Viewing Multilingual Films in the original and Translated Version(s): What message Do Audiences Receive?

After discussing the nature of multilingual films and the current debate on their translation, the chapter tackles the problem of whether or not the view ing experience of the source and target audience of an audiovisual product are identical, comparable, or different; how much comprehension is expected and required from the audiences of the source and target text; what happens if the initial configuration is altered in the process of making the film available for a different public. Attention is paid especially to the various L3s (i.e., multiple languages, dialects, or accents, according to the broad interpretation of Delabastita and Grutman 2005; see Sect. 2) and their role in original films and their translated version(s) through a series of case studies with a view to showing what the audiences are expected to understand in the original and in the translated film through dubbing, subtitling or a mixture of the two. Given that the chapter aims to illustrate what source and target audiences experience when watching but one that includes a vast array of combinations of accents, dialects, and languages. Although tracing a diachronic trajectory is far from the aim of this chapter, the selection of products released at different times also sheds light on the evolution of translating trends for multilingual films. The discussion focuses first on the use of different accents and dialects in animated movies, with examples of opposite translation strategies in The Aristocats ( 1970) and Luca ( 2021). Then some case studies of proper multilingualism are examined, with different languages and reference to different dubbed/subbed products and different L3s.