Locating “la voz”: the space and sound of Spanish dubbing
2012; Routledge; Volume: 13; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/14636204.2013.788915
ISSN1469-9818
Autores Tópico(s)Spanish Culture and Identity
ResumoAbstract This article explores the cultural location of the dubbed voice in Spain. Dubbed films presently account for 80% of all films viewed in Spain, yet despite their overwhelming presence in Spanish everyday life, its dubbing actors have received very little scholarly attention to date. If, according to Mladen Dolar, the human voice is "the intimate kernel of subjectivity", how might a viewer begin to identify with a star persona that is clearly incomplete? How can we begin to understand the ways in which audiences might absorb themselves within the emotional world of a Hollywood star who speaks with the voice of a Spanish actor? In analysing the styles and sound design of Spanish dubbing performances, this article explores the elusive spatiality of the dubbed voice in film. As I show, the sonic texture of vocal performance in dubbed films is a crucial, and most often overlooked, component of film form. In particular, the article focuses on Constantino Romero, one of Spain's most famous dubbing actors, who has regularly provided the Spanish voice of Clint Eastwood, among other Hollywood stars. As this article shows, Romero's performance is a powerful site of the imagination, identification and pleasure for Spanish audiences. Far from merely providing an invisible conduit between audience and Hollywood star, Romero can be considered a cultural phenomenon in his own right, a "vocal persona" whose voice circulates far beyond the confines of the films for which he performs. Keywords: dubbing actorsthe voiceperformancestardomConstantino RomeroHollywood cinema Notes 1. This quote can be found in "Constantino Romero: El lado oscuro de la voz" (92–3). 2. See Belinchón's "El cine en V.O.: a la sala de espera". 3. See Alejandro Ávila's La historia del doblaje cinematográfico and El doblaje. 4. See for instance Díaz-Cintas, Matamala and Neves' New Insights Into Audiovisual Translation and Media Accessibility, Díaz-Cintas' New Trends in Audiovisual Translation and Lorenzo García and Pereira Rodríguez's, Traducción subordinada: el doblaje: Inglés-español/galego. 5. The author would like to acknowledge Constantino Romero's passing on May 12, 2013. 6. See also http://cinemania.es/actualidad/noticias/9155/constantino-romero-candidato-de-cinemana-para-el-goya-de-honor-2012. 7. Of all Spanish newspapers, El País is the most critical of the practice of dubbing. See also Martínez Abarca and Galán. 8. According to Melero Salvador, the reliance on non-direct sound also gave rise to a certain laziness amongst its actors: for instance, he shows how veteran comic performers Pepe Isbert and José Luis López Vázquez relied on the post-dubbing as they were notoriously bad at learning their lines. 9. See "Carlos Saura considera que el doblaje es el mayor 'error' del cine español". Ironically, Carlos Saura was headhunted by Stanley Kubrick to direct the Spanish dubbing of The Shining, who oversaw of the most disastrous cases of dubbing in Spain. 10. Pera says, only half in jest, that before Woody Allen appeared "doblaba mucho, era muy bueno. Pero vino Woody, hice woody y ya no me quieren para nada más. Es una película suyas cada dos años. Es una ruina" (cited in Lurján and Baño Fernández 127). 11. Of course, different methods of performance styles can be found throughout the industry. In the recent documentary Voces en imágenes (Alfonso S. Suárez, 2008), dubbing artists speak of how the dubbing studios in Madrid encourage a more creative approach towards performance, while those in Barcelona are known for being more methodical and controlled. 12. Observations or comments like these can be frequently found. For instance, Rafael Luis Calvo, the Spanish voice of Clark Gable, famously talked about the time a waiter told him that he had the same of voice as that of Gable, to which he replied: "No señor […] es Clark Gable el que tiene la misma voz que yo" (Vidal 157). 13. Sé lo que hicistéis, Cadena 6, May 2010 see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8HVftPjq8c For a recent example of Romero performing Darth Vader, see Colga 2 con Manu, Canal Sur, 24 April 2010, http://takeatakeescueladedoblaje.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/noticias-entrevista-constantino-romero.html 14. See, for instance, the pages of Teleprograma. "Lo que parece claro es que el ex presentador de El tiempo de oro que, por otro lado, ha conseguido elevar los programas culturales a unos importantes niveles de audiencia, no se ha cansado de los concursos" ("La vida es juego para Constantino Romero" 6). 15. See the Spanish fansite HoloRed Estelar http://www.holored.com/ 16. For a recent example of Romero performing Darth Vader, see Colga 2 con Manu, Canal Sur, 24 April 2010, http://takeatakeescueladedoblaje.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/noticias-entrevista-constantino-romero.html 17. See 25 Fotogramas, 8 August 2011, TCM, also found on Fotogramas.es: http://videos.fotogramas.es/video/iLyROoaf24Pk.html 18. For instance, see the Spanish Star Wars fan website Las Crónicas de CP30, which contains an interview with Romero. The interviewer tells Romero: "Puede que esto le extrañe pero su trabajo de doblaje en Star Wars donde es casi una leyenda". Romero responds: "Es cierto que a lo largo de los años muchos fans de la Guerra de las Galaxias me han felicitado por mi doblaje de Darth Vader". See http://www.loresdelsith.net/3po/rep/romero.htm 19. I am indebted to Will Brooker for his perceptive comments on the voice of Darth Vader. 20. See Constantino Romero's appearance on the entertainment and news programme La Noria, on Telecinco 24 July 2010. 21. When Mary Anne Doane rhetorically asks "Who can conceive of a voice without a body?", she in part responds to her own question in the endnotes thus: "Two kinds of 'voices without bodies' immediately suggest themselves – one theological, and the other scientific (two poles which, it might be added are not ideologically unrelated). 1: The Voice of God Incarnated in the Word and the 2: the artificial voice of a computer" (Doane 33). As well as performing the God-like voices of Mufasa and Darth Vader, Romero has also provided the voice of the replicant Roy Batty, a genetically engineered robot, in the dystopian sci-fi thriller Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982).
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