Don't ask if you don't want to know

I've been single for several years now and have probably reached that point where I'm too old and too independent to be a good relationship candidate. In fact, it's become so obvious that I'm kind of losing track of what I used to be like in relationships. That was clear last night as I watched Sophie, a Danish short film on Arte. In the film, Thomas and his pregnant wife Sophie are on their way to the movies and chatting about friends of theirs who have recently had a child and who are no longer apparently interested in sex. Okay, the husband is, but after ten months the wife still isn't. Suddenly, Sophie asks Thomas if he has ever been with a prostitute. His truthful answer to her question leads to a rather bizarre reaction.

As her anger mounts, it seems that it doesn't matter that Thomas' visit to a prostitute happened long before he met her or that it only happened once. It mattered a great deal, however that the prostitute was black. As they continue walking, they pass by a live sex show establishment and Sophie demands that they go in. Don't worry, I won't spoil this one for you!

Sophie describing the scene to Thomas

Watching the film, I was outraged by Sophie's behavior . . . as if I had never been that stupid. Last night and years ago from being vulnerable and in love, I was convinced that I would never have been dumb enough to ask a question whose answer might break my heart.

And then I went to bed . . . and woke up.

What a difference the light of day makes. Good grief, I think I was the champion of these silly-ass questions and skillfully used them to create the drama that would eventually help me ease out of relationships that weren't working. And no, I'm not talking about "Does this dress make me look fat?" No, these beauties were asinine creations like, "If you didn't know me, but somehow met my best friend would you want to go out with her?" Or, "Do you ever think about your ex girlfriend when I'm in the room or in the apartment somewhere?" The reluctance to answer these questions is of course a given. But finally, after much pleading and promising ("No, I won't get mad, I promise"), the poor fellow would give in, and I would slowly heat to boiling.

Oh the shame, the shame!

There's a lot to be said for growing up. In my case, though, I think there's a lot more to be said for being single.

Where you goin city boy?

Directed by John Boorman and released in 1972, Deliverance is an American classic and one of the scariest films ever made. It boasts no vampires, aliens, monsters, or any other such supernatural beings. No, Deliverance uses one of the most effective horror techniques available: scaring the shit out of people with the mundane. What is more mundane, for instance, than heading off for the weekend to go camping? Not many things, surely. As it typically goes, a group of friends looks for someplace secluded to hang out, tell stories, play music, cook, hike, and sleep rough. In this case, it was a group of business men from Atlanta who wanted to go canoeing and experience the glory of the river before it was to be dammed up. They just wanted to have fun and hang out. If they had been smart, however, they would have stayed in Atlanta and gone to the club to play golf instead. Because what those city boys never imagined, was being terrorized by hillbillies.

I don't mean terrorized in some highly stylized Wes Craven fashion, because this was 1972; budgets were low and naturalism was in. I mean terrorized by people who had really bad teeth and even worse dispositions. People who really didn't care whether you were a woman, man, or pig as long as there was a suitable orifice.

Original theatrical trailer

My refusal to go camping since 1972 is based solely on this film. In response to camping invitations, my argument has always been, "Look, if four white guys can go into the woods and get fucked with like that, what on earth would happen to me??" That argument has worked on everyone who has seen the film, and for those who haven't seen it, I describe it in detail, lingering over the "Squeal like a pig" bit to drive my point home . . . so to speak.

Still, a trip to the back woods might have been worth it had I been guaranteed a musical performance like this one:

Dueling Banjos, Grammy winner in 1974
for Best Country Instrumental Performance

Right, who am I kidding? That's one of the best scenes in film history, and if I were promised something like that if I would just agree to go on a camping trip, I'd still have to decline. That's what movies are for . . . oh, and YouTube.

For the record, my refusal to go camping is not restricted to the United States. I recently turned down an offer to go camping somewhere near the Swiss border. In my mind, camping sites spontaneously generate hillbillies. I'm also convinced that hillbillies dwell in those spaces where no cell phone signals are possible (hence no emergency calls to police). Using this logic, it would be safe to bet that the Alps would have an even scarier version (mountainbillies?) since those are proper mountains and not hills.

No thanks.

I suppose I should qualify all of this by saying that I'm sure some hillbillies are lovely people. In fact, most of them probably are. I just think that it would be better not to test this assumption. They gave those Deliverance city boys hell, and I'm even willing to concede that with their condescending city-folk ways, they might have deserved some of what they got. But certainly not all of it. So I'll just keep my black ass in the city and leave camping to my amazingly brave friends.

Deal?

And now a Word about Dubbing...

HATE

No, seriously. I really hate dubbed* films and television programs, which is a bit unfortunate for me since I now live in a country in which foreign-language films are almost exclusively dubbed rather than subtitled.**

German Trailer for House of Flying Daggers

Aside from the cultural implications of watching a Chinese film set in 859 AD, in which everyone seems to be remarkably fluent in German, there is something disembodying (and creepy) about separating performers from their voices. For instance, one of my friends thinks that Brad Pitt and George Clooney are really hot, and I have another friend who is crazy about John Malkovich. Well these women have no idea how hot these men truly are because they've never heard their real voices. To German ears they sound like this:

German Trailer for Burn after Reading

Well ladies, this one's for you:

US Trailer for Burn after Reading

(Okay, to be fair, trying to spot Brad Pitt's hotness behind that haircut is a challenge, but I think you get my point.)

Furthermore, there aren't that many dubbing actors, so after a while Daniel Craig sounds just like Tom Cruise, who sounds just like Javier Bardem. And it's probably best to skip entirely what happens to black American actors in the dubbing arena. Aaaarrrrggghhh!!!

My voice is just as much a part of me as my face, my body, and my mannerisms. To open my mouth and hear another woman's voice would be unthinkable for me, and for anybody else for that matter. Yet, when I refuse to go see dubbed films and insist on either the original-language version or a German film, my friends get annoyed. They seem to assume that films are dubbed everywhere and that I should be used to it. Well I know that at least in the US and the UK they are not. Going to see a foreign film in either of those countries means reading subtitles. This revelation is sometimes met with disbelief, particularly in the case of the US, where it is assumed that we are generally too stupid to read ... as if stupid people are going to art house cinemas to watch foreign films.

Whatever.

When a foreign-language film is marketed in the US or the UK, sometimes there is no dialogue featured in the trailer--just music and/or a voiceover:

US Trailer for Pan's Labyrinth

But if there's dialogue, it is subtitled. Yes, even in a trailer:

US Trailer for The Lives of Others

Can you imagine how completely unrealistic and jarring that would have been with North American English coming out of those mouths? I can't and am really happy that I don't have to, either.

To be perfectly honest, I am quite lucky in Berlin. There are several venues that feature the films in the original versions or with German subtitles. So I can't complain too much. Still, when I'm listening to the film magazine on my favorite radio station, I have to switch it off. It drives me crazy when they feature a segment on Hollywood films, like the one this morning on Burn after Reading. After describing how great the performances are, they played a few audio clips. I don't know who those people were, but they sure weren't Pitt, Clooney, Malkovich, and the rest of the cast.

Well, at least not as I know them.



*The term in Germany is synchronized.
**In the interest of fairness, however, here's a link to a short article on the Goethe Institute website about the history of dubbing in Germany.