Subtitles
September 5th 2004
I just watched “Am?lie” with some friends in the basement, and though my French is good enough that I would have liked to try it without subtitles, most of the others could not, so we turned them on. The funny thing about subtitles is that you end up reading them no matter what — even if the movie is in English, if there are English subtitles, I bet you’ll end up scanning the lines. I’ve actually had this happen before — on Amtrack they show the movie with subtitles, and though I was sitting underneath the speaker and could hear every word, I also read every word, and I don’t know why exactly. It’s like the brain has two language inputs — visual and auditory — but it can only use one at a time, and the written word beats out the spoken word. It’s no wonder — think of how many words we read every day versus what we hear. This would make for a very interesting psychological study if it hasn’t already been done: have people watch movies with subtitles and audio in the same language, with the subtitles differing very slightly from the spoken words, and see which the brain interprets.
In any case, the movie loses little from being read; Am?lie has a masterful soundtrack by Yann Tiersen which sets the mood perfectly, and just listening to the French is like music, even if it never gets decoded entirely. I think that every nuance of voice and inflection of speech of each character and each emotion still gets through even to those who don’t understand what any of the words mean. Language is such a mysterious thing like that.
Next time, though, I think I’ll watch it without subtitles — just to see what I’m missing.
I was living in Germany when I saw the film, so I watched it dubbed in German (Germany has a big enough market that they dub most of their films). Unfortunately my German wasn’t so hot, but I still enjoyed the movie quite a bit. I liken it to being a child and ‘reading’ a picture book before you can actually read; You end up making up a story that is almost as enjoyable as the one that was actually put forth in the pages of the book.
Heh, thanks for the comment. That reminds me of that guy who did reviews of in-flight movies without sound on his web site.
There’s something in what you say. I love subtitled films (we just saw Hero) and, as it happens, I live in a French-speaking province, here in Canada, but speak very very bad French, however, I read French without too much problem. The brain process information differently, via ear and eye, that much is obvious.
For some reason my wife and I tend to watch our DVDs with the subtitles on (to make sure we can understand what’s being said). I’ve notices several times were the soundtrack doesn’t match the subtitles. There’s a very short sense of confusion, then I just move on.