I watched this movie on the computer and it seems that when people speak their voices are in sync with their mouths, except for Richard Harris who seems to mumble quite a lot and so it is hard to tell. I don't know Italian, but did Richard Harris learn it for the part, or does anyone know if he knew it already?
shareI watched it on VHS, and although I can't say definitively, RH's voice certainly seemed dubbed to me. The intonations didn't sound like him at all. I know he was speaking Italian (which for the most part I don't understand), but he has such a distinctive voice, you would think his vocal characteristics would carry over regardless of the language he was speaking.
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Many Italian films had the actors dubbed, or the sound added later on, in post-production, it was a common technique, sometimes even with Italian actors, so I'd bet Richard Harris was, indeed, dubbed.
shareI think Harris spoke his lines in English and was dubbed afterwards.
If you look closely at La Strada you can see that Quinn is speaking his lines in English and everyone else is speaking Italian, except Richard Basehart.
The idea seemed to be, get an international name to help sell the film and then dub someone else's performance over it.
Up until some point in the '70s, many if not most Italian films were dubbed, even when Italians would speak Italian. Directors preferred to shoot their films as if they were silents, so the director could talk to the actors while they were shooting, and dub it all in later. Harris is defintely dubbed, which is unfortunate, because his performance without that Italian voice that comes out of his mouth would have been so much better had it been his own raspy voice. Antonioni could have let him get away with some mispronounced Italian in his voice inasmuch as he is portraying a non-Italian, but considering how poorly they got on it's not surprising he eliminated his voice completely.
~ Native Angeleno
All actors in Italian films of that period are dubbed, or more accurately post-dubbed. Harris spoke English and was dubbed in Italian by another actor (of course), and all the Italian actors are post-dubbed. It's done for technical reasons. External shooting almost always requires post-dubbing anyway.
I think in a lot of Italian films it's done to save money!
shareNo. It COSTS money to dub films.
Links: http://www.walrusmagazine.ca/articles/2004.07-field-notes-italian-film /
http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache%3AqJNknCGp8JYJ%3Aen.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Dubbing_%20filmmaking%20+why+italian+films+dubbed&hl=en&c t=clnk&cd=6&gl=us#6756341041354665769
No he wasn't dubbed.
That's him speaking Italian.
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He was, without a shadow of a doubt, dubbed. Quite apart from the fact that the voice is completely different from his, what would be the point of doing post-production with his voice, only to have an actor then dub his lines into Italian?
shareEither you're being cute or you don't know how his voice really sounds.
~ Native Angeleno
RH's dubbed. I think that's why you seldom see his speaks in closeups, mostly the scenes switch to Vitti or he moves around, so you can focus on his mouth. And most of his scenes are while he's not speaking or just few words.But if you look closely, in some scenes in the earlier part of the movie, his lip doesn't synchronize with the voice.
shareAll of the actors voices appear to be dubbed, as was customary in Italian cinema.
shareYeah the older Italian films are notorious for blatant dubbing. They loved the image not the sound.
share[deleted]
OP, Ignore these:
"I think in a lot of Italian films it's done to save money!"
"All of the actors voices appear to be dubbed, as was customary in Italian cinema."
"Yeah the older Italian films are notorious for blatant dubbing. They loved the image not the sound."
SYNC sound on set was not always as simple as it is today because technology wasn't where it is today so sound acquisition on set was not always possible, but most certainly highly desirable. Even today we ADR just about every other sound but primarily we try to get the dialogue perfectly and everything else from street sounds, sound effects, music etc etc is added in later. Its incredibly time consuming and expensive. No one prefers to shoot silently and add it all in later *especially* dialogue. It certainly was never customary to make the film process twice as expensive as it needs to be. What you are seeing is the result of the quality of film making as it was when this made, in the country it was made in. nothing more. Dubbing was just a common method for what was available at the time. Kinda like the advances in rotoscoping and adding in visual effects over the last decade (its kinda like a visual dubbing lol) sound had a similar process of growth...