《大白鲨》——暑期大片和高概念电影的开山之作

∷宋云峰

1975年上映的由斯皮尔伯格(Spielberg)导演的惊悚电影《大白鲨》（Jaws）是美国电影史上的分水岭，标志着新好莱坞电影的衰落和高概念暑期大片的兴起，使好莱坞各大电影公司重新开始主导电影的制作与发行。拍摄期间，由于美工部花巨资制造的机械鲨鱼模型不能正常工作，斯皮尔伯格只好在许多场景下让大白鲨若隐若现，并配以威廉姆斯的人音乐。其结果却出人意料地好，堪比希区柯克经典悬疑片，取得了极高的艺术成就。环球电影公司在全美同时在450块屏幕上首映，并配以密集电视广告和衍生品广告的大力宣传，使《大白鲨》大获成功，影评和票房均取得傲人成绩。2001年，美国国会图书馆电影馆因其“文化、历史和美学”意义予以永久收藏。

Generally well received by critics,Jawsbecame the highest-grossing (最高票房的） film in history at the time,and it was the most successful motion picture of all time untilStar Wars(《星球大战》). It won several awards for its soundtrack and editing, and is often cited as one of the greatest films of all time.Along withStar Wars,Jawswas pivotal (关键性的)in establishing the modern Hollywood business model,which revolves around blockbuster(大片) action and adventure pictures with simple “highconcept” premises that are released during the summer in thousands of theaters and supported by heavy advertising. In 2001,Jawswas selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry, being deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically signi ficant”.

《大白鲨》的情节

艾米提岛（Amity Island）是个偏僻的海滨小镇，但一到夏季，这里就变得热闹万分，人们都来到这里的海滨浴场度假消闲。现在，旅游旺季又快到了，然而不祥的气氛却开始笼罩小镇。一位叫克里希（Chrissie）的女孩在沙滩派对上独自到海里游泳，神秘地消失在海水里。第二天，巡警发现了她支离破碎的尸体。这是一只鲨鱼的杰作。警察局长马丁（Martin Brody）下令封闭海滨浴场，但是市长莱瑞（Larry Vaughn）却不同意这么做，因为这会影响小镇赖以为生的旅游经济收入。不久，在一次游泳中，又一个在划水板上的孩子被鲨鱼吃掉。悲痛欲绝的遇难者母亲发布了三千美元的悬赏。许多渔民想要挣这笔钱！此事也引起了当地捕鲨爱好者昆特(Kunt)和海洋生物学家麦特（Matt Hooper）的兴趣，于是马丁开始与两人合作，全力投入到对鲨鱼的搜寻和追捕中。

Chrissie is reported missing and her remains are later found on the beach by the Deputy of police chief Martin Brody. The medical examiner informs Brody that she was killed by a shark. Brody plans to close the beaches but is overruled (否决）by mayor Larry Vaughn, who fears that reports of a shark attack will ruin the summer tourist season, the town’s primary source of income.The medical examiner consequently attributes (把……归于) the death to a boating accident. Brody reluctantly goes along with the explanation. The shark then kills a young boy swimming at the beach. His mother places a bounty (赏金) on the shark, sparking an amateur sharkhunting frenzy (狂乱) and attracting the attention of local professional shark hunter Quint, who offers to kill the shark for $10,000. Marine biologist Matt Hooper examines Chrissie’s remains and determines that she was killed by a shark, not a boat.

A large tiger shark (虎鲨) is caught by fishermen,leading the townspeople to believe the problem is solved.Hooper asks to examine its stomach contents, but Vaughn refuses. That evening, Brody and Hooper secretly open the shark’s stomach and discover that it does not contain human remains. They head out to sea to find the shark,but instead find the wreckage (残骸) of a boat belonging to local fisherman Ben Gardner. Hooper explores the vessel underwater and discovers a sizable shark’s tooth protruding from the damaged hull (船壳) before he is startled by Gardner’s corpse, causing him to drop the tooth. Without evidence, Vaughn refuses to close the beaches.

Many tourists arrive on the Fourth of July (7月4日，美国独立日) . A children’s prank (恶作剧) causes panic at the main beach while the shark enters a nearby estuary(河口，港湾) and kills a man. Brody’s son Michael, who narrowly escapes the attack, goes into shock. Brody persuades Vaughn to hire Quint, and Quint reluctantly allows Hooper and Brody to join the hunt. The three set out to kill the shark aboard Quint’s vessel, the Orca.

《大白鲨》的制作

尽管《大白鲨》基于本彻莱（Peter Benchley）的同名小说，斯皮尔伯格在拍摄期间的主要灵感来源是麦尔维尔（Melville）的《白鲸》(Moby-Dick）和海明威（Hemingway）的《老人与海》（The Old Man and the Sea），并且对原作进行了很大的改动。

Herman Melville’sMoby-Dickis the most notable artistic antecedent (先例) toJaws. The character of Quint strongly resembles Captain Ahab, the obsessed captain of the Pequod who devotes his life to hunting a sperm whale (抹香鲸). A direct reference to these similarities may be found in Spielberg’s draft of the screenplay, which introduces Quint watching the film version ofMoby-Dick.Screenwriter Carl Gottlieb also drew comparisons to Ernest Hemingway’sThe Old Man and the Sea: “Jawsis ...a titanic struggle, like Melville or Hemingway.”

《大白鲨》灵感来源——《老人与海》

导演斯皮尔伯格

《大白鲨》导演斯皮尔伯格

其实，斯皮尔伯格在拍摄《大白鲨》时很不顺利。拍摄所用时间和所耗成本均远远超出原来的计划（都在原计划的两倍以上），例如，该片的成本预算是四百万美元，而杀青后的费用高达九百万，其中三百万用于鲨鱼模型的制作和操作。另外一个主要原因是初出茅庐的斯皮尔伯格（这是他的第二部电影，当时他只有28岁）追求完美的性格和缺乏拍摄此类影片的经验。

Spielberg attributed many problems to his perfectionism and his inexperience. The former was epitomized（集中体现）by his insistence on shooting at sea with a life-sized shark, “I could have shot the movie in the tank or even in a protected lake somewhere, but it would not have looked the same,” he said. As for his lack of experience:“I was naive about the ocean, basically. I was pretty naive about mother nature and the hubris（骄傲自大）of a filmmaker who thinks he can conquer the elements（大自然）, but I was too young to know I was being foolhardy（有勇无谋的）when I demanded that we shoot the film in the Atlantic Ocean and not in a North Hollywood tank.”

《大白鲨》所用机械鲨鱼模型

然而，拍摄时遇到的困难以及为克服困境所使用的替代方法反而歪打正着，使影片格外成功。最典型的例子是机械鲨鱼的故障迫使斯皮尔伯格不得不使用间接暗示的方法。

The script was re fined during production, and the unreliable mechanical sharks forced Spielberg to shoot many scenes so that the shark was only hinted at. For example,for much of the shark hunt, its location is indicated by the floating yellow barrels. This forced restraint（被迫的节制）is widely thought to have added to the movie’s suspense（悬念）. As Spielberg put it years later, “The film went from a Japanese Saturday matinee（午场）horror flick（恐怖电影）to more of a Hitchcock（希区柯克）, the less-you-see-themore-you-get thriller.”

另外，斯皮尔伯格利用威廉姆斯（John Williams）创作的主导动机音乐来加强鲨鱼逼近的危险效果，为影片增色不少，也使威廉姆斯一举成名，由此开始了两人的合作历程。

John Williams composed the film’s score（配乐）,which earned him an Academy Award（奥斯卡奖）and was later ranked the sixth greatest score by the American Film Institute. The main “shark” theme, a simple alternating pattern of two notes—variously identi fied as “E and F” or “F and F sharp” —became a classic piece of suspense music,synonymous with approaching danger. Spielberg later said that without Williams’s score the film would have been only half as successful, and according to Williams it jumpstarted (启动) his career. He had previously scored Spielberg’s debut feature (首部故事片)The Sugarland Express, and went on to collaborate with the director on almost all of his films.

由于摄制时间比预定计划延后了一百多天，斯皮尔伯格很担心自己的电影生涯被该片所毁，并在拍摄最后一个镜头——将大白鲨炸成碎片——的时候故意没有到场，以避免愤懑的剧组人员在镜头拍完后将其扔到水里。后来他延续了这一做法。

Although principal photography was scheduled to take 55 days, it did not wrap (完成) until October 6, 1974,after 159 days. Spielberg, re flecting on the protracted

shoot, stated, “I thought my career as a filmmaker was over. I heard rumors ... that I would never work again because no one had ever taken a film 100 days over

schedule.” Spielberg himself was not present for the

shooting of the final scene in which the shark explodes, as he believed that the crew were planning to throw him in the water when the scene was done. It has since become a tradition for Spielberg to be absent when the final scene of one of his films is being shot.

《大白鲨》的运作

为确保《大白鲨》的成功上映，环球公司花费了180万美元（考虑到影片原来400万美元的投资，可以称得上是巨资）进行广告宣传，两周即收回投资成本，创造了暑期“高概念”大片的运作模式。

On June 20,Jawsopened across North America on 464 screens—409 in the United States, the remainder in Canada. The coupling of this broad distribution (发行)pattern with the movie’s then even rarer national television marketing campaign yielded a release method virtually unheard-of at the time. Building on the film’s success, the release was subsequently expanded on July 25 to nearly 700 theaters, and on August 15 to more than 950.

另外，利用《大白鲨》在全国的热映，环球公司同时将与影片有关的其他商品投放市场，赚取更多的利润。

佛罗里达环球影城《大白鲨》模型

More merchandise was created to take advantage of the film’s release. In 1999, Graeme Turner wrote thatJawswas accompanied by what was still“probably the most elaborate array of tie-ins (搭售的商品，捆绑销售的商品)”of any film to date:“This included a sound-track album, T-shirts, plastic tumblers（塑料杯）, a book about the making of the movie, the book the movie was based on,beach towels, blankets, shark costumes, toy sharks, hobby kits, iron-transfers, games, posters, shark’s tooth necklaces,sleepwear（睡衣裤），water pistols, and more.”

《大白鲨》的影响

《大白鲨》确立了美国电影在大力宣传的配合下在全国范围内广泛同时上映的做法，结束了好莱坞多年的不景气，使电影进入了高概念大片的盈利时代。

Jawswas key in establishing the bene fits of a wide national release backed by heavy television advertising, rather than the traditional progressive(渐进式) release in which a film slowly entered new markets and built support over time. Scholar Thomas Schatz writes that it“recalibrated (重新校准) the pro fit potential of the Hollywood hit, and rede fined its status as a marketable commodity and cultural phenomenon as well. The film brought an emphatic (显著的，有力的) end to Hollywood’s fiveyear recession(衰退), while ushering in an era of high-cost, high-tech, high-speed thrillers.”

《大白鲨》还产生了极大的社会影响。正如1960年希区柯克的《精神病患者》（Psycho）的浴室谋杀场景使许多女性不敢单独洗淋浴，斯皮尔伯格的《大白鲨》也在相当长的一段时间里使人们畏惧到海里游泳。影片还对鲨鱼的保护工作产生了负面作用。

The film had broader cultural repercussions(反响), as well. Similar to the way the pivotal scene in 1960’sPsychomade showers a new source of anxiety,Jawsled many viewers to fear going into the ocean. Reduced beach attendance in 1975 was attributed to it. It is still seen as responsible for perpetuating (永存的) negative stereotypes about sharks and their behavior, and for producing the socalled “Jawseffect”, which allegedly inspired “legions of (大量的) fishermen [who] piled into boats and killed thousands of the ocean predators in sharkfi shing tournaments.”Conservation groups have bemoaned（哀叹）the fact that the film has made it considerably harder to convince the public that sharks should be protected.

何谓“High-Concept”电影？

所谓“高概念”是指一部艺术作品可以明确与假设条件搭配，形成清晰的因果条件关系，而不是注重于人物性格的发展和难以概括的其他微妙因素。

High-concept narratives are typically characterised by an overarching “what if?” scenario (设想) that acts as a catalyst (催化剂) for the following events. Often,the most popular summer blockbuster movies are built on a high-concept idea, such as “what if we could clone dinosaurs?”(One answer was found in the 1993 American science fiction adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg,Jurassic Park（《侏罗纪公园》)

除了具有类型和美学上的特征，高概念大片（highconcept blockbuster）运用清晰简单的概念很容易抓住广泛的观众，具体来说体现在影片的“好看”，故事的“诱人”，以及产品的“衍生”上面。

Along with having genre and aesthetics, high-concept films have marketing guidelines known as:“the look, the hook and the book.”

* The look of the film is simply how visually appealing it is to the public, usually before its release.Jurassic Parkwould show the world dinosaurs as they had never been seen before.

* The hook is the story the film is trying to sell to its audience. Everyone wanted to know how dinosaurs could walk the Earth again after being extinct (灭绝) for 65 million years and how they would coexist with people.

* The book can be labeled as all the merchandise made to help promote the film. The merchandise inJurassic Parkwas destined to sell well, with people wanting the t-shirts and lunch boxes that were shown everywhere throughout the movie, and they can be purchased at Universal Studios.