Foreign Laguage Films: Subtitles or Overdubbing

But, I’d be okay with some dubbing just for the sake of getting more Americans to watch foreign films. The more Americans watch dubbed foreign films, the quicker subbed foreign films will be brought over.

well, this i hv to agree with. i dont know why subtiltes are less marketable in the first place anyway but this statement is true for my country. i think for a long time we’ve been watching dubbed japanese/korean dramas and films. but soon after the japanese/korean craze started, they started to bring in original audio with subs and people are happier.. (i think) :)

sometimes we just have no control over this but i cant say that im not dissapointed though. i still think that people should at least try to first watch foreign films in original audio (kungfu or no kungfu) and then compare the two. if u still like the dubbed version, there’s nothing i can say…

@Josh Harper
my situation is a little different. i turn on the subtitles whenever im too tired to listen to the movies. it takes a higher concentration to listen esp when english is not ur first languange ;p

I prefer subtitles instead of dubbing. I prefer to hear the natural accents and dialogue as spoken by the performers on the screen.

Once I saw “Almost Heaven” with Heike Makatsch (not just on the screen, either: Heike was there for the festival). The print of the film had no subtitles for the parts spoken in German, so a bilingual women with a microphone sitting in the cinema translated German into English just after the German was spoken in the film. ’Twas an interesting and rare experience, I assure you. It was also quite funny when the word “Schiesse” was spoken in the film, to which the translator simply said “Shit.” It seemed (pretty much) everybody, German speaking or not, already knew what it meant, so the redundancy of her translation made it amusing.

Incidentally, Heike isn’t a fan of dubbed movies, either. But that’s okay: we still love Heike.

The one and only time I’d recommend dubbed over subs is Porcco Rosso, and that’s only because Michael Keaton is the lead. Nuff said.

“The one and only time I’d recommend dubbed over subs is Porcco Rosso, and that’s only because Michael Keaton is the lead. Nuff said.”

Like I’ve been saying, if the dub is well done… why not prefer it to subs? Voice acting is acting, so I’m still not quite sure why people have such a bias against dubs.

“Voice acting is acting”

Dubbing another actor’s / actress’ voice is insulting to the integrity of the said actor / actress. It’s a bastardization of their work, their skill and their verbal, authentic speech. I’d shoot the first person who would attempt to dub my dear Ellie Lambeti in a fucking English, Italian, Indian or whatever voice other than Greek!

Some people need to be shot anyhow if they think dubbing is of any worth.
DUBBING IS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THAN VOICE ACTING. IN FUCKING VOICE ACTING, WE HEAR THE ORIGINAL FUCKING VOICES!

As I’ve said somewhere before…dubbing’s only purpose is when it serves the director’s wishes, hence why we have Mastroianni dubbed in Beekeeper, Harris dubbed in Red Desert etc…otherwise, DUBBING IS FUCKING POINTLESS!

“Mastroianni dubbed in Beekeeper”

and what was the director’s wishes here exactly Dimitris? That Mastroianni couldn’t speak Greek? it’s not like he had many lines or anything ;-)

Haha. true to that Joks. Well, I could have mentioned Lancaster, but the dub wasn’t exactly convincing either….twice :P

Even so, can we accuse Leone too of deliberately doing so? I’ll take directorial decision than a meaningless profit like executive dubbing is. And no, I don’t buy the bullshit of Miyazaki accepting foreign dubbing of his films, thus it’s decent for anyone to listen to them in their dubbed version….Miyazaki would have originally hired foreign actors / actresses for that kind of job, he wouldn’t just wait for his films to be dubbed and say “hallelujah, fucking Yankees saved the day!”.

“Haha. true to that Joks. Well, I could have mentioned Lancaster, but the dub wasn’t exactly convincing either….twice :P”

yeah, at least the dubbing for Mastroianni was close to his actual voice!! I find dubbing distracting in general. Ignorance is bliss as far as i’m concerned. if i know it’s there prior to watching, i look for it. I would have enjoyed The Leopoard more if i had no idea who Lancaster was. watching him ‘speak’ Italian was almost surreal

what if [go with me here] setsuko hara was overdubbed by brian blessed! it would make as much sense as other forms of dubbing and might produce a surrealist masterpiece!

Definitely subtitles. I don’t understand why anyone would prefer dubbing actually. Whenever I have to watch a film where dubbing is the only option, I usually cringe the whole time because it’s so bad and cheesy..

Dubbing makes me cringe so i don’t watch anything that is dubbed.

SUBTITLES

“The one and only time I’d recommend dubbed over subs is Porcco Rosso, and that’s only because Michael Keaton is the lead. Nuff said.”

I’ve been contemplating this for days! I wanted to watch it in it’s original audio but my bloody software (watching on my laptop) somehow refuse to produce the subs. %^&^^$.

I can, however, watch it on my dvd player but that will mean i have to watch it late at night when everybody’s asleep. (dont want to be in anybody’s way of mtv-bingeing) but that’s just a call i have to make.. sighh ..soo.

btw, although im pro-subs, i think howl’s moving castle was better in english cos of billy crystal..

I hate dubbing. It destroys the atmosphere of the movie. It’s ok to miss some action or try to read faster than having it dubbed.

As someone who watches dubbed anime from time to time, I don’t think dubbing is a sin but I would never watch an anime dubbed if I had the choice. Meaning, I only watched a series dubbed if I started watching it that way when I was younger. However, nowadays, seeing as most of the anime that is out there isn’t from my childhood, I always go for the subbed.

I watch Bollywood movies subbed even though I can understand Hindi/Urdu. Wanna know why? It’s the same reason I put on closed captioning when I’m watching a movie or a TV show. I want to know EVERYTHING a character says.

For me, subbing is also a great way to link your own native language to the one being spoken.

And also dubbing to me changes all the aspects of the spoken script. It’s like why I can’t enjoy all Dostoyevsky translations and stick with certain publishers.

Also, I’m mortified by this conformity to English. I mean, WTH, how presumptuous to expect dubs. If you’re watching a Japanese movie, deal with it being in Japanese.

(OK, I finally did it. Posted a comment in the wrong thread. Duoh!)

Subtitles. Dubs are not popular in the United States. It’s actually sort of amazes me how common they are in other parts of the world.

Crouching Tiger is so much better dubbed – the subtitles miss a lot

I hate dubbing but without it, Wu Tang wouldn’t have those cool kung fu movie samples in their tracks…

I read through this thread with great interest as this is a subject of “war” between some of my friends and myself, and the only thing I have to add to all arguments listed in the favour of subtitles: in dubbing it’s almost impossible to find words in the target language to mean more or less the same as in the original text AND match somehow the lip motions of the actors, especially in close-ups.

So either they go as far away as they possible can with the freedom of the translating, to somehow create the same impression of facial movements – or they keep the lexical/symbolic meaning and mess up the visuals. For example the actor has already closed his mouth, but you still hear the voice… – unfortunately the same expression, even if it DOES exist in both languages (which is a very rare case), is expressed in more or less words, in a longer or shorter sequence. (The English “Help!” for example – one syllable – would be translated into Romanian by “Ajutor!” – three syllables -, and in Hungarian by “Segítség!” – also three… not to mention the lip motions and definitely not talking about more complex structures…)

I know I’d feel cheated with an overdubbed soundtrack. Subtitles for me every time. As you say, it’s impossible to approximate lip movements and preserve the integrity of the original meaning. How do you find the “best” subtitles, though? And who can tell you? And whose opinion, regarding this, would/could you really trust?

I don’t think there is a generally valid answer for that, Pablo. Not even in case of books. I know that a translated book is not equal to the original one. It’s a better or worse book written about the same subject by a more or less talented person: the translator. I read the Hungarian version of The Catcher in the Rye for example (a decent text, but without anything special about it, really) and the masterpiece created by a Hungarian writer from Winnie the Pooh. And afterwards I read both in original. And was very surprised both times. In the first case it was awe, the second time it was disillusion.

Returning to the topic once again: I know and trust three studios creating the translations and subtitles over here… in rest I hope that all the other translators were trying to do their best.

But I can’t take for serious anything that’s dubbed.