For the last days I have been working extensively on a subtitling project. La decima vittima (The tenth victim) is an Italian film with Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress. Very James-Bond-like, 1965 social critique with laughs and a bit of sexy romance. The tag line actually is: 'It's the 21st century and they have a licence to kill' Dudun!
I got the German subtitles which were the result of a workshop at my university and had to put them into the film with Adobe Premiere and Encore for the cinema screening on sunday (anyone of you near Duesseldorf on that day? Entry is free. Next week Spanish film Padre Neustro.) It was a lot of fumbling with anti-aliasing of colors and fonts and codecs which meant fun and frustration was guarantied for all.
I´m really into the whole idea of subtitling movies and there are also aesthetic film theories about the whole perception side of it. (book tip: 'Subtitles: On the Foreignness of Film' published at Alphabet City. 'Taking subtitles as their point of departure, the thirty-two contributors to this unique collection consider translation, foreigness, and otherness in film culture.')
Ever since I watched the English version of 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' on which someone had put hard (not removeable) Swedish subtitles, I know that the Swedish word for 'girl' is 'flicka'. I thought it was an amazing to see how the brain deals with the superimposition of mere writing on a screen.
What are your thoughts on the aesthetics of subtitles? Do they distract you from following the actual pictures? I think it´s a whole different viewing experience and I´m absorbing two (or three when I´m watching english or french with dutch subtitles like on the ARTE channel) languages at a time and feel how they struggle in my brain for some kind of weird dominance. It´s thrilling to see how much you actually understand of a foreign language. Basically to get your way around in Spain/France/Italy you only need to know one Romanic language properly and the rest kind of comes on its own. At least when I´m reading Spanish or Italian stuff, I can extrapolate so much from German/English/French I understand a lot than I thought I would.
Also: Subtitles as a source of humour.

Can I give you Poetry Month Contribution, too?


April Rain Song

by Langston Hughes

Let the rain kiss you.
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.
Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk.
The rain makes running pools in the gutter.
The rain plays a little sleep-song on our roof at night—

And I love the rain.



Reading through some of these wonderful works I wonder why we don´t cherish the languages we inhabit more.

I shouldn´t be so excited, that Stephen´s going to publish a podcast on language tomorrow. I´m not even sure how I´m going to manage to restrain myself from reading the written blessay on the blog first.
I found a new podcast A Way with Words publishes hour long programs on words and writing. I loved it from the moment on where someone on the show suggested "podsnicker" as a word for those moments when you burst out laughing when you´re listening to something funny on your iPod.
I´m also seriously in need of some "podblushing"... where are the naughty podfics in my favorite fandoms lately?

And if someone ever tells me again that 'Eskimos have over twenty words for snow, you know?' to make some obscure point about cultures, I´m going to fetch something woody too. A club, preferably. There are so many things wrong with this myth.

edited for a link listing the various forms of snow - thank god there are people with a brain.
http://www.mendosa.com/snow.html

MacTla snow burgers
hahatla small packages of snow given as gag gifts
or even
fritla fried snow

John Cleese is also a funny man and he wrote to the American citizens some time ago.
I know Americans aren´t as ignorant as he´s saying but it´s just so utterly hilarious.

Finished Dürrenmatt´s 'Der Richter und sein Henker' ( The Judge and His Hangman) I probably didn´t get half of the allusions and foreshadowing because I always read it before I went to bed and was very tired most of the time. Anyway, what beautiful and understated light imagery throughout the whole book. But would such a book be successful if it would have been published nowadays? We´re used to the most outrageous plot twists today, aren´t we? Have to think about this one.