Re: Speaking of terms obscure to outsiders....

In message <JHoGw1.Dno@xxxxxxxxxxx>, Dorothy J Heydt <djheydt@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes
In article <t6F0$BjK3zPGFwMG@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Jacey Bedford <lookinsig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In message <JHnL6p.L41@xxxxxxxxxxx>, Dorothy J Heydt
<djheydt@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes
In article <uc9t335u57aojc3fvr57menr6bbhgbbk37@xxxxxxx>,
John F. Eldredge <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 07 May 2007 02:14:54 GMT, "Dan Goodman" <dsgood@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Caution: Never take the speech in an American movie or TV show as
being the speech of the place where it's supposedly set.

I think that this particular warning is true regardless of what
nationality or language you are talking about. The motion picture
industry is notorious for picking people of one linguistic background
and casting them as people of some other linguistic background.

More to the point, it will take people of whatever linguistic
background on criteria having nothing to do with their speech
habits, and cast them as people of some other background, again
without regard to their speech habits or how they can or cannot
be trained to fit the role.

Two words: Sean Connery

Well, Bob Hoskins too. There *are* actors who can convincingly
fake the speech patterns of other groups. Most of them are
British and were actually *trained* to act, rather than just
getting bought up by Hollywood for having photogenic faces and/or
bodies.

A lot of trained English actors have already learned their RP English and shed their regional accent before they take their first acting job. Patrick Stewart, for instance has an impeccable RP English accent but his natural accent is Yorkshire. As he came frm Mirfield, close to where I live. There's not a trace of mirfield in his English (though he can still do a very natural Yorkshire accent when he wants to).

Sean Bean tries hard, but even when speaking in an RP accent he always sounds like a Sheffield boy 'talking posh' to me. (His Boromir sounded just like that.) His best roles are always in his own native accent ( like Richard Sharpe in all the Sharpe's Rifles TV programmes), though I've heard him do a very good Irish accent.

The guy who plays Sayid (sp?), the Iranian, on Lost has a very convincing Middle Eastern accent. IIRC he was the same actor who played the Indian motor cyclist in The English Patient. I was gobsmacked to hear him in an interview. He's got a genuine British Essex-Boy accent. His natural accent completely spoils the sexy image, so his 'acted' accents must be pretty good.

James Marsters (Spike in Buffy) does a very good English accent. hardly a slip at all.

Jacey
--
Jacey Bedford
jacey at artisan hyphen harmony dot com
posting via usenet and not googlegroups, ourdebate
or any other forum that reprints usenet posts as
though they were the forum's own

.

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