"The Pursuit of Happyness" was released by Columbia Pictures Corporation in 2006.The movie is adapted from a true story of a famous self-made millionaire Chris Gardner. Chris Gardner is a black American investment expert. The story tells us that how a homeless father with a 5-year-old son pursues his happiness. In the pursuit of happiness, he faces many obstacles, but he never gives up, and finally he succeeds. Will Smith acted as Chris Gardner, an ordinary person who lived in San Francisco in 1980s.  In order to create a touching drama out of the true story, a lot of changes have been made. The biggest change is Gander's one-year-old son turns into a smart 5-year-old boy. Jaden plays small Chris Gardner and he is the real son of Will Smith. 

"The Pursuit of Happyness" is a simple inspirational movie. It doesn't have pretty actors, no fancy pictures, but it can also attract you, because it has good enough story. Some of the scenes are very impressed. For example: In order to catch up with the lost scanners, Chris was knocked down by a car.  He looked for his shoe groveling on the road without checking himself being hurt or not. Chris is a man with purpose.  He said “If you have got a dream, you should protect it.” He encouraged his son “Don’t ever let somebody tell you you can’t do something”, this sentence was also said to himself. When Chris saw the spelling error in "happyness", he said these words: There is no “y” in happiness, there is “i”. It aims to express: there is no “why” in the happiness, we should be responsible for our own happiness. We can not blame others when we are not happy. If we want to be happy, we can only rely on our own and struggle for it. 对“幸福”的错误的拼写“happy ness”会产生这样一种暗示：There is no “Y”in happiness. (There is no why in happiness.幸福没有为什么)。“Y”同“Why”同音，因此“There is no why in happiness”也意味着感觉幸福不需要什么特别的原因，而追求幸福是不需要动机的，因为人对幸福的向往和追求是自发的。追求幸福是人与生俱来的需求，而幸福的标准又是多种多样的。追求幸福没有原因可讲，在动态的多变的社会中，每个人都有权利去追求幸福。“There is an I in happiness”意味着只有通过个人的坚强的意志和不懈的努力才能实现美国梦。杰斐逊强调在将个人的欲望和幸福与整个社会融为一体的过程中，个人的力量起着很重要的作用。他说“幸福”这个词从某种宽泛的模糊的意义上来说，给那些被英国殖民统治的人们一种启发，那就是每个人不论社会地位和经济地位，都有追求幸福的权利，追求幸福的机会都是均等的。这是这条公正的，有魄力的基本信念激励着人们实现自己的美国梦。

The film title is intentionally misspelled, as it also appears as graffiti in a scene in the film. The misspelled phrase is actually taken from an essay written in 1776 that argued whites and blacks were created equal. The essay, which was written by Lemuel Haynes (1753–1833), a biracial man living in New England during the Revolution, quoted Thomas Jefferson's well-known sentence from the United States Declaration of Independence, but spelled the last word of the sentence with a y. The sentence, as it appears in Lemuel's essay, is as follows: "We hold these truths to be self-Evident, that all men are created Equal, that they are Endowed By their Creator with Ceartain [sic] unalienable rights that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happyness."

电影标题是故意拼错的，因为它也出现在电影中的一个场景中。这个拼错的短语实际上取自于1776年的一篇文章，文中认为白人和黑人生来平等。这篇文章由莱缪尔·海恩斯(1753–1833)撰写，他是一个混血儿，在美国独立战争期间居住在新英格兰。他文中引用了托马斯·杰斐逊在《美国独立宣言》中的名句，但在拼写句子最后一个单词时误拼写成y。在莱缪尔文章中写的这句话如下:“我们认为这些真理是不言而喻的:人人生而平等，造物主赋予他们若干不可剥夺的权利，其中包括生命权、自由权和追求幸福的权利。”（sic 表示“原文如此”，这里原文有2处单词拼写错误Ceartain应为Certain; Happyness 应为Happiness）

          

American Dream

The American Dream is a national ethos （['iːθɒs]，

n.民族精神；道德风貌）of the United States in which freedom includes a promise of the possibility of prosperity and success. In the definition of the American Dream by James Truslow Adams in 1931, “Life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement,” regardless of social class or circumstances of birth. The idea of the American Dream is rooted in the United States The Declaration of Independence which proclaims that “all men are created equal” and that they are “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights” including “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” 

美国梦”文化解读

“美国梦”给了全世界人们一个均等的机会，只要肯努

力奋斗，每个人就都会实现自己的理想。“美国梦”所提倡

的人人平等、人人都有信仰自由的观点，自从出现的那一

刻起，就已经得到了广泛关注，而随着其不断的发展，如

今，“美国梦”已经成为美国文学作品中一个永恒的主题，

也成为美国文化中非常重要的一个组成部分。

与此同时，“美国梦”作为美国文化中重要的一部分，

在美国的诸多电影中也得到了淋漓尽致的表现。在《当幸

福来敲门》中，主人公克里斯·加德纳一直梦想着能够成

为一个知名的投资家，他怀揣着梦想，从噩梦般的遭遇一

步步迈向成功，最后实现了自己的理想。虽然在实现梦想

的过程中，曾经遭受过一次次的失败和打击，但是他内心

始终有一份坚持，正如他经常用来鼓励儿子的那句话：“如

果你有梦想，那么请保护好它。”这种信念已经成为美国人

的一笔宝贵的精神财富，这部电影也始终在展现着坚信、

坚忍、坚持的精神

United States Declaration of Independence

The Declaration of  Independence is the statement adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting（第二届大陆会议）at the Pennsylvania（宾夕法尼亚州） State House ( Independence Hall) in Philadelphia（费城） on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies, then at war with the Kingdom of Great Britain,regarded themselves as thirteen newly independent sovereign states, and no longer under British rule.  Instead they formed a new nation—the United States of America. 

★扩展

电影《当幸福来敲门》象征符号分析.pdf(下载附件 1.28 MB)