Literally Lost in Translation: The Difficulty in Properly Subtitling a Film and its Effects on the Viewer
How can the issue of cultural and linguist translation be tackled? Can it even be tackled at all? While a film may be able to translate the language, some cultural references are usually lost, especially when taking into consideration a unique language and culture like Japanese for example, and attempting to translate the language and culture relevance to an American audience. No easy feat.
Take a film like Miyazaki’s “My Neighbor Totoro” as an example – there’s something culturally amiss in the translation, so much so that more than one English version has been released since the original Japanese release in 1988.
There’s much room for exploration of what makes a film translation either good or bad, and this would make for an interesting project particularly if explored by bilingual folks who are fluent in both the linguistic and cultural nuances of the original film and its subtitled release.
