Why do movie subtitles stink?

The man who rewrote "Primary Colors" en español reveals the sad truth about the words at the bottom of the screen.
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BY CYNTHIA JOYCE | Janet Maslin recently wrote in the New York Times that John Sayles has directed "Men With Guns," his new film, "in Spanish, English, Nahuatl, Tzotzil, Maya and Kuna so exactingly that there is no true language barrier at all." Assuming Maslin is not a linguist of New World tongues and was depending -- like most viewers -- on reading the English subtitles, one is prompted to ask: How the hell would she know?

As anyone with even a mild appreciation for foreign films understands, watching a subtitled film often leaves you with a vague sense that you got only the Cliff's Notes version -- the crudest signposts are provided for you, but the all-important details never make it into print. Take, for example, Jean-Luc Godard's film "For Ever Mozart," which recently screened in San Francisco. The movie opens with a man standing on the side of the road, tapping his feet impatiently. When a young woman comes running toward him, he screams a steady stream of insults at her.

At least, that's what seems to be happening, but it's hard to tell -- five dialogue-filled minutes have passed by and not a word of translation appears on the screen. After a few moments, the man appears to soften a bit. As he leans over to kiss the woman on the cheek, the first words finally appear: "You're late. Kiss me." By the time another sentence appears on the screen, half the audience has walked out.

With the recent boom in American independent films, foreign movies have lost their lofty position as the de rigueur staple of serious film buffs. Americans today would rather take a chance on a low-budget "experimental" film that they can understand well enough to criticize than sit through some foreign film that's likely to leave them feeling they didn't really "get it." (The indie vs. foreign film contest was epitomized by Quentin Tarantino's film "Reservoir Dogs," whose name was reportedly an inside joke mocking Louis Malle's "Au Revoir les Enfants.") Foreign films, which once accounted for 15 percent of U.S. gross annual film sales, today only account for 5 -- which is why Sayles, who went to great lengths to film "Men With Guns" in several different indigenous dialects, is getting so many integrity points for taking a huge commercial risk.

Fortunately for overseas distributors of American films, foreign audiences are much more likely to forgive the often muddled translations that subtitles afford. This week, when Latin American moviegoers flock to see the Spanish-subtitled version of "Primary Colors," Anglophones in the audience may wonder why the words flashing across the screen bear no resemblance to the actors' dialogue.

"It's an adaptation, not a translation," says Luis Manuel Rodriguez, a former dentist-turned-translator who wrote the Spanish subtitles for "Primary Colors." One might assume that Rodriguez -- the person who is essentially responsible for how millions of Latin Americans will understand the film -- worked closely with the director Mike Nichols to ensure that every subtlety was not lost in translation.

Rodriguez -- who has "adapted" hundreds of American movies for Latin American distribution, including "Crooklyn" and "Star Wars" -- laughs at the idea. "By the time the film gets translated in post-production, the director has already moved on to another project," he says. Not only is it unusual for Rodriguez to get any guidance from the director, it's even rare for him to receive a copy of the film to work from.

Instead, he gets a "spotting list" that tells him how much time, or how many frames, he has for each title -- and a week to write about 1,200 to 1,500 snippets of dialogue. If he's lucky he'll watch the movie once before getting started, and once after the titles have been printed; but all too often, he must make do without such luxuries. With "Primary Colors," Rodriguez was under such intense deadline pressure that he had to begin translating without seeing the movie at all.

The fact that translators have so little to work with goes a long way toward explaining why subtitles can be so dreadful. Given the creative choices they must make with little time and even less guidance, it's a wonder foreign audiences come away with even a rudimentary grasp of what's going on. For instance, with "Primary Colors," Rodriguez had to determine which of the many references to the American political system were necessary for a basic understanding of the film. If he couldn't come up with a generic equivalent to an obscure political personality, he just cut the reference altogether.

Even harder to deal with were the dirty jokes and political doublespeak that abound in the film. "There's one part where John Travolta's character, Governor Stanton, is accused of having an affair with a Paula Jones-type, a hairdresser, and all the TV comedians are making fun of it: 'It all started one day when the governor walked into the hair salon and asked for some longer bangs.' If I translated directly, it just wouldn't have made sense," Rodriguez said. Exasperated, he made up a totally different joke, this one having to do with the governor having a different kind of "head" trimmed.

Why not just cut the reference altogether? "When you've got laughter in the soundtrack, you had better come up with something funny." Rodriguez points out that jokes -- of the unintentional kind -- are particularly deadly. "I recently saw a Mexican movie, a very serious movie about two friends coping with their friend's death. In the real script, the men kept referring to one another as ' sucker,' and it was not meant to be funny, but each time they said it the word 'suckling' appeared on the screen."

Rodriguez blames bad translations on the fact that translators are last in the assembly-line process of film production. "With American movies, translators don't even get a film credit," he complains. "I would imagine a person who is willing to put their name on a film would be much more conscientious about their work."

Please, somebody -- tell it to the studios.
SALON | March 23, 1998