I have an unrelated question. What do you think is the most overated and most underated films of all time?

Bafflingly, the version of Che I saw (at Watershed, Bristol, which I assume is the same shown everywhere else in the country) had most of its diegetic dialogue in Spanish accompanied by English subtitles, but the homodiegetic narration had been dubbed into English, with the original Spanish faded down beneath it. I think I can understand why they chose to do it this way - narration is a very different beast to dialogue - but it nevertheless felt a little odd.

Well I'm Dyslexic and I watch subtitled films. I watched JCVD today and it was terrible.

And when he goes on about himself,I felt like swallowing my own tongue for two seconds.

I like how you state the commenters' names in such a nonchalant way. "This one is from Liquid Cow, this one from Angel Football Wizard..."



Granted, mine's pretty odd too. But it IS a Wrestler reference.

My Grandad (now deceased) was German and came here during the war. He learnt English mostly from watching films.



Also I'm dyslexic, not in the usual ways but still have problems with words. I prefer to see films with subtitles to hear the voices cast as intended and the script as it was meant to be.



One particular line change I loathed from Spirited Away, occurs when Zeniba's illusion of herself is destroyed.



Original: "Oh my, I was careless"

Dubbed: "Ooooo! A Papercut!"

to iambags - wasn't the dubbing actually a translator for che in the interview in the movie. Also Mark CHAY not shay! jonathon ross was doing it too when benicio was right in front of him saying it the right way. it made me want to eat my hamster with the shame.

Hi Mark,

I would like to take issue with your comments on the broken because even though I have not seen the film, I would rather sit through a interesting new horror film then any of these vomit-inducing remakes that I have uinfortunately been tricked into seeing, the owrast being that wicker man remale it wasn't scary. Now I know you are going to say it is like a remake itself butt here is a difference betwen paying lip service to a genre and remaking a film, the biggest problem I have with most modern horror is that it is in the middl of the slasher genre again, as a man I have seen Halloween and think if anyone is trying something interesting they should be embrassed rather than discouraged.

NeonLoveChicken - i think you're right, but this does pose another question: in Spanish-speaking territories, do they get those segments with the original Spanish audio (non-faded) or with the English translator's overdub and subtitles translating it back into Spanish?

One thing that could be done (but isn't, to my knowledge) with foreign-set movies filmed in English is to use regional accents to suggest the regional accents of the setting. For instance, I get the impression that, to Germans, a Bavarian accent implies much the same thing as a Texan accent does to an American. I know that BBC radio comedy uses a Welsh accent (fairly or unfairly) as a shorthand for "possibly inbred yokel," in almost exactly the same way that American comedians use a Southern US accent (fairly or unfairly.) Proper casting, or voice coaching, whilst still using English-speaking actors, could convey nuances that would be lost in subtitles.

On the comment regarding Benecio Del Toro for the Kermodes... rubbish. Martin Sheen for Frost/Nixon. To redress the incomprehensible way he's been overlooked in favour of Frank Langella by BAFTA and the Academy. I agree FL's performance is the equal of Sheen's but it's a game of two halves. In an ideal world, they'd share the awards nominations equally, as the performances draw and build on the other and should be considered as a joint performance.

Talking of BAFTA and the academy awards; can I ask the good Doctors opinions of the clamour for the Dark Knight to get a nomination.



Personally while I enjoyed the movie, I can't understand the level of acclaim it has received and despite some rather sensationalist articles (Empire magazines blog "a dark day for the academy" is a perfect example) it was not worthy of its plaudits and definitely not deserving of a best picture nod (luckily the academy saw sense before it was too late).



I guess therefore my question is, if it were not for the tragic untimely death of Heath Ledger, would there have been any call for such an obviously flawed movie to get awards. While it sounds callous, I think the movie is entirely undeserving of its acclaim and grief has clouded the vision of many otherwise respected critics, especially considering that it was neither the best sequel, comic adaptation or sci-fi like movie of the year (Hellboy 2, Ironman and Cloverfield respectively).

To add to a point made in the video concerning use of known, english speaking actors; I reckon there's another reason to not cast films in this way. Some of the best movies I've ever seen have a relatively unknown cast, not knowing that actors 'celebrity' status, not knowing their personality in real life and what not, means that a role is far more pure. Only fantastic actors can really rid themselves of their own well known persona to convincingly play somebody else. The advantage of 'new blood' actors is that their personality (whether we know it or not) plays into the mix of how that character comes across.

I think you've really hit the nail on the head there Doctor. I get increasingly annoyed with crap accents in films. Why have Tom Cruise in Valkyrie when you could have had Thomas Kretschmann. If your character is east german, then give the role to someone from east germany. It's really that simple. I also think a language reform would help separate the men from the boys in cinema. The truly greatest of the great would learn the new language enough to say their lines convincingly. Some actors already have this potential, Christopher Lee can speak something like eight languages, yet he gets cast aside all too often or forced in to crap like 'The Howling 2'.



The only problem I can see is that of viewing figures. You mentioned the American poster in the video but I think this problem is spreading. I'm 17 and I cannot see many of my peers wanting to have to go and read subtitles. "If I wanted to read i'd get a book". I would love the language reform, but i'd hate to see the death of cinema.



Oh and i've got a question. With this new 3D revolution (i.e. Avatar), how would subtitles work? Would they ruin the 'immersion'?

Oh, and I would very much enjoy hearing the good doctor's opinion of Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and ofcourse, Vincent Price.



I love the old horror films like Hammer House and Corman's Edgar Allen Poe Adap's, and being the major horror fan that he is, I think the good doctor's opinion would be very interesting indeed.

Excellent, I got a mention in the Uncut blog! I'm dead proper chuffed to be told that I make 'a good point' too.



To echo a few previous contributors, I would love to hear a full review of Che part 1 Mark. I haven't really heard you go into it in much detail.



Jo

While Mike Figgis' point is indeed astute, it is worth noting that his ideas were expressed in the excellent Kevin Brownlow Thames TV documentary from 1980 - Hollywood: A Celebration Of The American Silent Film in the very first episode of the series.

HI DR MARK,



I RECENTLY SAW THE AWFUL NICHOLSON/FREEMAN MOVIE, THE BUCKET LIST.



WHAT A LOAD OF RUBBSIH.



BUT IT DID REMIND ME OF A MUCH BETTER MOVIE MADE IN THE 80'S, STARRING TIMOTHY DALTON AND ANTHONY EDWARDS CALLED HAWKS.



THERE SO MANY SIMILARITIES BETWEEN THEM.



WHAT DO YOU THINK DR. MARK.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Mark, asking the audience - and let's face it, you mainly mean Americans - to read subtitles is just a non-starter. They have enough difficulty understanding English movies with subtitles, let alone foreign ones. And asking Hollywood - despite citing examples where it has been done - to do movies in the accent it was designed for, is just even more of a non-starter. You seem to be forgetting just how racist Hollywood is: remember your review of 'Taken'? You called that film racist because of the way it depicts anyone who isn't American. And you are right, it is. THAT is Hollywood, and it's a long way from the culturally open-minded ideal you are hoping for. Hollywood takes great delight in taking films like '[REC]', redoing it in English, and utterly destroying it in the process. THAT is Hollywood. Look elsewhere for cultural diversity, not Hollywood.

Hi Mark



It will probably shock and disgust you to learn that i have never seen "The Exorcist". After hearing you constantly claim it to be the greatest film of all kind i feel compelled to watch it. However a quick search on the internet revealed several versions of the film, the main ones being the original theatrical release and the director's cut. Which shall i opt for? My instincts would lead me to the director's cut, but i am slightly dubious of William Friedkin's judgement. Did he cut it in his prime or after he'd gone a bit nuts?

I think we all have different standards for which situations accents may or may not be appropriate.



I had no problem at all believing that the Valkyrie ensemble were all supposed to be Nazis, except perhaps thinking that Eddie Izzard was going to ad lib a flight of whimsy at any moment.



OK, so Tom Cruise is speaking American and the rest of the cast are speaking different types of British. So what? Haven't we been prepared for this kind of thing for decades with Michael Cain appearing in Hollywood movies with no explanation of why his character is speaking with a British accent and similarly with Austrian "Arnie" Schwarzenegger? If memory serves, the miniseries "Holocaust" was made over thirty years ago with American actors as Nazis and Jews all talking in there own accents and that didnt seem out of place then. More recently we had Hitler's SS: Portrait in Evil (1985) which has a mixed cast of British and Americans starring Bill Nighy, John Shea, Jose Ferrer and Tony Randall all playing Germans speaking English (although Nighy sounds like he is doing an American accent). And then there was Conspiracy(2001) with Kenneth Branagh as Heydrich and Stanley Tucci as Eichman, speaking ... English.



Shouldn't we be used to this by now, so why is Valkyrie different? If we can watch Shakespeare and accept female characters imitating male characters,

what is so hard about this?

In "The Reader" the accent thing didn't even occur to me and in "Defiance" once you had worked out why they were sometimes using subtitles and sometimes speaking with accents there was no problem except that the accents were very bad accents.



So I think that Singer used the right solution in having everybody use their own

accent in Valkyrie instead of doing an Allo Allo version.



I said everybody has different standards of acceptability and I think I reached mine with "The Boy in Striped Pyjamas". I didnt see this film, only the trailer.Something sounded very wrong with the middle-class English accent of the young boy. Perhaps if I had seen the movie I would have accepted the situation after a few minutes acclimatising, I don't know. Perhaps there is something about it being a child's voice that makes it difficult to dissociate from the Englishness and therefore believing that the setting is a German concentration camp, although having a concentration camp at the bottom of your garden doesnt seem that believable anyway (at least that was what the trailer suggested). I enjoy watching foreign language films, usually, but I don't think we need to turn every film that is not set in an English-speaking country into a foreign language film with subtitles. Subtitles come with their own set of problems some of which have already been mentioned. I just finished watching Che part two but the problem was that the white subtitles were hard to read against the light-coloured background of the Bolivian undergrowth. This is quite a common problem for films where subtitles are added as an afterthought but I would have thought

that Soderbergh would have sorted this for a film that was going to be seen so

widely in non Spanish speaking countries. Incidentally, Benicio Del Toro won a best supporting actor oscar for a role that was almost entirely in Spanish [Traffic(2000)], so no, I don't think he was overlooked because he was in a Spanish language film. He was overlooked because "Che part one and two" is a pretty tedious film. Cut out virtually all of part two and slim down part one and you've got

a film that he might have been nominated for, and might have won. And if he had

won he would have been presented the oscar by, guess who? ... somebody who won the best actress oscar the previous year for a (gosh) non-english role.



Some of my favourite films in the last year have been foreign language films

such as

"I've loved you so long", "Let the Right One In" (beats the pants off "Twiglet"). There have been other foreign films I liked too but these were excellent. These films work with subtitles because the pace of the dialogue allows you to read the titles without being distracted long enough to miss anything happening elsewhere on the screen, but other films would not be so suited to this. "JCVD" in contrast is a much more wordy film and I think pushes the limits of subtitles especially in tense scenes where you dont want to take your eyes off the main action (although in the case of JCVD it was more a case of just trying to keep my eyes open).

The French nominated foreign language Oscar film this year is "The Class" where most of the scenes are set in a rather chaotic classroom which means there is quite rapid dialogue between the teacher and one or more pupils at the same time.

When you have to resort to putting more than one subtitle line at a time on the screen to keep up with the soundtrack, then I think you are running into problems. In "The Class" also you have shots where the teacher is one side of the picture and the pupil or pupils are the other side of the scene and you are trying to watch both and read the subtitles at the same time. I think it just about works, although I may have been relying a bit on schoolboy French too.



If you are still convinced that foreign language and subtitles is always the answer to the accent problem, I suggest you take one of your English language DVDs and watch it using a foreign language soundtrack for a language you do not understand with the English subtitles turned on. Then ask yourself how different an experience was that to viewing it in English.

Am slightly plastered at the moment. When you encounter your idols, (as in film makers you believe in, or relate to, or engage with) Is there is any disparity between your interpretation of the film and the intended message? how do you deal with that given that movies are youre passion?