《大白鯊》
——暑期大片和高概念電影的開山之作

∷宋云峰

1975年上映的由斯皮爾伯格(Spielberg)導(dǎo)演的驚悚電影《大白鯊》（Jaws）是美國電影史上的分水嶺，標(biāo)志著新好萊塢電影的衰落和高概念暑期大片的興起，使好萊塢各大電影公司重新開始主導(dǎo)電影的制作與發(fā)行。拍攝期間，由于美工部花巨資制造的機(jī)械鯊魚模型不能正常工作，斯皮爾伯格只好在許多場景下讓大白鯊若隱若現(xiàn)，并配以威廉姆斯的人音樂。其結(jié)果卻出人意料地好，堪比希區(qū)柯克經(jīng)典懸疑片，取得了極高的藝術(shù)成就。環(huán)球電影公司在全美同時在450塊屏幕上首映，并配以密集電視廣告和衍生品廣告的大力宣傳，使《大白鯊》大獲成功，影評和票房均取得傲人成績。2001年，美國國會圖書館電影館因其“文化、歷史和美學(xué)”意義予以永久收藏。

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(《星球大戰(zhàn)》). 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 (關(guān)鍵性的)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”.

《大白鯊》的情節(jié)

艾米提島（Amity Island）是個偏僻的海濱小鎮(zhèn)，但一到夏季，這里就變得熱鬧萬分，人們都來到這里的海濱浴場度假消閑?，F(xiàn)在，旅游旺季又快到了，然而不祥的氣氛卻開始籠罩小鎮(zhèn)。一位叫克里希（Chrissie）的女孩在沙灘派對上獨自到海里游泳，神秘地消失在海水里。第二天，巡警發(fā)現(xiàn)了她支離破碎的尸體。這是一只鯊魚的杰作。警察局長馬?。∕artin Brody）下令封閉海濱浴場，但是市長萊瑞（Larry Vaughn）卻不同意這么做，因為這會影響小鎮(zhèn)賴以為生的旅游經(jīng)濟(jì)收入。不久，在一次游泳中，又一個在劃水板上的孩子被鯊魚吃掉。悲痛欲絕的遇難者母親發(fā)布了三千美元的懸賞。許多漁民想要掙這筆錢！此事也引起了當(dāng)?shù)夭鄂彁酆谜呃ヌ?Kunt)和海洋生物學(xué)家麥特（Matt Hooper）的興趣，于是馬丁開始與兩人合作，全力投入到對鯊魚的搜尋和追捕中。

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 (否決）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……歸于) 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 (賞金) on the shark, sparking an amateur sharkhunting frenzy (狂亂) 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 (虎鯊) 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 (殘骸) 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 (船殼) 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，美國獨立日) . A children’s prank (惡作劇) causes panic at the main beach while the shark enters a nearby estuary(河口，港灣) 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.

《大白鯊》的制作

盡管《大白鯊》基于本徹萊（Peter Benchley）的同名小說，斯皮爾伯格在拍攝期間的主要靈感來源是麥爾維爾（Melville）的《白鯨》(Moby-Dick）和海明威（Hemingway）的《老人與海》（The Old Man and the Sea），并且對原作進(jìn)行了很大的改動。

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 (抹香鯨). 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.”

《大白鯊》靈感來源——《老人與?！?/p>

導(dǎo)演斯皮爾伯格

《大白鯊》導(dǎo)演斯皮爾伯格

其實，斯皮爾伯格在拍攝《大白鯊》時很不順利。拍攝所用時間和所耗成本均遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)超出原來的計劃（都在原計劃的兩倍以上），例如，該片的成本預(yù)算是四百萬美元，而殺青后的費用高達(dá)九百萬，其中三百萬用于鯊魚模型的制作和操作。另外一個主要原因是初出茅廬的斯皮爾伯格（這是他的第二部電影，當(dāng)時他只有28歲）追求完美的性格和缺乏拍攝此類影片的經(jīng)驗。

Spielberg attributed many problems to his perfectionism and his inexperience. The former was epitomized（集中體現(xiàn)）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（驕傲自大）of a filmmaker who thinks he can conquer the elements（大自然）, but I was too young to know I was being foolhardy（有勇無謀的）when I demanded that we shoot the film in the Atlantic Ocean and not in a North Hollywood tank.”

《大白鯊》所用機(jī)械鯊魚模型

然而，拍攝時遇到的困難以及為克服困境所使用的替代方法反而歪打正著，使影片格外成功。最典型的例子是機(jī)械鯊魚的故障迫使斯皮爾伯格不得不使用間接暗示的方法。

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（被迫的節(jié)制）is widely thought to have added to the movie’s suspense（懸念）. As Spielberg put it years later, “The film went from a Japanese Saturday matinee（午場）horror flick（恐怖電影）to more of a Hitchcock（希區(qū)柯克）, the less-you-see-themore-you-get thriller.”

另外，斯皮爾伯格利用威廉姆斯（John Williams）創(chuàng)作的主導(dǎo)動機(jī)音樂來加強(qiáng)鯊魚逼近的危險效果，為影片增色不少，也使威廉姆斯一舉成名，由此開始了兩人的合作歷程。

John Williams composed the film’s score（配樂）,which earned him an Academy Award（奧斯卡獎）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 (啟動) 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.

由于攝制時間比預(yù)定計劃延后了一百多天，斯皮爾伯格很擔(dān)心自己的電影生涯被該片所毀，并在拍攝最后一個鏡頭——將大白鯊炸成碎片——的時候故意沒有到場，以避免憤懣的劇組人員在鏡頭拍完后將其扔到水里。后來他延續(xù)了這一做法。

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.

《大白鯊》的運作

為確?！洞蟀柞彙返某晒ι嫌?，環(huán)球公司花費了180萬美元（考慮到影片原來400萬美元的投資，可以稱得上是巨資）進(jìn)行廣告宣傳，兩周即收回投資成本，創(chuàng)造了暑期“高概念”大片的運作模式。

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 (發(fā)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《大白鯊》在全國的熱映，環(huán)球公司同時將與影片有關(guān)的其他商品投放市場，賺取更多的利潤。

佛羅里達(dá)環(huán)球影城《大白鯊》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，捆綁銷售的商品)”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（睡衣褲），water pistols, and more.”

《大白鯊》的影響

《大白鯊》確立了美國電影在大力宣傳的配合下在全國范圍內(nèi)廣泛同時上映的做法，結(jié)束了好萊塢多年的不景氣，使電影進(jìn)入了高概念大片的盈利時代。

Jawswas key in establishing the bene fits of a wide national release backed by heavy television advertising, rather than the traditional progressive(漸進(jìn)式) release in which a film slowly entered new markets and built support over time. Scholar Thomas Schatz writes that it“recalibrated (重新校準(zhǔn)) 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 (顯著的，有力的) end to Hollywood’s fiveyear recession(衰退), while ushering in an era of high-cost, high-tech, high-speed thrillers.”

《大白鯊》還產(chǎn)生了極大的社會影響。正如1960年希區(qū)柯克的《精神病患者》（Psycho）的浴室謀殺場景使許多女性不敢單獨洗淋浴，斯皮爾伯格的《大白鯊》也在相當(dāng)長的一段時間里使人們畏懼到海里游泳。影片還對鯊魚的保護(hù)工作產(chǎn)生了負(fù)面作用。

The film had broader cultural repercussions(反響), 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 “l(fā)egions of (大量的) fishermen [who] piled into boats and killed thousands of the ocean predators in sharkfi shing tournaments.”Conservation groups have bemoaned（哀嘆）the fact that the film has made it considerably harder to convince the public that sharks should be protected.

何謂“High-Concept”電影？

所謂“高概念”是指一部藝術(shù)作品可以明確與假設(shè)條件搭配，形成清晰的因果條件關(guān)系，而不是注重于人物性格的發(fā)展和難以概括的其他微妙因素。

High-concept narratives are typically characterised by an overarching “what if?” scenario (設(shè)想) that acts as a catalyst (催化劑) 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（《侏羅紀(jì)公園》)

除了具有類型和美學(xué)上的特征，高概念大片（highconcept blockbuster）運用清晰簡單的概念很容易抓住廣泛的觀眾，具體來說體現(xiàn)在影片的“好看”，故事的“誘人”，以及產(chǎn)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 (滅絕) 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.