Voices in Italian movies

[Basic]

I just watched an Italian video. And while I didn't understand a word of what they said, its very obvious that the sound didn't match their lips. And it was also quite clear that it wasn't the same person speaking.

From the (very few) Italian videos I've seen, this seem to be the norm. It looks like a very bad dub, but it's actually dubed from Italian to Italian. In fact, it almost sounds like there's just two voice actors in Italy, one male and one female.

Why do they do that? It looks really stupid.

 

[London Geezer]

I just watched an Italian video. And while I didn't understand a word of what they said, its very obvious that the sound didn't match their lips. And it was also quite clear that it wasn't the same person speaking.

From the (very few) Italian videos I've seen, this seem to be the norm. It looks like a very bad dub, but it's actually dubed from Italian to Italian. In fact, it almost sounds like there's just two voice actors in Italy, one male and one female.

Why do they do that? It looks really stupid.

What video was it?

Dubbing in Italy is big business. All foreign movies and TV shows are dubbed. Sometimes also the Italian material is dubbed, but it really depends on what it is and the reasons why they dub it.

There are quite a few voice-over actors in Italy with wonderful voices and easily recogniseable (as they've been in the business for years and everyone knows them). Some of them are actually very famous as they've been doing it for years and were used for very famous characters over the years. Some of them are real actors.

There definitely aren't just one man and one woman dubbing movies in Italy.

For example, the guy dubbing Tom Cruise is always the same over all the movies Tom Cruise appears in. This is an example, but people now know Tom Cruise's voice as that guy's voice, and i don't think he does much else cause he's "Tom Cruise" in people's minds, and having someone sounding exactly like Tom Cruise would be a bit strange. As i said, that's just an example, i'm sure the Tom Cruise dubber does a lot of other voice-overs, i was just using a name.

We just really like nice voices it seems, and compared to the atrocities i've seen in Europe (especially eastern european dubbings... ewww...) we do a hell of a good job

I have to admit that being bilingual and having lived in the UK for 6 years now, it does look totally weird when i go to Italy and watch Friends (for example), cause i know what the real guys sound like, and seeing them talking, moving their lips to say something in English, but actually hearing some guy talking over them, it just looks weird. I get used to it after a few days though.

 

[rabidrabbit]

I've never got it why those dubbing countries didn't just start using subtitles, like any literate civilization would do...
Dubbing a movie or TV-serie is modifying an essential part of the feature, namely acting.

 

[London Geezer]

I've never got it why those dubbing countries didn't just start using subtitles, like any literate civilization would do...
Dubbing a movie or TV-serie is modifying an essential part of the feature, namely acting.

Historically, subtitles have never been very welcome in Italy. As i said, italian dubbings can be VERY good as it's real actors doing the dubbing, not just anyone.

In fact, and i'm being absolutely serious, i have experienced movies in Italian that were much better "acted" than the english/american ones, simply because the original actors were atrocious, while the italian dubbers were much better actors than them and did a better job at conveying the messages than the originals. This has happened a few times, when i watched a movie in English after having it seen in Italian, and back.

 

[London Geezer]

Also one of the problems we encounter is that some of the jokes which are really funny in american/english, just do not work in Italian (it's probably the same for a lot of other languages and cultures). For that, there needs to be some serious re-workings to the script sometimes. The movie studios take care of this in fact. For example, Disney will take care of the localisation of their movies and will change some jokes depending on how funny they would sound in a different language and culture. It's not just some "rogue dubbing company" who picks the movie up, dubs it, and release it.

Subtitles would never be able to convey the same level of communication as it's usually just a straight translation, which for us Italians is WAY too lifeless.

 

[StefanS]

I've never got it why those dubbing countries didn't just start using subtitles, like any literate civilization would do...
Dubbing a movie or TV-serie is modifying an essential part of the feature, namely acting.

That's one of the biggest misconceptions. No country decides to use subtitles. It's a question of market size and value. Dubbing for 5million finnish people is just not very economically viable, but dubbing for 100 million German speakers is not as expensive per movie watched / sold / etc.
Usually the dubbing is high quality and done carefully. German voice actors can actually live very comfortably on dubbing. English to German conversions have also the advantage that lip synchronity is not that much of a problem. Funnily enough, Japanese to German dubs are by far superior to the Japanese to English pendant, as highly professional voice actors are used.
Worst dubbings I've ever seen in big production movies (I am not talking about low budget Kung Fu flicks) were LotR in Hungarian (Hungarian is not part of Indo-German language family, major problems arise more easily) and Predator in Japanese (if you think Arnold Schwarzenegger sounds funny in English, watch this one...).

 

[_xxx_]

There are just too many people out there who can't read as fast (or hardly at all), have bad sight or just plain won't bother with the subtitles. I prefer subtitles for sure, but I'm a minority here.

 

[London Geezer]

Personally i much prefer watching Anime with the original voices with subtitles. I just love those quirky voices!

 

[hey69]

its absolutely the same for france.
the same dubber is always doing the same actor.. God i hate those french (to forcing to watch their dubbed movies when i'm on family visit over there )


anyway, eastern europe dubbers are very very low.

i once was checking out the channels on my hotelroom in Turkey, there was this one polish or russion i dont know channel.

1 !! Guy dubbed just everything with no intonation , emotion or anything.

whuhuaha that was so funny.

 

[hey69]

There are just too many people out there who can't read as fast (or hardly at all), have bad sight or just plain won't bother with the subtitles. I prefer subtitles for sure, but I'm a minority here.

Belgium and Netherlands NEVER dub (belgium only the dutch speaking part) so its just the way how you are used to it.

 

[London Geezer]

Belgium and Netherlands NEVER dub (belgium only the dutch speaking part) so its just the way how you are used to it.

I've been to Amsterdam (for... erm... business of course...) and English is like a twin language in the Netherlands, it lives alongside Dutch and TV is in both languages with no need for dubbing or subtitles of english material. Love it.

 

[hey69]

thats why the average dutch speaking person (belgian, holland) speaks so well english.

we all learn from the TV.. nojoke

what i also dislike is that they change the title of a movie or series.

Wifes cousin asked me if i followed Les Desparus and that they loved it..
apparantly , they ment " LOST " i learned afterwards..

 

[London Geezer]

thats why the average dutch speaking person (belgian, holland) speaks so well english.

we all learn from the TV.. nojoke

what i also dislike is that they change the title of a movie or series.

Wifes cousin asked me if i followed Les Desparus and that they loved it..
apparantly , they ment " LOST " i learned afterwards..

Yeah the french are very bad at that, they literally translate EVERYTHING. Every single word that's not french, they translate it. A freaking computer, which is also a computer in Italian and most other languages out there, becomes a bloody ordinateur...

 

[Crisidelm]

Afaik, the Italian dubbing "school" is considered to be the best in the western world, especially for American films. The reason why subtitles never catched on in Italy is the enourmous rate of illiteracy in this country even right after the Second World War, and since cinema was, as it's still now, aimed for the masses, subtitling was simply not an option. And you can't propose it now either: after almost 80 years of dubbing, nobody in Italy is willing to change it.
Usually a "voice" dubs more than one actor, but with different intonations so it doesn't sound the same, and believe me, they are all very good at it: it's really hard to tell that it's the same guy...

 

[Sindre]

Yeah the french are very bad at that, they literally translate EVERYTHING. Every single word that's not french, they translate it. A freaking computer, which is also a computer in Italian and most other languages out there, becomes a bloody ordinateur...

Heh, a laptop/notebook is even worse, ordinateur portatif!

Back to topic, in Scandinaian countries we never dub either. I think this is the main reason we speak well English compared to dubbed countries elsewhere in Europe.

 

[Crisidelm]

Yeah the french are very bad at that, they literally translate EVERYTHING. Every single word that's not french, they translate it. A freaking computer, which is also a computer in Italian and most other languages out there, becomes a bloody ordinateur...

The odd thing is that there's actually the French verb "computer", so I've never understood why Jacques Perret thought that "ordinateur" was better than "computeur".

 

[hey69]

in french " portable" you would think laptop computer, no its your mobile phone...

and the list gooes onnnnn...

 

[hey69]

The odd thing is that there's actually the French verb "computer", so I've never understood why Jacques Perret thought that "ordinateur" was better than "computeur".

well in turkish its " bilgisayar" and that means literaly " datacounter " still better then
ordinateur which means just "machine"

 

[rabidrabbit]

A while ago dubbing was "tested" here on few episodes of a certain soap opera (Bold and Beautiful I think). The feedback wasn't very positive if I remember correct, I think it was mostly laughed at.
The Disney and other animation movies are optionally dubbed here too, and in them it doesn't sound bad at all, but that's because you know animated characters aren't real and the language and tone of voice they speak isn't assosiated to a certain actor.

 

[Crisidelm]

well in turkish its " bilgisayar" and that means literaly " datacounter " still better then
ordinateur which means just "machine"

That's different: I'm just saying, they have a verb, "computer", that also means "to calculate": why not just use it, it's the perfect match for Goodness' sake: computeur et voilà, c'est fait.