Cast Away 荒岛余生

■宋云峰 编写

汤姆·汉克斯曾以《费城故事》和《阿甘正传》连续两度获奥斯卡最佳男演员奖殊荣，为自己和别人树立了两座高不可攀的丰碑。经历了一段时间的低潮后，他又再度与赞米基斯（《阿甘正传》的导演）合作，凭借《荒岛余生》一片获得第七十三届奥斯卡最佳男演员奖提名。可惜的是，此奖颁给了罗素·克罗（《角斗士》）。据说，奥斯卡评委们是不会让同一个人在十年之内三度称帝的。但汤姆·汉克斯的演技可以说无可挑剔。为演好此角，他甚至将体重减少了几十斤。如果你有兴趣，可以找来此片一睹被遗弃荒岛前后判若两人的汤姆·汉克斯的模样。

Chuck Noland, who lives in Memphis, is an operation manager at FedEx, an express mailing company. He is hardworking and particularly time-conscious.1 He believes that time is everything: cosmos,2 fortune and misfortune; time is also capable of doing everything, creating and destroying human beings. He has a girlfriend named Kelly Frears, who works at a chemical lab. They love each other very much, though Chuck travels a lot and rarely stays at home. It is Christmas season now. Chuck gets back home and Kelly is very happy to see him. However Chuck is so tired after his business trip to Russia, he is fast asleep when Kelly turns off TV and is about to go to bed.

On Christmas Eve, Chuck, Kelly and his family are having dinner when Chuck's pager3 rings. Another assignment comes. Kelly does not like to see Chuck leave as it is Christmas time now. But Chuck has to go and promises to be back on New Year's Eve. Seeing Chuck off at the airport, Kelly gives him an old watch, inherited from her grandfather, with her photo in it. Chuck is moved and tells Kelly that he will hold on to it for the rest of his life. Then he gives Kelly a small pretty box, saying that this is something special for her and she shall open it on New Year's Eve.

On the way to his destination, the plane Chuck is flying on crashes in the sea due to a heavy storm and a mechanical failure. Fortunately Chuck survives and climbs onto a lifeboat4 after the crash. He still manages to get hold of the watch Kelly gives him.

It rains heavily. Chuck's boat is pushed ashore by waves and lands on a small island the next day. Now the two things he has, Kelly's watch and the pager, are his only possessions. He does not know where he is. There is nobody, not even animals. Chuck writes HELP on the beach with tree trunks. That night Chuck hears strange sound coming from the nearby trees. In the following days, hungry and thirsty, he collects FedEx parcels pushed ashore by waves. Suddenly he hears the strange sound again. He is terrified but then surprised to find the sound is from fallen coconuts.5 The struggle of opening them starts. After trying different ways for a long time, he finally is able to taste his first fruit of success.

One day, climbing onto the top of the mountain on the island, Chuck finds that it is a small and uninhabited island. All of a sudden he spots a man's body near the beach. It is one of the crew.6 Chuck pulls it ashore. With a mixed feeling of fear and sympathy, he hesitantly takes off the man's shoes and flashlight before burying him.

One night in the darkness, he finds a light from afar. It must be a ship. Chuck is very excited and he uses his flashlight for SOS signal. But it is of no use. The light is too weak to be noticed by people on the ship. The following day, Chuck tries to row the lifeboat to the ship. However, big waves turn his lifeboat upside down， and to make things worse, he is injured on the leg. That night there is a heavy thunderstorm. Chuck has to hide himself in a cave. He forgets to turn off the flashlight and the battery runs off.

As the hope of being saved is getting less and less, he faces challenges of survival. An idea strikes his mind, and he opens every and each parcel. Videotapes are thrown away and so are important commercial contracts and documents. A pair of skating shoes, a nightgown,7 and a volleyball are kept. The blades8 are used as knives for cutting, and the nightgown as fishing net. As for the volleyball, Chuck uses his blood to draw a man's face on it and names it "Wilson" who gives him spiritual comfort. He begins to talk to the "man" he has created and Wilson has become his company.

Next he has to start a fire. Without fire, he has not had any food or hot water for days except eating live fish and drinking rainwater and coconut juice. He gets some wood and works on it for a long time. He almost loses his hope until he discovers that air is important to start a fire. He drills the wood in the middle with a stick while blowing some air in between the two pieces. When a fire is finally made, Chuck sings and dances like a tribesman,9 happy for the first time after landing on the island. He has his first meal, a cooked crab.

Four years later, Chuck becomes an experienced primitive man. He still keeps his girlfriend's photo in his cave. Beside the photo, there stands another companion of his for those lonely years—Wilson. Chuck is so used to talking to Wilson, the volleyball, that he regards as his best friend. Once he throws away Wilson in anger and despair but only finds himself more lonely and desperate. So he searches for it and is very excited to get it back. Then he paints Wilson's face with his blood again so that Wilson has a new face.
One day, he finds a part of the plane on the shore, which gives him an idea. He cuts down the biggest tree on the island and makes it into a man's sculpture. He pulls it up to the highest point of the island and erects it there. Then he plans to build a raft and starts working on it.

Chuck at last completes his grandiose10 project and begins to row towards sea with his dear friend Wilson. At the moment of leaving his island on which he has lived for four years, a sense of sadness overwhelms11 him. He has somehow a special attachment to the island, feeling like leaving his sweet home.

On the journey to get back to the human world, he experiences dangers of sharks, thunderstorms, and despair of losing his best and only friend Wilson who accompanies him for the past terrible years. How many days have passed, he has no idea. One day, a large ship passes by and Chuck is finally saved.
However, his return is not a happy one. Kelly is married and has a daughter. She is so confused and lost about his return that it is hard for her to accept a man who has been “dead” for four years. Besides, her husband tries to convince her that not to see Chuck is in everyone's interest.

One rainy evening, Chuck cannot resist any longer the desire to see Kelly again. He goes to Kelly's in a taxi and knocks on her door. When Kelly shows him their car they used to drive, which she kept for all those years along with all their sweet memories, they are getting so emotional that they kiss each other. But Chuck cools down and asks Kelly to go back home.

Now Chuck comes back to his old self and starts working again. Having delivered the last parcel he has kept from the island, he suddenly senses a new beginning in his life.

1. time-conscious: 时间观念很强。
2. cosmos: 宇宙。
3. pager: 传呼机。
4. lifeboat: 救生船。
5. coconut: 椰子。
6. crew: 全体机组人员。
7. nightgown: （妇女的）睡衣。
8. blades: （冰鞋的）冰刀。
9. tribesman: 部落人。
10. grandiose: 宏大的。
11. overwhelm: 使受不了，使不知所措。

Excerpts

Chuck Talks to a Friend about His Experience and Feeling on the Island
"We both had done the math, and Kelly added it all up. She knew she had to let me go. I added it up, knew that I'd lost her. 'Cause I was never gonna get off that island. I was gonna die there, totally alone. I mean, I was gonna get sick or get injures. The only choice I had, the only thing I could control was when and how and where that was gonna happen. So I made a rope. And I went up to the summit to hang myself. But I had to test it, you know? Of course. You know me. And the weight of the log snapped* the limb of the tree. So I-I-I couldn't even kill myself the way I wanted to. I had power over nothing. And that's when this feeling came over me like a warm blanket. I knew somehow that I had to stay alive. Somehow I had to keep breathing, even though there was no reason to hope. And all my logic said that I would never see this place again. So that's what I did. I stayed alive. I kept breathing. And then one day that logic was proven all wrong because the tide came in, gave me a sail. And now, here I am. I'm back in Memphis, talking to you. I have ice in my glass. And I've lost her all over again. I'm so sad that I don't have Kelly. But I'm so grateful that she was with me on that island. And I know what I have to do now. I gotta keep breathing. Because tomorrow, the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?"
*snap: 喀嚓折断。