The modern classic Arrival has a pivotal early scene on the importance of nuance in translation. When a linguist is asked the Sanskrit word for “war” and what it means the linguist says the word and says it means argument, Amy Adams’ character corrects this saying it means “a desire for more cows”. It would be easy to see how misunderstanding the word could lead to a negative outcome when one side just wanted to buy some cows. The subtitling of films not in English may not have the same potential pitfall, but surely it is important to accurately and carefully translate them.
It is worth pointing out that an audience watching a film in their native language, made by people of the same culture in the same time period can still lead to different interpretations so adding the complexity of another language only makes it more complicated.
In terms of distributing films for audiences that do not speak the language the film is made in, there have been two options – dubbing or subtitles. Dubbing is the process of having actors who do speak the language of the audience redo the dialogue, for a long time dubbing was a source of much derision due to the unnatural feeling it gave movies and poor acting but in recent years it has become far more accomplished. Subtitling was long seen as the more authentic experience but still had its limitations. Any film, whether it be Citizen Kane or The Fast & The Furious, has a complexity to language that can be lost when translated. Even just thinking about some of the pithy one-liners from films – Dr. Strangelove – “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here, this is the war room!” Silence of the Lambs – “I’m having an old friend for dinner” or even “You’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya punk?” from Dirty Harry. How easily the meaning could be lost if any of these were translated into Mandarin or Portuguese or Arabic? Translating is not just about specific words, there is meaning in context.
Then there are the problems of expressions and turns of phrase, for example, by the skin of one’s teeth, is not an expression that makes any sense when taken to another culture. The Chinese expression “Draw snake, add feet” meaning to overdo something does not make any sense. You could probably find examples of other expressions that would work in other languages, or just have the subtitles not use the expression and just say it…but then is something being lost?
It is well known that comedy doesn’t travel well, with it often not working when it leaves the place it was created. Often stereotypes about countries not having a sense of humour are that they simply have a different sense of humour. If we look at one of the great comedies of all time, Shaun of the Dead, and even just focus on the scene of throwing records at zombies. There are a number of different jokes going on – the silliness of fighting zombies with records, Shaun’s preciousness of his collection even in a life and death situation, the various jokes about different albums – such as Shaun insisting he likes The Stone Roses’ album Second Coming. How would this be translated for other audiences?
Famously when German television asked to broadcast Monty Python’s Flying Circus in Germany the Pythons decided instead of letting them dub it or subtitle it they would make specials in German, feeling that would convey the humour more. Admittedly, none of the Pythons spoke German so they learned it phonetically. But even if they didn’t learn the language they did make changes for the culture, settings change, clothes are different, it is trying to connect with the German audience.
Looking at some of the most successful non-English language films in the UK and America we have films like Parasite, Amelie, Pan’s Labrinyth. The first of those is a complex story of class and cultural tensions in South Korea, the second a film saturated in French cinematic style and taste, and the final a fantasy coming-of-age story amidst the aftermath of a fascist victory in the Spanish Civil War. There is a lot of room for misunderstanding and keeping the meaning and style of the original is an art form in itself.
Also Read: Parasite and Foreign Language Films in the UK
