LI-MING
───── 鄭立明 ──────
Taiwan|2016|HD|Color|25min
Nowadays, cinema has closed one after another. “Premiere Cinema” in Meinong, which opened in 1969 and closed in 1991, had built collective memories for people in town. These faded traces once nourished someone’s dreams where fairies still dance, where laughter and tear reechoes.
This film develops in remains of cinema, where past usher walks to and fro holding a flashlight in darkness and ticket agent counted tickets day after day; the past scenes has its romance, fright, pain, lust and bitterness. The cinema is a miniature of the universe, those who were lived for it and fascinated with it are still lingering in this space, in this dream and doesn’t wake up.
The last part of film is story of Chung Hao-tong, the story is a wound that people refused to speak of for a long while, and not many remembered now. It was a taboo for cinema once, and now I perform it through this work in remembrance of his spirit.
戲院熄燈了,有些痕跡還殘留著,禁忌的、壓抑的,歡笑的、恐怖的,影像仍然徘徊不去,持手電筒的帶位者仍舊在黑暗中來回穿梭,售票員還一張一張地賣著票,仍有觀眾流連不去。散落一地的膠捲彷彿仍在放映著。在蜘蛛的羅網之中,在螞蟻的路徑之中。
戲院熄燈了,有些痕跡還殘留著,多年之後戲院的帶位者又回到戲院廢墟。彼時,觀眾來來去去,在他的手電燈光牽引下,男女老少帶著零食與夢想入座。 滔滔不絕的辯士操縱著台下觀眾。座椅滿了又空,空了又滿,有人太過入戲,亦步亦趨,也有人失魂恍神,懷抱憂傷。疲倦的售票小姐在鈔票與戲票之間,抓住客人的大手,酣睡如夢。 如今座椅空了,片格腐朽,春光睏倦了。記憶與想望互相搶位、換座。戲裡戲外顛倒,台前幕後翻轉。終究殘酷無情的不是歲月,是神秘剪刀。
In the series of wet plate photographs by Scottish photographer John Thomson in his trip to Formosa in 1871, there is an aboriginal hunter photo.
Both the elder and young hunters in the photo still look vivid after more than 140 years. Thomson was surprised at figures and landscape of Formosa and even made his photographs into prints. Yet he needed the hunters to stay still in front of the camera so he could capture their images successfully.
Nowadays we see the Siraya tribal Elder Wan singing and playing instruments accompanied by his brave ancestors’ leaping in the forests. He turns into an ancestral hunter hundred years ago in both film and photo; however the hunting ground no longer exists in reality. Those images hundred years ago still seemed unchanged, yet time does change everything. People and places are gone; the tribe lost their mother tongue and even their names.
The director created a pair of characters out of a photo with a boy and a dog squatted at the corner, through their curious stare at the vigorous tribal hunters and their encounter with the “image hunter”, witnessing a duel of old and new world. After a long time, hunters are gone and images in power. The twin-lens reflex camera Thomson carried was used as Stereo Vision and also “manual burst” mode (cover one len at a time for seconds for exposure) to make two-photo test shots and selection.
As a film director, carrying a hundred-year-old twin-lens reflex camera, I imagine what those “mata (eyes)” had seen at that time? How does images form us and Formosa into after that and what exactly are images before that? Is there still an answer in my, our indescribable mata?
蘇格蘭攝影師約翰.湯姆生John Thomson 於1871年的攝福爾摩沙之行,所拍攝的一系列濕版照片之中,有一張原住民獵人照片。畫面中停格的老、少獵人,經歷一百四十幾年仍栩栩如生,湯姆生驚訝於福爾摩沙的人物與風景之美,影像甚至再製版畫流傳。但是,他要身手矯健的原住民獵人在相機之前靜止不動,才能成功獵取他們的影像。
今天西拉雅萬長老自彈自唱、琴弦撩撥、山林搖動,他們的祖先勇士腳步也在疾躍著。他化身成一個半世紀前面對的老獵人,在電影,也在照片中。如今,長老扮起了獵人,現實中卻已找不到獵場。當初的影像歷經百來年,彷彿靜止不變,但,時間卻淘空了,人、物不再,族群甚至失去了母語,以及自己的名。
導演從照片一角蹲著的男孩與狗,誕生了一雙角色,從男孩與狗的好奇眼光,看著部落裡身手矯健的獵者,遭遇外來的「影像獵人」,見證一場新舊世界的對決。在那很久之後,獵人消失,影像日漸當道。湯姆生當年帶來一部雙眼相機,一方面做立體幻景,另一方面也拿來做「手動連拍」模式(一次遮一眼,曝光秒數不等)做一次兩張的試拍、篩選。
作為一個電影導演,拿著上百年的雙眼相機,揣想在那些MATA(眼睛)們當時在看見了什麼。那之後,影像是怎麼形塑了我們以及福爾摩沙,而在那之前,影像又是什麼?在仍難以名之的我、我們的MATA裡,是否還有答案?