The EconomistDecember 21st 2019 Holiday specials 1071Y
ourcorrespondentisreadyforhisclose-up,ofsorts.Ina Los
Angeles sound studio, a television monitor is showing a scene
from a new Brazilian thriller series in which a headmaster is chas-
ing away a loitering ne’er-do-well. Words stream across a purple
band running below the action: “Get out of here! You graduated
two years ago!” Reading them out at the precise moment they ar-
rive at the centre of the frame, at just the right speed, takes several
takes. Getting the emotion and voice right—the director wants
something hard-boiled and urban—takes a couple more. Finally,
no doubt keen to flatter a visitor, he pronounces it a triumph.
The show is “Spectros”. Made by Netflix, a video-streaming
company, it was conceived by an American showrunner and
filmed in the Japanese-Brazilian São Paulo neighbourhood of Li-
berdade by a Brazilian director. Its potential audience, though, is
spread all around the world. And very little of it speaks Portuguese.
Netflix has moved heavily into “international originals”: pro-
grammes shot in languages other than in English. It is a strategy
that has various attractions. Producing locally set shows no one
has seen before helps the company conquer new territories. Film-
making in much of the world is considerably cheaper than it is in
America. Talent is widespread. And a lot of people are culturally
curious, intrigued by stories from elsewhere.
But it also has an obvious disadvantage. That rich pool of talent
telling new stories does so in a wide range of languages. If those
stories are to be spread around the world then they have to be intel-
ligibletoall.Netflixhasdecidedthatmeansdubbing
them with translated speech. Competitors such as Am-
azon, now producing video of its own as well as distri-
buting the video of others, are pushing into the field.
In its infancy, cinema was international—a silent
film made in Moscow could be watched in Manchester
quite easily, its intertitles translated if need be. But
then cinema learned to talk, and all was Babel.
In English-speaking countries, the problem of
watching a film made in a foreign country was mostly
solved either with subtitles or by not bothering to do
so. With the world’s largest film industry in America,
an English-speaking audience wanting to be enter-
tained rarely troubled itself with foreign languages.
In countries where productions in the mother ton-
gue were not so copious, various other approaches
were tried. In Poland and Russia, the preference is for
lectoring, an unsettling experience (for those unused
to it) in which the original voices are audible but low
and a single voice emotionlessly speaks a translation.
Some small Kenyan cinemas employ a live version of
the same idea: a “dj” who vividly interprets and even
explains the film as it plays.
Another approach is to make the film twice; first do
the original version of a scene, then do a re-take inInvasionofthe
voicesnatchers
LOS ANGELES AND PARIS
Dubbing Often associated with poor quality
and parochialism, dubbing is enjoying
a streaming-video revival