克里斯托弗·諾蘭：只拍你想不到的電影

無論是《盜夢空間》還是《星際穿越》，克里斯托弗·諾蘭的每部電影都能創(chuàng)下驚人的票房紀錄，并屢次獲得奧斯卡和金球獎提名。諾蘭喜歡采用詭譎、復雜的非線性敘事結構來講故事，常在影片中布下奇謀懸案和重重謎團來挑戰(zhàn)觀眾的智商。他極少使用電腦特效，鐘情于膠片拍攝和傳統(tǒng)電影制作工藝，卻屢屢創(chuàng)造出震撼、壯觀的視覺效果。有人說他愛炫技，有人批評他偏執(zhí)，但其實這位專拍“燒腦”電影的天才導演只是想呈現不一樣的東西，給觀眾帶去超乎想象的觀影體驗。

In early spring of 2013， Christopher Nolan and his crew were scouting for locations in Iceland—looking for glaciers that could stand in1） for the icy wastes of a distant planet in Nolan’s new film， Interstellar. They were on foot， the terrain proving inaccessible by car through freezing rain. The glacier they were heading towards did not seem to be coming any closer. Finally， after hiking four or five kilometres， they were forced to stop; in front of them stretched an ice-cold lake. There seemed to be no way around it.

“We were all gathered around staring at this lake，” the cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema2） recalled， “and Chris took his shoes and socks off and just strode out into the water， going straight towards that gigantic chunk of ice. Everyone was standing around looking at one another. Then everybody starts doing the same—peeling off their shoes and socks and wading in. Nobody thinks that he’s crazy. They just go， ‘OK， this is important， this has to be done.’” After the crew had scouted the glacier， which turned out to be too small for Nolan’s purposes， they all walked back， their wet shoes squelching3）. “He’s a man on a mission，” Hoytema told me. “He assigns all his time and all his effort to serving that mission.”

Nolan likes to shoot fast. A great believer in the level of creative concentration enforced by the pressures of time and money， he maintains a focused energy on set， starting at 7 am and finishing at 7 pm， with a break for lunch. “It’s like watching a ballet，” said Brad Grey， the CEO of Paramount4）. “But it’s very well-dressed ballet.” Visiting the set on a sound stage5） in Culver City6）， Los Angeles， early in its four-month production， Grey saw actors strapped into a life-size space capsule， mounted on hydraulic rams which pitched them this way and that. Van Hoytema was wearing “the most beautiful tweed suit with a tie on，” Grey recalled， while Nolan stood， sipping from a flask he stored in the deep pockets of his coat.

“It’s how he solves problems，” says Michael Caine7）， whose role as a scientist in Interstellar makes this his sixth consecutive movie with the director. “I asked him once， ‘is that vodka in there？’ and he said， ‘no， tea.’ He’ll drink it all day. He’s made all these millions of dollars but he lives exactly the same way. He still has the same watch he always had， still wears the same clothes.” The first time they met， Nolan came around to the actor’s house in Surrey with a copy of the script for the first film in his Batman trilogy. Caine thought the blond， blue-eyed young man on his doorstep was a messenger.

“My name’s Chris Nolan，” he said， “I’ve got a script for you.” “Well， I’ll read it and get back to you.” “No， no， can you read it now？” Nolan waited， drinking tea in the actor’s living room， until Caine had finished the script， then he took it away with him. “He’s very secretive，” Caine said. Secrecy is less of a fact on a Christopher Nolan production than it is a working method. Caine was allowed to keep his script for Interstellar， but each page of every copy of the script bore his name， so it could be traced back were it to go missing.

One’s first impression upon meeting Nolan is certainly one of wariness. When we met in the lobby at Fotokem8）， a two-story plate-glass photo lab in Burbank where he was overseeing the final colour correction of the film’s digital print， Nolan gave me a quick handshake， his head lowered， taking me in without quite meeting my eye.

Dressed in his trademark blazer， his shirt collar skewed at the raffish9） angle of a schoolboy late for rugby practice， Nolan did not seem rattled. Rather， he exuded the unshakeable confidence in his own abilities that you might wish for in the pilot of a 747 you’ve just boarded—an equanimity10） that stands him in great stead11） with the studio heads he must convince to greenlight his movies. “He comes in， he talks about blowing your mind，” Grey told me， “then he very calmly accomplishes it.” Anne Hathaway， who plays a NASA scientist in Interstellar， remembered struggling with an important speech about the power of love， and finding herself in “an emotionally-frayed place that was making the whole thing feel， quite frankly， a little actor-y”. Nolan came up to her and suggested it would be much more effective if she spoke with “calm certainty”—“as if you were saying something you had known your entire life.” It’s how Nolan talks about a lot of things： with the calm certainty of things he has known his entire life.

Like Spielberg and James Cameron before him， Nolan is one of only a handful of film-makers who can walk into a studio with an idea and exit with $200m to make it. Nolan’s movies have grossed more than $3.5bn worldwide， and his last four films have come in under budget.

“What he realised very early on was that the moment you give the studios an excuse to come in， you’ve lost it，” said Emma Thomas， Nolan’s wife and co-producer， who first met him when he was a student at University College London—studying English but spending all his spare time in the basement of the Bloomsbury theatre， hunched over the college’s Steenbeck editing suite， piecing together his first low-budget shorts. “We watched it happen，” Thomas said. “The moment you go over budget， you’ve lost the creative control that an obsessive director like Chris needs.”

The obsession is a reassuring sign of the auteur; the discipline less so. We expect a little exorbitance12） from our auteurs， especially those working at this level. But so far， there has been no costly folly on Nolan’s resumé and this very success renders him suspicious to his critics， who maintain that he is a chilly film-maker， a neatnik showman constructing elaborate puzzles that， once solved， leave little in the way of emotion or life beyond their hermetically13） sealed borders. That could change with the release of Interstellar. The first reports from screenings have had audience members—studio heads， journalists， crew-members—leaving the cinema in tears. “People can’t really talk about it when they first get out of the film，” said Thomas. “They need a day or so to process it. And then they call you up.”

“I have been shocked to realise how much more emotional this film is，” Nolan said a day later， when I met him at the offices of his production company. The extreme reaction has taken him aback， he said. “I have spent years of my life thinking only about this film and I mean only this film. The responses where it’s lacking—‘it’s just a movie and it’s pretty good， I liked it’—they are the things that kill you. This has been my obsession for years; you just pour yourself into it.”

If Hollywood has long offered audiences the promise of escape， Nolan’s films nail it down still further： He offers audiences the chance to escape their heads. All his films， to some extent， use the tropes14） of the detective film or heist movie to dramatise the twists and turns of consciousness. “We can’t step outside our own heads，” he told me at Fotokem. “We just can’t. Now， a great film will reveal that the world is way fucking worse than you think it is and you missed it. It should be depressing but the reason it’s not is， we want the world to be more complicated than it is. We don’t want to know the limits of your world. You don’t want to be like Truman15） in the boat at the end， hitting the sky. What it’s really saying is， there’s more to this place than meets the eye. I make films that are huge endorsements of that idea.”

In some ways the success of Nolan’s films rests on the same principle behind the popularity of boutique hotels， lo-fi16） recording methods， “Glitch” music17） and Etsy18）： In the information age， more value， not less， will accrue to precisely those elements that cannot be cut and pasted—secrets， original ideas， plot twists， the integrity of the photographic image. Visually， he is a classicist， preferring to shoot as much “in-camera19）” as possible， using CGI20） only when absolutely necessary. No green screens21） were used during Interstellar， the majority of which was shot with real locations， miniatures， or sets using massive projectors. “It’s actually old film-making craft，” says Quentin Tarantino22）.

At the same time， alongside this dedication to film craft lies the other strand of Nolan’s personality： the sceptic， pulling the rug from under the audience’s feet23） with carefully planted secrets and second-act twists that allow his movies to build， almost with the inevitability of logical arguments， and sustain their two-to-three hour running times.

If Nolan’s success has in large part depended on an audience of little Nolans， notepads out， faces scrunched up as they attempt to outwit the master from the front row， the film-maker found himself， in the unusual position of pivoting towards encouraging a more limbic24）， left-brained response to his work. The only praise that made him a little uncomfortable was praise for the complexity of his films. “What I’ve found is， people who let my films wash over them—who don’t treat it like a crossword puzzle， or like there is a test afterwards—they get the most out of the film，” he said.

To say that Interstellar is Nolan’s most emotional film isn’t exactly accurate. It actually puts the audience through an entirely new species of emotion： a fiendish25） compound of grief， longing， loss and awe at time’s immensity. This is how love shows up in a Christopher Nolan film.

“I’ve always believed that if you want to really try and make a great film， you have to take a lot of risks，” he told me. “It was very clear to me that if you’re going to make a film called Interstellar， it’s going to have to be something extremely ambitious. You push it in all the possible directions you can. Not for its own sake， but because you know that if you’re going to try to add something to the canon， besides fiction films and all the rest， and live up to the promise of that title and the scale of that title， you really have to go there.”

Whether he had indeed made a great film was not obvious to him， but that alone seemed to satisfy him： He had found one more thing he could reasonably claim uncertainty about.

1. stand in：替代，代替

2. Hoyte van Hoytema：霍伊特·范·霍特瑪（1971～），瑞士電影攝影師

3. squelch [skwelt?] vi. 發(fā)吧唧聲，發(fā)撲哧聲（像走在爛泥地里似的）

4. Paramount：即派拉蒙影業(yè)公司（Paramount Pictures）。

5. sound stage：有聲（電影）攝影棚

6. Culver City：卡爾弗城，美國著名的影視創(chuàng)作及制作中心

7. Michael Caine：邁克爾·凱恩（1933～），英國演員，曾榮獲奧斯卡最佳男配角獎及金球獎最佳男主角獎，代表作為影片《盜夢空間》（Inception）。

8. Fotokem：美國一家影視后期制作公司

9. raffish [?r?f??] adj. （在行為、穿著等方面）落拓不羈的

10. equanimity [?ekw??n?m?ti] n. 平靜;鎮(zhèn)定;坦然

11. stand sb. in good stead：對……很有用;對……很有利

12. exorbitance [?ɡ?z??（r）b?t?ns] n. 過高，過度，過分

13. hermetically [h??（r）?met?kli] adv. 與外界隔絕地;不受外界干擾地

14. trope [tr??p] n. 修辭;比喻

15. Truman：電影《楚門的世界》（The Truman Show）的主人公，從小生活在由巨大攝影棚構成的虛假世界里。當他劃船來到他認為的“世界盡頭”時，發(fā)現“天邊”原來是攝影棚的外墻。

16. lo-fi：（收音機、電視機等放聲的）低保真度的

17. “Glitch” music：“毛刺”音樂，一種凸顯干擾聲的電子音樂風格

18. Etsy：一個網絡商品平臺，主要銷售創(chuàng)意手工藝產品。

19. in-camera：此處指鏡頭內特效（in-camera special effect），即視覺效果在實景拍攝時已于攝像機鏡頭中形成，無需通過后期技術添加。

20. CGI：即computer-generated imagery，計算機生成影像，電腦特效

21. green screen：綠幕技術，指在電影特技制作中采用綠幕作背景，以便后期摳像合成。

22. Quentin Tarantino：昆汀·塔倫蒂諾（1963～），美國著名導演，代表作為影片《被解救的姜戈》（Django Unchained）。

23. pull the rug from under someone’s feet：突然停止對某人的幫助（或支持）

24. limbic [?l?mb?k] adj. [解]邊緣葉的;邊緣系統(tǒng)的

25. fiendish [?fi?nd??] adj. （計劃、行動、裝置等）巧妙的，富有想象力的

2013年初春，克里斯托弗·諾蘭及其攝制組在冰島尋找外景拍攝場地——他們在尋找一處冰川，用以替代諾蘭新片《星際穿越》中一個遙遠星球上的冰原荒地。天上下著冰冷的雨，車輛無法穿過這一地帶，他們只好徒步而行。他們要找的冰川似乎還很遙遠。終于，在步行四五公里之后，他們不得不停了下來：在他們面前，橫著一面冰冷的湖泊，看來怎么都無法繞過。

“我們都聚到一起，盯著這片湖，”攝影師霍伊特·范·霍特瑪回憶道，“克里斯脫下鞋襪，就那樣大步邁入水中，徑直走向那堆巨大的冰塊。大家都站在湖邊，面面相覷。接著每個人都開始照樣做了——脫下鞋襪蹚入水中。沒有人覺得諾蘭瘋狂，大家只是說：‘好吧，這很重要，必須要這樣做。’”攝制組在查看了整座冰山之后，覺得它太小了，無法滿足諾蘭的需要，于是全都往回走，濕漉漉的鞋子吱吱作響。“他是一個有使命感的人，”霍特瑪對我說，“他把所有的時間、所有的精力都投入到自己的使命中。”

諾蘭拍電影喜歡速戰(zhàn)速決。由于時間和經費的壓力，他深信藝術創(chuàng)造必須要全身心地投入，因此在片場他總是保持著高度旺盛的精力，從早上七點開始，直到晚上七點結束，中間只有午餐時才休息片刻。“這就像在觀看一場芭蕾舞演出，”派拉蒙影業(yè)公司的執(zhí)行總裁布萊德·格雷說，“但這是場著裝非常考究的芭蕾演出。”這部影片的制作歷時四個月，格雷曾在制作初期造訪過其位于洛杉磯卡爾弗城的片場，在有聲攝影棚里，他看到演員們被綁在和實物一樣大小的太空艙里，在液壓油缸的作用下忽上忽下，忽左忽右。范·霍特瑪穿著“最漂亮的花呢套裝，打著領帶”，格雷回憶說，諾蘭則站在一邊，不時從他深深的大衣口袋里掏出一只瓶子喝上幾口。

“他就是這樣解決問題的。”邁克爾·凱恩說。在《星際穿越》里，凱恩扮演的是一位科學家，這已是他連續(xù)第六次和諾蘭導演合作拍片了。“有一次我問他：‘那里面是伏特加嗎？’他說：‘不是的，是茶。’他整天喝的就是這個。他賺了上千萬美元的鈔票，可他完全保持著以前的生活方式。他還是戴著以前的那塊手表，穿著以前的衣服。”他們第一次見面時，諾蘭帶著他的《蝙蝠俠》三部曲中第一部電影的劇本，來到凱恩位于薩里郡的住宅。看著門口臺階上站著的這位金發(fā)碧眼的年輕人，凱恩還以為他是送信的。

“我叫克里斯·諾蘭，”他說，“我給你送劇本來了。”“好的，我看完就聯(lián)系你。”“不，不，你能現在就看嗎？”就這樣，諾蘭一邊喝著茶，一邊在這位演員的客廳里等著，直到凱恩看完劇本，然后諾蘭就把它拿走了。“他總是非常神秘。”凱恩說。神秘與其說是克里斯托弗·諾蘭制作影片的特點，倒不如說是一種工作方法。他倒是允許凱恩保留了《星際穿越》的劇本，但每一份劇本的每一頁上都印有凱恩的名字，這樣劇本一旦丟失也能有跡可循。

見到諾蘭時，人們的第一印象一定是他很謹慎。我曾和他在Fotokem公司的大廳里見過面，那是一個位于伯班克的照片實驗室，是一棟玻璃墻面的兩層小樓，當時他正監(jiān)督影片數碼版的最終色彩校正。諾蘭低著頭，很快地和我握了握手，也沒怎么和我目光接觸，就把我領了進去。

諾蘭穿著那件招牌式的運動上衣，歪斜的衣領使他看上去就像一個橄欖球訓練遲到的中學生，有幾分不羈。他看上去并不慌張。相反，他身上散發(fā)著一種對自己能力無可動搖的自信，這份自信是你希望在剛剛登上的747客機的機長身上所見到的——這是一種鎮(zhèn)靜，可以使他在說服電影公司大佬們?yōu)樗挠捌_綠燈時立于不敗之地。“他走進來，把你說得暈頭轉向，”格雷對我說，“然后他不動聲色地達到了自己的目的。”在《星際穿越》中扮演美國宇航局科學家的安妮·海瑟薇回憶說，影片中有一段關于愛的力量的重要臺詞讓她非常糾結，她發(fā)現自己處于“一種情緒煩躁不安的境地，非常坦率地說，這使得整個過程多少有點表演的痕跡”。諾蘭走過來建議說，如果她在說臺詞時能帶有一種“冷靜的確定感”，效果一定會大為改觀——“就好像你在談一件你這輩子都非常熟悉的事”。諾蘭在談論很多事情時都是這樣：冷靜、自信，就像在談論一件終生熟悉之事。

像斯皮爾伯格與詹姆斯·卡梅隆兩位前輩一樣，諾蘭是為數不多的能夠帶著一個想法走進電影公司，然后拿著兩億美元離開的電影制片人之一。諾蘭的電影在全世界的票房總收入已經超過了35億美元，而他最近的四部電影都沒有超過預算。

“他很早就明白，一旦你給電影公司一個介入的理由，你就失敗了。”艾瑪·托馬斯說。艾瑪是諾蘭的妻子和聯(lián)合制片人，她最初遇見他時，諾蘭還是倫敦大學學院的學生——他學的是英語，但卻將全部課余時間都花在了布盧姆斯伯里劇院的地下室里，在學院那臺史丁貝克剪輯臺前埋頭工作，將他的第一部低預算短片拼接在一起。“我們目睹過這樣的事發(fā)生，”托馬斯說，“一旦你超過預算，你就失去了像克里斯這種執(zhí)著的導演所要求的創(chuàng)作控制權。”

執(zhí)著是導演所釋放出的令人放心的信號，而嚴格要求則未必能達到這種效果。我們往往認為，導演身上都應有些乖張任性之處，尤其是那些處于諾蘭這一層次的導演。然而迄今為止，在諾蘭的履歷表上，我們還看不到任何引發(fā)巨大代價的失誤。正是因為他太成功了，批評家們才會質疑他，他們斷言諾蘭是個冷冰冰的電影制作人，一個有潔癖的表演家，只會編撰一些錯綜復雜的謎語而已，而這些謎語一旦解開，在它們那與世隔絕的封閉世界之外，很難找到什么真情實感或者人生感悟。但隨著《星際穿越》的上映，這一狀況有可能發(fā)生改變。根據影片放映現場發(fā)回的首批報道，觀眾們——包括電影公司的老板、記者、攝制組成員——走出電影院時都是眼含熱淚。“剛剛從電影的世界里走出時，人們還無法真正地談論它，”托馬斯說，“他們需要一兩天的時間來消化這部電影。然后才能給你打電話。”

一天后，我在制作公司的辦公室里見到了諾蘭，他說：“我發(fā)現這部電影是那么富有感情，自己都感到震驚。”他說影片的反響之強烈讓他嚇了一跳。“我花了好幾年時間，心里只想著這部電影，我是說只有這部電影。還好人們的反應不是說——‘這就是部電影而已，拍得不錯，我喜歡’——人們這么說簡直會要我的命。這是我多年以來的執(zhí)著追求，我只想著全身心地投入其中。”

如果說好萊塢長期以來都給觀眾提供逃避現實的機會，那么諾蘭的影片則更進一步，讓人逃避得更徹底：他給觀眾提供了逃離自己頭腦的機會。從某種程度上說，他所有的電影都運用了偵探片或偷盜片的表現手法，以突出意識的千回百轉。“我們無法走出自己的頭腦，”他在Fotokem大樓對我說，“毫無辦法。而現在，一部大片將向你展示這個世界遠比你想象的要糟得多，但你卻體驗不到。這一點原本是令人沮喪的，但事實卻并非如此，原因是我們想讓這世界變得比現實更為復雜。我們不想知道你的世界有什么局限。你也不想像電影中的楚門那樣，最后劃著船撞到‘天空’。這個電影結尾真正想說的是，這個地方還有很多東西是眼睛所看不到的。而我拍攝的電影就是對這一理念的充分體現。”

從某些方面說，諾蘭電影的成功所依存的原則，與大受歡迎的精品酒店、低保真錄音方法、“毛刺”音樂及Etsy網站所依存的原則一樣：在信息時代，更多（而非更少）的價值恰恰就會累積附著在那些無法剪切、粘貼的元素上——那些保密的東西、原創(chuàng)的想法、曲折的劇情以及攝影影像的完整性。從視覺上講，他是一個古典主義者，喜歡盡可能多地拍攝鏡頭內特效，只有迫不得已時才使用電腦特效。在《星際穿越》中，他沒有使用綠幕技術，大多數鏡頭拍攝的都是真實場景、微縮模型或者使用大型投影儀構建的場景。“這實際上是傳統(tǒng)的電影制作工藝。”昆汀·塔倫蒂諾說。

與此同時，除了對電影工藝的熱衷，諾蘭的個性中還有另一面：他是個懷疑論者，常常以精心編織的謎團和曲折離奇的后續(xù)情節(jié)給觀眾設下一道道懸念，從而使影片的劇情發(fā)展幾乎具有邏輯論證般的嚴密，并支撐兩三個小時的放映時長。

如果說諾蘭的成功在很大程度上取決于觀眾中的那群小諾蘭們——他們坐在前排拿出筆記本，五官擰成一團，一心想要在智力上打敗那個大師——那么這位電影人卻發(fā)現自己處在不同尋常的位置，越來越喜歡引導人們對其作品做出屬于腦邊緣系統(tǒng)的、更加左腦化的反應。唯一讓他有點不舒服的贊美就是稱贊其影片具有復雜性。“我發(fā)現，那些跟著我的電影走的人——那些不把電影當做填字游戲，也不像是看完之后還要考試的人——才能從影片中獲益最多。”他說。

要說《星際穿越》是諾蘭最有情感的一部電影并不完全準確。實際上，它讓觀眾經歷了一種全新的情感：有悲傷、渴望、失落以及對浩瀚時光的敬畏之心，所有這些巧妙地融合在一起。這就是愛在克里斯托弗·諾蘭影片中的呈現方式。

“我一直認為，要想真正嘗試去拍一部好電影，就要承擔很多風險，”他對我說，“我非常清楚，如果要拍一部名叫《星際穿越》的電影，那就必須做到非同凡響。各個方面都要全力以赴。這不僅是為了電影本身，而且還因為你明白，如果你不僅僅想為科幻電影及其他一切類型的影片增添一部作品，而是要為經典寶庫添磚加瓦，而且還要對得起這部電影的名字，對得起這個名字所蘊含的宏大規(guī)模，你就真的必須全力以赴。”

他并不確定自己是否真的完成了一部偉大之作，但似乎這一事實本身就足以讓他滿意：他又發(fā)現了一件可以斷言自己不確定的事情。