Translating Film Titles—A Qualitative and Quantitative Approach

This chapter explores global trends in film title translation, based on the datasets published by the Internet Movie Database (IMDb, https://www.imdb.com/ ). It presents quantitative analysis of two corpora of film titles, illustrating different production and distribution models: (1) all localised title variants of feature films of the Official Selection at Cannes Festival since 1950 (3,114 films and 59,953 localised titles in total); (2) annual top 50 productions having most language versions since 1950, according to IMDb (3,650 films and 154,277 localised titles). Inspired by the theme of the current volume, we test preliminary hypotheses concerning: (1) the growing share of films distributed with non-translated titles; (2) the growing share of films distributed with hybrid names that combine non-translated titles with added subheadings; (3) the presence of global and regional discrepancies in the ways festival and mainstream film titles are being localised for respective audiences; and (4) the variation of localising trends relative to genre and region of distribution. The study shows a steady global increase in the annual share of films distributed internationally under their original titles and a stable but insignificant share of titles that combine non-translated original with target-language additions. However, regional breakdown illustrates major discrepancies in the adoption of domesticating versus foreignising strategies in various parts of the world, as well as (non)uniformity of norms in the localisation of film titles directed at cinephiles and mass audiences.