《视与听》杂志1967年与比利·怀尔德的访谈

Meet whiplash Wilder: Billy Wilder interviewed in 1967

Updated:10 August 2020

ByCharles Higham

作者：Charles Higham

译者：覃天

校对：易二三

来源： Sight &Sound（1967年冬季刊）

来源：https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/interviews/meet-whiplash-wilder-billy-wilder-interviewed-1967

Almost alone among American directors, Billy Wilder has succeeded in hanging on, through Hollywood’s long years of compromise, of an increasingly desperate wooing of the audience, to a corrosive misanthropy, a disenchanted view of the public. If his most recent comedies have occasionally sugared the pill, they have still come out with a philosophy not calculated to please the nursing mothers ofPodunk.

几乎在所有的美国电影导演中，也在同好莱坞漫长的妥协过程中，比利·怀尔德是唯一一位坚持吸引观众的导演，同时也对腐蚀性的大众文化不再抱有幻想。如果说他最近的喜剧偶尔会让「大众的精神药丸」变得更加甜蜜，那么它们仍然提出了一种哲学，这种哲学并不是为了取悦那些偏僻村庄里的奶妈们。

Relaxed in Californian T-shirt and casual slacks, his neatly impersonal beige-and-brown office at Mirisch/UAa far cry from the clutter of Walter Matthau’s in Meet Whiplash Willie (aka The Fortune Cookie), Wilder doesn’t immediately convey the harsh directness of his pictures. And indeed, despite nervous warnings from the publicity men (“He can’t sit still,” one told me, “for long enough to get five minutes on to tape”), he proved surprisingly genial and relaxed during the two-hourinterview.

比利·怀尔德身穿加州Ｔ恤和休闲裤，坐在整洁的米里施/联艺公司的米棕色办公室里，与沃尔特·马修在《飞来福》中凌乱的形象截然不同，怀尔德没有立即传达出影片中的粗糙和坦率。事实上，尽管宣传人员发出了紧张的警告（「比利·怀尔德坐不住，」其中一人告诉我，「甚至都不能录下5分钟的谈话。」），但在两个小时的采访过程中，他证明了自己出人意料的亲切和放松。

Wilder on his best behaviour, then: but every now and again the impatient, brilliant mind, coldly disillusioned and tough, showed in its clearest colours. Wilder began by talking about his impatience with arty effects: “I don’t like the audience to be aware of camera tricks. Suddenly you’re shooting a man crossing a street and you take him from the ninth storey of a building, and you begin to think in the stalls: ‘There must be anFBIman looking down from up there,’ and instead it’s just an artycameraman.

于是，怀尔德对他最好的行为表现出了更大的兴趣：但他那不耐烦、才华横溢、冷冰冰的清醒自持、意志坚强的头脑，时不时地会显露出它最鲜明的色彩。怀尔德一开始就谈到了他对艺术效果的不耐烦：「我不喜欢观众注意到摄影机的花招。突然，你开枪打死了一名过街的男子，你从一栋建筑的九层把他带了下来，你开始在隔间里想：『肯定有一名联邦调查局特工从那里往下看。』结果，那只是一名艺术感十足的摄影师。」

Why shoot a scene from a bird’s eye view, or a bug’s? I guess they call that kind of thing ‘stylish’ or ‘beautifully conceived’. “What an eye,” they say, “shooting stuff through parking meters!” It’s all done to astonish the bourgeois, to amaze the middle-class critic. Actually it’s nothing but the work of the kind of people who are impressed by the fancy set-ups you get inTVcommercials: you know, a man with his feet on a desk and you see the soles of his feet covering nine-tenths of the screen and in between the two shoes you see a little bit of his face. What’s thepoint?”

「为什么要从一只鸟或虫子的视角拍摄场景呢？我猜他们会用『时髦』或『构思精美』来形容这种东西。『这是一种怎样的眼睛啊，』他们说，『通过停车计时器拍摄东西』这一切都是为了让资产阶级感到惊讶，让中产阶级的批评家感到惊讶。实际上，这只是那些对电视和商业广告中的花哨设置印象深刻的人的作品：你知道，一个人把脚放在桌子上，你看到他的脚底覆盖了十分之九的屏幕，在两只鞋子之间，你看到了他的一小部分脸。这又有什么意义呢？」

You are said to have had many casting difficulties with your pictures.True?

记者：你说你的电影选角曾遇到过许多困难，是这样吗？

It was very hard to get [Barbara] Stanwyck and [Fred] MacMurray for Double Indemnity. They just didn’t like the idea of playing murderers; he in particular was afraid of what it could do to his image. And [Ray] Milland didn’t normally play drunks, but playing a drunk wasn’t quite as dangerous as playing a killer. We even considered casting George Raft for the MacMurray part in Double Indemnity, and 11 actors turned itdown.

比利·怀尔德：请芭芭拉·斯坦威克和弗莱德·麦克莫瑞来拍《双重赔偿》真是非常艰难。他们根本就不喜欢扮演谋杀犯这个想法；麦克莫瑞非常害怕这会对他的形象产生不好的影响。而雷·米兰德通常不会扮演酒鬼，但是扮演一名酒鬼并不像扮演一名杀手那样危险。我们甚至考虑过请乔治·拉夫特来扮演麦克莫瑞在《双重赔偿》中的角色，有11位演员都拒绝了。

I wanted Jose Ferrer to play the drunk in Lost Weekend; I had seen him as Iago to Paul Robeson’s Othello, and he was superb. But Paramount told me to forget it: Buddy de Silva said that if the drunk wasn’t an extremely attractive man, who apart from being a drunk could have been a hell of a nice guy, then audiences wouldn’t go forit.

《双重赔偿》剧照

我想让何塞·费勒在《失去的周末》中饰演醉汉；我曾看过他在保罗·罗伯逊的《奥赛罗》中饰演的伊阿古一角，他演得非常棒。但派拉蒙告诉我忘了这件事：巴迪·德·席尔瓦说，如果这个醉汉不是一个非常有吸引力的男人，他除了是个酒鬼之外，可能是一个好人的地狱，那么观众就不会去看它。

What are your methods ofdirection?

记者：你导演时采用的方法是什么？

I don’t rehearse at all. The actors forget what we were rehearsing, I forget how I rehearsed it, absolutely impossible. I have one hour of run-through before I start the shooting, sit around with the crew and the cast and discuss the sequence ahead of us each new day, what is to be noticed, where I’m going to do this and that. There’s no such thing as my coming on the set in the morning with a piece of chalk and drawing little blueprints and saying: “He will move three steps and take the cigarette out and now he will sit on thecouch.”

比利·怀尔德：我根本不排练。在开始拍摄之前，我有一个小时的预演时间，与剧组和演员们坐在一起，讨论每一天我们面前的场景，要注意什么，我要在哪里做什么。我不会再早上拿着一支粉笔，画着小蓝图来到片场，然后说：「他会走三步，把烟拿出来，」或者说：「现在他会坐在沙发上。」

We just fool around with ideas until the scene comes to life for all of us, then I talk to the cameraman and the cutter separately about chopping the whole thing up into separate shots. Then I go in and I might do 20 takes until it’s exactlyright.

我们只是在让各种想法冒出来，直到我们所有人的场景变得鲜活生动，然后我分别和摄影师和剪辑师商量着把整部影片变成一个个单独的镜头。然后我会开始拍摄影片，我可能会把一个镜头拍20次，直到它完全正确为止。

How have your collaborations worked with Charles Brackett andI. A. L.Diamond?

记者：你和查尔斯·布拉克特以及I·A·L·戴蒙德的合作如何？

We would sit in one room and talk out the whole script for weeks, you couldn’t even separate lines of dialogue. Once or twice the other writer came up with an outstanding line on his own – Diamond’s “Nobody’s perfect” at the end of Some Like It Hot, forinstance.

比利·怀尔德：我们会坐在一个房间里，一起针对整个剧本讨论数周，你甚至都不能把对话中的台词分开。不过，有那么一两次，他们中有人会突然想到一句非常精彩的台词——比如戴蒙德在《热情似火》结尾中非常著名的那句「没有人是完美的。」

Going back to the beginnings, could you fix finally the ‘degree of responsibility’ on People onSunday?

记者：如果回到最初，你会修改《星期天的人们》中的「责任程度」吗？

Oh, that was more nouvelle vague than a hippy picture! We were all dilettantes then. Robert Siodmak was the director for a very simple reason: when kids play football on a meadow the one who owns the football is the captain. He owned the camera, and he got the money from an uncle – 5,000marks.

比利·怀尔德：哦，它与嬉皮士电影相比，有更多新浪潮的那种模糊感。那时候我们都是外行。罗伯特·西奥德梅克担任导演的原因很简单：当孩子们在草地上踢足球时，足球的主人就是队长。他拥有一台摄影机，而且从一位叔叔那里得到了这笔钱——5000马克。

I was the writer and carried the camera. [Eugen] Shüfftan was the cameraman, and the only pro on the picture. [Edgar G.] Ulmer worked as [Robert] Siodmak’s assistant director and [Fred] Zinnemann was Shüfftan’sassistant.

我在《星期天的人们》中担任编剧，并且会帮着拿拿摄影机。欧根·舒夫坦是摄影师，他是这个剧组中唯一的专业人员。埃德加·G·乌默是罗伯特·西奥德梅克的副导演，弗雷德·金尼曼是舒夫坦的助手。

《星期天的人们》海报

What about your isolated French film, made on the way to Hollywood, MauvaiseGraine?

记者：可以谈谈你那部被忽视的，在前往好莱坞时拍摄的《坏种》吗？

I stopped in Paris in 1933, having left Germany immediately after the Reichstag fire; I’d written dozens of scripts atUFA, including Emil and the Detectives. Mauvaise Graine, no connection with the later Bad Seed, was a story of kids, a gang of automobile thieves in Paris. Danielle Darrieux was the star; she played the sister of one of theboys.

比利·怀尔德：1933年，我在巴黎停留，在国会大厦发生了大火后立即离开了德国；我在乌发电影公司（UFA）写了几十个剧本，包括《埃米尔和侦探们》。这部《坏种》（Mauvaise Graine）与后来的电影《坏种》（Bad Seed）没有任何联系，是一个关于孩子以及巴黎一群偷车贼的故事。达尼埃尔·达里约是主演，她饰演其中一个男孩的妹妹。

We shot the picture on location in Paris and Marseilles, on a shoestring, with money put in by eight people. We didn’t use a single sound stage, most of the interiors were shot in a converted garage, and even the living-room scenes were shot in it. We did the automobile chases without transparencies, live, on the streets, at high speed, and it was veryexhausting.

我们在巴黎和马赛以极小的成本拍摄了这部影片，8人参与了筹资。我们没有使用单一的摄影棚，大部分室内场景都是在改建的车库里拍摄的，甚至起居室的场景都是在那里拍摄的。我们在没有透明胶片的情况下拍摄了汽车在街道上高速追逐的场景，非常令人精疲力竭。

How did you get toHollywood?

记者：你是怎么进入好莱坞的？

I sold a story to Columbia – Pam-Pam, about a gang of counterfeiters who live in an abandoned theatre. It’s all boarded up, and they live in it and make their phoney money, and sleep in the boxes, using the rain machine for ashower.

比利·怀尔德：我把一个故事卖给了哥伦比亚和派拉蒙，讲的是一群住在一家废弃剧院里造假者的故事。剧院都用木板封住了，而他们住在里面，赚着骗来的钱，睡在盒子里，用雨机洗澡。

The film was never made but it took me to the United States via Mexico. I began writing original stories in Hollywood, and I kind of starved for a little bit. I shared a room with Peter Lorre, and we lived on a can of soup aday.

这部电影最后并未拍摄，但它让我途经墨西哥，最终来到了美国。我开始在好莱坞写原创故事，我有点苦于饥饿。我和彼得·洛同住一个房间，我们一天都靠一罐汤过活。

When you worked for Paramount, were there many stories theyrejected?

记者：当你为派拉蒙工作时，你的故事被拒绝得多吗？

Oh, yes. For instance, they wouldn’t take on the idea of Sunset Boulevard, which I put to them in the late 1930s, or of The Apartment. They just didn’t understand these themes, they weren’t ready for them at thetime.

比利·怀尔德：哦，是的。比如，他们就没有接受那部《日落大道》，我在电影中写的是1930年代末的派拉蒙，他们也没有接受《桃色公寓》。他们只是不理解这些电影的主题，当时的他们也没有做好准备。

What was the creative atmosphere like atParamount?

记者：在派拉蒙，当时的创作氛围是怎样的？

It was absolutely marvellous. You just walked across the lot and there they were: von Sternberg, Dietrich, Gary Cooper, Leo McCarey, Lubitsch. We made pictures then, we didn’t make deals. Today we spend 80 per cent of the time making deals and 20 per cent makingpictures.

比利·怀尔德：那真是棒极了。只要你走过停车场，你会发现这些星光熠熠的人都在那里：约瑟夫·冯·斯登堡、玛琳·黛德丽、加里·库珀、莱奥·麦卡雷、刘别谦。我们当时都一心在拍电影，没有人用它来做交易。今天我们却会花费80%的时间来做交易，20%的时间拍电影。

How did you get your first directorial assignment on The Major and theMinor?

记者：你是如何获得执导《大人与小孩》这部电影的机会的？

I had made myself rather unpopular as a writer at Paramount because I would come on the set and they would chase me off it. I was always trying to put them right on misinterpretations. I was known as ‘The Terror’: they would say, “Keep Wilder away from us, he’s always raising hell, he wants everythin

g done hisway.”

比利·怀尔德：在派拉蒙当编剧时，我相当不受欢迎，因为我一到片场，他们就会把我赶出片场。我总是试图纠正他们的误解。我被称为「恐怖分子」，他们会说：「让怀尔德离我们远点，他总是吵来吵去的，想让每件事都按他自己的方式来做。？

The fact is that very few directors know how to ‘read’, how to interpret dialogue correctly, and they are too proud to ask if they don’t understand a particular line. So lines tend to get thrown away. Arthur Hornblow, for whom Brackett and I had written a few pictures, saw my point and thought I had better direct my ownscripts.

事实是，很少有导演知道如何「阅读」，如何正确解读对白，而且他们太骄傲了，不会问自己是否听不懂某一句台词。所以台词往往会被扔掉。我和布莱克特为小亚瑟·霍恩布洛写了几部电影的剧本，他明白我的意思，并认为我最好执导自己的剧本。

I think the studio’s attitude was, ‘Let Wilder break his neck, he’ll soon come back as a writer only, and be a good boy.’ But I was careful. I didn’t go out to make a so-called ‘artistic’ success, I went out to make a commercial picture I wouldn’t be ashamed of. My agent, Leland Hayward, went brazenly up to Ginger Rogers, who was then something, she had just won the Academy Award for Kitty Foyle [1940], and sold her on me as a director. And the picture workedwell.

我认为制片厂的态度是，「让怀尔德摔断脖子吧，他很快就会以编剧的身份，乖乖地回来。」但我很小心。我出去不是为了取得所谓的「艺术上」的成功，我出去是为了拍一部我不会感到羞耻的商业片。我的经纪人利兰·海沃德厚脸皮地找到了金杰·罗杰斯，当时她刚刚凭借《女人万岁》（1940）获得奥斯卡奖，我们说服了她来担任我的女主角。这部电影的拍摄工作也很顺利。

《大人与小孩》海报

What was von Stroheim like to work with on Five Graves toCairo?

记者：你与冯·斯特劳亨在《开罗谍报战》中的合作如何呢？

He was fascinating, le grand seigneur at all times. There was something very noble about him, although he wasn’t a ‘von’ at all, his accent belonged to one of the rougher suburbs ofVienna.

比利·怀尔德：他真的很迷人，一直都是一名贵族。他的身上一直有一种非常高尚的东西，尽管他与「冯」这个姓氏一点关系也没有（译者注：斯特劳亨出生于奥地利，到美国后，自称是奥地利贵族，在姓氏前面加上了「冯」），还操着维也纳郊区的口音。

Of course, he influenced me greatly as a director: I always think of my style as a curious cross between Lubitsch and Stroheim. When I first saw him at the wardrobe tests for his role as Rommel, I clicked my heels and said: “Isn’t it ridiculous, little me directing you? You were always ten years ahead of your time.” And he replied,“Twenty”.

当然，斯特劳亨作为一名导演在很大程度上影响了我：我总是认为我的风格是刘别谦和斯特劳亨之间奇怪的结合。当我第一次在他试装、看到他饰演的隆美尔时，我紧跟着说：「让我来指导你，是不是很可笑呢？你总是领先于时代十年。」他回答说：「二十年。」

He was full of interesting ideas. His make-up, for instance: it was black on the face and white on his head above the line of the cap – you see, he pointed out that Rommel was always in the sun, and when he took his cap off there would be no colour in the skin underneath. And he wanted two cameras slung round his neck, and they had to be German; he even insisted on having film in them. He said, “The audience will sense if the films aren’t inside, they’ll feel that they are merelyprops.”

他满脑子都是有趣的想法。例如，他的妆容——脸上是黑色的，头上是白色的，高于帽线——你看，他会指出隆美尔总是曝露在阳光下，当他摘下帽子时，帽檐下方的皮肤就不会被晒黑。他还想把两个相机挂在脖子上，而且必须是德国的；他甚至坚持要在里面装胶卷。他说：「观众会感觉到，如果胶卷不在里面，他们会觉得它们只是一些道具。」

Of course, he contributed ideas to Sunset Boulevard as well: the idea that the butler writes all the fan mail for Norma Desmond, for instance. But then he could go too far. He said, “Let me do a scene where I am washing and pressing my former wife Norma Desmond’s panties. Please, I can do something with it.” I said, “Yes, I know you can, but I don’t want to shootit.”

当然，他也为《日落大道》贡献了一些想法：例如，让管家为诺玛·黛斯蒙德写下所有粉丝的来信。但那样他就可能走得太远了。他说：「让我来拍一个场景，我正在熨烫我前妻诺玛·德斯蒙德的内裤。求求你，我可以用它做点什么。」我说：「是的，我知道你可以，但我不想拍。」

How did you get that perfect Los Angeles look in DoubleIndemnity?

记者：你是怎么在《双重赔偿》中展现那么洛杉矶的完美景象的？

We used as many locations as possible – they were doing mostly studio work for backgrounds at Paramount in those days, but we changed the tradition. I used the railroad station, parts of downtown, and Los Feliz Boulevard, where the house stood that Stanwyck livedin.

比利·怀尔德：我们使用了尽可能多的地点——它们大多都是派拉蒙制片厂中的内景，但我们改变了传统，我使用了火车站、市中心的部分地区，以及斯坦威克居住的房子所在的洛斯费利兹大道。

The insurance office was a copy of the old Paramount offices in New York. And I’d go in and kind of dirty up the sets a little to make them look worn. I’d take all the white out of everything. I had John F. Seitz, the cameraman who had worked with Rex Ingram and Rudolph Valentino, with me on the picture, and he helped me a great deal. I wanted that look that Californian houses get, with the sun streaming through the shutters and showing the dust. You couldn’t photograph that, so Seitz made some silver shreddings for me and they photographed like motes insunbeams.

I like that kind of realism. Everything in Hollywood always looks like the late Jayne Mansfield’s bedroom, and it’sridiculous.

电影中的保险公司是派拉蒙在纽约的旧办事处的翻版。我会走进去，把布景弄脏一点，让它们看起来很破旧。我会把所有东西都去掉。我和摄影师约翰·F·塞茨一起拍摄了这部影片，他曾与雷克斯·英格拉姆以及鲁道夫·瓦伦蒂诺合作，他给了我很大的帮助。我想要加州的那种房子，阳光透过百叶窗，可以看到空中的灰尘。你不能简单通过摄影来呈现这种风格，所以塞茨为我做了一些银色的碎屑，它们像阳光下的尘埃一样。 我喜欢这种现实主义。好莱坞的一切看起来总是像已故的简·曼斯费尔德的卧室，这太可笑了。

Didn’t the film end differently in the originalversion?

记者：电影在原版中的结局是不一样的吗？

Yes. We shot the execution of Fred MacMurray, a complete duplication of a gas chamber scene in San Quentin running a reel, the pellets dropping, the whole thing done with the utmost care, and a warden acting as technicaladviser.

比利·怀尔德：是的。我们拍摄了对弗莱德·麦克莫瑞的处决，完全复制了圣昆丁州立监狱的毒气室场景，胶片一直在运转着，而齐克隆B颗粒一接触到毒气室内的空气，就能令人致命。整个过程都非常小心地完成，我们还邀请了一名典狱长担任技术顾问。

Again, in The Lost Weekend, you went out for a totalrealism…

记者：在《失去的周末》中，你则展现了彻头彻尾的现实主义。

We used the exterior of Bellevue Hospital in New York and copied the alcoholic ward down to the last detail. Harry and Joe’s Bar was a pastiche of 52nd Street dives, and Sam’s Bar isP. J.Clark’s on 55th Street, the bar where Charles Jackson actually drank. Three houses down from there between Second and Third we shot the apartment building where he lived with his brother, and we copied the apartmentexactly.

比利·怀尔德：我们使用了纽约贝尔维尤医院的外观，并且把酗酒的病房呈现到了最后的细节中。哈里和乔的酒吧是第52街的混搭，山姆的酒吧是第55街的P.J.克拉克酒吧，查尔斯·杰克逊实际上就是在那里喝酒的。从那里往下走，在第二栋到第三栋房子之间，我们拍摄了他和他哥哥住的公寓楼，准确地复制了公寓。

We had a job persuading the studio to do the picture. I bought the book at a stall while changing trains with Leland Hayward in Chicago on our way to New York and immediately cabled Brackett, but at first Paramount were unwilling. They couldn’t see it our way because up to then drunks had been fit subjects only for comedy. But finally, of course, they cameround.

我们的工作是说服制片厂拍这部电影。在去纽约的路上，我和利兰·海沃德在芝加哥换乘火车时，在一个摊位上买了原著，并立即给查尔斯·布拉克特发了电报，但一开始派拉蒙并不愿意。他们看不到我们的方向，因为在那之前，醉汉一直是适合喜剧的题材。但最终，当然，他们改变了主意。

Did Sunset Boulevard cause a stir on its first showings inHollywood?

记者：当《日落大道》第一次在好莱坞放映时，它是否引起了轰动？

I remember there was a big preview in the projection room at Paramount. I’ve never seen so many prominent people at once – the word was out that this was a stunner, you see. After the picture ended there were violent reactions, from excitement to purehorror.

I remember Barbara Stanwyck kneeling down in front of Miss Swanson and kissing the hem of her garment in one of those ridiculous adulation things, and Louis B. Mayer shaking his fist saying, “We should horsewhip this Wilder, we should throw him out of this town, he has brought disgrace on the town that is feeding him!” I don’t know what he was talking about, I don’t know what the hell was so anti-Hollywood in that picture. He lived in a kind of dream world,unfortunately.

比利·怀尔德：我记得派拉蒙的放映室里有一场比较大的试映会。我从来没有同时看到过这么多杰出的人物——有传言说这是一件令人惊叹的事。放映结束后，观众们出现了激烈的反应，从兴奋到纯粹的恐惧。我记得芭芭拉·斯坦威克跪在斯旺森小姐面前，亲吻她的衣服下摆，这是一种滑稽的奉承方式，路易斯·B·梅耶则挥舞着拳头说，「我们应该鞭打这个怀尔德，我们应该把他赶出好莱坞这个小镇，他给养活他的好莱坞带来了耻辱！」我不知道他在说什么，我不知道这部电影里有什么该死的「反好莱坞」的东西。不幸的是，他生活在一种梦幻世界里。

Why did you decide to have the whole picture narrated by, as it were, the gigolo writer Joe Gillis’sghost?

记者：你是怎么决定用编剧乔死去的鬼魂来讲述这个故事的？

We originally had a weird kind of framing sequence containing some of the best material I’ve ever shot, but when we previewed the picture in Chicago and in the suburbs of New York people just screamed with laughter, so we cut it. We showed the corpse of a man being brought to the morgue in downtown Los Angeles, where we actually did much of the shooting. And in that section of the morgue when he arrives there are eight bodies – a woman, an elderly man, a young boy and so on. And the corpses tell each other events leading up to their deaths. The boy drowned, the old man had retired and had a little avocado grove in Tarzana here, and had a heart attack. And soon.

最初影片有一种奇怪的场景顺序，其中包含了我拍摄过的一些最好的素材，但当我们在芝加哥和纽约郊区试映这部影片时，人们只是哈哈大笑，所以我们剪掉了它。我们展示了一名男子的身体被带到洛杉矶市中心的停尸房，实际上我们拍摄了大部分场景。当他到达时，停尸房里有八具身体——一名妇女，一名老人，一名小男孩等等。这些尸体们会互相告诉对方，导致他们死亡的事件。男孩是因为溺水身亡。老人退休了，并且在这里的塔扎纳（洛杉矶的一个街区）种了一片小鳄梨林，最终心脏病发作而死。等等。

And now [William] Holden tells the story, but by the time the corpse has been labelled and the tag tied to the big toe the audience is helpless in the aisles. A pity. The opening as we finally shot it wasn’t logical but it was riveting, and as long as something is riveting, they will swallowit.

现在，是由威廉·霍尔登来讲述这个故事。但当尸体被标记，大脚趾上绑上标签时，观众们在影院的过道里无能为力。真可惜。我们最终拍摄的开场并不合乎逻辑，但很吸引人，只要有什么吸引人的东西，他们就会信以为真。

《日落大道》剧照

Where was the Norma Desmondhouse?

记者：诺玛·戴斯蒙德的房子在哪里？

On Wilshire and Crenshaw. It has been torn down now and replaced by Tidewater Oil. It belonged to the richest man in the world, Paul Getty. His wife let us use the house provided we put the pool in. We also put the rats in.Ugh.

在威尔希尔大道和克伦肖大道那边。现在它已经被拆除，取而代之的是潮水石油公司。它属于世界首富保罗·盖提，如果我们把游泳池拍进去，他的妻子就会让我们用这所房子。我们还把老鼠放进去了。

What made you choose the specific players for the waxworks’ cardgame?

记者：是什么让你为诺玛·戴斯蒙德选择了和她打牌的那些「玩偶们」？

We wanted more famous silent stars, but they wouldn’t agree. But we didn’t do too badly, we had Buster Keaton, Anna Q. Nilsson – nobody remembered her but she kind of looked right – and Jesus Christ,H.B.Warner.

比利·怀尔德：我想要拍更多默片时代的明星，但是制片厂不同意。不过我们做的还不错，这个场景里有巴斯特·基顿和安娜·Q·尼尔松，没有人记得尼尔松，不过她的样貌很美。当然，天哪，还有H·B·华纳。

Why was Ace in the Hole such a box-officeflop?

记者：为什么《倒扣的王牌》遭遇了票房的失利？

Actually, it did well in Europe but not here, perhaps because Americans expected a cocktail and felt I was giving them a shot of vinegar instead. I read those reviews that said, “How cynical can a director be? How could a newspaperman possibly behave like Chuck Tatum?” And the day I read the reviews I was on Wilshire Boulevard and I was feeling very downhearted, and somebody was run over by a car right in front of me. And a news cameraman came and took the picture. And I said to him, “Come on, let’s help this man, he’s dying.” And he said, “Not me, boy. I’ve got to get my picture in.” And off hewent.

实际上，它在欧洲卖得很好，但在这里就不好了，可能是因为美国人想要一杯鸡尾酒，却觉得我给了他们一杯醋。我读到那些评论说，「一个导演能有多愤世嫉俗？一个新闻记者怎么可能像查克·塔图姆那样行事呢？」在我读评论的那天，我正走在威尔希尔大道上，我感到非常沮丧，有人被我前面的一辆车碾过，一位新闻摄影师过来拍了张照片。我对他说，「来吧，让我们帮帮这个人，他快死了。」他却说，「老兄，我不管这事儿，我得把我的照片准时送到。」然后他就走了。

When we showed the carnival moving in and the songs being composed, and the hot dogs being sold, it was all factual, based on the facts of the original man in the cave case of Floyd Collins in the 20s. But people just don’t want to see this in a film, the way we really are. And maybe they’re right, maybe one shouldn’t try to get people out of a rut. Maybe I was wrong to dothat.

当我们在影片中展示行进的狂欢节，歌曲被演唱，热狗被出售时，这一切都是假的，是基于1920年代弗洛伊德·柯林斯洞穴案中原始人真实故事改编的。但人们只是不想在电影中看到这一点，不想看到我们真实的样子。也许他们是对的，他不应该把那些人从山洞里救出来。也许我这么做是错的。

What was it like directing another director, Otto Preminger, in Stalag17?

记者：你在《战地军魂》指导另一名导演——奥托·普雷明格的感觉如何？

He never could remember his lines. He told me that every time he fluffed he would send me a jar of caviar. I soon had shelves full ofthem.

比利·怀尔德：他从来都记不住自己的台词。他告诉我说，每次当他犯错的时候，他就会送给我一罐鱼子酱，很快，我就有了一架子的鱼子酱。

You’ve adapted several works from the stage in recent years – do you like doing that as much as creating originally for thescreen?

记者：近年来，你已经从舞台改编了几部作品——和原创电影相比。你更喜欢哪种创作方式？

Directors are always getting Oscars for things like that, but no, I really don’t like them, or like doing them. To give an Academy Award to a man who adapts a play is like giving the removalists who took Michelangelo’s Pieta from the Vatican to the New York World’s Fair a first award in sculpture. Witness for the Prosecution I did like, though; Marlene [Dietrich] urged me to make the picture because she wanted to play it, and if I agreed to direct it she would have a better chance of getting thepart.

导演总是因为这样的事情而获得奥斯卡奖，但不，我真的不喜欢，也不喜欢这样做。给一个改编剧本的人颁发奥斯卡奖，就像给那些把米开朗基罗的皮埃塔从梵蒂冈带到纽约世界博览会的搬运家们颁发了第一个雕塑奖。不过，我确实喜欢《控方证人》；玛琳·黛德丽敦促我拍了这部电影，因为她想演这部电影，如果我同意执导这部电影，她参与的可能也就越大。

Did The Spirit of St. Louis present formidabledifficulties?

记者：《林白征空记》的拍摄遇到了难以克服的困难吗？

Yes indeed. We had to cover such a vast area – and we had to fly in the actual replica of the plane. If something went wrong with [James] Stewart’s performance we had to land the thing at a nearby airfield and explain to him because you couldn’t do it in the air. And by then your day had gone, the weather didn’tmatch.

比利·怀尔德：确实。我们不得不覆盖如此广阔的区域——并且不得不采用真实复原的飞机来飞行。如果詹姆斯·斯图尔特的表现出了问题，我们就必须把它降落在附近的机场，并向他解释，因为你不能在空中做这件事。到那时，你的一天就已经过去了，而且天气也不太适合拍摄。

I’m not an outdoor man: I’ve never done a western. I think I should confine myself to bedrooms, maybe. I was saying the other day, “I’m doing a picture where the boss is chasing the secretary round the desk. But this time I’m going to have Andrew Marton shoot the chasesequence.”

我是一个不太喜欢出门的人：我从没拍过一部西部片。我认为我应该把自己关在卧室里。有时我会对别人说：「我要拍一部老板绕着桌子追逐秘书的影片，而这次我要让安德鲁·马顿来拍摄追逐的镜头。」

Some Like It Hot rather disappointed box-office expectations, didn’tit?

记者：《热情似火》有些低于票房预期，是吗？

Yes, it was far ahead of its time. If we made it today it would be a huge success. We had a problem persuading Tony Curtis to get into women’s clothing, but Jack Lemmon was an all-out clown and extrovert and enjoyed the whole thingenormously.

比利·怀尔德：是的，它远远领先于它的时代。如果放到今天，它将会非常成功。我们在说服托尼·柯蒂斯穿上女装时遇到了麻烦，但是一个全力以赴的喜剧角色和外向的人，他非常享受整个过程。

Marilyn Monroe was sensitive and very difficult. She tried hard, but you had to wait for her to come through, to start rolling, and then her tiny kind of inhibition disappeared and after that she was phenomenal, one of the great comediennes. The metabolism had to be right with her, and if it was right, she was a marvellous thing todirect.

比利怀尔德与杰克·莱蒙

玛丽莲·梦露很敏感，很难相处。她很努力，但你必须等她走出来，开始动起来，然后她那种微小的压抑感就消失了，从那以后，她就成了非凡的、伟大的喜剧演员之一。她经历的改变过程必须是正确的，如果是正确的，指导她是一件很美好的事。

The Apartment and Meet Whiplash Willie [aka Fortune Cookie] seem to indicate a return to a more personalstyle…

《桃色公寓》海报

记者：《桃色公寓》和《飞来福》似乎更具有你最初的个人风格？

That’s true, and of course they aren’t really comedies. We sugar-coated them with a few laughs here and there, but what I wanted to say in them finally was, human beings are human beings. Once again, I wanted the starkest realism. In The Apartment, the apartment itself was small, we took the white out, and the office was built in exact perspective; we had tiny desks at the back with dwarfs and then tinier ones still with cut-outs. Alexander Trauner is the best in the business and he worked it outbrilliantly.

In these pictures, I wanted to say: “How corrupt we are, how money mad we are.” As someone says in Meet Whiplash Willie, “People will do anything for money. Except for some people. They will do almost anything for money.” I guess that’s the theme of all my pictures. Maybe my philosophy is cynical, but I have to be true to what Ifeel.

My next picture is sure to be in bad taste, and I’m hoping the people financing me don’t blow all the money. After all, my ideas about people aren’t so brand new, are they, that they’re going to shock anybody? Say a little bit to rub audiences the wrong way, but not too much, and you haven’t lost them. Haveyou?

比利·怀尔德：这是真的，当然它们也不是真正的喜剧片。我们不时地给他们一些笑料，但我最后想说的是，人毕竟还是人。再一次，我想要最赤裸裸的现实主义。在《桃色公寓》里，公寓本身很小，我们去掉了白色的背景，办公室是以精确的视角建造的；我们后面有小桌子，上面有矮小的桌子，然后是更小的桌子，还有缺口。亚历山大·特劳纳是业内最好的美工师，他出色地解决了这一问题。在这些影片中，我想说：「我们是多么腐败，金钱把我们变成了什么样子？」就像有人在《飞来福》中说的那样，「人们会为了钱做任何事。除了一些人。为了钱，他们几乎什么都愿意做。」我想这是我所有影片的主题。也许我的哲学是愤世嫉俗的，但我必须忠于我的感受。我的下一部电影肯定不会很有品味，我希望资助我的人不要把钱都花光了。毕竟，我对人的看法并没有那么新，不是吗？它们会让任何人感到震惊吗？说一点让观众生气的话，但不要说得太多，你并没有失去他们。对吗？

Originally published:7 August 2020