"This is the best use of 3-D I've ever seen, " I say to Ang Lee. And I mean it. His "Life of Pi, " based on Yann Martel's novel about a shipwrecked boy, is an astonishment, not least because it never uses 3-D for its effect, but instead as a framing device for the story as a whole. There are, for example, shots where the point of view is below the sea's surface, looking up at the boat and into the sky beyond. The surface of the sea seems to be an invisible membrane between the water and the air. I've never seen anything like it.
我对李安说：“这是我所见过3-D运用的最好的一次。”我的确这么认为。他基于扬·马特尔的一个遭遇沉船男孩的小说改编的电影《少年派》，是一部惊世之作，特别是电影没有为了视觉效果使用3-D，而是用3-D将故事框定起来以保持其整体性。比方说，有些镜头的视角是自海面以下向上望着小船以及小船上方的天空。海的表面似乎是隔在水与空气间的一层看不见的薄膜。我还从未看过这样的景象。
"Actually, years ago, " he told me, "I thought this was a pretty impossible movie to make technically. It's so expensive for what it is. You sort of have to disguise a philosophical book as an adventure story. I thought of 3-D half a year before 'Avatar' was on the screen. I thought water, with its transparency and reflection, the way it comes out to you in 3-D, would create a new theatrical experience and maybe the audience or the studio would open up their minds a little bit to accept something different."
他告诉我：“实际上，几年之前，我还认为，这是一部在技术上不可能做到的电影。对于故事本身，电影制作过于昂贵。你得把一本哲学书乔装成一个冒险故事。在《阿凡达》上映的半年前，我想到了3-D。我想，水——透明、光线反射，以3-D的方式呈现在你面前的时候，可能会创造出一个新的影院体验；也许观众，或者电影公司愿意敞开一些胸怀，接受一些不同的事物。”
That's what happened in my mind. I knew the premise as I went in — a boy floats across the Pacific sharing a boat with a Bengal tiger — and frankly it sounded like a Disney movie to me. It's far from it.
这就是我的头脑中所发生的事情。了解到剧情的大概后，我去看这部电影。一个男孩与一只孟加拉虎共济一舟漂流穿过太平洋。坦率地说，在我，这听起来像是一部迪斯尼电影。而电影远非如此。
Ang Lee and I were talking about "Life of Pi, " which opens Wednesday, during his recent visit to Chicago. I've known him a long time, he's honored us with his presence at Ebertfest, and there's a special connection because we both attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Over the years, I have decided he is one of the wisest and kindest men I've met. That emerged as he discussed the use of water as a medium.
在李安最近一次对芝加哥的来访中，我与他聊起了星期三上映的《少年派》。我已经认识他很长一段时间。他赏光出席了“伊伯特盛会”(Ebertfest)，而且因为我们共同就读于厄巴纳的伊利诺斯大学而存在一种特别的纽带。这些年，我一直认为他是我所遇到的最智慧的、最和善的那一类人。当他说到把水作为媒介时，这个观点又出现在我的脑海。
"I wanted to use water because the film is talking about faith, and it contains fish, life and every emotion for Pi. And air is God, heaven and something spiritual and death. That's how I see it. I believe the thing we call faith or God is our emotional attachment to the unknown. I'm Chinese; I believe in the Taoist Buddha. We don't talk about a deity, which is very much like this book; we're not talking about religion but God in the abstract sense, something to overpower you."
“我想使用水，因为这部电影讲述的是信仰，而水包含着鱼、生命，以及对少年派的种种情感。空气是上帝，是天堂，是灵魂一类的事物，是死亡。这是我的看法。我相信，被我们称作”信仰“或”上帝“的，其实是我们对未知事物的向往。我是个中国人，相信道教**（Taorist Buddha)。我们没有说到某个神，就像这本书；我们讨论的不是宗教，而是抽象意义上的上帝，一种操控你的力量。”
During Pi's journey, he survives against all odds and forms a union with the tiger, during which they both step outside any reality they know. One of the strange developments is that the tiger doesn't kill the boy. That's not a spoiler, because there is ever so much more to it than that. Yet there is an early scene, set at a circus, where it is unforgettably demonstrated that wild animals are truly wild and only a reckless person would think otherwise.
在漂流中，少年派经历了各种可能的情况，生存了下来，并与老虎站在他们所知道的任何一种现实情形之外，形成了一种联系。其中一个奇特的发展就是，老虎没有咬死男孩。这可不是剧透，因为这意味着太多的故事。不过电影开始不久，有一个马戏团里的场景，展示了野生动物的野性，令人难以忘怀；只有心慈的人才会另作他想。
It was a wise decision, I said, to include the scene showing that nature is not sentimental.
我以一句“这是一个明智的看法。”来总结这个表达大自然不会多愁善感的场景。
"You have to. Because nature is not sentimental. Sentiment is a human thing; it's humanity, it's artificial, it's our wishful thinking. And it's a trap because when you make a movie, you project your own will, and it's very likely you sentimentalize. A tiger doesn't look back. It's just the way it is."
“你只能这么做。因为大自然不会多愁善感。情感是属于人类的；它是人性的，非真实的，是我们一厢情愿的想法。而且它是一个陷阱，因为你在拍电影的时候，你投射出自己的意愿；很可能是你在多愁善感。老虎是不会回头的。这就是它本来的样子。”
That will help younger viewers, who think tigers are their friends.
这句话会帮助那些将老虎看做朋友的年轻观众。
"They watch too many Disney movies. In the movie, the father's lesson is specifically — if you think like that, you'll be killed. Survive and respect nature and respect animals is what you should do. However, at the end, the boy says, 'My father is absolutely right, but I see something else, something else I cannot prove it, but I see it, I feel it.' I think that's human emotion. To me, his love for the tiger is a one-way street, it's unrequited love."
“他们看了太多迪斯尼的电影。在这部电影中，父亲上了一课，明确地说——如果你是这么想的，你就会被咬死。生存、尊重大自然，尊重动物，才是你应该做的。不过，在结尾处，男孩说道，‘我的父亲是完全正确的，但是我看到了其他的东西。我无法印证，但我看到了，感受到了。’我想，这就是人的情感。在我看来，他对老虎的爱是单向的，单相思。”
An amazing aspect about the film is how realistic the tiger and every other animal appears. Viewers know special effects must be involved in some way, and yet … that is a tiger, right? Although I was completely absorbed by the story, I still found myself noticing and accepting the tiger as reality. That reminded me of when I interviewed Ang about "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (2000), in which actors seem to skip lightly over rooftops and hold a sword fight in treetops. Those must be special effects, right?
电影中尤为出彩的是，老虎和其他的动物做得十分逼真。观众们都知道一定采用了特效，但是…那是一只老虎，对不对？虽然我完全投入到故事中，但是我还是发现自己留心这只老虎、把它当做真实的老虎。这令我想到就《卧虎藏龙》我对李安进行的参访，电影中的演员似乎轻轻一跃就上了屋顶，并在树梢上持剑对决。这些一定都是特效，对不对？
"You absolutely astounded me, " I said, "when you revealed that the flying actors were not done with special effects, but were real people working with real wires."
我说道，“当你告诉我那些演员飞来飞去不是用特效完成，而是真人吊威亚，你的确令我目瞪口呆。”
He grinned. "You know, people at Industrial Light &Magic asked me how I did those shots. I said — those are low tech! The feelings must be real, including the fear of the actress, which was real. It's very difficult to imitate the real thing, to act it. But we couldn't do that with a tiger. You really have to take references from real life. You cannot just imagine. Real happenings, real elements, they really need to be respected. I think it's important that we respect the tiger as much as nature."
他咧嘴笑了。“你知道，《工业光影魔术》(Industrail Light &Maggic)的人问我，我是怎么拍出这些镜头的。我说，这些都是低层次的技术！感觉必须要真实，包括女演员的害怕，都是真实的。模仿真实的东西，表演真实的东西，其实很难。但是对于老虎，我们不能这么做。你的确得从真实生活获取参照。你不能仅凭想象。真实发生的事情，真实的元素，需要得到尊重。我想我们尊重老虎如同我们尊重自然一样重要。”
To begin with, he took the real tiger as a reference point. "There are 23 shots in the movie of real tigers. There are four of them modeled after the most beautiful one, whose name is King. I don't think we can do tigers just out of our imagination, at least for now, and project our wills and make them look like real animals without humanizing them. Some of the real tigers made it into the movie. But the animated tigers might have taken three months or six months. Anything that didn't look real, at least to our impression, had to be redone. Tenaciously."
首先，他选取一只老虎做参照点。“电影中有二十三个真正老虎的镜头。其中有四个镜头取自一只最漂亮的名叫国王的老虎。我想我们不能仅凭想象把老虎做出来，至少现在不能，来展现我们的意愿，把它们做得像真的动物，不让它们带有人类的情感。有些真正的老虎成功地走进了电影。但是动画制作可能要花上三到六个月的时间。任何在我们看来不像真的东西，都得重做。毫不马虎。”
As he spoke, his voice was soft and modest, and with none of the hype you sometimes hear in the voices of directors. He seemed gentle about his film, as if it was generated by love.
他说话时，声音轻柔、谦逊，丝毫没有在一些导演口中听到的故弄玄虚。对于他的电影，他似乎很温和，就像是由爱情催生出来。
"You have never made an angry or ugly film, " I told him. That certainly includes his best film, "Brokeback Mountain" (2005), and in my opinion also includes "Hulk" (2003), which I invited to Ebertfest. "You seem filled with serenity. It could be called humanism."
我对他说：“你从没拍过一部表达愤怒的电影，或者反映丑恶的电影。”这当然包括他的最佳影片《断背山》(Brokeback Mountain)（2005），在我看来，也包括《绿巨人浩克》(Hulk)（2003）。我曾邀此片参加伊伯特盛会。“你看上去非常平和。这可能就是人文精神。”
"Thank you, but I like drama, you know. Those years in Illinois really laid the foundation of what I do. I think what I do with film is externalize and visualize my dramatic feelings. In talking about drama, there's a lot of anger and conflict, that's what drama is about; that's also what I do. I guess because of the nature of my disposition, it came out that way, as serene."
“谢谢你。不过你知道，我喜欢戏剧。在伊利诺斯的那几年为我现在做的事情打下了基础。我想我能用电影做的，就是讲我的戏剧感受外化，视觉化。一说到戏剧，就会有很多的愤怒和对立，这就是戏剧所要讲述的，这也就是我做的事情。我猜因为我的性情，就会表现出这样，平和。”
How did Illinois shape that?
伊利诺斯怎样产生影响的？
"My upbringing is that of harmony, and not conflict, you know. If you have a big problem, reduce to small problem, to no problem. That's just the Eastern way I was brought up. My first culture shock, so to speak, or encounter with Western culture, was through dramatic studying. All those plays they choose for me in the theater department, they shocked me. They were sexual and conflicting, and some were sort of violent. Western plays maximize the conflict. But then there's a tug of war, my Chinese side will also bring me to tranquility and reducing the conflict. On the other side, I want the extremes — to see things demolish, break up, that makes good scenes. And from there to examine humanity, which is what I care about.
“你知道，我受到的教养就是安分随时，不起冲突。如果出现了大问题，则大事化小，小事化无。这就是我成长的东方教育方式。我经历的第一次文化休克，可以说，与西方文化的冲撞，就产生于戏剧学习的过程中。在放映部他们选放的所有电影都令我震撼。这些电影色情、充满了冲突，有的也很暴力。西方戏剧将冲突最大化。但是这时就会出现一场拉锯战。我的东方文化就会将我重新归于平和，削减冲突。而同时，我又渴望极端——看到事物毁坏、分裂，这会是非常棒的景象。然后再从这里审视人性，这就是我所着眼的。”
"Another thing in Champaign-Urbana was I started reading. It was the Cold War era. I was raised in Taiwan. I never read communist books, anything red. It was censored; it was sanitized. And I went to the library and I just started to read all those communist books. That affected me in a big way, and also drama and left-wing [works]. It took me years to get back on my feet. I was young, I was unprepared.
“另外，在厄巴纳，我开始了阅读。那时正值冷战时期。我在台湾长大。从没读过共产主义相关的书籍、红色读物。这些都被删减过；净化过。后来我去了图书馆，开始阅读所有共产主义方面的书籍。这对我影响很大，同时还有戏剧和左翼的作品。我花了好几年才重新找到自己。那时我很年轻，毫无防备。
"Also, I watched a lot of movies. In Taiwan, I grew up with Hollywood movies and Chinese movies. I didn't see many art films. But then I went to all the film clubs to watch all those great movies I read about and never got to seeing. So I watched like seven to 10 movies every weekend.
”还有，我看了很多电影。在台湾，我是在好莱坞电影和中国电影的伴随下长大的。那时我没有看过很多文艺电影。但是后来我去了各种电影俱乐部，看了所有我读到过、却无缘得以一见的伟大电影。我每个周末大概看七到十部电影。
"In film school, I just learned how to make movies. But what motivated me were dramas and culture shocks, self-examination, identity problems. In Champaign-Urbana, I was really shy and quiet; I didn't speak English, I had very few friends, I couldn't express myself, but things just kept coming into me. It took all my life to spill it out. You know, I was a very docile, tranquil kid, never a rebel or anything. But then I was turning upside down. Some of it didn't come out until I was 45 or 50."
“在电影学校，我只是学习怎样拍摄电影。但是真正驱动我的，是戏剧、文化休克、自我检视和身份认同。在厄巴纳，我非常腼腆、少言；我不说英语，朋友很少，我不能表达自己的想法，但是各种想法却接踵降临到我的心里。这要花让我一生的时间来倾吐。你知道，我是一个温顺平和的孩子，从来都不是天生逆骨。但是那是我整个人被颠倒了过来。有些东西直到我四十五岁、五十岁时才展现出来。”
That reminded me of my favorite Ang Lee story. This was at the 2001 Academy Awards. I was doing red carpet interviews for ABC. Ang was a best director nominee for "Crouching Tiger." He came through the line with his wife and two children, and proudly said, "These are my Urbana children."
这让我想到有关李安我最喜欢的一个故事。那是在2001年学员奖颁奖典礼上。我为ABC做红毯采访。李安因《卧虎藏龙》被提名最佳导演。他和他的妻子、两个孩子走过红毯，骄傲地宣称，“这些是我的厄巴纳孩子。”
The next time I saw him, he said a viewer of the telecast asked him, "What did you say your children had?"
我再看到他的时候，他说，一位电视观众问他。“你说你的孩子有什么？”
"Had? What do you mean?
“有？你的意思是？”
"You called them Urbana children.
“你把他们称作厄巴纳孩子。”
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