Owen Thompson explains how there's a lot more to being a translator than just knowing all the right words
Years ago, they worked miracles with translation and dubbing in this country. In Mogambo, Donald Sinden and Grace Kelly become brother and sister to hide the adulterous relationship between Kelly and Clark Gable. The implied incest had neither to be seen or even contemplated. In Waterloo Bridge, something even more interesting happened. When Vivien Leigh appears to lose her boyfriend and starts to walk the streets, the Spanish censor changed the word 'prostitute' to 'actress' in the dubbed Spanish version. What a tough job being a translator must have been at that time.
My experience in the field has shown me that the job of translator can be as enjoyable as it can sometimes be nightmarish. Most of the time I have been lucky enough to deal with directors, producers and actors with whom it is a pleasure to work, and who have made me believe in the importance and value of my work. When it comes to the script, the work is not as warming, and success will often depend on the interpretation of the translator, working alone in his room, with only a computer for help. The atmosphere of a shoot, with actors and director in situ, is another thing altogether. Here there is a world of cultural and mental differences to give us work, headaches and, sometimes, nightmares. With time you get used to it, but it doesn't mean you approach each new project with any less nerves. Just one more role inside the cinema world
Transferring a film from one language to another is no easy task. This is not purely a language problem. More than this it is a problem of how to develop ideas and concepts, and the cultural elements which you have to take into account when you think of the public the film is for. In Spain's case, the massive importation of American product has opened the floodgates to a cultural torrent which everyone seems to welcome with open arms. But what about the reverse? How do you make the American and Japanese publics understand the effect of one of Almodóvar's gazpachos on two policemen, in a somewhat atypical Madrid living room, where a group of people who anyway live in rather an unusual universe are gathered together?
I hope this shows some of the difficulties or rather, the challenges which face the people who do my job when it comes to the translation, not just of the dialogues for subtitling or dubbing, but of everything else connected to a film as well: the script, the pressbook, and the treatment.
Owen Thompson, founder of GO GLOBAL SL, multilingual services and project co-ordination company, has been a freelance translator (English/French/Spanish) in the audio-visual sector since 1986
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