“We’ll Fix It in Post”: On the Challenges of Translating Film Art

The Russian edition of Film Art: An Introduction by David Bordwell, Kristin Thompson and Jeff Smith (film and narratology scholars) has attracted interest of a wide range of readers, from film enthusiasts to high school teachers. At the same time, the new edition of the classical text inevitably posed a variety of prob­lems in translation. The article provides a concise overview of the production specifics that accompanied the release of Film Art. One of the main difficulties was the variety of alternatives available in the Russian language for translating terminology from the field of film production and film analysis. In addition, there was a discrepancy in the representation of precedent film texts by Russian and English-speaking cultures, which made it difficult to work with examples. In addition to factual translation problems, stylistic problems also arose. The trans­lator and editors faced the task of preserving both the academic orientation of the book (Film Art is widely used as a textbook in academic film studies) and the live­liness of the author’s narrative. Finally, the translator would note the difficulty of conveying the book’s intonational features, which make this university textbook fascinating for readers of any level of education, as well as a hallmark of Film Art. The range of translation problems raises the question of the relationship between academicism and creativity in the texts of Bordwell, Thompson and Smith, as well as the specifics of transposing film texts from one culture to another were discussed in the interview (published herewith) with co-authors of Film Art con­ducted by Diane Nemec Ignashev (film and Russian literature scholar). The range of problems faced by the book translator was also relevant for the translation of the interview.