Dialects in the movies

[Dave Wilton]

Not quite the same subject, but I have an observation about the movie "A
Bridge Too Far," a 1970s 'cast of thousands' war movie about Operation
Market Garden, the 1944 battle in Holland. In general, cast members were
given characters that matched their native accents (e.g., Sean Connery plays
a Scot). The Germans speak German and the Dutch speak Dutch (with
subtitles). Some exceptions are Gene Hackman, who plays a Pole, and Liv
Ullman and Laurence Olivier who play Dutch characters. I'm not familiar
enough with Polish to judge Hackman's accent, but I saw the movie once on
Dutch TV with the English and German dialogue subtitled in Dutch. The Dutch
dialogue, including Olivier's lines, was not subtitled. But Ullman's lines
in Dutch were subtitled. I can only conclude that the pronunciation was so
bad that they figured the audience needed the help.

In another movie, Mel Gibson dubbed his own lines for the American version
of "Mad Max." He softened the Australian accent to make it more
understandable to the US audience. The sync is not particularly good and the
result looks like a bad kung fu movie--which one might argue gives the movie
a kind of Sergio Leone quality.

--Dave Wilton
  dave at wilton.net
  http://www.wilton.net