Girls On Film

I watched a film the other evening, a good film – by all accounts. I was about to say a good film in any language, but that’s the problem; it is no longer a good film because it is no longer THE film. Give it another language and a drama becomes a comedy of dodgy lip-sync and ill-cast linguistic impersonation. Dubbing. Mostly all international films and TV shows are dubbed here. In the case of “The Queen” – or “La Reina” to give it its Spanish title – the only subtitling was for documentary footage such as Earl Spencer’s oration. Otherwise, Helen Mirren, Michael Sheen and the rest became people other than themselves not just because they were acting but because someone else was acting them – after a fashion.

While I quite understand the desire to dub, it is utterly absurd. When I was in Germany, I was once listening to a radio show that previewed forthcoming films. Showcased was a film with Meryl Streep and Danny de Vito. What was truly surreal was to listen to two German “actors” and to then be told by the presenter that I had been listening to Streep and de Vito. I had not had been. I had in fact been listening to Waltraud and Kurt from Bielefeld and Chemnitz, one of them, for all I could have known, with a wooden leg. In Germany, there used to be a kid who was the German Daniel Radcliffe; probably still is. In all seriousness, this adolescent, the German voice of Harry Potter, used to get wheeled out on TV shows, masquerading as the boy wizard – Heinzi from Hogvorts. I know someone who couldn’t believe Eddie Murphy was Eddie Murphy when he finally heard him speaking without a Germano-Black American voiceover. God alone knows what they do with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

But just think about it. What do these “actors” do? Are they living the roles? Are they using their facial expressions, their body actions? Are they on a set in front of a camera? Can Helen Mirren’s Spanish voice really appreciate the interpretation that Mirren brought to the role? Of course she can’t. Basically, a good piece of art is taken and thoroughly mangled by the dubbing.

This is not a plea for using subtitles simply because I can then hear a film in English. I no more want, say, the French families of François Truffaut’s charming “L’Argent de Poche” to be talking with home-counties accents than I want Helen Mirren to be inhabited by a Spanish bint who keeps on referring to some chaps called Felipe and Carlos.

And then there is advertising. “The Queen” appeared on one of the main national channels. Both take advertising. Fifteen minutes into the film there was an interlude that lasted … fifteen minutes. Adverts. They then have the gall to announce “estamos viendo” (we are watching) La Reina. No, we are not watching; we had been until a completely different programme comprising sketches for perfumes and kitchen units had been inserted. All was then fine until the end of the scene with Earl Spencer. Now, I had not seen the film. Had I, I would have switched off at that point. Some fifteen or twenty minutes more of advertising, and then – what – five minutes remaining with Mirren and Sheen walking in the gardens at Buck House. I only took note of the adverts so that I could remind myself never to buy a Volkswagen, to change my mobile account from Vodafone and to give Jane Fonda, and her Spanish voiceover, a good slap when I next see them with a L’Oreal cream.


QUIZ
Yesterday – “My Old Man Said Follow The Van”. Today’s title – which group? Easy.

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