When it comes to watching foreign language films, there are
three ways to go about it. One is to
watch the movie as it was made. The
second is to watch it with subtitles that allow you to understand the words
that are coming out of their mouths. The
third way, and the one that I will be writing about in this post, is to have an
audio dub over the dialogue in the movie so that the characters are speaking
your language when the actors clearly are not.
The English dub is how I watched the movie Dig Your Grave Friend… Sabata
is Coming.
Dubbing has had a place in film since the early days of
talkies. As audio began to be introduced
into film, musicals became one of the most popular genres. The general population liked the merging of
moving pictures and music. However,
there were many actors whose singing voices were not up to the level that the
studios wanted them to be. That meant
that other people had to be brought in to record the singing voices for the
characters, and their vocals were dubbed over the actor’s voice. It made the movies more bearable for the
audiences who were going to see them.
As the industry moved on, dubbing primarily became used for
foreign films being released in markets where the audience did not speak that
language. If a movie was in another
language, it was easier to market it with English dialogue instead. Thus, theaters were able to release monster
movies from Japan, Samurai films, kung-fu movies, and Spaghetti Westerns. The audio track would be swapped out for one in
English, with different people voicing the characters. Voila!
It was ready for consumption in North America.
Eventually, subtitles would be used as a substitute for
dubbing. The use of subtitles allows the
original inflections and vocal performances to come through while still letting
the audience understand the other language.
It allows the original actor to fully display their performance, whereas
dubbing takes away some of the work that the actors did in the movie. This is especially true of animated films
where dubbing takes away the entire performance of the original voice actor.
There is an argument to be made for some people when they
say that they don’t want to read their movies.
They would rather sit there and turn off their brain for a while. They want to stare at the screen without
moving their eyes to follow along with the words. They think that movies are meant to be
entirely visual and non-textual. These
people seem to forget that there was ever a time with silent films, where the
only way to convey dialogue was through the use of text. They act like film has always had audio.
I tend to prefer watching a foreign language film with
subtitles. I like to get the performance
of the original actor when watching something.
Dubbing can have emotion in the dialogue as well, but sometimes loses
out on the cultural aspects of it.
Japanese, Koreans, Swedish, and Americans might mean similar things, but
each culture has their own little details in language that can never be replicated
in another language. There is also the
added detail of dubbed dialogue not matching up with the vocals. The striking visual of someone saying
something and different words being uttered can be distracting. Subtitles help to alleviate that.
Some genres get a pass by me when it comes to dubbing,
though. There are certain genres where
the use of dubbing actually helps with the experience. I don’t know how, I don’t know why. These genres just get a little bit more
magical if they are dubbed. For whatever
reason, they are more enjoyable. They
feel more right with the dubbing. It is
a strange thing to say, but it’s what I think of the genres. The two main genres that I feel this way
about are kung-fu movies and Spaghetti Westerns.
Maybe it’s because I grew up with the dubbing of kung-fu
movies being the butt of many jokes. Or
it is the over the top nature of the action and story in the movies. Either way, the dubbing in the subgenre
really helps to make the movies what they are in my mind. They wouldn’t be the same without the
hilariously out-of-sync dialogue and heightened vocal performances that were
done through the dubbing process. The
package of the movies and the dubbing has been instilled in me since my
childhood and it would feel wrong for them to not be combined.
The other genre, Spaghetti Westerns, does not end up being
the butt of a joke. The genre is taken seriously. It could be because the dialogue has a better
chance of lining up with the mouth movements.
Or it could be that the stories used for Spaghetti Westerns are more
thoughtful and respectable than those of the kung-fu films. Whatever the case may be, Spaghetti Westerns
are like kung-fu movies in that the dubbed versions of the films seem like the
right versions of the film. The dubbing
is actually essential to many of the movies because the actors come from
different countries and speak their native language while being filmed. The dubbing puts all of the dialogue into one
language so that you don’t need to be fluent in multiple dialects to understand
it. It makes the dubbing a part of the
genre.
Dig Your Grave Friend… Sabata is Coming is a movie that can
help to highlight the dubbed nature of the Spaghetti Western subgenre by giving
reasons that the dubbing is necessary. Richard
Harrison played the main character, Steve McGowan. He was an American from Salt Lake City, and
spoke English. Fernando Sancho played
Steve’s partner in crime, Leon. The
actor hailed from Spain and likely spoke Spanish as his primary language. The actor who played the titular character of
Sabata, Raf Baldassarre, was an Italian who spoke Italian. Each actor spoke their own language while
filming, which is apparent in the couple of scenes where the dubbing dropped
out and I could hear their spoken languages.
The English dub helped to have the characters speaking one language,
most of the time. It also helped to
support the American setting of the movie.
Now that I wrote that, I think the reason that the dubbing
of Spaghetti Westerns is more accepted than the dubbing of many other styles of
film is because of the setting.
Spaghetti Westerns tend to be set in the United States of America, where
the Wild West was. So, having the
characters speak in Italian, Spanish, German, or whatever language they spoke
would seem out of place in a location where people would normally speak
English.
No matter what the reason, Spaghetti Westerns and kung-fu
movies are two of the only areas in film where I would definitely choose the
dubbed versions over the subtitled versions.
Almost any other time, I would prefer to watch a movie in its original
language with subtitles. I don’t mind
reading during my movies. I want the
movies to move me and the best way for them to do that is to retain as much of
the intended vision as they possibly can.
Movies are about the experience and the best possible experience is what
you want. It’s what I want. A good experience.
Do I have any notes?
Sure. Here they are:
- Other foreign (not North American) movies I’ve watched include Attack of the Super Monsters and Infra-Man.
- I watched Dig Your Grave Friend… Sabata is Coming from one of my many Echo Bridge released movie sets. I wrote a little bit about Echo Bridge when I watched Bachelor Party in the Bungalow of the Damned.
- Do you prefer dubbing or subtitles? Are there subgenres of film that you prefer dubbing in? What are your thoughts on dubbing? If you have answers to any of these questions, feel free to drop them in the comments.
- You can also leave any suggestions for movies to watch in the comments. I take all bad movie suggestions into consideration when I make the schedule. If you don’t want to leave the suggestion in the comments, you could always contact me on Twitter.
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