International Review of Educational Cinematography (Jan-Dec 1932)

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DUBBING By Eva Elie. The problem of dubbing or duplicating a film, which it is useless to set forth in this note, continues to arouse everywhere the liveliest controversies. It is a most admirable subject for dissipating apathy, reanimating discussion and proving to the readers of newspapers or cinema review that criticism is never asleep. What is it that its enemies charge against dubbing? A serious accusation ; that the listeners hear certain words, while the lips of the actors seen on the screen are engaged in pronouncing others. This is true, but it is becoming less and less true. The progress of the sound film, due to the union of the cinema and the theatre, is continuous. There have already been screened films which satisfy all the demands of both sight and hearing from every point of view. The German version of a Metro Goldwyn Mayer film " Die Freunde Mutter ", played by American artists, is an example. Wallace Beery and Marie Dressier play the leading parts, which, when dubbed, give, as far as the speech goes, the exact impression of listening to any Hamburg sailor or any German woman of the people. However the actors are seen, whether in close-ups or long shots, the words pronounced in German by their doubles correspond perfectly to the lip movements of the personage on the screen talking in English. The difficult moments have been overcome by showing the actors in profile or making them speak from a distance. In his paper, " Informations Cinegraphiques ", Jean Pascal speaks of another dubbed film which has succeeded perfectly, namely" The Brothers Karamazoff ", adding, however, that the dubbed film must always be considered an expedient, to help out the momentary deficiences of the French production. This point of view, though casting disapproval on the dubbed film, placing it on the level of a tolerable substitute, is more to the point than all the accusations and noisy protests used against dubbing which charge it with being a brain-muddling, incomprehensible mixture, a device insulting to the public, and so on. At any rate, I propose to plead the cause of at least one section of the public which desires that dubbing should continue. There comes to mind the case of that charming, American actress, with the sweet, gazelle-like eyes, who, through the sound film, instead of allowing us to hear a musical voice such as her appearance would lead us to expect, startled us with a rough, rusty, almost timbreless voice. The result was a martyrdom even for the most indulgent section of the public, while for the artist, it was suicide, or at least moral suicide and as far as Europe is concerned for the actress's fame as a star. In this case, would it not have been much better to perform a work of charity for both listeners and artist, since, after all, art is a mixture of illusion and lies, and to dub her voice, lending, her one such as the public wants to hear, and one suitable to her appearance and part ?