Filming translation: Subtitling and adaptation in Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt

Exploring the nature of the special relationship that links cinema and translation often means analysing the translational process through dubbing or subtitling, that is to say from source to target text or culture. This article aims to discuss the ways in which a multilingual page-to-screen adaptation is filmed. In the context of filming translation, dubbing may present characteristics that are not well-suited to the challenges presented by multilingual films, and none the more so than in one of the most fascinating films, Jean-Luc Godard’s Le Mépris/Contempt (1963), in which translation and adaptation are at the core of its discourse. First, I will demonstrate that the subtitling of the multilingual dialogues in Contempt questions the notion of film translation as mere literal reproduction or transparent transposition. Second, I will show that the multi-layered adaptation exposes Godard’s own interpretation of cinematic truth, ultimately presenting cinema as a metaphor for translation.