2023年经济学人 如果把办公室生活改编成电影（在线收听）

Business

商业版块

Bartleby

巴托比专栏

Pitch perfect

完美提案

Putting the office into box office.

把办公室搬上银幕。

The office is not the most promising setting for films.

办公室不是最有希望拍出好电影的场景。

Desk warriors can occasionally be caught up in dramatic stories, whether journalists (“Spotlight”), lawyers (“Dark Waters”) or whistleblowers (“The Informant”).

办公桌战士偶尔会卷入戏剧故事，比如记者(电影《聚焦》)、律师(电影《黑水》)、检举人(电影《告密者》)。

The greed and fear of high finance (“Dumb Money”) have an enduring appeal.

关于高级金融的贪婪和恐惧(电影《傻钱》)有经久不衰的吸引力。

But office-based blockbusters are still pretty thin on the ground: typing, malfunctioning toilets and meetings are just not that exciting.

但以办公室为背景的大片仍然非常少见：打字、厕所故障和开会实在没法让人感到兴奋。

There is a simple fix.

有一个简单的解决办法。

Take film titles that have already done well with cinema-goers and tweak their plots for the white-collar workplace.

选几部已经获得影迷好评的电影，借用它们的名字，调整一下情节，改编成白领办公的故事。

Here are pitches for a few such remakes:

以下是这种翻拍电影的几个提案：

“A Quiet Place”.

《寂静之地》（惊悚电影）

A newly refitted office contains several small rooms that are expressly designed for focused work.

一间新装修的办公室有几个小房间，专门用于员工集中注意力工作。

But it rapidly becomes clear that demand for these rooms exceeds supply.

但人们很快发现，这些房间供不应求。

In the rush among employees to book them or grab them when they become free, things turn very nasty indeed.

在员工们争先恐后地预订或抢夺空闲房间时，情况变得极其恶劣。

Genre: horror/office administration.

类型：恐怖/办公室管理。

“The Terminal”.

《幸福终点站》（喜剧电影）

An office worker logs into the Bloomberg terminal for the first time in the hope of quickly finding some information.

一名办公室职员第一次登录彭博终端，希望能迅速找到一些信息。

She finds that it does not respond to normal commands.

她发现，彭博终端对正常的命令没有反应。

Several years later, she has neither been able to locate any data nor managed to log off.

几年过去了，她既没有找到任何数据，也没有办法退出登录。

“TED”.

《泰迪熊》（喜剧电影）

John is a 40-year-old man who once gave a talk at a TED event.

约翰是一名40岁的男子，他曾发表过一次TED演讲。

He seems unable to move on from this career highlight, even though the rest of the world has.

他似乎沉湎于这一职业生涯中的高光时刻，而其他人都已经在继续往前发展了。

He talks only in 18-minute monologues that always start with a personal anecdote.

他的台词都是18分钟的独白，总是以一段个人轶事开始。

When he speaks, he invariably stands up, paces from side to side and ends each sentence staring purposefully into the middle distance.

当他说话时，他总是站起来，走来走去，说完一句话后，一定要意味深长地盯着离他不远不近的地方。

His family and friends find him completely insufferable and all desert him.

他的家人和朋友不胜其烦，所有人都抛弃了他。

“Avatar”.

《阿凡达》（科幻电影）

A group of early adopters are given digital alter egos as they prepare to visit another world.

一群新技术采用者在准备前往另一个世界时，被赋予了另一个数字化的自我人格。

They are promised all manner of wonderful experiences in this realm, but feel only disappointment when they find that they have no legs and the one person there is Mark Zuckerberg.

他们被许诺将在这个奇境获得各种美妙体验，结果大失所望地发现，在那里他们没有腿，除了马克·扎克伯格之外一个人也没有。

“14 Peaks”.

《征服十四座高峰》（纪录片）

They said it couldn’t be done.

他们说这是无法做到的。

But one man believes that it is possible to go to Davos 14 times in a row without completely losing his sanity.

但有一个人认为，他可以连续14次参加达沃斯论坛，而且不会彻底发疯。

Can he survive repeated exposure to Will.i.am, Klaus Schwab and John Kerry?

他能在和饶舌歌手威廉、克劳斯·施瓦布、约翰·克里的反复接触中幸存吗？

Viewer discretion advised: features distressing scenes of breakfast panels about AI.

建议谨慎观影：内含关于人工智能的令人痛苦的早餐会场景。

“Goodwill Hunting”.

《心灵捕手》（剧情片）

A cleaner at the offices of a hedge fund has a preternatural talent for accounting.

一个对冲基金办公室的清洁工有非凡的会计天赋。

One evening he comes across the accounts of a target company and sees immediately that it has overvalued the intangible assets on its balance-sheet.

一天晚上，他偶然看到一家目标公司的账目，并立即发现他们高估了该公司资产负债表上的无形资产。

Finance-based suspense from the same team that brought you “Negative Jaws” and “Tombstone”.

本片为由《负向大白鲨》和《墓碑》的原班人马打造的金融悬疑片。（jaws和tombstone也是金融术语，分别表示收入支出差、股票发行公告。）

“IT”.

《小丑回魂》（恐怖电影）

The screen goes blank just as a board meeting is about to begin.

就在董事会会议即将开始时，屏幕变成一片空白。

The directors panic and press various buttons but all they manage to do is turn off the lights.

董事们惊慌失措，狂按各种按钮，但除了灯光熄灭之外没有任何反应。

Only one department can help sort out the chaos.

只有一个部门可以帮助解决混乱局面。

Likely to be the longest-running film franchise in history.

本片可能是史上延续时间最长的系列电影。

“The Matrix”.

《黑客帝国》（科幻电影）

On the surface it looks like a normal company.

从表面上看，这像是一家普通公司。

But a change to reporting lines causes utter confusion.

但报告流程一变就会引发彻底的混乱。

Nobody knows what is happening; several people lose their grip on reality.

没人知道正在发生什么，一些人脱离了现实。

Not science fiction.

这不是科幻电影。

“World War Z”.

《僵尸世界大战》（恐怖电影）

A new generation of workers is entering the office.

新一代员工正走进办公室。

They spend most of their time staring at their phones and laughing to themselves, but occasionally whip themselves into a state of outrage about something or other.

他们大部分时间都盯着手机、自己对自己发笑，但偶尔也会因为这样或那样的事情而突然变得怒不可遏。

Older workers panic about the impact these creatures will have on the company until they realise they were not that different when they were young.

年长的员工对这些生物将对公司产生的影响感到恐慌，直到他们意识到他们年轻时与这些生物并没有多大区别。

“Taken”.

《飓风营救》（动作片）

Of all the hot desks in the office one is especially sought after.

在办公室的所有轮流工位中，有一个位置尤其受欢迎。

It offers privacy, splendid views of the city and good air-conditioning.

这个位置非常隐蔽、能看到壮丽的城市景色、空调效果也很好。

Nancy, a mild-mannered customer-service agent, is incensed by the tactics her colleagues use to take the desk.

南希是一位举止温和的客服代理，她对同事们耍诡计抢占这个位置感到非常愤怒。

Things again turn very nasty.

情况再次变得极其恶劣。

From the same team that brought you “A Quiet Place”.

本片由《寂静之地》的原班人马打造。

“Fish Tank”.

《鱼缸》（青春电影）

The office’s reception area is due for a refit.

办公室接待区要重新装修了。

In an extraordinary piece of documentary film-making, the audience follows the facilities team as it decides to install Europe’s largest aquarium.

在这部优秀的纪录片风格电影中，设施团队决定安装欧洲最大的鱼缸，观众跟随他们的脚步一探究竟。

Features profanity, substance abuse and graphic violence.

内含亵渎性语言、药物滥用和暴力场面。

“The Remains of the Day”.

《告别有情天》（爱情电影）

It’s four in the afternoon and Nigel, a mild-mannered actuary, has done his work for the day.

现在是下午4点，性格温和的精算师奈杰尔已经完成了一天的工作。

He could start out on a new project, but decides to while away the time instead.

他可以开始做一个新的项目，但他决定悠闲地消磨时间。

Unbearably slow-moving drama.

这是一部节奏慢得令人无法忍受的剧情片。

You can’t just slap a big title on something and hope for the best, surely?

总之，不可能直接给故事安上一个好名字，就指望这些改编电影能成功，不是吗？

If it’s good enough for promoting people, it might work for films, too.

但如果直接给某人安上一个头衔，就能提拔这个人，那么直接换名字可能也会让电影成功吧。