《亡命驾驶》（Drive）是一部关于好莱坞特技车手的电影，由瑞恩•高斯林主演。这部电影在上映之前便被炒得沸沸扬扬，这让我产生了一个念头：从《警网铁金刚》（Bullitt）到《速度与激情》（The Fast and Furious），关于汽车的电影比比皆是，但为什么关于汽车公司的电影却少之又少？

    毕竟，汽车行业风险重重，世人瞩目，这个行业里的人肯定像他们制造的产品一样“卖点多多”。这个行业充斥着冲突与和解的戏码，这些素材肯定能演绎出动人心弦的故事。而汽车之城底特律则历经兴衰，无疑为电影拍摄提供了绝佳的背景。（克林特•伊斯特伍德主演的《老爷车》（Gran Torino）就是最有利的证据。）

    好莱坞曾经尝试将汽车行业搬上荧幕，最初的想法是拍摄现实主义题材，可最终却都成了浮云。1978年，阿瑟•黑利的小说《汽车城》（Wheels）被改编成电视剧，由罗克•赫德森出任主角，饰演联邦汽车公司（National Motors）一位冷酷的高管。他一门心思想要推出“雷鹰”型汽车，但最终却成为自身罪恶的牺牲品——一部非常无聊的电视剧。在根据哈罗德•罗宾斯色情味十足的小说改编的电影《贝丝》（The Betsy）中，男主角劳伦斯•奥利弗（偏偏选中了他）饰演一家汽车巨头的创始人，剧中老态龙钟的男主人公在退休后想要造一辆安全、节能的汽车。

    结局我们自然都知道。然而，30年过去了，好莱坞的电影人还在不断尝试。

    其实制片人缺乏的是可信的人物和真实的对白。而现在，底特律资深新闻记者比尔•维拉斯克的新书《汽车往事》（Once upon a Car）的横空出世则满足了这两个条件。维拉斯克对汽车行业知根知底，几乎跟书中的主要角色都有交情。他在小说中精心刻画了人物的性格，并通过真实转述人物的对话来表现各种冲突。这是第一本关于汽车行业的纪实作品，读起来简直就像是在看剧本。

    这本书的样书已经在底特律引起了轰动。维拉斯克在书中引述了汽车公司高管们如何挖苦竞争对手，以及如何在背后互相攻击。换句话说，在他的书中，他们都是活生生的人，只不过，根据《汽车新闻》（Automotive News）的报道：“底特律汽车业三巨头长期以来一直遵守一条不成文的行为准则——避免类似的恶意诋毁。因此，它们才能在同一个城市和平共处长达数十年之久。”

    总的来说，这本书的内容并不陌生：通用汽车公司（GM）陷入破产，就像一头伤痕累累却不自知的雄象；闹腾不停的克莱斯勒两易其主，先是与戴姆勒奔驰公司（Daimler-Benz）合并，后又被卖给了私人资本运营商瑟伯勒斯（Cerberus），这种无力的易主举措使克莱斯勒举步维艰；而福特公司（Ford）经历了数年混乱不堪的管理，最终选择了一名航空业前高管作为公司领导人，以期自救。

    在书中，我们可以看到许多生动的角色。如果将本书拍成电影，通用公司CEO里克•瓦格纳可以由汤姆•威尔金森饰演。里克•瓦格纳身材魁梧，心地善良，他清楚公司出现了严重的问题，但和善的性格决定了他不会采取冷酷的手段，而要想使公司免于倒闭，却必须冷酷无情。

    而他的副手鲍勃•鲁茨高瞻远瞩，性格执拗，致力于打造更优秀的汽车，但有时也会为了自己的利益和个人的声誉转变立场。肖恩•康纳利绝对是饰演这个角色的不二人选。

    The advance buzz around Drive, the movie about a Hollywood stunt driver played by Ryan Gosling, got me to thinking: We have lots of movies featuring cars, from Bullitt to The Fast and Furious, but where are the movies about car companies?

    After all, the people in this high-stakes, high-profile business should be as interesting as the products they build. Opportunities are plentiful for the conflict and resolution that make for a compelling story. The city of Detroit, with its colorful boom-and-bust history, makes a compelling backdrop. (For proof, see Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino.)

    When Hollywood has tried capturing the auto industry on film, it aimed at realistic drama but wound up with suds. In 1978, Arthur Hailey's Wheels starred Rock Hudson as a ruthless top executive of National Motors who lets nothing get in the way of launching the Hawk but falls victim to his own demons. Very daytime TV. In The Betsy, based on a steamy Harold Robbins novel, the aging founder of an auto giant, played by (of all people) Laurence Olivier, comes out of retirement to develop a safe, fuel-efficient car.

    We know how that turned out. 30 years later, they are still trying.

    What filmmakers have lacked is believable characters and realistic dialogue. Until now, that is, thanks to a new book, Once upon a Car, by veteran Detroit newspaperman Bill Vlasic. Vlasic knows the industry in and out and enjoys near-universal access to its key figures. He recounts a tale filled with shrewd insights into their characters and conflicts told through verbatim accounts of their conversations. It's the first nonfiction auto book that reads like a screenplay.

    Advance copies have already created a stir in Detroit. Vlasic quotes executives trash-talking the competition and dissing each other behind their backs. In other words, he portrays them as behaving like actual human beings, except that, according to Automotive News, "The Detroit 3 have coexisted for decades in the same city by observing an unwritten code of conduct that shuns such badmouthing."

    In broad outline, the story is a familiar one: GM (GM, Fortune 500) stumbles into bankruptcy like a wounded but not particularly self-aware bull elephant; feisty Chrysler falters under the feckless ownership of, first, Daimler-Benz and then Cerberus; and Ford (F, Fortune 500), after years of chaotic management, finds salvation in the form of a former aerospace executive.

    There are plenty of meaty roles here. In the movie version, GM CEO Rick Wagoner would be played by Tom Wilkinson. He's a big, well-intentioned man who knows he is surrounded by dysfunction but is too gentlemanly to resort to the ruthless tactics that are needed to save his company from collapse.

    His highly-visible lieutenant, Bob Lutz, is type-casting for Sean Connery: crusty and driven to build better cars, yet occasionally sidetracked by his own interests and the maintenance of his image.

    维拉斯克在书中引述了两人的对话：

    鲁茨：“我们要做的是在每辆汽车上多投资一千美元，提升汽车的核心品质，增加它的价值。这样我们就能卖出更好的价钱。”

    瓦格纳：“我明白。可问题在于，就算汽车质量提高了，也不能马上卖出好价钱，我们怎么才能熬过中间的这段苦日子？”

    鲁茨：“如果我们继续大打促销战，最终就无利可图了。一旦利润为零，就算翻再多倍也还是零。”

    瓦格纳：“别跟我扯财务——我比你更擅长。这个系统让我们无法脱身。我们现在唯一能做的，就是开足马力往前冲。”

    （维拉斯克在批注中解释道：“所有对话都根据至少一位参与者的回忆重新进行了整理；并向其他相关人士验证了对话的准确性。”）

    而福特公司的两位主要人物得到的待遇要温和许多，这也恰恰适合他们的能力。通过大举借贷，他们让福特躲过了破产厄运。平易近人的比尔•福特看上去并不出众，却颇受人爱戴（他只是偶然得到掌管这家汽车公司的机会），可由汤姆•汉克斯饰演，而汤姆•克鲁斯这位总是面带笑容、本领高超，让超人也黯然失色的银幕硬汉则饰演艾伦•穆拉利。

    福特在安阿伯市福特公司办公室里秘密会见了穆拉利，希望将这位波音公司（Boeing）高管招入麾下。正是这次密会为两人的友情奠定了基础。

    福特：“我非常担心公司未来的命运。如果能有一位有过类似经历的人来领导公司，情况也许会好得多。”

    穆拉利：“你知道，我是一名工程师。我负责解决问题，进行创造。如果你想扭转目前的局势，得有个计划。”

    （福特提出研发燃油经济型混合动力汽车，并且要足够环保）。

    穆拉利：“真是英雄所见略同！我一定要把它变为现实。”

    （仅仅经过几周的犹豫，穆拉利就下定了决心。最后，他拨通了福特的电话）：

    穆拉利：“你的条件让我无法抗拒。我希望能与你一起拯救这家伟大的公司。”

    福特：“太好了！你什么时候过来？”

    这部戏中有一位主要配角——全美汽车工人联合会（United Auto Workers）主席罗恩•盖特芬格尔。每次汽车公司提出方案，降低汽车业沉重的用人成本时，他都会从中作梗。该角色可由威廉•达福饰演。

    但在一场关于薪酬福利让步的谈判中，盖特芬格尔与菲亚特（Fiat）公司CEO塞尔吉奥•马尔基翁棋逢对手，针锋相对。盖特芬格尔最常用的策略是，突然站起身，然后一言不发地离开会议现场。

    马尔基翁（阿尔•帕西诺饰演）：“你以为我他妈是傻子吗？我们得拿出一个更有竞争力的工资标准和工资结构来！”

    盖特芬格尔：“德国人来的时候，我相信了他们。之后，我别无选择，只能支持瑟伯勒斯。你是第三个声称自己要拯救这家公司的人。我凭什么要相信你？”

    马尔基翁：“我可不像瑟伯勒斯的那些废物，我懂怎么运营一家汽车公司。别的方面我可能不在行，但是经营汽车公司，我可是行家。”

    《汽车往事》中还有许多重要的配角，例如：福特公司的马克•菲尔兹（乔治•克鲁尼饰演），帅气的外表并未妨碍他在职场上取得令人注目的成就；史蒂夫•葛斯基（达斯汀•霍夫曼），自称“快言快语的纽约犹太人”，他是通用汽车公司敢说真话的人；另外一位打酱油的配角九十多岁的投资家柯克•科克莱恩则由布拉德•皮特饰演【因为皮特曾在电影《返老还童》（The Curious Case of Benjamin Button）中有过饰演老年人的经历。】

    演员的选派应尽快进行，因为故事中的角色随时可能发生变化。美国汽车业风云变幻，龙头老大的位置大家轮流坐庄。谁知道会发生些什么？如果乔治•C•斯科特依然在世，由他来饰演通用公司CEO丹•阿克森，或许会为我们带来一场精彩的好戏。

    译者：刘进龙/汪皓

    Here's an exchange that Vlasic quotes:

    Lutz: "What we've got to do is put another thousand dollars worth of goodness into the car to give it more value. You can command better prices then."

    Wagoner: "I understand. The problem is, how are we going to live through that time when the vehicles are better, but we are not commanding better prices?"

    Lutz: "If we keep this incentive war going, we're going to give whole margin away. Once your margin is zero, you can multiply it all you want, and it is still zero."

    Wagoner: "Don't get all finance-y on me -- that's my specialty, not yours. We're trapped in this system. The only thing we can do is to move full-steam ahead."

    (In an author's note, Vlasic explains: "Conversations were reconstructed based on the recollections of at least one participant; others involved were asked about their accuracy.")

    Over at Ford, the principals get much gentler treatment, as befits their ability to steer past bankruptcy by taking out a monster loan. Picture Tom Hanks as Bill Ford, the popular, easy-going everyman (who incidentally controls an auto company), and Tom Cruise as Alan Mulally, the ever-smiling, high-energy action hero who makes the superhuman look ordinary.

    The seeds for the Ford-Mulally bromance are planted at a secret meeting in Ann Arbor at Ford's house where Ford tries to recruit the Boeing executive to the automaker:

    Ford: "I'm pretty fearful of what I sense is coming at us, and it would be so much better if I had an executive who had been through what we're about to go through."

    Mulally: "Remember, I'm an engineer. I solve problems, and I create things. If you're going to turn this around, you need a plan."

    (Ford brings up fuel economy, hybrid cars, and protecting the environment).

    Mulally: "God, I have your vision too! I have to make that happen."

    (But Mulally's decision to "make that happen" comes only after several weeks of dithering. Finally, he places a call to Ford):

    Mulally: "This is just so compelling. I want to turn around this great company with you."

    Ford: "Oh my god. How soon can you get here?

    A key supporting role in this melodrama belongs to the United Auto Workers' president Ron Gettelfinger, who throws a wrench in the works every time a solution appears to ease the industry's crushing labor costs. Paging Willem Dafoe.

    But Gettelfinger meets his match when he battles Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne over concessions on wages and benefits. Gettelfinger's favorite tactic is to get up and leave the meeting without saying a word.

    Marchionne (played by Al Pacino): "Do you think I'm fucking stupid? We need to come up with a competitive wage rate and structure here!"

    Gettelfinger: "I believed the Germans when they came in. Then I had no choice but to support Cerberus. You are the third guy saying you are going to save it. Why should I believe you?

    Marchionne: "I know how to run a car company, not like that nonsense at Cerberus. I may be lousy at a lot of other things. But I know how to run a car company."

    Once upon a Car contains plenty of meaty supporting roles as well: George Clooney as Ford's Mark Fields, whose good looks don't prevent him from building an impressive career; Dustin Hoffman as Steve Girsky, the self-described "fast-talking New York Jew" who became GM's truth-teller; and a walk-on role for Brad Pitt as nonagenarian investor Kirk Kerkorian (that's Pitt as an old man in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.)

    Casting should start as soon as possible because roles could change. Leadership of the domestic industry seems to rotate every few years, and another company may find itself on top. Who knows? If only George C. Scott was still with us to take on the role of GM CEO Dan Akerson.