文/斯科特·托比亚斯 译/商裴裴

There’s a crucial domestic scene early inET the Extra-Terrestrialwhere 10-year-old Elliott (Henry Thomas) is trying desperately to convince his mother (Dee Wallace), his older brother Michael (Robert MacNaughton) and his little sister Gertie (Drew Barrymore)that he’s found an alien in the back yard of their suburban home.Nobody believes him.So he lashes out, like many children would in that situation.He claims his absent father would have believed him.And he tells his harried mother, who’s still raw from the divorce, that his dad and a woman named Sally are vacationing in Mexico.It hurts her feelings.Michael snaps at Elliott.“Why don’t you grow up? Think about other people for a change.”

2Thinking about others is whatETis

《E.T.外星人》开场没多久，就有一场重要的家庭戏：10 岁的埃利奥特（亨利·托马斯饰）竭力想让妈妈（迪伊·华莱士饰）、哥哥迈克尔（罗伯特·麦克诺顿饰）和妹妹格蒂（德鲁·巴里莫尔饰）相信他在郊外家里的后院发现了一个外星人。没人相信他的话。就像很多孩子遇到这种情况时表现的一样，他大发脾气。他说，爸爸要在的话一定会相信他。他还对焦头烂额的妈妈说，爸爸正和一个名叫萨莉的女人在墨西哥度假。埃利奥特的妈妈因为离婚饱经折磨，至今创痛未愈，这番话伤了她的心。迈克尔生气地冲埃利奥特说：“你怎么这么不懂事？改改吧你，为别人着想一下。”about.And that’s why it’s been extracting tears from audiences so effectively for 40 years.A child of divorce himself,Spielberg is uniquely perceptive about how kids are sensitive, vulnerable, innocent creatures who feel the world intensely, but are also naturally solipsistic.They understand how events affect them, but empathy is a learned trait,part of the same slow developmental process that teaches them to walk and read and fend for themselves.(Many adults fail to learn it.) Spielberg conceived a science-fiction fantasy where a boy literally feels what another being feels, and the bond between them is overwhelmingly powerful.Elliott grows up at a breathlessly accelerated rate.

2为别人着想，这正是《E.T.外星人》的主题，也是为什么40 年来这部电影赚足了观众的泪水。小孩子是敏感、脆弱、天真无邪的，他们热情洋溢地感受着这个世界，却又天生以自我为中心，对此，再没有谁能比自幼父母离异的斯皮尔伯格更清楚了。小孩子知道一件事对他们会产生怎样的影响，但是同情心是一种后天习得的品质，它和走路、读书、独自生活一样，都需要慢慢学习。（很多大人也没能学会。）斯皮尔伯格构思的这部科幻作品中，小男孩真的能感应到另一个生命的感受，他们之间有着无比强烈的联系。埃利奥特成长了许多，速度令人惊叹。

3这部电影有如故事书般简单易懂，这一点至关重要。为此，斯皮尔伯格请来了梅利莎·马西森。马西森之前写了另一部儿童剧《黑神驹》，剧中一个小男孩和一匹失群的野马建立了感情。她的剧本可谓简明扼要的典范，故事被她精简到没有大的跌宕起伏：外星人E.T.没赶上宇宙飞船，在森林里迷了路，碰上埃利奥特。埃利奥特和哥哥妹妹给它住的地方，帮它重返家园。除了最后有一帮惊恐万状的各路大人出来阻挠，其他就没什么了。即便对话，也是直来直去的语言占了很大分量，只是偶尔让人摸不着头脑。最经典的台词要数这几句：“乖——乖——的。”“E.T.要打电话回家。”“哎呦。”“留下来。”

3The storybook simplicity of the film is key.For that, Spielberg commissioned Melissa Mathison, who’d previously written The Black Stallion, another spare children’s drama about the connection between a little boy and an orphaned creature.Mathison’s script is a model of economy and clarity, pared down to serve a story that really has no big twists and turns: Elliott meets ET, an alien lost in the woods after his spaceship leaves without him.Elliott and his siblings then shelter the alien and help it get back home again.Outside of the scary, faceless adults who eventually intervene, that’s all there is to it.Even the dialogue, though whimsical at times, puts a premium on directness.A few of the most quotable lines:“Beeeeee good.” “ET phone home.”“Ouch.” “Stay.”cal at times, puts a premium on directness.A few of the most quotable lines:“Beeeeee good.” “ET phone home.”“Ouch.” “Stay.”

4Spielberg had already defied the expectation of a hostile alien invasion earlier withClose Encounters of the Third Kind, which expressed hope that such interspecies contact might bring out the best in humankind.The squat,murmuring, doe-eyed being inETis much more of a device, serving to illuminate the loneliness and stress of a latchkey kid who hasn’t settled into his new situation.Though the film never says how long Elliott’s dad has been out of the house, it seems recent enough for everyone to feel unsettled by it.The alien brings Elliott closer to his siblings, as they work together to shelter it and figure out what it needs, but they’re both trying to get back to their families.As Elliott helps ET go home, he learns to accept a newly reconstituted version of what home means to him, too.

4早在拍摄电影《第三类接触》时，斯皮尔伯格就没有顺应观众的期待。观众本以为会看到外星人不怀好意入侵地球，影片却在表达希望：不同物种的交流可能会激发人类最美好的一面。对于尚未适应新变故、得自己带钥匙回家的儿童来说，《E.T.外星人》里那个双脚蹲立、说话咕咕哝哝、眼睛大大的外星人更像是一盏灯，照亮了他们的孤独与压力。电影没有交代埃利奥特的爸爸离开家多少日子，不过每个人都因此心神不宁，看来是没多久。这个外星人拉近了埃利奥特和哥哥妹妹的距离，他们一起想办法把外星人藏起来，弄清楚它需要什么。埃利奥特和外星人其实都在努力回归自己的家庭。在帮助E.T.回家的过程中，埃利奥特也在学习接纳全新的家的概念。

5Working at the height of his powers,Spielberg gives ET a sentimental pull that would feel more manipulative if he wasn’t so strategically withholding.The John Williams score is one of his most famous and soaring, but Spielberg treats it like the shark in Jaws, doling it out in bits and pieces before allowing the audience to experience the whole thing.It’s not until the sequence where ET lifts Elliott’s bike to the sky that the orchestration hits in full, and the effect is like a dam bursting, this transcendent moment when a supernatural event is tied to a huge emotional crescendo.It’s like the kid-movie equivalent of a night at the opera.

5斯皮尔伯格在推动影片的感情线方面可谓火力全开。好在他分寸把握得当，否则会让人感觉太生硬。该片最知名也最振奋人心的部分包括约翰·威廉斯的配乐，但斯皮尔伯格处理配乐的方式和处理《大白鲨》中的鲨鱼一样，先零零星星地给观众一些片段，最后才让他们完整欣赏。直到影片出现E.T.运用超能带着埃利奥特的自行车飞上天空，管弦乐才全盘流泻，效果如同决堤的洪水。一起超自然事件牵动着巨大的情感爆发，这一刻妙不可言。观看这部儿童影片，就如度过了一个歌剧之夜。

6Spielberg and Mathison also back into the synchronized emotions between boy and alien, approaching it as comedy first before attacking the tear ducts.In one of the film’s most justly celebrated sequences, Spielberg harmonizes the mornings of Elliott and ET as the boy is asked to dissect a frog in science class and his new friend raids the refrigerator, passing up the potato salad in favor of guzzling a six pack.Elliott liberating the frogs foreshadows his efforts to free ET from scientists later on—again,because he’s learning to care about things other than himself—but the image of this curious, weird little creature drunkenly bumping into cabinets and channel-surfing is a comic treat in itself,as if it’s taking a crash course in becoming an American.

6斯皮尔伯格和马西森还让男孩和外星人产生了心灵感应，一开始制造的是喜剧，而后便展开了对观众泪腺的攻击。在影片最值得称颂的一组镜头中，斯皮尔伯格运用平行叙事的手段讲述了埃利奥特与E.T.的一个早晨：上科学课的时候埃利奥特被要求解剖一只青蛙，他的新朋友则在扫荡冰箱——它扔掉土豆沙拉，拿起半打装的啤酒一通猛喝。埃利奥特放生青蛙的行为预示他后来也会从科学家手中还E.T.自由，因为他在学习关心别人，而不是只关心自己。但是这个好奇、古怪的小外星人喝得醉醺醺的，它撞到柜子，不亦乐乎地换着电视频道，像是在上速成课，学习怎样成为一个美国人，那样子滑稽得很。

7斯皮尔伯格自称擅与儿童演员合作，对此，该片是一块试金石。经他把关，小演员们表现得既没有早熟得像个小大人，也没有淘气得令人生厌。巴里莫尔饰演的格蒂赢得了最多的笑声。但在给外星人除颤时，她面对濒死时刻的表现在整部影片中也是最真实的，令人痛彻心扉。同时，成年人也在影片中扮演了重要的角色，他们不是个个都身穿防护服、手拿探测仪。华莱士顷刻间便树立起了一位职场妈妈形象，她深爱孩子，但往往拼尽全力也只能不让事情变得更糟。彼得·科约特扮演的科学家出场很晚，却举足轻重，在男孩最需要的时候，他肯定了男孩的感受。

7ETis the touchstone for Spielberg’s vaunted reputation for working with child actors, who under his watch are neither too precociously adult nor gratingly obnoxious.Barrymore gets the biggest laughs as Gertie, but her reaction to a near-death moment when the alien is being defibrillated may be the most piercingly real in the film.At the same time, the adults have an important role in play inET, too, and they’re not all men with hazmat suits and probes.Wallace needs little time to establish herself as a working mother who cares immensely about her children, but often can only do her best to keep the chaos at bay.And Peter Coyote has a crucial late appearance as a scientist who validates the boy’s feeling when he needs it the most.

8There’s no irony toET, and no sense that it’s trying to reproduce the magic of a predecessor the way that future films would labor to imitate it.Spielberg approaches the material with the sincerity and openness that his characters bring to their kinship with the alien, and it still feels timeless and pure as few films do.ETis a plea for emotional growth,for people to summon their best selves when it really matters.Children can do it, and adults can relearn if necessary.■

8影片并无嘲讽之意，也丝毫没有像后来者竭力模仿它一般企图再现之前同类电影的神奇手法。斯皮尔伯格在处理这一素材的时候满怀诚意，他塑造的人物角色对外星人很亲切。时至今日，人们依然感觉这部影片纯真无邪，不因时间流逝而逊色，很少有电影可以做到这一点。《E.T.外星人》呼吁人们关注情感的成长，在重要时刻唤醒最美好的自己。孩子们可以做到，如有必要，成年人也可以从头学习。 □