On dubbing in Russia.

[patodruida.livejournal.com]

I know this is slightly off-topic, but please bear with me.
The recent discussion on translation and cultural differences got me thinking...

A few of the countries I have visited in Europe, Russia included, have a tendency to dub most of the films coming in foreign languages (as opposed to adding subtitles to them).

They do that where I live too, but not quite as often and there are laws that compel cinemas to have at least one theatre with the original version.

I guess dubbing is done to make it easier for average people to understand films; to protect the local film industry and to preserve the language but...

Am I the only one here who believes that by substituting the voice of an actor for another you are inevitably and completely altering the artistic value of a given cinematic piece?

I mean, an actor's inflections, enunciation and verbal expression in general may account for as much as 75% of his performance.
How will you really know how good an actor Sir Lawrence Olivier was if, instead of his voice, you hear some other person speaking his parts? And in another language?

Any thoughts?

Comments

[oryx_and_crake]

The dubbing made in the Soviet Union was always a work of art. They even rewrote the text so that the movement of the actor's lips on the screen corresponded to the articulation of the words pronounced by the dubbing actor. (No need to say they had different voices dubbing different actors, and chose those carefully.) Naturally, this way of doing things is very expensive. (Not many foreign movies were running anyway, and they could afford working on each longer.) I don't know what they do nowadays, though.

[patodruida.livejournal.com]

Granted, the dubbing may be a work of art in itself but is it the same film once the soundtrack has been replaced for another one?

Think of this example... you buy a U2 album (provided you like U2, of course) and Bono's voice has been removed and overdubbed by another singer:
He sings flawlessly, almost like Bono (perhaps even better), the words have been carefully re-written so that they fit the metric of the original lyrics and the mixing is perfect.

Is it still a U2 album? Wouldn't you feel cheated that you were not allowed to experience the work of art as the artist originally intended?

[oryx_and_crake]

There is a major difference between a movie and an album. In the album the audial content is the only one there is. In the movie the visual content is the main one, and the audial is important but not the most important. You still see Lawrence Olivier, his expression and movements, just the voice is different.

I agree that dubbed movie is not the original thing, but in translation something is always lost anyway.

[patodruida.livejournal.com]

I guess the best thing would be to see both version (if the film is any good).
The benefit here is that you get two works of art instead of one *grins*

[oryx_and_crake]

P.S. And those dubbing were mostly famous actors themselves, so it was not like some adenoidal monotonous droning behind the screen.

[ars-longa.livejournal.com]

I completely agree. The dubbing might be excellent, but it's still not original.

correct, but wrong

[cockatrice.livejournal.com]

You are absolutely correct, however, you are also somewhat short sighted. Much is lost when you dub over the original actor's voice. You are absolutely no longer qualified to judge Sir Lawrence Oliver if you've only seen him in Sky Captain (where his voice was dubbed over).

Of course the shortsightedness is this. America makes probably the vast majority of movies, and what's not made here can be in any number of languages, so would also need subbing or dubbing. So if you're the average Russian 17 year old going on a date, do you really want to have to read 13 Going on 30 in order to preserve Jennifer Garner's artistic integrity? I think she'll forgive you.

Also, hopefully whoever is doing the dubbing will make some effort to study the original. I don't know how much that happens, but I do know that generally one person does the dubbing for all of an actor's imports into a country (at least for "major" actors).
---Stephen

Re: correct, but wrong

[patodruida.livejournal.com]

I am not completely convinced.
I watched subtitled films since I learned how to read and never had much problem enjoying them.
Of course, I learned English very early on, so I needed no subtitles for British or American films, but I have always enjoyed a healthy diet of French, Russian and Japanese films.

The one exception would Children's films. That is a completerly different cup of tea and should judged in a different light. I personally think that most Mexican versions of the classic Disney films quite surpass the originals.

Oh, and Kung Fu movies too. The dubbing on them is so bad it is great!

Re: correct, but wrong

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

>Kung Fu movies too. The dubbing on them is so bad it is great

I enjoyed a low-budget mockery of this stuff called "Kung Paw" or something like this, a few years ago in NYC. It was an American re-edition of several different Kung Fu movies with an American actor put in, computer-wise, instead of several Chinese actors, and the voicing was just brilliant. My favorite moment was that all dogs in the movie barked a few seconds later than their jaws actually moved.

Re: correct, but wrong

[patodruida.livejournal.com]

I had not seen that until a few weeks ago. It does have some really good moments and, yes, the dogs are hilarious!

I found the tongue thingie pointless, though.

tongue thingie

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Oh, come on, the whole thing was quite pointless :) Funny, though. My NYC friend's 11 y.o. son was really excited about the Chosen One's duel with the cow :))

Re: tongue thingie

[patodruida.livejournal.com]

*chuckles*

[annyway.livejournal.com]

How will you really know how good actors in silent films was if you never hear their voices?

[patodruida.livejournal.com]

Because the actor did not base his acting on his voice, as he probably would have done in a "talkie".
He knew, beforehand, that you would not be able to hear him, so he focused on the physicality of his performance.
A silent actor would not have taken offense to being called a "mime".
Today's actors rely on their voices and when you dub them you take that away.

[gera.livejournal.com]

Am I the only one here who believes that by substituting the voice of an actor for another you are inevitably and completely altering the artistic value of a given cinematic piece?

No, you're not. I agree.
But the dubbed movies are easier to watch so there is a tradeoff here. The dubbing hurts the artistic values but the subtitles don't really allow you to watch the movie.

[ars-longa.livejournal.com]

Depends on your reading speed...

[gera.livejournal.com]

My reading speed is very good, that's not the issue here.
When reading the subtitles you need to have time to comprehend who said what, with what intonation, what was stressed etc. Was it a joke? Was someone being sarcastic?
Of course, it is different when you have a grasp of the spoken language.
But if it is totally foreign to you, it is really not obvious which way your are losing more.

[bruja-aprendiza.livejournal.com]

i agree, too. in addition to what you said about corrupting the original work of art, dubbed films always seem very unnatural to me. i can't help thinking that i am watching a cartoon when i see people speaking with other people's voices, and i just can't take them seriously! also because most background noises are lost and replaced with something very primitive, or nothing at all. also, it's about mistakes in translation: i have seen hundreds of flims where the translation was so incorrect that i would never have guessed what's going on if i couldn't hear what's being said in the original. with dubbed films, you don't have even that possibility. but right - subtitles do distract you a bit, so i actually prefer voices over the original soundtrack, which is the way you often have it on russian tv (but never in germany where i live, absolutely everything is dubbed here!). since most films shown in cinemas are dubbed (and badly) both in russia and in germany, it's a real problem for me...

[patodruida.livejournal.com]

Oh, my.

I guess I'll have to shell out the big bucks for imported dvd's when I finally relocate to Russia.

[bruja-aprendiza.livejournal.com]

maybe you will have to reconsider moving to russia, then. it's a good reason. :)

[patodruida.livejournal.com]

I guess I can cope.
Anyway, the missus would kill me if I changed my mind about that :)

[freedomcry.livejournal.com]

Agree.

Even the best dubbing sucks.

[mashed-banana.livejournal.com]

I hate dubbed films especially nowadays. There are some voices of unknown Russian actors who moved from film into film dubbing word-famous stars. It makes me sick. On the other hand I enjoy every time watching "Gone with the Wind" dubbed in Russian. But I think it's a bit different movie than the original one. I agree that the best variant is the target language translation over the original soundtrack

[cema.livejournal.com]

Like they said, sometimes it was a work of art, but sometimes it was so plain and so notoriously funny that it became a kind of subgenre, mocked in a few cartoon movies like "Ограбление по..." and "Крылья, ноги и хвосты", which I recommend.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. Anyway, the Russian TV now mostly uses the best compromise I can think of - a few voices reading the translation over the original voices of the actors, so that you can enjoy the original voicing while not spending time and extra efforts to read the subtitles, and still know what's going on. My only problem is that for me, it works with Japanese, French, Italian movies... but not with English-speaking films: since I understand pretty much of what the actors say, I unwillingly start to concentrate on how bad the translation is :))

[patodruida.livejournal.com]

Well, on that note:
Being Mexican and cordially despising Telenovelas (serials, I believe you call them) I cannot help but derive some sort of sick morbid pleasure out of seeing my nation's beloved soap stars dubbed in Russian.

Of course, it is only funny during the first 5 minutes.

If you ever run across the Spanish (as in Spain, not Mexico) version of Star Wars, do watch it... It is a smorgasbord of endless involuntary humor.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

I have seen the Ukrainian version.... or should I say, The Ukrainian Version... of a few E.R. series. Oh boy. THAT was fun.

- Доктор Грин, побачте шо зробiлось на майданчике у лiфта...

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

BTW my mother was very much into Mi Segunda Madre when it was running on Russian TV, some 10 years ago :))

[patodruida.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes...
Maria Sorté at her very best.
:)

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

I am ALL about subtitles. Granted, part of this is because I am better at processing written word than spoken word, so it's easier on my brain. I can listen to intonation without worrying that I'm going to miss what people are saying.

Yes, I recognize I am very weird.

The big advantage of dubbing is so slow readers (which is, honestly, most people) can understand what's going on. I have seen a few dubs I thought were very well done, but as oryx_and_crake points out, these are very expensive to make.

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

And I cannot emphasize enough -- subtitles are really not a viable option for most people's reading speeds, especially people with dyslexia and related disorders. So it's really a toss-up -- who are the movies aimed at? Foreign art films are going to have a higher percentage of fast readers in the audience than the latest teen action flick, so it's safer to subtitle them (although it will still be hard on some people).

(I actually watch movies in English with English subtitles, and movies in Russian with Russian subtitles -- the text helps me hear the spoken word).

[ashalynd.livejournal.com]

There are countries where everything is subtitled, not dubbed (even the majority of kids movies). Like here in the Netherlands. My own kid did not suffer much when we took him to see, say, Harry Potter in English dubbed in Dutch, even after only 1 year living there and only being 8 year old... Then he once saw Star Wars dubbed in Russian (during his vacations in motherland) and was really appalled because the dubbed voices felt too wrong for him.

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

That doesn't change the fact that subtitles are hard and even impossible to keep up with for people who read very slowly or who are dyslexic. I read extremely fast as a child and had no problem with subtitles. Your kid and I are not necessarily representative of the entire population.

Personally, I am a giant subtitle snob. I also recognize that not everyone can afford to be, because not everyone reads quickly.

[mithgol.livejournal.com]

I am always buying subtitled DVDs only.

[schwarzer-tod.livejournal.com]

The majority of Americans feel that dubbing is in extremely poor taste; I personally am a subtitling militant. The only exception of which I know is "Cowboy Bebop".

I bought a couple of films in Russian, and both of them were voiced-over by one or two people. I don't understand how someone can watch an entire movie where every character is voiced by the same person. Yet all the time I have to hear "heh heh stupid americans don't watch foreign films they so ignorant". Give me a break. Anyone in college watches at least -some- foreign films.

[patodruida.livejournal.com]

Making bold, unsubstantiated assessments about the ignorance or stupidity of an entire nation (specially a foreign nation) usually says little about such nation... but it speaks volumes about the person passing judgment and about his/her prejudices.

You tell me. I have spent a considerable amount of time during my travels explaining to the locals that I have never worn a "sombrero" in my life and that "andale, andale" is not a part of my everyday vocabulary.

But prejudice goes both ways and sometimes even more. You really don't want to know what some of my less-than-clever Mexican acquaintances have been known to say about the Missus, who happens to be Russian!
:)

[schwarzer-tod.livejournal.com]

What would Mexicans say about Russians? Trotsky jokes? :P

[patodruida.livejournal.com]

You are far too generous by suggesting Trotsky is a household name in Mexico.

No, they make lap-dancing jokes.