English speakers generally do not understand Japanese

[mark schilling]

Peter mentions the international success of Itami. When I interviewed him in
1998, he talked about pushing
Japanese video companies to release subbed versions of his films. Otherwise
it wouldn't have happened, he said,
because they could not see beyond the local market. Today region-two DVDs of
all his films have English subs -- 
a legacy of his one-man campaign to sell his films abroad.

Itami also had ambitions to work with Hollywood -- but was about a decade
ahead of the curve. I remember him commissioning Dynaword, a translation
outfit I was working for in the late eighties, to translate one of his
scripts, with the intention of flogging it in Hollywood, I suppose. I don't
remember the details now -- I was not directly involved -- but I was
surprised that he would go to a commercial agency whose main client was IBM.
Donald Richie must have been busy (not that he would have helped Itami
anyway -- with the exception of "Ososhiki" he didn't much care for Itami's
films). Today, of course, he could have had his pick of competent
subtitlers, not to mention Hollywood producers interested in working with
him.

Itami was something of a sad case -- an ironist in a society that didn't
understand irony and an internationalist whose most popular film in the
West, "Tampopo," was a flop at home and never translated into big career
success abroad ("big," that is, by Hollywood standards). But then Itami was
limited in a way that an Ang Lee is not -- he found a hit formula in "Marusa
no Onna" (A Taxing Women) and got punished at the box office every time he
deviated from it. His deshi, Suo Masayuki, hit on a more internationally
salable formula in "Shall We Dance"? -- but didn't choose to follow up on
it. Perhaps, unlike his mentor, he couldn't stand to repeat himself.

Mark Schilling
schill at gol.com





----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Peter M. Grilli" <grilli at us-japan.org>
To: <KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Cc: <grilli at us-japan.org>
Sent: Thursday, December 08, 2005 3:40 AM
Subject: RE: English speakers generally do not understand Japanese


> Cheers to Aaron for re-stating the problem so clearly... and so bluntly!
>
> To the "incompetence" that Aaron points to, I would add sheer laziness on
> the part of
> the major studios in exploring and developing international markets that
> were ripe and ready
> for creative marketing of Japanese films.  The studios all had (and have)
> so-called "Kokusai-bu" or
> "International Departments" -- but their interpretation of "kokusai" was
> terribly limited:  they seemed to invest their principal energies in
> distributing their films to overseas communities of Japanese, rather than
> providing good English subtitles and seeking out non-Japanese-speaking
> international audiences.
>
> There have been a few exceptions.
> To point to only one: look at the great international success of Itami
> Juzo's films in the 1980s and early 90s.
> I would have thought that the Japanese studios might have learned from the
> example of Itami, who -- largely through his own personal marketing
talents
> and those of a few creative colleagues -- went out and found large
> (and profitable!) international markets for his films.
>
> Also, something needs to be said about the quality  of English
translations
> on Japanese films.   Good film translation is a true art in itself, and
> requires a special kind of genius.  It should never be left to
incompetents.
> In the old days, unless a studio or distributor was clever enough to bring
> in Donald Richie to do the English subtitles singlehandedly (or to
supervise
> the translation), the English titles were notoriously bad.  Great original
> scripts were regularly brutalized by Japanese translators who, though
might
> have had some rudimentary competence in text-book English, had absolutely
no
> talent or sensibility for translation.   There's nothing like a clumsy
> translation or an incomprehensible one for killing a film's chances at
> international success.
>
> I suppose it should be noted (in fairness to the studios) that in the "old
> days" there were fewer native English translators living in Japan (other
> than Richie) -- but even in the 1950s and 60s there were others  available
> had the studios taken the trouble to seek them out.   Today, there are
many!
> To give a single shining example:  over the last decade or so, Linda
> Hoaglund has been doing exceptional work in translating (and marketing)
the
> films of independent Japanese directors.  She is no doubt terribly
underpaid
> and underappreciated for her extraordinary dedication and for the quality
of
> her translations.  But -- again -- her example should show the studios (as
> well as independent filmmakers) that it doesn't take a huge investment to
> get films translated well and to score real success in the international
> marketplace.
>
> Peter Grilli
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
> [mailto:owner-KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu]On Behalf Of Aaron
> Gerow
> Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2005 11:21 AM
> To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
> Subject: Re: English speakers generally do not understand Japanese
>
>
>
> > But again, to point to economics, the studio heads know their share of
> > the market, even if their business practices seem odd or as if they
> > are "afraid to make money" (this applies to almost all companies in
> > Japan). If it didn't work for them, the movies wouldn't get produced.
>
> I'm afraid there is just too much evidence from the 70s to the 90s that
> many Japanese film companies don't know their market, or if they do,
> they don't do much to exploit it. Just look at some of the MITI reports
> on the industry from that period, or more recent books like Nihon eiga
> sangyo saizensen, and you can see how much the industry was criticized
> for not investing in new talent or new technologies, not opening up new
> markets, for engaging in restrictive and self-defeating practices, etc.
> Things have been shaken up in the last few years, but there is still a
> lot of incompetence out there.
>
> That doesn't necessarily mean that putting subtitles on the DVD is
> "competent," but first it is clear that Japanese companies have largely
> ignored the possibilities of DVD technology. Few releases have audio
> commentaries or any decent kind of extra features (when they do, it is
> in the "special edition" you have to pay twice the price for), even
> though Japanese DVDs are still very expensive as it is. Not adding even
> Japanese subtitles (which is the case with a lot of releases) is part
> of this attitude. It may be due to economics--make it cheap and sell it
> dearly--but I still feel that many companies have little imagination in
> trying to develop this market.
>
> As for English subtitles, I wonder if one factor isn't the fact that
> more Japanese films are being released on DVD in English speaking
> countries. Can the decision not to include subtitles, in some cases,
> have to do with the hope, or genuine plan, to sell it abroad? Perhaps
> not releasing an English subtitles DVD in Japan--especially in the age
> of the Internet--makes it easier to sell the DVD right abroad? I wonder.
>
> That said, there are still a lot of DVDs of recent films with English
> subtitles. I just did a search on DiscStation of DVDs of Japanese films
> released with English subtitles since September 2004 and the result was
> 129. Though that includes some doubling (the standard plus the special
> editions), that is still a decent number. The problem for many of us is
> that barely any of these are films from before 1990.
>
> Aaron Gerow
> KineJapan owner
>
> Assistant Professor
> Film Studies Program/East Asian Languages and Literatures
> Yale University
>
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>
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