周黎明：革命历史题材获青睐

One person was widely perceived to be responsible for fusing the musical styles of traditional Peking Opera and Western orchestral music. Yu Huiyong, a musical prodigy, created the new, richer and mellower sound for the model operas. But he was not one of those suffering artists plucked by Jiang. He was a political climber who curried her favor and later gained the position of culture minister. During the post-revolution investigation, he killed himself, but his contribution to the model operas was never in question.
大家普遍认为有一个人负责融合了传统京剧的音乐风格和西方的管弦乐风格。他就是于会泳，一个音乐天才，创造了样板戏新的、更加丰富和圆润的音乐风格。但他不在那些备受江青折磨的艺术家之列。他是一个逢迎江青喜好的政治新秀，后来还得到了文化部部长的职位。在文化大革命结束后的审查中，他自杀身亡，但他对样板剧的贡献将永不会被质疑。

I grew up with these works, so I can sense why people are so attached to them. For most of them, music heard during a certain phase of life would leave an indelible imprint, even bad music. The model operas are stridently ideological. The bad guy would not smile but grimace and the hero did not walk as much as strike heroic poses all the way. Modern audiences can enjoy them as red kitsch as every character seems to be a caricature of him or herself.
我从小是看着这些作品长大的，所以我明白人们为什么对样板戏如此情有独钟。对大多人来说，在人生的某个阶段所听到的音乐会在内心留下不可磨灭的印记，即使是糟糕的音乐。样板戏具有强烈的意识形态色彩。坏人不会微笑只会扮鬼脸，英雄不会一直保持罢工时的英勇姿势走路。现代观众可以把它们当做俗气的红色作品来看，因为每一个角色的表演看起来都像是对角色本身夸张滑稽的演绎。

Artistically, the stories follow the rules of melodrama, with clashes between good and evil as defined by the establishment of the era. They are very easy to digest. There are occasional glimpses, such as the famous trio in Shajiabang with three characters scheming against one another, into the sophistication that went into the making of these works. Yes, much of the top talent of the country worked on them, but they were not given anything resembling a free rein. I believe art should be free, so art created in bondage, to me, does not represent the best from these artists.
从艺术角度来说，样板戏总体上是遵守通俗剧的套路，正邪分明，便于大众理解。但某些细节的处理有文人戏的高级和精致，比如《沙家浜》里著名的“智斗”三重唱。是的，这个国家许多顶尖人才都在作品的制作上发挥了才能，但是他们却并不允许自由发挥。我认为艺术应该是自由的，因此对我而言，在束缚下创造出来的艺术代表不了这些艺术家的最好水平。

I don't think people with fond memories of the operas are the same ones who want to revive or relive the revolution. The former are those in their 60s and 70s who failed to find resonance with later music, and the latter are mostly youngsters who were born after the revolution and want to vent their frustration over what they see today. The model operas are part of China's cultural legacy, an aberration that deserves to be studied rather than blindly idolized.
我不认为那些对样板剧有美好依恋的人等同于那些想恢复或重温文化大革命的人。前者是那些在60或70多岁时发现自己无法从后来的音乐中找到共鸣的人，而后者大多数是出生在文化大革命后的年轻人，他们想发泄自己对今天所看到的一些现象的不满。样板戏属于中国文化遗产的一部分，作为一种特殊时代的产物，它值得被研究而不是被盲目崇拜。

What Hong Kong filmmaker Tsui Hark did was a third way out. He took the story of Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy, one of the more popular of the eight, or more accurately, adapted the novel the opera was based on, and made it into a Hollywood-style action movie. The parallels between the so-called genre film and the model opera are evident: Both portray characters in black and white, but the movie is more palatable to modern sensibilities mainly because the main character, Yang Zirong, is now a lone hero with incredible smarts and devil-may-care chutzpah.
香港导演徐克所采用的是第三种方法。他改编了“八个样板戏”中比较受欢迎的一个剧《智取威虎山》，或者更准确地说，他改编了这个戏的原著小说，把它制作成了好莱坞风格的动作片。这个所谓的类型片和样板戏的相似之处很明显：都是通过非黑即白的方式刻画人物，但这个电影更迎合现代人的口味，主要是因为主角杨子荣，现在是一个有着无比聪明的头脑和不顾一切的勇气的孤胆英雄。

Some detractors of the movie say the historical character who became the villain in the opera, and now in the feature version, was actually not that bad. He fought Japanese invaders and was not that reckless with innocent lives. For me, these criticisms are irrelevant. This is not a documentary and a fictional film is not supposed to uncover truth beneath layers of urban myth. Tsui has to make the guy morally reprehensible to justify the raid on him. The bandit chief is still cartoonish, but in a more delicious way than in the opera.
电影的一些评论者说，昔日在样板戏中成为不折不扣恶棍的历史人物，现在在这部故事片中变得实际上没有那么坏。他抗击日本侵略者，对无辜百姓的性命也并不是那么的毫不在乎。对我来说，这些评论是无关紧要的。这不是一部纪录片而是一部虚构性的电影，作为后者没有必要去揭露传说中的事实。徐必须塑造出一个十分不道德的家伙这样才能证明对他发动袭击的正义性。虽然电影对强盗首领的刻画依然显得非黑即白，但是这要比样板剧中的刻画吸引人多了。

In a sense, Tsui has substituted the old way with the Hollywood method, taking what's useful from the story and enhancing narrative elements that appeal to the young generation. He is not the first Chinese filmmaker to come up with this strategy. But with his success, there will be more efforts to mine the old field of ideological stories for the purpose of pure entertainment.
从某种意义上说，徐用好莱坞的方式代替了旧有的手法，并选取故事中有用的东西加以发挥，还改进了吸引年轻一代观众的叙事元素。他并不是第一个采用这种技巧的中国导演。但是随着他的成功，会有更多的人为了纯粹的娱乐目的来挖掘这些旧有的意识形态故事。

（作者：周黎明 中国日报网英语点津 许晶晶 编辑）