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Lost in Translation: A Romantic Comedy-Drama Set in Tokyo



The film's writer-director, Sofia Coppola, has described Lost in Translation as a story about "things being disconnected and looking for moments of connection",[7] a perspective that has been shared by critics and scholars. In a cultural sense, Bob and Charlotte are disoriented by feelings of jet lag and culture shock as a result of foreign travel to Japan. Bob is bewildered by his interactions with a Japanese commercial director whom he cannot understand, realizing that the meaning of his communication is "lost in translation" by an interpreter.[8][note 3] Moreover, both are sleepless from a change in time zone, choosing to cope with their wakefulness by making late-night visits to the hotel bar. Such feelings provoke a sense of estrangement from their environment, but they also exacerbate deeper experiences of alienation and disconnection in their lives.[10] Bob and Charlotte are both in troubled marriages and facing similar crises of identity; Charlotte is unsure of what to do with her life and questions what role she should embrace in the world, while Bob is invariably reminded of his fading stature as a movie star and feels disassociated from the identity by which he is already defined.[11]




Lost in translation



Lost in Translation received an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay in 2003. The movie was also nominated for Best Picture and Best Director but lost out to Lord of the Rings; The Return of the King. Bill Murray was nominated for Best Actor but lost out to Sean Penn for his role in Mystic River.


There is wonderful comedy in the film, involving the ad agency's photo shoot for the Suntory Scotch commercial and Bob's guest shot on the "Japanese Johnny Carson." But Coppola remains firmly grounded in reality. The Japanese director seems to be spouting hysterical nonsense until you find a translation online and understand what he's saying and why. He's not without humor. The translator seems to be simplifying, but now we understand what she's doing. There's nothing implausible about the scene. Anyone who watches Japanese TV, even via YouTube, knows the TV show is straight from life. Notice the microscopic look Murray gives the camera to signal "just kidding."


What is lost in translation? John understands nothing of what Charlotte says or feels, nor does he understand how he's behaving. (Ribisi's acting in the scene where he rushes out saying he loves her is remorselessly exact). Bob's wife and assistant don't understand how desperately indifferent he is to the carpet samples. And so on. What does get translated, finally, is what Bob and Charlotte are really thinking. The whole movie is about that act of translation taking place.


Two lost souls visiting Tokyo -- the young, neglected wife of a photographer and a washed-up movie star shooting a TV commercial -- find an odd solace and pensive freedom to be real in each other's company, away from their lives in America.


Some view disclaimers as the solution to justify an imperfect translation. Ask yourself and your managers: What are we trying to achieve? If an agency provides imperfect information but includes a disclaimer, the agency is essentially saying that it cannot guarantee the accuracy of the information they have provided. If so, how is this:


Beyond ignoring patient care, stifling clinical advancement, and impoverishing a rich area of intellectual endeavor, NIMH cuts in clinical grant support have profound educational consequences for mental health care trainees. Absent research support, it is nearly impossible for clinically focused junior faculty to sustain research careers. A decade without clinical grant funding is impairing academic departments, shifting young faculty members away from their clinical interests and promoting a clinically distant research faculty. The complex skills required to conduct scientifically rigorous, reproducible clinical trials risk being lost.


A further casualty might be the personnel capable of conducting clinical trials at academic centers. If academic faculty in psychiatry and psychology departments become primarily neuroscientists, these centers may have to opt out of clinical trials. In the past, academics have often served to ensure a measure of equipoise and counter bias in pharmaceutically sponsored trials, a balance that may be lost if such trials are simply farmed out to contract research organizations.


Psychopharmacologic adherence is measurable by pill counts or serum levels. Psychotherapy adherence requires therapists to follow a defined, manualized treatment (eg, cognitive behavioral therapy), with treatment-blinded adherence raters sampling randomly chosen taped treatment sessions to ensure treatment is delivered as intended. Trial design and conduct must ensure equipoise and avoid researcher and therapist bias.24 This complex technology risks being lost through growing disuse: senior clinical researchers are aging, and junior faculty lack opportunity to master it.


Translational medicine covers a broad range of scientific, regulatory and clinical disciplines and there is no single organization currently in existence to embrace the field in its globality. Therefore, while scientific and clinical aspects related to individual fields can be addressed within the realm of specialized societies, other practical aspects often related to education, regulation, business and economic issues remain orphaned, with no focused outlet through which to address emerging issues. An organization embracing the complexities of translational medicine should be considered with the goal of contributing information to all arenas of the need for translational efforts.


A translational medicine organization is particularly important in today's era of federal budget constraints. For example, most "standard" therapies for cancer do not affect survival [17], and billions of dollars are spent on drugs and therapeutic interventions that do not impact the natural history of most common diseases. Should advocacy efforts seek to shift funds from other research areas to translational research? Would it be savvier to join with other advocates of medical research to increase public and congressional awareness of the integrated need to understand basic as well as human biology? And who should be responsible for such advocacy? The National Institutes of Health has recently staked a claim on this issue by defining a roadmap to accelerate medical discoveries to improve human health Should more institutions join the effort? And how should industry integrate with this effort? To be effective, barriers will only be removed by the collaborative efforts of multiple system stakeholders [7].


Reality-driven research in humans faces obstacles of its own. First, communication between basic and clinical scientists is rare and sporadic [2]. Few meetings are devoted primarily to bringing the two entities together to promote mutually beneficial exchange. The paradigm between basic and clinical science has oftentimes put these two disciplines at odds with each other. It is not in the interest of basic scientists to accept changes unless publishing and study section standards are realigned to reward clinical relevance. Clinical scientists for their part are often overwhelmed with information coming from the basic science community. How can such a wealth of information be processed into a useful compendium that might contribute the understanding of human disease? Furthermore, clinical scientists may be too distracted by the intensity of clinical care to be able to seriously help bridge this gap. Are clinical research grants providing sufficient support to academic clinicians to truly promote translational research [19]? For instance, traditionally, R01 grants have been used to measure a scientist's "independence". However, such approach may distance newer basic or clinical investigators from the integrated approach often required for translational efforts. Should advocacy efforts voice the importance of more interdisciplinary grants?


Regulatory requirements provide formidable challenges for investigators. Major efforts have been made by regulatory agencies by releasing guidance documents. However, several obstacles remain. For example, preclinical evidence is usually required despite its unclear relevance to human disease. Similarly, it remains unclear whether toxicity testing in animal models is relevant to humans, particularly when biological agents with strong species-specificity are considered. Perhaps directly testing in humans, particularly for life threatening diseases when standard therapies have failed, should be considered in a limited number of patients. Clinical trial designs for the early development of novel therapies could be simplified according to the anticipated biologic activity of the agent tested [24]. While biopharmaceutical companies employ contractors or staff to address and meet regulatory requirements as required by regulations and the law, many academic institutions do not provide appropriate regulatory support. Most translational research is supported by grants; however, few provide funding for regulatory staff or consultation. Academic institutions do not provide support to non hypothesis driven research such as product development. In addition, a grant application focused on translational research characterizing identity, purity, stability and potency is rarely funded. Yet these characteristics are needed for advance testing of novel agents.


Paradoxically, many currently accepted therapies are known to provide no statistically significant survival benefit yet they have both approval for distribution and coverage by insurance companies. The National Cancer Institute leadership has recently put emphasis on "discovery, development and delivery" (NCI Director's report 2003) and, with the purpose of eliminating or reducing obstacles in translational research, the NCI Director's office has appointed new deputies charged with streamlining the discovery to delivery process. This strategy will hopefully yield results, at least in the context of cancer research, in a new modus operandi in clinical research where new agents could be quickly moved through the process and either approved or discarded. 2ff7e9595c


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