Subtitling Audiovisual Humour: The Case of ‘Early Almodóvar’ Films during ‘La Movida’ in Spain (1980-1984)

Humour transfer on screen responds to the inner constraints of audiovisual translation. Audiovisual humour imposes further challenges to translators because of its polysemiotic nature. This can be undeniably observed in auteur films that are specifically contextualised in a historical and sociocultural context, such as the ‘early Almodovar’ films. Pedro Almodovar’s first four films (1980-1984) were created during the Spanish Movida movement after dictator Franco’s death, corresponding historically to the political Transition of Spain towards democracy. These films have been so important that they can now be considered samples of audiovisual expression of Spanish Movida changes. Verbally Expressed Humour elements in these films represent compelling examples of translation challenges that respond to both the complexity of wordplay transfer and the cultural components of Spain in the 1980s. Sets of examples from Almodovar’s first films illustrate the difficulties of transferring Verbally Expressed Humour elements in subtitling. This paper finds that humour transfer is accomplished in many different ways by subtitlers, whose translation techniques can be analysed following descriptive studies specifically focused on Audiovisual Translation.