戒色

很久以来就想说说我对这个色戒的看法，但是唯恐我因为是男性的缘故，会有某些主观，所以先列下两个别人的影评；这两个在关键问题上是针锋相对的，但是都是出于女人之手。

窦婉茹 8月31日发自威尼斯电影节

首先要问：如何把握一部电影的好坏？这是个大问题。众所周知在艺术评论的领域，说好坏难，说好恶易，非要有一个说法的话，我还是引用在8月29日威尼斯电影节开幕式评委见面会上，评委会主席张艺谋回答这个问题给出的答案：好电影就是内容和形式能很好的结合。

其次，说《色，戒》本 身的好坏，其实完全离开张爱玲是不行的，因为张爱玲在那，一个标准在那，否认她是不行的。不是说不能挑战这个标准，不是说这个故事没有任何改动的可能性， 但是不充分认识这个标准的存在，是不明智的。张爱玲这个小说写的好，30年写了28页，都说是呕心沥血之作，还是公认不错的。它也可能是一篇精心制作的垃 圾，但是据我了解它还不是。所以谈原著还是有点意义的。

第三，什么叫对原著的继承和背叛？既然背叛也是一种继承，背叛也是一种对原著和作者敬意的表达，那么继承的继承也是有价值的。聪明人有时候是不 是也表现在该继承就继承，表现在不做无用功，表现在不去勤奋地做一件错事呢？所以该背叛就背叛，该继承就继承，继承也是选择的一种，继承也有可能是对的。

再说到《色，戒》，我认为李安以 美化男性角度的改编，根本上动了张爱玲这篇小说的核心，就是女人的不专业和男人的专业，就是女人一时糊涂的痴情和男人一以贯之的无情。而没了这个最根本的 基础，这篇小说是没什么价值的，一场布置那么周密的女人去暗杀男人的计划，就是因为女性一向分不清性和爱的可分离关系(男人是分的很清的，易先生在杀情人 的时候是干脆利落的，拿出的是干大事的专业劲儿)，就是因为女性对一枚戒指有太多情感而非金钱的指望和依恋，就前功尽弃。女人一直在处心积虑杀男人，费劲 周折，就因为男人送了一枚戒指就心软了，不仅前功尽弃，还害人害己，多么的不专业，也因此才多么有戏剧性，令人惊心动魄的感叹。这真是“一枚戒指引发的血 案”。而在电影中李安没有突出这个引发悲剧的男女性心理和感情结构的差别，而是模糊和缩小这个差别，这是非常致命的。片中李安花了太多的力气去渲染男人在 性方面的美感和优越(这个优越感表现为男性对女性轻微的性虐待)，渲染男人在金钱上的慷慨(把小说中一枚比普通略强的戒指，变成电影中几乎要惊天动地的豪 华大戒指)，渲染男人在杀死情人后的留情(小说中毫不犹豫的心狠手辣，变成电影中签署处死情人文件颤抖的手和坐在情人生前床上的眼泛泪光)，都是违背了这 个悲剧的基础的。再完美的细节，汤唯和梁朝伟再完美的表演，都不能掩饰这个致命的缺陷。

再讲到《色，戒》的激情戏，暴露尺度不是问题，问题是“is it necessary?”，它真的需要吗？它是否需要那么多？如果需要，再多都不多；如果不是，那就有问题。观众都已成年，对性本身都有大体清楚的认识，知 道那“欢愉是短暂的，动作是滑稽的，代价是昂贵的”，所以在这里对于《色，戒》是否色情的讨论，并不是出于道德规范乃至法令，纯粹就是讨论这些镜头为的是 什么？从我看片的角度，我认为这些镜头对深化悲剧主题是没什么意义的，也就是说形式是对内容没有帮助的，我从这些性爱镜头里面看不到多少女主角受虐的极度 欢愉，带来的身心享受，也许里面有一点点女性的“被占有欲”得到满足的痕迹，但更多的还是表现梁朝伟的身材和技能。这些我认为是与主题无关的，是不必须 的。

最后再说一点，就是观影是personal的事，带着不可避免的个性色彩和个人局限，一篇影评出来，背后是影评人本身的知识背景(不讲政治立 场，这光谈艺术呢)、理性健全的程度以及本人的生活经历。影评人起码都受到这三方面的局限。所以抒发感想，立是断非，都没有绝对正确的可能和义务，大家不 过在直舒胸臆的同时，随时准备虚心讨教。如此而已。人人都未必全对，同理，李安也是这样。

我在威尼斯的新闻中心和一个比利时记者说起《色，戒》，他说他喜欢这个电影，但是更喜欢《断背山》。我想了想，说我也是这样。其实我同意的是他的后半句。

 

这个一看就是咱们大陆来的， 官方口气改不了啊。再看看台湾的：

台湾中国时报 ◎张小虹

在西方电影圈开玩笑，要害一个导演，就叫他去拍莎士比亚，不仅因为莎翁经典深植人心，朗朗上口，不易讨好，更因莎剧字字珠玑，意象丰满，若是拆了叫演员一字不漏朗读一遍，又叫摄影机用影像画面拍摄一遍，没别的话，就是画蛇添足。

若是换了在华人电影圈开玩笑，要害一个导演，最好是叫他去拍张爱玲。从1984年香港导演许鞍华找来周润发、谬骞人拍《倾城之恋》，就是一连 串灾难史的开始，其中稍稍及格的，只有关锦鹏的《红玫瑰与白玫瑰》，多亏了导演的敏感细腻，演员陈冲红玫瑰的精彩诠释和艺术指导朴若木的美术构成，总算抓 到那么一些些老上海的氛围、张爱玲的底蕴。

这回李安要拍张爱玲，真是让所有李迷与张迷又爱又怕受伤害。两个大难题，张爱玲怎么拍？前面的例子可以说是拍一个死一个。老上海怎么拍？十年 来的上海热，从台北、香港一路延烧回上海，早已让老上海的影像熟极而烂，要不落入窠臼套式，难上加难。又是月份牌，又是老旗袍，又是黑头车，往往不是不够 真实，而是所有的真实都已过度曝光成了超真实，更别提还有那厢王家卫透过香港所折射出来的老上海怀旧风格，难以挥去。

但李安还是拍了，拍出了一个惊心动魄的张爱玲，一个恐怕连张爱玲也觉得惊心动魄的《色，戒》。若是按照惯常的文学电影读法，当然是从张爱玲到 李安，从张爱玲的小说《色，戒》到李安的电影《色，戒》，前者是「原著」，后者是「改编」，再东转西绕两相比对一番，谈的终究还是是否忠于原著的老问题。 这样的谈法既不尊重文类的基本差异──小说是用文字讲故事，而电影是用影像讲故事，更是让「原著」成为终点而非起点，让影像的再次创作，沦为文字的重复叙 述。

所以我们要反过来说，从李安到张爱玲，这种违反常识的先后时序倒置，就是要让我们跳脱「改编」的魔咒，真正看到影像创作的爆发力。李安的 《色，戒》拍出了张爱玲写出来的《色，戒》，李安的《色，戒》也拍出了张爱玲没有写出来的《色，戒》。李安的厉害，李安的温柔蕴藉，打开了《色，戒》藏在 文字绉褶里欲言又止却又欲盖弥彰的《色，戒》，李安是在张爱玲的文字地盘上，大开色戒。

肉体情欲的暴乱

电影《色，戒》从片子一开头，就充满了强烈的悬疑紧张氛围。李安成功地运用了两种语言的加成，一种是快速剪接、局部特写的电影镜头语言，一种是尔虞我诈、 各怀鬼胎的华文牌桌文化语言，只见易公馆麻将桌上一阵兵慌马乱，玉手、钻戒、闲话交锋的影像杂沓，一时间难以分辨是谁的手拿着谁的牌，搭着谁的话，碰了谁 的牌，吃了谁的上家，胡了谁的庄。这种电影语言与文化语言的完美搭配，让《色?戒》从一开场就引人入胜，让观众立即进入悬疑片的心理准备状态──不确定中 的焦虑与兴奋，也让《色，戒》同时拥有了电影语言、电影类型的「全球性」与特定华文殊异文化的「在地性」。

于是有时车子开在路上，你会错以为是希区考克的悬疑谍报片，一会又以为是五○年代的黑色电影，转个身却又像是老好莱坞的浪漫通俗剧。李安不愧 是李安，这种运「镜」帷幄的大将之风，稳健中见细腻，平凡中见功力。只有李安才有这等电影语言的娴熟，这般电影类型的出入自如。于是《色，戒》从快到慢的 影像节奏，配合着由外到内、由表面练达油滑的交际人情到赤身裸体接触的心理挣扎，给出了一个完全「去熟悉化」了的老上海，法国Alexandre Desplat幽沉的电影配乐，墨西哥Rodrigo Prieto光影层次的摄影，再加上香港朴若木平实而不夸张不过度风格化的美术构成，让镜头前的「老上海」有一种特意搭构出来的「假」，假得既熟悉又诡 异、既本土又异国、既真实又如梦境，假得恰到好处，假得正好假戏真做。

但这些镜头语言与文化细节掌握的成功，只能让《色，戒》从一部中规中矩的电影，升级成为一部上等之作，而真正让《色，戒》可以脱颖而出成为一 部上上之作的关键，就在《色，戒》最受争议的大胆露骨床戏。有的导演拍床戏是为了噱头与票房卖点，有的导演拍床戏是前卫反判的一种姿态，《色，戒》中的床 戏却是让《色，戒》之所以成立的最重要关键。李安的尺度开放，不在于让梁朝伟与汤唯全裸上阵，而在于第一场床戏就用了S/M「虐恋」作为全片床戏的基调。 原本明明是麦太太按捺下易先生，走到较远的椅子边，打算演一出宽衣解带的诱惑戏码，哪知易先生一个箭步向前，扳倒大学生王佳芝伪装的麦太太，抽出皮带，绑 住她的双手，推倒在床上，强行进入。这种突如其来、反客为主的暴烈，吓坏了业余玩票的女特工，当然也吓坏了戏院里正襟危坐的观众。有必要这样S/M吗？就 剧情的合理度而言，S/M凸显了易先生作为情报头子的无感，必须藉由如此暴力的强度，才能在猎人与猎物、掌控与被掌控、占有与被占有的肉体权力关系中，既 重复也纾解各种血腥刑求所造成的内在扭曲。

但仅以这样的角度去理解《色，戒》中的S/M，绝对是不够的。《色，戒》中的S/M，除了要展现权力的掌控，「行房」作为「刑房」的一种扭曲 变形，除了要彻底摧毁既定的道德体系与价值系统，更是要在逼搏出身体暴乱情欲的最高强度中，展露出身体最内部、最极端、最赤裸、最柔软的敏感与脆弱，这样 的「性爱」才有「致命性」，会让人在最紧要的关键时刻，一时心软怜爱而迷迷糊糊地赔上了性命。在片中这样的「致命性」，让女大学生王佳芝茫然困惑，无助却 又迷恋，一次鼓起了勇气，向同学邝裕民与重庆派来的上级指导员老吴坦承自己的无法把持，越往她身体里头钻的老易，就越往她心里头钻。这露骨的不吐不快，让 两个大男人目瞪口呆，无言以对。他们不懂也不能懂，易先生与麦太太则似懂非懂，却深陷其中，欲仙欲死。身体的交易，带出了情欲的高潮，而体液的交换，带出 了灵魂的交缠。于是几场重要的床戏，透过镜位、景框与剪接的精准安排，透过梁朝伟与汤唯的投入演出，我们看到的不再只是肉体横陈，不再只是变换中的姿势与 体位，而是那种击溃所有防线所有自我保护后无助的肉体亲密贴合，有如婴儿般脆弱卷缩的相互依偎。这是王佳芝的「意乱情迷」，也是易先生的「易乱情谜」。动 荡大时代中的彷徨无助，都转化成情欲强度的极私密、极脆弱、极癫狂。《色，戒》中情欲影像的强度，传达了极暴戾即温柔，极狂喜即致命的无所遁逃。

「到女人心里的路通过阴道」

然而如此这般肉体情欲的暴乱，会是张爱玲吗？短篇小说《色，戒》成稿于五○年代，张爱玲多次大修大改，一九七七年发表于《皇冠》杂志，一九八 三年收录于《惘然记》出版。二三十年的时间过去了，张爱玲究竟琢磨出怎样一个版本的《色，戒》，来铺陈涉世未深的天真女大学生，下了台没下装，想演一出美 人杀汉奸的戏码，却因自己一时的意乱情迷而功败垂成。这其中的反讽我们懂，张爱玲用色与戒之间的逗点，疏离了我们惯常对「色戒」等同于「戒女色」的认知， 《色，戒》既是美色与钻戒的连结，也是本应由男汉奸犯下的色戒转移到了女特务自身所犯下的色戒，色不迷人人自迷，美人计中的美人反倒中了计。张爱玲在《倾 城之恋》中曾说，「一个女人上了男人的当，就该死；女人给当给男人上，那更是淫妇；如果一个人想给当给男人上而失败了，反而上了人家的当，那是双料的淫 恶，杀了她也还污了刀」。就这点观之，王佳芝想给汉奸当上却上了汉奸的当，就算迷迷糊糊给枪毙了，似乎也难博得同情。

但小说《色，戒》中有破绽，有陷阱，因为其中所涉及的真正缘由与转折我们却不懂，好好一个女大学生为何会爱上一脸「鼠相」的中年汉奸，为了粉 红钻戒而感动？为了任务不惜失身而懊恼而混乱而寻觅救赎？是人海茫茫无依无靠的恋父情结？还是单纯因为灯光下易先生的睫毛有如「米色的蛾翅」而生出温柔怜 惜之心？就第一个层次而言，我们不懂是因为张爱玲让王佳芝到死也没弄懂自己到底是哪里出了问题，但就第二个层次而言，我们不懂是因为张爱玲也不懂，或者不 想完全弄懂，而尽在文字里穿插藏闪。而小说《色，戒》的文字犹疑，正是电影《色?戒》影像游移的最佳切入点，让李安拍出了张爱玲没有写出来的《色，戒》， 不是无中生有，而是打开文字的绉褶，用影像探访文字的潜意识，那不干不净不彻底的情欲纠缠。

因而看完电影《色，戒》后，再回过头来看张爱玲的小说《色，戒》，就懂得李安懂得张爱玲懂得却没说清楚讲明白的那个部份。小说中三处曲笔，隐 隐带出王佳芝与易先生的肉体暧昧情欲。第一处点出王佳芝逐渐丰满的乳房，「『两年前也还没有这样嚜，』他扪着吻着她的时候轻声说。他头偎在她胸前，没看见 她脸上一红」。第二处则是两人共乘一车，「一坐定下来，他就抱着胳膊，一只肘弯正抵在她乳房最肥满的南半球外缘。这是他的惯技，表面上端坐，暗中却在蚀骨 销魂，一阵阵麻上来」。短短几句，强烈的身体官能情欲，明说是易先生，又暗指王佳芝，十足暧昧。第三处则是一连串正经八百的引述，先以一句英文俗谚「权力 是一种春药」，作为王佳芝自我心理分析的开场，接着又引谚语「到男人心里去的路通到胃」，指男人好吃，要掌握男人的心，先要掌握男人的胃。但真正要带出的 重点，却是紧接在下面的那句「到女人心里的路通过阴道」。

此惊世骇俗的话语既出，防卫机制立即启动，百般遮掩，先是考据此语出自某位民初精通英文的名学者，曾以茶壶茶杯的比喻，替中国人妻妾制度辩护 （暗指辜鸿铭），接着又执意不相信名学者会说出如此下作的话语，再接着质疑是什么样女人的心会如此不堪，要不是「老了倒贴的风尘女人」，就是「风流寡 妇」，并以自己做为反证，为达成任务而跟同学梁闰生发生性关系后，就只有更讨厌他的份。但否认后的否认，曲笔后的曲笔，又回到了核心问体的揭露，「那，难 道她有点爱上了老易？她不信，但是也无法斩钉截铁的说不是，因为没恋爱过，不知道怎么样就算是爱上了」，就这样一路由性逃到了爱，又由爱逃到了缺乏经验无 从评断。有答案了吗？当然还是没有答案，但依旧不忘加上一笔，再次撇清关系，「跟老易在一起那两次总是那么提心吊胆，要处处留神，哪还去问自己觉得怎 样」。此地无银三百两，我王佳芝可不是喜欢惊险刺激、耽溺于鱼水之欢的女人。

但我们必须说整篇《色，戒》中最大胆最下作最荒唐的一句话，就是「到女人心里的路通过阴道」，也是张爱玲要一再撇清、一再否认的一句话，当然 也就成了最富玄机、最深藏不露的一句话，而好巧不巧，李安的《色，戒》就拍足了这句话，提供了不仅女性版本的王佳芝，也提供了男性版本的易先生（男人的心 终究不是通过胃的问题）。《色，戒》的暧昧不仅在于忠奸难分，更在于情色难离，没有大彻大悟，黑白分明，汉贼不两立，没有情是情，色是色，作戏是作戏，真 实人生是真实人生。张爱玲冷眼嘲讽了爱国的浪漫与幼稚， 却又在民族大义的框架下，偷渡小眉小眼、小情小爱的谍报版性幻想，但在带出身体情欲真实困惑的同时，还是点到为止，非礼勿视。李安则是腼腆探问「色易守， 情难防」的无解，只因色就是情的后门，钻到身体里的就能钻到心里，色与情一线之隔，一体两面，而《色，戒》之所以惊心动魄，就是在那肉体缠缚中，动了真 情。

小说中的结尾，易先生为求自保立即处决了那群大学生，事后想起王佳芝，尚不免自鸣得意，说她生是他的人，死是他的鬼。电影中的结尾，那群大学 生被带到空旷的南矿场，一字排开的大远景，没有慷慨赴义，引刀成一快的「悲壮」，只有一种无情大时代青春生命的「苍凉」，又可笑又可怜，临到尽头都还迷糊 的悲哀。而易先生回到家中，面对王佳芝的空床，厅堂里喧哗谈笑声依旧，只是暗影遮黑了他的双眼。

「因为懂得，所以慈悲」，张爱玲冷，让易先生终究旁观者清，李安温情，让易先生依旧当局者迷。在这一点上，张爱玲毕竟是张爱玲，李安毕竟还是李安。

第一篇评论的立足点，乃是说这个电影对原著的改动，乃是放大了“男人在性方面的美感和优越”，并且推而广之，指出这个乃是致命缺陷，是对原著悲剧意识的抹杀，是动摇了原著的根本价值。

几乎是必然的，接下来她对于片中激情戏提出质问，这些火爆场面是否必须？

为了要回答这个问题，首先要反问一句，对什么必须？

如果仅仅是交代他们上床了，甚或仅是暗示一下，他们鱼水甚欢，和目前的局面有什么不同？

显然，上文作者看来，一部电影，首先是要讲一个故事。如果不幸这个故事有一个文学的源泉，那么电影又必须忠实于这个源泉。

这等于是说，张爱玲是个女作者，所以小说自然是从女性的角度来看问题的，虽然李安是个男的，但是既然张爱玲写小说在先，因此，将故事改成男性角度，那是不妥的。

从故事的角度，当然没有什么不同，甚至删去还要更好，因为第一，“这些镜头对深化悲剧主题是没什么意义的。”这就是说，我们首先认定那里有一个悲剧主题，等着我们去用镜头来“深化” 。“深化”，何等CCTV的语言！

第二，上文作者认为，如果不是用来深化悲剧主题，那么这些镜头也许还有些教育意义，但是现在大家都是成年人了，对这个问题已经有了“大体清楚”的认识，不用李安来开导我们。

其实不拍省去大家辛苦，李导演拍床上戏也没什么经验，你以为他容易吗？100个小时拍出来十分钟的内容。

一个故事，不管有什么悲剧意识，不能用来代替影像对人的感染力。

我从这些场面看到的东西跟这个故事一点关系都没有，但是也一样很有意思，让我觉得值回票价。

如果故事很好，讲给我听其实就很不错，实在没有必要再影院浪费两个多小时的时间。

一部电影，讲述了他预先设定要讲述的，其实只是一般。

倘能讲出一些原先没有料到的东西，这才是神来之笔。

也许因为虚构的东西力量都是有限，故事再完美，那也只是故事。

我年纪也不小了，这些年什么什么荒唐玩意没见过，但是这些场面仍然能让我目瞪口呆，就证明他们不是一般意义上的性场面。他们和其他一些性场面，在叙事层面上可以置换，但是在影像的影响力方面，完全不可以置换。

说句不恭敬的话，这个片子其他的地方，再好也就是平平，能忍住不笑，就算是客气的了。

但是这一轮性场面下来，真的是让我肃然起敬。

回到作者的质疑，这些火爆场面是否必须？对这个问题我的回答是这样的，不仅必须，而且，很有可能就是这个电影的价值所在。

编剧的缺陷，其实真是已经见怪不改了。说句不好听的话，谁在乎？

原先我自己是最看重故事的逻辑性，细节的真实，结构的完整等等。但自从我注意到很多人看电影都在意这个，不由得对这些东西在电影艺术的地位产生怀疑。

电影不是戏剧，电影是影像的艺术。

对故事的要求，最好是适可而止。

但是如果说电影是影像的艺术，那么这个“影像的艺术”目的在哪里？他所要说的，是不是要和故事的目标重合？第二篇评论的观点说这些床戏“是要在逼搏出身体暴乱情欲的最高强度中，展露出身体最内部、最极端、最赤裸、最柔软的敏感与脆弱”，这个我觉得说得很好。如果说这就是这部电影影像上的目标，那么故事，完全可以理解为第二位的，是为了这个目标服务，是一个Context，一个借口。从另一个角度来看，在色情片中常见的肉体横陈之所以没有这样的效果，一个固然是因为这些肉体都遵循完全可以预期的仪式，更重要就是因为没有提供动机。体液交换固然是很有意思，但是为什么要花那么大的气力，冒那么大的风险，去做这些没有任何成果的事情？情是何物？欲又是何物？人在何种程度上是动物性的，何时又不是？这些问题，我觉得比讲一个故事，或者是某上海文人的老故事，显然是更有价值。

色戒里的床戏说明了什么问题，我不准备正面阐述。首先，因为这不是一个可以充分阐述的问题。其次，每个人从这里面看到了什么，很有可能是完全不一样的。就是我自己，若是二十年前看到这个，多半也是有不同的想法，更有可能完全不知道他想说什么。是什么在影响着一个人对这个影像的理解呢？我想，应该是他，或者她，对男人和女人本质的认识。女人是什么，这个对男人而言不是一个自明的问题。最最影响理性对一个类似问题的探究的，就是一个思考的个体自身的欲望不幸地指向他思考的对象。这个欲望是坚决的，然而也是盲目的。因为这个欲望将自身奉为最终的目标，所以他拒绝提供任何动机。一个正常的男人在酒吧里看见一个漂亮女人，荷尔蒙被激发，随之而来的动作都是下意识的，坚决，然而盲目。一个男人成长的历程，并不包含对这个欲望的任何深入了解。他所需要知道，也即是他逐渐习得的，是一个仪式—如何让异性接受自己，如何在异性面前展现自己，等等。简而言之，男性在女性面前的动作，是一个试错法的结果，其所依据的主要方法，乃是黑箱观察。女性的方面的情况更为复杂，更为微妙，我没有什么发言权，但种种迹象表明，女性在男性面前的表现是先验而非习得，也就是说，不依赖於女性对男性心理的理解。一个女人对男人的体验，除了跟这个男人相关的具体细节，直接指向她对自己身体的认识。

这些和色戒有什么关系？我觉得，张爱玲，抑或是李安，对这个故事的把握都基于这同一个认识—女人的收敛性。正因为她收敛，所以她不可解。理性探究的结果，撞上一睹不可逾越的墙—身体。不仅是女人撞上这堵墙，男人何尝不是！所以床戏，其实是货真价实的“戏肉”。色戒好就好在为床戏提供了一些似是而非的动机（叙事），然而真相的呈现粉碎了这些所谓的动机，让他们成为无足轻重的虚构。什么真相？我不能说，李安具体是这样这样来构造这些床戏的，因此就取得了那样那样的效果。如果可以如此归纳，那么别人大可以重复这个配方，还有什么真相可言？李安所展现的性，恰恰是没有任何意识形态在背后的，纯粹的性。说这个是一场交易，那岂不是低估了李安。这些个镜头之所以震撼，恰恰是因为他让我意识到，我们所司空见惯的性场面，其实都是那么地不纯，服从于种种叙事的无聊目的，受制于种种思想的狭隘局限。在这些影像面前，我的大脑成为一片空白，一种类似于性高潮时所体验的空白。也正是因为大脑被腾空，所以影像得以注入，并且挥之不去。

Elementary Particles

Elementrary Particles is adapted from the eponymous novel of the notorious French writer Michel Houllellebecq. In terms of theme, it extends his previous effort in L’extension de la domaine de la lutte, dealing with a desperate life imbued with sexual frustration and inexplicable loneliness. As I see it, desperateness and loneliness are the two sides of one same coin. Thus the narrative adopts a classical strategy (the most apparent application of it can be found in Tolstoy’s War and Peace) of having two complementary protagonists. Needless to say, they either have to be good friends or related in a certain way. In this film they are Bruno and Michael, half-blood brothers from different mothers.

Bruno is certainly a lewd figure. People notice this in a few minutes --- whenever he opens his mouth, it is about sex. But the course of film reveals that he is in such a shitty situation (nobody knows what is the problem) and that he turns out in the end to be a victim and something else must take the blame. I do not experience sexual frustration often (yeah, only once in a while) but somehow I feel that I can identify with Bruno (and the other figure, Michael). And that leads me to conclude that the film is nothing but a collection of defeats --- it is this despair facing defeats I share with Bruno. We all face defeats many times in life, but certain kinds of people manage to make it sounds like a wolf with shiny eyes in a fairytale, something scary that you can just run away from. No, it is not like that. Houllellebecq is correct. Defeat is invisible and ridiculous. It doesn’t matter how successful you are – you have yet to figure out why Houllellebecq, such a successful writer, persists in writing about frustrations and defeats (there is no quotes from Schopenhauer in the film although I knew he reads it).

One possible explanation of Bruno’s agony is that he is raised without love – his mother is a hippy and lives in Poona all the time. That is the impression I got from the book – that Houllellebecq is blaming the sexual liberation movement of the 1960s. But what about the other boy? This prodigy never feels any impulse towards woman and is consequently totally exempt from the female turmoil that all of us has to undergo in our life. Is he happier that way? Can one be happy by just being left alone and studying mathematics?

This pair of characters forms a similar construction to that of Houllellebecq’s previous book. But I think Houllellebecq has made some small modifications to improve its strength. In the previous book, there is this issue of male ugliness to blame; here I don’t think it is an issue. Moritz Bleibtreu is not ugly and totally repulsive to woman as Tisserand. Yet he is always rejected in the camping site. Any stupid idiot can have a massage by a gorgeous half naked blonde; not our protagonist, not him. This is dangerous, because anybody mentally stronger than Bruno would get angry and become a serial killer. But Bruno is so weak: he has in his cane the same inscription as Kafka, not Balzac: every obstacle destroys me. Women seem to have an instinct for this mental “imperfection” – the instant they notice it, they run away. They did the same thing to Kafka, Dante, Nietzsche. Yes, even Nietzsche. It is not their fault by any means. Since our men are too weak, too unrealistic, too desperate, too great a writer. Women have their missions in this world and they are dedicated to these missions. They want confidence, security, power, will – they expect you to have these precious “virtues” since they want to keep their own frustration. The famous counterexample is of course Marlon Brando in Last Tango in Paris. It is implied that the woman (and a pretty young one, too) is obsessed by Brando because he is so desperate. But evidently Moritz Bleibtreu does not have a personal charm comparable to Brando. Moreover, when Brando is not in his blue days, he can actually be very confident and aggressive.

In a broader perspective, Houllellebecq’s subject can be viewed as an anthropological one, that of sexual selection. Many unsuccessful males resent the consequence of sexual selection. It has become a cliché that they turn to blame life if they cannot find a vehicle to procreate. Perhaps they should blame it on libido. It is this damn thing that makes a man can not concentrate and do some useful things, like mathematics. Michael, in this perspective, can be regarded as someone who has got rid of his libido. Unfortunately he is thus deprived of the only motor force of human being. He grabs, as a last resort, a woman without uterus. That suits him fine: ever since childhood, he had been acclaiming Aldous Huxley’s The Brave New World, where the hefty responsibility of procreation is to be conferred to better hands: the state. The vital link between him and his Annabelle Lee is not any eros-derived product, but an asexual tenderness, which I find extremely valuable, although too idealistic.

By comparison, the thing between Michael and his sexually extravagant girl friend Christiane, is “human, all too human.” We all know too well how human react under their tragic circumstances. So little surprise. Nevertheless I am deeply touched. Especially when the “miracle” happens in front of me. Perhaps I have become too sentimental – well, I like the feel of it.

Re-viewing The Diary of Country Priest

Many have noted a peculiar formal aspect of Bresson’s films, especially in his prison trilogy : Journal d'un curé de campagne (1951), Un condamné à mort s'est échappé ou Le vent souffle où il veut (1956) and Pickpocket (1959). In every one of these films, the voice-over narration is most of the time redundant to the visual channel. Not only we are shown the diary entry, or notes, that the voice is reading, we are shown often immediately the actions indicated, described by the words. This double of triple redundancy proved to be a headache for most critics for they have yet to find a way to incorporate it into their theoretical framework.

Same for me. But this recent re-viewing of the Journal has given me some inspirations on this issue. I came to realize that the voice over in Bresson’s films (as well as a bunch of others, as I shall name later) are not narrative devices. They represent rather a sonic presence of the ‘spiritual power’ of our protagonist. Although most of time diary entries are connected with pen, with the act of writing, in the opening shot however, a hand simply remove the blotting paper and reveal the inscriptions underneath. Many events echoed in voice over, as we have reason to doubt, are not registered in the diary. But that does not prevent certainly our hero’s reflective mind acts upon it in its occurrence. I came to realize that voice over in this film is a stylistic device but not a narrative convention. As for this latter category, The Letter or an Unknown Women (1948) immediately came to mind, as I have seen it only last week. Letter represents the situation that we are so conditioned to this convention that we refuse to allow other possibilities take place. Instead of talking about the distinction between VO as narrative convention and VO as stylistic device, we talk about the reliability or unreliability of the VO, as if it is our task to determine the moral stance of the voice.

In light of these arguments, I also contend that those visual sequences of writing a diary (or anything else in this case) is in function equivalent to the sonic presence of spiritual power. I have an evidence to support my view. In the end of Diary, Claude Laydu still strives to write what are probably his last words, that he had referred his friend Dufrety to his old master, Curé de Torcy. Not only we see that these lines are written in pencil, without the usual neatness, but the VO is absent. An unusual silence accompanied the images. Then the pencil itself fell.

Now it is time to think about other films which, like this one, employ VO as a stylistic device. Terrence Malick is the most prominent contemporary example. Both of his Thin Red Line and The New World are excellent demonstration of this concept. It is not that only in his films we have the monologue, but that without this non-stopping monologue the images will not hold up as a meaningful construction. There is yet another possibility that I can think of: Leanne dernier a Marienbad and L’homme qui ment. In these two films the voice over is an element that manipulated by the cinematic narration to create inner tension, contradiction.

Films like these one reveal the poverty of our existing theoretical efforts. Plato divided narration into diegetic and mimetic ones. This formula is later repeated by David Bordwell, Gérard Genette and many others. But this division is evidently no longer able to account for the specificities of cinema.

Collateral (plot summary)

Max is a taxi driver, ‘temporarily’. In order to escape from reality (he has been doing this for 12 years) he dreams about two things : Maldive island and the business idea inspired by it : island limo service. Tonight, his first client is a black girl whom we, along with Max, figure out to be a prosecutor working on a big case. He offers his genuine concern (as a symbol a picture of the island) for her devastating working habits (which means that she will be available and alone when the killer comes). In return she gives him her card, ‘call me if you want to conduct an investigation on, say, fortune 500’ Well lets face it, there is little in common between them. How can then the potential romance realize? I couldn’t think of any solution. But a skillful screen writer can. To be continued.

Max’s next client is Vicent, who expressed immediately a certain loathe for the city, LA. Why? Because in spite of the dense population people don’t get to know each other and dead bodies take a long time to be discovered. Why, that should be two definite advantages for a travelling killer! Anyway in the course of conversation he developped a liking for Max and offers him 600 bucks for driving him to five locations, plus 100 to the airport.

The framework of the plot is then reconditioned to five sections, with an interlude between the third and the fourth. These five sections are in their emotional tensity comparable to five movements of a symphony (yes I know usually there are only four), as we shall see immediately.

Things went wrong only too soon. In the first location, the body fell out from the window and landed directly on the waiting taxi. The identity of the client is now exposed. So, no intention to make any suspense on that; no direct depiction of the killing.

Second location. This time Vincent seems to be doing just fine. It is Max who is having a problem. Being tied up to the wheel, he cries for help. And there comes the help : two hoodlums grab his wallet – and Vincent’s suitcase. They shouldn’t have done that. Because Vincent will be displeased. Now we get to see the violence, fully frontal, without any embellishments. Bang, bang, two guys down.

So we are going from tense to tenser. Maybe it is time for a little break. And that is what Vincent suggests. Now they are sitting in a quiet Jazz bar, enjoying their drink. It seems that Vincent is really much into Jazz. Not only did he enjoy the performance of a fat guy on trumpet, he showed a genuine interest in his story of meeting and co-performing with Miles Davis years ago. It is only when all guests are gone that we smell something burning here. We suddenly realize that Vincent has been waiting, that he has not come to this Jazz bar out of no reason! The fat guy is his next target! To put a long story short. He shots the guy because he doesnt know where Miles learnt music.

You will have to agree this part is indeed ingeniously conceived. Moreover, it is not something that is staple in Hollywood culture: if this is Tarantino, then it is understandable. Because the Miles Davis story is really very engaging. Both parties played their role so convincingly that you are starting to forget about the job.

Anyway, now the audience’s appetite has been whetted, it is no longer easy to satisfy them with any easy killing. So we are taken to the exact opposite: go to the hospital and pay a visit to your mom. And don’t forget to bring the flowers. The importance, or function, of this section is not to be underestimated. It does not contribute to the main action. But it is indispensible in the construction of characters. You never get to know a person until you meet his mom, right? No matter how cool he is in front of everybody, he just can’t be the same in front of his own mom.

In order to connect the causality (I would not care much if it is completely broken, but let’s us not forget we are in Hollywood), Max destroyes the suitcase, namely, customer information. Vincent is thus clueless to what is his next target. There is actually two holes here. For one thing, a killer always memorizes his targets without the need to consult a list at the last minute, like a cableman. Besides, he has to choose a best route among them in order to carry it out with utmost efficiency. Second, Max picked Vincent up at the same building where Annie works. What is he doing there if he is not doing some location surveying for his last victim?

But let us believe that they have to retrieve the information. In order to do this they have to go to Felix, the big boss behind all this. It is here that our timid escapist friend Max is gathering up his manhood. Perhaps he saw too many dead bodies tonight to stay in a cowardhood. Meanwhile, we become aware that FBI is closely watching the case. And we have detective Fanning hounding down from the first and second locations. It seems that all parallel lines are converging to a point. And they are going to converg at the Fever club, where the fourth guy is.

Now the big action with lots of helicopters is taking place. In a crowded place, different gangs are competing for their speed to locate the target. Vincent is the winner. He has to be. Otherwise what about the fifth victim? But Max is manly enough to confront him. He is no longer dominated by Vincent and out of nowhere he gathered the courage to fight him. Nowhere? But...yes, love. Because American people would glad to believe that in order to save girlfriend’s (or potential girlfriend) life a man is capable of anything. There is nothing more to say. The film is finished for me at this point. Despite the fact that Vincent ‘do this for a living’, he is killed in a High-Noon fashion gun fight and becomes himself a body on the metro. Max and his girl walk to the horizon, traumatized but live happily thereafter.

Art School Confidential or How to get into the dispute of artistic value

Art School Confidential is a rare film where the confusions around artistic value are depicted. Yes, modern art is not merely a tolerant attitude shown by museum curators, who kindly allocate some of their precious space for the works from Mondrian to Pollack : artistic value, at least in New York City, has become the foremost issue for our art students. When they enter into Stratmore, what are they supposed to learn from their professors?

In the good old days, this value is never a subject for open discussion. Value equals beauty and beauty demands properly applied techniques and hard working (added up in due time something called ‘personal vision’). It is a student’s task to get familliar with those rather ‘technical’ aspects of fine art and these techniques are taught in seperated disciplines : drawing, painting, sculpture and so on. Now the question is : if art is no longer ‘about composition and color’, but about ‘express with maximum freedom your true nature’ (say, for example, an assholian nature), do they still need to attend an art school in order to learn art? The answer propagandized by the film is a seeming ‘no’. For if it is true that most of the professors teach because they need a health insurance, if after twenty years of experience the only thing they learn to draw is triangles, if a cop who never gets more than Cs can paint all of a sudden with ideologically well-received paintings, if revealing the process of art is indeed a sufficient reason to justify the existence of a bad work, what is there to learn, after all, in an art school? You might as well invest the hard earned money of your parents in some more fruitful undertakings.

But if some of these issues exposed by this film are true, no meaningful alternatives are provided (if sucking and licking certain parts of human body do not count). The author of this film (if there is any), it seems to me, have adopted too easily (with an American businessman’s efficiency) a nihilist point of view. Modern art IS about the freedom of form and it IS about the process and ideology behind artistic creation, but it is never about nihilism. The confusions experienced by art students are understandable because unlike their ancesters, they face a crossroad where doctrines (good and bad) have been wiped off, road signs (right or wrong) have been uprooted. It is totally up to yourself to discover your own method and direction. But there is no reason to panic so soon. Directions will show up again, with techniques and hard working.

Another important issue brought up by the film is : can an artist exists all by himself? Probably not. Art seems to be a pursuit of beauty (or anything else at all), but in reality this endeavor is often mixed indiscernibly with all sorts of other less prestigious motivations : be famous, with all its derivative advantages (wealth and female admiration), and be great, if possible.

Out of pure fear that all these are not entertaining enough, that the abstract confusion of artistic value alone is not enough material for a watchable film, the plot gets disrupted by this cliché film student and his hectic project (sponsored generously by grandpa, for the love of gun fights) of ongoing campus murders. The one who had commited them, on the other hand, claimed to have paid a ‘humble tribune to the great murderer’ by making a serie of portraits of the victims. A typical case of schizophrenia, no doubt. What is interesting here is that those moments of uncontrollable killing impulses have been described as ‘enlightenments’ which sort of ‘redeem’ the impotency caused by artistic failure, that true crime (with murder ranking high above) is a sort of behavior art (an idea that has become, in the course of years, more and more popular), that paintings inspired, driven by these moments are powerful thus valuable.

Or if they still do not possess a recognizable value, then exposure certain does. Maybe we should cry this credo out really loud : don’t doubt your work, if its value is not recognized, it is simply not exposed enough. Once turned into a celebrity, our protagonist no longer needs to worry about anything about art– as long as his painting sell.

Chantal Ackerman : classe de maître

The so-called master class is conducted by someone who claimed quite frankly to have neither enough experience nor enough interest to teach. Like many female filmmakers, Ackerman is hostile to anything related to technology and she does not try to hide the fact that she is in fact proud of the fact. This is a truth probably never realized by many. Since in film school the technology is already a more substantial teaching material than the others. If we do not rely on technology to make films, then what do we have?

The initiation of Ackerman, as well as her personality, are revealing in this aspect. The very first film that struke her is Pierre le Fou. Before that experience all her interest is in literature (and that is the reason that nearly all her films are heavily charged with words). Then what is in the film that struke her? The expression of freedom of adolescents, said her. The crazy carefreeness, the obsession with the book, the most unimaginable adventurous self-destructive impulse, I think. And the reason is simple. She experienced more or less the same thing at the moment. And this is made evident by her first short film, Saute ma ville, made three years after. There is this energetic fat girl (played by a 18 years old Ackerman) who imagines, after having done all sorts of nonsense things in the kitchen, that she could blow up the city by lighting her gas stove.

Ivone Margulies summarizes this beautifully:

The idea of explosion that fuels Saute Ma Ville seems borrowed from the general mood of unrestrained, unbounded energy in Pierre le fou, a film of anarchic force which at its limit makes it impossible to distinguish despair from gaiety, tragedy from visual effect. Akerman share s this sense of unassimilated energy with Godard, and it reappears throughout her work (Nothing happens, 2-3).

In this 11 minute episode there are already several things made clear. First, Ackerman is not afraid to expose herself in front of the camera. As a matter of fact, she pretty enjoyed it, not the way an actress enjoy being looked at, but to a certain unclaimed purpose, for example, to alleviate the craziness, to emancipate herself from some unbearable weightiness. 30 years later, in Chantal Ackerman par Chantal Ackerman, her chapter in a French TV program Cinéma de notre temps, she did not hesitate to have close-ups of her face, which is not really very good to look at.

This of course can be explained by her overt self-centeredness. She does not wait to let you finish your sentence. As soon as she has something to say, she must say it right now. And she is going to overwhelm you anyway by the raised volume of her voice. I am sure there are people who not only do not find it irritating but also accept it as the only form of charisma. Or maybe a woman has to overdo the aggressive part in order to survive in a world dominated by men? But what a difference she makes in comparison to Agnès Varda!

Duras reportage III

Like many others, Duras became obsessed with her own voice, which is indeed, I admit, very enchanting. The method we have identified above, to narrate a text accompanied by images (mostly empty scenes) has become The Method for Duras. Her following films never divert enough from this approach. Césarée (78) is a short film shot in a plaza where statues are surrounded by scaffold. The sequences are regularly interrupted by black screens. Les Mains Négatives (78) is a short excursion of disordered Parisien streets in the early morning. Aurélia Steiner (Vancouver & Melbourne) (79) are two episodes shot respectively at seaside incognito and along the Seine. I have yet to find out what is Vancouver and Melbourne has to do with it. But like she herself claimed often in those texts : indifférent. And that is the way I look at these films, or should I say, the way they forced me to look at them. The stories – either there are many or only one – do not interest me anymore. That is her story. I do not have to take them as my own. As I was watching Le Navire Night (79), Agatha et Les Lectures illimitées (81), I no longer cared about what she and the other male voices (Benoît Jacquot in the first case and Yann Andréa in the second) were saying. They are just syllables haunting over the images, the exact meaning of which is unknowable.

Somehow, Agatha et Les Lectures illimitées reminds me of Prénom : Carmen. The empty house near the beach and the man and woman standing there bear some similarity of that of Godard. Of course, there is nothing hectic in Duras’ film.

These two films use two actrices : Bulle Ogier and Dominique Sanda. The former is remembered for her appearance in Barbet Schroeder’s Maîtresse (76) and the latter, for her début ten years ago, Une Femme Douce and later two Bertulucci films. As for the actors, Mathieu Carrière the handsome guy appeared already in India Song. The reason I am mentioning this trivality is that in the film we really get a close look at them. There are three sequences showing that the makeup man at work, doing their faces one by one. Enjoy the scene if you are interested in this matter. But don’t ask me what is the significance – I don’t know. The last actor, Yann Andréa, remained still more or less in the shadow in Agatha, and only jumped to the front of the camera later, in L’homme Atlantique (81). It is to my understanding that the scanty scenes offered in this latter film are sort of taken-outs of Agatha, made in the same year. Now Yann’s screen looks certainly is different in many ways to those three professionals. I wouldn’t say inferior, but it is definitely too personal. And the way Duras choose to do it is, at least for me, too indulging and disgusting. Besides, she became really obsessed with her own voice that she deemed it sufficient to make a film out of it. The last twenty minutes of L’homme Atlantique is all black.

Duras reportage II

As I mentioned earlier, Son Nom de Venise dans Calcutta Désert is developped out of the same soundtrack featured by India Song. This practice arises several interesting observations. Normally we are so used to the fact that images and sound are always provided together we no longer remember that they are actually seperate techniques – recorded often seperately and manipulated definitely seperately. We must recollect that in the advent of sound film how those silent film theorists (Arnheim in particular ) were so worried about sound detroying the unique aesthetics of film as an art. As a compromise, Eisenstein and his collegues Pudovkin and Alexandrov pointed out in their 1928 ‘statement’ that sound could be an artistic potentiality if it is used contrapuntally. But even Eisenstein wouldn’t have thought about constructing images out of sound. Higher priority of visual information is taken for granted for him. In his cooperation with Prokofiev, it is Prokofiev who has to follow his prints. Nevertheless, if this is all about music, things could be easier. A dance music can be accompanied diegetically by a dance sequence, as we see in India Song, or non-diegetically, as we see in Son Nom. But what about dialogue and voice-over? And this is where things are really getting contrapuntal. For example, the dialogue between the Delphine Seyrig character and the ‘jeune attaché’, or that with the vice-consul, are diegetic in India Song. What does it feel like to have them as non-diegetic sources? They become voice-over. Curiously, this kind of voice-over is unlike the usual ones we are quite familiar with, which serves more or less a narrative function. Now they are non-narrative – they are leading nowhere, just like the images. As for those which are already voice-over, the role doesn’t change. For example : in the opening sequence of India Song, the images are that of a sunrise. And the sound track consists of a woman’s voice (in Vietnamese or Laotian) and later two women’s account (in French) of this mendicant’s long jouney. It is perfectly understandable that the visual and the aural are not necessarily dependent on each other. It could be substituted with a close pan across the terracotta floor tiles, as we see in Son Nom, or with anything else – imagine the Great Wall of China or African children playing. It really doesn’t matter, since no matter what we put on the screen, the brain will always be able to associate them with the sound and derive out of them some significance.

We see that by depriving all formerly diegetic sounds of their visual source, the sound track is indeed getting more independent, or should I say, contrapuntal. If the bulk of films today do not concern themselves with accomplishing this function, the Duras films, especially this one, can be indeed regarded as the other extreme. Duras is not cinematically experienced. That is probably why she is always able to offer a fresh view regardless of the conventions. It is not that nobody agrees that contrapuntal sound is an artistic possibility. It is just that they know, unconsciously maybe, that such a composition is too intellectually demanding. There is simply too much for the brain to do all this simultaneously and continuously : to decipher the image, to decipher the sound, and to associate them. Thus they tend to weaken the part played by the sound by two ways : to illustrate or confirm; to give the mood – in either case we don’t have to listen carefully.

Duras, on the other hand, tends to downplay the visual. And Le Camion (77) is a good example of it. As a matter of fact, this is probably the best example I can think of. A friend of mine told me that the only way he can enjoy this film is to close his eyes and listen. Because the author insists on our ability to imagine things by asking ‘Vous voyez?’. And she has absolutely no intention to corroborate our imagination with her own. The images presented – devastated landscape mostly, in addition to Duras and Depardieu sitting around the table reading – are like the soundtrack : they are just cues to the real images she prepared us to see. She affirms in the begining of it that ‘oui, c’est un film’ because she sees the possibility (from the experience of Son Nom de Venise) of not telling, but implying a story by the images. And this is something new. It is the extreme opposite of classical narration.