The question of dubbing (The Passion of the Christ, and others) (1 Viewer)

[Sean Moon]

I have to give gibson credit for releasing this film ONLY subtitled, even on VHS. If only he went the extra mile and gave us all OAR only as well.

 

[Ron-P]

quote:No there isn't thankfully, and I hope there never is.

Amen to that.

 

[Ricardo C]

As someone who's sat through his fair share of inept dubs over the years (both in English and Spanish), I can't imagine watching the dubbed version of a foreign-language film over the subtitled version. Yeah, you don't have to "read the movie", but you also miss out on a key part of the performances in the film. I can't believe some of the comments I've read here.

 

[Patrick McCart]

It's a small problem, but here's the solution:

Watch the movie first and pay attention to the subtitles. Then, watch again. You'll have the subtitles already "remembered" and the 2nd run won't be as odd.

Besides, The Passion isn't very heavy on subtitles anyways. I plan to watch the film without them once when I get the DVD... just to see how easy/hard it is to follow.

I do hope you learn to like subtitled films, though. What an awful fear! I'd assume that you've never seen a silent film for the same reason.

 

[Marko Berg]

quote:I was under the impression that the vast majority of such films were dubbed from English

It depends on where you live. In Scandinavian countries, only films that are likely to gather mostly a very young audience (Disney releases, cartoon and live-action children's films) are dubbed, but it's usually possible to see those films theatrically in the original language as well as dubbed, sometimes with and sometimes without subtitles.

The point I have been trying to make is that no-one should totally ignore a film only because it's in the original language and subtitled. If reading the subtitling is distracting, watch the film twice to make sure you didn't miss anything. DVDs are great for repeated viewing.

EDIT: Patrick beat me to it.

 

[Malcolm R]

I'd think most people interested in this film would already be familiar with the plot and subject matter and would not need the subtitles or dubbing in order to "follow along."

Besides, subtitles didn't seem to hurt it in theaters.


Jesus apparently didn't speak your language either. I'm sure he'd be disappointed to know you wanted nothing to do with him unless he spoke English.

 

[Michael Osadciw]

Hi Guys

I prefer to watch films in their original language and reading subtitles. I feel its a destruction of the film listening to a dubbed version because the biggest loss is the intonation of the actor's voice on screen. Voiceovers in dubbed versions never pick up the same emotion as the original performance. Despite not understanding what is being said from listening to the voice, hearing it while reading makes the film far more effective in understanding "feelings". I tend to forget there is subtitles on the screen.

I'm waiting for this title to arrive. I have yet to receive more titles from Fox for review.

Mike

 

[chrisMCG]

Original Languages all the way... but if they do decide to add an English track then I hope they also re-edit the kung-fu fight between Jesus and Satan into the movie as well...

 

[ChristopherDAC]

As said above, Gibson had a deliberate reason for using a mixture of languages all of which are archaic [not necessarily dead: I and others use Latin on a regular basis, and there is such a thing as Modern Spoken Aramaic], and to dub this item in any language would be the kind of violence which [with the extremely large degree of directorial control which he is of necessity exercising over the life of this project] he would not permit.

My viewpoint on language formats of foreign films:

As a Japanese animation fan, I generally find the voice acting of dubs inadequate in terms of expressing the emotion of the original voice actors, and the scripts awkward and sometimes edited to "gentle" the effect. Besides fulfilling the "original artistic vision of the director", that is, they are aesthetically unpleasing. Having a seen variety of presentations, I will say this: subtitles are distracting; not having a complete understanding of Japanese programmes without English language support can be confusing. Of my AnimEigo [company whose motto used to be "The Best Movies You'll Ever Read!"] "hybrid" LDs [dub one side, hard subs the other] I almost never play the dub sides. The best value for my money are Dual Audio discs with closed captions: typically I will play the disc once in English, occasionally in Japanese with English captions, and the rest of the time Japanese only. This is similar to what most DVDs support. Dual audio without captions is annoying; dual audio with hard subs which do not match the dubbing ditto; and I have not seen CC subs without dual audio, but would expect to like it just fine [equivalent to DVD with DVD titles rather than burned subs].

Frankly, the way my brain works, reading titles while listening to the Japanese voice actor, I can basically hear him speaking his lines in english.


Make what you will of that; but will everyone please stop flaming the original poster?

 

[Michael Reuben]

quote:If you prefer subtitles, fine, but don't act like it's somehow keeping the director's original vision, when all it's really doing is keeping the director's original audio.

I'd put it this way: Subtitling keeps the actors' original performances. Dubbing replaces part of those performances with other performances, usually by other actors. Despite the skill of many of these voice actors, dubbing changes every single performance in the film.
I can't bear to watch dubbed films, and luckily I don't have to.


M.

 

[Bill Williams]

Here's my take on it: with regards to the events portrayed 2,000 years ago, the Latin and Aramaic languages were what was spoken at the time, so it's natural that Mel Gibson would choose those particular languages and shoot the film that way. Therefore, for me, dubbing it into English only loses that special touch, and watching it in the original Latin and Aramaic with English subtitles is the only way to properly watch it on DVD.

 

[george kaplan]

quote:I'd assume that you've never seen a silent film for the same reason.

I can't speak for the poster, but that's not really the same thing at all. Intertitles in silent films are just that, between shots. The films were made that way, and you never have to read while you're looking at the pictures. Actually, they could have subtitled silent films, but decided not to have the words over the pictures. I guess they were thinking that you shouldn't be reading while watching.

And I've seen some foreign silent films that I hope people here are boycotting, such as Metropolis, Battleship Potemkin and many others. Instead of subtitling (i.e., including the original language intertitles and then having subtitles below), they replace them with English only intertitles! The original nuances of the font, etc. are lost. Horrendous!

 

[Michael Reuben]

Since this thread has branched out beyond the original question (which has been answered), I've retitled it to reflect the larger discussion.



M.

 

[Michael Harris]

quote:Are English language films shown in other countries subtitled? I was under the impression that the vast majority of such films were dubbed from English into other languague, not subtitled



It depends on the market and the size of the audience. Dubbing films into Spanish and French is usually done because the world-wide population of speakers of those languages is so large. Films in Germany are dubbed since there are 80+ million Germans making it economically viable but one can find theaters that specialize in original langauge versions. In Greece, with a population under 11 million, foreign movies are almost all subtitled with the exception of animated films for children on DVD or VHS.



An interesting experiment is to pop in a copy of the movie version of "Das Boot" (I can't speak to the mini-series version) and play the English version while watching the subtitles. You will see/hear differences since dubbing has to take liberties with the dialogue to keep the lip synch. My guess, since I don't speak German, is that the subs are more accurate representation of the original German.



The use of original languages in "The Passion" was a wonderful artistic decision and according to my dad, who actually reads/speaks/teaches all the languages used, remarkably accurate.

 

[Richard Kim]

quote:Here's my take on it: with regards to the events portrayed 2,000 years ago, the Latin and Aramaic languages were what was spoken at the time, so it's natural that Mel Gibson would choose those particular languages and shoot the film that way.






Acutally, historians have criticized the use of Latin in The Passion, since the majority of Romans at the time actually spoke Greek.

 

[Michael Osadciw]

quote:Frankly, the way my brain works, reading titles while listening to the [foreign] voice [of the] actor, I can basically hear him speaking his lines in english.



Now I know I'm not the only one who thinks this too!



Mike

 

[CaseyL]

I am without question totally for the advancement of Original Language. I can't bear to watch a dubbed film. It makes me sad. Without actors, we wouldn't have very creative movies, and actors need their voices to speak. Their voices and their tonal inflections are part of what make them each unique. As an example of this, go watch Terminator 2 in different languages (especially french) and you lose everything about that raw arnold voice that makes it the terminator. Another example...Brotherhood of the Wolf. A french movie. The difference between the French actors voice (very soft and well spoken) and the english dub (raw and rugged...The voice of a smoker)is worlds apart. The character feels totally different just because of his voice. I always have been and shall remain totally Anti-dub.

 

[Lew Crippen]

Basically I’m on the side of a combination of George and Michael Rueben. I don’t much care it anyone wants to watch a film dubbed—but I do think that a portion (often a significant portion) of the performance is being missed by so doing.

Of course there are films that have been intentionally dubbed (Fellini did this a whole lot) into a common language such as Italian, where all of the actors might not speak Italian. Or in the case of the spaghetti Westerns, not all of the actors would be able to speak English. Therefore when you watch such a film with subtitles you are watching a film that is both subtitled and dubbed.

In this case however, the dubbing is in accordance with the director’s intent and (one presumes) he gets the performances he desires from the actors who are doing the dubbing.

There is another category of dubbing, found in a few films by Bergman, where there are two soundtracks: English and (in this case) Sweedish. The Criterion edition of Autumn Sonata for example has both soundtracks. The difference here is that the dubbed English has been done by the orgionial cast.

 

[Amy Mormino]

I am of mixed feelings regarding dubbing. I absolutely agree that serious fans should watch movies in the original languages and that subtitles are not that hard to get used to. Certainly "The Passion" was never meant to be watched with dubbing. If you hate subtitles, just take them out and enjoy it as a sort-of silent movie.

However, as mentioned by a few, there are a number of nations that dub their films and see nothing wrong with it as a means of getting films out to a wide audience. They have skilled actors doing it and if you listen to some German, Spanish, or French dubs you can hear how well it can be done. With foreign action, horror, or especially animated films, I think dubbing may be a way of getting them out to casual filmgoers who find subtitles distracting. Dubbing voices could also be a way of getting great foreign actors who don't know English well into American movies. Ideally, there would be theatres and DVDs with both options available.

 

[Dan Rudolph]

Pretty much all the Spanish dubs I've heard have been awful. Not just bad vocal matched, but improper mixing and spotty translation of jokes and such. French dubs sound relatively good. However, I don't speak French, so I might just not be able to notice a lot of the problems.