Just wondering.I get the basic premise -the character speaks with German accent so we should accept that he is German. As if we couldn't figure it out ourselves. Seems like a lot of bother for no apparent reason .I'd prefer if their either speak regular or in native language.
Again I get why but don't get why this is expected. You then get some jarring performances. (child 44 comes to mind)
I don't know where you're all getting these "German" accents from.
The actors spoke with CZECH accents. To us, it was obvious that if it wasn't a film, they wouldn't be speaking in English. Unfortunately, to reach more of an audience, they spoke in English with it being implied that they're speaking Czech.
There are a few scenes (I don't want to spoil the film) where the Germans speak only German while someone speaking "Czech" (for the audience's sake, English) translates it to his fellow countrymen. This was supposed to make you feel like you're there and just as confused and scared as they are. There are no subtitles for the German when it's spoken, so you're just as lost as the characters you relate to most, the protagonists.
I've actually read about this, it's because the film stars both actors who are native english speakers and czech actors who speak in an accented english. The production wanted to have the film in a unified accent so they decided to coach the natives to have a czech accent as it was easier than trying to get the czech actors sound native.
shareI have to disagree. As a Czech native, I expect american/british actors speak English and Czech actors speak English with accent. Part of my concetration was wandering what was wrong with the language all through the movie. As I can see in this discussion, it is either to evoke the nationality or to level the accent. I believe both is wrong way to tackle this... Funny fact is, the Czech film critics have commented on Czech actor´s accent but no one mentioned the weird accent the natives were trying to put in.....
shareYeah, but the problem is no accents is just as jarring. Watch The Beast (1988) if you get a chance. It's a good movie, about a Soviet tank crew in the Afghan war. However, all the actors are American actors, and they don't attempt any accents whatsoever. It's really kind of distracting and not what you're expecting to see.
I don't know which is the worse of the two evils.
--- MY RATINGS ---
2001,F.Gump,S.Shank,A.Beauty:10 | TDK:6 | Avengers:4
There is no such thing as 'no accent'. There are accents that are so close to home that you don't hear them as accents, and there are accents that 'reveal not from whence they came', but neither reduces to 'no accent'.
Short version: Your 'no accent' is always going to be someone else's 'hey, he talks strange!'.
How would you describe the average BBC news speaker's accent to a non english speaker ? General british? Strange? RP? Posh? South east England?
Just wondering...
"Please, if you are trying to convert me, this isn't a good time"
Ok. Listen up.
Do you understand German? (no, you don't).
Do you know the characters spoke German? (yes).
How do they get around the fact??
They get the actors to speak English in a German accent therefore it subconsciously makes your brain retain the fact that they are German, while still enabling the ability for you to understand what they are saying.
Wow! Is that concept so hard to grasp?
You say you prefer they would just speak "normal" English, but wait until it actually happens. Then your brain will subconsciously wonder why these Germans sound like Americans. I mean they might as well get a "Hill Billy" with a Texan accent to play a German. According to your logic, it absolutely wouldn't be distracting, am I right?
It's not "hard to grasp". It's just incredibly stupid and confusing in many scenarios. My brain isn't doing what you're saying at all. It's usually just distracting because I'm trying to see some reason in the way the characters speak.
shareThe Germans here didn't speak English with a German accent, they spoke German.
The Czechoslovakians?
First of all, I think the cast was brilliant. Now, to have this brilliant cast meant having actors from different places, including Ireland, England, etc. And many of those actors happen to speak English.
Unless you want characters who should have the same accent or similar accents speaking with different accents to each other, which would be stupid, you have to choose an accent for all of those characters to speak with. Czechoslovakian was obviously the natural choice. Why have Cillian Murphy doing an English accent, or Toby Jones doing an Irish accent? That would be much more jarring.
I don't mind watching movies with subtitles, but I wouldn't want to lose Cillian Murphy and Toby Jones in order to change this minor distraction that most people don't even notice until it's brought up to them.
Just one thing - "Czechoslovakian" is not a languague nor a nationality. There is either Czech or Slovak. Czechoslovakia was a country which united these two nationalities.
Gabčík (the real one) was Slovak and spoke Slovak. Kubiš was Czech and spoke Czech. These two languages are a bit different and so are the accents.
I have no defense. Thank you for correcting my idiocy.
shareI never understood this dumb "tradition". It just confuses me, because I wonder why would the character talk in another (non-native) language among his peers, who would obviously understand him better if he just used their own language...
Like, what is the plot here, what am I missing, you know?
German people talking in english with fake german accents among themselves, japanese samurai talking english with japanese accents and so on. It's always a "what the hell?!" type of scene for me.
It's really ridiculous. Decent filmmakers don't do it and it now look hopelessly dated and stupid.
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My God, it's full of stars!
In Germany, all foreign movies are dubbed. So the characters always speak german but we know that they don't really speak german. So when a character says something like "I only speak english" it will be dubbed with "Ich spreche nur Englisch" - "I only speak english", not "I only speak german". In foreign movies with german characters who speak german the sound is a little bit different because it's not dubbed - so it's obviously "movie german". In fact, in a lot of cases it's incorrect german but in WWII movies we often leave it like this as some kind of "bad nazi german". It's helpful to keep distance.
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In Germany, all foreign movies are dubbed.
There are quite a few threads asking this question and initially I agreed. However the majority of the actors are Czech who speak English with a second language ans do have accents. Would it sound strange if the few English speakers did not have that accent that the rest of the characters have?
shareYes , I agree it would have been strange. Less strange than the fake accents though, at least for me.
The lead actors are english speaking.
So either get all czech actors for the cast, or all english speaking actors, or some english speaking actors and some czech actors with very good english accents.
"Please, if you are trying to convert me, this isn't a good time"
If they were all English speaking actors, which English accent would you prefer them to have?
If they were all English speaking actors, which English accent would you prefer them to have?
It sounds like you would prefer RP (Received Pronunciation). RP is actually only used by less than 5% of the British poplulation. It's very old fashioned and is rarely used on TV and film anymore.
I do get where you are coming from, its always difficult for me to hear a non-Scot attempt a Scottish accent.
So, it's called RP? I didn't know that, good to know. Thanks!
I wouldn't expect a war movie with US or british solders to do this RP of course! LOL
I'm just saying that for a movie like "anthropoid" a neutral accent would have been best.
I try to watch different movies with different accents, some are harder than others to understand, I am more familiar with south UK for example...
"Please, if you are trying to convert me, this isn't a good time"
Accents and historical stories can be tricky. I hate watching "Hollywood" productions involving Scots history as the inaccuracies and accents are very off putting. Even when done well an accent can still feel very fake to a native. I recently watched a film with Emma Thomson who is famed for her Scottish accent. I found it awful and didn't enjoy the film until I watched it for the second time and had prepared myself for it.
I'm going to be a complete hypocrite now. All of the above aside, I would still prefer actors to do an accent. Lots of different accents or RP would just be worse. The thought of Thatcher or Emmeline Pankhurst having an American accent, half the cast of 12 Years a Slave sounding English or Mandela sounding like Luther is just wrong. The accent is as much part of the character as the costume the actor wears. The answer I suppose would be for Hollywood and the British film industry to only tell their own stories. That would be a shame as I have enjoyed many films where an actor is portraying a character with a different nationality.
Accents aside do you think that the film did the story justice? For me it was different to the run of the mill WW2 films. The characters felt real and the story didn't seem over dramatised.
@ ScottishKate
I'm not familiar with the story in the film so I can't tell if they did justice to it, all I can say is that some things prevented me from enjoying the movie : fake accents, poor sound quality, jittery camera. Unfortunately I even felt very sea sick because of the last...so I can't even tell if the film was good or not. What a shame, I was intrigued by the story, an event which hasn't be told in any movies I've seen..
Back to accents
I think for someone who's a native english speaker like you, it's easy and sometimes annoying to recognize fake english/american/scottish... accents, for me it's different: for example I can watch Jude Law in "Cold Mountanin" and think he's doing a decent job with the southern american accent while a brit or an american might think it's the opposite. I can watch an ANZAC war movie and not realize an actor is british instead of australian... I can recognize a scottish accent too, but I can't tell if it's real or not, I don't think I would notice Emma Thomsom doing a scottish accent wrong.
"Please, if you are trying to convert me, this isn't a good time"
Back to accents
I think for someone who's a native english speaker like you, it's easy and sometimes annoying to recognize fake english/american/scottish... accents, for me it's different: for example I can watch Jude Law in "Cold Mountanin" and think he's doing a decent job with the southern american accent while a brit or an american might think it's the opposite. I can watch an ANZAC war movie and not realize an actor is british instead of australian... I can recognize a scottish accent too, but I can't tell if it's real or not, I don't think I would notice Emma Thomsom doing a scottish accent.
I didn't find the accents a problem at all, like I said it added continuity with them all sounding the same. i find Sean Ellis really wanted to make it with as many Czechs as possible given that its their story but needed a few big names to sell it. I suspect when the Hollywood version, HHhH comes out your wish may be granted.
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