When watching a film in a foreign language (that you don’t understand), would you rather watch the original version with subtitles, or dubbed into your own language (assuming you have the choice and both are done competently)?
Do film purists frown on dubbing, the way they do on, say, pan-and-scan or colorization?
Sub-titles.
For me, part of the director’s vision & part of the character portrayed by an actor is their voice. Not simply the emotional inflections, but the actual sound of it. I also find in many cases that the expressions go along with the way something is phrased, and it is very difficult if not impossible to provide a translation that will actually match this up. Given - this seems less important in say a B action movie than in say a highly charged drama. On the other hand, I detest watching dubbed anime - but again, that goes back to the voice being part of a character. The examples I’d name might not mean anything to someone who doesn’t watch anime so think of it this way - can you imagine watching a Bugs Bunny cartoon with a different voice? Or a John Wayne film? That’s how I view it.
Subtitles every time. They don’t take anything away from the actors’ performance, and if you suspect something was “lost in the translation”, the original is preserved for comparison.
Dubbing a film totally alters the way it feels, usually to its detriment. After all, if voice-over actors were top-cailbre actors, they’d be doing feature-films, instead of doing dubbing work.
Speaking mostly for anime I am a firm believer in subtitles, its just part of the whole flavour, other than that I still refuse to believe that they dubbed Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon for the DVD release.
Sub-titles, no question. I have a really hard time keeping up a suspension of disbelief when the actor’s speech and lips don’t match up.
Funnily enough, watching animation is the one and only time I don’t feel that dubbing neccessarily screws things up. I mean, there are bad dubs, to be certain, but there are also good ones. And with the good ones you don’t need to worry about the lips so much.
Aye, for me it’s even worse in animation-- probably because the NA distributors put very little work into getting decent vocal talent.
I have the Blue Seed series, and finally broke down and bought one or two tapes dubbed because I couldn’t get the subtitled version. Necessary to find out what the hell happened, but gruelling to sit through. (One of the characters went to school in the U.S., and she speaks Japanese with a comical American accent-- pretty pointless when all of the characters are speaking english with broad american accents. Argh!)
People would never buy a translation of a book if they knew that 30% of the text had been discarded because it was “too long.”
Yet that happens in subtitled movies all the time. The dialogue is abridged and simplified because the characters talk too fast or the lines are too long to fit onto the bottom of the screen. Most people don’t read all that fast, and so subtitles are mercilessly condensed so that the slowpokes in the audience can keep up.
The result is that all the characters in a subtitled movie appear to be a shade stupider than they really are, and the writer’s style is flattened into an easy-to-read “See spot run” format.
Of course, dubbing has its own huge problem, namely that the original actors’ performances are wiped out. But it’s not clear that this is is always a more serious offence than decimating the dialogue.
So which method is better … or, since each method has its drawbacks, which is worse? In the DVD era, it’s not clear that we have to choose. Put both a dub and subtitles on the DVD, and let the viewer figure out which one he likes better. (Which is what they did for CTHD.)
I recall watching, many years ago, a film in French with subtitles. Later I saw the same film, but dubbed. I recall that they subtley but inexorably changed the meaning of certain phrases and hence lessened the dramatic impact, just because of the dubbing. Also the voice, intonation, pitch, etc., are crucial to conveying emotion. It’s just not the same dubbed over.
A few months ago, I watched Amelie on DVD with English subtitles. I don’t remember much French from high school, but I knew enough to tell that I was missing a lot in the translation. Seems strange that the DVD didn’t come with a French subtitles option, which would have been a big help.
I much prefer subtitles. I like to hear the original language, even if it’s just to see how many words I can understand in the dialogue. I pick up pronunciations that way.
Plus, as has been said, the dubbing for anime is almost always horrible. Since all of the foreign films and shows I actually own are anime, this is an important consideration. Subbed, definitely, for those.
Sub-titles but Wumpus’s point is well-taken; some subs do seem to miss a lot of dialogue. I would prefer them to cram as much as possible and leave it to the viewer to read quickly. Especially on DVD’s where viewers have the option to watch the dub.
Subs are especially good for anime where the Japanese voice-acting is quite often superb and the American dubs quite often excruciating When the American dubbing industry produces its Megumi Hayashibara I might consider watching dubs.
I love subs. As someone trying to learn another language, they are very helpful.
Yeah… don’t hold your breath on that one. I’m pretty sure the casting director that found her “replacement” for Blue Seed kept the interview pretty short: “Can you do unbelievably annoying?” “Sure!” “You’re hired.” 
I’d say anime and comedy (intentional or unintentional) are the only times when dubbing is acceptable.
With anime if the dub is good (they have been getting very good lately, the english voice for Ed in Cowboy Bebop is the perfect voice for that character) you can concentrate on the visuals.
With comedy, the mismatched lip movements add to the humor- I’ve seen Johnny Stecchino subbed and dubbed, and it’s just plain funnier dubbed.
One of the oddest dubbing incidents I’ve seen is Contempt where one of the characters is a translator. Naturally the dubbed version can’t have a translator, so her entire role is changed.
In Selena, it was an important plot point that the Jennifer Lopez character doesn’t speak spanish- in the spanish dub she speaks with a bad anglo accent.
Actually I agree that in principle a dub should be acceptable for animation. However in practice American dubs seem to be mostly well below the quality of the Japanese originals. I do hope things are improving like you say. I thought the dub for Spirited Away was pretty good.
Though I have to admit that ,though I don’t know Japanese, I have grown rather fond of the sound and rhythm of Japanese especially from a top-notch seiyuu. That, of course, is another advantage of subs; even if you don’t understand the language you learn to appreciate its sound.
Nah. Well maybe in the US, where the tradition of subtitling is not as strong as it is here. Trust me on this, 30% is not lost. I hear the English and I read the Swedish subtitle and just about everything is translated. Of course, word plays and puns are always difficult to translate, but that goes for books and dubbing too.
[on topic hijack]
In most of Europe, English language movies and TV are dubbed. The exceptions are the Scandinavian countries and Holland. This goes back to the silent movie era. You know those black screens with dialogue that come every now and then? Well, back in that era, literacy was much lower in most countries, so they had an actor in the theatre reading out what was on that screen. In Scandinavia and Holland, they just spliced in a screen with the lines in the local language, sinse literacy was wery high. When sound came along, subtitles was the natural option in some countries, dubbing in others.
I don’t know that that much is lost in subtitling. I usually watch English DVD’s with subtitles on just so I can understand the dialogue better (I’m one of those annoying things that you have to repeat everything to 10 times even though English is my only language) and the only changes I’ve noticed are when a short word is substituted for a longer spoken word.
Subtitles, subtitles, subtitles.
Dubbing anything aimed at higher-than-10-year-olds is a CRIME.
Always, always subtitles. Dubbing sucks. Even in an English film, I cringe whenever I hear a bit of obvious dialogue looping. The only problem I have with subtitles is when they use white letters against a white background (d’oh!!!)
And besides, with subtitles, you get the chance to learn new swear words.