Found in translation

It's interesting that in the Clegg household, we have never watched so many subtitled programmes in languages other than English than we are at the moment. Common enough in continental Europe, broadcasting this way in the UK has always been seen as a non-starter. The natives will be restless, thought the broadcasters.

I think what made the change was the Danish series The Killing (originally Forbrydelsen). We love our murder mysteries over here, but The Killing broke the mould. Where a UK show would feature one or more murders in each one hour or two hour programme, the first series of The Killing took a leisurely 20 hours of programming to examine the impact of a single murder. We saw vastly more of how ordinary lives were changed by what had happened. And we also saw in Sarah Lund a police officer main character who frankly made rather a lot of mistakes. Add in the parallel track of political intrigue and the slightly exotic, familiar-yet-not-familiar nature of Denmark and it was a surprise winner.

The success of this programme in the UK made programmers sit up and take notice. And it made audiences - at least in the chattering classes, who perhaps had dipped their toes into foreign language films (who doesn't love Amelie?) - realise that it was worth the investment of concentration. Because, of course, subtitles kill the ability to do other things while you watch. It's difficult to fiddle with Facebook, because as soon as you miss the screen you lose all meaning (unless it's one of those strange sudden bursts of Danish that sound almost entirely like their English equivalent).

So, at the moment, we are getting our doses of foreign (as it were) from the second series of The Killing, avidly watched from Netflix, and the hugely atmospheric French drama The Returned about to reach its climax on Channel 4. What will be next, I wonder?

Image from Wikipedia

Comments

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's 2010 gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some exp...

Is 5x3 the same as 3x5?

The Internet has gone mildly bonkers over a child in America who was marked down in a test because when asked to work out 5x3 by repeated addition he/she used 5+5+5 instead of 3+3+3+3+3. Those who support the teacher say that 5x3 means 'five lots of 3' where the complainants say that 'times' is commutative (reversible) so the distinction is meaningless as 5x3 and 3x5 are indistinguishable. It's certainly true that not all mathematical operations are commutative. I think we are all comfortable that 5-3 is not the same as 3-5. However. This not true of multiplication (of numbers). And so if there is to be any distinction, it has to be in the use of English to interpret the 'x' sign. Unfortunately, even here there is no logical way of coming up with a definitive answer. I suspect most primary school teachers would expands 'times' as 'lots of' as mentioned above. So we get 5 x 3 as '5 lots of 3'. Unfortunately that only wor...

Why backgammon is a better game than chess

I freely admit that chess, for those who enjoy it, is a wonderful game, but I honestly believe that as a game , backgammon is better (and this isn't just because I'm a lot better at playing backgammon than chess). Having relatively recently written a book on game theory, I have given quite a lot of thought to the nature of games, and from that I'd say that chess has two significant weaknesses compared with backgammon. One is the lack of randomness. Because backgammon includes the roll of the dice, it introduces a random factor into the play. Of course, a game that is totally random provides very little enjoyment. Tossing a coin isn't at all entertaining. But the clever thing about backgammon is that the randomness is contributory without dominating - there is still plenty of room for skill (apart from very flukey dice throws, I can always be beaten by a really good backgammon player), but the introduction of a random factor makes it more life-like, with more of a sense...

Search This Blog