人民公园2012

就像一个人坐在轮椅上，被人推着，在公园里看到的一切。或者说，我是一个漂浮在空中的探测器，我漂浮在人间的深海搜集信息。从这个视角看行走的人总有一种凄凉的美感。影片结束后，感觉人类每天都这样一群一群地走动，聚在一起唱歌、跳舞、说话，实在是一场集体的行为艺术，荒诞而荒凉。那个时光好像是虚假的一样，在那个特定时空中那样安排、分布的人们再也不能像那样按部就班了。那是只属于特定时空的集体表演，人们就在那个时候聚在一起然后各自消失。通过透析人群的运动，察觉到人世无穷的变化、流转。这个影片做到了这一点，它穿越了我们个人走动时的主观局限，而是一种在平滑时空中的穿梭，它仿佛把一整个时间段里不同空间的人的走动都呈现了出来。而你观看着这不同时空走动的运动的整体，就像观看水塘里水波轻轻推动的卵群一样尽收眼底，实在是很奇妙的体验。我以后也试着这样观察人类。一个人走动的时候，当自己在时空中穿梭（好像不这样想就不是），不想其他的事情，只观察人和事物。

本来还想赞叹开头那个交谊舞的长镜头大胆又不失有趣，意外但还算合理，结果发现这个“长镜头”根本没有要停下来的意思，全片一个多小时居然打算一镜到底。这真是反电影的片子，如果我们对电影的理解里蒙太奇已经是必不可少的一部分。尤其它还是个纪录片，相比之下，那些精心设计跟排演过的剧情片，不管是毕赣热衷的越来越长的真・长镜头，还是《鸟人》那种巧妙遮掩剪辑点的伪一镜到底，都比它一路游走拍到啥算啥的状况要容易让人接受得多吧。

当然也不真是那么混不吝的拍到啥算啥，拍摄的方法和路线必然有经过设计，也很可能拍了好几次最终选择了这一条。

那么，如果没有因为感到被愚弄而愤怒地提前结束观影，生生磕下来这一个多小时，和自己真去公园逛上一趟的区别，是什么呢？

首先，拍摄者移动的速度比正常的步速明显是要慢上许多的，（不晓得用的什么稳定器，丝毫不晃），而因为慢了下来，观看者被迫沉浸其中细细观察，这是一种并不寻常的体验。哪怕是个热衷于在路上边走边观察生活的人，也不会以这样慢的步速持续前进一个小时来看世界，而且除了头尾的两场广场舞之外，中间基本都是保持匀速行进绝不驻足。就这一点来讲，片子呈现的影像与我们逛公园能获得的见闻还是很有差别的。

其二，和观看所有其他影像作品一样，观看《人民公园》的过程中我们是借他人之眼来获得信息的。画框截取大千世界的哪一局部不受作为观众的我们所控制，持摄像机的人是唯一能够自主决定目光以何种速率朝哪一方向前行、又对哪一对象稍加瞩目甚至回首留恋的创世者。当某一处镜头的运动违背观者的兴趣游移开去的时候，摄影即“以他人的视角看世界”的这一特性将被得到凸显。而那些剪辑精妙、善于控制人心的影片常常容易让我们忘记这一点。

其三，《人民公园》（以及其他所有电影）还是以机器之眼来捕捉图像的，这尤其体现在镜头进入长廊后的一长段，因为摄像机的自动感光功能并不能完美模仿人的眼和脑对光线的自适应能力，这段影像与肉眼所见的差别尤为突出，造成一种非日常的体验。而机器带来的另一重效果则是拍摄（或者说观看）行为对被拍（被看）对象的侵入感大大大于普通的悄然旁观。基本上，如果你死盯着一个陌生人看，对方也会感到被冒犯，而如果你对着他举起相机，对方则会更快察觉并作出反应。在影片捕捉到的这么多人里，对被拍摄浑然未觉的也有，而一旦有人注意到镜头，我们便会看到一张张或戒备，或好奇，或热情欢迎的脸，也有一些跟随相机移动的反盯回来的视线，或者更少数的人，轻轻一瞥过后接着该干嘛干嘛。

我大概一年前就有了要去公园拍个纪录片的想法，但还真想不到一镜到底如此先锋的主意。细品一下，私以为人民公园这个题和这个拍摄方式的确是相当契合的。在这个公共空间里偶然出现的每一个人都是过客，片头片尾处镜头稍加流连的广场舞大爷大妈们相比之下也正是流连这个空间最多的一群人。游离的镜头捕捉到又很快错身而过的每一个人的状态、每一处地方的面貌，基本上足以让我们得见公园这个空间及置身其中的人民们的样子。这不是一个通常所见的要“讲故事”的叙事型的影像，而是更类似《柏林大都会交响曲》的那类影片，不过编排设计的余地要小得多得多。

我最近在读剪辑教科书《眨眼之间》，默奇开篇就说“总是在事物的极端情况下我们才能更深地理解事物的中间状态，比如冰和水蒸气可以比液态的水能展示更多水的本质。”所以《人民公园》这种一刀不剪的极端做法，恰能让人反过来理解剪辑的作用。

我认为，相比持续摄影，反倒是经过剪辑的影像更符合人类观察世界的规律。记忆的机制会对连续不断进入视野的材料进行选择，大多是经过短时记忆一轮游之后迅速被丢弃，而那些被注意到的、值得停下来驻足观看的、甚至看完还会反复回想再三咀嚼的部分，才得以进入并构成我们的记忆，它们恰如被剪辑过的影像一般，看似前后接续实际却是存在许多断裂的。几乎不会有人能够完整回忆起刚刚的一个多小时里镜头在人民公园这个空间中如何游走，前后又都接连见到了些什么人什么活动。

如果说摄影师是代替观众的眼睛来框取“往哪看”，剪辑师的工作则是代替观众的脑子来处理这些拍回来的素材，把不重要的过场统统丢掉，最多留一点衔接环节以保持不跳戏。

一段时间以来，我发现自己写东西变得很有障碍，文字的逻辑是连绵的，但我的思维模式已经变成了片段/断片式的了，连词成句、组句成段、拼段成篇都成了有难度的事情。关键词笔记已经足够记下我想到的东西，它们是跳跃的，缺少一些只有连缀作用而不增添更多意义的连接词将其组接起来。

坚持写了三天每天一篇纪录片影评，这篇是最长最通顺的了。加油，再接着练吧。

一点思考，之后在作详细整理和阅读。

突然想到，如果这是一部关于上个世纪四五十年代苏联某个广场的纪录片，亦或者这是一个关于上个世纪二三十年代上海远东魔都的长镜头，或者我们穿越五十年之后再来看这部纪录片会得出怎样的评价？

我们会对他们的活动和衣着称奇，同时严肃地对待公共空间的分布，隐形的价值判断和权力关系，而对他们公共空间下展现身体的态度而感同身受，尤其是影片的结尾，那些舞蹈的老人们。影片具备了民族志影像的文献价值。即便，只是时隔了十年，回过头去看移动手机普及和全球化程度加剧的前夜，有些变化也是惊人的。不可否认，成都作为一座一线内陆城市放大了这种差异——政治经济和技术条件快速变化之下人的现代性和全球化体验之间的差异。

为什么采取长镜头的形式？这是我能想到的第一个问题。

镜头从右至左地向前移动，并不出于现实主义的考量——我要把完整“真实”记录下来，因为观众能明确感受到长镜头的移动，并不固定，是一种挑衅式的逡巡，一次具身化的还原，融合了反身性和实验性的思考，是“参与观察模式”的进一步。

事实上，我起初觉得这很残忍，镜头的运动像要把所有经过的人都wipe out，在一个完整的时空里，人民公园像小径分岔的花园，永远走不到尽头，不断地和人相遇然后抛到画外，又不断地和相似的人重逢，却丝毫看不到会在哪里停下来的迹象。而镜头里的那些人群和人只是以同样或紧张或冷漠的反应姿态看着镜头，只一瞬就又消失不见。而本雅明把这形容为“现代人的欢乐与其说在于“一见钟情”，不如说在于‘最后一瞥之恋’。”

这恰恰是这部片子有趣的地方，摄影机通过暴力的方式造成了机体的紊乱，暴露了深层的症候。不断重复的人的姿态、体态和行动，差异中串联起一种对一种共性的认识，而这种共性反过来提供了我们认识个体的基础，以至于到了后来镜头里出现的人越来越显得有趣——似乎是漫长的进入才创造了理解的基础。

在纪录片的本体层面，这种形式创造了一种在主题内容与形式之间的张力，或者说拍摄者/被拍摄者之间的张力被统统暴露了出来，尤其是当那些小孩对着外国导演说出Hello的时候，我们发现我们处于一个异质的视点，远离了自己曾经习以为常的观看角度，而在不同族群之间的缝隙徘徊，到底是谁在观看谁？当我们试图理解被拍摄者的时候，我们也就理解了拍摄者，因为他既把自己放置到一个公共空间里受人审视，这显然是他早就有所预料甚至是期盼的，又把自己的视角下的人们对他的反应记录下来，他坐在轮椅上，推着穿行于在人民公园，而我们通过观看《人民公园》行走在人民公园，甚至是以一种游离于族群之外的身份。

而这些观看意味着什么？这种张力带来了什么认识？有一个镜头在绕过廊柱后平静地扫过一排制作陶器的电动转轮，它们上面堆着一些冷了凝固下来的陶土，看到这我才觉得有所感悟，在充满了人群的喧哗中，这里似乎是一片历史的遗迹，没有人在此，这里是一片真空，在此之外，人们的生活就像万花筒一般充满了惊奇的体验。

而一种惊诧和震惊，在镜头内外，在被摄者和摄影机之间存在。但回到一开始，我已经发现这种理解的来源并不生硬，从树叶开始，到低角度的观察，最后以双目注视为结尾，一切都开始变得浑圆起来。

镜头一：《穆赫兰道》

电影开始时，丽塔遇到了一场车祸。从车厢里爬出来的她沿着下山的路拐进一处私人住宅，后面我们将会知道这是贝蒂的姨夫姨母家。当丽塔带着蹒跚的步伐迈上台阶，进入敞开的大门时，摄影机镜头如同一个醉汉，失去重心般的浮动着，像是被安置在某块漂浮于水面的木板上，随着水流的波动运动着。这创造了一种诡异的影像观感。在《双峰3》的访谈中，林奇具体谈到了如何将摄影机放置在摇臂上获得这种镜头。

镜头二：《三峡好人》

《三峡好人》开始的那个长镜头，以摇动的方式拍下即将渡轮过江的群众。如同一个横轴画卷的展开，让我们缓慢窥视到一组普通人民的群像。目露惊慌，还是凝聚客观，都不是；在“局内”，还是“局外”，它保持住一种平衡。是一种空间内部的游动目光，被某种力量阻滞，却又不断向前。侯孝贤的电影之所以还不算空间－影像，原因在于他的摄影机只是左右摇动，这显现出摄影机的机械性，而不是在模拟某种生物性。

镜头三：《铁道》

史杰鹏在2014年拍摄的《铁道》，以相似的方式记录下中国人在铁道上的百态生活。在某些镜头中，滚滚向前的火车车厢内部，摄影机以缓慢的速率“游动”着，以某种类海洋生物的感知方式“触摸着”火车上的芸芸众生。如同那列永远在行驶中的火车不再有开始与结束，这是在创造一种无始无终、永远处在流动生成中的崭新影像。

镜头四：《人民公园》

这一切，都可以通过《人民公园》作总结。《人民公园》以一个长镜头记录下了成都人民公园中在某个热天午后发生的生活。史杰鹏通过让自己坐在轮椅上，镜头同样获得了一种“游动”的感觉，好奇地感触着眼睛所看到的景观，既有一种距离感，又有一种亲切。轮椅从地面获得的阻力传染到了摄影机上，它好像在冲破一些阻力，就像鱼在水中游动时，必须抗拒水给它的阻力。

流动与生成：液态影像的创造方式

空间好像被某种液体充满了，摄影机幻化为某种水中生物，如同鱼在水中那般游动着。一方面是尾和鳍的摆动产生的向前运动的力量，另一方面是来自液体本身的阻力，两股力量相互作用，从而让影像获得了一种神秘观感。一种新的生成可能，模拟鱼的观察方式。瓦解了观看者惯常的以人的视角展开的感知，目光被规训为水生生物。这是一种空间－影像的创造方式，让观众获得了生成－非人的体验。

既然申请季结束了那么就随便发了吧..

暂时对专门学习电影/影像/纪录片告一段落。存档纪念，可能难得再写影视文章了。

A single-take documentary film co-directed by Sniadecki and Libbie D. Cohn epitomises multiple daily portraits in Chengdu, China. In this film, the masses wander in the People’s Park as routine, which are captured by a digital camera moving slowly through the photographer in a wheelchair. Sniadecki’s works are under the assistance of Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab (SEL) that devotes attention to the combination of aesthetics and ethnography. Specifically, a series of documentaries are neither limited to film practice or ethnography only. Instead, it is an exploration to present both landscape and culture in multifarious areas through flexible media with a concern of sensory aesthetics.

Such a kind of documentaries are somewhat distinct from the origin of Observational film and Direct cinema, given its closer association with perception. The original Direct Cinemas adhere to the notion of non-participation, while the latter ones, i.e., the works of SEL, highlight the sensory interaction with creatures or objects, and even simulate the non-human perception. Thus, they go deeper and further to build up a linkage between anthropology and the perception in the relevant audiovisual works.

It is under the very background that People’s Park was produced, i.e., Sniadecki has got a basic familiarity with China and completed several documentaries as well as short films in different cities of China (Shanghai, Songhua and Chengdu, etc.). Subsequently, he attempted at more experimental methods in Yumen (2013) collaborated with Chinese artist Xu Ruotao, and The Iron Ministry (2014), a resemblance with the Thailand’s creative documentary Railways Sleepers (2016).

To start with the present essay, I would expound what the aesthetics and the social landscape is, and how they coalesce in the apparatus. In the Irina Leimbacher’s film comment, he has discussed the old debate on the paradox between verbal explanation and sensory experience, which can be traced back to the Philosophy of language in the last century. As filmmakers of SEL identify themselves as the advocate of pure experience rather than an ethnographic representation, they return to empiricism to a certain degree. With this consideration, the unspeakable moving images demonstrate the situations in contemporary Chinese urban areas, which is a combination of the micro and macro, the sight of strangeness and the transection of urban anthropology.

People’s Park indeed, similar with many other works of SEL, stimulates a sight through the steady and slow movement of a camera. Different from other works like Leviathan (2012) which simulates the perception of halobios, and Sweetgrass (2009) where the sight is concealed in a group of shepherds, it is difficult to say whose perception lies in People’s Park. The camera is at a height level resembles that of a child. However the sight keeps it uncertainty because the human would not set in such a tardy and smooth sensation, nor could the specific animal lingers in the crowds. Even though the movement pattern of camera is akin to that of Bela Tarr and Aleksandr Sokurov, total differences lie in its ordinariness as well as the absence of myth, fiction and history. Thus, likewise, we should not regard the camera as a sight of an object. It does not function as a storyteller, nor a stiff machine.

The movement represents more vague perspectives, leaving multiple imaginations to sense an uncertain perception. The perception could be from anything: the molecules, liquid or even a spectre, which can spread in such a park full of dwellers. So to speak, such an ambigious viewpoint reconnects experience with science. On the one hand, the unutterable and uncharted substance can be imaged to fit one of the movement patterns; on the other hand, it is also perceivable as the objects that could be measured by pure science — camera.

In Agamben’s Infancy And History, the infancy refers to a state leading the Tower of Babel to history, that is under experience of language acquisition but has not been constructed. For this documentary, a low, flat and unknown sight can also be imagined as such an infant; it is a metaphor illustrating an unutterable status, a process of experience and knowledge acquisition. Therefore, the indescribable movement creates a kind of fancy rather than a real life (but indeed in daily life), that opposes to modern real experience characterized by a bereft of imagination. Thus, the randomicity and liquidity are actually the points to correspond with the notion mentioned above. Compared to animals, the infancy between the sensible form and the potential intellect could be more creative not only for observation but also obtaining, extending the pure optical and sound situations to the potential ideology.

Though the perception could derive from anything, what is worth reflecting on is the cultural aspect rather than the material essense. The sensible sight demonstrates its potentiality to sense and then explore the information in surroundings, thus leading to dimensions of culture and society.

The continuous lens record a spectrum of leisure and activities in a park of a contemporary-China modern city, where there is a public space. Modern China is permeated by two main forces—politics and capitals. The former is embodied in J.P. Sniadecki’s Chai Qian (2010); the latter is in the daily life in People’s Park, epitomising the common and ordinary landscape, in which people care more about individuals or micro social groups rather than collectivism. Some of them casually sit on the bench for relaxation, some of them dance in the square with passion, and others then cast their eyes to the dancers. These citizens in the film lead a leisure life in Chengdu, a southwest metropolis far from the political center of China, due to the isolated but developed position of this city. The individuality occurs in the routine, extending the time image even to the extreme. As what Deleuze stated on neo-realism:

And Antonioni's art will continue to evolve in two directions: an astonishing development of the idle periods of everyday banality; then, starting with The Eclipse, a treatment of limit-situations which pushes them to the point of dehumanized landscapes, of emptied spaces that might be seen as having absorbed characters and actions, retaining only a geophysical description, an abstract inventory of them.

As for Fellini, from his earliest films, it is not simply the spectacle which tends to overflow the real, it is the everyday which continually organizes itself into a travelling spectacle, and the sensory-motor linkages which give way to a succession of varieties subject to their own laws of passage.

It is evident that everyday in People’s Park coincides with it and goes far beyond. Primarily, banality is expelled from the moving images, as their routine is dynamic compared to the tedious atmosphere at the post-war period. However, this vigour is merely limited to the specific space, followed by a trajectory of a camera and could not move backwards. Thus the inside and outside have been separated: this is a survey in entertainment, with the hustle and bustle excluded outside.

For another, the travelling spectacle is notable in the People’s Park. The camera held by J.P. Sniadecki served as a privilege, enabling the particular filmmaker in a wheelchair to photograph in a smooth way. Local dwellers are no more reluctant to be captured since they have gotten accustomed to tourists. There are the mutual gazes between dwellers and outsiders, and the gazes of tourists transform everyday into a spectacle through the camera, then giving rise to multiple possibilities of the perception. In a word, such moving images highlight the production between the reality and camera, being boundary-pushing of Fellini’s deliberate confusion of the real and the spectacle.

This sort of spectacle indeed, are at highlight when the Break-dancing appeared. The body untrammelled with shaking also expresses a sense of flight. The camera captures and interacts with dancers, blending the “impromptu” into the society. The dancing in the square itself, randomly without settings, forms the primary “impromptu” that recalls the traits of the 1980s, when Chinese young people were initially imbued with the Western culture. It accounts for their freedom in this scene: the middle-aged amateurs were vigorous 20-years-old youth in the middle of 1980s, the change of likeness still retaining its character, in which we could perceive the tension of limbs as much as in their youth age. Putting the profound artistry aside, their straight-out and casual activities have overstepped the scope of dancing, alluding to a status of how the Chinese urban youth entertained and recreated themselves in the initial stage of Reform and Opening and how the culture has been inherited in the contemporary society. It is the very viewpoint of camera that synchronously interacts with the reality, as the crowds wave to the camera. But we can still envisage it as a peculiar perspective like an infant in the cradle, slowly wandering around the dancing square, then of possibilities of close interaction and the potency of acquiring information surrounding through the sensory experience.

It is worthy noting that the music played in the square provides another pathway to understand the urban anthropology and culture memories. A series of pop but vulgar music is played in the park, functioning as the representative of music favoured by those proletariats in contemporary China’s urban regions. Entirely different from the collectivist period full of official music, the popular ones entirely transform the aspiration into the individual motion, introducing the western skills such as those concerned with the rhythm, the motif and lyrics. However, as popular music proceeds in recent decades, it cannot keep abreast of times and are stagnating in the obsolete style. On the one hand, those youth in the past are suffering ageing, but it is inappropriate to play the reminiscent music due to their passion that still keep in fashion. On the other hand, they are actually estranged from the present-day culture core, which results in a more vulgar style of dancing music. It is on the very style that we could figure out such a group of people who generally enjoy recreations in the park—well-known as “Square-dancing grannies” in China.

Thus, this work produced in Chengdu is also a practice of acoustic mapping and we can perceive the soundscape through a sense of soundwalk. The camera does not merely focus on the pure optical situation, but also highlights the sound. This practice corresponds with the methodology of sound anthropology. The oral language is limited by cognition, but the environmental sound can convey distinct sensations. What matter are the sensations and memories influenced by the melody, rhythm or other elements of sound. For example, the music mentioned above convey the status of the age-groups and reminds them of their vigorous time.

For anthropologists, the emphasis on the daily visual and audio materials subverts the post-colonial perspective to a certain degree. When filmmakers conceal in the field, they get involved into the mutual gazes and the research in specific literature is replaced by more ambiguous and multifold sensations. The relationship and boundary between “self” and “ the other” are blurred, making it possible to explore the flowing and fresh connections. Based on this methodology, the director of SEL thinks highly of it with a comment that “not to analyze, but to actively produce aesthetic experience, and of kinds that reflect and draw on but do not necessarily clarify or leave one with the illusion of ‘understanding’ everyday experience.” Not only does he emphasize the aesthetics in works of SEL, but also a practice in line with the post-colonial criticism.