对话张侨勇 -《这不是电影》

战争、政治、新闻：这不是电影，而是中东风云40年

撰文：杨洋

编辑：许星辉

凹凸镜发布链接: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/mRlneo7ZuOsiqYwl7af6NA

“我的工作不是去为死者哀哭，而是要让世人了解那些死去的人，告诉大家谁应为之负责。”（My job is not to start weeping for the dead, it’s to tell you about them and say who might be responsible.）

— 罗伯特·菲斯克（Robert Fisk）

枪声四起，轰炸机从头顶接连扫过，他夹紧了录音机和纸笔，在城镇的废墟中匍匐前进：“我是《泰晤士报》驻中东记者罗伯特·菲斯克（Robert Fisk），目前距离伊朗城市阿巴丹不到两百米。我们的团队正在迅速撤离此地。”一晃四十年，这位英国记者已经满头白头，却依旧活跃在战争的最前沿。他是全世界获奖最多的驻地记者。早在1976年，他就开始报道中东局势。黎巴嫩的贝鲁特对他来说，就是自己的故乡。

今年九月，罗伯特·菲斯克走上了TIFF多伦多国际电影节的荧幕。以他为主人公的《这不是电影》（This Is Not A Movie）在多伦多首映。这部由张侨勇指导的纪录片，贯穿了菲斯克四十年的驻地记者生涯。张侨勇是在中西纪录片世界之间游刃有余的华人新秀。他曾拍摄《沿江而上》和《千锤百炼》，两度摘得金马最佳纪录片，获得若干重量级世界奖项。在刚刚闭幕的阿姆斯特丹国际纪录片电影节期间，我们和张侨勇导演就《这不是电影》做了一次深度访谈。

张侨勇在距离多伦多以东六十公里的奥沙瓦长大。作为镇上唯一的华裔家庭，张侨勇一直有种找不到根的感觉。身份认知是他萦绕不去的困惑。“我对朝九晚五之外的边缘人群更感兴趣，这可能是我身份认知的写照吧”，张侨勇笑着说，“这是我第一次受委任的导演作品，之前的作品基本都是我自己的点子。作为纪录片工作者，我本身就认为真相的主观性。每个人都是带着自己的知识和生活背景去看待世界。”之前几部作品，张侨勇选定的主人公都是边缘人群：加拿大的华裔农民，长江流域的打工青年，大凉山里的拳击手，开饭团店干预轻生者的日本退休警察。

毕业后，张侨勇在魁北克省蒙特利尔市一家影视公司EyeSteelFilm工作多年。这座城市的电影文化很大程度受到欧洲艺术电影的影响。在问到这段经历对他个人风格的影响时，张侨勇说：“我其实深受很多中国电影的影响，小时候看功夫片是我了解中国的途径。中国文化本身就充满诗意。这或多或少和欧洲艺术电影有异曲同工之妙。在影片中去营造一个氛围让观众有足够的空间去共鸣、去思考比填满对话更重要。”

与以往不同，《这不是电影》的拍摄对象是一名记者。海量档案、叙利亚前线一手拍摄的任务向拍摄团队涌来。张侨勇和他的团队首先需要花很多功夫搜集整理堆积如山的严肃档案。“要把一个人四十年的职业生涯和中东乱局的历史浓缩到一个半小时的电影里，任务相当艰巨。和我以往几部作品不同，比如《千锤百炼》，我拍之前能预想到了故事大概会如何发展，《这不是电影》更像是散文,我和我的剪辑师要在剪辑室中把打动我们的内容一点一点拼接起来，感觉怎么自然顺畅怎么来。另外，我始终在剪辑中追求一个平衡点，要囊括足够的信息，还要制造一个空间留给观众去思考”。

经过张侨勇的处理，我们在影片中看到了健谈、幽默的菲斯克。年过七旬的他，能在键盘上打字如飞。“菲斯克是一名饱受争议的记者，很多同行都指责过他言语偏激，但他不在乎，始终埋头做自己的工作，是个不折不扣的工作狂。我在菲斯克家中采访他的时候，如果问到让他不想回答的问题，他会非常地直接拒绝我。我很感谢他的直接。影片中有一个他和大学生合影的场景，不难看出其实他在社交场合会感到尴尬害羞。我们的采访长达十六小时，有时他变得情绪化，因为他会谈论看到死去的孩子之类的事情，但他极少极少流露感情。这就好似他给自己设立的一个反应机制，不去让自己在悲剧里钻得太深，这样更利于他保持清醒的头脑作为去观察，去写作，去质疑权威。”

影片中，菲斯克在一座被摧毁的房子里找到了一份武器交易信息。随后，他照着这份名单一一去求证这批武器的来源。他十分强硬地谴责西方站在道德制高点却用金钱挑拨战争。“战争不是输赢的较量，而是人性的彻底毁灭”，菲斯克说。当他谈到自己的父亲在第一次世界大战中违抗军令而拒绝杀死一名俘虏时，他两眼放光。他父亲的铮铮傲骨大概也遗传到了他的身上。

为什么这次会选择一个新闻记者作为主人公？张侨勇说：“2016年美国大选期间，我正在美国东部拍摄。结果出来的时候，所有的同僚都懵了，没有人知道到底发生了什么。为什么结果和媒体的预测大相径庭？不久之后，我的制片人问我有没有兴趣拍一部关于新闻事实的作品，我觉得这是最佳时期，我非常想借此机会去探索有关真相的话题，或许通过近距离观察菲斯克的生活，我可以学到更多。在贝鲁特和菲斯克见面之后，我觉得他是一个雅量十足而且非常正直的人。四十年来菲斯克的报道全部都建立在他始终如一的道德标准之上。他慷慨地接受了我们拍摄项目，唯一的条件就是不能要求他专门为了拍摄做任何事，他也不会干涉我影片的任何内容。”

随着媒体从纸媒转向网媒，假新闻日益增多，真相似乎变得难得。鲜有读者追问信息来源的真实性。我们习惯了听自己想听，看自己想看，以为一部手机就可以掌握全世界。影片以中东战事、新闻事实和媒体消费环境等问题为点，提出了反思。2018年4月，欧美媒体相继报道了叙利亚杜马化学袭击事件。为了求证叙利亚政府是否确实使用了氯气作为武器，菲斯克到杜马走访了当地居民。他们都声称并未经历化武袭击。对此，菲斯克发表文章质疑联合国的报告。所谓“确实使用”，实为嫁祸之论，误导群众，引发恐慌。和喜欢在摩登大楼里吹空调码字的记者不同，菲斯克坚持到战地亲手记录所见所闻，“我只能写我看到的，听到的，这是记者的本分。我能做的最没用的事就是转述二手线索。”

《这不是电影》是一部深沉的纪录片，需要观影者储备一定历史、时政知识来帮助理解。影片最后，菲斯克表达了他对新闻业现状的愤怒和悲伤。张侨勇谈到，“菲斯克说过一段令我十分敬佩的话，他说作为记者，最重要的就是为后世留下记录。不论有没有人去读它。至少当有人想要了解求证一件事的时候，有这么一份可以参考的信息。”他补充道，“如今我们作为读者，有更多的工作要做，因为我们非常清楚现在信息大爆炸，更需要我们主动去寻找值得信任的资源。我难以想象一个靠搜索引擎去掌握信息，丧失质疑和自我判断能力的社会。我刚有了孩子，每每思考起她的未来，觉得现在必须有教人们如何处理新闻和信息的程序来提高媒体素养。”

作为在美国生活了十年的九零后，笔者深感美国过去十年的媒体文化愈发走向极端化。它们站在道德的制高点上开始指手画脚，塑造了大众对世界问题的片面理解，不再关心正在失去的人与人之间最基本的倾听能力和求同存异的相处之道。不妨以菲斯克《文明的伟大战争：征服中东》的一段话来结束全文:

“恐怖主义”一词已成为我们词汇表上的一个瘟疫，成为国家支持暴力的借口、理由和道义。而我们的暴力现在正越来越肆无忌惮地用于中东无辜的人。恐怖主义，恐怖主义，恐怖主义。它已成为一个标点符号，一个短语，一篇演讲，一篇布道。我们用憎恨来忽视不公正，去占领，去大规模谋杀。恐怖，恐怖，恐怖，恐怖，它变成了奏鸣曲、交响乐，定调于每一个电视电台和新闻机构报道、黄金时段肥皂剧中的魔鬼，服务于令人疲倦沉闷和虚假的形式由右翼“评论员”、《耶路撒冷邮报》或欧洲的知识分子。打击恐怖主义。战胜恐惧。永远的反恐战争。历史上很少有士兵、记者、总统和国王统一站到如此轻率、毫无疑问的队列中。”

《这不是电影》主创团队

导演：张侨勇(Yung Chang)

制片：Anita Lee, Allyson Luchak, Nelofer Pazira, IngmarTrost

摄影：Duraid Munajim

剪辑：Mike Munn

作曲：Ohad Benchetrit, Justin Small

剧本：Yung Chang, Nelofer Pazira

Art Review - Andy Goldsworthy

Andy Goldsworthy (Great Britain, b. 1956)

1. Rowan leaves laid around hole, 1987

2. Damp sand, hollowed out, soft red stone ground into powder around each hole, 1987

Sublimity in Performance

Critical appraisal of Andy Goldsworthy’s artistry can be facile as the work itself is well received by the public. Indeed, the grandeur of nature is somehow a guarantee of the visual pleasure. While at the same time, participation in nature easily exceeds our rational understanding of its essence, causing the experience of, in Kantian definition, sublimity. Thus, the communication between Goldsworthy and his spectators is unproblematic, because we share a fundamental understanding as some kind of entirety of the things that all have touched upon. 

But what’s truly admirable about Goldsworthy’s works is his essence and means of creation. In fact, his desire to work with the landscape uplifts the definition of an artist onto an unexplored territory. In the opening of Rivers and Tides, a 2001 documentary of the artist, Goldsworthy expresses his desperate need to touch the land, or else he feels dislocated and unrooted. He promotes “a sensory understanding of what matters most in life”, refusing to wear gloves under any weather or material condition to avoid the sensitivity of the earth, which to him, is the co-creator of the art. Nature’s unpredictability forces Goldsworthy to work closely with time and risk, making failures of attempts an unceasing struggle. 

However, having total control over art creation, to Goldsworthy, can be the death of the work. As he explains in the Rivers and Tides, failure continues as he grows in proportion of his understanding of the stone. The root is not a safety zone for Goldsworthy but filled with uncertainty. In fact, similar to how we culturally regard sky as a horizon that conceals the unknown, Goldsworthy views the root the as the surface that separates the earth and the hidden energy that operates all beings on earth. It’s the unpredictability beneath us that attracts him. In order to document his understanding of the energy underneath, Goldsworthy uses metaphors collected from the landscape to form symbols that depicts his gained knowledge.

 One recurring theme of Goldsworthy’s ephemeral art is the black hole, which symbolizes an entrance to the underground world where growth begins and death returns to. Rowan leaves laid around hole, made in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in West Bretton, England, is an extremely eye catching piece for its intensely bright colored leaves. A range of color—Mahogany, wine, ginger, tangerine, and marigold form a spinning while that travels to reach the black hole. And the blending of the chromatic diagram adds aesthetic value of the photograph. Damp sand, hollowed out, soft red stone ground into powder around each hole consists seven mini sand dunes piled by the seashore. The “submit” of each dune is melted open, surrounded by iron-colored powder, shaping a recently erupted volcano. The black holes invite us to peer inside, looking for the flow of energy that has caused the eruption, and soon, its erosion. But the energy flow is something that we cannot physical relates to, but can only surrender ourselves to an imagined comprehension. The black hole, in this view, “remains scared and hale, something not to be touched or broken into”.  

Another theme that Goldsworthy conducts is the color of red. Goldsworthy recounts his encounter with the color during on a usual workday working with the stones. He noticed the oxides of iron turn some hidden rocks into blood colors. It was a moment of revelation to realize such an alien and intense color is so hidden and rooted in earth, just like the blood that runs in our veins. In Rowan leaves laid around hole, layers of scarlet and blood colored leaves composes shocking contrast with the black hole, performing the vibrancy of its life climax. Similarly, in Damp sand, hollowed out, soft red stone ground into powder around each hole, the fire colored powder describes the most violent and energetic component of eruption, vividly celebrates its excitement to travel above the earth’s surface. Goldsworthy uses the pigment milled from the red rocks that he finds underneath the surface of landscape on top of the sand dunes as a symbolic statement to show a connection between the life and death. Where the leaves and the expelled lava are heading to is tokened by the black hole, completing the cycle of energy exchange. 

After the artist’s project completion, the work is handed over to the earth. The tides will eventually erode the sand dunes and the leaves will be quickly enjoyed by the hyphae of fungi. Goldsworthy dedicates his creation to the landscape to receive its deconstruction. But the deaths of the sculptures are not the destination of the work. Goldsworthy reads decomposition and decay as the yin to the yang of growth—the ocean washes away the sands, refining them into smaller rock and mineral particles that forms a new peak; the fungi digests their rowan leaves as nutrition for the soil, supplying the tree for another year of growth. Goldsworthy’s way of seeing all beings as part of a perpetual cycle that harmonizes the message from the classic Chinese I Ching, that “every position in life is balanced by creating a harmony between the inner self and the surrounding world.” Therefore, a complete visual experience of Goldsworthy’s works demands an impossible commitment of time. Photography is used to capture moments of energy exchange between the sculptures and the earth because it efficiently accommodates the perceptual and cognitive demands of modernity. However, as faithful as it gets optically, photography can only be hailed as the instrument of an exacting second sight, because “the real work is the change”. Sublimity is better achieved in participating and imagining the flow of energy beyond the sculptures. 

What Goldsworthy exemplifies is a way of human being. The back-to-nature fleeing human culture and the work of making, avoiding technics altogether can be seen as wooly romantic. But with work taken in an active sense, Goldsworthy’s art is an establishment of himself as a human being in relation to the earth, endlessly seeking knowledge of his beloved landscape through the sensory experience.

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Documentary on the “Rivers and Tides”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khfR29SB6X4

Art Writing - Sally Mann

A Museum Object Label

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951)

Virginia at Four, 1989

Gelatin silver print

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Captured during a warm sunny day when children ran around the family farm in state of Virginia, this photograph reflects the unique personality and body of the artist’s youngest child. Through its portrayal of the confident young girl, the photograph suggests that even small children possess their own complex personalities. The nudity provides a metaphorical access into the crystal clear, lyrical soul of Virginia. 

After receiving international acclaim for her project At Twelve (1988), Mann collected 65 duotone images that she had taken of her three children between 1984 and 1991 into her third publication, Immediate Family. This photograph, as part of that collection, mirrors Mann’s artistic mission to convey childhood in its most authentic presence. As an anomalous contemporary photographer, Mann claims, “my lens should remain open to the full scope of their childhood…triumphs, confusion, harmony and isolation”. Inspired by the Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron, Mann utilizes black and white and focuses her large format camera on everyday subjects. The maturity, toughness, and pride captured in the young girl makes Mann’s camera a weapon to fight against the taboo identity of childhood.

Art Review - Christopher Knowles

More is Less, Sound is Silence

In a refined luster of muted blue, The Sundance Kid is Beautiful awakens in a soundtrack of andante, crisp, and steady pulses, creating an ambience similar to a wooden fish tapping in a Buddhist temple. Knowles, portraying an autistic child, moves around the stage solo, following a similar, minimalist rhythm—walking, bending, turning, and speaking throughout the performance. However, this composed meter is interrupted by several popular music tracks, one of which being the Frankie Valli’s 1967 classic, “Can’t Take My Eyes off You”. 

Knowles played at least four renditions of the song in addition to the original version, ranging from the swinging bossa nova, punk rocky indie, to technical jazz and classical piano. Once Valli’s original began to fade out, these reinterpreted versions joined in periodically and layered on top of one another like a Renaissance motet until all versions of the song are amplified simultaneously, reaching a chaotic finale. In a blend of varying timbres and tempos, the lyrics became impossible to recognize word by word. As an interesting result, this arrangement of soundtracks produced an effect beyond the original context of Valli’s Billboard favorite. 

Although the repetitiveness inherits a signature style of Knowles’s production, this particular gesture differentiates from the typical monologues in the audiences’ relationship with the original content. For example, when Knowles repeats, “the Sundance kid is beautiful” by adding more “very” each time towards the end of the play, we expect a slightly longer, but same phrase the next time. While we’re repeatedly reminded of the phrase’s content, our perception no longer focuses on, and is even confused by the semantic content. Instead, the body begins to produce meaning when the language sounds exhausting. The music, on another spectrum, comfortably drew support from the popularity of the song so that even with a diminished clarity of the lyrics, the audiences were sober aware of what those different versions were about. Thus, the added renditions doesn’t vacillate our understanding of the original text that is so deeply ingrained in our heads prior to the performance. 

In other words, the new versions of music are not entirely external to the initial version, but are only external as an extended network of communication, dialoging with our consciousness. What’s special about these popular music references is that they are diegetic sounds that Knowles played from the cassette tape recorders. Much like how artists from the “Pictures Generation” utilizes photography to approach the question of proliferation of images in the age of mechanical reproduction, Knowles plays 4 out of more than 200 covers of Valli’s hit to address a similar concern. In a sense, the meaning and the certainty of the “other” versions of the song is ungrounded without the original work. But from another perspective, the added versions together deconstruct the importance of the original by distancing Valli’s work away from the audiences. In a mist of loss and remembrance, we forget to question why the song is chosen by Knowles and how the lyrics serve the greater plot of the performance. The repetitiveness, as an entity, becomes something that isn’t wrapped up in a hullabaloo, and something stable in a sense that it isn’t a constant record of our sensitivity. Almost like the Turkish whirling dance, the music loops as a physical active meditation, moving our attention far away from a world of language, into a world that the Sundance kid silently immerses. 

Schubert Sonata D.960 Analysis

The interplay of sonata and rondo principles in the fourth movement of Franz Schubert’s last sonata in Bb major, D.960 frames an intriguing backbone structure, which efficaciously serves the finale of the four-movement piece. The refrain material appears as a structural downbeat throughout the piece, supplying unpredictable harmonic shifts to produce a colorful tonal excursion. The opening announcement of an empty octave of G flirts with listener’s expectations because the finale could go anywhere from the G. Sure enough, the first phrase expands in the key of C minor, revealing the dominant function of the G octave. But a PAC in Bb major interrupts C minor at m.10, finally confirming the key suggested by the key signature. As Rosen suggests, Schubert loosens the traditional classical form and stretches its ligaments unmercifully. After occurring in similar fashion preparing for the development section to arrive, the refrain prolongs expectation for the final tonic arrival until the presto coda. Schubert breaks off the main theme phrase from mm.490-512 with three open octave interjections in descending motion from G to Gb to F in order to generate maximum effect for the grand finale.

The dominant preparation from Gb to F before the coda calls for attention on the intricate relationship between the first movement and the fourth. First of all, both movements have a 3-key exposition, but land on different key areas. The tonal ambiguity in the first movement is established with a reoccurring trill from Gb to F that functions as a structural downbeat just like the open G in the fourth movement. Movement I foreshadows a structural connection with the last movement. In the first movement, each section within the sonata ends on the trill, which leads to a new key. Furthermore, the Gb-F trill at the end of the first movement foreshadows an intense tonic arrival at the end of the finale so that the dissonance on a large scale resolve. Rhythmic material draws parallel as well. For instance, the dotted rhythm with the continuous left hand sixteenth notes in the second theme of the first movement exposition returns in the exact same way in the third theme of the final movement exposition.

Though the fourth movement doesn’t interact with the mysterious Gb as much as the first movement, the attempt for linking the tonic and the dominant is a great example of Schubert’s crossing edge compositional style in his later life. As Taruskin elaborates, the Gb plays not only as the submediant to the tonic, but also as the Neapolitan to the dominant. As one of the most important figures contributing the transitional period between Classical era and Early Romantic era, Schubert broadens his choices for harmonic navigation. In the fourth movement, he not only breaks free from the minor key modulation to the relative major tradition in the exposition, but also adds in interaction of thirds and semitones, finding common ground between the tonic and the dominant. For example, the climax of the fourth movement starts to build up at m. 282 after a Bb chord on a pick up beat. Followed by a stepwise descending motion in the bass from Eb to Cb, the climax finally reaches the Neapolitan key of Bb major. The interaction among Bb, Cb, and F minor, the key before the development, works as a perfect example of harmonic experiment.

The romantic introspection expands on melodic vocabulary as well. The 68-measure second theme of the exposition is more harmonically stable with a much slower and peaceful melody. Starting on an F major arpeggiation in the right hand, the sixteenth notes continue uninterrupted throughout the theme, which creates an extremely lyrical flow. However, the ambiguity remains as the semiquaver fashion allows the music to modulate unceasingly. Built on the modulations, the second theme is almost in a ternary form itself. With a visit to D major in the middle, confirmed in m.104, Schubert composes a different melodic pattern for the left hand to enhance the distinction. The later pattern consists of more repeated notes than relationships by thirds from the previous one. Despite the return of the initial melody, the second theme quietly ends on C major, preparing for the third theme of the exposition.

Beethoven left a great mark on all subsequent composers, including Schubert. Schubert’s admiration for this singularity in the history of music is evident in his fourth movement. Under Beethoven’s influence, the formalism calling during the Enlightenment age is superseded. Beethoven also leads modal thinking in the minor key. With a 2 bar pause out of no expectation, the third theme opens on a repeated F minor chord in fortissimo with contrasting rhythm of dotted notes. The intense introduction of the minor dominant key reflects Schubert’s experiment with modes over tonalities. The key of the new theme is ambiguous enough to start with, for the lack of appearance of pitch E, which functions as the most crucial key to distinguish between F minor and Ab major.

Schubert’s stylistic adventure goes beyond the interplay of harmony and reaches the rhythmic aspect as well. The development section begins after the main theme refrain with juxtaposed triples and quavers with rapid alternation between the two hands. The semiquaver flow reappears at m. 169 in the left hand while the right hand remains in dotted rhythm. Then the left hand accompaniment shifts to triples but keeps the dotted rhythm till m.208. Towards the end of the third theme, brief fragments of the main theme return at m.208 and m. 216 in the right hand along with the new rhythmic pattern in the left hand with diminuendo marking. The new rhythmic pattern generates a clashing effect, making the development sections sound chaotic and angry. The merging of rhythms achieves on a metaphorical level by mixing familiar material from previous themes together. It’s hard not to ponder the emotions Schubert wished to express knowing he had a few months remaining. The mixture of striking chord choices, dynamic shifts, and rhythmic variations reflect chaotic complexity and beauty, which is probably a portion of the inner world of Schubert.