Tom
And of course, the English title is incorrect. Should be "The Good, the Ugly, and the Bad" (which, by the way, is the order in which they appear).
But I don't get your logic. There are German film titles that also retain intrigue without as you put it, "making sense". Das Leben der Anderen is exactly one such example, surely this proves that German speakers can get film names that don't immediately scream at you what the film is about? Otherwise this would have been called "Spying Stasi Bastards" instead.
Sorry but must disagree with you there: "Das Leben der Anderen" sounds like a chick-flick, "Spying Stasi Bastards" (Böse STASI spione) on the other hand sounds like something I would at least watch online.
English certainly didn't get the wonderfully poetical F u ck i ng Jävla kuk Åmål . Show me love they called it, wimps. It's not even a film about love, the girls just happen to be lesbians, not the point.
Another hilarious one: French film to the book " Extension du domaine de la lutte " became " Whatever " in the UK!!
Was the book too difficult to understand so that the Brits couldn't find anything else to say about it than this cry for help of a title?
Even worse: it's described as "comédie dramatique" in French critics, but just "drama" in English. They didn't get the humour! Probably too much sex in it for them anyway.
A title like "Das Leben der Anderen" sounds intriguing and interesting and invites "interpretation". Particularily in West Germany "die anderen" for decades were the folks in the "Sowjetzone" (GDR/DDR). In Austria and Switzerland, "die anderen" were both Homosexuals and those living accross the Iron Curtain, and many else
You of course know that translating jokes is difficult, sometimes possible and sometimes simply not possible ! As Charlie Chaplin once said "humour is too much hard work to be taken lightly"
it is a good question who decides for a german movie title under what aspect. but one huge aspect is that many people in germany still have little command of good english and the original title eg "jaws" would say nothing to attract people to the box offices as "der weisse hai" has all in it: dangerous animal people are frightened of etc. now with a new genaration of globalised young people i think in the near future the industry could keep the original title and change the whole screening like all other european countries do: original with sub. its something that i really, really love about switzerland, apart from the short break.
Gone Girl = Das perfekte Opfer
not only a poor translation but inaccurate and misses the point too
I am loving this thread. I have been getting angry at German titles for the past ten years plus. Because this just so happens to be one of my pet peeves that can get me riled up for absolutely no good reason.
What's worse than completely new titles is stuff like this.
The Island. Remember that film? It was about people living in a silo to be harvested for organs. In German, they called it - and this is its full German title - The Island - Die Insel . No... duh!? How's about not calling it twice the same thing? Or go one step beyond? Call it "The Island - Die Insel - La Isola" while you're at throwing languages around like an illiterate camel? The Rock was retitled The Rock - Fels der Entscheidung . It's not a Fels (boulder), you twits, it's an island if anything. And there's no decision made there. All decisions were made before anyone actually got to Alcatraz. Even though it's my favourite movie of all time and there's nothing wrong with the movie at all, the German title of Escape from New York is Die Klapperschlange (The Rattlesnake). I could see how you could go call it something snake-related, because Snake Plissken and the tattoo on his stomach. But that's a cobra, if anything. Interestingly enough, he's called Cobra Plissken in Italian.
The French have a habbit of changing the title, still in English, to something more understandable to the french audience. My favourite is the The Hangover which becomes Very Bad Trip.
my favorite:
Don't look now -> Wenn die Gondeln Trauer tragen
Problem is that if you call a movie "Kiefer", viewers will think it's something to do with IKEA.
But at least they will know it must be some sort of a horror story.
'Curb your enthusiasm' = 'Lass das, Larry'. It sounds a bit childish to me.