控制的极限

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May 1, 2009


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FILM OF THE WEEK (AND INTERVIEW): The Limits of Control
Jim Jarmusch, THE LIMITS OF CONTROL Who knew that a Jim Jarmusch film could be the most divisive of the year thus far? I'm not ready to address The Limits of Control and all the knee-jerk, unconstructive naysayings I've read that don't actually engage with what the film is or how it does (or doesn't) work, at least until I see it a second time, since I was too mesmerized by the experience to take many notes. In lieu of that, I present to you the extended version of an interview I did with Jarmusch for IFC.com, the first part of which can be found here.

GREENCINE DAILY: Wong Kar-Wai once told me that when working with cinematographer Christopher Doyle, they share a largely unspoken, instinctual shorthand with one another. Was your relationship with Doyle similar?

JIM JARMUSCH: We were more the opposite, man. We talked and talked and talked incessantly. When I was preparing, he would come to New York for a week and a half at a time, maybe three times. We spent every day together for eight hours, just talking about the film, not about the film, about things we saw on the street, about photographs Chris had taken, looking at unrelated things, and listening to music. I've known Chris quite a long time, 12 or 15 years. I love just talking to him about anything. He's very quick, so sometimes he'll say things to me, philosophical things we're discussing that I don't understand what his point is, and then a few days later when I'm not with him, I'll be thinking it over and be like, "Oh! I see what he meant." I don't know if I'm just slow, or if his ideas are hard to enter sometimes.

Isaach De Bankolé, THE LIMITS OF CONTROL Speaking of music, I'm a big Boris fan, who is all over the soundtrack. I read that you had already planned to fill the film with this conceptual Japanese noise-rock while still sketching it out. What's your process of matching image to music?

When I'm writing or trying to think up an idea for a film, I hone in on music that seems to open up my imagination for that particular world in my head. That happens very early over and over, like Neil Young for Dead Man, or [for Ghost Dog,] RZA's beats and instrumental tracks on the B-sides of vinyl Wu-Tang stuff I was collecting. Or Mulatu Astatge in Broken Flowers was inspiring me, and I was like, "How the hell do I get Ethiopian music in a film about a guy in the suburbs?" So then it led me to have Jeffrey Wright's character be of Ethiopian origin. In this case, it was Boris and Sunn 0))), and that electric feedback-y soundscape stuff they make that I love so much. Those things came very early, while I was even just writing the 25-page treatment—well, it was more like a prose short story that we started from. So they were sort of in a little boat I was in, going down the river. I had them inspiring me. Then I got Earth in the movie and a lot of great stuff. I love the Black Angels, but I only used a little instrumental piece at the end of their song, "You on the Run." Anyway, those things were there very early, but the music always leads me. That's always happened.

Tilda Swinton, on the set of THE LIMITS OF CONTROLI stay abreast of new music by geeking out on music blogs, but how do you find all this cool music? Do you still go to a lot of record stores, or do friends keep you tuned in to new artists?

I'm not a Web guy because I don't have a computer, although I often ask people to look stuff up for me. I don't know, it's sort of a general antenna because I love music. You know, there are music stores that in the past I depended on a lot, like Final Vinyl, that used to be great to order things anywhere in the world that were in print, or what's his name, that little shop on Bowery just south of 8th street. Damn, I love that guy. He's always been really cool. There's Other Music, and in New Paltz, there's Rhino Records that is really run unlike any kind of Rhino chain—the guy there, Rick, is amazing. Those record stores are important, but they've been less so for me recently, maybe because I haven't stopped in very much. I always read the British music press, and I try to listen to what underground radio exists, or college-type radio. I'm just always scanning, and I've always been that way, like, music, music, music. I love to get playlists off of [Jersey City's] WFMU or WVKR in Poughkeepsie—Vassar has a good radio station. WFUV has a good morning show in New York, and there's some underground hip-hop shows on WKCR, the Columbia station. There's the beautiful Sunday morning country shows that I listen to, classic country.

I love radio, and I love finding things randomly. Like, I don't have TiVO for TV because I keep thinking, "Well, then I'll just program everything and I won't scan," and scanning is when you find things you weren't expecting. Not that TV isn't, for the most part, a big wasteland of garbage. But you do learn things if you scan around, more than if you have a programmed idea of what you're going to watch. I don't watch that much TV. I watch Turner Classic Movies, science shows and Antiques Roadshow, you know this one? I love Antiques Roadshow. I have this thing I always imagine. Okay, they think suddenly, they have some vase and it's worth $8,000, you know? I always equate it to: what kind of a used car could they buy with it? [Jarmusch makes a sad horn noise] "You can buy a 1986 Honda Civic!" I don't know why I do that... I'm going off in stupid places.

Bill Murray, surrogate Dick Cheney No, I appreciate it. Now, I know why Bill Murray is so great in your films, but what's so great about working with him? In the press notes for this film, you mentioned that you two liked to "talk around the character."

Yeah, we like to talk about it in the past. What's really fascinating about Bill is that, since I've known him, his procedure is always evolving. When I first worked with him in Coffee and Cigarettes, he wanted to pretty much improvise everything, and he didn't want to talk about it or rehearse it. Then with Broken Flowers, no rehearsing, no specifics, but we would take long, long walks for hours at a time, and talk about things that eventually affected our idea of that character. I thought he would improvise a lot, and he said, "I want to stick close to the script." Then in this film, he said, "I want to rehearse, and I want to do the dialogue as written. I don't want to add anything." So that was even a different step. He's just an interesting work in progress. I'm always a little surprised, like, "How does he want to approach it this time?"

That's fun, and I learn a lot from Bill about a lot of things, especially human nature. His capacity to observe and feel what people are feeling, even strangers, is uncanny. I've seen him numerous times run out of his way to help somebody try to get something out of the trunk of their car, or help with their luggage at the airport, or in a restaurant, talk to someone he doesn't even know that looks sort of down. He'll go over and respond to that: "Hey, the world hasn't ended yet, what's going on?" Amazing. He's really observant with compassion, so I love to just hang out with Bill and see how he's going to react to what we encounter in the world. I learn more from that, maybe, than anything specifically about acting, preparing or filmmaking, because it's all intertwined in the end. I really liked having him play somebody with not an ounce of humor this time, which might be frustrating for people's expectations. I don't know, that's not my problem. I choose the actors I want for the best collaboration to create something, and I really liked him being nasty and condescending. Every fucking school principal or authority figure I've ever had in my life has always, at some point, said, "You just don't understand how the world really works." Hearing Bill's character say those lines for me, I don't know. I certainly heard that a lot in my life.

The Limits of Control opens today in New York and Los Angeles, then expands to more cities beginning May 8. For more information, visit the official website.

随着年龄增长，你会发现，控制你的东西变得越来越模糊抽象，即便想起身反抗，却又见不着敌人。讽刺的是，人们偏偏喜欢将这种雾煞煞称为“现实”。

于是，贾木许将“现实”反其道而行之，将思想具象成角色，将反抗具象成情节，一场莫名闷骚的行刺出现了。这可是真闷不是假闷，预告片基本就把本片里的三分之二的台词塞进去了；电影大多数时间，就是在杜可风构图童话的可爱镜头下，跟着整部片不超过十句台词、僵着苦瓜脸的黑哥们主角一道安静过去。或许可以期待些许有趣的悬念，但不要企图通过情节寻找答案。生活本来也没有答案嘛，不过一道又一道例行程序。贾木许不过是在这些例行程序外，创造了另一个阿弥陀佛的理性视觉，剔除掉无形控制者赋予社会人的生活意义，干净利落的用沉默述说思想罢了；而符号化的几个角色和几句台词，更像是这种沉默的延伸。所以，片中悬念，带给人更多的，只是一种对于思想本身的感受。

没有《离魂异客》里的西部风情，没有《鬼狗杀手》中的街头文化，《控制的极限》里，鲜艳空灵的西班牙只是一个被架空的背景，贾木许用更彻底抽象的文学性拼凑了一个思想者心路与现实的矛盾，虽不像柯恩兄弟《巴顿芬克》解构的娴熟，或是大卫柯博南尔《裸体午餐》变异的冲击，但正如本片主角的太极拳般，也许只为求一个平静。

“当我来到无法渡过的河流，
我感到再也没人能指导我如何前进了——兰波”
看贾木许的《控制的极限》。一部西班牙风光片+伪犯罪+伪悬疑+伪情色片，你把它当作任何一种类型片来看都会觉得索然无味。
我不想谈让人头大的隐喻有多深刻，使命与剧情一样毫无意义，只有那些闲扯才是生命的本质，那些音乐、电影、科学、波西米亚、致幻剂……

因为一贯的感官刺激需要本人很喜欢看好莱坞大片，至少是悬疑片。

今晚看了这部控制的极限，比较喜欢。对比前几天刚在影院看过的2012，感觉好莱坞大片就像是个笑话。

这部片子很对本人胃口，基本不对话以及没有表情的罗圈腿杀手，每天似乎不睡觉只是清早练一段气功说一句“阿弥陀佛”，根据火柴盒里字条的指示逐步深入的接近目标，每次都约见一个神经质的接头人继续他的旅程，接头人每每都要说一段废话——这些废话之间的情节其实是有联系的，比如吉他的话和墨西哥人、司机车上的口号，日本小妹妹关于分子的看法针对杀手莫名其妙的就进入了戒备森严的“基地”之间的联系。

清冷的氛围，大量静止的和空镜头，给人特别的感受，再配合恰如其分的后摇音乐，影片渲染得很不错。

从影片整体的理念来看，导演希望灌输的就是金刚经里所说“凡所有相，皆为虚妄”，这部电影或多或少是来试图解释佛法的，至少杀手本人表面上就是一个佛学实修者的样子。虽然从佛法的深度来看电影还有些没说透，但是已经难能可贵，一路上的对话，包括杀手前后在博物馆里查看的艺术品，而最后被杀者与杀手简短的对话——凭借想象进入基地，或者杀了我也不能破坏这啥啥，就是一次存在于现象之间的直接交锋，作为存在本质的言说者杀手杀死了 固执的现象代言人的隐喻，正是反映了导演力图突破表象揭露存在本质的尝试。

当然，从纯粹佛法的角度来看，存在与现象之间本无实质差别，色即是空，空即是色，色不异空，空不异色的道理导演未能表现，我认为这是他认识上的一点不足，所以我总体看这导演在佛教符号的瓶子里装的存在学旧酒，且没有上升到海德格尔的高度。

这样的电影较之感官刺激的好莱坞大片还是有些高度，当然对于各类电影我们可以喜欢也可以不喜欢，但是在宣泄之余还能感受到导演编剧的思想，在碰撞中产生自己思想的火花，也未尝不是一桩美事。

杀个人真的需要拍俩小时吗？作为吉姆贾木许的脑残粉这部片子我都有些吃不消。这大概是最另类的一部杀手电影了。与其说电影的意义是杀死比尔莫瑞不如说是让杀手先生领略人生的真谛。最后是想象力杀死了生活本身，生活的傲慢和狭隘、无趣和乏味。就像村上春树在小说里写过的人类最大的敌人是想象力枯竭。在电影晦涩不明的情节里代表着生活中一切美好事情的人物那些美女被除掉，性、电影、科学、艺术...这些生活中真正美好的东西。另一方面，这也是贾导在讲自己电影的技巧，控制的极限也正在于电影所展现的缓慢，就像最后那空白的纸条和被白布罩起来的画作，生活本无意义，这部电影大部分确实是在浪费时间，用浪费时间来告诉我们其中的玄妙，充满想象力的杰作。电影的张力并不仅限于华丽的镜头和紧凑的情节，这样出奇的缓慢就像太极一样。杀手先生对着镜头打太极，导演和我们打太极，雇主和杀手打太极，生活和每个人打太极...而这借力打力的功夫令人回味无穷，妙！
加之杜可风的摄影，嚯，贾导也过了回王家卫的瘾吧。