历劫佳人

第一次看奥逊·威尔斯的电影，深为开场的长镜头折服。密处躲藏的凶手、两国边界小镇的喧嚣、藏在车后面的炸药、看起来就像主角偏偏又总不经意和炸药离的过分接近......一个跟踪式长镜头几乎把影迷的胃口掉到天上和太阳肩并肩。警匪、谋杀、绑架、毒品、边界、折磨美人，可以说作为一部黑色电影它该有的惊悚猎奇元素都有了，剩下的则交给道德灰色地带的正邪纠缠了。而结尾的追踪真相与之形成完美呼应，不经意间存在的危机最可怕。电影开头是一段义正言辞的说明，表示本片曾遭片商私自剪辑，后威尔斯写下58页长信，最终尽量按照导演意愿剪辑成了现在这个版本。

影片最引人注目的不是破案的曲折坚信，而是在破案过程中对执法手段和公正判断的怀疑。一个凭借直觉判案的警察为了验证猜想不惜假造证据陷害被告人，尽管在影片的结束这件案子证实了这个警察的直觉没错，而他在办案过程中依赖直觉、与毒贩勾结、杀人嫁祸铲除异己、捏造证物、严刑逼供被告人等等行为全部超出了执法人应有的职业素养和道德操守，与其说是为了贯彻正义，不如说是为了满足自己作为正义化身的幻想。奥逊饰演的美国警察即便是魔鬼的化身却干了天使的工作，叱咤警界三十年到头来却被最好的同伴枪毙在臭河沟里，给不光彩的人生留下一个尽是谜思的转身。

在构图上，本片利用人物远近造成视觉上身材的大小比对显示力量对比，往往占据画面更多更靠前的掌握更多的主动权和操控能力：美国警察出场时都站在最醒目显眼的位置，身形总要比旁人更为高大一些，特别是处于少数几个人同框的画面里更是如此，唯有贯彻原则的墨西哥警察可以与之分庭抗礼。然而当美国警察第一次被怀疑时怒而出走，在大厅被喊住，此时美国警察处于画面的最远端，又远又小看不清真面目，而日后看清真相与之反目的同僚站在画面的正中间左右为难，而选择调查他的警察站在离观众最近的位置，显得极为高大。三个人连成一条完美的对角线，既显出美国警察自钻牛角尖的一意孤行，也侧面烘托了导演对这个狂妄警察的评价，未来已在这个镜头里得到预言。

有趣的是，在片中屡遭不幸的女主角，即墨西哥缉毒警察的妻子，被当地毒枭用计骗到家中试图恐吓，两个人在镜头前好似上演了一出抢镜大戏：毒枭趁女主还云里雾里之时摆姿态吓唬她，整个人占了多半个镜头，把女主角挤得只能露出半个头；等女主角反应过来巧舌如簧临危不惧反而呛了毒枭一波，毒枭被骂的目瞪口呆反而自己在镜头下只露出半个头，这正是以抢镜之细节突出正邪之较劲。

更为令人揪心的是观众可以在同一框中看到跟踪者与被跟踪者、偷窥者和被偷窥者，甚至是嫌疑满满的毒枭和窝里反的警察，他们互相之间只有前者知道后者的存在，于是观众可以在一方不知情的情况下眼睁睁看着罪恶的发生，这种似乎亲临其境的感觉不免使人心惊。

众多的仰视镜头将角色烘托的高大之余，也将各个角色的心事放大到观众面前：美国警察的自大阴鸷、女主角面临危难的恐惧等等。最经典的莫过于美国警察即将被同僚诱出时的特写：身后被一只巨大的野牛头占据整个背景，狂野之余却也见垂死之态。

黑白电影里的光影对照总是最为明显，美国警察私自杀死毒枭时屋子里的光一明一暗，正邪在这里失去了明显的边界，只留下暧昧不清的杀欲和恐惧。女主角被毒枭手下盯住时也是在黑暗中用一只手电筒晃住她，唯一的光亮反而成了危险的源头。女主角在汽车旅馆被抓住时，脸从光明逐渐到被一个人的阴影笼罩，放慢的恐怖加深了危机的程度。

究竟是坚持正义放过怀疑对象、还是以正义之名陷害真凶进网，这是个死题。毕竟人不是神，会犯下无数的过错；而执法者也不没有审判的权力，不应该凭借一己私欲改变许多人的命运走向。两个国家的两种性格截然不同的警察碰撞在这个边界小镇，其中的火花燃烧起的更多于道德。而关于在汽车旅馆没有给女主角注射真正的毒品这个情节，我只能说还是年代太早口味太轻了。

摘自特吕弗于1974年出版的影评集《我生命中的电影》，英文翻译：Leonard Mayhew Da Capo Press在美国出版的版本。当年特吕弗看到的本片并非如今广泛流传的1998年重建版，而是当年环球公司剪辑的，不受威尔斯认可的版本。如今我们发现1998年重建版做的第一件事，就是去掉了开场的字幕，完成了特吕弗在本文第一句话中的设想。

You could remove Orson Welles's name from the credits and it wouldn't make any difference, because from the first shot, beginning with the credits themselves, it's obvious that Citizen Kane is behind the camera.

Touch of Evil opens on a shot of the clock of a time bomb as a man places it in the trunk of a white car. A couple have just gotten into the car and started off, and we follow then through the city. All this happens before the film starts. The camera perched on a motorized crane loses the car, finds it again as it passes behind some buildings, precedes it or cataches up with it, right up to the moment when the explosion we have been waiting for happens.

The image is deliberately distorted by the use of a wide-angle lens that gives an unnatural clarity to the backgrounds and poeticizes reality as a man walking toward the camera appears to advance ten yards in five strides. We're in a fantasy world all through this film, the characters appearing to walk with seven-league boots when they're not gliding on a moving rug.

There are movies made by incompetent cynics, like The Bridge on the River Kwai and The Young Lions, movies that are merely bluff, designed to flatter a public which is supposed to leave the movie house feeling better or thinking it has learned something. There are movies that are profound and lofty, made without compromise by a few sincere and intelligent artists who would rather distrub than reassure, rather wake an audience up than put it to sleep. When you come out the Alain Resnais' Nuit et Brouillard, you don't feel better, you feel worse. When you come out of White Nights or Touch of Evil, you feel less intelligent then before but gratifies anyhow by the poetry and art. These are films that call cinema to order, and make us ashamed to have been so indulgent with cliche-ridden movies made by small talents.

Well, you might say, what a fuss over a simple little detective story that Welles wrote in eight days, over which he didn't even have the right to supervise the final editing, and to which was later added a half-dozen explanatory shots he'd refused to make, a film he made "to order" and which he violently disavowed.

I'm well aware of that, as well as that the slave who one night breaks his chains is worth more than the one who doesn't even know he's chained; and also that Touch of Evil is the most liberated film you can see. In Barrage contre le Pacifique , Rene Clement had complete control; he edited the film himself, chose the music, did the mixing, cut it up a hundred times. But Clement is a slave nonetheless, and Welles is a poet. I warmly recommend to you the films of poets.

Welles adapted for the screen a woefully poor little detective novel and simplified the criminal intrigue to the point where he could match it to his favorite canvas------the portrait of a paradoxical monster, which he plays himself------under cover of which he designed the simplest of moralities: that of the absolute and the purity of absolutists.

A capricious genius, Welles preaches to his parishioners and seems to be clearly telling us: I'm sorry I'm slovenly; it's not my fault if I'm a genius: I'm dying: love me.

As in Citizen Kane, The Stranger, The Magnificent Ambersons, and Confidential Report (即《阿卡丁先生》), two characters confront each other------the monster and the sympathetic young lead. It's a matter of making the monster more and more monstrous, and the young protagonist more and more likable, until we are brought somehow to shed real tears over the corpse of the magnificent monster. The world doesn't want anything to do with the exceptional, but the exception, if he is an unfortunate, is the ultimate refuge of purity. Fortunately, Welles's physique would seem to preclude his playing Hitler, but who's to say that one day he will not force us to weep over the fate of Hermann Goering?

Here Welles has given himself the role of a brutal and greedy policeman, an ace investigator, very well known. Since he works only by intuition, he uncovers murders without bothering about proof. But the court system, which is made up of mediocre men, cannot condemn a man without evidence. Thus, Inspector Quinlan/Welles develops the habit of fabricating evidence and eliciting false testimony in order to win his case, to see that justice will triumph.

After the bomb explodes in the car, all that necessary for everything to go awry is for an American policeman（本片主角是墨西哥人，此处疑为特吕弗笔误）on his honeymoon (Charlton Heston) to meddle in Quinlan's investigation. There is a fierce battle between the two men. Heston finds proff against Welles while Welles manufactures evidence against him. After a frantic sequence in which Welles demonstrates that he could doubtless adapt de Sade's novels like nobody else, Heston's wife is found in a hotel, nude and drugged, and apperently responsible for the murder of Akim Tamiroff, who in reality has been kiledd by Quinlan------whom Tamiroff had naively helped set this demonic stage.

As in Confidential Report, the sympathetic character is led to commit an underhanded act in order to undo the monster: Heston records the few decisive sentences on a tape recorder, sufficient proof to destroy Welles. The film's idea is summed up neatly in thie epilogue: Sneakiness and mediocrity have triumphed over intuition and absolute justice. The world is horrifyingly relative, everything is pretty much the same------dishonest in its morality, impure in its conception of fairness.

If I've used the word monster a number of times, it's merely to stress the fantastical spirit of this film and of all Welles's movies. All moviemakers who are not poets have recourse to psychology to put the spectator on the wrong scent, and the commercial success of psychological films might seem a good enough reason of them to do this. "All great art is abstract," Jean Renoir said, and one doesn't arrive at an abstraction through psychology------just the opposite. On the other hand, abstraction spills over sooner or later onto the moral, and onto the onlt morality that preoccupies us: the morality that is invented and reinvented by artists.

All this blends very well with Welles's supposition that mediocre men need facts, while others need only intuition. There lies that source of enormous misunderstanding. If the Cannes Film Festival had had the wisdom to invite Touch of Evil to be shown rather than Martin Ritt's The Long Hot Summer (in which Welles is only an actor), would the jury had the wisdom to see in it all the wisdom of the world?

Touch of Evil wakes us up and reminds us that among the pioneers of cinema there was Melies and there was Feuillade. It's a magical film that makes us think of fairy tales: "Beauty and the Beast," "Tom Thumb," La Fontaine's fables. It's a film which humbles us a bit because it's by a man who thinks more swiftly than we do, and much better, and who throws another marvelous film at us when we're still feeling under the last one. Where does this quickness come from, this madness, this speed, this intoxication?

May we always have enough taste, senstivity, and intuition to admit that this talent is large and beautiful. If the brotherhood of critics finds it expedient to look for arguments against this film, which is a witness and a testimony to art and nothing else, we will have to watch the grotesque spectacle of the Lilliputians attacking Gulliver.

-- 1958

公民凯恩的好，我不懂；

历劫佳人的好，我懂。

开头的长镜头，完美展示了悬念的意义，以炸弹开始，以爆炸结束，从凶手的视角展示一切，观众随着凶手将炸弹放到汽车后备箱，受害者上车，大全景展示环境，再切入汽车的画面，汽车出画，主角入画，汽车再入画，观众已经参与到电影中，有定时炸弹，不知道什么时候就爆炸了。

看完这个镜头，我想知道放炸弹的是谁，为什么要这么做，是的，看电影有了目标，奥逊威尔斯在1958年拍摄的电影现在国内上映的大部分电影都比不了，时间有时候会改变一些东西，有时候不会，如何用镜头讲好一个故事，不容易，这部电影的命运是坎坷的，奥逊威尔斯的剪辑版被片场否决，被制片厂乱剪一通后，奥逊威尔斯写下五十多页的修改备忘录“在结束这份备忘录时，我极诚挚的恳请你们赞同以我的剪辑模式剪辑影片，我在其中投入了多日的艰辛劳作。” 现在的版本根据奥逊威尔斯书面意见进行了调整，电影画面有些跳帧，如果一切按照奥逊威尔斯的做，这会是更好的电影。

看这样的电影是一种享受，美国和墨西哥的边境，罪恶丛生到川普想建一道墙阻住非法越境者。这部61年前拍摄的电影与现下的主题有关，只不过奥逊威尔斯的构思出人意料，是墨西哥警察扮演正义一方，美国贪污警察和墨西哥裔扮演邪恶一方。出人意料的故事，悬念丛生；出人意料的镜头，调度从容；出人意料的表演，奥逊威尔斯本人出演邪恶警长。

警长指出的凶手不被墨西哥警察相信，墨西哥警察认为警长栽赃，但最后的结果显示警长指出的凶手确实是凶手，警长的直觉是对的，但是警长的手段是非法的。最后的片尾警长的部下喜欢警长，警长朝他开枪，他也朝警长开枪，两人相继毙命，这就是所谓的相爱相杀，奥逊威尔斯这个故事很超前，估计当时的人一时还接受不了吧。玛琳黛德丽，珍妮特利，还有查尔登·海斯顿，但表现最好的还是奥逊威尔斯。

7.9

这不就是那首诗吗，人群以为她在招手，其实她在求救——在苏茜被悬置人头惊吓时，这个可笑的场面出现了。表面放置一个公权与私权制衡的空壳，可程序正义战胜目的正义这件事也太过简单。因为时代变了，所以实际路线一直是人物心理，汉克昆兰的专横都来源于他的恐惧，但凝睇他的目光却在帮助我们远离他，极致的仰角和俯角都是主观镜头，谁会那样注视他呢。最终，我们对他的感情，也只是从老鸨与搭档那里得来。

“这是部真正的电影”，大家都在用这种话形容自己喜欢的电影，所以这是部真正的电影。于我而言那个从特写开始的长镜头有种神学意味，恐怖被事先张扬起来，画面从最近的景别也可以跨度到最遥远，内部完成的是一种蒙太奇效果：时间与空间上都有纵深，但信息量却切割得清清楚楚，以此制造意义。边境线那一侧和这一侧都有着独属自己环境的稳定结构，跑车与苏茜瓦格斯夫妇的交错则是一个熵增过程，它们都作为彼此秩序的闯入者存在。

若按结构主义叙事学来讲，昆兰的跛腿象征着他某种内心的残缺：妻子被人勒死的事始终萦绕他脑海，或醉或醒时；而手段无论多恶劣，他都要确保正义是获胜的。但没必要以这种分析的方法，他是奥逊威尔斯，昆兰是另一个公民凯恩。他妻子被害的这个案件又是一种对黑色电影反讽的处理，摆明了不会按部就班地揭露这个人物过去，除了提供他最终的杀人手法证明外，并没有什么心理转折上的用处。昆兰跛腿这个缺陷根本不耽误他追凶或谋杀，恰是在说在讲手段的不正当并不影响结果的正确。桑切斯供认不讳，档案前史里也并没有人是无罪的。曾经玫瑰花蕾什么都不是，而这次结语的含义是他身上仅受过的两记弹伤。余生在为他曾经落下的残疾还债，说，“彼得，这是我为你而中的第二枪”。

最大的幽默感也在于此，而不是守夜人突然关上的音乐。等到昆兰死了，瓦格斯也会成为他。他怀疑昆兰，同样是靠的一种所谓“直觉”；而他最终的取证方式，也是攻其下三路，在没有证据的情况下怒殴墨西哥人，又设计了窃听。妻子被害事情曾经降临于昆兰，让昆兰明白了“手段无论多恶劣，他都要确保正义是获胜的”这件事；而等到瓦格斯的妻子被陷害时，他所走上的也是并不光明的一条路。不可避免的是他终将信服昆兰的哲学，继而成为恶本身。广受追捧的《杀人回忆》也设计了一样的二人关系，但那都在近五十年后了。老鸨的最后一句说得对，“某种意义上他也是个人物”，这既是种无比从容的幽默感，又填满了威尔逊对人类命运的无奈，“你的未来早已消磨干净”。他们在凝视深渊的同时——这可能有如此多角色仰拍镜头的意义——深渊也在凝视着他们。毕竟本就有所意识的是，如此极致的仰角都是主观镜头：要不然，谁会那样注视他呢。

一共有三个版本，对吧，我看的是111分钟的，不知道是否需要担心。“历劫佳人”这个翻译，真的很糟糕。

第24届法罗岛电影节第5个放映日为大家带来主竞赛单元的《历劫佳人》，下面请看场刊影评人们毁誉参半的评价了！

@米米

满满的镜头调度啊，可能对同行很友好

@carter

我已经说了很多遍，但威尔斯的电影出现在法罗岛一次我就要再说一次。我已经受够奥逊威尔斯了！

@donnie

美国警察与墨西哥警察之间的斗争，绑架警察老婆，栽赃罪犯，剧本真的精彩绝伦很有想象力。起初我们都以为是他，结果竟是他

@Joyside

看奥胖拍film noir是一种享受，用最少的陈旧性语言拍成了最大程度的幽闭黑暗，将现代性突出至极

@小植野

导演顶级场面调度，光与影的构图视听满分，很大程度上拯救了这个颇为无趣的剧本，非线性叙事虽然复杂但是故事内核撑不起来，让整个故事有点空洞。

@小宁波

奥逊威尔斯不愧是现代电影之父。历劫佳人中的每一个运镜放在当下的任何类型片中都不过时。开篇长镜被后人津津乐道，多线叙事的手法别具一格。尤其加入迟暮老汉和红颜知己的组合，将昆兰这个人物刻画得更丰润了一些。这是一部元素非常满的黑色电影，同时又不失风格。

@脏脏豆

我的心會因為內個風情的墨西哥女人加速跳動。

@Rightchi

威尔斯对于光影、机位和剪辑已经到了一个炉火纯青的地步，整部片简直是美轮美奂；不过威尔斯知道自己拍的很像搞笑片嘛？？

@消亡之人

谁是佳人？谁在历劫？ 是美国甜心熬过了墨西哥恶棍和毒枭，还是墨西哥英才胜过了自以为是的美国警长？ 镜头当然好。开场的长镜头乱中有序，行人与车流成为两股交错的力量，被塞入炸弹的豪车被反复拦下，爆炸案也因而和这对仅是路过的蜜月夫妻的命运发生交缠；频繁出现的仰角镜头不偏不倚地赋予每个角色以隐秘，也一再强化着美墨之间紧张的对峙关系。 可故事是多么无聊。一对跨国夫妻在两国边境遇上跨国作案，美墨关系理所应当成为重点，那条长而无所防备的边境线也一度被两人拿上台面讨论，但最后看来也只是闲谈。妻子坚韧的形象一开始有所展现，后来却依然沦落为花瓶般的点缀。尽管丈夫和警长的形象也没能丰满多少……

@热情华夫饼

几乎全方面都是完美无暇的。并非单纯的正邪对抗，而是将一个关于程序正义和结果正义的思辨命题套在了双雄对决的框架内。更为惊人的是结尾的处理，塔罗牌预言给传统意义上作为反派一方的失败赋予了极强的宿命和悲剧色彩，你可以说是威尔斯的自恋，但他的角色在大部分时间里确实比男主角更吸引人，一个真切地怀着正义行恶的悲情枭雄。

#FIFF24#第5日的场刊将于稍后释出，请大家拭目以待了。