Approaching the end of this month, it seems Christopher Nolan will be the most talked Hollywood director in Chinese market with two of his blockbusters coming consecutively within a week.
八月底九月初的影市，突然有了被诺兰 “包场”的梦幻感。
On the heels of Inception, which has returned to the mainland theaters on Aug 28, Nolan"s latest directorial effortTenetwill open across the country on Sept 4.
继《盗梦空间》于8月28日重回内地影院之后，克里斯托弗·诺兰的新作《信条》将于9月4日登陆内地大银幕。
For most fans, Nolan is a legend. A graduate in English literature from University College London, Nolan excels in creating twists-studded complex stories, impressing viewers with his talent in making personal, distinctive films within the Hollywood mainstream.
对于大多数粉丝来说，诺兰是一个传奇。他毕业于伦敦大学学院的英国文学专业，作为一个文科生的诺兰却善于创作烧脑巨制，在好莱坞主流电影中独辟蹊径，表现出浓烈的个人风格。
A top player creating his own time, Nolan writes and directs all of his films, making him an auteur. So far, his movies have earned more than $4.7 billion worldwide and garnered a total of 34 Oscar nominations and 10 wins.
作为一个“玩弄”时间的高手，诺兰自编自导其所有电影，让他成为当之无愧的作者型导演。迄今为止，诺兰的影片已经在全球范围内斩获47亿美元票房，获得了34项奥斯卡提名和10项大奖。
Tenet, which Nolan began conceiving around 20 years ago, is actually a story visualizing the lapse of time in an unprecedented, special effects-studded way. In the released promotional material, it is said the story is about a secret agent who embarks on a dangerous, time-bending mission to prevent the start of World War III. But I would rather take the plot synopsis as a cover.
《信条》的故事，诺兰琢磨了有。根据目前披露的资料，这部影片讲述一个特工为阻止第三次世界大战，进入一个时间流向被颠覆的危险任务之中。但事实上，你可能会发现，这个商业间谍片的表述，只能算这部片的“外壳”， 它真正的核是在电影世界里，将时间的走向以影史上前所未有的方式，用视觉化的特效奇观呈现出来。
Before watching Tenet, there are two facts which may help you to understand this mind-bending story a bit more.
在你准备好去看《信条》之前，了解下这两个复杂的概念，或许会帮助你更好地理解这个“烧脑”的故事。
祖父悖论
The grandfather paradox
In sci-fi works, the "grandfather paradox" is an interesting logical problem that would arise if a person were to travel to a past time. The name comes from the idea that if a person travels to a time before his grandfather had children, and kills the grandfather, it would make his own birth impossible. So, if time travel is possible, it somehow must avoid such a contradiction. In Tenet, you will find the paradox is tightly connected with the top threat in the film.
在科幻作品中，“祖父悖论“（或“外祖父悖论”）是时间旅行设定中经常会出现的有趣逻辑问题。这个理论探讨的是：如果一个人回到过去，在自己的祖父生儿育女前杀死祖父，那么他自己是不是就不可能出生了？所以，如果时间旅行有可能发生，那必须以某种方式避免这样的情况发生。而在《信条》中，你将会发现，这个悖论和全片最重要的阴谋息息相关。
熵
Entropy
As Nolan puts it in the film"s production notes: "Every law of physics is symmetrical — it can run forwards or backwards in time and be the same — except for entropy." Entropy is the degree of disorder in a system. Nolan explains that in the film the entropy-related theory is that "if you could invert the flow of entropy for an object, you could reverse the flow of time for that object, so the story is grounded in credible physics."
针对这部影片，诺兰曾在制作说明中写道:“每条物理定律都是对称的，它们在时间向前和向后流逝的情况下是完全相同的，但熵除外。”要看懂这部影片的复杂设定，首先需要知道什么是“熵”。按照物理学定义，熵是体系混乱程度的度量。而在影片中，与熵相关的理论被诺兰设定为：“如果你能逆转一个物体的熵流，你就能逆转这个物体的时间流，所以这个故事是基于可靠的物理学原理的。”
He had Kip Thorne — Nobel Prize-theoretical physicist and consultant on Interstellar— read the script. Thorne helped Nolan out with some of the concepts. "Though we"re not going to make any case for this being scientifically accurate. But it is based roughly on actual science," says Nolan.
为了证明自己言之有据，诺兰还搬出了诺贝尔物理学奖得主基普·S·索恩为电影“保驾护航”。索恩此前曾应邀担任过《星际穿越》的科学顾问，这次又被诺兰拉来读了《信条》的剧本，还帮诺兰整理出一些想法。“虽然我们不会证明这个理论在科学上是准确的，但它是基于科学实际的。”诺兰是这么补充说明的。
好吧，诺兰大神你说是什么就是什么吧，反正我们多半第一遍看不懂。
但不管怎么样，有诺兰影片可以看的日子里，影迷们终究是幸福的。
记者：徐帆
来源：CHINADAILY
