Abé Mark Nornes [Markus Nornes],
Cinema Babel: Translating Global Cinema.
Minneapolis and London, University of Minnesota Press: 2007.
ISBN: 978-0-8166-5042-2
US$22.50 (pb)
304pp
(Review copy supplied by University of Minnesota Press)
Officially, Nornes’ fascinating book, about language-translation in the export and import of films, consists of 8 main segments: 6 ‘chapters’ plus ‘Introduction’ and ‘Conclusion’, the eight of which average 30 pp. in length. In addition we have ‘Notes’ (31 pp.), ‘Index’ (9 pp.), and a total of 31 illustrations, many of which are rare if not unique.
Nornes spices his text with many examples of translation mistakes and of disagreements related thereto, disagreements amongst scenarists, translators per se, ‘voice actors’, producers, distributors, critics, and viewers. Likewise, the illustrations, examples of subtitled frames (the obtaining of which must have cost Nornes a great deal of time and effort) add a lot to his discussion.
Of the official chapters, this reviewer found the most personal interest in those devoted to Silents (ch. 3), Talkies (ch. 4), Subtitling (ch. 5) and Dubbing (c. 6). Note. In the Great ‘Dub/Sub Debate’, perhaps surprisingly, Nornes and a few experts he quotes actually seem to favor dubbing. This reviewer, a linguist who strongly favors subtitling, must admit that Nornes and others are able to advance a few telling arguments in their favor. (But not enough to win me over.)
Above I mentioned the official arrangement of ‘Translating Global Cinema’ by Nornes into chapters. But to my surprise I came to realize that this book also can be broken down in a completely different way, as well. Or so it strikes me. A huge (maybe inordinate) portion of Nornes’ text (and rare illustrations) are devoted solely to Japanese Cinema. Perhaps almost enough pages that the ‘Japanese portion’ could be separately published as a monograph in its own right. The remainder of the book might be broken down into ‘world cinema (outside Japan)’ and ‘theories of translation and film in relation to each other’.
Each of these three major portions will find its own interested readers. For this reviewer, the most interesting portion would have been ‘world cinema outside Japan’. Particularly the 5 pages Nornes does devote to Czech film translation (pp. 236-40). But I wonder whether all readers would gain a more balanced impression if Nornes had written much more on world cinema and correspondingly less on Japan. Speaking for my humble self, I BEGAN reading this book with a gradual impression of disappointment: “My gosh, it’s half devoted Japan – in which I have no interest.” But as I continued reading, I was struck by how much information and interest I picked up on the previously unstudied subject (Japanese cinema). So there are two sides to the same coin.
And in all fairness, I must add that Professor Nornes is an international authority on Japanese cinema and on the translation of same. So he really knows whereof he speaks. As I understand, when he married a Japanese wife (Miss Abe), he added her surname to his own original name (Markus Nornes) to arrive at the citation form he now uses: “Abé Mark Nornes.” That deserves our respect.
Steven P Hill,
University of Illinois, USA
Created on: Thursday, 4 September 2008