- Hardcover: 544 pages
- Publisher: MIT Press (15 Oct 2004)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0262050781
- ISBN-13: 978-0262050784
- Product Dimensions: 14 x 22.5 x 4.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 443,799 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Review
"A big treat of Subtitles is the 'art object' graphic design... and the book's unusual Cinemascope shape." Gerald Peary The Boston Phoenix "With this lovingly edited and designed collection, filmmaker Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter, Ararat) and literature professor Ian Balfour celebrate the much-maligned middlemen of world cinema: subtitles. While definitely a high-brow gift-tome, it's an approachable one, thanks in large part to its exceptional attention to design. The book's gorgeous layout was created by Egoyan with designer Gilbert Li, and they've simply outdone themselves. It's the little things that matter: the book's wide-format layout mimics a silver screen, right down to an insanely anal use of the cinematic 1.66:1 ratio." Boldtype
Product Description
"Every film is a foreign film," Atom Egoyan and Ian Balfour tell us in their introduction to Subtitles. How, then, to translate the experience of film -- which, as Egoyan says, makes us "feel outside and inside at the same time"? Taking subtitles as their point of departure, the thirty-two contributors to this unique collection consider translation, foreignness, and otherness in film culture. Their discussions range from the mechanics and aesthetics of subtitles themselves to the xenophobic reaction to translation to subtitles as a metaphor for the distance and intimacy of film.The essays, interviews, and visuals include a collaboration by Russell Banks and Atom Egoyan, which uses quotations from Banks's novel The Sweet Hereafter as subtitles for publicity stills from Egoyan's film of the book; three early film reviews by Jorge Luis Borges; an interview with filmmaker Claire Denis about a scene in her film Friday Night that should not have been subtitled; and Eric Cazdyn's reading of the running subtitles on CNN's post-9/11 newscasts as a representation of new global realities. Several writers deal with translating cultural experience for an international audience, including Frederic Jameson on Balkan cinema, John Mowitt on the history of the "foreign film" category in the Academy Awards, and Ruby Rich on the marketing of foreign films and their foreign languages -- "Somehow, I'd like to think it's harder to kill people when you hear their voices," she writes. And Slavoj Zizek considers the "foreign gaze" (seen in films by Hitchcock, Lynch, and others), the misperception that sees too much.Designed by Egoyan and award-winning graphic designer Gilbert Li, the book includes many color images and ten visual projects by artists and filmmakers. The pages are horizontal, suggesting a movie screen; they use the cinematic horizontal aspect ratio of 1.66:1. Subtitles gives us not only a new way to think about film but also a singular design object.Subtitles is being copublished by The MIT Press and Alphabet City Media (John Knechtel, Director). Subtitles has been funded in part by grants from The Canada Council for the Arts, The Henry N.R. Jackman Foundation, and the Toronto Arts Council, and the Ontario Arts Council.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Hardcover
This is a book for fans of film--in particular, viewers that enjoy non-native language movies and have an interest in how they are subtitled. Many subtitlers may find this interesting, of course, but in fairness it's not written for professionals in the field. This is not a criticism. The book's strength is it accessibility for the casual reader.
'We need to make sense of the foreign on our own terms,' authors Atom Egoyan and Ian Balfour write. 'Subtitles offer a way into worlds outside of ourselves.' To that end, they collected essays and interviews from every area of the subtitling industry. Professional subtitler Henri Behar has an endearingly gruff and pragmatic moment, as does director Claire Denis in her discussion of the subtitles for Friday Night. Amresh Sinha's essay on how subtitles can make one's own language foreign is particularly insightful. Jorge Luis Borges' early film reviews alone, as translated by Calin-Andrei Mihailescu, are worth the price of the book.
Much is made of the design, and rightly so, but the essays would be just as compelling in a standard trade paperback format. The publisher has done the material justice, however, by creating a book as fascinating to hold in one's hands as it is to read. It's not entirely convenient for most bookshelves, but that's a quibble compared to the binding, quality paper, and cinematic faux-widescreen design.
There is something here for every film fan. Like all great anthologies, the book observes its theme without seeming to do so. The essays come at right angles to each other, but all oddly fit the primary goal of the text--to expose readers to this little-understood area of global cinema. In that regard, the book is a remarkable success.
D. Bannon is author of The Elements of Subtitles: A Practical Guide to the Art of Dialogue, Character, Context, Tone and Style in Subtitling
'We need to make sense of the foreign on our own terms,' authors Atom Egoyan and Ian Balfour write. 'Subtitles offer a way into worlds outside of ourselves.' To that end, they collected essays and interviews from every area of the subtitling industry. Professional subtitler Henri Behar has an endearingly gruff and pragmatic moment, as does director Claire Denis in her discussion of the subtitles for Friday Night. Amresh Sinha's essay on how subtitles can make one's own language foreign is particularly insightful. Jorge Luis Borges' early film reviews alone, as translated by Calin-Andrei Mihailescu, are worth the price of the book.
Much is made of the design, and rightly so, but the essays would be just as compelling in a standard trade paperback format. The publisher has done the material justice, however, by creating a book as fascinating to hold in one's hands as it is to read. It's not entirely convenient for most bookshelves, but that's a quibble compared to the binding, quality paper, and cinematic faux-widescreen design.
There is something here for every film fan. Like all great anthologies, the book observes its theme without seeming to do so. The essays come at right angles to each other, but all oddly fit the primary goal of the text--to expose readers to this little-understood area of global cinema. In that regard, the book is a remarkable success.
D. Bannon is author of The Elements of Subtitles: A Practical Guide to the Art of Dialogue, Character, Context, Tone and Style in Subtitling
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3 reviews
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Stunning and fascinating
24 Jun 2004
Format:Hardcover
I have just seen an advance copy of this book, and it is gorgeous! The design, the sweeps of colour images, the construction: just an excellent object (Egoyan was the codesigner as well as coeditor, apparently).
The collection is unique. Who but Egoyan would think to do a whole book riffing on the idea and the aesthetics of Subtitles? There's are something like 30 pieces, just an amazing range. Very accessible, even funny. It opens up a whole range of ideas, from the mechanical work of subtitling to the inside/outside experience watching a subtitled film provides, to the inter-national communication and circulation subtitling enables.
I could never have imagined this book before Egoyan made it, but now with its publication he's opened up a whole set of ideas.
Just a tour de force. Very exciting.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Useful and Entertaining Essays
8 Nov 2009
Format:Hardcover
This is a book for fans of film--in particular, viewers that enjoy non-native language movies and have an interest in how they are subtitled. Many subtitlers may find this interesting, of course, but in fairness it's not written for professionals in the field. This is not a criticism. The book's strength is it accessibility for the casual reader.
'We need to make sense of the foreign on our own terms,' authors Atom Egoyan and Ian Balfour write. 'Subtitles offer a way into worlds outside of ourselves.' To that end, they collected essays and interviews from every area of the subtitling industry. Professional subtitler Henri Behar has an endearingly gruff and pragmatic moment, as does director Claire Denis in her discussion of the subtitles for Friday Night. Amresh Sinha's essay on how subtitles can make one's own language foreign is particularly insightful. Jorge Luis Borges' early film reviews alone, as translated by Calin-Andrei Mihailescu, are worth the price of the book.
Much is made of the design, and rightly so, but the essays would be just as compelling in a standard trade paperback format. The publisher has done the material justice, however, by creating a book as fascinating to hold in one's hands as it is to read. It's not entirely convenient for most bookshelves, but that's a quibble compared to the binding, quality paper, and cinematic faux-widescreen design.
There is something here for every film fan. Like all great anthologies, the book observes its theme without seeming to do so. The essays come at right angles to each other, but all oddly fit the primary goal of the text--to expose readers to this little-understood area of global cinema. In that regard, the book is a remarkable success.
D. Bannon is author of The Elements of Subtitles: A Practical Guide to the Art of Dialogue, Character, Context, Tone and Style in Subtitling
'We need to make sense of the foreign on our own terms,' authors Atom Egoyan and Ian Balfour write. 'Subtitles offer a way into worlds outside of ourselves.' To that end, they collected essays and interviews from every area of the subtitling industry. Professional subtitler Henri Behar has an endearingly gruff and pragmatic moment, as does director Claire Denis in her discussion of the subtitles for Friday Night. Amresh Sinha's essay on how subtitles can make one's own language foreign is particularly insightful. Jorge Luis Borges' early film reviews alone, as translated by Calin-Andrei Mihailescu, are worth the price of the book.
Much is made of the design, and rightly so, but the essays would be just as compelling in a standard trade paperback format. The publisher has done the material justice, however, by creating a book as fascinating to hold in one's hands as it is to read. It's not entirely convenient for most bookshelves, but that's a quibble compared to the binding, quality paper, and cinematic faux-widescreen design.
There is something here for every film fan. Like all great anthologies, the book observes its theme without seeming to do so. The essays come at right angles to each other, but all oddly fit the primary goal of the text--to expose readers to this little-understood area of global cinema. In that regard, the book is a remarkable success.
D. Bannon is author of The Elements of Subtitles: A Practical Guide to the Art of Dialogue, Character, Context, Tone and Style in Subtitling
0 of 4 people found the following review helpful
VERY GOOD??
14 Jun 2009
Format:Hardcover
The hard cover is completely detached from the body of the book, and the transparent book cover (which is part of the design of the cover) is quite torn out -- this status was not mentioned in the description of the product (it only stated that the condition is VERY GOOD without further remarks), otherwise I would not purchase it. Very prompt delivery though.
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