在宇宙中留下印記的喬布斯
Not long ago, Larry Page watched the Disney film “Tomorrowland.” He didn’t like it.
不久前，拉里·佩奇(Larry Page)看了迪士尼電影《明日世界》(Tomorrowland)，表示不喜歡。
“The reason I went to the movie is that I was interested in a version of the future that would be positive, because that’s so seldom portrayed in science fiction or movies,” Mr. Page, the co-founder of Google and the chief executive of its parent company, Alphabet, told shareholders in June. But while Mr. Page is an optimist’s optimist, like many critics he thought “Tomorrowland” failed because of the very way it flirted with utopia. “I came away from that and said, ‘It’s not a very good story, because it’s not dark,’ ” he shrugged.
佩奇是谷歌的聯合創始人，也是其母公司Alphabet的首席執行官，今年6月他對股東說：“我看這部電影是因爲科幻小說或電影很少描述樂觀的未來世界，所以我對它怎麼描繪樂觀未來很感興趣。”但是，儘管佩奇是樂觀主義者中的樂觀主義者，他也像許多批評者一樣，認爲烏托邦情調是《明日世界》的敗筆。“看完後，我覺得‘這不是一個好故事，因爲它不黑暗，’”他聳聳肩說。
Mr. Page hit on a central problem with attempts to imagine the future in the positive way that many in Silicon Valley see it: A perfect future makes for a dull story. So how do you dramatize the sunny possibilities of technology in a way that would ring true for a tech founder, but that also doesn’t bore the rest of us?
在想象未來時，硅谷有很多人都抱有樂觀積極的心態，但佩奇這番話指出了它的一個核心問題：一個完美的未來會讓故事變得平淡無奇。那麼，你要如何對這種陽光明媚的可能性進行戲劇化，既讓科技公司創始人感到真實，又不會讓其他人覺得無聊呢？
I’d urge Mr. Page to watch “Steve Jobs,” the director Danny Boyle’s new biopic about the late Apple impresario. The film, which stars Michael Fassbender as Mr. Jobs, is nominally a story about a tech visionary who is unpleasant to just about everyone around him. Yet surprisingly, “Steve Jobs” ends up presenting Mr. Jobs in a positive light, partly because it accepts that his products did change the world for the better, in just the ways he’d promised they would.
我建議佩奇看看《史蒂夫·喬布斯》(Steve Jobs)，導演丹尼·博伊爾(Danny Boyle)爲已故蘋果掌門人新拍的傳記片，由邁克爾·法斯賓德(Michael Fassbender)扮演喬布斯。表面上，這部電影講述了一個有遠見的科技領袖的故事，周圍的人都覺得他很難相處。然而奇怪的是，《史蒂夫·喬布斯》最終以正面的視角呈現了喬布斯，部分上是因爲這部電影承認，喬布斯的產品確實讓世界變得更美好，就像他自己的承諾那樣。
“Steve Jobs” will be seen by many as an attack on Mr. Jobs — his family and his former colleagues have harshly criticized it — but that is just half the story. The film ultimately suggests that the deeply unpleasant behavior of people in the tech industry may be worth putting up with because of what they sometimes manage to create, often in spite of themselves. It is one of the few pop cultural depictions of the tech industry to buy into Silicon Valley’s essential worldview: an aggressive optimism that is willing to roll over just about everything and everyone in its path in the service of what it sees as the more important goal of building tomorrow.
很多人將把《史蒂夫·喬布斯》視爲對喬布斯的攻擊，他的家人和前同事已經嚴厲批評了這部電影，但這只是故事的一半。這部電影最終表明，高科技從業者那些讓人極爲不快的行爲可能是值得忍受的，因爲他們自己雖然不討人喜歡，他們創造出來的東西卻很出色。在流行文化對高科技產業的描繪中，只有極少數像這部電影一樣，認同了硅谷的基本世界觀：一種強勢的樂觀主義，朝着建設未來的目標前進，掀翻路上一切阻擋它的事物與人，因爲它認爲它的目標更加重要。
The film, which opens in limited release this weekend and more widely on Oct. 23, is the most sophisticated take yet in a growing body of movies, TV shows, novels and other cultural takes on Silicon Valley. Based on a screenplay by Aaron Sorkin that is loosely adapted from Walter Isaacson’s authorized biography of Mr. Jobs, this is the third major film about the Apple co-founder. There was also “Jobs,” the 2013 movie starring Ashton Kutcher, and, this year, “Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine,” the documentarian Alex Gibney’s critical take on Mr. Jobs.
這部電影將於本週末在有限範圍內公映，將在10月23日進行更爲廣泛的公映。有關硅谷的電影、電視劇、小說及其他文化作品中在不斷涌現，而該片是其中最成熟的一部。影片以艾倫·索爾金(Aaron Sorkin)的劇本爲基礎，是第三部有關這位蘋果聯合創始人的電影。索爾金的劇本大略參照了沃爾特·艾薩克森(Walter Isaacson)那部得到喬布斯授權的傳記。阿什頓·庫徹(Ashton Kutcher)2013年出演了電影《喬布斯》(Jobs)。今年，紀錄片導演亞歷克斯·吉布尼(Alex Gibney)執導了批判喬布斯的紀錄片《史蒂夫·喬布斯：機器人生》(Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine)。
Beyond Apple, there’s “Silicon Valley,” the HBO comedy about the travails of a start-up, and “Halt and Catch Fire,” the AMC drama about the brutal personal computer business of the 1980s. Then there was “The Social Network,” the 2010 film about the history of Facebook, which Mr. Sorkin also wrote. Even stories not nominally about the industry feature cameos by tech billionaires, who have become easy stand-ins for the powerful forces unleashed by technology — see “Book of Numbers,” the recent acclaimed novel by Joshua Cohen, or the Google-like founder who’s the chief villain in the film “Ex Machina.”
除了蘋果公司，HBO喜劇《硅谷》(Silicon Valley)還講述了一家初創公司的艱辛之路，AMC電視劇《奔騰年代》(Halt and Catch Fire)呈現了20世紀80年代蓬勃發展的個人電腦產業。然後還有2010年上映的講述Facebook歷史的《社交網絡》(The Social Network)，電影劇本也來自索爾金。甚至名義上與該行業無關的故事中也會出現科技業出身的億萬富翁這樣的配角，他們已經成爲科技釋放的強大力量的簡單替身——比如喬舒亞·科恩(Joshua Cohen)最近推出的廣受好評的小說《數字》(Book of Numbers)，或者《機械姬》(Ex Machina)裏的大反派——一個谷歌式企業的創始人。
It’s easy to explain the bumper crop of pop-cultural takes on the tech industry. Like finance in the 1980s, technology has lately become not just a source of widespread economic angst, but one of social and cultural angst. And a small class of tech founders have become the most powerful figures of our time. Techies are the “New Establishment,” as Vanity Fair calls them. The magazine even hosts an annual conference devoted to the emerging group of titans who seem certain to one day preside over every aspect of how we buy, watch, read, chat, eat, sleep, dream — if they don’t already.
取材自科技行業的流行文化作品的盛行並不難解釋。就像80年代的金融業一樣，科技業近來不僅引發了廣泛的經濟擔憂，還激起了社會文化方面的焦慮。一小羣科技創始人成了我們這個時代最有影響力的人物。正如《名利場》雜誌(Vanity Fair)所說，科技宅是當今的“新貴”。該雜誌甚至還主辦年度會議，專門討論這幫新出現的巨頭。即使現在沒做到，這些人似乎也肯定會在將來某一天主導我們購物、觀影、閱讀、聊天、吃飯、睡覺、做夢的方方面面。
And if the recent movies and TV shows about the tech industry are anywhere near accurate, we are all in for a heap of trouble. The tech founders who will rule our future are shown as hapless and comically myopic, inspired either by a desire for world domination or by petty efforts to relieve their social anxieties.
如果近期有關科技業的影視作品哪怕有那麼一點接近真相，我們所有人都在劫難逃。在這些作品裏，將會支配我們未來的那些科技業創始人既可悲，又短視得可笑。激勵他們的不是主宰世界的慾望，就是爲緩解社會焦慮而做出的可憐之舉。
What is unusual about “Steve Jobs” is its search for a more authentic motivation for the villainies that we associate with tech billionaires like the Apple founder. “Steve Jobs” is not very kind to Steve Jobs. He is presented as a man who spent years denying paternity of his daughter and who later only grudgingly paid for her support. At every turn, he treats employees and colleagues as expendable cogs in his corporate game, often without understanding the damage he inflicts on those around him.
《史蒂夫·喬布斯》的不同之處在於，它試圖爲蘋果公司創始人這樣的科技業鉅富身上的惡行尋找更真實的動機。影片本身並未恭維史蒂夫·喬布斯。他被刻畫成了一個多年不認自己的女兒、後來也只是勉強支付撫養費的人。每時每刻，他對待員工和同事就像是自己商業遊戲裏無足輕重的螻蟻，常常意識到不到給身邊的人造成的傷害。
Yet unlike many across the business world, the Steve Jobs in this film is not motivated mainly by ego and greed. Instead, what really gets him going is an insatiable desire to “put a dent in the universe,” as Mr. Jobs often put it. Silicon Valley’s insistence on changing the world is usually pilloried in the news media. But here, Mr. Jobs’s mission is accorded respect — and his behavior, the film implies, can be ultimately tolerated because of what he built.
但不同於商界的很多人，這部影片中激勵史蒂夫·喬布斯的，主要不是自負和貪婪。就像喬布斯本人經常說的那樣，真正讓他不斷向前的，是“在宇宙中留下印記”的強烈願望。在新聞媒體上，硅谷對改變世界的執着常常會受到抨擊。但在這部電影裏，喬布斯的使命受到了尊重，而且按照片子的意思，正是因爲打造出來的產品，他的行爲最終可以被容忍。
Part of the film’s success in this regard rests on Mr. Sorkin’s decision to set the story on the development of the personal computer, a technology whose eventual importance is no longer a matter of dispute. Mr. Jobs’s other great product, the touch-screen smartphone, may one day prove more thoroughly world-changing, but at the moment, it raises almost as many fears as it does hopes, and the film wisely stays away from it.
在這一點上，影片的成功部分在於索爾金決定根據個人電腦的發展來講述整個故事。這項技術最終的重要性已毋庸置疑。或許有一天，喬布斯另一款偉大的產品——觸屏智能手機——會證明更徹底地改變了世界，但目前，它引發的憂慮和激起的希望不相上下。影片明智地避開了它。
The personal computer, though — who could argue that it hasn’t proved groundbreaking? To show Mr. Jobs’s ability to see the future, Mr. Sorkin quotes Mr. Jobs’s best argument for the personal computer almost word for word. Humanity’s greatest strength, Mr. Jobs once noted, is that we’re tool builders. A condor is the most mechanically efficient animal on the planet, but a human being on a bicycle blows the condor away.
但就個人電腦而言，誰能說它還沒證明具有開天闢地的意義？爲了表現喬布斯預見未來的能力，索爾金幾乎一字不差地引用了喬布斯爲支持個人電腦給出的最有力的理由。喬布斯曾指出，人類最厲害的地方是能發明工具。從機械的角度來說，禿鷹是地球上效率最高的動物，但騎上自行車後人便能把禿鷹甩在身後。
“What a computer is to me is it’s the most remarkable tool that we’ve ever come up with,” Mr. Jobs said. “It’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.”
“在我看來，電腦是我們發明出來的最非凡的工具，”喬布斯說。“它相當於我們大腦的自行車。”
The ultimate importance of the personal computer hangs over every conflict in the film. When Mr. Jobs harangues his staff, when he puts the company ahead of his supposed friends, when he shows little regard for his family in the service of building what’s next, he implicitly holds an ace card with the audience who knows how things eventually turned out. Sure, he may have been terrible to be around, but in the end, wasn’t he right about the importance of that dent in the universe? And if he hadn’t been as obnoxious about his aims, would the dent have been as large?
影片中，個人電腦的終極重要性瀰漫在每一場衝突中。每當喬布斯滔滔不絕地教訓員工、把公司置於本該是朋友的人之上、或是爲了打造接下來的新產品而幾乎無暇顧及家庭時，他手裏隱隱握着觀衆這張王牌，因爲我們知道事情的最終結果。當然，他大概是對身邊的人不好吧，但到最後，他對宇宙中那道印記的重要性的認知難道有什麼不對嗎？況且，如果他對自己的目標沒有執着到令人生厭的地步，那道印記還會這麼大嗎？
During an argument late in the movie, Steve Wozniak, Apple’s co-founder, who, like everyone else, often clashed with Mr. Jobs, tells him: “Your products are better than you are, brother.”
在影片快結束時的一場爭吵戲中，蘋果聯合創始人史蒂夫·沃茲尼亞克(Steve Wozniak)對喬布斯說：“老兄，你的產品比你本人好。”和其他所有人一樣，沃茲尼亞克常和喬布斯起衝突。
“That’s the idea,” Mr. Jobs responds. The tech industry may be peopled with many petty, ruthless, self-important weirdos. But look at the products, not the people. In the future, only the products will matter.
“正是我想要的，”喬布斯回答。科技業可能是有很多心胸狹隘、冷酷無情、妄自尊大的怪胎。但要看產品，而不是看人。將來，重要的也只有產品本身。
