On impassive Polish narrators

[rheasilvia]

The Eastern European version of dubbing freaks me out - one impassive male voice, reading translations of all of the actors' parts while the original track runs in the background. It has something oddly disconcerting to it. Or is it just me?

Perhaps it's just that my introduction to the phenomenon was so startling. Once, long ago, I mistakenly began to watch a film that I assumed was Hamlet. As it turned out, it was a porn spoof of Hamlet, in Italian, with an utterly impassive Polish guy flatly translating all the traditional porn dialogue. (Ophelia's breasts were like well-stuffed sausages and reached down to her navel - it looked incredibly painful, actually. Poor girl. And everyone in Elsinore had loads of sex except for Hamlet, who mostly restricted himself to wandering about speechifying and failing to notice all the people having sex. He and Horatio did not get it on, sad to say, although they did tag team several scullery maids.)

I am so, so sorry that I did not keep this movie. The voice-over turned it into a surrealist work of art.

But in the case of all movies that are *not* porn versions of some Shakespeare play or other - what on earth is wrong with subtitles? Far less freaky, and even faster and cheaper!

(This entry brought to you by an unexpected Russian voice-over.)

Comments

[lilacsigil]

I did not know this was a tradition! One of our public broadcasters, the one that is for showing foreign news, entertainment and movies, has excellent translators but for some reason all their subtitles are in eye-searing yellow. I cannot think of any movie I've watched on that channel without thinking of people speaking in huge yellow letters!

[rheasilvia]

Heee, it's so interesting how that kind of association burns its way into your brain. I watched subtitled English movies on a Dutch channel for a long time, and certain oft-used phrases have become permanently embedded in my brain in Dutch text, to be replayed randomly when I come across unsubbed movies with the phrases in question.

I really wonder how this kind of dubbing could ever become a tradition, because it is seriously disconcerting, in my opinion. But then again, I suppose that it's all just a matter of what you're used to.

[extempore]

Ha, in Ungarn war es ähnlich ("war", weil ich schon seit über 10 Jahren kein ungarisches TV mehr gesehen habe, und daher nicht weiß, ob sich inzwischen an der Front etwas geändert hat). Allerdings hat man dort schon verschiedene Sprecher genommen, und die haben auch emotional gesprochen, aber trotzdem hatte man im Hintergrund immer noch den Originaldialog. *erinnert sich an diverse Dallas-Episoden*

Würde ich in soziologisch-politologische Richtungen wandern, würde ich ja fast annehmen, die Ein-Personen-Monotonvertonung ist eine Methode, um fremdkulturellen Einflüssen einen Brecht'schen Distanzfaktor zu geben...

[rheasilvia]

Verschiedene Sprecher, die sich auch schauspielerisch etwas bemühen, sind schon ein Riesenfortschritt gegenüber der Reinform, glaub mir. :-) War denn die ungarische Version schon eine "normale" Synchronisation, mal abgesehen von dem Originalton im Hintergrund?

Würde ich in soziologisch-politologische Richtungen wandern, würde ich ja fast annehmen, die Ein-Personen-Monotonvertonung ist eine Methode, um fremdkulturellen Einflüssen einen Brecht'schen Distanzfaktor zu geben...

LOL! Die Theorie gefällt mir. *g* Vielleicht ist das zumindest etwas, was man dem Zensor sagen kann, um ihn von der Ungefährlichkeit des importierten Materials zu überzeugen.

[extempore]

Ja, war ansonsten eine richtige Synchro - halt mit Hintergrundenglisch. Ich nehme an, es müssen technische Hindernisse gewesen sein, anders kann ich mir das nicht erklären.