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.
巴塔萨·科马库在隐身镜头之前，于祖国冰岛以演员身份开启电影生涯。作为导演，科马库指导过各种类型的电影，从冰岛惊悚片（《如瓮之城》）到美国独立转型片（《救女心切》），及最近带给暑期观众的好莱坞动作片（《双龙出手》）。在美国，科马库脱颖而出的影片是《禁运品》——冰岛力作《雷克雅未克-鹿特丹》的美国翻拍版，他指导的马克·沃尔伯格的角色正是当初他自己所演的。然而他作为导演迄今最大的挑战，是将在9月降临影院的环球影业的《绝命海拔》。这部电影部分摄影地在尼泊尔，再述了1996年珠峰灾难的悲惨事件，这被记载于乔恩·克拉考尔最畅销的非小说类书籍《挑战巅峰》中。数月的准备受到考验，因为电影制作人与演员（包括杰克·吉伦哈尔、乔什·布洛林和凯拉·奈特利）经历了残酷的严寒与艰难的拍摄，在与环境的搏斗中把这个真实故事的感觉捕捉到电影中。Boxoffice对话科马库，畅谈在珠峰拍摄的挑战，及其与外籍导演在好莱坞所遭遇之困难的比较。
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?
在我们触碰电影拍摄挑战前，我想象制作前期本身就是一个冒险旅程。你如何准备处理这个故事？乔恩·克拉考尔的书或IMAX纪录片在计划阶段发挥过任何作用吗？
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?
我读遍了所有的书，我还做了一些登山训练来入手。我实际上做过大量的骑马游山，所以这点有些不同，这是用了冰岛的方式。我去了新西兰，走遍全世界，去拜见那些有可能与故事中的一部分相关、或紧密关联的人。诸如罗布·霍尔的遗孀、营地经理海伦·威尔顿、医生卡罗琳·麦肯齐，他们都住在新西兰。盖·科特是故事中一员。还有大卫·布雷斯谢尔斯与我同在。我去了美国见贝克·韦瑟斯，我们花了两个晚上共处。基本上我所能收集的所有资料——我从未为一部电影准备如此之多。我同时也想确保这些人对我是没意见的，并建立一种信任感。我想建立一种私人
联系。我见了莎拉·霍尔，她是占据大部分故事的罗布霍尔的女儿。所有山的事情，我们在这件事上花了大量时间。这部电影有些推动了我们，所以它让我们花甚至更多的时间去做这些事。而且作为冰岛人，我就出生于恶劣的天气，你知道吗？
Is there any way to prepare for weather concerns like these during pre-production?
有没有办法像这样在准备期为天气问题做些准备呢？
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.
这几乎是不可能的。我们一个劲地问自己，我们要去哪里拍摄这些呢？我们会得到什么呢？我们最终去了四个国家摄影。当我们去到尼泊尔、去到加德满都时，我们旅行至保险公司允许的、离营地尽可能近的地方，而且你不知道是否会有半数演员呕吐或崩溃，所以你需要见机行事。然后在多洛米蒂我们最终来到允许拍摄的最寒冷、最高海拔之地。我们去到海拔三、四千米之地，温度在零下30摄氏度。我不知道这是华氏多少度，但实在太冷了。我们像在这样的地方拍摄了12个小时，这创造出一种情形，在多洛米蒂并没有下很多雪。我们不断地摆脱着雪崩的危险。
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，当你在做摄影棚工作时，这又是完全不同的麻烦。你还穿着在零下30度的戏服。我们想过在冰岛摄影，甚至在新西兰，然后是关于退税的所有资金问题。最后，问题就成了在哪里能完全实现这些。我们从尼泊尔开始，1月份我们真的很爽，而且当时没有游客，这对我们来说非常好。但天气非常冷，在酒店没有暖气。我们在沿途的小镇上停下来，我们甚至一线明星卡司都不得不睡电热毯。我觉得这这给演员更多的现实感，让他们用不同的方式更近地相互了解，而不只是敲开彼此的房车然后说：“嗨，就想告诉你一下我来了。”他们基本上被迫待在一起，甚至还要搬运设备，因为你着陆的著名跑道、世界上最危险的机场卢卡拉不允许车辆上去。此外，我们有2架直升机在各处卸载物品，但你必须携带物品去大部分地方。
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?
许多人在做这样的事情前，他们会训练好几个月。你是否在开始前为团队和演员们制定过任何类似计划呢？
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.
大多数演员都接受过训练。有如此庞大的演员阵容和不同人群的摄制，有时一线演员会做备份。这可能不是他们的场景，但他们仍在故事中。我知道杰森·克拉克和乔什·布洛林，我想杰克·吉伦哈尔也是，这些人大多数接受了长期的训练。他们自己做了相当长的一段时间，然后我们做集体训练。在这点上，他们遥遥领先。我们还去了伦敦市外的一个地方，那里有减压舱能感受缺氧状态。我们对自身和自我大脑做了测试，关于你会起什么反应做了详细了解，所以他们明白在山上会头昏、缺乏清醒度，但那都是当你确实到了那里之后才会自然而然地发生的。即使在三、四千米海拔之地，你仍会得高山病。去下圣丹斯你就会实实在在地感受到。
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 ?
在沃纳·赫尔佐格关于《制作<陆上行舟>:征服无用之界》日记里令我吃惊的事情之一是，在制作期间，最难对付的却被证实是那些最意想不到、而又最平常的挑战。在你制作《绝命海拔》的经验里是否发现相同的事实？
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.
天气是一件日常问题，而我们在多洛米蒂的时候又是最复杂的。早晨天会下雪，之后白天的阳光又会把它晒干。然后你就会钻心般地头疼以致很难专心做事。你早晨来到片场听到的第一件事是，“我们今天拍不了。”为什么？“因为将有雪崩。”当时我们在多洛米蒂时有一场大的雪崩事故。最悲伤的是我们第二梯队在那时，有夏尔巴人死亡。我毫不夸张；你做不出更复杂的电影了。想象一下早上7点上班，站在冰冻的电梯上40分钟到达山上，当你到达时，山上已云雾缭绕。
I'm sure the payoff comes with actually getting on-locationfootage. What did you want the film to look like?
我敢肯定回报实际上来自拍摄现场镜头。你希望这部电影看起来是怎样的？
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.
我想让电影看起来像一部在珠穆朗玛峰拍摄的关于珠穆朗玛峰的故事。我很明确。有众多在那里制作的纪录片，手持式设备，我不想做那种风格。尽管我喜欢，我只是觉得这样会看起来像别的珠穆朗玛峰纪录片一样。我想给你一个山脉的大视野。这不是一部动作电影，像有些人可能以为的那样。我敢肯定工作室希望人们这样想。这是一个戏剧性的故事，对我来说，我更想要在那里有心灵震撼的元素，而非仅是视觉冲击的元素。我想让观众意识到山脉的庞大，当摄影机拉回时，你看到山体有多巨大，而人有多渺小。所有人都知道这座山，所以你无法作假。你每一个镜头都必须展现山脉。我称之为“接发”方式：不是简单地在摄影棚里拍摄整部片子，还戴上假发，而是运用真材实料，并布满摄影棚镜头，所以你总有现实做为参考。
After such a difficult shoot, I assume your next film will be set in Miami or Hawaii.
经过这样艰难的拍摄，我猜想你下一部电影会设在迈阿密或夏威夷。
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.
我与福克斯签了约，在波斯湾有一部凯特·布兰切特主演的关于石油泄漏的大片。我还有一部正在酝酿的关于维京人的电影，环球影业拥有版权。我计划实际上在冰岛去做这，还有活火山。我想我只是坚持尽可能努力地去拍摄。我认为任何一部电影都不会比《绝命海拔》更困难，它已经登峰造极了。我想不出还有什么能够比它更复杂的；或许是在海洋深处拍摄电影。那我会让詹姆斯·卡梅隆来做。
What has been your experience as an international filmmaker in Hollywood? Has it been as troublesome as some of the stories we hear?
你作为在好莱坞的国际电影人有何切身感受？是否像我们听到的一些故事那样棘手？
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.
在听过各种恐怖故事后，这些比我所想象的要好多了。我真的很容易与人展开创造性的对话。我起初故意选择更商业化的电影只是想为自己谋得一席之地。当我接拍那些电影时，走那条路是我自主的决定。这是相当有成就的，我不认为人们意识到作为导演跨越大西洋的这一步有多大。我是来自（冰岛）这个国家迄今唯一成功的。