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Post by Deleted on Jul 5, 2018 0:45:50 GMT
Does a flawless accent improve a performance for you? Does a dodgy one lessen a performance?
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Post by HELENA MARIA on Jul 5, 2018 0:53:29 GMT
It really depends on whether you're going for naturalism or not. I agree that if it's a movie where the story takes place in England for instance , then it helps for the actors/actresses to have accurate english accents so that disbelief can be suspended.
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Post by stephen on Jul 5, 2018 0:53:36 GMT
What matters isn't necessarily accuracy, but rather how distracting it is to listen to. If an accent sounds fake or affected, then it can definitely take me out of the experience. I've heard accents that were claimed by experts to be "spot on" that nevertheless felt unnatural, so regardless of how close it is to the real accent/person, I still think accuracy is less important than believability.
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Post by pacinoyes on Jul 5, 2018 1:18:31 GMT
Depends but look at Mirren and Plummer who didn't even try them (!) in The Last Station and were great and nodded.
Usually it's the least important thing and often it's not the only thing right or wrong within a performance either. People seize on them wrongly and for the most part people punish established actors for trying accents because eventually you know a voice that you link to an actor.
It's also ridiculously overvalued by most who want to appear like they are rating the whole performance by addressing it (they're not). As Streep once said when she gets praise for accents "it's like people saying you have nice feet". Saiorse Ronan is positively great at them but that isn't why she's great after all, its incidental.
In general people use their personal experience to judge but that experience assumes an equal playing field which isn't true either. One of my best friends grew up in the South and moved to NYC as a still young girl. What comes out of her mouth people would call a bad accent if she was a film character.
Pacino - who I often call the best post-Brando American actor is a horror show of accents really but when he's awful at them he's at his most creative and inspired too - I know people that sound like Tony Montana because they mimic his speech patterns from Scarface. One of his 5 greatest performances is in the 50 minute long The Local Stigmatic where he has a shaky accent but it serves a performance that is a staggering tour de force on many levels and the accent has to be attempted since much of it is British slang dialogue - if he didn't do the role, no one would have done it. It's not like anyone else would have filmed it......and if you stop at the accent, you miss everything else he does so well in the role.
On the other hand, as Hoffa in The Irishman Pacino is going to have to pull off another voice - not an accent so much but something that isn't his own - Hoffa is too distinct a figure to pull off otherwise......big risk for him I think.
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Post by therealcomicman117 on Jul 5, 2018 2:11:28 GMT
Depends on whether or not the actor themselves put on accent. Sometimes I find it distracting, other times it doesn't bother me at all. Sean Connery has played so much nationalities, and he always has a Scottish accent, and I'm generally fine with it. Heck there are plenty of actors who have accused of being off with their regional accents, and for the most part it doesn't really bother me. Sometimes it can even add to the performance.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Jul 5, 2018 2:23:43 GMT
Not generally, but if it's super pronounced and obvious it can definitely feel like an affectation (Forest Whitaker in Crying Game, Audrey Hepbrun in My Fair Lady, Leo Dicaprio in Blood Diamond, Meryl Streep in Out of Africa, etc) and it totally lessens the performance for me in those cases.
Conversely, Streep's flawless Polish accent in Sophie's Choice doesn't make the performance by itself, but it does make a great performance even more impressive.
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chris3
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Post by chris3 on Jul 5, 2018 3:32:25 GMT
It really depends. Sometimes it can ruin a performance and a whole film (Leo in Blood Diamond), sometimes it doesn't matter at all (Peter Dinklage's accent in Game Of Thrones is flat-out atrocious but he's still a wonderful Tyrion Lannister, at least in the first few seasons). In period pieces I tend to love it when accents are abandoned and everyone speaks with their normal voices (such as Amadeus and Marie Antoinette). Same thing with non-English speaking settings. It annoys me in things like The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo remake where everyone is speaking English but doing different levels of Swedish accents. Daniel Craig barely tries, Robin Wright goes big and fails miserably, and Rooney Mara excels but it's ultimately pointless since she's sharing the screen with Craig who's basically speaking like a Brit. It makes no sense!! Just let them speak in their own accents or even better shoot the film in the actual foreign language Inglourious Basterds-style.
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Post by mikediastavrone96 on Jul 5, 2018 4:00:56 GMT
Depends on if what the actor is doing vocally fits with the overall performance. I don't really care that much whether they're nailing the accent because I think what an actor is doing and the material they're working with should be strong enough that the accent is a secondary characteristic of the character. I've forgiven plenty of performances with inconsistent accents (Michael Keaton in Spotlight, Kate Winslet in Steve Jobs) because the performances were very strong otherwise and the shaky accent wasn't distracting enough to completely take me out of it, usually in those cases it's because they aren't using a strong accent and are instead being a bit more subdued in that vocal work. Going big with the accent is a major risk and I think much easier for people to criticize, but in cases like DDL in There Will Be Blood or Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny, it adds a lot to the characters that they are vocally so defined.
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Post by JangoB on Jul 5, 2018 7:57:02 GMT
Not really, unless it's like horrendously silly-sounding and distracting. Although I do have to say that English-speaking actors attempting to do Russian accents almost always makes me giggle.
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Post by evilbliss on Jul 5, 2018 8:50:38 GMT
What matters isn't necessarily accuracy, but rather how distracting it is to listen to. If an accent sounds fake or affected, then it can definitely take me out of the experience. I've heard accents that were claimed by experts to be "spot on" that nevertheless felt unnatural, so regardless of how close it is to the real accent/person, I still think accuracy is less important than believability. I was going to say this. Not the accuracy but if its distracting it can be really bad. Like Anne Hathaway in One Day
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Post by Johnny_Hellzapoppin on Jul 5, 2018 12:22:15 GMT
I like an accent to be good and if possible great, but unless it's distractingly bad, I can live with a weak effort.
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Post by theycallmemrfish on Jul 5, 2018 15:37:08 GMT
Peter Dinklage is absolutely amazing in Game of Thrones and he probably has one of the worst English accents on television. For me, if it's preferable if you're doing the accent well... but if you're good, you're still gonna be good-- just with a crap accent.
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Post by mhynson27 on Jul 5, 2018 16:00:53 GMT
Usually a somewhat iffy accent doesn't really affect things for me. On the flip side, an exceptionally good accent can elevate the performance even more in my eyes. A recent example of this being Dev Patel's flawless Aussie accent in Lion.
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Post by bob-coppola on Jul 5, 2018 16:29:24 GMT
English is not my first language, and I might not have a very good ear to accents, so it's not something I really pay attention to. Like, Saoirse Ronan is very good at accents and does it very naturally, but I don't think I pay attention to that. You could argue it's because she's that good, but some examples of bad accent like Hathaway in One Day don't bother me either.
When I'm bothered by that, it's more when americans do british accent, but I'm not familiar with Aussie accent, or the countless inner-USA accents, or other british accents enough to distinguish 'em.
With that said, I like when actors can nail very eccentric accents, like Streep in Sophie's Choice or Portman in Jackie.
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Post by mhynson27 on Jul 5, 2018 17:51:48 GMT
English is not my first language, and I might not have a very good ear to accents, so it's not something I really pay attention to. Like, Saoirse Ronan is very good at accents and does it very naturally, but I don't think I pay attention to that. You could argue it's because she's that good, but some examples of bad accent like Hathaway in One Day don't bother me either. When I'm bothered by that, it's more when americans do british accent, but I'm not familiar with Aussie accent, or the countless inner-USA accents, or other british accents enough to distinguish 'em. With that said, I like when actors can nail very eccentric accents, like Streep in Sophie's Choice or Portman in Jackie. Here's a very basic guide: Dev Patel in Lion = Incredible Quentin Tarantino in Django Unchained = Incredibly bad
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Post by stabcaesar on Jul 5, 2018 18:20:33 GMT
English is not my first language either but I can usually tell it when someone's doing a good accent (Blanchett & DDL are two primary examples imo) and when someone's just phoning it in (The Departed. What a fucking mess that was). It's not really a make-it-or-break-it thing though. It could enhance a performance and the tone in a film, but if the actor isn't inhibiting a character, a good accent wouldn't help too much (ie a lot of Meryl Streep's work).
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Post by ibbi on Jul 5, 2018 18:24:51 GMT
I would say that a flawless accent doesn't necessarily improve a performance, but it's to be admired. A bad accent can absolutely ruin one. I'd rather someone just pull a Connery and just not even attempt one rather than try and just take you out of the moment every time they flub a line.
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Post by Pittsnogle_Goggins on Jul 5, 2018 18:37:20 GMT
Generally not.
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Post by Martin Stett on Jul 5, 2018 19:45:40 GMT
English is not my first language, and I might not have a very good ear to accents, so it's not something I really pay attention to. Like, Saoirse Ronan is very good at accents and does it very naturally, but I don't think I pay attention to that. You could argue it's because she's that good, but some examples of bad accent like Hathaway in One Day don't bother me either. When I'm bothered by that, it's more when americans do british accent, but I'm not familiar with Aussie accent, or the countless inner-USA accents, or other british accents enough to distinguish 'em. With that said, I like when actors can nail very eccentric accents, like Streep in Sophie's Choice or Portman in Jackie. Here's a very basic guide: Dev Patel in Lion = Incredible Quentin Tarantino in Django Unchained = Incredibly bad It seemed to me that Tarantino was going for incredibly bad. It was a comedic character and he was hamming it up.
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Post by notacrook on Jul 5, 2018 22:18:02 GMT
Unless it's flat-out bad, I don't really mind. Nicole Kidman has never been that great at masking her Australian accent, and she's my favourite actress.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Jul 8, 2018 7:39:49 GMT
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Post by stabcaesar on Jul 8, 2018 7:47:13 GMT
He actually believes that it was Angela Bassett singing in What's Love Got to Do with It, which is quite funny.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Jul 8, 2018 8:16:48 GMT
He actually believes that it was Angela Bassett singing in What's Love Got to Do with It, which is quite funny. Pretty sure you heard that wrong. He was talking about Bassett's lipsynching and the accuracy of her mouth movements.
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cherry68
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Post by cherry68 on Jul 8, 2018 11:37:14 GMT
I guess only locals are able to really judge an accent. Unless it's horrible or someone attempts to speak like northern Lombardy, I don't mind it.
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Post by stabcaesar on Jul 8, 2018 14:11:36 GMT
Pretty sure you heard that wrong. He was talking about Bassett's lipsynching and the accuracy of her mouth movements. I probably understood it wrong. I thought he thought Angela Bassett was singing the songs. Anyway, speaking of non-English accent. It could be distracting when everybody is speaking in a different accent ... in Chinese-language movies. They don't even try. It's kinda hilarious. E.g. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Michelle Yeoh, Chow Yun Fat, and Chang Chen were all speaking in a different accent.
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