Movies and Subtitles
April 14th, 2007 | by A T M |
It has been my most religious practice for several months now. One Hollywood movie per week.
This started long before, I got the British Library membership.
Dont know if this one still exists. There was one ( coffee bar + library) in airport road behind intel’s office,called Leisure Hours. They used to play movies over the weekend on a jumbo screen. That was my weekend adda till I found out British library.
Office boys of Leisure Hours knew me for just one thing. That I would never watch a movie without the English subtitles in the bottom. Those were my early days of watching movies from the west. So, subtitles were sort of a necessity. And partly due to the noise of a coffee making machine in the background. Over a matter of time, I got this addiction. I would never watch a movie burnt on a CD, because VCDs were never available with the subtitle option.
Funny thing is, Subtitle option, is actually not meant for non-native speakers of english but for the hearing impaired. There is a majority of people who think that subtitles take away the pleasure of a full-screen viewing. True probably. But I feel screenplay-writer’s magic somehow goes unnoticed if you have muted the titles. For me lines are more important than circles.
North by NorthWest. Hitchcock’s finest. Watch this once with the titles on.
