Abstract:

As the first systematic audio-visual translation strategy in film history, multiple versions (MVs) are symptomatic of the media change of the early 1930s. In a first step, this chapter explores the historical context of MVs, focusing on the film industry's approach to the (inter)nationalism of sound films in Europe. It then investigates the aesthetic specificities of this strategy: the goal of translating between different national mentalities; the films’ overcoming of the dualism between “original” and “copy”; and their role in the emergence of a “vocal aesthetics.” Through a comparative analysis of trade press articles and films, the chapter argues that MVs should be understood as a “mimetic” technique that operates transculturally on multiple levels.

Keywords: multiple versions (multilanguage versions), speech in early sound film, voice, mimesis, historical reception

The acoustic materialization of languages and voices with the coming of sound made language a true challenge for the film industry, as it had to find a way to overcome national borders and linguistic diversity. As the first systematic audio-visual translation strategy and the first effective answer to the linguistic challenges linked to the dissemination of sound film, “multiple versions” (MVs) are a film-historical phenomenon deserving of special attention.

Although MVs have their roots in the silent era, it is with the proliferation of talkies that they irrupt into the universe of the seventh art as a systematic transnational strategy. MVs involved most European countries, especially Germany and France, and diffused intercontinentally. During the peak period between 1929 and 1932, about 1,500 MVs were (co)produced internationally, involving up to fifteen languages, as well as hundreds of directors and film stars. Contrary to general assumptions, MVs were not limited to musical films but rather involved all types of genres, from drama to thriller, from comedy to war or action, and even mountain films. The extent of the phenomenon testifies to how positively accepted MVs were; it also makes MVs a symptomatic, essential manifestation of the media change of the early 1930s.

With this overview in mind, I explore MVs within the European context, initially focusing on how voice and language were approached in relation to (inter)nationalism.