金刚1933

A killer monster talkie that ushers in an era of creatively cranking out disproportionate behemoths to treat cinema audience with thrills and chills, the original KING KONG is the irrefutable forefather, most extraordinarily for its cutting-edge stop-motion animation technique, under the dexterous hands of Willis O’ Brien, which intricately melds with rear projection, matte painting and animatronics to knock its spectators dead, who are bestowed with an unprecedented vicarious experience of beholding a gargantuan gorilla-like monster, rampaging over, first an island jungle, a tribal village, then NYC, topping off by surmounting the pinnacle of the Empire State Building (the world’s tallest building at that time), before its fateful destiny precipitated by the weaponry of modern civilization.

Depression-era USA, from New York Harbor to the uncharted Skill Island, filmmaker Carl Denham (Armstrong), embarks his treacherous journey after recruiting a strapped but comely young girl Ann Darrow (Wray) as his new picture’s leading lady in the eleventh hour, only revealing his destination later on, the mystique of an apocryphal creature has been honed up to the hilt, with Ann feigning her trademark scream when sees something unspeakably horrendous, which will soon come out without any scintilla of feigning after she is served as a human offering by the local tribe on the island as “the bride of Kong”, and being tossed around like a toy (and incredibly unscathed) by the ape-monster that seems to take a particular shine to her.

It goes without saying that the special effects inexorably look rather dated to today’s eyes (86 years on), Kong’s image is more mechanic and cartoon-like than realistic, and a further emotional interrelation between the beauty and the beast becomes stone-cold impossible, but for a cinephile, our admiration and reverence towards the teamwork behind the arduous job of contriving such an enterprise is profound. In retrospect, KING KONG also benefits from its pre-Code temporality, that the film doesn’t shy away from Kong’s feral, human-chomping-and-stomping ferocity.

Kong’s violence might be excessive, but compared to the human team’s wanton reaction of disposing a stegosaurus (unwittingly betrays those adventurers’ own savage instinct), not to mention their reckless action that obliquely brings ruination to the tribe, which has been maintaining a non-aggressive cohabitation with Kong and the Jurassic living fossils, Kong’s fascination of Ann is perversely much more human and affecting (any sexual innuendo is punctiliously fudged), in the sense that his protective inclination towards that dainty, screeching creature is something unadulteratedly congenital and inexplicable (he battles with three different pre-historic monsters to save Ann out of harm’s way), which leaves his denouement a resounding pang in a viewer’s heart. Meantime, what now looks jarring is the ethnocentric idea that a white girl is being lionized by a foreign tribe as something exotically superior than their own skin, and the white men’s rough trespassing on their turfs only makes the aftertaste smack of racial insensitivity.

The long and the short of it, like its preternatural protagonist, Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack’s KING KONG itself is almost, too big to fall, remains as a landmark Hollywood commodity that pioneers in configuring a fantasy world of horror, excitement and otherworldliness, that has been still hogging the market and incessantly piquing our innate interest.

referential entries: Peter Jackson’s KING KONG (2005, 7.0/10); Karel Zeman’s THE DEADLY INVENTION (1958, 6.5/10)

电影讲述1933年的美国，一名勇于冒险的企业家及电影制作者，率领摄制队伍到荒岛拍摄，其中包括女主角安及编剧杰克，他们遇到恐龙及当地土著的袭击，安发出的尖叫声换来金刚的回应。这只巨大无比的猩猩，连凶悍的恐龙也惧怕它几分，偏偏它却钟情于安。安其后将金刚由荒岛带回纽约，但却是它悲剧命运的开始。最后，不甘于被擒的金刚逃出了影院，却逃不出人类城市这座孤岛。

影片《金刚》里上演的大猩猩，符合科学、文学和电影的各种不同的传说。其实大猩猩是两位导演相互妥协的结果。其中之一是梅里安·库珀，他起初以他喜欢的作品——迪夏宇的《在赤道非洲的旅行和冒险》为原型，想到的是一只凶恶的怪兽。但是欧内斯特·舒德萨克却立刻考虑到一个有人性的、可爱的金刚。按评论家辛西娅·厄尔布的看法，露丝·罗斯（舒德萨克的妻子）作为电影编剧，对影片的设计做出了很大的贡献。她突出了金刚与少女之间纯朴温柔的爱情，这样就使大猩猩变得温和，并且在故事里引入了一个女人的视角——按照她自己的说法——以便吸引更多的观众。

两位导演之间达成的妥协，首先是关于外形的问题。舒德萨克认真地要以科学事实为依据，打电话给纽约自然史博物馆，想得到大猩猩解剖的准确数据；此外还录制了几份大猩猩的音响资料。库珀更关注技术方面的可能性，看到这些资料以后，决定金刚至少要在三个方面不同于一只“真实的”大猩猩。首先，他认为一只真实的大猩猩发出的声音过于温和悦耳。他不是到动物园里录音，而是采用一些猫发出的后再把速度放慢的声音，并且把一个人胸部发出的声音加以放大，用来代替金刚捶打胸部的咚咚声。他认为一只巨大的动物应该发出一种强烈的声音。其次，库珀对收集的关于一只成年雄性大猩猩身材的资料一无所知。他不认同动物园所说的“大约1.70米”，而是把金刚完全扩大到了传说中一个巨人的比例，也就是“大约15米”。最后，人们除掉了金刚的阴茎，以便像当时好莱坞出品的许多影片里那样，掩盖一切明显的性行为。与大猩猩的身材和体重相比，他的阴茎是小的（成年大猩猩勃起时平均长度为五厘米）。保尔·迪夏宇取走了被带到欧洲的大猩猩的生殖器。蕾蒙娜和德斯蒙德·莫里斯在《人类与猿猴》（1966）中暗示，迪夏宇的目的可能是为了隐瞒大猩猩的阴茎尺寸毫不惊人的真相。

因此，像他在自己的著作《在赤道非洲的旅行和冒险》（1861）中所描绘的、富于攻击性和作为强奸者的大猩猩，这种可怕的形象也许会被摧毁。这可能也是金刚没有阴茎的原因，但即使为了影片的需要也并非必须牺牲真相。不过在一个场景里，他的阴茎似乎象征性地被一棵树取代了。金刚抓住他面前的一棵树干摇晃着，试图使袭击他的人掉下来。同样值得注意的是可以看到，《金刚》里的一切解释依据的都是这个观点：大猩猩是一只雄性，但是在影片中找不到这方面的任何生理迹象。金刚是无性的，他的行为是男性和女性不同方面的组合：是个父亲那样的保护者，亲切得像个母亲，气恼时像个孩子。实际上，是大猩猩与少女之间经历的感情潮流表现了他的异性恋，并且使金刚变成了“雄性”。

根据对黑人进行研究的文化批评方面的论著，金刚之死似乎主要是为异性恋白种男人的难题带来了一个解决办法。大猩猩被白种男人杀死了，因而可怕的“黑色”野兽也就被消灭了。詹姆斯·斯尼德补充说，金刚在本质上为异性恋白种男人扮演着典范的角色，因为他们可以把自己内心对于强奸的幻想转移到他的身上。按照历史学家托马斯·戈塞特（保尔·霍克在他的1979年出版的著作《白人英雄，黑人野兽》里加以引证）的看法，白种男人认同于黑色的人形野兽的幻想非常流行：“他们会乐于能够成为黑人，至少是在星期六晚上。”至于斯尼德，他断言白种男人为自己对于强奸的幻想感到极为内疚，所以猿猴应该死去：金刚的死亡意味着赎罪，而在这种背景下他的阴茎的缺失，也许可以解释为这种黑色的威胁已经被白人电影艺术家消除了。金刚死后，黑人观众和白种女人有点怅然若失。白种女人还有可能尝试把精力集中在白人的异性恋婚姻上，而黑人观众只能两眼空虚地注视着黑色绅士金刚的死亡。

摘自斯坦恩·詹森《女人为什么爱猿猴》p12-14，p26-27

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令人惊艳的的特效怪兽电影，后来的翻拍虽然技术有所进步，剧本也打磨得更细腻，但也仅仅是在这一版的基础上做得更好而已，这部1933年的《金刚》具有划时代的意义。 有人说，这版金刚滥杀无辜，喜欢不起来，但其实只要你仔细想一想就会意识到导演和编剧这样处理其实是更加真实地反应了金刚的本性，因为它毕竟是一只巨大的野兽，没有人类那样懂得怜悯其它生命的感情，但它对于自己喜欢的人或者物品是会懂得不去伤害甚至去保护她的行为，让人倍感意外。这也就是为什么不少观众在最后看到金刚在滥杀无辜之后为保护女主而死依然会觉得伤心和失落的原因。 尤其是女性观众往往会产生这样的想法: “什么时候能有一个男人能为我爬上帝国大厦打飞机呢？”然后对身边的男友狠狠地白了一眼。