《外刊精读》有气味的电影会引领观影风潮吗

如今，人们尝试通过各种技术手段来营造更为真实的场景体验，比如3D电影、VR技术，都从视觉和听觉方面给人带来一种身临其境的感觉。然而，嗅觉也是重要的感官之一，自二十世纪初期以来，制片人们就开始尝试为电影配上气味，以提升人们的观影体验。气味如何通过电视、电影传递？为什么这种技术没有实现普及？一起来听今天的讲解。  英文原文  The people who want to send smells through your TV  那些想用电视向你传递气味的人  By Mark Ellwood  Frederik Duerinck isn't a jeweller, but his next project is a necklace. This piece, though, doesn't feature a precious stone as a pendant, but rather a small box. Inside the cube is a battery and scenting system designed to deliver a puff of fragrance on demand.  弗雷德克·迪林克并非珠宝商，但他接下来的计划是做项链。不过，这种“项链”的特色不是用一颗宝石作吊坠，而是挂了一个小盒子。在这个小盒子里有一块电池和气味装置，用来随时按需传递香气。  In the movie era, attempts to add scent began as early as 1916. Then came Smellovision, unveiled in 1939, it was little more than a series of pipes attached to viewers' chairs through which a projectionist could deliver smell in sync with the images they were showing. Smellovision itself, was a flop, largely because the scent technology worked so poorly – the scents were too diffuse to give a satisfactory experience. Clearing an odour in a timely fashion for the next to waft freely was also troublesome. A rival system, known as Aromarama, displayed similar shortcomings.  电影诞生后，人们早在1916年就开始尝试给电影配上气味。然后是1939年推出的Smellovision气味装置，它只不过是连接在观众椅子上的一系列管道，放映员可以用这些管道传递与他们正在放映的图像同步的气味。Smellovision这个尝试还是失败了，很大程度上是因为这种传递气味的技术效果太差：气味太发散，观众体验感并不好。而且，及时清除空间里残留的气味，给另一种气味让道，也是一件麻烦事。它的竞争对手AromaRama装置也有类似的缺陷。  The filmmaker John Waters tried scratch and sniff cards in the early 1980s, but no other filmmaker copied his gimmick.  在20世纪80年代初，电影制片人约翰·沃特斯尝试做了气味刮刮卡，但没有哪个电影制片人模仿他的小把戏。  Even now, though, as the world of entertainment has become more high-tech, and immersive with virtual reality headsets, odour remains the one element that is elusive and hard to replicate. Perhaps the most fundamental problem is that we don't yet fully understand how our sense of smell functions.  然而，即便是现在，随着娱乐界越来越高科技，虚拟现实耳机让人身临其境，气味仍然是一个难以捉摸和复制的元素。也许最根本的问题是，我们都还没有完全了解我们的嗅觉是如何运作的。