1.The #Oscars Attempt to Modernize Over the Past 10 Years
The theme of the March 13th episode of Sekai e Hasshin! SNS Eigojutsu was #Oscars. We looked back at some of the interviews I’ve done for the show: director Josh Cooley and producer Mark Nielsen of Toy Story 4, which won Best Animated Feature; director Dean DeBlois of How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, which was nominated for Best Animated Feature; director Quentin Tarantino of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which won Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role (Brad Pitt) and Best Achievement in Production Design.
The Academy Awards, held annually at the end of every February or beginning of March, is Hollywood’s biggest night. The ceremony has a longer history than the three most prestigious international film festivals—Berlin, Cannes, and Venice—and celebrated its 93rd anniversary in 2020. There are a number of theories as to how the Academy Awards came to be called the Oscars. One is that an Academy Executive Secretary took a look at the statuettes and exclaimed that they looked just like her Uncle Oscar. Ever since, the ceremony itself was been colloquially referred to as “The Oscars". Since 2013, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has officially referred to the ceremony as “The Oscars", instead of the considerably more stuffy phrasing “The 84th Academy Awards".
Over the past 10 years, the Academy has attempted to update and reinvigorate the stale image of the Oscars in response to declining TV viewership. It has tried to bring diversity to its largely white membership; it awarded the Best Director Award to a female director for the first time (Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker); it expanded the number of nominees for the Best Picture category from five to ten; and it has attempted to designate hosts that appeal to younger audiences.
The efforts have yielded mixed results. In 2019, Spanish director Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma became the first Netflix-produced film to be nominated for the Best Picture Award. Meanwhile, directors like Steven Spielberg argued that only films with proper theatrical releases should be eligible for the Academy Awards (Roma did have a theatrical release). Despite the Academy’s best efforts, the 2020 Oscars marked the lowest ratings ever for the broadcast, following in the footsteps of the 2019 ceremony.
That being said, winning an Academy Award is still one of the movie industry’s most prestigious honors. This year, Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite became the first foreign-language film to win Best Picture, in addition to Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Feature film. The idea that an Asian film—in a non-English language—would win the most prestigious award at a ceremony meant to celebrate the Hollywood establishment is unprecedented.
Parasite
This 2019 black comedy won the Palme d’Or—in a unanimous vote—at the 72nd Cannes Film Festival, the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film, the BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language, and Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Feature Film.
2.The One-Inch-Tall Barrier of Subtitles
After Parasite won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2019, it went on to sweep the 2019 awards season. Director Bong Joon-ho remained humble and self-effacing throughout, with a shy smile on his face but always giving eloquent, thoughtful speeches and interview answers. His demeanor charmed audiences everywhere he went. For many young Americans, it was refreshing to see someone with such an illustrious career being completely unaffected and unfazed by Hollywood.
Korean cinema has come of age over the past 20 years or so, and it has established a reputation for quality films that have a message that extends beyond national borders. In an interview with the pop culture website Vulture—run by New York Magazine—Bong reflected on Hollywood’s past indifference to Korean cinema thusly: “It’s a little strange, but it’s not a big deal...The Oscars are not an international film festival. They’re very local."
When Parasite won Best Foreign Language Film at the Golden Globes back in January, Bong had a message for Hollywood and the American moviegoing public: “Once you overcome the one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films... I think we use only one language: the cinema."
For Americans, movies are not such much works of culture as they are entertainment; more often than not they are pure escapism. For moviegoers looking to be swept away into the world of fantasy, subtitles are both a chore and a bore—it’s asking your audience to do work. Only a handful of cinemaphiles are happy to brave traffic and ticket prices to see the subtitled foreign films. Those films are usually shown only in small indie theaters, or the on the dingiest screen at the cineplex—in the half-sized room in the back that you didn’t even know was there, where the seats are all at some weird angle to make the most of the space. And such screenings are usually almost completely empty.
Director Miyazaki Hayao’s Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi was first released in the U.S. in about 150 theaters with barely any promotion. (There are a total of about 5,800 theaters in the U.S.) When the film won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature at the 2003 Academy Awards, the film expanded to more than 700 theaters, and grossed more than 10 million dollars by that September. Of course, the film that was shown was not subtitled—it was dubbed in English, and released under the name “Spirited Away".
The 2000 wuxia (martial heroes) film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon grossed 128 million dollars in the U.S., becoming the highest-grossing foreign-language movie produced overseas in American history. (The film was an international co-production between companies in China, the U.S., hong Kong, and Taiwan.) But the film is centered almost entirely on martial arts battles; the one-inch subtitle barrier was not an issue to begin with. In these ways, foreign films released in the U.S. have always had an element that helps lower the barrier to entry for American audiences.
That being said, the spread of video streaming services has made it easier than ever before for American audiences to be exposed to foreign films. While few would go all the way to a movie theater or video rental shop just for a foreign film, many won’t hesitate to press play on an interesting-looking movie or TV show on Netflix--regardless of language. Last year Roma was nominated for Best Picture and ended up taking home Best Foreign Language Film; this year the next logical step was for a foreign-language film to win Best Picture.
A few weeks after the Golden Globes, while he was being interviewed backstage during the Oscars, Bong said the following: “During the Golden Globes, I mentioned the one-inch barrier of subtitles, but I feel like that was already a little late. People were already overcoming this barrier through streaming services, YouTube videos and social media. In the environment we currently live in, I think we are all connected."
3.Bong Joon-ho’s Translator Sharon Choi
On the show, we also talked about director Bong Joon-ho’s interpreter Sharon Choi, whom the internet became obsessed with for her self-effacing demeanor and ability to translate Bong’s words into a language that Americans could understand.
#Oscars Moment: @ParasiteMovie wins for Best International Feature Film. pic.twitter.com/sYovKBNltL
— The Academy (@TheAcademy) February 10, 2020
Choi is a 25-year-old Korean who spent a couple of years in the U.S. as a kid and managed to keep up her English skills by reading books and watching movies. She studied filmmaking in college, and is currently penning the screenplay for her feature-length directorial debut. In an article she wrote for Variety where she reflects on her award season experiences, she reveals that prior to translating for Bong, she had only done about a week’s worth of interpreting work in her life. She was approached in April 2019 to interpret for a phone interview that Bong was doing, and then asked again to interpret for him at Cannes. After that and throughout the awards season, she was a fixture by Bong’s side, culminating in her taking to the Oscars stage by his side.
Choi, like all good interpreters, does not attempt a word-for-word translation of Bong’s words; instead, she “interprets” his message and uses a healthy dose of American idioms—and an American accent—to convey not just what he’s saying but his charm and sense of humor as well. It’s safe to say that she played an important role in making Parasite more accessible—and intriguing—to American audiences.
Sharon Choi, Bong Joon-ho’s translator, deserves an award this season. #Oscars pic.twitter.com/Whm3MVIrNv
— Anne Marie (@AwesomeAMT) February 10, 2020
Bong and Choi even made an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Late night talk shows are how Americans unwind after a long day at work, and it is rare to see a non-English filmmaker or star appear–much less one that was speaking mostly in his native tongue and using an interpreter.
It’s not unheard of for an interpreter on the movie press circuit to draw attention. Filmmakers—especially auteurs—are prone to ramble about their artistic vision, and an interpreter who can convey such ideas in clear, succinct language will be in high demand. The freelance interpreter and translator Massoumeh Lahidji has been a subtly integral part of Cannes for years; she applies her French, Farsi, Spanish, and English skills to makes sure that cinema isn’t lost in translation—and all without even using a notebook. One year, she interpreted for the Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami, and would subsequently translate for him until his death in 2016. Lahidji even translated and adapted the screenplay for his 2010 film Certified Copy into English.
Japanese readers will likely be familiar with the subtitle translator and interpreter Toda Natsuko. Ever since Tom Cruise first came to Japan to promote a film in 1992, Toda has been his go-to Japanese interpreter ever since. When I attended the Mission Impossible: Fallout press event last year for SNS Eigojutsu, Toda emerged behind Cruise like his shadow. Cruise, although small in stature, has a mega-star’s aura; Toda loomed perhaps larger, and she made no effort to tone down her presence.
4.The Culture Barrier
Video streaming services and social media have helped break down the subtitle barrier and the language barrier, making it easier than ever before for us to watch content from all around the world.
The question is, has it made us more tolerant or understanding of other cultures? Yes, Spirited Away and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon were hits in the U.S., but I doubt anybody came out of the films feeling like they’d learned something about either Japanese or Chinese culture. And while many Japanese people love to watch Hollywood movies and American TV dramas, the content only serves to reinforce stereotypes, and Japanese understanding of American culture remains outdated and highly limited in scope. It’s important to remember that movies are just movies—not some magical tool for bringing about world peace. But at the same time, that’s precisely why it behooves us to pay more attention to the affect they do have on our society. Even more so now that the subtitle barrier is coming down.
Bong Joon-ho has said in interviews that the themes of Parasite are class strife and urban poverty, and he has furthermore said that such themes are not unique to South Korea and affect everyone around the world. That partly explains why the film did so well in the U.S. (roughly 40 million dollars). But have Americans truly learned about South Korean society? Have they learned to appreciate Korean culture? That part is much more difficult, because the culture barrier—moral values, aesthetics, views on life and death—still remains.
It’s comforting when a movie shows you that we are all just human, that we all deal with similar things in our lives. We feel closer to each another—a oneness with our fellow humans. The fact that Americans, the English, the French, the Japanese, and South Koreans can all cry at the same thing is powerful and undeniable. But no matter how much we shine a spotlight on our commonalities, we can only truly start to understand each other when we see the true nature of the culture barrier that divides us. Attempting to break down and judge another culture solely through the lens of one’s own can be more dangerous than illuminating—especially when you find yourself feeling like you’ve figured the other out. Even if the subtitle barrier comes down, we still need to get up and venture into what lies beyond. Or to put it another way, we need a guide to show us the way. That’s the role of a translator or an interpreter, in the most general sense.
I’d like to believe that Parasite’s victory and America’s appreciation for Bong Joon-ho and Sharon Choi mean that Hollywood is undergoing a seismic shift. But much like you begin to see a movie in a new light as you walk out of the theater and make your way back to your car, when you reflect on the 2019 awards season, it becomes clear that it’s all been a retelling of an all-too-familiar story. Hollywood loves a good fairy tale.
5.My Wardrobe for This Episode
Green corduroy trousers by Ralph Lauren
