黃仁宇之死與電影

最近無意中搜到黃仁宇（Ray Huang）兄長黃競存的一片紀念文章，才知道原來這位大器晚成的歷史學家是死在紐約的一家電影院的前台，死因是心臟病突發。而他想看卻未能看到的電影就是這部Snow Falling on Cedars.
2000年的年初，紐約一定很冷，黃那時已經80多歲，和妻子開車20多英里來看這部電影。一路上黃似乎已有預感，論及生死和身後之事，在影院前台，他只說感覺不好就倒地不起，送到醫院卻為時已晚。真不知道黃離去之際，紐約是否也有落雪呢？
真不知道是什麼樣的電影有如此魔力，吸引了這位82歲的歷史學家呢？或許黃本身就是個充滿想像力的人，從他1943年給大公報寫的長篇戰地通訊，到四十年後發行萬曆十五年，再到為看電影而死，本身似乎就是一部情節豐富的電影了。

下面是他兄長的原文節選：
I learned that on that day, Ray and Gayle （其妻） went to a movie theater, with Gayle driving. The place was some twenty plus miles from New Paltz. The movie they planned to see was entitled now 「Falling on Cedars」. Just as they arrived at the theater, Ray said he did not feel well. On entering the reception area and sitting down, he collapsed. When the ambulance brought him to the Emergency Section of a nearby hospital, it was too late for the doctors to save the patient.
At the time, other than grief stricken, I was somewhat puzzled: My brother Ray was a serious person. He seldom did things out of the ordinary and extravagant. Why would he want to watch a movie on the daytime of a weekend? In order to understand the circumstance, I checked into a Web page in the Internet to find the movie background. Through the Internet, I found that the movie now Falling on Cedars was based on a best-selling novel of the same title first published in 1994. The Chinese version of the book had since been published. The backdrop of the story was a small island town in the bay near 西雅圖, 華盛頓. During a heavy snowstorm, a local journalist attended the murder trial in the town court. The story involved love between two persons of different racial background. It described the psychology of the local residents, specifically people greed, jealousy, prejudice, as well as friendship and generosity. These aspects were reflected through the eye view of the journalist. Accessing the situation, my conjecture was that my brother Ray had some serious motivation in going to the theater. Ray was interested in writing novels. To watch the movie, he could compare the presentation of one story in two media: in book form and in an audio-visual format.