Well, it's Sunday, and I'm in the mood for something non-political.
A reader commenting on the preceding post proclaimed a boycott of Oliver Stone's "JFK" due to that film's unconvincing southern accents. My counter-argument: If you don't develop a tolerant attitude toward problematical accents, you'll rob yourself of some of the most popular films ever made. Examples:
Gone with the Wind: Clark Gable doesn't even bother trying to talk like someone from Charleston. Vivien Leigh's accent is quite good, but the Brit comes through now and then. Fair Olivia never seems like a southerner.
Sound of Music: All the "good" Austrians speak with veddy proper English accents...und all der Nazi sympathizers are talking like ZISS, ja?
James Bond is Scottish, which means that every actor aside from Sean Connery gets it all wrong.
Every other Connery film: He plays a Scottish Russian submarine commander in Hunt for Red October, a Scottish Berber in The Wind and the Lion, a Scottish Irish cop in The Untouchables and a Scottish King Richard in Robin Hood. And always -- always -- he is right and his critics are wrong. Why? Because he's Sean Connery, dude.
Song of Bernadette: (Okay, I'm going through another one of my Bernadette phases. Shoot me.) Jennifer Jones talks American, the girl playing Toinette sounds like she came to the Pyrenees by way of West Texas, Vincent Price sound vaguely British (even though he was from St. Louis) and a few actors in minor roles actually try to sound French, without much success.
How Green Was My Valley: Most of the "Welshmen" sound Irish -- what we might call "John Ford Irish."
Mary Poppins: Did anyone ever buy Dick Van Dyke's Cockney accent? Yet anyone who says that someone else should have done the role deserves to be bashed on the noggin with a brolly.
Various Draculas: Christopher Lee had maybe ten lines during his entire run as Dracula. He never talk-a like-a da Romanian. And did Peter Cushing, as Van Helsing, even TRY to sound Dutch? The book makes clear that both characters speak English with thick accents. Gary Oldman and Anthony Hopkins tried to get the accents right, but the same version also had Winona Ryder's English accent (not too bad) and Keanu Reeves (duuuuuuude...!) Bela's accent was, of course, quite perfect -- but most of the "Brits" in that movie sound American.
Various Robin Hoods: In The Adventures of..., Flynn sounds more Aussie than English. And Alan Hale...? Father of The Skipper? Come on. In the Costner version...you know, I don't think I need to say one more word about that. The Disney animated version has a British Robin while all the other voice actors sound like pure Alabama. The 1952 Ken Annakin film (also for Disney), which you probably haven't seen, is the only non-TV version with an all-English cast. Joan Rice is just...luscious.
Various Painters: Charlton Heston, he-a no Italian even though he-a Michelangelo. Kirk Douglas didn't try to sound Dutch in Lust For Life. Laughton didn't try to sound Dutch in Rembrandt.
Casablanca: Did you buy Sydney Greenstreet as a fellow named "Signor Fararri"?
Dead Again: Ken Brannagh's American accent is a nice try, but...well, you can tell.
Silence of the Lambs: Anthony Hopkins does not sound American. But that fact doesn't, y'know, eat away at me. He's still terrific. (Actually, one of the books establishes that Hannibal Lecter grew up in Lithuania.)
Touch of Evil: Orson Welles always thought highly of Charlton Heston's work as a Mexican detective. It is, in fact, a very good performance, even though the accent comes and goes. Mercedes McCambridge (!) sounds silly as a Mexican gang leader.
X-Files: I Want to Believe: Billy Connally plays what I think is supposed to be an Irish priest, yet he sounds like pure Glasgow. Nevertheless, I quite enjoyed this underrated movie.
Swiss Family Robinson (any version): Does anyone sound Swiss?
Superman: Why is Brando trying to sound English? Why does he pronounce "Krypton" as "Kryptin"? How can Lois Lane afford that apartment? (The last question is not germane to this essay, but I'd still like an answer.)
The Departed: Jack Nicholson doesn't really try to sound Boston, except in one or two scenes. Who cares? It's Nicholson.
Highlander: Christopher Lambert. "Oui, I am zee Frenchman playing zee Scotsman. Fuck you!"
I could go on in this vein for a good long time. I would like to mention that Siobhan McKenna, the best St. Joan in history, played the French saint with a thick Irish brogue. Alas, she never did the role on screen (I've heard a recording), although Jane Fonda imitates McKenna-as-Joan in Klute. Siobhan plays the Virgin Mary in King of Kings. Apparently, she came to Bethlehem by way of Belfast.
13 comments:
Ever read that book "Smoking Is Sublime" and its last chapter's critical analysis of the smoking in Casablanca? You could do a nice little book on the countless accents in The Manchurian Candidate (Sank you Mista Shah! and how Angela enunciates 'evil').
Al Pacino as Tony Montana in "Scarface"
"Say haylo to my leetle fren!"
Ahnold as a Terminator cyborg with a Austrian accent
"Ah'll be bock"
In "The Missouri Breaks," Marlon Brando uses a different accent for almost every scene he's in--even though it's always the same character, making for one of the weirdest performances ever.
Jack Nicholson has the best line in Missouri Breaks(spoken in his unique accent):
"If you're wondering what woke you up, you just had your throat cut."
Also: "The closer you get to Canada, the more things'll eat your horse."
God, that was a weird movie. Did it have, like, a plot or anything? I honestly don't recall.
"Dead Again: Ken Brannagh's American accent is a nice try, but...well, you can tell."
I like anything Kenneth Brannagh is in – the good, bad, and the ugly. He is an interesting actor to watch. And his Henry V is right up there with Olivier’s, made contemporary for the Vietnam and Falkland generation.
bert in Ohio
The Missouri Breaks. Wow. Nothing like watching a horse snuff film!
Then again, with a maudlin John Williams soundtrack and pablum from Penn, maybe this film was meant as a way to get people to talk.... Like the way that Alice's Restaurant and Little Big Man were used for torturing stray Weatherpeople and Panthers back in the early 70s... Actually, Tommy Ridge tried to make Mumia Abu Jamal watch "Four Friends" every night ...talk about torture!
"Missouri Breaks" was written by Tom McGuane, an excellent novelist.
Ian Flemming wrote Bond as a Scotsman after Dr. No, when he ended up liking Connery so much in the role. It goes to show you, after Dr. No, Flemming pictured Connery in his head as he was writing Bond.
Here in the Boston area, nobody's fake-local accent impresses us, including when Cambridge boys feign South Boston accents (Good Will Hunting).
George Clooney wisely chose to skip the accent, while his co-stars embarrassed themselves with their fakery in "The Perfect Storm."
The Missouri Breaks was great. The morans were told to act shocked^2 that Jack and Marlon were commanding ginormous salaries, like it was Koufax and Drysdale all over again. Except Koufax and Drysdale didn't depend on pseudohipsters' tastes. Isn't this blog a lot like Mickey One, though?
Did it have a plot. Hello? Who said there's only two plots - boy meets girl & there's a stranger in town? I always thought of Penn's movies not as movies so much as sphinxes, even The Miracle Worker. Anyway, Breaks is a very obvious anti-patriarchy variation on the Romance with the Electra theme (GWTW was pro-patriarchy) in the tradition of Joe and Badlands, and later versions Wild At Heart, Natural Born Killers (plus I think HAL had similar unresolved parental issues). That laugh dance Jack does is Walter Huston's jig from The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre, and you know who Jack's olady was then. Uncomfy theme for American movies. Polanski and Truffaut worked it a few times. Maybe it's our refusal to confront our fascist tendencies.
I think the two plots are actually "A man leaves his home" and "a stranger comes to town." I'll look it up.
I enjoy "My Name is Earl" for many reasons, but chief among them is that Earl embodies the voice and manner (if not the actual accent) of every Baltimore-area billy boy I've ever met. Watching that show is like hanging in Pasadena or Glen Burnie and I dig it.
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