Margot's accent
Was that Margot's real accent?
shareNo, but Margot is of French Canadian heritage, I believe. Would not be surprised of she is fluent in the language.
share[deleted]
Margot was at the Festival Of Fear horror convention in Toronto last year. I attended her Q & A session and she talked a bit about Sisters. She mentioned that De Palma originally wrote her character to be Swedish, but Margot could not do a convincing Swedish accent. Being that she is indeed Canadian she could easily do a French accent, so naturally her character was rewritten as French-Canadian. That's how it came to be.
shareEasily do a french accent?? I thought it was one of the worst I'd ever heard - she sounded like a female Inspector Clouseau. Her performance as a whole was dreadful, I thought - not like Ms Salt! THERE'S an actress for you! Truly, a 70s version of Lilli Taylor!
shareI thought Margot's accent was perfect, and she received plenty of praise for her performance. In his original review, Roger Ebert singled out both Kidder and Salt: "In a movie industry filled with young actresses who look great but can't act so well (especially when they've got to play intelligent characters), De Palma has cast two of the exceptions: Margot Kidder and Jennifer Salt."
shareI thought peformance was grest but I agree that the accent was horrible. It really grated on my nerves after awhile!
shareI don't know, I think it helped... It added to her confusion of being a stranger a foreign country.
It always seemed to me that Margot was channeling Simone Simon in Val Lewton's "Cat People" (An excellent horror movie for those who have not seen it). Simon's character turns into a ferocious feline whenever she becomes sexually aroused.
Not to sound like a racist or anything, but I think there's just something about a french accent that gets on people's nerves, or makes the speaker sound phony in some way. I was watching the film Forbidden Zone (A really bizzare movie in its own right) and the main character had this really grating and phony sounding french accent. But when I watched the making of featurette, it turned out the actress really was french, which is the only reason the character even had the accent in the first place. Either it was just general overacting, or the accent has become so stereotypical to us that when we hear a genuine version, it sounds phony.
shareI speak French fluently (and Parisians often take me for a French native, usually from the Breton region), and I love the language, but I HATE French accents. I agree with an earlier poster that I believe that many people are probably annoyed by a French accent. Kidder's was pretty good...I haven't seen the film in ages, but I think it was a pretty convincing accent. It's just that the accent itself, no matter who has it, is extremely saccharine and annoying.
People don't understand how I can love the French language, but hate the accent, but there it is.
Great film...creepy as all hell.
Yes, I too must confess (with the obligatory "I'm not a racist, but..." disclaimer) to finding French accents, and the French language itself, extremely irritating to my strictly Anglophone ears. That includes not only Parisian French but also the Canadian variety spoken by my own countrymen. And more shamefully, I myself can't speak or understand more than a few words of French. (Although I can read it and write it passably well.) On the whole, though, I'd venture that enough people worldwide consider the sound of spoken French to be extremely sexy, that it all evens out.
Strangely, as far as those Romantic languages are concerned, I very much enjoy the sound of spoken Spanish.
that is a stupid argument to say the least - accents can be annoying but doesn´t mean they´re bad. Kidders accent was pretty convincing at least from french accents I´ve heard.
shareEbert also referred to Salt's character as a "women's lib Lois Lane" which I thought was interesting considering that's the character Kidder is best known for.
shareWhy can't Kidder's character actually have an american accent when she speaks (candadian) french within the film, like the actress does in reality?! French might not have been the sisters native language?!
And I actually liked her accent, it just added some more weirdness to the character...
i thought the accent was great. i have worked with french/canadian people and her accent was quite believable.
shareAs much as I love "SISTERS" it was not intended to be "Sophie's Choice." Margot's accent worked just fine. Maybe I'm wrong, but I really don't think the vast majority of viewers will know the difference between a French accent from Quebec and a French accent from Yellowknife. Why split hairs? The movie rocks.
Exactly, fatmorky!! I've been a fan of this movie for years and years, and had no idea about the controversy over her accent, and whether it was "authentic" or not----seemed fine to me, and has never hindered the impact of this film.
shareI'm French and her accent sounds terribly fake. She pronounces very strong O just like eastern-european people do (a common mistake for american actors), and also can't say the R, which is really hard to say anyway... To bad she's called Breton though because she can't say her own name correctly (she says b'weton).
But I guess the point was to sound french, and it does sound french. You could not say she's from another country so that's ok.
You know, since my last posting, only a few days ago, I actually just saw the film last night...it was on IFC. And again, it has been YEARS since I've seen it. Her accent is awful...just deplorable. No, I haven't heard a Canadian Quebecois in quite some time, but hers is an awful accent. I lived in Paris for a year, and traveled extensively throughout France several times. Yes, the accents are different (French from Canadian), but Kidder's accent was really just too strong, and too fake. I think that even then, in the 70's, both Europeans and Canadians were learning English at the same time as they were learning French, and they speak English with much less of an accent than Kidder had.
But just the same, I like the film. It is creepy, though! Her ex is a sicko!!!
I'm french, I know the accent bothered another (french) person I was watching the film with...
But really, her accent definitely sounds more french canadian than french french...
I think it works for the movie. Like Margot the character could be english, lived in quebec for a while, picked up some french canadian but can't avoid speaking french canadian with an english accent... (like is the case in reality)
Besides remember her character is completely insane, she could be babbling meaningless words it wouldn't make a difference... It just makes her character creepier.
Yes, but she's not speaking Canadian French with an English accent...she's speaking English with, what most people here are saying, a deplorable French accent...whether it's a French Canadian accent or a French French accent (and we know it's supposed to be a French Canadian accent).
Anyway, I like the film. Her accent's bad, but I like the film...it wasn't bad enough at all to detract from it...IMHO.
[deleted]
I agree. I thought she was supposed to be Russian!
shareI totally agree, the accent was brutal, absolutely terrible. She sounded and acted like a caricature of a French person. Unlike others here I really enjoy hearing the French accent and French language spoken, and I can tell a fake (even a good fake) a mile off. This was a rubbish fake!!!
share[deleted]
I agree about Jennifer Salt, she caught my eye. I thought she gave a sincere performance. But how can you say Margot was dreadful. I loved her in Sisters, playing the two sisters, I thought she was impressive especially for being a newbie at acting. I think her best though is her role in Black Christmas.
share