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

[Darren Haycock]

I can't stand dubbed simply because it looks ridiculous when their lips don't match up to what they're saying.



By the way, the subtitles in The Passion are not burned in, correct? That'd be a tough decision. In one sense, burned in subtitles are preferred, but it's very nice to have the option to turn them off to see more where Gibson was coming from.

 

[Jonathan White]

quote:Their is a HUGE difference between;

quote:vast majority of the people who watch films on DVD

and

quote:a film expert or critic

Why would any filmaker just want experts or critics to watch his / her films?

 

[Michael Harris]

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

But Latin still dates from that time and Romans to speak it. There was a difference in the Latin spoken by the soldiers and the Latin spoken by Pilate in same way that most movies about the Roman Empire have the soldiers speaking with a working class English accent while the nobility sound as if they just walked out of the Royal Shakespeare Company (i.e. Ben Hur, Spartacus, Gladiator)

I think, as an ARTISTIC decision, using Latin was a good one since most viewers would associate it with the Romans. I think most viewers were suprised that Aramaic, which is still spoken in parts of modern Syria, was the lingua franca for ancient Judea and not Hebrew as one may assume.

While, for me, "The Passion" has its faults, I was convinced that the actors actually knew the languages they spoke rather then just reciting memorized lines. Guess thats acting and good dialogue coaching. (Side note: I had the pleasure of knowing Fr. Falco SJ, one of the technical advisors, when he was at Yale a lifetime ago. What a mind. He would write things in cuniaform and heiroglyphs for me that I could bring to my grade school class).

 

[george kaplan]

Of course, neither dubbing nor subtitles are going to accurately get you completely there. A friend of mine went to see Duck Soup in Germany, which was in English, but subtitled. At one point, Groucho is told about approaching tanks.

"Tanks."

"You're Welcome."

The German subtitles read:

"Panzer."

"Danke."

At this point in the film, my friend started laughing, but was pretty embarrassed since no one else was.

 

[Andrew Radke]

I'm going to have to give this one a rent first before I decide to purchase it. I have a visual impairment and am unable to read subtitles in movies unless I'm sitting incredibly close to my television set. I just recently learned that this movie was full of subtitles, and although I agree that the original language should be preserved in this, or any other film, it is still extremely difficult for me to sit so close to a television just to read subs. It detracts from my enjoyment of the movie overall. If it's easy enough to follow after reading the subtitles the first time, (and assuming I LIKE the film), I'll definitely pick it up.

It was the same deal with "The Last Samurai". There were so many subtitles, I drove people nuts asking them what was being said. Overall, I watch very few foreign films, for this reason alone. Not because I'm biased.

 

[Marko Berg]

Many good examples and experiences of bad dubbing have been posted in this thread, but one must hear a film or television series dubbed into Polish to really appreciate the original presentation. I don't know if this applies to cinema, but Polish TV at least usually has a single, tired male voice reading aloud all the dialogue. That's right - the male voice substitutes all original dialogue.


Out of necessity, the dubbing is not quite complete - you can hear the original sound faintly throughout the presentation. An actor starts to speak in the original language at a low volume, and the dubbing voice starts a few seconds into the dialogue so that one knows which actor is being dubbed if several are talking at the same time. Imagine listening to a DVD audio commentary by the director, who instead of sharing his insights about the film, reads aloud the script as the film progresses, dubbing the original voices.

 

[Tim_Stack]

"I see no reason to ever purchase or watch a movie that isn't spoken in my language."

Thank you, Mr. Shakespeare. Realize that if you grew up speaking any other language, 90% of movies you would watch would be subtitled. What an ignorant statement!

And actually, Greek was the language of the common folk in Palestine/Israel at the time.

 

[Marko Berg]

quote:At this point in the film, my friend started laughing, but was pretty embarrassed since no one else was.

At least he was able to hear and get the joke. I agree that neither dubbing nor subtitles are always enough, but the problem with dubbing is, you can't just mute the dubbed dialogue if there is an untranslatable joke. It's easy and acceptable however to simply leave a short bit without subtitles, and at least those who know the original language will be able to enjoy what is being said.

There's a joke in Disney's The Lion King that doesn't translate into my native language well. The dubbed audio, however, must match the movement of the animated characters' mouths, and the dubbed version adds some totally useless dialogue. Essentially the characters in the scene keep rehashing what was said a few moments earlier, as if one of them had trouble hearing what the other said, and had to ask for a clarification. The end result isn't terrible, but the scene does drag a bit because of this. If every film was dubbed, I'd hate to think how much I'd have lost over the years watching such incomplete presentations.

 

[Steve Christou]

There are millions of film fans worldwide who have never heard John Wayne or Clint Eastwood's real voice, films are dubbed all over the world not just the West.

I'm not a big fan of foreign language films but the few I do own and watch I prefer subtitled mainly because the dubbing is usually atrocious.

As for Passion of the Christ, please! If Mel had decided to go with English no one would have batted an eye, "ooh I am so glad he filmed it in in ancient aramaic I wouldn't go see it if it wasn't" yeah sure.

 

[obscurelabel]

deleted post - couldn't get html (or bbcode) to work properly.

 

[BrettB]

quote:As for Passion of the Christ, please! If Mel had decided to go with English no one would have batted an eye,

For the most part, absolutely correct.


quote:"ooh I am so glad he filmed it in in ancient aramaic I wouldn't go see it if it wasn't" yeah sure.

I never heard anyone claim this. It was known for a very long time that Gibson was making an artistic choice regarding the language and it works very well and is appreciated by every person I've talked to about the film.

 

[Steve Christou]

Yeah but you would have still gone to see if if it was in English that was the point I was making.

A guy could have 2000-3000 films in his collection but if he hates reading subtitles or doesn't particularly enjoy foreign language films than he's not a real film fan eh? That's BS IMO.

 

[Manendra]

quote:As for Passion of the Christ, please! If Mel had decided to go with English no one would have batted an eye, "ooh I am so glad he filmed it in in ancient aramaic I wouldn't go see it if it wasn't" yeah sure.

If Mel had decided to do the film in English, sure I wouldn't have minded. But that's because I would not have even thought of the possibility of doing it in Aramaic.

Now that the Passion was done in Aramaic, I would NEVER have it any other way!

After all, Jesus spoke Aramaic. For all we know, English probably didn't even exist at the time!!! You get the priviledge of listening to the WAY Jesus spoke in addition to WHAT he spoke. People should appreciate that.

 

[Steve Christou]

quote:After all, Jesus spoke Aramaic. For all we know, English probably didn't even exist at the time!!!

Or Jesus for that matter [STOP IT STEVE!].* slap *

er whats with all the extra spacing we're getting in posts nowadays, looks neat but...

 

[BrettB]

Thanks for the clarification. Wasn't sure what point you were trying to make. As to your last statement, I agree.

Edit: Damn I'm slow. "last statement" from your previous post.

 

[Michael Reuben]

Parker's trying to solve this. For now, you can edit your messages to take out the extra line breaks. I just tried it with one of the messages in this thread, and it worked.

M.

 

[Terry St]

This may come across as heresy, but personally I believe that the translation is the most critical aspect of the presentation of a foreign-language film, whether the translation is presented as subs or a dub. Translating one language to another without losing the significance of cultural idioms in the process is no easy task. All of this must be done without destroying the delivery and panache of the original performance. If an actor makes a tremendously witty one-liner that relies on an cultural reference lost to foreign audiences you can't take 5 minutes to explain it. You have to create something with the same effect in the translation. If you want to see an example of how bad things can be try watching several different fan-subs for any recent anime show. (Don't ask me how to get them. That's not what this forum is for.) A more legitimate example is Criterion's release of "Throne of Blood", which includes two different translations, both good, but in places very different. Different translations literally change the story being told to a surprising degree! More frequently, a poor translation will just make everything confusing.

Dubs have a well-deserved poor reputation. The requirement of matching lip movements greatly limits what can be said, thereby making the job of an adequate translation very difficult. To make matters worse, the traditional view that subs are for idiots too lazy to read tends to influence the translation on a more fundamental level. Complexity is often eschewed for the sake of simplicity, since the "drooling prole's" listening might wind up confused otherwise. However, this sort of thing is not limited to dub's. Sub-titles can also be poorly done. An inadequate grasp of either the source or target language and the cultural idioms invoked in the film on the part of the translator will become a horrid mess even in text. Poorly made subtitles can literally butcher a masterpiece, turning complex, layered, witty dialogue into a mess of confusion and "bad engrish".

While I've seen my share of live-action films with bad subs, I've never seen one where the dub contained a better translation than the subs, although I'm open to the possibility of such a thing happening. Anime titles, with the loosened restrictions on matching lip-flaps, are a different story. I have seen a few select titles where the dub contained a translation vastly superior to the subs. I'd rather these isolated cases had better sub's so I could listen to the inflections of the original voice actors, but when meaning is lost or butchered you have to go with what works.

P.S. It's naive, not niave

 

[Lou Sytsma]

The choice to determine the parameters of viewing a movie at home should be with the individual

Subtitles work for some people and don't for others. Not everyone likes to read.

I don't disagree that OAR and original dub will give the best presentation of the director's artistic intent. OTOH any variations on those parameters doesn't render the movie's merits impotent either as some are intimating.

The person listening to a dub in his native tongue is going to get pretty close to everything that was there to begin with. If the movie strikes the viewer as worthy, they will most likely then make the extra effort to view the original version.

I'd much rather have a person take that path than miss out all together.

 

[Ricardo C]

quote:The person listening to a dub in his native tongue is going to get pretty close to everything that was there to begin with

Not even close.

 

[Jeannette Walsh]

Hey John I would just forget about reading the subtitles (nothing of major importance is said in the movie anyway) just enjoy the spectacle of a man being whipped and tortured for 2 hours and don't miss the Forrest Gump moment near the end it's priceless.