I Cento Passi was one of the films we watched in Mayder Dravasa's Intermediate Italian class, spring 2009. In fall 2010, I worked with Amy Boylan on an independent study of translation, and this paper was the final project, followed in spring 2011 by an Undergraduate Research Conference presentation.
Subtitling “Peppino:” the joys of I Cento Passi in a modern method of translation
Director Marco Tullio Giordana’s 2000 film brings to vivid life the true story of Giuseppe “Peppino” Impastato, an anti-Mafia activist who was killed in the prime of his life but left a passionate legacy. Giordana’s attention to detail is well-spent: the actor Luigi Lo Cascio not only portrays Peppino sensitively and in 3 dimensions, but also resembles him very closely; the Sicilian setting of the drama is preserved by shooting on location, as well as including Sicilian dialogue in the screenplay (which I will examine in the context of linguistics and modern film translation); and the opposition of the Mafia and the young activists of Peppino’s circle is drawn subtly but clearly in the visuals and words of the film. This is a film I have become familiar with over several encounters, having been spell bound by the drama when introduced to this film for a unit on the congiuntivo two years ago in Intermediate Italian. The pull of this film drew me to create something of it, set a scene to music or something of the like; now in the course of my study of translation theory and practice, I am afforded the opportunity to create something academic and original around I Cento Passi.
Nornes: For an Abusive Subtitling
The most influential text on subtitling that I have read is Abe Mark Nornes’ essay, For an Abusive Subtitling (Nornes 1999). Nornes explores two different traditional viewpoints in translation. One side advocates translating neatly into the target language without leaving traces of the foreign nature and flavor of the original – Nornes calls this “corrupt” translation, because it masquerades as authentic where it is simply hiding the signs of the translator’s work. In contrast to this, Nornes outlines what he calls “abusive” translation, which seeks to showcase the translated nature of the text rather than masking it, as well as offering more information and a better representation of the original, and acknowledging the ‘violence’ done to the original whenever translation is done. Subtitling, in its many rules and constrictions, makes this dichotomy between corrupt and abusive more blunt and vitally important, as the advantages or disadvantages of either approach are very exposed when dealing with limits on text size, timing, duration etc. Nornes draws specific examples from the history of subtitles in Japanese film, his academic specialty: a translated version of Robocop (an American film, subtitled for Japanese audiences) is cited as corrupt because it removes a key element of a conversation (the power struggle between a pair of male and female police officers on the same assignment) and subtitles only the basic substance of their interaction; an abusive example cited is the fan-translated oeuvre of Japanese anime in America, where subtitles contain foreign words, extra notes to explain obscure material, and even appear in different colors, orientations on the screen, and fonts – all these excellent techniques which function to bring out subcontext and extra information which would otherwise be eliminated by a more traditional subtitling. This increase in information is crucial to my goals for this translation and subtitling. The film cannot be brought entire into English without losing information – this is Nornes’ main donnee’ in his essay – but the information that is presented to the new audience can be presented in such a way that this loss of information is minimized, possibly even offset by the additional content of an abusive subtitling.
Issues in Italian film for American audiences
Several features of this film would automatically need translation at a cultural level to meet the needs of a curious American audience. It is assumed that words such as “zio” (uncle) and “babbo” (father) are not commonly known by Americans without prior acquaintance with Italian in films or conversation. These words would likely be translated as Uncle and Father (or Dad, or other variants according to context). Some translators would even translate the names: Caesar for Cesare, Louis/Lewis/Lou for Luigi, Joe/Joseph for Giuseppe. To my ear, this would sound stilted and unnecessarily simplistic; perhaps even politically charged, in the way that Roman translators would Latinize their Greek rhetorical models to appropriate the Hellenic literary traditions for Rome (Venuti 2004). “Uncle Cesare” does not have the most natural sound, but it is more natural than calling Peppino “Joe/Joey.” One solution would be to not translate “zio” at all in the main body of text but instead to include an optional text box on the screen which explains the use of the word. This would preserve the authenticity of the original, while providing extra information to supplement the audience’s understanding of the Italian context.
Other specific issues include references to historical events or figures. I Cento Passi is very grounded in a time and place – Sicily in the 1950s -1970s – and therefore some of the cultural or historical references which would be immediately understood by an Italian audience would pass by unnoticed by an American audience, or would reduce the amount of information passed to the target language. Within the limits imposed by technology, my planned translation would include optional subtitles to explain these details and enrich the text presented to the target audience.
Sicilian codeswitching in I Cento Passi
Set in Cinisi, Sicilia, one might expect the Sicilian language to feature in this film, to add local color or other detail to the characters. The screenplay of I Cento Passi includes several scenes where characters speak alternately Sicilian and standard Italian – a practice called codeswitching. Codeswitching varies depending on demographics – young people are more likely to have learned the standard language at school, whereas older people are more used to speaking the dialect at home and in regular business/social interactions – as well as the mood and purpose of the speech act. Some studies cite dialect use as related to emotive purposes, and the standard language for allocution or clarification. Another factor in codeswitching is the we-them dichotomy: if one is speaking with a member of their own group (family, friends, colleagues, neighbors) they might use the dialect, but in speaking with a radio news host, for instance, or businessman from another part of the country, they are much more likely to speak the standard dialect. In I Cento Passi, Sicilian is more frequently spoken by the older generation, especially in informal situations. Rather than simply write scenes where the entire dialogue is in Sicilian, these scenes highlight the interplay between the two dialects. My contention is that Giordana carefully selected the scenes to feature codeswitching for these reasons:
1. For realistic speech: the characters would likely switch between Sicilian and Italian. The use of Sicilian in the screenplay displays typical qualities of codeswitching practice, as the characters speak Sicilian among their families and neighbors, though Standard Italian is the main language of the film and is also used in informal scenes. Sicilian is used to add character and realism to these scenes, and forms a thread throughout the film, rather than being used consistently in each and every scene where it would be appropriate or expected.
2. For obscurity versus clarity for Standard Italian audience, who would be expected to understand a small amount of Sicilian, but in general would find this practice of codeswitching to be half unintelligible. Local dialects such as Sicilian are generally as different from Italian as Italian is from other Romance languages, such as Portuguese, and Sicilian (because of the political history of Siciliy) particularly has been influenced by languages which had a negligible influence on Italian itself (Bonner and Cipolla 2001). An Italian audience would recognize some vocabulary in a Sicilian text, and would be able to decipher large amounts of the text which are similar to Italian, but their understanding of the language would be expected to be incomplete. Furthermore, Sicilian itself can be usefully subdivided into local dialects, such as Palermitano and Messinese, which would share a large amount of vocabulary and syntax – essentially, mainly mutually intelligible – but do contain some very different material so that a speaker of one would not automatically be fluent in the others. These shades of difference in Sicilian itself, and Sicilian versus Italian, imply careful choices on the part of director and screenwriter as to which Sicilian words to use, in what specific variety of Sicilian, to fulfill what purpose in the script.
This issue of codeswitching brings me to an intersection which is vital to my paper: how do you show that careful selection of standard Italian vs. Sicilian in subtitles for an American audience?
I assume here that my audience is intelligent and interested, at least, in the details which make this film so fascinating. This audience might understand no Italian, but be perfectly ok with the concept of codeswitching: register switching is a phenomenon we all experience when conversing with disparate groups of people, such as colleagues and superiors. Facility with switching registers is a typical feature of language use, and codeswitching is also a seamless and instinctive practice among bilingual speakers. With the proper “flag” in the subtitles, the audience would easily understand what is going on when the characters switch between Sicilian and Italian, and begin to consider the deeper complexities of codeswitching. This flag could be effectively created by formatting the subtitles differently when the dialogue features codeswitching – italic text could depict Sicilian. In his discourses on the radio, Peppino frequently coins words, which makes the translator’s job considerably more creative and challenging. These new words could be Capitalized, as in an 18th century English essay; Peppino’s flexible, inventive, and ironic rhetoric is not unlike a Jonathan Swift satire.
To serve the drama
Several scenes in I Cento Passi grow more emotional with each re-visiting. As one comes to understand the plot, elements of foreshadowing and consistent themes start to stand out, and the film becomes more cohesive and integrated. One particular scene features particularly sharp foreshadowing: the death of Cesare Manzella, Peppino’s uncle, by car bomb, foreshadowing Peppino’s death strapped to a bomb and railroad tracks. The young Peppino asks his mother, “cosa si prova a morire cosi’?” literally, how does it feel to die that way? After having seen him die that way, you can’t help but wonder whether he remembers that as the men who kill him are starting the job. When Luigi, Peppino’s father, takes leave of his son and politely turns down his offer of a ride home, the audience does not yet know the outcome of this scene. Luigi starts walking home and talks to himself about the disconnect he feels with his son, and how Peppino seems to ignore or disregard his authority as paterfamilias. When a car approaches and Luigi motions for a ride, he is struck by the car and killed. Hearing him say, someone will give me a ride (“me lo danno un passaggio”) after seeing this scene’s denouement is a powerful moment.
Since mine is an artistic, as well as academic translation, I seek to bring out these features of the screenplay as faithfully and intelligently as if I were translating a written work. Giordana and the screenwriters certainly lavished enough effort on making this film a cohesive work of art, and good subtitles should be able to bring out these features without neglecting the objectives of translation (here, abusive translation). These objectives are to present the audience with a clear, compelling, and natural version of the film, without attempting to translate the film itself, while also providing context and explanation for the elements of the screenplay which would become obscured in translated subtitles.
The Mafia in I Cento Passi: silence versus words
The interactions of the Mafia and its opponents are characterized by the opposition of words to silence. The communists and anti-Mafia activists are very vocal characters: Stefano Venuti, Peppino, the crowd of young mourners at Peppino’s funeral. The Mafiosi all keep silence in their resistance to outside pressure: Tano, Luigi, etc. When they break silence (as in Luigi’s discussion with Felicia, or his soliloquy) it is for good reason, and sometimes this resolution has unintended consequences. The Mafia suppresses dissidence – this is central to their success and continued existence, as well as the Mafia’s dramatic role in I Cento Passi – and Peppino’s free use of words jeopardizes their hegemony. His active, vocal resistance is flamboyant in the Radio Aut speeches, and emotionally open and exposed when he resists his father’s authority. This resistance to the status quo and entrenched authority eventually costs him freedom and life.
In the funeral sequence near the beginning of I Cento Passi, Tano Badalamenti (a powerful Mafioso) embraces the widow Manzella and their interaction is entirely silent. Furthermore, Tano silences her weeping as she is calling quietly to Cesare in his coffin. Tano himself is impassive while making his show of sympathy. We do not know for sure what his role in Cesare’s death is, but the widow clearly sees him as involved, if only in suppressing her rightful grieving. This interaction is reminiscent, of a similar scene in The Godfather; the resemblance is likely conscious and intentional, as contemporary Italian film owes so much to this iconic and seminal work. The Mafia’s role in Italian society is one of silent, patriarchal tradition, and Tano’s depiction in I Cento Passi is typical of modern filmmakers’ take on this tradition. It is important to note that before The Godfather, Mafiosi were typically presented as the heroes, if vigilante heroes, in film. The Godfather places the Don in a 3-dimensional setting of family and duty and though it does romanticize the Mafia, this film is groundbreaking in its portrayal of a Mafia family and the darker side of their life. Later films draw on this new open attitude about the Mafia, and grow into the active social commentary of films such as Gomorra and I Cento Passi, where the Mafia is openly criticized. This attitude has its beginnings not only in The Godfather, but in the eye-opening events of the 1970s: the deaths of Pasolini, Falcone and Borsellino, and Peppino Impastato, among others. This film would not have been possible in the 1960s; it is not a stretch to say that through the efforts of both the “new” Mafia films, and people like Peppino, Italy and the world has a new arena in which to discuss the Mafia’s role in society.
The desired outcome for this study is an Undergraduate Research Conference presentation of one or two “abusively subtitled” scenes from I Cento Passi, accompanied by a printed summary of the project and additional information on the film, which would be drawn from this paper. Ideally, the audience should come away knowing more about the practice of translating for film, as well as about the true story of Peppino and his courageous life.
Bibliography
Bonner, J. K., and Gaetano Cipolla. Introduction to Sicilian Grammar. Brooklyn, NY: Legas, 2001. Print.
Cashman, Holly G. "Conversation and Interactional Analysis." The Blackwell Guide to Research Methods in Bilingualism and Multilingualism. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2008. Print.
European Association for Studies in Screen Translation. Code of Good Subtitling Practice. Web.
I Cento Passi. Dir. Marco T. Giordana. Perf. Luigi Lo Cascio; Luigi Maria Burruano; Tony Sperandeo; Lucia Sardo. RAI Cinemafiction, 2000. DVD.
Maiden, Martin, and M. M. Parry. "Sociolinguistics." The Dialects of Italy. London: Routledge, 1997. Print.
Nornes, Abe Mark. "For an Abusive Subtitling." Film Quarterly 52.3 (1999): 17-34. In The Translation Studies Reader (see Venuti 2004)
Venuti, Lawrence. The Translation Studies Reader. New York: Routledge, 2004. Print.
No comments:
Post a Comment