Individuality, embodiment and the female interpreter in Woman times seven and the interpreter

Part of : Γράμμα : περιοδικό θεωρίας και κριτικής ; Vol.18, No.1, 2010, pages 171-188

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171-188
Section Title:
Individuality, subjectivity and community in mass-mediated, “abstract” society
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Interpreters, enclosed in the marginalized spaces of their booths, are often perceived as a non-presence in the conference process, mere shadows of the speakers, who have to deliver the other’s textual body faithfully and objectively to an unknown audience without any involvement. In this paper, contrary to the above approach, I wish to focus on the gendered physical presence of the interpreter and see how her image has been presented through time with a focus on two films: Vittorio de Sica’s Woman Times Seven and Sydney Pollack ’s The Interpreter. Through the male gaze of the films, the neutrality and “absence” of the interpreter is reconsidered. Emphasis is rather on the two women interpreters’ physicality and different kinds of involvement (emotional, sexual, political) with their male audiences. The image of the interpreter in the films is completely different from the dictates of professional codes of ethics, which call for neutrality and uninvolvement, in other words, for an absence of the individual interpreter, who has to remain a mediator in the communication chain.
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Περιέχει βιβλιογραφία.The individual and the mass: literary and cultural reflections