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An oddity of modern cinema The film Alexander is playing on my TV at the moment – the Oliver Stone version – and despite some of the sillier aspects, the battle scenes are pretty good. Question: why do so many Hollywood films seem to insist that many of the actors talk with a sort of suppressed Irish accent? We have Alexander talking like Dave Allen. WTF? And of course recently there was Russell Crowe talking in the same manner in the Robin Hood film.
I am not complaining too hard, though. For as has been noted, Russell Crowe had to deliver a speech that was pure “Tea Party”.
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I would ascribe it to trying to please the most people. Americans largely don’t pay attention to the distinctions among the milder British Isles accents, so long as they’re comprehensible to us, because they all sound just a tad foreign (and therefore perfect for historical movies). And I recall reading that the inhabitants of those isles have a strong preference for Irish accents in presenters, radio announcers, etc., as relatively neutral.
Two birds, one stone.
Imagine Alexander talks like Dave Allen because he is being played in the film by Colin Farrell, who is Irish. Since they are at pains to establish he’s a Macedonian hick, not a metro-Greek, leading the Greeks, then keeping an Irish accent while other cast members speak in different British ones is not totally bonkers.
Russell Crowe’s accent in Robin Hood is a failed attempt at Yorkshire.
The battle scenes “pretty good”? They had the men, they had the kit, and then they totally messed up the opportunity to show how the phalanx really worked and had sarissas waving around like a wheat-field in the wind. The historical adviser should have hanged himself.
Maybe it just comes with the genre by now?
In pop music, everyone has a suppressed inner-city black American accent.
The clowns at Warner Brothers are intending to make Akira with American actors.
Akira, which is set in JAPAN.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jafd97yJFOI
“He only said he done it so Ireland could be free”
As guy herbert says, it’s a reasonable enough device, and one which has long been neglected. Robin Hood era films usually have the nobs and peasants speaking indistinguishably, which I find irritating.
The ‘rural Greek = Irish’ meme has been around for while, though. Xena: Warrior Princess favours Irish folk music.
Gary:
You didn’t like Ricardo Montalban playing a kabuki actor in Sayonara? 😉
It’s not quite related to the subject of the post, but Claude Rains played a southern US prosecutor in They Won’t Forget, and a New York City police detective in They Made Me a Criminal. Gotta love classic Hollywood casting.
I have to agree with Stravagantisimo, the battle scenes may be cinematically good but they aren’t very true to what we know about Greek fighting. Film directors invariably show battles as big melees from the off but that isn’t very accurate.
Personally I thought that the purality of accents worked pretty well as a devise to explain that Greece was not really a single country but rather a set of independent states that had only just been forced under a single authority by Phillip.
This thing with accents in historical films set outside the Anglosphere has bothered me for ages, but I’m afraid there’s no way to get it right. I mean, you’d either have all of the cast speak in one uniform accent (Which one, American? And which particular American at that? Or which one in the UK, for that matter?), or just let each one of them speak in their native accent, whatever that may be these days?
Problem is in this global entertainment market is that there will always be someone somewhere who will cringe at this or that accent. My personal pet peeve are all those actors from god-knows-where that are supposed to pass for Russian mobsters. At least these days they make them learn a few lines of actual Russian, but don’t start me on their accents.
Speaking of Colin Farrell, a few days ago I caught some silly flick with Pierce Brosnan speaking in a heavy Irish accent, which struck me as very unusual, if not outright artificial – until I remembered that Brosnan is actually Irish. It’s a funny world we live in.
Alisa,
Two words:
Robbie
Coltrane
And Sam Neil in Hunt for Red October and his desire to drive a truck in Montana.
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned ‘Allo ‘Allo. when they sold that abroad – what did they do?
Personally, I’m working on my “Hollywood upper-class English villain” – Jeremy Irons can’t go on for ever! I look forward to being dispatched by Bruce Willis with a witty one-liner.
My personal pet peeve are all those actors from god-knows-where that are supposed to pass for Russian mobsters. At least these days they make them learn a few lines of actual Russian, but don’t start me on their accents.
Oh Gawd, the accents are just the start of it, though. Have you seen the depcition of Russians in Eastern Promises? Good grief! Then again, Gorky Park would have been a lot better had it not been full of English accents.
Irish accents are used because it sells. Everyone loves a “Begorrah, we’re so loveable us poor Oirish” especially when combined with “them focken English”.
One of the oddest screen moments for me, was John Wayne playing a Roman Centurion in the Greatest Story Ever Told. What with his “Tha hell I will !” accent and the funny walk, absolutely hilarious.
It’s going to get worse though. Disney are making a movie of Miss Marple, set in somewhere like the Florida Keys and with a 36 year old American babe in the part. That’s bloody sacrilege that is! The whole point of Miss Marple is that she is a canny old bird who lives in a little English village, who looks harmless but is as vicious as a tank full of piranhas.
Irish accents are used because it sells. Everyone loves a “Begorrah, we’re so loveable us poor Oirish” especially when combined with “them focken English”.
You have a point. Consider Braveheart with that totally ahistorical Oirish rogu and his lads. Correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t Longshanks the on e who had Irish soldiers.
The only Robin Hood film worth watching is the one with Alan Rickman.
“Why with a spoon, cousin?”
or
“No more merciful hangings – and cancel Christmas”
or even
“You – my room – 10pm – and bring a friend!”
Pure genius.
Makes me laugh just remembering it.
For the same reason they made Stephen Boyd wear tinted contacts in “Ben Hur” — villains simply do not have blue eyes.
That would be a way to go, Nick!
Tim, I actually liked that movie – but then I’m heavily biased towards Virgo Wassisname, accent or not;-)
Gary,
Don’t despair. Hollywood did all right with the Seven Samuri/Magnificent Seven conversion. There are several others but at my age they don’t come immediately to mind.
The fact that Yul Brynner was from Sakhalin (and looked it) and had the most universal accent around contibuted enormously.
He also contributed enormously.
There is a classic bit of Oliver Stone in the film Alexander.
Alexander refers to the Persian Empire being older than Greek civilization.
In reality it was (of course) the other way round.
This is not just an error – it is Oliver Stone doing his standard bash-the-West thing.
Irish accents are used because it sells. Everyone loves a “Begorrah, we’re so loveable us poor Oirish” especially when combined with “them focken English”.
I’m the exception. I can’t stand Hollywood’s doe-eyed portrayal of Ireland and the Southern Irish in America. Movies like The Quiet Man make me want to reach through the screen and strangle Barry Fitzgerald.
I found it refreshing the first time I saw Deborah Kerr in I See a Dark Stranger and saw the anti-Englishism of the Irish nationalists portrayed as a bad thing.
Ollie Stone is the most unbelievable shit ever to direct a movie.
If I had my way he’d be filming POV bukkake scenes in an Albanian brothel.
I think I see where they’re going with miss Marple- film is visual. Would an old woman in old fashions attract many people? Perhaps they could finesse it by having an old Marple accompanied by a young neice- you could then have a war of the generations to maintain interest whilst they solve crimes together. And perhaps a succession of boyfriends for the neice so you attract as much audience as you can.
As someone above pointed out, Farrell *is Irish but I also imagine that they connected up the Macedonians’ (and Alexander’s) love of a good piss-up/binge drinking with the Irish angle. And no-one, ever, has really convincingly attempted to create an authentic depiction of an ancient battle – a) we don’t really understand how they worked and b) the average punter couldn’t give a toss so long as there’s a decent amount of smiting and hacking.
And Crowe, enraged, nearly punched the critic (? Lawson on R4) who suggested that his ‘Yorkshire’ accent was a bit duff and sounded Irish. The Irishness was entirely accidental.
@Gary
The interesting thing though is that most anime characters look American.
“Nuke” Gray.
Actually Miss Maple was very successful with younger viewers (the BBC series was successful – both in Britain the United States).
Being an old women and being from a the world of a old style village – actually makes the character stand out.
By the way “Miss Maple” should be played by a sharp eyed and sharp nosed old women – not the “batty but sympathetic” type used in old films.
First one should hardly notice Miss Marple – the old lady in the background who does not draw attention to herself.
Then one should notice her – but wonder if she is actually a “baddie” (as the intent eyes observe everthing and one can start to feel the mind working).
My comments were in the lines of, “Well, if they must modify it, or think they must, then how about… ?”
I’m glad the series did well- those historic pieces often do. If they can stick to the originals, then good luck to them!