[FA Worldmusic] Language!

[evangelinekim at att.net]

I wouldn't swap.  
A friend wrote me about this thread - "We're talking about marketing. 'World music' is fine: terse, open-ended, promising."
I prefer "world cinema" to the "foreign."
Best,
Evangeline

-------------- Original message from "Carlos A. Gutiirrez" <carlos at cinematropical.com>: -------------- 


> I agree with Robert in regards to the language. The "other" cinema is 
> commonly referred to as "foreign film" plainly because it's spoken in a 
> foreign language -just last week I was talking to a Canadian colleague of 
> mine and she was arguing that it was too hard to build a profile for 
> Canadian films in the foreign film circuit precisely because of the language 
> factor. This becomes very obvious in some awards categorizations (like the 
> case of Mel Gibson and Clint Eastwood, two quintessential American 
> mainstream directors, competing in the Best Foreign Film Category for their 
> films APOCALYPTO and LETTER FROM IWO JIMA in the past edition of the Golden 
> Globes). 
> How about if we swapped adjectives: foreign music and world cinema? 
> However, I'm not so sure if "subtitling" the music is so desirable. I 
> understand the need to contextualize the work in order to promote it and 
> reach bigger audiences, but if I admire something about music is precisely 
> its ability to transcend the language, try showing a foreign-language film 
> with NO subtitles. 
> 
> 
> On 3/20/07 5:02 PM, "Robert Singerman" wrote: 
> 
> > I still can9t understand how in all this discussion language has not been 
> > mentioned. I9ve been at many SXSW9s, Midems, etc over the years, working 
> > with world and pop artists and currently 3represent2 in the broadest sense 
> > of the word, artists speaking many, many languages. Look at film/tv, what9s 
> > the difference? Subtitles and Dubbing! Why does film, as Bill says make 
> > music mainstream and vice-versa, it9s because anglophones can understand the 
> > story, as Dmitri sells his artists with their own stories. But each song is 
> > a story! Of course in world music we generally have no conscious idea of the 
> > story, unless we are multi-lingual. We will soon see the changing of this 
> > incredible challenge to world communication which creates many of our 
> > problems worldwide and this will have been lead for years by film, tv and 
> > finally music! Why is Hollyweird and AmeriKa so powerful, partially due to 
> > language and the money to market (subtitle, dub) films and tv shows and 
> > music to seep into brains worldwide. 
> > 
> > As far as SXSW is concerned, the venue selection this year was not right, 
> > Marco, as I walked in with one of the most important journalists mentioned 
> > previously and the place did smell terribly of cat piss, he lasted a few 
> > songs less than me and Eliza Carthy was great. It is a good idea to bring 
> > all artists to SXSW and the other conferences for all reasons discussed and 
> > I praise Marco and Tracy9s work and risk taking, please continue - but ... 
> > 
> > I9m promising all of you, as the language problem is solved, if not by 
> > Voxonic, Yabla and/or Gracenote, AMG/lyricfinder with metatag data, then by 
> > others, in the coming two-three years, so called world music will be 
> > mainstream music and pop, international music will cross borders and many at 
> > Joe9s Pub and Carnegie Hall will be singing in French, Italian, Russian, 
> > Chinese, even if they don9t speak the language, as they will understand the 
> > lyrics! Like Opera! Like Suzanne Vega in Paris! Like the Beatles, all over 
> > the world...Live it could be simple l.e.d. Machines and if anywhere, next 
> > year at SXSW, or this year at Womex, these machines, new media techniques, 
> > should be used, at least for the chorus9. Imagine. Universal language, space 
> > is the place, 1 world under a groove...understanding each other finally, 
> > even if we don9t like what our favorite world/international/English language 
> > music artists are singing, at least we9ll know! Manu Chao would (and will) 
> > be huge and a critical voice in the US, finally! 
> > 
> > I know I9ve been screaming about this for a while now, but seems like barely 
> > anyone9s listening and it9s so obviously the main issue keeping world music 
> > world music and the biggest challenge to import/export marketing. Except - 
> > as Sam the Sham told me at SXSW, (his new album has many beautiful Spanish 
> > songs), for instrumental music. I agree with Mel, World Music M.ASS! We need 
> > to communicate better to break barriers, that9s all. 
> > 
> > If we take away the lyrics and only have the melodies, rhythms, colors, 
> > dances and vibe, how much can you truly communicate on a conscious level? 
> > Fela understood this. If the revolution is in a 3foreign2 language, which 
> > trees (and radio, tvs) in a forest or at least our forest get it? 
> > 
> > Peace, Robert 
> > European Music Office 
> > French Music Export Office 
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