Throwback Thursday – Gamera (1965)

Between this blog and my previous one, Professor Damian’s Public Domain Treasure Chest, I’ve been writing about movies for quite a while now. Because of that, there are a lot of posts that have simply gotten lost to the mists of time. So, I figured I’d use the idea of “Throwback Thursday” to spotlight some of those older posts, re-presenting them pretty much exactly as they first appeared except for updating links where necessary or possible, and doing just a bit of re-formatting to help them fit better into the style of this blog. Hope you enjoy these looks back.

Here’s another Throwback Thursday post from Progessor Damien which takes a look at what sometimes happens or at least used to happen) when foreign films are broght over to the US for popular consumption.

———————-

“Oh, no! They say say he’s got to go! Go, Go Gammera!”

Yeah, it really doesn’t have the same panache as the Blue Oyster Cult original, does it, Kiddies? But that’s ok, because the giant monster in question today gets his own rock anthem right in the middle of his first movie. Even his giant lizard predecessor had to wait more than 20 years for that.

Daikaiju Eiga – that’s the Japanese term for the type of movie (giant monster) that we’re looking at today, and since that’s where the best ones come from, it seems only appropriate to give them their correct name. Of course, considering what we’ve done to the actual movies, simply ignoring the Japanese term would seem only a minor slight.

Toho films began the tradition, of course, with their 1954 release of the original Gojira, which came to America in the form of Godzilla. Unfortunately another trend was also begun once it reached our shores. Believing that American audiences wouldn’t want to watch a film either with subtitles or where there were very few American actors for them to relate to, the film was not only dubbed into English, but it was heavily re-edited, with scenes moved around, many of them pulled, and new scenes were added starring Raymond Burr. Unfortunately between bad translations and terrible editing, (and an attempt to both appease and appeal to American audiences) much of the original meaning and subtext of the film was lost. Still, it was a hit both there and here, and this treatment became the trend for all subsequent Japanese monster movies brought to America.

As noted, Gojira (or Godzilla) first appeared in 1954. 11 years later, when the daikaiju eiga craze was really hitting its stride, Toho’s film studio rival, Daiei, decided to jump on the bandwagon and create their own giant critter. Now I’m not going to speculate on what the person who first proposed that they combat the big G. with a giant turtle was thinking, but fortunately they figured out some pretty neat ways to trick him out so that he could become a formidable foe for the forces that would soon be arrayed against him. First off, instead of “Atomic Breath”, they gave him fire breath. But this creature not only breathed fire, he could eat it. As a matter of fact, as the movie progresses, we find out that he is made of different stuff than those of us with lungs, and the big lug actually needs the flames as fuel to survive. More than that, though, Daiei also provided their Big G with a power that Godzilla would never get. When he pulled his head and legs into his shell, the giant turtle was able to shoot flames from his “port holes” and fly! Certainly helpful for an animal that otherwise has no way to get off his back, as the military soon finds out.

Of course, upon his arrival in the US, Gamera (the Japanese name) was given a pretty complete makeover. An extra “m” was, for some reason, added to his name. Another pretty atrocious dubbing job was done. And again, scenes were cut, recut, and added, so that the movie once again bore little resemblance to what it had once been. Nonetheless, the film proved successful in both its Japanese and American versions, and Daiei went on to bring him back in a film a year until 1971, when Daiei went into bankruptcy. (The first was actually the only one released to American theaters, the rest were packaged for Television by American International.) Since then, there have been a couple of attempts at revivals, though they have proved less successful.

Here’s a short clip showing the monster’s initial emergence from his icy tomb and a bit of the American footage that was inserted.:

(Just a note: it is only the American version which was never properly copyrighted and is now in the Public Domain. The original Japanese version is still under copyright, and Shout factory has announced that they have licensed it and will be giving the film its first American DVD release on May 18th.)

Now for the Skinny:
Title: Gammera the Invincible
Release Date: 1965
Running Time: 86min
Black and White
Starring: Gamera, Brian Donlevy, Eiji Funakoshi
Directed by: Noriaki Yuasa
Produced by: Hidemasa Nagata, Yonejiro Saito, Masaichi Nagata
Distributed by: Daiei

And as always, until next time, happy viewing!

—————————–

Hope you enjoyed this blast from the past.

 

Throwback Thursday – Django (1966)

Between this blog and my previous one, Professor Damian’s Public Domain Treasure Chest, I’ve been writing about movies for quite a while now. Because of that, there are a lot of posts that have simply gotten lost to the mists of time. So, I figured I’d use the idea of “Throwback Thursday” to spotlight some of those older posts, re-presenting them pretty much exactly as they first appeared except for updating links where necessary or possible, and doing just a bit of re-formatting to help them fit better into the style of this blog. Hope you enjoy these looks back.

Looking back to the early days of this blog – February 13, 2013 to be exact, and one of what appears to still be one of the most popular posts here. Not too surprising, I suppose, considering the popularity Tarantino and of Django Unchained. This post, however, takes a look at the original movie upon which QT’s movie was based (well, after which the main character of the movie was named), and at the negative effects that can sometimes come from a bad dubbing job.

As always, I’ve not made any changes to the original post, though in this case I really would like to have done some editing.

———————-

Rechained By Dubbing – Django (1966)

***SPOILER WARNING*** In this post, I’m going to be discussing differences between the dubbed and subtitled versions of Sergio Corbucci‘s 1966 film Django, and specifically the ending of the movie, so if you haven’t seen it (and I highly recommend that you do) you might want to turn back now. You have been warned! ***END WARNING***

Okay, I’m going to just go ahead and get this part out of the way. I absolutely loved last year’s Django Unchained, Quentin Tarantino‘s “ode” to the spaghetti western genre. Despite its flaws, obvious and otherwise – yes, I know, some say it’s too long, but to them I’d ask what specifically would you cut, and yes, we can all agree that QT’s “Australian” accent is a joke, but to me he’s earned the indulgence, and yes… and yes… – in the end, it’s exactly what it sets out to be: one film maker’s tribute to an influential genre that he obviously loves, and an entertaining afternoon or evening at the theater for the rest of us, and in the end, that’s enough for me.

But the biggest thing that I like about QT’s movie is that it has brought new attention to a genre of movies that I find is largely unfamiliar to a vast swath of today’s younger movie-going audience, the aforementioned “spaghetti western”, and the fact that it extends beyond just Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone. As a matter of fact, it’s because of Tarantino’s movie that my favorite place to watch films here in Nashville, the Belcourt Theater, was able to show a retrospective of films by one of the other great directors of the genre, Sergio Corbucci, which included his 1966 masterpiece, the original Django.

Now I could go into a lot of detail about Corbucci’s film and why I think it’s so good, but that’s another post for another time. Instead, today I simply want to look at one part of the movie, specifically the end of it, and to highlight what may be one of the greatest travesties of re-dubbed films ever.

You see, there are actually two versions of the film in circulation at the moment, one, the first one that I saw, is an Italiian language version with subtitles. The other, and the most commonly-found version on places like YouTube (as a matter of fact, the entire dubbed version is available there for streaming if you so desire), is the English language dubbed version.

Sometimes words like “compensating” don’t need any translation.

Now, you might think that in the process of dubbing a movie into another language the people responsible would try to stick as closely as possible to the original, and I’m sure in many cases that is true, and probably more so today than in the past. But there are other things which also have to be considered when movies are being dubbed. First there is the problem that both subtitlers and dubbers face – idiomatic language. There are simply some times that a direct translation, either because of cultural references or because the words have no direct correlation, just doesn’t make sense. (I was recently watching a subtitled version of a Japanese movie that attempted to use supertitles as footnotes to these kind of translation issues, but to be honest, that was truly distracting.) The other issue is mouth movements. One of the most often-heard complaints, especially back when I was growing up, about watching foreign movies was that the lip movement were so far out of sync with the words being said that it ended up being either incredibly distracting or downright humorous, and that’s why so many people said they simply couldn’t watch “furren” movies.

Now, it’s possible that if asked, the translators of the dubbed version of Django might claim either one of these to be the case in the defense of many of their choices throughout the film, and they may be legitimate claims. However, when it comes to the ending… Well, I’ll tell you what, before we go any further, why don’t we have a look at that ending? The part I’m specifically going to be focusing on is from about 4:00 to 6:20 in this clip, but go ahead and watch the whole thing if you really want the set-up.

Ok, so we have our protagonist at his seemingly most defenseless, his hands broken, trying to get off one last good shot, and being taunted by his greatest adversary, Major Jackson. And his cry of “Can you hear me ?!” is appropriate to the preceding lines about “You should start your praying.” and “I can’t hear you!”, which is fine as far as it goes.

However, if you watch the Italian version, you find out that the dubbing really diverges from the original in a way that not only lessens the impact of the scene, but also removes the ironic humor from it, a factor which goes a long way to making the entire film such a joy to watch. You see, in that scene the original version, which does have Jackson taunting Django about saying his final prayers, doesn’t have the inanities about his burial suit. Instead, Jackson emphasizes each shot by invoking a part of the holy trinity. So we wind up with “In the name of the father…” >BANG< “and the Son…” >BANG< “and the Holy Ghost” >BANG< to which Django then adds the capper, as during his final salvo which takes down the major and his men he shouts  “AMEN!!!”

“What did he say?” I don’t know. do you know what he said?” “I got no idea.” “Hell, it all sounds Greek to me.”

Now some might argue that the change was made due to sensitivity to the religious imagery which it invokes, but considering that that imagery is not only a recurring thread throughout the movie, but at times already a large part of its humor, I can’t see that as a reasonable defense. Nor do the other two arguments I mentioned above work, as there is no problem with the language translating, and the original lines actually fit the mouth movements perfectly.

No, this simply seems to be a case of “change for change’s sake”, and it’s  one that, when I actually saw it while watching the dubbed version on the recent blu-ray release (both versions are on the disk, and I have to say they look gorgeous and it gets my highest recommendation) made me want to throw the box directly through the TV. Fortunately, I restrained myself, but really it was that bad a moment.

In the end, though, what it comes down to is this: if you have the option, you should definitely check out the subtitled version instead of the dubbed one, But if the latter is the only option available, then go ahead and watch that, with the caveat that there definitely is something “lost in translation” because despite those flaws, the strengths of the movie still largely come through.

So how about you? Have you seen either version? If so, which one and what did you think about it? And what are your thoughts in general about the argument concerning subtitles versus dubbing? I’d love to hear your comments, pro or con for either side. Just click on the comment button below and share your thoughts. Or head on over to the Facebook page and join in the discussion there.

Oh, and while you’re at it, why not click one of the share buttons below and bring your friends into the discussion too? The more the merrier! (Just please keep any comments civil, and respect your fellow commenters. After all, there’s no reason for gunfire here.)

And as always, until next time, happy viewing!

—————————–

Hope you enjoyed this blast from the past.

 

Aping Popular Movies – Tombs of the Blind Dead aka Revenge From Planet Ape (1971)

How much more does this poster really need to sell this movie to ya?

No matter how big a Planet of the Apes fan you are, I’m willing to bet that you haven’t seen this particular sequel. Or if you have, you didn’t know that was what you were watching.

Yesterday I reposted an older article talking about the changes made to many foreign films when they were brought to American theaters in the past (and really, at times, are still being made today, but given the fact that we have so many other options in most cases of watching the original versions are somewhat less egregious i suppose) and specifically to Japanese “giant monster movies” such as Gamera and Gojira. While I did that partially to save a bit of writing time, it also nicely helps to set up today’s story.

Okay, so lets say you’re an Anerican distributor in 1971 who’s had a new foreign horror/exploitation flick dropped in your lap called La Noche del terror ciego. Now you could just redub it, translating the title literally to The Night of the Blind Terror and let it go, hoping it will catch the eyes of the drive-in market that is your bread-and-butter. Or, you could make a few changes to it while you’re at it and give it a new title that sparks a resonance with theater-goers, and hope that they think it’s somehow related to the previous movie.

The latter, of course, is the route the distributors eventually took, adopting the name Tombs of the Blind Dead, and hoping at least some of the potential audience would think “Hmm… ‘Blind Dead’ sounds a lot like ‘Living Dead’ kinda like that Night of the Living Dead  I saw. Wonder if this is a follow-up? Sure looks like it’s got some kind of weird zombies in it. Okay, well, I liked that, so maybe I’ll give this one a shot.”

Yeah, these guys could be blind zombie apes, couldn’t they?

But, suppose you’re feeling more ambitious than that. At the time, one of the most popular franchises with movie goers was the Planet of the Apes series, and if you could find a way to tie your movie into that, well then that would be even better, wouldn’t it? And how much change would you really have to make? Really, all you’d need is some sort of a premise to explain why the “apes” in your movie looked nothing like the ape characters film-goers were used to, but that could be easily done with a new intro. As far as the rest of the movie goes, well, if you’re redubbing it anyway, and going to be changing the dialogue, there’s no reason the changes can’t be a bit more substantial. Plus, really, once you’ve got those butts in the seats or cars in the drive-in, does it really matter how much sense the actual movie makes as a follow-up? Remember, we’re not talking about today, when information about new movies could be spread world-wide over the internet via the touch of a button. Instead, all most people had when looking for info about new movies was the ads running in their local papers, and in a lot of cases, the more lurid you could make the ad, the better.

So, you string together some location footage, give it the title Revenge from Planet Ape, and record a new prologue that explains the revamped premise:

Legend has it that 3000 years ago a simian civilization of super intelligent apes struggled with man to gain control of the planet. In the end man conquered ape after a brutal battle which saw him destroy the ape, his culture, and society. After this battle man tortured and killed all the ape prisoners by piercing their eyes with a red hot poker. One of the prisoners, who was also the leader of the apes, vowed that they would return from the dead to avenge man’s brutality at a point in time before man destroyed Earth himself. That time is now.

And that’s how you wind up with this:

Of course, as I said, eventually these plans were scrapped, but thankfully we still have this look at what might have been. Oh, and for those who are wondering how the film actually was eventually promoted? Well, here’s the actual trailer as it was finally released:

Yeah, remember what I said about the more lurid the better? And the thing about it is, the flick (and its three sequels, which I’ll get to eventually) is actually a pretty solid entry in the overall zombie theme, and worth checking out simply for what it is.

Okay, so there you go. A possible Night of the Living Dead sequel, a possible Planet of the Apes sequel, and a franchise starter on its own, all wrapped into one. Hey, really, what more could a late-night movie watcher be looking for? Go ahead. Check it out. You know you want to.

And until next time, Happy Viewing!

Related articles

• Reimagining Escape from the Planet of the Apes as a Warner Brothers gangster picture (moviemorlocks.com)
• Badass Digest Episode 20: BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES! (badassdigest.com)

It’s All About Perspective – Criterion’s Visual Essay on Aspect Ratios for On the Waterfront (1954)

It was while I was watching and thinking about the video below that I think I finally figured out why so many film-lovers of my generation love and place so much emphasis on being able to see a movie, especially one from ages past “on the big screen”. I mean, it’s one of those things that many of us kind of take as a given today, but why? What is it about that experience that makes it so special? And why does it seem sometimes of lesser importance to kids coming up today who seem to be satisfied with watching movies and television shows on screens that are small enough that they will fit on a pinky ring? (Yes, I exaggerate, but not by much, and I figure it’s really only a matter of time.)

Family watching television, c. 1958 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Well, I’ll get there eventually, but it’s going to take a bit of a digression, so bear with me.

So I was having a discussion the other day with one of my younger co-workers about the “dinosaur days” when I was growing up. The talk at that time was brought about by my recent post concerning the differences between the dubbed and subtitled versions of Sergio Corbucci’s Django (click here to read that piece). He simply couldn’t understand why anyone with the choice would want to watch a dubbed version of a movie over the subtitled version. My point was that most of the time we didn’t even have that choice to make.

Y’see, kids, this was in that fabled long-ago pre-internet, pre-DVD (pre-VHS even), pre-cable age when the only viewing options we had were the three major networks (four if you count PBS) and if you were lucky, maybe an independent station on the (oft-times unreliable) UHF dial. (Don’t even ask me to explain the concept of the UHF dial. Or rabbit ears. Seriously, just don’t.) And even later, when things like cable and video tapes did become available, they were considered luxuries by most middle-class or lower families.

Yes, Virginia, those days really existed.

And that, I was trying to explain, was why the TV Guide magazine, and it’s weekly arrival at our house was always such an event. At least to a burgeoning young horror/sci-fi/”genre” movie geek like myself. There were times when the magazine, with it’s upcoming movie guide in the back was scoured immediately upon arrival to see if there was anything special that absolutely had to be watched that week. This situation became even more serious once we did get our first VCR and then eventually cable, because then choices had to be made about what to watch/tape, when different movies or favorite shows started and stopped, and whether there would be any overlap between them that would force an even harder choice.

TV Guide #1756 (Photo credit: trainman74)

You see, here’s the thing. Back in those days, we really were at the mercy of the TV programmers and the choices that they made. If a movie came on that you wanted to watch, you had two choices – watch it, or miss it and wait until it came around again – if it ever did. Of course there were the perennials we could count on – The Ten Commandments would be shown every Easter, The Wizard of Oz also rated a yearly showing, but a lot of movies could literally get one airing, and that would be it.

So what does all of that have to do with dubbing? Or with differing aspect ratios, which is ostensibly what this post (and the video below) is about? Well, there were two things that TV programmers knew as “facts”: 1) American viewers would only watch movies that were in English, and 2) anything shown on television had to fill up the screen, no matter how it was seen in theaters, and it was these to factors that led to two other at times incredibly… shall we say “unfortunate” results when it came to the way that we were able to watch movies in those days.

If only the Shaw Brothers had come up with this concept. (Photo credit: ChadScott)

First of all, there was very rarely any chance of seeing anything that even vaguely smacked of a foreign movie. Oh, sure, there was “Kung-Fu Theater” on Saturday or Sunday afternoon with it’s laughably out-of-sync lip movements and over-the top histrionics, but most of those were really played for laughs. Even in theaters, when a foreign-born movie played in most locations, the soundtrack would be dubbed so that American audiences could understand what was going on and wouldn’t have to think about anything besides just, in the words of William Hurt’s character from The Big Chill, “let art flow over you”. And a lot of times those dubbing choices were made with only one idea in mind: make it look at least vaguely like the words being said were coming from the mouths of the characters that were supposed to be saying them. Accuracy of translation, and fidelity to the original script were definitely secondary to this goal, and at times were simply thrown out the window to the point where the movie seen here bore only a passing resemblance to the one that was shown in it’s country of origin. (This, of course, also led to things like the way the original Godzilla and other movies were basically recreated for American audiences, but that’s a completely different essay for another time. I’m already pretty far afield as it is.)

Secondly, it led to what was known as pan-and-scan. The idea here was that in order to fill up the TV screen and not have “those dang black bars” running across the top and bottom of a movie that might have been shot for a wide-screen theater release, a different editor from the original would look at the film. attempt to figure out the most important part of any scene, zoom in on that until it filled the proper space, and then, if for instance the scene was a conversation between two actors, pan his focus over to the other actor when it was their turn to talk. (Again, pan-and scan is another discussion for another day, but it does factor into the consideration of aspect ratio, so it seemed worth mentioning.)

“Daddy? What was a movie theater’?”(Photo credit: Kevin H.)

Anyway, it’s this latter emphasis on filling the TV screen that leads us into the video below that, as I said at the top, led to all of this thinking, and also why, as I said, film-lovers of my generation at times have an at-times almost visceral reaction to the idea of “Wow! I get to see that on the big screen?! Cool!”

It’s because even though we know these movies, even though we may have seen them many times, we’ve never seen them the way they were meant to be seen. Especially if they are movies that we remember from our childhood that we haven’t watched, for whatever reason, since. This is our chance. There are certainly other factors, such as the opportunity to see these movies as a part of a community with other people of similar mind and maybe even discuss them afterwards and things like that, but I definitely think that this is a major factor.

Marlon Brando and Eva Marie Saint in a screenshot from the trailer for the film On the Waterfront. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Which, finally, leads to the video essay below. It was created by Criterion for their recent Blu-ray release of On the Waterfront, a movie from 1954 directed by Elia Kazan and starring Marlon Brando. In it, they discuss the three different aspect ratios that the movie has been shown in, and why, when it came time to make the choice between them for the one to actually put on the disk, they ultimately decided not to make the choice at all, but to leave that decision to the viewer.

That’s right, the disk actually contains three different versions of the film that differ only in the aspect ratio, but ultimately leave the viewer with completely different experiences depending on the one that is chosen. It’s a somewhat bold and quite intriguing decision that definitely makes the disk a “must buy” in my book. Of course, it’s one that I’d want to own anyway, but this just cilnches the deal. Here, take a look to see just what I’m talking about:

What can I say? This is simply yet another reason why I love Criterion and always look forward to their release of almost any movie. They are a company that – rather than simply throwing out hundreds of movies a year without any concern other than getting the latest blockbuster onto as many store shelves as possible with the least muss and fuss possible – actually take the time to think about what might appeal to their audience and enhance the movie-watching experience. Yes, their disks may cost more than the average $5 Wal-Mart dump bin special, but they’re also almost always worth it. From upgrades in print quality to included extras, they do their best to keep the reputation for quality that they have earned. (And just so we’re clear here, no, I am not a Criterion shill, nor do I get any kind of kick-back from them for the praise I’m giving, I’m just a fan of what they do.)

Oh, and the movie itself is pretty darned good, too. There’s definitely a reason it’s considered one of the classics.

So, what do you think? Does the presentation of a movie like this make a difference to you? Are things like the aspect ratio even factors that you’ve thought about before? Was it even something you were aware of? As always, I encourage you to discuss these kind of things in the comments below.

And until next time, Happy Viewing!

Related articles

• Why Americans Became Obsessed with Ninjas (io9.com)
• A Brief History of the Telefilm (moviemorlocks.com)
• Apple’s Next Innovation: TV (technologyreview.com)
• A Tale of Three Aspect Ratios (criterion.com)

Rechained by Dubbing – Django (1966)

***SPOILER WARNING*** In this post, I’m going to be discussing differences between the dubbed and subtitled versions of Sergio Corbucci‘s 1966 film Django, and specifically the ending of the movie, so if you haven’t seen it (and I highly recommend that you do) you might want to turn back now. You have been warned! ***END WARNING***

Okay, I’m going to just go ahead and get this part out of the way. I absolutely loved last year’s Django Unchained, Quentin Tarantino‘s “ode” to the spaghetti western genre. Despite its flaws, obvious and otherwise – yes, I know, some say it’s too long, but to them I’d ask what specifically would you cut, and yes, we can all agree that QT’s “Australian” accent is a joke, but to me he’s earned the indulgence, and yes… and yes… – in the end, it’s exactly what it sets out to be: one film maker’s tribute to an influential genre that he obviously loves, and an entertaining afternoon or evening at the theater for the rest of us, and in the end, that’s enough for me.

But the biggest thing that I like about QT’s movie is that it has brought new attention to a genre of movies that I find is largely unfamiliar to a vast swath of today’s younger movie-going audience, the aforementioned “spaghetti western”, and the fact that it extends beyond just Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone. As a matter of fact, it’s because of Tarantino’s movie that my favorite place to watch films here in Nashville, the Belcourt Theater, was able to show a retrospective of films by one of the other great directors of the genre, Sergio Corbucci, which included his 1966 masterpiece, the original Django.

Now I could go into a lot of detail about Corbucci’s film and why I think it’s so good, but that’s another post for another time. Instead, today I simply want to look at one part of the movie, specifically the end of it, and to highlight what may be one of the greatest travesties of re-dubbed films ever.

You see, there are actually two versions of the film in circulation at the moment, one, the first one that I saw, is an Italiian language version with subtitles. The other, and the most commonly-found version on places like YouTube (as a matter of fact, the entire dubbed version is available there for streaming if you so desire), is the English language dubbed version.

Sometimes words like “compensating” don’t need any translation.

Now, you might think that in the process of dubbing a movie into another language the people responsible would try to stick as closely as possible to the original, and I’m sure in many cases that is true, and probably more so today than in the past. But there are other things which also have to be considered when movies are being dubbed. First there is the problem that both subtitlers and dubbers face – idiomatic language. There are simply some times that a direct translation, either because of cultural references or because the words have no direct correlation, just doesn’t make sense. (I was recently watching a subtitled version of a Japanese movie that attempted to use supertitles as footnotes to these kind of translation issues, but to be honest, that was truly distracting.) The other issue is mouth movements. One of the most often-heard complaints, especially back when I was growing up, about watching foreign movies was that the lip movement were so far out of sync with the words being said that it ended up being either incredibly distracting or downright humorous, and that’s why so many people said they simply couldn’t watch “furren” movies.

Now, it’s possible that if asked, the translators of the dubbed version of Django might claim either one of these to be the case in the defense of many of their choices throughout the film, and they may be legitimate claims. However, when it comes to the ending… Well, I’ll tell you what, before we go any further, why don’t we have a look at that ending? The part I’m specifically going to be focusing on is from about 4:00 to 6:20 in this clip, but go ahead and watch the whole thing if you really want the set-up.

Ok, so we have our protagonist at his seemingly most defenseless, his hands broken, trying to get off one last good shot, and being taunted by his greatest adversary, Major Jackson. And his cry of “Can you hear me ?!” is appropriate to the preceding lines about “You should start your praying.” and “I can’t hear you!”, which is fine as far as it goes.

However, if you watch the Italian version, you find out that the dubbing really diverges from the original in a way that not only lessens the impact of the scene, but also removes the ironic humor from it, a factor which goes a long way to making the entire film such a joy to watch. You see, in that scene the original version, which does have Jackson taunting Django about saying his final prayers, doesn’t have the inanities about his burial suit. Instead, Jackson emphasizes each shot by invoking a part of the holy trinity. So we wind up with “In the name of the father…” >BANG< “and the Son…” >BANG< “and the Holy Ghost” >BANG< to which Django then adds the capper, as during his final salvo which takes down the major and his men he shouts  “AMEN!!!”

“What did he say?” I don’t know. do you know what he said?” “I got no idea.” “Hell, it all sounds Greek to me.”

Now some might argue that the change was made due to sensitivity to the religious imagery which it invokes, but considering that that imagery is not only a recurring thread throughout the movie, but at times already a large part of its humor, I can’t see that as a reasonable defense. Nor do the other two arguments I mentioned above work, as there is no problem with the language translating, and the original lines actually fit the mouth movements perfectly.

No, this simply seems to be a case of “change for change’s sake”, and it’s  one that, when I actually saw it while watching the dubbed version on the recent blu-ray release (both versions are on the disk, and I have to say they look gorgeous and it gets my highest recommendation) made me want to throw the box directly through the TV. Fortunately, I restrained myself, but really it was that bad a moment.

In the end, though, what it comes down to is this: if you have the option, you should definitely check out the subtitled version instead of the dubbed one, But if the latter is the only option available, then go ahead and watch that, with the caveat that there definitely is something “lost in translation” because despite those flaws, the strengths of the movie still largely come through.

So how about you? Have you seen either version? If so, which one and what did you think about it? And what are your thoughts in general about the argument concerning subtitles versus dubbing? I’d love to hear your comments, pro or con for either side. Just click on the comment button below and share your thoughts. Or head on over to the Facebook page and join in the discussion there.

Oh, and while you’re at it, why not click one of the share buttons below and bring your friends into the discussion too? The more the merrier! (Just please keep any comments civil, and respect your fellow commenters. After all, there’s no reason for gunfire here.)

And as always, until next time, happy viewing!

Related articles

• Quentin Tarantino: my inspiration for Django Unchained (guardian.co.uk)
• ‘Django Unchained’ proves spaghetti Westerns still have influence (newsday.com)
• Django Fever: A Hidden History Of Django Unchained (thequietus.com)