好英语网电影潮流：性别政治与多元文化 历史剧也要与时俱进
Olivia Colman, an Oscar nominee and Golden Globe winner for her performance as Queen Anne in The Favourite, tells the BBC she believes that the historical film has “reinvented the genre. It’s messy and you can almost smell the period it’s set in.”
科尔曼（Olivia Colman）凭借在《宠儿》（The Favourite）中扮演的安妮女王（Queen Anne），成功斩获金球奖和奥斯卡提名。在她看来，这部电影“颠覆了历史电影的题材。镜头里的场景脏乱不堪，观众差一点就能闻到那个时代的味道了。”
The reputed love affair between Queen Anne and Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough has become a hot favourite for awards season too – apart from the Globe win, the film has received 10 Oscar nominations and is up for 12 Baftas.
这部电影描述安妮女王和马尔堡公爵夫人萨拉之间的爱情，已经成为颁奖季节的热门——这部电影不仅斩获了金球奖，还获得了10项奥斯卡提名和12项英国电影学院奖提名。
The Favourite has triumphed over an unusually large number of historical films that have been released in recent months. Period pieces can be hard to get off the ground, as costumes, castles and cavalry don’t come cheap: in recent film history, only epics such as Braveheart (1995) and Gladiator (2000) have enjoyed budgets of more than $100 million (£77.5 million). These movies brought home the Oscars, but too often the genre ends up as a noble runner-up, including Elizabeth (1998); The Lion in Winter (1968) and even 1963’s Cleopatra, at the time the most expensive film ever made. And as Ridley Scott discovered, five Oscars for Gladiator and a proven genius for shooting military battle scenes still couldn’t rescue his widely ignored Crusade epic Kingdom of Heaven in 2005.
最近几个月有大量历史题材的电影上映，但《宠儿》从中脱颖而出。历史剧很难取得成就，因为服装、城堡和骑兵（群演）成本高昂：电影史上，近年只有像《勇敢的心》（Braveheart, 1995）和《角斗士》（Gladiator, 2000）这样的史诗级电影的预算超过1亿美元（7750万英镑）。这些电影虽然能杀进奥斯卡，但历史题材最终往往只能沦为陪跑，《伊丽莎白》（Elizabeth, 1998）、《冬狮》（The Lion in Winter, 1968）甚至包括当时制作成本最高的《埃及艳后》（Cleopatra, 1963）都是例证。《角斗士》导演斯科特（Ridley Scott）发现，即使《角斗士》拿了五个奥斯卡，自己也成了公认的战争场景天才，但2005年讲述十字军东征的史诗片《天国王朝》（Kingdom of Heaven）还是一样无人问津。
Competing with The Favourite is Josie Rourke’s drama about a better-known monarch, Mary Queen of Scots. Netflix spent $120 million (£93 million) on William Wallace’s rival Robert the Bruce in The Outlaw King, while Mike Leigh devoted over 150 minutes to Peterloo, about a political massacre that took place in Britain in 1819. In France, Pierre Schoeller made Un peuple et son roi, which spans from the storming of the Bastille in 1789 to the execution of King Louis in 1792.
《宠儿》的竞争对手是洛克（Josie Rourke）的《玛丽女王》（Mary Queen of Scots）。显然，这位女王的知名度更高一些。网飞（Netflix）花了1.2亿美元（9300万英镑）来打造《法外之王》（The Outlaw King）这部戏，来讲述苏格兰独立战争的重要领袖之一华莱士（William Wallace）的对手苏格兰国王罗伯特一世（Robert the Bruce）故事；而麦克·李（Mike Leigh）导演的《彼得卢》（Peterloo）电影长达150多分钟，讲述了1819年著名的彼得卢屠杀；法国电影人舍勒（Pierre Schoeller）拍摄的《一个国家和它的国王》，从1789年攻占巴士底狱一直拍到1792年路易十六被推上断头台。
Ironically, it’s recent history that enabled many of these films to be made.
颇具讽刺的一点是，正是这几年的时代走向，导致了这种历史剧的出现。
“The focus in history films has typically been through a white male lens with the focus on a white ‘saviour’ figure,” explains Larushka Ivan-Zadeh, chief film critic for the Metro newspaper. “The thrilling change recently is that the lens and focus are changing and we are finally getting non-white, non-male perspectives on history.”
《都市报》（Metro）的首席影评家伊万-乍得（Larushka Ivan-Zadeh）说：“从前的历史电影往往都是透过白人男性的角度去拍摄的，主角往往是一个白人‘救世主’。近几年来大环境的改变，使得我们终于能以非白人、非男性的角度去重新看待历史了。”
The Favourite director Yorgos Lanthimos backs up this theory, pointing out he was trying to develop the film for nine years, until it finally chimed with the movement to fund stories starring female lead characters.
《宠儿》的导演兰斯莫斯对此非常认同。他说自己一共花了九年的时间才筹集够资金，拍摄这部女性主演的历史电影。
“The most important thing about it to me is that it’s a story of these three women and it was something you still rarely see on screen; a true story of women who were able to affect the lives of so many people around them,” he tells BBC Culture.
他告诉BBC文化版的记者说：“对我而言，最重要的一点是电影讲述了一段三个女人间的故事。现在很少有这样的戏；故事基于史实，而且这三个女人掌握了国家命运。”
‘Kings are just human too’
女性角色
The narrative of a lone female wielding power amongst her male contemporaries has found new resonance for a generation concerned about equality – another reason Mary Queen of Scots’ British director Josie Rourke thinks the film is on screens at this point in time. Both queens who feature in the film, Mary of Scotland and Elizabeth of England, played by Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie respectively, suffer everyday sexism from their male contemporaries.
一位女性在一个男权时代中掌握权力，在如今关注男女平等的时代里产生了新的共鸣，这也正是为什么《玛丽女王》的导演洛克会认为此时上映正合时宜。因为无论是罗比扮演的英格兰女王伊丽莎白一世，还是罗南扮演的苏格兰女王玛丽，无时无刻不在承受同时代的男性君主所带来的性别歧视。
“They were surrounded by only male advisors and the film gives some clue about what they’d have faced on a day-to-day level,” she explains. “There are some fictional elements to the film, such as the physical meeting between the queens that didn’t take place in history, but I really hope no one thinks that we’ve portrayed a fictional misogyny.”
她解释说：“两位女王的顾问都是男性，这部电影里描述了她们每天都要面对的事情。当然，电影里也添加了些许虚构元素，比如两位女王的会面，在历史上是没有发生过的。但我希望人们不要认为我们虚构出了一个厌女症人格。”
But though Margot Robbie has a Bafta nomination, and Ronan’s performance has been strongly praised, Mary Queen of Scots has failed to make as much of a dent on the Academy Awards, apart from in the best costume and hair and make-up categories. Ivan-Zadeh thinks The Favourite’s supremacy was inevitable.
罗比获得了英国学院奖提名，罗南的演技也广受好评，但这部电影也未能在奥斯卡颁奖典礼上获得同样的成绩，只摘得了最佳服饰奖、最佳化妆奖之类。而伊万-乍得对《宠儿》抱有极大的信心。
“I’m personally most excited about Mary Queen of Scots,” she says, “where a female director reframes and redefines how we see Mary and Elizabeth as powerful rulers, but also gets under their skin as women. But The Favourite is more likely to romp home in the genre as it wears its history so lightly and irreverently.
她说：“我个人是十分喜欢《玛丽女王》这部电影的，女导演洛克重新定义了玛丽女王和伊丽莎白女王作为统治者的一面，同时又保留了她们身上女性的一面。《宠儿》则不大一样，电影没有太忠于史实，可以说是历史题材中比较跳脱的那种类型。”
“It too offers a female-driven perspective on history but it's also a piece of absurdist escapism, powered by not just one female performance, but three, which is unique for any Oscar contender I can think of. It rides the Time's Up zeitgeist, but in a fun, less threatening way to more conservative voters.”
“与《玛丽女王》一样，这部电影也是以女性的视角来看待历史的，但是里面又有一种荒诞的现实逃避主义。而这种逃避主义的诠释者不只有一个，而是三个。我认为在奥斯卡的角逐中，这一点能让《宠儿》独树一帜。电影和好莱坞Time's Up这一抵制职场性骚扰的时代精神齐头并进，而且对于保守派人士来说，《宠儿》表达抗议的方式更为诙谐轻松。”
There might not have been, however, a rethinking of the role of sex in royal history without the power of Game of Thrones. George RR Martin’s novels had certain elements loosely based on English medieval history; the first novel was published in 1996, around the same time Braveheart, another sexy, violent epic based on real history, appeared. Since 2011, viewing figures for the HBO TV series rose to 30 million worldwide. It followed series such as The Tudors in tone, influenced the creation of other series like The Vikings and The Last Kingdom, and Josie Rourke acknowledges it was only a matter of time before it seeped into film culture.
然而，如果没有《权力的游戏》（Game of Thrones）的影响，人们可能不会重新思考性别在统治者的更迭中产生了什么样的作用。马丁（George RR Martin）的系列书籍中有一些中世纪英国历史的影子。该系列的第一本书出版于1996年，正值《勇敢的心》——这部基于史实改编的带有性和暴力色彩的史诗级电影问世之际。2011年《权力的游戏》被HBO改编成电视剧，全球的观众暴增至3000万人。《权力的游戏》继承了《都铎王朝》（The Tudors）的基调，对于后来的《维京传奇》（The Vikings）和《孤国春秋》（The Last Kingdom）等作品都产生了巨大的影响。洛克认为，《权力的游戏》文化基调渗透到电影中，只是迟早的问题。
“The way Game of Thrones thinks about sex and sexuality is more truthful to the past instead of the previous sanitisation of period drama we saw,” she says.
她说：“和先前改良过的时代剧不同，《权力的游戏》对性和性取向的思考确实更加真实地还原了历史。”
“By going back into history in a full-blooded and more honest way, they’ve done things including the ‘de-queering’ of period drama and so now we can tell it more accurately.”
“《权力的游戏》以一种更全面、更诚实的方式重新回归了历史，甚至降低了时代剧的怪奇感。使得我们[后来者]的创作能够更基于史实。”
The current crop of historicals has a tone at which even Braveheart would have blushed – Mary Queen of Scots deals with menstruation and Mary’s husband’s bisexuality, whilst The Favourite is centred around Queen Anne’s sexuality and doesn’t shy away from showing it. Meanwhile, The Outlaw King provides a half-a-second shot of full-frontal nudity in the form of Chris Pine as Robert the Bruce, which director David Mackenzie explained was necessary to show “kings are just human too” - but which proved to be the film’s biggest talking point on social media.
目前的历史题材作品普遍有一种基调，甚至让前辈《勇敢的心》都能脸红——《玛丽女王》中拍了女王的月经期、丈夫则是双性恋；《宠儿》则不吝展现安妮女王的性取向。《法外之王》中有一个片段，派恩（Chris Pine）扮演的罗伯特一世全裸出境。导演麦肯齐（David Mackenzie）认为，这一场景只是为了展现“国王亦凡人”的理念——虽然在社交媒体上，这段裸戏才是电影的热度所在。
‘Story above history’
“故事高于历史”
History’s sexual politics might be attractive to audiences in 2019; actual politics less so. The Outlaw King, which Netflix gave a brief cinema release to in Scotland, was developed in the aftermath of the 2014 referendum, and the resurgence in support for Scottish independence, although David Mackenzie confessed he was “nervous about contemporary parallels for obvious reasons. It’s a 700-year-old story.”
2019年，历史中的性别政治可能对观众更具吸引力，而正儿八经的政治则要逊色一筹。2014年苏格兰公投之后，网飞开发了《法外之王》，后来曾在苏格兰短暂地公映过以表示对苏格兰独立的支持。但是麦肯齐表示自己“因为众所周知的原因对当下的形势感到紧张。毕竟距离上一次苏格兰独立已经过去了700年。”
A first cut of The Outlaw King was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival, traditionally a launch pad for Oscar season, but it was described by The Scotsman as "having all the characteristics of a sweeping historical epic – glorious camera work, revenge-filled plot twists, lots of speechifying, an English villain with a hipster bowl-haircut - but the film doesn’t feel emotive or romantic.” In other words, Braveheart without heart.
《法外之王》在多伦多国际电影节上首映，这也象征着电影能够进军奥斯卡。但《苏格兰人报》（The Scotsman）评论说，这部电影“摄影绝佳，复仇情节跌宕起伏，充斥着大量的高谈阔论，一个留着锅盖头的英国恶棍……但是，这部电影不能让人感到情绪共鸣，也不够浪漫。”换言之，就是没有心的《勇敢的心》。
Peterloo, which faithfully recreates hours of real-life speeches given by English workers in search of suffrage, was critically acclaimed, but possibly suffered from being “too historical” according to Larushka Ivan-Zadeh. Un peuple et son roi also focused on the speeches made at the start of France’s modern democracy in 1789, and French audiences stayed away.
电影《彼得卢》忠实地再现了英国工人阶级为获得选举权而发表长达数小时演讲的片段，广受好评。但伊万-乍得认为，这部电影“过于真实”。《一个国家和它的国王》中也再现了正值1789年法国大大革命时期的一段演说，但法国的观众对此并不感兴趣。
It was Irish cinema audiences who found enthusiasm for national history with Black '47, set during the 19th-Century Irish famine. Directed by Lance Daly and starring The Matrix’s Hugo Weaving, the film, partly made in the Irish language and graphic in its depictions of suffering, made more than 1 million euros (£881,000) at the Irish box office in 2018. But Black ‘47 possibly engaged Irish audiences with a plot about a soldier’s killing spree against his English landlords.
《黑色1847》（Black '47）这部电影的历史背景设定在19世纪的爱尔兰饥荒期间，爱尔兰观众在观看时，难免会产生一种对于国家历史的浓厚兴趣。电影由戴利（Lance Daly）执导，主演是曾经出演《黑客帝国》（The Matrix）的维文（Hugo Weaving）。《黑色1847》电影中出现了爱尔兰语言和文字，表现了当时爱尔兰人的苦难和遭遇。2018年，这部电影在爱尔兰的票房高达100万欧元（88万英镑）。其中有一个情节，一个爱尔兰士兵疯狂屠杀英格兰地主，可能正是这个情节让爱尔兰观众特别有代入感。
“A feature film hasn’t been made about the famine that I know about, and there’s an extraordinary feeling of repressed rage about it. It’s a revenge film yes, and it’s imbued with pain and loss and grief,” its star Hugo Weaving says of Black '47. “It’s not just something out of Hollywood.”
“据我所知，至今还没有一部关于那场饥荒的故事片，人们对此有一种被压抑的、极度愤怒的感觉。”《黑色1847》主演维文说：“是的，这是一部复仇电影，充满了痛苦、失落和悲伤。这不仅仅是好莱坞的事。”
The ultimate appeal of any period film, including The Favourite, explains Yorgos Lanthimos, is to always put story above history.
兰斯莫斯解释说，包括《宠儿》在内的任何一部历史剧要抓住观众眼球，就要把故事情节放在史实之上。
“We made a conscious decision we would keep what was interesting to the story, but we make it obvious that it’s not an accurate historical film. You can learn history from it and if you’re intrigued about it you can read up on it. We wanted to explore these female characters in depth, rather than give information.
“我们决定，要保留故事中有趣的部分，但同时也要明确电影并不完全遵从了史实。如果观众通过电影学习到了历史，或是对历史产生了兴趣，那么他们可以去另外学习。我们的目标是创作有深度的女性角色，而不是复述历史课本。”
“We also tried to make something that feels contemporary in a period setting, we used contemporary fabrics and our language, rather than language of the period. And we do have a relevant message – that people in power, never mind their gender, can alter the lives of thousands of other people around them because of a decision or a mood they have one day.”
“我们还尝试过在历史中加入现代的元素。戏服采用的是现代面料，语言也是现代的语言，而不是当时的古英语。我们也传达了一个信息——无论是男是女，当权者的一个决定，或者是当天的心情，都足以改变周围人的命运。”
Regardless of whether The Favourite triumphs in this year’s awards season or whether it too comes second to a contemporary movie, Larushka Ivan-Zadeh feels that period film-making has been finally dragged into modernity.
伊万-乍得说，无论《宠儿》在电影奖中取得成功，或是败给某部当代题材的电影，都表明了电影产业已经进入现代化。
“Films set in history such as Lady Macbeth and now Mary Queen of Scots have ‘colour-blind’ casting, and I find it invigorating. History isn’t written in stone. It’s constantly re-written and it’s exhilarating as well as long overdue to have female, LGBTQ and non-white actors, directors and writers being the ones rewriting it now.”
“包括《麦克白夫人》（Lady Macbeth）和《玛丽女王》在内的历史剧，如今在选角上都贯彻了‘肤色无关’论。在我个人看来，这是十分振奋人心的。历史不是一成不变的，人们在不断地在重写剧本，而现在是由女性、LGBTQ群体以及非白人的演员、导演和编剧来改写，这是在振奋人心。”