How do studios deal with the dubbing/subtitling of movies that rely largely on puns and double-meanings?
Example: In Airplane!, one of the reporters says “alright guys, let’s get some pictures”. Hilarity ensues when - instead of taking fotos with their cameras - the gang of reporters snatch up the actual pictures off the wall of the office.
I guess you had to be there.
But a joke like this would have been worthless in Spanish because photographs (probably) don’t translate into the same word as pictures hanging on a wall.
And (apropos to the subject line), is there a word that could be used in place of ‘surely’ (such as ‘certainly’ or ‘of course’) in order to make the Shirley joke work in other languages?
In UHF, there’s a pun on “surprise”/“supplies” (a supply closet is opened and a Japanese character inside says “surprise!” but it sounds like “supplies.”) I watched the movie with the Spanish audio track once when I was bored, and they said “Solpleza!” which makes no sense.
They try to come up with something equivalent in the target language. This is where it becomes a question of localization rather than straight translation. And it’s not just wordplay and puns: many cultural references have to be modified to suit a local audience as well. (Just like they did with the American version of “The Office”.)
When I lived in France, they showed the whole TV series of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, in “VO” (English, in this case) but with French subtitles. MP is full of word play and silly puns that only work in English. In most cases, the hapless translator had bravely tried to come up with a similar pun that worked in French and fit the context; inevitably, it was a lot less funny than the English version. (I remember he’d had real trouble with “No thyme Toulouse” [no time to lose] )
Ironically, the point where the translator just gave up was when the Python boys went off with a bunch of fake French, during the “flying sheep” sketch as I recall. The subtitles at this point said: “N. de T.: Je n’y peux plus rien. Debrouillez-vous…” - “Translator’s note: I can’t help you now. You’re on your own…”
In my experience in Spanish they may make an attempt, but it often misses the mark. Sometimes they don’t even try, but just do a straight translation which doesn’t make sense. (Most movies shown here in Panama are in English with Spanish subtitles, so I know both what the original dialogue was and its translation.)
One good translation I saw was in Spy Hard, in which Leslie Nielson’s character’s name, Dick, is the source of a lot of (rather obvious) puns. In Spanish he is called “Pito,” short for the name Agapito, but also colloquially meaning “dick.”
A couple nights ago I went to see Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in a theater, but walked out when I realized it was dubbed in Spanish rather than subtitled. While I would have understood the Spanish, it wouldn’t have been worth it because I’m sure a lot of the jokes would just have been lost. I’ll wait to see it on video.