I assume Robert Pattinson got cast as a spaniard for production financial reasons, British-Spanish co-production. Since I am absolutely besotted in him it is impossible for me to tell wether his accent is awful or actually rather good. It seemed like his accent moved between English public school boy and beach hunk Spanish. Can any objective referee please bring clarity in this issue?
"We fell in love. I fell in love - she just stood there." / http://twitter.com/Marielind
i dont have a strong sense of accents but my personal opinion is that his accent was inconsistent. sometimes it was really convincing and other times it sounded more american than anything. but that's just what i think
shareIt was plain horrible. The "Spanish" accent in English was bad enough, but the few words he tried to say in Spanish were even worse.
At times I thought he was under the impression that Dali was French.
I honestly cannot understand why he was cast, or didn't at least get some more language training.
To be fair, Dalí himself affected various accents including French as part of his schtick. However, if Pattinson meant to convey this quirk of his, the fact that so many people don't seem to get that speaks to a failing on his part.
-----
I'm Victor Marzowicz-Velasquez and I'm here to recruit you.
Yes, I've heard about that. And Dali was also born near the French border, which may have meant that he was exposed to French because of that.
What I found really annoying is that his accent, which was bad anyways (I'm sure he wasn't constantly trying to speak with a Spanish accent with a French accent?) "slipped", as far as I could tell, randomly. If he was saying something witty or something special, and the whole sentence was said that way, or even just one word to emphasize something, then it would have made sense. But for this to happen to random words in random conversation... On the other hand, when he was speaking French (full French sentences, or single French words), his accent was pretty bad, too.
Maybe if they had exaggerated it a bit more... or if the basic Spanish accent had been better, it would have stood out more? I don't know. Accents are difficult to begin with, so I'm afraid I have to agree with everyone who says the movie should have either been made in Spanish with subtitles, or played by Spanish actors in English, or just completely in English with a regular English accent (whether British or American). In all of these cases the "quirk" would have been more distinguishable.
The school he attended as a child was taught in French, so yes, he was fluent from a very early age. But the anecdote that stands out in my mind about his accent in general was that on account of his outlandish attire and bizarre accent neither had ever heard before, Buñuel and Lorca were initially afraid of him and referred to him as "the Czechoslovakian student" because that was their best guess as to his clearly exotic origins.
But, yes, I agree that language was problematic, but given the production constraints that seem to have required a compromise which landed them speaking in accented English, I agree exaggeration would have served the purpose better than subtlety, which frankly (as you indicate) could also well have been accidental.
-----
I'm Victor Marzowicz-Velasquez and I'm here to recruit you.
You obviously know a lot about Dali!
See, if they had included just a 10-second conversation between Buñuel and Lorca commenting on his strange accent and referring to him as "the Czechoslovakian student", it all could have been explained and dealt with so easily, and I, and I'm sure others as well, could have enjoyed the movie more instead of being distracted by the random change in accents.
Yeah, there are plenty of ten second conversations that could have salvaged things in this film.
-----
I'm Victor Marzowicz-Velasquez and I'm here to recruit you.
[deleted]
When i first saw it I was surprised of how well he could pull speaking English with a Spanish accent considering he is British. At least there are a few lines where I think his accent is quite good. I for one speak Spanish and when I try to exaggerate it to sound like I have that "Penelope Cruz accent " when I speak English I end up sounding either Russian, Italian or French.. In the end, accents are tricky. I at least admire his effort even if it fluctuated throughout the movie.
shareDali was from Cadaquez, in Catalonia, and people speak Catalan there. It's a romance language, but a different language than Spanish. Perhaps he spoke Spanish, too. Probably did living in Spain and going to art school in Madrid.
Catalan is an entirely different language than Spanish (native Catalan tour guide during my visit there this week explained this to me, said it is not a dialect of spanish but entirely separate language). And as I posted above, French is spoken in the area, too. I believe Dali may have been taught French in school.
Part vampire. Part giant.
Vagiant.
[deleted]
However, if Pattinson meant to convey this quirk of his, the fact that so many people don't seem to get that speaks to a failing on his part.He nailed the accent quirks brilliantly.
[deleted]
Thank goodness not all of us.
-----
I'm Victor Marzowicz-Velasquez and I'm here to recruit you.
I have to disagree with this. The failing is with the script. Pattinson did a decent job with the accents Dali affected, but, there was no reference in the story at all that would lead the viewer, if not already familiar with it, that this was a quirk of Dali's. Most viewers are only familiar with Dali superficially, the story itself needed to bring more attention to it.
shareThe region he was from, Catalonia has very strong French influence. I just returned from there yesterday. Visited the area because I fell in love with how it looked from the movie. I drove a short distance from Cadaquez to see more scenary, I was five minutes from France.
Someone posted on IMDB a while back that people who knew Dali when he was a young man said that Pattinson had really captured what Dali was like back then, the accent, the mannerisms. Apparently Dali's accent did fluctuate. Dali was, as we see in the movie, starting to play around with creating his "persona" which included how he talked.
Part vampire. Part giant.
Vagiant.
It was good enough, and, really, that's all that matters.
shareI found all their accents, and hence the movie, hard to understand. If they had wanted to sound authentic, they should have recorded the whole thing in Spanish and dubbed Pattinson, and given us English subtitles. Then when the DVD comes out we can have English (using Pattinson's own voice, even) or Spanish dialogue.
"Skxawng!" at http://www.cafepress.com/ahua/7004431";
WTF ? I kept hearing Pattinson's Americanized twilight voice slipping out at the end of sentences. Did Dali do an American accent too? This is so weird it almost sounds like an excuse 'oh no one knew WTF Dali was saying anyway so just go with it' lol. I've watched videos of Dali & I'm no accent expert but he sounds spanish/French. If the whole crazy dialect thing was intentional they really should have slipped that in there somewhere. I'm not bashing Pattinsion I'm just confused. There have been other incidences in films where authentic accents have been sacrificed for talent or having a big name actor. Overall I thought he was really good. Maybe a little uneven at times but I don't know that could have been intentional.
shareJust to clarify, Little Ashes was made before Twilight, and at that point Rob had never made a film with an American accent and also he was not a well-known actor.
I just meant I heard his American accent which he happened to use in twilight. Since twilight is the first movie he used an American accent in when I heard the american slips I thought of Edward that's why I referred to it as his 'American twilight voice' I think it's interesting to note that his American accent in 'Remember Me' is quite different from the American accent he uses for Edward. He's very subtle.
shareThe accent used in Remember Me was "mid-Atlantic". Someone associated with the film told me this. It's hard to detect much of an accent, it's not strong.
Part vampire. Part giant.
Vagiant.
I assume Dali spoke Spanish because I assume the letters he wrote to Lorca were in Spanish. Really someone from that area posted about young Dali? I will have to search for that. I heard that the whole cast of 'remember me' wanted to attempt a somewhat Brooklyn accent. Well whatever Rob is pretty awesome in switching up his dialects. I hope he does a movie with a southern accent one day that would be cool.
share[deleted]
That would be fun! Southern accent! I think He could pull it off cuz English accents have many similarities to Southern accents
i hope you choke on your bacardi & coke!
*Team Landa*
While I ADORE Pattinson as an actor, it does seem to me that he struggles sometimes with accents.
He can be heard often slipping in and out of his "American" accent in the Twilight movies, and Allen Coulter has mentioned that he brought in a special dialect coach to work with Rob, Emilie, Pierce & Lena when they were doing "Remember Me". (He was going for Queens, NY accents, and since all of them are from other countries he thought it would bring authenticity to the film.)
To give him some credit, though, he did do A LOT of research/homework on Dali before playing this role, so maybe he was ATTEMPTING to give authentic character quirks to Dali. Since this film had such a low budget, and really was not intended to be released nationally (11 screens in the US, I think?) I doubt very seriously if Rob had a dialect coach or any help other than on-set with the other actors. So I try to cut him a bit of slack with the speaking. I thought he did a good enough job.
Personally, I thought he did a FABULOUS job of portraying Dali overall... as someone who knew nothing about Dali/Lorca/Bunuel beforehand, I watched this movie solely because Pattinson was in it. To be honest, I fully expected to be bored to tears based on the critcizms I read online. But I gave it a chance, and boy am I glad I did! I was RIVETED to the screen as soon as Dali started going on about being the "Master of Modern Art". I was so captivated by his presence, and how he just gave himself to the character with such abandon. I imagine Dali was a lot like that in real life (I've since read some stuff about Dali) and I thought Rob did a great job conveying that "psychotic" side of him.
A lot of people don't realize that he did this film BEFORE Twilight made him a household name, he did this movie because he wanted to be challenged. He even said in an interview (about the love scenes) that he was super-nervous because he had never even done a love scene with a woman (I'm not sure if that was true or if he was joking, but still.)
[deleted]
[deleted]