《牯嶺街少年殺人事件》出高清修復版

As the memory of high school may cast a lingering shadow on later lives, so “A Brighter Summer Day,” Edward Yang’s magisterial four-hour drama of Taipei teenagers, looms over the landscape of Taiwanese cinema. American recognition has been slower. Completed in 1991 but released in the United States 20 years later, the film is now out on disc from Criterion.

楊德昌長達四小時的鉅作《牯嶺街少年殺人事件》描繪了臺北青少年的生活，它在臺灣電影世界中像一座恆久聳立的高峯，正如中學時代的記憶會給一個人以後的人生投下長久的陰影。美國對這部片子的認可來得有些緩慢——它於1991年攝製完成，直到20年後纔在美國上映。如今這部片子將出光碟版，由美國公司標準收藏(Criterion)發行。

A universal tale of wayward adolescence is woven into complex context. Taiwan, a liberated Japanese colony with a large native Chinese population, was ruled from 1949 on by newly arrived Chinese nationalists backed by the American military. “A Brighter Summer Day” depicts but does not directly explicate the political situation. “Rather than working its way through a neatly predigested story line, it plunges the audience into a vast social fresco,” the British critic Tony Rayns, one of the movie’s first Western admirers, wrote in 1993.

這是一個講述叛逆的青春期的普遍故事，被放在錯綜複雜的背景之中。臺灣是被解放的日本殖民地，有不少原住中國居民，1949年後，新來的中國國民黨在美軍支持下統治了臺灣。《牯嶺街少年殺人事件》描繪了當時的政治環境，但又並不給出直接的解讀。1993年，該片在西方最早的仰慕者之一，英國評論家託尼·雷恩(Tony Rayns)寫道：“影片沒有按照一條清晰簡化的故事線發展，而是帶領觀衆跳入一幅巨大的社會風情圖卷之中。”

Along with his contemporary Hou Hsiao-hsien, Mr. Yang (1947-2007) helped usher Taiwanese cinema onto the world stage. Mr. Yang was also the new cinema movement’s most cosmopolitan member — born in Shanghai, raised in Taipei and trained as an engineer at the University of Florida. Early films like “Taipei Story” (1985) and “The Terrorizer” (1986) are laconic depictions of Taiwan’s disaffected urban elite. “A Brighter Summer Day,” on which Mr. Yang worked for three years — one of which he said was devoted to rehearsing his cast’s 60 young members — is more ambitious and personal.

楊德昌(1947-2007)與其同代導演侯孝賢一道，令臺灣電影躋身世界影壇。生於上海，在臺北長大，在佛羅里達大學讀工程學的楊德昌，也是新電影運動中最國際化的一位。他的早期電影如《青梅竹馬》(1985)和《恐怖分子》(1986)是對臺灣憤懣叛逆的都市精英的簡練描寫。《牯嶺街少年殺人事件》則更有野心，也更加個人化，它花費了楊德昌三年的時間。他說，其中一年是用來訓練60名年輕演員的。

“A City of Sadness” (1989), Mr. Hou’s intimate yet panoramic treatment of Taiwan’s turbulent Cold War history, provided a template for Mr. Yang. While not strictly autobiographical, “A Brighter Summer Day” drew on his own experiences; set in 1960, it is based on a juvenile homicide that occurred at Mr. Yang’s school when he was 13. In an interview published in 2005, Mr. Yang called making the movie “a kind of responsibility that I had to take on.”

侯孝賢的《悲情城市》(1989)爲臺灣在冷戰時期的歷史描繪了一幅全面而又細緻入微的圖畫，也爲楊德昌提供了模板。《牯嶺街少年殺人事件》並不是嚴格的自傳，卻也取材於他自身的經歷；故事發生在1960年，根據楊德昌所在學校裏的一宗少年殺人案改編，當時他只有13歲。在2005年的一次訪談中，楊德昌說，拍攝這部電影“是我必須承擔的一種責任”。

“A Brighter Summer Day” is largely focused on high school turf wars and imported Elvis worship. (The title refers to a misheard lyric from the Elvis Presley hit “Are You Lonesome Tonight?”) But it is also a family drama that evokes Taiwan’s prolonged period of martial law. The protagonist Si’r, a bright, impulsive 14-year-old, is enrolled in a secondary school where the uniforms and regimentation provide an unforced parallel to military rule.

《牯嶺街少年殺人事件》主要聚焦一箇中學裏的幫派戰爭，還引入了“貓王”(Elvis Presley)崇拜。該片的英文名“A Brighter Summer Day”（更明亮的夏日）就是來自“貓王”的金曲《今晚你可孤獨嗎》(Are You Lonesome Tonight?)裏面一句聽錯了的歌詞。但是它也是一部家庭劇，令人想起臺灣實行戒嚴法令的漫長時期。主角四兒是個聰明、愛衝動的14歲少年，在他就讀的中學裏，制服與嚴厲的管控自然而然與大環境中的軍事統治形成對照。

Originally on the fringes of a local gang, Si’r is drawn into its power struggles, including an emotional vortex around the murdered gang leader’s girlfriend, Ming. The title notwithstanding, much of the film’s action takes place at night, or is otherwise obscured, reinforcing the sense of a clandestine youth culture coursing beneath the frozen surface of a mobilized society.

四兒原本只是處在一個本地幫派的邊緣，卻被捲入種種權力鬥爭，包括與幫派遇害頭領的女友小明的感情糾葛。和電影的英文名稱相反，影片大部分情節發生在夜晚，要麼就是在非常昏暗的情境下，勾勒出這個全民動員的社會冰封表面之下肆意發展的祕密青少年文化的氛圍。

Seeing “A Brighter Summer Day” in the early 1990s as part of a touring package of Taiwanese films, I was impressed by Mr. Yang’s synthesis of detached European art cinema and florid Hollywood youth films; familiar yet exotic, his movie seemed a Michelangelo Antonioni version of “West Side Story” or a Wim Wenders remake of “Rebel Without a Cause,” with the added frisson of pop ballads by Frankie Avalon and Ricky Nelson performed by Taiwanese singers in phonetic English.

20世紀90年代初，我在一次臺灣電影巡展中看到了《牯嶺街少年殺人事件》 ，最打動我的是楊德昌把歐洲藝術電影的超然與好萊塢青年電影的華麗融爲一體；他的電影既令人感覺熟悉，又富於異國情調，猶如讓米開朗琪羅·安東尼奧尼(Michelangelo Antonioni)來拍攝《西區故事》(West Side Story)，或是讓維姆·文德斯(Wim Wenders)來翻拍《無因的反叛》(Rebel Without a Cause)，再加上臺灣歌手用注音的英語演唱弗蘭基·阿瓦隆(Frankie Avalon)與裏奇·尼爾遜(Ricky Nelson)流行歌的那麼一點激情。

To revisit the movie is to appreciate the precision of Mr. Yang’s period details and novelistic touches. An outsize flashlight stolen by Si’r and his friends from a night watchman in one of the movie’s first scenes reappears throughout to illuminate (or not) the tangled conflicts. The school’s proximity to a movie studio allows Mr. Yang to comment both on his film and his characters as historical actors, not least when the duplicitous Ming is given a screen test.

重新觀看這部影片，可以欣賞到楊德昌的小說式語言和他對時代細節的精確處理。電影開始不久的一場戲裏，四兒和朋友們從一個守夜人那裏偷來一個大號手電筒，這個手電筒後來多次出現，照亮紛亂的幫派鬥爭（或者說什麼也沒有照亮）。學校距離一個電影棚不遠，讓楊德昌可以借歷史角色之口去評論他的電影和他的人物，尤其是兩面派的小明去片場試鏡的那場戲。

Dialogue from “Rio Bravo” is heard as well, but Mr. Yang’s lofty aspiration may be gauged by several references to “War and Peace,” a book seen by the movie’s most romantic character as the Western equivalent of the Chinese martial arts novels in which he imagines he lives. That may have been Mr. Yang’s feeling as well. Interviewed by Mr. Rayns, he remarked, “If someone asked me to make a 300-episode TV series about these people, I’d have had the material to do it.”

片中可以聽到《赤膽屠龍》(Rio Bravo)的對白，但是最能體現楊德昌遠大抱負的，可能還要算是幾次對《戰爭與和平》(War and Peace)的提及。片中最浪漫的一個角色把這本書當做西方的武俠小說來讀，他也幻想自己就生活在武俠的世界裏面。楊德昌自己可能也有同感。雷恩採訪他時，他說，“如果有人讓我爲這些人物拍一部300集的電視劇，我也有足夠的素材。”

American television hasn’t lacked for high school drama, but few series are as treasured as “Freaks and Geeks,” created by Paul Feig and produced by Judd Apatow. Broadcast in 1999 and 2000 but set outside Detroit at the dawn of the Reagan era, the series was canceled by NBC at midseason but revived on cable, complete with un-telecast episodes, and has enjoyed a long afterlife as a critical and fan favorite. “Freaks and Geeks: The Complete Series,” a new Blu-ray box out from Shout! Factory, provides all 18 episodes both in the original broadcast aspect ratio and a superfluous wide-screen format.

美國電視中一直不缺少關於中學生活的劇集，但很少有像《怪胎與書呆》(Freaks and Geeks)那樣被人稱道的。該劇由保羅·費格(Paul Feig)編劇，賈德·阿帕圖(Judd Apatow)導演，於1999年至2000年上映，不過背景設定在里根時代初期的底特律郊外。該劇被NBC在季中取消，但又在有線臺復活，補完了未播出的幾集，此後長期受到評論家與劇迷的青睞。Shout! Factory公司最近發行了《怪胎與書呆全集》(Freaks and Geeks: The Complete Series)藍光版，收入該劇全部18集，並有原始播出的比例和特別寬屏版兩種格式。

Mr. Feig (“Bridesmaids,” the coming “Ghostbusters” reboot) and Mr. Apatow (“Trainwreck,” “Knocked Up”) are now kingpins of Hollywood comedy. A number of the show’s stars, including the three main “freaks” — James Franco, Seth Rogen and Jason Segel — also enjoy great box-office visibility, but the series’s real star is Linda Cardellini. In her mid-20s when the show was shot, she was a more convincing teenager than her co-stars, some of whom, like Mr. Rogen, were still in their teens. (More recently, Ms. Cardellini has appeared in AMC’s “Mad Men” and the series “Bloodline” on Netflix.)

費格曾執導電影《伴娘》(Bridesmaids)，及即將上映的《超能敢死隊》(Ghostbusters)，阿帕圖曾執導《生活殘骸》(Trainwreck)和《一夜大肚》(Knocked Up)，兩人目前都是好萊塢喜劇界的中流砥柱。《怪胎與書呆》中羣星薈萃，三位主要的“怪胎”由詹姆斯·弗蘭科(James Franco)、塞斯·羅根(Seth Rogen)和傑森·席格爾(Jason Segel)飾演，他們都頗具票房成就。但劇中真正的明星還要算是琳達·卡德里尼(Linda Cardellini)。出演該劇時她已經20多歲了，演起十幾歲的青少年來，卻比其他幾位演員更令人信服。其中幾位，比如羅根，還是真的十幾歲的少年。最近，卡德里尼還出演了AMC臺的《廣告狂人》(Mad Men)和Netflix的電視劇《至親血統》(Bloodline)。

If not free of sentimental moralizing, “Freaks and Geeks” is generally unflinching in its identification with high school outcasts. The show’s period and something of its attitude is established by the use of Joan Jett’s “Bad Reputation” as a theme; a geekier alternate might have been the Ramones’ bratty satire of in-group exclusivity, “I Don’t Wanna Walk Around With You.”

就算沒有完全擺脫多愁善感的道德說教，《怪胎與書呆》總體而言還是毫不動搖地站在高中生裏的棄兒們這邊。劇集主題曲是瓊·杰特(Joan Jett)的《壞名聲》(Bad Reputation)，正好可以反映劇中的時代以及本劇的態度； 如果要顯得更“書呆”一點，“雷蒙斯”那首大膽諷刺小圈子排外的《我不願意和你一塊兒走》(I Don’t Wanna Walk Around With You)也很合適。