on Robin Hood and American accents
A couple of comments on my previous post about Robing Hood - Prince of Thieves got me thinking about accents, and languages, and why we're sometimes bothered by inaccuracy and sometimes not.
I've never been very bothered by Kevin Costner's accent in the film, except when he repeats what someone else has said. ("Move faster." "A bath?") Some people are. That's as it should be - what jolts us out of a story is so very individual.
It's when the question of accuracy comes up that I become puzzled. Of course Costner's accent is inaccurate. But it's not as if it would have been any more accurate if he'd strutted around in Sherwood sounding like Cary Elwes. (I adore Cary Elwes, btw.)
If the film had been historically correct, Little John and the merry men might have sounded like Beowulf, Maid Marian and king Richard would have spoken some variant of French, and Robin himself would have been bilingual, with a natural language that might or might not have bore a closer resemblance to modern-day English than any of the others. No one would have spoken anything that sounded even remotely like the Oxbridge English we're used to hearing on film and TV.
Then I started thinking about other period pieces. The ones set in England pre-English language often choose upper-class English accents as their default mode anyway - but then it ocurred to me that so do some period pieces set in other countries. That the BBC version of I, Claudius let all the emperors speak in posh English voices is only natural, I suppose - but why was it in English at all and why doesn't anyone mind? Milos Forman said a propos his Valmont that English accents felt more aristocratic, and in The Last Temptation of Christ, Scorsese lets the aristocracy have English accents while the rest of the cast are Americans.
So is it then a class issue? Is Robin Hood too upper-class to speak American English? But then it would be more acceptable that Christian Slater does the same, and I haven't gotten the impression that this is the case. Besides, how posh is Robin Hood? A rich man's son, yes, but a Saxon one according to some sources, which means he definitely shouldn't speak like Maid Marian who is a Normand. On the other hand, he definitely should speak like his father, which he doesn't at the moment. (Unless he's learned a coarser language among the Crusaders - anything is possible.)
Perhaps fewer people would have been bothered if there had been some sort of consistency in who spoke what. I don't know. In either case, I do find it interesting that accent can give this kind of cry for accuracy when language can't, as proven by the very many films set in non-English countries with English-speaking actors, who, in some instances, revert to their own language when they are upset, or speak broken English. (Though perhaps having it the other way around - Jane Austen played in French, for example - would be more disturbing?)
And why the American accent in particular? Because it's the one people are likely to recognize? I've heard Swedes play Germans, Russians, or aliens from the planets Ming and Tatooine. (Hell, I've even heard Jesus played by a Swede.) Inaccuracy doesn't seem to be a problem there.
To make things even more complicated, and since I've already referred to Star Wars: the Star Wars films are full of people from different parts of the world, and they sound it. Lord of the Rings is also full of people from different parts of the world - and while there's English, Scottish and Australian accents in the films, there is no American. And that's kind of interesting, isn't it? There's a mix of races and people there as in Star Wars - they could have had the Rohan as Americans, for example, to show that they are a younger culture.
But somehow that's unthinkable. Even though it's set in another world, LotR is English. Or possibly Australian. Definitely not American, in any case. And Robin Hood is so English he could outspeak the entire Royal Shakespearan Company (even if he technically predates the language.)
There's something sacred about being English, that doesn't extend to any other accent or language. I wish I knew what it was.
I've never been very bothered by Kevin Costner's accent in the film, except when he repeats what someone else has said. ("Move faster." "A bath?") Some people are. That's as it should be - what jolts us out of a story is so very individual.
It's when the question of accuracy comes up that I become puzzled. Of course Costner's accent is inaccurate. But it's not as if it would have been any more accurate if he'd strutted around in Sherwood sounding like Cary Elwes. (I adore Cary Elwes, btw.)
If the film had been historically correct, Little John and the merry men might have sounded like Beowulf, Maid Marian and king Richard would have spoken some variant of French, and Robin himself would have been bilingual, with a natural language that might or might not have bore a closer resemblance to modern-day English than any of the others. No one would have spoken anything that sounded even remotely like the Oxbridge English we're used to hearing on film and TV.
Then I started thinking about other period pieces. The ones set in England pre-English language often choose upper-class English accents as their default mode anyway - but then it ocurred to me that so do some period pieces set in other countries. That the BBC version of I, Claudius let all the emperors speak in posh English voices is only natural, I suppose - but why was it in English at all and why doesn't anyone mind? Milos Forman said a propos his Valmont that English accents felt more aristocratic, and in The Last Temptation of Christ, Scorsese lets the aristocracy have English accents while the rest of the cast are Americans.
So is it then a class issue? Is Robin Hood too upper-class to speak American English? But then it would be more acceptable that Christian Slater does the same, and I haven't gotten the impression that this is the case. Besides, how posh is Robin Hood? A rich man's son, yes, but a Saxon one according to some sources, which means he definitely shouldn't speak like Maid Marian who is a Normand. On the other hand, he definitely should speak like his father, which he doesn't at the moment. (Unless he's learned a coarser language among the Crusaders - anything is possible.)
Perhaps fewer people would have been bothered if there had been some sort of consistency in who spoke what. I don't know. In either case, I do find it interesting that accent can give this kind of cry for accuracy when language can't, as proven by the very many films set in non-English countries with English-speaking actors, who, in some instances, revert to their own language when they are upset, or speak broken English. (Though perhaps having it the other way around - Jane Austen played in French, for example - would be more disturbing?)
And why the American accent in particular? Because it's the one people are likely to recognize? I've heard Swedes play Germans, Russians, or aliens from the planets Ming and Tatooine. (Hell, I've even heard Jesus played by a Swede.) Inaccuracy doesn't seem to be a problem there.
To make things even more complicated, and since I've already referred to Star Wars: the Star Wars films are full of people from different parts of the world, and they sound it. Lord of the Rings is also full of people from different parts of the world - and while there's English, Scottish and Australian accents in the films, there is no American. And that's kind of interesting, isn't it? There's a mix of races and people there as in Star Wars - they could have had the Rohan as Americans, for example, to show that they are a younger culture.
But somehow that's unthinkable. Even though it's set in another world, LotR is English. Or possibly Australian. Definitely not American, in any case. And Robin Hood is so English he could outspeak the entire Royal Shakespearan Company (even if he technically predates the language.)
There's something sacred about being English, that doesn't extend to any other accent or language. I wish I knew what it was.