just_arrived
French Connection - May 2007 14/05/2007 00:00
In our monthly French language column, intrepid Douglas Campbell scours the media and tracks down dubious subtitles, a 'new' Citroen and Sarko's 'love it or leave'.
Titres de films, rebelote
Returning to a recurring obsession, by popular request; film and book titles. Here are several which seem to go together. Les Chemins de la gloire was the translation of Howard Hawks' Road to Glory; as so often, a plural is not necessarily translated by a plural (think of 'des meubles', 'des fruits', 'des renseignements' and many others). However, Kubrick's Paths of Glory, which was banned in France until 1975, became Les Sentiers de la gloire when it was finally shown. Why was it banned? Because of its depiction of French soldiers in the Great War being shot 'pour encourager les autres', as English journalists will persist in saying.
What reminded me of these titles? Indigènes, Rachid Bouchareb's film about the sacrifices made by North African soldiers fighting for France in the Second World War, has just been released in the UK as Days of Glory, not 'Natives'. There is a change of point of view, a shift of emphasis, a 'modulation', call it what you will, with a vengeance in the translation of the title of a film which is a particular rarity also in that it influenced French government policy about former soldiers' pensions, thanks to the effect it had on Bernadette Chirac.
The next title in the chain, for me, is Rouaud's novel Les Champs d'honneur, which became Fields of Glory in Ralph Mannheim's translation. If you have kept it anywhere, see my July 2000 column for Rouaud's horrified reaction when he read Mannheim's over-translation of the final words of the novel. On a lighter note, having mentioned Hawks, this is clearly the time to tell you that the classic 1938 screwball comedy Bringing up Baby became L'Impossible Monsieur Bébé. French always has something of a problem with English gerunds and 'Baby' was in any case a leopard, plus the title is all but irrelevant in both languages anyway.
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C’est du toc?
An abbreviation which I hadn't seen before: 'le trouble obsessionnel compulsif (toc)' in Libération, 29 March 2007. This rather unfortunate acronym is the French equivalent of OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder), defined in a footnote by Libé as 'Maladie psychiatrique caractérisée par la présence de pensées anxieuses (obsessions) et de rituels pour les chasser (compulsions)'. Unfortunately, the phrase 'c'est du toc' means 'it's fake/phony/rubbish'.
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Une page de pub, un peu de politique
Why would a Citroën advert remind me of Ségolène Royal? Because of adjectives, and the way they can change meaning when they change position from before to after the noun. The advert for the new C6 has the following slogan: 'La C6 n'est pas qu'une nouvelle voiture. C'est une voiture nouvelle.' Something like 'Not just another new car, but a new kind of car (altogether)'.
