Two years ago, international film releases in the United States reached a new pinnacle with the crowning of Bong Joon Ho¡¯s ¡°Parasite¡± as best picture at the Academy Awards. But before ¡°Parasite¡± or any other non-English-language film even hits theaters, a basic question has to be settled: the title.
Distributors say the title can be the first impression a movie makes on prospective audiences, and so they give it a great deal of thought. How do you translate the original title? Do you add a word or two to clarify? Or do you leave the Spanish or Korean or French as is?
Titles have been a consideration at least since the influx of foreign films in the 1950s and ¡¯60s. When a title sticks, it has a way of enduring: It¡¯s hard to imagine Michelangelo Antonioni¡¯s ¡°L¡¯Avventura¡± being translated as simply ¡°The Adventure.¡± The cryptic title ¡°The 400 Blows¡± didn¡¯t prevent people enjoying that film¡¯s riches. (It¡¯s a reference to a French idiom ¡°faire les quatre cents coups,¡± commonly rendered as ¡°to raise hell.¡±)
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