Those who know me or have read this blog before will probably be aware that I watch a lot of foreign films. Not having learnt any foreign languages, I watch these movies with subtitles (actually, as a side note, I watch many English-language films with subtitles as well, in case I miss dialogue). Anyhow, it is only recently that I realised how important subtitling can be.

Naturally, when someone makes subtitles for a foreign language film, it is based on their interpretation of the dialogue. You wouldn't think that there would be much difference, but there can be. For example, I bought the Hopscotch edition of The Seventh Seal after only having seen the American Criterion Collection version. The subtitles were quite different, and this actually affected my viewing of the film. Whole sentences had been drastically changed in parts, and while the same essential meaning was conveyed, a lot of the wit and power was lost. 

Another example is the Umbrella release of Fitzcarraldo. In this case, the subtitling was so incredibly lazy that seemingly crucial dialogue was left untranslated. I actually ended up switching to the English dubbed version it was so bad.

So, I have learnt that subtitling can be very important when deciding to buy a foreign language movie. Unfortunately, in many cases when I buy DVDs over the internet, the only version of that film I have seen is an old VHS or a local DVD release, so I have no idea of whether the subtitles will be different, and whether this will have a negative effect or not.