Next to re-appropriated images of commercial advertisements and abstracted signs, the comic panel plays a major role in Jean-Luc Godard’s construction of two-dimensional mise-en-scène. Whether it be an image of a diamond-eyed tiger in Pierrot le fou (1965), a comic panel of a woman standing up against a Rolls-Royce in Deaux ou trios choses que je sais d’elle (Two or Three 3 Things I Know About Her, 1967), or Batman and Captain America taking out their imperialist vengeance on the Vietnamese while Marxist-Leninists scrawl their edicts on the white-walls of an apartment à la word balloons in La Chinoise (1967), these citations evoke an image of Godard as an artist of eclectic taste. However, as with most of Godard’s citations, comic strip images are not simply fodder for aesthetic collage. There is an underlying tension in these citations that, like the work of his contemporary, American pop artist Roy Lichtenstein, is concerned with the role of art and visual signs more generally and their roles in contemporary society.
Moreover, Godard’s comic strip mise-en-scène is not a static aesthetic entity. Made in USA (1966) utilizes re-contextualised images of comic strips as a means of graphic punctuation and engages with a style of comic strip framing, while the citations of La Chinoise tend to serve as icons and symbols of imperialist ideology. Godard’s shift from comic strip citation to mimesis would become full blown by 1972, as Tout va bien, his collaboration with Jean-Pierre Gorin, will exemplify. With the objective of elaborating upon this shifting aesthetic, I would like to embark on a formal analysis of a sequence from each of these three films while drawing on the frameworks of pop art, post-modernism, and comic strip semiotics.
1. Made in USA
“[In reference to Michelangelo Antonioni's The Red Desert] I don’t think I know how to manufacture a film like that. Except that maybe I am beginning to be tempted to try something of the sort. Made in USA was the first sign of that temptation. That’s why it wasn’t understood, the audience watched it as if it were a representational film, whereas it was something else.” -Jean-Luc Godard (1)
While Pierrot le fou marks the beginnings of Godard’s engagement with the comic strip with its citations of The Nickel Footed Gang and Gerald Norton, and Alphaville, une étrange avenutre de Lemmy Caution (Alphaville, a Strange Adventure of Lemmy Caution, 1965) utilises the comic strip hero and the hardboiled detective as templates for Lemmy Caution, Made in USA marks the beginnings of what Godard described as an attempt to “pass across to the inside of the image” with the objective of complicating systems of visual representation. (2) For this formal analysis of Made in USA, I have chosen the sequence of Paula Nelson (Anna Karina) making her way down the street, only to be knocked out by an unseen assailant, and waking to engage in a dialogue with Richard Widmark (László Szabó). For the sake of clarity, frame re-productions with shot numbers and approximate times have been provided:
(Shot 1A and 1B, Paula walks out and is knocked unconscious, 34:33-34:57)
(Shot 2, “!…Bing” Insert, 34:57-34:58) (Shot 3, Paula Awakens, 34:58-35:58)
(Shot 4, Widmark, 35:58-36:13) (Shot 5, Widmark and Paula, 36:13-36:32)
(Shot 6, Paula, 36:32-36:57) (Shot 7, Widmark, 36:57-37:12)
(Shot 8, Pulp Art Insert, 37:12-37:17) (Shot 9, Paula and Widmark, 37:17-37:30)
(Shot 10, “?” Insert, 37:30-37:44) (Shot 11: Widmark, 37:44-37:56)
This sequence illustrates Godard’s quick shift of aesthetic modes. Shot 1, like the two shots of Paula in the garden preceding it, is held on screen for a relatively long duration (over twenty seconds) and features a panning movement that tracks Paula as she walks down the sidewalk and into an alley, where she is knocked unconscious. Godard’s camera movement here, and in the preceding shots, leans on the reality of the setting in its fidelity to space and time via the motion of the camera and the absence of a cut. In this sense, Godard’s fidelity to space and time would seem to be a perfect illustration of Andrè Bazin’s aesthetic model of putting faith in reality over the image. Godard however, as his theory of montage and mise-en-scène in his essay “Montage My Fine Care” establishes, refuses to plant his aesthetic flag in either camp, as “mise en scène automatically implies montage.” (3) Indeed, as the sequence progresses into shot 2, Godard inserts a one-second extreme close-up of an abstracted comic panel simply reading “!..Bing,” putting his faith in the image to complete his cinematic sentence.
The image, neither seen before this sequence nor will it be after, is accompanied by a loud thudding sound. The insert not only represents, like it would in its original context, a punctuation of the action but as an indication of Godard’s shift into the realm of the image. In shot 3, Paula awakens, asking herself where she has been taken. While the shot is temporally quite long (nearly one minute), the camera is static and its tight framing keeps the spectator from discovering her surroundings. Shot 3 marks the progression of the abstraction established in shot 2 as the subsequent shots are constructed by a static camera with the only movement coming from Paula and Widmark walking in and out of frame during a conversation.
The shot breakdown of shots 3 through 7 corresponds to the sequence of images a comic book artist would lay out a conversation between two characters.
(Figure 1: The Origin of The Spirit) (4)
Comic strips, while similar to film in their reliance on sequential images to relay a narrative, do not rely on the cinematic equivalent of shot/reverse shot or eye line matching to formally carry a conversation. This is mainly due to the comic strip, book, or graphic novel’s limitation of physical space: a layout depending on shot/reverse shots would simply take up too many panels, making for unwieldy reading. Take, for an example, the above opening page from Will Eisner’s The Spirit. Denny Colt walks into the office of police commissioner Dolan and engages in a conversation regarding the location of an escaped villain. Note, however, that Eisner never utilises a shot/reverse shot pattern to secure a continuity of space. In fact, he breaks the cinematic 180 degree rule in the transition from panel 3 to panel 4. Moreover, Eisner’s panels are composed towards the reader, frontally.
Godard, in this sequence, is not merely citing comic strip graphics in shots 2 and 10. Rather, the spatial construction of the dialogue between Paula and Widmark (shots 3-7, 9, and 11) is a form of mise-en-scène based on the spatial layout of a comic strip. If Godard were to freeze-frame the shots and place the dialogue over them, the result would be a cinematic equivalent to comic layout. The reliance on primary colours (red, white, and blue), the flatness of the compositions, and the absence of a shot/reverse shot pattern to preserve the conversation and the space the characters magnify this effect. The spatial incoherence of this sequence is magnified in the larger body of the film by the labyrinthine quality of its plot. Indeed, the plot of Made in USA is largely irrelevant. Instead, what Godard leaves the viewer to ponder is perhaps best illustrated in a later exchange between Paula and Widmark. Paula, trying to make sense out of the events that resulted in the murder of her former lover, proclaims, “I don’t get it. I don’t get it,” to which Widmark responds, “Mise-en-scène. Mise-en-scène. Oh, mise-en-scène.”
Of course, Godard’s turn from traditional narrative construction towards film form is not very surprising. Before 1967, Godard’s formal preoccupations often found themselves wrapped in the security blanket of a film genre, most often the French policier or film noir, and Made in USA is no exception. As James Roy MacBean observes in his review of the film, “Godard is well aware that the ordinary film-viewer’s habit of concentrating on the anecdotal structure of ‘plot’ often presents a formidable obstacle to his getting inside the film and understanding the subtle language of colour, composition, and light.” (5) Yet, as MacBean’s observation alludes, to note that Godard is less concerned with plot and storytelling in Made in USA is not simply to write the film off as a simple formal exercise. While the plot is nearly meaningless, the logic of the form is not and, as MacBean writes, the formal logic behind it is driven by an investigation of the communicative sign, another Godardian trope that would manifest itself perfectly in Two or Three Things I Know About Her.
Godard’s investigation of the sign in Made in USA is, as often is the case, distrustful of spoken language and, in the binary between audio and visual, often finds him putting his faith in the image. In Made in USA, Godard shows his distrust of language via numerous devices: the overwhelming of dialogue by a phone ringing or a jet flying over- by, the audible distortion of the film’s key piece evidence: a voice recording, and in a scene between Paula, a labourer, and a barman. Godard, however, does not only undercut the audible with the audible but with the visual as well. For instance, shot 10, the question mark insert of the above cited sequence, is held on screen for fifteen seconds as Paula and Widmark exchange questions regarding the death of her husband as a cinematic means of punctuation. Via its function, quite literally as a question mark, Godard attempts to provide a gateway to pass to the “inside of the image,” much like the American pop art of Roy Lichtenstein.
(Figure 2: Lichtenstein’s “Blam,” 1962) (Figure 3: “Drowning Girl,” 1963)
Lichtenstein, like Godard, utilised citations of comic strips to produce a heightened awareness towards the visual sign. Yet, as Daniel Yacavone writes in his study of the two artists, Godard and Lichtenstein’s modes of citation differ. Godard, by citing an image and utilising it as a piece for montage, re-contextualises a pre-existing image, while Lichtenstein’s citation ignores an image sequence at all, abstracting a single panel onto a single canvas. (6) While I would agree with him, I would also add that each of the citations of Godard and Lichtenstein inspire different results. According to art historian Jonathan Fineberg, “Lichtenstein was not painting things but signs of things. His true subject is…the terms of their translation into the language of media and the implications of that metamorphosis.” (7) In contrast to Lichtenstein, Godard’s citation in Made in USA does not seem to be questioning the implications of that translation and the complications that arise from its aesthetic. While his objective may have been to produce a film that went beyond representation in a visual sense, the end result is quite the opposite: Godard criticises the representational qualities of a film’s soundtrack in favour of underlining the visual by utilising the comic strip image as a means to literalise. However, his use of comic strip mise-en-scène would evolve into a more successful investigation of the visual sign in Two or Three Things I Know About Her and, as will now be discussed, La Chinoise.
2. La Chinoise
“To live in society today is like living in one enormous comic-strip.”
-Jean-Luc Godard (8)
Amongst the numerous sequences in La Chinoise that would be relevant to this area of inquiry, for the sake of brevity I would like to focus on one sequence and one reoccurring aesthetic characteristic. I would first like to turn to the sequence of analysis: the machine gun montage of Batman, Sgt. Fury, and Captain America. Once again, frame reproductions of individual shots and durations have been noted for clarity:
(Shot 1: Yvonne, 35:06-35:12) (Shot 2: Guillaume, 35:12-35:17)
(Shot 3: Batman, 35:18-35:18) (Shot 4: Sgt. Fury/Capt. America, 35:18-35:19)
[Note: Shots 3 and 4 alternate every few frames, accompanied by an audio track of machine gun fire, from 35:18-35:28. They roughly go through sixteen alternations.]
(Shot 5: Yvonne, 35:28-35:41)
This sequence, as the noted durations will attest, is quite short at roughly thirty-seconds, particularly significant for a film whose “Second-Act” (for lack of a better term) climaxes with static shots of two people talking on a train (one shot lasts nearly four minutes). While the form of citation obviously echoes the use of the “!…Bing” and the “?” panels in Made in USA by abstracting the individual panels from their larger sequence and the sequence once again marks Godard’s faith in the image and montage over a Bazinian approach to mise-en-scène, the approach to the citation of these comic strips has evolved with regard to how the form intersects with the content of the film as a whole.
Whereas the comic strip citation in Made in USA served as a form of visual punctuation for the scene, visually underlining the action of Paula being assaulted and her dialogue with Widmark. The citation in the La Chinoise sequence, on the other hand, is drenched in the political, a reading no doubt influenced by the film’s investigation of Marxist-Leninist ideology. If Godard’s use of citation in Made in USA was, with regard to the work of Lichtenstein, more concerned with translation of media, citation in La Chinoise is concerned with the consequences of that translation. The citation of famous superheroes from two prevalent American comic strip publishers, DC (Batman) and Marvel (Sgt. Fury and Captain America) in the context of this scene moves beyond the visual literalisation of Made in USA.
(Figure 4: Captain America…Commie Smasher) (9)
Godard’s utilisation of the superheroes here, particularly that of Captain America, is both what comic book practitioner and theorist Scott McCloud describes as an icon, or “any image used to represent a person, place, thing, or idea” but also serves as a symbol that represents American political ideology towards the Vietnam conflict. (10)
While this hypothesis relies on speculation regarding Godard’s familiarity with American comic strips during the production of La Chinoise, the Captain America comics of the 1950s and 60s depicted a hero whose chief enemy was Communism. In the early 1960s, Captain America joined Sgt. Nick Fury and his “Howling Commandos” to take part in the Vietnam war. Godard’s use of Captain America and Sgt. Fury in this montage seems to be aware of the narratives of the original source material, as he places the montage directly after Guillaume’s (Jean-Pierre Léaud) “exercise” in which he re-enacts the Vietnam war by putting on different pairs of sunglasses, each with one of the participating nation’s flag painted on them, and critiquing their role in the conflict.
Godard foreshadows the comic strip montage as Guillaume reads from Mao’s Little Red Book, quoting, “Imperialism and all reactionaries are paper tigers. They appear ferocious but they’re not really so powerful.” When asked if Vietnam is a character in the play, Guillaume snaps his fingers as Godard cuts to Yvonne (Juliet Berto), sporting a lampshade on her head á la Vietnamese conical hat. The shot, number one in the sequence under examination, displays Godard’s wallpaper tiger (also used in Pierrot Le Fou and in the 1967 Weekend) as it overlooks the implied napalm bombing of Vietnam. Godard then cuts back to Guillaume (shot 2), who states, “First a few facts, as truth lies there,” and then begins the comic strip montage.
As the montage, with cuts punctuated by the sounds of a machine gun firing, comes to its end, Godard places the voice of Yvonne over the final shot of Captain America and Sgt. Fury, stating that, “The NLF [National Liberation Front] will win.” The montage sequence illustrates Guillaume’s quotation of Mao by juxtaposing a graphic of a tiger and paper symbols of America’s political ideology, as manifested by Captain America and Sgt. Fury, to illustrate the quotation. Thus, Godard seems to have begun to interrogate the politics inherent in his quotation of the comic strip, a sentiment re-enforced by the sequence’s final shot: Yvonne, hiding behind a bunker constructed out of copies of the Little Red Book, takes a portable radio and transforms it into a machine gun. The imagery of the entire sequence seems to imply that popular art forms not only reflect dominant ideology but also have the potential to be politicised and turned against that ideology.
In his analysis of post-modernism, theorist Fredric Jameson questions the effectiveness of Godard’s use of this type of montage. Jameson writes that, “It is no longer certain…that the heavily charged and monitory juxtapositions in a Godard film – an advertising image, a printed slogan, newsreels, an interview with a philosopher, and the gestus of this or that fictive character – will be put back together by the spectator in the form of a message, let alone the right message.” (11) Yet, as this formal analysis of the machine gun montage hopefully illustrates, Godard’s juxtapositions are not impossible to translate into a message. Of course, whether or not its the “right” message can be argued, but given Godard’s objective, as stated in the opening moments of the film, to confront vague ideas with clear images (Figure 5), the machine gun montage appears to be an attempt and, I would argue, a successful one at utilising the icon/symbol of the American superhero to critique American imperialist ideology.
In a manner reminiscent of Jameson’s critique, Godard scholar Wheeler Winston Dixon asserts that La Chinoise is “a tedious exercise in formalist propaganda…[an] alarmingly naive…embrace of the teachings of Chairman Mao.” However, it would seem that Dixon has not received the “right” message. (12) While Godard may be sympathetic to the revolutionary cause, this does not preserve the ideology of the group from criticism which manifests itself in the film in five ways: four of which being narrative and one being formal. The four narrative events, the suicide of the group’s first chosen assassin Kirilov (Lex de Bruijn), the exile of Henri (Michel Semeniako), Véronique’s (Anne Wiazemsky) unsympathetic symposium with philosopher Francis Jeanson, and the inherent tragedy of her bumbled assassination attempt, all go a long way in undermining an “alarmingly naive” embrace of Maoism.
Discussion regarding an analysis of the formal aspect of this critique brings us to the final aesthetic characteristic of La Chinoise up for analysis: Godard’s use of painted text on the walls of the apartment of the Marxist-Leninists. Godard’s aesthetic choice here is uncharacteristic of his earlier works. While Godard often utilizes the insert of a title card as a means of interrogating the text, the direct placement of such rhetorical devices within the physical space of the scene is, I would argue, a rather curious elaboration upon the comic strip mise-en-scène Godard illustrated via his framing in Made in USA. Comics obviously utilize text as not only a form of dialogue (as the word balloons in Figure 1 exemplify), audible punctuation (the “!…Bing” panel), but as a means of narration as well (providing a description of a location for instance).
(Figure 5: “One Must…”, 1:53-2:43) (Figure 6: “A Minority…”, 4:01- 4:51)
Yet, in the comic strip, as theorist David Carrier states, the use of text is normally “a passive element…the words merely accompany the picture, without entering the image.” (13) Carrier’s analysis, an acknowledged generalisation, is helpful here. Godard’s use of title cards, while far from being passive, does not accompany or enter the image due to their spatial and temporal separation. While the titles may provide commentary, they do not, like the form of mise-en-scène under investigation here, fulfill the role of a caption. A caption, unlike a title-card, engages in a direct dialogue with its visual accompaniment (as will be further elaborated upon in the analysis of Tout Va Bien). With this established, how do the captions of Figures 5 and 6 engage with the visual?
The already mentioned caption of Figure 5, “One must confront vague ideas with clear images,” is a static shot, held for just short of a minute, in which no characters are present for the duration. Over the shot, we hear Guillaume and an unnamed woman talking about their sub-lease and about the occupations of the woman’s parents. The caption serves to re-enforce Godard’s continued investigation of the cinematic language barrier via sound and image. Significantly (pun intended), the next appearance of the device, as seen in Figure 6, does not take place in a static space. While the shot begins without any characters present, emphasizing the text which translates as, “A minority on the right revolutionary path is not a minority,” Véronique quickly enters frame to open the door for Kirilov, who carries in their unconscious colleague Henri. As the scene progresses, Henri awakens and informs Véronique that he was beaten by another group of Marxist-Leninists to which an off-screen Guillaume responds “Being attacked by the enemy is a good thing because it proves that there’s a clear distinction that separates us.”
In this scene, the text provides a counter-point to the scene. The scene illustrates that the Marxist-Leninists in the apartment are being attacked by members of their own ideological group which, in the light of the quotation (no doubt a re-interpretation of Henrik Ibsen), would seem to put into question the objectives of the group in two ways. First, if the Marxist-Leninists were the true ideological minority, it is incredibly ironic that they are inspiring physical violence from within their own group, let alone be interpreted as being “the enemy” by Guillaume. Secondly, if followers of Marxist-Leninism had become so numerous to the point where they interpret other factions as being “the enemy,” the scene would also seem to question their status as a true minority as well.
Godard’s formal critique of Marxist-Leninism intersects with our investigation of his comic strip mise-en-scène, which seems to be utilised in a dialectical fashion. While the machine gun montage emits can be “decoded” (to borrow from the work of Stuart Hall) as an anti-imperialist message, but that is not to say it fully endorses the belief system of the Marxist-Leninists. In fact, Godard’s second aesthetic manifestation of this trend, the caption, would appear to do quite the opposite. Instead of underlining the action taking place in the setting, like the inserts in Made in USA, the caption, “The Minority…”,performs an interrogating action. While the degree of this interrogation could be argued, to conclude that the caption simply endorses the actions and ideology of the Marxist-Leninists is to ignore not only the mise-en-scène of the scene but the logic (both formal and narrative) of the film as a whole. With the hope of further expanding on this topic of comic strip mise-en-scène and the use of the caption, I would like to offer a concluding analysis of Godard and Gorin’s Tout Va Bien.
3. Tout Va Bien
“A superb formula from Jean-Luc Godard defined the cinema as ‘the art of making music with painting’. This definition applies itself equally to comics; at first because its images maintain as many affinities with painting as the shifting images of cinema; and because comics, in displaying intervals (in the same say as persistence of vision erases the discretization of the cinematic medium) rhythmically distributes the tale that is entrusted to it.”
-Thierry Groensteen (14)
In one of their many Dziga-Vertov collaborations together, Tout Va Bien, Godard and Gorin move away from comic panel citation into a mode that fully mimics the lay out of the comic book page. The sequence that best exemplifies this shift is the tracking shot that pans across the interior of a sausage factory that is currently under siege by dissatisfied workers. While one could argue that it would be simplistic to simply write the scene off as a manifestation of this aesthetic, as the shot is also a citation of a shot from Jerry Lewis’ The Ladies Man (1961), Gorin informed me that it would not be unrealistic to cite the sequence as a form of comic strip mise-en-scène. Again, the tracking shot has been replicated using frame reproductions with noted times:
(Shot 1A, B, C, D: The Factory, 12:16-14:17)
[Note: The sequence is to be read left to right, top to bottom (like a comic book) and that shots C and D take place as the camera is tracking back to its original spatial coordinate (hence the similarities between shot B and D).]
The mise-en-scène of this shot, which reoccurs several times throughout the film’s first segment, not only mimics comic book layout but makes playful use of what comic semiologist Thierry Groensteen describes above, in his citation of Godard, as the comic strips “rhythmic function.” To Groensteen, the rhythmic function manifests itself via the segmentation of time from panel to panel. Unlike film, whose segmentation of time remains fairly constant at 1/24th of a second, the duration between sequential frames in comic books varies. Moreover, as Scott McCloud illustrates, an individual panel can include a multitude of temporal durations with actions ranging from a split second to half a minute or longer) via the artist’s use of sound and dialogue. (15) The use of the grid structure by Godard and Gorin in this shot is complicated however. While the shot takes on the form of a comic book page with several different panels (the manager’s office, his secretary’s office, the staircase leading up to the second floor, etc), time is not interrupted by the black gutters of the grid à la a comic book. Rather, the shot reads like a temporally ambiguous panel, capturing actions in the different segments simultaneously.
Yet, while the shot does not obey “a rhythm that is imposed on it by the succession of frames,” it does have manifest a rhythm that is created via the use of a tracking camera, the actions of the actors within the segmented mise-en-scène, and music. (16) Much like the use of the icons and captions in La Chinoise, the rhythm of this shot also intersects with the Marxist investigation present within the narrative of the film. As the camera tracks away from the office of the manager (the upper left segment of the frame) containing the manager (Vittorio Caprioli), American journalist Suzanne (Jane Fonda), and her husband (Yves Montand), the characters in the cell become relatively motionless and their conversation comes to an end. Godard and Gorin, however, do not continue this trend of stationary staging. As the camera tracks into the other segments of the frame, the workers are allowed to continue their physical action and dialogue, united by their protest song (“If you keep on like this Salumi, the working class will kick your ass.”).
The second characteristic of comic strip mise-en-scène apparent in this shot, the caption presented via a printed banner reading, “Lock up the bosses. Indefinite strike,” does not function like its precedents in La Chinoise. First, the caption has no rational presence in the scene, whereas the captions in La Chinoise were established as being the product of the Marxist-Leninists painting the walls. The first time we see the banner, it is on the roof of the sausage factory in an establishing shot. During the tracking shot however, it stands where the wall of the factory would be, hanging impossibly within the frame of the building. More importantly, the caption does not serve as a formal means of interrogating the scene via their juxtaposition. In fact, the caption seems to underline and literalise the actions of the scene, much like the inserts in Made in USA. The workers have locked up the boss and they are pictured in an indefinite strike, courtesy of the framing and the duration of the shot.
With the form of this shot and its caption elaborated upon, what is the possible meaning to be derived from this sequence? On a second viewing, after experiencing the text as a whole, the shot appears to be a illustration of the question Suzanne later asks herself at the supermarket: “Where do we begin to struggle against the compartmentalisation of our lives?” The use of the “dollhouse” set serves to literalise this thought, placing the boss and workers in their separate cells while also containing the answer to Suzanne’s question: “Everywhere at once.” Through their singing and the unifying gesture of the shot’s lengthy duration and tracking, the workers are united despite their spatial segregation. Moreover, this link between Suzanne’s question and answer manifests itself formally as well. During the shot in which Fonda delivers dialogue, Godard and Gorin emulate the earlier lateral, temporally long, tracking shot in the supermarket. Colin MacCabe’s description of the supermarket tracking shot, “The content of politics is provided by an image which acts, in the most traditional way, as the visible evidence of the truth of Fonda’s voice-over,” would equally apply to its visual ancestor in the sausage factory. (17)
Via the progression of this engagement with comic strip mise-en-scène as analyzed in Made in USA, La Chinoise, and Tout Va Bien, Godard (and later, with his collaborator Gorin), appears to have come full circle in the use of the aesthetic. In Made in USA, Godard’s Lichtensteinian citation of the comic strip served as a means of literalising narrative cues, be it the assault of a woman (!…Bing) or the exploration of a mystery (“?”). La Chinoise, on the other hand, investigated the consequences of the translation of these aesthetic citations, engaging with the political ideology present in the iconography of a superhero and the juxtaposition of text and image. Finally, Tout Va Bien, while abandoning the direct citation of a comic panel, utilised the form of the grid and comic strip rhythm to provide a visual re-enforcement, much like Made in USA, but instead of literalising a narrative event, the “visible evidence” of the shot served as a means to realize a philosophical thought. Or, as the Marxist-Leninists in La Chinoise expressed via their wall captions: to provide a clear image to a vague idea.
Special thanks to Janet Bergstrom, Michelle Bumatay, and Jean-Pierre Gorin.
原文http://www.mtime.com/my/541891/blog/3052984/，转以备忘。
尽管“IMAX”一词对很多人来说仍就相当陌生，但打开近期的报刊和网站，有关“IMAX”的报道频频见诸各类新闻中。而在内地广大的影迷眼中，即将上映的IMAX-3D版科幻巨制《阿凡达》无疑将是新年伊始最具诱惑性和震撼力的一道视听饕餮大餐。由于2009年立体电影风起云涌，而此次《阿凡达》公映更兼有普通版、3D版、IMAX-3D版等多个版本同步推出，层出不穷的各类消息让很多电影观众一头雾水。来自多家院线的消息说，连日来询问IMAX版《阿凡达》上映情况的电话激增，令工作人员也深感困扰。为此，特别在岁末为大家带来“2010---内地巨幕电影观影指南”。
一、内地11家IMAX影院“张幕以待”阿凡达
首先要说的是，IMAX其实并不能和巨幕完全划等号，但由于IMAX（即Image Maximum的缩写，意为“影像最大化”）版电影近年来在中国内地市场放映主要以2D巨幕版为主，同时也出于传播宣传的需要，为了更便于普通观众理解，许多媒体和影院更习惯于将IMAX版影片称为巨幕电影，也并无大错。简单的说来，IMAX巨幕电影是由加拿大IMAX公司推出的目前全球最好的影像系统，该系统集电影技术之大成，拥有最大的银幕、最清晰的图像、最高的精密度、其矩形银幕可高达七八层楼，球形银幕的直径可长达30米，让逼真的图像呼之欲出，巨大的震撼力惊天动地。观看影片的观众们犹如身临其境，与电影场景浑然一体。
对于广大的电影观众而言，只需了解IMAX意味着“身临其境 叹为观止”其实已经足够，而眼下最让人纠结的是，随着1月4日《阿凡达》中国公映日的临近，全国的广大电影爱好者究竟能在哪些城市看到IMAX版本，是不是所有拥有IMAX影厅的影院都将如期上映巨幕版《阿凡达》？根据目前已公布的《阿凡达》网络预售消息，此次在中国内地公映的IMAX-3D版《阿凡达》巨幕立体电影将与普通2D版、数字3D版同步上映，时长162分钟。一些影院的IMAX厅将于1月3日晚24时推出午夜零点首映。观影中须全程佩戴立体眼镜。中国内地目前确定上映本片的IMAX影厅情况如下：
８个数字厅-----
1. 北京华星影城双安店（高18米，宽26米，总面积468平方米，座位数387）
2. 北京石景山万达影城（高12.6米，宽21.3米，总面积268平方米，座位数433）
3. 长春万达欧亚影城（13.4米，高21.8米，总面积292平方米，座位数556）
4. 长沙万达影城（16.5米，宽22.5米，总面积371平方米，座位数425）
5. 天津中影国际影城（高13米，宽21.5米，总面积279.5平方米，座位数377）
6. 无锡大世界影城（高10.6米，宽19.1米，面积202平方米，座位数378）
7. 昆明百老汇影城（高12米，宽21米，总面积252平方米,座位数294）
8. 武汉环艺影城（高15米，宽22米，总面积330平方米，座位数648）
３个胶片厅-----
9. 上海和平影都（高15米，宽20米，总面积300平方米，座位数358）
10. 中国电影博物馆（高21米，宽27米，总面积567平方米；座位数403）
11. 东莞万达影城（22米，宽28米，总面积616平方米，座位数561）
尽管IMAX公司进军中国内地巨幕电影市场已有八年之久，但可以说，没有任何一个时期能像最近一段时间以来推进速度如此神速的。各地各院线的响应热情之高也为历年所罕见，一切只因这部14年磨一剑的世纪神作《阿凡达》的到来。进入2009年9月以来，先后有昆明百老汇影城数字IMAX影厅、天津中影国际影城数字IMAX影厅、无锡大世界影城数字IMAX影厅陆续开业。其中，有幸搭上年度末班车的无锡大世界影城数字IMAX影厅更将IMAX-3D《阿凡达》作为开业影片，对其寄予厚望。
IMAX新建影院突飞猛进，升级改造项目也在如火如荼的进行之中。一个好消息是，长沙万达影城与长春万达影城已于2009年早些时候完成IMAX数字化改造；北京UME影城与武汉环艺影城的既有IMAX胶片厅数字化设备安装也于近期相继完成。长期以来因为高昂的拷贝放映及检修成本等困扰影院经营者的问题均已迎刃而解。目前，上述各影城万事俱备，只待1月3日晚24点为观众们呈上焕然一新的IMAX超级震撼。此外，分属于上海和平影都、中国电影博物馆、东莞万达影城的三座早期建设的胶片IMAX放映厅因为种种原因，暂未进行数字化改造，但仍将以胶片版本如期上映IMAX-3D《阿凡达》，这也算给三地的影迷吃了一颗定心丸。
几多欢喜几多愁，按2009年可计入有效票房的全国77座大中城市和5000万观影人群计算，仅仅9座城市的11个IMAX厅放映IMAX-3D《阿凡达》，这样的放映规模显然远远满足不了内地日益高涨的巨幕电影观看需求。这其中，最幸运的当属北京地区的观众----城东有中国电影博物馆（内有国内第二大的IMAX影厅），城北有北京UME华星影城双安店（内有国内第三大的IMAX影厅），城西有石景山万达影城（内有亚洲首个数字IMAX放映系统）。最郁闷的应该算是苏州观众，由于苏州科技文化中心的胶片IMAX厅尚未进行数字化改造，以及基于上映成本的考虑，将不安排此次《阿凡达》的同步上映。而对于国内其他城市的电影爱好者来说，只能是望幕兴叹了，不得不说是一件相当遗憾的事。不过，一个值得期许的好消息是，在未来３年内，IMAX公司将加速其在内地市场的影院拓展计划，在多个城市兴建逾20家IMAX影厅，届时IMAX电影“一片难求”的状况将得以有效缓解。
二、2010年，十部IMAX巨幕大片伺候着
可以想见，随着IMAX-3D版《阿凡达》的上映，势必将在包括中国在内的全球范围内掀起一股巨幕电影热。那么，除了1月4日在中国全面公映的《阿凡达》外，2010年，IMAX公司还将推出哪些IMAX版本的电影呢？而这其中，内地观众有望看到的又有哪些呢？整合北美多家媒体的报道，汇总可知未来一年将被转制为IMAX版本的影片约为11部，具体情况如下----
1. 《阿凡达/ Avatar》: IMAX 3D – 2010年1月4日(中国)
2. 《爱丽丝梦游奇境记/ Alice In Wonderland》:IMAX 3D - 2010年3月5日
3. 《哈勃望远镜/ Hubble》: IMAX 3D - 2010年3月19日
4. 《驯龙记/ How To Train Your Dragon》:IMAX 3D - 2010年3月26日
5. 《史瑞克４/ Shrek Forever After》: IMAX 3D - 2010年5月21日
6. 《玩具总动员3/Toy Story 3》: IMAX 3D - 2010年6月18日
7. 《暮色３：月食/ The Twilight Saga: Eclipse》: The IMAX –2010年6月30日
8. 《开端/ Inception》:IMAX –2010年7月16日
9. 《唐山大地震/ Aftershock》:IMAX –2010年7月28日
10. 《哈利·波特与死亡圣器（上）/Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I》:IMAX（含部分3D片断）–2010年11月19日
11. 《电子世界争霸赛/ Tron: Legacy》:IMAX 3D–2010年12月17日
（注：以上影片，除《阿凡达》外，其他均为北美地区首映时间）
综上，2010年，已至少有11部IMAX版的影片将逐一呈现给全球观众，确实令人欢欣鼓舞。这也是历年来好莱坞电影被转化为IMAX格式的电影在全球IMAX银幕上映数量最多的一年。在上述的这份清单中，我们可以看出IMAX影片近年来的一些发展趋势：最重要的信息是3D影片数量已占据半壁江山。虽然IMAX-3D影片并不是什么新鲜事物，但在过去几年，我们能看到的IMAX影片仍然是以2D版居多。2009年立体电影风靡全球，《怪兽大战外星人》《冰河世纪3》《飞屋环游记》在票房上的大获成功证明了电影院是完全可以通过更震撼的视效把观众从电视荧屏前重新拉回到电影院。片商们也坚信立体与巨幕的迭加效应将会更具票房感召力。这也是促成2010年IMAX影片更多的以3D格式推出的一个重要原因。而最让国人感到振奋的当属《唐山大地震》IMAX版的横空出世。该片不仅仅是中国本土电影第一次被IMAX化，同时也是IMAX在全球推出的首部北美以外地区的IMAX格式的影片，相信在2010年暑期档上映时定会在国内掀起新一轮观影冲击波。
当然，内地的电影观众最关注的当然还是上述的11部IMAX巨幕电影，有多少能顺利引入内地。据业内资深人士分析，除了已经锁定1月4日上映的《阿凡达》，以及板上钉钉的《唐山大地震》外，其他九部的引进前景应该也是非常乐观的，因为从这些电影的宣传介绍来看大多数属于和谐的合家欢影片。比照过去几年进口片引进和排档的不成文规矩，《爱丽丝梦游奇境记》如无意外应该会于3月5日与北美同步上映，而《驯龙记》《史瑞克４》《玩具总动员3》《哈利·波特与死圣（上）》过审应该均无悬念，唯一的变数无非是能否全球同步上映的问题。特别值得一提的是，IMAX公司与华纳兄弟合作拍摄的科普纪录片《哈勃望远镜》相当有看头，该片中所涉的太空景象均以IMAX专用摄像机拍摄而成，为此还专门对宇航员进行了培训，即使本片不在商业IMAX影院上映，被纳入国内科技馆IMAX影厅放映的可能性也非常大。
被认为引进存在不确定性的影片主要有三部----《暮光之城３：月食》《开端》和《电子世界争霸赛》。《暮光之城１》已于2009年11月25日在国内进行了小规模的放映，但较北美迟了整整一年，又踩上了贺岁档的边线，票房成绩可想而知，加之《暮光之城》小说在国内反响一般，远不及其在北美的号召力，在《暮光之城2》明年是否能以买断片引进尚存疑问的情况下，现在就来妄断《暮光之城３：月食》IMAX版在国内上映的胜算，确实是为时尚早。《开端》（又名《奠基》）目前在国内的知名度非常小，尚未进入大多数影迷的视线，但提起它的导演克里斯托弗·诺兰和主演莱昂纳多·迪卡普里奥，国内观众应该都是耳熟能详的，前者执导的《黑暗骑士》去年仅北美票房入账就达五亿多美金，位居北美票房史第二；后者主演的《泰坦尼克号》至今仍是深受内地影迷喜爱的海外影片。唯一的问题在于，倘若《开端》真如片方宣传的那样过于玄奥与诡异，不合国情的话，也许该片的引进将难免重蹈09年春季档强片《守望者》的覆辙，被拒之门外。
之所以把《电子世界争霸赛》也列为引进不靠谱的IMAX影片，并非担心其内容不够和谐。事实上，这样一部以特效取胜的3亿元奇幻大片的引进应该是不成问题的，但其上映的时间为2010年12月17日，按照国内的惯例，这个时间段一定要全部腾出来贡献给12月的年度国产大片的，看看《阿凡达》的待遇便知道了：北美的公映日期为 2009年12月18日，但硬是“被协商”到了半个月后才踏上中国之旅，如果这个不成文的规矩不改变的话，那么《电子世界争霸赛》IMAX-3D版也必将步《阿凡达》的后尘，让出圣诞档，去争2011年的元旦档了。
三、2001-2009：IMAX影院建设及放映中国发展史
据悉，截止到2009年9月30日，已有403家IMAX影院（280家商业影院、123家科教影院）在44个国家运营当中。而根据IMAX中国代表处提供的数据，到2009年年底，IMAX在中国已开业的共有11家完全商业化运营的影厅（不含中国电影博物馆）；11家放科教片的科普影院，是IMAX在全球继北美之后最大的市场。除了前面提到将于2010年月1月4日同时放映IMAX-3D版《阿凡达》的11家商业影院外，其他11家用于科普影片放映的IMAX影厅分别是----
1. 中国科技馆IMAX巨幕影院
2. 中国科技馆IMAX球幕影院
3. 上海科技馆IMAX巨幕影院
4. 上海科技馆IMAX球幕影院
5. 黑龙江科技馆IMAX球幕影院
6. 南京青少年活动中心IMAX球幕影院
7. 重庆科技馆IMAX巨幕立体影院
8. 重庆少年宫IMAX球幕影院
9. 广东科学中心IMAX巨幕立体影院
10. 大庆科技馆IMAX球幕影院
11. 东莞科技馆IMAX球幕影院
尽管以上影厅此次并不参与IMAX-3D版《阿凡达》的放映，但其中一些场馆的球幕影院所呈现的神奇观感一点也不逊色于普通IMAX商业影院，另，前面已经提到，2010年将有一部科普纪录片《哈勃望远镜》以IMAX-3D版本推出，有望通过这些场馆的IMAX影厅进行放映，届时群星璀璨的太空景象将令观众大饱眼福。
从2001年12月上海科技馆在中国内地率先安装第一套IMAX3D（巨幕）和IMAX球幕系统算起，IMAX在中国已经走过了八个年头了，但真正引起广大影迷的注意，并掀起第一轮IMAX观影热，还要追溯到2006年。2006年05月北京华星影城IMAX厅刚刚落成，随后，2006年6月，美国灾难大片《海神号》的IMAX版便通过上海和平影都和北京华星影城在京沪同时上映，排山倒海的气势让两地的观众大呼过瘾；紧接着7月中旬，最新一集“超人”电影《超人归来》的IMAX版也在这两家影院进行了公映，特别是《超人归来》中高潮段落的20分钟3D片断，令影院观众体验到了前所未有的震撼，IMAX从此开始为越来越多的国内影院观众所认可。与此同时，是IMAX为商业电影院带来的可观收益---以北京华星UME影城双安店为例，2006年暑期上映的IMAX 3D《超人归来》，上映仅三天就创造了票房60余万人民币的佳绩，吸金之强让普通的35MM普通版本望尘莫及。
进入2007年，IMAX在中国的建设速度明显加快，这显然与中国近两年来快速增长的影院观众与票房收入是密不可分的。三年来，每年都有约三家商业IMAX影厅建成。
2007年02月 武汉环艺影城
2007年05月 东莞万达国际电影城
2007年10月 苏州科技文化艺术中心
2008年04月 长春万达欧亚影城
2008年05月 长沙万达国际影院
2008年12月 北京石景山万达影院
2009年10月 云南昆明顺城王府井百老汇影城
2009年11月 天津中影国际影城
2009年12月 江苏无锡大世界影城
也是从2007年起，伴随着大陆本土电影票房达到创纪录的35亿，影市行情井喷，水涨船高之间，国内的IMAX影厅经营情势也一路蹿升，《蜘蛛侠3》在2007年的五一黄金档期先于北美地区登陆，其IMAX巨幕版票房在国内也是全线飘红，热映两月之久；2007年8月，《哈利·波特与凤凰社》最后20分钟的立体巨幕片断“邓不利多大战伏地魔”让亿万哈迷过足眼瘾；而到了07年国庆节，当身高18米的“变形金刚”们跃然眼前时，IMAX带给中国观众的已远非是视觉上的震撼了，身临其境的非凡观感仿佛是把现场观众重新带回到那个令人怀念的美好童年。截止到2009年12月，据不完全统计，在中国内地主要商业IMAX影厅上映过的IMAX影片已逾20部，清单如下---
01、《极地特快》
02、《查理和巧克力工厂》
03、《深海奇观》
04、《海神号》
05、《超人归来》
06、《丛林大反攻》
07、《别惹蚂蚁》
08、《快乐大脚》
09、《国际空间站》
10、《月球漫步》
11、《博物馆奇妙夜》
12、《蜘蛛侠3》
13、《哈利·波特与凤凰社》
14、《变形金刚》
15、《奇幻精灵历险记》
16、《重返白垩纪》
17、《功夫熊猫》
18、《极速赛车手》
19、《马达加斯加2》
20、《大战外星人》
21、《星际迷航》
22、《博物馆奇妙夜2》
23、《变形金刚2》
24、《哈利·波特与混血王子》
25、《迈克尔·杰克逊：就是这样》
（注：部分在非商业机构放映的科普类IMAX影片不在此列）
一个比较有趣的现象是，尽管IMAX投资高达上千万，但其在国内的发展却不完全与内地城市的经济实力相吻合，虽然北京、上海是最早引进IMAX的城市，但近两年来，在一些中西部城市，如长春、武汉、长沙、昆明等所谓二线城市的IMAX却发展最为迅猛，相反，广州、南京、深圳等东部发达城市目前还没有商业性质的IMAX影厅开张。但这一局面相信不会维持太久了。IMAX中国代表处拓展部负责人在接受记者采访时表示，在未来几年，广州、深圳、成都等地的IMAX影厅都将陆续开张，特别是数字化IMAX设备的应用，将大幅降低IMAX拷贝采购成本，促成包括华语电影在内的更多IMAX版本影片在国内上映。可以想见，随着中国影市驶入快车道，IMAX电影的中国化进程也将大幅提速，迎来一个高速发展的春天。（文/阿福）
