Film journalist Brendan Hodges points out on Twitter that Japanese movies Godzilla Minus One — a Toho reboot of the most famous kaiju — and The Boy and the Heron — director Hayao Miyazaki’s final film, from legendary Studio Ghibli — have become two of the highest grossing foreign-language movies of all time in North America. (I’ll note that both films are still newish in cinemas and will continue to add to their takings.) He believes any possible new mainstream openness to foreign films has been brewing for a while, as indicated by the successes of 2019’s Parasite, the first non-English-language film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, and Netflix series Squid Game, both out of South Korea; and the huge popularity of Japanese anime series in the US.
(One of the replies to Hodges’s tweet notes that Heron is available theatrically in dubbed as well as subtitled versions, and box-office numbers are not broken down between the two, so it’s tough to know how much of its success is actually via the original-language version.)
Now, I’m old enough to remember that back in 2000, even though Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon — a joint Taiwan/China/Hong Kong/US production — was a hit, enough moviegoers were getting annoyed by having to read subtitles that multiplexes had signs at the ticket counter alerting people that the film wasn’t in English. But that’s a generation ago.
Are American audiences getting more comfortable with subtitled films?
Apparently lots of Americans (and likely other people around the planet) are watching everything with subtitles on, even shows and movies in English, for a variety of reasons. Could that be a contributing factor?
I think this is a salient observation; as more international television and films have become widely available, a large swath of American audiences seem to have become more accustomed to reading dialogue for comprehension. Probably compounded by the growing use of subtitles at home; I think this is a split attention span thing as much as an accommodation for mixing quality seeming to have gone downhill (I saw Maestro in the cinema and could not understand more than half of the dialogue, for instance).
As for Miyazaki, though, I actually go for the dubs, Boy and the Heron included, because his English voice casts are always stacked. Pattinson's heron voice alone was worth the ticket price and then some.
Any port but the one with the dubbing! Readable subtitles are no problem at all - I usually forget I'm even reading within the first ten minutes. Now, the tiny font, not-thought-through-wrong color -choice subtitles are a whole nother matter.
I think this is a salient observation; as more international television and films have become widely available, a large swath of American audiences seem to have become more accustomed to reading dialogue for comprehension. Probably compounded by the growing use of subtitles at home; I think this is a split attention span thing as much as an accommodation for mixing quality seeming to have gone downhill (I saw Maestro in the cinema and could not understand more than half of the dialogue, for instance).
As for Miyazaki, though, I actually go for the dubs, Boy and the Heron included, because his English voice casts are always stacked. Pattinson's heron voice alone was worth the ticket price and then some.
I sometimes like dubbed versions for Miyazaki, because I want to focus on the animation rather than the subtitles!
a great point! his animation is so lovely, and having to look away from it for the subtitles would be to the film's detriment, I think
Any port but the one with the dubbing! Readable subtitles are no problem at all - I usually forget I'm even reading within the first ten minutes. Now, the tiny font, not-thought-through-wrong color -choice subtitles are a whole nother matter.