I just discovered this quote from master filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock, talking about how the introduction of sound and dialogue had in many ways hurt cinema:
“The silent pictures were the purest form of cinema; the only thing they lacked was the sound of people talking and the noises. But this slight imperfection did not warrant the major changs that sound brought in. In Many of the films now being made, there is very little cinema. They are mostly what I call ‘photographs of people talking.’ When we tell a story in cinema, we should resort to dialogue only when it’s impossible to do otherwise. I always try first to tell a story in the cinematic way, through a succession of shots and bits of film in between… To me, one of the cardinal sins for a scriptwriter, when he runs into some difficulty, is to say ‘We can cover that by a line of dialogue.’ Dialogue should simply be a sound among sounds, just something that comes out of the mouths of people whose eyes tell the story in visual terms.”
译文:
希区柯克论音效的引入对电影艺术的破坏
我刚看到了这段引述自电影大师阿尔弗雷德·希区柯克在谈论音效和对白的引入从各方面破坏电影艺术本身时的原话：
“无声电影是电影最纯粹的形式，它唯一缺少的就是人物的谈话声以及噪音。但这些许缺失的存在并不足以说明引入声效所带来的巨大变革的正确性。在许多正在拍摄的影片中，电影艺术难觅其踪。它们中的大部分都只是我所谓的‘人们谈话的影像集。’当我们通过电影来讲述一个故事时，除非无法实现，否则我们应尽量不求助于对白的拍摄形式。我总是首先尝试以表现电影艺术的方式来讲述一个故事，通过一连串镜头或好几段胶片……对我来说，编剧的大错之一就是当他一遇到难题时就称‘我们可以通过一段对白来弥补。’对白应仅仅是许多音效中的一种，影片人物将其脱口而出，而这些人物则借助视觉影像，以自己的眼神来传达故事情节。”