HERBET Abel Sep 25, 2012:

feu faire feu avec une arme

Daryo Sep 25, 2012:

I did think of "Aux armes, citoyens!", it's that kind of patriotic call to duty, but referring to "La Marseillaise" is maybe too specific to France. From how you describe it, it looks like it's partly a sort of anti war video, so leaving the original message as it is ("be a patriot") is still important to show the link with the effect it had on that man.

VeroniquePhelut (asker) Sep 25, 2012:

Very interesting... The video is about a man who's having a very weird and bad day. Then you see this old man, lost soul, surely traumatized by some war experience, who pretends he's holding a machine gun and shouts "Man the guns", then mimic he's firing balls, then says "all aboard, all aboard"... So there is no irony, the video just highlights the weirdness of people this principal character meets throughout the day.
I think "Aux armes citoyens!" or just "Tous à vos armes"! could be a way of translating it.

Daryo Sep 25, 2012:

"man the guns" is about pieces of artillery. Until there are crews to make use of them, they are just useless metal. "man the guns" means contribute to the protection/defence of your country by taking charge of the artillery (important at that time, not so much nowadays). It could be something like “join the fight” “defend your country” "be a patriot". If you want to make a parody of something, you have to leave the original meaning, i.e. if the text is a parody of some stingy penny pincher you have to leave his pretended generosity in the translation. Here “man the gun” may lead in the video to indiscriminate shooting, but it doesn't mean "shoot on anything that moves", and you loose the satirical effect if you translate it like that.
see [http://library.thinkquest.org/17573/gallery/r4.htm]