Lost in Translation

Movies with subtitles tend to give the feeling that something is lost. The visual experience of the film is replaced by the necessity to read the text at the bottom of the screen. The dialogue may feel weak or artificial in some way. You get the basic information, but little beyond that. Watching films in languages you know with subtitles in languages you know confirms this impression. Often the words on the screen bear little resemblance to the actor’s dialogue. Besides, subtitles have to deal with the same difficulties that all translations have: not only should they translate words, but import meaning. This gets especially tough with puns, jokes and culture-specific references.

“Subtitles take roughly 30 percent of your attention in the movie theatre,” says Petr Sitar, founder and owner of Filmprint, one of the Czech Republic’s two major subtitling outfits. Is this really worth it? Do we truly want to see a film if nearly one-third of the experience is sacrificed to reading subtitles? In Belgium the case seems to be an even tougher one. As the country has three official languages (Dutch, French and German), subtitles have to be provided in each of these tongues. You can imagine that three sets of subtitles would pretty much fill up half the screen.

So, why watch subtitled movies at all?

There are a multitude of reasons, the most pragmatic one being that your language might have too small of a group of speakers to pay for dubbing over it. Another reason might be that you don’t like dubbed films. You might find that the quality of the film suffers. Actors in dubbed films take on a strange, fake quality – their mouths move, but the sounds that comes out are completely different, as though possessed. The actor’s performance isn’t merely about the words being spoken, but also about tones, pauses, the rise and fall of a voice, the pitch, all of the sounds that are lost when the voice is replaced by another.There are many who believe that the language (and the culture) of a movie very much determines its character. It grounds the film in reality, gives it a place and a feel that is authentic.

Think of the wonderful Danish film, Adams aebler aka Adam’s apples, which came out in 2005. The staccato sound of the Danish language adds a lot to the quiet but intense atmosphere of the film. Just as German seems to provide a perfect sound-image for World War II movies: even if you don’t understand a word of German, you can feel the impact of those sounds in a far more appropriate manner. Just try to imagine a Nazi officer going around speaking Spanish. Such a contrast would be absurd. Considering movies as holistic pieces of art makes it especially difficult to justify radically changing one channel of sensual impression.

One might also consider the educational benefits of subtitles. Watching French movies with subtitles can be a terrific way to learn French (and it’s probably a lot easier, and more interesting, than attending a 2-hour class).Once your skills have advanced you can shift to French movies with French subtitles. Eventually you won’t need them anymore at all. That this way of learning languages can be effective is proven by the Scandinavian case. Have you ever met a Scandinavian person with a less than perfect English? – Guess why not. The TV stations there show only the English originals of movies (with subtitles?).

However, the question remains: Why are subtitled films often so poorly done.

One answer is that subtitling movies comes at the very end of the assembly-line process of putting together a movie. And, sadly, there is often very little priority given to it. By the time the subtitles are being produced, the director has moved on to the next project. Sometimes the translators don’t even get to see the movie they’re translating, but instead just a “spotting list” that indicates how much time, or how many frames they have for the script. Furthermore, in order to have the new version ready as soon as possible – so that the film can be released in the respective country – very little time is given over to writing subtitles, and even less time (or no time at all) to oversight, re-writes, editorial changes, etc. When there is only a week or a weekend allotted to translate 1,200 to 1,500 pieces of dialogue, efficiency and speed come at the expense of artistic accuracy.

Another explanation why the quality of translations suffers in comparison with the original is simply that there is a divide between those who make the film and those who produce the translation. The director, the screenwriter, the actors: they aren’t involved in the translation process. And even if they wanted such involvement, they would often be unable to do so. Language gets in the way.

A third reason is found in the anonymity of translation. Often, the name of the translater isn’t even given; instead, merely the name of the company is listed. Translators are rarely recognized by audiences and critics. And when they are recognized, the attention is almost universally negative. Translation, by its very nature, is an art that should go unobserved. When well done, the viewer (or reader) ought to forget that it is even a translation at all. And when it isn’t so well done – this is when the audience takes notice.

As we see, the process of putting together the subtitles and the low priority which is given to their quality accounts for much of the flaws. Subtitled films rarely make it to “Kassenschlagern” and it is mostly the younger, well-educated, independent-film crowd that frequents them. Little money, little emphasis.

Yet I believe that there lies a specific advantage in translations, especially for the European cinema. Auberge Espagnole gave a perfect example for the young, multi-lingual Europeans, whose life takes place in more than one language and therefore cannot be represented in only one. 2 days in Paris by, and with, Julie Delpy is another example. Europe, much more so than mighty Hollywood, is accustomed to a multitude of languages and language’s power to create identity. How could Europe ever be faithfully depicted if not in it’s multitude of voices, to not only understand the words that are being said, but the way they are spoken, the sounds and the languages as they are represented in real life – not by another actor’s voice replacing one language for another, but by the original It does not matter that it is foreign; indeed, the foreignness is what enhances the film’s foundation in reality. It is what makes the film a part of the world.

This article was originally published on the website Proeurope1.