Reproducing Languages, Translating Bodies Approaches to Speech, Translation and Cultural Identity in Early European Sound Film Anna Sofia Rossholm
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ACTA UNIVERSITATIS STOCKHOLMIENSIS Stockholm Cinema Studies 4 Reproducing Languages, Translating Bodies Approaches to Speech, Translation and Cultural Identity in Early European Sound Film Anna Sofia Rossholm Stockholm University © Anna Sofia Rossholm, Stockholm 2006 Cover image: Publicity still from Generalen (Paramount, 1931) ISSN 1653-4859 ISBN 91-85445-50-9 Printed in Sweden by US-AB, Stockholm 2006 Distributor: Almqvist & Wiksell International, Stockholm Contents Introduction ...................................................................................................11 Purpose of the Study...................................................................................................12 Object of Analysis .......................................................................................................13 Theoretical Perspectives and Delimitations.................................................................14 Discursive Levels...................................................................................................15 European Film and Cultural Identities....................................................................16 Early Sound Film in a Modernity Context...............................................................17 Versions and Intermediality: Film as Text and Event .............................................18 “Heteroglossia”, Translation and Media .................................................................20 Outline and Chapter Preview ......................................................................................20 “Heteroglossia” of Speech and Sound Universalism ....................................23 Theoretical and Historical Perspectives on Speech and Sound Recording .................23 “I am talking into a microphone”.............................................................................23 Framing Speech Reproduction ..............................................................................24 Real Voices and Language .........................................................................................27 Two Forces of Power.............................................................................................27 Body versus Language ..........................................................................................29 The Language of Sound..............................................................................................31 Sound and Writing .................................................................................................31 Pure Sounds and Language Norms.......................................................................33 The Utopia of a Universal Language......................................................................36 Transposition versus Translation ................................................................................37 Media Transposition and Decoding........................................................................37 “Untranslatability” and Speech Simulation .............................................................41 Sound Practice and Speech Representation...............................................................45 Speech Heteroglossia in Time and Space .............................................................45 Struggle of Power ..................................................................................................47 Language(s) of Sound Film: the Regional, the Multilingual and Hollywood English...........................................................................................................51 The Fall of the Tower of Babel ....................................................................................51 Film Universalism and Cultural Differentiation .......................................................51 “Sounds of the World”: Sound Film versus Talking Picture ....................................53 Speech as Regional and Social Signifier.....................................................................56 Non-verbal Voices .................................................................................................56 Speech as Voice and Diction.................................................................................58 “These people have an accent the way others have a black skin” .........................61 Multilingual Representations .......................................................................................64 Internationalism and Polyglossia ...........................................................................64 Translation and Communication in Bi-lingual Films................................................66 Europeanism as Differentiation..............................................................................68 Hollywood English.......................................................................................................70 Americanism and Sound Film ................................................................................70 Vernacular American Speech ................................................................................71 American Language and Power.............................................................................74 Sound, Image and Writing: Hybrid Talkies and Figures of Transposition.....77 Filmic Speech Representation ....................................................................................77 Perspectives on Versions and Intermedia..............................................................78 Intertitles and Sound ...................................................................................................80 Criticism of “Silent” Speech....................................................................................80 Intertitles as Graphics............................................................................................82 Part-talkies and Silent Versions as Hybrids ...........................................................83 Writing and Sound as Figures, Motifs and Themes.....................................................88 Writing and “Spaceless” Voices: Prix de beauté and The Phantom of the Opera ..88 Figures of Media Transposition..............................................................................92 Translation as (A)synchronisation: Titling and Dubbing ...............................98 Approaches to Film Translation...................................................................................98 Double Language in Film Translation ....................................................................99 Synchronisation in Classical Cinema ...................................................................101 Translation in Early Sound Film ................................................................................105 Media Materialisation and Synchronisation as Liveness ......................................105 Differentiation of Translation Techniques.............................................................107 Aspects of Cultural Representation......................................................................110 Translators as “Near-equivalence”.......................................................................112 Media Transposition in Dubbing Techniques .......................................................113 Inscription/Simulation, Voice/Body, Unification/Separation ..................................115 Example: M – le maudit .............................................................................................117 Translating Bodies and Imaginary Geographies: Polyglot Stardom ...........120 Multiple Language Version Film ................................................................................120 Production Background: Joinville, Babelsberg and Elstree ..................................121 Framing Language Versions................................................................................122 MLV as Representation of Transnational Identity......................................................125 Homogenisation or Differentiation?......................................................................125 MLVs as Allegories of Imaginary Geographies ....................................................128 MLV-stardom ............................................................................................................131 Intersections of Versions and Star Images...........................................................131 MLV Star Types...................................................................................................132 Version Production as Star Image: Lilian Harvey.................................................134 Foreign Accents and Polyglot Voices...................................................................139 Film, Theatre and Translation of the Local: Marius in Sweden ..................144 Translating the Modern .............................................................................................144 Joinville – A Sausage Factory..............................................................................144 Marius as Vernacular Modernism ........................................................................145 The Swedish Versions ..............................................................................................147 Production Background .......................................................................................149 Marius – Untranslatable but Exportable ....................................................................151