The words 'language' and 'translation' crop up regularly in film discourse. Rather than describing speech, written screenplays or language transfer, however, they refer to film's non-verbal expressive modalities. In Anglophone discourse on Italian film, reference English subtitles is rare, despite the likelihood that viewers will see a subtitled version. There appears to be just one kind of exception, namely, following a longstanding tradition in translation commentary, when the purpose is to point out supposedly inaccurate choices. This article discusses the theoretical and practical aspects of subtitling, with Roma, città aperta as a case in point.