Translating Silent Cinema: Film History, National Culture, and The Roaring Twenties

by Dror Abend-David

Overview

Translating Silent Cinema examines closely the translation, adaptation and reception of three silent films in English, German, and Yiddish to argue that the study of film translation should extend beyond textual translation to a wide selection of primary materials and the consideration of social, economic, cultural, and historical contexts.

 

Close readings of Der Kaufmann von Venedig [The Merchant of Venice] (1923), Das alte Gesetz [The Old Law] (1923), Ost und West [East and West] (1923) raise a theoretical question: Can we discuss films in the same way that we discuss theater productions, regarding each individual screening as a performance, and compose a “performance history” of different films? As no two film screenings are the same, the author highlights the importance of a multidisciplinary approach to translation that combines insights from Film Studies, Translation Studies, and cultural and historical contexts. Furthermore, in linguistic comparison and in the study of the reception of the films in each language, this book argues that each film is the subject of very different receptions under very different circumstances. It also analyses the relevance of films that were made in Austria and in Germany during the 1920s on Jewish themes to a contemporary debate about immigration, racism, and discrimination.

 

This book’s pioneering analysis of the study of film translation encompasses a wide context of multiplicity of ideologies, economic interests, and historical contexts. It will be of interest for readers in Translation Studies (particularly in Audiovisual Translation), Film Studies, German Studies (and German Cinema) and Jewish Studies (and Cinema).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781041069027
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	09/17/2025
Series:	Routledge Advances in Film Studies
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Dror Abend-David is Adjunct Associate Professor with the MS in Translation & Interpreting Program at NYU School of Professional Studies, USA.

Table of Contents

Introduction 

Chapter 1. Der Kaufmann von Venedig

Chapter 2. Das Atle Gesetz

Chapter 3. Ost und West 

Epilogue: Die Stadt ohne Juden

 

Index

Editorial Reviews

"The translation of silent films seems an oxymoron. D. Abend-David skillfully takes up the challenge. Through a detailed analysis of the adaptation and reception of four films (1923-1924), he explores the transformations from one version to the next – in German, English, Yiddish, during the screening of these films, but also with certain paratexts (advertisements, film reviews, and other public reactions). The production and distribution situations justify going beyond the comparison of subtitles (a comparison that is not always easy, however, given the state of the archives). This book brings a major piece to the history of audiovisual translation. On the basis of the micro-analyses proposed, it sketches out at least two essential issues of this historiography that is still in limbo. Should we talk about the history of a film or rather the history of its different versions (its different final cuts; its different performances depending on the place, the audience, the ideological conditions of the moment, regarding for example immigration, racism, anti-Semitism, etc.)? Besides, what can a Jewish film or in general a film defined by a nationality, an ethnolinguistic identity mean? At a time when Hollywood is in search of a narrative about the Jewishness of its origins, when controversies over cultural appropriation are taking on very different dimensions on both sides of the Atlantic, the work of D. Abend-David, with his sense of nuance and precision, is more than welcome to fuel our reflections."

— Yves Gambier, University of Turku, Finland

From the Publisher