To accent or not to accent

[selenak]

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]

Comments

[selenak.livejournal.com]

This works on Lost for me - i.e. when Sun and Jin talk to each other, we get the conversation subtitled, whereas when we're in the pov of one of the American characters, there are no subtitles. But if the entire film is set in a non-English speaking country, be it Germany or Russia or, well, the ancient Graeco-Roman world? With no English or American character present? Why should there be subtitles? Assuming that the actors aren't native German/Russian/whatever speakers, of course. Wasn't there a British tv movie about the Wannsee conference a couple of years ago? I don't think anyone spoke German or German-accented English in that one, which made sense since none of the actors was German and it was clear where the action took place anyway.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

It was an HBO TVM called Conspiracy, and I'm shocked you haven't seen it. It is really, really good, and yes, there are no cod accents. Kenneth Branagh and Stanley Tucci were truly terrifying as Heydrich and Eichmann respectively, because of the absolute conviction they had in playing both men as heroes of their own narratives with no villainous cues.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Alas I caught only the last fifteen minutes of it. (It was scheduled late at night, and my recording device didn't work properly.) Also, it was dubbed, so I couldn't tell whether or not they used accents. But I heard it was terrific, and those last 15 minutes definitely gave the impression. The same year, there was also a German tv film based on the Wannsee conference protocols (also good), which is I guess why the British production was shown later. (Never let it be said the tv folks here aren't jealous of the competition.)