Why do people get upset about dubbing?.. (1 Viewer)

[TheLongshot]

Well, it is from the standpoint that all the actors on the set acted in their own native language. The Italian actors would speak in Italian, the German actors would speak German, and the Brits and Americans would speak English. So, there really isn't an OSL for those films. A similar thing could be said for HK films, tho most of the actors in those do speak Cantonese, so the dubs are likely to be the actor who acted the role.

No doubt that both subs and dubs are compromises, but I believe that subs are much less of one than dubs. With subs, you get most of what the director intended, both audio and visual. With movies with subtitles, I find if you sit back far enough, peripheral vision takes care of the problem of seeing what is going on while you are reading. I also like to hear the original actors and how they acted a scene.

The only time I can find a dub acceptable is for animated films. As one said, since the actors aren't on the screen and it is all dubs anyways, it doesn't matter as much. What it usually comes down for me is the acting performances, and I tend to prefer the Japanese on most anime, if just because the voice actors are of better quality. (and in some ways, it just doesn't translate well into English.)

Jason

 

[Michael Reuben]

Reading subtitles while watching the rest of the frame is like any other skill; the more you do it, the better you get at it. I see so many non-English-language films that it's become almost second nature.

For a good demonstration of how different voices pasted on the same actors can change the feel of a scene, check out any of the X-Files sets. All of them have an amusing special feature where select scenes are presented in some of the languages into which the show has been dubbed. When you hear Japanese or German issuing from Mulder and Scully, it just feels . . . wrong.

M.

 

[Holadem]

Well once you're used to a dubbed voice, transitioning to the real deal can be a bit difficult. I can't think much right now so I have to resort to a somewhat obscure reference, but Ambassador Kosh from Babylon 5 sounds much cooler in french than he does in english. Sometimes, it is as if the dubs are chosen after what someone figured the character should sound like, rather than the voice of the actual actor.

Ambient noise is typically less prominent in dubbed films, dialogue is much clearer, if less natural.

However, once you've seen a Hollywood flick in english, it's hard to go back. This might be a dubious example for some, but absolutely nothing in french approaches the raw power of the F-word.

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H

 

[Jason Seaver]

One thing I always wonder about with subtitling is if I'm getting inflection right - I'll hear certain words be emphasized while the subtitles say "How could you listen to that woman?", and if the character is saying "that woman", it means one thing, but if he's saying "that woman", it sort of means another.

 

[Gregory Vaughan]

I'm upset when a foreign film is dubbed in a theater, because it prevents me from watching it in my preferred format (subtitled). I just really dislike watching dubbed films. If there is a dubbed soundtrack on a DVD, I don't care as long as the original is available, but I will always advocate a subtitled theatrical release.

As to American films being dubbed in foreign countries, I'm not sure why that should concern me (although actually, it's a lot more convenient to be able to see an undubbed american film when I'm visiting another country).

 

[Marko Berg]

Television programmes and films at the cinema are not dubbed but rather subtitled throughout Scandinavia.



Exactly. I am so used to reading subtitles I really don't pay attention to it, and don't lose much of the action on screen while reading. In addition, if the dialogue of a film is in English or in some other language I understand, I don't read the subtitles at all. They don't bother me, but if I need to quickly verify that I understood the dialogue correctly, I almost subconsciously glance at the subtitles. I grew up with the original sound, and dubbing just feels unnatural and wrong.

Incidentally, I have sworn I'll never complain about the quality of German, French, Spanish etc. dubbing on DVDs or on TV channels from countries where those languages are spoken. Thanks to digital free-to-air satellite television, I have experienced dubbing the Polish style.

In Poland, a single male voice reads out all the dialogue whether the original dialogue is spoken by a male or female actor. He makes no effort to synch the speech to lip movement, rather he simply reads the dialogue from a translation in a monotonous manner. Naturally, in order to know who is speaking -- since dialogue can take place off-screen -- the original soundtrack can be heard muted in the background.

Imagine trying to watch your favourite film but being forced to listen to a dry, disinteresting director's commentary throughout.

 

[Holadem]

Man that's horrible... and hilarious!

I agree as well.

The thing is, I have subtitles on 50-75% of the time even on english or french material. Perhaps I am hard of hearing or something (or have a bad center speaker) but I find I often struggle with dialog regardless of the language. Watching a movie with me can be annoying 'cause I am always toggling subtitles depending on the scene.

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H

 

[TheLongshot]

Actually, there are a few British films that turn subtitles on (Sexy Beast comes to mind), because the accents are so extreme to my ear, that I can't understand what the actors are saying.

Jason

 

[Bob Turnbull]

Or say, the Japanese dubbed version of the French Taunter scene from Monty Python's Holy Grail. It kinda misses a few of the nuances...

Of course, subtitles will miss those too...There have been a few Asian films that have been described as hilarious that just do not appeal to me. I expect that a good deal of that is because of the loss in translation of the humour found in the spoken dialogue (alliteration, rhymes, etc. just don't get translated very well).

But given those problems, I have to say I prefer subtitles. Many good points have been raised about their own shortcomings, but I find I miss subtle inflections in voice and the alignment of the words with body movement (I don't think laughing can ever really be dubbed very well). As Marko mentioned, dubbing just "feels" wrong for me. I've seen countless commercials where you can just tell that the original actor's voice has been replaced (and that's even in the same language). Whether it's the lack of ambient noise or the other things I mentioned, you just feel it and recognize it right away. Other people don't notice and it doesn't bother them.

I actually found it difficult to get into Once Upon A Time In The West and The Good, The Bad And The Ugly because of all the dubbing (especially Jason Robards in OUATITW for some reason). I got past that though...

 

[Keith Paynter]

Foreign markets have to deal with this every day. No big deal. You think Tom Cruise is heard in English in Quebec? This is why DVD's have multiple languages...

Listening to dubbing is an easily acquired skill (my very first was "King Kong vs. Godzilla"), even with, say, a laserdisc or DVD commentary track. Sometimes, if I'm listening to a DVD commentary, I'll thrown on the English subtitles in case I want to follow the film more.

I think the real point of the thread is foreign dubbing. If I throw my 2 cents in about domestic dubbing, try to sit through Ben-Hur with its very obvious 99% ADR.

 

[Armin Jager]

Well I live in the country of the evil dubbers , as Cees already remarked in Germany almost every film is dubbed, subtitles are occasionally used for arthouse films, but that's it.
On the one hand I understand the puristic argument that you lose part of the original performance, I myself buy regularly DVDs mostly in order to get the English language films with English subtitles because I want to know what exactly is said in certain scenes and to be sure that dubbing hasn't subtly changed the meaning of some sentences. In the 70s there was e.g a disastrous tendency to dub some TV series in a "funny" way, the original STAR TREK series still suffers from a considerable number of dumb jokes which didn't exist in the series itself. Another especially interesting (and horrifying) affair is the elimination of the Nazis in NOTORIOUS and even better in CASABLANCA in the 50s for the German audiences by dubbing and a bit of cutting. And there's the occasional uninspired or bad dub made fastly for TV.
Then again I suspect much of the complaining of critics or film fans from USA about dubbing has its source in the bad quality. From what I know dubbing is done since the 30s in Germany, the speakers focus exclusively on this job since there's enough to do and the results are often extremely good, I read somewhere that Germany is leading in the world regarding dubbing. I occasionally saw a film dubbed in German then compared some scenes to the English original and it's a good job, the same inflections, the same length ot talk and a voice which does match the original actor's voice in character. Woody Allen and Robert DeNiro have marvelous voices, both said themselves as they heard them that they like the dub voices very much.
The advantage that you get every word of the conversation with the prober inflection (if done right) was already named. I'll never forget as our professor had shown an excerpt of THE MALTESE FALCON where Bogart has one of his machine-gun-speed speeches and the subtitle creator had obviously given up in despair and only occasionaly throw in some bits, the whole audience cracked up, so funny was the difference between the thousands of words uttered by Bogart and the occasional short remark in the subs. You simply sit more relaxed in front of a dubbed film and watch the film instead of jumping again and again to the bottom of the screen to read something.

Oh yeah, that's marvelous! I was born in Poland, am occasionally there and find this really fascinating. In a very strange way it works. Either you hear the reader if you don't speak the language or you listen to the muted original voices and the translation of the reader may even help to understand the hard-to understand sentences.

 

[Lew Crippen]

In Mexico, almost all English language films (actually most non-Spanish language films) are subtitled. OTOH, TV is mixed--some is subtitled, some is dubbed and most live sports from English speaking orgions is telecast with different announcers speaking in Spanish.

 

[JonZ]

One problem I have with dubbing is that theyll often completely change whats being said, while subtitles tend to be more faithful to the original dialogue.

The best example I can think of is Akira.
Watch the scene were Kaneda is pulled in the Akira bubble
in english and again in japanese and tell me which is more effective.

 

[Holadem]

Dang. You just effectively shot down my beautiful theory .

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H

 

[Richard_D_Ramirez]

Even if I still prefer the original DVD language version of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, I have to admit the English dub is done pretty well. The voice actors did an excellent job in evoking emotions which matched the actors onscreen.

8^B

 

[Rob Gardiner]

Reason 1. Subtitles usually (almost always) have a more accurate translation of the original dialogue than the dub script.

Reason 2. You usually end up with better performances when listening to the original cast perform in the original language.

Reason 3. Even in the case of a "good" dub, you are violating the director's intentions -- he chooses his cast and directs their performances in order to elicit a particular emotional reaction from the audience. For this reason, listening to a foreign dub is just as "wrong" as watching a pan-and-scan version of a widescreen film -- even if this particular P&S job looks "good", you are not seeing what the director intended.

Here is a little experiment you can try at home to see for yourself why foreign dubs are undesirable:

Step 1. Insert any SIMPSONS disc into your DVD player.

Step 2. Switch to the French soundtrack. (Turn on English subtitles if you wish to follow along with the dialogue.)

Step 3. See how long it takes for the novelty to wear off. Simply put, Julie Kavner IS Marge Simpson, and nothing can change that.

 

[george kaplan]

No, you are seeing EXACTLY what the director intended. What you're not doing is HEARING what the director intended. When you watch with subtitles, you may be hearing what the director intended, but you are not SEEING what he intended (he/she NEVER intended for you to watch words on top of the action), and so by your own logic, watching a film with subtitles is "just as wrong" as watching a p&S version of the film.

I watch foreign films with subtitles more than I do dubbed, but I'm not about to pretend that it's somehow morally superior to do so. To bring up comparisons to p&s is just ridiculous.

 

[Rob Gardiner]

I've never understood why this forum holds a double standard in regards to the picture and sound of a film. Pan and scan is always wrong -- colorization is always wrong -- but re-recording the foley on a mono film and re-mixing it into surround sound is OK sometimes -- jettisoning the voice performances of the original cast and replacing them with a cast of ringers is OK sometimes.

I'm not criticizing anyone who believes this -- everyone is entitled to their opinion. I'm simply pointing out the inconsistency.

I seem to remember something in the forum charter about "artistic integrity" and "director's intent" and "original theatrical presentation" being accurately reproduced in the home setting as accurately as possible.

I realize that total fidelity to the original presentation is not always possible and that compromises must sometimes be made. I realize that watching a film with subtitles is a compromise. But I believe it is much less of a compromise than replacing all the vocal performances in the film. No director ever intended me to see his film shrunken, with black bars on top and bottom, yet letterboxing is much less of a compromise than pan & scan is.

If a dub script is prepared, and the performances recorded, under the close supervision of the film's original director, I would consider the result to be a legitimate way to enjoy the film without violating the director's intentions. Otherwise, I don't see why it isn't as bad as watching a p&s version of a widescreen film.


I apologize if I overstated my case. Personally, I believe that activity which harms no one is not immoral (or morally wrong, to put it in other terms). That's why I used the word "wrong" in quotes. If someone named Joe sits at home, drinking cheap beer out of a six-pack, watching a foreign dubbed version of Star Wars in pan & scan, he is doing nothing morally wrong. Yet, the version of the film he is watching is "wrong" in terms of violating the director's intentions.

In any case, I was simply attempting to answer the question posed in the title of this thread, and I think I have done so thoroughly.

 

[Seth Paxton]

I agree with what George had to say on page 1. We associate dubs with bad dubs yet rarely check on subtitle quality (of translation). I had 2 imports of the Kurosawa series before Criterion released them (Ikiru and Throne of Blood) and both had wretched subtitles that barely made sense, the worst form of Engrish you could imagine.

I would take a good dub over that in a heartbeat.

Probably the trickiest part of dubbing is to capture the nuance, mood, and timing of a great acting effort. But so much stuff was not recorded live anyway, especially from some countries where looping was the standard practice, that any version is already a "dub".

GBU is one of the best films I've ever seen and I have zero problems with the dubbing. At times it almost enhances the surreal aspects of the film.

 

[Seth Paxton]

I'm not sure I agree with this. I'm not a great French speaker, but I still notice that many words and phrases are changed or dropped for the subs. One issue is the reading speed vs the listening speed of audiences, not to mention actual screen space for the subs.