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Show II Wednesday, Augusts, 1971 x by Quicksilver" Film lovers who recently went to see Day for Night at the Opera House may have noticed, a strange characteristic of the actors and actresses who appeared in the film words came out of lips that didnt move, and vice versa. This was caused by a common American movie habit known as dubbing. Dubbing is the practice of recording a soundtrack that duplicates the words the characters were saying in their native tongue, in another language. The minute a Him lover knows that a film is dubbed, he usually will start grumbling, for dubbing is degrading to the quality of the film. Dubbing fails for a number of reasons, among the most important being the destruction of the tone of the film. A director will spend a great deal of time selecting an actor who will portray his character correctly and who will have the proper presence on the screen only to have the characters voice disembodied by those who dub the film. A film is a type of thing where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, a crystalline type of structure that . depends upon all the ingredients to give it its shape. When the voices with which the actors were acting and reacting are taken away and substituted with some entirely different voices, the entire film is changed into a different whole. Hie difference is comparable to the difference between glass and diamonds. Another very real problem with dubbing is the complexity of the dubbing process. The people who dub a film are not ogres that like to destroy the soundtrack. They are people who are aware of many of the subtleties that can be used as a means of communicating far more effectively than just a string of words. Their problem is: Do they try to catch the deeper meaining of the character ; or, Do they try to match the characters characters facial movements ; or, Do they try to compromise. All the problems of translating a book are multiplied, since the people who dub the film must not only try to capture the meaning of the words, but also the inflection contained in the sentence; and then, they must put it in a very distinct framework (a moving jaw). And they wind up being hated by the film lovers, anyway. Personally, I have had the opportunity of seeing what dubbing can do to a film. The occasion was in a film class where 1 was viewing Viscontis Roco and His Brothers. The film was subtitled, with everything flowing smoothly. By the tone of the actors voices and the subtitles that translated their words, we were nearing the climax of the film. Everyone was absorbed in the film, breathing heavily. Suddenly, the main character in the film switches from his native Italian to a voice that was a cross between Rocky Graziano and Chico Marx. (Yeah thatsa right Ima gonna kill you.) The film turned from a serious drama to a crummy foreign film a comedy of sorts. In a second film in which the same mistake was made dubbed (a version mistakenly spliced into a subtitled version), I actually saw (was part of) an audience that booed and jeered until the subtitles came back on. We all knew that we couldnt bring the subtitles back any faster, but we felt that it was necessary to express our disapproval at the way the film was degraded. Perhaps a final argument against dubbing films is the way that dubbing usually takes the stereotype of what the character is like and tries to fit a voice to it (boxer gruff and sounding; sexy woman and stupid-soundin- chman g; Maurice stupid breathy Fren- Chevalier-soundin- g; ad nauseam). This was my biggest objection to the dubbed version of Day for Night. All of the characters were reduced to a voice that seemed to be a perfect voice for their body and type. So perfect that the voice became a caricature of the person, instead of the person who should have been breathing and living in that body. A good film deserves better than that. Two films which deserve a bit of a mention will be appearing locally. Sleeper and M.A.S.H. are two great comedies by two very different directors. Woody Allen is the genius behind Sleeper, one of the films of last year. Allen is meticulous and merciless when he is making a comedy. He is meticulous when he is shooting the film, and merciless when cutting. Sleeper when first cut ran well over two hours, and was the best of the over forty hours of material that was shot. But when Allen showed it to test audiences, they didnt laugh. (Maybe they are stupid? A bummer of a test audience?) When several of the test audiences didnt laugh, those sections were cut, without mercy. No matter that they were Allens favorite scenes. Chop, Chop! Woody Allen has a secret desire to be a Serge Eisenstein, a Frederico Fellini, or some other genius of the cinema. But for right now, he has to be content to be the finest comedy filmmaker American can produce. Robert Altman was given a chance to make M.A.S.II. after a dozen other directors had turned down the script. It was a great stroke of good fortune since Altman directed the film as an experiment in making the film as crazy as a war will make most people. The film made Donald Sutherland and Elliot Gould famous, and although they have developed as actors since the film was made, it is the best film where they appear together. It is a zany satire of great importance, since the message it contains still is true. fun--nie- st BARBEQUE - Saturday - 2-- 8 pm Chicken, Melon, Salad, Beverage $2.50 . . .at the City Park GAME - Saturday 6 pm Park City VS. Telluride . . .at the City Park CAR WASH $1.00 . - Sunday . . 10 am til .at Slims Chevron U.S. Savings Bonds. Hold on to them for all theyre worth. |