An aversion to World Cinema

C

Cullen G

New member
With foreign film remakes being all the rage in Hollywood over the last 10 years or so like The Birdcage (le cage aux folles - French) , City of Angels (Wings of Desire - German), Vanilla Sky (Abre Los Ojos - Spain), Insomnia (Insomnia - Norway) The Ring (Ringu - Japan) to name but a few should we really be asking, why does the English speaking world have an aversion to World Cinema? When the English speaking world watches World Cinema also, it is dubbed instead of subtitled.

Some of the best films of the last 15 years are from outside the English speaking world. Life is Beautiful, Amelie, La Heine, Audition, Akira, Ghost In The Shell (yes animation is a valid form of adult world cinema!). Why the aversion?
 
;725674']English is, probably, the most widely spread language in the world. A vast amount of people, whose mother tongue is not english, speak it as a second language.

This is perhaps why most English speaking natives, don't bother with other langauges, so therefore do not seem to bother with foreign language films.

Also, I think that the re-makes are mainly down to American audiences. The average american is brought up believing that america is the best country in the world, and that anything made in another country is inferior to an american product, this translates to the movies, a film in a foreign language just wouldn't apeal. The only reason some british films do OK, is because they are in English.

Then again, you only have to look at the number of british TV shows, that have been re-made, because the american public just wouldn't get them.
 
So your theory is American insularism. I'd tend to agree on that... But in Britain we almost subscribe to the same theory. Anyone have any more suggestions? Why is it so hard to read and watch for some people? I'd rather hear the original actors than dubs.

In the original Akira dub (It got redubbed for its re-release.. thank the lord!) one of the characters was dubbed by the guy who also voice Leonardo in the Turtles cartoon. Now, for a (current) 19 - 26 year old like me (21), watching Akira proved almost impossible in anything other than Subtitles / Japanese dub. :D

"TETSUO NO !!!!!!... oh your delivering pizza.... bodacious!" :D ;)
 
;726327']I do on occassion watch foriegn films, I recently watched a Japanese film called Audition, very freaky, but I had trouble with the subtitles.

They were displayed in white, and quite often the subtitles were more or less rendered invisible, due to a white dress or an expance of sky, I found myself constantly having to run back the film or pause it, so that I could read the translation.

I would find it easier to read the subtitles, it they were displayed with two contrasting colours, a bit like how a mouse cursor is displayed, over a light background, you can see the black border, over a dark background you can see the white centre.

It is quite hard to see this!

The above sentence shows the difficulty faced, and when viewed from several feet away on a moving image, its even harder.
 
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