Winning books: what a delight!
Today I received, surprisingly soon, the copy of "The sinful life of Lucy Burns" I won at ANECA'S WORLD just last week.Yesterday I was quoting Calvino and his idea of the Inferno we all live in and today here is Lucy Burns and her devilish story. Thanks, Ana. You've been so kind to send this book immediately. Congratulations for your beautiful blogs. Yes, BLOGS. Because Ana T. is a very active blogger and runs and writes several blogs. You should know her amazing LIGHTS, CAMERA ... HISTORY , there she posts about period movies and drama with other two portuguese young ladies Alex and Ana O. It's one of my favourite blogs!
Italian Guy or English Gisborne?
In many countries in Europe English and American TV series and films aren't dubbed. The result is that you watch TV or go to the cinema and familiarize with the English language, while you understand what you are watching with the help of subtitles in your own language. Scandinavian countries do that, as well as Belgium for instance. Italians are quite lazy, so they prefer to dub everything and the result is they do not do any effort but are terribly bad at foreign languages (most of them, not all of them, of course!)
As for me, since I studied and learnt some English, I have had a certain dislike for dubbed versions. If I have to enjoy a film, I must watch it in the original version. I enjoy it much more. I know we have very good actors dubbing American stars. Luca Ward, for instance, Russel Crowe's Italian voice, is extremely good. But we are not always that lucky. Listen to what happens to poor Guy of Gisborne when he loses Richard Armitage's deep velvet voice and starts speaking Italian... I've made a comparative short clip with the same scene in Italian and in the original English version. Try to be patient and see and compare the two. I'd like to know your opinion.
I think the emotion and great pathos Richard Armitage (Guy of Gisborne) and Jonas Armstrong (Robin Hood) conveyed while shooting on spot is completely lost in the dubbing made in an Italian aseptic soundproof recording studio. Finally, to be honest, to watch Guy without listening to RA's wonderful voice is absolutely unbearable to me! What do you think?
Mrs Gaskell & Italian Translations
You know I particularly love Elizabeth Gaskell and I'm currently reading her thick- but -lovely WIVES AND DAUGHTERS. You also know I've got wonderful Bloggy Friends all over the world with whom I share many of my little great pleasures. One of them, who has recently often spoilt me, sharing wonderful things she finds on line and knows I love with me, is MissKarenBlixen. This is only one of her nicks and she's wonderful, indeed.
I know and she knows - she is Italian like me - that it is impossible for an Italian who doesn't read English, to read Gaskell's novels, apart from Cranford. But she has found this interesting document in a library: an abridged Italian translation of North and South by Ada Borrelli , published in the 60s by Casa Editrice Giuseppe Principato. If I were a good translator, I'd like to translate all of Gaskell's novels and I'd propose them to an Italian publisher. But I'm not good and I'm too busy doing my job.
Thank you, MissKarenBlixen,
for this precious information, supported by photographical evidence.
10 comments:
Hello! I'm so sorry I cannot be here more often! But you know that I've been very busy lately. I've been trying to catch up with all your posts! About dubbing: here in Brazil everything at public channels is dubbed and, frankly, I hate it! Almost nothing really fits with the person! When I lived in Portugal and said this someone suggested that maybe it was because the large number of people that cannot read so things HAD to be dubbed, but, as I beleive you don't have this problem in Italy, now I don't know why they do it. At cable TV almost everything is in its original language, most of the programs have subtitles, but the European channels don't, so I try really hard to understand TV5 Monde and RAI. Dautsche Welle seems very interesting, but I can't understand a thing! Thank God I know Spanish and English so TVE and BBC World News can be watched (we only have this BBC in Brazil). Luckly no one has ever dubbed RA in Portuguese, 'cause I'd feel very sorry if I could not listen to his real voice. And I have to say that I didn't like his Italian version that much. About translations and Mrs. Gaskell: here we have the same problem. If you don't know English than forget about her. Not even a short story of hers has been translated into Brazilian Portuguese and I'm not sure it has been translated to, well, Portuguese Portuguese. I've a friend that is getting her undergraduate degree in translation and I've been begging for her to read N&S, but she's with my copy and has only read the first chapter since January, but I'm still hoping she'll like it and will translate it! About 'Wives and daughters": I read it during my winter vocations in July and I loved it! I'm looking foward to your review. Ok, I'll stop now. Sorry for the long comment, you probably won't be reading my comments for a while, I promise!
So, I lied. I said you wouldn't hear me for a long time, but I just remembered that I've re-watched a wonderful Italian movie and I had to tell you this. "Mio fratello è figlio unico" has become one of my favourite movies ever! Vittorio Emanuele Propizio is the best!
@Luciana
I'm always very glad to hear from you! So don't aplogize for being long! "Mio fratello è figlio unico", yes, I saw it. It is a very good film about Italian recent history. Elio Germano is great, one of our best young actors. Did you like Riccardo Scamarcio? He is one of the most popular actors among our teenagers. He's Valeria Golino's boyfriend. Maybe you saw her, she has worked in many American movies, Rainman, for example. Ok,I must hurry. But before leaving you I just wanted to suggest another film, similar to the one you saw: La Meglio Gioventù. It's a great film with great actors, again about our recent years. One of my favourites ever! Grazie. Un abbraccio. ( I think you can understand this bit of Italian)
I agree, the original version is so much better. The same happens in Spain, Maria Grazia. :-)
AWWWWW!!! Thank you for your kind words, MG: you're too kind! *blushes*
As for Guy's voice in Italian, well, that was the reason why I nearly missed the whole thing :-O
I watched the 1st ep. dubbed in Italian and decided to give up, mostly because of the silliness of the plot AND the dullnes of the voices. That was BEFORE I saw N&S, of course ;-)
Since I've got the opportunity of watching RH in v.o. I simply couldn't stop watching and re-watching, sometimes even shamelessly slo-moving ;-P
It's no secret, Guy is my favourite RA's character, so far <3
Now I have my MP3 player filled with RA's velvety voice samples (RH audiobooks, Sylvester, many radio interviews, all his radio ads), and decided to purchase a new MP3 with wider memory only to be able to have the whole LOTN at hand :-D
When I'm listening to it while on the bus or Subway I often have a broad smile and dreamy eyes... can't imagine what the other people think of me :-D
Have a nice weekend, MG! *hugs*
ciao,
KB
@Elvira
And as a former teacher of English, don't you think our young people would be much more exposed to the language and would more easily learn it, if they avoided dubbing?
Thanks, Elvira.
@misskarenblixen
Hi , KB! I tried to imagine you on the bus, while listening to RA's wonderful voice with a dreamy smile on your face and ... I saw myself, last summer, listening to Sylvester in my MP3 player, on the beach, looking at the blue sea. Sigh! We are really under some magic spell, maybe we need help! ;-)
Hugs and the best of the weekends!MG
I just posted a comment and it disappeared...lol. Forgive me if it appears twice! Thanks so much for posting the dubbed version of Guy! I see what you mean about RA's voice bringing so much to that part!
@Mulubinba
The same happened to me with your blog yesterday! Deuce, then!
As for Guy, he is Richard body and voice to me! No way else!
I did like Elio Germano too, but Vittorio Emanuele Propizio was so funny that I think he's the best thing in the movie. I just love when he's praying in the rain for the communists! I'll look for "La meglio gioventù". I hope we have the DVD here! I did understand that bit of Italian, so you'll understand my bit of Portuguese too: um abraço!
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