What a shame


What a shame this movie is in English instead of Catalan.

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True that the original language of this movie script is not English, but I applaud the effort of both Vicente Aranda and all of the non-Native English Speaking actors including Ingrid Rubio, who are working with Mel Churcher doing a great job introducing this material to a more global English speaking audience who might otherwise never get to experience this novel from Joanot Martorell.

Besides, by making this film in English it can later be dubbed into the novel's most popular language as well as any other language and be presented to a much wider audience.

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True. Smaller languages simply have to vow to the wishes of the big ones, it's just the way it works. It's not enough to have our cienmas full of really bad American blockbusters, and to have almost no films dubbed into Catalan. We have to get our classics in English "so that can be viewed by a bigger audience."

Great!

but the way, I bet it'll be dubbed into Spanish much quicklier than into Catalan.

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Languages, big or small, have no wishes. It's obvious that a film made in a minority language will reach a much smaller audience, but that has nothing to do with terrible injustices or catalanophobia; it's just a natural law. Do you think the Hebrews complained bitterly because "The Ten Commandments" was filmed in English? You should be happy because, thanks to this film, a worldwide audience will learn about Tirant Lo Blanc.

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It isn't so shame joferna... don't you know that Joanot Martorell really wrote Tirant lo Blanc firstly in english?. And it was translated to valencian (or catalan, as you wish) later. Tirant lo Blanc was firstly a novel in english than a novel in catalan ("valencian" as Joanot says in the novel).

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Where can I get hold of a copy of the book, preferably in english?
Don Quijote is one of my favorite books, and if this one is mentione in aggod way in it, I want to read it.

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search in www.fnac.es for 'tirant'. There you'll find a series of editions.
Cheers.

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I picked a copy up in a second-hand bookshop in London

Two translations include:

Tirant Lo Blanc, translated by David H. Rosenthal (1983, 1996), ISBN 0801854210

Tirant Lo Blanc: The Complete Translation (Catalan Studies, Vol 1), translated by Ray La Fontaine (1994), ISBN 0820416886


http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/378

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You can get it for free right on the Internet. There's a good English translation in Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/378.

There's another good translation available for a very reasonable price from Amazon.

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Not necessarily. Joanot says at the beginning that he is translating the book from an English original, but there is no evidence of any such book existing in English, so the whole thing was probably a ruse.

So as not to offend anyone with the content, authors back then often pretended that they were "translating from another source", continuing someone else's story (a non-existant person), or even writing it because he is under orders from his master. There are a lot of books like that (I did an MA in Medieval Hispanic literature).

There probably WAS no original English, this was just a ruse by Joanot. It was originally written in Valencià, and it was only recently that it was translated into English.

Have a look at this:
http://ourworld.cs.com/lkrieg45/TirantLoBlanc/tirant_intro.htm

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Thank you for your comment, Tristan!-2. I didn't know this possibility.

Here in Valencia, we learn at school that, the book is a translation of an original english version written by Joanot Martorell, as he says at the beginning so. But I don't know if there is any evidence of this first version in english.

Yesterday the film was presented here in Valencia, I'm spectating from viewing it :).

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There is NO evidence that Martorell really translated it from English. Although he had visited England and had read some English writers, no English version has been ever been traced. Actually, he says he translated it first into Portuguese for a Portuguese patron, and then into Valencian. So it's probably what's called a 'pseudotranslation', i.e. an original work passed off as a translation. If you can read French, you should look at the excellent articles on Martorell and the Tirant in the French section of Wikipedia (the ones in the English and Spanish sections aren't quite so good).

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Same did Miguel de Cervantes when he wrote El Quijote. Several times the author says that the story isn't his work, but a translation from an Arabic writer named "Cide Amete Benengeli".

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Joanot Martorell, a Valencian Knight, wrote most of TIRANT LO BLANC in his native Catalan, the book was finished after his death by Martí Joan de Galba and published in Valecia in 1490 and then in Spanish in Valladolid in 1511. I don't know who you are, or if you are joking in saying that the book was "firstly" (sic.) written in English,

wise up!

eg

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"What a shame this movie is in English instead of Catalan"

Mira no voy a generalizar asi que te lo digo a ti, no se puede ser mas tocapelotas y un niñato mas fachita de su pueblo que nadie. Mira que eres tonto de los cojones. Siempre preparado para saltar a la minima y soltar tu pequeño granito de arena con el tema. La peli esta en ingles sencillamente porque si no, no iria a verla ni la milesima parte de gente que la va a ver asi que nene da gracias de que este en ingles. Ya no sabeis ni por donde agarrar el tema que salis con cosas como estas...que triste.

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[deleted]

So why don't you write this in english

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[deleted]

Bé, el cinema és un negoci, bonic/a, i cadascú fa amb els seus diners el que vol. Que jo sàpiga, tampoc has escrit tu el teu missatge en català, oi?

Més vergonya em fa a mi que la Generalitat subvencioni el doblatge al català de pel·lis sudamericanes...

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Menuda chorrada si te les el prologo del propio autor Matorell te dice que su obra estaba escrita en lengua valenciana de napoles y sicilia no en catalan .

Para mas colofon se publico en VALENCIA EN 1490.
para cuando matorell escribio la obra el catalan llevaba sin suarse para escribir casi 200 años .

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It's now out in Spain in both Spanish and Valencian. I've seen the Valencian version and the dubbing is perfect.

Trivia: The Spanish version keeps the original Valencian title even though there's been a Spanish translation of it since 1510, namely Tirante el Blanco.
There seems to be some confusion over spelling. The film itself proclaims its title to be Tirant el Blanc, but the poster I saw for it here in Valencia uses the medieval spelling Tirant el Blanch. The best English title translation I've seen is Tirant the White Knight.

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comparing little local languages with universal spanish
lol
lleida catalonia... spain
localist ppl...poor ppl
searching little particular rules against universal rules
no ofense
just poooor ppl no future for you... :(
nothing against valencia or catalunya
but is universal culture thats all...
knowing arandas movies just can wait the worst.
hmmmm

Just another *beep* movie thats all folks.

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I'm really sorry to break it to you, man, but here goes...

The movie was shot in English because catalan directos are all a bunch of sell-outs. When they have the opportunity to make a big movie, do they shoot it in catalan? They don't even shoot it in Spanish! They prefer to shoot in whatever language is going to bring them more money. Think of Isabel Coixet, Jaume Balagueró or Jaume Collet-Serra...They forget their commitment they have to serving their culture, their country, their people. And go ahead, bring on your nationalistic rant. You catalan people are the first ones that should feel angry about this tendency that´s spread out among Catalan directors. They are doing a HUGE disservice to Spanish culture (in both Spanish and Catalan). They are not betting for Spain or(for those nationalists out there) for Catalonia. That is just a fact. Why don't they make movies in Spanish, when it is the second most important language in the world? Either they are too linguistically proud (and hence too close-minded) to not make their movies in Spanish and they prefer to shoot in English, or they think that making their movies in Catalan is too much like throwing money to waste... Or they might think that making their movies in English is going to make them richer and more famous, even if that means sacrificing the integrity of their work (as has been the case with Tirant lo Blanc)

If "The Sea Inside" or "Alatriste" had been made by Catalans, they would most likely have been made in English. Isabel Coixet made "The Secret Life of Words" and "Life Without Me" in English (2 movies that could very well have been made in Spanish). I find that very sad.

Catalan artists are the ambassadors of Catalan culture and you catalan people should demand that your artists (who use your tax money) represent your culture in whatever way you expect them to.

Think about it...

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The film's international cast was dubbed every which way, and the film was issued in several versions.

I saw it in the Spanish version.


The original verse novel, which Lope de Vega, the great Spanish poet and playwright describes as being "in the Limousin tongue" was not exactly from an English original. The first 39 chapters (out of 500) are a reworking of an Anglo-Norman [i.e., French] romance of chivalry, Guy de Warwick. The book was written in Valencian [almost the same as Catalan] and is, in fact, the greatest classic in that tongue.

The film is fun, though of course no film could ever do justice to every aspect of such a complex literary masterpiece. Try to read the original, it is a joy.

















Scostatevi profani! Melpomene son io...


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