Anybody know why this (and apparently other Italian films of the era) don't seem to have live sound? The dialogues seem to have all been looped in (dubbed) later, I mean. It seriously detracts from the viewing experience to see the actors mumbling something and their voices not corresponding to their lip movements at all. I can't seem to find any information about this elsewhere.
shareYeah, I was slightly bothered by that too, but I'm not sure why it was needed except in the crowded and probably loud "Madonna" scene. It didn't detract too much, though, because I was reading subtitles most of the time, so it didn't really matter.
"Science was my most favorite subject! Especiallly the Old Testament!" -Kenneth the Page
Cinecitta Studios is on a direct flight path to Rome Airport. The noise from the planes comes out on the sound recordings so everything is redubbed. I believe it is still like this. When Scorsese made Gangs of New York he filmed it at Cinecitta and the sound was dubbed afterwards.
shareWRONG. Gangs of New York was NOT looped afterward.
shareBull
shareI had read somewhere that Fellini and many other Italian filmmakers did this. I don't know why though, and also would be curious if anyone has anymore information.
shareThere's a few reasons for this, and you need to go back to the Neo-Realism movement to find them.
For a start, a lot of Italian cinema was shot on location rather than in sound-stages, so for reasons of practice and economy (this was a very low-budget form of film-making) it was easier and cheaper to dub the sound in post production.
When better equipment and budgets were available there were still reasons like the overwhelming amount of different dialects in Italy, which often destroyed the authenticity of whatever region or style the director was going for. This also comes into play when European stars who spoke little to no Italian began to be cast in films (Deep Red, The Good, The Bad & The Ugly for example).
Plus, it's just the traditional way of film-making there.. and you know how hard it is to break with traditional conventions!
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A lot of older flicks are dubbed over. Star Wars is almost entirely dubbed. Just a technological constraint. Still today audio is probably the hardest part of making a film.
shareIsn't it also because Fellini had his international cast (french, american, italian, swedish) act in their native languages, requiring him to dub most of the dialog into Italian in post production? I mean, the problem isn't that the dialog is dubbed. It's that it's dubbed into a different language, so mouths and words rarely coincide.
I for one found it very distracting.