A The Lumiere Brothers opened their Cinematographe, at 14 Boulevard des Capucines in Paris, to 100 paying customers over 100 years ago, on December 8, 1895. A. 在 100 多年前，即 1895 年 12 月 8 日，Lumiere 兄弟在法国巴黎的 Boulevard des Capucines 大道 14 号面向 100 名付费观众打开了他们的电影放映机。 Before the eyes of the stunned, thrilled audience, photographs came to life and moved across a flat screen. 在那些既感吃惊又兴奋的观众面前，图片栩栩如生地在平面屏幕上移过。

B So ordinary and routine has this become to us that it takes a determined leap of the imagination to grasp the impact of those first moving images. B. 如今，对我们来说，电影变得如此普通和平常，以至于我们需要充分发挥想象力才能领会那些早期的移动影像所产生的影响。 But it is worth trying, for to understand the initial shock of those images is to understand the extraordinary power and magic of cinema, the unique, hypnotic quality that has made film the most dynamic, effective art form of the 20th century. 但这值得一试，因为了解那些影像早期的震撼力就是了解电影院的非凡力量与魅力。正是影院这种独一无二、引人入胜的特质使得电影成为 20 世纪最有活力和影响力的艺术形式。

C One of the Lumiere Brothers' earliest films was a 30-second piece which showed a section of a railway platform flooded with sunshine. C. Lumiere 兄弟最早的作品之一是一部半分钟长的影片，该影片展示了一处充满阳光的车站月台。 A train appears and heads straight for the camera. 火车出现，朝着摄像机方向驶来， And that is all that happens. 这就是影片的全部。 Yet the Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky, one of the greatest of all film artists, described the film as a 'work of genius'. 然而俄罗斯导演 Andrei Tarkovsky（最伟大的电 影艺术家之一）却称赞这部影片是“天才之作”。 'As the train approached,' wrote Tarkovsky,'panic started in the theatre: people jumped and ran away. 他写道：“火车驶来，戏院中的恐慌气氛亦随之而来。人们纷纷跳离座位，四处逃窜。 That was the moment when cinema was born. 这一刻标志着电影艺术的诞生。 The frightened audience could not accept that they were watching a mere picture. 惊慌的观众无法接受他们看到的仅仅是一幅画面。 Pictures were still, only reality moved; this must, therefore, be reality. 而画面应该是静止的，唯有现实可以移动。所以火车的出现必定是真的。 In their confusion, they feared that a real train was about to crush them.' 让其困惑的是，他们害怕真的火车会驶过来撞死自己。”

D Early cinema audiences often experienced the same confusion. D. 早期影院里的观众常经历相同的困惑。 In time, the idea of film became familiar, the magic was accepted -but it never stopped being magic. 在电影已为大众所熟知的时代，它变静为动的魔力被人们接受，但电影本身却自始至终魅力不减。 Film has never lost its unique power to embrace its audiences and transport them to a different world. 它始终拥有一股独特的力量去吸引观众并将他们带到一个完全不同的世界。 For Tarkovsky, the key to that magic was the way in which cinema created a dynamic image of the real flow of events. 对 Tarkovsky 来说，电影魅力存在的关键就是电影创造了事件真实发展的动态画面。 A still picture could only imply the existence of time, while time in a novel passed at the whim of the reader. 静止的图画只能意味着时间的存在，而小说中的时间往往在读者的一念之间散尽。 But in cinema, the real, objective flow of time was captured. 但在电影中，人们可以捕捉到时间真实而客观的流逝。

E One effect of this realism was to educate the world about itself. E. 这种现实主义的一大功效就是教会世界认识自身。 For cinema makes the world smaller. 因为电影让世界变得越来越小。 Long before people traveled to America or anywhere else, they knew what other places looked like; they knew how other people worked and lived. 人们在去美国或者世界其他地方旅游前就能知道那些地方的风土人情。 Overwhelmingly, the lives recorded - at least in film fiction - have been American. 被拍摄的人物，至少电影片段所记录的绝大多数都是关于美国的。 From the earliest days of the industry, Hollywood has dominated the world film market. 从电影业开创早期至今，好莱坞就主宰着世界电影市场。 American imagery- the cars, the cities, the cowboys - became the primary imagery of film. 美国形象———汽车、城市、牛仔，早已成为美国电影的标志性画面。 Film carried American life and values around the globe. 电影承载着美国人的生活与价值，将其传播到世界各地。

F And, thanks to film, future generations will know the 20th century more intimately than any other period. F. 再者，由于有了电影，20 世纪将成为我们的后代最了解的一个时代。 We can only imagine what life was like in the 14th century or in classical Greece. 我们现在只能想象 14 世纪或是古希腊人的生活状态。 But the life of the modern world has been recorded on film in massive, encyclopaedic detail. 但我们现代的生活却被大量地、犹如百科全书般详细地记录在胶片里。 We shall be known better than any preceding generations. 我们将比先辈更为后代所了解。

G The 'star' was another natural consequence of cinema. G. 明星是电影的另一个自然产物。 The cinema star was effectively born in 1910. 电影明星的大量涌现始于 1910 年。 Film personalities have such an immediate presence that, inevitably, they become super-real. 影片中的人物很直接地展示在观众面前，因此他们不可避免地变成超现实的东西。 Because we watch them so closely and because everybody in the world seems to know who they are, they appear more real to us than we do ourselves. 由于我们如此近距离地观看他们，世界上的每 一个人好像都知道他们是谁，所以片中人物显得比现实中观众所认识的自己要真实得多。 The star as magnified human self is one of cinema’s most strange and enduring legacies. 作为被夸大化的人类自身，电影明星成为电影业最奇特、最经久不衰的宝贵遗产之一。

H Cinema has also given a new lease of life to the idea of the story. H. 电影将真实生活的点滴寓于故事情节之中。 When the Lumiere Brothers and other pioneers began showing off this new invention, it was by no means obvious how it would be used. 当 Lumiere 兄弟和其他电影先驱开始展现这种新发明时，他们还不完全清楚它会被怎样利用。 All that mattered at first was the wonder of movement. 起初他们只是关注活动的画面带来的惊奇效果。 Indeed, some said that, once this novelty had worn off, cinema would fade away. 实际上，有人说，一旦此种新鲜感被耗尽，电影业也将灰飞烟灭。 It was no more than a passing gimmick, a fairground attraction. 那时它也只不过是经不起历练的骗人把戏或是展销会对人的短暂吸引。

I Cinema might, for example, have become primarily a documentary form. I. 电影，比方说，可以变为以纪录片为主的形式， Or it might have developed like television - as a strange, noisy transfer of music, information and narrative. 或是成为像电视那样前所未有的有声的用于传播音乐、信息和话语的机器。 But what happened was that it became, overwhelmingly, a medium for telling stories. 可实际上它却演变为主要用于叙述故事的媒介。 Originally these were conceived as short stories - early producers doubted the ability of audiences to concentrate for more than the length of a reel. 起初，只是短篇故事被搬上荧屏，因为早期电影制作人怀疑人们是否能集中精力于一卷影片的时间。 Then, in 1912, an Italian 2-hour film was hugely successful, and Hollywood settled upon the novel-length narrative that remains the dominant cinematic convention of today. 然而，1912 年，意大利 一部长达 2 小时的影片大获成功，从此好莱坞致力于长篇故事的描述，这也成为今天电影的主要类型。

J And it has all happened so quickly. J. 一切都发生得太快。 Almost unbelievably, it is a mere 100 years since that train arrived and the audience screamed and fled, convinced by the dangerous reality of what they saw, and, perhaps, suddenly aware that the world could never be the same again - that, maybe, it could be better, brighter, more astonishing, more real than reality. 让人觉得不可思议的是，从火车在屏幕上出现，观众确信他们看到的情景很危险，尖叫着逃离，到他们大概又突然意识到世界将不再如原来这般，它会变得更加美好，充满希望、惊喜，比现实更加真实，电影业经历这些才不过用了 100 年的时间。