Alan Parker, Versatile Film Director, Is Dead at 76
“Midnight Express” and “Mississippi Burning” brought him Oscar nominations, and many of his other films, including “Fame,” were acclaimed.
Alan William Parker was born on Feb. 14, 1944, in the Islington district of London. He started his career as a copywriter and then moved into making television commercials.
“The only way anybody would give me a chance to say ‘Action!’ and ‘Cut!’ was by doing commercials,” he told The New York Times in 1980. “That’s how I learned the craft. I’ve done ridiculous things, like re-create — frame by frame — ‘Brief Encounter’ for Birds Eye Dinner for One.”
That background, he said, gave him a certain disdain for the auteur theory of filmmaking, which holds that the director is the main creative force of a project.
“A film is never my film,” he said, “because I’m part of a talented lot of people.”
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Mr. Parker directed a number of other well-regarded films, working in a range of styles and genres. “Fame” (1980) was a musical about a performing arts high school in New York. “Birdy” (1984) was based on a William Wharton novel about a boy who had an erotic fascination with avian life. “Angel Heart” (1987) was a sexy noir that flirted with an X rating but ended up with an R. “Angela’s Ashes” (1999) was based on Frank McCourt’s popular autobiography.
Music underpinned some of Mr. Parker’s best-known work. His first feature film was the gangster satire “Bugsy Malone” in 1976, in which adolescents played the gangsters and Paul Williams songs punctuated the action. Two years after “Fame,” he directed “Pink Floyd: The Wall,” an imagery-filled story about a British rock star that was written by Roger Waters of the band Pink Floyd and based on the band’s album of the same name. In 1991 came “The Commitments,” a lighthearted tale about a band in Dublin. In 1996 he directed the film version of the stage musical “Evita,” with Madonna in the role of Eva Perón.
Madonna, he told The Mirror in 1996, wasn’t the easiest person to work with, but he found a way to get the best out of her.
“My secret was to let her moan to my assistants to get it out of her system so that by the time she stepped in front of the camera she was all complained out,” he said.
The performance won her a Golden Globe.
In the early 1970s, with hundreds of commercials under his belt, he began moving into feature films, first as the screenwriter on a 1971 British movie, “Melody.” In 1974 he directed a BBC Television movie called “The Evacuees,” about Jewish children being evacuated from London during the Blitz in World War II.
Soon, though, Mr. Parker was thoroughly identified with films about American subjects.
“Midnight Express,” with a screenplay by Oliver Stone, is about an American college student who is thrown into a Turkish prison on a drug smuggling charge. “Fame,” about students at the High School of Performing Arts in New York, brought Mr. Parker some criticism in his home country, where, he said, people asked, “Why don’t you make a film about London, about the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art?”
“The exciting thing about the High School of Performing Arts,” he told The Times in 1980, “is that it has a social and ethnic mix that you couldn’t possibly find anywhere in the world, especially not England.”
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“Mississippi Burning” is a fictionalized treatment of the real-life case involving the murder of three civil rights workers in Mississippi in 1964. Vincent Canby, reviewing it in The Times in 1988, called it “one of the toughest, straightest, most effective fiction films yet made about bigotry and racial violence, whether in this country or anywhere else in the world.”
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Mr. Parker and the cinematographer Peter Biziou filming “Pink Floyd: The Wall” (1982), based on the album of the same name.
Some of Mr. Parker’s films generated controversy. “Midnight Express” was accused of demonizing Turkey and its people. “Angel Heart” featured a steamy sex scene between Mickey Rourke and Lisa Bonet, who was then best known for her role as Denise Huxtable on the family-friendly sitcom “The Cosby Show.” “Mississippi Burning,” starring Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe, was faulted for, among other things, not having strong Black characters even though it was a civil-rights-era story. “Angela’s Ashes” was criticized as misrepresenting Irish life.
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“It would be nice to do a film that isn’t controversial,” Mr. Parker told The Chicago Tribune just before the relatively benign “The Commitments” was released, “although I’m sure someone is bound to find controversy in ‘The Commitments.’”
Mr. Parker received a lifetime achievement award from the Directors Guild of Great Britain in 1998 and was knighted in 2002.
He is survived by his second wife, Lisa Moran-Parker; a son from their marriage, Henry; four children from his marriage to Annie Inglis, Lucy, Alexander, Jake and Nathan Parker; and seven grandchildren.
In a 2003 discussion organized by the British Film Institute in conjunction with the release of his final film, “The Life of David Gale,” about a death-penalty opponent (Kevin Spacey) facing execution for murder, Mr. Parker talked about the intuition and serendipity that play a part in the director’s art.
“It seems to me that a director’s job is to look for wherever the magic may be in any scene,” he said, “and sometimes it’s not where you think.”
“Sometimes the images in your head are better than what you end up with,” he added. “Sometimes they’re nowhere near as good as what happens in front of you.”
Alex Marshall contributed reporting from London.
阿倫柏加：歌舞與狂暴
最近逝世的英國資深導演阿倫柏加 (Alan Parker) ，在他第一部劇情長片已經表露他拿手拍攝歌舞與狂暴的特色。那是 1976 年《小鬼頭賊阿爸 (Bugsy Malone) 》，把荷里活兩大片類：艷麗繽紛的歌舞片和凶神惡煞的黑幫片綜合起來，以美國禁酒時期的紐約市夜總會為主要背景，拍成歌舞女郎與江湖古惑人馬雲集的喜劇。
妙在片中艷女猛男都完全由兒童扮演，機關槍子彈橫飛變為大噴忌廉，雖屬兒戲搞笑的小製作，但生動好玩，童星們「扮嘢」妙趣。最突出是當年十三、四歲的茱地科士打(Jodie Foster) ，載歌載舞大搶鏡頭。同在 1976 年，馬田史高西斯名片《的士司機》由茱地科士打扮演雛妓，更獲盛讚，其實她在較少人注意的《小鬼頭賊阿爸》也別開生面。後來她憑《暴劫梨花》和《沉默的羔羊》兩次得到奧斯卡影后金像獎。
阿倫柏加 1944 年大戰末期出生於倫敦北區工人家庭，後來拍片揚名國際，還封為 CBE 爵士，仍自稱一直保持「工人階級立場」。繼《小鬼頭賊阿爸》後， 1978 年他拍成作風大異的《午夜快車 (Midnight Express) 》，由成名前的奧利華史東編劇，描述美國男子在土耳其被控偷運大麻出境，定罪坐牢，然後成功逃獄。此片取材真人真事，而拍法偏鋒大膽，把土耳其監獄拍成充滿狂暴和性侵犯的人間地獄，顯然以白人角度醜化回教國家，但富於驚險殘酷的官能吸引力，當年叫好叫座，使阿倫柏加真正打響招牌。
1980 年他的青春歌舞片《我要高飛 (Fame) 》更大受歡迎，拍攝各式邊緣少男少女考入紐約市演藝中學，各展身手亦各有苦惱，成為豐富多采、活潑感人的群戲，後來被電視拍成熱門劇集。
阿倫柏加每部影片的題材與風格都不同，電影手法靈活多變，往往出色活用影音效果。他幾部歌舞片或音樂劇拍法大異， 1982 年《迷牆 (Pink Floyd—The Wall) 》，把前衛搖滾樂隊 Pink Floyd 的迷牆樂曲集搬上銀幕，拍成很黑色奇幻的「搖滾大龍鳳」，除了樂壇風雲，還涉及狂暴、性愛、毒品、精神問題、大戰和法西斯，此片映像狂想，加上超現實動畫，簡直呈現了人間地獄圖。
當然，最多人喜歡主流通俗的《我要高飛》，但《迷牆》的非主流作風創意很強，簡直是前衛電影，把歌舞（搖滾歌曲和飛舞映像）與狂暴結合得十分優異。
阿倫柏加 1996 年拍成《貝隆夫人 (Evita) 》，此乃韋伯 (Andrew Lloyd Webber) 名曲及音樂劇的電影版，由麥當娜主演阿根廷前第一夫人的傳奇故事，是他執導以來最大製作，亦是他最賣座電影。然而我印象麻麻，認為不是阿倫柏加的佳作，只不過勝在歌曲動聽流行、明星卡士強和宣傳盛大而已。
實際上，阿倫柏加最出色是八十年代。除了《我要高飛》和《迷牆》，他的 1984 年作品《追鳥 (Birdy) 》亦很傑出，片中着迷於鴿鳥的男主角有精神困擾，又有越戰後遺症，以及六十年代成長回憶，他經常赤身蹲在天台想做飛鳥。《追鳥》獲得康城影展評判團大獎，有評論者認為是阿倫柏加最成熟之作。這一部雖非歌舞片或狂暴片，然而在身體／心靈的困境中想飛，正是阿倫柏加影片的基本主題，《追鳥》直接顯現，現實與超現實渾然一體。
1987 年的《天使追魂 (Angel’s Heart) 》亦是阿倫柏加特異之作，米奇洛基飾演紐約私家偵探，到新奧爾良追查奇案。這部奇情偵探片很狂暴、色情，還涉及崇拜魔鬼的邪教巫術，神秘恐怖。此片頗有爭議性，有讚有彈，但電影感強，逐漸成為cult片。
1988 年的《烈血大風暴 (Mississippi Burning) 》，由真赫曼、威廉德福飾演聯邦調查局探員，前往美國南部調查民權人士失踪案，也有爭議，成績中等。八十年代他亦拍了阿爾拔芬尼、戴安姬頓合演的文藝片《射月 (Shoot the Moon) 》，關於婚姻和家庭危機，叫好但不叫座。
到了九十年代，雖有《貝隆夫人》賣座，阿倫柏加似乎過了創作力旺盛時代。其間他也拍了兩部比較冷門的影片，《The Commitment》和《Angela’s Ashes》，都與愛爾蘭有關，不大受注重。阿倫柏加最後一部影片，是 2003 年《鐵案懸謎 (The Life of David Gale) 》，描述反死刑的教授被控謀殺，自己面臨死刑，由奇雲史柏西、琦溫絲莉合演，知道此片的人大概不多，我也沒有看過。
2020 年 7 月 31 日，阿倫柏加在倫敦病逝，享年七十六歲。他的影片多數以美國為題材，在英國也德高望重。其實影迷都知道，歷來很多英國導演成功進軍美國，包括同輩而比他大七歲的烈尼史葛 (Ridley Scott) ，在荷里活長期大名鼎鼎。他的英國後輩基斯杜化路蘭Christopher Nolan亦成為荷里活大導演，路蘭憑 2000 年失憶倒叙的小本奇案片《凶心人 (Memento) 》成名，後來路蘭自稱此片受到阿倫柏加的《天使追魂》和《迷牆》影響。
2020/08/04 立場新聞
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