历劫佳人

节奏慢，看得有点累。一般来说不会沉溺于剧情当中，但观影过程中肚里仍攒了一堆火气，觉得男主的角色设定既经典又让人匪夷所思。看到结尾，发觉事情并没有那么简单。为啥警长的老搭档要背叛他？为啥警长会说“这是给你挡下的第二颗子弹”？第一颗我知道，第二颗有什么深意呢？为啥老情人对他的评价是“他是一个男人”？

看了一圈影评，发觉自己完全理解错了。警长并非是纯粹邪恶的一方，他抓捕犯人依靠直觉和严刑逼供，但往往是准的，包括这一次。在面对强调程序正义的理想主义者面前，他破防了。为了避免名声遭到毁坏，他最终选择了诬陷女主。而做了30年的警长的他，收获的只是一条瘸腿，被杀害的妻子，作为全部家当的一个小农场。这一切都是旁敲侧击，并没有大量的正面叙述。

威尔斯扮演的警长一开始就是一副恶狠狠的嘴脸，从一开始就把我给迷惑住了。导演不简单。这也侧面展示了一个很瘆人的现象。先看了影片简介，在观影时默认警长是坏人，只留意到警长其为人败坏的一面，而对于任何可能的、相驳的线索不以为意，最终就造成了彻底的误读。放在现实中，影片就是大众传媒，误读就是误杀。这很严重了。

《历劫佳人》的故事由一场汽车爆炸引出，这场汽车爆炸是全片的第一个情节点，它将故事中的主要人物全部串联到一起，昆兰警官、瓦格斯、苏茜、葛兰迪家族…

一场汽车爆炸后，剧情出现了两个分支，一个是以瓦格斯为正面人物，汉克·昆兰为反面人物的主线情节，此时两个人的目的都是调查爆炸案，找到凶手；而这一情节的起因是爆炸发生在两国交界，共同处理。另一条故事线是以苏茜为正面人物，葛兰迪家族的乔大叔为反面人物，这条线是由葛兰迪家族的行动推动，最终目的是威胁瓦格斯，撤销对哥哥的控诉。

影片中有几个情节点，第一个是两国边界汽车爆炸，将主要人物串联在一起；第二个是在桑切斯家的谈判，此时瓦格斯发现昆兰无证据逮捕买鞋的墨西哥人，出于对法律程序的尊重，对制度的重视，瓦格斯的目的变为搜集证据揭发昆兰，而昆兰也因为害怕自己的名誉受损，加上葛兰迪的怂恿，目的变为设计陷害瓦格斯；第三个情节点是当瓦格斯找到证据后，与一些官员及昆兰的旅馆谈判，此时矛盾进一步升级，在一个制度里，法律和警察，谁能够获胜？这一情节也在其他的官员的对昆兰的态度中左右了观众的观点，昆兰真的有罪吗？昆兰是腐败的官员吗？这里瓦格斯的失利也是使他做出偷听这一举动的直接动机；第四个情节点是瓦格斯录音昆兰，昆兰杀了皮特，最终在真相大白前，昆兰死在了河水中。

在人物塑造上，瓦格斯和昆兰两个人是绝对的对立面，虽然都是警察，目的都是办案，但在行动的方式上产生了巨大的矛盾——昆兰是位名探，高效办案，但却忽视了程序与证据；而瓦格斯凭着自己的一腔正直，坚持凡事都要讲证据。从影片一开始瓦格斯严谨认真的行为方式给观众传递出正直的符号，相反昆兰凭借直觉判断的行为，传递出腐败、堕落的讯息；但随着剧情的发展，当昆兰讲出有关自己妻子的故事时，对人物稍微有些同情，在结尾处，昆兰说自己工作30年，仅有一个农场，加上昆兰死后，警探带来消息，昆兰的判断没有错时，人物的形象更加立体，对昆兰的态度变得怜悯。

瓦格斯从一开始就给人带来严谨、体面的形象，在情节的发展中，瓦格斯以一直以讲究制度和证据为自己行事的标准，在瓦格斯寻找妻子和揭发昆兰的双重压力下，瓦格斯做出了违背自己标准的行为——偷听录音。这里情节的安排使得人物更具戏剧性，也更形象的表现了瓦格斯的也是为了目的出发的人，所有人都没有很高尚。

苏茜在第一次和乔大叔对峙的时候，睿智且机敏，到后来变得被动和无助；苏茜在被葛兰迪家族陷害的极端情况下，不顾一切跑到窗外求助，人物形象多面。

在影片结尾处，也是故事最大的戏剧性情节，昆兰的判断是对的，但昆兰死了，因为昆兰没有在意制度和程序，即便他是正确的，制度和正义，该如何比较。结尾塔娜的台词，“判断一个人有那么重要吗？”也给观众留下了空间。

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想到导演奥逊·威尔斯，影迷中脑海里第一时间复现的可能是他的《公民凯恩》。然而，除了《公民凯恩》，奥逊·威尔斯还指导了很多优秀的影片，其中便包括了1958年的《历劫佳人》。影片《历劫佳人》最让人津津乐道的便是开场那段长约3分20秒的长镜头拍摄。

这组长镜头的镜头组成如下：

• 由定时炸弹作为开头，采用跟镜头的方式，记录了施害者把定时炸弹放在汽车后备箱的过程，为这个长镜头设下了悬念，正好呼应了希区柯克的那句话“炸弹爆炸并不可怕，等待爆炸才可怕”。
• 紧接着，镜头往上升，一对男女（受害者）入画。
• 镜头追随着车，升起，左移。来到马路上后，镜头先下降，然后往后倒退，画面变成全景，可以看到交通警察及行人等。
• 随着汽车走走停停，一对过马路的情侣（主角）也入画了，镜头落到与他们同等的高度，并把焦点转移到了他们身上，开始跟随着他们。期间，汽车时入时出。这无形间将汽车和男女主角建立了联系。
• 直到边检站，汽车和情侣同时出现在同个镜头里。通过边检站人员与两对情侣的分别对话，可以初步了解到人物的背景。在汽车要驶出边检站的时候，车上女子抱怨好像听到了滴答声，但官员却不以为意。这无疑让观众更加揪心。
• 随着车开出去，镜头再次转移到主角情侣上，俩人相互拥抱接吻。此时爆炸声响起，长镜头结束。

一个优秀的长镜头不仅要在技术上让人拍案叫绝，还要在故事叙述上起到举足轻重的作用。而《历劫佳人》的长镜头无疑就实现了这两点。

• 从技术上，镜头的推拉摇移升降，人物的走位以及现场的调度都有很高水平的完成度。这组镜头运用轨道、起重机吊臂等工具的协作实现了纵向和横向的移动，同时在广角镜头和大特写镜头之间的切换十分自然。另外，在场面调度上，汽车的行驶、男女主角的步行，以及最终在边检站的会合，都很好地把握了时间和速度。
• 从故事叙述上，这个镜头交代了事件起因，设置了悬念，激发了观众对爆炸事件的疑问，从影片一开始就渲染了紧张不安的气氛。同时，此部分安排了男女主角的登场，将男女主角与故事联系起来。最后，这组镜头也交代了环境，让观众对美国和墨西哥边界小镇上的混乱和污秽一目了然。

《历劫佳人》如此精彩的长镜头，也使得后来导演纷纷致敬，包括罗伯特·奥尔特曼的《大玩家》、保罗·托马斯·安德森的《不羁夜》以及钮承泽的《爱》，都在影片开端使用了长镜头来交代故事背景和主要角色。正是奥逊·威尔斯如此娴熟的调度，才让电影史多了如此一个精彩的长镜头。

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摘自特吕弗于1974年出版的影评集《我生命中的电影》，英文翻译：Leonard Mayhew Da Capo Press在美国出版的版本。当年特吕弗看到的本片并非如今广泛流传的1998年重建版，而是当年环球公司剪辑的，不受威尔斯认可的版本。如今我们发现1998年重建版做的第一件事，就是去掉了开场的字幕，完成了特吕弗在本文第一句话中的设想。

You could remove Orson Welles's name from the credits and it wouldn't make any difference, because from the first shot, beginning with the credits themselves, it's obvious that Citizen Kane is behind the camera.

Touch of Evil opens on a shot of the clock of a time bomb as a man places it in the trunk of a white car. A couple have just gotten into the car and started off, and we follow then through the city. All this happens before the film starts. The camera perched on a motorized crane loses the car, finds it again as it passes behind some buildings, precedes it or cataches up with it, right up to the moment when the explosion we have been waiting for happens.

The image is deliberately distorted by the use of a wide-angle lens that gives an unnatural clarity to the backgrounds and poeticizes reality as a man walking toward the camera appears to advance ten yards in five strides. We're in a fantasy world all through this film, the characters appearing to walk with seven-league boots when they're not gliding on a moving rug.

There are movies made by incompetent cynics, like The Bridge on the River Kwai and The Young Lions, movies that are merely bluff, designed to flatter a public which is supposed to leave the movie house feeling better or thinking it has learned something. There are movies that are profound and lofty, made without compromise by a few sincere and intelligent artists who would rather distrub than reassure, rather wake an audience up than put it to sleep. When you come out the Alain Resnais' Nuit et Brouillard, you don't feel better, you feel worse. When you come out of White Nights or Touch of Evil, you feel less intelligent then before but gratifies anyhow by the poetry and art. These are films that call cinema to order, and make us ashamed to have been so indulgent with cliche-ridden movies made by small talents.

Well, you might say, what a fuss over a simple little detective story that Welles wrote in eight days, over which he didn't even have the right to supervise the final editing, and to which was later added a half-dozen explanatory shots he'd refused to make, a film he made "to order" and which he violently disavowed.

I'm well aware of that, as well as that the slave who one night breaks his chains is worth more than the one who doesn't even know he's chained; and also that Touch of Evil is the most liberated film you can see. In Barrage contre le Pacifique , Rene Clement had complete control; he edited the film himself, chose the music, did the mixing, cut it up a hundred times. But Clement is a slave nonetheless, and Welles is a poet. I warmly recommend to you the films of poets.

Welles adapted for the screen a woefully poor little detective novel and simplified the criminal intrigue to the point where he could match it to his favorite canvas------the portrait of a paradoxical monster, which he plays himself------under cover of which he designed the simplest of moralities: that of the absolute and the purity of absolutists.

A capricious genius, Welles preaches to his parishioners and seems to be clearly telling us: I'm sorry I'm slovenly; it's not my fault if I'm a genius: I'm dying: love me.

As in Citizen Kane, The Stranger, The Magnificent Ambersons, and Confidential Report (即《阿卡丁先生》), two characters confront each other------the monster and the sympathetic young lead. It's a matter of making the monster more and more monstrous, and the young protagonist more and more likable, until we are brought somehow to shed real tears over the corpse of the magnificent monster. The world doesn't want anything to do with the exceptional, but the exception, if he is an unfortunate, is the ultimate refuge of purity. Fortunately, Welles's physique would seem to preclude his playing Hitler, but who's to say that one day he will not force us to weep over the fate of Hermann Goering?

Here Welles has given himself the role of a brutal and greedy policeman, an ace investigator, very well known. Since he works only by intuition, he uncovers murders without bothering about proof. But the court system, which is made up of mediocre men, cannot condemn a man without evidence. Thus, Inspector Quinlan/Welles develops the habit of fabricating evidence and eliciting false testimony in order to win his case, to see that justice will triumph.

After the bomb explodes in the car, all that necessary for everything to go awry is for an American policeman（本片主角是墨西哥人，此处疑为特吕弗笔误）on his honeymoon (Charlton Heston) to meddle in Quinlan's investigation. There is a fierce battle between the two men. Heston finds proff against Welles while Welles manufactures evidence against him. After a frantic sequence in which Welles demonstrates that he could doubtless adapt de Sade's novels like nobody else, Heston's wife is found in a hotel, nude and drugged, and apperently responsible for the murder of Akim Tamiroff, who in reality has been kiledd by Quinlan------whom Tamiroff had naively helped set this demonic stage.

As in Confidential Report, the sympathetic character is led to commit an underhanded act in order to undo the monster: Heston records the few decisive sentences on a tape recorder, sufficient proof to destroy Welles. The film's idea is summed up neatly in thie epilogue: Sneakiness and mediocrity have triumphed over intuition and absolute justice. The world is horrifyingly relative, everything is pretty much the same------dishonest in its morality, impure in its conception of fairness.

If I've used the word monster a number of times, it's merely to stress the fantastical spirit of this film and of all Welles's movies. All moviemakers who are not poets have recourse to psychology to put the spectator on the wrong scent, and the commercial success of psychological films might seem a good enough reason of them to do this. "All great art is abstract," Jean Renoir said, and one doesn't arrive at an abstraction through psychology------just the opposite. On the other hand, abstraction spills over sooner or later onto the moral, and onto the onlt morality that preoccupies us: the morality that is invented and reinvented by artists.

All this blends very well with Welles's supposition that mediocre men need facts, while others need only intuition. There lies that source of enormous misunderstanding. If the Cannes Film Festival had had the wisdom to invite Touch of Evil to be shown rather than Martin Ritt's The Long Hot Summer (in which Welles is only an actor), would the jury had the wisdom to see in it all the wisdom of the world?

Touch of Evil wakes us up and reminds us that among the pioneers of cinema there was Melies and there was Feuillade. It's a magical film that makes us think of fairy tales: "Beauty and the Beast," "Tom Thumb," La Fontaine's fables. It's a film which humbles us a bit because it's by a man who thinks more swiftly than we do, and much better, and who throws another marvelous film at us when we're still feeling under the last one. Where does this quickness come from, this madness, this speed, this intoxication?

May we always have enough taste, senstivity, and intuition to admit that this talent is large and beautiful. If the brotherhood of critics finds it expedient to look for arguments against this film, which is a witness and a testimony to art and nothing else, we will have to watch the grotesque spectacle of the Lilliputians attacking Gulliver.

-- 1958