Read My Lips the Italian Art of Dubbing by Chiara Barzini
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C RIT I C ISM read my lips The Italian art of dubbing By Chiara Barzini n the Thirties, when sound films Italy. During the film’s climax, Garbo dubbers were working-class immi- werei beginning to circulate, Musso- gave Italians a taste of her warm, hus- grants living near the studio who lini prohibited the use of foreign lan- ky voice with two uncensored words: were called to record in their native guages in all movies shown in Italy. “Padre! Padre!” But other Hollywood languages. But who would want to The Ministry of Popular Culture, films passed quietly by. Most Italians hear Marlene Dietrich speak like a which was responsible for overseeing were either illiterate or had difficulties farmer from Calabria? Hollywood re- the content of newspapers, literature, reading, which made a visit to the thought its approach, using profes- theater, radio, and cinema, censored movies feel more like sitting for a sional theater actors from Italy to dub all foreign words adopted into Italian school exam than entertainment. American stars. usage, replacing them with creative or With attendance dropping, the 3,200 In 1933, the Fascists expanded the stunningly literal translations. (The movie theaters in Italy were falling scope of censorship, banning all for- word cocktail, for instance, changed into financial ruin. eign films dubbed in Italian outside to “bevanda arlecchina,” suggesting a Garbo was not the only actor Amer- Italy—as if nervous that foreign pro- drink as colorful as the commedia ican producers asked to speak in other ducers might put revolutionary mes- dell’arte fool Harlequin; Louis Arm- languages. Italians adored the kooky sages into the mouths of Italian ac- strong became Luigi Braccioforte.) British and American accents of Lau- tors abroad. To better control the Only foreign-language sonorizzati rel and Hardy, who read from cue cards process, Italy opened its first nation- films—those in which the spoken in phonetic Italian, and when, in 1939, al dubbing houses—Fotovox, Fono parts were removed and summarizing Italian comedy icon Alberto Sordi Roma, and Itala Acustica—in Italian intertitles added—could be began dubbing Hardy, he maintained Rome. Actors were hired, and also shown in cinemas. While the rest of the affectation of an American accent. sound technicians, translators, script Europe was importing talkies from Some major studios, such as MGM and adapters, and dubbing directors, who Hollywood, Italy was doomed to Fox, meanwhile, created separate ver- tailored scripts to match the move- watch silent Italian melodramas sions of the same movie with casts of ments of the actors’ mouths. Lydia known as telefoni bianchi (“white tele- different nationalities, as was the case Simoneschi, Ingrid Bergman’s dub- phones”), so called for their motif of with Raoul Walsh’s The Big Trail and ber, supposedly had so many projects betrayed women weeping into stylish Hal Roach’s Men of the North. As long on hand that she slept in the Fono Art Deco receivers. as the actors on Italian screens spoke Roma recording studios. Audiences in Europe and the Unit- Italian, Mussolini approved. Being Italian, the dubbing industry ed States were finally hearing Greta To compete with these studios, a quickly became a family affair. The Garbo in Anna Christie (1930)—the Paramount executive, the Austrian actors who had taken their voices to film’s tag line was garbo speaks!—but physicist Jacob Karol, introduced new Hollywood began to raise their chil- Italians were left in silence. MGM, in dubbing technology at Joinville, Par- dren and grandchildren in Italian re- an attempt to circumvent Mussolini’s amount’s studio near Paris. Cheaper cording studios. Families of dubbers dictum, filmed a special scene just for than hiring several international and rumoristi (those responsible for casts and shooting several times over, creating sound effects) became power- Chiara Barzini is a screenwriter living in Rome. Her debut fiction collection, Sister the technique involved inserting a ful clans; to this day, most of Italy’s Stop Breathing, was published by Cala- sound track to coordinate exactly best-known voice-over actors are de- mari Press in February. with the moving image. The first scendants of the first generation of 74 HARPER’S MAGAZINE / MAY 2012 (74-78) Barzini Final5.indd_0322 74 3/22/12 11:22 AM er heard. “They were so disappointed, they screamed in unison: No! No! No! Give us Giuseppe Rinaldi [Bran- do’s dubber] back! And I couldn’t agree more. To us, a certain actor means a certain voice. John Wayne could be no other than Emilio Cigoli, and Sean Con- nery could be no other than Pino Locchi.” It wasn’t just the voic- es of the actors that Ital- ians grew to love, but the entire language that the dubbing industry was in- venting. Jokingly called Doppiaggese (“Transla- tionese”), dubbed speech had neither the loose cadences of Neapolitan, Roman, and Sicilian Italian nor the strict vowel sounds of the dubbers. Two of my elementary-school enthusiast,” this development only North. This language, filled with new classmates in Rome, Marzia del Fabbro gives actors an excuse not to project idioms and Italianized American words, and Myriam Catania, who came from their voices, to get away with bad at first existed solely in the film world. the dubbing family of the Izzos, went acting disguised as “underacting.” (The word fanculo, a shortening of vaf- off after class to record parts in Sheer The dubbing of Italians into Italian fanculo, “fuck you,” was supposedly cre- Madness (1983), Heartburn (1986), and is now generally reserved for TV ac- ated by dubbers to sync with the lips of Fatal Attraction (1987). (Myriam tors, particularly the female protago- an actor pronouncing the English learned and spoke her first curse word nists of soap operas that air on the phrase.) Riccardo Paladini, the first na- in any language—“shit, shit, shit!”— Berlusconi-owned Rete 4 and Canale tional-television news broadcaster for as Michael Douglas’s daughter.) In my 5. As Rossi confided, actresses in Ital- Radiotelevisione Italiana, whose daugh- eyes, they were prodigies, alter egos of ian soaps are not always chosen for ter Roberta is now a well-known voice the actors they dubbed and we revered. their elocutive talent. They stand actor herself, was hired for the job in It wasn’t only foreign films that there, and the dubbers 1952 because he spoke with the timbre were affected by the proliferation of speak for them. and impeccable diction of the earliest dubbing. Dubbers’ voices rapidly de- dubbers. Later, screenwriter Ennio Flaia- veloped to such high standards that hen, in the Seventies, inde- no said the “language spoken by dub- Italian actors, including Claudia Car- pendentW cinemas in Italy began to bers” was the true Italian—something dinale, Gina Lollobrigida, Silvana show foreign films in their original lan- like the standardized national language Mangano, and Sophia Loren (whose guages, the development was not well Mussolini had hoped to introduce. Dub- strong regional accent was considered received. “The only time people got in- bers had done for film and television vulgar), were borrowing voices from terested in them was when they heard what Dante Alighieri did for literature. Italian dubbers to create more sophis- that Robert De Niro in The Godfather By the Eighties, a whole segment ticated personae for themselves. Such Part II actually spoke Italian,” Rossi of Italy’s pop culture existed in Dop- modifications were carried out in told me. Rossi, who collects dubbing piaggese. As children, my friends and complete secrecy, of course; thanks to memorabilia, has lined his bedroom I took pleasure in calling one an- dubbing, the stars spoke like a family wall with hundreds of black-and-white other the absurd phrases Italian dia- of demigods. autographed photos of American and logue-adapters had invented. We These days, practically all foreign Italian actors, including one of Sean became pollastrelle (“chicks”), ex- films in Italy are dubbed, while the Connery laughing with his dubber, claiming “Grande Giove!” (“Great actors in Italian films are most often Pino Locchi, at a bevanda arlecchina Scott!”) like Doc from Back to the left to speak for themselves. To Ric- party. In The Godfather Part II, De Future. We pretended to be the Blues cardo Rossi, a well-known actor, co- Niro was imitating Marlon Brando, Brothers running away from the pie- median, and self-described “dubbing whose voice Italian audiences had nev- dipiatti (cops, in Doppiaggese, are the Illustration by Matthew Richardson CRITICISM 75 (74-78) Barzini Final5 cx2.indd_0328 75 3/28/12 9:38 AM “One helluva team of writers has produced a book you’ll be “flat-footed”) and answered to our dipping into for years.”—Jim Bouton, author of Ball Four parents’ demands with “Oh yeah, puoi giurarci, amico” (“you betcha, buddy”), which was the American Rules of the Game actor’s self-confident reply to just about any question. We kept those THe BeST SPORTS WRITING FROM unlikely, wonderful phrases alive to HaRpeR’S MaGazine build bridges between ourselves and our on-screen heroes. P R e FACe B y RO y BLOu NT JR . When I moved to the United States in 1994, I realized that there was a lot I had been missing. The first Rules of the Game: The Best Sports Writing from Harper’s Magazine film I saw in America was Forrest uncovers funny, touching, exciting, intriguing stories of the sporting Gump, in a dingy theater in the San life, both professional and amateur. These essays show that how we play Fernando Valley with my grandmoth- and write about sports reflects and celebrates our nation’s character.