“Please give this a chance. Have an open mind. Enjoy the show.”
“请给它一个机会,放下成见,欣赏这部影片。”
That plea, made by the director Ang Lee before the first New York Film Festival screening of his film “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk,” was not typical at a premiere. But then, this was not a typical premiere.
这是导演李安(Ang Lee)在其新作《比利•林恩的中场战事》(Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk)首次在纽约电影节(New York Film Festival)上映时的请求。这样的请求在首映式上并不典型。不过话又说回来,这也不是典型的首映。
The film was the first feature to be screened in the combination of 4K resolution, 3-D and 120 frames per second. That is a higher frame rate than any previous film, and the last time a director experimented with that, Peter Jackson’s “Hobbit” films, moviegoers and critics alike balked at the uncomfortably realistic images.
这是首部结合了4K解析度、3D和每秒120帧技术放映的正片。这样的帧率比以往任何一部影片都高,上一次有导演尝试这样的帧率,还是彼得•杰克逊(Peter Jackson)在拍摄《霍比特人》(Hobbit)系列时。当时,观众和影评人都不敢直面画面,因为它们逼真到令人不适的程度。
Mr. Lee said that he had put the finishing touches on the movie the day before and that this would be the first time it was shown to an audience. This one happened to include members of the cast (Kristen Stewart, Chris Tucker, Steve Martin, Vin Diesel, Garrett Hedlund and, in the title role, the newcomer Joe Alwyn) as well as film reporters and critics all together.
李安说,他前一天才完成了电影的收尾工作,这是该片第一次和观众见面。现场的观众包括片中的演员(克里斯汀•斯图尔特[Kristen Stewart]、克里斯•塔克[Chris Tucker]、范•迪塞尔[Vin Diesel]、加内特•赫德伦[Garrett Hedlund]和饰演主角比利•林恩的新人乔•阿尔文[Joe Alwyn]),以及电影记者和影评人。
Unlike most of the other highly anticipated titles at the festival, this one didn’t play at Alice Tully Hall because that theater is too large to get the correct distance between the dual laser projectors and the screen. Instead, a roughly 300-seat theater at the AMC Lincoln Square on the Upper West Side was chosen.
不同于电影节上其他大部分备受期待的影片,本片未在爱丽丝塔利厅(Alice Tully Hall)放映,因为那里太大,两台激光放映机和银幕之间的距离不对。放映地点选在了上西区AMC林肯广场(AMC Lincoln Square)一个大致容纳300人的电影院。
The first three rows were off limits because they would not provide an acceptable 3-D viewing experience. And a new screen, the RealD Ultimate Screen, was installed in the theater expressly for this premiere and the forthcoming run of the film. It was engineered to increase the brightness of 3-D movies by 85 percent over a standard screen.
前三排没有坐人,因为这些位置无法提供可接受的3D观影体验。为了这场首映和即将开始的影片上映,电影院特意安装了一块新的RealD终极银幕(Ultimate Screen)。它能令3D电影的亮度比标准屏幕提亮85%。
As the lights went down, stars and critics donned their 3-D glasses, not quite knowing what to expect. The film’s first few minutes seemed to be an adjustment period as viewers got used to the feel of such high-res images. But the audience seemed to settle into the story, based on Ben Fountain’s novel of the same title, about an Army soldier who participates in a football halftime show while also reminded of his traumatizing combat experiences in Iraq.
随着灯光暗去,明星和影评人纷纷戴上3D眼睛,大家并不太确定将会看到什么。影片的开始几分钟似乎是一个调整期,观众慢慢习惯了这种高分辨率画面。但他们似乎沉浸在了影片讲述的故事中。这个故事改编自本•方丹(Ben Fountain)的同名小说,讲的是一名参加一场橄榄球比赛中场表演的陆军士兵,想起了自己在伊拉克作战的痛苦经历。
“It felt different than a movie,” said Jane Raab, a television producer who was in the audience. “It felt like a kind of virtual reality.”
“感觉和电影不一样,”观众中的电视制作人简•拉布(Jane Raab)说。“感觉像一种虚拟现实。”
In a question-and-answer session with the director and cast afterward, Mr. Diesel described watching the movie as “such a heavy experience.”
在随后的导演和演员问答环节,迪塞尔称观看该片是“一个非常沉重的经历”。
He continued, “The technology allows you to come into the story in a unique way. And you just realize that you’ve been overwhelmed by the drama.”
他接着表示,“技术让你能够用一种独特的方式进入故事。你会发现,你完全沉浸在了剧情中。”
Some critics put it differently.
一些影评人却有不一样的说法。
In a review reminiscent of the critical response to “The Hobbit,” David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that the new film had “the somewhat alienating hyperreal sharpness of many outsize hi-definition flatscreen TVs.”
《好莱坞报道》(The Hollywood Reporter)的戴维•鲁尼(David Rooney)在一篇影评中写道,影片“就像很多超大高清平板电视一样,超真实的清晰度让人产生疏离感”。这篇文章让人想起了影评人对《霍比特人》的评价。
And Mike Ryan at Uproxx wrote, “To be honest, the visuals are so distracting, I’m not entirely sure if there’s a movie of merit in there or not.”
Uproxx的迈克•瑞安(Mike Ryan)写道,“老实说,视觉上太让人分心,我都不完全确定是不是真的在看电影。”
But Owen Gleiberman at Variety offered a positive take, writing, “In ‘Billy Lynn,’ the way that everything we see is so alive, so there, seems to have given Lee and his screenwriter, Jean-Christophe Castelli, the freedom to create a movie of unusual, glancing intimacy and formal fluidity, one that’s willing — far more than most movies — to live in the moment, and to lure the audience inside that moment.”
但Variety的欧文•格莱贝尔曼(Owen Gleiberman)给出了积极的评价。他写道,“在《比利•林恩》中,我们看到的一切都那么鲜活,那么真实,这似乎赋予了李安和他的编剧让-克里斯托夫•卡斯泰利(Jean-Christophe Castelli)创作一部有着与众不同的、即席的亲近感,形式优美流畅的电影的自由。远不同于大部分电影,它愿意活在那一刻,愿意吸引观众进入那一刻。”
The festival showed the film several times on Friday, holding a ticket lottery for the limited seats. New York and Los Angeles audiences can see it in its full frame-rate, highest-resolution 3-D format starting Nov. 11. The film will also be released nationwide in various other formats, all director-approved.
该片周五将在电影节上放映多场。因为座位有限,将通过抽奖的形式发放门票。从11月11日开始,纽约和洛杉矶的观众将能看到全帧率的最高分辨率3D影片。影片也将以各种格式在全美发行,所有格式均得到了导演的批准。