廣電總局:沒有犯罪的中國犯罪片
HONG KONG — A FEW years back I got a callfrom a film director based in China who had read one of my detective novels."Can you help me write a screenplay for a crime story?" he asked. "The tricky thing is that it's set in Beijing, so no crime can be involved."
香港——幾年前我接到一位在中國發展的導演的電話，他讀了我的一部偵探小說，問我：“你能給我寫一個犯罪故事的劇本嗎？”然後他又說道，“麻煩的是因爲要設定在北京，所以不能出現犯罪。”
No one can start making a film in China without submitting the plot to the State General Administration of Press, Publication,Radio, Film and Television (SGAPPRFT), an agency set up to administer government-owned media but best known (and feared) as a committee of any organization from outside mainland China is involved, including Hong Kong partners, a full screenplay must be submitted for review. Once approved,it can't be modified, meaning actors and directors must resist any urge to improvise during irregular intervals the agency providesa list of unmentionables. Sex scenes or depictions of "excessive drinking,smoking and other bad habits" are a no-go. “Propagating passive or negative outlook on life, world view and value system" is banned; so is "stirring upambivalence and conflicts between different religions or sects, and betweenbelievers and nonbelievers, causing disharmony in the community."
如果你想在中國拍片，就必須先把情節呈交給國家新聞出版廣播電影電視總局(SGAPPRFT)。廣電總局乍一看好像是個監管國有媒體的機構，其實一般被當做“審查委員會”看待，是個讓人聞之色變的存在。如果中國大陸以外的組織也參與其中，包括香港的合作伙伴，那麼整個劇本都要呈上供大人御覽。如果被批准了，這劇本也就不能再修改了，因而演員和導演不管再怎麼想，也不能在拍戲過程中即興發揮。廣電總局曾發佈一份“不能說”的名單。性愛場景，以及對“酗酒、吸菸和其他壞習慣”的描繪不宜出現。“傳播被動或消極的人生觀、世界觀和價值觀”是被禁的。至於“挑起宗教或教派，信徒和非信徒之間的衝突和矛盾，破壞社會和諧”的，自然也是不許了。
The vetting committee might reject a storyline for being "unscientific," because, say, it features time travel. It also bans"historical untruths," which, this being China, often means historical ethnicity of villains is a major concern as well. "If it's about international crime, the bad guy must not be Chinese," explained a Hong Kong screenwriter with 25 years' experience. (Heasked not to be identified for fear of being blacklisted.) Further more, thecrime must not be initiated within China's borders, as if the land itself were somehow pure. All characters in the uniformed services must be good rnment employees may never be corrupt. There are no prostitutes in ing a SGAPPRFT permit is just the firsthurdle. If the hero is a monk or the setting is a temple or a church, the script will also require a permit from the State Administration for Religious Affairs. If it's a spy movie, national security agents will have to vet it. Forcop shows, you need approval from the police's so-called art t stories are farcically the spring of 2006, an online novel by Zhang Muye called "Gui Chui Deng"(literally "Ghost Blows Out the Light") was enormously popular. It was read by millions. There was much excited discussion about a print version and aninternational movie adaptation. Then the project stalled. The government-licensed version of the book published in print was purged of any reference to thesupernatural, and with that, the film project vanished, too.
審查委員會們會因爲影片有時空穿越成分，判定它“不科學”而把劇本打回去；他們也不允許“不符合歷史”的故事，因爲既然是在中國，就應該都是史實。反派的種族也是個大問題。“如果涉及到跨國犯罪，反派一定不能是中國人，”一位有着25年從業經驗的香港編劇說道（他請求筆者不要寫出他的名字，以免進黑名單）。此外，犯罪也不可發生於中國國內，要把這片土地默認是一清二白纔好。在國家機關工作的都得是好人，政府職員不能涉貪，中國也沒有妓女。得到廣電總局的許可還只是第一步。如果主角是個和尚，或是故事背景設在寺廟和教堂，那你還要徵得國家宗教事務局的許可。如果是間諜片兒，還要讓國家安全局審查。如果是警匪片，你還要得到警團所謂的文藝部的准許。鬼故事也要搞成開放式結局，往往讓人有“玩我吶！”之感。2006年春，由張牧野所寫的一部網絡小說《鬼吹燈》取得了巨大轟動，一時間讀者能以百萬計。關於此書的實體出版和改編電影走向國外的相關討論也是叫囂塵上。然後就沒了。整個計劃就此擱置。在《鬼吹燈》經國家審批後的出版版本中，書中一切涉及超自然的成分都被剔除了，而沒了這些，電影自然也沒法拍了。At least half of Hong Kong movies today areco-produced with mainland organizations, and screenwriters here are also having to toe the Beijing line. "That's why we usually make 'ancient swordsman' films,or stories that happen in the period before the founding of the New China," the Hong Kong screenwriter explained. He meant that you can show something negativein mainland China only so long as it happened before the Communist revolutionin 1949 — but be careful not to portray that period as a golden era, because for that you might get a good story be written under suchconditions? It's difficult. Some screenwriters have managed through cunning:One director squeaked a crime movie set in Hong Kong past the censors afterclaiming the action took place before the transfer in 1997, while the territory was still under the rule of those evil Brits.
今天至少一半的香港電影都是與大陸的合拍片，而劇本自然也就不得不向廣電總局的標準靠攏。“所以我們總是拍古裝武俠片，或者是新中國成立以前那段時期的片子。”這位香港編劇解釋道。也就是說，只要是新中國以前，展現那個時代中國大陸的陰暗面也是可以的，但要千萬注意不可把那個時代描繪的太好，跟什麼黃金時代似的，不然審查又是一個麻煩。在這樣的條件下能寫出好劇本嗎？很難。有些編劇就想出了各種歪主意：曾有位導演拍了部設定在香港的犯罪片，然後稱這個故事發生於1997年之前——那時香港不還是被邪惡的大英帝國統治嘛。於是就過審了。More often, the rules kill creativity. The 2002 Hong Kong movie "Infernal Affairs," a gripping tale about a triad member who infiltrates the police, was remade in Hollywood as "The Departed,” which won four Oscars, including one for best adapted screenplay. In the original,the gangster antihero ultimately avoids being exposed by killing someone in his own gang. Is he still faking it, or has he become the top cop he was pretending to be? In the version of the film that was reshot in China, the ending is a clunker:Confronted by police officers who accuse him of being a mole, he turns in his badge without a crime story I co-wrote with theChinese director had to be rejiggered multiple times. It eventually resulted inan implausible tale about an Italian businessman who flies into Beijing, stealsa huge cache of art treasures, and flies out while pursued by noble detectives of Chinese origin. It was never filmed, to my problem is not about to go rding to Xinhua, the state-run news agency, China's uncompromising president, Xi Jinping, told a forum of writers in October, "The arts must serve the people and serve socialism." Anthony Lee, a Hong Kong Polytechnic University lecturer on entertainment, said, "The buzz in theindustry is that the toughness of China's new leader is making things harder,not easier."
但除了這種曲線救國般的點子，審查制度更多的時候還是扼殺了從業人員的創造力。2002年香港電影《無間道》堪稱是一部扣人心絃的片子，講述了三合會與警方相互潛伏的故事，還被好萊塢拿去拍了《無間道風雲》，翻拍版還贏得了四項奧斯卡獎，包括最佳改編劇本獎。在原版電影中，出身黑幫的反英雄主角殺掉了同樣來自黑幫的某人，從而避免了自己的身份被暴露。那麼他是仍舊在假裝，還是已經認同了他一直所扮演的頂級警官的角色呢？而在經過特地補拍的大陸版中，這份懸念就灰飛煙滅了：結局被改成了警員們怒指他是間諜，而他一言不發地上交了自己的警徽。我和中國導演合寫的那個劇本，在經過多次修訂之後終於變成了這樣一個故事：一位意大利商人飛到北京，盜走了藝術珍寶，然後在逃跑的過程中被中國出身的高尚的警探追擊。這個故事我自己都看得蛋疼，謝天謝地，它一直沒被拍成電影。如今這個問題還沒有解決的跡象。根據中國國有媒體新華社的報道，領導人習圌近圌平在10月份的文藝座談會上強調道，“文藝要堅持爲圌人圌民圌服圌務、爲社會主義服務這個根本方向”。香港理工大學的娛樂業講師Anthony Lee說道，“業界現在有一種聲音，認爲中國新任領導人的強硬態度沒讓事情變得更容易，反而更加艱難了。”Screenwriters may find some hope in thefact that in the long run the Chinese public, and investors, will demand global standards of story writing. On a domestic airline in China recently, I notedthat a movie showing a lone Chinese hero defeating a Japanese horde was playingon drop-down screens. Not one passenger seemed to be watching it. Instead many were watching Hollywood films on portable devices.
但是，或許仍有一件事能讓編劇們看到些許希望：長遠來看，中國的觀影大衆和投資者們總有一天會要求國際水平的影視劇本。最近在中國國內的航班上，我注意到飛機下拉屏幕上在播一部中國孤膽英雄暴打日本鬼子的電影，但是放眼望去好像一個看的人都沒有。反而有不少乘客，在用便攜式設備看好萊塢的電影。
