Jory wrote:
SpirosD wrote:
Something I also hate about films, is that foreigners always speak English along with there native language, every Russian speak English, every Japanese, even ancient Samurais speak English like in The Last Samurai, every German also speaks English, mostly in WW2 films, and Arabs who live in the desert and who have never had access to library in their life also speaks English, along with their foreign tongue.
Take Inglorious Basterd, great film, but why have the German officer switching from French to English if not just to make it easier on the audience, plus it's dumb because 70% of the movie was not shot in English, most of the time they are speaking German and French. And notice every German in the film speaks English and French.
Some films will start off with the characters speaking in their native language but then switch to English, with the understanding that they're still speaking their native language but the audience is just hearing it in English. One nice example is
The 13th Warrior, which has the main character (a stranger in a foreign land) not being able to understand the other characters at first, but after he learns their language, we hear all the dialogue in English to reflect the fact that he now understands and can speak their language. I wish more movies would use this tactic, since it removes the need to read subtitles but still establishes that foreign characters are speaking their own language.
That technique is fair and works in certain films, but most times it doesn't. In Inglorious Basterds they start in French and then the Nazi officer tells the Frenchman that he prefers continuing in English. WTF!! ! I speak both, French and English and Christoph Waltz French is better than his English (and his English is great btw) so it makes even less sense.
Anyway, it's just cinema, films are not suppose to be in reality, they are a fantasy and you can allow these kind of things.
But what I do hate is pure dubbing of foreign films, when I see a Japanese, Hong-Kong, Spanish, Russian, Thai, Italian, Arabic, Israeli or even North Korean film (yes NK does makes films) I want to see it in their original language and will always prefer reading subtitles than listing to dubbing, that is the charm, earing other language, plus dubbing is a travesty of art. But that is another debate for a new topic about Dubbing Vs Subtitles.
_________________
Beauty will save the world -- Fyodor Dostoevsky