Dubbing in Deed, and Listening to Dubbing

Abstract

The global road to linguistic purification and closure to other sounds and voices is usually discussed in terms of commerce and American hegemony, and begins with the story of the big Hollywood studio’s decision to establish multilingual productions or multiple language versions (MLVs) of American films. That is, they simultaneously shot a number of unique versions of a film (at least 2 or 3 and as high as 14), often with different actors, and directors, each in a different language. Warner Bros., the first in 1929, was followed by the other major Hollywood, and several Europeans studios. Paramount outdid them all with a massive investment in Joinville outside of Paris. The costs were prohibitive—great numbers of actors, directors, longer shooting schedules—the results were mediocre, and the whole enterprise lasted for little more than three years. Discussing this chaotic moment at the birth of sound cinema, as it faced the reality of different languages and cultures for the first time, Ginette Vincendeau complexifies the aesthetic and commercial choices of the moment, reminding us that dubbing film using voice actors did not follow MLVs but preceded them, it was available from the start and was more economical. It was not adapted for technical and aesthetic reasons: filmmakers were grappling with the technical and aesthetic aspects of how to integrate sound with silent filmmaking practices, and audiences were coming to grips with the verisimilitude of moving pictures that talked:

The struggle to improve and impose sound technology was combined with a struggle to improve and impose its credibility and given the primacy of the human body and thus the human voice, that of dialogue. (33)