Encore Yves

You will note that I am purposely choosing films that were, on the whole, very well-subititled. My entire "brand" is showing how "A" work can be "A+" work.

These are two more examples from the film Yves St. Laurent.

Example 1:

Taking place in a loud discothèque, the line is hard to make out, but it does indeed sound as if the actor says: “Vous êtes longue.” He can only be referring to her physical appropriateness as a model, but “you’re long” is not a sentence that an English speaker would use.

This would be my solution:

Of course, ideally you have a relationship with the director or the screenwriter that you can consult to confirm original intent, but often by the time it's in post-production, they are into other projects.

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Example 2:

In this scene (the line is said off-screen, with is why [Yves] is bracketed) St. Laurent is actually lamenting that the mainland French have started to marginalize the French of colonial North Africa returning from Algeria in 1962 by calling them “pieds-noirs” (which literally means “black feet,” a derogatory term implying those forced to leave after Algerian independence were somehow racially tainted.) In French, he uses “on,” which is translated here as “we,” but literally means “one,” as in: “One never used to hear pied-noir before.”  This change in pronoun would somewhat clarify the subtitle, but pied-noir is still a term most English speakers would not understand. 

My solution involves finding a different term that at least still conveys the alienation of French nationals (like Laurent’s family) who were now perceived as slightly foreign in both countries they had previously considered home. Hence:

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Schlussmacher (German)

Schlussmacher literally means "The Endmaker" and it was a popular German comedy about a man who is hired to do the dirty work of a breaking-up for his clients.  (If ever there was ever a movie screaming to be remade into an American comedy, it was this.)

Here are few changes I would have made in the subtitling.

Example 1:

“Realize” is overwhelmingly used in English in the sense of understanding something for the first time, rather than to express the idea of getting something done. There is a better way to translate how it is meant in this context:

 Alternatively:"The client makes a decision, and I carry it out," would work fine as well, but I liked the repetition of "make" here.

Example 2:

One of the first "jobs" we witness Schlussmacher do entails him explaining to a jilted wife why her husband wants a divorce:

"Choleric" is a perfectly good word, but hasn't been used in English much since the 19th century. The subtitler should have kept it simple.

After the ‘I’m-not-angry’ spurned wife has a fit of fury with a pillow, our protagonist comically encourages her to "let go:"

But in English, he would probably use a different word than “scope.”

If I had a relationship with the director in which he or she really encouraged the dialogue to be written as it would have been in English, I might suggest: "Don't hold back. Really."  Making these kind of proposals is always a judgment call, of course, but I'd like this blog to give potential clients an idea of what it would be like to use a subtitler who understands how comedic translation should entail an entire extra step in the thinking process.

Comedy is much harder to translate effectively than drama.  And one job I will always turn down unless there's enough money to pay for a genius translator is the work of a stand-up comic.  (Professional discretion, unfortunately, prevents me from telling the story of the particular nightmare job that led to that vow.)