“I think you’ll like Shanghai. It’s quite exciting. Lots of dancing,” says bacteriologist Dr. Walter Fane (played by Edward Norton) to his new but soon-to-become- adulterous wife, Kitty Fane (Naomi Watts), in this month’s hauntingly beautiful film The Painted Veil. Based on the 1925 novel by Somerset Maugham, the film involves a journey from London to Shanghai, where, in an act of vengeance over his wife’s infidelity, Dr. Fane accepts a job in a remote Chinese village ravaged by a deadly cholera epidemic — and forces his wife to accompany him. Surrounded by both natural splendor and death, the couple travel from emotional isolation to forgiveness and, finally, to love.

“我觉得你会喜欢上海的，那儿非常热闹，有很多舞会。”在本月上映的电影《面纱》中，细菌学博士Walter Fane（EN饰）对他新婚但是却即将出轨的妻子Kitty Fane（Naomi Watts）说。根据1925年Somerset Maugham的小说改编的这部电影，里面有从伦敦到上海的一段旅程，Fane博士为了报复妻子的不忠，接受了霍乱横行的偏远中国乡村的一份工作，并且强迫妻子同他一起。在美丽的自然风光和死亡的包围下，这对夫妻从情感上的对立到原谅，再到最后两人相爱。

The journey that two-time Oscar nominee Norton took to get the film made was equally long and arduous. After falling for screenwriter Ron Nyswaner’s adaptation of the novel in 1999, he came aboard as producer and also took on the lead role. But it wasn’t until 2004 that Norton was joined by Watts as costar and coproducer, and the two — along with a crew of 40 westerners and 260 Chinese, a dozen translators, and 70 work trucks — were off to China. Not merely to Shanghai and Beijing, but to the awe-inspiring terrain and timeless villages deep inside the mainland. Searching for the perfect settings for the film, location scouts traveled more than 5,000 miles before finally settling on Guilin, a city in the province of Guangxi, and the more primitive  village of Huang Yao. One of the world’s most picturesque places, Guilin sits along the Li River, surrounded by majestic, verdant hills; it’s the perfect spot, since The Painted Veil is the first Western film about China that has been allowed to shoot on location in a very long time.


获得过两届奥斯卡提名的Norton拍这部电影的历程可谓既漫长又艰辛。从1999年看过Nyswaner的剧本之后，就做了电影的制片人并且领衔主演。不过直到2004年，Watts才参加演出并且联合制片，两人同由40个西方人，260个中国人，12个翻译，70辆卡车组成的剧组一起来到了中国。不仅仅是上海和北京，还有让人害怕的地形，偏远的与世隔绝的内陆小村。为了寻找最合适的拍摄地点，剧组走过了5000英里，最后决定在桂林（广西的一个城市）和黄窑的一个偏远小村拍摄。桂林，世界上最独特的地方之一，座落于里海沿岸，高大翠绿的群山环绕；这是最完美的拍摄地点，由于《面纱》是第一部讲述中国的西片，所以被允许在这里拍摄相当长的一段时间。

This was not Norton’s first trip to China. He studied Chinese history as an undergraduate at Yale University and had visited his father, Edward M. Norton, who lived for a time in Kunming as the founding director of the country’s nature conservancy program, which worked toward  developing the first large regional  conservation-management  plan. His brother, Jim  Norton, runs river trips down Chinese waterways each winter, which you’ll read more about later. But what could compare to barnstorming through the country as a character out of a Maugham novel? Here’s the journey Norton took from Shanghai farther into the mainland.


这不是Norton的第一次中国之旅了。他在耶鲁大学历史系读本科的时候就学习过中国历史，他父亲Edward M.Norton曾经很长一段时间住在昆明，期间他来看望过父亲，作为乡村自然保护项目的创始人，Edward M.Norton创建了当地第一个大型的环境保护项目。他的哥哥，Jim Norton，每年冬天都沿中国的水路旅行，待会儿你会看到详细资料。但是有什么能跟这次作为Maugham的小说里的人物在小城演出相比呢？下面就是Norton的中国之旅，从上海到中国内陆。

How much time did you spend in China?
I was there about five months, from July through November of last year. We spent about six or seven weeks in Beijing and about three or four weeks in Shanghai, then the rest of the time out in northern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, in that beautiful landscape you see in the film — the river valleys and limestone hills. I had been [to China] many times, but had never been to any of the big eastern cities and had not been to Guangxi. So, for the film, everywhere I went was new to me.


你在中国待了多长时间？
大概5个月，从去年的7月到11月。我们在北京待了6、7个星期，然后在上海待了3、4个星期，剩下的时间就都在广西壮族自治区的北部，就是你在电影里看到的美丽的风景——小河，山谷。我去过中国很多次，但是从来没有去过东部的大城市，从来没去过广西，所以，这部电影里，每个我去过的地方对我来说都是新的。

What was your route?
Well, we went from Beijing to Shanghai to Guangxi — understand this is like flying from New York to Atlanta and then out to the Grand Canyon. I mean, these things are a long way from each other, but much as America is, they are very easily accessible.


你们的路线是什么？
好的，我们从北京到上海再到广西——要了解这就像坐飞机从纽约到亚特兰大，然后再到大峡谷。我的意思是彼此之间有很长的路程，但是像美国一样，这里很容易就能到达。

Let’s talk about Shanghai first. Tell me where you went, where you stayed, and what you saw.
Try to imagine standing in the Hollywood Hills, looking out over the entire L.A. Basin and Orange County and having that whole spread have the vertical density of Midtown Manhattan. That’s what Shanghai looks like. It is really staggering in size. It’s somewhere north of 18 million people, and it is overwhelming in its scope. At the same time, it is very vibrant. It is strikingly modern in some ways, especially architecturally, and it’s very cosmopolitan, in the sense that it has developed as the city of trade and commerce, and it has that energy. Some people say it’s a Westernized energy, but I don’t actually agree with that. I think it is a very Chinese energy, but it is very modern. In a lot of ways, I think calling things Western just because they are tall and glass is not right. Shanghai has very dynamic architecture, much more dynamic in some ways than what you are seeing in American cities. It is more cosmopolitan than Beijing, in the sense that you feel more of an international presence in the people. It has kind of quiet, tree-lined streets in the French Concession area, and the incredible markets that you associate with China, and big, modern downtown congestion. It kind of has it all. It has terrific food and probably the best museum in China, I think — the Shanghai Museum.


我们先来说说上海。告诉我你去了哪儿，住在哪儿，还有你都看到了什么？
试着想象站在好莱坞山顶，看整个洛杉矶，Basin，Orange County，完全是曼哈顿中心的密度。那就是上海的样子。城市的规模真是让人惊讶。大约有180万人口，这对那个城市来说是个大数目。同时，那个城市也充满活力。在很多方面，它都现代得让人惊讶，尤其是建筑，非常国际化，从某种意义上说，它是随着这个商业贸易城市而发展的，它有那个力量。有人说，那些建筑是西方风格的，但是我不同意这个说法。我觉得那是很中国，只是它很现代。在很多时候，我觉得仅仅因为楼房高和有玻璃就称之为西方建筑是不对的。上海的建筑都很有活力，在很多方面比美国的一些城市更有活力。它比北京更国际化，你能感觉这里的人更国际化。在原法租界的地方，有安静的林荫道，很大的超市，很大，人很多。国际化城市该有的它都有了。那里的食物太棒了，而且那里可能有我觉得最棒的博物馆——上海博物馆。

Tell me about that.
The Shanghai Museum was definitely a highlight. I have probably gone there three or four times  during the  different visits I have made to the city. I think the ceramics collection alone at the Shanghai Museum is worth the visit to Shanghai. I never would have thought I could have that kind of a reaction to a ceramics collection, but it is staggering to see an almost 10,000-year history of ceramics spelled out in front of you in the place where it happened more dynamically than anywhere else on earth. Then there are the scroll paintings, the sort of vertically hung paintings with incredible landscapes, and the bronze. Everything in that museum is just amazing. It’s amazing to look at the sophistication of what they were doing at a time when people in Europe were living in sod huts.


告诉我关于那里的一些情况。
上海博物馆绝对是个很棒的地方。我这几次去上海的时候大概去过3、4次。我觉得仅仅是那里的瓷器就已经值得你一去了。我以前从来没想到我会对瓷器感兴趣，但是看到大约有1万年历史的瓷器摆在你面前，而你现在所处的又是一个比任何地方都充满活力的地方，那真是太神奇了。那还有很多卷轴画，是一种梳着挂的风景水墨画。博物馆里的每样东西都那么神奇。能看到那个时代的混合体真是太神奇了，而在同一时期欧洲人还住在草棚里呢。

Okay, what’s something more off the beaten path? I really like the esoteric, weird little things in Shanghai, like going to the pet market, where you can see the incredible  obsession with crickets of every shape and size. Cricket boxes and fighting crickets and huge crowds of people gathered around these tiny clay boxes where the crickets are fighting and the people are betting on them.


好的，还有什么特别的呢？
我喜欢上海的神秘的东西，就像你去宠物市场，你会看到人们被形状大小各异的蟋蟀所吸引。蟋蟀盒子，蟋蟀打架，还有大群的人围在土制的盒子周围，蟋蟀打架的时候人们就下赌注。

How do crickets fight?
You put two crickets in a box and then tickle their antennae with little straw sticks to get them to wrestle each other. People bet on it like they do with dogs, except nobody really gets hurt. They still do the market in China in a way that we just don’t over here anymore. You know, when you run into a really great market in America, like Pike Place Market in Seattle, it is pretty rare. Over there, they are all about the market. It’s fun to go into the hustle and bustle of people bartering and buying things in a less formalized way. We went to lots of markets in China, in different towns and cities. There are just markets everywhere. You can go to the silk market, you can go to the pearl market, the antiques market — they are just massive, massive conglomerations of items.


蟋蟀怎么打架呢？
你把两只蟋蟀放在盒子里，然后用稻草挑动他们的触角，他们就会相互打起来。人们下注就像我们给狗打架下注一样，只是那里没人会受伤。在中国还是很多市场以我们已经不用的方式在经营。你知道，你在美国的大市场，比如西雅图的Pike Place Market，这种东西是很少见的。在中国，到处都是市场。我在中国不同的城市和乡镇去过很多市场，好像到处都有市场。你可以去丝绸市场，珍珠市场，古董市场——那些市场简直是那些东西的总汇。

So if you had two days in Shanghai, what would you do? I guess for a day or two in Shanghai, I would say: Don’t miss the Shanghai Museum. It also puts you right in the People’s Park, in central Shanghai, from which you can see a lot of the dynamic architecture. The Shanghai Museum is right in the middle of People’s Park.

如果你有两天的时间在上海，你会干什么呢？
我想如果我有一两天在上海，我会说，不要错过上海博物馆。刚好你得去人民公园，就在上海中心，在那你可以看到很多有活力的建筑。上海博物馆就在人民公园的正中心。