The Subtitling of French Contemporary Accented Polyglot Films: Le Grand Voyage

Abstract

The aim of this article is to introduce the reader to the genre of polyglot films and translation in the special context of accented and migration cinema in contemporary France, through the study of a particular film, Le Grand Voyage. This paper focuses on the analysis of the ‘other’ language in French polyglot contemporary cinema. Following a consideration of the term multilingualism, the paper provides an overview of the area of French contemporary cinema which foregrounds a voice other than that of the majority ethnic population, before finally considering the example of the film Le Grand Voyage. In relation to this example, the subtitling of the other language (in this case Arabic) in the French original version is examined closely with a view to determining whether the presence or absence of subtitling has an impact on the representation of another population and culture in French cinema. Through the narrative analysis of the English subtitled version of the film, I reflect on whether an Anglophone audience, when confronted with a polyglot film, can experience it in a way similar to the French audience.