威尔史密斯新片《解放黑奴》

但是这本书是我看完米歇尔奥巴马的Becoming以后看的，前后的文笔水平对比过于明显，毕竟米歇尔奥巴马是普林斯顿大学和哈佛大学的法学院毕业的律师背景，遣词造句要比娱乐明星强太多，所以Will的这本书我看了一些开头就暂时丢在旁边了。

1863, Louisiana. Taken from his wife and children to work on a military camp, Haitian slave Peter (Will Smith) makes a daring escape through deadly swamps, pursued by slave hunter Fassel (Ben Foster). His aim is to make it to the Union Army camp in Baton Rouge, reunite with his family — and finally earn his freedom.

1863年，在美国路易斯安那州。海地奴隶彼得(Will Smith饰)从妻子和孩子身边被人带走，在一个军营里工作，他勇敢地穿过致命的沼泽，逃脱了追捕奴隶的猎人法塞尔(Ben Foster饰)的追捕。他的目标是到达巴吞鲁日的联邦军营，与家人团聚，最终赢得自由。

Slavery is a near-impossible subject matter to get right on screen. To sugar-coat it is to effectively deny history; to depict it simply as it was, warts and all, would result in a stomach-churning viewing experience. Modern audiences already understand that slavery is immoral, so it can run the risk of feeling self-flattering for white audiences, while Black audiences might find it just traumatic. It is a delicate, sensitive road to tread, and only a few filmmakers — such as Barry Jenkins (The Underground Railroad) or Steve McQueen (12 Years A Slave) — have offered new insight into one of history’s most violent, shameful chapters.

奴隶制是一个几乎不可能出现在银幕上的主题。粉饰历史实际上就是否认历史；如果把它简单地描述成它本来的样子，事无巨细地描述它，会给人一种反胃的观看体验。现代观众已经明白奴隶制是不道德的，所以它可能会让白人观众觉得自我吹捧，而黑人观众可能会觉得它只是创伤。这是一条微妙而敏感的道路，只有少数电影人——如巴里·詹金斯(《地下铁路》)或史蒂夫·麦奎因(《为奴十二年》)——对历史上最暴力、最可耻的篇章之一提供了全新的解读。

With Emancipation, Antoine Fuqua boldly attempts a new take on that history, looking to tell the story of ‘Whipped Peter’, a real-life slave who became famous worldwide when his mutilated, heavily whipped back was photographed in the 19th century, and quickly became iconic, a galvanising symbol for the abolitionist movement. This is essentially a two-hour adaptation of a photograph, then, and William N. Collage’s script inevitably must take liberties with Peter’s story, the details of which are scarce. But Collage and Fuqua’s guiding principle — as that title suggests — is that this is a story of freedom: how one man escaped bondage, on his own terms, through sheer will and perseverance.

在《解放黑奴》中，安托万·福库大胆地尝试了一种新的历史，试图讲述“被鞭打的彼得”的故事，一个真实的奴隶，当他那伤残的、被严重鞭打的背部，在19世纪被拍摄后闻名世界，并迅速成为标志性的，一个激励废奴运动的象征。这本质上是对一张照片的两个小时的改编，威廉·N·科拉奇的剧本不可避免地对彼得的故事进行了随意处理，而彼得的故事细节却很少。但是，正如标题所暗示的那样，科拉奇和福库的指导原则是，这是一个关于自由的故事:一个人如何通过纯粹的意志和毅力，以自己的方式逃脱束缚。

It’s a noble goal. But in order to set the scene, the filmmakers feel obliged to first give us the same horrific imagery common with nearly every film of this kind. So we must endure sequences of whipping, deathly screaming, hot-iron branding, cotton-picking in the midday heat, racial slurs spat from slave-masters.

这是一个崇高的目标。但为了营造场景，制片人觉得有必要首先给我们几乎每一部这类电影都有的恐怖画面。因此，我们必须忍受连续不断的鞭打、死亡的尖叫、热铁烙印、在正午的高温下摘棉花、奴隶主的种族歧视唾弃。

In both his face and physicality, Smith convinces as a man who could survive extreme hardship and sustain a sense of self. When Peter eventually rebels, having heard rumours of Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, the film switches gears into a chase thriller, a cat-and-mouse game between Peter and the ruthless tracker Fassel (Ben Foster, excellent). This becomes the bread-and-butter of the piece, and while it still feels rather one-note — there are only so many ways to show misery, after all — Fuqua finds thick tension and danger in every corner. Everything, from alligators to small, rich children could be a threat.

从他的面部表情和肢体语言来看，史密斯让人信服他是一个能够在极端困难中生存下来并保持自我意识的人。当彼得听到亚伯拉罕·林肯的《解放奴隶宣言》的传言后，最终叛变，电影切换到追逐惊悚片，彼得和无情的追踪者法塞尔(Ben Foster饰，演得极好)之间的猫鼠游戏。这成为了这部作品的主要内容，尽管它仍然让人感觉很单调——毕竟表现痛苦的方式只有那么多——但福库在每一个角落都有发现的剧烈的紧张和危险。任何东西，从短吻鳄到有钱的小孩都可能是威胁。

The film is, undeniably, singular and sometimes overly simplistic in its approach. Fuqua, like Tony Scott or Zack Snyder, is primarily a visual storyteller, led more by his heart than his head, and there is possibly a version of this story from another director that could have been more probing, more insightful. (There is also, ideally, one that is less desaturated, the filmmakers opting for a washed-out sepia colour grade that aims for ‘historical tea stain’ but just looks a bit drab.)

不可否认的是，这部电影的手法非常独特，有时还过于简单化。像托尼·斯科特或扎克·斯奈德一样，福库主要是一个视觉故事讲述者，更多的是由他的心而不是他的头脑引导，也许这个故事的另一个导演的版本可以更深入，更有洞察力。(理想情况下，也有一种不那么饱和度的颜色，电影制作者选择了一种褪色的深褐色，目的是让电影看上去有历史痕迹，但只是看起来有点单调。)