French film-industry dubbers complain of pressure to water down scripts

Jean-Louis Sarthou
president of the audiovisual commission for Sacem


French film-industry dubbers complain of pressure to water down scripts
By Doreen Carvajal
Published: January 21, 2007
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/21/business/dubbing.php?page=1
PARIS: France may be the historic home of edgy auteur cinema, but its vibrant industry of dubbers and translators is in an uproar about pressure to scrub gritty American films and foreign television series by eliminating vulgar words, terms for alcohol or drugs and familiar brands like Coca-Cola.
With deft attention to proper lip-syncing — voilà! — a blunt-four-letter English expletive common in films like "Scarface" transforms into "ce n'est pas vrai," — or "that's not true."
Even the national bubbly synonymous with France gets transformed in a French version of a German series, "Verliebt in Berlin."
A character's ardent declaration, "I adore Champagne!" becomes the tepid "I would drink this again." Also lost in translation are drugs like cocaine, which is altered to "poudre," or "powder." Similar liberties are taken with the American show "Grey's Anatomy" when a doctor advises a patient to reduce stress with a daily cigarette. French translators transform the prescription for puffing into a daily bowl of rice.
"This is not just a French problem, but a problem of communication that is really serious," said Jean-Louis Sarthou, president of the audiovisual commission for Sacem, which represents the rights of writers. "This is a consequence of globalization. It's excellent that movies circulate around the world and give more work to translators. But unfortunately if a film works well, some people in the industry feel obligated to turn art into a product without problems."

This month, more than 200 translators and dubbers in the French film and television industry gathered for a discussion of the issue at an event organized by Sacem. Dubbing is an art regarded seriously in France, with some people collecting the signed photos of the French actors whose voices dub such celebrities as Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt.
Dating to the 1930s, France has remained one of several West European countries, including Italy, Germany and Spain that dub the majority of American films with the voices of local actors. Less-expensive, subtitled productions are more popular in smaller countries.
In Italy, the practice started under conservative governments that sought to minimize outside cultural influences, including the transformation of non-Italian place names. The same tradition grew up in Spain under the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco, with foreign movies dubbed to reduce international influence, historians say.
With the rapid globalization of the film industry and the rising volume of movie production, veterans in the eclectic field of French cinema translation say that in the past five years they have faced increasing pressure to speed up their work and to follow an unwritten code to shun certain expressions and trademarks.
"Nothing is written in black and white because it would leave traces," said Vanessa Bertran, a translator for almost a decade for programs like "Sesame Street" and the American series "Vanished," noting that no one has issued a list of taboo words. "The problem is that we don't know who gives the orders because every time the blame is passed to somebody else. The companies who order the French version say they were asked by the television channels to do it and it's not us. Who is to blame in this story?"
In her own experience, Bertran said that the standards change constantly and that she has also been asked to make television programs more French, for example, by changing the name of the character Francesca in the Italian police series "RIS" to Françoise. Alcohol and drugs, she added, are particularly delicate subjects, with translators trading tales of particularly creative transformations. A word like "syringe," she said, was permissible if it was tied to a doctor, but forbidden if it was a drug user making the reference.
Then there are changes rooted more clearly in politics. When a character on the American show "CSI" warns darkly that "you'll end up roasting in the electric chair," the French translation is much more polite, "if you go to prison, you'll deserve it."
TF1, France's flagship television station that dominates the advertising market, broadcasts that series. It is most often criticized by translators and dubbers for being the most aggressive about changing dialogue to avoid offending a mass audience. TF1 did not attend the event organized by translators to discuss the issue.
But Boualem Lamhene, a Disney executive who manages the dubbing and translation side of the Buena Vista film unit in France, was at the debate. He said that what the industry needed was more openness and communication.
"We respect the original versions to the maximum," he said, noting that Buena Vista recently insisted on restoring some salty language for one of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies, even though Disney's consumer-products unit favored softer language. "We don't have a problem with slang or bad words. We try to employ the same terms and to respect the real voice in America."


Translators said they worked through intermediary companies carrying out the translation work for Disney. In the past few years, they said, these companies ended up trying to anticipate what the media giant wanted by eliminating references to religion, such as "My God!," or, in children's programming, softening wording related to death — "dead bird" becomes "oiseau malade" or "sick bird."
A spokeswoman for TF1 confirmed that the station has sought to eliminate the mention of some trademark names from some programs to conform with rules set forth by the broadcast regulator, CSA, to prohibit clandestine advertising. But a spokeswoman for CSA said the agency played no role in setting standards for the dubbing of foreign films and programming.
American script writers also note how U.S. and European standards differ on product placement.
"This is the problem inherent in the proliferation of product integration in American television and film," said Jody Frisch, a spokeswoman for the Writers Guild of America in California. "Writers and actors are often forced to endorse products with little or no control. Now translators are put in a difficult position because European law protects against the commercialization of content."
If there was a form of passive censorship, Lamhene, of Disney, pointed out that the writers were much more organized in France than in any other countries to raise their complaints.
Some of the words that they say are being censored still manage to surface in other ways. When the national daily, Le Monde, published a story about dubbing, a blunt-four letter English expletive still made it into the headline.