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| billyweeds |
 Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2012 9:15 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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Joe Vitus wrote: billyweeds wrote: Tried for the third time to watch Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and failed to get past the first 20 minutes. Such a snooze there has seldom existed. Do not believe the raves this movie is getting from intellectuals who see clothing on Le Carre. If you watch this movie you have only yourself to blame.
Were you sent a DVD or have you actually paid three times to (not) see it?
I'm not that crazy. (Though in the ballpark.  ) No, it's a screener from SAG. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2012 10:07 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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| LOL |
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| jeremy |
| Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2012 10:49 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 6794
Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)
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Tin Tin was a bit of a disappointment. Unlike most of you, I was exposed to Tin Tin, the comic book protagonist, as a child, but never really took to him. I was similarly ambivalent about his two-dimensional French counterpart, Asterix. I’m not sure why I wasn’t smitten the same way as many of my countrymen. The humour didn’t always translate well (Asterix was well known for its French puns) and for me the comics lacked ideas, transgressive elements, depth, artistry; they did not hint at hidden truths. Perhaps I came to them too late. I sensed that Tin Tin’s minimalism and apparent superficiality may have been part of the joke, but it was not enough to sustain me.
So what to make of Spielbeg’s interpretation. The plot and tone of Tin Tin could almost be a remake of the first Indiana Jones, with the intrepid archaeologist replaced by an intrepid cub reporter, but it failed to recapture the freshness of The Raiders Of the Lost Ark. Was it the uncanny valley, the lack of charm or depth in the characters, its dated sensibilities or another example of Spielberg not really doing irony or whimsy? The failures of Hook come to mind.
One thing that unsettled me was the ambiguity about the location. Notoriously, the somewhat bland Tin Tin has little back story, but he is recognised as coming from Brussels. In parts, the film had look of the Low Countries, but some of the locations seemed English and Tin Tin is charged in pounds for a purchase rather than [Belgian] Francs. Did the writers think English speakers would have an issue with some French-fries and-mayonnaise-eating, never-fought-to-be-able-to-surrender-monkey.
Tin Tin wasn’t terrible, but it was definitely less than the sum of its parts: cast, director and a sack load of money. |
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| gromit |
| Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 4:55 am |
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Joined: 31 Aug 2004
Posts: 9016
Location: Shanghai
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| So there was too much waffling, huh? |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 5:39 am |
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Location: Houston
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jeremy wrote: Did the writers think English speakers would have an issue with some French-fries and-mayonnaise-eating, never-fought-to-be-able-to-surrender-monkey.
Maybe this is also why Scorsese has his cast of French characters speak in meticulous mid-Atlantic British accents in Hugo. |
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| shannon |
| Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 10:42 am |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 1628
Location: NC
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| In War Horse, the German soldiers were marching, counting "one, two, three, four" in English. |
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| billyweeds |
| Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 11:50 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 20618
Location: New York City
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| The best treatment of the "people are talking in a foreign language but we don't want to use subtitles" problem was in Judgment at Nuremberg, where Maximilian Schell talks in German until the camera does a swoop and suddenly he's talking in English but we know he's really speaking in German. It was a great moment, but unfortunately the only remotely great moment in that whole misbegotten and endless film. |
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| bartist |
| Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 2:02 pm |
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Joined: 27 Apr 2010
Posts: 6961
Location: Black Hills
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gromit wrote: So there was too much waffling, huh?
"What's Belgium famous for? Chocolates and child abuse. And they only invented the chocolates to get to the children." |
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| whiskeypriest |
| Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 3:00 pm |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 6916
Location: "It's a Dry Heat."
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billyweeds wrote: The best treatment of the "people are talking in a foreign language but we don't want to use subtitles" problem was in Judgment at Nuremberg, where Maximilian Schell talks in German until the camera does a swoop and suddenly he's talking in English but we know he's really speaking in German. It was a great moment, but unfortunately the only remotely great moment in that whole misbegotten and endless film. |
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| jeremy |
| Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 3:54 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 6794
Location: Derby, England and Hamilton, New Zealand (yes they are about 12,000 miles apart)
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Accents and language are always problematic.
Credit has to be given to Mel Gibson for his singular efforts in making films in original language. This is an artistically valid choice, but obviously it is not practical when using ‘Hollywood’ actors or making films for a mass audience at home.
For good or ill, it is hard to divorce English from its history: Shakespeare, Tyndale’s bible, Locke, Paine et al, or its signifiers of class and region. Its use will always inform what we are watching. Typically, in English language films, foreign protagonists supposedly speaking in their own language will usually adopt received pronunciation, the supposedly neutral accent, that Shannon described as mid-Atlantic. Characters of lower status or class may once have been signalled by adopting a cockney accent, but I think this approach now sounds hackneyed and is encountered less often.
Other British regional accents are almost never heard as these are more signifiers of place rather than status. However, I notice that amongst others, Johnny Depp and Mike Meyers have recently adopted Scottish accents, possibly because these are perceived to sit outside the British or English class system. The lack of class divisions or societal structure implied by an American accent is probably one reason why they jar in period films, that and the fact that most historical dramas and literary classics are set in the Old World. The fact that a medieval king would have spoken in a language and accent very different from today’s received pronunciation is irrelevant, it is all about perception. An American accent literally sounds out of place. Consistency across the cast is also important, which is another reason why Americans have to adopt British accents.
On the reverse, and quality concerns apart, many Americans find it hard to take British rap seriously.
Given that to their ears, Germans don’t speak with what we would describe as a German accent, why shouldn’t an English language film set in Germany adopt ‘unaccented English’. The logic of this is hard to deny, but I must admit I find it slightly unsettling when the language used in such films doesn’t acknowledge the location. For me, this is were the skill of the actor is paramount. Adopting a strong accent would be risible, but I find it helps if an actor has some feel for the local rhythms, body language, inflections and idioms. I would suggest that Kenneth Brannagh’s, Swedish TV detective, Wallander, is a master class in this. |
_________________
I am angry, I am ill, and I'm as ugly as sin.
My irritability keeps me alive and kicking.
I know the meaning of life, it doesn't help me a bit.
I know beauty and I know a good thing when I see it. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 3:56 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12929
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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Joe Vitus wrote: jeremy wrote: Did the writers think English speakers would have an issue with some French-fries and-mayonnaise-eating, never-fought-to-be-able-to-surrender-monkey.
Maybe this is also why Scorsese has his cast of French characters speak in meticulous mid-Atlantic British accents in Hugo.
And why not a single actor in Gladiator speaks with a Latin accent. |
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| yambu |
| Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 5:15 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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Syd wrote: ....And why not a single actor in Gladiator speaks with a Latin accent. |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 5:39 pm |
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Yam, what does scit mean?
I think Syd was joking. As far as I know, nobody today knows what a Latin accent sounded like. Not a lot of recordings made in those days. |
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| Syd |
| Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 5:49 pm |
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Site Admin
Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 12929
Location: Norman, Oklahoma
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| Well, we know that what we spell "V" was actually pronounced "W" (and was actually "U") "J' was pronounced "Y" (and Spelled "I") and "C" was always hard, so when Julius Caesar said "Veni, Vidi, Vici" he sounded like something out of Monty Python's Life of Brian. |
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Rocky Laocoon foretold of Troy's doom, only to find snaky water. They pulled him in and Rocky can't swim. Now Rocky wishes he were an otter! |
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| marantzo |
| Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 6:04 pm |
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| When the movie Quo Vadis came out my father, who sometimes mispronounced, called it Quo Wadis. My brother corrected him and had to apologize a few days later when he found out "v" was pronounced "W' in Latin. |
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