| 释义 |
McGuffin, n. Cinematogr.|məˈgʌfɪn|
Also MacGuffin, Maguffin, and with lower-case initial(s).
[Scottish surname (see Mac n.1), allegedly borrowed by Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980), English film director, from a humorous story involving a diversion of this kind: see quot. 1967. Prob. unrelated to guffin n.]
In a film or work of fiction: a particular event, object, factor, etc., which assumes great significance to the characters and acts as the impetus for the sequence of events depicted, although often proving tangential to the plot as it develops.
1939A. Hitchcock Lect. at Univ. Columbia 30 Mar. (Typescript, N.Y. Mus. Mod. Art: Dept. Film & Video) In regard to the tune, we have a name in the studio, and we call it the ‘MacGuffin’. It is the mechanical element that usually crops us in any story. In crook stories it is always the necklace and in spy stories it is always the papers. We just try to be a little more original. 1949Theatre Arts May 34/2 An outgrowth of this near-surrealism of detail is what Hitchcock chooses to call the McGuffin. The McGuffin is the gimmick, an object which holds a hidden key to the plot. 1967F. Truffaut Hitchcock vi. 98 [Alfred Hitchcock loq.] The theft of secret documents [in Kipling's stories] was the original MacGuffin. So the ‘MacGuffin’ is the term we use to cover all that sort of thing: to steal plans or documents, or discover a secret, it doesn't matter what it is... You may be wondering where the term originated. It might be a Scottish name, taken from a story about two men in a train. 1980Jewish Chron. 25 Apr. 10/2 In The Formula by Steve Shagan..the McGuffin is a method of producing artificial oil that will render OPEC redundant. 1984Washington Post 7 Aug. d6/1 Here is a thriller that transcends the ‘maguffin’, Alfred Hitchcock's word for the item everybody wants—the plans, the isotope, the negatives, the cipher. 1991Flash Art Jan.–Feb. 121/1 The macguffin is the thing that the spies are after, but the audience doesn't care. |