To accent or not to accent
Jan. 6th, 2009 02:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Some weeks back, when reviewing Einstein & Eddington, I mentioned that I couldn't tell whether Andy Serkis as Einstein was trying for a German accent or not, and that at any rate I always am somewhere between amused and irritated when in movies set in Germany, Austria or Switzerland, but shot in English, the characters affect a German accent. Since then, several films have been released, one of them Valkyrie (which hasn't started over here yet), and I've read a reviewer complaining that the characters there do not use German accents but rather their original ones (i.e. Scottish, English, American, as the case may be). Now, to me, this sounds like the better option. When I watch a film set in ancient Rome, I do not expect the characters to speak Latin (or Greek), or fake Italian accents. When the 1485486th version of The Three Musketeers hits the screen (in English), I don't expect a fake French accent. I know that in the former case the characters converse in Latin, and in the second in French, within the story the film is telling, not in English, but English is the actors' language, so naturally English is what we hear. Same with films and movies set in Germany but shot in English. Not that many exist which don't make their actors fake what they think of as German accents. (Trust me, in most cases the effort is really painful to hear when you're actually German.) Also? We have a lot of regional accents in Germany. You usually can tell where someone is from, just as you can tell whether someone is from the American South or the English North, etc. So when I watch a film sporting a variety of American/Scottish/British accents, I would assume that they're the equivalent of said plentitude of regional accents.
However, it has occured to me that maybe to an audience that is conditioned to hear characters supposed to be German talk in fake German accents, even when they're actually supposed to be conversing in their own language, natural accents would be breaking the suspension of disbelief, i.e. just the reverse of my own problem. (My suspension of disbelief being broken when I hear fake German accents in English.) So I'm curious:
[Poll #1326239]
However, it has occured to me that maybe to an audience that is conditioned to hear characters supposed to be German talk in fake German accents, even when they're actually supposed to be conversing in their own language, natural accents would be breaking the suspension of disbelief, i.e. just the reverse of my own problem. (My suspension of disbelief being broken when I hear fake German accents in English.) So I'm curious:
[Poll #1326239]
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Date: 2009-01-06 01:26 pm (UTC)Otherwise, they should just speak normally. I know they aren't speaking English in WWII Germany...
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Date: 2009-01-06 01:32 pm (UTC)And frankly, I think it makes sense to do it that way. Subtitles are hard on the eyes--everyone can't read them at the same rate. Even the size of subtitles is a problem. I'm probably prejudiced against subtitles because when I try to read them, the white lettering invariably blurs to the point where I have to be right on top of the screen to read what's being said. I can do that at home, but it's hard to do in a theatre. (I remember having this problem with Dances With Wolves, which had scads of Amerind conversation in the original Lakota and nothing but subtitles to explain what was being said. I firmly believe that I missed half the conversations because I couldn't read the subtitles with anything approaching swiftness OR watch what was happening on screen when I was trying to read.)
No, sir. Give me the auditory shortcut of fake accents any day. I realize that the accents are bad. The accents that Hollywood bestows on people from New England are invariably appalling. But this way I know what's being said is being said in a foreign language AND I understand it immediately. To me, that's an advantage.
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Date: 2009-01-06 01:55 pm (UTC)I'd find it really odd if a character who was supposed to be Scottish did not have a Scots accent.
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Date: 2009-01-06 02:32 pm (UTC)You shouldn't need to fake-accent people if they're supposed to be talking their native language, but it can be a useful shorthand. Use of other languages should be *consistent*, though, if they choose that approach.
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Date: 2009-01-06 02:51 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-01-06 03:04 pm (UTC)Also, I do occasionally get bursts of annoyance that all aliens everywhere apparently speak American. Endless Stargate civilisations with modern US accents, Star Trek alien races who flatten their vowels like they're from the Midwest, all the rest of it. Oddly, *cough*, I don't have this problem with Doctor Who...
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Date: 2009-01-06 02:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-06 03:08 pm (UTC)Of course, there are exceptions: like the slew of British actors who are doing a fantastic job of portraying Americans right now on US network TV. And I actually didn't mind (or even notice) the accents in Amadeus.
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Date: 2009-01-06 03:16 pm (UTC)You might want to check out a horror movie called "The Keep" where the director played a sort of "Mix-n-Match" game with the accents: German characters had British accents, Russians had German accents, Czechs had Russian accents -- something odd like that. The idea was that people with the same accent were from teh same place.
I have not actually seen this movie, just remember reading an interview with the director. So it could be utter scheisse for all I know.
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Date: 2009-01-06 03:41 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-01-06 04:00 pm (UTC)I suspect this is an American thing, but like the poster above I have a harder time suspending disbelief when something set in another country has everyone sounding like Americans. I've been trained to expect a British accent as the default everyone's-speaking-another-language shorthand (assuming fake-accents aren't used). This applies more for TV/film than the stage, though; if I'm watching Les Mis live it doesn't bother me if Javert sounds American, but it would if I was watching a movie adaptation. I don't know. It's weird.
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Date: 2009-01-06 04:27 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-01-06 06:37 pm (UTC)Of course, in my perfect world, they'd be doing the *correct* accents, not just by country but by region, and they'd get in some dialog coaches so they'd get the accents *right*. It's a nice world, that; I wonder what its immigration requirements are?
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Date: 2009-01-06 07:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-06 10:27 pm (UTC)I have similar problems with another show which is bizarrely international in the most convoluted proportions - the novels the series is based on take place in modern Venice, but are written by an American, and the characters - all, or at least in the majority Italian - are played by German actors, which is hysterically funny to me, since I have of course seen them in dozens of other national film and TV productions.
Sometimes "international" casting is similarly hilarious, though - I don't know if you ever had the "pleasure" of watching King Arthur, but one of its highlights was certainly seeing Germany's very own Til Schweiger as the son (!) of esteemed Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgard. I believe they were both playing Saxons...
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Date: 2009-01-06 10:18 pm (UTC)That said, I needed a while to get used to Rome's accents, and I think I read some texts from people who weren't all that happy with their distinction between upper, middle and lower classes. No idea if they thought it was a bit too flat - I only remember the nobility being very RP and the rest somehow universally not, which seems rather simple.
(And now I'm wondering if the diverse Anna Kareninas are always filmed with fake Russian accents. *shudder*)
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