影業
膠片已死？電影永生
, 聯合報道 2012年09月24日
Weinstein Company
傑昆·菲尼克斯與菲利普·塞默·霍夫曼在電影《大師》中，影片拍攝於70毫米膠片上。
電影肇始之時，是一道光束投向攝影機內傳動着的柔軟膠片。在電影史的大部分時間裡，畫面
就這麼動起來的：從人和物上反射而來的光，經過攝影機的過濾，對感光劑進行物理性的改變。在經過這麼一段反應過程後，被光親吻過的感光劑會在微弱的黑白光
影中顯現正在爭奪馬耳他之鷹的亨弗萊·鮑嘉。
然而，越來越多的電影開始部分或全部通過電腦進行數碼化製作，最後存在硬盤裡，送到你家附近的影院，或者傳輸到你指定的大小屏幕上。你現在看到的是 一場電影革命，其影響之深遠，堪比當年有聲片、彩色片以及電視的問世。無論這些改變是不知不覺還是顯而易見，數碼技術都已經給我們看電影的方式以及電影本 身帶來了變化，從用數碼相機拍攝的低成本電影，到滿是電腦生成畫面的豪華大片，無不是這場革命的產物。《紐約時報》首席電影評論人曼諾拉·達吉斯 (Manohla Dargis)和A·O·斯科特(A. O. Scott)，對這個越來越重要的造夢工具做出了自己的觀察。
A·O·斯科特
：在戈達爾的1986年作品《導演的堅持》里，一位電影導演（由戈達爾先生本人飾演）表示：“拍電影最難的地方，就是扛盒子了。”那些人們曾經習以為常、
如今漸漸被當成古董的金屬盒子是用來放置已經曝光過的膠片的——膠片是這種藝術形式的實體存在。然而在現今的數碼電影里，帶着硬盤到處走，或者把數據上傳
到服務器，恐怕是再容易不過的事情了。那些笨重的膠片盒，屬於機械化的過去，它跟放映機的嗡鳴、輸片齒輪的震顫一起封存了起來。
我們是該哀嘆、慶賀還是無所謂呢？前數碼時代的玩意——打字機和唱片機，也許還可以算上書本和報紙——往往是漂亮的，但它們的魅力不足以扭轉被淘汰 的命運。而無論是對藝術家還是消費者，新玩具都有其誘人之處。主流製造商正在逐步停止35毫米攝影機的生產。接下來幾年裡，數字放映機不但會在大型影院普 及，還會進入老片和藝術片院線。目前正在形成一種共識是，膠片的日子已經到頭了。如果真是這樣，導演還可以叫“電影攝製者”(filmmaker)嗎？或者這個頭銜是不是該留給那些堅守傳統的人，比如在新片《大師》(The Master) 中使用70毫米膠片拍攝的保羅·托馬斯·安德森(Paul Thomas Anderson)？他們的盒子里是不是真卷着一盤盤膠片，這不關我們的事；我們的文章是關於膠片上記錄著的故事和畫面的。然而，從光化到數字，並非只是 技術或語義上的轉變。一系列巨大的變革正在發生。
曼諾拉·達吉斯 ：膠片還沒死呢，雖然有人急着要把它埋葬，尤其是大製片廠。膠片沒有必要消失。膠片沒有完蛋——它非常好用，一百多年來一直很好用。數字技術和工具正在改 變電影，但無論它們多麼誘人，都不至於讓膠片的退出成為必然或自然的事。16毫米攝影機很酷。35毫米膠片的畫面讓人嘆為觀止。在有關膠片終結的討論中充 斥着一種缺乏依據的技術決定論，同時也掩蓋了一個事實：這種材料之所以正在被淘汰，並非因為數字技術更優越，而是這種轉換對成本控制更有利。
膠片的終結不單純是個技術上的必然；還有經濟上的考量（包括數字版權管理）。 2002年，七家大製片廠聯手成立了數字電影倡導組織(Digital Cinema Initiatives)——其中一家後來退出了，該組織的使命是“建立和記錄數字電影開放式體系結構的推薦規範，確保統一的、高水準的技術性能、穩定性 和質量控制”。這個組織成功地制定了一套技術參數，要求所有打算和製片廠合作的人——從軟件開發者到硬件製造商——必須遵守。正如理論家戴維·博德維爾(David Bordwell)所說，“影院從35毫米膠片到數字格式的轉制，是針對一個需要大量輸出、飽和覆蓋、迅速周轉的行業設計的。”他進一步提到：“在這種震懾戰式的商業策略下，把電影放在膠片里似乎是一種浪費。”
斯科特： 我來做一次魔鬼代言人吧，不過希望不要把我當成好萊塢片廠財團利益的代言人。如果說影院向數字放映的轉型受到了一股自上而下的資本力量驅使，那麼與此同時也有一股自下而上的潮流在推動數字電影的崛起。
從古到今，藝術家都是根據他們的目的來選擇任何可能的工具的，他們會把新技術應用到他們自己的創作中。藝術評論家詹姆斯·厄爾金斯(James Elkins)在《繪畫是什麼》(What Painting Is)一書中指出，繪畫史在一定程度上就是顏料化學成分變化的歷史。電影的藝術革新往往是存在一個技術性因素的，這一點不需決定論者多言。我們看到《公民 凱恩》中那些震撼的深焦構圖，是跟新型鏡頭有關的，但攝影師格雷格·托爾蘭德(Gregg Toland)的才華是不言而喻的。1950年代末出現了重量相對比較輕的肩扛式攝影機，真實電影(cinéma vérité)的紀錄者和新浪潮的電影作者們才有機會捕捉到生活的實感。
在成為一個可靠的影院放映系統之前，數字技術在熱愛冒險的和沒什麼錢的電影人心目中早就已經是誘人的玩具了。只需要提一個名字：安東尼·多德·曼特 爾(Anthony Dod Mantle)，此人的許多Dogma 95片以及丹尼·博伊爾(Danny Boyle)的殭屍驚悚片《驚變28天》(28 Days Later)，在數字媒材的局限中找到了詩意。只要方法得當，那種髒亂、模糊的色彩也是可以勾魂攝魄的，更小、更輕的攝影機可以帶來一種令人眩暈、震顫的 親密感。
圖像質量的改進很迅速，過去十年里電影人在探索和發掘數字電影的美學優勢，已經拿出不少動人的典範。亞歷山大·索庫羅夫(Alexander Sokurov)的《俄羅斯方舟》用“斯坦尼康 ”在冬宮博物館內拍攝了一個90分鐘長的單鏡頭，是數字技法的代表作。此外還有邁克爾·曼(Michael Mann)的《借刀殺人》(Collateral)中那段洛杉磯夜景，以及史蒂芬·索德伯格(Steven Soderbergh)的《切》(Che)中的山區游擊戰場——後者的拍攝完全倚靠輕盈、機動且相對廉價的Red攝影機。
與此同時，數字特效的崛起並不僅限於《雲圖》(Cloud Atlas)和《少年Pi的奇幻漂流》(Life of Pi)那些幻異的場面，強調自然主義手法的電影同樣會用到它。在我看來，本年度最神奇的數字魔術可能是雅克·歐迪亞(Jacques Audiard)在《銹與骨》(Rust and Bone)中把瑪麗昂·歌迪亞(Marion Cotillard)的腿抹掉——包括一些她身穿泳衣或者什麼都沒穿的場景。大大小小的電影藝術家都在轉向迅捷、輕便和廉價的數字技術，它能降低工藝和設 備成本，簡化剪輯流程，而消費者是擋不住便利性的誘惑的，哪怕有時候——不一定每次——要犧牲質量。
我愛膠片的顆粒和光澤，它的色彩和色調範圍至今仍是數字電影無法比擬的。用一台音質卓越、燈泡光能強勁的放映機，把一部乾淨的洗印片投射到大銀幕 上，還有什麼比這更讓人開心的呢？然而在現實中很少遇到這麼理想的狀況。我那痴迷於電影的青春期是老片中渡過的，這些片子的拷貝經過拼接，滿是刮痕，色彩 黯淡，聲軌也殘破，要麼就是錄像帶——另外還看了不少本地老片影院或錄像租賃店都沒有的東西。我是更希望去看TCM或標準收藏(Criterion Collection)提供高品質的數字片源的，還有近來（就在不久前）在紐約出現的電影論壇(Film Forum)這樣的老片影院。人到了一定年紀都一樣，對那些曾經的記憶，我也是格外珍視的，但同時我也認為在許多方面，今天的東西更好。
達吉斯 ：我們現在說的可不是某種材料的消失——油彩、水彩、丙烯或水粉——而是一種本體論和現象學意義上的深 刻轉變，是要改變一種媒介。你可以用油彩或水彩創作一幅畫。電影則不然，自誕生以來，電影在絕大多數時間裡都是通過攝影機中機械傳動的感光膠片（起初為賽 璐珞）進行拍攝的，膠片經過化學處理後變成洗印片，然後在發行商（和影院）的全權掌控下，用放映機在影院里為觀眾放映洗印片。柔軟的膠片、攝影機和放映機 一起成為現代電影的基礎：就是這部分把靜態的照片變成運動畫面的。在過去十年里，數字技術改變了電影的製作、發行和消費方式；膠片的終結只是一場大規模轉 型的一部分。
我不反對數字技術，不過我更喜歡膠片：我愛膠片的顆粒感和畫面的質感，只要不是太差勁，都會比數字片更有吸引力。是的，只要導演——我能想到的有索德伯格先生、曼先生、戈達爾先生、大衛·芬奇(David Fincher)和大衛·林奇(David Lynch)——和放映師是行家，數字片也可以很精彩（我遇到過多次數字放映的故障，比如畫面停住或出現鋸齒）。我討厭很多數字電影在視覺上有種不易察覺 的醜陋，包括有些會去模仿膠片的效果。由於成本壓縮，以及從業人員跟不上技術變化的腳步，我們已經淹沒在醜陋的數字片里（無論是用膠片還是數字技術拍攝， 狀態穩定的膠片始終是電影保存的首選媒材，數字技術的多變性就是導致落選的其中一個原因）。
那種單薄、畫面不幹凈、出現馬賽克或者輪廓突兀的電影，我們實在看了太多了，它們都沒有膠片的那種豐富的密度，色彩往往也不理想。我對灰不溜秋的膚 色已經煩透了。數字電影的影響還包括手持拍攝手法的大量使用，這一點至少在一定程度上是因為數字器材有相對較好的便攜性。與此同時，數字後期製作和剪輯還 導致疊畫(dissolve)的數量大幅提升。疊畫原本是在攝影機內進行的，或者用光學打印機，但現在你需要的只是一個剪輯軟件，點一下鼠標就完成了。這 改變了鏡頭的完整性，同時也改變了蒙太奇——用愛森斯坦的話說，蒙太奇就是鏡頭與鏡頭的碰撞。在導演的敘事方面基本上還是一成不變（這真是不理想），不過 現有的改變已經夠劇烈的了。
斯科特： 數字技術已經形成了新的視覺陳規，新方法來拍出的電影感覺不高級，這一點我同意。但是大爛片任何時候都會有，多數的電影人（和多數的音樂家、藝術家、作家 以及其他任何一種“家”一樣）會用最新的技術去實現一如既往的平庸，這一點是亘古不變的。然而，有那麼一些人發掘出了新的美學可能性，推動這個年輕的藝術 形式向前走。
這裡有一個有趣的哲學命題：這種藝術形式是否——或者說在多大程度上——還是原來的那個形式？用數字技術製作和發行的電影敘事，是否會大幅偏離我們 原本熟知的“電影”，以至於看不出兩者之間存在任何親緣關係？這種新型的數字電影是會把舊電影徹底吞沒，還是繼續保持兩者的共存？雖然變革已經很劇烈，我 們在相當程度上還是處在一種初級階段。
達吉斯 ：電影的歷史，就是一部技術革新和風格變換的歷史。新設備和敘事技巧的引入，改變電影的視覺和聽覺效果，從而激發進一步的變革。把膠片淘汰出去，是否會對電影本身帶來改變？我們不知道。從電影自身的前後差異看，也許1938年的那次轉變要更劇烈，也就是從派拉蒙公司決定投資一家開風氣之先的電視公司那一刻開始。到1950年代末，在電視上看好萊塢電影對美國人已經是家常便飯。他們已經習慣了電視的便利——家用錄像那幾十年未曾改善的爛畫質證明了這一點——這種便利變得越來越重要，已經超越了畫面尺寸或其他任何一種特性。
在這個基礎上，現在的變革只是一次技術性的跳躍，直接跳到用一台iPad看 電影。這當然是很方便，但跟去影院看電影是兩碼事，在那裡你是作為一名觀眾坐在一部由人手製造出的、釋放着光芒的宏大作品前。有一個問題可以說是從有電影 開始就一直在問的：什麼是電影？“影像不過就是被攝物體發出的光，”哲學家羅蘭·巴特(Roland Barthes)寫道。“那裡的一具真實的軀體，放射出能量，最終觸及這裡的我。”電影影像是光的造物，是某種在真實的時空中存在——既存——的東西留下 的物質痕迹。通過這樣的方式，電影成為我們的存在的見證。
我再一次從偉大的肯·雅克布斯(Ken Jacobs)那裡學到一個道理，這個用快門、鏡頭、陰影和自己的雙手創作運動影像的先鋒藝術家告訴我們，電影不一定是膠片；但一定是魔法。
然而，越來越多的電影開始部分或全部通過電腦進行數碼化製作，最後存在硬盤裡，送到你家附近的影院，或者傳輸到你指定的大小屏幕上。你現在看到的是 一場電影革命，其影響之深遠，堪比當年有聲片、彩色片以及電視的問世。無論這些改變是不知不覺還是顯而易見，數碼技術都已經給我們看電影的方式以及電影本 身帶來了變化，從用數碼相機拍攝的低成本電影，到滿是電腦生成畫面的豪華大片，無不是這場革命的產物。《紐約時報》首席電影評論人曼諾拉·達吉斯 (Manohla Dargis)和A·O·斯科特(A. O. Scott)，對這個越來越重要的造夢工具做出了自己的觀察。
Wellspring/Photofest
亞歷山大·索庫羅夫的《俄羅斯方舟》用「斯坦尼康 」拍攝了一個90分鐘長的單鏡頭，該片由塞爾蓋·德雷登主演。
相關文章
我們是該哀嘆、慶賀還是無所謂呢？前數碼時代的玩意——打字機和唱片機，也許還可以算上書本和報紙——往往是漂亮的，但它們的魅力不足以扭轉被淘汰 的命運。而無論是對藝術家還是消費者，新玩具都有其誘人之處。主流製造商正在逐步停止35毫米攝影機的生產。接下來幾年裡，數字放映機不但會在大型影院普 及，還會進入老片和藝術片院線。目前正在形成一種共識是，膠片的日子已經到頭了。如果真是這樣，導演還可以叫“電影攝製者”(filmmaker)嗎？或者這個頭銜是不是該留給那些堅守傳統的人，比如在新片《大師》(The Master) 中使用70毫米膠片拍攝的保羅·托馬斯·安德森(Paul Thomas Anderson)？他們的盒子里是不是真卷着一盤盤膠片，這不關我們的事；我們的文章是關於膠片上記錄著的故事和畫面的。然而，從光化到數字，並非只是 技術或語義上的轉變。一系列巨大的變革正在發生。
曼諾拉·達吉斯 ：膠片還沒死呢，雖然有人急着要把它埋葬，尤其是大製片廠。膠片沒有必要消失。膠片沒有完蛋——它非常好用，一百多年來一直很好用。數字技術和工具正在改 變電影，但無論它們多麼誘人，都不至於讓膠片的退出成為必然或自然的事。16毫米攝影機很酷。35毫米膠片的畫面讓人嘆為觀止。在有關膠片終結的討論中充 斥着一種缺乏依據的技術決定論，同時也掩蓋了一個事實：這種材料之所以正在被淘汰，並非因為數字技術更優越，而是這種轉換對成本控制更有利。
膠片的終結不單純是個技術上的必然；還有經濟上的考量（包括數字版權管理）。 2002年，七家大製片廠聯手成立了數字電影倡導組織(Digital Cinema Initiatives)——其中一家後來退出了，該組織的使命是“建立和記錄數字電影開放式體系結構的推薦規範，確保統一的、高水準的技術性能、穩定性 和質量控制”。這個組織成功地制定了一套技術參數，要求所有打算和製片廠合作的人——從軟件開發者到硬件製造商——必須遵守。正如理論家戴維·博德維爾(David Bordwell)所說，“影院從35毫米膠片到數字格式的轉制，是針對一個需要大量輸出、飽和覆蓋、迅速周轉的行業設計的。”他進一步提到：“在這種震懾戰式的商業策略下，把電影放在膠片里似乎是一種浪費。”
斯科特： 我來做一次魔鬼代言人吧，不過希望不要把我當成好萊塢片廠財團利益的代言人。如果說影院向數字放映的轉型受到了一股自上而下的資本力量驅使，那麼與此同時也有一股自下而上的潮流在推動數字電影的崛起。
從古到今，藝術家都是根據他們的目的來選擇任何可能的工具的，他們會把新技術應用到他們自己的創作中。藝術評論家詹姆斯·厄爾金斯(James Elkins)在《繪畫是什麼》(What Painting Is)一書中指出，繪畫史在一定程度上就是顏料化學成分變化的歷史。電影的藝術革新往往是存在一個技術性因素的，這一點不需決定論者多言。我們看到《公民 凱恩》中那些震撼的深焦構圖，是跟新型鏡頭有關的，但攝影師格雷格·托爾蘭德(Gregg Toland)的才華是不言而喻的。1950年代末出現了重量相對比較輕的肩扛式攝影機，真實電影(cinéma vérité)的紀錄者和新浪潮的電影作者們才有機會捕捉到生活的實感。
在成為一個可靠的影院放映系統之前，數字技術在熱愛冒險的和沒什麼錢的電影人心目中早就已經是誘人的玩具了。只需要提一個名字：安東尼·多德·曼特 爾(Anthony Dod Mantle)，此人的許多Dogma 95片以及丹尼·博伊爾(Danny Boyle)的殭屍驚悚片《驚變28天》(28 Days Later)，在數字媒材的局限中找到了詩意。只要方法得當，那種髒亂、模糊的色彩也是可以勾魂攝魄的，更小、更輕的攝影機可以帶來一種令人眩暈、震顫的 親密感。
圖像質量的改進很迅速，過去十年里電影人在探索和發掘數字電影的美學優勢，已經拿出不少動人的典範。亞歷山大·索庫羅夫(Alexander Sokurov)的《俄羅斯方舟》用“斯坦尼康 ”在冬宮博物館內拍攝了一個90分鐘長的單鏡頭，是數字技法的代表作。此外還有邁克爾·曼(Michael Mann)的《借刀殺人》(Collateral)中那段洛杉磯夜景，以及史蒂芬·索德伯格(Steven Soderbergh)的《切》(Che)中的山區游擊戰場——後者的拍攝完全倚靠輕盈、機動且相對廉價的Red攝影機。
與此同時，數字特效的崛起並不僅限於《雲圖》(Cloud Atlas)和《少年Pi的奇幻漂流》(Life of Pi)那些幻異的場面，強調自然主義手法的電影同樣會用到它。在我看來，本年度最神奇的數字魔術可能是雅克·歐迪亞(Jacques Audiard)在《銹與骨》(Rust and Bone)中把瑪麗昂·歌迪亞(Marion Cotillard)的腿抹掉——包括一些她身穿泳衣或者什麼都沒穿的場景。大大小小的電影藝術家都在轉向迅捷、輕便和廉價的數字技術，它能降低工藝和設 備成本，簡化剪輯流程，而消費者是擋不住便利性的誘惑的，哪怕有時候——不一定每次——要犧牲質量。
我愛膠片的顆粒和光澤，它的色彩和色調範圍至今仍是數字電影無法比擬的。用一台音質卓越、燈泡光能強勁的放映機，把一部乾淨的洗印片投射到大銀幕 上，還有什麼比這更讓人開心的呢？然而在現實中很少遇到這麼理想的狀況。我那痴迷於電影的青春期是老片中渡過的，這些片子的拷貝經過拼接，滿是刮痕，色彩 黯淡，聲軌也殘破，要麼就是錄像帶——另外還看了不少本地老片影院或錄像租賃店都沒有的東西。我是更希望去看TCM或標準收藏(Criterion Collection)提供高品質的數字片源的，還有近來（就在不久前）在紐約出現的電影論壇(Film Forum)這樣的老片影院。人到了一定年紀都一樣，對那些曾經的記憶，我也是格外珍視的，但同時我也認為在許多方面，今天的東西更好。
達吉斯 ：我們現在說的可不是某種材料的消失——油彩、水彩、丙烯或水粉——而是一種本體論和現象學意義上的深 刻轉變，是要改變一種媒介。你可以用油彩或水彩創作一幅畫。電影則不然，自誕生以來，電影在絕大多數時間裡都是通過攝影機中機械傳動的感光膠片（起初為賽 璐珞）進行拍攝的，膠片經過化學處理後變成洗印片，然後在發行商（和影院）的全權掌控下，用放映機在影院里為觀眾放映洗印片。柔軟的膠片、攝影機和放映機 一起成為現代電影的基礎：就是這部分把靜態的照片變成運動畫面的。在過去十年里，數字技術改變了電影的製作、發行和消費方式；膠片的終結只是一場大規模轉 型的一部分。
我不反對數字技術，不過我更喜歡膠片：我愛膠片的顆粒感和畫面的質感，只要不是太差勁，都會比數字片更有吸引力。是的，只要導演——我能想到的有索德伯格先生、曼先生、戈達爾先生、大衛·芬奇(David Fincher)和大衛·林奇(David Lynch)——和放映師是行家，數字片也可以很精彩（我遇到過多次數字放映的故障，比如畫面停住或出現鋸齒）。我討厭很多數字電影在視覺上有種不易察覺 的醜陋，包括有些會去模仿膠片的效果。由於成本壓縮，以及從業人員跟不上技術變化的腳步，我們已經淹沒在醜陋的數字片里（無論是用膠片還是數字技術拍攝， 狀態穩定的膠片始終是電影保存的首選媒材，數字技術的多變性就是導致落選的其中一個原因）。
那種單薄、畫面不幹凈、出現馬賽克或者輪廓突兀的電影，我們實在看了太多了，它們都沒有膠片的那種豐富的密度，色彩往往也不理想。我對灰不溜秋的膚 色已經煩透了。數字電影的影響還包括手持拍攝手法的大量使用，這一點至少在一定程度上是因為數字器材有相對較好的便攜性。與此同時，數字後期製作和剪輯還 導致疊畫(dissolve)的數量大幅提升。疊畫原本是在攝影機內進行的，或者用光學打印機，但現在你需要的只是一個剪輯軟件，點一下鼠標就完成了。這 改變了鏡頭的完整性，同時也改變了蒙太奇——用愛森斯坦的話說，蒙太奇就是鏡頭與鏡頭的碰撞。在導演的敘事方面基本上還是一成不變（這真是不理想），不過 現有的改變已經夠劇烈的了。
斯科特： 數字技術已經形成了新的視覺陳規，新方法來拍出的電影感覺不高級，這一點我同意。但是大爛片任何時候都會有，多數的電影人（和多數的音樂家、藝術家、作家 以及其他任何一種“家”一樣）會用最新的技術去實現一如既往的平庸，這一點是亘古不變的。然而，有那麼一些人發掘出了新的美學可能性，推動這個年輕的藝術 形式向前走。
這裡有一個有趣的哲學命題：這種藝術形式是否——或者說在多大程度上——還是原來的那個形式？用數字技術製作和發行的電影敘事，是否會大幅偏離我們 原本熟知的“電影”，以至於看不出兩者之間存在任何親緣關係？這種新型的數字電影是會把舊電影徹底吞沒，還是繼續保持兩者的共存？雖然變革已經很劇烈，我 們在相當程度上還是處在一種初級階段。
達吉斯 ：電影的歷史，就是一部技術革新和風格變換的歷史。新設備和敘事技巧的引入，改變電影的視覺和聽覺效果，從而激發進一步的變革。把膠片淘汰出去，是否會對電影本身帶來改變？我們不知道。從電影自身的前後差異看，也許1938年的那次轉變要更劇烈，也就是從派拉蒙公司決定投資一家開風氣之先的電視公司那一刻開始。到1950年代末，在電視上看好萊塢電影對美國人已經是家常便飯。他們已經習慣了電視的便利——家用錄像那幾十年未曾改善的爛畫質證明了這一點——這種便利變得越來越重要，已經超越了畫面尺寸或其他任何一種特性。
在這個基礎上，現在的變革只是一次技術性的跳躍，直接跳到用一台iPad看 電影。這當然是很方便，但跟去影院看電影是兩碼事，在那裡你是作為一名觀眾坐在一部由人手製造出的、釋放着光芒的宏大作品前。有一個問題可以說是從有電影 開始就一直在問的：什麼是電影？“影像不過就是被攝物體發出的光，”哲學家羅蘭·巴特(Roland Barthes)寫道。“那裡的一具真實的軀體，放射出能量，最終觸及這裡的我。”電影影像是光的造物，是某種在真實的時空中存在——既存——的東西留下 的物質痕迹。通過這樣的方式，電影成為我們的存在的見證。
我再一次從偉大的肯·雅克布斯(Ken Jacobs)那裡學到一個道理，這個用快門、鏡頭、陰影和自己的雙手創作運動影像的先鋒藝術家告訴我們，電影不一定是膠片；但一定是魔法。
本文最初發表於2012年9月6日。
翻譯：經雷
翻譯：經雷
The New Season
Film Is Dead? Long Live Movies
September 24, 2012
Weinstein Company
“The Master,” with Joaquin Phoenix, and Philip Seymour Hoffman, was shot in 70 millimeter.
IN the beginning there was light that hit
a strip of flexible film mechanically running through a camera. For
most of movie history this is how moving pictures were created: light
reflected off people and things would filter through a camera and
physically transform emulsion. After processing, that light-kissed
emulsion would reveal Humphrey Bogart chasing the Maltese Falcon in
shimmering black and white.
More and more, though, movies are either partly or entirely digital constructions that are created with computers and eventually retrieved from drives at your local multiplex or streamed to the large and small screens of your choice. Right before our eyes, motion pictures are undergoing a revolution that may have more far reaching, fundamental impact than the introduction of sound, color or television. Whether these changes are scarcely visible or overwhelmingly obvious, digital technology is transforming how we look at movies and what movies look like, from modestly budgeted movies shot with digital still cameras to blockbusters laden with computer-generated imagery. The chief film (and digital cinema) critics of The New York Times, Manohla Dargis and A. O. Scott, look at the stuff dreams are increasingly made of.
A. O. SCOTT In Jean-Luc Godard’s 1986 movie “Keep Up Your Right”
a movie director (played by Mr. Godard) declares that “the toughest
thing in movies is carrying the cans.” Those once-ubiquitous, now
increasingly quaint metal boxes contained the reels of exposed celluloid
stock that were the physical substance of the art form. But nowadays
the easiest thing in digital movies might be carrying the hard drive or
uploading the data onto the server. Those heavy, bulky canisters belong
to the mechanical past, along with the whir of the projectors and the
shudder of the sprockets locking into their holes.
Should we mourn, celebrate or shrug? Predigital artifacts — typewriters and record players, maybe also books and newspapers — are often beautiful, but their charm will not save them from obsolescence. And the new gizmos have their own appeal, to artists as well as consumers. Leading manufacturers are phasing out the production of 35-millimeter cameras. Within the next few years digital projection will reign not only at the multiplexes, but at revival and art houses too. According to an emerging conventional wisdom, film is over. If that is the case, can directors still be called filmmakers? Or will that title be reserved for a few holdouts, like Paul Thomas Anderson, whose new film, “The Master,” was shot in 70 millimeter? It’s not as if our job has ever been to review the coils of celluloid nestled in their cans; we write about the stories and the pictures recorded on that stock. But the shift from photochemical to digital is not simply technical or semantic. Something very big is going on.
MANOHLA DARGIS Film isn’t dead yet, despite the rush to bury it, particularly by the big studios. Film does not have to disappear. Film isn’t broken — it works wonderfully well and has done so for a century. There is nothing inevitable or natural about the end of film, no matter how seductive the digital technologies and gadgets that are transforming cinema. A 16-millimeter film camera is plenty cool. A 35-millimeter film image can look sublime. There’s an underexamined technological determinism that shapes discussions about the end of film and obscures that the material is being phased out not because digital is superior, but because this transition suits the bottom line.
The end of film isn’t a just a technological imperative; it’s also about economics (including digital rights management). In 2002 seven major studios formed the Digital Cinema Initiatives (one later dropped out), the purpose of which was “to establish and document voluntary specifications for an open architecture for digital cinema that ensures a uniform and high level of technical performance, reliability and quality control.” What these initiatives effectively did was outline the technological parameters that everyone who wants to do business with the studios — from software developers to hardware manufacturers — must follow. As the theorist David Bordwell writes, “Theaters’ conversion from 35-millemeter film to digital presentation was designed by and for an industry that deals in mass output, saturation releases and quick turnover.” He adds, “Given this shock-and-awe business plan, movies on film stock look wasteful.”
SCOTT Let me play devil’s advocate, though I hope that doesn’t make me an advocate for the corporate interests of the Hollywood studios. If there is a top-down capitalist imperative governing the shift to digital exhibition in theaters, there is at the same time a bottom-up tendency driving the emergence of digital filmmaking.
Throughout history artists have used whatever tools served their purposes and have adapted new technologies to their own creative ends. The history of painting, as the art critic James Elkins suggests in his book “What Painting Is,” is in part a history of the changing chemical composition of paint. It does not take a determinist to point out that artistic innovations in cinema often have a technological component. It takes nothing away from the genius of Gregg Toland, the cinematographer on “Citizen Kane,” to note that the astonishing deep-focus compositions in that film were made possible by new lenses. And the arrival of relatively lightweight, shoulder-mounted cameras in the late 1950s made it possible for cinéma vérité documentarians and New Wave auteurs to capture the immediacy of life on the fly.
Long before digital seemed like a viable delivery system for theatrical exhibition, it was an alluring paintbox for adventurous and impecunious cinéastes. To name just one: Anthony Dod Mantle, who shot many of the Dogma 95 movies and Danny Boyle’s zombie shocker “28 Days Later,” found poetry in the limitations of the medium. In the right hands, its smeary, blurry colors could be haunting, and the smaller, lighter cameras could produce a mood of queasy, jolting intimacy.
Image quality improved rapidly, and the last decade has seen some striking examples of filmmakers exploring and exploiting digital to aesthetic advantage. The single 90-minute Steadicam shot through the Hermitage Museum that makes up Alexander Sokurov’s “Russian Ark” is a specifically digital artifact. So is the Los Angeles nightscape in Michael Mann’s “Collateral” and the rugged guerrilla battlefield of Steven Soderbergh’s “Che,” a movie that would not exist without the light, mobile and relatively inexpensive Red camera.
Digital special effects, meanwhile, are turning up this season not only in phantasmagorical places like “Cloud Atlas” and “Life of Pi,” but also in movies that emphasize naturalism. To my eyes the most amazing bit of digital magic this year is probably the removal of Marion Cotillard’s legs — including in scenes in which she wears a bathing suit or nothing at all — in Jacques Audiard’s gritty “Rust and Bone.” While movie artists of various stripes gravitate toward the speed, portability and cheapness of digital, which offers lower processing and equipment costs and less cumbersome editing procedures, consumers, for their part, are suckers for convenience, sometimes — but not always — at the expense of quality.
I love the grain and luster of film, which has a range of colors and tones as yet unmatched by digital. There is nothing better than seeing a clean print projected on a big screen, with good sound and a strong enough bulb in the projector. But reality has rarely lived up to that ideal. I spent my cinephile adolescence watching classic movies on spliced, scratched, faded prints with blown-out soundtracks, or else on VHS — and also not seeing lots of stuff that bypassed the local repertory house or video store. I’d rather look at a high-quality digital transfers available on TCM or from the Criterion Collection, and more recently (very recently) at a revival theater like Film Forum in New York. Like anyone else of a certain age I have fond memories of the way things used to be, but I also think that in many respects the way things are is better.
DARGIS We’re not talking about the disappearance of one material — oil, watercolor, acrylic or gouache — we’re talking about deep ontological and phenomenological shifts that are transforming a medium. You can create a picture with oil paint or watercolor. For most of their history, by contrast, movies were only made from photographic film strips (originally celluloid) that mechanically ran through a camera, were chemically processed and made into film prints that were projected in theaters in front of audiences solely at the discretion of the distributors (and exhibitors). With cameras and projectors the flexible filmstrip was one foundation of modern cinema: it is part of what turned photograph images into moving photographic images. Over the past decade digital technologies have changed how movies are produced, distributed and consumed; the end of film stock is just one part of a much larger transformation.
I’m not antidigital, even if I prefer film: I love grain and the visual texture of film, and even not-too-battered film prints can be preferable to digital. Yes, digital can look amazing if the director — Mr. Soderbergh, Mr. Mann, Mr. Godard, David Fincher and David Lynch come to mind — and the projectionist have a clue. (I’ve seen plenty of glitches with digital projection, like the image freezing or pixelating.) I hate the unknowingly ugly visual quality of many digital movies, including those that try to mimic the look of film. We’re awash in ugly digital because of cost cutting and a steep learning curve made steeper by rapidly changing technologies. (The rapidity of those changes is one reason film, which is very stable, has become the preferred medium for archiving movies shot both on film and in digital.)
We’re seeing too many movies that look thin, smeared, pixelated or too sharply outlined and don’t have the luxurious density of film and often the color. I am sick of gray and putty skin tones. The effects of digital cinema can also be seen in the ubiquity of hand-held camerawork that’s at least partly a function of the equipment’s relative portability. Meanwhile digital postproduction and editing have led to a measurable increase in the number of dissolves. Dissolves used to be made inside the camera or with an optical printer, but today all you need is editing software and a click of the mouse. This is changing the integrity of the shot, and it’s also changing montage, which, in Eisenstein’s language, is a collision of shots. Much remains the same in how directors narrate stories (unfortunately!), yet these are major changes.
SCOTT I agree that digital has introduced new visual clichés and new ways for movies to look crummy. But there have always been a lot of dumb, bad-looking movies, and it’s a given that most filmmakers (like most musicians, artists, writers and humans in whatever line of work) will use emerging technologies to perpetuate mediocrity. A few, however, will discover fresh aesthetic possibilities and point the way forward for a young art form.
An interesting philosophical question is whether, or to what extent, it will be the same art form. Will digitally made and distributed moving-picture narratives diverge so radically from what we know as “films” that we no longer recognize a genetic relationship? Will the new digital cinema absorb its precursor entirely, or will they continue to coexist? As dramatic as this revolution has been, we are nonetheless still very much in the early stages.
DARGIS The history of cinema is also a history of technological innovations and stylistic variations. New equipment and narrative techniques are introduced that can transform the ways movies look and sound and can inspire further changes. Does taking film out of the moving image change what movies are? We don’t know. And it may be that the greater shift — in terms of what movies were and what they are — may have started in 1938, when Paramount Pictures invested in a pioneering television firm. By the late 1950s Americans were used to watching Hollywood movies on their TVs. They were already hooked on a convenience that — as decades of lousy-looking home video confirmed — has consistently mattered more to them than an image’s size or any of its other properties.
From there it’s just a technological hop, skip and jump to watching movies on an iPad. That’s convenient, certainly, but isn’t the same as going to a movie palace to watch, as an audience, a luminous, larger-than-life work that was made by human hands. To an extent we are asking the same question we’ve been asking since movies began: What is cinema? “The photograph is literally an emanation of the referent,” the philosopher Roland Barthes wrote. “From a real body, which was there, proceed radiations which ultimately touch me, who am here.” A film image is created by light that leaves a material trace of something that exists — existed — in real time and space. It’s in this sense that film becomes a witness to our existence.
Then again, I learned from the great avant-garde artist Ken Jacobs — who projects moving images that he creates with shutters, lenses, shadows and his hands — that cinema doesn’t have to be film; it has to be magic.
More and more, though, movies are either partly or entirely digital constructions that are created with computers and eventually retrieved from drives at your local multiplex or streamed to the large and small screens of your choice. Right before our eyes, motion pictures are undergoing a revolution that may have more far reaching, fundamental impact than the introduction of sound, color or television. Whether these changes are scarcely visible or overwhelmingly obvious, digital technology is transforming how we look at movies and what movies look like, from modestly budgeted movies shot with digital still cameras to blockbusters laden with computer-generated imagery. The chief film (and digital cinema) critics of The New York Times, Manohla Dargis and A. O. Scott, look at the stuff dreams are increasingly made of.
Wellspring/Photofest
Alexander Sokurov’s “Russian Ark” (2002), with Sergey Dreiden, has a 90-minute Steadicam shot.
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Rhythm & Hues/20th Century Fox
Suraj Sharma in Ang Lee’s forthcoming “Life of Pi,” has special digital effects.
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Associated Press
Gregg Toland, cinematographer, behind the camera with the director Orson Welles on “Citizen Kane.”
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Should we mourn, celebrate or shrug? Predigital artifacts — typewriters and record players, maybe also books and newspapers — are often beautiful, but their charm will not save them from obsolescence. And the new gizmos have their own appeal, to artists as well as consumers. Leading manufacturers are phasing out the production of 35-millimeter cameras. Within the next few years digital projection will reign not only at the multiplexes, but at revival and art houses too. According to an emerging conventional wisdom, film is over. If that is the case, can directors still be called filmmakers? Or will that title be reserved for a few holdouts, like Paul Thomas Anderson, whose new film, “The Master,” was shot in 70 millimeter? It’s not as if our job has ever been to review the coils of celluloid nestled in their cans; we write about the stories and the pictures recorded on that stock. But the shift from photochemical to digital is not simply technical or semantic. Something very big is going on.
MANOHLA DARGIS Film isn’t dead yet, despite the rush to bury it, particularly by the big studios. Film does not have to disappear. Film isn’t broken — it works wonderfully well and has done so for a century. There is nothing inevitable or natural about the end of film, no matter how seductive the digital technologies and gadgets that are transforming cinema. A 16-millimeter film camera is plenty cool. A 35-millimeter film image can look sublime. There’s an underexamined technological determinism that shapes discussions about the end of film and obscures that the material is being phased out not because digital is superior, but because this transition suits the bottom line.
The end of film isn’t a just a technological imperative; it’s also about economics (including digital rights management). In 2002 seven major studios formed the Digital Cinema Initiatives (one later dropped out), the purpose of which was “to establish and document voluntary specifications for an open architecture for digital cinema that ensures a uniform and high level of technical performance, reliability and quality control.” What these initiatives effectively did was outline the technological parameters that everyone who wants to do business with the studios — from software developers to hardware manufacturers — must follow. As the theorist David Bordwell writes, “Theaters’ conversion from 35-millemeter film to digital presentation was designed by and for an industry that deals in mass output, saturation releases and quick turnover.” He adds, “Given this shock-and-awe business plan, movies on film stock look wasteful.”
SCOTT Let me play devil’s advocate, though I hope that doesn’t make me an advocate for the corporate interests of the Hollywood studios. If there is a top-down capitalist imperative governing the shift to digital exhibition in theaters, there is at the same time a bottom-up tendency driving the emergence of digital filmmaking.
Throughout history artists have used whatever tools served their purposes and have adapted new technologies to their own creative ends. The history of painting, as the art critic James Elkins suggests in his book “What Painting Is,” is in part a history of the changing chemical composition of paint. It does not take a determinist to point out that artistic innovations in cinema often have a technological component. It takes nothing away from the genius of Gregg Toland, the cinematographer on “Citizen Kane,” to note that the astonishing deep-focus compositions in that film were made possible by new lenses. And the arrival of relatively lightweight, shoulder-mounted cameras in the late 1950s made it possible for cinéma vérité documentarians and New Wave auteurs to capture the immediacy of life on the fly.
Long before digital seemed like a viable delivery system for theatrical exhibition, it was an alluring paintbox for adventurous and impecunious cinéastes. To name just one: Anthony Dod Mantle, who shot many of the Dogma 95 movies and Danny Boyle’s zombie shocker “28 Days Later,” found poetry in the limitations of the medium. In the right hands, its smeary, blurry colors could be haunting, and the smaller, lighter cameras could produce a mood of queasy, jolting intimacy.
Image quality improved rapidly, and the last decade has seen some striking examples of filmmakers exploring and exploiting digital to aesthetic advantage. The single 90-minute Steadicam shot through the Hermitage Museum that makes up Alexander Sokurov’s “Russian Ark” is a specifically digital artifact. So is the Los Angeles nightscape in Michael Mann’s “Collateral” and the rugged guerrilla battlefield of Steven Soderbergh’s “Che,” a movie that would not exist without the light, mobile and relatively inexpensive Red camera.
Digital special effects, meanwhile, are turning up this season not only in phantasmagorical places like “Cloud Atlas” and “Life of Pi,” but also in movies that emphasize naturalism. To my eyes the most amazing bit of digital magic this year is probably the removal of Marion Cotillard’s legs — including in scenes in which she wears a bathing suit or nothing at all — in Jacques Audiard’s gritty “Rust and Bone.” While movie artists of various stripes gravitate toward the speed, portability and cheapness of digital, which offers lower processing and equipment costs and less cumbersome editing procedures, consumers, for their part, are suckers for convenience, sometimes — but not always — at the expense of quality.
I love the grain and luster of film, which has a range of colors and tones as yet unmatched by digital. There is nothing better than seeing a clean print projected on a big screen, with good sound and a strong enough bulb in the projector. But reality has rarely lived up to that ideal. I spent my cinephile adolescence watching classic movies on spliced, scratched, faded prints with blown-out soundtracks, or else on VHS — and also not seeing lots of stuff that bypassed the local repertory house or video store. I’d rather look at a high-quality digital transfers available on TCM or from the Criterion Collection, and more recently (very recently) at a revival theater like Film Forum in New York. Like anyone else of a certain age I have fond memories of the way things used to be, but I also think that in many respects the way things are is better.
DARGIS We’re not talking about the disappearance of one material — oil, watercolor, acrylic or gouache — we’re talking about deep ontological and phenomenological shifts that are transforming a medium. You can create a picture with oil paint or watercolor. For most of their history, by contrast, movies were only made from photographic film strips (originally celluloid) that mechanically ran through a camera, were chemically processed and made into film prints that were projected in theaters in front of audiences solely at the discretion of the distributors (and exhibitors). With cameras and projectors the flexible filmstrip was one foundation of modern cinema: it is part of what turned photograph images into moving photographic images. Over the past decade digital technologies have changed how movies are produced, distributed and consumed; the end of film stock is just one part of a much larger transformation.
I’m not antidigital, even if I prefer film: I love grain and the visual texture of film, and even not-too-battered film prints can be preferable to digital. Yes, digital can look amazing if the director — Mr. Soderbergh, Mr. Mann, Mr. Godard, David Fincher and David Lynch come to mind — and the projectionist have a clue. (I’ve seen plenty of glitches with digital projection, like the image freezing or pixelating.) I hate the unknowingly ugly visual quality of many digital movies, including those that try to mimic the look of film. We’re awash in ugly digital because of cost cutting and a steep learning curve made steeper by rapidly changing technologies. (The rapidity of those changes is one reason film, which is very stable, has become the preferred medium for archiving movies shot both on film and in digital.)
We’re seeing too many movies that look thin, smeared, pixelated or too sharply outlined and don’t have the luxurious density of film and often the color. I am sick of gray and putty skin tones. The effects of digital cinema can also be seen in the ubiquity of hand-held camerawork that’s at least partly a function of the equipment’s relative portability. Meanwhile digital postproduction and editing have led to a measurable increase in the number of dissolves. Dissolves used to be made inside the camera or with an optical printer, but today all you need is editing software and a click of the mouse. This is changing the integrity of the shot, and it’s also changing montage, which, in Eisenstein’s language, is a collision of shots. Much remains the same in how directors narrate stories (unfortunately!), yet these are major changes.
SCOTT I agree that digital has introduced new visual clichés and new ways for movies to look crummy. But there have always been a lot of dumb, bad-looking movies, and it’s a given that most filmmakers (like most musicians, artists, writers and humans in whatever line of work) will use emerging technologies to perpetuate mediocrity. A few, however, will discover fresh aesthetic possibilities and point the way forward for a young art form.
An interesting philosophical question is whether, or to what extent, it will be the same art form. Will digitally made and distributed moving-picture narratives diverge so radically from what we know as “films” that we no longer recognize a genetic relationship? Will the new digital cinema absorb its precursor entirely, or will they continue to coexist? As dramatic as this revolution has been, we are nonetheless still very much in the early stages.
DARGIS The history of cinema is also a history of technological innovations and stylistic variations. New equipment and narrative techniques are introduced that can transform the ways movies look and sound and can inspire further changes. Does taking film out of the moving image change what movies are? We don’t know. And it may be that the greater shift — in terms of what movies were and what they are — may have started in 1938, when Paramount Pictures invested in a pioneering television firm. By the late 1950s Americans were used to watching Hollywood movies on their TVs. They were already hooked on a convenience that — as decades of lousy-looking home video confirmed — has consistently mattered more to them than an image’s size or any of its other properties.
From there it’s just a technological hop, skip and jump to watching movies on an iPad. That’s convenient, certainly, but isn’t the same as going to a movie palace to watch, as an audience, a luminous, larger-than-life work that was made by human hands. To an extent we are asking the same question we’ve been asking since movies began: What is cinema? “The photograph is literally an emanation of the referent,” the philosopher Roland Barthes wrote. “From a real body, which was there, proceed radiations which ultimately touch me, who am here.” A film image is created by light that leaves a material trace of something that exists — existed — in real time and space. It’s in this sense that film becomes a witness to our existence.
Then again, I learned from the great avant-garde artist Ken Jacobs — who projects moving images that he creates with shutters, lenses, shadows and his hands — that cinema doesn’t have to be film; it has to be magic.
