English-language accents in film

In film, English-language accents can be part of acting performances. Actors use dialect coaches to speak in an accent other than their own. Accents can vary by locality, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and other factors. In film, accents are scrutinized by film critics and film audiences alike. Throughout film history, certain actors are known for their accents, and certain accents in individual films have been judged as exceptionally good or bad.

Dialect coaching

In the 1990s, dialect coaches became significant in the film industry as more filmmakers began employing them to train actors to speak in accents. The Los Angeles Times described the general training approach, "It's a process that involves repetition, studying audio- and videotapes, visits to locations where the characters live, along with breathing and vocal exercises." Coaches start "by breaking down the script phonetically" using the International Phonetic Alphabet, and since most actors are not familiar with the alphabet, the coaches use other approaches to train actors, such as word lists or tapes. Coaches often have archives of sample tapes to reference in their work. They are usually brought in during rehearsals, the post-production process, or emotional scenes that challenge an accepted performance. In the credits, they are usually listed as dialogue consultants.^[1]

American accents

American accents became increasingly adopted by non-American actors by 2000. With many film-related opportunities available in the United States, actors trained to have American accents to be more competitive. At the 72nd Academy Awards honoring films of 1999, all non-American actors nominated in the four acting categories portrayed American characters, including British actor Michael Caine, who won Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Cider House Rules. Another attribution to the trend is with films increasingly being co-financed by non-U.S. interests, film producers became more willing to cast non-American actors.^[1]

While actors in theatre are traditionally trained to have a "Standard American" accent, actors in film are instead trained to have a General American accent. Dialect coach Robert Easton said the Standard American accent was "too semi-British" and opted for General American. Easton commended British actors in learning American accents, "[They] in general are very open to doing whatever is necessary to create the character, not only in terms of dialect, but in terms of body language, mannerisms and so forth. It's an oversimplification, but the English tend to try and use themselves to find and express the character, whereas Americans are more likely to use the character to express themselves."^[1]

British accents

Cockney

Historian Stephen Shafer identifies actor Gordon Harker, active from 1921 through 1959, as "the leading British film expert on the portrayal of the Cockney",^[2] while BBC News recognized the skill of actor John Mills (active 1932-2004) in Cockney speech.^[3] Dialect coach Robert Blumenfeld highlighted as an "excellent" cinematic example of Cockney speech the performances of Peter Sellers and Irene Handl (the latter originally Cockney) in I'm All Right Jack (1959).^[4] Dick Van Dyke's attempted a Cockney in Mary Poppins (1964).^[5] Van Dyke admitted his fame for the accent and said his British co-star Julie Andrews told him that he never got it right.^[6] More recently Don Cheadle's Cockney accent in the remake of Ocean's Eleven and its sequels has been heavily criticised and compared to Van Dyke's.^[7][8]

Welsh

Because of the Welsh language's musical quality, the Welsh English accent is difficult for non-Welsh actors to master. The language has Celtic roots like Irish Gaelic but is more arcane. Dialect coach Penny Dyer said, "The Welsh language has the loosest intonation system in the whole of the British Isles." The accent is more difficult than Irish and Scottish. For How Green Was My Valley (1941), set in Wales but filmed in California, director John Ford avoided depicting the Welsh accent by casting British and Irish actors who spoke with Irish accents. For the British film The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain (1995), director Christopher Monger sought to capture the accent onscreen by having actors Colm Meaney, Tara FitzGerald, and Ian Hart trained to sound like denizens of South Wales.^[9]

In 2005, when Welsh-born actor Catherine Zeta-Jones encouraged Welsh singer-songwriter Charlotte Church to hide her native accent in pursuit of an acting career, Welsh film critic Gary Slaymaker and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art both decried the need for the disguise. RADA's Dominic Kelly said, "We get a couple of Welsh accents through here every year, and there's now an increasing amount of demand for them. A few years ago it was Scottish, but now Welsh is very much in vogue. As long as people can understand what you are saying, the Welsh accent is a bonus. Voices need character and individuality." Slaymaker said, "It's unlikely they'll be able to tell the difference between a Welsh or Irish accent. It'll just be seen as colourful."^[10]

The 2007 film The Last Sin Eater, produced in the United States, depicted a Welsh American community living in the Appalachian Mountains, but U.S. critics criticized the accented performances as inaccurate.^[11] Welsh-accented performances are uncommon in blockbuster films, though director Peter Jackson requested for Welsh-born actor Luke Evans to use his native accent for his character in The Hobbit films. The decision also led to casting Welsh-accented actors to portray the character's family.^[12] An upcoming film about the gay Welsh rugby player Gareth Thomas will star actor Mickey Rourke as the player; the role will involve Rourke adapting a Welsh accent.^[13]

Russian accents

During the silent film era in the United States, Russian-born actors like Alla Nazimova were able to perform in roles even if they had Russian accents or could not speak English.^[14] With advent of sound film, Nazimova and other actors were not able to transition to speaking performances.^[15] In 1932, Hollywood released Rasputin and the Empress, a film about Imperial Russia, though the film featured no Russian actors, and the cast did not attempt to use Russian accents.^[16] The 1933 film Crime and Punishment, based on the Russian novel of the same name, did not depict any characters with Russian accents.^[17] In 1971, Nicholas and Alexandra was released in 1971 with no significant Russian actors and no Russian accents depicted.^[18] However, actor Akim Tamiroff, despite a thick Russian accent, was actively in film from the 1930s to the 1970s and featured prominently as a sidekick in films like Touch of Evil (1958).^[19] Maria Ouspenskaya, active from 1915 through 1949, was also known for her "unusual accent" and was often cast in "grandmotherly" roles.^[20]

South African accents

Ronald Bergan, writing in The Guardian, said in 2010 that South African accents were "notoriously difficult" for actors to speak. Bergan said actor Marlon Brando, who attempted foreign accents, was not able to convey a South African one in A Dry White Season (1989). Bergan also called "worthy but inconsistent efforts" the performances of Denzel Washington and Kevin Kline in Cry Freedom (1987) and that of Leonardo DiCaprio in Blood Diamond (2006). Of the 2009 film Invictus, Bergan said of Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon's performances, "For most audiences... who don't have an ear especially attuned to the nuances of South African accents, Freeman and Damon will sound authentic enough."^[21]

History of accents in the United States

Lawrence Christon, writing in Variety in 2007, said in U.S. film in the first half of the twentieth century, "actors spoke in a kind of neutralized Midwestern dialect," with actors like Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck having distinct qualities. Actor John Wayne conveyed a similar dialect even as the Mongol ruler Genghis Khan in the 1956 film The Conqueror with little objection. The French New Wave in the 1950s and the 1960s imported films, including La dolce vita, The 400 Blows, Hiroshima mon amour, and exposed U.S. film audiences to new accents.^[22] The Los Angeles Times said in 2000, "Once upon a time, what characters said in a film was more important than how they said it. For years, Hollywood played fast and loose with foreign accents, generally relying on a stable of European character actors to provide international flavor, with the overall attitude being something along the lines of 'one accent fits all.'" The newspaper said many credited Meryl Streep "for raising the accent bar" with her portrayal of a Polish woman in the 1982 film Sophie's Choice. Streep subsequently performed with other accents and became the standard against which other actors' accented performances were compared.^[1] The Los Angeles Times said in 2002 that female actors, including Streep and Gwyneth Paltrow, had more success in accented performances than male actors.^[23]

References

Bibliography

• Robinson, Harlow (2007). Russians in Hollywood, Hollywood's Russians: Biography of an Image. University Press of New England. ISBN 978-1-55553-686-2.