{"id":4168,"date":"2015-02-26T13:47:02","date_gmt":"2015-02-26T12:47:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rickzullo.com\/?p=4168"},"modified":"2021-09-12T17:51:28","modified_gmt":"2021-09-12T15:51:28","slug":"the-art-of-doppiaggio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/the-art-of-doppiaggio\/","title":{"rendered":"The Art of Doppiaggio"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"art<\/a><\/p>\n

Last week, Italy\u2019s Milena Canonero took home her fourth Oscar for Best Costume Design for her work on The Grand Budapest Hotel<\/em>. But after winning the prize for Best Foreign Language Film last year with Paolo Sorrentino\u2019s La Grande Bellezza<\/em><\/a> (The Great Beauty), this year Italy didn\u2019t even have an entry in that category. Disappointing.<\/p>\n

Not that there weren\u2019t some notable Italian films released in 2014. In fact, it\u2019s a bit surprising that the critically acclaimed Il capital umano<\/em> (Human Capital) didn\u2019t make it to the final round of Oscar voting. Back in June, it won top prize at the David di Donatello Awards<\/a>, beating out The Great Beauty<\/em>. And it features several of Italy\u2019s \u201cA-list\u201d talent such as Valeria Golino (Respiro<\/em>) and Luigi Lo Cascio (La meglio giovent\u00f9<\/em>).<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Maybe it\u2019s not that surprising after all. Allow me to make a related observation: Italian films don\u2019t really seem all that popular among Italians. Browsing the marquees at any given cinema in Rome, you often find more American movies than Italians ones.<\/p>\n

This\u00a0also gives us a little peak into a subtle cultural idiosyncrasy that one repeatedly encounters in Italy. There\u2019s an\u00a0underlying sentiment that \u201ceverything foreign is better\u201d (with the exception of food, of course). When something embarrassing happens in a public way\u2014like the appointment of one of Berlusconi\u2019s mistresses to Parliament\u2014you hear outcries in the street, such as, \u201cOnly in Italy! This would never happen in England\/Switzerland\/Germany\/America!\u201d (Although, after the recent vandalism incident at The Spanish Steps involving Dutch soccer fans, you won\u2019t hear Holland included in that list anytime soon. They made Rome\u2019s home-grown vandals look like mere amateurs.)<\/p>\n

Anyway, newly expatriated Americans arriving in Rome might be thrilled to initially discover that they can still watch recently released Hollywood films right in the center of the Eternal City. Well, sort of. Yes, the same films are shown\u2014but fully dubbed into Italian. That\u2019s right, no subtitles, but 100% dubbed. So if you don\u2019t speak fluent Italian, don\u2019t bother going to see the latest superhero sequel at the theater.<\/p>\n

By the way, this goes for the imported television shows, too, and there are many. All dubbed, no subtitles.<\/p>\n

The Art of Doppiaggio<\/h2>\n

You might ask, \u201cWhy do they dub all the films and TV shows in the first place? Wouldn\u2019t it be better\u2014not to mention easier\u2014to just include subtitles?<\/p>\n

Nowadays, yes. But when film starting becoming a popular medium in post-war Italy, the standard Italian language wasn\u2019t as widely dispersed as it is today. Many people still only spoke their local dialect<\/a>, and within the older generations, illiteracy was high. So subtitles would have been a fairly difficult chore to demand from the audience. Dubbing made more sense.<\/p>\n

\"Leggio_dOro_premio_doppiaggio\"Then even as the standard language spread and literacy improved dramatically, the habit just sort of stuck around. In fact, dubbing became its own art form, and many of the \u201cdoppiatori\u201d were as famous as the foreign actors that they spoke for. Even today, certain foreign actors have dedicated doppiatore<\/em> who are under contract be their exclusive Italian voice.<\/p>\n

For example, Francesco Pezzulli is the Italian voice of Leonardo DiCaprio, winning the 2013 prize for \u201cBest Actor\u201d from the Leggio d’Oro<\/em>, the dubbing version of an Oscar, for his interpretation of DiCaprio\u2019s character in Django Unchained<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Best \u201cActor?\u201d Is dubbing someone else\u2019s voice really acting? No doubt it takes talent, but I\u2019m not sure it\u2019s the same thing.<\/p>\n

I wonder if Francesco and Leonardo hang out together and share acting tips. Or advice on dating Brazilian swimsuit models. But I digress\u2026<\/p>\n

The fact is, these actors are<\/em> quite talented. I admit that my Italian isn\u2019t perfect, but I usually have a hard time seeing a discrepancy between the mouth movements of the foreign actor, and the sounds produced by the Italian dubber. Really, it looks seamless to me.<\/p>\n

\"rocco\"<\/a>
Not sure my American friends will get the joke here.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In recent years, the one concession has been to leave only the title of the film in the original language. I guess it\u2019s a start. But I hope that the trend changes sooner or later. Not only does it better preserve the art, but some have suggested that dubbing has contributed to the Italian population\u2019s poor English skills, lagging far behind countries like Germany, Holland, and Norway\u2014all countries that do NOT dub foreign movies or television shows.\u00a0Coincidence?<\/p>\n

Recently I\u2019ve heard a rumor that there\u2019s an Italian actor who is looking for an American man to dub his movies into English for distribution in the United States. I\u2019m thinking about auditioning. I don\u2019t know if my \u201cdoppiaggio\u201d skills are up to the task, but you must admit that there\u2019s a striking physical resemblance.<\/p>\n

*One final note* Even though I won’t be eligible for the\u00a0Leggio d’Oro\u00a0<\/em>award this year, I AM nominated for “The Best Overall Blog for Lovers of Italy” by Italy Magazine. If you have a minute. please click here<\/a><\/strong> to cast a vote for Rick’s Rome. Grazie!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, Italy\u2019s Milena Canonero took home her fourth Oscar for Best Costume Design for her work on The Grand Budapest Hotel. But after winning the prize for Best Foreign Language Film last year with Paolo Sorrentino\u2019s La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty), this year Italy didn\u2019t even have an entry in that category. Disappointing. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,282,5,29],"tags":[333,188,332,331,235,334],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4168"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}