Abstract
Focusing on the film industry’s transition to sound in the late 1920s, canonical musical Singin’ in the Rain is, foremost, a dubbing narrative. This chapter revisits this film classic in order to bring into focus lesser-known histories relating to screen translation, and to think specifically about the importance of talk and inter-lingual translation to the development of film culture broadly. Singin’s emphasis on dubbing as domestic operation invites reconsideration of the transition era’s ‘language crisis’ and the artificial voice/body combinations integral to foreign-language dubbing. Precisely because Singin’ does not deal directly with issues of inter-lingual translation, it demonstrates how sound technologies catapult issues of language difference and transfer to the very heart of film production, prefiguring the inter-lingual in the everyday.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Reassessing Dubbing |
Subtitle of host publication | Historical approaches and current trends |
Editors | Irene Ranzato, Serenella Zanotti |
Place of Publication | Amsterdam The Netherlands |
Publisher | John Benjamins Publishing Company |
Chapter | 1 |
Pages | 17-39 |
Number of pages | 23 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9789027262271 |
ISBN (Print) | 9789027203465 |
Publication status | Published - 2019 |
Keywords
- Cinema
- Cinema Studies
- Film History
- Dubbing
- Audiovisual Translation
- Film sound
- Singin' in the Rain
- Early Film
- Silent Film