百年50部英文燒腦電影賞析:[32]Secret Window 秘窗

Successful author Mort Rainey（Johnny Depp）suffers a psychotic break when he catches his wife, Amy（Maria Bello）having an affair. He procrastinates finalizing the divorce by retreating to his secluded cabin in the rural town of Tashmore Lake in upstate New York. Depressed and suffering from writer's block, Mort is confronted one day by the mysterious John Shooter（John Turturro）, a Mississippi dairy farmer who accuses him of plagiarism. Shooter leaves his manuscript Sowing Season which he alleges was copied. Mort dismisses Shooter as mentally ill and throws the book away, but his cleaning lady digs it out of the trash and presents it back to him. With his curiosity piqued, Mort reads the story and is surprised to discover its resemblance to his own story Secret Window. During his walk the following day, Mort is accosted by Shooter when he explains his story was published years before Shooter's existed. He is given a three-day ultimatum by Shooter to provide the proof. That night, Mort finds Chico, his Australian Cattle Dog, stabbed to death with a screwdriver in his neck. Mort immediately suspects Shooter and reports the incident to Sheriff Dave Newsome（Len Cariou）, who reacts with little enthusiasm. Mort then drives to his house where his estranged wife Amy is living to obtain a copy of the book and stews outside as he watches her leave with her new lover Ted Milner（Timothy Hutton）. In New York City, Mort contacts Ken Karsch（Charles S. Dutton）, a private investigator he used before. Ken travels to Tashmore Lake to watch over the cabin and to interview Tom Greenleaf（John Dunn Hill）, the only witness to Mort and Shooter's conversation. Amy later calls saying their house was burned down, consequently destroying the copy of the book to prove his case against Shooter. He begins to suspect Ted of hiring Shooter to harass him because of their shared animosity towards one another.
Shooter shows up again, this time demanding Mort fix the story's ending, and Mort feigns agreement. The next morning, Mort is perplexed to find his Jeep Cherokee idling in his driveway（with Pall Mall cigarette butts smoldering in the ashtray）when he leaves for his appointment with Ken. He shows up late to the diner where they planned to meet, but learns from a cashier that Ken never showed up at all. Back at the cabin, Mort receives a call from Shooter requesting a private meeting in the woods and when he arrives he finds Ken and Tom dead in Tom's truck. Shooter indicates he has implicated Mort in the murders, requiring Mort to cover up the crime by running the truck into a water-filled stone quarry, losing his watch in the process.
Mort's literary agent sends a copy of the magazine with his published story via UPS and Mort picks it up at the post office. When he arrives home with the magazine he opens it to find that the specific pages containing the story have been cut out. Mort's “inner voice” tells him that since the magazine was in a sealed package, Shooter couldn't have tampered with it. Prompting from his own conscience leads Mort to realize that Shooter is merely a figment of his imagination; brought to life through Mort's dissociative identity disorder and created to carry out malevolent tasks like killing Chico, Ken and Tom and burning down the house. Just as Mort comes to realize his psychosis, Amy coincidentally arrives to get his signature to finalize the divorce settlement. She finds the cabin disheveled, with the word “shooter” carved throughout and suspects Mort's drinking as the cause. Mort suddenly reveals himself and Amy is struck by fear when she spots a carving explaining that “shooter” actually implies Mort's desire to “shoot her.” Mort, now wearing Shooter's hat and speaking with a southern accent, chases Amy outside to her car and stabs her in the ankle to prevent her from leaving. Ted arrives shortly afterwards and Amy watches helplessly as Mort ambushes and beheads him with a shovel. Mort then recites the ending in Shooter's version of the story as he murders Amy.
With Amy and Ted dead, Mort recovers from his writer's block and becomes less reclusive, even though he is now the town pariah, a fact he seems blissfully unaware of despite obvious rebuffs. Dave stops by the cabin to advise Mort he is the prime suspect of Amy and Ted's disappearance and will be arrested once the bodies are found, but Mort nonchalantly dismisses the threat. Dave leaves and Mort again recites the “perfect” ending to his story as he dines on an ear of fresh corn from his garden, hinting that Amy and Ted's bodies are buried in the ground beneath the corn crops, and that the corn is breaking down the nutrients from the bodies so they will decompose and the police will never find them.
知名作家莫特·雷尼（約翰尼·德普飾）在他抓到自己的妻子艾米（瑪麗亞·貝羅飾）有外遇后患上了精神病。為拖延離婚，他退居到他在紐約北部塔什莫爾湖郊外幽靜的小木屋里。由于創(chuàng)作思路受阻，作家深感沮喪和痛苦。一天，密西西比神秘的奶農約翰·蘇特（約翰·特托羅飾）和莫特當面對質，指責他剽竊了他的創(chuàng)作。蘇特留下他所說的被剽竊的手稿《播種季節(jié)》。莫特趕走了蘇特，說他有精神病，并把手稿扔了。但他的清潔女工從垃圾中收拾出手稿，并把它還給了他。他的好奇心被激起，讀了這個故事，驚訝地發(fā)現(xiàn)，它和他自己的故事《秘窗》竟然如此相像。

第二天莫特在散步時，蘇特來和他搭話。莫特解釋說，在蘇特的故事出現(xiàn)之前，他的故事已經(jīng)發(fā)表好幾年了。蘇特給了他為期三天的最后通牒，來提供證據(jù)。那晚，當莫特找到他的澳洲牧牛犬奇哥時，發(fā)現(xiàn)有人用螺絲刀扎在它的脖子上刺死了它。莫特立即懷疑是蘇特干的，并向司法長官大衛(wèi)·紐斯姆報告了這件事，他無動于衷。后來莫特驅車來到和他已經(jīng)分居的妻子艾米的住地，取他這本書的副本?？吹剿退男虑槿颂┑?middot;米爾納（蒂莫西·哈頓飾）一起離去，莫特在外面憂慮了很久。在紐約，莫特聯(lián)系到了肯·卡爾施（查爾斯·達頓飾），一個他之前用過的私家偵探?？锨巴材獱柡?，監(jiān)視小木屋并走訪湯姆·格林立夫（約翰·鄧恩·希爾飾），他是莫特和蘇特談話的唯一目擊者。后來艾米打來電話說他們的房子被燒毀了，所以他用來對抗蘇特的這本書的副本也被毀掉了。他開始懷疑泰德雇來蘇特騷擾他，原因是他們對彼此的怨恨。
蘇特再次出現(xiàn)，這次他要求莫特修改這個故事的結局，莫特假裝同意。第二天早晨，當莫特出發(fā)去和肯約會時，他困惑地發(fā)現(xiàn)（由于帕爾摩煙頭在煙灰缸里慢慢燃燒）他的切諾基吉普在路上熄火了，他趕到約好的餐廳時已經(jīng)遲到了。但他從收銀員那里了解到肯根本就沒來過。回到小木屋后，他接到了蘇特的電話，要求和他在林子里私下約見。當他趕到那里時，他發(fā)現(xiàn)肯和湯姆都死在了湯姆的卡車上，蘇特指出莫特與謀殺案有牽連，要求莫特為掩蓋罪行，把卡車開向充水采石場，并在這個過程中丟掉他的手表。
莫特的文學雜志的代理人通過UPS快遞給他寄送了一本他發(fā)表過那個故事的雜志，莫特到郵局把它取了回來。當他帶著雜志回到家，打開時發(fā)現(xiàn)，刊登他的故事的那幾頁已被剪掉。莫特內心的聲音告訴他，雜志是密封包裝，蘇特不可能插手。莫特意識到，蘇特只是他想象出來的一個人物，是莫特的分裂性人格障礙賦予的生命，并由他實施了像殺害奇哥、肯和湯姆以及燒毀房子之類的惡毒行為。
就在莫特意識到他有精神病的同時，艾米碰巧來找他在離婚協(xié)議書上簽字。她發(fā)現(xiàn)小屋里很邋遢，“蘇特”一詞刻得到處都是，懷疑是莫特喝酒后所為。莫特突然出現(xiàn)，當艾米發(fā)現(xiàn)一處雕刻說明“蘇特”實際上暗示了莫特想要“殺了她”的欲望時，她很恐懼?，F(xiàn)在，莫特戴著蘇特的帽子，用南方口音講話，追趕著艾米，在她的車的外面刺傷了她的腳踝，以阻止她離開。之后不久，當泰德趕到后，艾米無助地看著莫特伏擊了他，用鏟子鏟掉了他的頭。后來，莫特在殺死艾米的時候，朗誦了蘇特版本的故事結局。
艾米和泰德死了，莫特恢復了他的寫作靈感，變得不再那么深居簡出，即使他現(xiàn)在是鎮(zhèn)上不受歡迎的人，遭到明顯的冷落，他看上去似乎還是很愜意，大衛(wèi)來到小屋，警告莫特他是艾米和泰德失蹤案的主要嫌犯，一旦尸體被發(fā)現(xiàn)，就會逮捕他。但莫特冷冷地駁斥了這個威脅。大衛(wèi)走了，莫特進餐，在吃花園里長出來的新鮮谷穗時，他再次朗誦了他的故事的完美結局，暗示艾米和泰德的尸體埋在谷物的下面，谷物分解了尸體的養(yǎng)分。他們會被分解，警察永遠不會找到他們。