Abstract
The question of subtitling has received little attention in Film Studies, despite being the primary means by which foreign-language cinema is experienced. Current literature focuses on important matters of language and translation, but there are other aspects that exceed these matters when we watch subtitled films, aspects which are able to affect and move viewers without relying on explanation through translation. My paper shows how viewers have to negotiate these affective elements in order to apprehend foreign-language films, with special attention on their indeterminate characteristics that escape representation. It considers the negotiation of subtitled cinema from numerous theoretical perspectives. Gilles Deleuze’s film-philosophy is popular in Film Studies for its theoretical flows and lines of flight, but this paper engages another Deleuzian thread—one of gaps and fissure—in order to explore the indeterminate negotiations of subtitled films. But in thinking about subtitling, we also have to reconsider the constitution of media. Cinema is not just made up of individual parts; rather, it is made of many interacting media, which cannot be separated. I argue that subtitled cinema consists of multiple affective elements that go beyond the interpretive methods of language and translation, and that the practice of negotiation is one way to apprehend them. In conclusion, this article, by exploring non-linguistic issues, argues that subtitling is not simply supplementary to cinema.
Highlights
As I watched a subtitled version of Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht (Werner Herzog, 1979) on YouTube recently (Figure 1), my attention was drawn away from the film itself and towards the translation on several occasions
Gilles Deleuze’s approach to cinema, which is based on a rethinking of the relation between art and the world, offers a useful way to consider the negotiation of subtitled cinema
In light of the themes explored in this article, we can conclude that subtitling is not merely supplemental to cinema
Summary
As I watched a subtitled version of Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht (Werner Herzog, 1979) on YouTube recently (Figure 1), my attention was drawn away from the film itself and towards the translation on several occasions. Watching an amateur subtitled, ‘fansubbed’ version of Nosferatu on YouTube meant there were more frequent and more significant errors in comparison to a theatrical release or DVD of the film In both scenes, viewers’ engagement with the film is affected by its translation. The above example illustrates the coincidental affective response that is part of subtitled film viewing This refers to elements of film experience that stimulate viewers in ways that cannot be ascribed to the linguistic or translational features of subtitling. They are coincidental in the sense that they occur alongside linguistic effects, and in that they are contingent. I conclude the article by positing a new conception of subtitling’s role in cinema: not one that is supplementary, but one that is fundamental
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