那些改變整個電影產業的影片(下)

g Sherlock Holmes

5.《少年福爾摩斯》

Young Sherlock Holmes was not the first movie to feature computer animation, but it was the first to feature a hyper-realistic CGI character that had to be both scanned and painted onto the film. In retrospect, the scene may seem relatively simple: Sherlock Holmes battling a glass figure that comes alive out of a stained glass illustration. However, without this scene, we may never have had the denizens of future hits Toy Story and Frozen.

《少年福爾摩斯》不是第一部使用電腦動畫的電影，但它是第一部使用超現實CGI人物的電影，這些人物必須掃描並繪製到膠片上。現在看來，這些場景未免相對簡單：一個玻璃人從一幅着色玻璃插畫裏走出來，夏洛克·福爾摩斯與他搏鬥。但是，如果沒有這個場景，我們可能看不見後來大片《玩具總動員》（Toy Story）和《冰雪奇緣》（Frozen）裏特有的居民。

This simple scene showed that CGI was not just useful for the SFX spectacle of films such as Star Trek—it could be used to create characters entirely. Without this movie, we would never have such icons of CGI achievement as Gollum from the Lord of the Rings series. More interestingly, the stained-glass knight character was animated by no other than John Lasseter, who would go on to found Pixar and create memorable characters such as Woody and Buzz Lightyear before the company was acquired by Disney.

這個簡單場景表明，CGI不只對《星際迷航》（Star Trek）這些電影的特效景象有用——它可以用來創造完整的角色。沒有這部電影，我們可能永遠不會有憑藉CGI成功塑造的形象，比如《指環王》系列的咕嚕（Gollum）。更有趣的是，着色玻璃騎士正是由約翰·拉塞特（John Lasseter）製作的；約翰後來創建了皮克斯，還創造了家喻戶曉的角色，比如胡迪（Woody）和巴斯光年（Buzz Lightyear），後來這家公司被迪斯尼併購了。

Birth Of A Nation

4.《一個國家的誕生》

D.W. Griffith's landmark film occupies a dubious place in history. On the most basic level, it's notable for being the first full-length movie. The success of the three-hour film showed that movies could be more than just simple clips and instead tell an expansive story. Unfortunately, the story Griffith chose to tell is horrifically racist.

D·W·格里菲斯（D.W. Griffith）標誌性的電影在歷史上的地位很不穩固。就最基本的層面而言，其出名的原因在於它是第一部長度完整的影片。這部時長3小時的電影成功了，說明電影不僅僅是簡單的鏡頭集合，還可以講述敘事空間廣大的故事。可惜的是，格里菲斯挑選的故事帶有嚴重的種族偏見。

The film's original title, The Clansman, is much more honest about what the film portrays. While the plot concentrates on two families after the Civil War, the alternately lazy, dangerous, and lecherous black characters played by white actors in blackface steal the show. These despicable figures threaten to overrun the South until the heroic Ku Klux Klan saves the day. Thankfully, Hollywood sought to emulate the film's artistic achievements (the idea of multiple plots, pacing, structure, and groundbreaking camera work) and not its shocking content.

最初的片名，《宗族》（The Clansman），更忠實於影片的內容。儘管情節集中於美國內戰後的兩個家庭，但是由白人演員扮演的黑人角色帶有某些問題——比如懶散、危險或者好色，卻喧賓奪主。這些遭到憎惡的人威脅要佔領南部地區，直到英勇的3K黨力挽狂瀾。幸運的是，好萊塢希望能複製這部電影的藝術成就（多重情節的想法、節奏、結構，還有全新的攝影工作），而不是它驚人的內容。

ight Cowboy

3.《午夜牛仔》

Today, most of us wouldn't be shocked by the sex, drugs, and nudity portrayed in Midnight Cowboy, allowing us to focus on its message about the bond forged between outcasts in an oppressive and uncaring world. In 1969, however, the Motion Picture Association of America sang a different tune when they gave this non-pornographic movie an “X” rating.

現在，大部分人不會爲《午夜牛仔》展現的性、毒品和裸體感到驚訝，更能把注意力集中到這部影片表達的信息上——罪犯之間的關係，這些罪犯生活在一個充滿壓迫、彼此漠不關心的世界裏。但是，1969年，美國電影協會發出了不同的聲音，把這部非色情影片定位爲“X”級。

An X rating is normally a death sentence for a movie. However, Midnight Cowboy managed to transcend that barrier, remaining the only X-rated movie to receive the Best Picture Oscar. In total, it was nominated in seven categories at that year's Academy Awards and won three of them. The next year, the movie's rating was downgraded to an movie's artistic legacy is no small achievement. It created an ongoing conversation about the divide between pornography and art, forcing the audiences of future decades not to dismiss a movie's artistic value due to its adult content. It also helped to soften the rating policies followed by the MPAA, who reluctantly acknowledged that a movie with such widespread appeal and a plethora of Oscar nominations couldn't be considered obscene.

X級對電影而言通常就是死刑。然而，《午夜牛仔》成功地翻越了這個障礙，成爲唯一一部獲得奧斯卡最佳影片的X級電影。總而言之，當年它被提名7項奧斯卡獎項，最後獲得其中3項。第二年，本片的級別降至R。這部電影的藝術遺產也很豐富。在區別色情和藝術這個問題上，它創造了一場持續的對話，促使幾十年後的觀衆不會因爲色情內容而遺忘一部電影的藝術價值。它還軟化了美國電影協會制定的分級政策，協會勉強承認一部吸引力如此廣泛的電影和獲得多項奧斯卡提名的電影不可能是低級下流的。

d

2.《慾望》

The common lament of book fans when it comes to film adaptations of their favorite novels is that something always gets left on the cutting room floor. Such truncations are unfortunately necessary, as few moviegoers are willing to sit through four-hour epics. However, the Hollywood powers that be had to learn this lesson the hard way, and they did so largely because of Eric Von Stroheim's 1924 film Greed.

當最愛的小說改編爲電影時，書迷常常遺憾剪輯總會損失一些東西。不幸的是，這樣的濃縮是必要的，因爲少有觀衆願意一直坐4個小時。但是，好萊塢有權者被迫艱難地學過這個教訓，他們這樣做，很大程度上是因爲艾瑞克·凡·斯特勞亨（Eric Von Stroheim）1924年的電影《慾望》。

Von Stroheim decided that not a single detail from the page could be omitted from the screen in this adaptation of the American novel McTeague. The eccentric director spent over two years working on the bloated film, which primarily took so long to film because he eschewed Hollywood studios in favor of real locations ranging from the Sierra Nevada mountains to Death result was a film nearly eight hours long. After the studio balked at its length, he managed to cut it in half, but not even that was sufficient. The studio would later order it to be further trimmed down to about two hours and fifteen minutes by someone who had never read the book on which it was based. The extra reels of film—a whopping 32 edited negatives—were melted down for their silver nitrate. A costly lesson was learned, and Hollywood never forgot it. Today, adaptations from books generally do not seek to fully recreate the books on which they are based.

凡·斯特勞亨認爲，在美國小說《麥克提格》（McTeague）改編的劇本中，沒有哪一頁的細節可以從屏幕上移除。這個古怪的導演花了兩年多時間研究大量膠片，最初拍攝它們花了相當長的時間，因爲他避開了好萊塢影棚，偏好實情實景，無論是內華達山脈還是死亡峽谷。結果產生了一部近8小時長的電影。影棚不接受這個長度，他成功將其剪輯掉一半，但即使這樣都還不夠。影棚後來讓一位沒有讀過原書的人將它進一步削減到2小時15分鐘。剩下的膠捲——持反對意見的編輯多達32位——被融掉，提取硝酸銀。這個教訓代價很高，好萊塢從未忘記。今天，對書本的改編一般不要求完全對書本進行再創作了。

Great Train Robbery

1.《火車大劫案》

This 1903 movie is silent and only 12 minutes long, but it completely changed film. First, it told a story, specifically of bandits robbing a train before being gunned down during their escape. This was in stark contrast to previous films, which consisted only of one-off scenes meant to titillate and amuse viewers. For the first time, audiences witnessed realistic violence, including the expected gunplay but also the use of coal as a bludgeon, and rudimentary special effects in the form of a dummy that stood in for a man being thrown from the train.

這部1903年的電影是無聲的，只有12分鐘，但是它完全改變了電影業。首先，它講述了一個故事，詳細地講述了強盜搶劫火車，然後在逃跑過程中一路開槍。這與以前的電影完全不同，那些電影只有一個挑逗性的、用來娛樂觀衆的場景。觀衆第一次看到真實的暴力，包括期望看到的槍戰，還有將煤炭用作武器，以及人體模型的基本特效——用模型代替一個人被扔出火車。

This movie also patented many filming and editing techniques, from the use of multiple locations to panning the camera and using crosscutting to show events that are occurring simultaneously. The popularity of the film at nickel theaters directly contributed to the explosion of movie theaters across America, which paved the way for the entire film industry that followed.

這部電影還擁有很多電影製作專利和剪輯技術，從使用多個位置放置攝影機，到通過交叉剪輯展現同時發生的事件。這部電影在小劇院很受歡迎，直接促使美國各地電影院爆炸式發展，爲隨後整個電影工業鋪好了道路。

翻譯:羅惠月 來源：前十網