Masaryk University in Brno

Home , Burnt by the Sun, Closely Watched Trains, Kolya, Mediterraneo, Nikita Mikhalkov, The Lives of Others

Masaryk University Faculty of Arts

Department of English and American Studies

English Language and Literature Teaching English Language and Literature for Secondary Schools

Bc. Eva Barnová

Culture in Film Subtitling from Czech into English: Kolya and The Elementary School

Master’s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: Mgr. Renata Kamenická, Ph.D.

2010

I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

…………………………………………….. Author’s signature

Acknowledgement I would like to express many thanks to my supervisor Mgr. Renata Kamenická, Ph.D. for her valuable advice and kind support.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. The author – Zdeněk Svěrák 2

2.1.1. Zdeněk Svěrák – biography 2

2.1.2. Zdeněk Svěrák and his style of writing 5

2.1.3. Zdeněk Svěrák and his sense of humour 6

3. Zdeněk Svěrák’s films and the voice of American public 7

4. Subtitling in the light of theory 11

4.1. Definition and general characteristics of subtitling 11

4.2. Advantages and disadvantages of subtitling 13

4.3. Constraints relating to subtitling 15

5. Kolya and The Elementary School 18

6. Translation of Culture 20

6.1. Definition of culture 20

6.2. Culture specifics 23

6.2.1. Definition of culture specifics 23

6.2.2. Classification of culture specifics 24

6.2.3. Methods of translation of culture specifics 28

7. Analysis 31

7.1. Social culture 31

7.2. Historical and political concepts 43

7.3. Material culture 51

7.4. Language 56

7.5. Icons 64

7.6. Arts 65

7.7. Beliefs and values 67

7.8. Infrastructure 69

7.9. Geographical landmarks 70

7.10. Environment 71

8. Questionnaires 72

9. Conclusion 76

10. Czech Résumé 78

11. English Résumé 80

12. Works Cited 82

13. Appendix

A PERSONAL NOTE:

My primary reason for choosing these films is more personal and emotional. Zdeněk Svěrák used to be a Czech teacher. His humour is very intelligent and the stories are really resourceful. I have loved his films since I was a child because my mother was a Czech teacher too and she loves such intelligent humour. The Elementary School was one of the first films I saw in the cinema and I fell for it immediately. Later, when my mum became ill, I always watched these films to remember my childhood and the lovely carefree moments we spent together.

1. INTRODUCTION

The objective of my thesis is to show specific features of translation of culture by analysing subtitles to films Kolya and The Elementary School by father and son Zdeněk and Jan Svěrák‟s. Despite its attractiveness, audiovisual translation has been a very neglected branch of translation studies until recently and for that reason I am going to provide readers with some information about theory of subtitling as well.

It is not a coincidence that I have chosen these particular films. If I am supposed to analyse translation of Czech culture in subtitling, it seems to me that there are no better films than those written by Zdeněk Svěrák. Zdeněk Svěrák is a very popular

Czech screenwriter, actor, musician, humorist and playwright. However, many people maybe do not know that he was also a teacher of the Czech language. The Czech language plays an important part in Svěrák‟s films, which makes it more difficult for translators to succeed in translating all the puns and metaphors into English that is in comparison with Czech generally considered to be less colourful and complex.

Moreover Svěrák‟s films lay an immense emphasis on historical events, especially those of the Communist era in former Czechoslovakia, and they do it in a sarcastic, satirical, humorous way.

My thesis is virtually divided into two major parts – theoretical and practical.

The former focuses on the author and it depicts Zdeněk Svěrák‟s life, his style of writing and his humour (which is necessary to familiarize with to analyse his films properly). It also deals with the theory of subtitling that will help readers understand why it is so difficult to transfer the oral Czech into written English especially when the films are so culturally-oriented and the subtitler‟s work subjected to so many restrictions. Last but not least this part of the thesis concetrates on translation of culture and categorization of culture specifics. The latter part focuses on the analysis of films as

such and it also deals with questionnaires which were filled in by several non-Czechs and they contribute to the final shape of this thesis.

As it is unfortunately a common case in the branch of Translation Studies, information relating to the translators is minimal. The same applies to translators of

Kolya and The Elementary School. For that reason I could not devote an individual chapter to them. The only information I have obtained on the Internet Movie Database is that the subtitles to Kolya were made by Jesswyn Jones. There are also three other translators there (Barbora Hlaváčová, Kristian Bily and J.B. Sayer), however, their particular involvement in the translation of the film is not clarified anywhere. As far as

The Elementary School is concerned, the situation is even worse. The only thing I managed to find out is that the subtitles were made by a company called Hoge, however, any particular name of a translator or a subtitler was not unfortunately stated in the credits. For the purpose of the analysis I used the subtitles included on the particular DVDs.

2 THE AUTHOR – ZDENĚK SVĚRÁK

2.1.1. ZDENĚK SVĚRÁK - BIOGRAPHY

“Love is a disease - but healthy.”1

Zdeněk Svěrák

Zdeněk Svěrák is a playwright, novelist, actor, lyricist and most importantly a film and television screenwriter. He contributes to various magazines, writes stories and fairy tales for children and he also acts in plays in a small theatre named after an unjustly ignored Czech fictional hero, Jára Cimrman. “The theatre of Jára Cimrman“ was founded by Zdeněk Svěrák and a few colleagues of his in 1966 and since then he still

1 Láska je nemoc, ale zdravá. (Flamendr.cz)

has been not only a leading author but one of the main characters actively associated with the theatre as well. (Tatínek) The theatre is dedicated to the research of life and death of Jára Cimrman1 and its plays and Zdeněk Svěrák‟s humour in general is very popular among Czech people.

Zdeněk Svěrák was born in Prague on 28th March 1936. As a child he loved the

Czech language and above all he adored writing essays. “I was really happy when I stood in front of the whole class and read my stories out loud. When I managed to make the class laugh, I was in raptures,”2 he remembers. (Fenomén) His first poem was called

“45 minutes in goose-pimples”3 and it depicted the horror of a Maths class. (Na co jezdí)

When he was seven, his parents moved to a small house next to the cemetery in

Kopidlno village. His father wanted him to become an electrician and so continue the family tradition but Zdeněk Svěrák was attracted to the teaching career. (Fenomén) In

1958 he graduated from Charles University of Prague where he studied the Czech language and literature at the Pedagogical Faculty and where he also met his future wife with whom he has made an inseparable couple for almost 50 years. Their motto was

“Anywhere but together”4 and so they both started their teaching experience at an elementary school in Měcholupy near Ţatec. (Fenomén) Zdeněk Svěrák was a beloved teacher whose credo was “School as a play”. He always endeavoured to make his students laugh and he rewarded those who worked hard with chocolate. He spent a lot of time with them even outside school and he addressed students “friends”, which became his nickname later - he was a friend in front of the blackboard. (Na co jezdí)

1 Jára Cimrman is a fictive Czech genius invented by Zdeněk Svěrák and Ladislav Smoljak. 2 Dělalo mi hrozně dobře, kdyţ jsem mohl veřejně číst svůj sloh. Kdyţ se mi podařilo rozesmát celou třídu, byl jsem na vrcholu blaha. (Fenomén) 3 45 minut v husí kůţi (Na co jezdí) 4 Kamkoliv, ale spolu (Fenomén)

However, after three years of teaching he got feeling that his work swallowed him up and that he did not have time for his writing and for that reason he left the school and started working as an editor in an editorial office of The Czechoslovak

Radio station. (Roberts) With his colleagues they started broadcasting a new program called The Non-Alcoholic Wine Cellar by the Spider.

It was aired once a month on the Praha station and consisted of a mock “live broadcast” from a fictional Prague watering hole (...) Serious commentary held the listeners of the “Spider” in the illusion that they were following the happenings in a real music club which was in many respects unusual but not so much as to defy probability. (Roberts)

Zdeněk Svěrák‟s film acting debut came in 1968 when he appeared as the lawyer in Crime in the Music Hall directed by Jiří Menzel. His distinctive comic talent found place in supporting roles in plenty of Czech comedies, in which he was usually involved as a screenwriter as well. Zdeněk Svěrák made himself visible primarily owing to the scripts for Czech films Joachim, Put it in the Machine, Mareček, Pass Me the Pen, A

Cottage by the Woods or Fire-ball that he co-wrote with his long-lasting friend and colleague Ladislav Smoljak (a film and theater director, actor and screenwriter). During the seventies and eighties, he also wrote scripts for popular fairy-tales (Long Live the

Ghosts and Three Veterans) and his two Academy Award nominated comedies My

Sweet Little Village and Elementary School. (Bezecná) The crowning achievement of his screenwriting career is his script for the film Kolya which won the Academy Award and the Golden Globe Award for the Best Foreign Language Film in 1996. (Kolya) “He has written the screenplays for three Oscar nominees and one Oscar winner – something of a screenwriter‟s record.“ (Tatínek)

2.1.2. ZDENĚK SVĚRÁK AND HIS STYLE OF WRITING

It is a well-known fact that Zdeněk Svěrák is an author whose writing draws upon his life experience. As he himself puts it, writing from experience is the best way to write well. The only problem is that life is not so rich to have new experience always ready.

“We (Zdeněk Svěrák and Ladislav Smoljak) have gradually written ourselves out of school experience, cottage experience, theatrical experience, moving out experience and now it has been still more difficult to find a new area for applying life experience without the necessity to get the inspiration of work of art of others.”1 (Adámek) The

Elementary School, for instance, is a good example of Svěrák‟s drawing upon life experience as this film delineates his childhood. As his son Jan confirms: “Dad can best talk about what he experienced. The Elementary School is about his childhood, Kolya is about his adulthood and The Empties are about his old age.”2 (Bezecná)

Since Zdeněk Svěrák‟s scripts reflect a reality of his life (from the forties to this day), they are interweaved with many historical and cultural events of that time. They reflect the post-war era, the era of Communism in the former Czechoslovakia and last but not least present capitalism. For that reason his films are attractive to watch for anybody interested in Czech culture, Czech people and “Czechness” in general. Even more astonishing is how the Svěrák‟s films succeeded in American culture that is so different from the Czech one in many ways. His film Kolya won the Academy Award and the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film and the films Elementary

School and My Sweet Little Village were nominated for it.

1 My jsme se postupně vypsali ze svých záţitků školních, chalupářských, divadelních, stěhovacích, a teď uţ je stále těţší najít oblast, kde byste tu zkušenost měl, mohl ji uplatnit a nemusel se inspirovat jinými uměleckými díly. (Adámek) 2 Táta umí nejlépe psát o tom, co opravdu zaţil, a tyhle tři scénáře mapují jeho ţivotní zkušenost. Obecná škola dětství, Kolja dospělost a Vratné lahve pak jeho stáří (Bezecná)

In addition to the cultural aspects, Zdeněk Svěrák‟s films are filled with humorous elements frequently based on playing with the language, puns or mixing plenty of languages together, which I ascribe to his passion for the Czech language.

These films are Czech to such an extent that I could not believe that non-Czechs would really thoroughly understand them.

2.1.3. ZDENĚK SVĚRÁK AND HIS SENSE OF HUMOUR

Humour is the best quality of the Czech nation and by this it solves its complexes, misfortune and powerlessness. Humour has saved us many times and for that reason we should respect it. 1 (Génius)

“Zdeněk Svěrák is considered to be one of the contemporary Czech geniuses. He is a national treasure, a symbol of the Czech nation and Czechness”2. A brand new published book “Zdeněk Svěrák, the Genius” by Dana Čermáková starts with these words of praise. Zdeněk Svěrák is described as an intelligent and smart man with personal charm who has a faculty for showing incredible richness of the Czech language. As for the playing on words, double entendres and similes that give a true picture of the national nature and mentality, he is incomparable. His humour is playful, gentle, cheerful and intelligent at the same time. (Génius, book cover)

As Zdeněk Svěrák says: “I suppose that the tradition of intelligent humour – the humour which expects an intelligent audience, was founded by Voskovec and Werich.

(...) It is a style of humour counting on secondary-school knowledge and the viewers experience happiness as soon as they find it out. (...) It is a double enjoyment which I

1 Humor je kvalita, kterou tenhle národ má, a tím řeší své komplexy, svá neštěstí, svou bezmocnost. Mnohokrát ho zachránil a proto bychom si jej měli váţit. (Génius, obal knihy) 2 Zdeněk Svěrák je jedním ze současných českých géniů. Představuje celonárodní poklad, symbol českého národa a češství. (Génius, obal knihy)

call “aha” (I see) and “haha”.1 (Génius, 56) Firstly the viewers reveal the hint and then they laugh.

However, this “Svěrákian humour” as it is often called used to go even much deeper under the surface. During the Communist era in former Czechoslovakia little theaters acted as a substitute for non-existent free political tribunes. The audience was prepared to read between the lines. The real meaning was concealed and the viewers found it in all the puns and plays on words. This Svěrákian style of humour is present in all Svěrák‟s films and I wonder how it is possible that many of them were accepted by the American audience. Do they really understand the films as we do or are there any serious cultural and translation barriers that impede insight? I will attempt to answer all these and other questions not only by means of the analysis of the subtitles that will make an important part of my thesis but also through the American reviews that were written right after the award-giving in 1997.

3 ZDENĚK SVĚRÁK’S FILMS AND THE VOICE OF AMERICAN PUBLIC

The Czech people have long used humour and wry laughter as a form of national as well as personal survival. Deep in Central Europe, they have often been invaded by the larger countries that surround them, from the Germans to Russians. (Horton)

After two nominations for the Academy Award, the father and son Svěrák‟s finally won the heart of American people. In 1997 Jan Svěrák‟s Kolya, based on a script by Zdeněk

Svěrák, won the Oscar for the Best Foreign Film. From that moment on the film naturally came into focus and many reviews emerged.

As Andrew Horton, an author of the article The Czech Republic Wry Humour and Pathos, from Closely Watched Trains to Kolya suggests, “the film works fine

1 Domnívám se, ţe tradici chytrého humoru – humoru, který počítá s chytrým divákem, tady zaloţili Voskovec a Werich. Je to humor počítající se středoškolskými vědomostmi a divák proţívá štěstí, ţe si na to sám přijde. Je tam tedy dvojí radost, já jí říkám „aha“ a „haha“. (Génius, 56)

without the audience knowing Czech history. But for those who do have even a little background, the film is even more impressive.” I would like to thoroughly agree with this statement, however, after reading a few reviews of Kolya after its winning the

Academy Award, I have to admit that I am not so positive about the American audience understanding Czech history and culture in Svěrák‟s films. In my opinion, it has to be very difficult for completely different cultures to understand fully what happened in former Czechoslovakia either during the Communist era (in case of Kolya) or after

World War II (in case of The Elementary School). My judgement is based on several reviews relating to Kolya from which I am going to quote. For instance, Dennis

Schwartz, an editor of the Vermont based film magazine “Ozus‟s World Movie

Reviews“ argues that Kolya is:

(...) a dreadfully predictable and way too sugary story about the impossible relationship between an old man and a toddler, milking all the sentimentality it could out of its Hollywod-like sitcom situation. Its trite aim is to show how the selfish older man becomes a better person when he learns to love and care for the kid under his charge. (...) New Wave Czech director Jan Svěrák has made a film with absolutely no edge that disappoints as a lumbering mainstream pic that is all too familiar to Americans. Even though it‟s well-acted and crafted, Kolya is unfortunately also a pointless film of hardly any depth. (Schwartz)

Not only were the author‟s opinion of the film and the tone of this review surprising but also the fact that a six-year old boy was called “toddler”. His misunderstanding of the plot is only supported by his other claims that Louka

“reluctantly agrees to an arranged marriage with a Russian woman, Nadezda (...), the niece of his gravedigger friend Broţ.” (Schwartz) The question is if the misunderstanding stems from his ignorance of the context or if it is subtitling that is confusing. It seems as if the reviewer did not see the film at all, which also reminds me of other reviews that do not bother with mistakes relating to the names of the characters,

for instance the main protagonist František Louka (Zdeněk Svěrák) “is paid to marry a young Russian woman (Libuše Šafránková)”! (Scheid) Some reviewers do not even know the correct name of the protagonist Kolya (little Andrej Chalimon): “The on- screen chemistry between Sverak and Chamilon is what makes Kolya.” (Meek) It is not a mere typing error because the boy‟s name is incorrectly used throughout the whole review. The reviewer Nick Hilditch sums up the style of humour in the film by saying that “clumsy attempts to speak the detested language of the occupiers is a source of much of the film‟s humour, though the difference between the two Slavic languages is somewhat lost in the English translation.“ (Hilditch)

That is the issue. How many witticisms typical of Svěrák‟s or crucial historical and cultural information necessary for the full understanding of the film were lost in the translation? After all, the French producers originally insisted that the film Kolya should have been filmed in English. “Try to explain to Frenchmen how funny it is that Czech and Russian have many similar words with a completely different meaning and that it would disappear in English,”1 remembers Jan Svěrák in the book 3x Oskar pro Český film (Grosman, 155). He also admitted that he did not believe that Kolya would have become popular beyond the borders of the Czech Republic, “because its poetics, humour and particularly the Slavic wordplays are hardly transferable into a different language”2. As he put it: “I realized that when we were making subtitles in the English version. Although Russian subtitles are distinguised from the Czech graphically, some parts of the film were simply untranslatable.”3 (Génius, 92)

He also portrayed his and his father‟s visit to an American cinema where Kolya was shown. “New York viewers laughed at the moments we did not expect that. They

1 Vysvětlujte Francouzům, jak je vtipné, ţe má čeština s ruštinou mnoho podobných slov s úplně jiným významem, a ţe to všechno by v angličtině zmizelo. (Grosman) 2 …neboť jeho poetika, humor a zejména slovanské jazykové hříčky jsou stěţí přenosné. (Génius, 92) 3 Uvědomil jsem si to, kdyţ jsme vyráběli titulky v anglické verzi. Třebaţe ruština a čeština jsou tu graficky odlišné, některé okamţiky se zkrátka přeloţit nedají. (Génius, 92)

understand the film their way.”1 Zdeněk Svěrák adds that the Americans perceive the film as a “pleasant textbook of history and cartography” as well. “They learn something about Prague and about what it looked like in the pre-revolutionary Czechoslovakia.”2

(Génius, 96) “We expected that not all the jokes would pass, because it was not possible to translate them. For instance my Czech-Russian arguments with little Kolya as well as the would-be Russian announcement in the underground,” 3 remembers Zdeněk Svěrák.

(Génius, 97) What surprise it was when the audience burst out laughing just in the scenes where the Czech language was broken. They behaved just like the Czech audience.

To the contrary, there are also reviews pointing out the fact that historical and cultural context is necessary for understanding the Czech mentality and Svěrák‟s films and thus supporting my thesis.

Infantilism is one of the worst ailments suffered by modern Hollywood. So many potentially great films were ruined by adorable little child being unnecessarily brought among major character or simply trying to pander to the youngest possible audience. On certain occasions this practice can be beneficial and in 1990s this was discovered by some non-American filmmakers, especially those interested in getting much-coveted Foreign Language “Oscars”. One of the film to succeed in this was Kolja, 1996 Czech comedy directed by Jan Svěrák. (...) During Communist era Czech filmmakers circumvented censorship by concentrating on “little” people and using very Czech brand of humour. Zdeněk Svěrák, main actor and film‟s scriptwriter, was quite aware of those techniques and applied them very well to describe the twilight of Communism in his country. Most of the gags in this film aren‟t directed at the dying regime, but on its victims – people of whom many took the path of least resistance and whose verbal patriotism was often excuse for confrontism and apathy. Another dimension in the film is cultural clash between Russians and Czechs, which creates not only opportunity for extra humour, but also illustrates the way Czech people in those years percieved their oppressors. Political background also serves to underline the uplifting character of the film – as František and Kolja

1 Newyorští diváci se v kině smáli ve chvílích, kdy jsme to nečekali. Rozumějí Koljovi po svém. (Génius, 96) 2…jako příjemnou učebnici historie a zeměpisu. Dozvědí se něco o Praze a jak to vypadalo v ČR před revolucí. (Génius, 96) 3 Počítali jsme s tím, ţe všechny vtipy neprojdou, protoţe je nelze ani do titulků přeloţit. Například moje česko-ruské spory s malým Koljou stejně jako mé hlášení špatnou ruštinou v metru. (Génius, 97)

gradually overcome their cultural differences and reaching seemingly impossible understanding and affection, another sort of miracle is slowly appearing in the form of events that could lead to Velvet Revolution. Many of the small but interesting details in the film would be, unfortunately, missed by viewers who haven‟t had first-hand experience of Communism or who aren‟t familiar with that particular period of European history.” (Antulov)

I included this review not only because it supports my view but also because it attracted my attention for some reason. After a careful examination of it I realized that this review must have been writen by someone who really understands the culture and a

Slavic language. Then I found out that the author of this review, Dragan Antulov is a

Croatian, hence a Slav by origin. Maybe this is the reason for his understanding Kolya so well.

It is beyond the scope of this thesis to analyse all reviews relating to Kolya and

The Elementary School. However, for those interested in them, they are enclosed in the appendix at the end of this thesis.

4 SUBTITLING IN THE LIGHT OF THEORY

4.1 DEFINITION AND GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF

SUBTITLING

Subtitling – once considered a necessary evil – has been around since 1929, but only now is this intriguing, subtle form of translation beginning to materialize on the fringe of translation studies. (Gottlieb)

There is no argument that a film has a powerful impact on the contemporary society.

How many times have we seen that people acted based on what they had seen in films?

How many times have we seen that someone wanted to look like or behave as a famous actor/actress? Owing to films people can discover new places and new cultures. The film can be described as a “culture mirror” that reflects a valuable picture of

contemporary attitudes, philosophies, values and lifestyles. (Frame) However, there are many cultures and many nations throughout the world and they do not speak the same language, which is the keynote of the field of study known as Audiovisual translation

(AVT).

Audiovisual translation represents the process by which a film is made comprehensible to a target audience that is unfamiliar with the original‟s source language (SL) and it is divided into three forms: subtitling, dubbing and voice-over.

Among these, subtitling is gaining growing significance due to several factors. As Jorge

Díaz Cintas suggests in Translation Today: Trends and Perspectives, economics has played “an important role, since subtitling is some ten to twenty times less expensive than dubbing.” Lukasz Bogucki explains that dubbing is much more expensive as

“actors have to be hired to read each role, and they are not infrequently first-rate stars,” for instance in the film Shrek where in the leading roles starred Eddie Murphy,

Cameron Diaz and Antonio Banderas. Christine Sponholz states two other reasons in her diploma thesis. According to her, “among audiences there is a growing demand for authenticity that goes hand in hand with a better knowledge of foreign languages in the unified Europe” and furthermore “in many countries, subtitles are being used as a means to revive and teach minority languages, improve mother-tongue literacy, teach a country‟s official language to immigrant groups and promote foreign language competence.”

One of many definitions of subtitling is that subtitling is “supplying a translation of the spoken source language dialogue into the target language in the form of synchronised captions, usually at the bottom of the screen.” However, Szarkowska continues with that subtitling “is the form that alters the source text to the least possible extent and enables the target audience to experience the foreign and be aware of its

“foreignness” at all times.” (Szarkowska) Such a definition brings us to the point of advantages and disadvantages of subtitling.

4.2 ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF SUBTITLING

In view of the fact that there is a long-lasting heated debate between those who support subtitling and those who support dubbing, it seems quite proper to concern with the advantages and disadvantages of both forms of audiovisual translation. As I have already mentioned before, there is a cost factor which wholly speaks in favour of less expensive subtitling. Other advantages are not so obvious at first sight, however, I personally like the fact that subtitling preserves the authenticity of the film. It neither erases the real voices of actors and actresses nor the sounds and intonation so the viewer can hear the original sound of the film. As Szarkowska puts it:

“Amongst the major methods of translating films, subtitling involves the least interference with the original; in other words, it is the most neutral, minimally mediated method. Therefore, it is subtitling that contributes to experiencing flavour of the foreign language, its mood and the sense of a different culture more than any other translation mode.” (Szarkowska)

Furthemore, owing to subtitling even minority languages (e.g. Catalan, Welsh etc.) are recognized and subtitling also plays an important role in learning process for immigrants. (Sponholz) It is a well-known fact that “in subtitling countries such as

Denmark or Sweden, the population has a far better command of English than in other countries and it has been shown that the reading capacities of children in Netherlands are higher than those of children from dubbing countries.” (Sponholz) Moreover, it was also claimed that subtitling promotes higher tolerance towards other cultures and last but not least subtitling makes it possible for deaf or hearing-impaired people to follow a film.

Subtitling is mainly criticised for diverting the viewer‟s attention from the picture. By way of illustration, the following mental and physical processes are involved in watching a subtitled film – reading and decoding the subtitles, watching the image flow, deciphering the visual information, connecting the image flow to the underlying story, listening to (or just hearing) the sound (dialogue, effects, music), guessing what is about to happen and remembering what has already happened to make fresh deductions during following sequences. (Hajmohammadi) Hajmohammadi suggests that the processes of reading and decoding of subtitles are at the expense of perception of the film because the viewer has to divide the attention between the subtitles and image. This can cause serious problems with less literate viewership that is not accustomed to watching films with subtitles. Such viewers either miss main parts of the film or they read the subtitles only partially and miss some crucial information.

Another disadvantage that invites criticism concerns the artistic production of the film. It is often pointed out that subtitles obscure parts of the picture and thus distort the composition of the film. (Sponholz)

One of the major problems relating to subtitling is the need for a “unified code of subtitling practices, which would establish a clearly outlined standard for high- quality subtitles.” (Sponholz) There are several guidelines for subtitling standards in

Europe, for instance “Code of Good Subtitling” by Ivarsson and Carroll, or “A proposed

Set of Subtitling Standards in Europe” by Fotios Karamitroglou. The following chapter summarizes these guidelines and it particularly focuses on layout and duration of the subtitles.

4.3 CONSTRAINTS RELATING TO SUBTITLING

There is no doubt that people sometimes criticise subtitles when watching a movie in a cinema or at home on television. Nevertheless, what they do not often realize is that the work of a subtitler is limited by a great deal of constraints and it makes the subtitler modify the translation quite considerably. I personally believe that such constraints can greatly influence films where cultural context is necessary to understand the plot. Such a statement itself would be worth of more elaborated research, which is not the purpose of this thesis. However, let us look at the constraints briefly.

Firstly, I would name synchronisation constraints – or textual (qualitative) constraints as they are called by Henrik Gottlieb in “Teaching Translation”. While translating, the match of dialogue and picture must be retained. (Schwarz) This means that the appropriate subtitle must appear synchronous with what the viewers can see.

For instance, it is important not to pre-empt the plot line. “The dialogue may have been constructed so as to build up tension and the key part has been pushed to the very end of the utterance. Subtitles must respect this suspense and the written text must not appear before the spoken word.” (Bogucki) This is important if the subtitler is working on a translation of a visual gag or a comedy element and they would not like to spoil the punchline by revealing it before the joke has happened. (Lever)

The very fact that subtitling requires a transfer from an oral to a written mode will cause problems. As Sponholz states:

In spoken discourse, the characters share a situation via their dialogue, which produces an implicit language where things are not being verbalised. Usually the subtitles need to explicate or extend the message in order to fill the gap this implicit language produces and to transfer the full meaning of the dialogue. (...) Other difficulties arise from the translation of dialectal or sociolectal features, “dirty language” (which is more offensive when being read), culture-bound references, humour and forms of address (in English universal “you”, whereas in Spanish “tú” and “Usted”). Although a

translator encounters the same difficulties, other than translator, the subtitler cannot take refuge in footnotes, introductory notes or similar explanatory aids. He must transfer these elements directly in his subtitling.

Written texts typically have a more formal language style and a higher lexical density coupled with a simpler sentence structure, while spoken language is characterized by elements of redundancy, repetitions, tag questions, filler words, a complex sentence structure and an informal style. (Sponholz) It will be necessary to make some modifications in order to facilitate the comprehension.

There is a widespread opinion that it takes longer to process information through the eyes than through the ears. For that reason it is necessary for the subtitlers to provide only such an amount of information that the eyes are able to process. It is essential to simplify the source information but still preserve its meaning.

Another major constraint, termed by Gottlieb a “formal or quantitative constraint” deals with layout and duration of subtitles. Generally speaking, subtitling is such a type of translation that should not attract attention to itself of the target audience.

That is why subtitling is limited to two lines which should be presented at a time and occupy no more than two twelfths of the screen. (Karamitroglou) The subtitles should be positioned horizontally at the bottom of the lower part of the screen, so that they cover an area of the screen which is usually of lesser importance to the action.

(Karamitroglou) “The maximum number of characters per subtitle line ranges between

35 and 40, depending on the standard (cinema or television) and the target audience

(subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing usually contain more characters).” (Sponholz)

It is quite apparent that such a limited space for the subtitles also requires reduction of dialogues and it also must be pointed out that film screens are less limited than the television screens. (Schwarz)

In addition, the reading speed of the viewer also has to be taken into consideration. There are two factors playing a big part in the process of deciding on the appropriate reading speed. These are literacy and age. As Fotios Karamitroglou points out in the article A Proposed Set of subtitling Standards in Europe:

The reading speed of the “average” viewers (aged between 14-65, from an upper-middle socio-educational class) for a text of average complexity (a combination of formal and informal language) has been proven to range between 150-180 words per minute, i.e. between 2 1/2-3 words per second. This means that a full two line subtitle containing 14-16 words should remain on the screen for a maximum time time of something less than 5 ½ seconds. (Karamitroglou)

It has been found out that the average reading speed of children (aged 6-14) reaches approximately 90-120 words per second. This is a great difference between an adult‟s and a child‟s reading speed and it means that subtitling of children‟s programmes or films should be altered accordingly, e.g. by simplifying the vocabulary. (Karamitroglou)

The attention also must be paid to a level of literacy. If subtitling was used in a country with a low level of literacy, it would be essential to make sure that the subtitles were going to be easy to read, which means that they contain a basic set of vocabulary.

It has been the intention of this chapter to briefly outline major constraints that influence subtitler‟s decisions when creating subtitles. Not only does the subtitler transfer the dialogue from a source language to a target language, but they also have to achieve readability by way of reduction and simplification of the original speech. It has been already mentioned that it is necessary to make the conversation as natural and easy-to-read as possible, which almost puts the translator to the position of having to summarise the conversation by a substantial amount. While doing so, the subtitler takes into account what is occuring on the screen (facial expressions, action, etc.) and they can take advantage of the visual element linked to the subtitles in order to delete some parts of the dialogue that are superfluous. On average, any information that may be

grasped on the basis of the actor‟s performance should not be included in subtitling. The subtitler‟s decisions are also influenced by other factors including layout and duration factors. Thus it is apparent that the subtitler‟s work is not a mere transfer of a source text to a target text but a combination of translation, interpretation and editing skills.

The reason I have pursued the theory of subtitling in this diploma thesis is that in my opinion the theory is closely related to the analysis which I am going to present in the following chapters. Not everybody realizes that subtitling comprises such an amount of activities and mostly they do not know how limited the work of a subtitler is. I have already touched upon the problem of subtitling culturally oriented films (as are the films forming the corpus of this thesis) and I am going to deal with this topic later in my thesis. However, I personally think that it is very important to put the readers in the picture so that they can understand why it is sometimes not possible to incorporate all information into the two-lined subtitles, which may result in severe cultural loss.

5 KOLYA AND THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Before I will get to the analysis which will take up the remaining and pivotal part of my diploma thesis, I think it is relevant to introduce the particular films – Kolya and The

Elementary School, both written by Zdeněk Svěrák and directed by his son Jan Svěrák. I am aware that the selected films form just a small part of Svěrák‟s works, however, it would be beyond the scope of this thesis to cover all his films.

The principal objective of the analysis lays in an attempt to find out how the

Czech culture and history represented in those films could have been understood in such a different American culture. Only these two Svěrák‟s films made a significant impression on American audiences and for that reason I have decided to analyse just them.

Another problematic issue can stem from the fact that the films are subtitled from Czech to English, which is a language generally considered to be less colourful and more concise than Czech. The fact itself could possibly influence the way of translating subtitling and cause significant reduction of dialogues especially in terms of historical or cultural notions requiring explicitation.

As I have already indicated, both films are based on historical and cultural events of the period they are set in. Kolya is set in the Soviet-occupied Czechoslovakia on the eve of the Velvet Revolution in 1989. The knowledge of history and culture of former Czechoslovakia plays an important part necessary to wholly understand that this film is not merely about a relationship between a lonely six-year-old Russian boy Kolya and a middle-aged Czech cellist and bachelor František Louka forced to be his guardian after Kolya‟s mother, whom Louka had married of convenience to pay off all his debts, emigrates to West Germany to join her lover. The background is crucial for understanding what barriers of age, politics, language and culture they had to overcome to form a strong emotional bond.

The Elementary School, the second film I am going to introduce, is again the work of the tandem father and son Zdeněk and Jan Svěrák‟s. It reflects the Central European

Sean Connery‟s, as Zděnek Svěrák is often called overseas, childhood. The storyline is set in post-World War II Czechoslovakia and it is a memory of schooldays of that time.

The hero is a 10-year-old schoolboy Eda whose class is notorious for wild and undisciplined behaviour. After they bring their teacher to a lunatic asylum, a new militant teacher Igor Hnízdo appears there to take charge of this boys‟ class. He wears a uniform, carries a gun and secures order with a cane but his weakness is his interest in young women. The boys fall entirely under the spell of this handsome lady-killer and are ever ready to forgive his weaknesses, casting him as the perfect father they never

had. “The plot is simple, providing a clean canvas on which humour, surprises, and secrets of wartime Europe are touchingly represented.“ (OEFF)

The responses to this film from overseas are mostly favourable. Perhaps it is due to the fact that this film finally did not win the Oscar (even though it received Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film at the 1992 Academy Awards) and therefore it was spared excessive media attention. Those who watched it, realized the cultural and historical context and described it as a “nostalgic and sentimental picture of what in reality was the most brutal phase of Communism, the early 1950s” (Horton) or a “gentle drama which manages to get in some political points, including well-placed jibes about the development of a “model socialist state” in Czechoslovakia after the war”.

(Elementary School) “This movie really gives you a sense of what it must have been like to grow up as a child playing on abandoned tanks and listening to all the adults discuss politics.” (Elementary School)

Both films are optimal materials worth analyzing. In the following chapters I am going to briefly focus on the theory of translation of culture and I will provide the readers with the concept of culture specifics (which is one of the many options how to call them). I will base my analysis on several categories, which – I dare to say – will be rather subjective, as it is not entirely possible to gather all of them under one heading.

For that reason, I have decided to use my own classification which, I believe, serves the purpose of my thesis best.

6 TRANSLATION OF CULTURE

6.1 DEFINITION OF CULTURE

Translation across cultural difference is not only the center of a translator’s power and agency, it is where the translator demonstrates the greatest skill. (Tymoczko 2007: 232)

Beliefs and values, ideas and ideals, are perhaps the most difficult aspects of culture to represent and to translate. (Tymoczko 1999: 164)

As David Katan claims, “people instinctively know what “culture” means to them and to which culture they belong”, however, in spite of it, they cannot formulate the definition easily. (Katan, 16) One of the oldest and most quoted definitions of culture was formulated by Edward Burnett Tylor, an English anthropologist, in 1871 and it says

(Katan, 16):

Culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, customs and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society. (Katan,16)

In his Textbook of Translation, Peter Newmark defined culture as “the way of life and its manifestations that are peculiar to a community that uses a particular language as its means of expression.” (Newmark, 94) I personally like this definition and I also think highly of the Ernest Hemingway‟s Iceberg Theory, which has been used to describe culture for many years. This iceberg model of culture was popularized in the

1950s mainly through the work of Hall and the main idea of this theory is that “the most important part of culture is completely hidden; and what can be seen is, as the cliché has it, „just the tip of the iceberg‟.” (Katan, 29) According to the most recent development of the Iceberg Theory, the division is the following:

Laws, customs, rituals, gestures, ways of dressing, food and drink and methods of greeting, and saying goodbye...These are all part of culture, but they are just the tip of the cultural iceberg. The most powerful elements of culture are those that lie beneath the surface of everyday interaction. We call these value orientations. Value orientations are preferences for certain outcomes over others. (Katan, 29)

The Iceberg Theory could be effectively applied on the selected films, as well.

As I will discuss later, Svěrák‟s films are rich in culture specifics whose real meaning is

often hidden underneath the surface. I personally think that these films must be perceived from a deeper perspective to be fully understood by an audience of a different culture. Such concept is excellently explained by Maria Tymoczko, Professor of

Comparative Literature at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in the chapter A

Holistic Approach to Translating Culture of her book Enlarging Translation,

Empowering Translators. In her book, Tymoczko claims that:

Translation studies has generally approached representing culture in a linear fashion, with translators being taught to direct their attention to specific locations in the texts where cultural problems are embodied in surface elements of the text: unfamiliar words referring to elements of the material culture, behaviors and practices that are unknown to the target audience, culture-bound symbols, sociolinguistic conventions such as politeness conventions that vary acrross languages and cultures, alternate institutions and social structures, and so forth. (...) The problem with such approaches is that they don‟t acknowledge and address the mainsprings of cultural difference – the largest frameworks of culture or the habitus – in any systematic way, nor do they provide adequate means of coordinating, intergrating, and giving cohesion to cultural representations across whole texts. (Tymoczko, 233)

She gives a really apt example comparing culture with medicine where a physician cares not only for the physical body of the patient, but also for their mental and emotional health. The “holistic cultural translation is similar: material culture is not forgotten, but it is contextualized within larger frameworks and supplemented by attention to many aspects of culture that are less tangible on a physical level.”

(Tymoczko, 238)

Making use of Pierre Bourdieu‟s notion of the habitus, Tymoczko points to the importance of what she calls “signature concepts” within a culture and their translation.

As Tymoczko puts it:

A translator must make special provision for translating what I call the signature concepts of a culture. By “signature concepts” I mean cultural elements that are key to social organization, cultural practices, and dispositions constituting habitus of a culture. Such signature concepts are

central to a culture‟s universe of discourse and to the horizon of expectation shared by its members. (...) The signature concepts of a culture are related to whole sets of cultural assumptions; they reflect economic and social structures, as well as material features of the culture, in addition to being repositories of value, meaning, and significance related to the ways the culture is thought about and organized by its members. (Tymoczko, 238, 239)

For the rest of my thesis, I will focus on even more general concepts than the signature concepts and I will call them culture specifics. I am going to deal with them in more detail in the following chapter.

6.2 CULTURE SPECIFICS

6.2.1 DEFINITION OF CULTURE SPECIFICS

The first problem we face in the study of the cultural aspects of translation is how to devise a suitable tool for our analysis, a notion of “culture-specific item” (CSI) that will enable us to define the strictly cultural component as opposed to, say, the linguistic or pragmatic ones. The main difficulty with the definition lies, of course, in the fact that in a language everything is culturally produced, beginning with language itself. (Aixelá, 56)

Throughout all the theories of translation of culture, readers will encounter many different names for one and the same concept – culture specifics, cultural references, culture-specific items, culture-bound expressions, culture-related issues, culture-tied issues, culture-embedded issues, cultural words or as I have already mentioned above – signature concepts. I will use the term culture-specifics (CSc) not only to avoid ambiguity but also because I consider this term the most appropriate as it comprises all aspects of culture, both the visible and the hidden ones.

However, the actual definition of this term is very problematic. Not only do the theoreticians differ in the labelling of the concept as I have already mentioned before but they also differ in explaining it. To give an example, I will use Olk‟s definition

whose aptness I personally like and according to which he refers to culture-specifics as to “objects and concepts that are specific to the original sociocultural context” (Olk

2001, in Ramière 2006: online).

One of the inherent elements of culture-specifics is definitely humour. It is an essential part of everyday communication and an important aspect of countless films or other artisitc works, which means that it also represents a certain culture. In Translating

Humour for Subtitling Katia Spanakaki states:

Humor, in its many manifestations, appears to be one of the most defining aspects of humanity. Repeated attempts have been made to define the essence of humor from sociological and psychological, as well as from linguistic perspectives. Although humor has been approached from several angles, it has rarely been systematically studied as a specific translation problem. Humor has various levels of applicability that are partly universal, cultural and linguistic, or individual. It is the level of applicability, which often makes it a tangible problem for a translator. However, for the purpose of maintaining intelligibility, the problem needs to be resolved in one way or another. (…) Translators often face the task of having to translate seemingly untranslatable humor, while not reducing the meaning effect, which invariably tests their capability for finding creative solutions. (Spanakaki)

As I have indicated before, this field of culture will be in the focus of this diploma thesis as well. Wordplay, punning, allusions or verbal irony – all these notions are present in Zdeněk Svěrák‟s work and they represent the nature of the Czech nation.

6.2.2. CLASSIFICATION OF CULTURE SPECIFICS

If an allusive message is based on something that the receiver is ignorant of, the intended meaning will fail to reach the receiver. (Leppihalme, 17)

In this chapter, I would like to classify culture specifics, which is not a simple task.

There exist many classifications of culture specifics and it is almost impossible to list them all. Some theoreticians state a general classification, some of them go into more detail. For that reason a classification of culture specifics is inevitably fragmentary and

approximate, after all, it is scarcely feasible to present such a thorough classification that would cover all aspects of culture. For the purpose of this thesis, I have decided to present three classifications of culture specifics made by theoreticians starting from

Peter Newmark and David Katan to a practitioner Barbara Schwarz.

Peter Newmark‟s classification is based on earlier Nida‟s division and it consists of five categories (Newmark, 95 and 103):

1. ecology (flora, fauna, winds, plains, hills, etc.); 2. material culture – artefacts (food, clothes, houses and towns, transport, communication, etc.); 3. social culture (work and leisure); 4. organisations, customs, activities, procedures, concepts (political, and administrative, social, religious, artistic, etc.); 5. gestures and habits

I personally consider this classification too general and also a little bit confusing (e.g. the fourth category, which is, in my opinion, too dense and incomprehensible). I also find the third, fourth and fifth category hard to distinguish one from another as they interweave. Work and leisure can be also a part of organisations and activities (number

4) or gestures and habits (number 5). Nevertheless, I enumerate Peter Newmark‟s classification mainly because it is generally known and it should be mentioned in the theory of culture specifics as well.

David Katan‟s classification is fairly concise. It is divided into six categories:

(Katan, 45)

1. environment (physical environment, political environment, climate, space, the built environment, dress, olfaction and food, temporal setting) 2. behaviour 3. capacities, strategies, skills (language channel and style, rituals, strategies) 4. values 5. beliefs 6. identity

Although this classification seems to be well structured, I find its brevity unsatisfactory for the purpose of any in-depth analysis. The categories are too general and it seems it

would need additional categories. Moreover, the groups 2, 4 and 5 seem to be very similar in essence.

Barbara Schwarz‟s classification is more interesting and useful for me to the intent that she focuses on culture specifics in films. In her study Translation in a

Confined Space, Schwarz argues that “while reading of the text takes place within one medium, a film appeals to eyes and ears simultaneously. In other words, the implied messages are not only hidden in the language but can be found visually and orally.”

(Schwarz, 6) According to her, the implied cultural connotations that appear on the screen can include:

1. Architectural or geographical landmarks (e.g. Eiffel Tower, Uluru, etc.) 2. Icons from mass culture like pop music or television (e.g. Jimi Hendrix, Bart Simpson, etc.) 3. Historical or political events (e.g. assassination of John F. Kennedy, etc.) 4. Symbols of political or religious significance (e.g. swastika, cross, etc.)

Schwarz continues with that “depending on the two cultures involved, the translator must identify these visual clues within the film and understand their significance in the SL culture.” Schwarz emphasizes that the translator must comprehend and properly interpret all different aspects in the film such as non-verbal clues, accompanying facial expressions, hand gestures and body language and put into

David Katan‟s words, he must serve as “a cultural mediator”. (Schwarz, 6) Katan goes on to say that:

The translator must understand the geography, contemporary social and political history as well as have some familiarity with heroes and personalities from popular culture. In addition he must be conscious of his own cultural identity and be aware of the way it might influence his interpretation and rendition.” (Schwarz, 6)

Although I think that Schwarz‟s classification is very useful and it could be applied as a framework for my analysis, I still find it too general. For that reason I have decided to create my own classification based on all of the above mentioned

classifications and an additional one, proposed by Radka Kolebáčová in her diploma thesis Culture-bound Issues in Subtitling: A Comparative Study of Films for Adults vs.

Young Audiences.

No. Category Examples

1 Social culture e.g. names, social status, social roles, work, leisure, activities, sports, etc.

Historical and political 2 e.g. revolutions, political parties, wars, etc. concepts

3 Material culture e.g. food, beverages, clothes, vehicles, products, etc.

e.g. puns, wordplays, swear words, dialects, slang, allusions, rhyming, 4 Language metaphors, sayings, games, etc.

5 Icons e.g. celebrities, writers, musicians, presidents, composers etc.

6 Arts e.g. music, songs, theatre plays, films, novels, poems, etc.

e.g. symbols, concepts, customs, traditions, feasts, religions, religious 7 Beliefs and values groups, ideological groups, etc.

8 Infrastructure e.g. buildings, shops, organisations, institutions, etc.

e.g. towns, cities, names of the streets, states, rivers, mountains, islands, 9 Geographical landmarks seas, lakes, etc.

10 Environment e.g. flora, fauna, etc.

On the basis of this table I am going to analyse culture specifics in subtitling to

Zdeněk Svěrák‟s films Kolya and The Elementary School. Of course I am well aware of the fact that not even this classification is flawless. The culture specifics included in the individual categories can be a part of another category, as well. For instance, if there was a reference to e.g. a president in my analysis, his name could be mentioned either under the category Historical and political concepts, or under the category Icons.

Now, before approaching the actual analysis, let me introduce methods of translating culture specifics briefly.

6.2.3. METHODS OF TRANSLATION OF CULTURE SPECIFICS

The main objective of this chapter is to outline common methods that are used and applied to the translation of culture specifics. Before I proceed to the listing of the methods as such, I consider it desirable to point out discrepancies in the terminology of these methods. Whether it is due to the recent boom in the field of audiovisual translation or not, I can only speculate. However, many theoreticians have created their own translation strategies which often overlap and they are called differently. For instance, what is labelled “cultural equivalent” in Newmark‟s terminology, the readers will find under the term “cultural substitution” in Mona Baker‟s. For that reason I decided to introduce only Peter Newmark‟s classification which I find interesting, comprehensive and useful for the purpose of my thesis and if necessary, supplement it with other interesting methods.

Newmark‟s classification includes about eighteen translation procedures, however, I am going to focus on just eleven of them which I find applicable to my analysis:

1. transference 2. naturalisation 3. cultural equivalent 4. functional equivalent 5. descriptive equivalent 6. componential analysis 7. through-translation 8. translation label 9. recognized translation 10. compensation 11. paraphrase, gloss, notes, etc.

Transference (loan word, transcription) is “the translation process of transferring a SL word to a TL text. (...) It includes transliteration, which relates to the conversion of different alphabets (e.g. Russian) into English. The word then becomes a

loan word.” What follows is a summary of the items which are normally transferred:

(Newmark, 81)

names of all living (except the Pope and one or two royals) and most dead people geographical and topographical names including newly independent countries (e.g. Zaire, Malawi), unless they have recognised translations names of periodicals and newspapers titles of as yet untranslated literary works, plays, films names of private companies and institutions names of public or nationalised institutions, unless they have recognised translations street names, addresses

The term naturalisation is familiar to Czech people as “počešťování”.

(internetová jazyková příručka) “This procedure succeeds transference and adapts the

SL word first to the normal pronunciation, then to the normal morphology (word-forms) of the TL” (Newmark, 82)

Cultural equivalent is described by Peter Newmark as “an approximate translation”. Its function is to replace a SL cultural word by a TL cultural world which is rather different but the impact on the audience remains the same. Cultural equivalence is used “in general texts, publicity and propaganda, as well as for brief explanation to readers who are ignorant of the relevant SL culture.” (Newmark, 83)

Functional equivalent is a commonly favoured translation procedure as it seems to be quite an accurate way of translating (i.e. deculturalising) culture specifics. “It requires the use of a culture-free word (it frequently neutralizes or generalizes the SL word).” (Newmark, 83) “It means using a referent in the TL culture whose function is similar to that of the source language (SL) referent.” (Ordudari, online) According to

Malcolm Harvey, as far as this procedure is concerned, authors are divided into two groups. “Weston describes it as the ideal method of translation while Sarcevic asserts that it is misleading and should be avoided.”

Descriptive equivalent is a procedure explaining the meaning of the culture specifics in several words. According to Harvey it is also called “self-explanatory translation” (Harvey) and “it uses generic terms to convey the meaning. It is appropriate in a wide variety of contexts where formal equivalence is considered insufficiently clear.” (Ordudari)

Componential analysis means “comparing a SL word with a TL word which has a similar meaning but is not an obvious one-to-one equivalent, by demonstrating first their common and then their differing sense components.” (Newmark, 114)

Through-translation (calque, loan translation) is considered to be the easiest of all methods and it is “the literal translation of common collocations, names of organisations, the components of compounds (...) and perhaps phrases.” (Newmark, 84)

Translation Label is “a provisional translation which should be made in inverted commas” (Newmark, 90)

Accepted standard translation (official translation, recognized translation) occurs when the translator “normally uses the official or the generally accepted translation of any institutional term.” (Newmark, 89)

Compensation occurs “when loss of meaning, sound-effect, metaphor or pragmatic effect in one part of a sentence is compensated in another part, or in a contiguous sentence.” (Newmark, 90)

Notes, additions and glosses are generally used to supply additional information in a translation. They can appear in the form of footnotes but usually they are positioned at the bottom of a page or a chapter. If they are present right in the text, they are called classifiers. (Newmark, 92)

I have just presented a basic summary of methods used while translating culture specifics which I would like to deal with in my analysis. However, it is also important

to mention a “really troublesome area in the field of translation, which appears to be the occurence of allusions. (...) All kinds of allusions, especially cultural and historical allusions, bestow a specific density on the original language and need to be explicated in the translation to bring forth the richness of the SL text for the TL audience.”

(Ordudari) As I have provided the readers with the theory of subtitling earlier in this thesis, it is now obvious that due to the limitations imposed on the translators, it is a strenuous job to create subtitles to such culturally diverse films. What follows is the analysis of subtitles to Svěrák‟s films Kolya and The Elementary School where I am going to deal with all the previously mentioned issues.

7 ANALYSIS

7.1 SOCIAL CULTURE

The first category of my analysis is focused on social culture and it encompasses the significance of names, social status, social roles, work, leisure, activities, sports and the like. Before I approach analysing the individual culture specifics, I would like to emphasize that this analysis is not meant to deal merely with culture in subtitles. Based on the theories I have already mentioned in the chapter Definition of Culture I am going to deal with culture more extensively since it cannot be separated. To fully understand both films, it is necessary to comprehend Czech culture and history as a whole.

Names are a very important element of Zdeněk Svěrák‟s films. There is no

Czech who would not know Svěrák‟s characters such as Hliník, Hujer, Kroupa, Svátek, etc. (all examples are taken from another Svěrák‟s well-known film Mareček, Pass Me the Pen). Zdeněk Svěrák responded to a question how a character originates in his mind, saying that he cannot start writing until he thinks up the name of the protagonist. The names are mostly old and rustic such as Sláma, Louka, Lavička, Tkaloun. From the

moment when the name is brought forth, he feels like telling the story about this character. (Fenomén) He himself explains that:

While screenwriting, we care about names very much. The names cannot be plucked out of the air or comical at first sight. The name must be tasty and it must fit the character. These names must exist in the yellow pages. Then the poor people get the worst of it. Hujers hate us. And the pupil Svátek was my real schoolmate, for instance. That is the one who has to pace the classroom while speaking. (Génius, 75)1

As far as the names are concerned, Zdeněk Svěrák plays with them. His love for humour and the Czech language is reflected in the choice of names like in the following examples taken from Kolya. The first example depicts the situation when František

Louka (the protagonist) offers to an elderly woman to restore her husband‟s headstone.

The woman is surprised that it is quite expensive for her and Louka says the following:

Pity there are two T‟s in his name. You Škoda, ţe se pán psal s dvěma T. Hned could‟ve saved five crowns. by to bylo o pět korun levnější.

The English version just informs that it is a pity that there are two T‟s in the deceased man‟s name. However, what non-Czechs probably do not know is, that Otto is the

German version of the Czech Oto and that it is possible to see both forms in a calendar.

This knowledge makes this situation much funnier than just a plain stating that it is a pity that there are two T‟s in the name. The English version implies that he would say that about any two letters doubled in the name.

Another funny situation takes place at the police station where Louka is interrogated. He and a police officer talk about a picture that Kolya has drawn.

I have a five-year old but he can‟t draw as Já mám taky pětiletýho kluka, ale takhle well. – What‟s his name? – Radek, after my by to nenamaloval. – Jo? Jak se wife. – She has a man‟s name? – No, it‟s jmenuje? – Radek. Po manţelce. – Radka really. Manţelka je Radek? – Manţelka je

1 „Kdyţ píšeme, tak si dáváme na jménech dost záleţet. (…) Nesmí být vycucaná z prstu nebo komická na první pohled. Jméno nám musí „chutnat“ a té postavě slušet. Musí to být jména, která v telefonním seznamu najdete. A pak to ti chudáci odnesou. Třeba Hujeři nás nenávidí. A například s ţákem Svátkem jsem chodil do třídy. To je ten, co musí přecházet kdyţ mluví.“ (Génius, 75)

Radka.

The point of this dialogue consists in the fact that the Czech language has many variants of names that are similar and one represents a female name and one a male name, e.g. Pavel (male)/Pavla (female), Petr (male)/Petra (female), Jan (male)/Jana

(female) and in this case it is Radek (male) and Radka (female). In the Czech version, it is obvious that Louka is nervous of the interrogation in progress and he talks nonsense because the male and female variants of this name (Radek/Radka) are definitely nothing new to him and every Czech knows them very well. However, the English version gives the impression that it is something that Louka does not have to know about - that the female form of this name is something new and it is possible that he hears about it for the first time. The funny part is completely missing here.

As far as names are concerned, one of the most fundamental scenes occurs towards the end of the film when Louka and Kolya have already become friends and a social worker comes to Louka‟s tower to notify them that Louka‟s application was finally accepted and Kolya will be taken back to Russia and put into a children‟s home.

Louka decides to take little Kolya and escape. The lady‟s surname is not just a coincidence. Let us have a look at it in the context.

Chemodan? Yes, chemodan...Before that Čemodán? – Jo. Čemodán. Neţ si pro Zubatá comes to get us. nás přijde Zubatá.

Every Czech knows that this sentence is a collocation saying “before the Death comes”. In Czech, “zubatá” also has the meaning “the Grim Ripper”. However, here, the translator applied the method of transference and left the name as it is. There is no chance that the American audience understands this funny situation, which is a pity. It could be quite easy. In my opinion, in this situation, it would be much more useful to

come up with a functional equivalent that would both preserve the pun and serve as an appropriate surname for the lady.

What I find really interesting is the use of diminutives. I always thought that even for non-Czechs it is quite simple to deduce the diminutives from their original forms. Nevertheless, when a friend of mine – American – after watching Kolya asked me who is Fráňa and Vitulka (both domestic forms of the Czech names), I realized that this part of the Czech culture is not so obvious to the foreign audience either. I was surprised that the diminutives were rarely translated with the help of the word “little”. In one case, the translator opted for a word “dear”.

Stop. I‟d like to get out. – Klara dear. Zastav, já si vystoupím. – Klarino.

I personally like this variant. I think it depictures Louka‟s cadging precisely and in an unusual way. There was no need to express Louka‟s persuasion in other way. It was well preserved in the addressing so the American audience understood the meaning of this part as well as the Czech audience.

There was also a case when the translator used the method of classifier (but the other way round – from Czech to English).

You know how I feel about this. – Don‟t Pepo, víš, co si o tom myslím. – Klid, worry, Marush. Maruš, nestarej se.

“Maruš” (Marush) is just a domestic form of the name Marie (Mary). The way the gravedigger addresses his wife is supposed to express kindness and an affectionate relationship between them. However, in this case, I am not so positive about the message that the “English” transcription of the Czech addressing gives to the American viewers.

Svěrák‟s films are a perfect example of playfulness with Czech names. He takes advantage of the Czech ambiguity. The following example is a good illustration of it.

I‟ll be back Mr. Lučina. – Louka. Já ještě přijdu, pane Lučina...– Louka.

In this scene, Comrade Zubatá mangles Louka‟s name all the time. Any Czech viewer will laugh at it because the distorted version of Louka‟s name is a brand of well-known cheese Lučina at the same time. It is not anything to roll on the floor laughing, however it is exactly the pleasant Svěrákian gentle sense of humour that caresses the viewer‟s soul. The American audience is apparently deprived of it though.

The translation method of transference is used again here. This method is very common as far as the translation of names is concerned. I was thinking about what to do to preserve the playful nature of the names in Svěrák‟s films. The only other option seemed to be to use the method of functional equivalent and find such a word that would serve as a name and its similar form as a funny name of a product. However, not every name in the films is adapted to raise a laugh and its role is rather to show the diversity of beautiful Czech names. The combination of Czech and English names in the films would look too inconsistent and for that reason I understand why the translator decided not to translate it at the expense of the wittiness.

Zdeněk Svěrák also takes pleasure in using rhymes with names. One such an example occurs in a scene from The Elementary School. It is not of any particular importance to the film, nevertheless, it spikes the scene quite well.

What‟ve you brought me, Camil? – Nothing Tak co mi neseš dobrýho, Kamile? – for you. And I‟m not called Camil. – That‟s Vám nic. A nejsem ţádnej Kamil. Ale not very nice of you. Not nice at all, to je nemilé, Kamile! Velice nemilé, Camil. lakomej Kamile!

It‟s a pity that the rhyme in the English version is so poor and if any, it is poorly distinguishable (at all – Camil) and it does not serve the function as it does in the Czech original.

Another example uses the name as political mockery. This scene gradually brings us to the next point of the social culture, which I am going to pursue and it is social status. Zdeněk Svěrák called one of the characters Mr. Houdek in order to show a

Russian “weakness” in the shape of incapability to pronounce letter H. This little linguistic imperfection serves as a humorous element again when the main protagonist

František Louka revels in daring criticising the occupants and thus makes the grave condition of living in the Czechoslovakia under Soviet occupation lighter. This scene only suppports the previously mentioned Svěrák‟s statement that “humour is the best quality of the Czech nation and by this it solves its complexes, misfortune and powerlessness.” (Génius, book cover)

This is Uncle Houdek, but you‟ll say Tenhle strejda se jmenuje Houdek, víš, Goudek, I suppose. A great power, but they ale ty mu asi budeš říkat Goudek. can‟t say the letter “H” Představ si, voni neuměj h, kdyby se rozkrájeli. Taková velmoc a neuměj h...

Although I do not doubt that subtitling to this dialogue is well-intelligible even for non-

Czechs, I think that they perceive it differently, anyway. On the basis of several reviews, which I have already mentioned in this thesis, I think that non-Czechs do not understand the situation in which former Czechoslovakia was finding itself for fourty years. As it seemed, to them, Czechoslovaks then were just mischievous and strictly disapproving of everything coming from the Soviet Union. To support my argument, I chose one example from Dennis Schwartz‟s review in which he states that “an added problem that is overcome is that the kid speaks only Russian, a language Louka refuses to learn.” (Schwartz) The crucial word here is “refuses”. What follows is one scene from Kolya, where František Louka explains his ignorance of the Russian language.

You could talk to Nadezhda in German. Kdyby vy ználi po německy, vy by She‟s an interpreter between German and mohli s Naděţdou mluvit po německy, Russian. – I‟m afraid I speak neither. – protoţe ona tlumočnice z ruského Typical. First you don‟t like Germans, then jazyka na německý. – Já neumím ani you don‟t like Russians. – It‟s not that. I německy, ani rusky, bohuţel. – Mně to just have no head for languages. jasno. Vy měli spěrvá nechuť protiv Německich a potom protiv Ruskich. – U mě to není nechuť. Nemám na jazyky hlavu.

As Zdeněk Svěrák suggests in Kolya, the hatred was not automatic. Of course, people did not like their oppressors at all but during the twenty years of the Soviet occupation, they also found their way to live in this condition. They simply had to.

The film reminds us of the grudge of Czech people against the Soviet occupants, however, via Louka and Kolya it swears black is white. It wittily depicts totalitarian dailiness of the doomfully-looking envelopes with a blue strip and secret listening to news on Radio Free Europe.1 (Génius, 90)

It definitely took a lot of courage to name a film after a Russian name in a country that went through a difficult period of time under Russian supremacy. As Zdeněk Svěrák remembers:

As a matter of fact some people were agitated by the title. But I was not. I could not imagine that the film would be called anything different. However, when we finished shooting, there were severe reactions that the film should not be entitled Kolja because it would decrease the attendance. Honza and I stood our ground. Even though we came up with fifteen other titles back in Moscow, we finally got back to the previous one.2 (Génius, 101)

A Czech magazine Profit asked Pavel Taussig (whose story is the film Kolya based on) about why he thought the film was so successful. According to him, the first reason is Zdeněk Svěrák himself. Not only his artistry, but also his charisma. As the second reason he stated that:

1 Film připomíná nevraţivost Čechů vůči sovětským okupantům, prostřednictvím ústřední dvojice ji ale zároveň obrací naruby. Vtipně líčí totalitní kaţdodennost zlověstných obálek s modrým pruhem a tajně poslouchaných zpráv Svobodné Evropy. (Génius, 90) 2 Pravda je, ţe se někteří toho názvu báli. Já tedy ne. Nedovedl jsem si představit, ţe by se film mohl jmenovat jinak neţ Kolja. Ale kdyţ jsme končili s natáčením, vyskytly se váţné hlasy, ţe se tak jmenovat nesmí, ţe by to ohrozilo jeho návštěvnost. Ale s Honzou jsme trvali na svém. I kdyţ jsme v Moskvě vymysleli patnáct jiných titulů, nakonec jsme se vrátili k tomu původnímu. (Génius, 101)

Most of the nation was comprised of such characters like František Louka. The people did not like occupants just like him, they did not feel like sticking the flags on the window panes, but they did it after all. And when they were in dire straits and they urgently needed money, they were willing to give up their principles slightly. While watching the film, many of the viewers probably imagine doing the same as František Louka in a similar situation – the natural humanity would win. Most of us are more or less non- heroic heroes.1 (Génius, 91)

When speaking about heroes, we should focus our attention on The Elementary

School more closely. The film is filled with heroic deeds and post-war stories. It is set in

Prague 1945 and so the post-war spirit can be felt everywhere. The boys‟ class is led by a teacher whose introduction to the class is unforgettable. Igor Hnízdo wears a military uniform, carries a gun and sparkles with wartime tales. However, here, Zdeněk Svěrák did not have any intention to tell a story about an ostentatious heroic teacher whose weakness for women is too obvious. The real purpose was to show that even a typical

Czech who is sometimes scared and does not carry a gun, can be a real hero. In my view, there is a strong cultural implicit meaning saying that although the Czech nation did not defy Nazi Germany directly, its people were brave and they fought their own way. Two following examples support this idea:

Were you in resistance? Our teacher was. – Tati, byl jsi v odboji? Náš učitel byl v In the resistance... – You know your Dad odboji. – No, v odboji...– Tatínek třeba listened to illegal radio. He fixed his radio poslouchal cizí rozhlas. To přece víš. for it and risked his life. – But he wasn‟t in Klidně si tam nechal krátké vlny a za to the resistance. – Then, there was the man hrozila smrt. – Ale odboj to nebyl. – we hid illegally. – But you built barricades No, tak...A nebo jednou, jak u nás and you weren‟t afraid. – I was afraid. – přespal ten člověk ilegální, co se But you used a gun. – I had a gun. – Dad skrejval. – Ale barikády jsi stavěl a was a civilian. He wasn‟t trained to fight.2 nebál ses. – Ale bál. – Ale střílel jsi. – To víš, taky jsem si vystřelil. – Nesmíš zapomínat, ţe tatínek je nevoják. Nemá výcvik.

1 Většinu národa totiţ tvořili Františkové Loukové. Lidé stejně jako on neměli rádi okupanty, nechtělo se jim vylepovat praporky, ale nakonec je stejně vylepili. A kdyţ se dostali do úzkých, potřebovali nutně peníze, byli ochotni udělat i drobné ústupky ze svých zásad. Při sledování filmu si mnozí diváci patrně představují, ţe i oni by se v podobné situaci zachovali jako František Louka a zvítězila by u nich přirozená lidskost. Většina z nás jsou totiţ víceméně nehrdinští hrdinové. (Génius, 91) 2 There are three characters speaking: Eda, his mother Mrs. Součková and his father Mr. Souček

At the end of the film, “little Eda finally finds out that would-be strong wartime stories told by their class-teacher often lack logic and that his own father can be a good model as well. He himself is a hero in a way, in spite of the fact that he did not fight in the war.”1 (Génius, 85)

The other example refers to the scene in which Eda‟s father stands up for the

Czech nation‟s behaviour during the Hitler‟s invasion and agrees that it was reasonable not to fight back. In can be considered as cowardice in other nations‟ eyes, however, then, a few minutes later, the one who seemed to be a coward, proves to be braver than anyone else.

These bunkers were built all along the Tyto pevnosti jsme zbudovali po celé frontier. From each one you can see the naší ohroţené hranici v délce dvou tisíc other, their lines of fire crossed so even a kilometrů. Z kaţdé je vidět na sousední mouse couldn‟t pass. No cement or iron vlevo i vpravo. A palebná pole se was spared. They‟re so strong that when the důmyslně překrývala, aby neproklouzla Nazis got hold of them, and tried to blow ani myš. Na cementu a na ţeleze jsme them up – they couldn‟t! They even tried to nešetřili. Jsou tak pevné, ţe kdyţ je blow one up in front of Hitler; the bunker fašisti bez boje získali, chtěli jednu před was lifted off the ground but landed intact! Hitlerovýma očima vyhodit do povětří. – We should‟ve defended ourselves. – How Ale ta pevnost, chlapci, se celá could we if the Allies betrayed us? – The výbuchem zvedla a neporušena zase Russians were ready to help us. – The dosedla na své místo. – Měli jsme se Russians? Hitler drove them back to bránit. – Sami? Kdyţ nás všichni Moscow. If we‟d fought back, we wouldn‟t zradili? – Rus do toho chtěl jít s náma. – be here. There would‟ve been so much Rus? A víš, kam ho Hitler hnal? Aţ k bloodshed! Moskvě! Kdybysme do toho šli, Pepíku, tak tady dneska, jak tu jsme, tak tady nejsme. Nebo polovic by nás tu teď stálo. Takový by to bylo krveprolití.

This scene is very special in that the boys and their teacher are listening to the explanation that Mr. Souček (Eda‟s father) gives to the driver Pepík. The boys that are convinced of the trustworthiness of their teacher are awaiting his attitude – after all it is him who has experienced so many events and fought against Nazis. Nevertheless, their teacher is silent and the audience realizes that he says nothing because he knows nothing about it. He did not fight against the Nazis, he was neither a partisan nor a

1 Malý Eda nakonec poznává, ţe silácké historky třídního učitele občas trochu pokulhávají a ţe dobrým vzorem mu můţe být i jeho vlastní otec. I ten je svým způsobem hrdinou, přestoţe nebojoval ve válce. (Génius, 85)

member of the resistance. When the children find a bazooka, they ask their teacher to blast it off. He refuses and wants to go to the nearest military headquarters to report it.

Now, Eda‟s father, whom he initially considered to be a coward, blasts the bazooka off and finally proves that not everybody who is talking about their deeds, is brave and vice versa. As far as the Czech nation is concerned, this scene plays an important role in the film. Those who do not know the background of the pre-war events and do not know anything about what happened in former Czechoslovakia before the war, will probably not understand this part as much as Czech people.

However, Kolya is the film that abounds in items suitable for this category even more. When speaking of social statuses, the socialist era is standing out among the other periods of time in the Czech history. Most of the people were divided into two camps – a camp of those who believed in the socialist ideology and those who did not. People were often forced to enter the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and to believe in its ideals. Those who did not obey were considered to be against the regime and they often had to go through harassment, persecution and in some instances imprisonment. It was a difficult period – people were scared, they did not trust anybody and they were forced to do things that under different circumstances they would probably never do. The more surprising it is that despite their fear they often organized groups aspiring to “illegal” thinking and activities. They surreptitiously listened to Radio Free Europe or went to church. To get some extra money people started earning through moonlighting jobs.

The members of the Communist Party greeted the others by “čest práci” (which was a special greeting used during the socialist era to manifest someone‟s devotion to the Party and people used this greeting in honour of work) and they addressed each other “comrade”. It was just these notions that may have caused problems to the subtitler as well as the foreign audience. There is no such a special word for “čest” in

English, so the subtitler translated it simply “hi”or “hail” (in the case that follows). The foreign audience do not notice anything, of course, however, those who know the history well, lack the political vertones.

As far as greeting and addressing people is concerned, František Louka is a typical anti-socialist character refusing to act according to the socialist ideology. When

Broţ the gravedigger comes to see him at the cemetery and greets him “Hail” (“čest práci” in Czech), Louka answers “and God bless you too” (“dejţopámbu” in Czech).

This seemingly innocent answer tells the viewers who are familiar with Czech culture much more than to those who do not know anything about it. People like Louka and

Broţ felt the oppression of the system incessantly. Louka knows that Broţ has used

“čest” ironically and his answer “dejţtopámbu” indicates that he himself is also annoyed with what they have to go through due to the regime. Even though the translator did their best and used an unusual form of greeting (by adding “comrade” to it), this important message unfortunately remained lost in the English translation.

Hail, comrade! – And God bless you too. Čest práci – Dejţtopámbu.

The way people were addressing other people reveals some other information, too. In Kolya, there is a scene when police officer Pokorný walks through the corridor and meets two colleagues of his. He greets one of them “čest” (the socialist greeting translated to English as “hi”) and the other one “ahoj” (hello, hi).

Hi. – Hi. – Hi. – Hello. Hi. Čest – Čest. – Čest. – Nazdar. Ahoj.

To the foreign audience it is the same. Nevertheless, a Czech viewer can see a cultural difference. People who have experienced socialism will certianly confirm that not all people who greeted others by “čest soudruhu” (“hi, comrade” in English) strictly identified with the socialist ideals. The way to distinguish it, is, however unfamiliar to

the English-speaking audience as well. It is closely related to so-called vykání/tykání

(formal and informal ways of address in Czech). As it seems, avid communists visibly showed their conviction by addressing the others in the informal way (the second person singular) instead of the formal way of address (the second person plural). In the Czech language, the formality and informality in addressing people suggests the particular relationship between the people talking to each other. The informal, familiar addressing is used for instance among friends, in the family, among colleagues or in simple terms among those who have known each other for some time. On the contrary, the formal addressing is used in formal relationships, for example with the superiors, with public officers and the like. For that reason, in the scene where František Louka explains his expulsion from the Philharmonic, the Czech audience can notice that the personnel officer (“kádrovák” in Czech) called Bláha talked to him informally. This subtle information is missing in the English version, of course. Even though it seems to be an unimportant matter, still, it is a part of Czech culture and the addressing can implicitly expose much information about the person.

They used to let me go to the West. One Já sem moh jezdit na Západ. Jednou mě time, the Party Officer said... “Your brother tam pustili a kádrovák Bláha říká: has emigrated but we trust you.” “Soudruhu, emigroval ti bratr, ale my ti věříme.”

To give an example, let us look at another scene from the film. The police officer called

Novotný asks the secretary to take Kolya to another room during the interrogation.

Throughout the film the audience considers him to be one of those avid communists, strict and devoted to the ideology. Before the viewers have the chance to see him ringing the keys during the Velvet revolution at the end of the film and judge whether he is just coat-turning or really wishing a change of regime, another implicit indication of his possible anti-socialist thinking may be concluded on the basis of his addressing

others. In the following example, while addressing the secretary “comrade”, he uses the polite form (in Czech “vykání” – the second person plural).

Comrade, can‟t you take this child? Soudruţko, nemůžete to dítě někam...!?

The formal and informal addressing causes also other translational problems. In

Kolya, there is a scene in which police officer called Pokorný interrogates František

Louka and he wants to frighten him. Out of the blue, he starts speaking to him even more sharply than a few minutes before and what is more, addressing him informally.

Louka is surprised by this change and he points out this impolite behaviour. The translator solved this problem by using a functional equivalent in the shape of an abusing address “wise guy”.

How much did they pay you, Wise guy? – Kolik jsi za tu šaškárnu dostal?!? – Isn‟t that a bit rude? – I‟ll be as rude as I Zatím jsme si netykali tady. – My si like. I call a jailbird anything I choose...and netykáme, milej zlatej. Já ti tykám. To that‟s what you‟ll be. I asked you a je rozdíl. Poněvadţ muklům já tykám. question! A ty budeš sedět. Na něco jsem se tě ptal.

This translational solution seems to be very efficient as the foreign audience also understands that there is something unusual in the police officer‟s approach. In terms of culture, the foreign audience gets a different perspective of it than the Czech audience, though. It is also essential to mention that the presumed cause of all this cultural impoverishment also most likely results from the limitations on subtitling I have already talked about in previous chapters.

7.2 HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL CONCEPTS

Traumatic historical events have often inspired films that try to equal them in gravity. Consider the uncompromising reaction of American directors to the Vietnam War with films like Coming Home, Apocalypse Now, and The Deer Hunter. Imagine then what to expect of filmmakers who suffered through

forty years of a dictatorship that killed or imprisoned thousands of its own citizens and destroyed the lives of countless more. (Roberts)

Svěrák‟s films are no exception either. They are also full of historical and political events that influenced the past of the Czech nation. However, despite the traumatic events, the films are somewhat different. Andrew Roberts nicely supports my speculation in his article Communism in Post-Communist Film:

In the Czech Republic, whose communist leaders were as repressive as any in the world, you will find something quite different. The film world – even now, ten years on from the collapse – has yet to rise to the challenge. Except for a brief period immediately after the revolution when directors tried to settle scores with the old regime, portrayals of communism in Czech films have been remarkably toothless. Instead of searing indictments of the communist system or dramas of lives ruined, or even subtle examinations of moral dilemma and compromise, what we see are light comedies. In most of the post-1989 films which have dealt with communism (and in all of the popular ones), the communists are generally portrayed as bumbling figures of fun who provide comic relief (only occassionally with tragic consequences) for coming-of-age stories. (Roberts)

Both Kolya and The Elementary School feature the light spirit that Roberts is talking about. The political events are in most cases depicted satirically and they do not look so severely as they really were then. In Zdeněk Svěrák‟s words, humour is certitude “that has already helped Czech people to sustain various political and great-power pressures many times.”1 (Génius, 61) Let us look at these political and historical concepts closely.

The Elementary School, as one of the treasures of the Czech post-1989 cinematography adorned with Academy Award nomination, does not lack a sarcastic political implicit meaning. The film offers an adorable backward glance to the days of non-existent class struggle, Victorious February or other communist achievements. However, even then, in the existing Czechoslovak first republic harmony, the first sinister tones could be heard. A bitterly grotesque paradox of Svěrákian narration lies in the fact that no matter how much far-sighted were some adults, they could not hear them in the period of post-war illusions.2 (Génius, 86)

1 Moţná lidé dali přednost této jistotě, která jim uţ tolikrát pomohla vydrţet různé politické a velmocenské tlaky. (Génius, 61) 2 Obecné škole jako jednomu ze skvostů naší polistopadové kinematografie, ozdobené oscarovou nominací, nechybí sarkastický politický podtext. Film nabízí roztomilé ohlédnutí do časů, kdy ještě

Some examples from The Elementary School give the impression that Zdeněk Svěrák revels in this very foolishness of his characters. There is a scene in which Mr. Souček

(Eda‟s father) asks Igor Hnízdo (Eda‟s teacher) about his opinion of the political situation in former Czechoslovakia. Those viewers who do not know anything about the

Czech political situation right after World War II and before the so-called Victorious

February, probably will not find this scene funny. Nevertheless, the audience well- versed with it, will laugh at the naiveté with which even the smart characters believe in what was to destroy Czech democracy for the next fourty years three years after (in

1948).

How do you see the political situation? – A jak to vidíte politicky, pane učiteli? – The international situation? – The works. I Mezinárodní situaci myslíte? – Myslím see our country as a bridge. A bridge vůbec. Já vidím Československo jako between East and West. Russia can learn most. Most mezi Východem a democracy here because they‟ve never Západem. Rusko se u nás můţe učit known it, and the West will see how demokracii, protoţe tu oni nikdy freedom and socialism can live under one nepoznali, a Západ se můţe zase na roof. We can show the world what a small našem případu přesvědčit, ţe svoboda a hard-working nation can achieve when no- socialismus můţou bejt, abych tak řek, one interferes. – Do you eat rabbit? I pod jednou střechou. Teď můţeme cooked a rabbit. – Stalin said: “What you světu ukázat, co dovede malý, ale baked, you will eat.” The Russians won‟t pracovitý národ, kdyţ chce a nikdo se interfere and the Germans are finished; mu do toho neplete. – Jíte králíka? we‟ve nothing to worry about. These Upekla jsem králíka.– Stalin výslovně children can look forward to a great future. řek: „Co si upečete, to si sníte.” Čili The‟ll be able to travel, and see the world nehrozí, aby se Rus vměšoval. Němec je zruinovanej, ten dá nadlouho pokoj. Myslím, ţe tyhle děti čeká krásná budoucnost. Budou cestovat, poznají svět.

The sad thing about this scene is that everything Mr. Souček foretells proves to be the other way round later. The people were not allowed to travel, the republic found itself in isolation from the progressive West. The Soviet Union did interfere and in 1968 together with its Warsaw Pact allies invaded the former Czechoslovakia to finish the reforms in progress. The communist supremacy ended with the so-called Velvet neexistoval třídní boj, Vítězný únor ani další komunistické „výdobytky“. V přeţívající prvorepublikové harmonii se však uţ tehdy začínaly ozývat zlověstné tóny. Hořce-groteskní paradox Svěrákova vyprávění spočívá v tom, ţe ani sebe-prozíravější dospělí je v době poválečných iluzí nemohli slyšet. (Génius, 86)

Revolution. It is vital to know this background information to fully understand the irony of this scene.

Another paradoxical scene occurs almost at the end of the film. It is again Mr.

Souček who speculates about the politics and asks the teacher about his opinion of the political situation again.

Who‟d you think will win the election? – Kdo myslíte, ţe zvítězí ve volbách? – I‟d say the Communists. – Me, too, that‟s Tipoval bych komunisty. – Já taky. A why I‟m not giving them my vote. Their proto jim hlas nedám. Voni nemaj plans are not bad. “We‟re against collective špatnej program. Koukněte. Jsme proti farms and any form of forced zavádění kolchozů a proti jakýmkoli collectivisation. The Communists are for formám násilného zdruţstevňování. trades and small businesses”. I voted for Komunisté jsou pro zdravý rozvoj them before the war so they‟d have more řemesel, ţivnosti a maloobchodu. Já votes – it‟s better for democracy if there‟s a jsem je před válkou volil, aby měli víc strong opposition. – Of course. – The ruling hlasů, protoţe pro demokracii je party must be afraid things could turn and nejlepší, kdyţ jsou ty síly vyrovnaný, they‟ll loose their majority in the next nemyslíte? – Jistě. – Ta největší strana election. Otherwise they‟d be unbearably musí mít pořád strach, ţe se to arrogant. They can be tough. We’re Slavs, přehoupne a v příštích volbách ţe uţ but Western Slavs! Here, no dictatorship nebude největší, nemám pravdu? Oni by can flourish. It‟s not in the spirit of the se jinak komunisti začali strašně nation, not so? naparovat a nebylo by s nima k vydrţení. Voni dkáţou bejt i panovačný! My jsme Slované, pane učiteli, ale západní, západní, u nás žádná diktatura nemá živnou půdu. To je proti přirozenosti národa, nemám pravdu?

In this scene, Zdeněk Svěrák‟s humour is even more apparent. He again counts on the viewers‟ background knowledge and intellect that will enable them to understand the implicit meaning of the message. Especially the part of this dialogue talking about the

Party‟s plans is comic to those who know that the Communists did the contrary while in power. The Communists collectivized agriculture, created collective farms (so-called

“kolchozy” in Czech) and they confiscated all private property. The dictatorship did flourish and remained for forty years. That is the paradox in the background of this scene.

Another concept worth mentioning is Mr. Souček‟s emphasis on the fact that

Czechs are Western Slavs. In reality, by this, he expresses two different things. The

first, more obvious one, refers to that the Czech nation naturally inclines to democracy and Western ideas. However, what the foreign viewer is not likely to know is the fact that Czechs are Western Slavs also from the linguistic point of view and the Czech language belongs to a group of Western Slavic languages.

I initially did not want to analyse these scenes at all, because I thought that these events are well-known even to the foreign audience. To my surprise, based on the findings of questionnaires relating to these films that I prepared and gave to my foreign friends together with the films, I found out that not only Americans but also the

Europeans had troubles with understanding these major Czech political and historical events. I am going to devote a whole chapter to the results of the questionnaires later, however, let me quote at least a short passage from one of the questionnaires that was filled in by an Irish male, 24 years old.

Overall the movie was good. However, I couldn‟t help but feel it would be much better if I knew Czech. I can‟t point out any one point in the movie where it was required but the general feeling was that I was missing something.

The Velvet Revolution of 1989 is definitely the most important political and historical event in Kolya. The former Czechoslovakia was finally liberated and its citizens could watch the retreat of “115 000 heavily armed Soviet soldiers that occupy our homeland” as people listening to Radio Free Europe could hear previously in the film. Before getting to this point, however, let us have a look at the events that preceded this turning point in the Czech history.

After fourty years of the communist rule, nobody believed it could end one day.

People were sceptical. The titles in the newspapers said something completely different from the Radio Free Europe broadcast. The Young Front (Mladá Fronta in Czech), the dailies that can be seen in the film, as well, existed under the communist rule and it was

the paper of the communist party‟s youth movement. These two opposing forms of media are very well-known to the Czech audience. However, for the foreign viewer, the scene can be fairly confusing. They can hear the voice of a woman on the radio and the titles of the newspaper are translated for them, too (in capital letters). In spite of this, I do not believe they are able to grasp the point of this scene wholly.

Czechoslovak socialism is undergoing Takzvaný socialismus v cosmetic democratisation. Economically Československu byl jednou rozvíjen, insufficient, it has no regard for human jindy prohlubován, jindy dignity. The system is nearing collapse. demokratizován, ale ţádné kosmetické úpravy ho nezbavily jeho podstaty. Zůstává ekonomicky nevýkonným a lidsky nedůstojným zřízením, které mele z posledního.

Trying to understand what is going on there, the foreign audience does not have any chance of noticing another Zdeněk Svěrák‟s satirical pleasantry that lies in the fact that the title of the newspaper says “unawavering security” while it is “wavering” in the sound of the “illegal” radio.

SOCIALISM: OUR UNWAVERING SOCIALISMUS: NAŠE SECURITY NEOCHVĚJNÁ JISTOTA

Mrs. Louková (František Louka‟s mother) is shown as a convinced anti-socialist

Czech patriot. She is a woman of high principle. An attentive audience can notice that while observing her household. There are colorized postcards of pilgrim places in the

Czech Republic – the Saint Mountain (Svatá Hora) in the Czech town Příbram south- west of Prague and the Saint Hill in the town of Olomouc. There are also three busts of the giants of the Czechoslovak history – T.G. Masaryk (the first president of

Czechoslovakia), Edvard Beneš (the second president of Czechoslovakia) and Milan

Rastislav Štefánik (a Slovak politician and diplomat who contributed decisively to the cause of Czechoslovak sovereignty). There is also a photo of his, which symbolically falls any time Russian vehicles pass by. I am pretty sure that this symbolism is hidden to

the foreign audience and unfortunately there is no way to hint that and incorporate it into subtitling. These cultural allusions remain hidden and while the Czech audience laugh, the foreign audience is silent because they are missing the point. That is the disadvantage of subtitling – not everything can be incorporated and thus perceiveable by the target audience.

Another funny moment comes when František Louka arrives at his mother‟s place after he had got married and bought the Trabant (the most common vehicle in East

Germany that was exported to other socialist countries, including former

Czechoslovakia) for the money acquired owing to the fake marriage. His mother speaks highly of the car and thinks that František bought it for money earned by playing in the

Philharmonic – she has no idea of her son‟s playing at funerals or the problems caused by the fact that his brother is an emigré and last but not least of his sham wedding. The more ironical is her conversation with František.

Look at all those Russians. They‟re like Vidíš, co jich je? Jako kobylek. Věřil locusts. Would you believe it? Lots of bys, ţe hodně našich lidí s nima Czechs do business with them. It‟s certainly kšeftuje? Levnou naftu od nich cheaper. Russian diesel, petrol, coal. kupujou, benzín, uhlí...S okupanty se Collaborating with the occupiers! Such fine paktujou, vlastenci. Kdyţ nás obsadili, patriots. When the Russians tak zvedali pěsti, ţe jim ani vodu ani invaded....people shook their fists; said they chleba nepodají, a vidíš to. To byste would‟t even give them stale bread or koukali, jakej jsme my Češi pronárod. water. And look at them now. A fine nation Ještě ţe jste se toho nedoţili. we are. Thank goodness you didn‟t live to see it.

The comparison “like locusts” has its meaning, indeed. Locusts are pests. They can devastate crops overnight. One of the Plagues of Egypt in the Bible was a swarm of locusts, which ate all the crops of Egypt. Therefore, Mrs. Louková‟s biblical allusion referring to destructive Russians should be clear even to the foreign audience, especially

Americans who are generally known for their deep religiousness.

Another concept worth analysing is the usage of expansion. The Czech version says that people shook their fists and said they would not even give water or bread to

Russians. However, the English subtitles say that people would‟t even give them “stale bread” or water. It is interesting that the translator found necessary to add emphasis to this sentence and he used the expansion.

Moreover, in this scene, Mrs. Louková indicates that the busts on her bookcase she is talking to are of great importance and the viewers understand that for the absolute comprehension it is necessary to find out who they are. However, the moment passes, another scene comes and the point is lost.

The scene depicting the Velvet Revolution at the end of the film is worth analysing as well.

The police blocked the central streets so Policie uzavřela Národní třídu i přilehlé there was no way out. When faced with the ulice, takţe z prostoru nebylo úniku. riot police the students sang the national Studenti tváří v tvář ozbrojené moci anthem...They were unarmed but they were skandovali Máme holé ruce a zpívali savagely attacked. státní hymnu a přesto byli surově zbiti.

Even though foreign audiences can get the picture of what was happening in former

Czechoslovakia then, the subtitles do not say the same as the Czech version. “Máme holé ruce” (literally “We have got naked hands”) is a phrase that almost every Czech connects with the event of the Velvet Revolution. In the English version, this phrase is missing. It says that the students were unarmed, but it says nothing of that in spite of the fact that the students scaned “We have got naked hands”, they were savagely beaten.

It is surprising that the name of the central avenue Národní třída (National

Avenue in English) was left out too. This place played an important role in the Velvet

Revolution and thus history of the Czech Republic. It was the place where students gathered and demonstrated against the regime. Their activity caused the end of the socialism in former Czechoslovakia.

7.3 MATERIAL CULTURE

Shooting a film that is to be a future winner of the Academy Award requires careful preparations indeed. The film Kolya is a real evidence. It was necessary that the realization of the film resembled the environment and the atmosphere of real socialism of 1980s. Jan Svěrák describes these preparations in Dana Čermáková‟s book Zdeněk

Svěrák, the Genius:

We paid heed to the protagonist‟s wearing of dirty shoes which were so typical of the people living in the era of socialism. The railings by the pavements used to be overgrown with withered grass. That is why we always took the grass with us and sometimes attached it somewhere. The streets were much dirtier then, so for that reason, we had a truck full of leaves at our disposal. We spread the leaves out in the streets and passed over them. Since 1989 the fleet of vehicles has radically changed as well. Now, everywhere you look you can see Opel cars, Peugeot cars or Honda cars, whilst we had to move thirty old Škoda cars, Wartburg cars and Trabant cars to all locations where we shot.1 (Génius, 94)

The specifics coming under the category of material culture mostly present also a translational problem – especially those specifics related to a particular culture. Let us look at particular examples.

Food is a rewarding topic in many films. It says a lot about the particular culture or even a particular period of time. The current composition of a diet is different from, for instance, the wartime diet when people were starving and there was lack of food. In

The Elementary School, there is a scene in which Mrs. Součková is talking to her neighbour Mrs. Mlejnková about what her slice of bread looks like.

You like it with so much goose fat? – We Ţe vy to snesete takhle tlustě namazaný. didn‟t have it during the war but now we – Za války jsme nemohli, teď můţem. do. It‟s home-made, my sister made it. Je domácí, od sestry ze Zbiroha.

1 Dbali jsme na to, aby hrdina nosil špinavé boty, které byly pro lidi za socialismu příznačné. Zábradlí u chodníků bývala za totáče obrostlá suchou trávou. Proto jsme ji pořád vozili s sebou a občas ji někam přimontovali. Ulice byly tenkrát víc zasviť, takţe jsme měli náklaďák listí, které jsme po nich rozsypávali a rozjíţděli auty. Po listopadu se také zásadně změnil autopark. Teď všude vidíte opely, peugeoty a hondy, zatímco my jsme po exteriérech stěhovali třicet starých škodovek, wartburgů a trabantů. (Génius, 94)

Likewise, the Americans will probably not understand the “tragedy” of swallowing a chewing-gum that afflicted Eda. The chewing-gum was something completely new for Czech people then. For that reason it is quite surprising that the sentence “He has never chewed the gum before”, which can be found in the Czech version, was left out in the English subtitles. In the film, Tonda (Eda‟s friend) even had to explain to Eda how to chew it.

Moreover, the sentence “We‟ll get some more” is likely to be misinterpreted by the foreign audience. As I have already mentioned, the chewing gums were not common products to get or even buy somewhere during that period of time. It was a rarity.

However, it seems that Stavinoha (a friend of Tonda‟s), has some connections and he can get the gums more easily than Tonda or Eda. The English subtitles (“we‟ll get some more”) do not suggest that, though, and some viewers can think that the boys will simply buy it somewhere.

Ever chewed gum? Got any left? – I‟ve Uţ jsi někdy ţvejkal? Stavinoha, máš only got half left. – Give him some. It‟s ještě? – Uţ jenom půlčíka. – Dej mu. American, but don‟t swallow it, just chew Von ještě nikdy nežvejkal. – it. – Thanks. (...) Americká. Ne abys to spolk. Jenom to What‟s up with him? – What‟s the matter? převaluj a kousej normálně v hubě. – – I swallowed the gum. – It won‟t hurt you. Díky. (...) – But there‟s no more left. – We’ll get Co je mu? – Co je ti? – Já jsem spolkl some more. – Look! ţvej...kačku. – To nevadí vole, to se ti nic nestane. – Ale kdyţ uţ jiná není. – Neboj, zase bude, viď, Stavinoho? – Jé. Sláva!

Zdeněk Svěrák comments this scene as follows: “The children of today do not understand the tragedy of Eda‟s swallowing the chewing-gum. In those days it was a rarity, we chewed a half of it at the most. I still do it. I never take the whole gum, you have too much of it in the mouth then.”1 (Génius, 85)

1 Třeba dnešní děti nechápou tu tragédii, kdyţ Eda spolkne ţvýkačku. Tenkrát to byla vzácnost, ţvýkali jsme ji nanejvýš po půlkách, a mně to zůstalo dodnes. Nikdy si neberu celou, člověk toho má v hubě moc. (Génius, 85)

However, there were also less favoured products for children. Parents used to feed them with fish oil as it is supposedly good for the bones and blood. However, nowadays, people connect consuming of this infamous “medicine” with the era of socialism, which is probably due to the fact that children in nursery schools had to eat it compulsorily.

In The Elementary School, there is a scene in which Mrs. Součková goes to the shop called “Jednota Bratrství” (Brotherhood and Unity in English – apropos, it was a promoted slogan used by the Communist Party) and she buys a loaf of bread for a coupon (in the scene, she is tearing it off the ration book). After the war the food was rationed. However, based on the subtitles, the audience does not know what Mrs.

Součková bought at all and some people could easily confuse the ration book with money.

I‟ll take one, please. Jeden Odkolek, prosím vás.

The translator apparently did not consider it to be useful for the viewers and maybe for that reason he generalized Mrs. Součková‟s request. Thus all the cultural meaning of food rationing – bread in this case, remained unexplained.

Ice-cream in the post-war time looked a little bit different than as it can be seen in The Elementary School. Jan Svěrák explains that in his director‟s comments to the film. He says that when he saw the paper cups the ice-cream was put into after the war, he could not use them in the film because people in the cinemas would not know what strange food the boys were eating. For that reason they used the cones which were typical of the future times. However, there is also a discrepancy in the subtitles. An idiomatic expression, still used mainly by the older generation “Cuc na kládě v

čokoládě” was a common name used for the ice on the stick (ice-lolly). The translator, however, translated it as follows:

I‟ve got three flavours today. Máme tady cuc na kládě v čokoládě!

This translation is something completely different from what was really said and although it is not anything vital for understanding the plot of the film, it is something that reflects the Czech after-war culture. Jan Svěrák (the director) deals with this scene in his comments to the film, which signals that this part was well thought-out and every word of it has its sense. In connection with this scene, the Svěráks also mention a scene a few moments before this one where there is a wagon full of ice cubes. Carrying ice cubes on the wagons also reflects Czech culture of the post-war time.

Another scene worth analyzing depicts a starting affair between Igor Hnízdo and the tram driver‟s wife. She wans him to come to her house and she offers him “real coffee”.

I have real coffee. Mám pravý kafe z UNNRY.

The Czech version literally says “coffee from UNNRA”. UNNRA (United Nations

Relief and Rehabilitation Administration) was post-war aid provided by United Nations to the war-affected countries. The aid included food, fuel, clothing, shelter and other basic necessities, medical and other essential services. UNNRA was a synonym of quality. Among other things, people could get tinned food, the previously mentioned chewing gums and coffee. The translation “real coffee” implies that it was quality and something else than people were used to, however, from the cultural point of view, the information relating to UNNRA was important and it was definitely missing here.

Food and beverage play an important part in Kolya, too. Attentive audience can notice a really ironic situation at the wedding reception when a Russian friend of

Louka‟s opens a Soviet champagne and she accidentaly hits a chandelier – typical

Bohemian crystal chandelier. These are the little details that make the film even more

special. Zdeněk and Jan Svěráks must have planned every scene very thoroughly and it is a real pity that their hard work and cultural nuances often remain hidden to the non-

Czech audience.

In one scene, Louka‟s mother says that she had prepared him “uhlířina”.

Guess what I‟ve made for lunch. Potatoe Víš co bude dneska k obědu? Uhlířina! dumplings.

“Uhlířina” is a cheap, typically rural Czech meal. It is a combination of potatoes, bacon and dumplings (“noky” in Czech). The expression “dumpling” is not very apt in this case, however, it is very difficult to explain to a non-Czech audience the difference between “knedlík” and “nok”, especially in subtitles. The explanation can be difficult even for a Czech audience, as the film Pelíšky1 is a real evidence of it. The translator used a more general word for this kind of food, which seems to be inevitable in this case.

There is a scene in which František Louka is taking Kolya for a camping-trip, which is a part of Czech culture as well. Camping became a really favourite leisure activity during socialism. People took their children and they took off to country where they toasted “špekáčky” (small sausages) over the camp fire and slept in tents. This tradition has endured to the present day.

In this chapter, I have attempted to outline the specifics of Czech material culture. I am aware of the fact that there are even more items, whether it be food and beverage or other material products, that could be analysed in this thesis, however, it is not possible to cover all of them here. I have tried to mention all the important concepts and I hope they will serve as a good sample representing this category.

1 Pelíšky – (English: Cosy Dens) is a 1999 Czech film directed by Jan Hřebejk. It is a bittersweet coming- of-age story set in the months leading up to the ill-fated 1968 Prague Spring. (Wikipedia)

7.4 LANGUAGE

As I have indicated in the chapters discussing Zdeněk Svěrák, his style of writing and his humour, the Czech language is his most powerful weapon. It is not without cause that this chapter will be denser than the others and full of examples where he is playing with the Czech language. From the perspective of translation, this chapter is going to focus on real translational pitfalls, whose meaning is in most cases generalized or naturalized.

In Kolya, the most evident translational problems are arising any time these two

Slavs do not understand each other. Both Czech and Russian are Slavic languages and they are as alike as different from each other. Zdeněk Svěrák based many funny dialogues right on these similarities and differences. For Czechs, these dialogues are well-intelligible and they get the point of such humorous situations easily. However, a more complicated situation emerges when the film is supposed to be shown in foreign cultures.

There are funny moments when Louka attempts to speak Russian. No matter how hard he tries, he always speaks an interlanguage between Russian and Czech, rather resembling broken Czech.

You have some slippers? Something to Bačkory máš? Něco na nohy. Pro wear indoors? A fine conversation this is doma! Doprdele, to bude domluva s going to be! This is all I needed. Here they tebou. To mi ještě scházelo. No vidíš, are. Slippers. Yours. Take your shoes off, hele, jsou tady! Bačkory! Tvoje. Zuj si see, and put your slippers on. boty, rozumíš, a vem si bačkory.

The usage of the preposition “pro” in the highlighted Czech passage “pro doma” shows that Louka attempts to speak Russian, but he does not know how. To the contrary, the

English “something to wear indoors” is absolutely grammatical and it is quite possible to see such a part of the sentence anywhere else. As it seems, the foreign audience would understand the comicality of this situation better if the English version had been

somehow abnormal as well. The translator could have changed the word order, for instance (something wear to indoors, something indoors to wear, etc.). The situation would sound funny all of a sudden and the audience would feel that there is something strange about Louka‟s speaking to Kolya.

Now, let us look at the scene when Louka unintentionally leaves Kolya in the subway and to find him, he talks to the microphone.

Kolya, donut be skary and donut going Kolja, něboj sa, hlavně nikam něuběgaj nowhere. You must to stay in metro but we a normálně zůstaň v metro. My si tě find you. Hello. End of message in Russian najdeme. Zdrávstvuj. Konec hlášení v language. ruském jazyce.

In this passage, the translator used bad English deliberately to let the audience know that there is something strange on Louka‟s announcement. The Czech audience can notice that Louka is using a mixture of Czech and Slovak with one Russian word –

“Zdrávstvuj”, which is a Russian equivalent to “hello”. However, he confused even this one as he used it as a farewell. It seems that such a solution met the target.

It is also interesting to study the way Louka talks to Kolya. He speaks to him as if Kolya were an adult. He discusses the political situation in Czechoslovakia with him or he explains the issue of acid rain to him. It nicely shows that František as a bachelor does not have a way with kids. These particular conversations make subtitling even more difficult to translate because it also has to express the implicit meaning of

František‟s bachelorhood and his gradual change in behaviour. Not speaking of a humorous and ironical form in which a lot of the dialogues are made. For instance, in the following example, where Louka is outraged and he does not realize that he is telling the boy that he will be off to the gravedigger‟s. Zdeněk Svěrák is an expert in using amphibologies like this.

Just don‟t cry on me. I‟m not thrilled you‟re Hele, hlavně mi tu nebreč, jo? Já z toho here either. Just one night here and then off taky nejsem na větvi, ţe jsi tady. Jednu to the gravedigger’s. He got us into this noc to vydrţíš a pak půjdeš k

and he‟ll damn well get us out. hrobníkovi. Kdyţ si to zavařil, tak ať si to vyţere, debil.

Louka‟s unsuccessful attempts to make contact with Kolya look funny as well.

There is a scene where Louka wants to prompt Kolya to draw and doing this, he attempts to talk to him in a friendly way using “baby talk”. “Čmariky, čmariky”, however, is his own term for drawing and it reflects his hopelessness about the boy. The passage is translated as follows:

Why don‟t you sit down and draw Pojď sem. Tady si sedni a můţeš si something? Draw. Come on, draw! malovat. Čmariky, čmariky dělat. “Draw” in contrast to “čmariky” sounds a little bit vapid. Such a passage will sound normal to the foreign audience. The sense of Louka‟s hopelessness and the funny element are missing here.

What follows are examples based on the Czech-Russian communication. In the following example, Louka explains to Kolya that Czechs and Russians are Slavs and they have to understand each other a little bit at least. He is talking about tea (“čaj” both in Czech and Russian). Here, Zdeněk Svěrák uses the similarity of both languages and make the audience laugh at Louka‟s unknowingness of the fact that he is right. “Čaj” really is “čaj” in Russian, too. The translator had no other option but to use an English equivalent to “čaj”, which is “tea” and I think that it fulfilled its purpose. The English- speaking audience must have understood what was going on in the scene, therefore it was not necessary to think up other alternatives.

Tea. Russian tea, what you people drink Čaj! To je Ruskej čaj. Ten pijete v non-stop. I put sugar in it. Don‟t pretend jednom kuse, ne? Tak se napij. you don‟t understand. You must understand Oslazený to máš. Hele, nedělej, ţe something. We’re both Slavs. I don‟t nerozumíš. Něco rozumět musíš. Jsme understand Russian, you don‟t understand Slovani. Voba. Já nerozumím rusky, ty Czech but you must understand “tea”. We nerozumíš česky. Ale čaj musíš have it, you have it. What else would you rozumět. Čaj je u nás i u vás čaj. Jak call it? byste tomu asi jinak říkali....

The following passage belongs to one of the most interesting ones of the whole film. It definitely was a great challenge to the translator. This scene is based on the similarities between Czech and Russian. František Louka is unwillingly putting up

Czech and Russian flags on the occasion of one of the many Communist anniversaries so as not to draw attention to himself and suddenly Kolya says:

Ours. Yours. – What did you say? – Ours. Naš – vaš.– Co říkáš? – Naš – Vaš. – Yours. – So you can understand when you No správně. Vidíš, ţe rozumíš, kdyţ want to. The thing is, we put up your flag chceš! Jenţe ten váš tam dáváme z because we have to. Once we put it up in donucení, víš? Byly doby, kdy jsme ho gratitude. But that was before we realized tam dávali z vděčnosti, a to neţ jsme that you Russians are scoundrels. You poznali, jaký jste prevíti, vy Rusové, understand? No, you don‟t. You‟re rozumíš. Nerozumíš. Rozpínaví jste. expansionists! Wherever you march, you Kam šlápnete, vodtud uţ se nehnete. stay. But not you, you‟ll go back to your Ale to není tvůj případ. Ty pudeš k tetě aunt. The moment she gets better I‟ll pack pěkně. Jen co se zmátoří, tak ti sbalím your chemodan and you‟ll be off. – čemodán a pudeš. – Čemodán. – No, to Chemodan. – That‟s all the Russian I know je jediný, co umím, protoţe mi ho v because they stole mine in Moscow. You Moskvě na nádraţí ukradli. Kradete steal suitcases and other people‟s land. – kufry a cizí území. – Náš krásnyj. – Ours is all red. – All right? What‟s all Prosim tě! Co je na tom krásnýho? Dyť right about it? It‟s red like your underpants. je to červený jako trenýrky. Náš je Now ours is all right. – Ours is all red. – krásnej. – Náš krásnyj. – Ale jdi, Oh, you don‟t understand a thing. rozumíš tomu jako koza petrţeli.

The misunderstanding results from the fact that Russian “krásnyj” means “red” and it is very similar to Czech “krásný” that means beautiful. Kolya simply says that the Russian flag is red, while František thinks that Kolya praises the Russian flag for its beauty. The situation is even more comical and ironical when Louka says that Kolya does not know chalk from cheese (“rozumíš tomu jako koza petrţeli”) in spite of the fact that it is the other way round. It is Louka who does not understand a thing. The translator used a functional equivalent “all red” and “all right” and it seems that it works well. This solution is very successful.

Another example is very similar to the previous one in that it plays with the language again. Louka is calling one of his lovers to ask her to read a Russian fairy-tale for Kolya. He asks about the lover‟s husband and he is glad to hear that he is in

“Varna”. In fact, he is just in the bath (in Czech “vana”). The functional equivalent

“Varna” and “sauna” is very nifty, as well and it looks as if the audience probably took the point of this scene without problems.

Can you talk? He‟s in Varna? Lucky you. Můţeš mluvit? Kde je? Aţ ve Varně? Oh, he‟s in the sauna! Ty se máš. Jo, ve vaně!

Zdeněk Svěrák‟s playfulness with the Czech language is also a subject of the next example.

Look what I bought you. Russian eggs. – Podívej, co jsem ti koupil. Ruský vejce. Russian? – Some Czech hens lay Russian – Rúskoje? – No. Některý český slepice eggs and they don‟t even know it. snášejí ruský vejce, ani o tom nevědí.

So-called Russian eggs are a typical Czech delicacy. It is an egg with salad and some mayonnaise on the top. In the scene above, František is giving the Russian eggs to the little boy. As a parental novice, he does not know what to serve to a little child but he tries really hard and buys something to remind Kolya of his homeland. However, the little Russian is surprised and little bit sceptical about Russian eggs in Czechoslovakia.

For that reason Louka comes up with the statement that some Czech hens lay Russian eggs. The wordplay consists in the word “Russian”. Louka is getting at the fact that a

Czech delicacy is called Russian. Here, again, I am not sure that the non-Czech audience understood that well.

The next scene is based on a difference between Czech and American cultures.

The point at issue is so-called “sloţenka”. “Sloţenka” is a post money order. During the communist era they used to be green; that is why in the Czech original Louka literally says: “Bills (“sloţenky”), you little bitches – green and greedy.” This culture specific is translated as “bills” in English and the coulour is omitted. Although it does not affect the meaning noticeably and the non-Czech viewers probably get the point of this passage, it does not sound so funny as it does in the Czech version where every Czech

identifies with Louka and his grumbling at his duty to go to the post office to pay some money again.

Bills, you little sods. Greedy vultures, the Sloţenky, vy krávy zelený, nenaţraný! lot of you.

As far as swearwords are concerned, I have noticed that English subtitling is very polite in contrast to the Czech original. Let me present some examples where the swearwords were either omitted or greatly neutralized.

Pig. Grow up, will you? Ty hajzle, kdy tě ta puberta pustí?

Must you play everywhere? Ty hraješ všude, vole.

A fine conversation this is going to be. Doprdele, to bude domluva s tebou.

Zdeněk Svěrák nicely explained the Czech attitude to swearwords when he said:

“The swearwords exist to help us to get a balance in critical moments. I use very dirty words, because the polite ones do not bring relief. However, I cannot say any example of such words because it is not appropriate here.”1 (Český rozhlas 1) Most Czech swearwords are stronger and therefore less acceptable than their English counterparts and that is probably the reason why the English version is impoverished. The American society is more puritan than the Czech one, nevertheless, even swearwords belong to the

Czech culture and they should not be left out.

Speaking of neutralization, I would like to state some examples of it in The

Elementary School, as well. It is not about swearwords but beautiful constructions typical for the Czech language. Zdeněk Svěrák uses metaphors, similes, wordplays, and the like a lot in his films. Unfortunately these constructions mostly do not have their

1 Nadávky jsou tu proto, aby nám pomáhaly v kritické chvíli získat rovnováhu. Pouţívám nadávky sprosté, protoţe slušné nepřinášejí úlevu. Příklad vám neřeknu, sem se nehodí. (Zdeněk Svěrák in Radioţurnál)

counterparts in English and the translators usually have to solve that by neutralizing them. Let us have a look at some of them:

You‟re so clumsy! Jak hrom do police jsi šikovnej.

What‟s the matter with you? Co z tebe bude?

It‟s my job. Mám šéma.

You‟re as thin as a beanpole. Jsi hubenej jak lunt.

Look at the way you‟re sitting. Sedíš jako paragraf.

I‟ll fleece you! Oškubu tě jako slepici, Kavko!

Unfortunately, it is not quite possible to explain their literal meaning to the foreign audience or let alone translate them. However, the last mentioned example is worth more detailed analysing, after all. The Czech original says: “Oškubu tě jako slepici,

Kavko”. In this scene, Tonda‟s father plays a card game called “mariáš” (a “marriage” in English). The passage “oškubu tě jako slepici” in Czech literally means “I‟ll pluck you as a hen”. The witty part about it is that what follows is the name “Kavka”. Not only is Kavka a surname but it is also a kind of bird – a jackdaw. The point is in that he wants to pluck somebody called a jackdaw as a hen. It is a typical Svěrákian humour that permeates through all his work and due to its distinctive Czechness it is often inaccessible to the foreign audience.

I have already discussed the scene from Kolya in which František Louka attempts to speak Russian in quest of finding Kolya whom he had left behind in the subway. To draw the viewers‟ attention to the fact that Louka uses a broken Russian, the translator created a broken version of English subtitles. On the contrary, there is a scene in The Elementary School where a fakir Rádţi Tamil (otherwise a common man –

Mr. Mrázek living in Praha-Holešovice) attempts to speak in broken Czech to add to the authenticity of his performance (although everybody can notice that his moustache is fake). Although it seems to be important to preserve Mr. Mrázek‟s broken Czech in the target text, the translator did not take it into account and translated it as if the fakir spoke quite normally.

I can write it. My feet can write any word Pro mne ne problém toto napsat, mé but they prefer to write more beautiful nohy znají všechna slova napsat, ale words. raději oni píšou slova více krásná.

In the last example of this category I deal with a wordplay that is not very apparent at the first sight. It is a scene in which the Součeks and Eda‟s teacher are having lunch. While Mr. Souček is discussing the political situation in Czechoslovakia,

Mrs. Součková is interested in whether Mr. Hnízdo (Eda‟s teacher) eats a rabbit.

Do you eat rabbit? I cooked a rabbit. – Jíte králíka? Upekla jsem králíka.– Stalin said: “What you baked, you will Stalin výslovně řek: „Co si upečete, to eat.” si sníte.”

The point is that she says she “cooked” (to quote the English version) a rabbit and Mr.

Souček resumes his monologue with the quotation of Stalin “what you baked, you will eat”. For some mysterious reason the translator decided to use the phrase “cook a rabbit” instead of more anticipated and correct “roast” a rabbit. Not only this synonym of “to cook” would be more appropriate but on condition that the verb “baked” in Mr.

Souček‟s monologue was changed to “roasted” as well, it would also serve its purpose to preserve the wordplay.

In this chapter, I have dealt with linguistic aspects of the selected films. This category is definitely the most problematic of all ten categories I have stated before in my thesis and it is mainly because of the untranslatability and inexplicability of some typical Svěrákian wordplays. As I have already found out, the foreign audience may

have had problems with understanding many of them, which makes the films culturally different from how we perceive them.

7.5 ICONS

This category focuses on famous people related to both films. There were many of them

– some were present implicitly (in the form of busts or photographs) such as: T.G.

Masaryk, Edvard Beneš, Rastislav Štefánik and Stalin and some where mentioned explicitly, such as Gorbachev (Gorbačev), Gagarin, Antonín Dvořák, Master Jan Hus

(Mistr Jan Hus), King Sigismund (Zikmund), Bedřich Smetana and Rudolf Friml. As it is apparent from the way I wrote their names (that some are followed with parentheses with Czech forms of the name inside), most of the names were simply transferred. Only three of them have an English form that was used in subtitling. But there is another group – names that were omitted and replaced by other names.

I promise tonight I‟ll be as hot-blooded as Já slibuji, ţe dnes v noci budu Ilja any Russian Don Juan. I‟ll be a real Muromec!1 (...) Nebo alespoň Čurila Casanova! Plenkovič!2

As it seems, the translator intended to preserve comicality of this scene when

Louka is drunk and he decides to inform all the guests that he is going to enjoy a real wedding night with his newlywed. In the scene, Svěrák, applying intelligent humour again, chose two names of Russian heroes (Ilja Muromec and Čurila Plekovič) to express Louka‟s sexual competence and strength. Although these names have their

English counterparts as well (Ilya Muromets and Curilo Plenkovic), the translator decided not to use them and replace them by more common “Don Juan” and

1 Ilya Muromets is a Kievan Rus‟ epic hero. He is celebrated in numerous byliny (folk epic poems). He is regarded as the greatest of all the legendary bogatyrs (i.e. medieval knights-errant of Kievan Rus). (Ilya Muromets) 2 Curilo Plenkovic belongs to a specific category of Russian heroes (bogatyr-dandy). (Ohlas písní ruských)

“Casanova”. That is precisely why the scene appears featureless and loses its spark of freshness.

While watching both films, it is almost certain that the viewers notice Svěrák‟s passion for music. The films are Czech through and through even in this respect. The soundtracks to Kolya and The Elementary School are comprised of Czech composers‟ opuses and there is also one scene devoted to one of the biggest composers, Antonín

Dvořák himself.

We‟re talking about Dvorak. How it was Povídáme si o Antonínu Dvořákovi. lucky he didn‟t become a butcher but a Jaké je to štěstí pro národ, ţe se nestal composer who conquered the world. řezníkem, jak chtěl jeho otec, ale skladatelem, který dobyl svět.

Czech composers have always been the nation‟s pride. As Svěrák put it in the example mentioned above – Dvořák was a “composer who conquered the world.” No wonder the director Jan Svěrák decided to deal with him even more and as a mark of respect he devoted to him an important scene (boys going by a freight train) from The

Elementary School.

It is an odd passage of the film. It is something like paying tribute to Antonín Dvořák about whom it is said that he loved engines, he watched them at the station, knew their names and numbers, timetables, he waited for them. This scene functions as a break in the film. I was worried whether the people in the cinema would not be restless and would tolerate that and even then we had to shorten mister Dvořák‟s opus by four minutes.1 (Obecná škola, director‟s comments)

7.6 ARTS

In The Elementary School Mr. Souček says: “Music is the most powerful weapon. With music Czechs conquered the world. Smetana, Dvořák, even Friml‟s Donkey Serenade”.

1 To je zvláštní pasáţ filmu, taková pocta Antonínu Dvořákovi, o kterým se říká, ţe miloval lokomotivy, ţe se chodil dívat na nádraţí, ţe znal jejich jména a čísla, jízdní řády, čekal na ně a tahle scéna je něco jako přestávka v tom filmu, takový zvláštní. Bál jsem se, jestli to lidi vydrţej v kině, jestli se nezačnou ošívat a i tak jsme museli panu Dvořákovi asi čtyři minuty z tý skladby zkrátit. (Obecná škola, director‟s comments)

For that reason it is even more surprising that the scene depicting a Czech Philharmonic concert in New York was left out. In the scene František Louka is talking about their playing Má Vlast (traditionally translated as My Country) by the Czech composer

Bedřich Smetana. The musicians were given a half-hearted welcome from the people of

New York. There were many nationalities and a big black man standing among them.

When the performance finished, Louka looked at the man and saw him applauding intensively and tears were running down his cheeks. He could not have any inkling of some Vltava river somewhere in Europe but he was overwhelmed by the music.1

This scene is worth analysing on a number of counts. For instance, due to its translation of “New York”. New York is a name of one of the best known foreign cities that is mentioned very often all over the world. However, Svěrák did not transfer it, as it might have been expected. The part literally says: “To bylo v Novým Yorku.” He translated the word “new” into Czech, that is, he used a calque. This is a different New

York. It is a New York seen from the perspective of Czech people. Maybe the Czech standpoint is the reason for leaving this scene out. However, that is a mere speculation.

The Elementary School is filled with music, as well. Whether it be Katusha, a

Soviet wartime song about a girl whose beloved is at war, or Hranice vzplála (the

Hussite song “The fire raged, on the bank of the Rhine”). However, Škoda lásky (Beer

Barrel Polka/Roll out the Barrel/Here comes the Navy) is probably the most famous of all Czech songs all over the world – as the boys discuss it:

1 To bylo v Novým Yorku. Hráli jsme Mou vlast – Vod Dvořáka, chápeš. – Od Smetany. A ta Carnegiho hala byla našlapaná k prasknutí. Uvítání teda nebylo nic moc. Takovej vlaţnej potlesk ze slušnosti. (...) V tom hledišti obrovským seděli Číňani, Japončíci, Mexičani, černoši... Jeden takovej obrovskej, co přes něj ty vzádu neviděli. A já si tak říkal, co takovejhle kolohnát s rozpláclým nosem a s vlasama jako drátěnka na nádobí můţe mít z tý naší Vltavy. Nebo z Tábora. Vţdyť ani neví, co to je. (...) A kdyţ jsme dohráli, bylo ticho. Dvě tři vteřiny naprostýho ticha. A pak se to strhlo. – Potlesk, rozumíš. – Ale takovej, ţe jsme se lekli. To bylo jako kdyţ se utrhne skála a teď se to valí na vás. A jak tak děkujeme, tak já očima vyhledám toho černýho chlapa. A ten člověk stál, plácal o sebe těma svejma tlapama, co jsou zevnitř růţový a tomu člověku se po tý jeho africký tváři koulely slzy, pánové, jako hráchy. I kdyţ neměl potuchy, ţe Vltava je nějaká řeka někde v Evropě, to mu bylo fuk, poněvadţ ta hudba ho přemohla. Protoţe hudbu nezajímaj rasy a národy, pánové, ta to bere šmahem. (Kolya)

On all fronts. – Even the Germans? – Dad Na všech frontách! – I Němci? – Táta said on all fronts. – How could Germans říkal, ţe na všech frontách. – sing “Roll out the barrels” when they can‟t Pochybuju, ţe by si Němci zpívali speak the language. – The Americans and Škoda lásky, kdyţ neumějí česky. – the Russians sang it as they marched. – And Američani ji zpívali, kdyţ šli do boje, a the Japanese? – I don‟t know. – And the Rusové taky, kdyţ šli do boje. – A partisans? – How could they sing in hiding, Japonci? – To nevím. – A partyzáni? – stupid? Partyzáni nemohli zívat, aby se neprozradili, vole!

This song became really popular worldwide during World War II and it was translated to many languages.

It is obvious that nothing that appears in films take place without a reason. Every scene, every picture, every song or every name is carefully considered and somehow connected with a particular culture. In this respect, Svěrák‟s films reflect the Czech history and culture perfectly.

7.7 BELIEFS AND VALUES

Most of the concepts relating to this chapter have already been mentioned in the previous chapters, however, there is still something left to point out. I have already written about Eda‟s teacher Igor Hnízdo and about his would-be heroism. However, there is something about him in connection with the concept of beliefs and values that is worth analysing.

Igor Hnízdo represents a manly, worldly hero bursting with imagination and charm but also an impostor who cannot prove his heroism at the right moment. Whereas hardworking “fathers” move the mankind forward step by step, the “teachers” having the time of their lives are just the characters of the moment. They are great manipulators who can captivate and fascinate others. (Halada) Hnízdo wants the children to have an example in his personality. However, his understanding of the world seems to be often black and white and the children have to realize that sooner or later. Throughout the film, Igor Hnízdo mentions Master Jan Hus and the concept of the truth many times.

Sorrow reigned across the land. All eyes Smutno bylo po celé zemi. Zraky všech were on Constance. The most treacherous upřeny ke Kostnici. A nejproradněji ze of all was King Sigismund. Though he všech se zachoval král Zikmund. Ačkoli promised Hus safety, he told the cardinals slíbil Husovi bezpečí, teď sám radil not to believe Hus and to burn him. Hus kardinálům, aby mu nevěřili a aby ho could‟ve saved himself if he‟d recanted, upálili. Hus si mohl zachránit ţivot. and signed what they wanted. How could Kdyby odvolal, kdyby podepsal, co mu he against such false testimony? He nabízeli k podpisu. Ale coţ to mohl would‟ve slained the truth and for the truth udělat, kdyţ všechna svědectví byla he lived. He said: “I would rather die”. So nepravá? Potupil by pravdu. A pro ni he was stripped of his priesthood and taken přece ţil. A tak pravil: Raději na smrt before King Sigismund who ordered that an půjdu. A tak byl Mistr Jan odsvěcen, to absurd hat be placed on his head. They tied jest zbaven kněţství a předán králi him to a stake and burned him alive. Zikmundovi. Ten přikázal, aby na Husovu hlavu nasadili posměšnou čepici, přivázali jej k neotesanému kůlu a zaţiva upálili.

His portraying of Master Hus‟ burning at the stake is detailed, feelingful and extremely impressive. No one would doubt the teacher‟s probity. However, his behaviour in class is considerably different from his private life and his real experiences. At first, Eda believes everything his teacher says and he is willing to fight for his credit with his classmates (as it can be seen in the following example):

He‟s lying. – Who ? – Our teacher. You Stejně lţe. – Kdo? – Učitel. Náš táta can‟t be a parachutist, partisan, political říkal, ţe to není moţný, aby byl prisoner and commander of an armoured parašutista, partyzán, politickej vězeň a train. – He wouldn‟t be able to teach us if ještě velitel obrněnýho vlaku. – Učitel he lied! – He landed behind enemy lines by nelţe. To by nemoh bejt učitel. – parachute, at night. He went into the woods Nejdřív ho shodili na nepřátelský to be with his partisan division. Then he území. Padákem. V noci. Šel do lesa a was captured and put into a concentration byl v partyzánským tom...oddíle. Pak camp... – He escaped. – Escaped, did he? It upadl do zajetí, byl v koncentráku, was impossible to escape from the camps. uprch jim...– Uprch! Z koncentráku They were surrounded by electrified barbed uprch! Z koncentráku nikdo wire. – He could‟ve dug his way out, idiot. nemohuprchnout, blbče. Kolem dokola And then he was a commander in the revolt. byly ostnatý dráty nabitý elektřinou. – – Just children‟s stories. If he‟s allowed to Moh se podhrabat, kreténe! – Jasně. carry a revolver, he must have fought! Who Podhrabal se a v revoluci byl velitelem knows what he did during the war. obrněnýho vlaku. – Povídačky pro malý dětičky. – Kdyţ smí nosit levorvel, tak musel bojovat náš učitel! – Jasně! – Lţe, kdo ví, co za války dělal.

Nevertheless, during the film Eda gradually realizes that the world is much more complex than he had thought and that it is not just black or white. Although he still

admires his teacher, he identifies with his father who symbolizes an average and ordinary character that is much closer to the Czech nation‟s thinking. (Halada)

7.8 INFRASTRUCTURE

Since all the previous categories intermesh, many situations relating to this particular category have already been analysed before. In spite of that, I found another culture specific from Kolya worth mentioning.

In both these Svěrák‟s films cemeteries play an interesting and in case of Kolya also an important role. Even some parts of a documentary film Tatínek made by Jan

Svěrák about his father Zdeněk Svěrák take place at a cemetery. Maybe it is because

Zdeněk Svěrák lived in a house next to a cemetery almost his whole childhood and it was a common part of his villige life. As he remembers:

I realize that this cemetery was nothing exceptional for me. For me, it was just a journey to and from school. I used to go to school there and through this entrance I returned home. As well as you walk among houses, I walked among graves. In Vesničko má středisková (My Sweet Little Village) I let Mr. Pávek live next to the cemetery as we used to live because the funerals, music and funeral speeches could be heard here. All these things we could hear at the backyard.1 (Tatínek)

Czech cemeteries are different from for instance the American ones. The Czech cemeteries are varied and every headstone or cross is different and distinctive. The types of inscription, stone, flowers, all these features make the cemeteries unique.

Czech old graves also reflect our culture and history considerably. Some may have been destroyed during the war. The same can be said about the way of burying. In the Czech

1 Kdyţ já si uvědomuji, ţe pro mě tenhle ten hřbitov nebyl nic nevšedního. Pro mě to byla cesta do školy i ze školy. Támhle jsem chodil do školy a tadyhle tou brankou jsem chodil domů. Jak chodíte mezi domama, tak já chodil do školy mezi hrobama. Ve Vesničce střediskový jsem nechal bydlet pana Pávka takhle jak jsme bydleli, protoţe tady byly slyšet pohřby, hudba, mluvení nad hrobem. To všechno bylo slyšet na dvorek. (Tatínek)

Republic the cremation is a very common way of burying in contrast to the American culture where inhuming predominates.

Nothing from this category was explicitly expressed in the films but still, crematoriums and cemeteries were the most repeated setting in Kolya and I think that again they are telling something about Czech culture in the broader sense and it is essential to at least mention them.

7.9 GEOGRAPHICAL LANDMARKS

This category deals with the notions of towns, cities, names of the streets, states, rivers, mountains, islands, seas, lakes and so on. I have concetrated on these culture specifics and I found names of the cities and parts of the cities that appeared in Kolya and The

Elementary School.

“Kostnice” is a German city, whose name was not transferred but the translator used its English counterpart “Constance”. It is the place where the Council condemned and executed a Czech priest and reformer Jan Hus (in English also John Huss).

“Vršovice” as well as “Ţiţkov” are municipal districts of Prague and the translator used a method of transference here.

One more time and you‟re off to Vršovice. Rosenheime, ještě jednou hvízdneš a They‟ll sort you out there! – I want to go to budeš přeřazen do Vršovic. Tam uţ si s Vršovice. tebou poradí! – Povídám, chci do Vršovic.

Thus the foreign viewers probably will not understand what it exactly means when the teacher Maxová says to a schoolboy that he will be “off to Vršovice” or when

Eda and Tonda explain to their teacher Hnízdo that they are delayed because they went to Ţiţkov via Benešov (a Czech city about 50 kilometres of Prague) by train.

We went by train but it only stopped at My jsme jeli...vlakem...a von stavěl aţ v Benešov! We were delayed but we Benešově, tak jsme se...zdrţeli, ale delivered the message. – We don‟t go to zprávu...předali. – Na Ţiţkov... Ţiţkov by train nor via Benešov! nejezdíme... vlakem... a uţ vůbec

ne...přes Benešov!

7.10 ENVIRONMENT

The Czech countryside is always present in Svěrák‟s films which proudly show its scenic beauties. Whether it be the above mentioned scene from The Elementary School where the boys are going by train through the Czech countryside to the accompaniment of Dvořák‟s opus or a scene from Kolya set in the Šumava mountains (a large mountain range along the southern Czech border) where Kolya and Louka went for a camping trip as it was already mentioned in one of the previous chapters.

Otters lived here once. – What‟s otters? – Tady ţily vydry. – A što takoje vydry? You and your questions! – It‟s an animal – A ty furt što takoje, što takoje... To je about this big with whiskers like me. These zvíře, asi takhle veliký, fousatý jako já. otters caught trout. – What‟s trouts? – A ty vydry lovily pstruhy. – Što takoje They‟re fish. – Aha, fish! – Good. But pstruhy? – To jsou ryby. – Rýby. – No because the water is poisoned now by acid správně. Ale protoţe ta voda je kyselá rain -- You won‟t understand because I od kyselejch dešťů – tomu nemůţeš don‟t myself -- the fish died. – Fish kaput? rozumět, protoţe tomu nerozumím ani – That‟s right. So the otters died too. – já – tak ty ryby umřely. – Ryby kaput? Otters also kaput? – Yes. So now you have – Správně. A tím pádem vyhynuly i ty the Otter River with no otters in it! Such the vydry. – Vydry tóţe kaput? – Ano. river we have. – Jesus Christ! Takţe řeka se jmenuje Vydra, ale ţádný vydry tady nejsou. Takovou my máme řeku. – Jeţiš marjá.

Louka wants to show Czech beauties to the little Russian boy and he explains the origin of the name of the Czech Otter river to him. Since they are talking about animals – otters – which once lived in the Otter river, the translator did not use the method of transference and translated the name “Vydra” to English to make sure the message will not change.

Unfortunately there are no other scenes that would be of a particular interest in relation to subtitling and this category. However, the Czech varied landscape is, have been and always will be an important part of the Czech culture and it is present in every

Czech film. That is what the Czechs are justifiedly proud of.

8. QUESTIONNAIRES

My initial intention was to base the findings of the analysis mainly on the survey

I am going to present in this chapter. My idea was to send as many films and questionnaires as possible to my American friends and thus get a faithful result.

Unfortunately, these days, people are less willing to cooperate and they do not have much time to spend on watching two films and filling in questionnaires and for that reason I ended up with three complete questionnaires, one incomplete (just the questions relating to The Elementary School are filled in) and one e-mail from a friend of mine where she sums up her observations of Kolya.

Originally, I wanted to get the feedback only from Americans, however, in the end, I gladly agreed that the questionnaires were filled in by Europeans as well. As a matter of fact, the result is even more interesting. I am very well awared of the fact that this survey cannot be seen as decisive at all. In spite of it I decided to use at least this low number of the questionnaires and share the interesting information with the readers of this thesis.

The questionnaires were filled in by two Irish (one male and one female), two

Spanish (one male and one female) and one American (female). They are from 24 to 30 years old and except for the Spanish female and Irish female, all of them have ever been to the Czech Republic or they have known some Czechs very well.

As far as Kolya is concerned, based on the answers in the questionnaires, all four

(who watched Kolya) liked the film very much and all of them thought that the subtitles were very intelligible. Nobody did not hear about this film before! What was particularly interesting, were their comments about unknowledge of the Czech history or culture that prevented them from total understanding of both films. For me, it was certainly surprising because I hoped that Europeans would know at least something

about the Czech Republic and its history and culture. After reading the questionnaires I found out that not only are these films not understood by the American audiences, but they are not wholly understood by Europeans either. To give an example: “Were there any situations in the film which you did not understand? Was it due to any cultural differences?” The answer: “Lack of knowledge of the Czech Republic‟s history.” As it turned out, the least comprehensible scene for the respondents was the one with Kolya and Louka arguing about the redness of the Czech and Russian flags. Only one respondent (Irish who knows Czech people quite well because he has been living with two Czechs for 5 years) commented the scene as follows: “It became apparent that

“krashni” (he acutally meant the Czech word “krásný” – “beautiful” in English) was a

Slavic word meaning something different in Czech/Russian.” He was also the only one who was able to distinguish three Slavic languages spoken in Kolya (Czech, Russian and Slovak). He was able to say that the student who visited Louka for cello lessons was

Slovak. I suppose that his knowledge of Czech is given by his cohabitation with Czech people talking to each other in Czech as well. Maybe that is the reason why only he was able to explain the essence of the scene in which Louka loses Kolya in the subway. As he put it: “I personally found this scene funny. It seemed Louka was speaking a mixture of Czech and Russian. In particular Russian words which were possibly well known across Eastern Europe or words which were very similar to Czech words.” Other respondents either wrote that the scene was funny but they avoided explaining why or they did not understand what was actually funny about the scene, like in the following response: “Very funny and moving. Shows that Louka was beginning to make an effort with the boy and it was funny because of the grammatics‟ mistakes he made.” It only supports what has been discussed in the previous chapters – English-speaking audiences perceive it differently than the Czech ones.

An American friend of mine sent me her observations and questions relating to

Kolya which are really worth mentioning. Her questions were often focused on the era of socialism in former Czechoslovakia. For instance, she was not certain about the following scenes: “Why did they keep showing his [Louka‟s] holy socks? I felt like they drew more attention to it, but I couldn‟t figure out why, except to show the poverty of a musician during that time. Is that also why they showed him wearing the same clothes?”

On the basis of this question, it is obvious that the respondent was not aware of the fact that the poverty was referred to not only musicians but many other people living in the socialism. Louka‟s holy socks are shown rather as a symbol of his bachelorhood.

She also did not understand the scene in which Louka explained to his lover

Klára why he was dismissed from the Philharmonic. “Why he was initially kicked out of the Philharmonic? Did it have something to do with his brother‟s escape?” The subtitles in this scene, however, seemed to be quite intelligible to me. Let us have a look at this situation:

Weren‟t you afraid to go through with the To mi teda ještě prosím tě řekni, jaktoţe fake marriage? You, victim of political ses toho podvodu nebál? S tou svatbou. persecution. – I‟m not a victim of political Politicky pronásledovanej člověk. – persecution. Just a victim of my own Dyť já nejsem politicky stupidity. They used to elt me go to the pronásledovanej člověk. Já jsem West. One time the Party Officer said... pronásledovanej za svou blbost. Já sem “Your brother has emigrated but we trust moh jezdit na Západ. Jednou mě tam you”. When I returned, I had to fill in the pustili a kádrovák Bláha říká: usual forms and one of the question was: Soudruhu, emigroval ti bratr, ale my ti “Did you meet an emigrant?” I wrote věříme. No a kdyţ jsme s vrátili, pak “Yes”. Then it said: “State in detail what jsme vyplňovali ty dotazníky. A tam you discussed.” And I just wrote “Just the bylo: Setkal jste se během pobytu s usual shit, Comrade Blaha.” – Is that all? – emigrantama? Já napsal: Setkal. A pak I guess he felt hurt. tak byla rubrika: Rozveďte, o čem jste hovořili. A já napsal: Celkem o hovnu, soudruhu Bláho. – To je všechno? – Asi se ho to nějak dotklo a byl šmytec.

I think that the foreign audience can very well understand that Louka‟s exclusion was based on his vulgar answer to a question in the form. Maybe the reason for my

friend‟s misunderstanding of this passage could be subtitling constraints that I have discussed earlier in this thesis. However, this is a mere speculation.

As far as The Elementary School is concerned, it seems that the respondents considered it to be easier to understand than Kolya. One of the respondent reacted to the importance of music in the film, as she put it: “It seemed to me that classical music is an important part of Czech heritage by the focus on the boys‟ music lessons in the film.”

Since she wrote “boys‟”, she probably meant the lesson in which Igor Hnízdo plays the violin and sings “Hranice vzplála” (“The fire raged, on the bank of the Rhine”).

Although music is undoubtedly very important in this film, this particular scene was rather focused on the lyrics of the song relating to Master Jan Hus‟ burning at the stake.

Otherwise, the respondents considered the film to be “humorous, well written and well acted.” One of them summarized it as follows: “Overall the movie was good.

However, I couldn‟t help but feel it would be much better if I knew Czech. I can‟t point out any one point in the movie where it was required but the general feeling was that I was missing something.”

9. CONCLUSION

Audiovisual translation brings certain disadvantages that the translators have to deal with. In case of subtitles, these are limited layout and duration of subtitles, demand of high reading speed, or simplified language, to name a few. The translators‟ work becomes even more complicated when they are supposed to translate a film that originated in a little Central European country with rich culture and history influenced by the era of socialism among others and present it to an English-speaking culture with a different way of thinking.

The intention of this thesis was to analyse culture in subtitling to two Czech films, Kolya and The Elementary School. I have chosen Zdeněk Svěrák‟s films for a simple reason – they represent Czech history and culture and mostly its painful times in a humourous way that is based on playing with the Czech language. All these aspects together are sometimes difficult to understand even for the Czechs, let alone foreigners.

In my thesis I primarily compared the Czech and American audience because Kolya won the Academy Award and the Golden Globe Award for the Best Foreign Language

Film in 1996 and The Elementary School was nominated for it. And for that reason I have assumed that both films could be known to a part of American public.

The fundamental purpose of this thesis was to confirm my hypothesis that both films could not be fully understood by a foreign audience and analyse the situations where the understanding was impossible either due to cultural or historical constraints or the translator‟s own unawareness. However, I also focused on the situations where the misunderstanding was expected and the translator solved the situation very skilfully.

To come to the results of the analysis itself, it is worth mentioning that I have based my conclusion on three areas of information. The first was the actual analysis of culture in subtitling and culture in general in Kolya and The Elementary School. The

second were foreign reviews that appeared right after the Academy Award nominations were announced and the last but not least was my own survey that unfortunately was not very extensive but its contribution to my final results was quite fruitful. Based on these areas I came to the conclusion that my hypothesis is right and both Svěrák‟s films were not fully understood by a foreign audience. For them, Kolya is a sweet story about gradual forming of a relationship between a confirmed bachelor and a little Russian boy and The Elementary School is a story about taming a group of intractable schoolboys. A deep cultural and historical implicit meaning of these films is somewhat hidden from the foreign audience.

While analysing both films, some questions for potential future research have crossed my mind. In my opinion, it would be interesting to narrow down the cultural concept just to the era of socialism in former Czechoslovakia and analyse it in all Czech films that focus on this epoch, such as: Pelíšky (Cozy Dens), Tankový prapor (The Tank

Battalion), Šakalí léta (Big Beat)1, Díky za každé nové ráno (Thanks for Each New

Morning), Baječná léta pod psa (The Wonderful Years that Sucked), Rebelové (Rebels) and so on (Roberts). It would be also challenging to create a glossary of terms related to the socialist era.

I hope this thesis has contributed to understanding of the complexity of subtitling as a specific mode of audiovisual translation and that it has provided the viewers with some interesting information concerning the role of culture specifics in films whose satirical humour is based on the rich cultural and historical events.

1 The literal translation is Years of the Jackal, but it is sometimes known in English as Big Beat.

10. CZECH RÉSUMÉ

Jak uţ název napovídá, tématem diplomové práce, kterou drţíte v rukou, je analýza překladu titulků k filmům Kolja a Obecná škola. Výběr filmů nebyl zdaleka náhodný. Zdeněk Svěrák, z jehoţ dílny oba filmy pochází, se vyznačuje svojí láskou k

českému jazyku (aby ne, kdyţ dlouhá léta působil jako učitel češtiny na základní škole) a jeho takzvaný „svěrákovský humor” je nepřekonatelný. Ve svých filmech se často zabývá také kulturními a historickými událostmi, které byly pro český národ význačné a do velké míry ovlivnily jeho budoucí vzhled. Všechny tyto aspekty mě přiměly se zamyslet nad tím, jak jsou jeho filmy vnímány v zahraničí. Vţdyť Kolja získal prestiţní cenu Oskar a Obecná škola na něj byla nominována. Českému divákovi tak můţe připadat samozřejmé, ţe zahraniční publikum chápe Svěrákovy filmy stejně. Kdyţ jsem však náhodně narazila na několik recenzí, které otiskly mnohdy renomované deníky v Americe, a v nichţ například stálo, ţe Kolja je sentimentální film s předvídatelným koncem, jehoţ zápletku tvoří vznikající vztah mezi zapřísáhlým starým mládencem a ruským dítětem připomínající hollywoodské situační komedie, uvědomila jsem si, ţe něco bude špatně.

Svůj podíl na rozdílném chápání do jisté míry nesou i samotné titulky. Toto médium má sice výhody v tom, ţe zachovává autentičnost filmu a zároveň je to i ekonomicky výhodnější prostředek audiovizuálního překladu, ale jsou zde i jisté nevýhody spojené s tím, ţe titulky tříští pozornost diváků, kteří musejí stíhat číst text a zároveň sledovat obraz, aby jim neunikaly důleţité informace ve filmu. Pro snadnější pochopení této problematiky je titulkům věnována samostatná kapitola, v níţ jsou všechny výhody a nevýhody titulků zmíněny.

Dle výsledků analýzy a podpůrných metod (průzkum formou dotazníků a jiţ zmíněné recenze) však největší podíl na zkresleném vnímání Svěrákových filmů nese neznalost českých reálií a jazyka, na které jsem se během analýzy převáţně zaměřila.

11. ENGLISH RÉSUMÉ

The topic of this thesis, as the title suggests, is analysis of culture in film subtitling to Zdeněk Svěrák‟s films Kolya and The Elementary School. My choice of these films was not random, at all. Svěrák‟s work is known for his passion for the Czech language (which is quite evident – after all he was a Czech teacher for some time) and his so-called Svěrákian humour is unbeatable.

His films are filled with cultural and historical events that were crucial in the

Czech history and they also influenced the course of events of the Czech nation to a considerable extent. All these aspects made me think about how these films are perceived abroad. Kolya gained the prestigious Academy Award for the best foreign film in 1996 and The Elementary School was a nominee for it. A Czech viewer can take it for granted that the foreign audience understands the Svěrák‟s films as well as we do.

However, when I encountered several reviews (mostly published in renowned American dailies) which read that Kolya is a dreadfully predictable and sentimental film, whose plot comprises gradual forming of a bond between a confirmed bachelor and a Russian child that disappoints as a lumbering mainstream film too familiar to Americans, I suddenly realized that there is something wrong and that the American audience has no idea of what is going on there.

Subtitling contributes to the wrong understanding as well. This mode of audiovisual translation certainly has many advantages, one of them is preserving the authenticity, nevertheless there are certain disadvantages too, such as diverting the viewer‟s attention from the picture. The processes of reading and decoding of subtitles are at the expense of perception of the film because the viewer has to divide the attention between the subtitles and image. For better understanding of these issues, a separate chapter is concentrated on subtitling and its advantages and disadvantages.

Based on the results of the analysis and additional methods (such as the survey and the reviews mentioned above) the biggest share in the biased perception of these

Svěrák‟s films, however, has the unknowningness of the Czech history, culture and the

Czech language, which are the topics this thesis focuses on the most.

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13. APPENDIX

‘The Elementary School’ (NR) By Hal Hinson Washington Post Staff Writer July 16, 1993

For the entire length of "The Elementary School," the 1991 film from Czech director Jan Sverak, I sat and waited patiently for something distinctive -- a well-played scene, a striking performance, a moment of originality or fresh insight.

And at the end I was still waiting.

Set in 1945 -- "just after the fascists have been defeated, but before the communists have won" -- in a small village outside Prague, "The Elementary School" is a coming-of-age film so much like every other coming-of-age film that it's like a kind of Frankenstein's monster, stitched together out of lifeless spare parts.

Most of the picture takes place in a classroom full of bratty kids who flog their frail-looking teacher so mercilessly with spitballs and insults that she is sent to an insane asylum. Her replacement is a popinjay in knee boots and jodhpurs who carries a pistol on his belt and spends most of his time spinning fantastic (and probably fictional) tales about his exploits in the Underground.

Among the kids is a 10-year-old named Eda, whose most notable trait is his name -- which was also the name given to his older brother, who died before he was born. And why does he have the same name, Eda is asked. "Because I'm instead of him. I'm a replacement."

This is as close as the movie gets to a good line, but even so, the idea it introduces is never developed. Nor is the subject of the older brother ever mentioned again. Nor do we care. The movie's sole virtue is that it's inoffensive. But then again, so is a blank screen.

The Elementary School BY ROGER EBERT / October 25, 1993

"The Elementary School" is a memory of school days just after World War II, in Czechoslovakia; it's nostalgic for both a time and a country that no longer exist. The hero is a kinder, gentler version of "The Good Son," a 10-year-old schoolboy named Eda (Vaclav Jakoijbek) who is harnessed to an overactive imagination.

Eda is endlessly inventive. He takes powder and shells from the battles of the recent past and turns them into homemade rockets that terrify a picnic party. He makes his baby brother a passenger in a cart he pulls behind his bike on a bumpy ride. Asked by his teacher to deliver a note to a nearby school, he hitches a ride on a passing freight train and ends up miles from home, reading the highly confidential note over the telephone.

That teacher, by the way, is a combat veteran still wearing his Army boots, brought in specifically to whip Eda's class into shape. It is quite possibly the worst-behaved class in the country, and the teacher, Igor (Jan Triska), claims he has specific permission to use corporal punishment to tame these monsters.

Like Jiri Menzel's "My Little Village," a similar Czech comedy, this one populates the town with an assortment of eccentric, colorful characters, including Eda's father, who cheats at cards down at the local tavern. There are a couple of scenes in which Eda is sent to the bar to bring

his dad home, but there's none of that "Father, oh Father, come home with me now!" business from Eda, who simply smokes out the entire tavern as a practical joke.

Meanwhile, Igor, the teacher, is having an affair with the tramdriver's wife, and there's a likelihood that his previous teaching position, in a girl's school, may have ended in scandal. His war record seems suspiciously full and rich.

"Elementary School," directed by Jan Sverak from a screenplay by his father, Zdenek, is a warm-hearted movie, and it has its moments of comic inspiration, but it's too rambling and unwound, and the little hero is too obviously a pawn of the filmmaker's ideas to emerge as a believable character on his own.

Kolya By DAVID ROONEY

Unfolding during the buildup to the 1989 Velvet Revolution and the end of Communist rule in what was then Czechoslovakia, "Kolya" is a bittersweet comedy-drama about a cherubic Russian tyke and a middle-aged cynic thrown together by circumstance. Fast-rising young Czech director Jan Sverak's fourth feature balances heartwarming sentiment with gentle humor and observations that strike universal chords. A recordbreaking hit at the Czech box office, this highly commercial Miramax release could make quite an assault on the mainstream arthouse market.

Since his Oscar-nominated 1992 debut, "The Elementary School," 31-year-old Sverak has established himself as the most versatile and commercially successful of the new Czech filmmakers. He followed in 1994 with the big-budget sci-fi parody "Accumulator 1," then in 1995 with the shoestring road movie "The Ride."

Scripted by the director's father, Zdenek Sverak, who also stars, the new feature appears to have all the elements in place to thrust Sverak Jr. into the major league. While some critics and highbrow arthouse denizens may balk at its unrestrained tugging of the heartstrings, and at a political backdrop that remains just that, this seems unlikely to hinder the extremely accomplished production from breaking through to a wider public.

Virtuoso cellist Frantisek Louka (Sverak) hits hard times after being demoted from the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra to playing funerals for having slighted a Communist official. A lifelong womanizer vehemently opposed to marriage and commitment, he nonetheless agrees to a friend's suggestion to wed Nadezda (Irena Livanova), a young Russian woman seeking Czech citizenship. The cash he earns from the deal allows him to clear his debts and buy a car.

Unexpectedly, Nadezda disappears to West Germany, leaving her 5-year-old son, Kolya (Andrej Chalimon), with his grandmother (Lilian Mankina). When she is taken ill and rushed to hospital, Kolya is dumped on Frantisek's doorstep. The situation becomes less temporary when the old woman dies. With no common language between them, the reluctant father and son keep their distance at first , while Frantisek tries unsuccessfully to unload the kid. But mutual affection slowly develops.

The inevitable police interrogation resulting from Frantisek's sudden marriage threatens to split the pair, as does the tardy arrival of a social services rep. Ultimately, the overthrow of communism divides them, opening up the frontiers and allowing Nadezda to return.

The script makes some ironic points on conflicting Czech attitudes toward Russia, most pointedly through Frantisek's mother (Stella Zazvorkova), who complains that the country town where she lives is crawling with Soviet soldiers and becomes hostile on discovering Kolya's origins. But this is textural embroidery on what is essentially a two-handed drama, the components of which are familiar but no less touching for it.

While it feels a little leisurely coming into focus, the real center of the film is the gradual establishment of trust and love between Kolya and Frantisek, and the changes this prompts in the latter. Both actors bring enormous warmth to their roles. Around the two protagonists, scripter Sverak has drawn a colorful assortment of secondary characters, including a string of the cellist's lovers, that in many ways recalls Czech new wave pics of the 1960s.

Production values are superior, from Vladimir Smutny's glowing lensing -- whether gloriously capturing the splendors of Prague and the surrounding countryside or zeroing in on the most intricate of details -- to Ondrej Soukup's richly emotive score.

Kolya (1996) From Time Out Film Guide Author: GA

Prague, 1988. Since being chucked out of the Czech Philharmonic, cellist Frantisek Louka (Sverák) has been reduced to playing at funerals. With the bills mounting, the middle-aged loner agrees to a marry a Russian woman in return for enough cash to pay his debts and buy a Trabant. The bogus bride, armed with her new Czech papers, exits to join a lover in West Germany, thus threatening to land Louka in trouble with the authorities, and lumbering him with her five-year-old son Kolya (Chalimon). With each film, Czech director Jan Sverák moves ever closer to the mainstream: the oddball sci-fi parody Accumulator 1 and the dark social insights of the road movie The Ride are here replaced by sentimental comedy-drama. The script (by the director's father and lead actor) is contrived, obvious and shallow, and benefits not a jot from being set during the decline of communism. That said, however, it is a polished affair, and thanks to Sverák Sr's subtle, quietly charismatic performance as the cynic softened by responsibility, it's not entirely without charm.

KOLJA (1996) (KOLYA) (1996) RATING: 8/10 (+++) Review written on March 15th 2004 Copyright Dragan Antulov 2004

The plot of the film begins in Czehoslovakia 1988, twenty years since that country's experiment with gentler, kinder and more independent sort of Communism abruptly ended with Warsaw Pact invasion. Like most of his countrymen, 55-year old cellist Frantisek Louka (played by Zdenek Sverak) is unhappy with the regime brought by Soviet tanks. Unlike most of his countrymen, he once made fatal mistake of expressing those feelings to regime's officials and thus lost his job in state's philharmonic orchestra. Frantisek now has to earn a living through menial jobs, but his good looks and constant success with women provide some sort of comfort. However, accumulating debts and need to buy a car would force Frantisek to end his hedonistic lifestyle, at least for a while. He agrees to formally marry Nadezda (played by Irina Livinova), young Russian woman, in order to prevent her deportation to Soviet Union. His only motive is financial compensation for that formality, but in the end he gets more than he bargained for. Nadezda escapes to her boyfriend in Western

Germany and leaves her 5-year old son Kolja (played by Andrei Chalimon) behind. Frantisek, who doesn't have a clue about childcare and can't even speak the same language as his stepson, is suddenly forced to be little boy's legal guardian. After his attempts to find a better solution for Kolja fail, he gradually begins to like the boy. In the meantime, as Communism slowly begins to crumble, Frantisek has to deal with his Russian-hating countrymen and secret policemen who saw through whole false marriage scheme.

The basic concept behind KOLJA - flawed, irresponsible adult being transformed by unexpected and unwanted parenthood - has been used in many films. What makes it refreshingly original in this film are the setting and specific storytelling style of the Czech cinema industry. During Communist era Czech filmmakers circumvented censorship by concentrating on "little" people and using very Czech brand of humour. Zdenek Sverak, main actor and film's scriptwriter, was quite aware of those techniques and applied them very well to describe the twilight of Communism in his country. Most of the gags in this film aren't directed at the dying regime, but on its victims - people of whom many took the path of least resistance and whose verbal patriotism was often excuse for conformism and apathy. Another dimension in the film is cultural clash between Russians and Czechs, which creates not only opportunity for extra humour, but also illustrates the way Czech people in those years perceived their oppressors. Political background also serves to underline the uplifting character of the film - as Frantisek and Kolja gradually overcome their cultural differences and reaching seemingly impossible understanding and affection, another sort of miracle is slowly appearing in the form of the events that could lead to Velvet Revolution. Many of the small but interesting details in the film would be, unfortunately, missed by viewers who haven't had first- hand experience of Communism or who aren't familiar with that particular period of European history.

Zdenek Sverak was in this film directed by his own son Jan, and with results that in many ways can match similar intergenerational collaboration between Hustons in THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE. Zdenek Sverak's is very impressive in his role of "small", flawed but in the end quite noble and decent character. His little partner Andrei Chalimon is also very convincing as adorable little brat. Libuse Safrankova is also very good in the role of Frantisek's would-be girlfriend. The movie also benefits from good use of music, with Ondrej Soukop combining works of classic Czech composers with his own. The only flaw of the film is somewhat too abrupt ending which uses 1989 Velvet Revolution more like a sideshow than real dramatic catharsis.

Yet, even without being perfect, KOLJA is a film that proves that occasionally pandering to someone's sentiments can result in a film of remarkably high quality.

Disappoints as a lumbering mainstream pic that is all too familiar to Americans

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Kolya won an Academy Award for the Best Foreign Language Film of 1996. The heart-pulling manipulative drama is directed by Jan Sverak ("The Ride"/"Accumulator 1") and is scripted by his father Zdenek Sverak, and is based on a story by Pavel Taussig. It's a dreadfully predictable and way too sugary story about the improbable relationship between an old man and a toddler, milking all the sentimentality it could out of its Hollywood-like sitcom situation. Its trite aim is to

show how the selfish older man becomes a better person when he learns to love and care for the kid under his charge.

The 55-year-old apolitical Frantisek Louka (Zdenek Sverak) is a talented cellist in the Soviet- occupied Czechoslovakia of 1989, a confirmed bachelor, a happy go lucky sober-minded lady's man and someone who dutifully looks after his politically-minded nationalist elderly mother (she shouts out for the Ruskies to go home). He used to play with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, but because of a playful insulting gesture he made on a government form was bounced. Louka now earns his meager keep by giving private lessons, painting gravestones, and performing at funerals around Prague. But the bills are climbing and to get out of debt and buy a Trabant (model name of a Czech car), he reluctantly agrees to an arranged marriage with a Russian woman, Nadezda (Livanova), the niece of his gravedigger friend Broz (Ondrej Vetchy). She needs Czech papers and has a five-year-old son Kolya (Andrej Chalimon). When the bride immediately runs off to West Germany armed with her newly acquired Czech papers to be with her lover, that leaves the cellist stuck with the kid and not able to report her because it would cause trouble for him with the authorities. An added problem that is overcome is that the kid speaks only Russian, a language Louka refuses to learn.

New Wave Czech director Jan Sverak has made a film with absolutely no edge that disappoints as a lumbering mainstream pic that is all too familiar to Americans. Even though it's well-acted and crafted, Kolya is unfortunately also a pointless film of hardly any depth.

REVIEWED ON 2/12/2004 GRADE: C+

Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"

'Kolya': Czech Mates

By Desson Howe Washington Post Staff Writer February 7, 1997

"Kolya," the Czech Republic’s Academy Award entry for Best Foreign Picture, is a sweet, sentimental sodacarbonated almost exclusively for international audiences. It mixes its formula well, using all the tried-and-true staples we have come to expect in small European films. There are some assured visual touches, a staple of any Czech film. The story, about the newfound friendship between an aging cellist and a young Russian boy, is touching to the point of being over-endearing. It relies frequently on lush music and transitional shots of the beautiful Czech countryside. And naturally, the movie fuses the personal with the political.

On the eve of the Soviet collapse (although the characters have no inkling of this), Frantisek Louka (Zdenek Sverak, who also scripted the movie) is trying to eke out a living as a musician. The 55-year-old cellist, formerly with the August Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, now performs at funerals, mostly at the city crematorium. He’s strapped for cash, but he’s not hurting for part- time liaisons. The confirmed bachelor regularly fills his empty moments with married women.

Louka’s life changes when a friendly gravedigger called Mr. Broz (Ondrez Vetchy) makes him an illicit offer. Mr. Broz’s Russian niece, Nadezhda (Irena Livanova), needs a quickie marriage for political reasons. He’s prepared to pay Louka a decent sum. After some deliberation, Louka agrees to the union. He needs rent money. He’d like to buy a used car. And it doesn’t hurt that

his aspiring bride is pretty. She speaks no Czech, he’s no good with Russian, but the couple goes through the motions: a wedding ceremony, with invited guests.

Without warning, Louka’s new wife (now carrying Czech papers) escapes to West Germany to be with her real lover. To fool the authorities, she leaves her 5-year-old son Kolya (Andrej Chalimon) in the care of his grandmother. But the old woman unexpectedly dies, leaving Louka with a shy boy who doesn’t know a word of his language.

Louka tries to maintain his old lifestyle, but Kolya (who shares Louka’s only bed) needs a full- time parent. Kolya, who needs schooling, feeding and his temperature taken when he’s sick, gradually takes over the cellist’s life. Louka is also plagued by the police who are very suspicious about his bogus marriage.

Predictably, the surrogate parent becomes attached to his charge -- right around the time local authorities are threatening to return the motherless boy to the Soviet Union. Louka, suddenly in trouble with the state, decides to take drastic measures.

"Kolya" isn’t a fantastic movie, by any stretch. But it’s appealing, thanks to Sverak’s subtle performance (he suggests a Central European Sean Connery) and some wonderful cinematic moments: There’s a beautiful opening shot high up in the clouds, taken from an airplane window, and a marvelous, semi-surrealistic moment when the sleeping boy imagines he can see a wooden top spinning on his bedroom ceiling. But screenwriter Sverak and his son Jan, who directed the picture, are clearly capable of deeper, more interesting subjects than this. Their movie, which ends with the Velvet Revolution of 1989, is designed to evoke tears, laughter and, the filmmakers hope, the Oscar. But it’s certainly not designed to break any new ground.

Film Review

By Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat

Men around the world are experimenting with one of the boldest projects of the century — getting in touch with the feminine side of their personalities. In Jan Sverak's Kolya, Frantisek is a cellist who used to play with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and has been reduced in hard times to playing for funerals at the Prague crematorium. It is 1989 and the Russians are occupying the city. However, Frantisek doesn't pay much attention to politics. A confirmed bachelor, he's content to have an occasional affair. But for the money to get out of debt, he reluctantly agrees to an arranged marriage with a Russian woman who needs Czech papers. When the bride runs off to Germany to be with her lover, the cellist is stuck with her five-year- old son Kolya.

The middle-aged man and the little boy are separated by generational, ethnic, and language barriers. But slowly Kolya wins his way into Frantisek's heart. The bachelor becomes a nurturing man. Zdenek Sverak, who wrote the screenplay and plays the cellist, has stated, "I think we need films about feeling and compassion. I liked the idea of a man who is under all sorts of pressures and yet he listens to his heart."

Let Kolya work its magic upon your heart. This drama won an Academy Award for the Best Foreign Language Film of 1996.

Kolya and Prisoner are moving tales of war by Tom Meek

During the first half of the 1990s, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences developed a penchant for awarding the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar to such lite romps as Mediterraneo and Belle Époque while slighting works with real integrity and depth, like Raise the Red Lantern and Farewell My Concubine. In 1994, the Academy interrupted this trend of false merit when it bestowed the distinction upon Nikita Mikhalkov's stirring masterpiece Burnt by the Sun. This year, with the submission of the Czech Republic's Kolya and the Russian Prisoner of the Mountains, the Academy will have two more opportunities to atone for past miscues.

Both films represent ventures in family filmmaking. Kolya is directed by Jan Sverak and stars his father, Zdenek, who also wrote the script. In Prisoner, Sergei Bodrov directs his son Sergei Jr., who makes his screen acting debut. But though each film is set against a politically tumultuous episode in Soviet history, they are worlds apart ideologically. The Sveraks' full-circle story is a warmhearted exploration of the human spirit. Bodrov makes a passionate and politically unbiased case about the futility of warfare.

Bodrov's taut contemplation is a loose adaptation of Tolstoy's short "Prisoner of the Caucasus," which has been updated to the contemporary Russia-Chechnya conflict. It's a minor tragedy that finds two Russian soldiers incarcerated by a Chechen patriarch with the hope he can trade them for a son who has been imprisoned by the local Russian guard. Yet the two soldiers are as foreign to each other as they are to their Muslim captors. Sacha (Oleg Menshikov, who was so subtly menacing in Burnt by the Sun) is the amoral propagator of war; Vania (Bodrov Jr.) is the reluctant recruit who has yet to fire his gun in combat.

As the terms for their exchange seesaw, it's the wide-eyed Vania who becomes the pivotal player. He softens Sacha; he develops a fondness for his captors, especially the patriarch's young daughter (Susanna Mekhralieva, who has Winona Ryder's mesmerizing brown eyes). It's these humanistic interactions that are crucial to the film's argument, and Bodrov Sr. tenaciously establishes a poignant balance within each moment by setting Vania's innocence and compassion against the imminent hostility of war.

Like Prisoner, the protagonists in Kolya transcend cultural barriers to touch the lives of others as they themselves become enlightened. The subject is a five-year-old Russian boy left in the care of a Czech musician on the eve of 1989's Velvet Revolution, when Communism fell in the Soviet Union and the Russians pulled out of Czechoslovakia. It's a predictable tale of parent-child bonding that works because of its deep-felt performances and tight direction.

Zdenek Sverak brings a majestic grace to his surroundings as Frantisek Louka, a down-on-his- luck middle-age bachelor in Prague. Once a revered cellist, he's been ousted from the prestigious Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and now makes a pittance playing funerals at the city's crematorium. Beyond music, Louka's only pleasure comes from dalliances with other men's wives. That's why it's such a piquant joy to watch him try to continue his freewheeling love life as he confronts the complexities of parenthood.

Financial pressures force Louka into a bogus marriage with a Russian beauty (a ravishing Irena Livanova), and through a series of fateful events, her son, Kolya (Andrej Chalimon), is delivered into his custody. At first their pairing is reluctant and strained by the political and linguistic incongruities between Russian and Czech, but they grow into a genuine father-son relationship that becomes blood-strong.

The on-screen chemistry between Sverak and Chamilon is what makes Kolya. Sverak's performance fuels the film, but Chamilon gives it heart, acting beyond his years and the cute smirks and silly remarks usually assigned to most child actors -- like the Brillo-head in Jerry Maguire.

The Sveraks and the Bodrovs have created handsome films (Pavel Lebeshev's cinematography of Chechnya's carved valleys is breathtaking) that are compelling portraits of humanity. Both render their final consequences in the wake of a momentous political transaction. Come March, one should strike Oscar gold. It's just too bad there has to be a loser.

"Kolya" by Leslie Rigoulot

One of the best things about being a critic is seeing a movie before there is any press on it so you get to 'discover' what the movie is about without anyone telling you. But in order to tell you about "Kolya" I'm going to have to take that discovery away from you. It wasn't until the marriage scene that I realized that this cosmopolitan, sophisticated film wasn't about the philanderings of a middle-aged cellist, but about how his life would be changed forever by a little boy.

Louka has been banned by the Russian-directed Czech bureaucracy from playing in his beloved symphony, so he makes his living playing at funerals and picking up odd jobs. His latest odd job is a marriage of convenience to a Russian woman with a six year-old son. Complications ensue, not the least of which is the 1989 Velvet Revolution. But there is a warmth behind the womanizing bachelor portrayed by Zdenek Sverak and a sweetness that is never syrupy in Andrej Chalimon, a real six year-old Russian kindergartner.

When I heard that "Kolya" was a collaboration between father and son, I pegged the father as director and I was wrong. Jan Sverak worked with his actor-father on the Oscar nominated "Elementary School" and they appeared together at this year's Golden Globe Awards to accept the award for best foreign film. They should be get themselves ready for March 28th because "Kolya" has been nominated in the Academy Awards Foreign Film category. No rating, English subtitles, from Miramax

Kolya (1996)

Reviewed by Nick Hilditch Updated 03 May 2002

The exceptionally cute infant of the title is almost certainly the reason why "Kolya" won the Best Foreign Film Oscar in 1997. However, Zdenek Sverák's reluctant guardian is the only character of substance in this otherwise unchallenging confection set in a Soviet-occupied Czechoslovakia. Lead actor Sverák also penned the film. Its director, Jan Sverák, is his son.

The 55-year-old bachelor Louka is a former cellist with the Czech Philharmonic reduced to playing at funerals and struggling with debt. An opportunity to settle up drops him in big trouble when a marriage of convenience sees his would-be wife skipping the country for a former lover. This leaves him at the mercy of the police (which fact provides some under-exploited tension to the film) but his biggest concern is little Kolya (Chalimon), the five-year-old son the escaping woman leaves behind.

With the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia coming to an end, the changes in Louka are dimly paralleled by the political events of 1988, but ambiguously so. His evident distaste for children is compounded by the fact that Kolya is Russian. Clumsy attempts to speak the detested language of the occupiers is a source of much of the film's humour, though the difference between the two Slavic languages is somewhat lost in the English translation.

Its traditional Czech irreverence is a relief to the mawkishness of Kolya blubbering in the bathtub, but the stickier sentiment triumphs in a predictable and unsatisfying resolution that sees the belligerent old bachelor plumping for fatherhood as the Republic finds its feet.

Kolya by Ed Scheid posted August 1, 2008 10:00 AM

This Czech film opens in 1988 Prague, shortly before the end of Soviet domination with the Velvet Revolution. Resentment against the Russians runs high. Louka (Zdenek Sverak, the director's father, who also scripts) is an older cellist who, fired from the local philharmonic, is reduced to playing for weddings and funerals. The self-centered Louka has as his main interest the seduction of a succession of female musicians. Desperate to make some money (he wants to buy a Trabant to make transporting his cumbersome instrument easier), he is paid to marry a young Russian woman (Libuse Safrankova) who wants Czech papers. Once they're in hand, however, she slips away from Prague to join her lover in Berlin, leaving behind her five-year-old Russian son Kolya (Andrej Chalimon). Neither speaks the other's language, but they gradually warm to each other. In the Czech Republic, "Kolya" has outgrossed "Forrest Gump," a sign of the film's wide appeal there; what keeps the simple story of "Kolya" from becoming overly sentimental, and could help the film travel, are the genuine emotions the two main performers give their characters. As directed by Jan Sverak (whose 1992 film "Elementary School" also was written by and starred his father and was an Oscar entry), Zdenek Sverak expertly conveys the musician's emotional change; at first concerned only with his own gratification, his Louka unexpectly, and to his own great surprise, begins to feel real affection for the boy. Young Chalimon has an amazingly expressive face, with which he expresses the boy's wide-eyed wonder as his new "father" shows him a new kind of life. Besides sentiment, "Kolya" also contains some lusty humor; Louka is not ashamed to lift the skirt of a singer during a church choir performance. Footage of Czech demonstrations against the Soviets is well-integrated into the film, emphasizing the tensions between the two nationalities--tensions the man and boy overcome. Starring Zdenek Sverak, Andrej Chalimon and Libuse Safrankova. Directed by Jan Sverak. Written by Zdenek Sverak. Produced by Eric Abraham and Jan Sverak. A Miramax release. Drama. Czech-language; subtitled. Not yet rated. Running time: 111 min. Screened at the Telluride fest. Selected as the Czech Republic entry for best foreign-language film Oscar consideration.

Give Your Heart to KOLYA by Betty Jo Tucker

When you think of movies about adult-child relationships, which one has touched you the most deeply? Before seeing Kolya, my pick would have been Witness. It's hard to top the special rapport between Harrison Ford as a hard-boiled detective and Lukas Haas as a young Amish boy who witnessed a brutal murder in that suspenseful film.

But in Kolya (Oscar-winner for Best Foreign Language Film of 1996), the relationship between a lonely six-year-old Russian refugee and the middle-aged Czech cellist forced to be his guardian seems even more touching. These two unique individuals overcome barriers of age, politics, language, and culture to form a strong emotional bond in the Russian occupied Prague of 1989 on the eve of the Velvet Revolution.

Zdenek Sverak, who plays the cellist Louka, seems quite at home with this role. His dramatic screen presence reminds me a bit of Sean Connery. But it is Andrej Chalimon, as the young Kolya, who pulls us into this movie so completely. His big sad eyes, his little feet in untied shoes trying to navigate an escalator for the first time, his joy at finally seeing a Russian flag, and practically everything else he does charmed and moved me greatly. Naturally, credit for this remarkable child’s performance must also go to the director, Jan Sverak, who is Zdenek Sverak’s son.

Director Sverak admits facing certain challenges in working with a child actor, even one as outstanding as Chalimon. "Professional actors get better with each take, but with child actors,

the more takes the worse they get," he explained in a interview during the U.S. press tour for Kolya. "I had to get it right by the third take or lose authenticity," he added.

Sverak found the incredible young Kolya star through a Moscow casting agency, but only one month before filming was to begin and only after asking to see videotapes of Moscow’s worst young troublemakers. According to Sverak, "Andrej (Chalimon) was on the tape answering some pretty stupid questions, but you could read his eyes before his answer. His face was talking to me."

Facing a different challenge directing his own father, Sverak confessed, "I can’t push him beyond where he feels comfortable, so I hypnotize him and tell him everything is positive. I never criticize him in front of others. I just whisper in his ear."

The older Sverak, who not only stars as Louka in Kolya but also wrote its humanistic screenplay, suffered jet lag on his trip to the U.S. and opted for rest instead of doing interviews. Claiming his father doesn’t travel well, the younger Sverak said, "He likes staying in his cottage, chopping wood, and writing."

I say more power to Zdenek if his cottage-dwelling and wood-chopping help him write additional scripts as good as Kolya. This appealing film sends a positive message to viewers everywhere, for if Kolya and Louka, with all their vast differences, can learn to live together and care about each other, there might be hope for the rest of the world.

(Released with English subtitles by Miramax and rated "PG-13 for some sensuality.)

Kolya

BY PHILIP MARTIN

Some people are intimidated by subtitles. Foreign films can be scary things; a certain kind of snob insists that they are inherently “better” than the domestic product. If we fail to enjoy them, does that mean that there’s something less subtle about our sensibilities? Are we just big dumb Americans unable to appreciate real “art?” Intellectually, we must understand that the vast majority of movies, foreign and domestic, are, at best, mild entertainments. Yet even if we understand that it’s not necessarily our fault if a given movie fails to connect with us, we might be forgiven if we are inclined to think of foreign films are dense, difficult and dark; one needn’t be a psycho-historian to understand why European films seem especially dour — a good many of them are. So Kolya, the most recent winner of the Academy Award for best foreign film, is, in some essential ways, hardly foreign at all. There are subtitles, of course, and the film proceeds at a gentler pace than we might be used to yet there is a Hollywood sweetness at the film’s soft center. Kolya presents us with a synthesis of the Czech “New Wave” films of the late ’60s and the “adult” melodrama of Kramer vs. Kramer: The movie tempers its Slavic sense of humor wedded with a straightforward American approach to storytelling — despite the director’s obvious seriousness, there is nothing oblique or obscure about Kolya. It is designed to be a “feel-good” hit. Set in Soviet-occupied Prague, on the eve of the 1989 Velvet Revolution, the film opens on Frantisek Louka (Zdenek Sverak), a 55-year-old cellist struggling to make ends meet, fulfill his romantic obligations and look after his aging mother. Since Louka’s flippant attitude cost him his job playing with a the prestigious philharmonic, he has been reduced to playing for funerals at the Prague crematorium and restoring headstones in the graveyard. While life in his “tower” — a garret apartment with a commanding view of Prague where he cheerfully beds a succession of other men’s wives — doesn’t seem so bad; Louka is desperately in debt. He has had to sell his car and his mother’s house is falling apart. Yet when a grave digger friend (Ondrez Vetchy) offers him a chance to make enough money to pay off his debts and buy a small car , Louka at first refuses. The grave digger proposes that Louka marry a Russian woman who needs Czech papers. After six months, they’ll divorce. No problems. But Louka worries about the police, and about

maintaining his lifestyle. He’s reluctant, but his debts are grinding and he finally agrees. After the wedding, Louka’s new bride flees to West Germany to join her lover, leaving behind her 5-year-old son Kolya (Andrej Chalimon). Through a series of contrivances, Louka assumes responsibility for his young “stepson,” despite the fact that the child speaks only Russian and Louka speaks only Czech. You can probably take it from there; the premise dictates that the relationship between the two will follow a prescribed arc. But what is interesting about Kolya is not the story so much as the way it is told; largely through the wonderfully expressive faces of Zdenek Sverak, who also wrote the script, (and incidentally looks enough like Sean Connery to make his aging roue act credible) and little Chalimon, one of those impossibly cute movie kids. Director Jan Sverak — the son of the leading actor — has a thoughtful way of imagining the world. His camera finds unusual, but not ostentatiously arty, angles and provides us with telling details and a few mind-blowers: There are a couple of shots that are absolutely amazing — while its doubtful that the bird flying above Louka’s car in one scene is indeed computer-generated, it’s hard to imagine any other way the shot could have been done. Cinematographer Vladimir Smutny captures some wonderful images: Pigeons scraping their beaks on think, distorted window glass, a little boy’s face misted in soup steam, a city furnished in red and brown tones, polished mirrored surfaces closing on the boy and revealing the man .... Yeah, some of it is a little heavy-handed and there is a political point to be made here — Louka’s acceptance of the Russian boy can be read as a signal of his willingness to abandon the grievances of the past and embrace the future of a boundaryless Europe. We get it, but in this case the point is beside the point. Kolya one of those beautiful, sweet, buttery-lit movies that will leave all but the bitterest cynics smiling.