English-language accents in film

Last updated

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.

Contents

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. Often, actors will work with their coaches for several months pre-production. Most critics of film accents credit the amount of time spent training with the quality and effectiveness of the replicated accent. [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 Mid-Atlantic accent, actors in film are instead trained to have a General American accent. Dialect coach Robert Easton said the Mid-Atlantic 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 until 1959, as "the leading British film expert on the portrayal of the Cockney", [2] while BBC News recognised 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 in I'm All Right Jack (1959). [4] Dick Van Dyke made a laughable attempt at a Cockney accent in Mary Poppins (1964). [5] Van Dyke admitted the notoriety of his attempted accent and said that his British co-star Julie Andrews told him that he never got it right. [6] 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 locals of South Wales. [9]

In 2005, when Welsh-born actress 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 criticised the accented performances as inaccurate. [11] Welsh-accented performances are uncommon in blockbuster films, though director Peter Jackson requested 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]

Irish accents

Ronald Bergan in The Guardian assessed several performances using Irish accents in film. He said Marlon Brando had a "relatively accurate" accent in The Missouri Breaks (1976). [13] Donald Clarke of The Irish Times commended the following non-Irish actors for their Irish accents in film: Cate Blanchett in Veronica Guerin (2003), Kate Hudson in About Adam (2000), Will Poulter in Glassland (2014), Paddy Considine in In America (2002), James McAvoy in Inside I'm Dancing (2004), Judi Dench in Philomena (2013), and Maggie Smith in The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1987). Clarke also recognized the performances of Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot (1989), In the Name of the Father (1993), and The Boxer (1997). He recognized Andrea Riseborough's performance in Shadow Dancer (2012) and Never Let Me Go (2010) and Angelica Huston's performance in The Dead (1987) and Agnes Browne (1999). [14]

Clarke was critical of Mark Strong's accent as Conor Cruise O'Brien in The Siege of Jadotville (2016). [14] Bergan was critical of Robert Mitchum's accent in Ryan's Daughter (1970) and Sean Connery having a "faltering" accent in the films Darby O'Gill and the Little People (1959) and The Untouchables (1987), having "habitually refused to alter" his Scottish one. [13] GQ 's Dan Sheehan was also critical of Connery's accent in The Untouchables. Sheehan also found Tom Cruise's accent in Far and Away (1992) problematic, as well as Nicole Kidman's, to a lesser degree. The writer said in Back to the Future Part III (1990) that Michael J. Fox's accent as his distant relative Seamus McFly had the "most endearingly dreadful Irish accent". Sheehan recognized Julia Roberts's good-faith efforts to nail Irish accents in Michael Collins (1996) and Mary Reilly (1996), "It’s not good, not by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s not completely atrocious either. And at least she never lapses into full-blown caricature." [15]

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. [16] With advent of sound film, Nazimova and other actors were not able to transition to speaking performances. [17] The Hollywood film Rasputin and the Empress (1932), a film about Imperial Russia, featured no Russian actors, and the cast did not attempt to use Russian accents. [18] The film Crime and Punishment (1935), based on the Russian novel of the same name, did not depict any characters with Russian accents. [19] Nicholas and Alexandra (1971) featured no significant Russian actors and no Russian accents depicted. [20] However, actor Akim Tamiroff, despite a thick Russian accent, was highly active in American film from the 1930s to the 1970s and featured in supporting roles in films like Touch of Evil (1958). [21] Maria Ouspenskaya, active from 1915 through 1949, was also known for her "unusual accent" and was often cast in "grandmotherly" roles. [22]

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 film Invictus (2009), Bergan said of Morgan Freeman's 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." [13]

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 film The Conqueror (1956) with little objection. French New Wave and Italian films in the 1950s and the 1960s, including The 400 Blows , Hiroshima mon amour (both 1959) and La dolce vita (1960), exposed U.S. film audiences to new accents. [23] The Los Angeles Times commented 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. [24]

Related Research Articles

British English is the set of varieties of the English language native to the island of Great Britain. More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England, or, more broadly, to the collective dialects of English throughout the British Isles taken as a single umbrella variety, for instance additionally incorporating Scottish English, Welsh English, and Ulster English. Tom McArthur in the Oxford Guide to World English acknowledges that British English shares "all the ambiguities and tensions [with] the word 'British' and as a result can be used and interpreted in two ways, more broadly or more narrowly, within a range of blurring and ambiguity"..

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rhyming slang</span> Any system of slang in which a word is replaced with a phrase that rhymes with it

Rhyming slang is a form of slang word construction in the English language. It is especially prevalent among Cockneys in England, and was first used in the early 19th century in the East End of London; hence its alternative name, Cockney rhyming slang. In the US, especially the criminal underworld of the West Coast between 1880 and 1920, rhyming slang has sometimes been known as Australian slang.

Cockney is a dialect of the English language, mainly spoken in London and its environs, particularly by Londoners with working-class and lower middle-class roots. The term Cockney is also used as a demonym for a person from the East End, or, traditionally, born within earshot of Bow Bells.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Caine</span> English actor (born 1933)

Sir Michael Caine is an English retired actor. Known for his distinctive Cockney accent, he has appeared in more than 160 films over a career that spanned eight decades and is considered a British film icon. He has received numerous awards including two Academy Awards, a BAFTA Award, three Golden Globe Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. As of 2017, the films in which Caine has appeared have grossed over $7.8 billion worldwide. Caine is one of only five male actors to be nominated for an Academy Award for acting in five different decades. In 2000, he received a BAFTA Fellowship and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Meryl Streep</span> American actress (born 1949)

Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep is an American actress. Known for her versatility and adept accent work, she has been described as "the best actress of her generation". She has received numerous accolades throughout her career spanning over four decades, including a record 21 Academy Award nominations, winning three, and a record 33 Golden Globe Award nominations, winning eight.

<i>Mary Poppins</i> (film) 1964 film by Robert Stevenson

Mary Poppins is a 1964 American musical fantasy comedy film directed by Robert Stevenson and produced by Walt Disney, with songs written and composed by the Sherman Brothers. The screenplay is by Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi, based on P. L. Travers's book series Mary Poppins. The film, which combines live-action and animation, stars Julie Andrews in her feature film debut as Mary Poppins, who visits a dysfunctional family in London and employs her unique brand of lifestyle to improve the family's dynamic. Dick Van Dyke, David Tomlinson, and Glynis Johns are featured in supporting roles. The film was shot entirely at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California, using painted London background scenes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gary Oldman</span> English actor (born 1958)

Gary Leonard Oldman is an English actor and filmmaker. Known for his versatility and intense acting style, he has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, three British Academy Film Awards, and nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards. His films have grossed over $11 billion worldwide, making him one of the highest-grossing actors of all time.

The Glasgow dialect, also called Glaswegian, varies from Scottish English at one end of a bipolar linguistic continuum to the local dialect of West Central Scots at the other. Therefore, the speech of many Glaswegians can draw on a "continuum between fully localised and fully standardised". Additionally, the Glasgow dialect has Highland English and Hiberno-English influences owing to the speech of Highlanders and Irish people who migrated in large numbers to the Glasgow area in the 19th and early 20th centuries. While being named for Glasgow, the accent is typical for natives across the full Greater Glasgow area and associated counties such as Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, Dunbartonshire and parts of Ayrshire, which formerly came under the single authority of Strathclyde. It is most common in working class people, which can lead to stigma from members of other classes or those outside Glasgow.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dick Van Dyke</span> American actor and comedian (born 1925)

Richard Wayne Van Dyke is an American actor, entertainer and comedian. His work spans screen and stage, and his accolades include a Golden Globe Award, a Tony Award, and six Emmy Awards. Inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1995 and the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1993, he was also honored with the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2013, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2020, and was recognized as a Disney Legend.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J. Pat O'Malley</span> English actor (1904–1985)

James Rudolph O'Malley was an English character actor and singer who appeared in many American films and television programmes from the 1940s to 1982, using the stage name J. Pat O'Malley. He also appeared on the Broadway stage in Ten Little Indians (1944) and Dial M for Murder (1954).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Serafinowicz</span> English comedian and actor (born 1972)

Peter Szymon Serafinowicz is an English comedian, actor, director, and screenwriter. His film roles include the voice of Darth Maul in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999), Pete in Shaun of the Dead (2004), Garthan Saal in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), the voice of Big Daddy in Sing (2016) and Sing 2 (2021), and The Sommelier in John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emily Blunt</span> British actress (born 1983)

Emily Olivia Laura Blunt is a British actress. She is the recipient of several accolades, including a Golden Globe Award and two Screen Actors Guild Awards, in addition to nominations for an Academy Award and four British Academy Film Awards. Forbes ranked her as one of the highest-paid actresses in the world in 2020.

The International Phonetic Alphabet chart for English dialects complies all the most common applications of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to represent pronunciations of the English language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen Graham</span> British actor

Stephen Joseph Graham is a British actor and producer. He began his career in 1990, with early notable roles including Tommy in Snatch (2000) and Shang in Gangs of New York (2002), before his breakthrough role as Andrew "Combo" Gascoigne in the film This Is England (2006).

A dialect coach is a technical advisor who supports actors as they craft voice and speech patterns for characters in the context of productions be it in an on-camera setting, stage setting, or voiceover setting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Easton (actor)</span> American actor (1930–2011)

Robert Easton was an American radio, film, and television actor whose career spanned more than 60 years. His mastery of English dialect earned him the epithet "The Man of a Thousand Voices". For decades, he was a leading Hollywood dialogue or accent coach.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jack Nicholson</span> American actor and filmmaker (born 1937)

John Joseph Nicholson is an American retired actor and filmmaker. Nicholson is widely regarded as one of the greatest actors of the 20th century. Throughout his five-decade career he received numerous accolades, including three Academy Awards, three BAFTA Film Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, and a Grammy Award. He also received the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award in 1994 and the Kennedy Center Honor in 2001. In many of his films, he played rebels against the social structure.

The English language spoken and written in England encompasses a diverse range of accents and dialects. The language forms part of the broader British English, along with other varieties in the United Kingdom. Terms used to refer to the English language spoken and written in England include English English and Anglo-English.

The pronunciation of the phoneme in the English language has many variations in different dialects.

<i>Mare of Easttown</i> 2021 American crime drama television miniseries

Mare of Easttown is an American crime drama television miniseries created and written by Brad Ingelsby for HBO. Directed by Craig Zobel, the series premiered on April 18, 2021, and concluded on May 30, 2021, consisting of seven episodes. It stars Kate Winslet as the titular detective, who investigates a murder in a small town outside Philadelphia. Julianne Nicholson, Jean Smart, Angourie Rice, Evan Peters, Sosie Bacon, David Denman, Neal Huff, James McArdle, Guy Pearce, Cailee Spaeny, John Douglas Thompson, and Joe Tippett appear in supporting roles.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Baskin, Ellen (June 4, 2000). "A Pronounced Trend". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved September 11, 2014.
  2. Shafer, Stephen (2003). British Popular Films 1929-1939: The Cinema of Reassurance. Routledge. p. 42. ISBN   978-1-134-98837-2.
  3. Higham, Nick (April 23, 2005). "Sir John Mills: A very English actor". news.bbc.co.uk. BBC News . Retrieved September 11, 2014.
  4. Blumfeld, Robert (2002). Accents: A Manual for Actors, Volume 1 . Hal Leonard Corporation. p.  55. ISBN   978-0-87910-967-7.
  5. Walshe, Shane (2009). Irish English as Represented in Film. Peter Lang. p. 186. ISBN   978-3-631-58682-2.
  6. Staff (January 28, 2013). "Dick Van Dyke: Julie told me I never got the Cockney accent right in Mary Poppins". The Independent . Retrieved September 11, 2014.
  7. "The 16 worst on-screen accents ever". telegraph.co.uk . 17 February 2016. Retrieved 30 April 2016.
  8. Levy, Glen (30 April 2016). "Top 10 Worst Fake British Accents: Don Cheadle, Ocean's Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen". time.com . Retrieved 30 April 2016.
  9. Lyall, Sarah (May 28, 1995). "The Hardest Part: Making the Actors Sound Welsh". The New York Times . Retrieved September 11, 2014.
  10. Staff (November 10, 2005). "Zeta tells Charlotte 'change your accent'". WalesOnline . Retrieved September 11, 2014.
  11. Haines, Lester (February 13, 2007). "US film critics slap Calcutta-born Welsh". The Register . Retrieved September 11, 2014.
  12. Owens, David (April 6, 2014). "Luke Evans gets in The Hobbit of using Welsh accent as Bard the Bowman in Desolation of Smaug". WalesOnline . Retrieved September 11, 2014.
  13. 1 2 3 Bergan, Ronald (January 19, 2010). "Why Hollywood should abolish the ministry of silly accents". The Guardian . Retrieved September 29, 2014.
  14. 1 2 Clarke, Donald (September 24, 2016). "Ten excellent Irish accents by 'overseas' actors". The Irish Times . Retrieved February 22, 2020.
  15. Sheehan, Dan (March 15, 2018). "Let's Celebrate the Worst Irish Accents of All Time". GQ . Retrieved February 22, 2020.
  16. Robinson 2007 , p. 17
  17. Robinson 2007 , p. 16
  18. Robinson 2007 , p. 24
  19. Robinson 2007 , p. 33
  20. Robinson 2007 , p. 26
  21. Robinson 2007 , p. 73
  22. Robinson 2007 , p. 82
  23. Christon, Lawrence (November 8, 2007). "Hollywood more accepting of accents". Variety . Retrieved September 11, 2014.
  24. Valdespino, Anne (July 23, 2002). "Acting in the Thick of Accents". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved September 24, 2014.

Bibliography