FILM: KEVIN RAFTERreviews Translation goes to the MoviesBy Michael Cronin Routledge, 145pp. £19.95
FANS OF THE Star Wars movies will be familiar with the ungainly and somewhat amusing robot C-3PO, whose main task in the intergalactic film series is diplomacy and translation. In The Return of the Jedithe robot is asked how many languages he speaks. "I am fluent in over six million forms of communications," C-3PO confidently asserts. These multilingual skills are invaluable to his colleagues in their space travels and often help to resolve difficulties with all sorts of oddball alien types.
On one occasion, conflict is prevented when the robot's ability to speak the primitive dialect of the Ewoks succeeds in turning their aggression into adoration. But C-3PO is frequently confronted with a lack of appreciation from his colleagues. "I am not much more than an interpreter," he confesses. In a lively final chapter to his new book, Translation Goes to the Movies, Michael Cronin uses the ever-so-bright robot as a means of examining the status of translation and the translator.
Cronin, an academic at Dublin City University, has a well-established reputation in the developing discipline of translation studies. He has previously examined the subject from the perspectives of globalisation and cultural identity. Now turning his attention to the big screen, Cronin deals with what he describes as the neglected topic of language difference in cinema. He takes the reader into the world of dubbers and subtitlers to understand how cinema has been mediated in different languages and contexts.
Translation is not just an issue for niche film-makers, but also challenges most mainstream Hollywood productions. Alongside the exploration of science fiction with his treatment of the Star Wars series, Cronin presents individual chapters on other film genres including comedy, thrillers and the Western. Readers are offered interesting dissections on the role of translation in films such as Borat, The Alamo and Babel. There is an endorsement quote on the back cover of Translation goes to the Movies suggesting the text would appeal to a general readership. In truth its target market is specialists and academics. But that does not mean that the contents are devoted to ivory tower theorising.
Translation has long been a feature of cinema. The vast majority of films shown between 1895 and 1927 came with some form of accompaniment. The author refers to how difficult and complex film translation can be, and also the poor pay rates this work attracts. What is absent, however, is any discussion about the process of subtitling and dubbing. The reader is never given any sense of the work involved, and how it has evolved over time.
While Cronin does not conclusively make the assertion, the pages of this work strongly make the case that English is the language of film. A recent study of Belgian teenagers showed the attraction of the Hollywood blockbusters which offer escapism into worlds of glamour, money, excitement and power. In the same study, prejudice towards films produced in local languages was fuelled in part by the fact that, by comparison, the local was ordinary and commonplace.
Perhaps there is a lesson in this for the Irish film sector. Cronin quotes figures which show that as recently as 2001 the American motion picture industry was the only sector of the US economy in trading surplus with every other country in the world. At the end of last year the Irish Film Board published research showing that the audiovisual production sector in Ireland is worth €557 million – that’s about 0.3 per cent of GDP – and employs almost 7,000 people. These are salient facts in an environment of economic retrenchment.
Carving out a niche in this international cultural world is not just about translating great art for a global audience – making money can be a more than useful by-product.
Kevin Rafter is head of the film and media department at IADT, Dún Laoghaire. He is completing a research study on the history of the Democratic Left