Auteur dubbing. Translation, performance and authorial control in the dubbed versions of Stanley Kubrick’s films

Stanley Kubrick was one of the few film directors who took an active role in the creation of foreign-language versions. From A Clockwork Orange onwards, he personally chose the dubbing director for all the dubbed versions and had an active part in the voice casting (Chiaro 2007, Nornes 2007). By looking at a variety of sources, this chapter aims to illustrate the genesis of the dubbed versions of Kubrick’s films, focusing on the film director’s role and degree of intervention in the production process. It will be argued that, by overseeing all aspects of the dubbing process, Kubrick conferred a special status on the foreign-language releases of his films, which are to be regarded as authorized versions on which an unusually evident authorial imprint was imposed.