I’ve read and re-read the books and have seen the Swedish cinematic releases – though not as yet the extended versions/TV mini-series – and thought this adaptation was well done, making allowance for a couple of very trivial plot tweaks which I thought so trivial as to be unnecessary. Overall, I reckon this film is both sufficiently distinctive from the Swedish as well as sharing that version’s strengths to have been worth seeing in its own right – though granted, I probably wouldn’t have gone if Husband and Son hadn’t wanted to see it.
While Mara Rooney simply cannot match Noomi Rapace’s screen presence, she brought her own take on Lisbeth Salander to the role, reflecting the books in a slightly different but equally valid way. Just as Daniel Craig brought other aspects of Mikael Blomkvist to the fore, compared to Michael Nyqvist. In particular, I did find the theme of male bafflement and fear at being placed in the agonisingly vulnerable position of abused women had all the more impact when it’s the 007 actor who… no, no spoilers.
Talking of impact, I can’t decide if That Scene was slightly underplayed compared to the Swedish version – or if my reactions weren’t as heightened, since I knew what was coming. What I was very interested to see was just what a shudder that all gave my 18 year old son – so much for endless computer games desensitising the youth of today to violence. No, not in this case – he’s well able to distinguish between pixellated fantasy and cinematic representation of reality.
I would also be very interested to know what he made of the 18-cert straight-forward, grown-up sex depicted, as opposed to 15-cert naked-limbs-montage-occasional-flash-of-t
Anyway, both Husband and Son are keen to see the next two books filmed asap – and Son has collared my copies of the books to add to his TBR pile.
As to whether a remake is necessary, and whether or not viewers should just get over subtitles, I can see that argument. Then again, I can see the likes of my husband, who really hates watching subtitled films. Having to concentrate on reading text means he feels he’s not actually watching the film – and he is a very strongly visually oriented person, so that really, badly, limits his enjoyment.
Since he’s of the generation that either did maths/science or languages/humanities at school with no overlap – and he did maths/science, he has no foreign language skills at all to help him out. Whereas, having done Latin, Greek, French & German, I can get the gist of an awful lot of languages I don’t actually speak by listening closely and just glancing at the subtitles. Apart from Danish for some reason – I *cannot* get my ‘ear’ tuned right for The Killing at all – and for the first time, I actually get an idea of what he means!
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I really liked the Swedish film of 'Girl With ...', I'm still undecided on wanting to see the American one, but this review makes it more likely that I will. I'm very glad to hear that they haven't over-glossified it.
How do you pronounce "Bjarne Stroustrup?"
It can be difficult for non-Scandinavians. The best suggestion I have heard yet was "start by saying it a few times in Norwegian, then stuff a potato down your throat and do it again :-)"
Danish is apparently sufficiently problematic to the Swedes that even proximity causes problems: The Stockholm TV stations will subtitle their fellow citizens from the Malmo area.
And then there's Finnish and Icelandic...
Icelandic, well, I use the generic 'Tak' there. It is at least part of the same language group. Finnish, though ... or better yet, Estonian. Oh yes.
I am VERY proud of the 5 words of Finnish that I know (well, five if 'sauna' counts - but I do pronounce it correctly)
Movies in France tend to be majoritarily foreign (especially kids' movies, which come from Planet Disney/Pixar), and majoritarily dubbed as well--with varying qualities of dubs, to be fair, but no one has ever complained. Before I turned 15-16 and started being fluent enough in English to follow a movie, I had absolutely no qualms in seeing a dubbed movie (and the H's parents, whose English is far from fluent, prefer them dubbed. Outside of Paris, you won't even find subtitled movies, for much the same reasons you cite--the subtitles are too hard to keep track of at the same time as the movie).
Why the hate against dubbing? Sure, it's no panacea, but it doesn't strike me as being worse than a. subtitles that go by too fast if you don't speak the subtitled language, or b. a remake which keeps the plot but essentially makes a wholly different movie (different sensibilities etc., as you point out)
(not trying to be aggressive, just genuinely curious as to why this isn't more common in the UK/US. I've lost count of the number of dubbed movies I watched over the years, and it's a common practise in other countries as well--Spain and Vietnam are the only ones where I've actually wandered into a cinema, but I don't think the practise is limited to those countries)
My first guess would be cost - where presumably, if there's a lot of it done, the costs become less?
If dubbing's only going to be wanted for a few films, on account of anglophone cultural dominance/phobias/whatever, are subtitles cheaper?
As I say, that is all pure guesswork/speculation. I'd be interested to find out more.
It might not indeed be cost-efficient--subtitles, I would guess, are cheaper, because you don't need to pay a voice actor. And you basically only need a translator and someone with minimal text skills? I have no idea how much more expensive it is to pay for dubs, but I'm guessing it's more complicated than just adding text to movies...
And the market might be small, which means it's OK to grit your teeth and suffer through subtitles rather than seek an alternative solution... How many English-language movies vs non-English-language movies do you think are released in the UK? 90%-10%, or am I being very optimistic here?
It helps if you have a really good translator, one who can translate idiomatic language. I've noticed the difference in Wallander between what's actually being said and what the subtitles say, but the translator knows that a literal translation of the words wouldn't work. The best bits are the swearing :-)
(for dubs, I'm guessing you're looking for another category of good translator: one that can convey the same meaning in approximately the same number of syllables--so that the dub can be said over the lips movement of the character without being too obvious. I'm guessing this is really tricky...)
Personally, I usually prefer subtitling. Dubbing is, I dunno, almost pretending to be something it isn't. (Stupid, isn't that?) On the other hand, perhaps it's that I've watched so much subtitled stuff that I'm accustomed to it - so much so that when we watched a subtitled version of 'Paul' in a cinema on the Champs-Élysées, I was automatically ignoring the spoken dialogue and reading the text. Reading subtitles in a language which is not your own rather hinders you, particularly when the the characters speak in your accent. Well, mine, not yours.
Uh, that's a very good question... I would say yes, but I haven't watched enough TV over Europe to know (did mostly Southern nations that did dubbing, and haven't really roamed in the North). If I can venture an explanation, at least about France vs. the Nordic countries, I think it's not only a cost problem, but a... problem about how you perceive the importance of your own national language? In the Netherlands/Scandinavia , the country is so small that you can't credibly maintain the illusion that the language has any significance: you know that you have to learn/understand other languages if you want to get by. France still suffers from the delusion that you can do anything with French, and likewise, that the language is important enough to warrant its own dubbing industry (and "cultural exception"). I think the Dutch mindset is more likely to produce people who are more open-minded with regards to other languages, and therefore prefer subtitles (which is extra language practice) than the French mindset (which basically tends to centre everything on speaking and listening to French).
(again, this is family experience rather than anything scientific, so I'd very much appreciate discussion/refutation/corroboration)
To a certain extent, I would expect it to be more on a language basis than a country basis. So French rather than France (thus spreading up to Brussels and in past Geneva and so on). But at the same time, the US is likely to be a bit different from the UK because we're not adjacent nations.
Watching TV in Basel, pretty much everything we saw was coming over the border from Germany. We were seeing US shows dubbed into German rather than Schwyzerdütsch. Only locally produced stuff will be (proudly and defiantly, mind) in the local language(s).
My preference is definitely for subtitles. I rather like hearing the original language and after watching a couple of series of Wallander, I even began to pick up bits of Swedish. (Not terribly useful bits for the tourist, I must admit. One hopes one won't ever need the word for corpse!) Similarly my rusty French began to return after watching Spiral. I also find it very disconcerting when the mouth movements don't match the words.
And it's pretty much the case that even a comic with words has far fewer words on that page than a written story would have. I like the pictures, but oh, it feels like there's so little substance.
(I'm also a reader of prose rather than poetry. I need that volume of text to keep me happy. Quantity rather than quality.)
I never thought I'd get him away from the Mycenean frescoes in the Athens Archaeological museum - he loves anything like that, and he can instantly understand the story in a completely non-text way. I can do it but I am so much slower.
He's also the man who can stand in a ruined church, point out the chips in the stonework made so the plaster would stick, and inside a minute be able to show me where the man who did it was standing, how tall he was, whether he was right or left handed.
Yes, my husband *is* Visual Spatial Awareness Man!
(hence his successful nearly-forty-year career as a mechanical design engineer)
Your husband is cool. :)
We all really liked the Netherlands - it's top of the list for family holiday plans this year.