我想结束这一切

女主的服饰：出发时是明度饱和度都很高的红色大衣和黄色围巾，让人感到活泼温暖。进入Jake父母家之后大衣变成紫红色，色调变冷。返程变成深蓝色，围巾也从大红变成绿色，至此全身冷色。这种变化和影片中女主对时间的思考呼应：时间如一阵冷风，把站在原地的人吹得失去了热度。女主的配饰也不断变化，最初没有任何首饰；在男主家突然戴上了珍珠耳环和珍珠项链；返程途中戴的是玉质大耳环。如同一个任人打扮的洋娃娃，暗示她是一个想象中的人物。

镜子：女主自始至终没有看见过自己的样子。出发时女主试图照车上的镜子，却发现镜子被涂黑了。在男主家地下室翻出手机，里面居然没有一张照片。这个细节既在暗示观众女主的真实相貌很可能不是我们看到的样子，让人联想到致命ID最后镜子出现时的翻转效果，也从侧面说明老人对自己衰老的相貌的厌恶，不愿看到自己的脸。

女主的眼镜：女主看手机必须戴眼镜。这种行为和女主的年龄并不吻合：一个二三十岁的年轻女性为什么会有老花眼呢？很可能是老人把自己的经历投射到幻想的女友身上了。

用词：女主在餐桌上讲和男主相遇的故事中提到男主是一个词汇量丰富，喜欢玩文字游戏的人。而返程途中，女主点评电影用到了assertation一词。因为这个词很少见，男主并不确定这是不是女主自己造的一个词，而女主霸气回应look it up。此时咬文嚼字的人设变成了女主。再后来look it up又从男主口中再次出现，人设又一次翻转。类似的情形还有一次：trecherours这个词先后从男主、女主、冰激凌店黑发小妹口中都出现过。这个口语中并不常用到的词也使三人形成了一种无形的联系，暗示着他们三人共享着同一个人的记忆和习惯。

对衰老的感叹：感叹首先是男主妈妈提到自己耳鸣时引起的。男主爸爸和妈妈伤感地提到人老了连幽默感也打了折。Jake便顺势给自己的父母介绍女友是学老年学的。此时女主提及这个对老人不友善的社会，并对男主衰老的父母展现了同情。后来衰老这个话题又经过患有老年痴呆的男主爸爸重新提起。而返回时男主则开始表达衰老带来的无力无助和绝望，同时表达了对年轻人的崇拜。虽然被安排在不同的角色身上，但其实句句都是老人的肺腑之言。在这样一个经验几乎完全被网络信息取代的时代，老年人的价值究竟在哪里？衰老除了是人类不可抗拒的自然外力，是否还有什么别的意义？

诺奖感言：这一段几乎完全照搬电影《美丽心灵》，而《美丽心灵》是讲数学家/经济学家纳什饱受精神分裂之苦，幻想出自己的朋友及其侄女的故事，和这部影片有相似之处。不同的是，纳什最终得到学界肯定（虽然不是他最看重的数学领域），而本片中的老人却一直庸庸碌碌，一直在学校做清洁工，没人看得到他在艺术和学术上的追求（读诗、画画、生物、物理），也没人看得到他人性的光辉（照顾父母），最后孤身一人无所依傍，在漫天风雪中想要了结自己平凡寂寞的一生。

对妈妈的态度：餐桌上Jake对妈妈有难掩的不屑和愤怒；女主则自始至终强调男主有一对很好很爱他的父母，除了唱冰激凌的歌时脱口而出的男主母亲sweet and cold；同时女主还对把一个人的所有精神问题归结于母亲的不当养育的观点表示了激烈的反对；最后Jake发表获奖感言时母亲就坐在台上非常显眼的专属席位。从这一连串相互连系又相互矛盾的对待母亲的行为可以看出，Jake对母亲有着十分复杂的情感：一方面感激母亲的养育和爱护，一方面又不满母亲的老土和对自己的不理解；一方面不愿意把自己人生的失败推责给母亲，一方面又在埋怨母亲没把自己培养成更好的人。

与现实的对应：影片开始老人车上放的tulsy town的冰激凌和男女主一起去的冰激凌店有相同的logo；男主妈妈“口误”提到男主50岁生日；男主妈妈脱口而出的"quantum psychic" （哈哈哈哈量子灵媒学这个梗真是又好笑又推进剧情）；冰激凌店三个女孩的形象取自老人在学校见到的三个女孩；黑发女孩手臂上有和男主一样的红斑；男主的拖鞋先后由男主和老人送给女主两次；女主的职业在老人看完电影以后从学者变成了电影里的服务员后来又变成了影评人（老人也渴望拥有像电影里一样不顾一切的爱情）；老人在学校看到的一队搭档练习生涩的舞蹈变成了影片最后成熟默契的双人舞。

最后的舞蹈：年轻的男主和女主在舞蹈中都升级成了更美更优雅的版本；清洁工老人也变成了强壮的敢于（literally）横刀夺爱的形象。这一段让本就建立在幻想中的故事更上一层，让本来基于现实和理性的幻想情节完全脱离了现实，变成纯粹的如音乐剧般的梦幻场景。有趣的是老人多年的工作习惯在这段歌舞中还予以保留：两人翩翩起舞时还顺便把没关严的储物柜门关上了，世界真的变成了老人喜欢的样子：年轻、强壮、美丽、整洁。

最后的最后，一定要看完字幕。影片开头就点明了影片的核心：思想是比行动更接近真实的东西。

It's called “Bonedog”.

闯入他人精神世界的标志，除了叙事的癫狂、回溯与迷乱（时间如同湍流穿行过每一个质点），还有屡次出现的顾盼与察觉，观看人作为闯入者被发现并被驱使，甚至被示众，被屠戮，这里的惊悚的意味与《仲夏夜惊魂》中最有味道的part相似；影片中多次出现的这种目光在召唤观看者的选择，是经受诱惑成为那

Bonedog 髒

Coming home is terrible 回家是可怕的

whether the dogs lick your face or not 不论狗是否舔舐你的脸颊

whether you have a wife 不论在家中等待你的是一个妻子

or just a wife-shaped loneliness waiting for you 或仅是一个瘦削成妻子形状的孤独

Coming home is terrible lonely 回家孤独得可怕

so that you think of the oppressive barometric pressure 以至于你回想起自己刚离开那个死气沉沉的地方时

back with you have just come from with fondness 竟也带着一丝欢欣

because everything's worse once you're home 因为一旦回家后，一切都会更加糟糕

You think of the vermin clingling to the grass stalks 你满怀渴望地去想附着在稻草秸秆上的害虫

long hours on the road，roadside assistance and ice creams 漫漫无彻的长途，道路救援和冰激凌

and the peculiar shapes of certain clouds 和某些形状特别的云

and silence with longing，because you did not want to return 还有寂静，因为那时的你不想归返

Coming home is 回家就只是

just awful 糟糕透顶

And the home-style silence and clouds 家常的沉寂与乌云

contribute to nothing but the general malaise 仅仅只会徒增全身的不适感

Clouds,such as they are,are in fud suspect 这样的云带着一如既往的不定与怀疑

and made from a different material than those you left behind 它们不同于你所抛下的那些物质

You youself were cut from a different cloudy cloth 你自身则是从另一块云布中裁剪而出

returned,remaindered 被退回，被剩下

ill-met by moonlight 被月光不安地邂逅

unhappy to be back,slack in all the wrong spots 怏怏回返，在所有最不恰当的地方松垮

seamy suit of clothes,dishrag-ratty,worn 满是线头的衣服，抹布般邋遢，磨损得破烂

You return home 你回了家

moon-landed,foreign 就像在月球着陆的外星人

The Earth's gravitation pull 地心引力拉扯

an effort now redoubled 此时有了双倍的效果

dragging your shoelaces loose 将你的鞋带拉松

and your shoulders 卸下你的肩膀

etching deeper the stanza of worry on your forehead 把忧愁的诗节在你的前额上刻得更深

You return home deepened 你心情沉重地回到家里

a parched well linked to tomorrow 一口通往明日的枯井

by a frail strand of 连结着一缕脆弱的空无

anyway 即便如此

You sigh into the onslaught of identical days 你哀叹完全相同的每天构成日复一日的冲击

one might as well,at a time 人有时也会这样

Well 好吧

anyway，you’re back 总之，你回来了

The sun goes up and down like a tired whore 太阳像是疲惫的妓女一样起了又落

The weather immobile like a broken limb 气候犹如折断的肢体一般毫无起伏

while you just keep getting older 只有你不断地变老了

Nothing moves,but the shifting tides of salt in your body 一切都是静止的，除了你体内如潮水般涨落的盐分

Your vision blears 你的所见逐渐模糊

You carry your weather with you 你和你的气候形影不离

the big,blue whale 巨大的蓝鲸

a skeletal darkness 骸骨般的阴影

You come back 你回来了

with X-ray vision 带着X光般的透视

your eyes have become a hunger 你的双眼已然成为一种饥饿

You come home with your mutant gifts 你带着变种的天赋来到家里

to a house of bone 来到一座骨头之家

Everything you see now 此时你所看见的一切

All of it 目之所及

bone 皆为骸骨

当读到“with X-ray vision”时，女主的双眼已然成为一种穿越荧屏的X光，带着犀利的透视感，无怪乎男主说“你是擅长朗诵的”；这首诗与影片中大部分情节和气氛都可以呼应——狗、冰激凌、长途行车、你和你的气候形影不离、回家——实在是绝佳的点缀与主轴

从后面的影片部分可以知道这首诗是来自于《Rootten Perfect Mouth》署名是EVA H.D.

很喜欢她的诗作，这里仅指《Bonedog》一首

影片中出现许多次语词和画面的游戏，这里的terrible和背后伸来的手无疑是绝佳的呼应，这让我想起《What Remains of Edith Finch》

导演查理考夫曼的意识流电影，晦涩感又上一层楼。

从其早年作品《成为约翰马尔科维奇》，考夫曼便乐此不疲地探索着意识在荧幕上的表现空间。而今年的新片《我想结束这一切》，更突出这种意识流表现手法，虽然很有朦胧的美感，但叙事不连贯而显得混乱，加上片中男女主引经据典摸不着头脑，可能让不少人只看了个锤子。

那么我们来捋一捋。

其实电影改编的原著叙事逻辑原本很清晰。其理解的关键在于：男女主人公Jake和Lucy以及在高中拖地的大爷，三个人是同一个人，或者说基于同一个人的回忆构想出的不同人物。拖地的老大爷根据回忆想象出了年轻时的自己即Jake和女版的自己Lucy。

男女主人公是同一个人在电影里有不少线索。一是Lucy在看Jake家里照片时候，对着Jake小时候的照片说那是自己，而给照片的镜头也出现了男孩女孩两个版本。二是Lucy展示过自己的画的照片后，发现这些画就在Jake家地下室里，而且还标注有自己对这些画的解释。再有，Lucy在车里讲了一首给自己的诗（bonedog），Jake说这首诗写的是自己，而这首诗也确在Jake小时候的卧室里一本叫Rotten Perfect Mouth的书里找到了。

Jake妈妈说Jake从来都缺少朋友，惊讶能找到Lucy这样懂他的女友；以及Jake说他的拖鞋就是Lucy的拖鞋（My slippers are your slippers），也都微弱地暗示他们是同一人。

男女主人公是同一个人，也解释了为什么经常Lucy思考发呆时候，Jake似乎可以感应到她在想什么。他们相互之间的评价，既显得贴切，也有丝心酸。

而电影中穿插的拖地大爷，在结尾前并没有明显揭示其身份。但我们也能发现，在Jake第二次和爸妈讲述如何初遇Lucy时候，他说Lucy是服务员给他上过某种burger，刚好对应了拖地大爷先前看到电视里的情节，暗示男女主的故事是大爷的想象。另外大爷看到学校里音乐剧的排练，而Jake对音乐剧颇喜欢，尤其是大爷在学校看的oklahoma。

影片接近结尾处，Lucy和大爷见面后，大爷的身份暗示更为明显。Lucy形容不出Jake的长相，却和大爷动容地相互对视，离开前拥抱了大爷。大爷回到卡车里，车窗上一会儿是Lucy和Jake经过的冰淇凌店广告，一会儿是Jake的童年阴影，肚子里长蛆的猪猪，猪猪还跳出来带大爷和观众来到电影最后一幕。最后一幕便是大爷/Jake去领音乐剧版诺贝尔奖，Lucy和Jake父母给他打call。虽然有的联系很不直接，但如此多的情节或意象重叠，代表了大爷和Jake/Lucy的意识记忆是相连的。

总结来说，电影是大爷年迈之后在回忆和想象中创造了Lucy和Jake两位主人公，Lucy对Jake的感情有所挣扎，代表了大爷自我认知里的胆怯和些许自卑。因为故事情节都是基于回忆的想象，那么看到三个年龄段的Jake父母是可能的，人物场景违和的跳跃也能解释，甚至冒出来的超现实诡异镜头，如装满同样冰淇凌的垃圾箱，都是类似梦境的表现。就像电影里Lucy所想，这里人物是静态的，（回忆里）时间是动态的，像冷风一样穿过人物。

在梦一般的回忆想象后，电影最后一个镜头是大爷卡车压在厚厚积雪之下，暗示他并没有从车里出来。片名I‘m thinking of ending things直译为我在考虑结束些事情，影片开头我以为是结束Lucy和Jake短暂的感情，看到结尾未曾想，结束的其实是他们唏嘘的这一生。

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation. ———— 《De Profundis》 by Oscar Wilde

大多数人都是从众的，他们的思想是其他人的意见，他们的生活是一场模仿，他们热衷于引旁人所述。——《深渊书简》奥斯卡·王尔德

这句话是Lucy在电影中引用的，我觉得它很好地诠释了这部电影，电影中的人和看这部电影的人。

直切正题，本文为考据索引，对音乐剧《俄克拉荷马》有剧透。

1. 旅途开始之时，引用了《以赛亚书》1:18的部分，全段如下：

耶和华说： 你们来， 我们彼此辩论。 你们的罪虽像朱红， 必变成雪白； 虽红如丹颜， 必白如羊毛。

暗示了后段的大雪天气。

2. 回家路上，Jake为了和Lucy挑起话题，讲到英国浪漫主义诗人威廉·华兹华斯的作品《颂诗·忆童年而悟永生》( Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood )，他本来想念出头几句，却被Lucy打断。这首诗的头几句如下：

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight, To me did seem Apparelled in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream. It is not now as it hath been of yore;— Turn wheresoe'er I may, By night or day, The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

而且两人还谈到威廉·华兹华斯写过一系列关于Lucy的诗，这个系列一共有五首 ("Strange fits of passion have I known", "She dwelt among the untrodden ways", "I travelled among unknown men", "Three years she grew in sun and shower", and "A slumber did my spirit seal")，其中的Lucy并非一个确定的人物，原型难以推断，而更像作者的一个灵感投射，这与电影中的Lucy身份暗合。

3. 在车里打开广播之后，广播里的歌声出自音乐剧《俄克拉荷马》，同时Jake报菜名一般列举了一堆他看的音乐剧，这里关注两个，一个是他最喜欢的《俄克拉荷马》，这个后面再说；另一个是《窈窕淑女》，后来的餐桌戏中，Jake的爸爸也cue到了《窈窕淑女》

窈窕淑女

8.2

类型: 音乐剧 导演: Moss Hart / Jerry Adler / Patrick Garland / Howard Davies / Robin Midgley / Bartlett Sher 编剧: Alan Jay Lerner 主演: Julie Andrews / Rex Harrison / Stanley Holloway / Robert Coote / Cathleen

4. Lucy在车上念了一首她最近读的诗，就是《骨狗》，全文见友邻总结：

//movie.douban.com/review/12849535/

5. Jake的家在Tulsey town，这个地名也就是Tulsa，“巧合”的是，Tulsa位于俄克拉荷马州（哦！），看过HBO美剧《守望者》的朋友对这个地方应该不会陌生。

守望者 (2019)

8.4

2019 / 美国 / 剧情 动作 奇幻 / 斯戴芙·格林 妮可·卡索 安德里杰·帕瑞克 斯蒂芬·威廉姆斯 大卫·塞梅尔 弗雷德·托耶 / 雷吉娜·金 蒂姆·布雷克·尼尔森

6. 晚餐期间，聊到Lucy画画得很好，Jake的妈妈想到一幅女孩独自坐在草地上看房子的画，说的是美国画家Andrew Wyeth 的作品《克里斯蒂娜的世界》（Christina's world），现存于MoMA。

Christina's world

（看，像不像Jake他家。。。

7. Jake的妈妈想问两个人怎么认识的（八卦哦），提到了一部电影，是Billy Crystal自导自演的作品《忘情巴黎》。

忘情巴黎 (1995)

7.7

1995 / 美国 / 喜剧 爱情 / 比利·克里斯托 / Billy Crystal Debra Winger

8. Lucy在Jake的房间里看到很多书，其中有威廉·华兹华斯的诗集，还有一本 Pauline Kael 的《The Current Cinema》，然后她拿起了一本书，叫《Rotten Perfect Mouth》，在里面看到了《骨狗》，我不确定《骨狗》是不是其中的一篇，但这本书确实存在。

Rotten Perfect Mouth

目前无人评价

Eva H. D

9. Lucy下到地下室，看到Jake的模仿学习画作，他临摹的对象是美国调性主义画家 Ralph Albert Blakelock，电影中也展示了Blakelock的几幅著名作品，包括《Moonlight》。

Moonlight

10. 从Jake家出来之后，两人在车中聊到了约翰·卡萨维蒂的著名电影作品《醉酒的女人》，Lucy还对其中女主玛贝尔有一段模仿，以及贡献了一段非常棒的影评。

醉酒的女人 (1974)

8.2

1974 / 美国 / 剧情 爱情 / 约翰·卡萨维蒂 / 彼得·法尔克 吉娜·罗兰兹

11. 买完暴风雪，却吃不下去，Lucy说I'll never do it again，Jake马上跳到一本书，美国作家David Foster Wallace的作品《所谓好玩的事，我再也不做了》（A supposedly fun thing, I will never do again），并且提到作者自杀的事情，这点暗示了影片结局。

所谓好玩的事，我再也不做了

7.8

[美] 大卫·福斯特·华莱士 / 2017 / 湖南文艺出版社

12. 作为回应，Lucy问Jake你有没有读过居伊·德波，并且引用了他的著作《景观社会》，这里似乎点到了主旨，我们都是我们的所见所闻。

景观社会

8.2

[法] 居伊·德波 / 2017 / 南京大学出版社

13. 回到《俄克拉荷马》

俄克拉荷马

7.9

类型: 音乐剧 又名: 奥克拉荷马 导演: Rouben Mamoulian / William Hammerstein / Trevor Nunn / 中村一徳 / Gemze de Lappe / 正塚晴彦 / Daniel Fish / 范卫华，Dewayne Barrett 编剧: Oscar Hammerstein II 主演: Betty Garde / Al...

电影中多次致敬了这部音乐剧，最后一段舞蹈的剧情，几乎就是复刻了音乐剧《俄克拉荷马》的剧情，在音乐剧中，女主劳瑞的梦境有一段舞蹈场景，而且音乐剧的最后也是这段梦境的真实再现，追求劳瑞的两位男士克里和查德扭打，查德死于刀刃。

影片的最后，Jake在获奖后有一段唱段，这个唱段来自音乐剧《俄克拉荷马》中查德的唱段《Lonely Room》。暗含了Jake与查德命运的对应。

14. 最后彩蛋，Jake获诺贝尔奖一幕是致敬了朗·霍华德的奥斯卡经典《美丽心灵》，这个在导演的访谈中也得到确认。链接：//movie.douban.com/review/12854297/（我一上来真没看出来）

美丽心灵

好的没了。

看了一篇对导演Charlie Kaufman关于这部电影的专访，想转一下文章里关于电影情节的Q&A部分。原文9月4日发表于IndieWire.com, 作者Eric Kohn, @erickohn。以下问答涉及剧透。

Why does it seem like Jake can hear Lucy’s thoughts?

In the opening sequence of the movie, Jake and Lucy endure an interminable drive up to his parents’ house, while Lucy continues to contemplate leaving him. On several occasions, Jake glances over to Lucy during her voiceover, sometimes interrupting it. Is he telepathic? The answer is actually quite simple. At the end of Reid’s novel, it’s revealed that Jake and his unnamed girlfriend are the same person — the lonely high school janitor, who invented her as his fantasy. Think “Psycho” meets “Fight Club.”

It doesn’t take long for “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” to imply as much. When Lucy, an aspiring poet, shares one of her verses at the dinner table, it’s actually a sampling from “Rotten Perfect Mouth,” a collection of writings by real-life poet Eva H.D. Later in the movie, it’s not even clear if Lucy’s name is Lucy. (He calls her “Ames.” Amy?) Jake has built her out of the books, movies, and passing encounters that have shaped his isolated worldview.

So Lucy’s the main character and she also doesn’t exist?

Well…yes and no. The most sophisticated gamble of the movie is that Kaufman has taken this device and turned it into an open question: Can a fantasy exist on its own terms?

“She is a device, but I wanted her to be able to separate herself from that,” Kaufman said. “I didn’t want it to be a twist. I felt like that would not work in a movie at this point in history. When you make a movie, everything that’s sort of ambiguous becomes concrete. You’ve got people playing these things. You can see them.”

Needless to say, Buckley turns in a rich, haunting performance as a woman grappling with the uncertainty surrounding her. “To my mind, it would have been a misuse of any actress not to give them something to play that was real,” Kaufman said. “Because of the device that the book uses, it wasn’t required, and I needed it to be there.”

Fine, but that still doesn’t mean she’s a real person.

Right. But she has a definite representative power as Jake comes to terms with the impossibility of his delusion. At one point, he asks Lucy if she’s read Anna Kavan’s 1967 novel “Ice,” which takes place in a post-apocalyptic wasteland (not unlike the dreary outdoors that surround the movie’s two big car rides). The protagonist of “Ice” spends most of the book pursuing an unnamed woman while wrestling with the complicated nature of his attraction.

In “I’m Thinking of Ending Things,” the character endures that same struggle when the fantasy fights back. It’s a storytelling gamble unique to the art of cinema: Within the “world” of “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” — one controlled by Kaufman as well as his protagonist — Lucy exists. “I needed her to have agency for it to work as a dramatic piece,” Kaufman said. “I really liked the idea that even within his fantasy, he cannot have what he wants. He’s going to imagine this thing, but then he’s going to also imagine how it won’t work, how she’s going to bored with him, how she’s going to not think he’s smart enough or interesting enough.”

Eventually, Jake stops trying to solve his problems by inventing new people, and instead focuses on himself. “In keeping with the idea of giving her some agency, I didn’t want her to be responsible for his ending,” Kaufman said.

At one point, the janitor watches the final scene of a cheesy romance that’s directed by Robert Zemeckis. The abrupt end credit is hilarious. But why Zemeckis?

The janitor is often a passive character in the high school, absorbing faces and circumstances from the sidelines. However, one scene finds him sitting in an empty room, eating lunch and watching a movie on television. It’s the final minutes of a cheesy romance set in a diner, and the credits come up just long enough for one name to appear: “Directed By Robert Zemeckis.”

Why did Kaufman decide to toss in a reference to the director of “The Polar Express”? Kaufman has been telling interviewers that it happened at random, when his assistant director suggested it after perusing a list of director names online. Zemeckis wasn’t even in Kaufman’s original version of the script.

“Sometimes things are funny because they’re funny, and I feel like it’s possible that Zemeckis could have made this movie, even if it’s unlikely,” Kaufman said. At the same time, there’s a touch of irony to the choice. “I don’t think Zemeckis ever has or ever would make a movie like this,” Kaufman said. “It’s more like a Nancy Meyers movie. He wasn’t a model for it. His stuff is generally more high-concept, but it’s possible, so the joke resonates somehow.” He asked the director for permission to include the reference, and Zemeckis is thanked in the credits.

So it was just a random choice?

Yeah, that story sounds almost too neat for its own good, doesn’t it? After all, Zemeckis is one of the biggest commercial directors of the past 30 years, and Kaufman’s work is defiantly non-commercial. On top of that, Kaufman did at one point almost work with Zemeckis while adapting the young adult novel “Chaos Walking” way back in 2012. The project has gone through many writers since then, though Kaufman still has a credit on the Doug Liman-directed version set for release from Lionsgate next year. But Zemeckis was initially interested in taking it on.

“What happened with Robert Zemeckis was that I wrote a first draft of ‘Chaos Walking,’ and then I guess he read it and was interested in directing it,” Kaufman said. Lionsgate set them up. “It was a really nice meeting,” Kaufman said. “I had never met him before, but we had a really nice chat and came up with some solutions to some issues and that was the end of it. Then I didn’t end up moving forward with it, and neither did he.”

Alright, back to that cringe-inducing dinner. Why do the parents keep changing?

Over the course of a very creepy evening, Jake’s parents undergo a series of dramatic physical changes, from young to old and back again. Jake is basically living through the many stages of his parents’ lives, a process that has complicated the idea of bringing his new girlfriend home. Where does he place her in that timeline? He can’t find the perfect moment, because it doesn’t exist. As much as he wants to stay in the house with her, they eventually leave, at her insistence.

So begins another long car ride. And…was that a Pauline Kael impersonation?

While at Jake’s house, Lucy wanders into his childhood bedroom. It’s strewn with piles of movies, books, and other material. One volume stands out: “For Keeps: 30 Years at the Movies,” a 1996 selection of former New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael’s reviews (the book, now out of print, draws from several earlier collections). Once back on the road, Lucy and Jake engage in a loooooong, meandering discussion that bursts with highbrow references, from Guy Debord’s “Society as Spectacle” to Goethe’s theory of color and a David Foster Wallace essay from the collection “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again.”

All of these fragments point to complicated ideas related to Jake’s obsessions, but none receive more screen time than a Pauline Kael review — her 1974 takedown of John Cassavetes’ “Woman Under the Influence.” (Strangely, that review is not included in “For Keeps.”)

Debating the film and its Gena Rowlands performance, Lucy basically transforms into Kael, repeating the review verbatim with a spot-on impersonation. “I’ve always liked her, and grew up with her and reading her, and thinking that she was smarter than I am,” said Kaufman, echoing the sentiment of many readers over the years. Jake seems to be one of them: After Lucy finishes her monologue about the movie, which he liked, he’s left speechless.

“That goes toward the idea of Jake not being able to have anything that he wants,” Kaufman said. “He had this opinion about that movie, and then failed. It’s an experience I’ve had — the idea that you like something, and then you read something by somebody that you really admire, and you feel like an idiot for liking that thing.” (Also notable: Kaufman’s recent novel, “Antkind,” is about the plight of a film critic.)

What’s up with Tulsey Town Ice Cream?

Eventually, the car ride is interrupted by a stop at Tusley Town Ice Cream, an invented small-town ice cream chain inexplicably open in the middle of a debilitating snowstorm. On the way over, Jesse and Lucy recall the jingle for the ice cream shop commercials. The pair stop there briefly and Lucy has a cryptic interaction with three women behind the takeout counter. Two of them are giggly and flirtatious, while a third seems terrified.

According to Kaufman, they’re all references to women that Jake has seen before. “Then there was this idea that there were many generations of high-school kids who worked there that he had interacted with over the years and had his problems with,” Kaufman said. “It’s a dreamy stop into his psyche, into his past.”

In the book, the couple actually stop at a Dairy Queen. “We weren’t able to get the rights to use that, so I changed it,” Kaufman said. “But I think it worked out better, because it’s more mysterious, and because it’s more local.”

Let’s talk about that dance sequence.

After they park at the high school, Jake runs inside, angry that the janitor is watching from afar. When Lucy goes after him, she has a warm encounter with the janitor in which he sends her on his way — suggesting that the character has finally accepted that he must part ways with his fantasy. Elaborating on this idea, Lucy and Jake then spot each other in a hallway, where they’re replaced by a pair of ballet dancers wearing the same clothes. Over the next several minutes, they engage in a lively piece of choreography patterned after a similar moment in the musical “Oklahoma!”

Earlier in the movie, the janitor passes a school recital of the play, which includes an extensive “dream ballet” sequence that finds the farm girl Laurey at the center of a brawl between two suitors, Curly McLain and Jud Fry. That sequence ends with Curly’s death; here, it’s the Jake stand-in who goes down, suggesting that Jake has accepted the impossibility of his love.

“There’s a few things in ‘Oklahoma!’ that felt like they were really kind of thematically parallel to the story that we were telling,” Kaufman said. As for the dream sequence: “I was always intrigued by it, because it’s so creepy, and I liked the idea of the doppelgänger aspect in it.” In other words, Jake has been pretending he’s someone else, and uses the narrative framework of “Oklahoma!” to eliminate that delusion.

And then there’s the talking animated pig.

Actually, that’s another pretty straightforward one. In his car, the janitor seems to have an attack of some sort, and possibly dies. Like Charles Foster Kane whispering “Rosebud” from his bed, janitor-Jake sees tidbits from his youth in the windshield, including the animated “Tulsey Town Ice Cream” ad referenced earlier. These give way to an animated pig with maggots on its stomach — a grim encounter that Jake recounts to Lucy earlier in the movie, while giving her a tour of the farm. The affable animal walks Jake back to his final moment of introspection.

Something about the innocence of the pig and its horrific underbelly traumatized Jake early in life. In his old age, he has come to terms with this fundamental imbalance in his universe.

In the last scene, everyone’s old. But it looks kind of…fake.

Onstage to accept an award in the movie’s final scene, Jake stands against a backdrop of the “Oklahoma!” set, wearing obvious stage makeup to look like an old man. But he’s not alone. It’s a packed house, and everyone in the room — including his parents and Lucy — are wearing the same makeup. Originally, Kaufman included a tidbit to explain this inclusion.

“There was a scene where the janitor found a makeup book in the bathroom as he was cleaning up, because somebody had clearly been putting their makeup on in this boys or girls room,” Kaufman said. The device allows Jake to bring everyone in his head to age along with him, while reminding us of the artifice in play. “All of the people who were in the audience, with the exception of the characters from the movie, are the extras who played high school kids in the rest of the movie,” Kaufman said. “So they’re all young people wearing old-age makeup.”

Is that…the closing speech from “A Beautiful Mind”?

Yup. When Jake accepts his prize, he recites the sentimental Nobel Prize speech delivered by economist John Nash (Russell Crowe) at the end of Ron Howard’s Oscar winner. In fact, the entire sequence has been built to resemble the conclusion of the 2001 movie.

Earlier in “I’m Thinking of Ending Things,” a DVD of “A Beautiful Mind” is glimpsed in Jake’s room, so it stands to reason that Jake found much relatable about the story of a brilliant man who struggles with paranoid schizophrenia and has trouble sorting out the reality surrounding him. Kaufman was wary of spelling that out, though.

“That’s one that I’m not as comfortable talking about because it does get to the meat of what the movie I made is about,” he said, but then elaborated anyway. “This movie is dealing with somebody’s experience of absorbing things that they see and how they become part of his psyche,” he said. “So this was in some ways how this person might have fantasized it out.”

Of course, there may be more to this: End credits claim that the speech was lifted with permission of the studio, but Kaufman played no role in that. Unlike Zemeckis, he didn’t ask for Howard’s blessing. “I have certainly never spoken to Ron Howard in my life,” Kaufman said. “I’m assuming they got permission.”

Considering that “A Beautiful Mind” was one of the cheesier Oscar winners of the previous decade (and it won the same year that “Adaptation” came out), it’s no huge leap to see the inclusion as a huge cinematic eyeroll about the misleading nature of storytelling that clouds the true nature of solipsistic struggles, something Kaufman has explored throughout his filmography. “A Beautiful Mind” puts a happy ending on that subject; in “I’m Thinking of Ending of Things,” the struggle never ends.

And then Jake sings…

Yep, more of “Oklahoma!” Sitting down on a set that looks like a reproduction of his childhood bedroom, he delivers a melancholic rendition of “Lonely Room,” in which Jud declares his intention of marrying Laurey. The song includes the telling line, “Get me a woman to call my own.” Dream on, Jud — and Jake, it seems. “The character of Jud seemed to be comparable in some ways to Jake,” Kaufman said. Sitting on a set built from the fragments that define his life, Jake has become the star of his own story and simultaneously confined by it.

And that’s it! Right?

Not quite. That final image of the janitor’s snow-encrusted car essentially suggests that janitor-Jake died there in the dead of night. It’s a beautiful, tragic capper to a story about one man confronting the failures of his life as it leaves his body. Kaufman hopes that people keep watching through the credits, which list many of the references throughout the movie. “There’s actually a lot of stuff in the end credits that’s important to me,” Kaufman said. “It’s an intentional thing, the way it plays out.”

Exhausted? Fine, but the riddles of the movie all serve a purpose. Ultimately, Kaufman doesn’t think that “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” hides much from its audience. “The way I was presenting it was that you would probably figure it out,” he said. “This is what the character is going through. You either get it or you don’t.”

全文链接：//www.indiewire.com/2020/09/charlie-kaufman-explains-im-thinking-of-ending-things-1234584492/

姑且不论看完诺兰电影不自觉会做起“影片拼图”的找源头游戏是好是坏，毕竟导演本人似乎是个影迷，这样按图索骥探寻影片脉络也许不是坏事。看完《信条》同样很自然会进行这样的步骤，而撇除诺兰自己作品的参照／反身之外，在我自己的理解上来看，觉得能联想到的作品中，查理‧考夫曼的作品竟就能想到三部：由他编剧的《暖暖内含光》、《成为约翰‧马尔科维奇》，以及更多是他编导的《纽约提喻法》。这一点都不会离谱，这两人似乎总是同步探讨时间的可塑行，只是诺兰倾向于“向外”，把心理映射的时间投射出来；而考夫曼则“向内”，替诺兰铺陈了前期工作。这回，《我想结束这一切》可以说再次与《信条》同步，完成《信条》的心灵维度。

然而，处理内在时间与外在时间落差的手法，也不是到了诺兰这里才开始的，电影的前辈们很早就用很简单的方式体现这一点，包括像小津的作品。在《晚春》一场戏，那是女儿纪子得知父亲周吉可能再婚之后，跑来闺密绫子家的戏，就在绫子还在做蛋糕的等待时间内，纪子在会客室等著。我们看到一个老式落地钟显示为3点52分，这时切了一纪子面部的近景镜头，她这个含泪的目光，维持了约8秒钟。这时，做好蛋糕的绫子来叫她，钟响了起来，亦即，这8秒凝缩了8分钟。小津以此来表示纪子内心的翻腾。当然，真讲起来，这跟诺兰式“错时”蒙太奇的作法不一样，不过，原理相同，都是透过画面间（或段落间）产生的“区间”来制造出连续性时间感的中断，以装载更多的时间维度。这在《纽约提喻法》基本被做到极致，影片中暗示出至少存在七层不同刻度的时间同步进行。这部片比同样处理不同时层交错呈现的《盗梦空间》早了两年不是偶然。

《纽约提喻法》剧照

不过，考夫曼之前擅长于现实情境安置超现实情节，使得《纽约提喻法》的导演凯顿自身形成了一种“自为的时间性”，但在他人眼里看来，却毫无看到异状的反应。但是，时区错位的原因或说原理，考夫曼没有为观众解答，在凯顿死亡戛然而止，徒留观众自由心证。显然，他的片没有受欢迎到引起热烈的讨论。同样地，《我想结束这一切》也没有具体解答，即使是为网飞这样的平台创作，他与编剧仍选择留下一个开放性结局，或说，无解结局。

但考虑到合作的编剧便是同名原著的作者，这样的改编让没有读过原著的观众至少有点安心，即使走样，也是原作知晓的情况下发生的。

如此一来，影片既然没有给出明确答案，观众实在也不需要得到一份解答。不过，从各种短评、长评，以及搭配小说书评、短评看下来，有一个共识是清楚的：影片描述了一位人格分裂者的一段归乡旅程；当然是否为“一段”令人保留，但是人格分裂的情况看来是清楚无误。

《我想结束这一切》剧照

不过取材的创新性在于：叙述主体似乎是被分裂出来的人格（之一），这也使得可呈现的叙事层面得到一定的统一。不过，我们可以想像（或按编导呈现出来的样貌推敲），人格分裂的主体还保留着其他人格，以及这位女叙述者作为其中一个人格，她在所知有限的情况下，也可能出现人格互涉情况，或者，主体的无意识干扰，使得即使是她的全观点，却仍会不时出现“超观点”的情况，这无疑是片中闪现学校门房的画面可能代表的意义：他将看到的电影（假装是罗伯特‧泽米吉斯执导的片段）桥段融入这归乡的旅程中，甚至，片中片的女主角蔻碧‧米纳菲也突然间闪现，短暂取代了她的叙述者位置，成为在车内与男朋友杰克讨论居伊‧德波的人。不过，说有无意识或其他人格互涉，算是从积极面来解释；因此也有消极面的解读：也许这是编导在视点设计上的疏忽？

然而，我们倾向相信考夫曼与原作家伊恩‧里德是有考虑到“我”在“知”的局限，因此经常藉由这种机会顺带营造惊悚氛围，于是有不少短评强调把这部片当作鬼片来看，并且它在豆瓣上的分类是剧情、惊悚、恐怖；而我们也知道，以“知”的落差来制造紧张效果的大师，就是希区柯克与波兰斯基。

《我想结束这一切》剧照

然而，即使这位“我”有名字，在她所知的范围内，是露西，或全名路易丝，但她仍可能具备其他的名字，因为杰克曾一度叫她艾米丝（而她在想，会不会是艾米的昵称），她作为与杰克共享一个主体的证据，是她在杰克的老家中看到一张杰克的幼时照片，她怀疑为何自己幼年照片会在此，而他则表示那是他的照片。然而，自称是物理学家兼画家的露西，却又被杰克爆料实际上是服务员，露西到底是片中片的伊逢的化身，还是冰激淋店员的化身，不得而知；然而作为“教师”的杰克也可能根本是那位学校门房的诸多人格之一。这也就说明为何杰克的父母亲一下子是中年人，一下子是老年人，偶尔还成为年轻人；并且，在杰克家隐秘地下室的洗衣机里，洗的都是门房的制服。

也是这位衰老的门房，跟着猪的灵体走着，迎向他的死亡。

恰好是垃圾桶中大量的冰激淋杯，这是考夫曼的习惯，显示出这封闭的回圈；这也是为何前面会对“一段”语带保留。

只是这个回圈是从什么时候开始的，以及，它真的有终点吗？如果进教学楼门前快满出来的冰激淋杯是杰克一次又一次进校的痕迹，不也同时代表了她一次又一次的尝试，按普遍的看法，是她试图逃离主体，亦即，让自己这个人格消逝的尝试。不过，这点也同样是让人保留，毕竟，至少从“这次”的尝试中，看不出来她在这方面的努力，正如影片藏起“真相”那样，没有人能真正确信到底谁才是主体，就像当她在路边等着来接她的杰克时，我们看到她留意到旁边住宅楼上，有一名白发老人正在窗边看她，这也还是考夫曼的惯用方式，比如《纽约提喻法》开头时，在家门外拿报章杂志的凯顿就有瞥见未来成为他扮演者的其中一个时层的演员正在对街观察他。从背影看，这位白发老人很可能就是学校门房。

《纽约提喻法》剧照

总之，影片开始于露西的旁白以及大量的房屋（杰克的老家）空景，似乎也宣示了影片的源头，很可能来自雷乃。在《去年在马里昂巴德》开始时，也听到旁白者（后来可证明是男主角X的内心独白无误）反复旁述，搭配了一栋巴洛克式的华丽建筑空景；而后，在象征为结束时间影像探索的《我爱你，我爱你》，雷乃带来《去年在马里昂巴德》的一种变体，让“运作于脑部世界”的主要行动更加具体化：让曾经寻死未遂的主人公参与一项时空机的人体测试，而那座时光机像极了一颗大脑，人物则从那颗大脑跳出去，回到过往的时层中，但是，实验似乎失败，以致于他只能在过往时层中他所无法控制的点上，反复出现，无法逃脱，最终付出了生命代价。

考夫曼于是除了两个建筑物（杰克家与学校）的室内之外，绝大多数的时间就是把两人（除去蔻碧突然闪现的那不到一分钟的戏）关在车内，但是由于有车内、外，也还有窗外的雪花纷飞，让时长不短的车内戏看起来并不枯燥，再说，来程多数集中在露西交代她对杰克的情感态度，而回程则聚焦在讨论约翰‧卡萨维蒂的《醉酒的女人》，对于影迷观众来说应该不算太枯燥。当然，纷飞的雪花仍让人想到雷乃，尤其是把雪当作转场的《生死恋》或在公寓中制造雪景意识空间的《心之所属》：前者讲述丈夫在经历一次被医生判定的死亡复活之后，留恋于那种生与死交关的奇妙感受，最终选择再次死亡，而他的妻子则因为得到第二次与他告别的机会，也在情深中跟着赴死；后者则是透过“心”的形象建立起虽有交流空间却始终没能互动的意象，一颗心被分成左右，情感也跟着被分化。

《我想结束这一切》剧照

于是，考夫曼与编剧在这部片中，透过引述雷乃作品，作为表达形式（空间与意识）和内容形式（生与死、分化后的无法交流）的互文，加上《醉酒的女人》的超文本连结，协助影片在刻意藏匿重要讯息（以此不破坏视角选择带来的强大新鲜感）的前提下迫近它的目标。

更令人大受启发的是，除去一些想像的群戏，比如老年杰克上台领奖致词，以及偶尔可能影射为现实的学校走廊即景之外，影片的人物如此稀少，就像是低成本剧组的梦想：五个主要人物、极有限的场景（一栋住宅、一层校舍、车内）却呈现出如此复杂的叙事程序。但似乎也能理解，错乱、穿插的时序，永恒回归的回圈，在验证柏格森式物质与记忆的关系之过程中，仍旧展现了一定的规模与气度，正因为是脑内的活动，非常适合在有限的空间样貌中呈现，就这点来说，“向内”派总是比“向外”派来得吃香，或者说风险小一点。不过，既然考夫曼扬言封镜，其实更想看到两派结合的一天，试想，诺兰导演、考夫曼编剧！看来这种阵容也只能是在我脑里运作了。

《信条》剧照