似是故人来1993

很好的片子，两处让我酸酸的。

一个就是天使在飞翔说的Foster在法庭上说的那句话：我从未象爱他一样爱过你。
另一个是Gere在绞刑架上告诉行刑人自己没有准备好，大呼Foster名字的那一句。看得我眼泪差点儿砸到脚背上，和Gibson在Brave Heart最后的那一句“Freedom”一样揪人。

无论片子名字是“似是故人来”还是“男儿本色”，都不失为一个不错的译名。

感动！

看法国大鼻子情圣热拉尔.德帕迪约的电影，名字叫《从马丁战争中归来》，介绍说，理查.基尔的《似是故人来》便是根据中部片子重拍的。这一来引起了我的兴趣。
这完全是一个西曼般的故事，只除了结尾是悲剧，但又正是因为这个悲剧，让这个故事更加动人：杰克在南北战争后又在监狱里关了几年，终于踏上了回家的路。7年间物是人非，家园被毁，妻子劳拉带着小儿子艰难度日。杰克与劳拉小心注视着彼此间重新萌发的爱情，乡邻与黑人也真心接受这个更为关心土地农民的旧日主人，只有对劳拉暗恋多年的青年对他冷眼旁观。辛勤的耕作下土地眼看便可收获，劳拉也生下一个女儿，好日子触手可及，而厄运忽然降临。杰克被控杀死一人，证据确凿，罪无可恕。这时劳拉却说，杰克不是她丈夫，这个人不是杰克，也请来证人证实她的说法。正要翻案之际，杰克却出人意料地解雇律师，与劳拉对质，逼她当堂说出对他的爱，从心里承认他是她的丈夫。自辩很成功，但他的命运也决定了。劳拉不明白他为什么宁可不要性命，也要证明他是杰克。杰克说如果我不是杰克，那他签的土地买卖合同就是一纸空文，乡邻的辛苦就要付诸东流，而他们的女儿就是私生子……而他自己，就会是个一无是处的骗子，在监狱里关上几年，出来后仍然一无是处。他是不愿意死，但一定要在其中选择一个，那他宁愿死，也要证明他是她光名正大的丈夫。
　　确实，他不是杰克，只是一个与杰克长相酷似的人，当过一年教师，卷了一笔钱逃走，又当了几年兵，被俘后与杰克关在同一间牢房长达4年，在与杰克的闲聊中知道了杰克的一切。出狱后杰克与人争执杀了人，然后也死了。他假扮杰克回到杰克的家中，爱上劳拉，立心要做一个好人。但上天不许。既然如此，那就做一个好杰克去死，也不要做回卑劣的过去苟且地活着。
　　多么感人的故事。好莱坞真的可以点石成金，他们早已熟知观众的趣味，知道怎样去编织梦幻。最早的故事是怎样的呢?在热拉尔.德帕迪约的电影中前半部分差不多，不同的是真丈夫厌倦了做个农民，正好遇上招募新兵就招呼也没打一个走了，7年后又厌倦了流浪生活想起回家了，与德帕迪约扮演的假丈夫对质，假丈夫被判死刑，做妻子的抱着身份未明的小女儿哀伤地回到可厌的丈夫身边。可厌的不只是真丈夫的猥索和假丈夫的大鼻子和堵心的结局，还有脏兮兮的农人和土地，男男女女都戴着红布做的帽子，无一处可观。风景不美人物不美结局不美。德帕迪约假扮活着的人也说不过去，风险太大了吧?既然没死，总有一天会回家的，到时他怎么办?安了心不想活了吗?两下一比，美国版比法国版高明不知多少。导演把背景放在南北战争后，让男人们的离家与生死未卜是那么的顺理成章。细节安排暗线伏笔都做得熨贴自然。不知道是新编容易还是改编容易，但这个导演是个改编高手。多少翻拍的都不如旧片，这个确是例外。

John "Jack" Sommersby left his farm to fight in the American Civil War but has not returned home afterward, and is presumed dead. Despite the hardship of working their farm without him, his apparent widow Laurel (played by Foster) is quite content in his absence, as Jack was an unpleasant and abusive husband. She even makes remarriage plans with one of her neighbors, Orin Meacham (Pullman), who despite his own hardships (such as a wooden foot, which he wears to replace one that was lost in the war) has been helping her and her young son with the farmwork.

One day, Jack (Gere) seemingly returns with a complete change of heart. He is now kind and loving to Laurel and their young son. In the evenings, he reads to them from Homer's Iliad, which the old Jack never would have done. He claims that the book was given to him by a man he met in prison, and that "War changes you; makes you appreciate things". Jack and Laurel rekindle their intimacy and Laurel soon becomes pregnant.

Displaced from his courtship of Laurel, Meacham immediately suspects this "new" Sommersby as an impostor. The town shoemaker also finds that this man's foot is two sizes smaller than the shoe template which had been made for Sommersby before the war.

In order to revive the local economy, Sommersby suggests Burley tobacco as a cash crop. He raises the seed money by selling parts of his own farm to people who will then work the land to grow tobacco. This raises further doubts in his old neighbors who believe that the "old" Jack would not be so hasty to give away his beloved father's land, as well as resentment among Confederate veterans about the inclusion of former slaves.

One black freedman living on Sommersby's land is brutally attacked and dropped at Sommersby's door, by men proclaiming themselves the Knights of the White Camellia (one of them is Meacham, distinguished by his wooden foot). Jack is threatened in an attempt to force him to exclude Black people from the landowning but he refuses, saying that they can "own what they pay for".

Upon taking the townspeople's money, he sets off to buy the tobacco seed claiming that the crops will raise enough funds to rebuild the town church. Great suspicion and skepticism falls upon him (and by association, Laurel and their son) when he does not return at the expected time. He does, however, return. All those that bought in on the deal set to work, transforming the dull and lifeless plantation into a breeding ground of promise and prosperity. Laurel gives birth to a daughter, Rachel.

Shortly after Rachel's baptism, two U.S. Marshals appear in town to arrest Jack Sommersby. He is charged with murder, which carries the death penalty if convicted. Once the trial begins, Laurel's attempts to save her husband quickly focus on the question of his identity: whether this "Jack" is who he claims to be, or a look-a-like who met the real Sommersby whilst in prison for deserting the Confederate Army.

Laurel and Jack's lawyer agree to argue that her husband is an impostor, not the same man who left Laurel to fight in the war. This would save her husband (or supposed husband) from hanging for murder, although he would still be imprisoned for several years for fraud and desertion. Meacham devises this plan in exchange for Laurel promising to marry him upon "Sommersby's" imprisonment.

Jack fires the lawyer and sets about re-establishing himself as the real Sommersby. Several witnesses are brought up to discredit this Sommersby as a fraud, and show that he is in fact Horace Townsend, an English teacher from Virginia.

One witness says that the man currently posing as Jack defrauded his township of several thousand dollars after claiming he wanted to help rebuild the schoolhouse there. Sommersby quickly discredits the man's testimony by identifying him as one of the Klansmen who had threatened him earlier. Jack also points out that Orin Meacham was another of those men, and that this is all a set-up to try and rob the new black farmers of the land they have bought. When the black judge confronts the witness on this charge, the witness snaps, "When the Yankees have all gone you'll be back in the field where you belong!" The judge silences him and sentences him to 30 days for contempt, increased to 60 days upon the man's protest.

As the drama unfolds, Jack asks Laurel to give the reason she knows he is not the "real" Jack Sommersby; she replies (after some berating) "…because I never loved him the way I love you!" With this her charade ends and she says that she believes the Jack before her to be her real husband.

The judge calls Jack to his bench to ask whether he wishes to be tried as Jack Sommersby even if it will certainly mean death by hanging. Jack glances at the freed blacks who have been farming his land, and then he glances at his wife and his daughter, who would be respectively condemned as an adulteress and a bastard child if he claimed the identity of Horace Townsend. He calmly states that he wants to be tried as John "Jack" Sommersby.

Jack is convicted of first degree murder and is sentenced to death by hanging. While awaiting death, he is asked by Laurel to tell the truth. She asks, "Are you John Sommersby?" Laurel mentions the book on Homer's works that he holds. Jack tells her the story of how he met a man who looked like him whilst in a prison and how he gave him this book. They traveled together until his friend died. He claims that he buried him under a pile of rocks on a hill top in Virginia. Laurel asks, "You mean you buried Jack?", to which Jack replies, "I mean I buried Horace."

Just then the jailers enter to transport Jack to the gallows. He asks Laurel to be amongst the crowds as he cannot "hang alone". She says she can't watch him die. As Jack Sommersby is fastened up ready to hang, Laurel makes her way to the front of the crowd. Jack calls for her, claiming to the executioner that he "isn't ready". She then calls back and the two see each other. The hood is pulled over and a trap door can be heard opening.

The closing scenes show Laurel walking up a hill with flowers. She then kneels by the grave of "Jack Sommersby" and lays the flowers down for him. It is revealed that work is being done on the steeple of the village church, as Jack had wished.

似是故人，不是故人，胜似故人；
执子之手，却又分手，相聚苦短。
俗世渺渺，天意茫茫，生死两隔；
恨台上卿卿，羡台下我我，不是你共我。
有缘无份，回忆不断，生命只恨长。
岁月深渊，终我此生，相思说不尽。

一个声名狼藉的人为了一个新的身份而宁愿被绞死的故事。

理查.基尔加朱迪.福斯特，阵容超强。两人表演上无懈可击，但这种组合注定了我的期望特别高，想想看“沉默羔羊”加“First Knight”是什么效果？带着接受强刺激的期待心情来观影，结果是如莫奈风景画般恬静的一段“爱情”故事，多少有点失望。而且故事结构的刻意戏剧化本身就会削弱演员的表现力。

当然如果你静下心来，还是一部不错的片子。Sommersby是个人名，中文按情节转译为“似是故人来”，非常传神。