Withholding Subtitles - West Side Story

There is a great moment in Saving Private Ryan that most of the audience missed on the original release. A few captured Germans plead for their lives and are gunned down by U.S. troops who joke that one of them was saying, "Look, I washed for supper." What was actually said was something like, "Please don't shoot me, I am not German, I am Czech, I didn't kill anyone, I am Czech!".

http://www.ww2f.com/threads/saving-p...-supper.57917/

The audience was largely ignorant of what was said, because no subtitles were provided. This was a sort of Easter Egg for a portion of the audience. Aesthetically, the refusal to translate puts us in the position of the U.S. infantry, unaware of what is being said, only aware of the bloody combat. It's an interesting choice and adds a layer of meaning and distance from meaning in the film.

Spielberg is at it again with West Side Story, but this time the motivation appears to be more overtly political than aesthetic, although it must be owned that our aesthetics are always an expression of our politics (look at America's love of bloody films and it is not hard to understand that the U.S. is also the world's biggest arms dealer).

https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-ste...es-11639144802

Part of the point, if that last line to be believed, is to exclude part of the audience, if that last line is correct.

I wonder, if one sees this film in a foreign country like France or China, is one provided with subtitles for both English and Spanish dialogue or just the English? Is the goal only to exclude English-only speakers in a predominantly English-speaking market? Isn't that a curious thing?

If Puerto Ricans are the intended audience or intended to be welcomed as significant part of the intended audience, then why are there no English subtitles? About three quarters of Puerto Ricans (in Puerto Rico) don’t speak English. About 90% of the island’s 650,000 public school students lack basic English skills upon graduation.

https://daitips.com/how-many-people-...n-puerto-rico/

How seriously are we supposed to take this invitational rhetoric of inclusion by exclusion when the allegedly marginalized audience is not provided with English subtitles? And you can bet dollars to donuts that the lion's share of the dialogue is in English.

And isn't it a bit concerning that it's socially conscious whites who are still calling the shots (e.g., using words like "Latinx" which Latinos don't use and largely deplore)?

And is this a sign of things to come? Will withheld subtitles be a new "For Us, By Us" with people who don't speak the language disinvited from the party? This might sound silly, but consider that there are subreddits that now require racial and/or ideological qualifications to be allowed to post. Segregated dormitories are making a comeback on college campuses

https://www.tech-gate.org/usa/2021/0...lack-students/

as are spaces intended for BIPOC or POC (in whole or in large part).

And this raises more questions. Are subtitles ever an act of cultural appropriation? Let's say that some distributor finds a film made for a market that speaks a particular language and is embedded in a cultural context of understanding. That is, it is a message for a particular audience which may only be fully understood by a particular audience. To pull the gem from the crown by purchasing the rights to the film and commodifying the message in a manner which was not intended could be considered an act of vandalism. What if the message, taken from its context and put through the blender of translation results in an artifact that reinforces negative racial stereotypes?

And this should cause us to consider the more general question of when subtitles are withheld in the movies. The Hunt for Red October does that great trick of switching to English on "Armageddon," but it also has words spoken in Russian, some of which are not translated for the audience's benefit (keeping them on the outside). How much should the audience be "in on the joke"? When should details be withheld? When should we lose our linguistic omniscience?

Did you see that at the theater? Or streaming?

That sounds completely ridiculous. Like it or not Spielberg, you're making a movie that is getting released in the US. Not providing subtitles for a large amount of the dialogue alienates those who speak English instead. I don't really see why the latino audience should get offended when most of the movie is in English anyway, and they're aware that they're watching an American production, just one that happens to star a lot of Latin actors.
It sounds like a case of overcorrection to me, almost treating the original like this prejudiced artifact when it was extremely progressive at the time it got made. Just try to make a fun musical everyone will enjoy, don't pull a move that will make at least some portion of the viewers confused and irritated.

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I think it depends entirely on execution. Your average English speaker in the United States, for example, knows a fair number of common Spanish words and could easily get by/understand what's happening through that and through context even with a totally new story, let alone one most of them/us have probably seen before.

That's the idea judged in a vacuum, of course. It can be done reasonably. But the stated rationale, that it would be "disrespectful," is a little silly, I'd agree. A better posture would be "I specifically wanted Spanish-speaking viewers to be more comfortable, so I did this for them."

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Preemptive reminder to keep this about the decision itself, and not branch off into all generally related things. That's already in the OP a bit, and if it even continues (without even increasing), the thread will be closed.

This is a great thread. I speak quite a few languages, so usually get by without subtitles (unless it’s Parasite). However, the subject is close to my heart.

As a general point, I think subtitles are necessary, if only to allow people to appreciate “inside jokes” like the one you reference about the soldier being Czech (I’m not referring to the event as a joke, just saying that that’s what the linguistic gap is in the filmmakers’ eyes).

I also think, as with many issues right now, the fixation on who is the “intended audience” is unnecessary complicating what doesn’t need to be complicated. I would posit that, from a place of common sense, the film should treat the main language it is shot in (English) as its “core” language and include subtitles for any other languages featured. If a film is somehow bilingual, which is quite rare, but, say for example, Stillwater, then we probably can have subtitles for both French and English. But that does all seem rather peculiar to me and, again, like we’re going out of our way to complicate things.

I don’t see the logic with Spanish speakers being the “intended audience” at all - wouldn’t you want your film to be seen by as broad an audience as possible? To me this is a bit similar to skizzleflake’s point about The House of Gucci, which I agree with: make up your mind, people! Making an English-language film about Russians with no Russian being spoken is fine, as long as there’s consistency. Making an English-language film about Italians where everyone speaks English with no accent is also fine. Subtitles have to be logically integrated into a film. If something is about an English-speaking character living abroad, such as Hemingway’s Fiesta, then I’d say every single line spoken by non-English characters needs subtitles. I don’t see the “exclusion” angle here at all, but I’m probably missing something. The worst case where I remember subtitles/language not being logically integrated into the narrative was the Netflix dubbing of Fauda where everyone inexplicably spoke bad English with sometimes incomprehensible accents. They were trying to not make English speakers feel “excluded”, I imagine, but I that looks like an abject failure to me.

I don’t know if I broke any rules… sorry in advance…

One would need to see the new West Side Story before making a judgement on the film's lack of subtitles. Though fair game to comment on Spielberg's comments about said subject matter. I haven't seen it yet, so I can't comment if the lack of subs for Spanish dialogue impacts my enjoyment of the film or not.

But what makes it an inside joke is that some of us are on the outside.

And withholding offers interesting aesthetic opportunities (e.g., linguistic "Rashomon"). Monolingual audience "A" sees one movie. Monolingual Audience "B" sees another movies. Bilingual audiences "C" see yet another film, but with interpretations shaded by their cultural experience. Of course, this makes the home Blu Ray release an interesting idea. "Hmm, I just went to the subtitle menu and it's options are " 'Learn Spanish already English-Speaker', Finnish, Japanese, French, and Russian."

Well, that's how I would roll with it. Give English subs to the English-speaking market. Give Spanish subs to the Spanish speaking market. Where the two are intermixed, give subs for both (as you suggest below), but for goodness sake, don't exclude a portion of the audience to set out the welcome mat for another.

And if this film truly had courage, this is what they would have done. It's Jets vs. Sharks, right? So shouldn't the Sharks get about half the lines in their native language? Are we supposed to be "wowed" that they get a handful of lines in untranslated Spanish when the rest of the film is in English? Shouldn't we have apps that people can take into the theater with them? Pop in your earbuds and listen in your own language?

All I can say to Spielberg is:
"You should know better. You were in love, or so you said... You should know better."

Which movie is that from? and can you PLEASE type it in Spanish

I think the better question is whether or not the OP actually watched the movie.

Meow? Relevance? Meow. Meow?

I watched Ride the Pink Horse earlier this week, and there were scenes where Spanish was spoken, but there weren’t any subs for it. Didn’t matter, as it wasn’t important to the plot, so I can imagine this being similar.

I do think I Spielberg’s reason is a little silly, but not a big deal in the long run.

*pets Corax*

You'll have to ask WSSLover which movie it's from, Rules. They might know!

Que lastima!

His reasoning is just more woke appeal.

My major interest here is: finding out what you thought of Ride the Pink Horse?................Oh, and to be topical did the lack of English subs for spoken Spanish effect your enjoyment of it?

BTW I thought that film was awesome and I figured the lead, Robert Montgomery, didn't speak Spanish so if we hear dialogue we can't understand then we are in his shoes. It worked for me.

Either that or we are a fly on the wall - in on one's subjectivity, but rather observing events from the outside--the "objectivity" of a disembodied viewer. The choice not to do subs is like the choice not to use music to support a scene, although it must be owned that withholding language is bolder choice than withholding music.

NCFOM is interesting in that it holds back on both (although the Spanish is brief and high school level).

I saw it. I prefer the original as a film but I liked what Spielberg did to bring it to our modern day. I see it as a complimentary piece, and would be interested in watching the two back to back in the future. Personally, I thought the Latino representation was handled gracefully, but a quick look on the Wiki page shows there's been criticism by Puerto Rican and Latino writers, so I'm not going to claim it's perfect. I wouldn't know.

That said, this subtitle thing should be the least of anyones concerns. I don't remember understanding most, if any, of the Spanish dialogue, but it never affected my understanding of the story. I kind of liked it, actually, as it brought a level of authenticity to what was happening on screen that enhanced my own experience.

He was great in it! Really good film, with some decent performances in it.

The lack of subs for it don’t hinder my enjoyment at all, for the reasons you mentioned. Like Chagin, we are visitors who don’t speak the language, and as such, for with the alienation he had felt he was subjected to after the war.

Well, no one ever complained when Germans spoke without sub titles in Saving Private Ryan. Or the French family asking them to take their daughter.