Shunji Shimizu (清水俊二 "Shimizu Shunji"), (1906-1988), is a well-known Japanese subtitler and translator, referred to by one scholar as 'practically a household name in Japan'. He translated popular authors including Erskine Caldwell and Agatha Christie. He had a long working relationship with the Hollywood studio Paramount Pictures. He was a mentor to the eminent subtitler Natsuko Toda.
Career.
Shunji Shimizu is said to have inaugurated film subtitling proper in Japan. The first subtitled film in Japan was Josef von Sternberg's 1930 film Morocco. It came out in Japan in 1931 and was subtitled by Yukihiko Tamura. The film's success was so great that Paramount decided greatly to expand its distribution of films to Japan, but Tamura was not able to leave Japan. He introduced Shunji Shimizu to Paramount Pictures, which whom he went on to have a long working relationship. One scholar suggests that "Shimizu's work with Paramount marks the start of film translation proper in Japan and he is considered by many to be the first true film subtitling craftsman [...]".
He was Paramount's subtitler for the Japanese market, with responsibility for preparing Paramount newsreels for distribution in Japan in the late 1930s and early 1940s, until American films were banned in Japan. He published extensively on the art and practice of subtitling. He was at one point a representative of the Japanese Administrating Commission of Motion Picture Code of Ethics.
He acted as a mentor to the later very well-known subtitler Natsuko Toda, and also taught translation to the sf editor, writer and translator Masami Fukushima.
References.
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