Baltasar Kormákur began his filmmaking career as an actor in his native Iceland before moving behind the camera. As a director, Kormákur has helmed avariety of films from Icelandic thrillers (Jar City ) to U.S. indie crossovers (Inhale )and, more recently, Hollywood action flicks for summer audiences (2 Guns ).Kormákur's breakout film in the U.S. was Contraband, the stateside remake of theIcelandic hit Reykjavík-Rotterdam , in which he directed Mark Wahlberg in a rolethat was originally his own. The director's biggest challenge to date, however, willhit theaters this September with Universal's Everest. The film was partly shot onlocation in Nepal and recounts the tragic events of the 1996 Mount Everest disasterthat are chronicled in Jon Krakauer's best-selling nonfiction book Into Thin Air.Months of preparations were put to the test as the filmmakers and cast (includingJake Gyllenhaal, Josh Brolin, and Keira Knightley) endured a brutally cold anddifficult shoot, battling the elements to get the feel of the real-life drama on film.BoxOffice spoke with Kormákur about the challenges of shooting in the mountainsand how it compares with the difficulties foreign directors encounter in Hollywood.
巴塔薩·科馬庫在隱身鏡頭之前，于祖國冰島以演員身份開啟電影生涯。作為導演，科馬庫指導過各種類型的電影，從冰島驚悚片（《如甕之城》）到美國獨立轉型片（《救女心切》），及最近帶給暑期觀眾的好萊塢動作片（《雙龍出手》）。在美國，科馬庫脫穎而出的影片是《禁運品》——冰島力作《雷克雅未克-鹿特丹》的美國翻拍版，他指導的馬克·沃爾伯格的角色正是當初他自己所演的。然而他作為導演迄今最大的挑戰，是將在9月降臨影院的環球影業的《絕命海拔》。這部電影部分攝影地在尼泊爾，再述了1996年珠峰災難的悲慘事件，這被記載于喬恩·克拉考爾最暢銷的非小說類書籍《挑戰巔峰》中。數月的準備受到考驗，因為電影制作人與演員（包括杰克·吉倫哈爾、喬什·布洛林和凱拉·奈特利）經歷了殘酷的嚴寒與艱難的拍攝，在與環境的搏斗中把這個真實故事的感覺捕捉到電影中。Boxoffice對話科馬庫，暢談在珠峰拍攝的挑戰，及其與外籍導演在好萊塢所遭遇之困難的比較。
Before we even get into the challenges of shooting the film, Iimagine pre-production was an odyssey in itself. How did youprepare to tackle this story? Did Jon Krakauer's book or the IMAXdocumentary play any role in the planning?
在我們觸碰電影拍攝挑戰前，我想象制作前期本身就是一個冒險旅程。你如何準備處理這個故事？喬恩·克拉考爾的書或IMAX紀錄片在計劃階段發揮過任何作用嗎？
I read all the books. I did some mountaineering training to get into it. I actuallydo a lot of traveling on horses in the mountains, so it was a bit different-that'sthe Icelandic way of doing it. I went to New Zealand, traveled the whole world tomeet everyone possible who was either a part of the story or closely connected toit. People like the widow of Rob Hall, the base-camp manager Helen Wilton, thephysician Caroline Mackenzie, they're all in New Zealand. Guy Cotter, who waspart of the story. And I had David Breashears with me. I went to America to meetBeck Weathers,and we spent two nights together there. Basically all the information I could gather --I have never prepared so much for a movie. I also wanted to makesure these people were OK with me doing this and create kind of a trust. I wanted to create a personal contact. I met Sarah Hall, Rob Hall’s daughter, who is a large part of the story. All the mountain stuff, we spent quite a lot of time on that. The movie pushed us a little bit, so it gave me even more time to do these kinds of things.And being Icelandic, I’m born in bad weather, you know?
我讀遍了所有的書，我還做了一些登山訓練來入手。我實際上做過大量的騎馬游山，所以這點有些不同，這是用了冰島的方式。我去了新西蘭，走遍全世界，去拜見那些有可能與故事中的一部分相關、或緊密關聯的人。諸如羅布·霍爾的遺孀、營地經理海倫·威爾頓、醫生卡羅琳·麥肯齊，他們都住在新西蘭。蓋·科特是故事中一員。還有大衛·布雷斯謝爾斯與我同在。我去了美國見貝克·韋瑟斯，我們花了兩個晚上共處。基本上我所能收集的所有資料——我從未為一部電影準備如此之多。我同時也想確保這些人對我是沒意見的，并建立一種信任感。我想建立一種私人
聯系。我見了莎拉·霍爾，她是占據大部分故事的羅布霍爾的女兒。所有山的事情，我們在這件事上花了大量時間。這部電影有些推動了我們，所以它讓我們花甚至更多的時間去做這些事。而且作為冰島人，我就出生于惡劣的天氣，你知道嗎？
Is there any way to prepare for weather concerns like these during pre-production?
有沒有辦法像這樣在準備期為天氣問題做些準備呢？
It's almost impossible. We kept on asking ourselves,where are we going toshoot this? What are we going to get? We ended up shooting in four countries. Whenwe went to Nepal, to Kathmandu, we traveled up as close to base camp as we wereallowed to by the insurance companies, and you don't know if you're going to have
half of the actors puking or falling apart or not, so you've got to kind of play it by ear. And then in the Dolomites we ended up going to the coldest, highest place wewere allowed to shoot. We were up at three to four thousand meters in negative 30 degrees Celsius. I don't know what that is in Fahrenheit, but it's damn cold. And we were shooting for 12 hours in places like that,so it created a situation where it hadn't snowed as much in the Dolomites. We were constantly getting ourselves out of avalanche danger.
這幾乎是不可能的。我們一個勁地問自己，我們要去哪里拍攝這些呢？我們會得到什么呢？我們最終去了四個國家攝影。當我們去到尼泊爾、去到加德滿都時，我們旅行至保險公司允許的、離營地盡可能近的地方，而且你不知道是否會有半數演員嘔吐或崩潰，所以你需要見機行事。然后在多洛米蒂我們最終來到允許拍攝的最寒冷、最高海拔之地。我們去到海拔三、四千米之地，溫度在零下30攝氏度。我不知道這是華氏多少度，但實在太冷了。我們像在這樣的地方拍攝了12個小時，這創造出一種情形，在多洛米蒂并沒有下很多雪。我們不斷地擺脫著雪崩的危險。
Then when you're doing the studio work,it's a whole different trouble. You’rewearing the costumes that you had in negative 30 degrees. We thought aboutshooting in Iceland, even in New Zealand, and then there's the whole money issueabout tax rebates. In the end, it was just about where it was physically possible to make this happen. We started in Nepal, we were up there really high in January and there's no tourism at that time, which was very good for us. But it was so cold, and there was no heating in the hostels. We stopped in little towns along the way, and we had to sleep with electric blankets-all with a cast of A-list stars. I think it gave a lot of reality for the actors to get to know each other very closely in a different way than knocking on each other's trailers and saying, “I just wanted to let you know I'm here.”They were basically forced to be together,even carrying some of the equipment because there were no vehicles allowed up in Lukla, the famous airstrip
you land on, the most dangerous airport in the world. Above that, we had a couple of helicopters dropping things off here and there, but you had to carry stuff to most of the places.
然后，當你在做攝影棚工作時，這又是完全不同的麻煩。你還穿著在零下30度的戲服。我們想過在冰島攝影，甚至在新西蘭，然后是關于退稅的所有資金問題。最后，問題就成了在哪里能完全實現這些。我們從尼泊爾開始，1月份我們真的很爽，而且當時沒有游客，這對我們來說非常好。但天氣非常冷，在酒店沒有暖氣。我們在沿途的小鎮上停下來，我們甚至一線明星卡司都不得不睡電熱毯。我覺得這這給演員更多的現實感，讓他們用不同的方式更近地相互了解，而不只是敲開彼此的房車然后說：“嗨，就想告訴你一下我來了。”他們基本上被迫待在一起，甚至還要搬運設備，因為你著陸的著名跑道、世界上最危險的機場盧卡拉不允許車輛上去。此外，我們有2架直升機在各處卸載物品，但你必須攜帶物品去大部分地方。
Many people when they do something like this, they train formonths. Was there any kind of program that you put in place for the crew and actors before you started?
許多人在做這樣的事情前，他們會訓練好幾個月。你是否在開始前為團隊和演員們制定過任何類似計劃呢？
Most of the actors had training. It was such a huge cast and filmed with different groups of people, so there were times you had A-list stars as extras. It maynot be their scene, but they're still there in the story. I know Jason Clarke and Josh Brolin, and I think Jake Gyllenhaal as well, most of these guys had a long training.
They did it on their own for quite a while, and then we had group training. At that point, they were way ahead. We also went to a place outside of London where you can go into a decompressed cabin and feel the lack of oxygen. We tested that out on ourselves and our brains and got all the information about what it does to you so they could understand the dizziness and lack of clarity up there, but that came by itself when you actually got up there. Even at maybe three or four thousand meters,you're still getting mountain sickness. Just go to Sundance and you'll actually feel it.
大多數演員都接受過訓練。有如此龐大的演員陣容和不同人群的攝制，有時一線演員會做備份。這可能不是他們的場景，但他們仍在故事中。我知道杰森·克拉克和喬什·布洛林，我想杰克·吉倫哈爾也是，這些人大多數接受了長期的訓練。他們自己做了相當長的一段時間，然后我們做集體訓練。在這點上，他們遙遙領先。我們還去了倫敦市外的一個地方，那里有減壓艙能感受缺氧狀態。我們對自身和自我大腦做了測試，關于你會起什么反應做了詳細了解，所以他們明白在山上會頭昏、缺乏清醒度，但那都是當你確實到了那里之后才會自然而然地發生的。即使在三、四千米海拔之地，你仍會得高山病。去下圣丹斯你就會實實在在地感受到。
One of the things that struck me in Werner Herzog's diary about the making of Fitzcarraldo , Conquest of the Useless , was that during production, it was the most unexpected, mundane challenges that proved to be the most difficult. Did you find the same to be true in your experience making Everest ?
在沃納·赫爾佐格關于《制作<陸上行舟>:征服無用之界》日記里令我吃驚的事情之一是，在制作期間，最難對付的卻被證實是那些最意想不到、而又最平常的挑戰。在你制作《絕命海拔》的經驗里是否發現相同的事實？
The weather was a daily issue. Our time in the Dolomites was the mostcomplicated. It snows in the morning and then the sun dries it up later in the day.And then you have this drilling headache so you can barely concentrate on what you’re doing. Then you come to set in the morning and the first thing you hear is,
“We can’t shoot today.”Why? “Because there’s an avalanche coming.”There was a big avalanche accident in the Dolomites when we were there. The saddest thing is we had Sherpas die when we had a second unit up there. I’m not exaggerating; you can’t make a more complicated film. Imagine going to work at seven a.m., standing in a freezing-cold elevator for 40 minutes getting up that mountain, and as soon you come up, there are clouds on the mountain.
天氣是一件日常問題，而我們在多洛米蒂的時候又是最復雜的。早晨天會下雪，之后白天的陽光又會把它曬干。然后你就會鉆心般地頭疼以致很難專心做事。你早晨來到片場聽到的第一件事是，“我們今天拍不了。”為什么？“因為將有雪崩。”當時我們在多洛米蒂時有一場大的雪崩事故。最悲傷的是我們第二梯隊在那時，有夏爾巴人死亡。我毫不夸張；你做不出更復雜的電影了。想象一下早上7點上班，站在冰凍的電梯上40分鐘到達山上，當你到達時，山上已云霧繚繞。
I'm sure the payoff comes with actually getting on-locationfootage. What did you want the film to look like?
我敢肯定回報實際上來自拍攝現場鏡頭。你希望這部電影看起來是怎樣的？
I wanted to make the film look like a feature film about Everest shot at Everest.I was very specific. There are numerous documentaries made there, handheld stuff,and I didn't want to go for that style. Though I like it, I just felt it would look likeany other documentary on Everest. I wanted to give you a big scope of the mountain.
It's not an action movie like some people maybe think it is. I'm sure the studiowants people to think it is. It's a dramatic story and for me, I wanted the wow factorto be there more than the shock factor. I wanted the viewer to realize the enormityof the mountain as the camera pulls back, and you see how big the mountain is and
how small the people are. Everyone knows this mountain, so you can't fake yourself around it. You had to visualize the mountain with every shot. I call it the “hairextension” way: instead of shooting the whole thing in the studio and have a wig,you use the real stuff and then pepper in studio footage so you always have the
reality as reference.
我想讓電影看起來像一部在珠穆朗瑪峰拍攝的關于珠穆朗瑪峰的故事。我很明確。有眾多在那里制作的紀錄片，手持式設備，我不想做那種風格。盡管我喜歡，我只是覺得這樣會看起來像別的珠穆朗瑪峰紀錄片一樣。我想給你一個山脈的大視野。這不是一部動作電影，像有些人可能以為的那樣。我敢肯定工作室希望人們這樣想。這是一個戲劇性的故事，對我來說，我更想要在那里有心靈震撼的元素，而非僅是視覺沖擊的元素。我想讓觀眾意識到山脈的龐大，當攝影機拉回時，你看到山體有多巨大，而人有多渺小。所有人都知道這座山，所以你無法作假。你每一個鏡頭都必須展現山脈。我稱之為“接發”方式：不是簡單地在攝影棚里拍攝整部片子，還戴上假發，而是運用真材實料，并布滿攝影棚鏡頭，所以你總有現實做為參考。
After such a difficult shoot, I assume your next film will be set in Miami or Hawaii.
經過這樣艱難的拍攝，我猜想你下一部電影會設在邁阿密或夏威夷。
I have a big film in the Persian Gulf about an oil spill with Cate Blanchett that I signed with Fox. I have a Viking movie that I've been developing and Universal has the rights to. I plan on doing that in Iceland actually, with a volcano. I guess I'm just stuck to filming them as hard as possible. I don't think any of them will be as hard as Everest. You can’t push it much further than that. I don't know what could be more complicated; maybe a movie shot way under the ocean. I'll let James Cameron do that.
我與福克斯簽了約，在波斯灣有一部凱特·布蘭切特主演的關于石油泄漏的大片。我還有一部正在醞釀的關于維京人的電影，環球影業擁有版權。我計劃實際上在冰島去做這，還有活火山。我想我只是堅持盡可能努力地去拍攝。我認為任何一部電影都不會比《絕命海拔》更困難，它已經登峰造極了。我想不出還有什么能夠比它更復雜的；或許是在海洋深處拍攝電影。那我會讓詹姆斯·卡梅隆來做。
What has been your experience as an international filmmaker in Hollywood? Has it been as troublesome as some of the stories we hear?
你作為在好萊塢的國際電影人有何切身感受？是否像我們聽到的一些故事那樣棘手？
Less so than I would've imagined after all the horror stories I had heard. I've had a really easy creative dialogue with people. I knowingly went for more commercial movies in the beginning just to get my foot in. It was a conscious decision to go that way when I started with those movies. It's quite a reach, and I don't think people realize how big of a step it is to cross the Atlantic Ocean as a director. I'm the only one from this country to ever have done that.
在聽過各種恐怖故事后，這些比我所想象的要好多了。我真的很容易與人展開創造性的對話。我起初故意選擇更商業化的電影只是想為自己謀得一席之地。當我接拍那些電影時，走那條路是我自主的決定。這是相當有成就的，我不認為人們意識到作為導演跨越大西洋的這一步有多大。我是來自（冰島）這個國家迄今唯一成功的。