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.

[–] king_of_bob 9 years ago

Why would she sound or act like she's from anywhere\when else?

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.

No, that is not what they do. They survived 200 years by living on the fringes and avoiding "mixing" with humanity.

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.

Oh. So if you were a vampire, in a 100 years you wouldn't like the music you used to like? You would just completely change your way of speaking for no real reason at all? Since again, she lives on the fringes and nobody cares what she sounds like.

Obviously it reinforces the idea she was from another time, and contrasts her with Eleanor, who fits in perfectly with 2013,

She clearly did not fit in perfectly. Her teachers even note "Nobody writes like this" when discussing her story. She also appears to only make a single friend in the entire movie. How does she fit in perfectly?

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[–] TorontoJediMaster 9 years ago

Clara clearly had no proper education before being turned and didn't seem inclined to correct that afterwards.

Eleanor had been educated at the orphanage for the years of her human life. She seemed to have been more of a deeper thinker -her pondering how people are more likely to be killed by their own mothers than any other source. She had more intellectual curiosity and -it seemed to me- had tried to further her education as much as she could over the years. (Her ability to play classical piano pieces, her elegant -if anachronistic- style of writing and penmanship, her signing up for that class she was in with Frank, etc.)

While Eleanor seemed to be more aware of the past, and lived more in it than Clara, she definitely seemed more the type to try and grow intellectually; at least in terms of learning.