女神殿

Interview: Darren Aronofsky - Part 1




Peter Sciretta: There was a very long period of time between Requiem [for a Dream] and trying to get The Fountain off the ground. And now The Wrestler is being billed almost as a come back film…

噩夢輓歌和真愛泉源間隔許久。現在摔角選手被譽為蝶龍的逆襲……


Darren Aronofsky: Oh, that’s silly…

笨笨。


So why was there such a long break?

為何間隔許久？


Well, as you know, I had to make the Fountain twice. The first incarnation with Brad Pitt was much publicized and then it fell apart. I had to basically rewrite it and put it back together with Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz. So basically it was about 6, 7 years for the whole thing from start to finish. So for me it was almost like making two different movies. We were at seven weeks out from shooting the first Fountain 1.0 when it fell apart. It was fully story-boarded and shot listed, and…

這個嘛……真愛泉源得拍兩次。小布那次宣傳都做了，結果被衝康。我必須徹頭徹尾重寫劇本，再把金鋼狼和瑞秋懷茲放進去。所以基本上從無到有花六七年。簡直像拍兩部截然不同的電影。當真愛泉源一點零被衝康時，我們已經距離開拍七個星期。故事都已經寫好，日程表也是……


All the sets were built?

泉源都搭好了嗎？


They were 60 or 70 percent built. We had 120-foot tall Mayan pyramid constructed. We had 150 Mayans about to board plane to Queensland, Australia. We were 20 million dollars in, or something…

完成度百分之六十至七十。馬雅金字塔高達一百二十呎。一百五十位馬雅戰士準備搭乘飛機到澳洲昆士蘭。我們大概燒了二十百萬美金，我猜……


That must have been heartbreaking.

蝶龍斷魂。


Oh, it was disastrous for me, but…  I had been through heartbreak in my career before, in film school, so I was kind of prepared and I kind of just tried to take it as positively as I could. I grabbed a backpack, literally a knapsack, with one change of clothes and I went to China and India for a few weeks and cleared my head, because I was over in Australia for five months. I then spent about six to eight months trying to get something else going. I developed a few other projects and actually the beginnings of The Wrestler.

噢！災難一場，不過……蝶龍不是沒有斷魂過，在電影學校，所以我永遠做好準備，盡可能展現正向思考能力。我拿起背包，其實是背包客的背包，一件換洗衣物，到中國和印度旅行幾個星期，把腦袋裡的垃圾丟掉，因為我在澳洲耗了五個月。然後花六到八個星期重振旗鼓。發展幾個其他計劃，以及摔角選手的誕生。


So you developed The Wrestler?

摔角選手的誕生？


The Wrestler was my idea. When I graduated film school in ‘92 / ‘93, one day I wrote a list of ten ideas for films in my diary. And one of them was called The Wrestler. When The Fountain shut down the first time I started to think about it. I knew I wanted to do a wrestling picture. I teamed up my producer on this film, Scott Franklin, who was a wrestling fan, a bigger wrestling fan than me, and he loved the idea. He’s also a writer.

我是摔角選手的父親。九二九三年自電影學校畢業，我每天在日記寫下十個電影點子。其中一個就叫摔角選手。真愛泉源一點零關閉時，我開始思考摔角選手的誕生。我知道我想拍部摔角電影。我和我的製片史考特法蘭克林，摔角迷，一個比我更迷摔角的摔角迷，討論這部電影，他喜歡這點子。他也是個作家。


You come from New York and so [wrestling] must have been all over the place?

蝶龍來自紐約，摔角選手也是嗎？


I wasn’t a huge fan as a kid. I went to one match at Madison Square Garden with my best friend and my dad. I remember we all lost our voices from screaming so loud. Hulk Hogan was a bad guy and I remember Tony Atlas lifting up Hulk Hogan and dropping him on his balls on the top rope. We went crazy, it was great. I think I went to a couple of other little matches at veterans halls. So it was in my head a bit, but I was never a crazy fan. It was like a small window, and it was before the Hulk-mania, so it wasn’t so big. It was still kind of in the early 80’s. So it wasn’t quite the phenomenon that it became. And by the time Hulkmania came out, I wasn’t interested in it. But I thought that the boxing movie is a genre film, and there’s been thousands of boxing movies - who knows how many. But no one has ever done a serious wrestling film. No one has ever done a serious film about a wrestler.

小時候沒那麼迷摔角。我爸帶我和我朋友到麥迪遜花園看了場比賽。我們都失聲了。記得浩克是壞人，東尼將他輕輕舉起，重重地往繩頂砸蛋。我們瘋了，頌。可能還到其他廳看幾場小比賽。所以那場景在腦裡揮之不去，但我從來不是個瘋狂摔角迷。那像是開啟一扇小窗戶，浩克熱潮之前，所以不是什麼寬敞的窗戶。我大概還活在八零早期。還沒有多瘋就是了。大家都在迷浩克，蝶龍獨醒。但我覺得拳擊電影是個類型，成千上萬，誰知道有多少。但都沒有人認真拍個摔角電影。從來沒有人認真拍個關於摔角選手的電影。


　Hulk Hogan 1953~present








Every fictional film so far treats it as if it were a real sport…

目前每個虛構電影都弄得跟真的一樣。


Yeah, and all the Barton Fink jokes, which we were aware of… "Aronofsky, what are you going to do? A wrestling picture?" You know. [laughs] And some people picked up on it. In fact, at the Venice Film Festival, they asked for a director’s quote, and I sent in a quote from Barton Fink. But no one had ever done a serious film and I always wondered why. I think that’s because most people think wrestling is a joke. It’s really looked down upon by a lot of people, but the more research I started to do into that world, the more complex, and the more tragic I found it to be. The mortality rate of these guys is just staggering. And the fact that it’s not at all really examined is really curious. And the fact that it’s so popular. It’s like one of the most popular forms of entertainment in America and no one’s studied it in any way. We realized pretty quickly when we started to work on it that me being the type of film maker I am probably trying to do something with the WWE and having creative freedom wasn’t going to happen so I couldn’t really do something contemporary so originally we started to think about me and Scott to do something as a period piece, be it pre-WWF because then we wouldn’t have to deal with it. But then we realized this was a low-budget movie, so we figured we had to do something contemporary. We started to look at the backwoods wrestling matches that go on, all over New Jersey and everywhere in the country. They’re going on and I saw a lot of these veterans there and that kind of triggered the idea of an older time guy, and…

是的，還有那巴頓芬克笑話……「阿諾夫斯基，你想幹麻？一部摔角電影？」你知道的。(哈) 有些人聽得懂。實際上，威尼斯那邊要導演的話，我就引用巴頓芬克。從來沒有人拍部像樣的電影，我感到疑惑。可能大家都覺得摔角是玩笑。很多人真的都不當回事，但我研究越深入，越發現摔角是如此複雜，俱備悲劇性格。他們的道德搖搖欲墜。這還沒有被好好研究令人好奇。摔角如此受歡迎。摔角是美國最受歡迎的娛樂形式，而沒人欲加以研究。我們很快發現，這電影若和世界摔角娛樂扯上關係，創作自由將不會存在。所以無法處理當代題材，我和史考特開始著手特定時期，例如發生在世界摔角娛樂前，這樣才能避免與之扯上關係。後來我們理解到這是部低預算電影，不可能搞古裝。我們開始觀賞摔角比賽，紐澤西，泛美。生命要繼續，見識許多老兵，多少觸發了老學校這點子，然後…… 

按：【巴頓芬克】飾演理想左派劇作家的約翰豆豆龍 (John Turturro) 到好萊塢發展，被指定為華理士勃利 (Wallace Beery) 編寫摔角電影劇本，結果他寫出一個人如何與內心搏鬥的故事。華理士勃利、佛德烈馬屈以【拳擊冠軍】【化身博士】共享一九三二年第五屆奧斯卡最佳男主角殊榮。


Well, it’s also interesting that your film is the first wrestling film not to have the promoter as the villain…

威爾，你的電影是史上第一部非以壞人催化的摔角電影這點子也很有趣……


[laughs]

哈哈。


Or you know, the it’s like you don’t really have a villain…

還是說，根本就沒有壞人……


I don’t think I’ve ever had a villain in any of my movies. If you really think about it, or at least a traditional villain. I haven’t made a film like that. I just wanted to tell a true story of a character going through this and what that lifestyle was like, the lifestyle as they call it.

我認為我的電影裡頭都沒有壞人。若你仔細想想，至少是傳統壞人。沒有。我只想說個真實故事，關於人物如何走過，他們的生活方式，他們認為的生活方式。


I think you pretty much nailed it. Before, when I was younger I was really into wrestling and the behind the scenes aspects really interested in and I think you’ve nailed that aspect of it. This is also a departure from your last project, and it was made for considerably less.

我覺得你大概抓到了。以前年輕時真的很迷摔角，幕後角度真的很有趣，我覺得你真有抓到。這電影也是向上一部作品告別，花費相對降低許多。


The Fountain was thirty million dollars and this is six, so it’s a fifth - 20 percent of the budget. After I spent two years in post on all the visual effects on The Fountain, about a year and a half of post work, and a lot of it was technical work. I love that work, but for me the most exciting aspect of filmmaking is working with actors. I just was craving to work with actors so my mandate after that time spent in post was like, I just want to do a quick piece with actors. I just want to work with actors, I want to work with actors. So I looked at my list of projects and I saw The Wrestler thing and I just started to think about it. And that’s kind of when I ran into Robert Siegel, who wrote the final screenplay. Rob was originally one of the first writers of the Onion, and wrote this great script which made the rounds around Hollywood. Actually he just directed it by himself independently. It was such a great script. I met with him and I just started telling him about sort of things I was working on and I told him about the script that Scott had written about The Wrester, and how he didn’t nail it, and he said "Wrestling? I love wrestling!" And so then he started from scratch. And basically, about the same time is when the idea of Mickey came up, and I can’t remember how the idea of Mickey came up immediately, but as soon as I met with him it was just clear that this was the man for the job?

真愛泉源花費三十百萬美金，摔角選手六百萬美金，所以約莫五分之一，打八折。之後我花兩年處理真愛泉源的視覺效果，一年半後製，許多都是技術工程。我喜歡技術工程，但最讓人興奮的莫非和演員合作。我迫不及待和演員合作，經過那段後製期間，我只想趕快和演員合作。我只想和演員合作，和演員合作。望著計劃清單，我看到摔角選手，開始思考如何著手。正好碰上羅伯席格，最終劇本出自他手。羅伯本來是洋蔥的編劇，然後寫出這偉大劇本在好萊塢流傳。其實他曾私下執導。偉大劇本。我和他見面，開始和他聊起最近在忙什麼，告訴他史考特寫的摔角選手劇本，以及劇本問題出在哪，然後他說：「摔角？我愛摔角！」於是他開始寫劇本。同時間，找米基合作的點子浮現，我無法立即回想米基這點子如何浮現，但見面後我確定米基適任。


But when the project was first announced, well obviously Nicholas Cage was attached, what happened?

不過這計劃首次宣告時，尼可拉斯凱吉顯然捲入其中，是怎樣？


There was a window where it was very very hard. Basically no one wanted to make it with Mickey Rourke. We couldn’t get money to do it. Just because of how independent films get sold now is on foreign value, and Mickey just doesn’t have enough for what we needed. So there was a brief flirtation with Nic Cage because Nic really liked the script. Nic was a complete gentleman, and he understood that my heart was with Mickey and he stepped aside. I have so much respect for Nic Cage as an actor and I think it really could have worked with Nic but… you know, Nic was incredibly supportive of Mickey and he is old friends with Mickey and really wanted to help with this opportunity, so he pulled himself out of the race. Then an executive producer named Jennifer Roth came on. She is great at doing independent films and she was like, "What if that’s the amount of money you got, let’s just figure out a way to do it." So we just did it. So we did things which actually work with the style. Instead of getting a thousand extras we worked with these different wrestling promotions and actually put on live promotions and then stuck Mickey smack in the middle of it. It added to a whole new flavor to it and we got the authenticity that came with that as well.

阮若打開心內的窗。基本上當初沒人想找米基洛克。我們沒有錢。因為現在獨立製片都靠海外市場，米基非名揚四海。所以稍微和凱吉哥週旋幾回，他真的很喜歡這劇本。凱吉是個君子，他了解我的心早飄到米基身上，於是離開。我非常尊敬凱吉哥，也非常想和凱吉哥合作，可是……你知道的，凱吉哥全力支持米基，身為米基多年好友，他真的願意幫助米基名揚四海，所以凱吉哥選擇離開。後來名珍妮佛羅素的執行製作出現。她是獨立製片高手，例如「如果錢就是這麼多，我們來想辦法完成。」我們於焉完成。我們就以她的方法完成。並未拍攝成千鏡頭，我們跟進大小摔角活動，甚至玩真的，再把米基重擊剪進。全新風味，貨真價實。