The debate about foreign actors’ interpretation of Italian characters continues. Undoubtedly, this issue – more than an existing one – was brought into focus by Pierfrancesco Favino, and there was no shortage of opinions expressed by some foreign translators and character actors – even if there were no statements from “those directly concerned”, including including: Mads Mikkelsen, who, on the one hand, gives Favino a reason, so to speak, on the other hand, blames the “dubbing mania” for being responsible for the failure to choose Italian translators.
Unfortunately, the problem is quite different, and it certainly cannot be solved by eliminating dubbing, which, among other things, is part of our cinematic identity and our artistic history. In this regard, it is impossible not to notice how our voice actors gave light and intensity to the various characters, sometimes making them unforgettable and certainly immortal. Perhaps someone else remembers the meeting in Telegatti in 1991 between Robert De Niro and his historical voice actor Ferruccio Amendola. Or, for the very young, the emotion that Luke Ward’s voice evoked in Russell Crowe in Gladiator (and many other characters) is undeniable.
Can you say it’s just a habit? No, it’s a tradition, it’s an identity. However, films can be watched in their original language, sometimes they surprise, sometimes they disappoint. But the problem goes much further.
Of course, we do not want to question the choice of the production and the director, who has the sacred right to choose the translators who best represent the artistic line that we want to follow, and there would be no question whether the right to mix existed. Now, not to mention the great films of the past, in which Hollywood stars, French and Italian actors starred together, because for some it may be anachronistic and “meaningless”, a simple example can be given: someone will remember the film “Iron Mask”, international film. a production with the protagonist Leonardo DiCaprio playing Louis XIV, Gabriel Byrne as D’Artagnan, but everything was balanced and measured by the presence of Gérard Depardieu and Anna Parillaud, who gave prestige to the roles they were called upon to interpret. The problem is that our translators are not taken into account, if not as caricatures placed here and there to give a kind of undesirable authenticity to Italianness, and not authentic and not analyzed by those who think that being Italian means a checkered tablecloth and spaghetti with meatballs.