Les Misérables: So, what did you think? — Page 13

^^^^Perhaps, but we'd all have been REALLY confused if they'd substituted Brooklynese to indicate working class.

(FWIW, I thought Sacha Baron Cohen was doing something other than pure cockney. At times, he seemed to be doing a French accent. I don't know why.)

Amanda Seyfried should not have been cast in this film. It was painful to listen to her bleating.

Yeah, he was the ONLY one doing a French accent which was actually off putting.

I don't understand why anytime a movie is made that takes place anywhere in Europe, the accents are British. I saw ANNA KARENINA a few weeks ago and was just so irked the entire time that this film taking place in Russia has all characters with British accents.

Yeah, it sounded like Sasha Baron-Cohen was playing Thernandier as someone with an English accent who sometimes faked a French accent. Why? Who knows.

I don't understand why anytime a movie is made that takes place anywhere in Europe, the accents are British.

In Dangerous Liaisons they all had American accents. Granted, the characters were played by Americans. Still, they didn't attempt a faux British accent like Hathaway and Seyfried to pretend to sound like they're from ano-thah lahnd.

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Oui!

Mais bien sûr y'all!

Well, I will confess that as a dewy-eyed lad of 24, when I did my grand tour of Western Europe, I was quite surprised to find that EVERYONE in Europe speaks English with an English accent.

"Well, duh!", said I.

So while I agree that few characters in LES MISERABLES speak English, IF they did, they would do so with English accents. (Not Cockney, of course, because that would only be taught to actors. As discussed, that's a different convention to indicate class.)

But, yeah, if you have an all-American cast, use Standard American Speech or something similar. With an international cast, English accents make more sense than Australian or Canadian.

I guess I was hoping they'd at least speak Cantonese to show a little Les Diversity.

"Amadeus" is another period film where director Milos Forman chose to have his (largely U.S.) cast use American accents.

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Personally, I don't mind the convention of British accents, regardless of country, in any period European movie, even if I'm always aware of it.

It's just another movie convention we all are asked to regularly accept, like:

Any time there's a night scene on a city street, the street is wet, whether it's raining or not.

Any time someone comes home with groceries, there's a loaf of French bread sticking out to let us know it's groceries.

If you are wounded in one scene, you will not have scars or bruises in the next, even if it's one day later. Even if it's a few hours later.

You can fall from a 50-foot height and recover without harm. You can be stabbed or shot and recover moments later without harm, and often without any serious bloodshed.

People can't sing in movies because that's unrealistic to most, yet they have no trouble accepting an 80-piece orchestra accompanying a war in outer space, or an intimate love scene, or just a walk in the park.

Women go to bed in full makeup with their hair styled.

There are always parking spaces available in front of the building you're going into.

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"Amadeus" is another period film where director Milos Forman chose to have his (largely U.S.) cast use American accents."

And he sure went full throttle with Elizabeth Berridge (Stanzi). I swear she had a full fledged Brooklyn accent, lol. Don't get me wrong, Amadeus is my favorite film of all time, but Berridge's accent stood out like a sore thumb!

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