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Chapter 1. Undoing dubbing

Singin’ in the Rain
  • Tessa Dwyer
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Reassessing Dubbing
This chapter is in the book Reassessing Dubbing

Abstract

Focusing on the film industry’s transition to sound in the late 1920s, canonical musical Singin’ in the Rain is, foremost, a dubbing narrative. This chapter revisits this film classic in order to bring into focus lesser-known histories relating to screen translation, and to think specifically about the importance of talk and inter-lingual translation to the development of film culture broadly. Singin’s emphasis on dubbing as domestic operation invites reconsideration of the transition era’s ‘language crisis’ and the artificial voice/body combinations integral to foreign-language dubbing. Precisely because Singin’ does not deal directly with issues of inter-lingual translation, it demonstrates how sound technologies catapult issues of language difference and transfer to the very heart of film production, prefiguring the inter-lingual in the everyday.

Abstract

Focusing on the film industry’s transition to sound in the late 1920s, canonical musical Singin’ in the Rain is, foremost, a dubbing narrative. This chapter revisits this film classic in order to bring into focus lesser-known histories relating to screen translation, and to think specifically about the importance of talk and inter-lingual translation to the development of film culture broadly. Singin’s emphasis on dubbing as domestic operation invites reconsideration of the transition era’s ‘language crisis’ and the artificial voice/body combinations integral to foreign-language dubbing. Precisely because Singin’ does not deal directly with issues of inter-lingual translation, it demonstrates how sound technologies catapult issues of language difference and transfer to the very heart of film production, prefiguring the inter-lingual in the everyday.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. The dubbing revolution 1
  4. Part I. Historical approaches
  5. Chapter 1. Undoing dubbing 17
  6. Chapter 2. When the Thief of Bagdad tried to steal the show 41
  7. Chapter 3. Locked into dubbing 63
  8. Chapter 4. Auteur dubbing 79
  9. Part II. New trends in dubbing research and practice
  10. Chapter 5. Audiovisual translation in the age of digital transformation 103
  11. Chapter 6. Are we all together across languages? 125
  12. Chapter 7. Fandubbing across time and space 145
  13. Chapter 8. To Europe with love 169
  14. Part III. The linguistics of dubbing
  15. Chapter 9. More than words can say 191
  16. Chapter 10. Representing orality through questions in original and translated film dialogue 211
  17. Chapter 11. English films vs Italian films 229
  18. Part IV. Identity construction in dubbing
  19. Chapter 12. Sleeping with the fishes 245
  20. Chapter 13. Constructing youth identities in dubbed movies 263
  21. General Index 281
  22. Name Index 283
https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.148.01dwy

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. The dubbing revolution 1
  4. Part I. Historical approaches
  5. Chapter 1. Undoing dubbing 17
  6. Chapter 2. When the Thief of Bagdad tried to steal the show 41
  7. Chapter 3. Locked into dubbing 63
  8. Chapter 4. Auteur dubbing 79
  9. Part II. New trends in dubbing research and practice
  10. Chapter 5. Audiovisual translation in the age of digital transformation 103
  11. Chapter 6. Are we all together across languages? 125
  12. Chapter 7. Fandubbing across time and space 145
  13. Chapter 8. To Europe with love 169
  14. Part III. The linguistics of dubbing
  15. Chapter 9. More than words can say 191
  16. Chapter 10. Representing orality through questions in original and translated film dialogue 211
  17. Chapter 11. English films vs Italian films 229
  18. Part IV. Identity construction in dubbing
  19. Chapter 12. Sleeping with the fishes 245
  20. Chapter 13. Constructing youth identities in dubbed movies 263
  21. General Index 281
  22. Name Index 283
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