Before most movies hits the theatres a test audience is often consulted to figure out, if the movie's title is fitting, if there are some thing(s) in the movie that might be incoherent, if the dialogue is ok etc. etc.
Once in a while I get invited to be one of the "testers", and have experienced that something was changed before the movie premiered - salary: to see the movie for free - jobdescription: to answer a questionnaire when the movie is over.
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The other night, I went in to see The Royal Affair (original Danish title: En kongelig affære), and must admit that I was a bit baffled to get invited to be among the test audience of a movie that opened a while ago and have been a good success attracting 400.000+ movie-goers (may not sound of much, but our population is 5,6 mio only) and won a couple of prices at the Berlin Movie Festival.
A beautiful movie about an historic event that truely changed the little kingdom of Denmark - spellbound during 2+ hours the movie lasted.
Then a complete surprise: "Did the subtitles bother you when watching the movie?" - Subtitles, what subtitles, the movie was in Danish?!?! Oh wait a minute it was subtitled..... They were testing us to see in they can introduce subtitling of domestic movies, so hearing impared people do not have to wait until the movie is relased on DVD to enjoy a movie.
Unlike a lot of European countries (Spain, France, Italy, Germany etc) foreign movies a not dubbed, but with subtitles, so we are accustomed to subtitles - just not subtitles to domestic movies. Everybody seemed to agree, we did not mind the subtitles at all as we simply overlooked them due to the fact that we understood/heard the spoken language. For me the same goes with English, Swedish, Norwegian and German movies - I actually do not need the subtitles.... but I hope that the Danish movies get subtitles too, so the hearing impared can have great experiences too at the cinema.
1 comment:
There really is something wonderful about viewing a film in a real cinema, isn't there? It has become very expensive, here in the UK, to visit a cinema, and has to be just an occasional treat...for a really special film....for us to pay out, which is a shame because we used to see a film weekly, and now it's probably a few times a year.
As for sub-titles, I think a large part of the world, not only the hearing-impaired, would miss out on some wonderful films, if we didn't have them.
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