專訪：製片人把台灣歷史推上大螢幕

轉載:Taipei Times
Taiwanese-American Will Tiao, producer and actor in the political thriller ‘Formosa Betrayed,’ sat down with ‘Taipei Times’ staff reporter J. Michael Cole last week to talk about the political and philosophical underpinnings of the film and the threat from China


身兼驚悚政治謀殺電影「被背叛的台灣」製片與演員的台裔美人刁毓能(Will Tiao)，上週接受Taipei Times記者J. Michael Cole的專訪，談到影片內容所涉及的政治與哲學基礎，並且談及台灣所受的中國威脅


J. Michel Cole, STAFF REPORTER, Monday, Aug 02, 2010, Page 3



Taipei Times: Given your parents’ experience of being blacklisted by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) during the White Terror era, did they ever worry about your safety after you embarked on this project?



Taipei Times：你父母在白色恐怖時代，曾有過被國民黨列為黑名單的經驗，在你籌拍本片後，他們會擔心你的安全嗎?



Will Tiao (刁毓能): Ever since I left Washington, my career in politics, to pursue a career in Hollywood, I told them I wanted to do something about this issue, with regards to this idea of there being a series of murders of Taiwanese intellectuals, some of them in the US … that there were student spies on almost every campus. I had always wanted to tell the story for an American audience. I knew it was part of my parents’ story. I made it clear from day one that this was something I wanted to do. My father especially said that if you’re going to do something for Taiwan, then I’ll support you.



刁毓能：自從我離開華聖頓的政治工作，到好來塢尋求發展，我告訴父母，想拍一些關於台灣一連串情治人員的暗殺事件，他們有些是在美國境內，幾乎每個校園裏都有職業學生。我從以前就想讓美國人知道這個故事。 我了解裏面有部份是我父母的故事，我一開始就知道這是我想要做的事。父親特別對我說：你想為台灣做一點事，我會支持你！



Of course we knew that doing this movie was something that would be provoking and controversial. But we were always careful about not pointing fingers. Other than Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), no other historical figure is mentioned. Never in the film did we use the terms Kuomintang or waishengren (外省人); we don’t call out any specific person … Of course we were aware that this could cause — and obviously caused — a lot of consternation among certain people, but we were always careful not to keep this in the typical blue-green divide that deals with Taiwan.



當然，可想而知，這部片發人深省，也會引起爭議，但是我們小心翼翼，並未指明任何人，除了蔣介石，沒有任何歷史人物被提及。在這部片中，不曾引用「國民黨」與「外省人」詞句，我們並未指出任何一個特別的人，因為我們當然知道這會明顯的引起某一群人極大的驚恐，我們盡量不落入傳統的台灣藍綠紛爭。



TT: How did that consternation you refer to express itself?



Taipei Times：你剛剛談到的驚恐是什麼情況？



Tiao: If you look at the Internet, there’s attacks all over the place. People are arguing and debating and that’s part of why we did this, to make people focus on this. One time at Harvard when I was giving a speech there, a woman came in and asked: ‘What events are you talking about, is this real or is this fake, because this isn’t the history that I was taught.’ And I said, every character in this film is inspired on at least two actual, and every major event in this movie is a composite of an actual event … People get to see how impassioned the debate is. I’m happy to see that people are engaged.



刁毓能：你只要看看網路，就會發現到處都有攻詰，他們不斷地爭論、辯論，這也是我們籌拍此片的一部份原因，要讓大家聚焦於此。有一次在哈佛，我正在演講，有個女人走進來問我，「你在講什麼事件？真的還是杜撰？教我們的歷史並不是這樣說的」。我說，這部片中的每個角色，至少會啟發正反兩面的意見，電影中的每一個主要事件，都是確實發生的史實。大家應該去看兩方激烈的爭議，我樂於看到每個人熱衷討論片中的情節。



TT: The movie The Killing Fields [about genocide in Cambodia] came out just a few years after the actual events. Have you encountered criticism that your movie, on the other hand, is about ‘ancient’ history, as it depicts events that took place 30 or 40 years ago?



Taipei Times：柬埔寨大屠殺的電影「殺戮戰場」，拍攝時間只在事件發生後沒幾年，你的電影會不會被批評太陳舊，因為你所描述的事件場景發生在三、四十年前？



Tiao: Absolutely. But we still see ramifications of that period today. The idea that the 1970s and 1980s is ancient history strikes me as very odd. Most people who were involved in those events are still alive today — at least those who survived. And some of those people are now in power. To not be reminded of what it was like, and what decisions were made at that time on all sides, is not only ill-considered, it’s blasphemous. There’s a reason why so many movies have been made about the Holocaust. We’re the first Hollywood movie about this subject [in Taiwan].



刁毓能：當然會，但是我們仍可見到那時所造成的結果，一直影響到今天。七O 、八O的歷史是老早的年代了，但是很奇妙，它一直激盪著我。那些事件中相關的大部份人，今天仍在世，無論如何，他們都存活下來了，而且有些人依舊掌權。若不能清楚說明當時的情況，或是當時各方面的決策，對台灣人民而言是種侮辱，而且有失公允。這就是為什麼許多人要拍攝大屠殺電影的原因，我們拍的正是好來塢第一部以台灣為主題的電影。



This is a reminder of history that is still fresh on the page and is something that needs to be understood, so that Generation Y know what their parents had to go through to get where they are today, and not forget.



歷史可當借鏡，它仍然是鮮活的一頁觸動人心，那段歷史必須被知道，Y世代的年輕人才能了解他們父母經歷慘痛才能到今日，歷史不可遺忘。



Taiwan is a very unique place, it’s a place where democracy can easily slide backwards because of the specter of China. A lot of people focus on Taiwan’s economic miracle, but few focus on the democratic miracle, and to me that’s something that needed to be told.



台灣是個特殊的地方，民主很容易因為中國的恫嚇而輕易倒退，許多人只知道台灣的經濟奇蹟，卻少有人曉得它的民主成就，對我而言，這就是需要宣傳的地方。



TT: There seems to be very little involvement in politics by the Y generation, or the Strawberry Generation, in Taiwan. How do you explain that?



Taipei Times：在台灣Y 世代，或者說 草莓世代的年輕人幾乎對政治毫無興趣，你如何解讀這個現象？



Tiao: It’s a very Taiwanese thing not to talk about the past. There are certain things that should not be mentioned — it’s cultural. It’s not the same thing as American culture, where they just forget [laughter]. There was a time, not a long time ago, when it was illegal and dangerous to talk about those things, and that has carried over.



刁毓能：不談論過去的歷史，幾乎已變成台灣人的習慣。有些特定的事情不允許被提起，早已成了一種文化。不同於美國文化，美國人只會忘記歷史(笑聲)。不久前的過去，曾經有一段時間，談論這些事情，還是可能觸法、有危險的，這個現象還繼續存在。



TT: What are your views on President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) China policy?



Taipei Times：你如何看待馬英九總統的中國政策？



Tiao: In many ways it goes to the heart of what the movie defines. For many years, the predominant paradigm that most people analyzed China-Taiwan relations by was Communist versus Nationalist. In our movie, we try to shift that paradigm so that people understand that the main conflict … is an identity issue, one of Chinese versus Taiwanese. There’s a lot of argument about what is Taiwanese identity … The Taiwanese consciousness was really created for the first time on 228 [the Feb. 27, 1947 massacre]. Strong identities are often created through oppression.



刁毓能：這部電影在許多方面感動人心，幾十年來，最明顯的例子，就是大多數人把台灣-中國的關係，剖析成國民黨對抗共產黨。在我們拍攝的電影中，力圖扭轉印象，讓大家知道最大的衝突，其實是中國人與台灣人之間的認同問題。有許多爭論在說台灣認同是什麼，台灣意識第一次真正產生的時間是在二二八 (1947年2月28日的大屠殺)，強烈的認同常常產生於壓迫。



For the Chinese, their idea of a national identity stems from the sense of oppression, often from the West. And the concept that China was once great and that the West took it away. Now it’s China’s rightful place to be back where it is and that includes Tibet and Taiwan and anyone who wants to take away Taiwan from the motherland, that’s still part of the Western oppression. Because China is now communist in name only, it’s replaced its ideology with nationalism.



對中國人而言，國家認同源於壓迫，通常是指西方的壓迫。這種觀念認為中國曾經偉大過，但是被西方剝奪了。現在是中國人的世紀，要拿回該有的光榮，包括西藏與台灣，任何想讓台灣脫離中國祖國的人，都是接受了西方壓迫的餘毒。事實上，中國共產黨名存實亡，它的理想性早被民族主義取代了。



On the flip side, Taiwan’s identity is fairly new, only born of 228 and the White Terror era. It’s not been long enough that Taiwanese feel a strong sense of identity. So Taiwan finds itself in a strange situation, and if you don’t start deciding your own future right now, someone’s going to decide for you.



另一方面，台灣認同相當新穎，剛從228事件與白色恐怖時代產生，不足以久到讓台灣人有強烈的認同感。因此台灣會發現自己處在尷尬的情境中，並發現從現在開始，如果你不決定自己的未來，別人就會幫你做決定。



The largest trade area outside the EU is NAFTA. The largest trading relationship in the world is between the US and Canada. You can have free trade, but the US doesn’t have 1,000 missiles pointed at Canada, saying, ‘Now with NAFTA, you might as well be the 51st state.’



NAFTA(北美自由貿易協定)是除了歐盟(EU)以外最大的貿易區域。美國與加拿大是世界上最大的貿易伙伴關係。你可以自由買賣，但是美國並不會以1000顆飛彈對準加拿大，還對加拿大說：「既然加入了NAFTA，再來就當我的第51州吧！」



Even though many people say Canada has a similar culture, the same language — you hear all the same arguments about Taiwan and China. But there’s an obvious difference: The US and Canada are both democracies, they both recognize each other. China does not see Taiwan as an equal.



即使許多人會說，加拿大與美國有類似的文化、相同的語言，你可以聽到在台灣與中國的爭論中，也會出現同樣的話，但是有一點明顯的不同，美國與加拿大都是民主國家，他們承認彼此國家的地位，而中國卻不認為台灣是個國家。



TT: What about the Ma ­administration’s ability to protect Taiwan?



Taipei Times：馬政府對台灣的保衛能力，你有什麼看法？



Tiao: I pray that Taiwanese will wake up and make sure that this democracy they fought so hard for doesn’t disappear. The future isn’t necessarily bright if you turn into Hong Kong, if you are co-opted.



刁毓能：我祈禱台灣人能覺醒，下定決心捍衛辛苦得來的民主，別讓它消失了。台灣如果被中國拉攏而香港化，將來未必樂觀。



That said, I think whether you’re pan-blue or pan-green, Taiwanese are proud of the democracy and freedom here. But freedom is not free and has a cost and that cost is that you have to be involved. That’s why we want young people especially to watch the movie.



話說回來，無論是泛藍或是泛綠的支持者，這裏的台灣人都驕傲於他們的民主自由成就，但是自由並非免費，而且需要付出代價，代價就是你必須投入參與，那就是為什麼我們特別希望年輕人來看這部電影



TT: Has anyone from the pan-blue camp been invited to screen your movie in Taiwan?



Taipei Times：在台灣的泛藍陣營，有誰被邀請來看您的電影嗎？



Tiao: Today we sent an invitation to President Ma and are actively trying to invite pan-blue supporters. A lot of people don’t realize I have KMT investors. I have Chinese investors. For all those people who argue this is a pan-green movie, they have no idea. And to those investors, I made it very clear what this movie was from day one. So the idea that because you’re KMT or waishengren you can’t see this movie isn’t true. This is about Taiwan. Whether you’re green or blue, you need to face up to this stuff.



刁毓能：我們已邀請馬總統，也積極試著邀請泛藍的支持者，許多人不知道這部片的投資人有國民黨的支持者，也有中國人。有人爭論這是一部泛綠電影，這些投資人沒有異議，對他們而言，打從一開始我就清楚表明了這部電影的性質。所以不管你是國民黨，還是外省人，都不能認為這部電影不是真實的。這就是台灣，不管你是綠或藍，都無法迴避史實。



TT: Do you fear that Formosa Betrayed might have hurt your career in terms of the Chinese market?



Taipei Times：你會擔心「被背叛的台灣」這部電影，可能損及中國的市場嗎？



Tiao: [laughs] Well, let me just say, I’m an American actor. If there’s one market that Hollywood has yet to crack, it’s China. That’s because nobody buys any movies in China, they all bootleg them. It’s not like there’s any Chinese money coming in.



刁毓能：(大笑) 喔！我這樣說好了，我是一位美國演員，若要說好來塢還沒打進那個市場，那應該就是中國了，因為在中國沒人買電影，他們只是盜版，別指望能賺中國錢。



TT: What about the possibility of Chinese buying US film studios, like the Japanese did in the 1990s?



Taipei Times：中國有沒有可能，像日本在1990年代一樣，併購美國的電影製片廠？



Tiao: Possibly, but it’s going to be an interesting major clash of cultures. At least Japan by that point was democratic.



有可能，但是會在文化上引起很大的衝擊，至少日本在那時還是個民主國家。





TT: If it did, couldn’t it dictate content, or kill projects altogether?



Taipei Times：如果成真，中國會不會掌控電影內容，或是全部封殺？



Tiao: If you try to tell a Hollywood filmmaker not to do something, he’ll do it. It would be so anti-Hollywood to shy away. For someone to tell them what to do? No. People watch Hollywood movies because of their rebellious spirit.



刁毓能：假如你告訴一位好來塢的導演，什麼不可以做，他反而會去做。膽怯違反好來塢風格。還需要由誰來告訴他們該怎麼做嗎？當然不！好來塢的電影正是因為有冒險犯難的批叛精神，所以我們才喜歡看。



The movie will open in theaters in Taiwan on Friday.

電影「被背叛的台灣」本週五(8/6)即將上映！