"His agony was gorgeous! I need to be slapped." —"Dieter" (played by Mike Myers), Sprockets, NBC's Saturday Night Live (1990). What does that mean? "His agony was gorgeous" when said by German men? They say stuff like that sometimes. It couldn't mean what we think it does. They'll be interviewing Germans after a train wreck, for example. And one man will be crying. "It was so horrible" he'll say. But then he'll stop and say "But did you see? Their agony was gorgeous!" And then he'll go on crying. It means something in German that is lost in translation. Gorgeous. There's probably a German word that they are just mistranslating. Does anyone know what I am talking about?
German translations are usually very good, their dubbing too. I think it would mean a huge amount of pain. Then again there are lots of sadistic Germans, so I've heard... I laugh at google trying to translate Spanish pronouns. In the middle of a story the subject is suddenly of the opposite sex. It's confusing as hell!
People have heard of the Marquis De Sade, but not many have actually read his works. Justine is Available on Kindle at a decent price, as well as 120 Days of Sodom. And I'm not sure why, but Venus in Furs by Leopold Sacher-Masoch is actually free on Kindle. Worth reading.
I worked on the post production of the film. It was shot in the asylum with no script and edited to show the twisted life of a couple of the inmates. When the press discovered how it was made, they slated it, cutting the west end run down to a couple of months. The audience had very mixed views, from a masterpiece, to a pile or trash. I don't think that it was ever released to television, but I may be wrong.
If you are talking about "Quills" That was a very imaginative telling. But that was more about De Sade himself than his actual writing.
