德國: 一個不需要字幕組的國家
As a rule, Dietmar Wunder prefers his martinis shaken and not stirred. But don’t ask him to order one at a Berlin bar, at least not in German.
柏林——通常，迪特馬爾·文德爾(Dietmar Wunder)更喜歡用搖晃而非攪拌手法調製的馬提尼酒。但是不要請他在柏林的酒吧點馬提尼，不管怎樣就不要在德國的酒吧做這件事。“I would never do that,” said Mr. Wunder, who was born in Berlin. “I would be too embarrassed.”
“我永遠不會那麼做，”生於柏林的文德爾說，“我會很尷尬的。”
Since the 2006 release of “Casino Royale,” Mr. Wunder, 48, has been the German-speaking voice of James Bond, and he is now so closely associated with the role that strangers often ask him to repeat some of Bond’s better-known catchphrases.
從2006年《007：皇家賭場》(Casino Royale)上映以來，48歲的文德爾一直是詹姆斯·邦德(James Bond)的德語配音演員，現在他和這個角色緊密相連，一些不認識的人也經常讓他重複邦德一些更爲出名的口頭禪。
“It can get tiring,” he said.
“有時挺煩人的，”他說。Mr. Wunder is part of a small but tightly knit group of actors in Germany who make a living dubbing the voices of English-speaking movie stars. In addition to the Bond star Daniel Craig, Mr. Wunder provides the voices of Adam Sandler, Don Cheadle and several others. Since he began in 1992, he has worked on more than 500 movies and 125 Television series.
文德爾是德國一個緊密團結的演員小團體中的一員，他們以給講英語的電影明星配音爲生。除了給飾演邦德的明星丹尼爾·克雷格(Daniel Craig)配音，文德爾還爲亞當·桑德勒(Adam Sandler)、唐·錢德爾(Don Cheadle)等明星配音。從1992年起，他已經給500多部電影、125部電視劇配過音。On a drizzly day here, Mr. Wunder was in a darkened studio, standing before a microphone, teeth bared, shoulders hunched, as he exploded with a vicious expletive in German.
在一個下着毛毛細雨的天氣裏，在一個光線昏暗的錄音棚中，文德爾站在麥克風前，呲着牙，弓着肩，用德語發出惡毒的咒罵。On the opposite wall, a large television set showed two menacing-looking men squaring off on the deck of a ship. Mr. Wunder performed the scene with astonishing vigor.
對面牆上的一臺大電視正播放着兩個看起來惡狠狠的男人在輪船甲板上擺出打鬥的姿勢。文德爾以令人吃驚的氣勢演繹着那個場景。“Even though you are not on camera, you have to still act the part, physically,” he said.
“雖然不是出鏡表演，你也仍然要用身體表演，”他說。Mr. Wunder was directing the voice actors, including himself, on “Black Sails,” the Starz drama series. He and a team of actors, editors and directors faced a tight deadline to translate dialogue into German and voice more than a dozen characters.
文德爾當時正在導演Starz頻道的電視劇《黑帆》(Black Sails)的配音工作，他本人也參與配音。因爲時間緊，他和一個由演員、編輯和導演組成的團隊正忙着把對話翻譯成德語並給十多個人物配音。Over the last few decades, especially in Western Europe, dubbing has emerged as something close to an art form, with actors making a living speaking for cherished global movie stars. In Germany, dubbing, or synchronization, as it is known, has also become a big business.
在過去幾十年裏，特別是在西歐，配音幾乎變成了一種藝術形式，演員們靠給大受歡迎的國際影星配音爲生。在德國，配音還變成了一個大產業。The German-speaking market, which includes Austria and Switzerland, is the largest in Europe, with more than 40 dubbing companies, most of them around Berlin and Munich. The industry generated $125 million in 2013, according to the country’s Institute for Acting, Film and Television Professionals.
講德語的市場——包括奧地利和瑞士——是歐洲最大的市場，這裏有40多家配音公司，大多位於柏林和慕尼黑。據德國表演、電影和電視職業協會(Institute for Acting, Film and Television Professionals)的數字，這個行業在2013年創收1.25億美元。While subtitles remain the most popular way of watching a film in Norway, Poland and the Netherlands, in other countries, particularly France, Spain and German-speaking nations, dubbing is a prerequisite for market access. Of the 175 or so English-language films released here last year, the German Federal Film Board estimates that more than 90 percent were dubbed.
雖然字幕在挪威、波蘭和荷蘭仍然是最受歡迎的觀影方式，但在其他國家，尤其是法國、西班牙和講德語的國家，配音是進入市場的首要條件。據德國聯邦電影委員會估計，德國去年上映的約175部英語影片中，超過九成是配音版。“If an American major distribution company wants to place a movie successfully in a German market, it has to be dubbed,” says Michael Johnson, head of production at Film- & Fernseh-Synchron, a dubbing company with offices in Berlin and Munich. “There’s no way around it. Otherwise, they are going to lose a lot of the audience.”
“如果美國的一家主要發行公司想把一部片子成功打入德國市場，那它必須得配音，”電影電視同步公司(Film- & Fernseh-Synchron)的製作主管邁克爾·約翰遜(Michael Johnson)說。這家配音公司在柏林和慕尼黑設有辦公室。“沒有別的辦法。否則他們將失去很多觀衆。”It takes an average of two weeks to dub a feature film, with each actor usually working two or three days. On average, Mr. Johnson said, voice actors make about $700 a day. Top performers like Mr. Wunder can make $15,000 to $20,000 per movie.
一般來說，一部劇情片需要兩週的時間來配音，每位演員通常工作兩三天。約翰遜說，配音演員平均每天掙700美元左右。像文德爾這樣的頂級演員每部電影能掙1.5萬至兩萬美元。The low pay sometimes irks actors when a movie becomes popular. In 2010 Marcus Off, a Berlin actor, asked the Walt Disney Company for more money after dubbing Johnny Depp in the first three “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies, which had grossed well over $2 billion globally.
如果一部電影很賣座，那低廉的報酬有時會惹惱配音演員。柏林演員馬庫斯·奧弗(Marcus Off)曾在《加勒比海盜》(Pirates of the Caribbean)前三部爲約翰尼·德普(Johnny Depp)配音。2010年他要求迪士尼公司付更多報酬，因爲該系列在全球的收入超過20億美元。When Disney refused, he sued under the German fairness law, which says that if a production is more successful than average, producers have to pay the creative talent more money at a later date. “Disney argued that dubbing is not a creative work,” Mr. Off said. The case is still pending in German court.
迪士尼公司拒絕後，他依照德國公平法起訴了該公司。根據該法，如果一部影片的受歡迎程度高出平均水平，製片方必須在日後向創作人員追加報酬。“迪士尼公司辯稱配音不是創造性工作，”奧弗說。此案仍在德國法院等待判決。Over all, dubbing is expensive: A two-hour film can cost upward of $150,000 for a single language, and some films are dubbed in dozens of languages. The process involves marathon recording and editing sessions to match actors’ voices to the sound mix. While it can make sense, therefore, to produce a dub for the German-speaking population of Europe, which is 80 million strong, the same cannot be said of, say, Estonia (population, 1.3 million).
總的來說，配音成本昂貴：一部時長兩小時的電影配一種語言的花費可達15萬美元以上，有些電影要用幾十種語言配音。這包括漫長的錄音和剪輯過程，爲演員的聲音做後期混音。所以，爲歐洲的德語觀衆配音還能說得通，因爲這是一個達8000多萬人口的觀衆羣，但是爲愛沙尼亞（人口130萬）等國的觀衆配音就沒有意義了。Moreover, as the technology has radically improved, good sound has become paramount in filmmaking, and dubbing has had to keep up. Gone are the days when dubs were an afterthought, hastily added after a film was long finished.
另外，隨着科技的飛速發展，完美的音效已經變得對電影製作至關重要，所以配音也得跟上。不像以前，配音不再是在電影拍完後很久才倉促加上的事情。“In the last decade, there’s much more attention on perfect dubbing,” Mr. Johnson said, requiring the kind of devotion to detail that the German film industry takes pride in.
約翰遜說，“過去十年，人們越來越關注配音的完美”，這需要對細節的投入，而這一點正是德國電影業引以爲豪的。“It’s really in the German heart to have a good dub, and German studios are perfectionists about them,” said Sven Sturm, vice president and managing director of Paramount Pictures Germany. “Sometimes a film can live or die with a good or bad dub.”
“好的配音對德國人來說真的很重要，德國的錄音公司對配音抱着完美主義的態度，”派拉蒙電影公司德國分公司的副總裁、總經理斯文·斯特姆(Sven Sturm)說，“有時一部電影的成敗與配音的好壞有直接關係。”With dubbing quality so much improved, casting has become much more selective. Actors are chosen for their ability to match the cadence and vocal peculiarities of a particular star closely. In many cases, a voice actor will become the official voice of a specific Hollywood actor.
隨着配音質量的大幅提高，選角也變得更加挑剔。演員們要想入選，需要具有與明星非常接近的說話節奏和音質。很多時候，一個配音演員會成爲某個好萊塢演員的指定配音演員。“It’s a lot of pressure,” said Claudia Urbschat-Mingues, who dubs Angelina Jolie, among others.
“壓力很大，”爲安吉莉娜·朱莉(Angelina Jolie)等演員配音的克勞迪婭·烏爾布沙特-明格斯(Claudia Urbschat-Mingues)說道。Some voice actors have become something close to celebrities themselves. Perhaps the most famous in Germany is Christian Brückner, who has dutifully dubbed Robert De Niro in more than 60 films. His gravelly baritone is so well known that here he is called simply “the voice.”
有些配音演員本身也快變成了名人。德國最著名的配音演員也許是克里斯蒂安·布呂克納(Christian Brückner)，他盡職盡責地在60多部影片中爲羅伯特·德·尼羅(Robert De Niro)配音。他粗重沙啞的男中音非常出名，德國人直接稱他爲“那個聲音”。Mr. Brückner, 70, said he was content with such recognition. “To be honest, I like it,” he said. “I love it, in fact. That’s a word I didn’t use years ago, and I’m proud of it.”
70歲的布呂克納說他對獲得這樣的認可感到滿足。“坦白地說，我很滿意，”他說，“實際上我很愛它。很多年前我不會用這個詞來形容，但是現在我爲它感到驕傲。”Mr. Wunder began dubbing in 1991, starting with a minor character in the television comedy “Happy Days.” His big break came in 2006, when Mr. Craig starred in “Casino Royale,” and Mr. Wunder won the part for his ability to render the star’s mix of cool and cruel.
文德爾從1991年開始做配音，開始是在電視喜劇《歡樂時光》(Happy Days)中爲一個小角色配音。2006年克雷格主演《007：皇家賭場》後，文德爾的事業迎來重大轉機，他能表現出這位明星的冷靜與狠心，所以贏得了這個角色。Sitting at an editing console in the Berlin studio, Mr. Wunder showed how different actors require different postures. His Daniel Craig stands erect and speaks in a low, menacing monotone; his Adam Sandler slumps and speaks through his teeth.
文德爾坐在柏林那個錄音棚的剪輯操控臺旁，展示不同的演員要用不同的姿勢。他給丹尼爾·克雷格配音時，就站得筆直，用低沉、恐嚇、毫無變化的腔調說話；他給亞當·桑德勒配音時，則彎着腰，嗓音透過牙齒迸發出來。“The best compliment that you can get as a dubbing artist is that no one actually realizes it was dubbed,” Mr. Wunder said. “Our job is to vanish behind the original version, so you don’t think about it.”
“作爲一名配音演員，你能得到的最好讚美就是沒人意識到這是配的音，”文德爾說，“我們的工作就是消失在原版後面，讓觀衆不會想起這一點。”
