The mysterious "I love you" and other nearly indiscernible moments

[2robots4u]

Not yet, latjoreme.  It may take a while as he will be doing it in "off" time.

Regarding your 3rd paragraph about subtitlers, you are correct.  I once dated a guy who worked in the film industry and had many behind-the-scenes tours of what actually goes on in the production, after the filming is complete. I bet a lot of you have often wondered why it takes 4-6 years for a film to finally hit the big screen.  Well, you wouldn't believe the work that is done.  Subtitlers sit in front of a screen where the film is visible, listening on headsets, watching for every little lip deviation from the actual text of what is suppose to be said.  Replay after replay, day after day, the same thing.  In English-to-English translations, lip coordination is VERY important if you want it to look and sound normal.  When improvisation does occur, and they cannot audibly discern the words or read the lips, they may actual go to the actor and ask.  But in most cases subtitling is being done years after the actor has moved on to another project and is not reachable; for whatever reason, they reach a stone wall, and then have to make an educated guess as to what happened, what the actor may have done, itentions of the actor, etc.  So, yes, they are not always correct.

I did notice in my research, and something I failed to mention in that vein, is that Ennis double-clutches words, such as "I", and adds "er", 'uhh", but these sounds are not in the subtitles.  But I still stand in favor of the subtitles in this film...
 

[Aussie Chris]

When subtitles offer info, such as lighter flicking, sheep bleating, crickets chirping, horses neighing, pan clattering, coughing, clearing throat, bird calling, mmn , grunts, laughing, wind whistling, belts clinking, heavy breathing, Jack moaning, Ennis grunting, gasping, crows cawing, flies buzzing, urinating (yes, even direction as to what Jack was doing), I find it hard to believe they would alter the actual spoken word.  Now, in translation from a foreign language to English, there will always be discrepancies because there are no literal translations, and paraphrasing is the option.  But in this movie, where so much attention to detail of the dialogue is offered, I cannot agree with Daphne.  I truly trust these subtitles.  My friend Lynn, who is deaf, said she enjoyed the movie so much more than other movies because of the detail that allowed her to experience in her head what I heard  on the screen (referring to the sounds of unseen things that we, the hearing, take for granted.)  She further commented that if those sounds had not been subtitle, she would have just been reading dialogue.   

Hi 2robots4u, on reading this I must admit to my envy that the R1 version is so accurate.  A week or so ago I posted on another thread some initial thoughts about the recently released Australian R4 version in which I noticed some annoying flaws.  For the most part they are very good, in fact they pick up on some background dialog (e.g. the rodeo announcer) that would otherwise be missed or unclear.  I don't think we get all the incidentals that you do, urinating for example (not sure if that's good or bad).

However, there were a couple of times when it a word here or there was wrong, which I don't mind too much, but there was one in particular that confounds me as to how they got it so wrong.  It's when Jack and Ennis come down from the mountain the first time and Jack asks if Ennis is going to do this again next summer.  After Ennis says "well, maybe not"...

Ennis clearly says: "Like I said, me and Alma's getting married in November"
But the subtitles say: "Like I said, man, I was getting married in November"

To my ears they might as well have suggested he said "dude", as "man" is not something I would expect Ennis to say in 1963!  Then there's TS2.  This was really interesting because the subtitles would have us believe that all the "sorries" or "s'alrights" are actually Jack saying "I swear... I swear... I swear"!

Now get all excited and please don't throw rocks at me for suggesting this, I don't thinks Jack says this at all - I'm just quoting the subtitles!   At the time and at first I wanted to yell "what were you thinking" to the imaginary subtitle authors in the room, but on reflection, maybe they saw this as a bookend for Ennis saying "Jack, I swear" at the end of the film?  Maybe indeed, but that might be giving them a little too much credit.

Presuming that these mistakes are not on the R1 version, one would have to conclude that there may be all sorts of differences in the DVD mastering that would have us comparing completely different material.  What about the audio track itself?  Are we to assume that we are comparing the same thing where "I love you" is concerned?

[serious crayons]

But the subtitles say: "Like I said, man, I was getting married in November"

To my ears they might as well have suggested he said "dude", as "man" is not something I would expect Ennis to say in 1963!

  LOL, Chris. You're right (and funny). I remember "man" being used in the LATE '60s, but even then it was sort of hippie-speak; I was little then, so the first people I ever really noticed saying it were the characters on The Mod Squad!

On another topic: 2robots4u, I'm curious, do your subtitles cover the radio announcer who can be heard in the background when Ennis is getting ready for a fishing trip (the time he almost forgets his tackle)? Ellemeno has pointed out that it sounds like a homophobic joke (come to think of it, cranking up the volume to try to catch it was what led me later to discover the "I love you"!).

It is so sad -- not only because it indicates the ubiquity of homophobia, but also because Ennis has to be subjected to it just as he's happily packing to meet Jack.

[2robots4u]

The subtitle says only "TV chatter", buy you can clearly hear what is said and the the dialogue is exactly as stated by a poster above.  But I cannot understand it clearly enough to interpret it is a gay joke.  And after my length comment on the details of the subtittling, I am greatly surprised that this radio exchange was not subtitled.  I missed this radio noise altogether.  Pardon my error...

As for the posting of Ennis and Jack holding hands in TS1, it isn't handing-holding; Ennis reaches forward and grabs Jack's wrist, and continues to hold onto it until the climatic moment, with Ennis dropping his head to Jack's back.

At no time in TS1 do I hear "Fuck me".  There is a lot of clothes/bedding rustling, Jack pounding the bedding, grunts, gasps, heavy breathing, but no verbal commentary. 

[2robots4u]

To Chris...in several of your postings you have used "R1" and "R4" versions of this movie.  What do they mean?  At first, I thought it might be a censorship code.  Please explain.  Thnks.  Doug
 

[jpwagoneer1964]

Just watched today. One my DVD copy I could clearly hear and see "I love you"

[serious crayons]

Just watched today. One my DVD copy I could clearly hear and see "I love you"

 

Welcome to the club, JP!

[Aussie Chris]

To Chris...in several of your postings you have used "R1" and "R4" versions of this movie.  What do they mean?  At first, I thought it might be a censorship code.  Please explain.  Thnks.  Doug

Hi Doug (nice to use your name btw), R1 & R4 stand for REGION 1 & 4 and is type of "security" encoding that the manufacturors put on DVD's to restrict the distribution of the disks.  If you look on the back of one of your disks you should see a small picture of a globe with a number (1) in it to signify that the disk has been encoded for the U.S. and Canada.  The reason for this encoding is to protect the distribution companies complex international distribution agreements, so you can't just buy a disk from anywhere in the world and play it on your home player (because that would be just awful ).  Anyway, this is in addition to the picture encoding that your televisions use (called NTSC), which is different to the one ours use (called PAL).  To save this reply from becoming too technical, if you'd like to read more on this (including a list of all the regions and which countries use them) have a look at http://hometheater.about.com/cs/dvdlaserdisc/a/aaregioncodesa.htm.

However, an interesting side effect to all this licensing and formatting is that a DVD title in the U.S. can be *very* different than ones from other countries.  The movie itself can be taken from different film stock and converted using different technology (called a telecine) by different people with varying skill sets and preferences for brightness, edge enhancement, colour correction and even framing.  The sound tracks can also be altered and adjusted with different compression or formatting (e.g. DTS versus Dolby Digital).  And of course, subtitles are typically written by different people.  The point is that you and I could buy the same title and see a very different movie.

Ok after all that, it would seem that the only difference that I am aware of between the Australian (region 4) disk and the U.S. (region 1) version of Brokeback Mountain is that the R4 version has been formatted for PAL televisions.  This means that our picture quality is a little better because PAL uses more scan lines and therefore the picture is a little sharper.  Again, to keep this from getting too technical, I'll let you read up on that yourself: http://hometheater.about.com/cs/consumerresources/a/aawhosyourpala.htm.

The bottom line is that although I think our picture quality is slightly better, the disks are basically the same.

[Ellemeno]

As for the posting of Ennis and Jack holding hands in TS1, it isn't handing-holding; Ennis reaches forward and grabs Jack's wrist, and continues to hold onto it until the climatic moment, with Ennis dropping his head to Jack's back.

This is how I see it too.  Even though I periodically try again to see what others see.

[jpwagoneer1964]

The "I love you" is right here. Ennis (Heath) is actually saying it in this still. The second he gets the words out scene exits to Mrs Twist with coffee cup in kitchen.