SUBTITLED FILMS

I find that most people I know will not watch any film that has subtitles , some of the best films I've seen are subtitled. I find If a subtitled film is good, you tend to forget half way through that it is actually subtitled and just enjoy the film. I have seen so many subtitled films and in most cases it adds to the authenticity of the filming . I wouldnt be without my collection of subtitled films , I have must have 100 or more on laserdisc and dvd. On laserdisc I have films such as seventh seal , wages of fear , wild child and on dvd I have films such as switchblade romance , apocalypto and passion of the christ etc.
Great films which many people will miss out on seeing , I would also say I would choose a subtitled film over one that has beed dubbed.

On the whole I'm the opposite of most people, I really dislike watching dubbed films as the voice acting is nearly always awful and detracts greatly from the film.

The only exceptions I have to this is when I'm watching something animated as the quality of the voice acting is usually on a par whatever the language and it's not as noticeable when the dialogue is out of synch.

The only dubbed live action film I own is the American version of Godzilla (thanks again for the sale ) which although dubbed also includes a lot of extra scenes with Raymond Burr that were spliced into the film for the American audience. Although the original version of the film is better I do find this edit quite interesting.

I've always enjoyed foreign language films ever since BBC 2 used to show loads of them in their 'World Cinema' slots decades ago. I, too, hate dubbed soundtracks - the actors never seem to have voices that match their faces! - and I always prefer to hear the original dialogue. As Admin says, once you get into the movie you soon forget that you're reading subtitles.

Of course, the subtitling itself is an art and isn't always well done. Early foreign language laserdiscs, such as those from the CinemaDisc Collection, were sometimes difficult to read. They just used white titling which would 'disappear' against light backgrounds. Then there were those discs which used yellow titles - OK for a colour film, but a bit distracting for B/W. (You'd think it would be the other way round, but trust me.)

Then, too, there are the typos and poor punctuation which I, as a professional proofreader, ALWAYS notice and wince over! That's before you get to the accuracy of the translation itself. My only really fluent second language is French and I often notice that the subtitles in many French movies aren't always a faithful rendering of the spoken dialogue. The phrase "lost in translation" is quite apt here, and my wife and I often look at each other after comparing the soundtrack with the subtitles and say, "He didn't exactly say that!" Most amusing is when the original script uses some extremely disgusting French expletive and the subtitle says something like, "Oh, bother!"

One of my most bewildering experiences was watching a James Bond film in a cinema in Switzerland that had a dubbed German soundtrack and French subtitles. Very odd!

BTW, does anyone else use the English subtitles on English-language DVDs to help understand the dialogue? I use them on THE WEST WING and THE X-FILES just to cope with all that jargon, and they're an absolute must for THE WIRE which is completely unintelligible without them! (Mind you, every other word on THE WIRE starts with 'f' so it's not really too difficult, I guess.)

laserkb wrote:

I often notice that the subtitles in many French movies aren't always a faithful rendering of the spoken dialogue.

Canadian DVDs are pretty good when it comes to French films as many parts of the country speak French.

One example is Brotherhood of the Wolf where the Canadian DVD is the only one to accurately translate the French dialogue to English subtitles. It's also the only DVD release to contain the full length cut of the film but that's another story.