Not Even at the Point of Dying?

[Leonegeek]

I love that this thread exists(!)

I've always kinda held with the belief (despite no actual proof) that Harmonica PROJECTS his
memories at Frank in the film's finale. Dramatic, yes - but a cool concept.

There are more things than Heaven and Earth, and Harmonica seems to be more/less than
human. He'a always just kinda THERE - materializing into scenes. I love that.

[marmota-b]

He'a always just kinda THERE - materializing into scenes. I love that.

Same here...
But somehow I don't quite understand what you mean. Don't try to explain it, I'll get it later...

[dave jenkins]

OK, so now I know it isn't only my feeling. I saw it with Czech subtitles today, and there it was clearly translated as "Only when I'm dying." Does it mean it seems so to Czech speaking people?

This is a mistranslation. The English sentence does not have a subject, so the one who is supposed to do the dying remains ambiguous.

As to the final flashback: the consensus seems to be that Harmonica and Frank share it. This is appropriate, because the men also share theme music; we discover, in the final showdown, that "Man With a Harmonica" and "As a Judgment" are elements of the same theme. So, at the end, the music in its complete form plays, Harmonica passes his harmonica on to Frank, memories are exchanged. Frank passes from the scene, and then Harmonica, soon after, does too.

[marmota-b]

The English sentence does not have a subject, so the one who is supposed to do the dying remains ambiguous.

I know that. There were more of such mistranslations actually, where they made a clear statement in a moment where it wasn't that clear in English. What I'm referring to, is the fact they mistranslated it with the same meaning I felt it could have, while English speaking people here seem to understand it the opposite way. So I was wondering if it had something to do with the language background.

[dave jenkins]

I know that. There were more of such mistranslations actually, where they made a clear statement in a moment where it wasn't that clear in English. What I'm referring to, is the fact they mistranslated it with the same meaning I felt it could have, while English speaking people here seem to understand it the opposite way. So I was wondering if it had something to do with the language background.

I'm still not clear about what you're saying. The statement is ambiguous, so we have no way of knowing how it will apply to the characters. But because Harmonica is the good guy, and Frank is the bad, we pretty much expect that Harmonica is going to be successful. Nonetheless, we can't actually know until the final sorting out.

[marmota-b]

Here's what I realised yesterday after I left the computer:


It's really pretty much a hard thing to translate to Czech.

In English, the subject is ambiguous, because noun is used ("point of dying"). Czech equivalent would be genitive of a noun ("dying") or adjective ("deadly") and using something like "moment" or so... (we cannot simply say "at the point of", such thing doesn't exist in Czech, as far as I know.)

However, the most natural thing to do in Czech is to use a verb. When you use either a noun or adjective in sentence with this meaning ("Only at the point of dying."), it doesn't sound like a natural thing to say, more like something from a news article or so... It's hard to explain it in English, where it sounds natural. Just take my word for it. It doesn't sound good in Czech. It doesn't sound like something Harmonica would say.

So the most natural thing to do in Czech is to use a verb. But when you use a verb, you lose the ambiguous sound of the sentence, because verb needs a distinct subject. At least in this case when you have "me" and "you" as the two options of subject.

And I also realised why we Czechs seem to choose Harmonica as the subject. Because in Czech there's such saying, literally "Only over my dead body", with the meaning "Only when I'm dead", used when somebody wants to show big objection to something. So for us it's natural to think Harmonica is saying something like this, because this saying is quite widespread in Czech.

And here you are. A translation mistake.

[moviesceleton]

Just out of curiosity, what is that line in Italian? And because I don't understand Italian, is the English sentence directly translated?

[dave jenkins]

And I also realised why we Czechs seem to choose Harmonica as the subject. Because in Czech there's such saying, literally "Only over my dead body", with the meaning "Only when I'm dead", used when somebody wants to show big objection to something. So for us it's natural to think Harmonica is saying something like this, because this saying is quite widespread in Czech.

Very interesting. So the translator opted for a colloquial expression rather than a literal rendering. I sympathize.

Had he/she chose to be more literal, perhaps it would have been necessary to re-formulate the idea, thus: "only at the point where either one of us is dying." That sounds really awkward in English, but maybe there's a way to put it across in Czech. Anyway, if a subject has to be introduced into the sentence, it should be plural.

[marmota-b]

Had he/she chose to be more literal, perhaps it would have been necessary to re-formulate the idea, thus: "only at the point where either one of us is dying." That sounds really awkward in English, but maybe there's a way to put it across in Czech. Anyway, if a subject has to be introduced into the sentence, it should be plural.

It sounds quite awkward in Czech, too, I think. Because... ah, that would be too long explaining. Simply, it's hard to translate.

It's difficult with the plural. Because it also might seem that both are going to die...

Just out of curiosity, what is that line in Italian? And because I don't understand Italian, is the English sentence directly translated?

That's exactly what I'm wondering about, too.

[Jill]

We need you, titoli...