"It is bad like a pig!"

When we were in Paris last month, I found out that Alain Delon was going to be in a play called Russian Mountains shortly after our departure. (I'm hoping the 2 incidents are unrelated.) Curious to see how the play was received, I looked it up in the news section of google.fr and pulled up a Le Figaro article that was, of course, in French. I copied and pasted the article through the altavista.com translator (always good for a laugh). I think the reviewer really, really hated it, Delon specifically, but clearly something's gotten lost in translation. Here are the highlights:

...The spectators rise, shout cheer.... On the plate, intertwined, Alain Delon and Astrid Veillon let themselves wrap by the waves of cordial l adoration. The public believed qu'un husband had misled his wife or qu'une wife had put at l'épreuve her spouse. He had any forgery! And the sobs of the two interpreters, at the end, hoist them on l'Olympe play. When one cries, one is tall. Especially if one is a man. And even more if one is Alain Delon. Which arrogance could authorize us with saying that l'on does not share such enthusiasm inevitably? Since which view-point could we contemplate this astonishing phenomenon which points out the meetings disguised in plays in which Bernard Tapie became a malignant specialist? Except that, here, on the large scene of Marigny, there is indeed quelqu'un which remains forever, thanks to its films, of Rocco and His/Her Brothers with Mr Klein, for n'en to quote that two in an often risky course, l'un of the largest actors of his generation.... A badly rotten part, poor if not sometimes vulgar dialogues, with an action which pains to take shape and a outcome style "the cross of my mother", well-known subterfuge of the playwrights.... As regards the play, it is bad like a pig, this Bénichou....But if one tests the need to take a shower while leaving, this n'est not because of the title. There is evil to include/understand how a journalist who posts convictions can s'égarer thus.

When one cries, one is tall - maybe that could be my Indian name some day.

Comments

[Rose]

That is just funny. It reminds me of a translation I read of a Madonna interview. It starts off "Madonna, Budapest says hello with arms that are spread-eagled." http://www.ojohaven.com/fun/translation.funnies.html

[Brant]

I love bad translations. However, I think you missed the best quote in the review:

"When one cries, one is tall. Especially if one is a man. And even more if one is Alain Delon."

Pure poetry!

[Valarie]

You're right! It brings to mind the accidental 'poetry' of Donald Rumsfeld, as found here: http://slate.msn.com/id/2081042/. Below is one of my favorites:

Glass Box
You know, it's the old glass box at the—
At the gas station,
Where you're using those little things
Trying to pick up the prize,
And you can't find it.
It's—

And it's all these arms are going down in there,
And so you keep dropping it
And picking it up again and moving it,
But—

Some of you are probably too young to remember those—
Those glass boxes,
But—

But they used to have them
At all the gas stations
When I was a kid.

—Dec. 6, 2001, Department of Defense news briefing

[Andrea]

Even if it is a bad translation, I like to imagine the French really speak that way. Think Monty Python:

You don't frighten us, English pig-dogs!
Ah blow my nose at you, so-called "Arthur Keeeng"!
I fart in your general direction!
Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!

[Valarie]

Excellent point! Come to think of it, when I read "It is bad like a pig!", I imagined it in my head as John Cleese's voice. "Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time-uh!"