And sure enough the actors all had that only-found-in-Hollywood fake Southern accent. When will Hollywood, and everyone else, realize that accent exists only in movies and TV? And that this isn't 1955 and we do notice it, and it's okay to feature authentic sounding Southern accents?
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The truth is, Noah is returning to North Carolina from WWII. It is 1946 or 1947 - long before 1955. People still had regional accents then. They stayed close to home and didn't move all over the country as we do now.
shareThanks for you comment.
What I meant by 1955 is that audiences were far less sophisticated back then regarding realistic portrayals of just about anything in movies. These days you just can't get away with many things that were common back then. Audiences notice things more today.
And as far as accents go, people still have regional accents today. Its just that people do move and so that just because someone's from New York City or Birmingham, that doesn't necessarily mean they have an accent from there. That Hollywood Southern accent isn't found anywhere. I know, I'm from the South and I've traveled all around the South, and to other areas.
I live in Colorado, and I know people from the Carolinas, and they sound just like that. Guess they're faking it.
shareI live in Colorado, and I know people from the Carolinas, and they sound just like that. Guess they're faking it.
They had a language expert on this film and the actors listened to the accents on tape over and over.
Without question the Carolina accent at that time was different than it is now. I think Chris Klein in particular did a great job. Also, I noticed no one's attempt at an accent upstaged them in a scene, as can sometimes happen. Just my take.
>>> Funny how I've heard people from the Carolinas talk and they don't sound like that. I don't think they're faking it, I just think you're mistaken.
No, I'm not mistaken. I know what my friends sound like. I think it's a matter of.... different people sound different. Simple.
"Audiences notice things more today."
Audiences only notice errors based on their experiences up to that point. A person who hasn't experienced varying accents wouldn't know the difference. And some people don't have an ear for accents. To me there are two kinds of English accents and yet I know there are more variations than that. Some people think all southerners have the same accent but from the few I've heard, someone from Texas who has a regional accent from there sounds very different from someone from New Orleans who has a regional accent from there. People do move a lot more now days but not everyone. Some people still live, grow and die all in one place and might not even travel outside it. There only experience might be from movies or television if they actually ever saw or owned one.
Most people agree that Kevin Coster can't do an English accent which is why you only hear about a second's use of one in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves. Some people can do accents, some people can't.
To a southerner such as yourself your more likely to notice a difference in those versions of accents. To most of us Yankees (how many generations do you have to live in the south to be considered a southerner? I was only born in Tennessee so I don't think I count), we just think it fits the setting playing out before us. And it's not like this movie was trying to say these people were dumb hicks as evidenced by their accents. I love accents and it's more grammar than how the words are pronounced that lends me to make an assumption about someone's level of knowledge. Notice I said knowledge not intelligence. People without a lot of knowledge can still be intelligent people.
I'm pretty sure this is a point that's worth just getting over and enjoying a good film. I love this movie. I think they did well enough. And I'm truly sorry if your enjoyment of the entire story was lessened due to the "Hollywood accents." It's a real shame.
First, I enjoyed the movie, a little overly "sugar-sweet", but most Hallmark movies are!! And that's the appeal to them.
Some of the actors managed the Southern accent in an accectable fashion, but I agree with several posters that a majority had that fake "Hollywood Southern" accent going on. While most viewers would probably not notice this, if you've lived in the South all your life it's very obvious.
What I really did enjoy was hearing names of places I have known all my life... places like the Hiwassee River, which is indeed a real river in Northeast Georgia, Western North Carolina and East Tennessee (although we spell it "Hiawassee" in Georgia)... and places like Topton, a small mountain town in Western N.C.
The author of the book on which the movie is based is Terry Kay. Kay lives near Athens, Georgia, and is a delightful writer and very interesting person. I had the privilege of producing two TV shows where Kay discussed the upcoming movie productions of "To Dance With the White Dog" and "Valley of Light". In addition, his brother, Rev. Dr. John Kay, was one of my favorite college professors at Young Harris College (in the North Georgia Mountains) and He and wife Patty remain as inspirational friends to this day.
Although he lives near Athens, I believe Terry Kay has a cabin on Lake Chatuge, a reservoir created by the Tennessee Valley Authority(TVA)in the 1940s and which straddles the Western North Carolina and Northeast Georgia border (and impounds the water of the Hiwassee River). So I would guess that much of the setting for the novel and movie was literally right in his "front yard", so to speak.
Being a native of the Southern Appalachians, I think it would have been really great if the movie could have been filmed here. But all in all, I believe Hallmark did a great job with the look of the movie, in fact, you really wouldn't even know it was filmed in California and Oregon. Well, at least until the actors started talking!!!