MovieChat Forums > Byzantium (2013) Discussion > Why does Clara still talk and act like s...

Why does Clara still talk and act like someone from the 1820s?

posted 12 years ago by s_campanale
27 replies | jump to latest

Saw it the other day and thought it was good though not up to classic Jordan from 20* years ago.

I'm a big Artherton fan and find her a good and interesting performer in whatever genre she tackles, but I was a little annoyed by the character she played here. She is meant to be from another time, yet she and her daughter have survived these 200 yrs by blending in and mixing with humanity generation after generation. Yet Clara still speaks like a "Whatch'a guvnor...Y'fancy any of me wares' what you seeing here eh?" comedy costume strumpet and is constantly singing old Napoleonic era ditties and songs. Obviously it reinforces the idea she was from another time, and contrasts her with Eleanor, who fits in perfectly with 2013, but it defies internal logic that she would have adopted and adapted almost nothing from her long life. She's almost as bad as last years "Dark Shadows" Barnabus Collins, but at least he'd just been dug up from 2oo yrs of being buried in a box.

[–] gecmartins 11 years ago

Clara "was given a profession" when she was just a girl. At any age, bet all your money that such experience is traumatic to a point (most) people will have their lives dictated by it. 200 years later she was still the only thing she knew how to be.

[–] fishcorn 11 years ago

Actually, her accent more closely resembles what would have been spoken in the last hundred years or so. In the Napoleonic era, most English people would have had a harder, more rhotic-sounding dialect closer to what you'd hear in America or Ireland today (they pronounced their R's). The non-rhotic dialect you popularly hear English people speak today only arose during the industrial revolution among the upper class, and spread to everyone else through 20th century mass media.

Yes, this means everyone else in the flashbacks should have sounded like this too. Every single period movie ever made gets this horribly wrong (it would probably confuse the audience anyway).

[–] OLD_ACCOUNT_skribb_Mk2 9 years ago

Interesting post, thank you😁

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Mouthal smell is a form of sensory input. See, if you listen carefully, you can hear the mouth.

[–] rex-reyesiii 10 years ago

Well its not impossible.

Me, I got my mindset still with the 90's era. :)

"Haha!" - Nelson Muntz ... pointing at you. :)

[–] EleanorAbernathys 10 years ago

She had a southern accent..I didn't think it old fashioned.

[–] JasonRebourne 10 years ago

I know. You'd think she'd pick something up during the centuries.

[–] franzkabuki 10 years ago

When she made her first appearence in that strip joint, she certainly didn't strike me as someone from the Napoleonic era...

"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

[–] james-337 10 years ago

Added to which, she has a London accent. Odd considering she seems to have grown up in rural fishing village!

[–] starryeyedgirl1 10 years ago

To me it seemed Eleanor was the more "old-fashioned one". Being raised in a convent? she sounded completely different from her mother and more polished.

Her accent did not sound in any way dated. Believe it or not, people today actually speak like that. To me, she sounded a lot like Rose Tyler's mum in Doctor Who to me and the character is a working class single mum. Somewhat of a chav I think. I don't know much about British culture or accents anyway.

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