科恩兄弟把 The Man Who Wasn"t There 拍成黑白片是出於什麼考慮？

12-24

（不是故意自問自答的……）
（就是前幾天的問題自己查資料解決了……）

簡單地說，科恩兄弟先寫了這個故事，然後覺得應該拍成黑白電影，正在猶豫用黑白攝影機還是拍成彩色再轉黑白的時候，製作公司要求他們拍一個彩色版本，所以就決定用彩色攝影機拍再轉黑白了，最後發行了兩種版本。

一、

關於為什麼要拍成黑白片，Joel 是這樣說的，

原因是多方面的，只可意會，不可言傳，反正這個故事看上去就適合拍成黑白片。這是發生在特定時代的電影，黑白片強調了那個時代的感覺，可以讓人回想起那個時代，這是彩色電影無法做到的。
黑白還是彩色主要取決於你的主題，現在什麼都用彩色來拍，如果你用了黑白，別人就會給你貼標籤，說這個很有藝術氣息，我覺得這樣不好。[1]

導演不願意細說自己的考慮，其他人卻是踴躍評論了拍成黑白片的好處。

攝影導演 Roger Deakins 在採訪中說，「我覺得黑白攝影更加純粹，它是真正體現了畫面內容和主題的……很多時候，色彩只是累贅，會分散人們的注意。」[2]

Roger Ebert 在影評中寫道，「黑白的形式如此優雅，使我們聯想到一台四十年代的旅行車——鉻合金、木材、羽毛和鋼鐵通通磨得鋥亮，呈現出一種飽滿的光澤。」[3]

二、

關於為什麼要用彩色攝影機拍再轉成黑白

首先，決定性的原因是製作公司要求增加彩色版本，作為 DVD 在部分海外市場發行，比如韓國和法國[4]。所以我能找到的唯一一段彩色版本的視頻，配的是韓文字幕。

但是在資方提出這個要求之前，科恩兄弟和攝影導演也一直在考慮要不要用彩色攝影機來拍。Ethan 的原話是「用彩色底片只是出於技術上的考慮，它比黑白底片更流暢，且質感更佳。」[5]

攝影導演 Roger Deakins 給出了更詳細的解釋，「我希望這部電影中有我們這個時代的影子，因而使用了更先進的技術。黑白底片四十年來無甚變化，而當今的彩色底片具有絕佳的質感，所以用彩色拍攝再轉成黑白是最好的選擇。」[6]

三、

關於這種拍攝方式對製作過程的影響，Joel 是這樣說的，「去弄清楚每個物體轉換成黑白之後的灰度，對我們來說是個很好的學習經歷，是個陌生卻好玩的過程。」[7]

1. 打光

好萊塢的黑白片傾向於用直射光，但攝影導演 Roger Deakins 在這裡模仿戈達爾用了較柔和的光線。用少而大的光源來降低對比度，同時用不同色調把各物體區分開來，減少柔化的使用，以避免出現硬陰影。畫面中的物體均被光線包裹，呈現出豐滿的維度。[8]

2. 布景

主要使用灰色和棕色，以表現時代背景，並且能保證在彩色和黑白形式下都有不錯的效果。此外色溫要和諧，避免彩色版本中出現突兀的顏色。[9]

3. 服裝

需要靈活運用不同質地和顏色的服裝來避免高對比度，防止畫面中可能出現的不和諧因素。在婚禮那段戲中，Doris 的衣服原稿是紅色，但是紅色轉成黑白之後效果不佳，所以最後選擇了粉色。[10]

4. 演員

任何一個細微的表情在黑白片下都會得到放大，譬如特寫鏡頭在陰影和景深的作用下會顯得格外有力，演員眨一下眼睛都會表達出深刻的含義。[11]

四、

大概……就是這樣？
想一想，好像基本把自己的問題解決了……

（悄咪咪高興一下（反正沒人看哼（一個落寞的窩）））

* * *

[1] The Man Who Wasn"t There _ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

This was a major departure for the Coens, but, as Joel explains, it came part and parcel with the material: "For a lot of intangible reasons that aren"t easy to explain, it seemed as if black and white was appropriate for this story. It"s a period movie, and black and white helps with the feeling for the period. Black and white is evocative in ways for a story like this that color photography isn"t. That it stands out these days as being unusual is unfortunate. I think it"s a shame that people don"t do more black and white movies. Or that it"s not a natural choice you can make depending upon the subject matter. Now almost everything is done in color. Black and white is a whole different kind of photography that nobody uses any more and when you do, there"s a chance you can get stigmatized for doing it. It"s seen as being "arty," and it becomes an issue.

[2] INTERVIEW: Shooting Coens; D.P. Roger Deakins and "The Ma

Well, you"re going from high-technology color to something very traditional, a black and white picture. I wouldn"t say it"s more simple, but I look at black and white photography as being more pure. It"s really about the content of the frame and subject matter. Often times, color is just a distraction.

[3] The Man Who Wasn"t There Movie Review (2001)

The Coen Brothers" ""The Man Who Wasn"t There"" is shot in black-and-white so elegantly, it reminds us of a 1940s station wagon -- chrome, wood, leather and steel all burnished to a contented glow.

[4] Coen Brothers - Virgin Film by Eddie Robson，p258

[5] The Coen Brothers interview about The Man Who Wasn"t There
這是 YouTube 視頻……掛代理有點麻煩……所以我整理了一份（大致的）文字版

Joel: The sort of central challenge of the movie is sort of somehow trying to make a movie about a character who"s that sort of unemotive and non-verbal and passive in a way, you know, he is a reactor, that central character, and still make him interesting and compelling and have him hold your attention over the course of a couple of hours. And then I think it"s like, it"s a very difficult acting challenge for Billy Bob. It"s something that you need an actor like him who"s interesting in his stillness when he playing more plain characters and he sort of has the confidence not to embellish that stillness when it is unnecessary.

//Ed 自我介紹那段

Joel: He centers the picture early on beyond Rain and Berb(?), and he sort of copy that hairstyle...

Ethan: Yeah, it"s something about the perfectly waved hair that really appeal to him.
Joel: The movie is shot by Roger Dekins that we worked with for ten years, you know, he"s probably one of the best guys doing that in the world though, so that"s part of what contributes to the sort of feeling that the movie is being well-crafted but it"s really, we can"t claim any credit for it.

//拍攝現場

Ethan: We shot in color-negative stock just for technical reasons because it"s faster and finer grain than black and white negative stuff.

Joel: Since the movie is intended to be seen in color, there"re probably really jerring things about, if you did see in color, for instance, period building but it is painted shoot in color bother to shade of gray in color, since everything is reduced to gray tone when you print out a black and white film conventionally if you go to a location there"s buildings that is painted like blue something that you will repaint if you"re shooting in color, in black and white we didn"t bother to because we knew the blue past which is reproduced in the shade of gray, but in color version I would like horribly out of place with the period so, um, other things like wardrobe choices, you know, you may have a character wearing a really loud, pink dress, something which looks totally wrong for the rest of sort of color skin or the rest what"s going on in terms of the color of the movie but again it reproduces it into a gray tone that"s perfectly appropriate in the black and white

Ethan: It"s actually something that we got together pretty quickly that"s all done in Los Angeles. It"s mostly stage set in a lot of movie, so actually pretty easy as the productions go.

//騙子出場那段

Ethan: No, it"s not about haircut but it"s something about, something that somehow relevant to the whole feeling of the things about the core of the things about the fact that that guy is a barber and that he, he has a kind of repetitive, something that one might feel alienated from what this character does and that it involves something very humanly tactlled handling hair. There"s something about that, that...

Joel: He"s sort of alienated from it, and sort of fascinated by and at the same time, I mean it"s, it"s um, you know...

Ethan: something that somehow promotes his perplexity, all those stuff is actually in retrospect, you know, and it sounds plausible and the French like it.

Joel: 誒嘿嘿嘿嘿嘿……

[6] The Man Who Wasn"t There _ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

I wanted The Man Who Wasn"t There to reflect the era in which we"re working, so I used the newer technology. Black and white film stock hasn"t changed in forty years. In today"s color negative stock, the grain is finer than it"s ever been, so you"re able to achieve a great deal of beauty shooting on color negative and printing in black and white."

[7] The Man Who Wasn"t There _ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

It was quite a learning experience for us, figuring out what the tonal values of things you are seeing in color were going to be like in black and white. It was an unfamiliar process for us that has proved fascinating.

[8] The Man Who Wasn"t There _ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

Most black and white films made in Hollywood over the years were lit with direct light, which resulted in a lot of hard shadows. In Europe, they handled black and white differently. Jean-Luc Godard used softer light in his black and white films, and that"s the approach I took here.

We aimed for less contrast and used few but larger light sources. What we mainly did is separate things tonally and use little diffusion so we didn"t create a lot of those hard shadows. The light kind of wraps around everything and gives figures and objects a certain fullness of dimension.

[9] Coen Brothers - Virgin Film by Eddie Robson，p258

[10] The Man Who Wasn"t There _ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

You want to use various textures and shades that don"t create a lot of high contrast, so that things don"t stand out as unusual. For example, there"s a particular dress I designed for Doris at the wedding reception that is based on a red dress. But I learned that red doesn"t photograph so well in black and white, so we used the design but made it in a softer, paler pink.

[11] The Man Who Wasn"t There _ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

You don"t think about black and white when you"re doing a scene. But the first time I went to dailies, I saw how dramatic black and white lighting can be. In a way, it creates an ambiance so that you can do less as an actor. For example, a close-up alone is so startling because of the shadows and the sense of depth. Even just the blink of an eye can have an enormous effect.

科恩兄弟最擅長的元素就是黑色幽默和黑色電影，
處女作就是黑幫片[米勒的十字路口]（片名也是源於1942年同名電影），
對於黑色電影是有情懷的。
因為故事背景發生在二十世紀四十年代，那時候正好是好萊塢黑幫片拍攝繁榮時期。
科恩兄弟在拍攝本部[缺席的人]時借鑒了不少四十年代好萊塢黑幫電影的手法，將影片畫面處理成黑色，不僅是形式上對於美國黑色電影的致敬，也更能表達本片的黑色意味。
黑白色調十分貼近主人公理髮師艾迪那沒有色彩、沒有激情的壓抑生活狀態。
這部[缺席的人]在我眼裡是科恩兄弟至今所有作品中的最優秀的一部了，感覺獲得奧斯卡後感覺招安了，越來越主旋律，不過還是比較期待明年的[凱撒萬歲]，傻瓜三部曲最終篇。

這部電影我08年看的，別的都記不清了，只記得當時推薦給我看的室友的一句話：談琴的女的前途不可限量