Decoding The Matrix

Decoding 1 The Matrix

Carrie-Anne Moss 2 (“Trinity”): It’s very rare that you actually get to 1)merge 3 what you do with what you believe in. The Matrix: we had a life changing experience making it and when you have that kind of experience, we had to come back.

 Keanu Reeves ("Neo"): The first Matrix, we went out in Burbank in a kind of, I don’t even know what it was, an empty 2)warehouse 4?

Carrie-Anne Moss: And we didn’t have anything there, we didn’t have a coffee maker 5 there or we certainly didn’t have any 3)trailers or anywhere where we could sit and change, there was like one bathroom.

Hugo Weaving (“Agent Smith”): Well, I remember I mean it was a big accomplishment 6 to get a drawing board just to get them to write a check at that time, early on for a drafting table was a 4)commitment that they weren’t willing to make. And now we have this, you know, really wonderful facility, it’s really a dream come true.

Carrie-Anne Moss: We know how hard it’s going to be, so it’s... we know the challenges we have ahead of us.

Keanu Reeves: Well, the thing about it and it’s true the first one as well is that, you know, I love the material, I love the character and I love who I ended up working with, so that is something that regardless of what has to happen, it is just the, that’s the thing that kind of gets me through it.

Owen Paterson (Production Design): When I first read The Matrix, there was a great deal about that, I don’t know, the Eastern influence, that comic book influence that had been meshed 7 into kind of Western philosophy.

Keanu Reeves: A 5)synthesis from literature, from the exposure they had in the cinema, from their lives, from what they’re interested in, from what they find funny, from what they find cool.

The Wachowski Brothers (Directors): We like the Kung Fu movies, we like Japan 6)animation 8, Japanimation. We like John Wu movies, and books, you know, that are science fiction and about the nature of reality.

Joel Silver (Producer): They really have a grasp of philosophy, of all types of philosophy, of Eastern philosophy, of you know European philosophy.

Keanu Reeves: Larry and Andrew said, “OK, we’d like you to play Thomas Anderson, Neo.” I had to read 7)Baudrillard; I had to read Out Of Control, which is about systems, evolution and robots. And then there was another book, which was Evolutionary 9 Psychology 10. Those were three books that they wanted me to read before I even opened up the 8)script.

Owen Paterson: Baudrillard’s ideas of 9)Simulacra 10)Simulation is an important point within the film, and that what we see in the film as a real object is in-fact 11)optical simulation.

Lorenzo Bonaventura (Exec. V.P. of Warner Bros.): I read the Matrix script and really 12)flipped out for it. Thought it was fantastic, thought that as a script the first 40-50 pages were the best 40-50 pages I’d ever read. And then I got very confused.

Bill Pope (Director of Photography): I have to say that I didn’t understand the script. I mean, I understood the script well, obviously I liked it. But every time I re-read it and every time we got closer, I understood more and more and more and more. I had questions forever and would constantly try to change the plot and they were “Now, Bill, Bill, Bill, you just don’t understand!”

Laurence Fishburne (“Morpheus”): I have no idea why people who’ve read this script for the first Matrix found it confusing -- I don’t get that at all!

John Gaeta (Visual Effect): Upon reading the script and seeing the 13)conceptuals, you know, at the same time, you know, the immediate 12 reaction is umm... there is no chance in hell this movie will be made. There is a whole 14)slew 13 of these scenes I see being 15)chopped out or left on the floor, there is just too unlike a large studio to take a chance on something that seems very alternative.

Carrie-Anne Moss: It took me a lot of readings, a lot of conversations with everybody to fully 14 understand the script. But I just remember thinking, I mean, they don’t really think I’m going to do this stuff like running, like jumping from one building to another. It’s like, well, no, of course nothing bad and like running sideways along the wall, cos everything was really specifically put in the script.

The “Look” of The Matrix

Owen Paterson: What we had to do really in the film was to establish I think 16)visually the difference between the matrix and the real world.

Bill Pope: In the matrix everything was slightly 17)decayed, I think it was slightly 18)monolithic 15 and grid 16-like, like a machine would make it. You notice some things about the interrogation room or the government’s office. There are 19)grids 17 on the walls, there’s grids on the floor, there’s even grids in the ceiling. So that’s why we’re hoping that that will 20)convey a feeling of 21)artificial control, if you like.

Kym Barrett (Costume Design): Owen and I 22)collaborated a lot on the strength of the tones of green in the matrix. Also we talked with Bill about, you know, when the light hits a certain 23)fabric 19 or a certain leather, or how I could make it pick up green or how I could make it pick up different colours.

John Gaeta: In the lab, we wanted to be much more about the human beings, and so we used longer lenses and sort of the backgrounds get all sort of soft and have the humans stand out more.

Bill Pope: Their clothing is a little more humane 20 and cloth-like and their makeup 21 is more natural, their hair is more natural, they’re less styled.

Owen Paterson: The matrix will always have a green 24)bias 22 to it. Whereas in the real world we went for a blue bias, and we avoided green except for Tanks 25)console on the “Nebuchadnezzar”, which has got green code in it, which is of course the matrix. So all of those things which might not seem a great deal to anyone else, to anyone whose actually trying to work out the nuts and bolts of the film, it’s kind of like 26)revelations if you like.

解读《黑客帝国》

凯莉-安妮·莫斯（“屈妮蒂”扮演者）∶做的事情与自己的信仰正好契合，是很罕有的。演出《黑客帝国》改变了我们的人生，而有了这样的经历，卷土重来势在必行。

彼时与此时比较

奇诺·里维斯（“尼奥”扮演者）∶《黑客帝国I》是在伯班克拍摄的，我还搞不清那是个什么地方，是个空货仓吧？

凯莉-安妮·莫斯∶当时我们什么设备都没有，没有咖啡机，当然也没有拖车，没有休息室或更衣室，洗手间只有一间。

辉格·威文（“史密斯探员”扮演者）∶我记得，那时候连让他们写张买画板的支票都要费尽九牛二虎之力，刚开始时，他们连画桌也不愿意买一张。但是现在（拍摄第二集时），设备实在太好了，真的是梦想成真了。

凯莉-安妮·莫斯∶我们明白拍摄不易……明白前方的挑战有很多。

奇诺·里维斯：说实话，拍第一部也好，第二部也好，我太喜欢这电影的素材了，我爱这个角色，爱和这群人一起工作，所以说，不管有什么困难，我想我怎么都能熬过去。

影片哲学

欧文·帕特森（制作设计）∶我第一次看《黑客帝国》时，我也不清楚了，东方的影响和漫画书的影响渗透在西方哲学里，让电影很丰富。

奇诺·里维斯：他们（导演）把文学、电影感觉、生活、兴趣爱好、以及他们认为是幽默的和酷的事物集于一体，拍出了这部片子。

沃乔斯基兄弟（导演）∶我们喜欢功夫片，我们喜欢日本动画片。我们喜欢吴宇森的电影，还喜欢科幻和现实生活书籍。

祖·希尔弗（制片）∶他们（导演）精晓各类哲学流派，对东方哲学与西方哲学都了解。

奇诺·里维斯∶拉利和安德鲁两位导演说：“好吧，我们想让你扮演托马斯·汤普森/尼奥这个角色。”我得阅读鲍德里亚的作品；我看了《失控》，讲的是系统、进化和机器人。还看了另一本书，叫《进化心理学》。导演甚至让我在打开剧本看以前，先找这三本书来看。

欧文·帕特森∶鲍德里亚在《拟象》一书中的观点是影片的骨干，我们在电影中看到的实物其实是假象。

另类剧本

罗伦卓·波纳文图拉（华纳兄弟电影公司副总裁）∶我读《黑客帝国》的剧本，顿感眼前一亮。剧本太精彩了，最开始的四、五十页是我读过的剧本中写得最精彩的。但接下去的我就看不懂了。

比尔·皮普（摄影指导）∶我承认我看不懂剧本。我是说，我能看剧本，而且我很喜欢它。但是每重读一次，每体会到其中更多的含义，我的理解就越来越深。我永远都有问题，总是想篡改情节，他们就会说“比尔，你还是不明白嘛！”

劳伦斯·弗西本（“孟菲斯”扮演者）∶我不明白为什么看过剧本的人都说理解的不到位——我根本就没看懂！

约翰·盖塔（视觉指导）∶一边读剧本，也一边了解了概念，但我即时的反应是……这部电影根本没有拍摄的可能性。我看过太多类似的场景给砍去或去掉了，大电影公司是不会冒险拍这么另类的镜头的。

凯莉-安妮·莫斯：我读了很长时间，也和每个人谈了很多，才全盘弄清楚了剧本的意思。可我记得当时想到，他们不会希望让我来做这些动作吧，又要奔跑又要从一座建筑跳到另一座上。当然了，飞檐走壁也没什么不好的，剧本里把这些动作都写得清清楚楚。

“母体”的视觉效果

欧文·帕特森∶我们在本片的工作就是要在视觉上区分出“母体”和真实世界。

比尔·皮普∶母体里的所有东西都显得有点衰败，略稍有电子线路和格子的感觉，就好像一架机器。你注意到审讯室和政府办公室了吗，墙上有格子，地板上有格子，甚至天花板也有格子。我们想借此传达出人工操控的感觉。

金·巴雷特（服装设计）∶欧文和我一起合作，在强调母体绿色的基调上下了很大工夫。我们还和比尔探讨，怎样让灯光照在某些布料或者皮革上能反映出莹莹绿色，或者反映出别的颜色。

约翰·盖塔：在人类世界，我们想以人类为主，所以就用了长镜头，背景比较柔和，好突出人物。

比尔·皮普：人物的服装也更富有人类气息，倾向于布料，人物的化妆更自然，头发更自然，比较随便。

欧文·帕特森：母体偏绿色，而真实世界偏蓝色，我们尽量避免在真实世界里用绿色，只在飞船的控制室用了一点绿来反映出母体。所以说，有的人可能认为这没什么大不了，但对于那些热衷于该片的人来说，这些细节是很有启发性的。

注释:

1) merge [mE:dV] v.合并

2) warehouse [5wZEhaus] v. 货仓

3) trailer [5treilE] n. 拖车

4) commitment [kE5mitmEnt] n. 委托事项

5) synthesis [5sinWisis] n. 综合，合成

6) animation [7Ani5meiFEn] n. 动画，动画片。

7) Baudrillard全名Jean Baudrillard，法国后现代理论家。

8) script [skript] n. 剧本，手稿

9) simulacra [7simjJ5leIkrE] n. simulacrum的复数形式，模拟物，假象。

10) simulation [7simju5leiFEn] n. 模拟

11) optical [5CptikEl] a. 眼的，视力的

12) flip 11 out 疯狂

13) conceptual [kEn5septFuEl] n. [哲]概念论

14) a slew of [美国口语] 许多，大量

15) chop [tFCp] v. 砍

16) visually [5vIzjJEli] ad. 在视觉上地

17) decayed [di5keid] a. 衰败

18) monolithic [7mCnE5liWik] a. 集成电路

19) grid [^rid] n. 格子

20) convey [kEn5vei] v. 传达

21) artificial [7B:ti5fiFEl] a. 人造的

22) collaborate 18 [kE5lAbEreit] v. 合作

23) fabric [5fAbrik] n. 织品

24) bias [5baiEs] n. 偏爱

25) console [kEn5sEul] n. 控制台

26) revelation [7revi5leiFEn] n. 启示，揭示