巨匠聯(lián)手演繹海明威傳奇

A Famous Couple’s Tale Revives a Noted Pairing

巨匠聯(lián)手演繹海明威傳奇

ALMOST a quarter of a century has passed since the director Philip Kaufman last worked with the film editor Walter Murch. In 1988, when their “Unbearable Lightness of Being” was released, the Soviet Union was still in existence (the film memorably depicts the 1968 Soviet invasion of Prague) and Pauline Kael was still the film critic at The New Yorker, where she gave it a rave review.

離他們上一次合作距今已經(jīng)差不多有四分之一個世紀(jì)了，導(dǎo)演菲利普·考夫曼(Philip Kaufman)和電影剪輯師沃爾特·默奇(Walter Murch)再次相遇，創(chuàng)作了電視電影《海明威與蓋爾霍恩》(Hemingway & Gellhorn)。1988年，當(dāng)他們的電影《生命中不能承受之輕》(Unbearable Lightness of Being)上映時，蘇聯(lián)尚在——該片紀(jì)念性地描繪了1968年前蘇聯(lián)對布拉格的侵略;寶琳·凱爾(Pauline Kael)也還仍是《紐約客》雜志的影評人，她在雜志上對該片給予了高度評價。

In all that time, though, it has not become easier to make historically dense, sexually candid films like “Unbearable Lightness.”

一直以來，創(chuàng)作像《生命中不能承受之輕》這樣歷史底蘊深厚、性愛直白的電影都不是一件容易的事。

“These have always been tough sells,” Mr. Kaufman said recently by phone from San Francisco. “I guess the word ‘adult’ enters into the conversation somewhere here. Too often nowadays, a love story is a man and a woman saying: ‘Look out, here they come! Are you O.K.?’ ‘I’m fine.’ And then there’s six lines of fancy dialogue as they run from whatever they’re running from.”

"這樣的片子一直都很難賣座"，考夫曼最近在舊金山接受電話采訪時說：“我想‘成年人’這個字眼在現(xiàn)在有點出問題了。如今的愛情故事一般都是一男一女，說：‘看哪，他們要來了!你沒事吧?’‘我沒事。’然后就是他們開始逃跑，躲開他們要躲開的東西，同時說出6句左右奇怪的對白。”

Perhaps that is why it has taken so long for Mr. Kaufman, 75, and Mr. Murch, 68, to resume their collaboration, with “Hemingway & Gellhorn,” being shown Monday on HBO. Though it wound up being a television project, a first for each, their roots are deep in film. They met in the early ’70s at Francis Ford Coppola’s American Zoetrope complex in San Francisco, when Mr. Murch was editing “The Conversation” and Mr. Kaufman was working on “The White Dawn.”

也許這正是75歲的考夫曼和68歲的默奇過了那么多年才再度合作的原因，倆人此次聯(lián)手為大家奉上了5月底在HBO播出的影片《海明威與蓋爾霍恩》。它最終成了一部電視電影，這對根基都深植于電影的他倆而言是第一次。他倆第一次見面是70年代初，在弗朗西斯·福特·科波拉(Francis Ford Coppola)位于舊金山的“美國活動畫片工作室”里。當(dāng)時默奇正在剪輯《竊聽大陰謀》(The Conversation)，考夫曼正在拍攝《白色黎明》(The White Dawn)。

As Mr. Kaufman remembered it: “In a room — it was early in the morning — there was a guy just waking up from working all night with his head on the KEM editing machine.” And introductions were made.

考夫曼記得：“一大清早，一個縮在房間里對著KEM剪輯機(KEM editing machine)剪了一夜片子的家伙，剛剛醒過來。”他們就互相做了自我介紹。

“With sprocket holes on my forehead!” Mr. Murch said, in the same call.

“當(dāng)時我腦門上還印著鏈齒痕跡呢!”默奇則回憶說。

A friendship was born between the two longtime Bay Area residents, one the director of seminal ’70s films like “The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid” and “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” the other a three-time Academy Award winner as an editor and sound designer whose credits include “Apocalypse Now,” and “The English Patient.” But they weren’t to work together for several years.

兩個都在灣區(qū)住了很久的人成為了朋友。他們一個導(dǎo)演了70年代具有開創(chuàng)性意義的電影《血灑北城》(The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid)和《天外奪命花》(Invasion of the Body Snatchers )，另一個作為剪輯和音效師三次榮膺奧斯卡獎，參與的影片包括《現(xiàn)代啟示錄》(Apocalypse Now )和《英國病人》(The English Patient)。他們認(rèn)識后好幾年，才開始真正合作。

When Mr. Kaufman developed “The Right Stuff,” his 1983 film about the space program, he enlisted Mr. Murch to edit, but a directing opportunity (“Return to Oz”) got in the way. The main evidence of that abortive collaboration is a “special thanks” credit for Mr. Murch’s preliminary work, which included accumulating real footage eventually interwoven into that film.

1983年，考夫曼拍攝關(guān)于太空計劃的電影《太空英雄》(The Right Stuff)時，邀請默奇來剪輯，但默奇因為導(dǎo)演《回到綠野》(Return to Oz )而未能加盟。默奇為《太空英雄》做了初步的工作，一些他剪輯積累起來的真實史料素材最終被編進(jìn)電影，在影片演職員名單中，專門對他提出了“特別致謝”，這是此次中途夭折合作的主要證據(jù)。

The chance to collaborate finally came with “Unbearable Lightness,” which, Mr. Murch said, was a good example of the way Mr. Kaufman fuses “the deeply personal” with “a historical sweep of events.” He added, “That combination really appeals to me because it’s super-cinematic.”

最后《生命中不能承受之輕》讓他們有了合作的機會。默奇說它是一個展示考夫曼將“濃郁的個人風(fēng)格”融入“歷史洪流”的絕佳例子。“這種融合真的很吸引我，因為它非常電影化。”他說。

After that film, neither thought it would take so long to reunite. Mr. Kaufman said that he was “not interested in making the same type of movie over and over.” But “Hemingway & Gellhorn” feels of a piece with their past work.

拍完那部電影，他倆誰都沒料到再度合作會是在那么多年以后?？挤蚵f，他“對重復(fù)創(chuàng)作同一類型的電影不感興趣”。但《海明威與蓋爾霍恩》確實能讓人回想起他們過去的作品。

He described “Unbearable Lightness” as “an intimate epic,” and that also suits this film, his first in eight years, which tells the story of Ernest Hemingway (Clive Owen) and his third wife, the war correspondent Martha Gellhorn (Nicole Kidman), set against the tide of history.

考夫曼把《生命中不能承受之輕》形容為“一部親密的史詩”，這也適用于《海明威與蓋爾霍恩》——這是他八年來的第一部作品，講述了歐內(nèi)斯特·海明威(克里夫·歐文飾)和他的第三任妻子、戰(zhàn)地記者瑪莎·蓋爾霍恩(妮可·基德曼飾)，在歷史巨流下的一段情感故事。

This is not the first time that Mr. Kaufman has taken iconic authors for his leading characters. His earlier films centered on Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin (“Henry & June”) and the Marquis de Sade (“Quills”). “I guess the saying is, ‘I read therefore I want to make movies about people who write,’ ” Mr. Kaufman said, adding that writers were “unsung as action figures.”

這不是考夫曼第一次以偶像作家為主角。他早前的電影曾把焦點對準(zhǔn)過亨利·米勒和阿娜伊絲·寧(《亨利和瓊》)，以及薩德侯爵(《鵝毛筆》)。“我想是這樣的，‘我閱讀，因此我想要拍關(guān)于作家的電影。”考夫曼說，他認(rèn)為作家們“還不像動作明星似的經(jīng)常被贊頌”。

As he developed the new project with the screenwriters Barbara Turner and Jerry Stahl, Mr. Kaufman said, he became captivated by the lesser-known Gellhorn and hoped the film would rekindle memories of her. (Coincidentally, the Mint Theater Company is staging “Love Goes to Press,” a play Gellhorn wrote with Virginia Cowles about journalists on the front lines.)

當(dāng)他跟編劇芭芭拉·特納(Barbara Turner)和杰瑞·斯塔爾(Jerry Stahl)開始這個新計劃時，考夫曼被較少為人所知的蓋爾霍恩迷住了，他希望電影重新喚起人們對她的記憶。恰巧，薄荷戲劇公司(Mint Theater Company)也正在排演《廣而告之的愛》(Love Goes Press)，這是蓋爾霍爾和弗吉尼亞·考利斯(Virginia Cowles)一起寫的一出戲，講的是記者在前線的故事。

“This bears witness to the fact that, as we say at the beginning of ‘The Right Stuff,’ when the test pilots die, they came to the high desert and nobody knew their names,” Mr. Kaufman said. “And that rings true for war correspondents, particularly women war correspondents.”

“這個故事見證了一個事實，正如我們在《太空英雄》開場時所說的：試飛員們死了后，他們的靈魂去了一片荒漠，沒人知道他們的姓名。”考夫曼先生說：“這對戰(zhàn)地記者而言也是事實，尤其是戰(zhàn)地女記者。”

As depicted here, Hemingway and Gellhorn have something else in common with the pilots of “The Right Stuff”: a taste for adventure. In this case, it takes them to the Spanish Civil War and other hot spots in the ’30s and ’40s. Previous Kaufman films intercut archival and stock footage with staged scenes. In “The Right Stuff,” for example, shots of real NASA launchings were paired with shots of the actors playing the Mercury 7 astronauts. In “Hemingway & Gellhorn,” Mr. Murch (aided by green screens and the visual effects supervisor Chris Morley) increases the verisimilitude by placing the actors within the footage.

就像電影中所描述的那樣，海明威和蓋爾霍恩與《太空英雄》里的試飛員有相似之處：他們都愛好冒險，這把他們帶往西班牙內(nèi)戰(zhàn)和上世紀(jì)3，40年代的其他危險地帶?？挤蚵郧暗碾娪跋矚g在真實的歷史場面和藝術(shù)表現(xiàn)間切換鏡頭。比如在《太空英雄》里，美國國家航空航天局真實的發(fā)射畫面與演員扮演“水星計劃”的7名宇航員的鏡頭被放置在一起。在《海明威與蓋爾霍恩》里，默奇(在綠色屏幕和視覺效果總監(jiān)克里斯·莫利[Chris Morley]的協(xié)助下)把演員置于連續(xù)的鏡頭下，強化了逼真的效果。

Appropriate for a tale of creative partnership, there is an intuitive, unconscious quality to the way Mr. Kaufman and Mr. Murch work together. Until it was brought to their attention, neither realized that the image of a woman lighting a cigarette opens both “Unbearable Lightness” and “Hemingway & Gellhorn.”

考夫曼和默奇的合作方式中有一種靠直覺且無意識的特性，這對描述一段富有創(chuàng)造性的搭檔關(guān)系而言是很合適的。他倆誰都沒意識到《生命中不能承受之輕》和《海明威與蓋爾霍恩》都是以一名女子點燃香煙作為開場，直到有人向他們指出這一點。

Mr. Murch reached back to “The Godfather,” on which he was a post-production consultant, to explain the coincidence:

默奇用自己擔(dān)任后期制作顧問的影片《教父》(The Godfather)為例來解釋這一巧合：

“It’s like somebody pointed out to Francis, after shooting ‘The Godfather,’ that every time death lingered there were oranges. This was long after the film was shot and Francis said just what Phil said. ‘Oh, yeah? I didn’t know that.’ So when he came to make ‘Godfather II,’ he put it in, but he made it conscious. These are wonderful things that happen almost by their own DNA. They have their own volition almost.”

“正如《教父》拍完后，有人向弗朗西斯指出，每次有人茍延殘喘時，畫面總是橙色的。電影殺青之后人家提出了這個疑問，而弗朗西斯說的話卻和菲利普一樣。‘哦，是嗎?我原本不知道呢。’于是在他拍攝《教父II》時，他有意識地把這個元素加了進(jìn)去。這些美好的東西仿佛是有了自己的DNA，都是自動發(fā)生的。它們甚至是擁有了自己的意志。”

“Hemingway & Gellhorn” comes on the heels of a kind of Philip Kaufman season. The first book-length study of his career, written by the Columbia University film professor Annette Insdorf, was published in March, and in April he was the subject of a film series at the Museum of Modern Art.

《海明威與蓋爾霍恩》緊跟著一個‘菲利普·考夫曼季’上映。2012年3月第一本研究考夫曼電影的書出版，作者是哥倫比亞大學(xué)的教授安妮特·因斯多夫(Annette Insdorf);4月，紐約現(xiàn)代藝術(shù)館舉辦了考夫曼影展。

Ms. Insdorf said in an e-mail that the new film “builds on Murch’s visual achievements in ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being,’ seamlessly inserting characters into archival footage, and juxtaposing ‘authentic’ images with newly shot ones.”

因斯多夫女士在一封電子郵件里說，考夫曼的新片“以默奇在《生命中不能承受之輕》里取得的視覺成就為基礎(chǔ)，天衣無縫地將角色融入史料鏡頭中，共同呈現(xiàn)了‘真實的’影像與新的鏡頭。”

Mr. Kaufman said that the film was “authenticated” through the liberal use of this footage, meaning “sets, costumes, even body language and motion” had to mesh with the old images. “We are going to nest our people into the grit and grain of the past,” he added.

考夫曼先生說，該片的真實性經(jīng)受住了自由使用連續(xù)鏡頭的考驗，意思是“場景、服裝，甚至身體語言與動作”都必須契合過去的影像。“我們要用過去的氣息網(wǎng)住我們的觀眾。”

If “Hemingway & Gellhorn’s” technical ambition suggests a theatrical feature, perhaps it is because it was planned as one. The project was brought to what was then the theatrical division of HBO, Picturehouse, by James Gandolfini, the star of the channel’s series “The Sopranos,” who was toying with the idea of playing Hemingway. But after Picturehouse went out of business, Mr. Kaufman said, HBO expressed interest and Mr. Gandolfini stayed on board as an executive producer.

如果說《海明威與蓋爾霍恩》技術(shù)方面的野心顯示了一種戲劇特質(zhì)，那么這也許是因為對它的設(shè)計初衷就是這樣的。最初是HBO劇集《黑道家族》(The Sopranos)里的明星詹姆斯·甘多費尼(James Gandolfini)將這個拍攝項目介紹給當(dāng)時還是頻道旗下戲劇分部的“影屋”電影公司的，甘多費尼本人有意扮演海明威?？挤蚵榻B說，后來電影室公司歇業(yè)，HBO對此有興趣，甘多費尼則作為執(zhí)行制片人繼續(xù)參與工作。

For Mr. Murch, the transition from film to television wasn’t too surprising. “The only difference,” he said, “was we did it all in seven months instead of a year, so everything was hop, hop.” He added, “Which just meant pre-planning and knowing where you were going.”

對默奇而言，從電影轉(zhuǎn)變?yōu)殡娨暡⒉皇翘钊顺泽@。他說：“唯一的區(qū)別是我們在七個月而非一年里完成了所有工作，所以一切都非常緊張忙碌。”他還補充道：“這只是意味著需要事先計劃，并明白你要朝哪里走。”