天主教徒，年輕時也感受到了這一點。我的早期女友裏，有一個人是來自很高貴的猶太家族。他們是很好的一家人——其實我到現在和那個女孩以及她的兄弟還是朋友。但她的父母想要個猶太女婿。當你意識到人們是因爲你的出身纔不喜歡你，那種感覺的確很奇怪。

Q. Would Lady Cora — who we learned also has Jewish ancestry — have been able to avoid this?

問：科拉夫人也有猶太血統，她能倖免於此嗎？

A. There were Jews who came over in the 19th century, who did incredibly well and joined the upper classes. I talked, when I was doing this story, to quite a lot of Jewish historians. I have one particular friend who said that wasn’t that unusual. If you were happy for the children to be Episcopalian, then the marriage was fine. To a certain extent, that drawing-room anti-Semitism, if you can use the phrase, went on through the 1930s. But a lot of them, including relations of mine, were shocked out of it by the revelations at the end of the war [World War II]. Mind you, I would love to say to you it’s faded away. But I’m horrified by the rise of anti-Semitism that we’re witnessing today.

答：19世紀，有些猶太人挺過來了，他們做得非常好，進入了上層階級。當我寫這個故事的時候和很多猶太曆史學家談過。我有個朋友，說這種情況其實不是那麼少見。如果你希望自己的孩子成爲新教徒，那麼通婚就不算什麼。在某種特定程度上，上流社會和反猶主義（如果可以用這個詞）在20世紀30年代一直盛行。但其中很多人，包括我的親戚們因爲受到“二戰”的啓示，擺脫了這種想法。告訴你吧，我本來很想說，這種思潮已經過去了。但如今又看到反猶主義的崛起，我感覺很恐怖。

Q. Are you approaching your NBC drama, “The Gilded Age,” differently for an American audience?

問：對於你在NBC臺的劇集《鍍金時代》(The Gilded Age)，你有沒有做什麼調整來適應美國觀衆？

A. I’m going to do the pilot this year. I’ve got a list of potential advisers, and I am a big, big fan of Edith Wharton and Henry James and that period of history after the Civil War — the Vanderbilts and the Whitneys and all of those people. As for adapting what I write for American audiences, American audiences have enjoyed “Downton.” I try and make TV shows that I’m going to want to watch. And when I’m reading it, I’m saying to myself: “Is this boring? Are you still enjoying this scene? Shouldn’t it be over by now?” [laughs] I can’t imagine my departing from that principle very far.

答：我今年就要寫試播集了。有一大串人可能會給我做顧問，而且我非常非常喜歡伊迪絲·沃頓(Edith Wharton)和亨利·詹姆斯(Henry James)，還有南北戰爭之後的歷史——範德比爾特家族(Vanderbilts)和惠特尼家族(Whitneys)等等。關於爲美國觀衆的改變麼，美國觀衆已經很喜歡《唐頓莊園》了。我努力寫出我自己想看的電視劇集。讀劇本的時候，我對自己說：“這會不會乏味，你還喜歡看這一幕嗎？是不是該結束了？”（笑），我不能想象自己會偏離這個原則太多。

Q. Are you starting to think about how “Downton Abbey” might end?

問：你有沒有開始考慮《唐頓莊園》該結束了？

A. It’s not really my decision. I don’t own “Downton Abbey” now. NBC Universal [which owns Carnival Films] owns “Downton Abbey.” So I could walk away, but I wouldn’t walk away. It’s too much my baby. It won’t go on forever — I’m not a believer in that. But I can’t immediately now tell you where the end will be.

答：這其實不由我決定。現在《唐頓莊園》不歸我所有。它屬於NBC環球（旗下擁有嘉年華電影公司） 。所以我可以離開，但我不會離開。它太像我的孩子。當然它不會永遠持續下去——我可不信。但我現在不能馬上告訴你它會在什麼地方結束。

Q. So the idea of continuing with these characters into post-World War II Britain ... ?

問：所以還會拍這些人物在“二戰”後的英國……？

A. For me, that would be a different series. Maybe people would say, “Oh my God, that’s baby George, grown up!” But I don’t think it would be continuous, with Michelle Dockery with her hair covered with talcum powder.

答：要我說，這應該是另一部劇集。或許人們會說：“天哪，小喬治長大了！”但我不覺得讓米歇爾·道克瑞(Michelle Dockery)染白頭髮有什麼連貫性可言。