the first 15 minutes was cool but it got old after awhile. Why didn't they just use subtitles?
Because when hearing people who work with deaf people
sign, they speak the words they are singing.
Unless, of course, the director, producer and John Hurt
did all of this to annoy self-centered people personally.
If you were reading subtitles with this movie, you would miss all the facial expressions and body movements that are a part of sign language. Some signs didn't need to be spelled out for the audience (no pun intended) word for word. Like at the beginning of the movie when Sarah is in the kitchen telling her coworker to take his pots and pans and shove them...
It is natural for a person who is not deaf or hearing impaired to talk while they sign. I know some hearing impaired people who talk when they sign as well. Having him speak while he signs is actually quite realistic, it's not Hollywood being lazy.
The main reason I know for signing as you speak and for saying the other person's words is so that the other person can learn to speak. My aunt does it when she speaks to her daughter (even though my aunt is deaf too, but she has a cochlear implant and wasn't deaf at birth) because she's trying to teach her to speak. I think it shows that even though he (sorry, can't remember his name, I watched it at 1 in the morning) says he doesn't want her to learn to speak, he does.
Nothing but light! . . . Nothing but light!
Charlie (Requiescit in) Pace
But just think about the bad effects that could have been brought onto the movie if subtitles were used:
1) All the Silence. Marlee has a speech in the middle of the movie where she tells James about her past. That would have been a good 4 minutes of silence with william just standing there and Marlee just signing away. Plus, we as the audience would have missed everything because we were to busy watching the subtitles.
2) Which brings us to the distraction. It's hard to both watch an actor act while reading subtitles. We would have missed a lot if there were subtitles, especially Marlee's beautiful way of signing. She utilizes not only her hands, but her body and face when signing. It really is beautiful and would have been missed if everything were subtitled.
3) Oscars: Both William and Marlee recieved Oscar nominations bor Best Actor and Actress (Marlee won hers) for their performance in these movies. Do you think that any nominations would have been given to them if the nominating committee was too busy watching subtitles to even notice that they were giving extremely amazing performances? I don't think so.
Over all, I think that William saying her lines not only saved the movie from all the mess I stated above, but it also expanded the connection that James and Sarah had.
You're quite right. They don't do this in other-language film (except maybe Godzilla for the kids). It's out of place. As experienced as he was with signing, he wouldn't be doing that for his own benefit, and the constant repetition like you might do with a child, or in front of a child to other adults, like the child isn't even there, really just makes him out to be more condescending and controlling than I think he was supposed to be. It constantly reminded me that I was just watching a movie, instead of watching the characters. Subtitles are a lot less intrusive.
shareYeah, the fact that William Hurt (James) repeats every single word that Sarah have already said is somethig quite annoying and distracting. IMO that RUINED the movie.
The reason why they didn't use subtitles was answered already: US crowd HATES subtitles with a passion.
Here is a fact: From the thousands of foreign movies ever released in USA only 1 (yes only one) have grossed over 100 million dollars at the box office (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and the reason behind that "success" is the fact that in most theatres it was shown dubbed into english not in its original language (Mandarin).
Currently any crappy blockbuster in english (like Bedtime Stories or Click) makes over 100 millions easily. But add subtitles to the mix and people won't watch it.
Why US audience hates subtitles? It's something cultural I guess, because people from all over the world doesn't have any kind of problem watching subtitled movies.
Just my 2 cents.
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