Among the countless studies carried out on the subject of the dubbing of feature films, only a ha... more Among the countless studies carried out on the subject of the dubbing of feature films, only a handful refer to the people who lend their voices to the actors of the original version, while it is a crucial element of the dubbing process (commonly defined as the substitution of source language dialogues by target language turns). Indeed, researchers have mainly focused on questions of translation strategies, neglecting certain human elements in the process. The goal of the present paper is to shed light on these 'shadow actors' by dealing with the professional context in which they make a living, as well as with the paths that led them to voice acting. Based on a number of works (e.g. Justamand & Attard 2006, Cornu 2014) and countless interviews of voice actors, the analysis examines the factors that come into play to cast roles on dubbing sets, mainly under the supervision of art directors, directors or even marketing people. The paper will insist, among others, on aspects linked to vocal quality and theatrical performance, which are vital criteria to reproduce another actor's feelings, contributing thereby to dubbing's linguistic illusion.
Presentation on Michel Hazanavicius and Dominique Mezerette's "La Classe américaine", an example ... more Presentation on Michel Hazanavicius and Dominique Mezerette's "La Classe américaine", an example of large-scale film collage and fake dub. Paper presented at the 2015 Annual BAAHE Conference on Adaptation, Brussels: Vrije Universiteit Brussel.
This paper deals with the treatment of foreign languages in the Second World War films The Longes... more This paper deals with the treatment of foreign languages in the Second World War films The Longest Day (1962) and Saving Private Ryan (1998). Through quantitative and qualitative analyses, it describes how heterolingualism is used in these films and how it influences characterisation and plot, in both the original and French-dubbed versions. The study shows that The Longest Day features a sizeable amount of scenes featuring French and German due to the narrative structure of the film as it gives a comprehensive overview of the parties involved in D-Day operations, while Saving Private Ryan contains fewer passages in foreign languages because it adopts a narrower perspective by focusing on a group of American soldiers. Most of the heterolingualism disappears in the French-dubbed version of The Longest Day, although it is sometimes evoked by accents, whereas the French version of Saving Private Ryan generally leaves foreign languages as such, illustrating what appears to be a recent t...
Linguistica Antverpiensia, New Series – Themes in Translation Studies, 2013
This paper deals with the French dubbed version of Steven Spielberg’s 1977 Close Encounters of th... more This paper deals with the French dubbed version of Steven Spielberg’s 1977 Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The film features a scientist who mainly speaks French and is helped by an interpreter, who often translates simultaneously or consecutively from French into English and vice versa. In the French dub, however, all the characters speak French, which is why the original redundancy created by the interpreting acts had to be avoided at all cost. The analysis of a number of scenes makes it possible to identify the various translation strategies applied to conceal the original multilingual situations. The textual modifications carried out to produce a coherent French script have repercussions on the image of the scientist and his interpreter as characters in the film.
On 31 December 1993, French pay TV channel Canal+ broadcast a 70-minute film called La Classe amé... more On 31 December 1993, French pay TV channel Canal+ broadcast a 70-minute film called La Classe américaine, directed by Michel Hazanavicius and Dominique Mézerette. They took excerpts from about fifty Warner Bros. productions, edited them to build a story and had the characters (played by A-list actors such as John Wayne and James Stewart) dubbed over by well-known French voice actors, resulting in what is known technically as a ‘détournement’, combining the techniques of film collage and dubbing. This paper sketches the origins and the production context of this very unusual audiovisual object, relying on insights from film theory, with particular reference to adaptation techniques like remixes and collages. The analysis also shows how meaning and humour are created through the montage of originally completely disconnected scenes and the addition of funny or crude dialogues that one would not expect from cinema legends like John Wayne. A final part highlights the film’s cult status a...
This paper deals with the French dubbed version of Steven Spielberg’s 1977 Close Encounters of th... more This paper deals with the French dubbed version of Steven Spielberg’s 1977 Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The film features a scientist who mainly speaks French and is helped by an interpreter, who often translates simultaneously or consecutively from French into English and vice versa. In the French dub, however, all the characters speak French, which is why the original redundancy created by the interpreting acts had to be avoided at all cost. The analysis of a number of scenes makes it possible to identify the various translation strategies applied to conceal the original multilingual situations. The textual modifications carried out to produce a coherent French script have repercussions on the image of the scientist and his interpreter as characters in the film.
Notes taken the conference "Spendid Innovations. The Development, Reception and Preservation of S... more Notes taken the conference "Spendid Innovations. The Development, Reception and Preservation of Screen Translation", organized by Jean-François Cornu and Carol O'Sullivan at the British Academy, London, on 21 and 22 May 2015.
Among the countless studies carried out on the subject of the dubbing of feature films, only a ha... more Among the countless studies carried out on the subject of the dubbing of feature films, only a handful refer to the people who lend their voices to the actors of the original version, while it is a crucial element of the dubbing process (commonly defined as the substitution of source language dialogues by target language turns). Indeed, researchers have mainly focused on questions of translation strategies, neglecting certain human elements in the process. The goal of the present paper is to shed light on these 'shadow actors' by dealing with the professional context in which they make a living, as well as with the paths that led them to voice acting. Based on a number of works (e.g. Justamand & Attard 2006, Cornu 2014) and countless interviews of voice actors, the analysis examines the factors that come into play to cast roles on dubbing sets, mainly under the supervision of art directors, directors or even marketing people. The paper will insist, among others, on aspects linked to vocal quality and theatrical performance, which are vital criteria to reproduce another actor's feelings, contributing thereby to dubbing's linguistic illusion.
Presentation on Michel Hazanavicius and Dominique Mezerette's "La Classe américaine", an example ... more Presentation on Michel Hazanavicius and Dominique Mezerette's "La Classe américaine", an example of large-scale film collage and fake dub. Paper presented at the 2015 Annual BAAHE Conference on Adaptation, Brussels: Vrije Universiteit Brussel.
This paper deals with the treatment of foreign languages in the Second World War films The Longes... more This paper deals with the treatment of foreign languages in the Second World War films The Longest Day (1962) and Saving Private Ryan (1998). Through quantitative and qualitative analyses, it describes how heterolingualism is used in these films and how it influences characterisation and plot, in both the original and French-dubbed versions. The study shows that The Longest Day features a sizeable amount of scenes featuring French and German due to the narrative structure of the film as it gives a comprehensive overview of the parties involved in D-Day operations, while Saving Private Ryan contains fewer passages in foreign languages because it adopts a narrower perspective by focusing on a group of American soldiers. Most of the heterolingualism disappears in the French-dubbed version of The Longest Day, although it is sometimes evoked by accents, whereas the French version of Saving Private Ryan generally leaves foreign languages as such, illustrating what appears to be a recent t...
Linguistica Antverpiensia, New Series – Themes in Translation Studies, 2013
This paper deals with the French dubbed version of Steven Spielberg’s 1977 Close Encounters of th... more This paper deals with the French dubbed version of Steven Spielberg’s 1977 Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The film features a scientist who mainly speaks French and is helped by an interpreter, who often translates simultaneously or consecutively from French into English and vice versa. In the French dub, however, all the characters speak French, which is why the original redundancy created by the interpreting acts had to be avoided at all cost. The analysis of a number of scenes makes it possible to identify the various translation strategies applied to conceal the original multilingual situations. The textual modifications carried out to produce a coherent French script have repercussions on the image of the scientist and his interpreter as characters in the film.
On 31 December 1993, French pay TV channel Canal+ broadcast a 70-minute film called La Classe amé... more On 31 December 1993, French pay TV channel Canal+ broadcast a 70-minute film called La Classe américaine, directed by Michel Hazanavicius and Dominique Mézerette. They took excerpts from about fifty Warner Bros. productions, edited them to build a story and had the characters (played by A-list actors such as John Wayne and James Stewart) dubbed over by well-known French voice actors, resulting in what is known technically as a ‘détournement’, combining the techniques of film collage and dubbing. This paper sketches the origins and the production context of this very unusual audiovisual object, relying on insights from film theory, with particular reference to adaptation techniques like remixes and collages. The analysis also shows how meaning and humour are created through the montage of originally completely disconnected scenes and the addition of funny or crude dialogues that one would not expect from cinema legends like John Wayne. A final part highlights the film’s cult status a...
This paper deals with the French dubbed version of Steven Spielberg’s 1977 Close Encounters of th... more This paper deals with the French dubbed version of Steven Spielberg’s 1977 Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The film features a scientist who mainly speaks French and is helped by an interpreter, who often translates simultaneously or consecutively from French into English and vice versa. In the French dub, however, all the characters speak French, which is why the original redundancy created by the interpreting acts had to be avoided at all cost. The analysis of a number of scenes makes it possible to identify the various translation strategies applied to conceal the original multilingual situations. The textual modifications carried out to produce a coherent French script have repercussions on the image of the scientist and his interpreter as characters in the film.
Notes taken the conference "Spendid Innovations. The Development, Reception and Preservation of S... more Notes taken the conference "Spendid Innovations. The Development, Reception and Preservation of Screen Translation", organized by Jean-François Cornu and Carol O'Sullivan at the British Academy, London, on 21 and 22 May 2015.
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