Subtitles for Instant Watch foreign movies in English

[peterodgers]

For me, many Aussie, Irish, Cockney and lower class Brit accents are not understandable without subtitles. But subtitles are not available for English speaking Instant Watch downloads. Anybody interested in lobbying for a change in this policy? Any ideas regarding how to do so?

[moviemeh]

I was going to suggest plain old Closed Captioning, but is that only available for U.S. titles?

[Knaldskalle]

CC is on a lot of the British television shows released on DVD by WGBH ("Mystery" on PBS etc.), so I think that might be a solution.

I like subtitles on all my movies, irrespective of language spoken. I hate missing a line because of background noise or mumbling...

[moviemeh]

I hate missing a line because of background noise or mumbling

Or because of energetic kids :)

[peterodgers]

my original posting had to do with Instant Watching downloads where the netflix policy is NOT to supply subtitles, etc. for English speaking movies, even if they're in a dialect that is foreign to American ears.

my question is how do we lobby Netflix to provide subtitle for for foreign English downloads?

as it is i just don't watch these kinds of movies on Instant Watching.

[Knaldskalle]

Instant Watch isn't mentioned anywhere in your post... I think the number of people who'd be annoyed by subtitles suddenly appearing in IW English-language movies is far greater than the number of people who'd appreciate it. There are a ton of people who don't want to "read" movies, for some reason. (Obviously, that's not the case in this group.)

So I don't think you'll get anything out of your efforts as long as Netflix uses its current IW system. I seem to recall that Silverlight (a new system that Netflix might switch to) has different subtitle options, but you'll probably have to ask Baff about that, he's written about Silverlight several times.

[peterodgers]

You are correct. the Instant Watch reference was lost in the editing. Thanks for pointing this out. Accordingly, i have made the changes in the foregoing posts to remedy this. Thanks, again.

[vjpurplequeen]

Ah, but for me, that is part of the appeal! One reason I think I like foreign language films is that I enjoy actually hearing other languages, and so hearing other dialects is like hearing another language which, if I listen carefully to, starts to make sense and be heard, without subtitles. If a foreign movie is really good, when reading subtitles, I usally forget that I am reading them after a while. The human interactions and expressions "speak" a kind of universal language and the thinking is connected to the language. I hear what you are saying, but I, for one, would be quite disturbed to have English subtitles on English language films, even if the accents were difficult. I much prefer to the original sounds of the language, enjoy hearing the many "flavors" of English too. I think that is par of the allure and excitment, or experience, maybe of watching/hearing a film that is outside of my usual life experience. But then again, I am strange like that. Ha!

[peterodgers]

Well said. And i do relate to what you say. Certainly, i believe in having the sound on and trying to make sense of the dialog but i also like to have the subtitles available for when i can't decipher what is being said. i don't mean to legislate either way but i'd like watching subtitles to be a choice Instant Watch just as it is often on DVDs.

[vjpurplequeen]

Yeah, it would be nice to have a choice. I'm all about giving everyone a choice. Ha! I just wouldn't want them to all come on with subtitles. I want to have the choice to turn them off.

Have you ever see the film Finding NeverLand? I swear that movie took me about 3 watchings to actually understand the English there (accent is so thick) - BUT, it is really one of my favorite movies. I think a good part of my enjoyment was "learning" the accent, although I will admit that the "story" fascinated me.

There is another film, James in Jerusalem, that is mostly in Hebrew and maybe other languages, too, that has no subtitles! Only James ocassionally speaks in English. But I figured out that was part of the point of the movie since I called and found out that the film just doesn't have subtitles. I think the idea behind that film was to have the audience in a similar predicament as James and not understand what is going on around him in a foreign world. Once I understood that, I enjoyed the film more. But it can be a bit exasperating and I wish I could know more of the conversations in the movie.

Also, I think subtitles are done when the DVD is made. I don't know if Netflix has either the legal right or equipment to add subtitles, but if they can, I'd agree to a choice for us. Also Close captioning would work so that those who have hearing issues could enjoy un-subtitled movies also.

[Knaldskalle]

Snatch. An "okay" movie with several different accents, Scottish, London, Russian, Brooklyn... and Brad Pitt as a "pike" is impossible to understand without subtitles.

[peterodgers]

i think we all can agree that, at times, English can be a foreign language for English speakers, eh?

[vjpurplequeen]

Agreed. Some US dialects also take quite a while to get used to and understand. Years ago I met a woman from Alabama whose "accent" was so hard for me to understand at first. When I mentioned this to her, she said that from her view, I was the one with the accent, that I sounded like TV news people. Ha!