德国: 一个不需要字幕组的国家

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，迪特马尔·文德尔(Dietmar Wunder)更喜欢用摇晃而非搅拌手法调制的马提尼酒。但是不要请他在柏林的酒吧点马提尼，不管怎样就不要在德国的酒吧做这件事。

“I would never do that,” said Mr. Wunder, who was born in Berlin. “I would be too embarrassed.”

“我永远不会那么做，”生于柏林的文德尔说，“我会很尴尬的。”

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.

从2006年《007：皇家赌场》(Casino Royale)上映以来，48岁的文德尔一直是詹姆斯·邦德(James Bond)的德语配音演员，现在他和这个角色紧密相连，一些不认识的人也经常让他重复邦德一些更为出名的口头禅。

“It can get tiring,” he said.

“有时挺烦人的，”他说。

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.

文德尔是德国一个紧密团结的演员小团体中的一员，他们以给讲英语的电影明星配音为生。除了给饰演邦德的明星丹尼尔·克雷格(Daniel Craig)配音，文德尔还为亚当·桑德勒(Adam Sandler)、唐·钱德尔(Don Cheadle)等明星配音。从1992年起，他已经给500多部电影、125部电视剧配过音。

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.

在一个下着毛毛细雨的天气里，在一个光线昏暗的录音棚中，文德尔站在麦克风前，呲着牙，弓着肩，用德语发出恶毒的咒骂。

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.

对面墙上的一台大电视正播放着两个看起来恶狠狠的男人在轮船甲板上摆出打斗的姿势。文德尔以令人吃惊的气势演绎着那个场景。

“Even though you are not on camera, you have to still act the part, physically,” he said.

“虽然不是出镜表演，你也仍然要用身体表演，”他说。

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.

文德尔当时正在导演Starz频道的电视剧《黑帆》(Black Sails)的配音工作，他本人也参与配音。因为时间紧，他和一个由演员、编辑和导演组成的团队正忙着把对话翻译成德语并给十多个人物配音。

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.

在过去几十年里，特别是在西欧，配音几乎变成了一种艺术形式，演员们靠给大受欢迎的国际影星配音为生。在德国，配音还变成了一个大产业。

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.

讲德语的市场——包括奥地利和瑞士——是欧洲最大的市场，这里有40多家配音公司，大多位于柏林和慕尼黑。据德国表演、电影和电视职业协会(Institute for Acting, Film and Television Professionals)的数字，这个行业在2013年创收1.25亿美元。

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.

虽然字幕在挪威、波兰和荷兰仍然是最受欢迎的观影方式，但在其他国家，尤其是法国、西班牙和讲德语的国家，配音是进入市场的首要条件。据德国联邦电影委员会估计，德国去年上映的约175部英语影片中，超过九成是配音版。

“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.”

“如果美国的一家主要发行公司想把一部片子成功打入德国市场，那它必须得配音，”电影电视同步公司(Film- & Fernseh-Synchron)的制作主管迈克尔·约翰逊(Michael Johnson)说。这家配音公司在柏林和慕尼黑设有办公室。“没有别的办法。否则他们将失去很多观众。”

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.

一般来说，一部剧情片需要两周的时间来配音，每位演员通常工作两三天。约翰逊说，配音演员平均每天挣700美元左右。像文德尔这样的顶级演员每部电影能挣1.5万至两万美元。

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.

如果一部电影很卖座，那低廉的报酬有时会惹恼配音演员。柏林演员马库斯·奥弗(Marcus Off)曾在《加勒比海盗》(Pirates of the Caribbean)前三部为约翰尼·德普(Johnny Depp)配音。2010年他要求迪士尼公司付更多报酬，因为该系列在全球的收入超过20亿美元。

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.

迪士尼公司拒绝后，他依照德国公平法起诉了该公司。根据该法，如果一部影片的受欢迎程度高出平均水平，制片方必须在日后向创作人员追加报酬。“迪士尼公司辩称配音不是创造性工作，”奥弗说。此案仍在德国法院等待判决。

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).

总的来说，配音成本昂贵：一部时长两小时的电影配一种语言的花费可达15万美元以上，有些电影要用几十种语言配音。这包括漫长的录音和剪辑过程，为演员的声音做后期混音。所以，为欧洲的德语观众配音还能说得通，因为这是一个达8000多万人口的观众群，但是为爱沙尼亚（人口130万）等国的观众配音就没有意义了。

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，随着科技的飞速发展，完美的音效已经变得对电影制作至关重要，所以配音也得跟上。不像以前，配音不再是在电影拍完后很久才仓促加上的事情。

“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.

约翰逊说，“过去十年，人们越来越关注配音的完美”，这需要对细节的投入，而这一点正是德国电影业引以为豪的。

“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.”

“好的配音对德国人来说真的很重要，德国的录音公司对配音抱着完美主义的态度，”派拉蒙电影公司德国分公司的副总裁、总经理斯文·斯特姆(Sven Sturm)说，“有时一部电影的成败与配音的好坏有直接关系。”

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.

随着配音质量的大幅提高，选角也变得更加挑剔。演员们要想入选，需要具有与明星非常接近的说话节奏和音质。很多时候，一个配音演员会成为某个好莱坞演员的指定配音演员。

“It’s a lot of pressure,” said Claudia Urbschat-Mingues, who dubs Angelina Jolie, among others.

“压力很大，”为安吉莉娜·朱莉(Angelina Jolie)等演员配音的克劳迪娅·乌尔布沙特-明格斯(Claudia Urbschat-Mingues)说道。

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.”

有些配音演员本身也快变成了名人。德国最著名的配音演员也许是克里斯蒂安·布吕克纳(Christian Brückner)，他尽职尽责地在60多部影片中为罗伯特·德·尼罗(Robert De Niro)配音。他粗重沙哑的男中音非常出名，德国人直接称他为“那个声音”。

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岁的布吕克纳说他对获得这样的认可感到满足。“坦白地说，我很满意，”他说，“实际上我很爱它。很多年前我不会用这个词来形容，但是现在我为它感到骄傲。”

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.

文德尔从1991年开始做配音，开始是在电视喜剧《欢乐时光》(Happy Days)中为一个小角色配音。2006年克雷格主演《007：皇家赌场》后，文德尔的事业迎来重大转机，他能表现出这位明星的冷静与狠心，所以赢得了这个角色。

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.

文德尔坐在柏林那个录音棚的剪辑操控台旁，展示不同的演员要用不同的姿势。他给丹尼尔·克雷格配音时，就站得笔直，用低沉、恐吓、毫无变化的腔调说话；他给亚当·桑德勒配音时，则弯着腰，嗓音透过牙齿迸发出来。

“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.”

“作为一名配音演员，你能得到的最好赞美就是没人意识到这是配的音，”文德尔说，“我们的工作就是消失在原版后面，让观众不会想起这一点。”