Syncing lips with Madonna and the Minimoys
May 30th, 2007 by milo
Over the grey bank holiday weekend I watched Arthur and the Invisibles, Luc Besson’s part-animated children’s film, released in France as Arthur et les Minimoys. I think Minimoy sounds a lot cuter than Invisible, but that’s not the only part of the French version I wish they had carried over.
The story is pretty straightforward - Arthur (Freddie Highmore), a curious 10-year old, lives with his grandmother (Mia Farrow, gelfling-like) while his parents look for work in the big city. Unfortunately for Grandma, the house and its idyllic garden are about to be repossessed and turned into apartments.
If only Arthur could find his grandfather’s treasure, which he reportedly entrusted to a race of tiny people who live at the bottom of the garden…
Needless to say, Arthur discovers the Invisibles, and is sucked down into their tiny world, at which point he is transmogrified into an oddly androgynous warrior elf and must join forces with Princess Selenia (voiced by Madonna) against the evil Maltazard (David Bowie).
Like I said, it’s pretty straightforward.
As the camera descends into the world of the Minimoys, live action is replaced by computer animation and beautifully detailed miniature models. The art direction is fabulous (think The Dark Crystal on party drugs), the character designs are superb, and the animation uses motion capture to good effect.
What’s odd is that, whilst the live action scenes were filmed in English, the animated (or should that be Minimated?) sequences appear to have been lip synched to the French dialogue. The result is that, in the English version of the film, all the Minimoys speak fartoofast and trytofittoomanywordsintotheirsentences like some freakingkungfumovie.
One wonders why, with the magic of computers, the scenes could not have been re-animated. Perhaps it would have been too expensive…
But would it have killed them to rewritethedialoguefercryingoutloud?
In general, I am not a fan of dubbing, with the possible exception of Italian Giallo slasher flicks, where the odd lip-synching, mannered dialogue and pounding prog-rock soundtracks add to the atmosphere.
In fact, I was reading up on one of my favourites, Dario Argento’s Profundo Rosso, and stumbled upon the autobiography of the (figuratively) immortal David Hemmings in the MovieMail library vault.
Hemmings wasn’t a big Argento fan, but he gives a great account of Italian cinema’s attitude to sound, which he first encountered working with Antonioni on Blow Up.
“All Italian directors, it seemed, had no interest in reproducing what could be described as live sound. They recorded no audio track while shooting and were very uninterested in accurate syncing when they dubbed on a voice track afterwards. Despite my experience with the Maestro, I never really got used to technicians and carpenters hammering, whistling or even singing while we were filming, but nobody else gave a damn.”
Well, if Argento and Antonioni don’t give a fig about accurate lipsync maybe I should go easier on Arthur and his diminutive friends.
The problem is the differences between the English and the French versions of Arthur and the Invisibles don’t end there. Appalled at the scenes where Madonna’s character, Princess Selenia gets it on with Arthur - which, given the age difference between Freddie Highmore and Ms. Ciccone, would have been a cinema first - US distributors Miramax ordered the offending footage to be cut.
Poor show, Miramax. That’s the kind of lip syncing we need more of.
Maybe instead of looking for famouss voices… they shold have go for professional dub artist…
In the latin american version (actually mexican version), there is no problem with lip sync, even taking into account that in spanish the dialoge is longer. (I have the DVD with the Latin american and US version).
Also lets not forget that Arhur and Selenia are about the same age, is just that minimois measure the time diferent, so there was no reason to cut the kiss, the wedding, the transfer of powers, and that Arthur is now the future king…
But Madonas voice made Selenia to look too big for Arhur… At least in the different translation, that did not happened…
I agree - there really was no reason to cut the Arthur / Selenia romance. I think there is something about Madonna that people find controversial just for the sake of it.
I think it started back when she did that Like a Prayer music video with the burning crucifixes and the black Jesus.
(When it was announced she would starin Evita (1996) it sparked riots in Argentina….)
For me, the problem with Arthur and the Minimoys was that the dubbing was inconsistent - some voices matched better than others.
Also, it really got my goat when they dubbed over the tribesmen who appear to help Arthur in the ‘real world’.
Surely the actors could….. speak English?
For my part, i love the animation. Strictly speaking they did not used motion capture, but rotoscopy. They recorded the live performances, but they were recreated by the animators usign the material as reference.
After the battle with the mosquitos, when Selenia and Arthur see each other in the eyes. The flush of emotions that shows Selenia, before giving him a smile is one of the best animated sequences i have seen. I have work in computer animation for 29 years and i can just say that those few seconds of animation are the best i have seen.
Just thinking. I just have heard the original french voices (in youtube). The voice of Mylene Farmer does not sound as young as i expected.. So i guesa it is the image of MAdona, what starte all the problems…
I agree about the animation - I think a lot of care and effort went into the film, and I think a rushed - or at least insensitive - release into the English-language markets killed it. Apparently Luc Besson was hopping mad at Miramax.
For the DVD release, I really wish they had bothered to include the uncut version of the film (showing the Madonna / Freddie Highmore romance) and the option of different language tracks.
That said, I think fans of animation would still do well to check it out. It’s imaginative, fun, and different.
If you look at any of the international releases (latinamerican, spanish, italian, protuguesse, japanese), the are all uncut.. and still have the full english track… So If people order any of these and not the us release, they will get the full movie.
It seems only the US (or the english) editino is cut.
Also the international edition have a beautifull making off documental..
Hello again..
I just find some interesting info about the film…
I tough the original voices were french, but the voices of MAddonna and the otheres were record, and the lyps were animated following the voice.
Unfortunatelly, the animators were french (and most of them working for the first time) and could not cope witth the english phonemes. So. the problem is that the characters are speaking english with french accents
when they realized the problem, they decided to put a camera focusing the lyps of maddona, and Bowie. So the fared better that the other characters.
ohh.. also the tribesmen were french. After all it was filmed in France, and most of the extras were french.
You know, you are right! the lip animation had been driving me crazy - it did look as if some characters were speaking in English, and some in French. It made the film even more confusing!
I guessed the actors playing the tribesmen were French… it just seemed a bit strange to cast French extras when all the live action scenes were otherwise filmed in English!
All in all, I feel the film did have a great deal of international appeal, but I think that with the dubbing, the inconsistent lip syncing and the cuts, they mishandled the English release.
Well.. since internationally we see the movie dubbed to other languages, the english dubbing became unimportant… Since i an not an native english speaker, i did not notice problem in the english version with the dubing until i began to read about it. Probalby we have become so used to dubign that we do not care much about those problems.
I guess the real problem was trying to cut the love story of Arthur and Selenia. I have nto seen the US cut, but from other people i have been writong, it seems that even withuth the main scenes cut, it is obvious somehthing is going on, so if feels unconfortably..
I found an early interview with Besson, when he was asked if he did not find strage to voice a ten years old witha 48 years old maddona..
He comented that Maddona had made a young voice, and that he expected that 10 years old kids would not konw who was her…
Unfortunately, seems Besson forgot that there also were adults who were going to took decitions on this film… and they were not happy about Maddona in a movie for children.
I considered mysel an animator, and have became fan of this film, there is so much to admires (and some things that also are plain wrong..)
But for this film Besson create an infraestructure for CG films in France that did not exixted before. Almost all the animators (more than 100) we new han had no expereice, so they create something very diferent, that may be good. Already the two sequeals are in the making, so we have to wait and see…
Also.. I put in youtube some of the deleted scenes . I am not shure if there are all, since they amount probalby to a 4 minutes, and 8 minutes were cut. Probalby the other cuts were fragments of dialoges.
just search in youtube “minimoy deleted”
thanks
Thanks for that Javier!
I’d be interested to see the sequels… I do hope they keep the quality of the animation as high as in the original.