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CHAPTER 1
Globalising Bollywood: My Name Is Khan from India to Italy through Hollywood
Vincenza Minutella
Introduction: Multilingual Films and Audiovisual Translation
The translation of multilingual films is a growing area of research within audiovisual translation (De Bonis, 2014a, 2014b, 2014c; De Higes Andino, 2009, 2014a, 2014b; Delabastita & Grutman, 2005; Dwyer, 2005; Federici, 2009; Heiss, 2004; §erban & Meyelaerts, 2014). Several studies have analysed the Italian versions of multilingual films, in particular films dealing with migrant identity and describing the diasporic experience of South-Asian immigrants living in the UK or the US, where the speakers are often bilingual and tend to switch and mix languages (Antonucci, 2011; Bonsignori, 2011, 2012; Bonsignori & Bruti, 2014; Minutella, 2012a, 2012b; Monti, 2009, 2014; Russo, 2016). However, most of the research has focused on films made by diasporic, UK- or US-based directors such as Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding, The Namesake) or Gurinder Chadha (Bend it Like Beckham, Bride and Prejudice), or by British directors such as Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) and Ken Loach (Ae Fond Kiss). A Western cinematic eye and aesthetics tend to filter the foreign elements in these films, and although they contain language contact and alternation, English is their main language since their primary audience is Western and international. On the other hand, the translation and reception of Indian Bollywood Hindi films is still under-researched, especially in the language combination Hindi-English-Italian, and very few studies have been devoted to 'truly' Indian films (Antonucci, 2011; Minutella, 2012b; Russo, 2016). However, since Indian films seem to be gaining in popularity both internationally and in Italy, the way in which they are translated deserves closer attention.
Aims and Methodology
The aim of this chapter is to investigate how the multilingual Bollywood film My Name Is Khan (Karan Johar, 2010) has travelled from its Indian source culture to the Italian target culture. In particular, it examines language use in this Indian multilingual film and tries to understand how languages and the film itself are manipulated in the production, distribution and translation-adaptation-dubbing processes. In other words, My Name Is Khan is used as a case study to describe, in order to understand, the phenomena and agents involved in the process of translating this film for Italian-speaking audiences. The screenplay, the film dialogue, the master English subtitle/spotting list, the Italian dialogue and the Italian dubbed version are analysed. Moreover, we draw on interviews with the screenplay writer, the dubbing director and the dialogue writer. As a result, the chapter aims to shed some light on the production, translation, adaptation and distribution of this Indian film and on the constraints that are at play from a linguistic and cinematic perspective. In doing so, we also unveil the processes of writing, rewriting, manipulation and domestication that this Indian film has undergone before reaching its Italian audience. On a purely linguistic level, the chapter investigates the role of language(s) in representing the hybrid, bilingual identity of the Indian characters, and tries to understand how the Italian dubbing professionals have tackled the challenges posed by this film. We try to ascertain how the linguistic and cultural 'otherness' of the film as well as the ethnic and religious identity of the Indian characters have been tackled by the US distributors and by Italian dubbing professionals.
My Name Is Khan
My Name Is Khan (MNIK, 2010) is an Indian Hindi film directed by Karan Johar – one of India's most successful young directors and producers starring Bollywood's big stars Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol. The screenplay was written by Shibani Bathija, with dialogues in Hindi and English by Bathija and Niranjan Yiengar, who was also the author of the song lyrics. MNIK was produced by Johar's Dharma Productions, Khan's Red Chillies Entertainment and Fox Star Studios – a joint venture between Twentieth Century Fox and STAR India – and distributed by Twentieth Century Fox. It is thus an Indian film co-produced with Hollywood, and it represents a successful attempt to take Bollywood to the world. As Jim Gianopulos, CEO of Twentieth Century Fox, explained in an interview, My Name Is Khan 'is still the biggest Bollywood film around the world in history and we are very proud of that fact, [...] we were able to take a film made in Bollywood with the greatest of talent and introduce that talent to more parts of the world' (Ahuja, 2012: online). The film enjoyed considerable international distribution and success: it was screened at the Berlin and Rome Film Festivals and it broke several box office records in India, the UK and the US, becoming one of India's highest grossing films in both the domestic market and overseas (Mahmood & Mitra, 2011).
My Name Is Khan follows the life of Rizvan Khan, an Indian Muslim affected by Asperger's syndrome, from his youth in India to his migration to the multicultural US, where he lives with his brother Zakir and his sister-in-law Hasina. There, he works, gets married to a Hindu single mother, Mandira Rathod, and lives a happy successful life with her and her son Sameer until tragedy hits their family, when Sameer is killed by a group of teenagers during a racially motivated fight. To win Mandira's love back, and interpreting her words literally, Rizvan embarks on an extraordinary journey across the US, as he must tell the President of the United States: 'My name is Khan and I'm not a terrorist'. During this journey, he faces several obstacles, he is arrested on suspicion of being a terrorist, and finally he becomes a hero by reporting a group of Muslim extremists to the FBI and by helping the people of a village hit by a hurricane. MNIK may be seen to represent the diasporic experience of Asian Indians and Muslims in the US before and after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, since it portrays the change of attitude towards the Islamic community and South Asians and displays ethnic prejudice, fear and racist attacks. However, the film is also, and especially, the story of an unconventional hero, who overcomes a series of obstacles in order to regain the love of his life. It is a Bollywood drama and romance, a fairytale whose hero reminds us of Forrest Gump and Rain Man.
This film is an example of Indian Middle Cinema (Aime, 2007; Antonucci, 2011; Restelli, 2010) because it addresses a number of serious topics and global issues – a behavioural syndrome, ethnic and religious prejudice, terrorism, inter-faith marriage – and it occupies a mid-position between a commercial, popular Bollywood masala movie and an Indian art film. It is also a combination of Indian and Western cinematic features. It contains elements typical of Bollywood films such as romance, drama, the expression of strong feelings, melodramatic and overtly sentimental scenes, the presence of music and song-and-dance numbers that describe feelings, the casting of famous actors as idealised heroes, the filming style with close-up shots of the protagonists and images of rain, and a lack of realism. The film also draws on features of Hollywood or European cinema in its narrative structure, the serious issues dealt with, and the fact that compared to Indian popular masala films it is more realistic in style and topics. My Name Is Khan can thus be seen as an example of 'a new kind of cinema, a hybrid cultural product that fuses the language of Hollywood with the accent, slang, and emotions of India' (Thussu, 2009: 107). In this sense, the film caters for a wider, international audience by addressing important global issues and using dialogues in Hindi, English and Hinglish (a mixture of Hindi and English).
Language Use in MNIK
This section describes some aspects that are representative of the use of language(s) in this film, paying particular attention to language alternation, occurrences of code-switching (CS) and code-mixing (CM) which are natural phenomena in the life of an Indian bilingual – as well as to the presence of borrowings. CS refers to the change of language within discourse among bilinguals (Gumperz, 1982: 59), while CM refers to intra-sentential CS, that is, language alternation within a single sentence (Sridhar & Sridhar, 1980: 408–409). Borrowing takes place when foreign words are used in a recipient language.
The languages spoken in My Name Is Khan are mainly Hindi and English, with the insertion of some lexical items borrowed from Arabic. The Indian characters speak Hindi in the scenes set in India, while they tend to speak English when they interact with non-Indians in the US. First-generation non-resident Indians (NRIs) tend to communicate in Hindi, with some English mixed in and some CS, while second-generation NRIs speak a hybrid language – the mixed variety called Hinglish – and their colloquial speech often resorts to CS and CM. English is, however, their dominant language. In interactions between first- and second-generation NRIs, CS and CM appear to be the norm (Minutella, 2012b). In the film under analysis, CS and CM are used to specify the addressee, to reiterate a message, to establish closeness (through the use of the 'we' code, i.e. Hindi) or to express objectivisation and establish distance (through the use of the 'they' code, i.e. English). The characters often switch and mix languages according to the situation, the topic and the person in front of them, in 'a constant negotiation of identities' (Bhatia & Ritchie, 2004: 795), and language choice and alternation is a communicative strategy 'as well as a projection of a bilingual's identity' (Jha, 1993: 246). This linguistic behaviour is in line with studies on language maintenance and change among Asian Indians in the US and in Europe (Sridhar, 2008) and on CS and CM in bilingual contexts (Gumperz, 1982; Romaine, 1989). The use of language in the film partly mirrors the speech of South Asian Indian bilinguals in different situations, as most exchanges seem to reflect the actual linguistic behaviour of Asian Indians both in India and abroad. Multilingualism fulfils many functions in films (De Bonis, 2014a), and in the case of MNIK it can be argued that its main purpose is to emphasise realism, by portraying the way Indian people speak and interact in their daily lives.
Nonetheless, although the language spoken by the characters is quite realistic, film dialogue is ultimately fictional and is written with a specific audience in mind. An analysis of the film suggests that language choice and alternation is in some instances influenced by the intended audience. Multilingualism and CS appear to have an extra-diegetic, clarifying function, since they seem to serve the purpose of communicating with the Indian (non-English-speaking) audience. In fact, important speeches, though addressed to US or non-Hindi-speaking characters, are predominantly uttered in Hindi or in Hindi-English CS in order to ensure the Indian audience's comprehension of the message. An example is Rizvan's speech about Sameer in the church of Wilhemina to an audience of African Americans and, although it would make more sense for him to address them in English, he speaks almost entirely in Hindi. Another example is a speech made by Rizvan's sister-in-law Hasina, a psychology lecturer, to her American students. Her words about identity were originally shot in English and subsequently half-dubbed into Hindi for the benefit of the Indian audience. Having Hasina speak Hindi in this situational context is not realistic, but it is clearly due to the need to clarify her important words to the Indian audience. Language choice is thus at times influenced by the Indian, non-English-speaking viewers that the film is addressing, and key dialogues tend to be in Hindi, or are uttered in English and repeated in Hindi. This was confirmed by Bathija (personal communication), who explained that she writes in English, her first language, and uses Hindi when it comes naturally:
However, since the vast majority of the audience are predominantly vernacular speaking, the attempt is to use Hindi and/or Urdu much more than would occur naturally. [...] So in the Hindi dialogue writing stage calls are taken on how much of the languages to use and often scenes also change because of this. This is a fairly unique process to Hindi films. (Bathija, personal communication)
The film dialogue is thus the result of a complex process of writing, rewriting, negotiating and decision-making by different 'authors' or agents: the screenplay writer, the Hindi dialogue writer, the director, the actors and the producers. First, Bathija wrote the screenplay in English, then Hindi dialogues were added by Yiengar, and decisions were made on which languages to use, taking into consideration the contexts and the audience. During – and after – shooting, the director and the actors also contributed in deciding which languages to use.
Another function of multilingualism and language choice in the film is to emphasise the cultural otherness of the Muslim characters. This is conveyed through the use of Arabic greetings, expressions, prayers or words. In MNIK, the choice of greeting signals religious, i.e. Muslim, identity to the audience. The greetings used by Rizvan and his family are aadaab, a formal Urdu greeting derived from Perso-Arabic and used by Indian Muslims to show respect (Bhatia & Ritchie, 2004: 796), and Salaam, As Salaam alaykum and Wa Aalekum salaam, which derive from Arabic ('peace be upon you' – 'and upon you') and are uttered in formal and informal situations by Muslims in India. Bathija's screenplay contains several occurrences of aadaab, while in the film the greeting aadaab is used only once, by Rizvan's mother, when she meets a teacher. On the other hand, in the film the preferred greetings are Salaam, As Salaam alaykum and the reply Wa Aalekum salaam; perhaps because they are widely used internationally, they are immediately recognisable as Arabic and they are also used by Muslims in India. The film also contains two Arabic formulae: Bismillaah ir Rahmaan ir Rahiim [In the name of Allah, the most compassionate and merciful] and Insha'Allah [God willing], which are used by Rizvan to start his prayers and when writing a letter to Mandira.
Rizvan's recitations of Islamic prayers in Arabic are left untranslated, somehow emphasising otherness and fear of the Muslim other. For instance, in the opening scene Rizvan prays in Arabic while queuing at San Francisco Airport security check, and a young woman worriedly looks at him. Similarly, his recitation of Islamic prayers during a memorial service for the firefighters who died on 9/11 creates fear and indignation among the people around him. Rizvan also visually stands out as being different from everyone else, since a panning shot shows him in his white praying cap and kurta, surrounded by people wearing dark clothes.
Cultural references (CRs) are also important symbols of religious identity. The film dialogue contains the following Arabic borrowings referring to Islam: Eid (Islamic festival marking the end of Ramadan), Jihad (holy war against infidels), Hijab (headscarf worn by Muslim women), Zakat (religious tax in Islam, giving a percentage of one's income to charity) and Hadith (the body of tradition and legend about Mohammed and his followers, used as a basis of Islamic law). These words were subtitled in the US version of the film and explained in the English subtitle/spotting list which was provided to the Italian dubbing professionals.
The Italian Version
For its distribution in the US, the Indian film was shortened by 35 minutes and subtitled in English (Bollywood Hungama, 2010). This US version was then sent to Italy, together with the English subtitle/spotting list. In the Italian dubbed version, we can observe a neutralisation of the film's multilingualism as the different languages and instances of CS and CM have been dubbed into standard Italian. As a result, the hybrid, bilingual, bicultural identity of NRIs is obliterated and the multilingual situation disappears.
While the Hindi language has been completely erased, Arabic words or expressions are maintained. In the Italian version there is a tendency to partly retain the Urdu and Arabic greetings used by Muslims in India (except for Wa alalekum salaam and adaab, which are replaced by Italian greetings), as well as the CRs related to religious identity (Insha-allah,Eid, Jihad, Zakat, Hadith are kept in the Italian dialogue). The only exception is hijab, which is translated with the noun velo [veil]. The prayers uttered in Arabic are also left untranslated, without subtitles, so as to distance the audience from the Muslim other. By retaining Islamic prayers, most of the greetings and the borrowings from Arabic, the Italian dubbed version highlights the Muslim identity of the speakers, which is fundamental to the film's plot.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Fast-Forwarding with Audiovisual Translation"
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