编剧谈《唐顿庄园》剧中角色的未来及大结局

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.)

《唐顿庄园》第五季的最终集动人心弦，我们不是说格兰瑟姆伯爵被弄错的心绞痛（如果你担心剧透，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).

老伯爵遗孀（玛吉·史密斯[Maggie Smith]饰），突然放弃了和俄罗斯克拉更王子爱火重燃的念头，伊莎贝尔·克劳利（Isobel Crawley，佩妮洛普·威尔顿[Penelope Wilton]饰）拒绝与默登爵爷订婚。恋爱之花在仆人们当中盛开，庄严的卡森先生（on，吉姆·卡特[Jim Carter]饰）终于向和蔼的休斯女士（Mrs. Hughes，菲利斯·罗根[Phyllis Logan]饰）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台每周日的“杰作”栏目都要播放《唐顿庄园》这部时代剧，这些命运的转折便是剧中高贵的克劳利一家及仆人们最新的经历，该剧由朱利安·费罗斯(Julian Fellowes)担任主创和编剧。

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.

费罗斯在英格兰多赛特家中接受了电话采访，谈起第五季剧情的发展，以及《唐顿庄园》和剧中角色的未来。下面是经过编辑和缩写的对话。

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?

问：这一季的最后一集给剧中很多潜在的浪漫关系带来了最终结果。谁能得到幸福，谁不能，你是怎么决定的？

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：剧还在继续拍，所以幸福是一个很难说的东西。你不能把一切都安排得那么好。然后让一对情侣说，“亲爱的，你今天过得好吗？”“好极了，我吃饭的时候你就不能坐下来吗？”

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

问：所以休斯夫人和卡森先生之间也不可能一帆风顺了？

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

答：这个，你知道，《唐顿庄园》是一条坎坷的道路（笑）。

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

问：通过这些情侣，你想表达的重点是什么？

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：对于维奥莱特来说，她与克拉更重逢时，内心更享受那种被爱的感觉，感觉自己是个妩媚动人的女人。这让她想起自己年轻时对他的热情，但也让她想起，她差点犯下能毁掉一切的大错。至于伊莎贝尔和默顿爵爷来说，他们俩非常般配，但当两人相爱，而他们某人的一个孩子却不能接受时，他们通常不能理解这对他们在未来几年里的关系有多么重要。

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

问：经历了动荡的几季，安娜和贝茨之间仍然没有结果。你为什么要这么折磨他们。

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：我想生活中总有那种特别不幸的人，他们喝凉水都塞牙。伊迪丝就是一个例子。贝茨和安娜也是，他们虽然深爱对方，但有着重要的分歧。安娜是剧中最可爱的角色之一。我们现在知道，她有非常艰苦的童年，但她并没有因此而变得性格扭曲。我们是给自己找借口的一代人，一切都不是你的错，一切都是因为别人对你不好。但我觉得我们的生活是由于我们自己选择的结果，当我看到这种例子，我真的格外敬仰。

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

问：汤姆·布伦森(Tom Branson)要搬到波士顿去了，他会永远告别剧集吗？

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

答：不，不，我从来不回答这种问题（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?

问：有时候，周复一周，人们会觉得《唐顿庄园》里面情节的发展不太充分，然后最终集就掀起了惊风骇浪。这是你故意采取的策略吗？

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：我不太愿意在肥皂剧里采取真实或者仿真的叙事方式。肥皂剧里会发生很多很多意外。有人被枪打了，有人被刀子捅了。人物死于生孩子、做流产、房子被抢劫、被流氓攻击。在《唐顿庄园》里确实发生了极端的事情，但并不算太多。我们对此很保守，因为这对我来说是更忠于生活。不管怎么说，我是这么告诉我自己的。

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

问：这一季，罗斯夫人的犹太求婚者和他的家人与反犹主义坐蔸正，这个情节是受现实历史启发吗？

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：当时的上层社会有一种普遍存在的傲慢情绪。人们不在乎你到他们的家里去、打他们领地里的野鸡，在他们家里吃晚餐或者参加他们女儿的舞会。但是，天哪，他们不希望你娶他们的女儿。我是个天主教徒，年轻时也感受到了这一点。我的早期女友里，有一个人是来自很高贵的犹太家族。他们是很好的一家人——其实我到现在和那个女孩以及她的兄弟还是朋友。但她的父母想要个犹太女婿。当你意识到人们是因为你的出身才不喜欢你，那种感觉的确很奇怪。

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

问：科拉夫人也有犹太血统，她能幸免于此吗？

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世纪，有些犹太人挺过来了，他们做得非常好，进入了上层阶级。当我写这个故事的时候和很多犹太历史学家谈过。我有个朋友，说这种情况其实不是那么少见。如果你希望自己的孩子成为新教徒，那么通婚就不算什么。在某种特定程度上，上流社会和反犹主义（如果可以用这个词）在20世纪30年代一直盛行。但其中很多人，包括我的亲戚们因为受到“二战”的启示，摆脱了这种想法。告诉你吧，我本来很想说，这种思潮已经过去了。但如今又看到反犹主义的崛起，我感觉很恐怖。

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

问：对于你在NBC台的剧集《镀金时代》(The Gilded Age)，你有没有做什么调整来适应美国观众？

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：我今年就要写试播集了。有一大串人可能会给我做顾问，而且我非常非常喜欢伊迪丝·沃顿(Edith Wharton)和亨利·詹姆斯(Henry James)，还有南北战争之后的历史——范德比尔特家族(Vanderbilts)和惠特尼家族(Whitneys)等等。关于为美国观众的改变么，美国观众已经很喜欢《唐顿庄园》了。我努力写出我自己想看的电视剧集。读剧本的时候，我对自己说：“这会不会乏味，你还喜欢看这一幕吗？是不是该结束了？”（笑），我不能想象自己会偏离这个原则太多。

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

问：你有没有开始考虑《唐顿庄园》该结束了？

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：这其实不由我决定。现在《唐顿庄园》不归我所有。它属于NBC环球（旗下拥有嘉年华电影公司） 。所以我可以离开，但我不会离开。它太像我的孩子。当然它不会永远持续下去——我可不信。但我现在不能马上告诉你它会在什么地方结束。

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

问：所以还会拍这些人物在“二战”后的英国……？

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：要我说，这应该是另一部剧集。或许人们会说：“天哪，小乔治长大了！”但我不觉得让米歇尔·道克瑞(Michelle Dockery)染白头发有什么连贯性可言。