愤怒的公牛

到底，我们都得遵从这个世界的规则，学会说客套话，做自己鄙夷的事。
有实力不是全部。
人的一个性格缺陷，就注定了他一生的命运。虽然明明知道，却无力改变。或者是像揭克那样，失去所有，穷困潦倒之后，才不得不改变自己。

马丁•斯科塞斯接受奥斯卡招安的那一刻，估计很多他的影迷的感受都是五味杂陈，当然有欣慰，但也难免有失落。奥斯卡也扎针入肉，但疼只是疼一下，而斯科塞斯会划一道口子；奥斯卡是救赎，而斯科塞斯是解剖。两回事。所以对待一部《愤怒的公牛》，奥斯卡可以表彰德尼罗的热，却拒绝了斯科塞斯的冷。

杰克•拉莫塔是1949年的世界中量级拳击冠军，他写了一部自传，剖析了自己的一生。德尼罗把它推荐给斯科塞斯，三个意大利裔的纽约人的灵魂产生了共鸣。当时的斯科塞斯麻烦缠身，吸毒，然后离婚，濒临破产，看到这本自传，像是找到了一个发泄的出口。

拉莫塔一路打上来，非常顺利，拳拳到肉的镜头在斯科塞斯的快速剪辑下极具张力，没办法，为了不让观众过于关注暴力，只好把全片的色彩调成了黑白。拉莫塔是个相信用拳头说话的人，所以当他抱怨自己的手小的像个娘们、打不上重量级时，那伤感可是发自肺腑的。

就算是他犯了错，为了前途和黑社会妥协打了一场假拳，但休息室中的抱头痛哭还是让我们原谅了他。什么是好人，犯了错，改正了，才是好人。成功需要代价，当拉莫塔挎上世界拳王的金腰带，走到角落向失败者表示安慰，一瞬间简直让人以为是在看励志片。

拳坛不是久留之地，拉莫塔的离开印证了海明威的名言：可以被毁灭，但不能被打倒。他挺在拳击台边鼻口蹿血，不肯倒下，嘴里还骂骂咧咧，真是老美的一贯作风。但好在他还是坦然接受了，越混越差也无所谓，先是自己开夜总会，再是给人打工做脱口秀小丑，没看他怎么失落。

1980年离现在不远，就算电影说的是1940年代的事，再即便从“非女权主义”的角度讲，一个处在“事业上升期”的大老爷们打老婆也非常说不过去。就算维琪和他人的亲嘴有点小暧昧，但拉莫塔的干醋吃得还是相当让人摇头。

如果不一棍子打成小心眼的话，那么拉莫塔肯定就是在撒臆症。他越是专情于维琪越是疑神疑鬼，越是执着于拳击越是患得患失，越是纵情于声色越是内心空虚。拉莫塔在争名逐利的压力中迷失了自己，打老婆只是外在的表现之一。

没有回头路，只能往前扛，也许这就是生命的不圆满。这样的人，我们同情却无法同情得彻底，憎恨也无法憎恨得彻底。那种电影中见惯了的是非分明的英雄和恶棍，在这里全都不见，混合成一个拉莫塔，也成为一个真实的人。

人无完人，每一个角色都会犯错，不犯错的人不可信。就像拉莫塔蹲了局子，以头撞墙，简直是自虐狂，但其实那不是忏悔，而是要让自己明白，我不是一个混蛋。所以再怎么灰，这个电影还是有正面的指向。每一个有梦想的人，背面就会有欲望；每一个努力过的人，背后就是挣扎。“人是否有罪，我不知道，我只知道，我曾经是一个瞎子，我现在能看见了。”

        拳击的暴力、野蛮被揭露得淋漓尽致并富有诗意。拳坛不是久留之地，拉莫塔的离开印证了海明威的名言：可以被毁灭，但不能被打倒。
        拉莫塔越是专情于维琪越是疑神疑鬼，越是执着于拳击越是患得患失，越是纵情于声色越是内心空虚。拉莫塔在争名逐利的压力中迷失了自己，打老婆只是外在的表现之一。
        没有回头路，只能往前扛，也许这就是生命的不圆满。
        每一个有梦想的人，背面就会有欲望；每一个努力过的人，背后就是挣扎。人是否有罪，我不知道，我只知道，我曾经是一个瞎子，我现在能看见了。

摘自《Scorsese on Scorsese》一书中，Scorsese对这部电影的回顾。
Scorsese began working on a new script with Jay Cocks entitled Night Life, about a fraternal rivalry. But by the end of 1978 his marriage had broken up, he was in poor health and in a severe state depression. It was at this jucture that Raging Bull, the life story of former boxing champion Jake La Motta, offered a way out of his crime and personal impasse. It became, as Scorsese later acknowledged, a means of redemption.

When I was doing Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, De Niro gave me the book Raging Bull.... In this book, they tried to give a reason for everything Jake did in his life, for his guilt and for his violence. It was very bad,

Right after New York, New York, during those two-and-a-half years from 1976 yo 1978, I went through a lot of problems. The film was not successful, and I was very depressed. I finally came out of it when I was in hospital on Labor Day weekend 1978, and De Niro came to visit me and he said, 'You know, we can make this picture.' There were three or four scripts which had been written in the meantime, and they had all been rejected. I didn't like any of them and didn't pay much attention, because I was in pretty bad shape. And Bob said, 'Listen, we could really do a great job on this film. Do you want to make it?' I found myself saying, 'Yeah.' I understood then what Jake was, but only after having gone through a similar experience. I was just lucky that there happened to be a project there ready for me to express this. The decision to make the film was made then.

I was fascinated by the self-destructive side of Jake La Motta's character, his very basic emotions. What could be more basic than making a living by hitting another person on the head until one of you falls or stops?

I put everything I knew and felt into that film and I thought it would be the end of my career. It was what I call kamikaze way of making movies: Pour everything in, then forget all about it and go find another way of life.

…So on this island Bob and I were looking at each other, and he said that On the Waterfront was our iconography, not Shakespeare, so why don’t we use it?

I pointed out that this would mean De Niro playing Jake La Motta playing Marlon Brando Playing Terry Malone! The only way to do it was to make it so cold that you concentrate on the words and you feel him finally coming to some sort of peace with himself in front of that mirror. And that’s the way we did it, in nineteen takes. Sometimes Jake himself would really act it out in a very strong way which was quite heartbreaking, and Bobby did it that way three times. It was the last day of shooting, and I think used take 13 in the end. One reviewer in America wrote that it’s the most violent scene in the film. When he says in the mirror, ‘It was you, Charlie,’ is he playing his brother, or putting the blame on himself? It’s certainly very disturbing for me.

Bob got to know Jake well and he worked with him a great deal just to be with him. I think he actually took care of Jake. When we shot the boxing scenes we had Jake there for ten weeks. After they completed, Bob looked at him and Jake said, ‘Yeah, I know, goodbye.’ Bob said, ‘That’s right.’ The dramatic scenes bear little attention to what actually happened.

I always find the antagonist more interesting than the protagonist in the drama, the villain more interesting than the good guy. Then there’s what I guess is a decidedly Christian point of view: ‘Who are we to judge, to point out the speck in our brother’s eye, while we have a beam in our own eye?’ Jake La Motta acted much tougher in real life than he appeared in the film. The script originally showed much worse things about him, but I found it impossible to show them – you could over twenty years, but in the space of two hours there is a risk of forcing them out of context. Nevertheless, I find these characters fascinating. Obviously, I find elements of myself in them and I hope people in the audience do too, and can maybe learn from them and find some sort of peace.

… I was never a fight fan. I saw two fights at Madison Square Gardens for research and the first image I drew was the bloody sponge. Then the second time I went, I was in the fifth row from the front, and I saw the blood coming off the rope. As the next bout was announced, no one took any notice of it.

I felt that Jake used everybody to punish himself, especially in the ring. When he fights ‘Sugar’ Ray Robinson, why does he really take that beating for fifteen rounds? Jake himself said that he was playing possum. Well, that may be Jake in reality, but Jake on the screen is something else. He takes the punishment for what he feels he’s done wrong. And then he’s thrown in jail, he’s just faced with a wall, and so with the real enemy for the first time – himself. Jonathan Demme gave me a portrait of Jake made by a folk artist and around the edge of this piece of slate war carved, ‘Jake fought like he didn’t deserve to live.’ Exactly. I made a whole movie and this guy did it in one picture.

Bob is a very generous actor and he will be even stronger when the other guy’s in close-up. Often I steal lines from the speeches we film over his shoulder, because some of them are so good. And he really gets other actors to act to his scenes. For example, when Jake asks Joey, ‘Did you fuck my wife?’ I had written a seven-page scene, the only full-length dialogue scene in the film. When he asks the question, you see Joey asking him back, ‘What, how could you say that?’ I told Bob I wasn’t getting enough reaction from Joe Pesci. He told me to roll the camera again, and then said, ‘Did you fuck your mother?’ When you see the film again, look at Joe’s reaction! I like that kind of help. You have to throw your ego out of the door: you can’t take it into the rehearsal room and you can’t take it on the set.

…De Niro’s not really a student of any particular method of acting.

        “我不想变成环境的产物，我想要环境成为我的产物。”

        在我最初喜欢上看电影的年代，我记得《无间道风云》是对我影响至深的一部电影，我被电影里刻画出的两个卧底在痛苦和绝望中挣扎，却无力挣脱命运的咏叹调深深吸引了，这句开场白，对斯科塞斯电影的人物命运似乎也具有某种概括性，在他最重要的那些作品中，主角和环境的相互作用往往是影片较深层次的内容，在这些角色的身上，通常具有浓烈的反抗精神而不断被环境所围困。从影片叙述的故事出发作延伸，便可使观众对导演的世界观作一些有根据的推断了。

        这里所讲的“环境”，包括历史和社会的方方面面。比如爱尔兰移民黑帮的美利坚沉浮往事可以一直从《纽约黑帮》讲到《无间道风云》；飞行大亨霍华德•休斯所处的年代，好莱坞一派纸醉金迷。《出租车司机》Travis Bickle则在一片颓废的现代大都市生活背景中，被孤独与无望吞没。当然最常见的一个要素还要数意大利裔社区(《穷街陋巷》《好家伙》)，同为意大利裔移民后代的斯科塞斯，在早年的生活中对这些环境因素保存着至今详尽而不失客观的记忆。

        《愤怒的公牛》里的故事便发生在这样一个社区里。杰克•拉莫塔是一位蛮牛一般的拳手，性格里满是偏执，具有不屈服的内在。在一个黑帮根系庞大的社会里，这样一名暴烈的拳手也不得不向帮会低头，打上一场令其伤心痛苦的放水赛。落寞英雄有一天也会落到上酒馆讲几个粗俗的笑话还没人捧场的境地。本片基于拉莫塔的自传，却没有花很多的笔墨来描写角色在职业上的成长，也不像同时期科波拉的影片那样具有明显的心理主义，而是把他放入一个详细的背景中，让他“随着历史车轮滚动”。斯科塞斯在谈到关于影片主题的时候说：“我认为这里的杰克是个曾经辉煌，但自作自受落得如今潦倒下场的人，但这时的他反而得到了心灵的平静。而最终他对着镜中的自己自言自语，告诉自己要轻松面对人生和生命中的其他人。这就是我们拍摄本片的目的。”杰克•拉莫塔的悲剧在于试图以一己之蛮力打通自己的人生而最终头破血流，当他的力量因为与环境愈发脱离而变得具有破坏性时，自我毁灭便不可避免。影片末尾，拉莫塔对着镜子感怀了一下人生，这时候他内在的不屈服已经带有深深的无力感，也许这种平静是个稍许令人宽慰的精神状态——但仍然令我唏嘘不已。

        在拉莫塔个人生活的呈现方式上，斯科塞斯一如既往地现实主义；大部分镜头采用深焦摄影，来自平常的视角并持续相对较长的时间，以一种充满纪实性的方式剪辑。按照巴赞的理论，这种较少人为控制的方式能够为观众保留更多现实复杂性；而在拳击场景中，则更多地偏向具有强烈表现风格的技巧，以尽可能有效地向观众传递关键信息。在70年代以前，大部分拳击赛的镜头来自观众席视角，而斯科塞斯决定要让这些场景更真实化——或者说更具表现力——这里并不矛盾——而让摄影机贴近演员，并采用拳手的主观视角。两种拍摄风格的对比是本片的一大成就。举个例子，在与Janiro比赛之前，Jake的妻子评论Janiro“长得帅又受欢迎”搞得Jake大为光火，在这段表现生活琐碎的场景中，Jake的怒火在积蓄，并在随后的拳击赛中残暴地痛扁了Janiro，这个仅有1分钟的一片段充满对观众感受的剪辑操控：
(……这时拉莫塔已经把Janiro打爆并逼到场边围栏)
a, 略仰角度拍摄，La Motta继续猛击Janiro；
b, 升格镜头下La Motta的手套接触对手鼻子并停留、将其打歪；
c, 极短暂的切回La Motta凶残的表情；
d, 升格镜头，鲜血从Janiro脸上迸出；
e, Janiro主观视角，对手正甩开膀子，积蓄最强大的能量把左拳向自己抡来；
f, 重新回到a视角，Janiro踉跄着躲避对手蛮牛般的进攻，摄影机随之转为La Motta的PoV视角；
g, 再次给Janiro的PoV，对手又来一波；
h, 画面高光失焦，Janiro被这一拳打昏了头……
I, 而La Motta似乎余怒未消，j. 不过他的对手已经失去意识，摄影机随着他倒下的动作而一起转了个90度。
——一个破坏力极强与暴力失控的La Motta便这样通过两种风格的画面组合而呈现出来。

        “斯科塞斯善用美国流行摇滚音乐宝藏来为电影镜头下的世界与人物作批注的独到品味，算是其电影作品中众多的注册标记之一，在他的影片中出现的每一首歌曲都会跟着影像与情节作一次深刻的搭配演出”。即使是一个对斯科塞斯不甚了解的观众来说，《愤怒的公牛》一片开场和结束的《乡村骑士间奏曲》也能够为影片的情绪定下完美的基调：它提醒观众这不是一部励志片，德尼罗在升格镜头下，独自在拳击场热身，配合这段乐曲，颇有一种尘埃落定和往昔已逝的感慨。

        ——于是我们不禁想问：是什么造成了拉莫塔的自我毁灭？直接的原因是他对妻子和兄弟的不信任，这种不安全感促生了他对暴力的失控，所谓“恐惧导致攻击”。而更深层次的原因，我认为则是狭隘的家庭观念和人生见解。这一定与他所在的环境有所关联，或者缺乏文化见识，或者是是意大利裔社区积久成疾的黑帮势力所造成的性格扭曲，所以拉莫塔的悲剧，无疑也是一个社会的缩影。

        我无意强调斯科塞斯的电影里，环境因素/宿命元素是单调的主题。对作者电影单一式的论断往往面临落入窠臼的危险，但很明显地，这是斯科塞斯有别于同时期其他导演的一个显著特征，这也许就是人们称他为“电影社会学家”的原因之一吧。