The central, and larger, issue here is trade offs. (And film is not unique in this, of course, since translation is a central issue in literature and poetry. It is simply too great a price to have Cervantes available only in Spanish or Dostoevsky available only in Russian; the same goes for Ozu and Mizoguchi.) One dimension of this is translation of non-English dialogue by subtitles vs. dubbing vs. voice-over (done in some other contexts, though rarely for the US--except perhaps for documentaries). I can see no grounds for saying one is theoretically or categorically preferable to the other. Of course, how well it is done is important, or even crucial, and even then relative value can vary according to the film. Tarkovsky is a case in point. In the early 80s, when it was still available, I found the dubbed 35mm print of "Solaris" preferable to the subtitled version. The dubbing was well-done and, because they didn't have to read, viewers could submit themselves to the rhythms and images that are so particularly important for Tarkovsky. In fact, a really well-dubbed version of any Tarkovsky film might be preferable to any subtitled version. Occasionally there is a good dubbing of Bergman, though I can't watch the dubbed version of "Fanny and Alexander." But there are also other dimensions where there are similar kinds of aesthetic choices and the even more general issue as to whether we can say that in fact for film, or for any particular film, there is one definite, determinate, correct "performance" (text). 35mm or 16mm (not to mention VHS tape, video disc, etc.)? Seeing Tarkovsky's "Mirror" in 35mm was a revelation and the 16mm version is something less than that (and both almost an entirely different "species" than the video "trace")--but this doesn't mean we don't show/use the 16mm version (especially if there are no facilities to show the other), or study the video tape, does it? Size of screen image: full theater size, small classroom size (not to mention TV or projection TV sizes), etc.? Image ratio (just exactly how much of the image is or should be masked off the top and sides?). (I saw "Breaking the Waves" last night in an (art) theater and it looked as though the intended image was meant to be wider than what the theater had space to project [the titles were a bit cropped on the left and right edges].) [Digression: Should one forbid students to ever look at a nonletterboxed tape of a widescreen film, eg. "Chinatown" (Yes, eg. Kurosawa's "Ran")? Should one (try) to forbid one's library from ever purchasing such video material (even when strongly desired by other faculty in, say, nonfilm disciplines)? Is the nonwidescreen video version of "Nashville" truly better than nothing?] "Luminosity" also surely makes a difference (I can remember Roger Ebert complaining about first-run Chicago theaters turning down the volatage (?) of their projectors, thus casting a somewhat darker image, inorder to conserve bulb life and save on overhead). Clear vs. muddy, but just exactly how clear and just where does muddy begin? And so on. Most of what we see--and study--is somewhat less and different than the ideal object. Aesthetic choices are made everywhere (and yet the art survives). Jesse Kalin Vassar College ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]