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| RED CARPET Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy By Erich Schwartzel | 《红毯：好莱坞、中国以及文化霸权的全球斗争》作者：埃里希·施瓦策尔（RED CARPET Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy By Erich Schwartzel） |
| When Jiang Zemin saw “Titanic,” he was extremely impressed. Was it the film’s politics? The scuffling between the disadvantaged proletariat below decks and preening nobs above? Sure, James Cameron’s blockbuster displayed a rudimentary class consciousness, of the sort that a Communist leader might be expected to note and grimly endorse. But that wasn’t what earned the particular admiration of the president of the People’s Republic of China. No — Jiang, reports Erich Schwartzel in “Red Carpet,” was blown away by the movie’s “emotional appeal”: Leo and Kate, the gale-like voice of Celine Dion, the artistic engineering of the feelings. “I invite my comrades of the Politburo to see the movie,” he said at the next National People’s Congress. “We should never think that we are the only ones who know how to persuade people.” | 江泽民看了《泰坦尼克号》之后，印象非常深刻。打动他的是电影里的政治？是甲板下的弱势无产阶级和甲板上层趾高气扬的贵族之间的争斗？是的，这部由詹姆斯·卡梅伦导演的大片展现了一种原始的阶级意识，一名共产党领导人可能会注意到它并予以严肃肯定。但这并不是中华人民共和国主席格外佩服这部电影的原因。不——根据埃里希·施瓦泽尔撰写的《红毯》，江被电影的“情绪感召力”所震撼：莱昂纳多和凯特、席琳·迪翁那响彻云霄的嗓音、表达感受的艺术技巧。“我请政治局的同志也去看一看，”他在那之后的一届全国人民代表大会上说。 “切不可以为我们才会做思想工作。” |
| Persuade people to do what, is the question. To buy movie tickets and associated merch? To conform in a totalitarian state? Both? “There is, in fact, no such thing as art for art’s sake,” Mao Zedong said in a lecture delivered in Yan’an in 1942. On this point, he and capitalism were in complete agreement: You’re always selling something, be it a revolution or a pair of sneakers. “Red Carpet” is the story of the nexus that formed when Hollywood realized it needed China’s cash, and China realized it could first manipulate — and then appropriate — Hollywood’s special gifts for enchantment, coercion, lifestyle control, and inducing audiences to tear up by means of orchestral swells and Tom Hanks talking earnestly to small children. Or, for that matter, an 18th-century Mel Gibson all bulging with love of freedom: When Sony executives sent a print of “The Patriot” to the censors in Beijing, hoping for a release, they were told that such approval had been denied — but could Chinese officials hold onto the print? “We want others in the bureau to watch it so they can understand how to make a good propaganda film.” | 问题是对人们做什么样的思想工作。买电影票和相关周边商品？顺从极权主义的统治？或两者皆有？“为艺术的艺术，实际上是不存在的，”毛泽东在1942年延安文艺座谈会上讲到。在这一点上，他和资本主义完全一致：你总是在推销一些东西，无论是一场革命还是一双跑鞋。当好莱坞意识到它需要中国的资金，而中国意识到它可以将好莱坞的特殊天赋先进行操控再据为己有，《红毯》讲述的就是这样一个联合。中国将其用于展现魅力、胁迫、控制生活方式，并用宏大的管弦乐和与儿童诚恳交谈的汤姆·汉克斯让观众感动到流泪。或者，就此而言，一个18世纪梅尔·吉布森满怀对自由的热爱：当索尼高管将《爱国者》(The Patriot)的拷贝寄给北京的审查机构，希望能够上映时，他们被告知，上映批准被拒绝了——但中国官员可以将拷贝留下吗？“我们希望政治局里的其他人都看一看，这样他们就可以了解如何制作一部好的宣传片。” |
| The two stories, the humbling of Hollywood and the swelling of Chinese soft power, twist and combine across Schwartzel’s masterfully organized book. Hollywood is felled by, among other things, prestige television and the collapse of the DVD market. (In 2003, on the day of its release, Disney sold eight million copies of the “Finding Nemo” DVD; by 2008, Disney’s DVD sales had fallen by 33 percent, more than halving the studio’s operating income.) As domestic and global box offices slump, China — slowly and suspiciously opening itself up to Western influences — becomes the new frontier: a great lake of virgin moviegoing imagination, a vast untapped resource. | 施瓦策尔将这两个故事——好莱坞的卑躬屈膝和中国软实力的膨胀——在他巧妙编排的书中交织并整合。好莱坞因声望很高的电视节目和DVD市场的崩溃而深受打击。（2003年《海底总动员》[Finding Nemo]发行当天，迪士尼售出了800万张DVD；到2008年，迪士尼的DVD销量下降了33%，制片厂的营业收入减少了一半以上。）当国内和全球的影院进入萧条，中国缓慢而多疑地向西方影响开放，成为新的前沿：一个充满原始观影欲望的巨大市场，一个庞大的未开发资源。 |
| But China is not a democracy, and its economic leverage over Hollywood allows its leaders to subject American movies to an unprecedented process of ideological filtration. In the movies approved by China’s censors you will find no mention of an afterlife, no time travel and no masturbation. (There’s a great joke in there somewhere.) “Underdog narratives” — little guy takes on the system — are a problem. Hollywood stars on promotional visits have to follow the rules (don’t mention Tibet or Taiwan) and negative images of China are to be expunged. “Red Carpet” itemizes the removal of clotheslines in a Shanghai street scene from “Mission: Impossible III” (drying underwear too retrograde); the rewriting of “World War Z” to clarify that the apocalyptic zombie virus did not actually originate, as previously thought, in China; the cutting of a scene in “Skyfall” in which James Bond Bondishly offs a Chinese security guard (makes Chinese people look weak); and — most spectacularly — in a remake of “Red Dawn,” the postproduction pixel-by-pixel transformation of an entire invading Chinese army into an army from North Korea. (“The flags are one nightmare unto themselves,” a weary special-effects wizard tells Schwartzel, “and then there are all these subnightmares.”) | 但中国不是一个民主国家，它对好莱坞具有经济影响力使其领导人能够将美国电影置于前所未有的意识形态过滤程序中。在中国审查机构批准的电影中，你会发现它们不会提到来世，没有时间旅行，也没有手淫（书里有一个很好的笑话）。小人物挑战体制的“草根叙述”是有问题的。好莱坞明星在宣传访问中必须遵守规则（不要提及西藏或台湾），并且要消除中国的负面形象。《红毯》逐条列举了《碟中谍3》(Mission: Impossible III)中上海街景里晾衣绳的拆除（晾晒内衣太落后）；重写《僵尸世界大战》(World War Z)，以澄清世界末日僵尸病毒事实上并非如先前所想的那样起源于中国；剪掉《大破天幕杀机》(Skyfall)中詹姆斯·邦德以他经典的方式打倒一名中国保安的场景（让中国人看起来很弱）；还有——也是最引人注目的——《赤色黎明》(Red Dawn)的翻拍将整个中国侵略军队在后期制作中逐个像素地改为一支来自朝鲜的军队。（“处理旗帜本身就是一场噩梦，”一位累坏了的特效师告诉施瓦策尔，“然后还有所有这些次生的噩梦。”） |
| In addition to those things being taken out of American movies at the behest of China, there are also things being put in, generally by eager-to-please American producers. “A Chinese city, actress or energy drink,” Schwartzel writes, “which producers referred to as ‘Chinese elements,’ became selling points for a film.” Sometimes the Chinese film bureau will make a suggestion: Instead of heroic American jets roaring in to save Hong Kong from marauding giant robots in the climactic scenes of “Transformers: Age of Extinction,” how about — oh, I don’t know — heroic Chinese jets? Sure! says the studio, for whom Chinese cooperation is “an economic no-brainer.” | 在美国电影中，除了应中国要求被删除的东西之外，也有一些加进去的东西，通常是急于讨好中国的美国制片人干的。“一个中国城市、一个中国女演员或者一种能量饮料，”施瓦策尔写道，“制片人称其为‘中国元素’，这些都可以成为电影的卖点。”有时中国电影管理机构会提出建议：在《变形金刚4：绝迹重生》(Transformers: Age of Extinction)的高潮场景里，与其让英勇的美国飞机呼啸而来，把香港从巨型机器人的劫掠中拯救出来，不如——哦，我不知道——让英勇的中国飞机来？当然可以！制片公司说，对他们来说，与中国合作是“从经济上说明摆着的事”。 |
| At the same time, in Chinese films, Americans are getting worse. “While Hollywood studios were stripping their movies of Chinese villains,” writes Schwartzel, “Chinese filmmakers were not extending the same courtesy.” He instances the 2017 mega-smash “Wolf Warrior 2,” in which the Chinese hero Leng rescues African villagers from a disgusting, stomping, supremacist American mercenary called Big Daddy, handsomely played by Frank Grillo. “People like you will always be inferior to people like me,” grunts Big Daddy, locked in bloody struggle with Leng and pushing a blade toward his throat. “That’s history,” says Leng, the second before he twists away and stabs Big Daddy in the neck. “In the movie’s closing credits,” Schwartzel writes, “played as some sold-out auditoriums sang or burst into applause — a pronouncement appeared: ‘Citizens of the People’s Republic of China, when you encounter danger in a foreign land, do not give up! Please remember, at your back stands a strong motherland!’” | 与此同时，在中国电影里，美国人却越来越糟糕。“当好莱坞电影公司在他们的电影中去掉中国反派时，”施瓦策尔写道，“中国电影制作人却没有给予对方同样的礼遇。”他以2017年的大片《战狼2》为例，片中，中国英雄冷锋从一个令人厌恶、脾气暴躁、奉行种族优越论的美国雇佣兵“老爹”（由英俊的弗兰克·格里罗饰演）手中救出了非洲村民。 “这个世界只有强者和弱者，你们这种劣等民族永远属于弱者，”老爹咕哝着，与冷锋进行血腥的搏斗，用一把刀刺向他的喉咙。“那是以前，”冷锋说。紧接着，他扭身躲开，把刀捅进老爹的脖子。“在片尾字幕中，”施瓦策尔写道，“当座无虚席的观众席上爆发出歌声或掌声时，一句声明出现了：‘中华人民共和国公民：当你在海外遭遇危险，不要放弃！请记住，在你身后，有一个强大的祖国！’” |
| This is a fascinating book. It will educate you. Schwartzel has done some extraordinary reporting, and a lot of legwork. He talks to Disney executives and compulsorily rehoused Chinese farmers; he talks to Michael Gralapp, an American actor who made a career out of playing Winston Churchill in Chinese movies, until he suddenly found himself playing Warren Buffett. He ends up in the Masai village of Suswa, Kenya, at the end of one spoke of China’s world-historical Belt and Road initiative, a “collection of Chinese loans and infrastructure deals aimed at redrawing global trade maps.” China is building a train station in Suswa, as part of a grand project to connect the city of Mombasa, on the coast, with the Kenyan interior. It has also delivered StarTimes satellite dishes to some of the villagers, and is piping in, among other entertainments, Chinese game shows and 24-hour kung fu. All part of the same “campaign for African opinion” that brought you “Wolf Warrior 2.” | 这是一本引人入胜的书。它会教育你。施瓦策尔做了一些非凡的报道，并且做了大量搜集素材的工作。他与迪斯尼高管和被强制安置的中国农民交谈；他与美国演员迈克尔·格拉拉普交谈，后者先是在中国电影里扮演温斯顿·丘吉尔，后来突然又开始扮演沃伦·巴菲特。全书最后，他来到肯尼亚苏斯瓦马赛村，参加一场关于中国 “一带一路”倡议的讲话，这项具有世界历史意义的倡议是“旨在重新绘制全球贸易地图的中国贷款和基础设施协议的集合”。中国正在苏斯瓦建设一个火车站，作为连接沿海城市蒙巴萨和肯尼亚内陆的宏伟工程的一部分。中国还向一些村民发放了StarTimes卫星天线，并通过中国游戏节目和24小时的中国功夫节目等其他娱乐活动逐渐渗透。这些都是为你带来《战狼2》的“非洲舆论运动”的一部分。 |
| During the ’80s, in what Schwartzel calls the “rah-rah era” of American cinema — “The Right Stuff,” “Back to the Future,” “Dirty Dancing,” “Top Gun” — the inward-looking Chinese were mainly consuming their own rather stodgy propaganda. “Superman,” starring Christopher Reeve, was briefly released eight years after its American debut, but condemned on the grounds that Superman himself was “a narcotic which the capitalist class gives itself to cast off its serious crises.” The possibility of a state-administered political narcotic, it seems, had not yet, or not quite, occurred to Chinese leadership. “Red Carpet” is about what happened next. | 施瓦策尔将1980年代称为美国电影的“狂欢时代”，涌现出《太空先锋》(The Right Stuff)、《回到未来》(Back to the Future)、《辣身舞》(Dirty Dancing)、《壮志凌云》(Top Gun)等作品，在那个时代，内向的中国人主要消费他们自己相当乏味的宣传作品。由克里斯托弗·里夫主演的《超人》(Superman)在美国上映八年后曾短期在中国上映，但遭到了谴责，理由是超人本身是一种“资产阶级用来摆脱严重危机的麻醉剂”。中国领导人似乎还没有，或者说还没有完全意识到，一种由国家管理的政治麻醉剂也是有可能的。《红毯》讲的就是接下来发生的事情。 |
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