Jonathan Dodd‘s latest column. Guest opinion articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication. Ed
I’ve just finished reading a very nice book called Hector and the Search for Happiness, written by a French psychiatrist called Francois Lelord. I don’t think my French would be good enough to read it in the original, but luckily it’s been translated into English, like many other excellent recent books.
English as the standard worldwide language
I’ve very rarely read a book that was badly translated, so I suppose we’ve become better at it, although it occurs to me that I wouldn’t know whether the original was terrible or the translation ruined it. I’m not in any position to judge whether English books fare as well when translated into other languages either.
One thing that has changed recently is the spread of English as the standard worldwide language. I remember as a teenager going to France and being taken to the cinema. The French films weren’t subtitled so it was difficult to keep up, but the English films were all dubbed. Very badly dubbed. Nowadays I would expect them to be subtitled in French and retain the original soundtrack, just like a foreign film would be in England.
The French had never heard Sean Connery’s real voice
Dubbing is terrible. I remember Eddie Izzard talking about an earlier tour he made, which included a long sequence where he had to do the voices of James Mason and Sean Connery in a pastiche of the creation of the world. He learned the whole act in French and spent a week performing it in Paris.
Afterwards someone asked him how it went, and Eddie said he couldn’t work out why people in France didn’t laugh in the same places as the English. The answer was simple – “That’s because the French have never heard Sean Connery’s real voice – it has always been dubbed.”
How could they dub Sean Connery’s voice? How would anyone guess that they would do that?
I thought it might have been bad news
I also remember many years ago camping with the family in France. I had gone to the campground shop for some milk, and while I was there I noticed a large room with a television on the wall and two women sitting weeping. I couldn’t see the screen, but obviously, being me, I had to go in and find out what was causing them so much grief. I suppose I thought it might have been bad news or something.
I was amazed when I sidled in to see that it was E.R., the American medical series, and the young good-looking doctor was giving someone some bad news. But it wasn’t his voice. There was some whiny French voice intoning his lines. So I was doubly surprised, once because they were crying at E.R., and twice because the terrible voice made it seem fake. Obviously only to me thought. I left the women to their happy sadness. They never even noticed me.
Searching for obscure films
I used to search obsessively for films that I wanted to see on video (then on DVD). The early days of the Internet and eBay found me going through endless Websites searching for obscure films. I once bought a copy of Taking Off, the first film Milos Forman made after going to America, before he made Amadeus. I hadn’t been able to find it anywhere.
I knew this wasn’t going to be a good copy, because the seller had copied it onto video from a Russian television station. I was hoping for a reasonable picture and Russian subtitles. What I got was not that good, and was my first experience of a phenomenon called overdubbing.
The female shouts over any female or child’s voice
Basically, they get hold of a copy of the film and find two people who can translate from the original language, one male and one female. They play the film and the male translator shouts over any words spoken by a male actor, and the female shouts over any female or child’s voice. It was the worst of all worlds, because it was terrible, and you couldn’t hear the original voices. I’m glad the BBC never resorted to that.
Anyway, I eventually did get hold of Taking Off, first on video (taped from television), and now I have a lovely DVD version, and it wasn’t a disappointment.
French books made into English films
Hector and the Search for Happiness has now been made into a film, and not even in French. It’ll be out soon, and it’s got Simon Pegg in it, and Rosamond Pike. It’s unusual for French books to be made into English films, although a lot of English and American books are made into very good French films. That’s a whole other topic, maybe for another week.
I hope Hector fares better than Eddie Izzard in translation, and I’m looking forward to it very much. As for the Search for Happiness itself, and whether Hector finds the secret of happiness or not, that’s another whole topic too, and maybe for yet another week.
In the meantime you could always read the book, or wait for the film to come out and watch that. Happiness is good. I don’t know anyone who is so happy that they would turn down a bit more of it.
If you have been, thank you for reading this.
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