I was watching the Criterion release of this movie and there were a lot of stretches where the subtitles were not shown. Someone would be speaking and there would just be no subtitles.
Criterion is normally really good with their subtitles, but it really bothered me, because every so often there would be 2-4 sentences that would not be subtitled.
Did anyone else notice this?
there were a lot of stretches where the subtitles were not shown. Someone would be speaking and there would just be no subtitles.I was a bit upset about this myself, as it made me feel like I was missing some important dialogue.
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Well, for whatever reason, Roman Polanski didn't want us to know about 1/3 of what was said... If you're going to blame someone, blame him because he personally did the subtitles for the movie. (I still can't help but think that Criterion could have added a complete subtitle version.)
shareIt seemed to me that some of the missing stuff was just obvious yes/no answers that you could figure out from the faces. Then the rest appeared to be nautical jargon that was just typical stuff you hear on a sailboat. I'm only guessing, so maybe someone who understands Polish could fill us all in!
shareI saw it in a theater last night as part of a Janus Films series. It sounds like the subtitles on the print we saw were similar to what's on the DVD.
shareYeah, that bothered me at first but I quickly realized that all the gaps were little things that are easy to get the basic idea just from the tone.
shareYea it bothered me also, but I have seen films of Tarkovsky where some of the subtitles were missing, and be a native speaker of russian, I can usually say that you are not missing much. Same goes for this film, I understand some of the polish and it was just general talk, nothing critical to the film.
shareYeah as all of you have pointed out many dialogue scenes aren't subtitled at all. That's really annoying. I dunno why Polanski chose to do that; The english subtitulation was made by him. What was he thinking?
Anyway there are not much dialogue in this movie, but still it bothers me a bit since I am afraid I lost some interesting line.
Well its been close to 2 years since the last comment but here goes,as a polish speaker yes there are a number of minor mis-steps and errors such as quick one word answers or comments but the main points of the narrative are accurate.The problem may just be with the print.I've seen this film in the movies,TV & video and the audio was the same in every format.I guess if Polanski goes back and cleans up or re-masters the sound this will be the only version available.As quick back story this film was screened 1 night when I was about 10 on PBS-13 in NYC.It was a big deal then for my parents and thier ex-pat friends.It went over my head after 10 minutes and I had to search it out much later to understand the impact of the film.
shareYou're not. It's more important to look at what's going on in their faces than what's being actually said. Nothing that isn't subtitled is crucial, and you can pretty much figure out what they're saying even if you don't speak the language.
It did bother me at first, until I realized that's what the case was.
I thought it enhanced the viewing. It definitely made me focus more on the film and I felt more intune with the actors.
"better to be king for a night, than schmuck for a lifetime"-Rupert Pupkin (De Niro)
I would like to know what the last line (or so) meant, when the husband says "he was a stoker, his feet were hard from walking on coke (coal??)" I just couldn't make sense of this - what's a stoker? was this the story he would have told the police?
shareA stoker is someone who stokes a fire. In this instance, probably a person who shovels coal into the engine of a ship. I think the point was that the man had previously had very calloused feet, but after being on shore for a year his feet had softened, so that next time he tried to do the trick where he jumped on broken glass, his feet were cut up.
shareI prefer a film subtitled this way. Too often films insist on subtitling every word, even if its someone's name being repeated or the word 'si' which just about everyone understands. The missing words in this film weren't important or were easily understood by the action taking place.
shareI gave up on the film right after they first got to the boat. Between missing subtitles and my poor hearing (I always have closed captions on), I just couldn't make out enough of the dialog to tell what was going on.
... and the rocks it pummels. - James Berardinelli
I was annoyed that the last portion of the young mans poetry was not subtitled.
shareYeah, I don't understand how anyone can say the non-subtitled dialogue wasn't important when parts like the poem are incomplete as a result.
Sure, most of the missing bits were flavor dialogue, but knowing what they are saying contributes a lot to characterization (I understand some Polish and was surprised at some of the lines that were left un-subbed).
This isn't even addressing the fact that some lines were not exactly translated correctly. Some were translated differently to make it easier for Americans to understand, and that's understandable (stuff like meters to feet), but other parts seemed unintentionally less coherent due to what was simply a bad translation. I really hope these subtitles are redone on future releases, regardless of whether Polanski translated this version himself or not.