Magalie Lépine-Blondeau recently spoke to Marie-Louise Arsenault about her uneasiness when she saw the excellent series The Night When Laurier Gaudreault Wake up being dubbed on Canal+ in France, and like her I said to myself: “We’re dubbing the same language! »
Posted at 6:16 am
“But what the hell got into you?” Holy shit! These are two movements – I’m not making them up – from the French-dubbed version of the series by Xavier Dolan, a very talented dialogist, from whom we amputate here the verb music and native Quebec poetry. essential features of his work.
It’s like replacing John Williams’ music in Lucas or Spielberg’s movies with Satie or Ravel. Or that Almodovar’s films were shown in black and white. It is an attack on the integrity of the work. And an insult to Quebec French. Coudonc, what’s gotten into you, goodness gracious? cup of the tabernacle! as they say in the great polar areas of the Eastern Townships.
I understand that in France, where the monolingualism rate is close to 40%, French versions of TV series and films are very popular. The dubbing industry is thriving and well protected there (any dubbed version must have been made in France). But Quebec French can by no means be considered a foreign language in France.
The French have the opportunity to see Laurier Gaudreault in a subtitled version on Canal+. And we understand them. The fact remains that the mere fact that a dubbed version of the adaptation of Michel Marc Bouchard’s play exists is nonsense.
We speak the same language. Déniaiser means the same in France as in Quebec. Let the French get silly. Make them exert themselves as little as possible to understand certain peculiarities of our regionalisms.
Would anyone consider dubbing The Banshees of Inisherin or Aftersun in Hollywood for North American audiences on the pretext that certain Irish or Scottish expressions are less well known in Edmonton or Tucson?
If I can make an effort to understand the utterances of a French character, young or old, from Sarcelles or Marseilles, a French person can easily understand the dialogue of a series by Xavier Dolan without dubbing. Replacing Quebec ecclesiastical words with French sexist slurs seems to me within reach of the most passive of viewers.
It is all the more incomprehensible that Laurier Gaudreault was dubbed, given that Dolan enjoyed popular success in France with films that attracted more than a million viewers. And as far as I know, Mommy’s French is no more sophisticated or Parisian than Laurier Gaudreault’s. The French have had time to listen to our accent since The Decline of the American Empire.
Obviously, the international influence of French spoken in Paris is greater than that of French spoken in Montreal. But the argument of a normative or standardized French along the lines of a so-called cultural metropolis is outdated and overrated. The majority of French speakers worldwide live in Africa.
Francophonie is not a metropolis that imposes its language all over the world without reciprocity. It’s a give and take relationship. French is not a stagnant language that has not evolved since Molière.
It has been enriched with Italian, Spanish, German and even English expressions and words (I know, I know, vade retro satana). It is as colorful as the poetry of Aimé Césaire and the songs of P’tit Belliveau.
If, while watching a French series or a film, I come across a slang or verlan word or regionalism, I do something revolutionary: I consult a dictionary. Online it takes five seconds.
That’s what I thought when I saw the very funny political-social satire starring Jean-Pascal Zadi, En place, on Netflix, directed, written and starred. I didn’t immediately catch all the expressions of Zadi’s character, Stéphane Blé, a youth center manager from the Paris suburbs who, almost reluctantly, becomes the first black candidate in the French presidential elections.
Zadi takes a sharp look at political and media manipulation, backstage games, shenanigans, low blows, hypocrisy. As well as about inequalities, racism, classism, unconscious prejudice, discrimination and the lure of meritocracy. With his sometimes good-natured, sometimes childish, sometimes biting humor.
The actors in his series have North African, sub-Saharan, West Indian, Belgian and French roots. Some speak the language of the bourgeoisie or the bureaucracy, others the language of the streets and cities, still others that of the bled dry, of the French or African peasants.
Despite cultural differences, despite age differences, despite different accents, they understand each other in their common language: French. If they had all been dubbed “from France” in French, surely French viewers would have found it ridiculous. Why should a Quebec series be any different? Tabernacle.