comment #1

christian says ...

I also referenced the same exact thing when this discussion came up before. I expect a credit. Or cookie.

comment #2

Jason says ...

John McTiernan used the same "zoom into somebody's mouth and switch to English" technique in "The Hunt For Red October." It's very conspicuous. If the movie's good, it works. If the movie's bad, it's a joke.

Burt Lancaster's complete and utter refusal to use any sort of Gallic inflection as French resistance fighter Labiche in "The Train" worked for me.

comment #3

MilkMan says ...

Does anyone knows of any non-American movies, say, made in Russia, that take place in America with a cast-full of Russians trying to adopt an American accent. That seems pretty far-fetched, right?

comment #4

Walter Sobchak says ...

It's a tough call, but as long as the actors aren't going to speak in the native tongue, I like the idea of them using accents. It does seem a bit archaic, but if realism were the thing you wouldn't have Tom Cruise playing a German officer in the first place.

The disadvantage to not using an accent? Try watching "Midway". Unlike "Tora, Tora, Tora" they decided to not have the Japanese speak in their native tongue along with subtitles. Okay, fine. But then they got these Orange County Asian actors to play the smaller roles such as Japanese bomber pilots.

It's really bizarre seeing these guys in the cockpits of their Zeroes and Kates looking down at Pearl Harbor and sounding like a bunch of surfers. "Dude, that's TOTALLY the Arizona down there. Let's haze it with some bomb action, bra."

comment #5

Josh Massey says ...

The director has to acknowledge it for it to work, I think, like McTiernan in Red October and The 13th Warrior.

comment #6

bacio says ...

but as far as I know, they will not speak with a German accect, just plain English. So, I don´t know if there is going to be a switch moment, but it would be a lot weirder to have English and American actors speak with German accents because they would still speak English when they are supposed to speak German.

comment #7

Josh Massey says ...

If you're going to speak English, though, accents helps the illusion (even though, yes, it is a bit silly). Funny Jason brings up The Train, because I recently saw it for the first time and briefly wondered what the hell Lancaster's very American character was doing there.

comment #8

Ian Sinclair says ...

They won't have to change a thing as long as Cruise can nail a British dialect, perferably upper class as he is playing a nobleman. Americans have accepted British actors playing Germans (and Russians and Romans) without accents since the HOLOCAUST miniseries in the 70s.

Did anyone ever see the Michael Caine/Pierce Brosnan spy thriller THE FOURTH PROTOCOL? They gave all of the Russian characters American accents - it was a disaster, but an amusing one.

comment #9

Ian Sinclair says ...

Just remembered - did anyone see CONSPIRACY, the HBO drama about the Nazi planning of the Final Solution? That starred Kenneth Branagh too, and everyone spoke like English gentlemen - it made it all the more chilling.

comment #10

bmcintire says ...

It's less problematic when there is only one language being spoken in a film. HBO's CONSPIRACY is a good example of this. If they are going to include scenes with the Allied front (either French, English or American), that's where you run into problems.

comment #11

Hickenlooper says ...

Charleton Heston as the Mexican police detective Vargas in 'Touch of Evil' didn't even try to uses an accent. Just a little shoe polish.

comment #12

siamesecat says ...

"Does anyone knows of any non-American movies, say, made in Russia, that take place in America with a cast-full of Russians trying to adopt an American accent."

The 1960 film CITY OF THE DEAD (aka HORROR HOTEL) was set in the US (in Salem, Mass.), but was a British production, filmed in England, with an all-British cast (including Christopher Lee) affecting American accents.

comment #13

Joe Leydon says ...

I hate to say it, but I think you need the accents so some people in the audience will understand that the people on screen are supposed to be -- well, you know, German. Seriously. Whenever I show All Quiet on the Western Front in college classes, I always have some students who don't quite understand that the characters really aren't supposed to be Americans.

comment #14

thevisceral says ...

I think they should all speak Iglulik, just to fuck with everyone.

comment #15

MilkMan says ...

Thanks, siamesecat.

comment #16

nemo says ...

"Does anyone knows of any non-American movies, say, made in Russia, that take place in America with a cast-full of Russians trying to adopt an American accent."

The only Russian example I'm familiar with is a Russian Sherlock Holmes series from the early 80s with Vasili Livanov (Holmes) and Vitali Solomin (Watson). Until Jeremy Brett came along, the Russian version was about the best Holmes on film. It was very popular. They made 9 episodes, including a full-length version of "Hound of the Baskervilles".

The 1980s Russian actors get an obvious kick out of playing Victorian English gentlemen with all the Victorian British mannerisms, but they don't make any attempt to use a British accent. It's strictly a standard Moscow / Petersburg accent. Some of the supporting characters seem to use regional Russian accents.

An American or British accent in Russian is pretty obvious, and pretty painful to listen to. "Like a dog gnawing a bone" a Russian once told me, accurately.

comment #17

malibugigolo says ...

But the script is lame, so who cares what they sound like.

comment #18

Eric says ...

It might be worth pointing out that the all the characters in the concentration camp drama "The Grey Zone" speak English without accents, as a misguided attempt to avoid making the actors sound silly. It's actually a distraction--what are these American-sounding folks doing in concentration camps?

comment #19

nemo says ...

A recent phenomenon that fascinates me is non-Russian actors playing Russians speaking extended Russian dialog in western movies. What's up with that? Most of them do amazingly well at it, even though they learn the dialog phonetically.

It seems to be a recent popular acting stunt. But why is it always Russian? I can't think of any examples of English-speaking actors playing French or German characters speaking large quantities of French or German dialog. It's entertaining for me since I can understand the dialog and judge how well the actors carry off the stunt, but I wonder how much it does for the rest of the audience. And why not hire a Russian actor?

Some of the examples are pretty bad movies: Ciaran Hinds and Liev Schreiber in "Sum of All Fears". (They're both good, but the movie is horrible. Schreiber's character is actually an American agent, but he's supposed to speak the language well enough to pass as a Russian, and he does so, in a long dialog scene.)

Nicole Kidman, Vincent Cassel, Mathieu Kassovitz in "Birthday Girl". (Better movie, though not great.)

Viggo Mortensen and Vincent Cassel (again) in "Eastern Promises". (A good movie, despite Jeff Well's allergic reaction to it. The cornball Russian restaurant scenes went on painfully long. They were tougher to watch than the graphic violence.)

For an acting stunt, it's a stunt the English- and French-speaking actors mostly carry off well.

First prize for worse Russian dialog in an American movie goes to Ben Affleck in "Sum of All Fear". Yeah, he's supposed to be an American CIA analyst, but couldn't he have at least tried to get the pronunciation half right? Second prize goes to George Clooney in "Peacemaker". Both Affleck and Clooney were pathetic and incomprehensible, like they had a mouthful of potatoes.

Cruise and the British actors should do the whole movie in phonetically learned German! Cruise loves learning challenging new stunts for his roles -- juggling bottles, tricky pool shooting, popping wheelies in a wheelchair, acrobatics while suspended from the ceiling ...

comment #20

lipranzer says ...

In CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER, Joaquin de Almeida and Miguel Sandoval are speaking in Spanish with subtitles, and then there's a slow motion shot, and from there on, they're both speaking English in Spanish accents.

As for Cruise speaking with a German accent, he did horribly with an accent in FAR AND AWAY, but his accent didn't bother me in INTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE.

comment #21

Jack Price says ...

I know this film gets a lot of shit, but I actually appreciated how everyone spoke with their native-born accents in Enemy At The Gates (aside from Ed Harris and Bob Hoskins).

That's a fairly underrated film, now that I think back on it.

comment #22

arch451 says ...

It's probably a good bet that, within the context of the story, the characters in Valkyrie are sometimes speaking German and sometimes speaking English. They probably only speak German when they are undercover. I am less concerned with how they handle the accents as I am concerned with how they differenciate between different languages. Maybe they have a German accent only when they are supposed to be speaking German? Of course, ideally the actors should be speaking German when the characters are supposed to be speaking German. I just saw Black Book and I loved the seamless way the characters would sometimes speak in English, like when they were talking to American soldiers.

comment #23

arch451 says ...

Enemy At The Gates also had the hottest sex scene of all time.

comment #24

Mark B says ...

I agree this issue can be a tricky one. I had no problem with Ralph Feinnes' accent in SCHINDLER'S LIST, for example, probably because he was basically an unknown at the time. Cruise carries a bit more baggage. Maybe it'll work, though...

comment #25

frankbooth says ...

Ever seen a Hong Kong film in which a random European is cast as American (presumably because Asian audiences wouldn't notice the difference?)Any old white guy will do. There was one in which a very French-sounding dude is supposed to be an American Vietnam Vet--Heroes Shed No Tears, maybe?

Oh, and there are subtitles that don't match the dialogue, even when characters are speaking English. My memory is hazy, but I recall a guy yelling "Fuuuuuck yooouuuu!" to a title that read "Go to hell!" Just added to the fun at a midnight show.

comment #26

christian says ...

my favorite mixed language film is GUNHED, a japanese sci-fi action thriller from 1989. they have a multi-ethnic cast speaking to each other in both languages...and it works! check this film out if only for the very icoonic carpenter-ish dialogue, which i love.

comment #27

ZayTonday says ...

Memoirs of a Geisha.

That is all.