2008年1月29日星期二
2008年1月27日星期日
2008年1月26日星期六
蔡明亮访问2005
印象中的蔡明亮应该是沉默寡言的，直到面对面才惊讶于他的口才，短短30分钟的专访，犹如天边飘来的一朵云，刚刚接近又转瞬即逝。他那部让人瞠目结舌的劲爆新作《天边一朵云》成为了本届柏林电影节上备受争议的话题，片中男主角李康生继《你那边几点》之后再度成为众人瞩目的焦点。而这个羞涩的，从来没有接受过一天科班训练的男人，是13年前蔡明亮从大街上“捡”回来的。13年前当蔡明亮遇到李康生，是怎样的一番景况？李康生出现后的这13年里，又为蔡明亮带来了怎样的心灵悸动？
关于《天边一朵云》
我比演员还困惑
记者(以下简称记)：恕我直言，《天边一朵云》比你以前的电影都要有趣，所以老外看到吃饭时大闸蟹爬出来，陈湘琪吓得乱跳这样的镜头就不停大笑。
蔡明亮(以下简称蔡)：是吗？其实整个电影都有象征性，或者说超现实。在拍摄时，我要求演员不讲话，当然我以前的电影演员也不太讲话，但以前不讲话是因为当时的状况决定的，比如角色独处的时候，这部电影里是两个人谈恋爱，但也不讲话，就必须靠肢体来对话。
记：这样的肢体对话，演员在表演的时候是否感觉到困难？
蔡：华语片演员在这方面都会有忌讳，好在我选用的演员在这方面基本没有太大问题。反而是我自己在刚开拍的时候很困惑，我还可以要求他们怎样表演？拍摄过 程中，我们每天都在讨论表达方式，但从来不讨论限度，因为演员都知道我对表演的要求是没有禁忌的。比如陆奕静，以前总演李康生妈妈的那个女演员，第一天是 拍她的镜头，她戴个假发套裹条毛巾，走到我面前说：“好了”。然后就开始演，怎么要求怎么演。到最后一场戏，她演完后几天不说话，我知道她在怀疑自己到底 在做什么。后来我就跟她聊天，她才慢慢释怀，明白了作为一个演员，角色干什么都是正常的。
关于演技
演到最后有人成了机器
记：你和李康生合作差不多有13年了吧，还会继续合作下去吗？
蔡：会，我希望每部电影都有他，这个也是我幸运的地方。有朋友问我，你拍了这部电影，下部怎么办？我从来不想这个问题，下部是否要更激烈，影展才会要 我，或者市场才会要我。我拍到今天这个状态，不是为了市场，市场是第二，第一是创作。不是我不关心市场，而是它有自身的秩序，摆在第二位，你拍完一个作 品，它是什么状态，你再为它安排市场。到现在为止，我从来不为一个理由去拍电影，有机会就拍，也没有用力去抓住什么，所以我可以长期和一批人合作，我觉得 如果有一部不合作，是个浪费。你看李康生，从我在街边看到他，不知不觉已经13年了，他自己也当了导演，他不是科班出身，所以没有任何限制，到银幕上就特 别真实，这个真实他从来没有丢掉过，而有的人演戏，到然后就变成一个机器。
记：我记得你说过，对演技这东西存有质疑？
蔡：我对任何东西都存有质疑，当它变成一个固定的模式时就很荒谬。比如每年金马奖或奥斯卡， 都要选最佳演员，但从来不会选到我的演员，因为评委看不到他们的表演。我们对表演的固定看法，不能给电影带来正面影响，因为僵化的成分太多了。在表演这个 领域，空间无限可能。我从来不要求我的演员去飚演技，比如陈湘琪，是科班出生，她到我这边，就知道不能抖包袱了，因为没有包袱，这样就变得有很多可能性， 我也就每次都有新鲜感。
关于李康生
相遇，他有点像我父亲
记：你发现李康生的过程是个偶然？
蔡：对，1991年我拍单元剧《小孩》的时候，习惯去街上找人客串角色。在开拍前一个礼拜，我遇到李康生。他的样子很吸引我，跟他讲话很有趣，他反应很 慢，不是慢，是思考比较久才回答，这是他的个性。比如你问他要不要来演戏？他不回答你，只是盯着你看很久，然后找支笔写下电话号码给我，我们就这样开始合 作了。
记：合作以后是否证明你的决定是正确的？
蔡：开拍第三天我有点后悔，他演一个勒索小学生的高 中生，我也是戏剧学院出来的，对表演有点自负，就要求他要这样演，那样演。但李康生属于教不出来的，他老是慢三拍，我觉得很奇怪，连转个头也不对劲，我就 一直数落他，后来他回我一句话，我很震撼，他说：“我平常就是这样子的。”我完全被这句话打倒了，我原本对演员的看法太自私，你到街上去看，哪有人一定很 快反应，每个人都有自己的节奏，他改变了我对表演的理解。布烈松说过，演员是模特，导演赋予他什么意义，他就有什么意义。
记：后来你们就一直在一起，还合作导演了《不见不散》。
蔡：我们的关系很特别，李康生像我的父亲，很内敛，很沉默，又有点固执，连抽烟的姿态都像我父亲。从这个层面讲，我的创作是很个人的，你总是选择你身边 熟悉的东西来处理，可是你熟悉但不一定了解。上世纪五六十年代的孩子对父亲的感觉和现在的孩子不一样，比较疏远。那个年代生活很苦，父亲像带着面具在生 活，后来你会发现你很爱他，但不是那么了解他。对李康生我觉得有点像移情，总是想了解他，但真的很了解吗？不了解。只是因为工作，就一直一起成长，一起经 历生活，他的父亲过世啊，他生一个什么病啊，都成为我影片的素材，但这个素材又投注了我对感情的理解，越拍越有意思。我真的希望能拍到不能拍为止。
记：许多大导演比如特吕弗都有自己固定的演员班底。
蔡：对，我喜欢的创作性导演都是和一批演员合作，我更固执，有时甚至觉得被我的演员局限住了。
记：你喜欢在电影中，集合他们所有人，比如这次的杨贵媚？
蔡：是的，原本我为她设计了很重要的角色，但她不敢演，因为她也演电视剧什么的，路线比较宽，她怕接这个角色会绑住我的手脚，限制我表达。我说那怎么办，我希望你出现，她说我唱一首歌好了。
关于爱情
相信爱情，但爱情在哪里
记：刚刚说到父亲，你的电影里一直在讨论父子关系，生活中你跟父亲的关系怎样？
蔡：我跟父亲的关系很好，但很疏远。也因为疏远，才看清彼此的关系。或者我对人都有一种这样态度，直到我认识李康生，才跟人比较靠近。这可能我从小生长 的环境吧，交给外祖父带，父亲常常来，但他成为一种权威的象征，后来长大，也有和他生活，但已经有隔阂。到他年纪大的时候，我发现这个父亲其实很脆弱，会 掉眼泪，个性很像我，因为生活的关系，他掩饰了很多该有的部分。我后来觉得很爱他，但没有学会表达。
记：你的口才非常好，但为什么总在影片中吝啬语言呢？
蔡：我不太相信语言。电影在反映日常生活的时候，一定要用语言表达你才能理解吗？活生生的画面在你前面，怎么就不能打动你呢？我经常想，默片时代的人怎么那么聪明。
记：你对老的东西似乎特别有兴趣，比如《天边一多云》里的老歌，还有《不见不散》里的老电影。
蔡：那个时代比较不功利，即便是很通俗的东西，你也看得到作者背后的情感。而现在计算的非常厉害，那个计算当然是商业所致。可是生活到底要多少娱乐才 够？你最自在的状态可能是打开窗看到天上的一朵云，或者聆听丛林中的鸟叫……但我们好象都失去了这种能力，所以要用别的方法来代替，生怕没有被娱乐。
记：你因此甚至怀疑爱情？
蔡：我不是怀疑爱情，我只能说到了我这个年龄，突然发现爱情不是全部了，但爱情这个过程也很珍贵。我一直相信爱情，可是爱情在哪里呢？特别在现在这个时 代，爱情更困难。以前的爱情可能是男女相亲，先生活在一起，然后慢慢培养感情，那个时候也有给你培养感情的机会，因为没有太多诱惑。但现在，生活太丰富 了，反而会失去一些珍贵的东西。
2008年1月16日星期三
2007年12月18日星期二
2007年12月9日星期日
2007年12月7日星期五
2007年11月14日星期三
2007年11月8日星期四
2007年10月2日星期二
Varèse/ Xénakis/Le Corbusier - poeme électronique (1958)
Edgard Varèse
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse (December 22, 1883 – November 6, 1965) was an innovative French-born composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States. The record label Varèse Sarabande Records is named after the composer.
Varèse's music features an emphasis on timbre and rhythm. He was the inventor of the term "organized sound", a phrase meaning that certain timbres and rhythms can be grouped together, sublimating into a whole new definition of sound. His use of new instruments and electronic resources led to his being known as the "Father of Electronic Music" while Henry Miller described him as "The stratospheric Colossus of Sound". He is also known for having re-introduced the 'Idee-fixe', a term first introduced by the French composer Hector Berlioz.
Early life
Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse was born in Paris, but after only a few weeks was sent to be raised by his great-uncle's family in the small town of Villars in Burgundy. There he developed an intense attachment to his maternal grandfather, Claude Cortot. Through his mother's family he was related to the pianist Alfred Cortot. His affection for his grandfather outshone anything he would ever feel for his own parents. In fact, from his earliest years Varèse's relationship with his father Henri was extremely antagonistic, developing into what could fairly be called a firm and life-long hatred. Reclaimed by his parents in the late 1880's, in 1893 young Edgard was forced to relocate with them to Turin, Italy. It was here that he had his first real musical lessons, with the long-time director of Turin's conservatory, Giovanni Bolzoni. Never comfortable with Italy, and given his oppressive home-life, a physical altercation with his father forced the situation and Varèse left home for Paris in 1903.
From 1904 he was a student at the Schola Cantorum (founded by pupils of César Franck), where his teachers included Albert Roussel; afterwards he went to study composition with Charles Widor at the Paris Conservatoire. From this period he composed a number of ambitious orchestral works, but these were only performed by Varèse in piano transcriptions, such as his Rhapsodie romane of about 1905, inspired by the Romanesque architecture of the cathedral of St. Philibert in Tournus. He moved to Berlin in 1907 and in the same year married the actress Suzanne Bing. They had one child, a daughter. They divorced in 1913.
During these years, Varèse became acquainted with Satie, Richard Strauss, Debussy and Busoni, the last two being particular influences on him at the time. He also gained the friendship and support of Romain Rolland and Hugo von Hofmannsthal, whose Oedipus und die Sphinx he began setting as an opera that was never completed. The first performance of his symphonic poem Bourgogne in Berlin in 1910, the only one of his early orchestral works to be properly performed, caused a scandal. After being invalided out of the French Army during World War I, he moved to the United States in 1915. In 1917 Varèse made his debut in America conducting the Grand Messe des Morts by Berlioz.
Early years in the United States
He spent the first few years in the United States meeting important contributors to American music, promoting his vision of new electronic art music instruments, conducting orchestras, and founding the New Symphony Orchestra, which was short-lived.
It was also about this time that Varèse began work on his first composition in the United States, Amériques, which was finished in 1921 but would remain unperformed until 1926. Virtually all the works he had written in Europe were either lost or destroyed in a Berlin warehouse fire, so in the USA he was starting again from scratch. The only surviving work from his early period appears to be the song Un grand sommeil noir, a setting of Verlaine. (He still retained Bourgogne, but destroyed the score in a fit of depression many years later.) It was at the completion of this work that Varèse, along with Carlos Salzedo, founded the International Composers' Guild, dedicated to the performances of new compositions of both American and European composers. The ICG's manifesto in July 1921 included the statement that
- "The present day composers refuse to die. They have realised the necessity of banding together and fighting for the right of each individual to secure a fair and free presentation of his work." [1]
In 1922, Varèse visited Berlin where he founded a similar German organisation with Busoni.
Varèse composed many of his pieces for orchestral instruments and voices for performance under the auspices of the ICG during its 6 year existence. Specifically, during the first half of the 1920s, he composed Offrandes, Hyperprism, Octandre, and Intégrales.
He took American citizenship in October 1927. [2]
Life in Paris
In 1928, Varèse returned to Paris to alter one of the parts in Amériques to include the recently constructed Ondes Martenot. Around 1930, he composed his most famous non-electronic piece entitled Ionisation, the first to feature solely percussion instruments. Although it was composed with pre-existing instruments, Ionisation was an exploration of new sounds and methods to create them.
In 1933, while Varèse was still in Paris, he wrote to the Guggenheim Foundation and Bell Laboratories in an attempt to receive a grant to develop an electronic music studio. His next composition, Ecuatorial, completed in 1934, contained parts for fingerboard theremin cellos, and Varèse, anticipating the successful receipt of one of his grants, eagerly returned to the United States to finally realize his electronic music.
Back in the United States
Varèse wrote his Ecuatorial for two fingerboard Theremins, bass singer, winds and percussion in the early 1930s. It was premiered on April 15, 1934, under the baton of Nicolas Slonimsky. Then Varèse left New York City, where he had lived since 1915, and moved to Santa Fe, San Francisco and Los Angeles. In 1936 he wrote Density 21.5. By the time Varèse returned in late 1938, Leon Theremin had returned to Russia. This devastated Varèse, who had hoped to work with Theremin on a refinement of his instrument. Varèse had also promoted the theremin in his Western travels, and demonstrated one at a lecture at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque on November 12, 1936. The University of New Mexico has an RCA theremin, which may be the same instrument.
When, in the late 1950s, Varèse was approached by a publisher about making Ecuatorial available, there were very few theremins—let alone fingerboard theremins—to be found, so he rewrote/relabelled the part for Ondes Martenot. This new version was premiered in 1961.
Louise Varèse, American-born wife of the composer, was a celebrated translator of French poetry whose versions of the work of Arthur Rimbaud for James Laughlin's New Directions imprint were particularly influential.
The Unfinished Projects
From the late 1920s to the end of the 1930s Varèse's principal creative energies went into two ambitious projects which were never realized, and much of whose material was destroyed, though some elements from them seem to have gone into smaller works. One was a large-scale stage work called different things at different times, but principally The One-All-Alone or Astronomer (L’Astronome). This was originally to be based on North American Indian legends; later it became a futuristic drama of world catastrophe and instantaneous communication with the star Sirius. This second form, on which Varèse worked in Paris in 1928-32, had a libretto by Alejo Carpentier, Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes and Robert Desnos. According to Carpentier, a substantial amount of this work was written but Varèse abandoned it in favour of a new treatment in which he hoped to collaborate with Antonin Artaud. Artaud's libretto Il n’ya plus de firmament was written for Varèse's project and sent to him after he had returned to the USA but by this time Varèse had turned to a second huge project.
This second project was to be a choral symphony entitled Espace. In its original conception the text for the chorus was to be written by André Malraux. Later Varèse settled on a multi-lingual text of hieratic phrases to be sung by choirs situated in Paris, Moscow, Peking and New York, synchronized to create a global radiophonic event. Varèse sought input on the text from Henry Miller, who suggests in The Air-Conditioned Nightmare that this gradiose conception – also ultimately unrealized – eventually metamorphosed into Déserts. With both these huge projects Varèse felt ultimately frustrated by the lack of electronic instruments to realize his aural visions. Nevertheless he used some of the material from Espace in his short Étude pour Espace, virtually the only work that had appeared from his pen for over ten years when it was premiered in 1947.
International recognition
By the early 1950s, Varèse was in dialogue with a new generation of composers, such as Boulez and Dallapiccola. When he returned to France to finalize the tape sections of Déserts, Pierre Schaeffer helped arrange for suitable facilities. The first performance of the combined orchestral and tape sound composition came as part of an ORTF broadcast concert, between pieces by Mozart and Tchaikovsky and received a hostile reaction.
Le Corbusier was commissioned by Phillips to present a pavilion at the 1958 World Fair and insisted (against the sponsors' resistance) on working with Varèse, who developed his Poème électronique for the venue, where it was heard by an estimated two million people. Using 400 speakers separated throughout a series of rooms, Varèse created a sound and space installation geared towards experiencing sound as you move through space. Received with mixed reviews, this piece challenged audience expectations and traditional means of composing, breathing life into electronic synthesis and presentation.
In 1962 he was asked to join the Royal Swedish Academy, and in 1963 he received the premier Koussevitzky International Recording Award.
Early Musical Influences
Visitors to Varèse's childhood village of La Villars, deep in the Burgundian countryside, sometimes meet locals who remember him. If they call at the actual house they are shown up to Varèse's own bedroom. From the window they instantly gain an insight into the young Varèse's musical influences: the rural scene stretches to the horizon but immediately beneath the window is the railway line and just beyond that the busy waterway with its chugging cargo boats. In his formative years he was greatly impressed by Medieval and Renaissance Music (in his career he founded and conducted several choirs devoted to this repertoire) and the music of Scriabin, Satie, Debussy, Berlioz and Richard Strauss. There are also clear influences or reminiscences of Stravinsky's early works, specifically Petrushka and The Rite of Spring, on Arcana.[3] He claimed to have been inspired by the writings on music of Józef Maria Hoene-Wroński, and especially the Polish savant's statement that the object of music is 'the corporealization of the intelligence that is in sound'.[4] He was also impressed by the ideas of Busoni, who christened him L'illustro futuro.
Students and Influence
Students
Varèse's best known student is the Chinese-born composer Chou Wen-chung (b. 1923), who met Varèse in 1949 and assisted him in his later years. He became the executor of Varèse's estate following the composer's death and edited and completed a number of Varèse's works. He is professor emeritus of composition at Columbia University. Other pupils were Colin McPhee and André Jolivet.
Influence
Influence in Contemporary Classical Music
Composers who have claimed, or can be demonstrated to have been influenced by Varèse include Harrison Birtwistle, Pierre Boulez, John Cage, Morton Feldman, Roberto Gerhard, Luigi Nono, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Iannis Xenakis.
Influence in Pop Music
Varèse's emphasis on timbre, rhythm, and new technologies was an inspiration to a whole generation of musicians who came of age during the 1960's and 1970's. One of Varèse's biggest fans was the American guitarist and composer Frank Zappa, who, upon hearing a copy of The Complete Works of Edgard Varèse, Vol. 1, which included Intégrales, Density 21.5, Ionisation, and Octandre, became obsessed with the composer's music. On his 15th birthday, December 21, 1955, Zappa's mother, Rosemarie, allowed him a call to Varèse as a present. At the time Varèse was in Brussels, Belgium, so Zappa spoke to Varèse's wife Louise instead. Eventually Zappa and Varèse spoke on the phone, and they discussed the possibility of meeting each other, although this meeting never took place. Zappa also received a letter from Varèse. Varèse's spirit of experimentation and redefining the bounds of what was possible in music lived on in Zappa's long and prolific career[5].
The early music of Pink Floyd shows Varèse's influence, especially the title track from A Saucerful of Secrets, Ummagumma (disc 2, studio album), and Atom Heart Mother. [citation needed] Another admirer was the rock/jazz group Chicago, whose Pianist/keyboardist Robert Lamm credited Varèse with inspiring him to write many number one hits. In tribute, one of Lamm's songs was called "A Hit By Varèse".
Idée Fixe
Some of Edgard Varèse's later works make use of the 'Idée Fixe', a fixed theme, repeated certain times in a work. The 'Idée Fixe' is generally not transposed, differencing it from the leitmotiv, used by Richard Wagner.
Works
- Un grand sommeil noir, song to a text by Paul Verlaine for voice and piano (1906)
- Amériques for large orchestra (1918-21; revised 1927)
- Offrandes for soprano and chamber orchestra (poems by Vicente Huidobro and José Juan Tablada)(1921)
- Hyperprism for wind and percussion(1922-23)
- Octandre for seven wind instruments and double bass (1923)
- Intégrales for wind and percussion (1924-25)
- Arcana for large orchestra (1925-27)
- Ionisation for 13 percussion players (1929-31)
- Ecuatorial for bass voice (or unison male chorus), wind, organ, percussion and theremins (text by Francisco Ximénez) (1932-34)
- Density 21.5 for solo flute (1936)
- Tuning Up for orchestra (sketched 1946; completed by Chou Wen-Chung, 1996)
- Étude pour Espace for chorus, 2 pianos and percussion (1947)
- Dance for Burgess for chamber ensemble (1949)
- Déserts for wind, percussion and electronic tape (1950-54)
- Poème électronique for electronic tape (1957-58)
- Nocturnal for soprano, male chorus and orchestra, text adapted from The House of Incest by Anaïs Nin (1961)
Listening
- Art of the States: Edgard Varèse Nocturnal (1961/1968)
- Density 21.5: John McMurtery, flute
References
- ^ Ouellette, p66
- ^ Ouellette, p95
- ^ Malcolm MacDonald, Varèse, Astronomer in Sound (London, 2003), pp. 200-205.
- ^ MacDonald, pp.52-53.
- ^ Russo, Greg. Cosmik Debris: The Collected History and Improvisations of Frank Zappa. New York: Antique Trader Publications, Crossfire Publications, Chris Sansom, 1998, pp. 9-11
- Bernard, Jonathan W. (1987). The Music of Edgard Varèse. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0300035152.
- Ouellette, Fernand (1973). Edgard Varèse. Calder and Boyars. ISBN 074502081.
External links
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
- Edgard Varèse at All Music Guide
- BBC.co.uk: Music Profiles: Edgard Varèse
- Edgard Varèse - Father of Electronic Music
- Edgard Varese: The Idol of My Youth by Frank Zappa
- Thereminvox.com
- Theremin.info: Edgard Varèse
- OHM- The Early Gurus of Electronic Music: Varese
- SoNHoRS : Edgard Varèse
- Edgard Varèse Bust, a sculptural tribute to the composer
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