The DVD version of Chris Marker's La Jetée (the short film that inspired Twelve Monkeys), on a compilation called Short 2: Dreams, is dubbed into English. My reactions were much like these; it just sounds wrong. It's particularly egregious that the DVD doesn't give you the option of watching in French with subtitles. You can play the soundtrack on Google video as you watch the DVD with the sound off, but you still won't have subtitles. Here's the English script, but reading along with the Google Video soundtrack while playing the DVD with the sound off is a hack too far.
(The only other Marker film I've seen was dubbed and may have had substantially different narration in English. So Marker doesn't mind dubbing; but this particular dubbing just doesn't sound as good.)
Bijouflix apparently has a French subtitled version with—OMG—Samuel Beckett's Film. [With Buster Keaton.]
Posted by Matt Weiner at July 25, 2006 07:11 AM