[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> Music for example, is an element that can either be distracting or
> supportive.
In Crouching Tiger, I am not sure who wrote the score but Yo Yo Ma's cello work
was stunning, as was the score, and I sure hope it wins the Oscar for best
original score!
>
> Imagine CTHD without the subtitles, delivered in a language in which you
> are fluent,
My friend, I would hate that. A dubbed film is a ruined film. The original
voice is always important. The actor's words, tone of voice, inflection, are a
part of the movie whether I can understand the language or not. Acting involves
the voice, and I want to hear that voice.
A dubbed Crouching Tiger would have us looking at the actor's mouths with words
that didn't match, as with every Godzilla film we saw in the 50s.
So all those I spent learning to read paid off, I could read the subtitles!
I don't believe that every movie made should be in my native language. That is
a part of the universality of the cinematic, artistic experience. No way would
I want to see any German or Italian or French or Russian or Czech opera in
English either; the artist composed with intentionality in a particular
language. Words cannot be translated exactly and something is always lost when
we translate from the original.
The fact that CTHD is a Chinese film, I was very willing to be open to the
experience of accepting the movie on those terms for two hours and enter that
Chinese world which was unknown to me. I think two hours of subtitles was a
small price to pay for experiencing the artist's intent without imperialisticly
making the artist use my own language, or making the artist rework their
artistic offering to suit my own chauvinistic language limitations.
Not to jump on you and I am sorry for that, but if anyone told me I'd go to a
2-hour Chinese language movie and be enthralled, I would have scoffed; that it
is a 2-hour Chinese language movie and I was enthralled is a part of its
intense charm!
(the Rev) Vince
