电影外交：中国与西藏在电影节上的摩擦

图片提供：National Geographic World Films
《生命与死亡之城》（即《南京，南京》——译者注）是一部有关二战期间日军暴行的影片，它将不会出现在棕榈泉国际电影节上。

作者：EDWARD WYATT
日期: 2010 年1月8日，《纽约时报》
译者：JOHN LEE

洛杉矶——从名流云集或是作为电影艺术的展示窗口来看，棕榈泉国际电影节并不像类似的电影盛会，比如戛纳、圣丹斯，甚至还没有多伦多电影节那样受到万众瞩目。不过，棕榈泉电影节现在却赢得了一个别样的桂冠：一起不折不扣的外交事件。

这个星期，中国正式通知电影节主办方两部中国电影将推出电影节展映计划，以此抗议电影节将上映一部有关西藏和达赖喇嘛的纪录片。尽管中方官员告诉电影节负责人是电影制作人自己决定撤出受政府资助的电影作品，不过很多中国问题专家相信是中国政府传达了这样的讯息而非任何个人。

图片提供：National Geographic World Films 陆川，影片《生命与死亡之城》（即《南京，南京》——译者注）的编导

还有一个颇为复杂的因素使得这两部影片从棕榈泉电影节的退出更为引人瞩目：《生命与死亡之城》（也称《南京，南京》）是一部虚构的关于1937年日本占领军在南京所犯暴行的影片，该片收到广泛好评。影片由陆川担任编剧和导演，他是中国票房成绩最好的导演之一。在中国国内，这部影片也招来一些批评，有些观众认为影片对日本人有同情性描绘。

西藏一直以来在好莱坞就是一个引起轰动的题材，尤其是在演员和一些著名电影制作人之中。而与此同时，一些大的电影制片厂都是大型国际企业集团的一部分并试图同中国做生意，近年来为了避免激起紧张关系从而威胁到他们在中国的利益都回避了西藏题材的大制作。

国家地理娱乐公司（National Geographic Entertainment）在8月份宣布它已经获得了影片《生命与死亡之城》的北美地区发行权，影片将于2010年在影院上映。但是与此交易相关的人士说，至今尚未签署任何正式协议，这使得国家地理娱乐公司得以在目前的纠纷中置身事外。这家公司说，它依然希望今年晚些时候能在影院上映这部电影。

中国官方一直抗议西方利用艺术，尤其是电影作为干涉他们内政的武器，而当前的这次纠纷只不过是最近发生的一起而已。去年8月，两名美国电影制作人被禁止进入中国播映他们的一部纪录片，该片是关于在2008年四川地震中大量垮塌的学校中丧生的5000多名儿童的故事。电脑黑客和示威者还将矛头对准7月份在澳大利亚举行的墨尔本国际电影节，以抗议电影节放映中国西北新疆地区一位穆斯林维吾尔领袖的纪录片，那里去年夏天发生的民族暴力冲突中有大约200人被杀。而在去年秋天举办的法兰克福图书博览会上，针对博览会方面邀请两名中国持不同政见作家在转为中国安排的正式节目上发表讲话，双方也出现了外交斗争。

棕榈泉电影节总监Darryl Macdonald在一次接受采访时说，星期三中国驻洛杉矶总领事造访了这座沙漠城市。这位中国官员对他说是这两部电影的导演而不是资助影片的中国政府不同意影片在电影节上展映，除非电影节取消《乌云背后的太阳：西藏争取自由的斗争》的放映计划。

这部纪录片由瑞图•萨林和丹增索朗拍摄制作，耗时一年多跟踪拍摄了达赖喇嘛以及有关西藏地位的一系列抗议活动，在时间上刚好与中国筹备奥运会相巧合。

中国官员“一再申明《乌云背后的太阳》中的种种言论都是谎言，而这些也提醒我们美国政府承认西藏是中国一部分的官方立场”。麦克唐纳先生说，“我告诉他们在美国我们享有言论自由，我们不会由任何外国来指令我们什么电影该放什么电影不该放。”

中国驻洛杉矶领事馆的官员对星期四和星期五有关媒体提出对此次事件发表评论的请求一直没有给予回应。

一些研究中国政治与文化环境的美国专家说，他们怀疑这些电影制作人是在没有其他压力的情况下推出电影节的。第二部影片是一部名为《快、快、慢》（“Quick, Quick, Slow”）的喜剧片，由叶凯（音译）执导。这部电影的制片人张兰新（音译）原本也打算参加这次电影节。

南加州大学东亚研究中心主任斯坦利罗森（Stanley Rosen）在一次访谈时说到了他与陆川的交往，包括与这位电影制作人共进晚餐，当时他（陆川）正在为《生命与死亡之城》一片创作剧本。这些交往让他确信这部影片退出电影节“基本上是中国政府的决定。”

罗森博士说，在政府资助电影并给所有中国的电影出口发放许可的条件下，如果不屈从于将他的电影撤出电影节的压力，那么“他的电影不可能继续在国际电影节上展出自己的电影，也不可在国内获得成功。”

美联社发表了对陆川先生进行的电话采访的一些片段，其中他说他“无条件地接受”将他的电影撤出电影节的决定。

“这一事件涉及国家利益，”陆先生对美联社说。“国家利益高于一切。在事关国家统一的问题上，我想所有中国人的态度是一致的。”当问及撤出电影是否干涉了艺术自由时，陆先生说，“我真的很难、很难回答这个问题。”

一位在中国做生意的美国电影制作人——为了保障他在中国的商业利益而不愿意透露姓名——说，他相信如果导演们知道如果不撤出影片会威胁到他们在中国的事业，那么他们或许会要求将电影撤出。“在美国我们有这样一种信念，即电影是用来告诉当权者真相的，”这位电影制作人说。“我想这些中国导演在试图避免任何瓜田李下之嫌。”

布鲁金斯研究所（Brookings Institution）高层人士Kenneth G. Lieberthal注意到，中国主席胡锦涛曾经担任西藏自治区书记。“对于北京而言西藏是一个令人头疼的问题，”他说，如果中国官方不反对这部纪录片反而会让他吃惊。

罗森博士说，《生命与死亡之城》一片在中国国内也招来了一些批评，因为片中描写了一名参与占领南京的日本士兵目睹日军的暴行而良心发现并最终选择了自杀。

在星期四发表的一份声明中，国家地理娱乐公司说这部影片从电影节撤出是一个“不幸的”事件，并且说“我们为这部影片感到骄傲，并希望今年晚些时候在影院上映时人们可以看到这部重要的影片。”

China and Tibet Skirmish at a Film Festival

LOS ANGELES — In celebrity wattage and as a showcase for the art of cinema, the Palm Springs International Film Festival has not garnered the attention typically bestowed upon similar carnivals at Cannes, Sundance or even, say, Toronto. But the Palm Springs festival has now earned a different kind of laurel: a bona fide diplomatic incident

China formally told the festival this week that two Chinese films were being withdrawn from its program in protest of the scheduled screening of a documentary about Tibet and the Dalai Lama. While Chinese officials told the festival’s director that the filmmakers themselves had decided to withdraw their state-financed works, many China experts believe that it is the state sending a message, rather than the individuals.

There is added intrigue over the more prominent of the two films that were withdrawn from the Palm Springs festival: “City of Life and Death” (also known as “Nanjing! Nanjing!”), a critically acclaimed fictionalized account of atrocities committed by the Japanese occupiers of Nanjing in 1937. Written and directed by Lu Chuan, one of China’s top box office successes, the film has drawn criticism in China for what some people there have called its sympathetic portrayal of Japanese characters.

Tibet has long been a cause célèbre in Hollywood, particularly among actors and some prominent filmmakers. At the same time, the big movie studios, which are all part of international corporate conglomerates that are trying to do business in China, in recent years have appeared to steer clear of major projects on Tibet that would inflame tensions and threaten their interests there.

National Geographic Entertainment announced in August that it had acquired the North American distribution rights for “City of Life and Death” and that the film would be released in theaters in 2010. But people involved in that deal said that a formal agreement was never signed, leaving National Geographic on the sidelines of the current dispute. The company said it still intends to release the film in theaters later this year.

The current wrangle is only the most recent protest by Chinese officials that the arts, and film specifically, are being used as a weapon to meddle in their internal affairs. In August, two American filmmakers were blocked from traveling to China to present their documentary about the more than 5,000 children in Sichuan Province who died when a 2008 earthquake caused numerous schools to collapse. Computer hackers and demonstrators took aim at the Melbourne International Film Festival in Australia in July to protest its screening of a documentary about a leader of Muslim Uighurs in the Xinjiang region of northwest China, where some 200 people were killed in ethnic violence last summer. And at last fall’s Frankfurt Book Fair, a diplomatic struggle emerged over the fair’s invitation to two dissident Chinese writers to speak at its official program honoring China.

Darryl Macdonald, the director of the Palm Springs festival, said in an interview that the Chinese consul general in Los Angeles traveled to the desert city on Wednesday. The official told him that the directors of the two films, rather than the Chinese government, which financed the films, had decided that they would not allow their work to be screened unless the festival canceled its scheduled showing of “The Sun Behind the Clouds: Tibet’s Struggle for Freedom.”

That documentary, by Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam, follows the Dalai Lama over a year through protests over the status of Tibet that were timed to coincide with preparations for the Beijing Olympics.

The Chinese officials “repeatedly said the assertions presented in ‘The Sun Behind the Clouds’ were all lies, and they reminded us that the United States government had an official position that Tibet is a part of China,” Mr. Macdonald said. “I told them that we have freedom of expression in this country, and that we would not allow any foreign country to dictate what films we should or should not play.”

Officials at the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles did not respond to repeated requests for comment Thursday and Friday.

Some American experts on China’s political and cultural atmosphere say they doubt that the filmmakers decided without prompting to withdraw the films. The second film is a comedy titled “Quick, Quick, Slow,” directed by Ye Kai. The film’s producer, Zhang Lanxin, had been expected to attend the festival.

Stanley Rosen, the director of the East Asian Studies Center at the University of Southern California, said in an interview that his experience with Lu Chuan, which includes having dinner with the filmmaker when he was writing the script for “City of Life and Death,” makes him certain that the withdrawal of the film “was basically a decision of the Chinese government.”

“There is no way that he could continue having his films in international festivals and be successful in China” without succumbing to pressure to have his film withdrawn, given that the government financed the film and must approve all Chinese films that are exported, Dr. Rosen said.

The Associated Press published excerpts of a telephone interview with Mr. Lu on Thursday in which he said he “unconditionally accepted” the decision to withdraw his movie.

“This incident involves national interest,” Mr. Lu told the A.P. “National interests trump everything. When it comes to national unity, I think the attitude of all Chinese is the same.” Asked if the withdrawal of the films interfered with artistic freedom, Mr. Lu said, “It’s really, really hard for me to answer that question.”

One American filmmaker who does business in China, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preserve his business interests there, said he believes that the directors could have asked for their films to be withdrawn knowing that not to do so would endanger their careers in China. “We have this belief in America that film tells truth to power,” the filmmaker said. “I think the Chinese directors were looking at it as they didn’t want any guilt by association.”

Kenneth G. Lieberthal, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, noted that Chinese President Hu Jintao once served as Communist Party chief for Tibet. “Tibet is an issue that is especially neuralgic for Beijing,” he said, adding that he would have been surprised if Chinese officials had not objected to the film.

Dr. Rosen said that “City of Life and Death” has attracted some criticism in China, because it portrays one Japanese character who was part of the occupation force as having a bout of conscience over Japanese atrocities and eventually killing himself.

In a statement issued Thursday, National Geographic said the withdrawal of the film from the festival was “unfortunate,” adding, “We’re proud of the film and we hope people will see this important movie when it opens in theaters later this year.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/09/movies/09film.html