{"id":284,"date":"2009-04-16T10:10:00","date_gmt":"2009-04-16T10:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2009\/04\/the-subtleties-of-subtitles\/"},"modified":"2009-04-16T10:10:00","modified_gmt":"2009-04-16T10:10:00","slug":"the-subtleties-of-subtitles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2009\/04\/the-subtleties-of-subtitles.html","title":{"rendered":"The subtleties of subtitles."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

If you\u2019re like me, you tend to watch DVDs with the subtitles on \u2014 whether because the kids are awake and the house is too noisy, or because the kids are asleep and the house needs to be quiet, or for some other reason altogether. And if you\u2019re like me, you can\u2019t help but wonder sometimes just what was going through the subtitlers\u2019 minds.<\/span><\/p>\n

Case in point: Last night I was watching Peyton Place<\/a><\/i> (1957), a surprisingly edgy-for-its-time (but still rather tame, compared to its source material) movie about adultery and incest and gossip and, um, \u201cmiscarriages\u201d in a small New England town \u2014 and in one scene, as two women and a boy go to church, we hear the choir in the distance. See if you can figure out what lyrics the choir is actually<\/i> singing as these people approach the church:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\"\"<\/a>
\"\"<\/a>
\"\"<\/a>
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And that\u2019s where the scene fades out. Had it continued, though, I suspect the subtitlers might have noticed that \u201cheavenly fold\u201d doesn\u2019t exactly rhyme with \u201cSon and Holy Ghost.\u201d And hey, even if they had<\/i> heard the lyrics correctly, didn\u2019t they choose a rather strange place to put the line break?<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the only oddity in the subtitles, though. Consider the bit below, from the scene where Rodney tells Allison that he promised to dance with Betty, the \u201ctramp\u201d that he recently broke up with in order to please his father:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Admittedly, the actor playing Rodney speaks rather quickly here, but even if he skips or compresses his syllables, shouldn\u2019t it be obvious he\u2019s referring to the \u201cintermission\u201d at the high-school dance? Or is he putting off dancing with Betty until after he has seen some test results for a cancer treatment or something?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019re like me, you tend to watch DVDs with the subtitles on \u2014 whether because the kids are awake and the house is too noisy, or because the kids are asleep and the house needs to be quiet, or for some other reason altogether. And if you\u2019re like me, you can\u2019t help but wonder […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe subtleties of subtitles.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If you're like me, you tend to watch DVDs with the subtitles on -- whether because the kids are awake and the house is too noisy, or because the kids are\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2009\/04\/the-subtleties-of-subtitles.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The subtleties of subtitles.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you're like me, you tend to watch DVDs with the subtitles on -- whether because the kids are awake and the house is too noisy, or because the kids are\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2009\/04\/the-subtleties-of-subtitles.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"FilmChat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-04-16T10:10:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_MwnH1kpbPRM\/Sedmz24MZ8I\/AAAAAAAADC4\/-C1qMzPLWYU\/s400\/peytonplace1.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Peter T. 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