It’s often quite difficult to understand the dialog in Italian movies. The actors talk fast, they mumble, they have regional accents, there’s a lot of background noise, etc. So I usually have the English subtitles turned on. But I suddenly realized that it would be much smarter to use Italian subtitles. Then I could just read what I’m hearing and understand it directly rather than mentally translating it. Unfortunately, Italian subtitles are not available for Italian films.
Fellini Satyricon: There is a lot of dialog — in Latin, German, etc. — in this movie that isn’t subtitled. Apparently whoever did the translation thought that if it wasn’t in Italian it wasn’t worth knowing. It doesn’t really matter, since the movie doesn’t make much sense. Beautifully photographed, its scenes are carefully designed to be audacious, strange, shocking, and titillating. But after a while the effect wears off, and we are left with one unconnected scene after another, self-indulgent, loud, and ultimately meaningless.
