Is it purposeful that Ralph Fiennes has an English accent instead of a Hungarian accent throughout the film? Is this why he is mistaken for an Englishman, earning the moniker the "(English) Patient"? The two accents don't exactly sound similar. What gives? This has always bothered me.
shareI think it's just a situation of if you don't know the accent just don't do it, Ralph is one of the best actors alive but accents aren't maybe his thing.
I always went under the assumption that while he was Hungarian, he spent his formative years in English boarding schools and colleges and that's why he has an English accent.
shareYeah, that makes sense.
shareI always went under the assumption that while he was Hungarian, he spent his formative years in English boarding schools and colleges and that's why he has an English accent.Precisely! share
If you're an American like me, you might find European foreign language education, well, foreign. There, it starts very young - often at age 6. My German cousin, for example, was fluent in French and English by age 12 - b/c she was taught her academic subjects in French or English (spoken by native speakers) starting at 6 years old. She also had English servants in the house, whom she would have heard since babyhood.
As an aristocrat, Almasy would've had an English governess or tutor. He was a member of the Royal Geographical Society - it's quite possible he attended Oxford or Cambridge. It's not surprising he'd speak perfect British English. His French and German were probably also at the same level or close to.
Ralph's accent in Schindler's List was perfectly German.
I think he also can convincingly play Americans.
This was intentionally aristocratic English with a slight intonation, as he's a Hungarian Count who grew up attending British boarding schools.
As others have said, he was aristocracy and would have been surrounded by English influences, including probably attending Oxford or Cambridge.
More importantly: the whole point of the movie is a running theme of mistaken, deceptive and/or lost identities, even down to the title of the film.
It's precisely because there is nothing Hungarian sounding or seeming about him that some of the tragedy unfolds. Thus, this was deliberate and essential to the story.