MovieChat Forums > Out of Africa (1985) Discussion > As a Dane

As a Dane

posted 8 years ago by kristiandoesit
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Meryl Streep is speaking in an Eastern German accent. She does not sound Danish at all...

In fact, none of the actors sound Danish. It must be the film trend of implementing a Standard American accent on top of the Danish accent, I suppose, but either way I've never heard a Dane with any of the accents in this film and I grew up there and have Danish family in the states.

Some of my family when speaking English can be very difficult to understand because of their thick accent. So she may have had the accent down but was directed to be more articulate.

Whatever her character was meant to be she didn't end up feeling Danish.

[–] larpine-225-371665 8 years ago

Streep's character was the only Dane in the film, but I think you're correct in that Sydney Pollack was more concern with box office than authentication of the accents.

After all, Streep almost didn't get the part because Pollack felt she wasn't "sexy" enough to play the role, so no doubt he was looking for something more sensuous than real.

I've heard interviews with Isak Dinesen and it would have been a hard sell to listen to that for almost three hours, especially in a romantic drama.

More so, Denys Finch Hatton was an Englishman where as Redford didn't even take a whack with an accent for the film.

We have the same situation Stateside, for in the South there are more dialects than counties and parishes, however, every time Hollywood portrays a Southerner, it's with the same generic Gone With The Wind accent that in truth, never existed.