últimas corrientes teóricas en los estudios de traducción - Gredos ...

RAINER MARIA KOEPPL–ALFRED HITCHCOCK AND JOHN WAYNE
The original story of Notorious can be summarized in short as follows: The Nazis
are dangerous; all the clues lead to Germany. The German synchronized version claims
that all the clues lead to South America!
Devlin’s original text: “Some of the German gentry, who were paying your father, are working in Rio.
Ever hear of the I.G. Farben Industries?”
is translated into:
“It appears that the drug dealers’ center is in Rio, since that’s where the ‘White Poison’ comes from.”
German dialogue: “Allem Anschein nach befindet sich die Rauschgiftzentrale in Rio, denn von dort
kam das Weiße Gift hierher.” (Weisses Gift / White Poison, West Germany, 1951, German
synchronization of Notorious).
Devlin’s statement: “Farben has men in South America planted there before the war. We’re cooperating
with the Brasilian government to smoke them out.”
is changed into:
“We absolutely have to go to South America, because that’s where all the evidence leads.”
German dialogue: “Wir müssen unbedingt nach Südamerika, weil alle Spuren dorthin führen.”
(Weisses Gift / White Poison, West Germany 1951 / German synchronization of Notorious).
The faking of Notorious lead to a wide-scoped restructuring of the film plot. Most
of the characters become implausible. In the original version, the defendant John
Huberman threatens the judge and the democratic society that condemns him:
“You can put me away. But you can’t put away what’s going to happen to you and to this whole country
next time. Next time we are going to….”
Huberman is not able to finish his sentence, but we all have enough imagination
and knowledge of history to know how he would have continued:
“Next time we – the Nazis – are going to conquer the world, and we will lock you bastards up instead!”
The aggressive behaviour of the defendant is typical for political trials. In the
German version, the political trial is turned into a drug-trafficking case. In White Poison,
the drug dealer José Sombrapal makes the ridiculous statement:
“You can put me away, but you cannot force me to tell you the origin of this drug which is stronger than
all other drugs known!”
There is no reason for such a statement. It is stupid and does not correspond with
the typical behaviour of a drug dealer.
German dialogue: “Sie können mich verurteilen, aber sie werden mich nicht zwingen können, zu
verraten, woher diese Droge stammt, die die Wirkung aller bisher bekannten Rauschgifte um ein
Vielfaches übertrifft!” (Weisses Gift, / White Poison, West Germany, 1951, German
synchronization of Notorious).
Most of the German bad guys in the original version have surprisingly turned into
Latin Americans in the German synchronized version. But not all of them. The fake is
sophisticated. The atomic bomb mutates into illegal drugs, so the nuclear physicists
logically have to beome pharmaceutical chemists. Yet why has the German nuclear
physicist Otto Wilhelm Rensler turned into a chemist named Vladimir Koschinski?
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