Corps de l’article

This volume opens with a fascinating chapter by Dwyer, “Undoing Dubbing.” The author uses the film Singin’ in the Rain[1] as a case example not only to exemplify the manipulation around sound dubbing, but also to analyze the deeper impact that location of the voice has in a film. Dwyer notes the audience’s visceral reactions to the “talkies” when they first came out; the technical processes involved in dubbing, both from a sound and linguistic perspective; means of production and import/export of films; and “the voice/language issues engendered by dubbing” (p. 36). In a few pages, Dwyer aptly explains many issues, in a chapter that is likely to become essential reading in Audiovisual Translation Studies (AVTS) and Film Studies.

The second chapter (Mingant) provides a unique perspective in AVTS. The author explains how Hollywood films were dubbed into Arabic in the 1940s, concentrating not only on the translation issues that entailed the presentation of Hollywood films in the Middle East, but also the technological aspects, and, most importantly, the political and financial ones. In the former, Mingant explains the repercussions of the Sykes-Picot agreement in film distribution and dubbing in the Middle East during the 1940s, and how both colonial powers—the United Kingdom and France—imposed their official languages in films that were to be distributed in their specific areas of geo-political control. This, Mingant explains, was done with mixed results. Mingant also deals with the topic of “the success of Persian-dubbed films” (p. 53), albeit briefly. This is understandable, though, as the article concentrates on dubbing into Arabic.

Mereu-Keating retraces the origins of AVT in Italy, and describes how Fascism affected its development. The author also explains how the Federazione Nazionale Fascista degli Industriali dello Spettacolo (Fascist National Federation of the Industrialists of the Performing Arts) wrote a law that aimed “to prevent, from a certain point, the screening of Italian cinemas of films which contain scenes spoken in a foreign language” (p. 64). The author also explains how, because of national and foreign commercial interests (p. 75), dubbing remained the preferred practice when it came to film consumption in Italy, even after the “short-sighted ethnocentrism” (p. 75) of Fascism.

Zanotti’s article deals with a subject of much interest, Stanley Kubrick’s treatment of foreign films, a topic “rarely if ever remarked upon by Kubrick scholars” (p. 80). The author’s passion for Kubrick permeates the article, as it is full of fascinating tidbits, interviews, and correspondence between Kubrick and various interviewees, which will definitely be of interest to both AVTS scholars and cinephiles. Zanotti synthesizes these two areas, describing Kubrick’s concern over the translations of his films (p. 86), and the control he exerted on them through the adaptation (or localization) of specific scenes, the dubbing and the translations of his films, and the voice casting that was going to be used.

The second part of this book concentrates on “New trends in dubbing research and practice” (p. 101) and starts with a chapter by Chaume. This article is extremely critical of the role the industry and translators have in “the shaping of opinions and identities, […] give rise to certain ways of thinking, solidify beliefs, reinforce negative attitudes or foster positive judgement” (p. 121). Chaume explains the role that consumers have as “co-creators in audiovisual production” (p. 115), but that “manifestations of traditional passive consumption of audiovisual translation are still part of the agenda of many distributors and producers” (p. 115). The author takes the reader around the world, explaining these issues—and the role dubbing has in them—in Japan, Greece, Turkey, Italy, Iran, Latin America, Africa, and others, in a summarized, yet informative manner.

The article by Di Giovanni and Romero-Fresco deals with eye tracking in original and dubbed films. The title immediately catches the reader’s attention, as eye-tracking studies are normally carried out in the context of subtitles (see Szarkowska, Dutka et al. 2018, Orrego-Carmona, Dutka, et al. 2018, among many other studies). This study concentrates on Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel[2]—the passion for the film is palpable—and uses viewers from Macerata, Italy, and London, England. The authors present a clear overview of eye-tracking studies; the experiment set-up (including its technical aspects); the scenes chosen for analysis (and why); and the types of shots employed in each scene. By concentrating on viewers’ gazes on scenes that either do or do not have on-screen text, the researchers come to the conclusion that “dubbing viewers are watching different films, or perhaps watch the same film so differently that it may become a different one” (p. 142).

The chapter by Baños deals with a topic of little—but increasing—research, which is fandubbing. Baños provides a series of examples—mostly from Japanese animation—to illustrate how fandubbing has evolved from the 1980s, and proposes “cyberdubbing” as a more general term that might “appropriately encompass the myriad of non-traditional dubbing practices found online” (p. 164) such as fandubbing, activist dubbing, parodic dubbing, etc. I believe, however, there is a risk in creating an over-arching term, in that the different categories of dubbing might dissipate within the term; dubbing (and subtitling) have such a diverse nature that creating one term for all has the risk of causing confusion. When using the term “cyberdubbing,” will someone be referring to an activist, parodic or amateur form of dubbing? Despite my concerns about that term, Baños’ article is excellent and provides the most current and complete research on fandubbing currently available.

Chiaro deals with Woody Allen’s “European trilogy.” The author explains how the characters of the films negotiate with language and try to arrive at a common understanding, with the speakers “not using English as a lingua franca” (p. 185). The most interesting section of this chapter was the “self dubbing” (p. 175-178) one, in which the researcher explains the various ways in which actors who are native in a language, e.g. Javier Bardem in Spanish, self-dub their accents in order to play a specific character who is not apt in that language. Chiaro seems to shy away regarding the controversy around dubbing and self-dubbing in specific geographical—and political—contexts, but the article is an entertaining tribute that will definitely appeal to those most familiar with the works of Woody Allen.

The next section deals with “The Linguistics of Dubbing” (p. 189), and starts with an article by Sánchez-Mompeán, in which the author concentrates on the “prosodic variation” of dubbing, a topic of little previous research. The author concentrates on “pitch-direction, pitch-range, loudness and tempo” (p. 191) to study the prosody of dubbing, and provides a clear explanation of each, along with a case study and a subsequent analysis of each prosodic feature. Sánchez-Mompeán sheds light on this fascinating (and under-studied) area, and further emphasizes the need for all actors involved in the dubbing process to collaborate with each other.

The next article by Ghia studies the role of questions and how they “represent orality in original and translated film dialogue” (p. 212). Ghia presents the type of questions associated with speech acts (p. 213), as well as a brief section on “translation universals” (p. 214). The author then analyses a corpus of 635,000 words of English and Italian film dialogue (p. 216), and presents the results. The article tilts heavily towards the data rather than what the data represents, or shows, of Italian society, but it is still useful in presenting the Pavia Corpus of Film Dialogue (PCFD) and the different analytical possibilities of dialogue. The use of this corpus continues in the following article by Zago, in which the author compares English films vs. Italian films. The title is a slight overstatement, as so are some of the article’s findings which seem like linguistic over-generalizations. The article does analyze English and Italian films, although it is, at its core, an article about how to use the PCFD for linguistic analyses.

The final section of this book deals with “Identity construction in dubbing” (p. 243). It starts with an article by Parini, who deals with a topic of scant research: the dubbing of Italian-Americans, in this case, specifically, in animation. Parini explains how the specific image of Italian-Americans is constructed through both the character design and the language. The author also deals with how the film was received in both the United States and Italy. In the book’s final article, Ciampi concentrates on the dubbing of “teen queen movies” into Italian, and the unexpected result that, unlike previous studies analyzing dubbing into Italian, there was no censorship of this type of film. Ciampi concludes that “Within this framework, the tendency towards the retention of sensitive topics and taboo language in the TFC [Teen Film Corpus] can be interpreted as a sign of changing cultural values in the target culture” (p. 278), in this way inciting further exploration of the topic to test this hypothesis in a larger context and corpus.

I found this book to be tremendously insightful. Although it was published a few years ago, it has in no way lost its relevance. The volume covers a range of areas—history, new trends, linguistics, identity—so it will be useful both to experts in the field, as well as newcomers who want a taste of different topics that can be studying in dubbing. The linguistic section over-emphasized PCFS, but is nonetheless useful for people who want to use the corpus, and those who want to concentrate on corpus linguistics in dubbing. This book radiates passion for film, particularly in the “historical approaches” section; the articles are a pleasure to read—especially if you are a cinephile!