革命性的恐怖：早期華語恐怖片《夜半歌聲》左翼化的怪人敘事與聲音運用

The Revolutionary Horror: The Leftist Monster Narrative and the Sound-Effect Practices in the Early Chinese Horror Film Song at Midnight

本文分析1937 年受好萊塢默片《歌劇魅影》（1925）啟發所製作的恐怖片《夜半歌聲》，討論早期華語恐怖片結合左翼革命元素的特殊現象。有別於過去著重左翼宣傳如何利用恐怖片「軟性」文藝的論述方向，本文提出《夜半歌聲》如何在恐怖片式微的大環境利用左翼革命元素再創本土恐怖片的新一波高潮，並強調電影產製合作的商業運作，以探究左翼、恐怖、聲音等元素各自的內部複雜性及三位主要創作者本身所展現的多元矛盾。本文首先分析電影出產的大環境背景及產製過程，其次分別論述導演馬徐維邦階級化的怪人敘事、田漢對德國表現主義恐怖片的矛盾態度與左翼化處理，以及冼星海與情節設計緊密結合的聲音巧思。其中聲音部分尤其著重電影如何運用「無聲源音響」的效果展示他我溝通的可能，甚至以恐怖破除恐怖，將現代性的他者經驗建立在恐怖音效的感官習練上，以鋪演出無他無我全人類的社會憧憬。

Focusing on Song at Midnight (1937), a Chinese horror film inspired by the Hollywood silent film The Phantom of the Opera (1925), this paper analyzes the complex combination of horror and leftism in China’s early film history. Rather than emphasizing that leftists used popular genres to promote leftism, this study points out that Song at Midnight employed leftist elements to create new cinematic trends when the horror film market had declined in China. Specifically, I highlight how the film illustrates a complex of industrial production, commercial drives, and ideological motivations that shaped pluralistic, even contradictory, relationships among horror, leftism, and the use of sound. I first contextualize Song at Midnight within the film market and related production processes. Second, I examine the class component of director Ma-Xu Weibang’s monster narratives, and the contradictory attitudes of Tian Han, the script consultant, toward the horror films of German Expressionism. Finally, I turn to Xian Xinghai’s soundtrack for the film, which exemplifies the use of “acousmatic sounds” as a mode to communicate with the “other,” and to manage one’s fear of such alterity in modern experiences.