The 2012 Academy Awards Ceremony is just around the corner, and in the list of nominees are several foreign language films waiting to be selected as the best in their category. The candidates are Iran’s “A Separation“, Belgium’s “Bullhead“, Canada’s “Monsieur Lazhar“, Israel’s “Footnote“ and Poland’s “In Darkness“. All these films are screened in the U.S. with English subtitles. Creating these subtitles is a task that shouldn’t be taken lightly, particularly for the film’s director, who most certainly would have a desire to have his/her message come across as originally intended. The trick is that this is not a regular translation as one might think. There is the added challenge of making the subtitles concise enough for the audience to have time to read them and still enjoy the motion picture. This is one of the reasons why so often a viewer that is bilingual will always be able to tell that the subtitles are not a word-for-word translation, but rather a paraphrased message at times, which can only be done by professionals that understand both languages and have a technical knowledge of written text limitations in regards to keeping up with the spoken word of the original version.
As far as the English language films participating in the Oscars, many have been distributed and screened overseas. Interestingly, not all countries proceed the same way as to what linguistic approach to use when screening. Some will go with subtitles, but many others will go with a dubbed version, which takes the same level of skill and knowledge as subtitles. In the dubbed version, there is no concern for speed of reading ability to keep up with the spoken words of each scene. However, there is often times a need for adaptation of the script, as most languages tend to use 15% more words than English, and these have to be reduced as to allow the professional voice over talents to match timings and lip movement.
When it comes to movies, the main aspect to consider is that it is not about accuracy, but rather about making the experience of foreign language viewers as seamless and pleasant as possible to allow them to be engaged in the story.