
Subtitles On: Why is movie dialogue so hard to understand?
Twenty Thousand Hertz
The Problem With Subtitles in Movies
In recent years, dialogue in movies and TV shows has become increasingly difficult to understand, leading to widespread use of subtitles. This can be attributed to various factors in the filmmaking process, sometimes unintentional but not always. Examples include a scene in Christopher Nolan's Interstellar where Michael King's character is incomprehensible and moments in The Dark Knight Rises where Gary Oldman's quiet speech is unintelligible. In Tenet, the overpowering sound design drowns out the voices, making them muffled and lost in the mix.
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