Chapter 8
To Europe with love
Woody Allen’s liquid society
Between 2008 and 2012, Woody Allen directed three films that have come to be known as his “European trilogy”, namely Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), Midnight in Paris (2011) and To Rome with Love (2012). Each storyline involves the temporary relocation of one or more north-American protagonists to the European city in the title, in which, as well as complicated trysts, we find displaced characters who undergo a great deal of culture shock as they clash and merge with the experiences of a foreign locale and, of course, a different language. This chapter will examine the trilogy from the perspective of Allen’s technical recreation of lingua-cultural otherness in his non-American characters in the original version of each film.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.The polylingual conundrum
- 2.1“Postcarding”
- 2.2“Self-dubbing”
- 2.3The accidental translator
- 2.4Translanguaging?
- 3.Concluding remarks
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Acknowledgements
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Notes
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References
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Websites
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Filmography