Illuminati-R-Us

I'm sitting here watching Dr. Zhivago for the first time. It's about half way through at the moment.

I just have to say, I'm very surprised. I had no idea that the Russians had such lovely English accents.

As do many ancient Romans in other films.

Isn't Zhivago one of those travel web sites?


Back when I was on the radio, geez, in the 1960s, I used to use Lara's Theme from that movie as incidental music in some bit of production I used to do, I forget what though.

Well, the submarine captains have Scottish accents.

Klaus Kinski doesn't.

It's a British film so what can you do?

There's a Russian mini-series from 2005, no subtitles though .

See, that is the nice thing about German and the German dubbing industry: You never have to worry about accents. Everyone, be they imbeciles from the Southern States (as in brother, where art thou), Western heroes (say, John Wayne), high-nosed East Coast nobility , Eastenders, Scotty, David Cameron or or Russian villains: They all speak non-accented (yes, there is such a thing) standard German, except when a character speaks it as a foreign language. Then they speak German with that foreign accent.

I noticed the same when I learned Castilian in Spain. They take it to the extreme that even the voices of different actors sound similar. It was easier to learn Spanish from, say, dubbed Blade or Sin City than from an Almodóvar film or a South American telenovela.

Arneb wrote:be they imbeciles from the Southern States (as in brother, where art thou)

I must object in the most extreme way possible to the characterisation of George Clooney's character as an "imbecile"!

Arneb wrote:noticed the same when I learned Castilian in Spain. They take it to the extreme that even the voices of different actors sound similar. It was easier to learn Spanish from, say, dubbed Blade or Sin City than from an Almodóvar film or a South American telenovela.

One of the things that impressed me while watching "Los Simpsons" in Argentina was what a good job they did with the dubbing. It was obvious, even to a non-Spanish speaker, for example, that Homer was supposed to be stupid.

Мастер wrote:

Arneb wrote:be they imbeciles from the Southern States (as in brother, where art thou)

I must object in the most extreme way possible to the characterisation of George Clooney's character as an "imbecile"!.

No need. I was thinking more of his two companions, especially the smaller one.

Arneb wrote:... especially the smaller one.

The one that turned into a frog?

Coooudn't say. It wass a long time ago.

The bigger guy (played by John Turturro) was turned into a frog, but not really.

But the frog was smaller...