人人都爱(看)故事。而电视和电影只是把这些故事搬到了屏幕上。但是你在电影中所见的事件——爆炸场景、浪漫桥段和戏剧情节,却很少发生在现实生活中。
理由很简单。我们虽热衷于故事,但无趣的故事则会搞砸整个叙述过程。你能想象一部两小时的电影全都在说上班路上发生的事儿吗?你看过哪部电影是关于家务活儿的?当然不会。那些我们想看且愿意为之掏钱包的电影往往是夸张的、奇异的、出乎意料的。虽然有些偶发的真实事件的确会让制片人和作者震惊,但是大多故事只是在模仿美国人的生活,然后夸大其中有趣的看点。
Everyone loves stories. And television and films are just that—stories put onto the screen. Yet for all the explosions, romance and drama, what you see in movies is rarely what we see in real life.
The reason for this is simple. We love stories, and a boring story makes for bad storytelling. Can you imagine a two-hour film on what happens during an average commute to work? Have you ever seen any films about housework? Of course not. The stories we want to see, or pay to see, are exaggerated, fantastic and unexpected. While it might be true that the occasional true story astounds producers and writers, the majority of stories merely mimics American life and exaggerate the interesting points.
1. 第一段第二句不直接用普通的“主谓宾”模式来翻译,而是将宾语单独拿出来,将谓语转化为宾语的 后置定语,一方面使语言更生动,另一方面,与第一句没有把原文括号里的“看”翻译出来相协调。
2. 第一段最后一句使用主语从句。
3. 第二段第二句,make for导致。
4. 第二段第三句,“上班路上”翻译成“average commute to work”。