As a fellow Michigander I don't understand why Pacino gave him a wisconsin or minnesota type accent? As shown with the longer u's and y's. I've listened to a few interveiws and jack has a more typical mitten pronounciation.
LOL I was wondering the same thing at first, but it's pretty obvious that either Al or the director thought the exaggerated northern accent was necessary to drive home the [general] geographic setting.
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I think people are kind of insane in judging accents in general - that performance is out of the park great so the accent is like the 10th thing I'd even notice. The accent doesn't hinder the characterization in any way for me - I mean, it's something you noticed so your reaction is valid of course. Any positive or negative reaction a viewer has is valid.
However, in the context of the whole character as portrayed the accent is perfect - Pacino IS that guy.......that guy (in that film) talks THAT way, etc.
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It is unreasonable, because anyone from the area knows that it is NOT a michigan accent and it's not even close for that. I even checked wikipedia because I thought he must have grown up in Minnesota for Al to have portrayed him with such a strong accent. To outsiders, all midwest accents probably sound the same, but there is a very distinct difference from Ohio to Michigan to Minnesota, etc.
share"It is unreasonable, because anyone from the area knows that it is NOT a michigan accent and it's not even close for that."
Yeah, but you know what - I live in an area of America with a very distinct accent and there are people who live on my street who grew up here and their accent doesn't match the area.
But here's the key :
If it spoils the film for you then ok, that's valid, you're the viewer and how it plays on you is valid no matter what it is. But there's an actual reality and there's contextual reality of the film. Someone who buys the accent (and I do) isn't wrong because they aren't from the area that's being portrayed, because when I heard that accent it fit the "reality" of the film. I believed for those 2 hours that guy talked that way.
Isn't it a bit weird it's even being discussed when the performance is so indisputably great in every other way (and I'd argue it's fine in this one as well).
It's time to open your eyes and be a bit more observant. My name isnt godfather only because I am one to my niece. It's because I love the movie and in particular Mr. Al Pacino and have for quite some time. His portrayal of Kervorkian is one of his best performances in a long time. By no means did his inaccurate accent spoil the movie for me. I never said this, neither did I say it was wrong for you to buy the accent and enjoy the "reality" of the film. Your account of accents matching an area does not change the fact that Kervorkian himself did not talk with accent that Pacino portrayed him with. You can ask anyone from Michigan and 95% would be able to tell you this after watching 5 minutes of the movie and a real interview with Jack.
I do find it weird, that you find it weird that such a well established actor as Pacino isnt impervious to even the slightest bit of criticism on an aspect of his performance. It's not weird to discuss the accent, because it is not the proper accent of the man he was portraying. There were scenes where it was believable and scenes were it was clearly not. The overall performance is fantastic, but this was a slight hiccup in an otherwise brilliant movie and piece of acting.
Well I agree with your post on the whole in the context that the overall performance is fantastic, I just don't quite see the accent as a "hiccup". I see it as ancillary/negligible, so we're not that far off really in the larger sense.
I was observant about your name - I don't think I implied that you were unfairly bashing him or that you were anti-Pacino or anything like that (?). Even as a fan (or not) someone should be able to discuss the specific role/performance in and of itself.......I mean even in my case, I am obviously a fan overall, but that wouldn't lead me to see things in weak performances (88 Minutes say) that aren't actually there.
Bbethany7 Al enunciates with a slight Bronx accent that whatever character he plays
creeps into his performance. BUT, he's a great actor, so live with it.
Wait a minute! I live in the very same part of Michigan as the characters in this movie and that was NOT a Michigan accent. It sounded as though the prosthesis in Pacino's mouth that changed the shape of his face to Kevorkian's gve him a speech impediment! And YES it detracted from the movie for me. I kept thinking "haven't any of these people ever been in southeast Michigan?"
However, that was sure an accutate representation of Kevorkian's clothes and Feiger's hair.
And the guy who played Jack Lessenberry (the reporter) sounded just like the real Jack Lessenberry.
I grew up the Metro-Detroit area as well (Troy, now living in Birmingham) and the accent threw me off too, because nobody here speaks like that. Though, I've been told by people elsewhere that I have a "strong Midwestern accent."
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Strike dear mistress, and cure his heart.
His accent to me, sounded like he was from Minnesota, Wisconsin, or even Canada. The way he would say "Margo", sounded just like "Fargo" from the Fargo the movie.
"You can't catch a bat with a pot, moron"
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Can some one explain to me exactly what a Michigan accent is? I've lived here my entire life, and while watching this movie I didn't notice an out of place accent.
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Bbethany7 It's irrelevant, perhaps like blathering and pissing over the various James Bond vocal timbres from all the actors who played him.
I saw Kevorkian on Bill Maher a few months ago, and I thought Pacino got him down in a pretty uncanny way.
Regional dialects can differ from one town to the next. It gets crazy through Michigan and through the midwest. I can speak to people from Detroit who sound different than people from Pontiac, who sound different than people from Kalamazoo. I find that the small townies at exit stops on the way to Indiana will start to sound a lot more like "Fargo" than the Michiganders who lived closer to the border.
He had a very strong midwest accent that I find sounded a lot more in tune with females that I've heard, and I think it's because Jack is a very thoughtful person who was in touch with deep emotions and a sensitive speaker. Jack doesn't ever talk like some macho type, but is far more introspective than that, and Pacino got that beautifully.
Maybe he wasn't perfect, but I just loved the way he talked in that movie, it didn't sound like anything Pacino has ever done, and he was still able to express himself in a very charismatic and intelligent way.
I've spent some one-on-one time with Kevorkian...very nice, gentle, & smart guy. Pacino's portrayal was pretty good, but the accent was indeed horrible. It's not asking too much for an actor of Pacino's quality to nail the accent.
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Ah but he isn't supposed to be doing an impression. "Nailing the accent" can mean the actor just altering his natural voice which he clearly did. The accent isn't horrible at all - and calling that performance "pretty good" is like saying the Grand Canyon is a little hole.
The accent is a piece of the puzzle only.
Look at The Last Station which works marvelously with accents somewhat oddly ignored entirely.
The accent is HORRIBLE. I live a few miles from Kevorkian, and when my 13-year-old daughter walked through the room where I was watching the movie, she asked what sort of weird accent the old guy (Pacino)had. Even SHE could tell the accent was nowhere near the standard local one that Kevorkian himself has.
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Ok, first of all, you capitalizing the word "horrible" doesn't make your case more convincing.
Second, about your 13 year old :
Is that a coherent argument (even if you capitalize "she") to invoke what a child assessed while walking through a room? Of course it isn't.
I get what you're saying - you are assessing something within a performance that you think rings false. That's fine, no one can take that away from you, it's your opinion.
That isn't my point. My point is that the accent doesn't have to be representative to the truth (or your version of it) at all, to be a good accent. It has to be character appropriate within the context of the piece.
It rings true within a larger context - the voice coming out of that actor matches that character within that film.
It only has to be "character appropriate"? Would it be character appropriate for Michael Corleone to have a Maine accent? Because his rural-Minnesota Kevorkian accent is about that far off from being a Detroit accent.
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If, in the context of the piece the accent bothers you then your response to it is valid (anything that takes you "out" of the movie as a viewer is valid).
I'm saying, in real-life accents aren't as simple "Detroit" vs. "rural-Minnesota" however.
I know people in real life who have accents that do not sound like the area where I live even though they have lived here their whole lives. I know people who if you heard them speak in a film you may accuse them of doing a "bad accent" since their cadence and inflection is based on speech rhythms rather than geography.
So, basically, I'm saying his accent is good because it's believable in the context of that actor, in that role, in that project. Your Michael Corleone example is too hypothetical for me to comment on - it's a different context, and might have a different degree of "jarring" you out of the viewing process.
"So, basically, I'm saying his accent is good because it's believable in the context of that actor, in that role, in that project."
What does this sentence even mean???
That because it's Al Pacino doing a Minnesoooooota accent and it's a good, believable Minnesoooooota accent, that makes it genuine to the ROLE? JACK DOESN'T SPEAK THAT WAY! So, following your logic, since it's Al Pacino, why not portray Jack with a Scottish accent? An Austrialian one, I mean, criiiiikey? Throw in some "ayes" and make him Canadian? How about one from New Yawk? He could borrow from The Godfather and give his patients an offer they can't refuse? I mean, since it's Al Pacino, then he can do any accent he wants or is directed to do, because he can portray Jack better than Jack, right? Because he's Al Freakin' Pacino. Right?
The way you wimped out of the question about Michael Corleone being "too hypothetical" is very telling. That was a spot-on arguement to your logic here. And like someone who doesn't HAVE an answer, you pretend to be above it. Yes, very telling indeed.
Michigan residents, AND Jack K. do NOT speak that way. Was or was this not supposed to be about the trials and tribs of Jack K? Why would one assign a fictional accent (fictional in the sense that Jack DOES NOT SPEAK THAT WAY) to a character based on a actual person?
Why doesn't Fieger, Jack's sister, or Janet speak that way? Why ONLY Jack?
Why, in Tropic Thunder, did Robert Downey Jr, an American playing an Aussie playing an African American, speak as an African American, then as an Aussie when the make up came off? Because that's what the ROLE required! He didn't use a cockney accent to portray an Aussie playing an African American. You know?
The accent doesn't take away from Pacino's magnificent performance, though the fictional accent is very distracting--at least, to those of us from the area who remember watching the events unfold on the news every night. Even though the performance and the movie were fascinating and well done, I couldn't stop hearing that jarring, distracting, incorrect accent.
It was an outstanding performance and the guy is a foreigner anyway.. so maybe he grew up somewhere else, ever thought of that? x-D
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