Heartland

I was wondering how this works (let's have the great Mr Sellars in mind here, not ex-funny man Steve Martin ), I've heard that The Pink Panther was very popular in France. If they had sub-titles, then surely the majority of humour would have been lost without the "outrageous accent". Similarly if it was dubbed, did the French dubber do a Clouseau-esque accent in French? Is this possible? If so can you explain it to an English speaker?

C'est doing moi 'ead in

The cartoon had quite in impact here.
As for the rest, I'm only interested in original versions, so I can't really tell you how it works for other people. It hardly ever works for me. Woody Allen in French, for instance, is a crime against nature, humanity and everything beautiful.

Badlander wrote:The cartoon had quite in impact here.
As for the rest, I'm only interested in original versions, so I can't really tell you how it works for other people. It hardly ever works for me. Woody Allen in French, for instance, is a crime against nature, humanity and everything beautiful.

You have almost the same when reading Terry Pratchett in Dutch, for example. Be it movies or books, it all depends on the wit, the dedication and the knowledge of the translator(s)...

IZ.

Izzy HaveMercy wrote: You have almost the same when reading Terry Pratchett in Dutch, for example. Be it movies or books, it all depends on the wit, the dedication and the knowledge of the translator(s)...

True, but I guess it's even worse for movies. An actor isn't just a body, he/she's also a voice. You always lose some, you sometimes lose big. I watched Kurosawa's The seven samurais in Japanese (with subtitles !) because I think it's the only way to make the movie any justice.
As for books, I didn't even try to read Steinbeck in French (except Of mice and men, but that was at school and doesn't really count, I had no voice in the matter). I went straight to the original. Same for Joyce (which was way more painful, but still).

Subtitles any time!

I once heard a standup about Planet of the Apes. The comedian said the main line in the movie was something along the line of "we're not monkeys, we're apes", and then said in French both monkeys and apes are singes. So all that was left was 'nous ne sommes pas des singes, nous sommes des singes'

Found it rather lame, but captures one of the problems with dubbing

I was referring to the Pink Panther films rather than the cartoons which rely less on the "outrageous accent". I think "we are not monkeys, we are monkeys" is more amusing than any answer i'm going to receive to my original question, shame.
Whilst we're on the subject, what was all the animal magnetism flirting thing between Helena Bonham-Carter's Chimpanzee and Intergalactic "marky mark" Spaceman? That was not right.

Is it just me, or did she look better in the ape make-up?

ahhh, thanks chuck.

Hairy Helena

markfiend wrote:Is it just me, or did she look better in the ape make-up?

Can hardly say you're wrong.
Gawd this movie sucked. It really blew.

Badlander wrote:
Gawd this movie sucked. It really blew.

I've seen a couple like that to

I gave up after about 20 minutes, gimme the original anyday