My wife and I saw the new movie Past Lives, which is in every way excellent — we hope it wins All The Awards. But what brings it here is the linguistic element of the story: the heroine, Nora, emigrated with her family from South Korea to Canada when she was twelve, and in the present of the movie she is completely fluent in English, but her childhood friend Hae Sung stayed in Korea and hardly speaks any English. By the time he visits, she is a playwright living in New York and married to a white American, who is trying to learn Korean to communicate with her family but is still at a basic level. The scene where the three of them get together to have dinner is a fascinating study in the difficulty of crossing boundaries, and as she explains in the Guardian, it was the genesis of the movie:
This might be the most explicitly autobiographical moment in Past Lives, a film which follows Nora as she reconnects with Hae Sung multiple times across multiple decades and continents. Less a love story than a meditation on what-ifs, it has propelled its debut director Celine Song to a rarefied strata of acclaim, accruing both rave reviews and early, frantic Oscars buzz since its Sundance premiere earlier this year. The idea for the film came to Song when she too was sitting in an East Village cocktail joint, sandwiched between an old flame from Seoul, who spoke only Korean, and her husband, the screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes, who spoke only English.
“I was translating between these two people,” she recalls. “And at one point, I realised that I wasn’t just translating between their languages and cultures, but also translating between these two parts of myself as well.” The experience, she says, “settled in me as a very special thing”. Song had previously spent a decade as a playwright. Now she knew she wanted to trade theatre for film.
I must say, the East Village no longer looks like the shabby neighborhood I remember; le vieux Paris n’est plus. Also, I think I’ve mentioned in some earlier thread the time when I was on a bus in London and found myself carrying on a three-way conversation with the guy on my left, who spoke only Spanish, and the guy on my right, who spoke only French. It gave me a deeper appreciation for the difficulty of the work simultaneous interpreters do!
I was on a bus in London and found myself carrying on a three-way conversation with the guy on my left, who spoke only Spanish, and the guy on my right, who spoke only French. It gave me a deeper appreciation for the difficulty of the work simultaneous interpreters do
Well, maybe no comments at all is better than a nitpick but what you describe here is not "simultaneous" interpretation but what is known in the trade as "bilateral" or "liaison" interpreting.
Simultaneous interpreters sit in sound-proofed booths pouring hemlock into the ears of sleeping delegates.
No, no, a nitpick is more than welcome — this neglected post thanks you!
I think I’ve already mentioned the time I communicated with a patient (after a fashion) via a chain of English, Mooré, Dyula and whatever it was that the (monoglot) patient actually spoke (I never found out.) That one wasn’t very simultaneous either.
To be fair to myself, and to nitpick the nitpick, I didn’t say I myself was doing simultaneous interpretation but rather that what I did “gave me a deeper appreciation for the difficulty of the [sc. much harder] work simultaneous interpreters do.”
I must say, the East Village no longer looks like the shabby neighborhood I remember
We-uns call that gentrification, and we don’t like it.
carrying on a three-way conversation with the guy on my left, who spoke only Spanish, and the guy on my right, who spoke only French
Ideally you should have just rendered both of them into Catalan, which is essentially Spanish and French spoken at the same time.
we don’t like it.
Neither do I, but I accept that as old-fartism, just as inevitable as gentrification.
Well, yes, if people decide it’s inevitable, then it is inevitable, much like (neo)fascism. In other words, don’t try to mellow my harsh on this subject.
Dude, if there were no gentrification, everything everywhere would eventually be a wreck. Are you really nostalgic for Avenue C back in the day? I understand the depressing aspect, but it truly is inevitable, unless you’re aware of some magic low-rent neighborhood somewhere that is continually inhabited by cool artists, artisans, and friendly shopkeepers who sell needed goods at low prices and is never invaded by better-off folk wanting to have the cool rub off on them. Like the stock market and the weather, it goes up and down and down and up and there’s nothing to be done about it.
It does help when the rent isn’t for profit.
The world’s largest homeowner is the city of Vienna…
There’s a sweet spot between gentrification and decay. It is possible to live in a world where the poor have more choices than misery and displacement.
Sure, and it’s nice if it lasts a good while; I just don’t know of any specific places where it has lasted indefinitely (except maybe Vienna…).
We’ve been in this current economic climate for so long, that it feels inevitable. It’s not, but I admit it’ll be hard to reverse course.
Believe me, the E.V. wasn’t artsy-fartsy when I first moved here: it was plain old mostly-Hispanic working class. The only artists in those days where Phony Artists, who claimed to be artists so they could legally occupy loft units, despite the fact that they didn’t know which end of a paintbrush was down. The arrival of the artists was the beginning of gentrification.
As for Avenue C (and D), the problem there was drug gangs.
I’m glad I got to experience the Mars Bar. Only two times, but the place was magical.
As for Avenue C (and D), the problem there was drug gangs.
Yes indeed, that’s why I mentioned it. Gentrification gets rid of drug gangs. You take the bitter with the sweet.
Wrong way round. No gentrifiers are going to move into a neighborhood with bullets flying.
(For “where” read “were” above.)
I didn’t say I myself was doing simultaneous interpretation but rather that what I did “gave me a deeper appreciation for the difficulty of the [sc. much harder] work simultaneous interpreters do.”
Yes, I got that, but for professional interpreters what you describe is in fact a more rarefied exercise than simultaneous interpretation and would be considered a more daunting assignment than a stint in the booth.
In my experience, those who interpret simultaneously for a living don’t call themselves “simultaneous interpreters”, just “interpreters” or, more formally, “conference interpreters”. The one exception being the fictional character Constantin in Plath’s “The Bell Jar”.
Thanks! I obviously know little about that difficult line of work.