The translation of extralinguistic cultural references in subtitling

There has been substantial scholarly interest in extralinguistic cultural references (ECRs) in translation, especially in audiovisual translation (AVT). However, most scholars have investigated subtitling from English into other languages. Although China has a long tradition of film production, few studies have investigated the subtitling of ECRs from Chinese into English. This article attempts to remedy this by investigating the translation strategies, translation strategy distribution, and fidelity indexes of six subtitled versions of Chinese-language films. We compare our results with Gottlieb’s (2009) results on Danish subtitles, and find that both Chinese and Danish subtitlers hold a target-oriented attitude. We then investigate the share of the strategies in the subtitling of ECRs across different Chinese films and determine that this varies by genre and that the difference in the fidelity index among films of different genres is substantial. The translation of epic films appears to be highly faithful, whereas that of crime and gangster films is much less faithful.

O Acossado e o cinema moderno da desmistificação godardiana

The French film “À bout de souffle” (Acossado, 1959) directed by Jean-Luc Godard represents the transgression of social, political and aesthetic norms. Having begun a new cycle in twentieth-century cinematography, this film questions, explains, and parodies American gangster films. We intend, here, to interpret them on their foundations and aesthetic results.

Domesticating gangsters? Home/work conflicts in South Korean family drama gangster film

Gangster films are largely an urban genre set in the mean streets of metropolitan ganglands. A significant proportion of South Korean gangster films depart from this spatial convention, however, setting their central family or romance plots in the domestic space of the apartment. This article addresses the question of why we find gangsters in domestic space in South Korean cinema and examines what the domestic setting ‘does’ to the gangster film. The Show Must Go On (2008) is discussed in detail to exemplify the ways that questions of masculinity, gendered family role performance and class anxieties are crystallized around domestic space. What emerges in this spatial shift is a new sub-genre, the ‘family drama gangster film’. This form combines elements of the traditional gangster narrative with family melodrama, producing tension between the conflicting obligations of the gangster towards gang and family. The article concludes that the family drama gangster film emerged as a response to a conjunction of socio-economic and film industry factors and became a vehicle through which conflict between competing ideologies of Korean familism is negotiated, mostly resolving in favour of affective familism.

Shanghai gangster films and the politics of change

In this paper through a very close textual reading I will show the ideological differences between two films based on the life of Shanghai gangster Du Yuesheng (1888, Pudong – 1951, Hong Kong) through close formal and narrative analysis. Du was already a celebrity in his day in the Republican era and is still a con-troversial figure in Greater China. However, there are only two films based on the life of the French Con-cession opium kingpin, the recent Hong Kong/PRC co-production The Last Tycoon (Da Shang Hai, Wong Jing, 2012) and the epic two part Lord of the East China Sea I & II (Shang Hai huang di zhi: Sui yue feng yun & Shang Hai huang di zhi: Xiong ba tia xia, Hong Kong, Poon Man-kit 1993). I show how these films reflect HK's and China's politico-economic changes focusing on the representation of social class and the subject, depiction of internal migration and immigration, and nationalism. The films will be discussed in their relation to changes in the Hong Kong film industry, Chinese and world cinema and the transnational gangster genre, showing how local and global cinemas have affected these films.

Roger Corman

“The King of the B Movies.” “The Pope of Pop Cinema.” “The Spiritual Godfather of the New Hollywood.” “The King of Cult.” Celebrated and reviled, the many-nicknamed Roger Corman is a remarkable filmmaker for many reasons. By all accounts a quiet, unassuming man with left-wing politics who is nevertheless known as a cutthroat businessman and unapologetic capitalist, Corman is enshrined in Hollywood legend for his thrift and innovation. His 1950s and 1960s output as a director, mainly for American International Pictures (AIP), is varied and colorful: science fiction films, gangster films, motor racing films, biker films, sex comedies, Westerns. And yet it is surely for his horror films he is best remembered, especially the mid-budget series adapting Edgar Allan Poe stories, mostly starring Vincent Price. He is also well known as a nurturer of new talent, providing numerous actors and directors with early opportunities; his successful disciples have rewarded him with cameos in films such as The Godfather Part II (1974) and The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Corman was an innovator on the business side as well. In 1959, he and his brother Gene Corman founded a distribution company called Filmgroup; it folded within a few years but was a prelude to the founding of Corman’s much more successful New World Pictures in 1970. New World was oriented toward inexpensive exploitation films but also responsible for the American distribution of many international art films by directors such as Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, and Akira Kurosawa. Academic attention to Corman came slowly. There was a swell of interest in the late 1960s and thereafter, identifying him as a low-budget auteur who maintained a distinctive set of themes unifying a diverse body of work, but it happened just as he retreated from directing, only sporadically returning to the director’s chair. Though Corman directed around fifty films, that count is vastly outstripped by his films as a producer, a role he regularly occupies to this day. General public appreciation for Corman peaked with his 2009 Honorary Academy Award and the celebratory documentary Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel (2011).