In what language did Bertolucci intend this to screen?

I've seen both Italian and French versions on the DVD and had the good fortune to see it when it came out in Italian in a theatre in the US.
I can't speak for the intentions of the director and producer, but I read that a disastrous English dubbing compromised the film's success for many years in the US.
The Italian script is superbly written and delivered.
The French version is good, with a few small alterations.
I've not analysed why, but after seeing the French version, I was more aware of the 'myth of the cave' that's supposed to run through and unify the film. Anyone like to comment?

My R4 DVD only has Italian audio.

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I came here seeking an answer to the same question. The version I have includes English, Italian, French, Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese as the spoken language options. I was a bit perplexed, especially given that the director and crew are all Italians, but the male lead (Trintignant) is French. I guess I'll give it a shot in Italian and see how it turns out.

Edit: As it turns out, there really isn't any good sound option, at least on my DVD. For whatever reason, you only have the option for one language at a time. It became obvious once Marcello and Giulia arrived in Paris that alot of the dialogue was dubbed in Italian, even though they were speaking French alot of the time. No good options, evidently. Why they just couldn't offer a version of it as it was originally shot with English subtitles is beyond me.

I have a version of this film I recorded from the TV in around 2001, shown on the BBC, in which the characters switch between speaking French and Italian. The dialogue on the soundtrack matches the lips of the actors. I would think Bertolucci intended the soundtrack to match the words spoken by the actors, or why write/shoot it that way. The characters' switching between French and Italian also adds meaning to the film, such as Giulia's inability to speak French so it seems a shame to dub it into one language only.

Italian films for decades after the introduction of sound were often, if not always, shot without synch sound and fully post-synched, even when everyone was speaking Italian. I suppose that audiences in Italy were used to this and in this period it is common to see, for example, visiting English-speaking actors dubbed in Italian but visibly speaking English even when their character would logically have been speaking Italian.

I don't know specifically about this film but it would have been usual to finish a film entirely in Italian then to dub and/or subtitle the whole film into other languages - just like any film shot entirely with Italian-speaking actors. A foreign actor may well not be the actor who dubbed him/herself even in their own language, not least because they probably would not still be in the country.

A Late reply:

The original audio will always be the first choice for the savvy film aficionado but there’ll always be exceptions.

Bernardo Bertolucci's Il Conformista is a good point in case with a large number of people prefering Il Conformista’s French audio, savouring French actor and key protagonist Jean-Louis Trintignant’s voice that he dubbed, speaking in Italian, whereas most of the other players didn't.

It's prudent to remember the practice of looping audio into a film is a method involving both actors dubbing their voice to their own performance as well as ‘voices’ dubbing the actor’s performance.

It's a tall order rewriting dialogue to match actors’ mouth movements and that’s the achievement sought by directors seeking to bring their vision to life with seriousness.

All these asides; the outcome of such endeavours were sometimes thwarted with the advent of DVD; in the early days of the format the outcome was often fraught with the inadvertent exacerbation of the aforementioned qualities – be they good of bad – with an audio track (be it cleverly contrived or unintentionally slipshod) slipping out of sync.

Argento's Inferno for example is another anomaly for consideration on this subject. The early Anchor Bay DVD (and the 2007 direct port reissued by Blue Underground) has the original English soundtrack. I also have the Italian 20th Century Fox release with an optional and risible Italian audio track. Where that came from, I don't know but Argento fans will want to check it out, if only to understand how the majority of his films work so well in dee Ingleesh.

It depends on the film in question, of course; not to mention its audience and their predilections. There are no empirical constants because film by its nature is subjective. Throw into the mix directors such as Fellini that deliberately opted for other (for the most part talented) actors to dub voices for onscreen actors precisely for its hyperbolic and stilted merits and we have a debate without end.

As for films with dubs specifically created for English audiences, in my opinion they only count if it’s the only way to see a film you’re truly in love with because they’re always awful. They only people with which such films garner praise, are those that go out of their way to avoid subtitles.


Suicide, it’s a suicide

Im having a lot of issues with this movie because of this. Am I supposed to watch it in italian or french? Also one scene it randomly switched languages and put on what I assume is Portuguese subtitles. After the scene was over it switched back... IM SO FRIGGEN CONFUSED BY THIS MOVIE UGGGHH

The end of the world doesn't seem so bad now that you're here.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say Italian.






Schrodinger's cat walks into a bar and doesn't.