Becoming Jane is the opening film of the UK Film Festival 2007 to be held in Hong Kong next month! (actually I didn’t know HK has one such festival till I found out about this film…) And you know what? All tickets have been sold out for the two screening sections already! Is Jane really that popular in HK? (I would be overjoyed if that is really true).

(http://www.britishcouncil.org.hk/ukff07/en/)

Anyway, the film will soon be showing in major theaters in Hong Kong and it’s not really worth the rush to join this prestigious film fest.

Haha, the film title in chinese means (literally)  “Jane Austen, a young woman’s diary”–Did it name after Anne Hathaway’s famous film “Princess Diaries?!

There’s two other bits that worth noticing :

- Official Description of the film in Chinese : here

One sentence reads: “湯更被認為是奧斯汀筆下達西先生的雛形。” (“Tom has been regarded as the real life model from which Jane Austen created her Mr Darcy.”)

Oh, how I want it to be true. In my humble opinion, Mr Lefroy is more a resemblance of Mr. Wickham or Mr. Willoughby…

- One newspaper article about the film (in chinese) here

Frankly I don’t really care what it is about, but having Jane’s family name mis-spelled is really an eyesore to me.  For the sake of educating the public, the film should really be named “Becoming Jane AUSTEN“, and not dropping her family name for simplicity’s sake. (sigh again)

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that filmmakers are determined to squeeze as much commercial value as possible from our dear Jane. (sigh)

After “Becoming Jane”, here comes another remotely relevant work: The Jane Austen Book Club.

I’ve read the book from which it was adapted few months ago, and I didn’t find it interesting at all. Actually it was a novel divided into six parts, in which every chapter centered on one of Austen’s works and one of the JA book club members. It turned out that I didn’t really care about what happened to the characters…and their discussions on JA’s works were quite superficial… (maybe because I’m too familiar with the works of JA, haha…)

Anyway, I’ve watched the trailer at the above site and it seems that the movie is better than the book!? Cos’ the unnecessary details have been cut? The “what would Jane do?” part was quite hilarious, and I found the black-haired girl who played Prudie in the film quite adorable…let’s wait till the official release of the film.

Believe it or not, the colors you choose can reveal your inner self and your present situation. A very insightful analysis.

http://www.paulgoldinresearch.com/cg/

Everytime I do it, the result is different. Mine is 90% true, here is my result:

Presently, you are trying to break away from a situation that is causing you considerable worry and concern. Things are getting on top of you and you are feeling depressed almost to breaking point. Obviously there must be a way out – but at this time the solution seems to be escaping you. You want to ‘get away from it all’ and as a consequence you appear to be sullen and introverted and refuse to get involved in any discussion or arguments which could aggravate the situation. Accept the fact that ‘as you feel – so your body will respond’ and ‘pretend’ to the world about you that everything is going beautifully as, if you act as if ‘all is going well’ everything will, whether you believe it or not, work out as you would like it to.

(I want to break away, but I am not at all depressed, haha!)

You are working extremely hard trying to improve your image. You need for those people in positions that matter to recognise your potential and to acknowledge you.

You are a rather inhibited sort of person. This could be the result of your upbringing or of your schooling, whatever. You are able to obtain satisfaction from various forms of physical or emotional activity but all in all you are inclined to be emotionally withdrawn. As a consequence of this you find it difficult to sustain any deep involvement.

You are fed up with other people trying to influence you and you also feel that it is necessary to protect yourself from the threat that your independence and freedom may be restricted. You would just like to be left alone.

(The truest point is in the last sentence. I could not agree more. I kept nodding my head….）

張愛玲說：『生命是一襲華美的袍，爬滿了蝨子。』

十多歲參加徵文比賽寫下的神來之筆，想不到一語成籤。爬在她身上的蝨子──假學術之名的，假藝術之名的，不計其數。 最新加入的一隻，名叫Ang Lee。

9月8日是紀念她逝世12年的日子，報章上看到的卻是『色，戒』在威尼斯的風光……想起她12年前在異國小公寓裡寂靜無聲的離開了，不知這算不算張所指的『參差的對照』？

未經開審就結案陳詞，似乎有欠公允，可是直到現在為止看到的報導，都使我不能釋懷。先是SM一樣的色慾鏡頭的渲染，焦點集中在男女角的『露多少』及『如何露』身上; 本來，一套認真製作的電影用此來作賣點已是一種淪落，而且還是『無中生有』的強加於原著身上（注：原著小說並沒有任何涉及『色慾』的描寫），利用張的文名企圖沾上藝術的邊，簡直是對原作者的侮辱，希望張不會氣得回魂找有關人等算帳。畢竟，原著小說是她不惜花了好幾十年，發表後又再改寫數十次而成的作品。她還曾經為了一篇針對此小說的微不足道的批評而不惜揮筆反駁，可見她對此篇作品之重視程度。（見張之《羊毛出在羊身上─談『色，戒』)

當然，電影有創作自由，就算是改編也應容許一定程度上的再詮釋和創造，可是把一個女間諜和暗殺對象的愛恨關係作無限量延伸，愛怎麼寫就怎麼寫，那只不過是『借題發揮』，怎也不能算是『改編』吧，與其這樣，倒不如重新另寫一個故事，天馬行空也好，請不要爬在張的身上吸她的血。

本來，換了另一位不那麼有名的作家，愛怎麼改編也沒有多少人會留意。遺憾的是，張的文名太盛，而很多人根本從未看過張之作品，遑論不那麼受注目的『色，戒』短篇小說。他們或許是因為李大導之名，或許是衝著某影帝或其他原因而看此片。當他們看過此片之後，恐怕會誤會了張是專寫色慾的作家。沒錯，張擅寫男女情慾，可是描寫的是心理，意在文字外，絕不會像電影那樣露骨。

再來是另一篇使我更加無語的訪問。某報導中李安談及他眼中的張，他認為是『藉著寫這篇小說來發洩她的恨』，所謂的『恨』，是指對某胡花心漢之『恨』，王佳芝其實就是張，易先生是胡的化身（瀑布汗…完全無語…) ，這樣的去解讀一個女作家，無異於否定了她文學創作的功力。為何創作一定要有目的？正如張自己澄清，『不少人硬是分不清作者和他作品中人物的關係……偏偏沒有人拿它當小說讀。』(自序，《續集》）

再者，相信此小說創作的時候（1950年前後），胡對張來說已是過去式，連恨都沒有，只有胡某厚面皮的主動寫信給張，張不但回了信，還厚道的寄給他要的書，那又何來的『恨』?

忘記了是在哪裡看到的，很多華人導演的生平志願都是拍一套改編張愛玲的電影。當然，張的文字有其本身的魅力，但拍出來就不那麼容易了，弄得太白就會像許鞍華的『傾城之戀』那樣的貽笑大方 (到現在我還記得，當時在電影院重看此片時，觀眾一聽到周潤發說話就大笑起來….)。拍得太自由又會失掉張之味道。想來，張之改編電影中，最愛的還是「紅玫瑰白玫瑰」，因為林奕華對張的文字必恭必敬，某些場景甚至不拍攝出來，直接把張的文字打在螢光幕上，但也不流於太過忠於原著而過份生硬。雖然說不上是一部十分出色的電影，但是感覺得到張的味道。

最後說一下此片之英文名字：『Lust, caution』，『色』對應著有道德批判意味的Lust無可厚非，反正Sex在中國人社會是不能說的秘密，可是那個caution，如正牌張迷─邁克所說，真是『對錯親家』，說得太白，反而沒有了 『戒』那種豐富的意涵，而且份量比 lust 還要重，沒有了『色，戒』那種單音節的平衡與乾脆利落。當然這是我雞蛋裡挑的骨頭，本著到異域和番的目的，對老外當然是說得越白越好，不過我更喜愛邁克的隨手粵語音譯──Sick, Guy，哈哈…

ps. 『色，戒』 原著小說全文