新冠初愈，但又激起了慢性病。回到西安的这几天，上空总是雾蒙蒙的，是历史的重担将这座城市压得也喘不过气来吗？不过附近的影院居然放映戈达尔，立即跑去看了。
重温这部 《随心所欲：一部由十二个插曲组成的影片》应该遵循卡尔维诺的教导，重新下一番虔诚的功夫。于是找来了可能是最重要、最“权威”的两份评论，顺便贴在豆瓣上。
从《随心所欲》谈起 面向蒙特利尔电影艺术学院学生的电影史课程 摘自《电影的七段航程》译/郭昭澄
《随心所欲》（Vivre sa vie）的拍摄年代距今太遥远了，我一点也记不起来当时的情形。我在重看自己的一些旧片时，常会感到很惊讶，我发现我现在才开始稍微能够分辨两种截然不同的动作，一种是引发出某些东西的动作，叫做表达（expression），另一种是相反的动作，即烙印某种东西的动作，叫做印象感觉（impression）。对于一般的制片人而言，拍电影就是在底片上印记一些东西，就像印刷书籍一样。制片人从事电影制片的工作，这是他的职业，他在印记某些东西。此外，印象这个字当动词时，我们也说“使人印象深刻”（impressionner），或是说某种风景或某部影片令我们“留下深刻印象”。
在我开始搞电影时，我常以为我在表达自己的思想见解，却不知道在这项表达动作中，其实有一大部分只是印记感觉印象的动作，这个印记动作并非来自我们本身。我一切的工作或者说我从事电影工作的乐趣，就是尽量主动去寻求、去学习自己对事物的感觉，而不是被动地接受外界加诸我的印象或感觉，至少对我而言是如此，但这并非容易之事。
当我重看《随心所欲》时，发现拍片当时我已稍微能够表达出一点自己的东西，我在各方面都印记上一些东西，且丝毫未加控制，因此使得这部片子有些很严重的瑕疵，不过片中有时又会突然出现一些还不错的东西，问题是当时我分辨不出什么是好镜头，什么是坏镜头。如今我才开始了解这一点，但我也只能说：“对啦，我将一个镜头接着另一个镜头，但事实上这并非出自我自己的动作， 这是电影和我所在的社会所做的动作，是处在那个时代的我使我继续如此行事罢了。”
我对于自己曾想拍一些警匪片的念头感到惊讶，现在我比较喜欢看一些稍带历史色彩的书籍，比方一些关于黑手党或一些“道上”的事，只要有关历史或政治的事都令我感兴趣。但在拍摄《随心所欲》时，我仅在抄袭一些东西……反正，那是我当时的拍片方式；这和当时大部分的人喜欢看警匪片的道理是一样的。我和大家一样都很喜欢这类电影，可是我并不知道自己是在何种社会现象中，因此在处理匪徒之间的争端时相当可笑。今天，随便一部克林特·伊斯特伍德（Clint Eastwood）的电影都比《随心所欲》好。有时我也会去看克林特·伊斯特伍德的电影，我是用社会学的观点去看，因为他的电影都属于美国一般普通电影、B级电影、希区柯克式电影。他的电影老少咸宜，不过这种电影的魅力并非因为这个十足的王八蛋具有卓越的自我表达（expression）能力，而是因为这个王八蛋具有某种讨人喜欢且令人印象深刻（impression）的能耐，甚至包括我在内，连我也会花五美元去看他的电影。因此，我们可以说他的电影是某种世界的展现表达（expression）。
最近我刚在巴黎看了一部他的电影，所以才有感而发。我想看看非电视影集的一般电影到底是什么样子，以及克林特·伊斯特伍德在某个时期由演而导的过程与原因，或许是基于经济因素才当导演吧，反正我也不太清楚。总之，我很想知道一个人如何会突然说：“好吧，把摄影机摆那儿，然后我要用这种方式来拍自己，我将会成为某个角色……”他凭什么突然由幕前走到幕后？我自忖怎么会如此，我不知道答案，因为这也正是我提出的问题，我也想一探究竟。我对他的电影极感兴趣，因为他的电影有观众群，我正好可以藉此看出人类活在何种世界中？我们常说：人活在这个世界中……；事实上，一般美国普通百姓就是那些会说“把摄影机摆那边，我们要拍一个警察正在做这做那的动作”这种话的人，我想，就凭这一点，他的电影比我的实际多了，因为他的品味符合一般大众的要求。有了这个觉醒后我就较少拍警匪片，因为我不会拍这种符合大众口味的电影。但说真格的，我和一般大众一样，向来对包括侦探小说在内一切与警察有关的东西相当着迷。
开始时，每个人都自认对事情有其主观的看法，可是，随后却发现这种主观性并不如我们以为的那么独立，而是被其他的东西所左右；因此我们应该试着去分析此种主观性，去除其中的外在客观因素，然后才能找到自己真正的独立主观性。我就可以透过影像看出并认出此种主观性，举例来说，今早放映《贪婪》（Greed）的序幕一景十分精彩：这一段有七、八个镜头，施特罗海姆（Erich von Stroheim）和俄国人一样使用字幕这一点非常有意思；字幕是镜头的一部分，有些时候无声电影丰富的表达力，强过很多有声电影，或许是默片的字幕不受限于演员嘴部的动作，与对白的长度无关，可以表达更多的东西之故吧。
施特罗海姆是赋予镜头和角度同等价值的先驱者之一，俄国人随后也跟进。在《贪婪》中，有七、八个序幕镜头，叙述某个人正在做某件事情，随后出现字幕“这就是”，镜头又出现母亲的影像，过了三个镜头后字幕才打出“这就是他的母亲”。说真的，这就是电影曾经具有的强大威力，可惜如今这项功能已消失殆尽。过去曾经有一段时间，电影与文学或语言曾有过美好的合作，彼此相得益彰。
新浪潮在开始拍电影之初，是基于对当时电影的一种反弹，是一种重返自然、真实的反应动作。我们反对当时的电影制作方式，特别是对白部分。我记得在拍《精疲力尽》（À bout de souffle）之前，曾替一家叫《艺术》（Arts）的报纸写过两、三星期的文章，我从一些影片中撷取某些所谓的“陈腔滥调”的句子放入文章中，别人就说：“从来没有人会在这种情况下说出这种话。”举例来说，有一个叫米歇尔·奥迪亚（Michel Audiard）的电影对白编剧，他每次写对白之前就先跑到街上去听听市井小民如何说话，再把记录下的句子编成电影对白。这种对白效果第一次还不错，第二次也不错，可是一连重复个十次就开始令人觉得厌烦了。当时新浪潮的人都在写影评，于是我们就毫不客气地指出上述现象，毫无忌惮地抨击这种乏善可陈的对白，这就是为什么当时有那么多人讨厌我们的原因。就好像今天你对一个朋友说：“你应该在电影中说出某些话，应该写出某些对白才对。”此时你的朋友一定会很不高兴，他会说：“你干脆直说我不会写算了。”当时我们一票人都直截了当毫不掩饰地说：“碧姬·芭铎（Brigitte Bardot）不应该在某片中说那些话，而应该说这些话才对。”
随后，我们（新浪潮）由于经常观察别人的作品，大量评论电影，终于也发现了自己特有的风格。只要脑中闪过什么东西，我们就把它记下来，并不特别去琢磨或思考。
电影圈或是一般人所谓的“说故事”这种事一直令我觉得非常不自在，所谓的说故事就是由零时开始，开一个头，然后抵达终点，这种事美国人做得很少，但大家却认为他们一直在做。假如换做是别人的话这事就行不通了，但美国人却可以。……所有的美国西部片不都如此吗？美国西部片开始时一定会有一个不知由何处冒出来的家伙，砰然一声推开酒吧的门，剧终时他就突然消失不见，就这么简单。影片没头没尾的，只呈现那家伙的一部分，奇怪的是，美国人这种拍摄手法却能令人相信历经了一则完整的故事，或许这就是美国人的威力所在吧，其他人是无法办到的。其他的人都叙述一个开端，一个开场白，再来是中段情节，然后是结局……我对这种事觉得很不自在，我从未成功地从头到尾说完一则完整的故事。
我开始拍电影时仅拍一些故事的片段（morceau），就这么一直拍下去，到最后我就只拍些片段，我甚至比较喜欢为电视台拍片，因他们接受片段式影片。他们会对你说：拍一段在星期一播出，一段在星期二播出，一段在星期三播出……只要拍七个段落就成了一集。反正我宁愿尝试拍电视节目，因为时间够充裕，观众可以在电视影集中找出故事原委，但若想在一个半小时或两小时内说出一则完整故事，那就难了。为什么规定一定要在一小时半或两小时内把故事说完呢？大家都不知道理由。电视影集是由一些片段组成，可以透过影集画些画、做点音乐，影集中想当然尔由节奏、变奏和一些段落（morceau）所组成。再说，在音乐上我们都说“一曲音乐”（un morceau de musique）。
……在这个时候，我们有点脱离故事情节，或是相反地，我们在研究故事，在寻找其连贯线索、一个或数个主题，或某种东西……；反正我们试着在找就是了，那时我也是在寻找……我记得《随心所欲》的脚本改编自一个法官写的关于卖淫的小说；换言之，我只是想揭发一些不能公开的事，希望别人能够藉此和我讨论并对我说：“你可以和我讨论……”但我只想叙述故事而已，随后就会跑出一些东西来。我们一旦描述了一种情况后就会特别喜欢曾有这类遭遇的人，就可以想象一个人物或某些场景……这就是拍电影比其他行业有意思的地方。
……当我们更能厘清什么是客观的东西并且加以控制时，我们就更容易找到自己的主观性。假如你很会说故事的话，到了某个时刻就可以让主观性自由奔驰。……何况当时（拍《随心所欲》之时）的电影检查与今天并不一样；比方说这部影片应该放入更多的文章，而不是影像才对；假如影片只要叙述十或十五分钟的色情交易，就应该呈现出其他不同的色情交易情节才对。假如我们实地拍摄一节十分钟的色情交易过程，看到的东西就不及一段同样长度的相关影片所能呈现的多，这就是电影的好处。电影时间比实际时间更具伸展性，我们可以在这段描述色情交易的十分钟影片中，把焦点放在嫖客或妓女身上，也就是说可以有自己的主观性，也就是电影的构想，而这个构想是根据别人已做的事为出发点。至于我嘛，我是根据某部纪录片来拍《随心所欲》，我经常拿一些不是自己构想的点子来拍片，我自己是不可能会有那么多点子的……至少我可以拿别人的东西做个大纲。现在我则试着拿一些别人拍过的影像，前前后后再加上一些其他的影像，如此就成了我的电影。
安娜·卡里娜（Anna Karina）拍完《随心所欲》后非常生气，她认为我们将她拍得很丑，她也怪我叫她演这部片子，这就是我们感情发生裂痕的开端。我很有兴趣重看这部片子，这可能是我在潜意识里想模仿影圈著名夫妇档的例子吧，就像玛琳·黛德丽（Marlène Dietrich）和约瑟夫·冯·斯登堡（Josef von Sternberg）的故事一样……在新浪潮方兴未艾之时，对于我们这些未来的导演而言，我们心目中的明星是导演，而非演员。我很佩服一些如半神半人般的导演，或许他们可以取代从未被我崇拜过的父母吧……反正一大堆诸如此类的事。与女演员发生关系就好像我是嫖客，而她是妓女一样……当然，男演员或女演员是一个值得好好研究的行业。但事实上，我常有一个问题……我不能……当我和卡里娜分开时……她是因为我有一大堆缺点而离开我，我也明白我之所以离开她的原因，是因为我无法与她谈论电影之故，况且我们也看不出有什么办法能够使彼此沟通，或许需要有另一种社会运动来促成吧。我认为卡里娜是个很不错的演员，她是北欧人，有很多优点，她的演技有点类似瑞典女星葛丽泰·嘉宝（Greta Garbo），太过戏剧化，有时根本就不需要使气氛变得那么严肃，但她就是没办法放轻松；不过这是她自己的动作，一点也不像动物，不如说像植物吧。何况她又是丹麦人，她会如此演戏应该不是件奇怪的事。提到卡里娜就一言难尽，今天我才了解到我们要的东西从来没有一次相同过，这就好像我们想和摄影师谈摄影以外的东西一样。
我还有另外一次经验是在电视台，那时我一直与同一位摄影师工作，我们正在拍制一个儿童访问节目。我就想：“这件事一定非常简单，至少这个摄影师有小孩，应该会比别人开放一点，也许他看到访问或我与小女孩的对话时会建议我说：‘依我看你一定没有小孩，你不应该问他们这些问题。’”事实却不然，因为有这么一种尊敬、一种阶级关系或是一种各司其职的专业观念存在，使得摄影师不敢对我的工作提出质疑，这也正是我和卡里娜之间的问题：由于我是高高在上的导演，她是我手下的演员，因此我们之间可说毫无对话沟通的可能。我认为以当时的我而言，照理说应该会逼她说出自己的意见才对，我应该是无法容忍无沟通的情况才对，可是我却毫无动作，而她也无力反抗那种不公平待遇。简·方达（Jane Fonda）一直在电影圈之外积极活动，但却从不在圈内活动。这是我和她之间一个很大的差异，我们在合作拍片期间多次起争执原因就在此。我对越南一点兴趣也没有，我对简·方达说：“假如你连这个镜头都演不好的话，那么就算到了越南你照样不会演得好。至少在电影中还有我帮你写对白来弥补一下你差劲的演技，到了越南谁来帮你写对白呢？”
电影既不是工厂，也不是通用汽车公司；我不是福特公司，也不是美国中央情报局局长。假如有人想攻击我的话，那是很简单的事，趁我在拍片时打击我是易如反掌的事。在座的各位若想攻击我的话也不是什么难事，就像通用公司的工人可以轻而易举地去打击工头一样。问题是，假如不是用拳头攻击而是用言论的话，这其中一定大有文章。在电影中，冯·斯登堡并没用枪抵着玛琳·黛德丽，她就乖乖听命，可见其中存在其他的问题。这并不是说没有暴力关系存在，所以我就不用言语当作武器。今天导演在寻求与别人共同协商如何相处、如何摆设物件，以及如何将自己当成一件物来表现，我们发现这些不是那么简单的。
最近我刚看了一部德菲因·塞里格（Delphine Seyrig）的影片，里面有很多著名女星的访问报导，导演希望她们在片中谈谈女性角色在电影中的地位。每个女明星都说：“哟不，我没空，我无法谈这个……”我在想：这实在太不像话了，影片中根本没有出现她们演的电影的片段，应该插入这些片段，好让我们对她们的作品有些概念，然后再听听她们的解释：“在那部片子中，我想有些事是我自己愿意接受的。”演电影毕竟与在工厂工作不同呀！随后，可能的话最好也要访问未出现在摄影机前的所有女性电影从业人员。这些人通常是临时演员，其次是在办公室里打制片预算的打字小姐、冲印厂的女工和做其他相关工作的女工……这是电影的另一面。
对我而言，演员就是一个想表达的人……而事实上，演员却像一个既珍贵又稀奇的病人，他只能诠释别人的角色，有些事想做又不能做，与残障者差不多，所以他可说处于一个极特殊的状况。而且他也不能把个人的感觉（impression）放入所演的角色中。问题是演员不可能一直仅在摄影机之前表演，不参与其他事务；同样地，导演也不可能一直站在摄影机之后指挥其他演员表演，有时也要充当一下演员才对，至于其他处于摄影机旁的技术人员也不可能一直只当个旁观者。到目前为止，我也不认为有分开工作任务的可能。当然，有时为了演好某个角色，每个人都必须要具备某些特殊优点，这是毋庸置疑的。这就和唱歌一样，问题是唱歌……我不知道，通常歌手很容易受制于经纪人。我认为芭芭拉·史翠珊（Barbra Streisand）的嗓音很美，她凭着美妙的歌喉在歌坛上出类拔萃，如同默片和有声电影时的葛丽泰·嘉宝或是埃米尔·雅宁斯（Emil Jannings）一样，他们凭着完美躯体和精湛演技在同行中独占鳌头。但是芭芭拉·史翠珊光唱歌，并没有参与歌词写作的工作，所以歌词内容与她的声音特质无法配合。换言之，应该知道如何各取所长，才能发挥最大功效。
开始时，我与卡里娜非常相爱，共同分享彼此的优点，也忍受彼此的缺点；但到了最后，我只能说是电影把我们完全分开了。我想她一直很遗憾不能去好莱坞拍电影，假如她能去的话或许会更快乐一点。假如她真的想去好莱坞闯天下的话，最好早生二十年，而且还要有机会去洛杉矶才行。
从前我们新浪潮拍电影的方式和现在的电影工作者不一样，我们必须能够以拍片维生才行。想要维持正常的生活就必须正常地拍电影，除了必须能够负担三房一厅的公寓、汽车、假期等开销，还要拍些大家喜欢的电影才行。但是我们也不会为了达到上述目的，而委屈自己去拍些广告片、艳情片或是政治宣导片……反正，我不知道，就是去做些大部分人做的事，一起同流合污——我们并没有这样。我们也没有像大部分的欧洲导演一样，被迫跑到美国去求发展。总之，我们备极艰辛地做了一些想做的事，绝不妥协去拍那些色情片、政治片等等，我们也成功了。但是，我们同时也蜷缩在自己的小角落，觉得非常孤单，不禁会想：“实在很可惜，我们具备所有拍片条件，可是……”后来我们发现到，大家并不太想改变，这个世界也无意改变。
我经常在想，电影实在是一种相当特别的东西。很早以前就有了影像，但当影像达到如电视发展的普遍程度时，它给予人的一般印象却在反映一种社会、民族的病态而非健康状况。影像能够表现一些无限的东西，同时又多方受到限制。影像和声音各自并不太完整，假如我们的身体只具备眼睛和耳朵的话，就不算是一具完整的躯体。眼睛和耳朵非常有限，但这个“非常有限”的东西却又予人一种无限的印象，由零至无限，绵延不断。
我经常在想，今日的电影有点类似从前的音乐：它代表一切将发生的事，能把未来会发生的重大趋势预先印记呈现出来。由此看来，电影势必也能预先呈现弊端，这是事情本质显现于外的记号。电影非常特别，能预测突发的意外事故。
我们应该多拍些战争电影，而不要去打仗。科波拉（Francis Ford Coppola）应该早二十年拍那些战争电影才对，如此或许可以避免不必要的战火。影像本身一点也不危险，影像其实非常有意思，什么东西都可以放进去。我经常与朋友起争执，因为我常对他们说：“我要将自己表现出来，我要将自己在影像中放大表现出来，你们可以尽量批评我，没关系。”我认为，我们必须将自己呈现出来，并且呈现出我们对别人的看法，在这个时候，别人就可以对你说：“但我并不是这样子呀！”如此一来彼此就有点沟通，可以稍微相互了解了。事实上，有一种折衷办法可以帮我们彼此了解。我们可以用一种更明显、更有趣、更直接可行的方式去增进彼此间的了解。当婴孩出生或老年人临终之际，他们都不说话，只用眼睛去凝视，当我们闭上嘴巴而用眼去看时，就可以看到、了解到更多的东西。
说真的，当时我们一群人开始拍电影时，一心只想拍与电影史有关的题材，只想拍一些有别于当时电影的作品，这种志向显得有点划地自限。同时，我们又掺入过多自己的主观，到最后不仅看不清想表现的东西，也偏离了影史的方向。我想里维特（Jacques Rivette）或特吕弗（François Truffaut）等人都是这么上路的。当时新浪潮的出发点是一种反法国电影的反应，而今天……每个人都各自走出自己的路。为什么夏布洛尔（Claude Chabrol）会变成像杜维威尔（Julien Duvivier）那样的导演呢？杜维威尔不是一个坏人，但是我可不愿变得像他一样。特吕弗的历练算是最奇特的一个，明天我们会放一部他的电影片段，然后再与其他的影片片段做个比较……特吕弗的世界是一个很怪异的世界。
至于我嘛，我则尝试去拍一些有人要看的电影，或是与一些想要为自己拍片的人一起来拍电影。这就像医生需要X光底片，而病人也需要医生的道理是一样的。某些时候，病人和医生双方都需要有X光底片，这样彼此才能相互产生关系。我一直尝试用这种态度去拍片，也就是说去感觉此种需求。事实上，我有一方面很像学生，或者说是永远在学习的学生，或永远的老师吧！或许是教学相长的道理，反正我也不知道到底是什么……总之，我觉得一直有一种想要看得更远、想要制造东西、学习经验以及详读一张地图以便旅行的欲望。
对了，对大部分的电影工作人员而言，“考虑到观众的需求”这句话只是一个大骗局罢了。当他们说“必须考虑到观众、尊敬观众”，“必须考虑到这种电影可能会令观众感到乏味”时……尤其是当观众觉得乏味时他们就不会去看了，假如说这句话的人同时也投资这部影片，那他准会亏大钱。他们还不如坦白直说：“我应该试着去吸引最多的观众，好让我赚最多的钱。”赚钱是一件好事，只要坦白说出来就好了，不要假惺惺地说“必须不能令观众感到乏味”“不要……”等冠冕堂皇的大话。
长久以来，我拍片的首要动机都是基于我自己相信的真理，我的想法是：“大家不停地谈到观众，我可不认识观众，我从来没看过他们，也不知道他们是谁。”只有在票房惨遭滑铁卢时我才会想到观众的存在。例如《卡宾枪手》（Les Carabiniers）上演时，十五天内只有区区十八名观众，闭着眼都可以数得出来，这时我便想说：“这些人到底是谁呀？我倒想认识他们！我想看看这十八个来看电影的人，希望有人拿他们的照片给我看……”虽然是在票房奇惨的时刻我才第一次真正想到观众的存在，我到底还是想到了观众。我就不认为斯皮尔伯格（Steven Spielberg）会想到观众，请问他如何有能力去想到、考虑到一千两百万观众呢？他的制片人可能会想到由荷包掏出的一千两百万美元，但要他想到一千两百万名观众……这是绝对不可能的事。或许会有人与他的想法一样，但还要看看他们到底是哪些人。我的女儿看我的电影常常无法坐上五分钟，却可以忍受好几个小时的广告和美国影集，我看到这种情况真是百感交集。我不能怪她，心想说“这样做一点用处也没有”，可是却又忍不住不怪她。有时想到还要养她就令我厌烦，在这个时候我就会想到观众，此时，我与他们间有一种实际的关系。
当你在拍一部电影时，你突然大胆说出一些本来不敢说的话（如脏话等），因为这是在银幕上出现，所以你不会觉得不好意思。当我们拍电影时，不会因为观众是中国人、阿富汗人、黑人、瑞士人或波兰人而觉得不自在，这是因为我们并不认识这些观众的缘故。我甚至不知道有谁会去看我的电影，当然就不会觉得不自在或不好意思。可是，当我离开巴黎搬到外省时，因我住的是一个小城市，瑞士也是一个民风极保守的国家，当我一想到在这种小地方连我认识的那个肉贩都会去看我的电影时，这一切就不一样了。我拍的是电视节目，我知道他将会去看我拍的影像，我也知道他的儿子和我的女儿在同一所小学……在小镇或是某些保守国家中，这一切因素都会影响拍片的态度，这种狭隘的地理与人际关系会影响我拍片的心情，这时候我就会开始想到观众。针对这一点，电视实在比电影有意思多了。这时要想的问题并不是有哪一种观众会去看，而是……“有些人会去看这些作品”的问题。说实在的，假如稍后我再把这些电视节目重拍成电影的话，我必定会想到去看电影的人，那么我会再次变得不知所措，我会想：“这些电影会在哪一间电影院放映？观众会在哪些条件下看电影？”这些观影条件暧昧不明，令我有点不知所措。我一方面想要拍电影，一方面又想到自己没能力去做想做的事，因为一做的话就有了立场，不是居下风就是成为支配者，而我既不想居下风也不想当支配者。因此，我想最好就是拍拍社区的小型电视节目就好了。唉，可惜并没有这种小型电视节目可拍。
有哪一个派拉蒙的人会想到观众？导演是不会想到观众的，依我看，假如他曾经历过新浪潮所经历的类似过程，他或许最后会想到观众。换句话说，假如他在某些时候的某些地方接收到观众对他的作品的反应时，他或许就会想到观众。这时电视机就扮演举足轻重的角色了，电视的播放次数频繁、人数多且有立即反应。像《第二号》（Numéro Deux）这部影片我就不会在目前所在的地方重拍一次，因为拍完后我就不敢再去巴黎的“花神咖啡馆”（Café de Flore）了，我会觉得很不好意思。是的，我是真的这么想，我已花了十五、二十年的时间去想这件事了。
我们不能说当普雷明格（Otto Preminger）在拍《胭脂虎新传》（Carmen Jones）时曾考虑到观众的反应，这么说是毫无意义的；他不是……假如他是制片的话，或许他会考虑到票房问题，他会想到音乐……这些就是他会想到的。能够想到上述种种问题就已经是他的优点了，再加上他本身一点才华，这些就是他赢别人的地方。
我们生活在群体中，不能不与别人来往沟通。这是一个金钱挂帅的世界，人们常受制于金钱因素，被迫去执行上级的命令。结果到了最后，遇有不幸事故发生时，大家便去审判上司主管……实在太不可思议了！例如，那些下令开枪的将领，战后往往被当成战犯来审判。问题是，他只说那么寥寥一句话而已，一句话没啥危险的。相反地，那些成千上万的士兵，他们却去执行命令（同时也是执刑）……他们在执行命令之时只是在服从上级的话而已。到底大家在保护什么？大家在保护“服从”这件事。下达命令的人有罪，服从命令的人却没罪，这一点实在很危险，“服从”制度一旦未被质疑，战争灾祸就永无止息。
以电影来说，例如一名工会干部在拍摄一名国家元首，尔后又抱怨说国家元首给他的薪资太低，但是他还是一直拍下去，继续从事本行。他怎么能够如此混下去呢？我们是不能以中立立场来拍摄，非得表明立场才行。我们不能很天真地去拍智利强人皮诺切特（Pinochet），但至少我们有拒绝拍摄的自由。
戈达尔跑题不断，但如果以表达（express）和印象（impress）之关系为线索来统合他的絮叨，还是容易做到的。戈达尔是一位不满足于仅仅给观众以印象的人，为了实现“表达”，他不断试验自己新的电影语言。然而，当他尝试地越多，他便越深刻地体验到交流的困难、苍白和虚妄。他接受了这种不完整性，也有可能是以一种游戏的心态用这种发现来回头怀疑审视自己的“雄心壮志”，总之他开始用更有趣的方式去揭示这种不完整性：在《随心所欲》里，是通过一层层地剥去外在却将灵魂视作一个谜，是通过直接与哲学教授谈论语言与思想的关系问题，通过声画的分离重组，通过笨拙滑稽的台词。 Godard’s Vivre Sa Vie Susan Sontag
PREFACE: Vivre Sa Vie invites a rather theoretical treatment, because it is—intellectually, aesthetically—extremely complex. Godard’s films are about ideas, in the best, purest, most sophisticated sense in which a work of art can be “about” ideas. I have discovered, while writing these notes, that in an interview in the Paris weekly, L’Express, July 27, 1961, he said: “My three films all have, at bottom, the same subject. I take an individual who has an idea, and who tries to go to the end of his idea.” Godard said this after he had made, besides a number of short films, A Bout de Souffle (1959) with Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo, Le Petit Soldat (1960) with Michel Subor and Anna Karina, and Une Femme est Une Femme (1961) with Karina, Belmondo, and Jean-Claude Brialy. How this is true of Vivre Sa Vie, his fourth film, which he made in 1962, is what I have attempted to show.
NOTE: Godard, who was born in Paris in 1930, has now completed ten feature films. After the four mentioned above, he made Les Carabiniers (1962-63) with Marino Mase and Albert Juross, Le Mépris (1963) with Brigitte Bardot, Jack Palance, and Fritz Lang, Bande à Part (1964) with Karina, Sami Frey, and Claude Brasseur, Une Femme Mariée (1964) with Macha Méril and Bernard Noël, Alphaville (1965) with Karina, Eddie Constantine, and Akim Tamirof , and Pierrot le Fou (1965) with Karina and Belmondo. Six of the films have been shown in America. The first called Breathless here, is by now established as an art-house classic; the eighth, The Married Woman, has had a mixed reception; but the others, under the titles A Woman Is a Woman, My Life to Live, Contempt, and Band of Outsiders, have been both critical and box-of ice flops. The brilliance of A Bout de Souffle is now obvious to everybody and I shall explain my esteem for Vivre Sa Vie. While I am not claiming that all his other work is on the same level of excellence, there is no film of Godard’s which does not have many remarkable passages of the highest quality. The obtuseness of serious critics here to the merits of Le Mépris, a deeply flawed but nonetheless extraordinarily ambitious and original film, seems to me particularly lamentable.
1
“The cinema is still a form of graphic art,” Cocteau wrote in his Journals. “Through its mediation, I write in pictures, and secure for my own ideology a power in actual fact. I show what others tell. In Orphée, for example, I do not narrate the passing through mirrors; I show it, and in some manner, I prove it. The means I use are not important, if my characters perform publicly what I want them to perform. The greatest power of a film is to be indisputable with respect to the actions it determines and which are carried out before our eyes. It is normal for the witness of an action to transform it for his own use, to distort it, and to testify to it inaccurately. But the action was carried out, and is carried out as often as the machine resurrects it. It combats inexact testimonies and false police reports.”
2
All art may be treated as a mode of proof, an assertion of accuracy in the spirit of maximum vehemence. Any work of art may be seen as an attempt to be indisputable with respect to the actions it represents.
3
Proof differs from analysis. Proof establishes that something happened. Analysis shows why it happened. Proof is a mode of argument that is, by definition, complete; but the price of its completeness is that proof is always formal. Only what is already contained in the beginning is proven at the end. In analysis, however, there are always further angles of understanding, new realms of causality. Analysis is substantive. Analysis is a mode of argument that is, by definition, always incomplete; it is, properly speaking, interminable.
The extent to which a given work of art is designed as a mode of proof is, of course, a matter of proportion. Surely, some works of art are more directed toward proof, more based on considerations of form, than others. But still, I should argue, all art tends toward the formal, toward a completeness that must be formal rather than substantive—endings that exhibit grace and design, and only secondarily convince in terms of psychological motives or social forces. (Think of the barely credible but immensely satisfying endings of most of Shakespeare’s plays, particularly the comedies.) In great art, it is form—or, as I call it here, the desire to prove rather than the desire to analyze—that is ultimately sovereign. It is form that allows one to terminate.
4
An art concerned with proof is formal in two senses. Its subject is the form (above and beyond the matter) of events, and the forms (above and beyond the matter) of consciousness. Its means are formal; that is, they include a conspicuous element of design (symmetry, repetition, inversion, doubling, etc.). This can be true even when the work is so laden with “content” that it virtually proclaims itself as didactic—like Dante’s Divine Comedy.
5（按：为什么说戈达尔拍的不是一般的社会批判电影？在12组片段的序列衔接中，他抛弃了对因果性的解释或分析。）
Godard’s films are particularly directed toward proof, rather than analysis. Vivre Sa Vie is an exhibit, a demonstration. It shows that something happened, not why it happened. It exposes the inexorability of an event.
For this reason, despite appearances, Godard’s films are drastically untopical. An art concerned with social, topical issues can never simply show that something is. It must indicate how. It must show why. But the whole point of Vivre Sa Vie is that it does not explain anything. It rejects causality. (Thus, the ordinary causal sequence of narrative is broken in Godard’s film by the extremely arbitrary decomposition of the story into twelve episodes—episodes which are serially, rather than causally, related.) Vivre Sa Vie is certainly not “about” prostitution, any more than Le Petit Soldat is “about” the Algerian War. Neither does Godard in Vivre Sa Vie give us any explanation, of an ordinary recognizable sort, as to what led the principal character, Nana, ever to become a prostitute. Is it because she couldn’t borrow 2,000 francs toward her back rent from her former husband or from one of her fellow clerks at the record store in which she works and was locked out of her apartment? Hardly that. At least, not that alone. But we scarcely know any more than this. All Godard shows us is that she did become a prostitute. Again, Godard does not show us why, at the end of the film, Nana’s pimp Raoul “sells” her, or what has happened between them, or what lies behind the final gun battle in the street in which Nana is killed. He only shows us that she is sold, that she does die. He does not analyze. He proves.
6
Godard uses two means of proof in Vivre Sa Vie. He gives us a collection of images illustrating what he wants to prove, and a series of “texts” e3xplaining it. In keeping the two elements separate, Godard’s film employs a genuinely novel means of exposition.
7（按：戈达尔所要展示和证实的，不是魔幻何以为真，而是洞察力与思维何以接近假、是对它们的解构，为此，他使用了断续和分离的技术与风格）
Godard’s intention is Cocteau’s. But Godard discerns difficulties, where Cocteau saw none. What Cocteau wanted to show, to be indisputable with reference to, was magic—things like the reality of fascination, the eternal possibility of metamorphosis. (Passing through mirrors, etc.) What Godard wishes to show is the opposite: the anti-magical, the structure of lucidity. This is why Cocteau used techniques that, by means of the alikeness of images, bind together events—to form a total sensuous whole. Godard makes no effort to exploit the beautiful in this sense. He uses techniques that would fragment, dissociate, alienate, break up. Example: the famous staccato editing (jump cuts et al.) in A Bout de Souf le. Another example: the division of Vivre Sa Vie into twelve episodes, with long titles like chapter headings at the beginning of each episode, telling us more or less what is going to happen.
The rhythm of Vivre Sa Vie is stopping-and-starting. (In another style, this is also the rhythm of Le Mépris.) Hence, Vivre Sa Vie is divided into separate episodes. Hence, too, the repeated halting and resuming of the music in the credit sequence; and the abrupt presentation of Nana’s face—first in left profile, then (without transition) full face, then (again without transition) in right profile. But, above all, there is the dissociation of word and image which runs through the entire film, permitting quite separate accumulations of intensity for both idea and feeling.
8
Throughout the history of film, image and word have worked in tandem. In the silent film, the word— set down in the form of titles—alternated with, literally linked together, the sequences of images. With the advent of sound films, image and word became simultaneous rather than successive. While in silent films the word could be either comment on the action or dialogue by the participants in the action, in sound films the word became (except for documentaries) almost exclusively, certainly preponderantly dialogue.
Godard restores the dissociation of word and image characteristic of silent film, but on a new level. Vivre Sa Vie is clearly composed of two discrete types of material, the seen and the heard. But in the distinguishing of these materials, Godard is very ingenious, even playful. One variant is the television documentary or cinéma-vérité style of Episode VIII—while one is taken, first, on a car ride through Paris, then sees, in rapid montage, shots of a dozen clients, one hears a dry flat voice rapidly detailing the routine, hazards, and appalling arduousness of the prostitute’s vocation. Another variant is in Episode XII, where the happy banalities exchanged by Nana and her young lover are projected on the screen in the form of subtitles. The speech of love is not heard at all.
9（按：如果文本已经讲述了故事，那么图像就不必负此重担。文本标识了理性，图像召唤观众的情感。而分离之后，这种召唤作用使图像成为反思的工具，可以自由地选取重点，可以情感中立与文本形成反差，亦可以激烈地渲染情感彷佛文本所说已成注定。《随心所欲》将先听后看，先展示文献后拍摄的手法推到了极致）
Thus, Vivre Sa Vie must be seen as an extension of a particular cinematic genre: the narrated film. There are two standard forms of this genre, which give us images plus a text. In one, an impersonal voice, the author, as it were, narrates the film. In the other, we hear the interior monologue of the main character, narrating the events as we see them happening to him.
Two examples of the first type, featuring an anonymous commenting voice which oversees the action, are Resnais’ L’Année Dernière à Marienbad and Melville’s Les Enfants Terribles. An example of the second type, featuring an interior monologue of the main character, is Franju’s Thérèse Desqueyroux. Probably the greatest examples of the second type, in which the entire action is recited by the hero, are Bresson’s Le Journal d’un Curé de Campagne and Un Condamné à Mort s’est Échappé.
Godard used the technique brought to perfection by Bresson in his second film, Le Petit Soldat, made in 1960 in Geneva though not released (because for three years it was banned by the French censors) until January 1963. The film is the sequence of the reflections of the hero, Bruno Forestier, a man embroiled in a right-wing terrorist organization who is assigned the job of killing a Swiss agent for the FLN. As the film opens, one hears Forestier’s voice saying: “The time for action is passed. I have grown older. The time for reflection has come.” Bruno is a photographer. He says, “To photograph a face is to photograph the soul behind it. Photography is truth. And the cinema is the truth twenty-four times a second.” This central passage in Le Petit Soldat, in which Bruno meditates on the relation between the image and truth, anticipates the complex meditation on the relation between language and truth in Vivre Sa Vie.
Since the story itself in Le Petit Soldat, the factual connections between the characters, are mostly conveyed through Forestier’s monologue, Godard’s camera is freed to become an instrument of contemplation—of certain aspects of events, and of characters. Quiet “events”—Karina’s face, the façade of buildings, passing through the city by car—are studied by the camera, in a way that somewhat isolates the violent action. The images seem arbitrary sometimes, expressing a kind of emotional neutrality; at other times, they indicate an intense involvement. It is as though Godard hears, then looks at what he hears.
In Vivre Sa Vie, Godard takes this technique of hearing first, then seeing, to new levels of complexity. There is no longer a single unified point of view, either the protagonist’s voice (as in Le Petit Soldat) or a godlike narrator, but a series of documents (texts, narrations, quotations, excerpts, set pieces) of various description. These are primarily words; but they may also be worldless sounds, or even wordless images.
10
All the essentials of Godard’s technique are present in the opening credit sequence and in the first episode. The credits occur over a left profile view of Nana, so dark that it is almost a silhouette. (The title of the film is Vivre Sa Vie. A Film in Twelve Episodes. ) As the credits continue, she is shown full face, and then from the right side, still in deep shadow. Occasionally she blinks or shifts her head slightly (as if it were uncomfortable to hold still so long), or wets her lips. Nana is posing. She is being seen.
Next we are given the first titles. “Episode I: Nana and Paul. Nana Feels Like Giving Up.” Then the images begin, but the emphasis is on what is heard. The film proper opens in the midst of a conversation between Nana and a man; they are seated at the counter of a café; their backs are to the camera; besides their conversation, we hear the noises of the barman, and snatches of the voices of other customers. As they talk, always facing away from the camera, we learn that the man (Paul) is Nana’s husband, that they have a child, and that she has recently left both husband and child to try to become an actress. In this brief public reunion (it is never clear on whose initiative it came about) Paul is stiff and hostile, but wants her to come back; Nana is oppressed, desperate, and revolted by him. After weary, bitter words, Nana says to Paul, “The more you talk, the less it means.” Throughout this opening sequence, Godard systematically deprives the viewer. There is no cross-cutting. The viewer is not allowed to see, to become involved. He is only allowed to hear.
Only after Nana and Paul break off their fruitless conversation to leave the counter and play a game at the pinball machine, do we see them. Even here, the emphasis remains on hearing. As they go on talking, we continue to see Nana and Paul mainly from behind. Paul has stopped pleading and being rancorous. He tells Nana of the droll theme his father, a schoolteacher, received from one of his pupils on an assigned topic, The Chicken. “The chicken has an inside and an outside,” wrote the little girl. “Remove the outside and you find the inside. Remove the inside, and you find the soul.” On these words, the image dissolves and the episode ends.
11
The story of the chicken is the first of many “texts” in the film which establish what Godard wants to say. For the story of the chicken, of course, is the story of Nana. (There is a pun in French—the French poule being something like, but a good deal rougher than, the American “chick.”) In Vivre Sa Vie, we witness the stripping down of Nana. The film opens with Nana having divested herself of her outside: her old identity. Her new identity, within a few episodes, is to be that of a prostitute. But Godard’s interest is in neither the psychology nor the sociology of prostitution. He takes up prostitution as the most radical metaphor for the separating out of the elements of a life—as a testing ground, a crucible for the study of what is essential and what is superfluous in a life.
12
The whole of Vivre Sa Vie may be seen as a text. It is a text in, a study of, lucidity; it is about seriousness.
And it “uses” texts (in the more literal sense), in all but two of its twelve episodes. The little girl’s essay on the chicken told by Paul in Episode I. The passage from the pulp magazine story recited by the salesgirl in Episode II. (“You exaggerate the importance of logic.”) The excerpt from Dreyer’s Jeanne d’Arc which Nana watches in Episode III. The story of the theft of 1,000 francs which Nana relates to the police inspector in Episode IV. (We learn that her full name is Nana Klein and that she was born in 1940.) Yvette’s story—how she was abandoned by Raymond two years ago —and Nana’s speech in reply (“I am responsible”) in Episode VI. The letter of application Nana composes to the madam of a brothel in Episode VII. The documentary narration of the life and routine of the prostitute in Episode VIII. The record of dance music in Episode IX. The conversation with the philosopher in Episode XI. The excerpt from the story by Edgar Allan Poe (“The Oval Portrait”) read aloud by Luigi in Episode XII.
13
The most elaborate, intellectually, of all the texts in the film is the conversation in Episode XI between Nana and a philosopher (played by the philosopher, Brice Parain) in a café. They discuss the nature of language. Nana asks why one can’t live without words; Parain explains that it is because talking equals thinking, and thinking talking, and there is no life without thought. It is not a question of speaking or not speaking, but of speaking well. Speaking well demands an ascetic discipline (une ascèse), detachment. One has to understand, for one thing, that there is no going straight at the truth. One needs error.
Early in their conversation, Parain relates the story of Dumas’ Porthos, the man of action, whose first thought killed him. (Running away from a dynamite charge he had planted, Porthos suddenly wondered how one could walk, how anyone ever placed one foot in front of the other. He stopped. The dynamite exploded. He was killed.) There is a sense in which this story, too, like the story of the chicken, is about Nana. And through both the story and the Poe tale told in the next (and last) episode, we are being prepared—formally, not substantively—for Nana’s death.
14（按：难解的一段话。但至少我们可以汲取到如下观点：第一，妓女是对“把自己借给别人；把自己留给自己”的极端隐喻，Nana当然给自己留了一个令人惊异的用来支撑的思想世界，但究竟留了些什么呢？戈达尔没有从正面去描述心理活动和情感状态，我们只能去推测。第二，《随心所欲》描绘了一个对自由理解逐渐深入的过程，Nana从一开始的绝望、“希望自己是别人”，到成为妓女后的“我自己负责”——因为我们知道，自由就是对责任的确认，是认识到事物就是其本身之所是并接受这一点。）
Godard takes his motto for this film-essay on freedom and responsibility from Montaigne: “Lend yourself to others; give yourself to yourself.” The life of the prostitute is, of course, the most radical metaphor for the act of lending oneself to others. But if we ask, how has Godard shown us Nana keeping herself for herself, the answer is: he has not shown it. He has, rather, expounded on it. We don’t know Nana’s motives except at a distance, by inference. The film eschews all psychology; there is no probing of states of feeling, of inner anguish.
Nana knows herself to be free, Godard tells us. But that freedom has no psychological interior. Freedom is not an inner, psychological something—but more like physical grace. It is being what, who one is. In Episode I, Nana says to Paul, “I want to die.” In Episode II, we see her desperately trying to borrow money, trying unsuccessfully to force her way past the concierge and get into her own apartment. In Episode III, we see her weeping in the cinema over Jeanne d’Arc. In Episode IV, at the police station, she weeps again as she relates the humiliating incident of the theft of 1,000 francs. “I wish I were someone else,” she says. But in Episode V (“On the Street. The First Client”) Nana has become what she is. She has entered the road that leads to her affirmation and to her death. Only as prostitute do we see a Nana who can affirm herself. This is the meaning of Nana’s speech to her fellow prostitute Yvette in Episode VI, in which she declares serenely, “I am responsible. I turn my head, I am responsible. I lift my hand, I am responsible.”
Being free means being responsible. One is free, and therefore responsible, when one realizes that things are as they are. Thus, the speech to Yvette ends with the words: “A plate is a plate. A man is a man. Life is … life.”
15（按：与《贞德》的互文。Nana的生活具有一种殉道的性质，因为同贞德一样，她的快乐并不“有趣”，而且她们最后都在种种对必然性的暗示中“真的死了”。然而，这里又有两种殉道之分，一种是直抒胸臆的、相信宗教和相信灵魂永恒的；一种是像影子一样，将灵魂藏在内在之下、不敢评论而小心守护的）
That freedom has no psychological interior—that the soul is something to be found not upon but after stripping away the “inside” of a person—is the radical spiritual doctrine which Vivre Sa Vie illustrates.
One would guess that Godard is quite aware of the difference between his sense of the “soul” and the traditional Christian one. The difference is precisely underscored by the quotation from Dreyer’s Jeanne d’Arc; for the scene which we see is the one in which the young priest (played by Antonin Artaud) comes to tell Jeanne (Mlle Falconetti) that she is to be burned at the stake. Her martyrdom, Jeanne assures the distraught priest, is really her deliverance. While the choice of a quotation from a film does distance our emotional involvement with these ideas and feelings, the reference to martyrdom is not ironic in this context. Prostitution, as Vivre Sa Vie allows us to see it, has entirely the character of an ordeal. “Pleasure isn’t all fun,” as the title to Episode X announces laconically. And Nana does die.
The twelve episodes of Vivre Sa Vie are Nana’s twelve stations of the cross. But in Godard’s film the values of sanctity and martyrdom are transposed to a totally secular plane. Godard offers us Montaigne instead of Pascal, something akin to the mood and intensity of Bressonian spirituality but without Catholicism.
16
The one false step in Vivre Sa Vie comes at the end, when Godard breaks the unity of his film by referring to it from the outside, as maker. Episode XII begins with Nana and Luigi in a room together; he is a young man with whom she has apparently fallen in love (we have seen him once before, in Episode IX, when Nana meets him in a billiard parlor and flirts with him). At first the scene is silent, and the dialogue—“Shall we go out?” “Why don’t you move in with me?” etc.—rendered in subtitles. Then Luigi, lying on the bed, begins to read aloud from Poe’s “The Oval Portrait,” a story about an artist engaged in painting a portrait of his wife; he strives for the perfect likeness, but at the moment he finally achieves it his wife dies. The scene fades out on these words, and opens to show Raoul, Nana’s pimp, roughly forcing her through the courtyard of her apartment house, pushing her into a car. After a car ride (one or two brief images), Raoul hands Nana over to another pimp; but it is discovered that the money exchanged is not enough, guns are drawn, Nana is shot, and the last image shows the cars speeding away and Nana lying dead in the street.
What is objectionable here is not the abruptness of the ending. It is the fact that Godard is clearly making a reference outside the film, to the fact that the young actress who plays Nana, Anna Karina, is his wife. He is mocking his own tale, which is unforgivable. It amounts to a peculiar failure of nerve, as if Godard did not dare to let us have Nana’s death—in all its horrifying arbitrariness—but had to provide, at the last moment, a kind of subliminal causality. (The woman is my wife.—The artist who portrays his wife kills her.—Nana must die.)
17
This one lapse aside, Vivre Sa Vie seems to me a perfect film. That is, it sets out to do something that is both noble and intricate, and wholly succeeds in doing it. Godard is perhaps the only director today who is interested in “philosophical films” and possessses an intelligence and discretion equal to the task. Other directors have had their “views” on contemporary society and the nature of our humanity; and sometimes their films survive the ideas they propose. Godard is the first director fully to grasp the fact that, in order to deal seriously with ideas, one must create a new film language for expressing them—if the ideas are to have any suppleness and complexity. This he has been trying to do in different ways: in Le Petit Soldat, Vivre Sa Vie, Les Carabiniers, Le Mépris, Une Femme Mariée, and Alphaville—Vivre Sa Vie being, I think, his most successful film. For this conception, and the formidable body of work in which he has pursued it, Godard is in my opinion the most important director to have emerged in the last ten years.
