外語片愈多 美國人愈不賞光 - 電影院

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Jan 29, 2007《紐時周報全文精譯》
外語片愈多 美國人愈不賞光

A Wealth of Foreign Films and a Dearth of Customers

張佑生譯

This month the National Society of Film Critics picked its winners for 2006
— one of the last groups to do so. The announcement of the Society’s awards
followed a month of frenzied balloting by various Circles and Associations,
an annual festival of critical self-assertion — a protest against
irrelevance, perhaps — before the big Oscar show on February 25.

「全國影評人協會」一月選出2006年年度贏家，是最後幾個公布評選結果的團體
之一。這類票選是影評界一年一度自我肯定的盛事，該協會在各式各樣影評人組織
與協會一個月狂熱票選後公布名單，或許是趕在2月25日奧斯卡大秀前，發聲表示
自己不是無關緊要。

The society’s vote stands out a bit amid all this welter because its top
three choices for best picture of the year were all movies in languages other
than English. The third-place finisher was Clint Eastwood’s “Letters From
Iwo Jima,” which is in Japanese; the runner-up was “The Death of Mr.
Lazarescu,” a Romanian film directed by Cristi Puiu; and the winner, by a
narrow margin, was “Pan’s Labyrinth,” Guillermo del Toro’s tale of magic
and malevolence in 1940s Spain.

全國影評人協會的票選結果，在這陣子評選混戰中略顯突出，因為其年度佳片前
三名都不是英語片。第三名是克林伊斯威特的《來自硫磺島的信》，說日語；
第二名《無醫可靠》是克里斯提普優執導的羅馬尼亞片；以些微差距獲選為年度
最佳影片的是《羊男的迷宮》，吉勒莫戴托羅敘述一個發生在1940年代西班牙的
魔幻險惡故事。

The honors bestowed on those three movies, not only by the National Society
of Film Critics, might be taken as evidence that foreign films are
flourishing. So might the memory of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” which
made more than $125 million here in 2001. And the proliferating Web sites and
blogs devoted to the robust, often contentious discussions of movies from all
over will only confirm the impression, as every imaginable form of cinema
from Danish noir to South Korean horror, finds vocal advocates and analysts.

贈與三部影片殊榮的不只全國影評人協會，或可視為外國電影欣欣向榮的證明。
《臥虎藏龍》2001年在美國創下超過1億2500萬美元的票房，記憶猶新。針對來自
各地的影片熱烈討論、通常流於爭論的網站與部落格激增，也強化此一印象。
每一種想像得到的電影形式，從丹麥的黑色電影到南韓的恐怖片，都找到暢所
欲言的擁護者和分析家。

But on these same Web sites you will also find frequent, justified
expressions of frustration, even despair, at the state of foreign-film
appreciation in the United States. The movies are out there, more numerous
and various than ever before, but the audience — and therefore the
box-office returns, and the willingness of distributors to risk even
relatively small sums on North American distribution rights — seems to be
dwindling and scattering. For every movie that manages to solicit a brief
flicker of attention, there are dozens that will be seen only at film
festivals or on region-free DVD players.

但是就在這些網站上，你也會發現，關於外國電影在美國受到怎麼樣的欣賞，
頻頻有人發表言之成理的沮喪，甚至絕望心情。市面上的外國電影比過去任何
時候都多，而且多樣，但觀眾與票房成績，及發行單位賭一下小錢購買北美
地區發行權的意願似乎都在減退，而且零零落落。一部片子引起的注意稍縱
即逝，有幾十部片子只有在影展或沒有區碼限制的DVD光碟機才看得到。

Of course “foreign film” (or, as the academy prefers,“foreign-language
film”) is a category so broad as to be nearly meaningless.

當然，「外國電影」（影藝學院比較喜歡說「外語片」）是個寬廣到近乎全無
意義的類別。

The boundaries separating national cinemas are more porous than ever.
Globalization is not only the blurry subject, for example, of Alejandro
Gonzalez Inarritu’s “Babel,” winner of the Golden Globe for best drama,
but also the condition of its existence. Released by Paramount Vantage, the
newly rebranded specialty division of Paramount, “Babel” has both English
subtitles (translating dialogue from Spanish, Berber and Japanese) and
Anglophone movie stars (Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett).

電影國界如今比以往更漏洞百出。以亞歷山卓岡札拉伊納瑞圖的金球獎最佳影片
《火線交錯》為例，全球化不僅是個模糊的主題，根本就是其存在的條件。
《火線交錯》由派拉蒙旗下重新命名的特別部門經典公司發行，兼具英文字幕
（從西班牙語、巴巴語、日語對白譯來），和以英語為母語的電影明星（布萊德
彼特和凱特布蘭琪）。

Few movies made anywhere can claim a singular national identity.

在任何地方製作的電影，沒有幾部可以自稱是單一國籍。

Especially for Americans, to step into the festival circuit is to enter a
kind of parallel universe, where directors whose names are barely known in
the United States are recognized as major artists, and where each day brings
news of creative ferment from a different corner of the globe.

特別是美國人，踏進影展，如同進入另一個平行的世界，那個世界裡，在美國幾乎
沒沒無聞的導演是重要的藝術家，每天都有全球不同角落創意勃發的消息。

Even the most worldly cinephile will succumb to a moment or two of naive
wonder. Such a big world. So many movies. Who knew? But then, back home,
nobody seems to know — or, more discouragingly, to care. The cosmopolitanism
of international filmmaking is matched by the parochialism of American film
culture.

即使最老於世故的影迷，也免不了一時半刻陷入天真的讚嘆。世界真大，電影真多。
誰曉得呢？可是然後，回到家，似乎沒人知道，更洩氣的是，似乎沒人在意。國際
電影百家爭鳴，對上美國電影文化的見識短淺、本土意識。

The gap between critical approbation and cultural currency has widened, even
as the number and variety of critics has expanded. The arguments — in the
virtual salons of the Internet and the actual rooms where movie critics hold
their year-end meetings — are perhaps more intense and contentious than
ever, but they also seem to take place in a series of echo chambers, sealed
off from wider, less specialized conversations.

影評的認可和大眾意見之間的鴻溝已經擴大，即使影評的數量和多樣性已經增加。
影評人在網路與真實世界的房間內舉行年終集會，討論或許更激烈，爭論也更熱烈，
但也彷彿發生於一連串回音室內，與美國大眾較不專業的談話完全隔絕。

Partly it is a problem of numbers. Every year many more movies are made than
can be released, and the ones that do make it into theaters have to compete
with one another for the audience. Except for anomalies like Mr. Gibson’s “
Apocalypto” and Mr. Eastwood’s “Letters From Iwo Jima” — two in one
year; what are the odds? — the major studios steer clear of subtitles,
except when marketing their blockbusters overseas.

問題部分出在數目上。每年電影的生產量大於發行量，排上戲院檔期的片子還得為
爭取觀眾而相互廝殺。除了梅爾吉勃遜的《阿波卡獵逃》和克林伊斯威特的《來自
硫磺島的信》兩大例外（一年兩部，成功的可能性多大？），要不是向海外行銷
賣座片，主流片商連上字幕都省了。

Perhaps the old style of connoisseurship — the idea that the hardy few who
sought out movies from faraway places, or who turned the revival houses into
shrines of art, were part of a vanguard — has been replaced by something
more modest and democratic.

老派的影癡鑑賞方式，例如少數死忠派遠赴重洋找電影，將專門播放經典老片的
戲院轉變為藝術殿堂，都曾是電影藝術的先驅，如今已被更為一般和大眾化的
看電影方式取代。

The old film culture was based on hierarchical assumptions about taste and
quality that have all but vanished, replaced by niches and networks of fans.
You like your Romanian hospital movie, I like my Asian horror, and we have
our Web sites and DVD rental queues to keep us happy; everything’s cool. And
maybe, in these circumstances, no movie is really foreign. Or maybe every
movie is.

以品味和品質層級認知差別為基礎的傳統電影文化已消失殆盡，代之而起的是利基
與影迷的關係網絡。你喜歡羅馬尼亞醫院電影，我愛看亞洲恐怖片，我們各有自己
的網站和DVD出租店滿足我們；什麼都很酷。也許，在這種情況下，沒有哪部電影
真的是外國片，又或者，每部電影都是外國片。

By A. O. SCOTT

原文參照
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/18/news/scott.php

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關鍵字句

電影有叫好（critically-acclaimed）與叫座（box-office hit）之分。在影展
（film festival）的頒獎典禮（award ceremony）上，有些影片能夠兩者兼具。

本文主題是外國電影愈來愈多，但美國人愈來愈不賞光。標題的wealth不是「財富」
，而是「大量」：Young designers display a wealth of talent.（年輕設計師
展現多才多藝。）Dearth意指「缺乏」：英格蘭在世界盃足球賽成績欠佳，球評感嘆
缺乏人才（There's a dearth of talent in England.）。

外國電影在美國的數量更多（numerous）、更多樣（various），票房和片商購買
發行權的意願卻愈來愈低（dwindling）又疏疏落落（scattering）。兩組字尾
各自押韻，措詞巧妙。

另一組漂亮的對比字彙是cosmopolitanism與parochialism。國際電影工業的發展
已經超越國界，美國影壇卻依舊目光褊狹。影評的認可（critical approbation）
就是「叫好」，通行於當代大眾之間的意見（cultural currency）就是「叫座」
，也構成對比。

有則笑話說，台灣留學生打電話回家報平安，說教室裡面只有他一個台灣人，其餘
都是「老外」；外國（foreign）和本國（domestic）也是相對的概念。作者在結尾
顛覆「外國電影」的定義，讓人聯想起周星馳的經典對白，「根本沒有食神；或者
人人都是食神。」反映出某種解構觀點（deconstructive perspective）。

（張佑生）

【2007-01-29/聯合報/B6版/UNITED DAILY NEWS】

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