A student tells the following incident at a translation course: "When I was visiting a friend in LA a couple of years ago we went to see "Pan's Labyrith" (a Guillermo del Toro film) at the cinema. After about ten minutes people started walking out of the theatre and demanding their money back. The reason? The ad in English "made" them think the film was also in English, not in Spanish."
A few per cent of the entire annual titles published in the US are translation. So the rest -about 95+ %- of the literature is in English. There is also some kind of an attitude that only the intellectual academics watch foreign films, that this is somehow elite and obscure. I can't help but wonder how badly this askews their view of the world, having so little touch with non-Anglo-Saxon cultures and languages (dubbing is undoubtedly used in the uncommon case of imported films/TV-shows). One can even see some irony in it: USA is supposed to be the mix of so many different nationalities and cultures and at the same time happens this.
Americans tend ot buy filming rights to foreign films that have been proved to be commercially successful. Everyone knows examples of American remakes: the 'Ring' movies, for instance. Of course this also brings extra attention to the original Japanese 'Ringu' movies; I doubt they would be available at the local video store had not the American 'Rings' have become so successful here in Finland. Also, 'El Orfanato', or 'The Orphanage', (a Juan Antonio Bayona film) is in the process of being Americanised on celluloid.
One of the weirdest examples of this is of course Harry Potter books. They were "translated" from British English to American English.
But all this seems so very uneconomic which is what I thought was very much disliked. Apparently the pros -the illusion that US is the world's capital of good movies, the superiority even of the English language and the American culture- are worth spending hundreds of millions of dollars. Distribution rights and translations would apparently be just so completely bad.
The question is: why? Why must this illusion be kept alive at any cost? Is there the same attitude of only the elite watching foreign film in Canada and Britain? One would think that in Britain they must have at least some contact with the European film trade but then again, it is an English-speaking country. This I'd like to know: why ignore well-made movies if they are not in English?
6 kommenttia
millikan
17.9.2009 09:09
I guess good dubbing is rather expensive compared to value it returns in USA...in countries who do this a lot, e.g. Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Mexico the situation is different... and bad dubbing is just painful when you have other options. So I don't think there is much tradition in dubbing films or TV in English (there is for Spanish, due to large Latin population).
And people who are not used to watching lots of material on subtitles (e.g. Finnish) do have problems doing it, and again, when there are other options available...this keeps the casual watcher from watching foreign language films, either dubbed or subbed, and reserve them only for more serious cinephiles.
Also, many Americans consider a translation automatically inferior to the original text and I guess in this attitude they are not a) alone b) completely wrong. Due to this many of them react negatively also to foreign translations of English books, so it is not so much that they consider their books to be automatically better. Well, in some cases it is, but it is not the only explanation :)
I have discussed this issue and pros and cons of translated texts a good deal with intelligent, educated people...
Splenetic
17.9.2009 13:11
Hmm, never thought there is a value system connected to subtitles... I'm not sure, though, that translations are automatically inferior to the original. I mean, obviously, a translation is one interpretation of the original but in AV-translation (as opposed to prose translation) is mainly an attempt to communicate the core of the dialogue in the target language according to AV-translation rules (that is, the two lines, mainly). The dominant strategy is not to make far-stretched interpretation, changes, or additions. Even omission are only tolarated if absolutely necessary (again, the two line rule).
And it is of course true that as a Finn I'm very accustomed to reading subtitles but those not familiar with them might pay more attention to them which "deteriorates" the experience in general since the picture will be pretty much completely neglected in the process of reading the texts.
millikan
17.9.2009 16:10
Yes, the "translations are worse" attitude refers mostly to books...for AV translation the problem is that delivery; casual watcher is not used to reading subtitles, and dubbing to English is disliked both by casual watchers and cinephiles with couple of notable exceptions: Asian kung fu movies and Italian horror and other genre movies (for the latter, there is no original version, all versions are dubbed including Italian so it doesn't matter...and for the former, apparently dubbing fits the generic feel of the movie anyway :)
Middle European cinephiles on the other hand complain how hard it is to find non-dubbed versions of films...
Splenetic
17.9.2009 18:08
In a way I can understand the "translations are worse" attitude - after all, I do try to get my hands on the original if only possible rather than read its Finnish translation. Mainly it's due to the interpretation factor: I prefer making my own interpretations than making those interpretations based on someone else's interpretation. I also shy away from dubbing, only animations get a pass. Voice-overs are worse than dubbing since there are two mixing soundtracks at once to follow.
There's just one big problem with the "translations are worse" attitude. It excludes so many good literary works. I rather read a translation than not read anything foreign at all. And since most people are not willing to learn a whole new language to read the originals... I have to stick with translations. Only English-originals causes a rather askew view of the world; how the hell can English natives learn anything from other cultures if their experience is confined to random travelling (or more likely, travelling to tourist places) and the media (which also offers only an already-chewed version of another culture)? Especially since that, I think, is one of literature's main purposes.
millikan
18.9.2009 08:35
Yes, I do agree with you that translations are worth reading...the only languages I can read comfortably are Finnish and English (couple of others I can manage for comics or such), yet reading only Finnish and English originals...?
And I must say that also in English there are books I cannot read, or would benefit more from reading them in Finnish...I can manage Shakespeare in English but I clearly get out more from a good translation and e.g. Austen or Hammett start to be on the edge...
And of course there is a matter of cross-pollination; if nothing gets translated it does damage also the language, reducing it into a relic. Doesn't matter that much for languages like English, but it definitely matters for Finnish :)
So yes, I too prefer to read English original whenever sensible but still I am definitely pro-translation.
Splenetic
18.9.2009 09:13
I read Shakespeares and Austens as originals (mainly due to the university requirements), though with the former some explaining notes are very much needed (language changes a lot in a few centuries). Linguistic influences, good point. There's also the cultural cross-pollination: certain literary styles came to Finland through translations and undoubtedly this still happens one way and the other. While avoiding translations some people (might) miss out on quite a bit.