【转红版】Crossing Borders
西方人眼中的Leslie与春光乍泄
转自@RedForum
作者：Bianca Patzelt，译者：@leslie_bob
2005年，这位德国荣迷应@白袍416 之邀从西方人的角度写了两篇Leslie，一篇是哥哥的表演艺术总评，一篇春光的影评“Happy Together is a masterpiece”
作者： Bianca Patzelt
2007-02-20 18:29:56 由 白袍将军 分享于 红·张国荣版
前年雪烟要出书（小编注：即《盛世光阴》），我email德国的Bianca请她以西方人的角度写写Leslie，她很快就写了两篇，都很认真，也很有趣，但是沟通上出了问题，雪烟不知道Bianca已经同意将这两篇文章出版，后来的书里面就没有，都怪我没说清楚，今天发现我还留着底子，就发在红版，别可惜了好文章 。
Crossing Borders
Leslie Cheung is one of the most influencial artists to have come out of Asia. Apart from his remarkable career as a singer, spanning more than twenty years and making him one of Hong Kong´s most popular stars, it´s been his accomplishments as an actor that made his name familiar to attentive movie audiences from all over the world.
Two of his movies especially, Farewell my Concubine(霸王別姬) and Happy Together (春光乍泄) have been very successful in Europe.Though very different in style and , both of them tell similar stories of problematic relationships, jealousy and same sex love. Farewell my Concubine (霸王別姬) opens up a door into another world at first. Luscious, rich settings, men wearing thick and heavy make up, singing foreign sounding melodies in high pitch voices, dressed in wide, colourful costumes are sights rather uncommon and mysterious to a westerner´s eye as well as the concept of male opera actors playing female roles in traditional Peking Opera. The other one, Happy Together (春光乍泄), in contrast appears almost european in visuals and message, describing the estrangement that one feels when being stuck in a foreign country far away from home.
Not every western spectator would be able to recognize at first sight that both of those movies are genuinely chinese, due to his enormeous versatility some would even fail to see that both of those movies feature the same actor starring in a leading role.
Westerners sometimes have a hard time distinguishing one asian society from the other. I am no different. It´s not because of a lack of interest or ignorance, much of it simply has to do with the fact that due to the distance the diversity of asian life is not present in the everyday life of many westerners, for instance europeans like me. Much of our ideas of asian societies lay in a mist of having heard many things, having seen a little, guessing a lot. Leslie Cheung´s art shows many sides of asian, especially chinese and Hong Kong culture. Through watching many of Leslie Cheung´s movies and catching up on his musical career, much of the former mysticism has given way to not total, but better understanding of asian culture, especially mainland chinese and Hong Kong culture and I was surprised to find, next to all possible differences in traditions and history, a strange feeling of familiarity that I wouldn´t have expected to find in the first place.
During the eighties Hong Kong cinema evolved from producing kung fu and comedy to discovering new trends in action and fantasy. Movies like A chinese ghost story (倩女幽魂). and A better tomorrow (英雄本色) were ahead of those trends, opening up new, western audiences to asian cinema and Leslie as an actor was part of this evolution. But his other movies of that period give probably a far more accurate picture of what life in Hong Kong was like at that time.The movie Nomad (烈火青春) for instance, filmed in 1982 and being almost avant-garde in , shows the life of youths alienated by their own society, seeking stimulation by admiring a culture other than their own, in this case japanese culture. Not all of the movies that Leslie had made in the eighties portraying teenage life were as drastic as Nomad (烈火青春), but many of them deal with similar stories, showing youths struggling for independence, growing up, falling in love and trying to find a place in society. Leslie showed extreme diversity as sensitive outsider in movies like On Trial(失業生) and Little Dragon Maiden (楊過與小龍女), as handsome teenie bopper in movies like For your heart only (為你鐘情) and Teenage Dreamers (檸檬可乐) and even played first grown-up love interests in movies like Rouge(胭脂扣) and Fatal Love(殺之戀).What might distinguish those movies slightly from european movies of the same time is that they often refer to more traditional aspects of life in a chinese surrounding, the value of the family and the respect of rules and traditions. Leslie´s appearances in many of those early films, soft and challenging at the same time, tender and suave, already hinted at what later would become a trademark of his performances in singing and in acting, a sense of individuality and brashness that obviously made him stand out compared to other young actors of that time.
In the nineties Leslie started concentrating more on his acting career, leading into a broader repertoire of characters. The movies of those years give an even more complete insight on chinese society than his other movies had done before. Whether they were referring to chinese history directly like Farewell my Concubine(霸王別姬), Temptress Moon (風月) and Shanghai Grand (新上海灘), portraying life in the sixties with movies like Days of being wild (阿飛正傳) and Arrest the Restless (藍江傳之反飛組風云) or showing modern day Hong Kong in movies like Long and Winding Road (錦繡前程), He´s a woman She´s a man (金枝玉葉) and Inner Senses (异度空间), all of them dealt with themes uniquely displaying what chinese society wondered and worried about throughout the last century when massive political and social changes had taken place and some older views on family values, sexuality, even society as a whole had been replaced by more modern approaches. Many of those changes I learned about and discoveries I made watching all of those movies mentioned left me rethinking what I had thought of asian, especially what I had thought of chinese society before.
Much of Leslie Cheung´s first impression on me derived from him combinating elegant asian features with an unusual western appeal. In fact he had lived several years in Europe during his school days, experiencing western life at first hand, being able to draw ideas from asian and western culture as well to use them for his merit, making him one of the most versatile artists I have seen so far. As an actor limited to the range that directors admitted him, he used his musical performances as a means of self- and creativity.During his 1997 concert tour he caused sensations with a stage show enriched with sexually explicit performances, in his 2000 Passion Tour he appeared in various costumes designed by Jean-Paul Gaultier, playing with male and female attributes as well, bravely pushing the barriers of what asian audiences were accustomed to see. Artists are bound to break with traditions from time to time in order to create something new that encourages other people to follow. That´s what being an artist is all about and that´s what societies from all over the world need artists for in order to develop culturally. Leslie, who had certainly been influenced by western ideas of individuality and personal freedom but still maintained to stay chinese through and through, was such an artist. He has been crossing borders in the truest sense of the word. That, among many things, is what makes him so appealing and that, among many things, seems also to be the reason why he often got critized by people who seemingly didn´t understand what being an artist is all about. One could wonder why Leslie chose to expose himself to criticism of many sorts and never decided to leave Hong Kong for other places seemingly more open in allowing people to express their individuality. He had lived in Canada for some time and had travelled to Europe often, the place where he had spent a great deal of his youth.
But even for an external observer like me, happening to be european myself, it becomes clear to see that Leslie Cheung loved his home Hong Kong a lot and many people in China and Asia loved him back in a very emotional way, calling him Gorgor, meaning elder brother. Nowhere else could he have been the outstanding artist that he was. When Leslie Cheung left, the entertainment industry of Hong Kong lost one of their shiniest gems, able to attract asian and foreign audiences as well and this loss so far seems irredeemable. As I´ve grown to love asian movies, music and culture through getting to know Leslie Cheung´s art I wonder whether there will ever be another asian actor and singer as capable in building a bridge between eastern and western culture as he was. Border crossing not only in the truest but also in the best sense of the word, Leslie Cheung is missed as an exceptional person and an outstanding artist by friends and fans from all over the world.
Bianca PatzeltBochum, Germany
Happy Together (春光乍泄) is a masterpiece. Not more not less.
How would one describe the movie to someone who hasn´t seen it without using adjectives as courageous, harsh… or beautiful?
Lai Yiu-Fai (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai) and Ho Po-Wing (Leslie Cheung), two young gay Hongkongers who live in the turmoils of an on-off relationship, travel to Argentina to visit Iguazu Falls, the trip being planned as maybe the last one of many chances to save them from breaking up. They start out full of hope, making love in a hotel room somewhere in South America, but their first try to get to Iguazu ends before it hasn´t even started when their wrecky car breaks down and they loose their way, stranded on an empty motorway in the midst of nowhere. Ho Po-Wing, the flamboyant and more adventure-seeking of the two decides that he is bored by Fai already and calls the relationship off again. Both go their separate ways, penniless, with no way left to get back to Hong Kong. They meet again in Buenos Aires. Lai Yiu-Fai has started working in a Tango Bar and Ho Po-Wing makes his living by accompanying rich western males for money. They try living together as friends in Fai´s tiny apartment after Ho Po-Wing gets beaten up by one of his customers, but as they still have feelings for eachother, things get tricky. Fai´s jealousy and Wing´s need for freedom take their toll and both of them end up separating again. Fai decides that he will no longer succumb to Wing´s irresolution and after having met a young tawainese traveller whom he takes a liking to he manages to save enough money to get to Iguazu Falls once before he returns to Hong Kong on his own. Ho Po-Wing is left behind, stuck living alone in Fai´s old apartment, slowly beginning to realize what Fai had meant to him.
Though the movie is centered around Fai´s thoughts and feelings, it´s Leslie´s character Ho Po-Wing who leaves the most lasting impression of the movie. Beneath a surface of recklessness and lust for life lies a certain kind of vulnerability and the fear of being alone. Ho Po-Wing once in a while leaves Fai behind and disappears, seeks adventures with other partners and enjoys life on the dangerous side. Yet he always returns, looking for Fai´s company and more likely, his care. Ho Po-Wing is a man with no past. In contrast to Lai Yiu-Fai, whom we learn to have been taking money from his father´s workplace and over that arguing with him, we know nothing about Ho Po-Wing´s family, motives and upbringing, adding more to the mysticism of the character. He almost appears orphan-like, not used to taking over responsibilities for other people but himself, but has an indefinable need for affection that he only allows himself to display when he´s together with Fai. The cruelest scenes of the movie are probably those that show Ho Po-Wing suffering the consequences of his unreflected actions, when he appears on Fai´s doorstep badly injured after being beaten up by a customer and gets left behind in Buenos Aires after Fai´s return to Hong Kong, crying in the blanket in Fai´s little apartment.
Leslie created the character of Ho Po-Wing almost entirely by himself, with little directive from Wong Kar Wai who, when filming started, had no script to move along to and wasn´t sure where the characters would be heading during the course of the story.
Wong Kar Wai ended up shooting endless roles of material, with different possible endings in mind and many subplots containing other characters, only to decide for one storyline in the editing, that of Fai´s and Wing´s relationship alone and Fai´s encounter with the young taiwanese backpacker Chang Chen. Wong Kar Wai later said that the film as it was had been there from the beginning, in the editing all he needed to do was to cut out all the other things around it rather than deciding what he wanted to have in the movie. The characters themselves had decided for him.
The movie became an international success in 1997, at the same time being top of the talk in Hong Kong due to its open depiction of homosexual love by two of Hong Kong´s most prestigious actors. Wong Kar Wai won “Best Director” award in Cannes Film Festival and art movie fans from all over the world took note of two exiled chinese lovers dancing to milonga tunes in tiled kitchens somewhere in Argentina. Leslie and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai both got nominated for “Best actor” at that year´s Hong Kong Movie Awards, leaving Tony Leung Chiu-Wai to be the winner of the trophy, with the judges putting more focus on a straight actor playing gay rather than judging who had done the better acting.
Apart from being an inspired art film with excellent visuals and brave storyline Happy Together, filmed in 1996, manages to touch in another way, Hongkongers as well as other audiences from all over the world. Wong Kar-Wai went to Argentina to film Buenos Aires, but ended up filming Buenos Aires as if it was Hong Kong, as a narrow, crowded, noisy and sleepless metropolis. Lai Yiu-Fai and Ho Po-Wing, lost in the present, estranged from the past with no idea what the future will have in store for them, seem to reflect what many Hong Kong citizens secretly or openly worried about at that time, shortly before Hong Kong was being handed over from Britain to China in 1997. The open ending of the movie, with Wing being left in Argentina and Fai starting a new life at home, one of them going for it, embracing the new, the other one being stuck in a past life shows two possible drafts of attitudes towards Hong Kong´s then near future that any Hongkonger should have been able to identify with, the movie having become probably a much more personal one that Wong Kar Wai had intended in the beginning.
From the point of view of a western observer though, neglecting all political implications, the movie gives a sharp portrayal of the state of love and relationship towards the near end of the millennium, homosexual or heterosexual. Ho Po-Wing and Lai Yiu-Fai, though in love with eachother, seem to be unable to be happy together. Though they share intense moments of affection and tenderness, those rare moments apparently cannot save their relationship from failing. Struggling to survive far away from home and being too different in character they are bound to separate in the end. Forever? Who knows.
Happy Together seems to have been a crucial movie for many people, in many different ways. Its international success opened up western audiences to asian movies and themes, together with Fallen Angels (堕落天使) and Chungking Express (重庆森)making Wong Kar Wai the most popular asian director in Europe. His following movie In the mood for love(花样年华) was well received in Europe but estranged fans of his previous works by radically changing visuals and style that Wong was known for before. It seemed that Happy Together had marked the end of an era of the handheld shot, sketchy, urban style artwork he perfected together with cinematographer Chris Doyle, tending to become more dense and luscious in . Not every european fan would follow him there.
Leslie never worked with Wong Kar Wai again after that, though their paths would certainly have crossed again sooner or later, hadn´t Leslie left. Leslie had proven to be a crucial element for Wong Kar Wai´s movies as well. The emotional depth of all the characters he played, Ah Yuk in Days of being wild(阿飛正傳),Ouyang Feng in Ashes of Time(東邪西毒)and Ho Po-Wing in Happy Together has always managed tying the loose ends of fragments of stories together. Wong´s recent work 2046 seems to be missing this quality as if the thread had dropped with noone to pick it up anymore. Leslie and Wong understood eachother´s work and were able to create art together. Their artistic relationship probably matched that of Lai Yiu-Fai and Ho Po-Wing in an interesting way, they were never really happy together, but they would have been incomplete without the other.
Bianca PatzeltBochum, Germany
中文版译者：leslie_bob
2007-02-23 13:44:01 发表于 红·张国荣版
Crossing Borders（跨越阻隔）
Leslie Cheung是一位极有影响的走出亚洲的艺术家。以歌手的身份开始了他的传奇生涯，横跨20多年并成为了最受欢迎的香港艺人，尤其是他作为演员的非凡成绩使得他的名字为全世界细心的观众所熟知。
尤其是《霸王别姬》和《春光乍泄》这两部电影在欧洲取得了非常大的成功，尽管在风格和立意上有着很大的区别，但二者都讲述了同一个故事，即问题严重的关系，嫉妒与同性之间的爱情。《霸王别姬》率先开启了一扇通往另一个世界的大门。迷人的娇媚还带着些许措不及防的性感，雍容华贵的背景，男性穿戴上厚重的行头，用那很高的音调唱着外国的旋律，穿着色彩肆意斑斓的戏服，以及京剧中男演员扮演女性角色的现象本身在西方人的眼中就是非常不寻常而又神秘的。与此形成鲜明对比的是《春光乍泄》，它看上去在视觉上和立意上很欧化，描述了飘零异国、背井离乡的疏远与孤寂的情绪。
并不是所有的西方观众都能在第一眼认识到这两部电影都是真正的中国电影，由于他的多变与多种可能，甚至使一些人都没发现这两部电影有相同的男主角。西方人有时很难将一种亚洲文化与令一种亚洲文化区分开来，我也不例外。这并不是因为不感兴趣或是不在意，而是仅仅由于亚洲生活的多样未出现在大多数西方人的日常生活中的事实所产生的距离感，例如像我这样的欧洲人，我们的很多对于亚洲社会的的看法都成型于很多道听途说来的东西，看得少，猜得多。Leslie Cheung的艺术展示了亚洲的很多面，尤其是中国和香港的文化。通过大量观看他的电影以及关注他的音乐，通过这种神交，为理解亚洲文化提供了一条新的途径，尽管不能完全地但有助于更好地理解亚洲文化，尤其是大陆和香港的文化，我惊奇地发现，紧邻所有可能的传统与历史中的差异，一种我始料不及的熟悉在最初的地方找到了，这种感觉非常奇妙。
在80年代，由生产功夫片和喜剧片发展起来的香港电影业开创了拍动作片和魔幻片的新浪潮。而《倩女幽魂》和《英雄本色》正引领了这一风潮，吸引了一批新的西方观众到电影院去看亚洲电影，而Leslie作为一位演员正是这次发展的一部分。但是他的那一时期的其他电影则是那一时期的香港的生活状态无比真实的写照。例如这部拍摄于1982年的《烈火青春》，在表达上很前卫的先锋电影，展示了年轻人被自己的社会所疏远的生活，通过崇拜日本文化来寻找刺激。Leslie拍摄于80年代的电影所描述的青年人的生活并非都如《烈火青春》中那般极端、强烈，但它们大多讲述的是类似的故事，表现了年轻人在争取自由，成长，恋爱，争取社会地位中的挣扎。Leslie在这些电影中展示了风格迥异的荧幕形象，例如在《失业生》《杨过与小龙女》中的感情细腻的局外人形象，在《为你钟情》和《柠檬可乐》中英俊的青年形象，以及在《胭脂扣》和《杀之恋》中的成熟男人的形象。
如何将这些电影和同一时期的欧洲电影区分开来？这些电影通常会提及生活在中国这一环境中更为传统的一面，家庭观念，对准则与传统的回应。Leslie在这一时期的电影中的形象既保守又叛逆，温柔而又殷情（温文尔雅），已经预示了将来他将会在演唱和表演上取得令人瞩目的成绩，个性十足，反叛不羁，使他从同一时期的众多男演员中脱颖而出。
90年代起，Leslie开始更多地关注于表演，演出了更广阔的类型的角色。这一时期的电影比他早期的电影更深入全面地展示了中国的社会风貌。无论是直接提及中国历史（文化）的《霸王别姬》《风月》《新上海滩》，还是描绘60年代的生活状态的《阿飞正传》《蓝江传之反飞风云》，抑或是展现当代香港风貌的《锦绣前程》《金枝玉叶》《异度空间》，都敏锐而深刻地关注并体现了上世纪中国社会在政治、社会发生巨大变革时期（大转型时期）的中国社会的疑惑与恐慌，以及随之而来的旧的家庭观念，对同志问题的态度，甚至整个社会都被更为现代的所取代。通过观看这些电影，我了解到了（中国社会的）这些变化，并（开始）反思我对亚洲的看法，尤其是先前对中国社会的看法。
我对Leslie Cheung的第一印象源于他将亚洲文化中美好的一面与不寻常的西方口味相结合。事实上，在求学时期，他曾在欧洲居住了很多年，最直接地体验了西方的生活，同时吸收了亚洲文化和西方文化，并能够充分利用这一优势，使自己（哥哥）成为了一位我所知道的最多才多艺的艺术家。因为演员（必定）受限于导演所设定的范围，他便运用音乐来作为自我表达与创造的一种方式。在他的97演唱会中，他丰富了（过去）单一性别的表演的舞台演出引起了轰动，在他2000的热情演唱会中，他以Jean-Paul Gautier为他设计的多套演出服亮相，同时扮演男人和女人，而且同样迷人，勇敢地推翻亚洲观众的习惯的阻隔，艺术家有责任与义务不断地与传统决裂（并将其毁掉），以便创造新的（文化）让人们去追随。那就是艺术家应该做的，同时也是全世界的社会学家为了发展文化需要艺术家做的。Leslie是这样一位虽然受到过西方追求个性与自由的观念的影响，但仍一直坚守中国文化的艺术家 。 他已经跨越了这个词最真实敏感的阻隔。而这正是他为何受到一些人的热爱同时又受到另一些不知道艺术家的职责是什么的人的漫骂与讥讽的一部分原因。有的人肯定会不理解Leslie为何要现自己于不义，让一些（不怀好心的）人（卫道士）抓住把柄，成为他们批判他的理由，为何不离开香港到其他地方，因为那样似乎更有利于宣扬他的主张。他曾在加拿大居住过一段时间，并且经常到欧洲去，那个他度过了许大年轻时光的地方。
但是，尽管像我这样的一个外人，碰巧又是一个欧洲人，都能够非常清楚地看到Leslie Cheung非常爱香港，同时很多中国人、亚洲人都急切地希望他回去，叫他gorgor，也就是“哥哥”的意思。再也没有哪一个地方能够让他在那里取得超过他以前所取得的成绩。当Leslie Cheung离开的时候，香港的娱乐业失去了它一颗最璀璨夺目的宝石，一位能够同时吸引亚洲和国外观众的明星，而这个失去似乎至今无法弥补。我已经爱上了亚洲电影、亚洲音乐、亚洲文化，通过逐渐地了解和认识Leslie Cheung的艺术，我很想知道会不会再出现一位像他这样如此有才的、成功的，构筑了一座沟通东西方文化的桥梁的亚洲的演员与歌手。跨越了这个词最真实最深刻的阻隔，Leslie Cheung被来自于世界各地的友人与歌影迷所怀念，怀念这位值得期待的人，这位光彩夺目的艺术家。
Bianca Patzelt（作者姓名）
Bochum，Germany （德国，波鸿）
（之前翻译的被吞楼了，所以译文应该是有缺少的，我以后再后续翻译完）
