TOP 100 ACTOR SITES
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| Q&A: The Harvard Psychedelic Club Don Lattin, author of a new book on Timothy Leary's LSD experiments in the sixties, talks about altered consciousness and his own bad trip feedproxy.google.com |
Up in the Air: 'Clooney hits all the right notes' Reel review: George Clooney deserves an Oscar nomination for his pitch-perfect performance as a corporate downsizer addicted to being on the move in Juno director Jason Reitman's contemporary satire, says Andrew PulverAndrew PulverHenry Barnes guardian.co.uk |
Why Hollywood should abolish the ministry of silly accents Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon make a decent fist of South African accents in Invictus. But they are the latest in a long line of actors trying too hardAs someone who was born and brought up in South Africa, I was particularly interested to discover how Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon managed with the notoriously difficult South African accent in Clint Eastwood's Invictus. Actually, there are many South African accents, so a distinction has to be made between Nelson Mandela (Freeman), an English-speaking Xhosa, and François Pienaar (Damon), an English-speaking Afrikaner. The two Americans had a fairly good shot at it, despite sometimes betraying their origins, and Freeman slipping occasionally into Dalek mode. For most audiences, however, who don't have an ear especially attuned to the nuances of South African accents, Freeman and Damon will sound authentic enough.This follows worthy but inconsistent efforts by Denzel Washington and Kevin Kline in Cry Freedom (1987) and Leonardo DiCaprio in Blood Diamond (2006). Nevertheless, we've come a long way from the days when non-South African actors sounded like cockneys imitating Australians or vice versa.In Hollywood's past, the voice of a film star was as much part of their persona as their looks. Had they distorted their voices, audiences would have felt as cheated as if their idols had worn masks. Therefore, stars rarely put on accents even when playing foreigners. Imagine Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, Jimmy Stewart, Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, John Wayne or Bette Davis attempting, say, Spanish, French or Italian accents. (Their few efforts at foreign accents were phonic disasters.) Clark Gable always kept his American accent even as Parnell (1937), yet Robert Mitchum tried on an Irish one in Ryan's Daughter (1970) and an Australian one in The Sundowners (1960). But, as Jack Lemmon says to Tony Curtis, commenting on his Cary Grant imitation in Some Like It Hot (1959), "Nobody talks like that!"Marlon Brando was among the first Hollywood stars to try to get foreign accents right, though even he was defeated by a South African accent in A Dry White Season (1989). Relatively accurate as were his clipped English-accented Fletcher Christian in Mutiny on the Bounty (1962), his Irish in The Missouri Breaks (1976) and his German in The Young Lions (1958), they are closer to impersonations than performances. The problem with imitative accents is that they draw attention to themselves.However, it is sometimes just as absurd for actors to play foreigners without changing their accents. Sean Connery has habitually refused to alter his abrasive, shlightly shluring Scottish burr, no matter whether he is playing an Arab, a Russian, a Norwegian or even an Englishman. Yet, it might have been worse if Connery had affected an Arab accent in The Wind and The Lion (1975). (Ireland is still recovering from his faltering Irish accent in Darby Gill and the Little People, 1959, and The Untouchables, 1987.)From the beginning of sound cinema, accents created problems as crystallised in the character of Lina Lamont in Singin' in the Rain (1952). Among real examples was Czech actress Anny Ondra lip-synching dialogue provided by Joan Barry off-camera for Alfred Hitchcock's Blackmail (1929), when the film had to convert to sound.Film history is full of curiosities and anomalies connected with accents. In Hollywood's heyday, the most beautifully spoken English actors like Claude Rains, Herbert Marshall and David Niven had to flatten their vowels – for example "cant" for "carnt" – in the midst of superbly enunciated sentences, for the benefit of American audiences.Charles Boyer, the most echt Frenchman in Hollywood, incongruously played a middle-European-seeking refuge from the Nazis in Paris in Arch of Triumph (1948), while Ingrid Bergman, seldom called upon to play a Swede, portrayed a French girl in the same film. Bergman's Swedish accent served for a Lithuanian-born Czech in Stromboli (1950), a Polish countess in Eleanor et les Hommes (1956), a Russian in Anastasia (1956) and a Spaniard in For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943). The latter film also had Katina Paxinou (Greek) and Akim Tamiroff and Vladimir Sokoloff (both Russian) all playing Spaniards with their own accents. For Hollywood, one foreign accent was as good as another.Peter Sellers built his whole career on accents. Yet, it was not only his bizarre French accent as Inspector Clouseau – "fern" for "phone" – that was caricatural, but his Indian, Scottish, Chinese, American and German. But, unless one casts Indians to play Indians (unlike Alec Guinness in A Passage to India, 1984), Danes to play Danes (instead of accent-prone Meryl Streep's Karen Blixen in Out of Africa, 1985), Irishmen to play Irishmen (to avoid the many begorrah horrors) etc, most accents border on caricature.Because the authenticity of many films has been undermined by wonky accents, I propose that just as actors no longer "black up", accents should be left to native speakers. If this principle had been adopted, we would have all been spared Dick Van Dyke's cockney chimney sweep in Mary Poppins (1964), and many other candidates for the ministry of silly accents.DramaMorgan FreemanMatt DamonRonald Berganguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Stars line out for Haiti benefit Musicians, Hollywood actors, politicians and comedians have taken to the stage in a transatlantic effort to raise funds for Haiti. breakingnews.ie |
Megabucks dancing show deal for Abdul Paula Abdul has been offered a $1m (€1.15m) deal to appear on 'Dancing With The Stars'. breakingnews.ie |