I know that the adjective folle is the feminine of fou meaning “crazy.” So, does the title in French mean “The Crazies Cage” or “The Nut House?” Or is it an French idiom that shouldn’t be translated word for word.
I ask because the play did not seem to deal much with crazy people.
I believe it’s kind of like “The Mad Cage” Sounds to me like it would have the same meaning as Americans saying “the nut house”, “the cuckoo’s nest” etc.
I’m sure someone will come along with more detail.
In the play (and later movie), “La Cage aux Folles” is the name of the night club owned by Renato. The name refers to the “crazy things” that go on there (drag queens! oh my!) rather than to a mental institution as such.
The word “folly” (as in Ziegfeld Follies) is from the same origin.
Turner Classic Movies has an article about the 1978 version of La Cage aux Folles. They give the translation as “Mad Cage”, which does seem to idiomatically suggest “cuckoo’s nest” (as Chao posits).
Knowing that the 1996 remake The Birdcage was based on LCAF, I was kind of thinking that folles was an alternative word for “birds” instead of the more conventional oiseaux). That is apparently incorrect.
Another bird-related english idiom for mental institution: “Booby hatch.” (The use of “Loony bin” also has some avian influence, in addition to the primary association with the moon.)
Hmmm… perhaps it might be possible to gull people into accepting a hypothesis that seabirds were thought to make people crazy.
“It is an ancient mariner, and he stoppeth one of three…” 
In addition to being an adjective, fou/folle can also be used as a noun, meaning “a crazy man/woman.”
Yup. It comes from the French noun folie.
And interestingly enough, “booby” (the bird) translates as un fou in French.
[QUOTE=bordelond
Knowing that the 1996 remake The Birdcage was based on LCAF, I was kind of thinking that folles was an alternative word for “birds” instead of the more conventional oiseaux). That is apparently incorrect.[/QUOTE]
I remember still another translation: when seeing ads for the movie (I think), the main title would be given as LCAF, with a ‘translation’ in parentheses below, “Birds Of A Feather”.
I never quite understood why translations of movie and book titles can be so far off the mark. Sometimes they can be downright wrong, or at least seem to have little to do with the meaning of the original title.
Umberto Eco’s Il Secundo Diario Minimo (literally, The Second Little Diary) is published in English as “How To Travel With a Salmon, & Other Essays.”
And you thought “The Birdcage” was a bit of a jump!
–Cliffy
It shouldn’t be, indeed. Though “folle” is normally the feminine form of “fou” (crazy), it’s also a slang word refering to blatantly effeminated homosexual men, like one of the character in the play/movie.
“folle” is also slang for an effeminate gay guy.
“Birdie” has this sense in English. What a tangle!
And faygelah in Yiddish means little bird/gay man.
Whoa-- and all this time I thought it literally meant “the birdcage,” with folles somehow related to the English fowl. Live and learn, and other cliches.
Spectre of Pithecanthropus:
> I never quite understood why translations of movie and book titles can be so
> far off the mark.
That’s often the best way to translate a title. If the title has a double meaning, it pften doesn’t work to translate it as either the literal or the figurative meaning. If you translate it as the literal meaning, the title sometimes just sounds irrelevant to the movie. If you translate it as the figurative meaning, it sometimes sounds like you’re being too blatant about the theme of the film. Often the best thing to do is to choose a different double meaning in the language that you’re translating the title into that’s relevant to the film.
Chalk it up to the fact that four words in French are often ten in English and vice versa. Not everything translates smoothly, and the person marketing the flick isn’t always a trained linguist. To get a similar effect of an idiomatic title in another language might involve turning the whole thing topsy turvy.
The example I always think of as a well translated film title is the 1984 French film Poulet au Vinaigre, which was released in the UK as Cop au Vin.
And of course ‘Ducky’, as in “Oooh, Ducky!”…
The Spanish production was called “La Jaula de los Locas” and the German “Ein Kofig voller Narren.”
Could this be the basis for “fag”?
rwj