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Old 03-30-2012, 04:28 AM   #1
Lalwendë
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Ring Why are fantasy world accents British?

Interesting article on the BBC site today:

Why are fantasy world accents British?

They bring up the example of Kevin Costner in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves to show how jarring an American accent can sound when supposedly in an 'English' setting. Though really, should it matter in a fantasy film or series? What do you think?
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Old 03-30-2012, 07:52 AM   #2
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Originally Posted by Lalwendë View Post
Interesting article on the BBC site today:

Why are fantasy world accents British?

They bring up the example of Kevin Costner in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves to show how jarring an American accent can sound when supposedly in an 'English' setting. Though really, should it matter in a fantasy film or series? What do you think?
I think for film and stage adaptations of stories and books in general, sounding the part is every bit as important as acting it.

I know that in the movie Amadeus the American accents of the Emperor, and especially Tom Hulce's Mozart, mar for me what is otherwise an excellent film.
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Old 03-30-2012, 09:51 AM   #3
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I think for film and stage adaptations of stories and books in general, sounding the part is every bit as important as acting it.

I know that in the movie Amadeus the American accents of the Emperor, and especially Tom Hulce's Mozart, mar for me what is otherwise an excellent film.
Well, considering the entire assembly most likely should have been speaking either French (as was the courtly lingua franca of the time, even in the Holy Roman Empire) or Italian, I don't think the accents in Amadeus are jarring at all.

Robin Hood is a bit different, in that it is an English legend; therefore Costner's Midwestern American accent was off (as was his wooden acting). Of course, it could've been worse. You could have had Joe Pesci's New Jersey accent.
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Old 03-30-2012, 11:18 AM   #4
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I think it's something to do with how the rest of the English speaking world see's England as an old realm, somewhere almost ancient compared to where they find themselves in the modern world. The strange thing is, why don't those who used to be The Colonies speak with accents like ours, after all most of them came from here (England). I think the truth is, their accents are probably closer to how we used to speak back then than ours are today....therein lies the irony.

The other possibility is to look at all the accents from the British Isles and put them in a blender and you'll get New World accents. I don't think it should really matter, I enjoyed the American Radio Hobbit without any problem at all, if anything I dislike the visual imagery of the Hildebrandt Musketeer Fellowship more. One only has to look at the brilliant voice characterisation of Nicol Williamson's The Hobbit to know that Dwarves are from the North of England and not Scotland, Gollum is Welsh and the hobbits come from the West Country, so a pat on the back for Sean Astin's marvellous attempt.
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Old 03-30-2012, 04:08 PM   #5
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I have to admit, I think it was the right thing to do when Peter Jackson chose to have his actors use 'broadly' British accents in the LotR films, given that Tolkien himself was British and wrote so much about the development of the English language within this country. It would have been very peculiar to use other accents. I say 'broadly' as not all of them were delivered perfectly and some did sound a tad strangled. And I still find it strange that Pippin, Sam and Frodo all had different accents.

The article mentions A Game Of Thrones (and incorrectly states that the TV series was made for Americans - I suspect not that many have HBO as it's expensive and it was watched just as widely elsewhere) which is slightly different. There was no real reason for that series to feature British accents for the people of Westeros and they could have chosen anything, yet they managed to go even further than Peter Jackson did and have regional accents (one or two examples like Samwell and Sansa aside...).

I wonder if it is like narfforc says, and British accents still have some cachet of being 'old' and more fitting to a faux historic setting?

As for American accents being closer to older British accents, I think there's a Bill Bryson book which has a section about this and I'll have to dig it out. He once wrote about some areas around Chesapeake (islands off the coast...I think) where the locals had accents very similar to Shakesperean English, and about areas in Michigan which had lots of Cornish immigrants and retained some of the culture.
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Old 03-30-2012, 05:49 PM   #6
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historic setting?

...and about areas in Michigan which had lots of Cornish immigrants and retained some of the culture.
In Michigan, The Cornish stock mixed with immigrants from Norway in the state's Upper Peninsula (huge copper mining area), and became what is commonly known here as "Yoopers" (a bastardization of "Upper"). The nearest thing to "dah Yooper" accent is in dat dere movie Fargo, except even more pronounced, yah?
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Old 03-31-2012, 06:22 PM   #7
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Robin Hood is a bit different, in that it is an English legend; therefore Costner's Midwestern American accent was off (as was his wooden acting). Of course, it could've been worse. You could have had Joe Pesci's New Jersey accent.
It didn't help that, as I recall, his first line was something like "I need English courage now", which really did sound quite funny.

Of course, to echo narrforc's point, the "real" Robin Hood ( if there was such person) wouldn't have had anything like a modern British accent– or even have been speaking modern English. And yet, that kind of thing can indeed be jarring. Perhaps it's that *some* American accents already carry strong associations of their own for most viewers. I mean, if someone looks medieval but sounds like a cowboy, that pretty much does it for suspension of disbelief...
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Old 04-01-2012, 05:39 PM   #8
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It didn't help that, as I recall, his first line was something like "I need English courage now", which really did sound quite funny.

Of course, to echo narrforc's point, the "real" Robin Hood ( if there was such person) wouldn't have had anything like a modern British accent– or even have been speaking modern English. And yet, that kind of thing can indeed be jarring. Perhaps it's that *some* American accents already carry strong associations of their own for most viewers. I mean, if someone looks medieval but sounds like a cowboy, that pretty much does it for suspension of disbelief...
Similar to what I was about to say. British accents (especially RP) tend to be softer and less jarring to the ears. They usually just sound better.

Also, American actors tend to not smooth over their accents unless they are specifically told to. American English really has no special "broadcast" accent (the US equivalent of BBC English) that is used across the board for actors. There used to be one, but it has rather fallen into disuse.

Someone who looks medieval or like something that just stepped out of a fairytale but then sound like they are from Brooklyn/Mississippi/LA is just disconcerting.
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Old 04-02-2012, 03:55 PM   #9
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Similar to what I was about to say. British accents (especially RP) tend to be softer and less jarring to the ears. They usually just sound better.

Also, American actors tend to not smooth over their accents unless they are specifically told to. American English really has no special "broadcast" accent (the US equivalent of BBC English) that is used across the board for actors. There used to be one, but it has rather fallen into disuse.
British actors rarely, if ever, drop their natural accents these days unless the role demands it. Sean Bean is not an exception, our TV and film productions feature people with a full range of British accents (of which there are many). This is possibly as a lot of British people find RP incredibly jarring and difficult (I can barely understand what Tolkien says), possibly as there's simply no need for an actor to lose his/her accent.

It's true you'll not always hear anyone letting fly with a full-on Barnsley, Liverpool or Dundee accent on screen, complete with the local dialect, especially in things with an international audience, but even if gentled in some way accents are still there.

Evene when actors do try to drop the edge off their accent, it never entirely goes. One thing I enjoy about the films of LotR is how I can still tell Bean is from Sheffield and McKellen is from Wigan. I suppose that's just because I am used to hearing British voices though - if you had to get me to tell the difference between say American and Canadian or Aussie and New Zealand, I have to admit I'd be a bit lost.
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Old 04-19-2012, 08:15 PM   #10
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I mean, if someone looks medieval but sounds like a cowboy, that pretty much does it for suspension of disbelief...
As in how the Saxons sounded like they came from west Texas in this awful movie? I wonder why they made Skarsgĺrd speak in that manner...

Language is symbolic. It helps set a tone along with time and place in the minds of the audience. The Eagle is one example of movie makers choosing to make the Romans speak with an American accent, an unusual choice with a symbolic and political motivation to compare the US to the Roman Empire.
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Old 05-03-2012, 03:49 PM   #11
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About Gimli and the Scottish accent...it's not pitch perfect by a long way, he slips into Welsh at times.

One example is in this deleted scene. When he says "last one standing wins" there's more than a touch of Welsh. Shut your eyes and it could be a gruff Anthony Hopkins.

Now, why do people associate British accents with anything that has a 'medieval' feel? Could that have something to do with the enduring influence of Shakespeare? Readers view Shakespeare as representing Ye Olde England and he is their primary touching point for non-contemporary English usage. Hmmm?
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Old 05-04-2012, 09:44 PM   #12
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Now, why do people associate British accents with anything that has a 'medieval' feel? Could that have something to do with the enduring influence of Shakespeare? Readers view Shakespeare as representing Ye Olde England and he is their primary touching point for non-contemporary English usage. Hmmm?
Tempting as that theory is, I think it would be easy to overstate the influence of the Bard in that way.

I think it has a lot more to do with the fact that in the English speaking world the cultural antecedents during the middle ages were largely in England.
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Old 05-05-2012, 11:53 AM   #13
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Now, why do people associate British accents with anything that has a 'medieval' feel? Could that have something to do with the enduring influence of Shakespeare? Readers view Shakespeare as representing Ye Olde England and he is their primary touching point for non-contemporary English usage. Hmmm?
Tempting as that theory is, I think it would be easy to overstate the influence of the Bard in that way.

I think it has a lot more to do with the fact that in the English speaking world the cultural antecedents during the middle ages were largely in England.
Possibly, although there are large pockets of the English speaking world that also include other medieval cultures, such as the strong influence of French in Canada.
But there are in fact a great many summer theatres over here that are devoted to Shakespeare, not exclusively maybe, but with a primary focus. We even have a Shakespeare in the Park summer group. Certainly he is taught in schools whereas Chaucer and, for instance, John Milton are not.

There is another hugely influential form of Renaissance English that might still be well known here and which connotes "old English" or "old tymes" and that is the King Jame Bible. There are many English speaking Protestants here (well, at least in Canada) who still consider the KJB to be the superior translation to the myriad modern ones.

And for anyone into New Age stuff, one of the influential books is A Course in Miracles, in which a psychology professor alleges to channel a new message from Jesus. And it's entirely in a mishmash of KJB English. That might not be a hugely popular cultural influence but I think it suggests how strong is the nostalgic sentiment for old forms of the language as representative of something "not modern", not secular, not of the rational materialist perspective.

Just a suggestion (as I'm not a New Ager).
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Old 05-05-2012, 02:03 PM   #14
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And for anyone into New Age stuff, one of the influential books is A Course in Miracles, in which a psychology professor alleges to channel a new message from Jesus. And it's entirely in a mishmash of KJB English.
Because everybody knows that the Aramaic language Jesus spoke sounds strongly like Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion:

“Bless'd are 'em what are poor in spirit,
for 'em is what gets th' kingdom of 'Eaven.
Bless'd are 'em what mourn,
for 'em will be roight comforted.
Bless'd are 'em what are meek,
for 'em is what will in'erit th' earth....
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Old 05-05-2012, 03:53 PM   #15
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Tempting as that theory is, I think it would be easy to overstate the influence of the Bard in that way.

I think it has a lot more to do with the fact that in the English speaking world the cultural antecedents during the middle ages were largely in England.
Largely, but as Bethberry says, not wholly. And I think a lot of Americans (for example) still retain a very strong sense of their heritage which could have been from a number of places - Germany, Norway, Russia, Italy, Ireland...etc... Though with the main language used in the New World being English then if people from all kinds of places did look back to the origins of the English language, that goes to show how powerful an influence language was over a whole culture, even a new one.

Again, I wonder if things are different in say Montreal, New Orleans or Florida, which had other, stronger language influences than English. Would people with a long background in these places automatically think of English if they cast their minds back to the years before the Americas were colonised?

It's interesting though, that representations of 'medieval' culture from modern American (or made with the American market in mind) films, TV etc often have a more Germanic/European feel to them than an English one, despite the language. The knights are more elaborately fitted out, more colourful, and there is much more pageantry. This all came quite late, really, to English kings, as they were so busy killing one another for the throne or killing other kings and 'saracens' from 1066 onwards.
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Old 05-09-2012, 09:42 PM   #16
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It's interesting though, that representations of 'medieval' culture from modern American (or made with the American market in mind) films, TV etc often have a more Germanic/European feel to them than an English one, despite the language. The knights are more elaborately fitted out, more colourful, and there is much more pageantry. This all came quite late, really, to English kings, as they were so busy killing one another for the throne or killing other kings and 'saracens' from 1066 onwards.
Film is a visual medium. The more elaborate something is the more visually impressive.

And accuracy has never been very high on a film-maker's to do list.
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