Dialects/Accents in the Movies

[Cobden]

I'm a big fan of the idea that Ancient Romans always spoke with posh British accents. What ho, Brutus?

There are, weirdly, a couple of reasons for this. The most obvious is that the best known representations of the Roman's are those present by Shakespeare (which is of course always done in a British RP accent). The other is that it allows those who know nothing of Roman history and social structure to immediately understand a characters place in the social spectrum - the British accents having as much to do with social class as location. By giving a patrician an aristocratic, southern English accent, an equestrian a middle class RP accent, and plebian a cockney accent, even those not from the UK (due to exposure to these accent variations through other films and media) will immediately be able to ascertain where they sit in the social strata

 

[bil_maxx]

Did you notice that too? He even got our upward inflections. Very talented indeed!

Yes, exactly. I thought I was the only one that noticed it, haha.

 

[hatophile]

How did they do in 'The Big Easy'? That tends to be how I imagine a New Orleans / Creole accent, was it even close?

It's been years since I saw that movie, but it was filmed in New Orleans, so many of the accents you hear should be pretty close. I just watched a Youtube cut from the movie, Quaid's Cajun is a bit thick.

 

[Dated Guy]

The poor dear Keanu Reeves, in his most fantastical Englishness, portraying the Jonathon Harker character in 'Bram Stokers Dracula' was an experience not to be missed. Then ironically, we have a British guy, Gary Oldman, portraying, rather well I thought, Dracula from the Carparthian Mountains. He adopts a rather wonderful accent at times... The film continuity is a tad haphazard, but some of the character accents are very enjoyable....

 

[W-D Forties]

I think the dodgy accents in Coppola's Dracula are deliberate to add to the theatrecality of it all. At least I hope so...

 

[Gingerella72]

One of the uses that Hollywood has made of the Mid-Atlantic/Received Pronunciation, (i.e. 'English'), accent is to provide distance and suspension of disbelief to American audiences when a film is set in the past in foreign countries. If the actors are speaking with a standard American accent, (or worse, a regional American accent), it becomes harder for the audience to buy into the movie. The 'English' accent helps allow the audience to accept that the characters in a movie are speaking a language 'of not here and now' while still being perfectly understandable. It also avoids the pitfalls of descending into dialect comedy.

I wonder if this same mindset was used for Les Miserables (live stage musical version)....I always found it a bit funny that the story is set in France yet everyone has such varied and remarkable English accents.

 

[LizzieMaine]

There are, weirdly, a couple of reasons for this. The most obvious is that the best known representations of the Roman's are those present by Shakespeare (which is of course always done in a British RP accent). The other is that it allows those who know nothing of Roman history and social structure to immediately understand a characters place in the social spectrum - the British accents having as much to do with social class as location. By giving a patrician an aristocratic, southern English accent, an equestrian a middle class RP accent, and plebian a cockney accent, even those not from the UK (due to exposure to these accent variations through other films and media) will immediately be able to ascertain where they sit in the social strata

The American equivalent would be having the Roman aristocrat talk like a Boston Brahmin (Kennedy English), the equestrian would sound like he was a radio announcer from the Midwest (Reagan English), and the plebian would sound like he was from Flatbush (Kramden English). I'd pay good money for a movie like that.

 

[Gingerella72]

Two of my favorite movies, The Full Monty and Brassed Off - aside from being great stories in and of themselves - are my favorites due to the yummy Yorkshire accents presented. I'm a sucker for a Yorkshire accent and I could watch these movies over and over simply for hearing everyone talk. Especially hearing how well the two Scotsmen did with it - Robert Carlyle in Monty and Ewan McGregor in Brassed.

Apparently the Yorkshire accent is difficult even for native Brits to pull off (fellow Brit loungers, correct me if I'm wrong!), as is seen in this remake of the classic Monty Python sketch Four Yorkshiremen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELmtC8TEiTU It cracks me up seeing Alan Rickman have such trouble with it, lol.

(the original Monty Python sketch for comparison: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FatHLHG2uGY )

 

[adouglasmhor]

Two of my favorite movies, The Full Monty and Brassed Off - aside from being great stories in and of themselves - are my favorites due to the yummy Yorkshire accents presented. I'm a sucker for a Yorkshire accent and I could watch these movies over and over simply for hearing everyone talk. Especially hearing how well the two Scotsmen did with it - Robert Carlyle in Monty and Ewan McGregor in Brassed.

Apparently the Yorkshire accent is difficult even for native Brits to pull off (fellow Brit loungers, correct me if I'm wrong!), as is seen in this remake of the classic Monty Python sketch Four Yorkshiremen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELmtC8TEiTU It cracks me up seeing Alan Rickman have such trouble with it, lol.

(the original Monty Python sketch for comparison: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FatHLHG2uGY )

The Python sketch was a cover. This is the Original http://www.healthcenterpro.info/pla...2C_Cleese%2C_Feldman_-_Four_Yorkshiremen.html