I haven't seen any of Argento's films before, but I'm interested in checking him out. Does anyone know what language th
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Dario Argento
irish_caffeine — 13 years ago(November 26, 2012 05:08 AM)
I haven't seen any of Argento's films before, but I'm interested in checking him out. Does anyone know what language they should be seen in to get the true effect? I know most of them were shot in Italy, but I see that a lot of the main characters and actors are American. When they were first released, were they shown in Italian with subtitles, or was it like Sergio Leone's movies where half the characters were dubbed?
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phenlandia — 12 years ago(April 12, 2013 12:33 PM)
It depends on the movie -
Italian Language Essential - Profondo Rosso, Inferno, Stendhal Syndrome
Italian Version Vastly Superior to English - Tenebre, Opera, Nonhosonno
Italian Version Better Mix/Sound quality, but English version Still pretty good - Suspiria
No Big Difference - The Animal Trilogy, Phenomena (slightly better in Italian - some clunky voice acting and you always miss Daria Nicolodi's kick-ass vocal performances, but then you get Jennifer Connolly and Donald Pleasence)
Originally Made in English - Trauma, Two Evil Eyes
His later, beep work is marginally less terrible in Italian, but don't get your hopes up for the kind of night-and-day improvement you get with his earlier films.Profondo Rosso and Inferno are borderline incomprehensible in English. The translation is so bad that key information and plot points get muddled or lost. The dialogue often feels like garbled nonsense because it's a boiled-down, shotgun, ESL abbreviation of a longer, more delicate phrasing. The Stendhal Syndrome is SO bad in English that I don't think anyone should watch it that way the first time.
While the translations are okay, I can't watch Tenebre, Opera, or Nonhosonno in English because the voice acting is spectacularly beep The Italian version of Tenebre is punchy and fast-paced, while the English is muttery, slow, and disaffected. It feels like the movie's strung-out on cough syrup. The voice acting on the other two actually makes me feel a little nauseous.
All of the lead actors appear in the English version of Suspiria, and aside from the terrible dubbing on the witch that nearly wrecks the film's climax, the English version is pretty good. However, the mix was altered in a way that drastically changes the atmosphere in several key scenes, with voices and sound effects moved on top of the music instead of layered and mixed down into it. Anybody who really loves this movie should see it in Italian at least once for the original feel, which I think is more intense. I'm pretty sure the reason this was the only Argento movie that was genuinely successful in the States is because it's his only English dub that's solidly good. -
idoru2099 — 12 years ago(August 09, 2013 01:19 PM)
Ah, language, the bane of most of Argento's movies. English actors spoke their lines in English and Italian actors spoke in Italian, this as you can imagine made for some strange results in dubbing, not to mention some peculiar performances from the actors who couldn't fully communicate. I'm not sure if anyone actually had the whole script except Argento himself. Oh well, I guess you can say it adds to Argento's flair since his movies are mostly about style and atmosphere and less about script.
Anyway, as it has already been mentioned, most of his movies were shot without voice and were dubbed afterwards. As a general rule the Italian dubs were much better both in sound quality and in acting (since most actors were Italian), the only problem with these is that usually the main actor/actress is speaking in English so the dubbing is somewhat obvious there. On the other hand the English dub is of lower sound quality and usually has some ridiculous voices for secondary actors, but the main English actor is usually voiced by the original, so it's better in that regard.
My advice, go for the Italian VO, but if you can find dual ITA/RNG audio, even better. -
guigui-paul — 12 years ago(September 05, 2013 04:55 AM)
When the lead actors are english or american i'm watching the english track.
Some of the italian dubbing is terrible because the voices don't match the lips's moves, oftenthe italian dubbing of NON HO SONNO is terrible, for example (and you loose Max Von Sydow's voice)most of the time i'm watching Argento's films in English.
http://www.myspace.com/guillaumep
http://darioargentofr.blogspot.com/ -
alucardvenom — 10 years ago(December 31, 2015 05:43 PM)
Stick to the original sound, that pretty much applies to 99.9% of movies.
The only movies I would watch in English dub are Demons 1 and 2, because voice dub is priceless in English (remember how funny that black pimp sounds?) and it just adds to overall over the top movie.