about characters in Julius Caesar (Mark Antony, Brutus etc) speaking with American accents?
True, Antony and Brutus did not speak with American accents, but they didn't speak with British accents either, nor did they speak English in the first place, so what's the point?
That's a good question. Perhaps the convention of portraying Classical figures using British accents has become so ingrained that to do otherwise seems wrong? Victorian England liked to compare itself with the Roman Republic, or more correctly a Victorian English ideal of the Roman Republic, so maybe there are echoes of that in there.
Also, there's the whole Shakespeare thing. The Brits are very parochial about that, quite rightly at that.
Cheers,
The Spanner.
The point is that this is an English play, written by an English playwright, originally intended to be performed on an English stage with English actors haveing English accents, regardless of where or when it takes place geographically or chronologically. That is why British abhor American accents in Shakespeare plays, whether you agree with it or not. They would probably disagree with Italian or Ancient Roman (if such a thing could be concocted) accents as well, much less having it performed in Italian or Latin.
Another commenter here made the irrelavent point that the Latins as a people are dead. The point is that the play was written for the English stage, not the Ancient Roman stage or American stage or Italian stage. Were it written in Latin, no one in the audience would have understood it. It was written in English for comprehension by the English people.
Not to say the play shouldn't be translated into other languages and so performed, as it certainly has and presumably performed with out British accents. It's all well and fine with me personally that the play be performed with any accent, as long as it's comprehensible. But the point that Altho 73 was asking about is answered by the fact that the play was originally written in English and performed with an English accent.
The point is that this is an English play, written by an English playwright, originally intended to be performed on an English stage with English actors haveing English accents, regardless of where or when it takes place geographically or chronologically. That is why British abhor American accents in Shakespeare plays, whether you agree with it or not. They would probably disagree with Italian or Ancient Roman (if such a thing could be concocted) accents as well, much less having it performed in Italian or Latin.
Another commenter here made the irrelavent point that the Latins as a people are dead. The point is that the play was written for the English stage, not the Ancient Roman stage or American stage or Italian stage. Were it written in Latin, no one in the audience would have understood it. It was written in English for comprehension by the English people.
Not to say the play shouldn't be translated into other languages and so performed, as it certainly has and presumably performed with out British accents. It's all well and fine with me personally that the play be performed with any accent, as long as it's comprehensible. But the point that Altho 73 was asking about is answered by the fact that the play was originally written in English and performed with an English accent.
Some language historians suspect that many people in Shakespeare's England really did speak with an "American" accent. That was right before the Pilgrims came over, after all. The Southern mountain people are considered the most stagnant and least culturally innovative of all the American subscultures, so it's possible that Shakespeare's plays were first performed in accents that sounded like Jed Clampett or Huckleberry Finn! Therefore, the American accents in this movie would not be out of place.
The modern English accent probably was developed before the late 1700s, when colonization of Australia began. Modern Australian sounds much more English than modern American does.
I have no problem with American accents (and I am British). I do have a problem with people like Jason Robards being woefully miscast as Brutus. He clearly has no idea how to deal with Shakespearian English and delivers one of the worst cinematic performances I have ever seen. Comparing him to a lump of wood is insulting to the wood.
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