From The 1709 Blog:
[D]irector Alfonso Cuaron, who was recently awarded three Oscar for his movie “Roma”, a black-and-white production in Spanish and Mixtec, distributed worldwide thanks to Netflix. Interestingly, in all of his interviews, the director expressly acknowledged the merits of such a singular choice, declaring that the diffusion of his film worldwide would have not been the same without Netflix intervention.
Everything nice and fine so far.
However, you might not know that just one month before the Academy Awards, the same Mexican director had been complaining with the media company due to a very singular – IP-related – issue. Apparently, this related to the inclusion, by Netflix, of Iberian-Spanish subtitles. In Cuaron’s view, such an inclusion would have been “parochial, ignorant and offensive to Spaniards themselves”. This because, in the director’ opinion, the two languages – Mexican Spanish and European Spanish – would not, actually, be so different to require a specific translation. On its side, following Cuaron’ complaints, Netflix decided to drop the “European Spanish” subtitles from “Roma” in Spain, replacing it with an option for European Spanish closed captions.
. . . .
Article 6 bis of the Berne Convention recognises the moral right of integrity, which consists of the possibility for the author of a work to object to any distortion, modification of or other derogatory action in relation to it, which would be prejudicial to the author’s honour and reputation. Notwithstanding its fundamental role, however, the mentioned right has been implemented differently across the various Berne Union countries.
For example, the definition of integrity is certainly narrower in the United Kingdom, than what is the case elsewhere: under Section 80 (2) CDPA a derogatory “treatment” is indeed required. Also, in the same country, when it comes to translations of literary and dramatic works, these modifications are expressly excluded from the scope of the right. However, according to scholarly literature, “the exclusion of translations from the definition should be confined to true and accurate translations, as it is difficult to see why an author should not be able to object to a translation which murders his work or distorts its meaning“
. . . .
Apparently, when it comes to the merely-commercial side of things, the law is clearly on the side of copyright owners. Article 8 of the Berne Convention states: “Authors of literary and artistic works protected by this Convention shall enjoy the exclusive right of making and of authorizing the translation of their works through the term of protection of their rights in the original works”. For this very reason, two years ago, in Sweden, Eugen Archy, the founder of Undertexter.se, a fan-made subtitles site, was held liable of copyright infringement by the Amsterdam District Court, given that “that subtitles can only be created and distributed after permission has been obtained from copyright holders”. In the same way, in Italy in September 2018, following proceedings brought by the Italian Federation for the Protection of Audio-visual contents (“FAPAV”) , the fan-made site Italiansubs had to interrupt its allegedly “copyright infringing” activity.
Link to the rest at The 1709 Blog
As an Australian I do feel this. My whole life I’ve seen British and American television and we were left on our own to figure out dialectic quirks, idioms, and cultural references, no matter how obscure the dialect.
I would be immensely offended by subtitles for Americans on Australian movies. Even when the language and context gets difficult.
I have to ask, if you want to enjoy the art of a culture and they’re speaking a dialect of your own language, isn’t that part of what makes it worth exploring?
Movies are entertainment not educational assignment. And immersion matters. Having to guess at the dialogue breaks immersion something fierce.
Making a movie accessible with *optional* subtitles is hardly a hanging offense.
Note that Netflix didn’t change much: close captioning and subtitles are pretty much the same thing. They just renamed the feature.
FWIW, a friend’s daughter is taking spanish in school and he asked me for tips on getting her practice outside books. I suggested she watch her favorite movies on DVD with the spanish soundtrack and english subtitles but not with both audio and subtitles in spanish. The two features are independently produced by different translators and rarely say the same thing, which would be counterproductive.
Also, the regional differences between the different spanish variations are a matter of vocabulary as much as accents. Latin american variations are very different from “caftillian” which is closer to its 11th century roots than the latin american kin. On paper all three are similar enough to be readable but to the ear they can be very different.
Netflix got it right and were right to stand their ground.
“I would be immensely offended by subtitles for Americans on Australian movies.”
I have heard genuine ‘strain, and it can be almost indecipherable to American ears.
Netflix or Amazon has some very good Australian mini-series. More complex plots than we usually see. Hidden City is one, and I forget the other titles. But, they tend to run the background music a bit high, and it’s hard to pull some of the dialog. Rather than go back, I turn on the subtitles. My choice. It’s an option.
I don’t care about enjoying the art of a culture. I lack the necessary sophistication and nuanced tastes. I just want to watch a good show.
I used to live in Cali, and all the Mexicans I met there, swore they spoke El-Mexicano, Espanol. I feel like he wouldn’t have gotten his way if he went with that argument.
In high school, I had a Spanish teacher who was Castilian. My wife works with a cooperating teacher from Columbia. I live in a Mexican language region.
Okay, they are similar, very similar. But the Columbian has difficulties communicating with the Mexican parents; the Castilian would probably have an even worse problem.
In my own language (English), if I am watching a movie with authentic Cockney acting, I dang well need subtitles. Or Irish English – the future son in law had a movie once about the Irish gangs of New York back in the 19th century. I couldn’t understand at least one word in three. (The other two, I understood all too well, since they were nice simple four letter things.)
I love the Irish movie, “The Guard” (2011, with Brendan Gleeson and Don Cheadle,) but I had to watch it twice to figure out some of the dialogue. Do yourselves a treat and at least check out. It’s got a wicked, subversive sense of humor.
“Article 6 bis of the Berne Convention recognises the moral right of integrity, which consists of the possibility for the author of a work to object to any distortion, modification of or other derogatory action in relation to it, which would be prejudicial to the author’s honour and reputation.”
Hmm, like putting a little girl in front of a bull to change the meaning of things? (of course I’m too lazy to look to see if we honor such things … 😉 )