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| Joe Vitus |
 Posted: Tue Sep 15, 2009 2:52 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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You mean
Marj: I hear he has cancer.
Friend: No he doesn't, he's just gay.
Like that?
People really do talk faster in New York. |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Tue Sep 15, 2009 3:46 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 10497
Location: Manhattan
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Joe, Not at all. When Lenny died I was told that he died of cancer.
It wasn't until a few years ago that a mutual friend and I were talking about Lenny. That's when I learned he was gay and that he had died of Aids. It was just unknown at the time. Keep in mind, in the early 80's the term Aids didn't exist. It was called the gay cancer or "Grid." Perhaps there were other terms too.
When a friend dies early in life and one learns that friend had cancer, who questions it? I certainly didn't. Also I had seen him recently and he looked very pale - Yes, even sickly. I figured he had a bad infection. If I had known he was very ill, I certainly would've made it my business to get back in touch with him. That still haunts me.
Frankly, Joe, I never cared if Lenny was gay or not. Only if he had a happy life. Now, can we change the subject? I prefer to remember my friend, not his death. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Tue Sep 15, 2009 7:35 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
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Location: Houston
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| It was a joke. I didn't even put together the "cancer" and "AIDS" issue together. Just the juxtapositioning of the two facts "gay" and "didn't have cancer" seemed funny in terms of clarifying two seemingly unrelated issues. |
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| lissa |
| Posted: Tue Sep 15, 2009 8:04 am |
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| So....I saw two awesome films on DVD a few weeks ago...The Class and Waltz with Bashir (finally)... |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Tue Sep 15, 2009 10:36 am |
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lissa wrote: So....I saw two awesome films on DVD a few weeks ago...The Class and Waltz with Bashir (finally)...
I was really impressed by both movies. I loved the conversation of the pluperfect subjunctive in The Class (which, as near as I can tell, nobody in their right mind uses). |
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| lissa |
| Posted: Tue Sep 15, 2009 10:51 am |
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More than the film itself, which is brilliant, the making of it was genius. Not sure if you watched the extras, but they actually gave scenarios to kids in a school and had them improv. They filmed the sessions, and then went to a scripted version of what was done. It was superb, and I think I'll scout out Bégaudeau's book.
And btw - come to Quebec classrooms. They read books with the most obscure usage of verb conjugation you'll ever see. Useless and needlessly challenging for kids who will go on to fudge most of their french conversation as they go into the work force here. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Tue Sep 15, 2009 11:03 am |
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| I took four years of French, and I didn't know (or, at least remember) that there were imperfect and pluperfect subjunctives. They seem to be literary tenses like le passé simple, but used much less often, and not orally. |
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I had a love and my love was true but I lost my love to the yabba dabba doo, --The Flintstone Lament |
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| lissa |
| Posted: Tue Sep 15, 2009 11:10 am |
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| passé simple is used in abundance in literature published here in Quebec. Not sure about books published in France, but that tense is the oddest and most confusing for kids who are still struggling with the irregular verbs! |
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| lissa |
| Posted: Tue Sep 15, 2009 11:27 am |
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Picked up a DVD of the musical Chess in Concert. This is a Tim Rice rock opera with music by the Abba "B's", Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus. I'd seen it in London in 1988, and had already listened to the music for the year prior to seeing it. One song that became very popular across the pond was "One Night in Bangkok", but the entire soundtrack is solid.
Seems they did a tribute to the musical with Josh Groban and Idina Menzel (of Rent fame, wife of Taye Diggs), and I saw it so I picked it up. I'll watch it later. I tend to do my best work with soundtracks going in the background. My best A papers were written with Rent endlessly looped on the DVD player as I worked on my laptop. My kids know that when they hear that music, I'm working on school stuff. Chess might join Rent if it's as good as the album and the show.
FYI - it lasted 8 weeks on Broadway but a few years in London. Not sure why. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Tue Sep 15, 2009 11:37 am |
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Location: Houston
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| I dig Chess. I like that the concert version includes the lovely "Someone Else's Story." |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Tue Sep 15, 2009 11:44 am |
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lissa wrote: passé simple is used in abundance in literature published here in Quebec. Not sure about books published in France, but that tense is the oddest and most confusing for kids who are still struggling with the irregular verbs!
I understand it's common in novels in France as well. Just not in conversation. It tends to be dumbfoundingly irregular. I always liked the imperfect and conditional because they're generally regular even for irregular verbs, like the present participle in English. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Tue Sep 15, 2009 2:08 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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Location: Shanghai
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I'm most of the way through The Class, and kind of underwhelmeded. The message seems to be that kids do behave in stereotypical ways. The big dramatic moments seem rather contrived.
It also seemed like a bad idea to have a parent rep and student reps at various faculty meetings. Not surprisingly, such an idea misfires.
The teachers are also a pretty wishy-washy bunch. I was also unimpressed with how many of the teachers dress down, and even with hair dyed pink in one case (hopefully just the Art teacher). I thought the best part was the brief parent-teacher conferences, where we get to see a glimpse of home life and family. I also thought the tension between the main teacher and the other male with opposing views was potentially interesting, but not explored too much. Esmeralda was a piece of work.
What am I missing here?
This seems rather ordinary and mildly contrived.
I'd prefer either a genuine documentary or a better scripted fictionalization.
Postscript: The swear words were translated in rather different fashion in the English subs and the English dub. Which makes a big difference.
(Carl is subbed as saying "assholes" but dubbed saying "motherfuckers" -- two different levels of cursing).
In fact there was a good deal of inconsistency between the subs and the dubbed version, they both were more and less accurate at times. I had the French on, but went back and switched to English dubbing for a few scenes where the subtitles seemed wanting or inaccurate. Sometimes it was just a question of being a more literal or a looser translation. I can understand some basic French, but felt a bit frustrated that I had to piece some key scenes together with two different English translations. |
Last edited by gromit on Tue Sep 15, 2009 5:48 pm; edited 1 time in total
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| lissa |
| Posted: Tue Sep 15, 2009 5:34 pm |
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Being fluent in French, I listened to most of the French version (I'll never watch a dubbed film, no matter what). There are always going to be discrepancies, sometimes egregiously so, in translations. Omissions, misrepresented words that may or may not make a difference, and nuances missed. That's why I love renting French-language films (either from France, Belgium, Quebec etc) because I can listen to the words instead of rely on subtitles. Train de Vie is a Romanian film but among its spoken languages (besides the Yiddish and German) is French (the main language used in the film). It's brilliant in French but lacks a great deal in English. Even the Yiddish (which normally doesn't translate accurately or effectively anyway) isn't properly subtitled and one could miss a lot.
But The Class is a year in the life of this teacher, and it's poignant, even if unrealistic at times. I'd like to know how much of it was accurately depicted (the girls reporting Mr. Marin for calling them skanks) and how much was just based on generalizations. It's an understated film, to be sure, no great revelations or lessons learned, but appealed in much of its characterization. To me, books and films will win me over when the characters are true to life and well, profoundly and intelligently fleshed out. This film does that. The frustration of the teachers in a multicultural environment where they can't appeal to everyone or get through to everyone, the camaraderie amongst them in the teacher's lounge, the trials and tribulations ending in some heartwarming feelings between teachers and kids...I liked the depictions.
More than a plot-based film, it is a portrait, a slideshow of portraits. And yes, Esmerelda definitely was a piece of work. I shudder, thinking of teaching that ilk! |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Tue Sep 15, 2009 5:59 pm |
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Location: New York City
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I watched The Class in French and then some of it in English. I thought it was wonderful though not unique. I loved the interaction of teacher and students and Marin's willingness to reveal himself warts and all. (I had absolutely no problem with teachers "dressing down," btw. This is 2009.)
I usually despise dubbing but this wasn't too badly done. The voices were well chosen and the idioms were respected. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Tue Sep 15, 2009 6:02 pm |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
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Location: Shanghai
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I could have done with more character reveal and less sloppy plot.
So what did he call the girls, bitches? skanks?
What was the exact French?
I don't know why dubbing has such a bad rep in the US. Many countries prefer to use dubbing rather than subtitles. Dubbing has the benefit of keeping your eyes on the pictures instead of words at the bottom of the screen. Though sometimes my eyes get attracted to the mouths and their relationship to the words being spoken (dubbed).
In some countries, such as Italy, post-dubbing voices was pretty standard on domestic films for a long time. So that for many Italian films of a certain age, the mouth movements don't match up well with the original Italian.
I think part of the problem is that America doesn't go in for dubbing much, so there isn't a stable of highly trained dub artists, high standards for dubbing, good techniques, etc.
I think just as there is good and bad subtitling, there exists good and bad dubbing.
I've seen a few films where I preferred the English dub to the English subtitles. No titles coming to mind at the moment. But foreign animation is a good example, where both the "original" language and any others are all dubbed in. So if the English voices are well-chosen and well-done, I'd prefer that to reading subtitles. |
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