与我为邻

From the time you were very little, you've had people who have smiled you into smiling, people who have talked you into talking, sung you into singing.

Love you into loving.

No matter where they are, deep down you know they've always wanted what was the best for you.

They've always cared about you beyond measure and have encouraged you to be true to the best within you.

他是一位牧师，一档常青的美国儿童节目的创始者，一位深深爱着每一位儿童的“邻居”，一个总是温柔、缓慢而坚定地说出很重要的东西的信仰者，在国家人心惶惶之际的一颗安定丸。

许久没有认真地书写，以至一篇影评写得如此艰难，磕磕巴巴的，总觉得哪里不对劲。把脑袋倒空，目光落在窗外错落交织的竹子上，回顾纪录片的主人公罗杰斯先生的一生，回想罗杰斯先生对于我究竟意味着什么。

斯通纳猝不及防地出现了，他那平凡而坚忍的一生，我该怎么形容？始终目光如炬，步步艰难而步步进，我无意彰显所谓的优良品质，我只是看到一个人如何在真正意义上诞生了，诞生之后凭着本能走完漫长的一生了，行走过程也即生命的完成，时时刻刻。那样的一生是简洁的，简洁而不乏力。他是我愿意一遍又一遍去读的故事，每一次的阅读都无比热切地汲取着养育我生命的阳光雨露。我在想，这些曾经带给我深刻触动的生命故事，他们都在共同述说着什么？罗杰斯先生的故事，是否也在无意中回应着我的所求？

罗杰斯先生的生命同样“简洁”。他的一生投注于一件事——儿童电视节目；这一件事贯穿了一个坚实的信仰——爱；他的诠释是缓缓而出的，有着始终如一的平定、坚实，如传道者一样。

这信仰源于基督教，如无意外，罗杰斯理应成为一名牧师，走着属于牧师的传教之路。出于偶然，罗杰斯看到了时下儿童电视节目的无聊、滑稽、虚浮、嘈杂，根本不利于儿童身心健康，他相信一档贴近儿童心灵，以平等尊重的姿态与儿童进行对话的节目，是可以发生魔力的，在娱乐喧嚣的大环境下。于是，一档叫《Mister Rogers' Neighborhood》节目诞生了，节目的开头，罗杰斯先生推门而入，笑脸盈盈地对你唱着：

It is a beautiful day in this neighborhood,

A beautiful day for a neighborhood,

Would you be mine? Could you be mine?

“neighborhood”意味着什么？用项飚的话来说，那是几近消失的“附近”。人掉进了两种极端中，要么聚焦在超越性的宏大叙事，要么只关心自己，久而久之，人将陷入越来越无力而孤单的境遇中，那种具体而微的人和人之间的关系变得比较松散。出路在哪里呢？“个人的意义与尊严出路不在于个人，一定是在于关系”，因此，要在“附近”也即neighborhood构建出爱的关系，罗杰斯早在六十多年前洞察到人的精神困境与出路，这是领悟了基督教关于“爱”的精髓后，对人与关系有的一份理解与关怀。

而在建设关系前，首要的是看见自己、爱自己，这是罗杰斯几十年如一日，不遗余力地总是在告诉你的：你值得被爱，你也有爱的能力。“知道内心深处有某样东西，可以帮助我们成就自己。”

当你的目光温柔地抚摸着身边的每一个人，并试图与之对话，爱就开始流淌。罗杰斯先生，正是在通过电视这一媒介，与电视机前的每一个人，进行深入心灵的对话，跨越时空地构建爱的关系。

这份爱的关系是怎么构建的呢？首先的，关键的，最重要的，是他带着全然的虔诚、尊重、聆听与看见，走向每一个孩子，每一个人，继而让每一个人走向自己。从他和孩子们的互动中，你会明显地感受到他绝对的真诚，你会看到一位卓越的聆听者，在专注的聆听和真诚的只言片语中，试图融化所有外在的坚硬，让人心甘情愿地把自己的柔软、脆弱、本真呈现于外，当这些东西被述说，被看见，人反而赢得了由内而外的、更为强壮的保护伞。

他拒绝以暴力、无厘头、花哨、速度等方式夺取观众的眼球，实在是当时电视节目中的一股清流。在节目里，他几十年如一日地唱着歌开门、从衣柜里拿出一件鲜亮的针织外套，坐在椅子上换一双鞋，以此为标志进入罗杰斯的一天；他从容地做着一天里该做的事，时而慢悠悠地喂鱼、泡脚、散步、聊天，甚至在一分钟里什么也不做，让观众静静地等待；即便呈现出日常的状态，罗杰斯的节目不同于“楚门的世界”那样的真人秀，他会通过手偶、幻想世界等儿童能够接受的方式，告诉他们一些重要的事情，如社会新闻或时下热议的话题；在当时种族歧视的美国，他公然邀请黑人演员作为节目的常驻嘉宾，并和他一起洗脚；他理解并支持同性恋......他的节目在当时有着无可比拟的教育价值，罗杰斯的形象也渐渐深入人心，每当国家发生了让人心动荡不安的事情（如总统遇刺、911事件），他总要被请出来说点什么，以抚慰人心。

他总是无比温柔、缓慢、坚定地道出他视之很重要的东西，有点笨拙，绝对诚意。

当一粒种子的根早已扎进土壤深处，无论它的花与叶朝向何处，都是正确的生的方向。正如罗杰斯选择了儿童电视制作作为毕生的事业，他同样在这条特别的道路上履行着“传道者”的职责，坚信“唯一真正能改变世界的东西，是当有人能明白，爱可以传递”。

我想，他没有刻意坚持什么，不过是把一份信仰贯彻一生。我永远难忘水中的罗杰斯，他不紧不慢地游泳，优雅而坚定，游泳后他站在秤上，指针指向143，他要他的体重每天都维持在143磅。143代表什么呢？——“I”是1个字母，“love”是4个字母，“you”是3个字母。写到这里，我想该停笔了，以沉默的敬意献给罗杰斯，以沉默的感激献给读到此处的你。

An ordained minister in Pittsburgh, Mr. Rogers (1928-2003) is the show-runner and host of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, a children’s program of PBS, ran from 1968 to 2001. What singularly distinguishes Mr. Rogers from his coevals is his affable persona (which is almost too good-natured to invite skepticism that it is just a front in front of the camera) and his far-reaching, forward-looking philosophy that “every child is inherently special” and he in earnest, “loves each and every kid in the way they are”. And Neville’s quasi-cradle-to-grave documentary makes an eloquent case of lionizing Mr. Rogers, it is a hagiography, but indeed, for such a saintlike figure, the “h” word is fair and square.

Collating Rogers’ own footage (of the show, his interview and other televised occasions, predominantly the one during 1969 US Senate Subcommittee on Communications, modulated by John Pastore, his cogent testimony which secured funding for PBS at then), the usual talking heads of his family, friends and colleagues, doling out succinct comments, recollections or anecdotes, with children-friendly snippets of animation, WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR? comprehensively encompasses almost all the hot-button topics and accidents during Mr. Rogers’ life: consumerism, racism, warfare, homosexuality, JFK’s assassination, The Challenger disaster, among others.

By conventional estimation, those aforementioned issues are simply not apposite for the show’s key demo (roughly toddler to preteen), but Mr. Rogers knows better and in the movie’s very first scene, he frankly muses that a young child needs certain modulations to prepare them for the real world, thus he becomes their modulator, inculcating cracker-barrel nuggets through his show, the Neighborhood of Making-Believe and his trademark puppetry, without dumbing down their nuts and bolts of. On that aspect, an affable Mr. Rogers is an indomitable force, and his endeavor’s vast beneficence is validated by the massive popularity he has amassed spanning over three decades.

Of course, one of the major curiosities lies in Mr. Rogers’ almost inconceivable all-around decency as a human being, which does not tally with our time-honored conviction that each person is a complex entity, what is Mr. Rogers’ dark side? That is a question the documentary tactfully evades, but on a second thought, if one’s dark side is rather disproportional compared to their oceanic goodness and sageness, why should anyone want to be a fault-finding rubbernecker? At the end of the day, it is Mr. Rogers’ indiscriminately wholesome christianity that gets the best of any dyed-in-the-wool cynics, WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR? is like its subjects, soft-spoken and well-intentioned, blissfully illuminating, whole-heartedly humble, an efficacious antidote to our troubled times.

referential entries: Neville’s 20 FEET FROM STARDOM (2013, 6.1/10); Marielle Heller’s A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD (2019, 7.6/10).

Steven说他小时候有很长一段时间是一个人在家，而陪伴他的只有Mr. Rogers。我没有看过他的节目，看完了纪录片终于明白为什么他能受到这么多人的爱戴。他对小朋友说I like you just the way you are... thank you for being you。这种无条件的博爱的确近似基督教里上帝对世人的爱，但他以一种完全和孩子平等的身份真挚地说出这些话的时候，我觉得他的爱比任何神的爱还要有力量。印象最深的两个片段：一个是他说服了国会议员给PBS批准二十万美元的资金，另一个是他和大猩猩Koko的互动，他的确有一种魔力让人（甚至动物）都相信他亲近他。纪录片最后说现在的电视节目里已经没有好人的容身之处了。是的，现在都是靠鬼畜搞怪骂人来赚流量博出位。。。Mr. Rogers的真诚、温和、善良，令人怀念。

看《与我为邻》的过程其实观众会对纪录片呈现的罗杰斯先生形象有所担忧（真实形象与媒介形象是否会产生人物黑化的动态偏差？其背后的权力资本运作是怎样的？），而这部里罗杰斯的形象就太容易预测了（就算有结尾意外的钢琴音也无法挽回），因为汉克斯那张美国好人的脸就已经说明了问题（从饰演迪士尼以来越发固化），是当下美国的集体焦虑难以让主流好莱坞冒险来让观众承受神圣儿童偶像身上可能的黑暗与暧昧性吗，反而更想看库珀来演这个角色。基于结尾的谢幕，如果当成罗杰斯先生的一集儿童节目来看也没毛病，纽约就像头尾的玩具微缩模型一样，观众总归需要一些幻象。

该片的主人公弗雷德·罗杰斯（Fred Rogers）是美国最著名、影响最深远的儿童电视节目《罗杰斯先生的邻居》（Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood）的制作人及主持人。他从1968年开始主持的《罗杰斯先生的邻居》，影响了四十年间一代代的美国儿童。

他曾说过：“生活中真正的问题不是我们拥有多少祝福，而是我们用我们的祝福做了什么。有些人拥有许多祝福并把它们珍藏起来，有些人拥有的很少，却把所有的都给了别人。”

他告诉观众“你是特别的”，其实不是普罗大众意义上的特别，也绝非理所应当的不劳而获，而是说人应该享有被爱的权利以及发展出爱人的能力（这也是决定一个人一生幸福的关键所在）。尽管他有些理想主义的色彩，但他却把这种理想主义付诸于行动，也确实温暖了无数人。

他告诉每一个观众，你就是你自己，独一无二。就像小王子对待他的玫瑰花。

他在每天节目最后会说：

“You've made this day a special day, by just your being you. There's no person in the whole world like you, and I like you, just the way you are.”

From the time you were very little, you’ve had people who have smiled you into smiling, people who have talked you into talking, sung you into singing, loved you into loving. Let’s just take some time to think of those extra special people, some may be right here, some may be far away, some may even be in heaven, no matter where they are, deep down you know, they’ve always wanted what was best for you, they’ve always cared about you beyond measure and have encouraged you to be true to the best within you.”花一分钟去想想生命里那些带给你无尽关怀的人，温暖你、帮助你、只希望你好。感恩他们。

“You know, I think everybody longs to be loved, and longs to know he or she is lovable, and consequently, the greatest thing that we can do is to help somebody know that they’re loved and capable of loving.”

“You have to make each day a special day, by just being yourself, there’s nobody else in the whole world who’s exactly like you, and people can like you as exactly as you are, you are special.”

By Fred Rogers

如果我小时候看过这个节目，我的人生可能会从此不一样。