Translation

[randy_byers]

On Sunday I watched Porco Rosso for a third time, after watching The Sky Crawlers for a second time. (A good pairing in that they both center on aerial dogfights in an alternate history.) This time I watched Porco Rosso with the English dub, which features Michael Keaton as Porco. Previously I had watched it with the French dub, which features Jean Reno as Porco. The film felt less mysterious this time, although just as visually beautiful, and I wondered how much of it had to do with being able to understand what the voices were saying (and thus not straining after the meaning) and how much was a difference between the translation that the dub uses and the translation the English subtitles use.

I lean toward the latter, but on slim evidence. The one place where I know the translations were significantly different comes during the phone conversation Porco has with Gina when he tells her he's taking his plane to Milan for repairs despite the fact that the Italians have an arrest warrant out for him. Gina orders him not to go. In the dub he says, "Sorry, I've got to fly." In the subtitles he says, "A pig's gotta fly." To me the latter is infinitely wittier and more ironic, playing off of "When pigs fly." Now, I have no idea which is the more accurate translation of the Japanese script, but my sense was that the dub is far less resonant and eloquent than the subtitles. Another example, now that I think of it, is when the mechanic, Piccolo, basically tells Porco to stop lecturing him. In the dub, he says something like, "I'm a god of engineering!" In the subtitles he says, "You're preaching Buddhism to Buddha." The subtitles have an aphoristic quality that the dub is completely lacking.

Over and over again I got the feeling that the dub was spelling things out that are left ambiguous or figurative in the subtitles. I suppose I should watch it again with both the English dub and the English subtitles playing at the same time, because it's possible I'm letting my anti-Disney bias sway my perception. The dub was done for Disney's release of the movie. I'm not sure who did the subtitles.

Comments

[daveon.livejournal.com]

I know just about enough French to be dangerous, but it takes my mind too long to process stuff in real time.

That said, translations are usually nothing like what's said.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Miyazaki has said he prefers people to watch his movies in the dub in their own language, so they won't be distracted from the images by the need to read subtitles. However, I suspect that this is a case where the English dub substantially changes the sense of the movie for the worse.

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

One thing I think happens with dubs is that the translation is influenced by the mouth movements of the speakers. That is, a short, witty comment in the original language, that might require a relatively long subtitle in English, is given a short translation for the dub, even if that influences the meaning.

Also, the subtitlers and translators might be completely different crews, working off translations.

I remember one Hong Kong flick where the subtitles and dubbing were so different that it was almost a different movie, with a different emotional subtext.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Yeah, one small detail I read about in an interview with the people who wrote the English dub of Porco Rosso is that they changed the home state of the American flyer, Curtis, from Alabama to Texas because it fit the lip movements better.

Also, one of the constraints on subtitles is that they have to be relatively short and easy to read at speed. A lot of times when I *can* understand a bit of the original language, I can tell that the subtitles are dropping details.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

I think Disney's dubs of the Ghibli films (actually I think it's specifically Pixar who supervised most of them) are the best English-language dubs I've ever heard. Really good actors doing really solid - often exceptional - voice work. Yes they change lines here and there, but I think it's honestly to make the film as a whole flow better.

As a guy who used to buy for a video library, having quality English language dubs meant I could push Miyazaki's films very heavily in the children's section of the store. I figure if even one in ten revisits them when they're older and discover the Japanese language version, it was a job well done.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Yep, I think it's great that the English dubs exist for people who want or need them. I'm just glad that there are other options as well, and I like thinking about how the differences in translations from the Japanese between the English dub and English subtitles for this movie influence how I experience the movie as a whole.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

The most egregious change from the sub to a dub I've seen in the Miyazaki films is Kiki's Delivery Service, where Phil Hartman did the dub of Kiki's cat - there is so much ad-libbing and extra jokes thrown in, basically whenever the cat's head is not facing the camera Hartman's inserted a joke.

It kind of works, and is a valid choice, but it does make the English-language Kiki quite a different film to the Japanese one.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I'll have to check that out at some point. I don't do a lot of it, but sometimes I like to switch between soundtracks just to sample the differences in voice types.