纪录片剪辑与读书的关系
朋友来信人，希望我帮她看一下新剪的纪录片，我拒绝了。因为看了一些纪录片的剪辑，就发现很难提意见，特别是有的剪辑画质很好，单独看的时候每一画面都成立，似乎做得也很讲究，但是看到结束，你并不知道导演要告诉你什么，于是你问他，你到底想表达的是什么？你最初拍这个纪录片的冲动是什么？现在感觉，整个片子没有结构起来。
于是他回答说，我把重要的素材展现了，希望观众自己从中选取自己需要的内容。我说明白了。还有的，我提了意见就再也不答复我了。
纪录片剪辑的困难度远远超过故事片，它可能有几百小时的素材都不止。特别是在拍摄的时候，你是不知道会发生什么样的状态，有时候会出现突然很有意思的东西，你是改变拍摄方向还是先拍了，上台剪辑？最典型的就是小川在拍摄《牧野村 千年物语》时，发现当地人营销柿子的故事，人物、制作都非常有意思。他把他们全部拍下来了。但是到剪接的时候，就是跟小川要表达的《千年物语》有干扰，他来来回回剪了几乎一年多还是不行，最后，小川把那素材全部拿下，特别心疼，他只是说，希望有一天可以单独剪成一个片子。没有想到，五年后他去世了。在去世九年后，他的夫人白石洋子找到我，希望我补拍、剪辑完成《满山红柿》。我做到了。影片在国际上得到非常好反响。
从反反复复剪辑、重看小川的纪录片，在他这里，我学到的是，你完成一个纪录片，你最终的指向还是要明确的，你的意图必须清楚地展现和传达给观众，你可以有自己的解释，但是观众是不接受这种说法就不知道了。
大量的纪录片素材，很容易让人迷失在其中，所以剪辑的过程就是一个形而上抽象提取的过程，主题还是立意，导演内心必须非常清楚，不能跟着素材走。建立这样形而上的能力就是平时要学会对文字的大量阅读。因为，素材是视觉的，它把抽象的东西平面化、具象化；而文字正好相反，它是把视觉的东西抽象成文字，让读者在不具象的文字里想象，建立一个具象的东西。当你抽象的文字看到一定程度，好的文字会开始细节化，这时候就会产生视觉的感觉；而在剪辑纪录片的时候，你就要有这样把非常具象的东西，一点一点剥离出来，建立起你最终要表达的那个抽象的意念。所以，读书是对一个人最基本的训练。
人性是不能改变的，每一个人生下来都是无知的，你必须重头学起。读书，是改变人的认知，不是改变人性。当一个人无知的时候，可能会做出没有人性的事情，这才是最可怕的。读书的价值，不是金钱可以衡量的，它是为建立一个健全的个体而打下的最基本的东西。
The Relationship Between Documentary Editing and Reading
A friend wrote to me, hoping I would help her look at a newly edited documentary. I declined. Because after watching some documentary edits, I found it very difficult to offer opinions, especially when some edits have good picture quality, and when viewed individually, each frame works and seems to be done with great care, but by the end, you don’t know what the director wants to tell you. So you ask them, what exactly are you trying to express? What was your initial impulse for making this documentary? Now it feels like the entire film lacks structure.
So they answer, “I presented the important material, hoping the audience would select the content they need from it themselves.” I said I understood. And with others, once I gave my opinion, they never replied to me again.
The difficulty of documentary editing far exceeds that of fiction films. It may have hundreds of hours of footage or more. Especially during shooting, you don’t know what kind of situations will occur. Sometimes something suddenly very interesting appears—do you change your shooting direction or shoot it first, then edit it later? The most typical example is when Ogawa was filming “Magino Village: A Thousand Year Tale” and discovered the local people’s persimmon marketing story—the characters and production were all very interesting. He filmed it all. But when it came to editing, it interfered with what Ogawa wanted to express in “A Thousand Year Tale.” He edited back and forth for almost more than a year and it still didn’t work. Finally, Ogawa removed all that footage, feeling very heartbroken. He only said he hoped one day he could edit it into a separate film. Unexpectedly, he died five years later. Nine years after his death, his wife Shiraishi Yoko found me, hoping I would supplement the filming and complete the editing of “Red Persimmons All Over the Mountain.” I did it. The film received very good international response.
From repeatedly editing and re-watching Ogawa’s documentaries, I learned from him that when you complete a documentary, your ultimate direction must still be clear. Your intention must be clearly presented and communicated to the audience. You can have your own interpretation, but whether the audience accepts this approach or not is unknown.
The vast amount of documentary footage can easily make one lost in it, so the editing process is a metaphysical abstract extraction process. The theme or concept must be very clear in the director’s mind; you cannot follow the footage. Building this kind of metaphysical ability requires learning through extensive reading of texts in daily life. Because footage is visual—it flattens and concretizes abstract things; while text is exactly the opposite—it abstracts visual things into words, allowing readers to imagine in non-concrete text and build concrete things. When you read abstract text to a certain degree, good text begins to become detailed, and this is when visual feelings are produced. When editing documentaries, you need to have this ability to gradually strip away very concrete things and build up the abstract concept you ultimately want to express. Therefore, reading is the most basic training for a person.
Human nature cannot be changed. Every person is born ignorant and must learn from scratch. Reading changes people’s cognition, not human nature. When a person is ignorant, they may do inhuman things, and this is what’s most frightening. The value of reading cannot be measured by money; it lays the most basic foundation for building a complete individual.