Subtitling English-language films

[An tSaoi]

It seems that Joe Cornish's South London set sci-fi action-comedy thing Attack the Block can't get a distributor in America because the accents are too thick and the slang too obscure.[nb]Or maybe it's just a stinker; it doesn't really interest me ether way.[/nb] Naturally all the US internet hipsters who are going to pirate the film anyway say they'll have no problem, but the rest of the country might struggle with it, apparently. The IMDb message board for every British film ever made (than isn't set in a period manor house or Buckingham palace) has at least one thread started by an American who says the whole thing is rubbish from start to finish because they couldn't make out what anyone was saying.

While it's very easy to make fun of Americans for being too ignorant to understand people from a country other than their own, every man and his dog on this side of the Atlantic complained about Jeff Bridges being incomprehensible in the new True Grit, so no-one has the higher ground. My father had to turn off O Brother, Where Art Thou? after 20 minutes because he couldn't pick up a single line. I recall some of my friends not enjoying District 9 because of the South African accents (although brief vox pop snippets are subtitled). People anywhere can't help struggling with a strong dialect with which they're not familiar. Yet we pretend it's only an American problem.

So what's the best way to deal with strong dialect films where a significant portion of the audience might find it difficult to keep up? I know they redubbed parts of Trainspotting for its US release, and I remember Channel 4 airing some Oop North film with subtitles a few years back. Or should they just play the film as-is and stuff the people who can't understand?

Additionally, have you every struggled to keep up with an English-language film?

[Santa's Boyfriend]

I'd be inclined to release the film in the US with subtitles, but then I'm not an American distributor so can't really say if this is viable or not.  It's a shame because accents don't have to be particularly thick before Americans outside of the coastal states have trouble.  I know Dog Soldiers didn't pick up a US distributor for much the same reason, even though it sold everywhere else.

The real answer is a gradual cultural broadening.  If you hear these accents more than once i na blue moon you'll understand them soon enough; but that's not necessarily a commercially viable option even here, let alone in a country where insularity is often considered a good thing.

[Famous Mortimer]

I was fine with Jeff Bridges' accent in True Grit. Didn't care all that much for the film, mind.

[greencalx]

I find a lot of American accents very difficult - I was one of those who couldn't make out what people were saying in O Brother... for example. At the risk of sounding like my father, I also find movie actors tend to mumble somewhat.

Sometimes it's just a case of getting into it - probably if I had subtitles for the first few minutes, I could switch them off after that and be fine. This is what Ken Loach did in Sweet Sixteen (to predictable complaints about being patronising), but there I don't know if that's what helped me understand the rest of the film, or whether the accents weren't that strong anyway, or, because I'd spent some time living in Scotland, I was already used to it. Who knows?

Dubbing is an abomination and should never be allowed.

[SavageHedgehog]

It's OK for animation...in theory

[Consignia]

It's OK for animation...in theory

Animation is usually for kids, who would find it difficult to keep up with subtitles. So it's usually fair game there.

[An tSaoi]

Plus it doesn't look as distracting with cartoon mouths.

The real answer is a gradual cultural broadening.  If you hear these accents more than once i na blue moon you'll understand them soon enough; but that's not necessarily a commercially viable option even here, let alone in a country where insularity is often considered a good thing.

I think that's the crux of it. Crucially, it's not just the accents that are cited as a stumbling block, but the references to things with which Americans aren't familiar, something subtitles won't solve. Similarly, Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle was renamed Harold and Kumar Get The Munchies over here because that chain doesn't exists outside of America (as far as I know). The things South London kids talk about might not travel very well, to an even greater extent than the way they talk.

[holyzombiejesus]

Did NEDS sell to the states?

[Old Nehamkin]

Joe Cornish addresses this from about 12:00 on-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HWzpQMHRsQ

The pretty much unanimous audience response to his question sugests it isn't much of an issue. I know it's a festival audience and not necessarily representative of the average American moviegoer, but I'm inclined to agree with him when he says it's a case of US distributors underestimating their intelligence. Four Lions, despite not being a major release, went down really well in the US and I don't remember reading any complaints about the language, bar a couple of cultural references (boots etc). Attack the block, being an action film, has a lot more potential for mainstream appeal I think, and given the major festival buzz it's already created I imagine there's going to be a lot of campaigning to get it a release.