Woo! Or 'enfin', as everyone seems to be saying on Amazon.fr

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

Coo-er, they have finally got round to releasing La Revolution Francaise on DVD (region 2) http://www.amazon.fr/revolution-fran%C3%A7aise-partie-2/dp/B001UTVP7M/ref=cm_cr_pr_pb_t I can't see any time listing there, so I'm assuming it's the shorter(?)French cinema version rather than the TV-series version.

Comments

[lucieandco.livejournal.com]

Aww, shame about it. (Well, not technically.) I'd somehow assumed he would have recorded his own dialogue in every language ('every' as in 'English, French and - evidently - the German dub') since he does speak quite a lot of them fluently.

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

I've got the English-language 4 part TV version (it's a VHS to DVD transfer) which I think is longer, and Brandauer is speaking his own lines in that (I think everyone is, in variously-accented English). Accents are always wrong in period drama anyway: it's only very recently that they've bothered to make accents authentic (the HBO 'John Adams'series had well-researched 18thc 'early American' - i.e., regional rural Southern English accents for Jefferson etc., and 'The Devil's Whore'had a Cromwell with a historically more accurate Cambridgeshire fens accent for the first time (every other 'Cromwell' I've seen has spoken with a 20thc BBC english accent). Generally, though, everyone in period drama speaks posh 'actorish', which means with my bad Franch I can generally understand a period drama in French, but can only get one word in 5 in a modern-set French cop film. If they were going for authenticity, I suppose they should give Napoleon a Corsican accent or have Robespierre speaking with a northern accent , etc.

[lucieandco.livejournal.com]

I think everyone is, in variously-accented English - oh, how ... bizarre? It seems forgiveable not to pay the utmost attention to regional accents (though it's certainly laudable if it's done, particularly if the standard TV accent simply doesn't fit the dialogue itself in wording and structuring) - it may diminish the historical accuracy but doesn't necessarily distract from otherwise credible and convincing performances (the contrary might even be the case if greater accuracy meant using extreme, hyper-hinterlandish or obsolete dialect that the average audience member - even as a native speaker - is unlikely to be able to follow without making a deliberate effort; similar things go for attempts to portray a lisp or a stammer in a serious way). Not, that is, if the entire cast is indeed brought together in one uniform TV sound - the audience can pretend the camera functions as a Babel fish, focus on the contents and that's that. But to have such an all-over-the-place jumble of accents! And international ones, too - a British-sounding queen and an Austrian-sounding Danton? That can be distracting even to those who don't go in for detail, can't it, especially because on TV one is still so used to hearing everyone speak largely the same unless there's an explicit (stereotypical) point to be made about a person's family origins, class background et cetera.
As I had the 'pleasure' of seeing a version in which (I assume) all major players save Danton and Mirabeau were dubbed by professional TV voices with professionally generic TV accents, Brandauer was the only one that stood out as odd for me, and his distinct Austrian-ness (he didn't do it in dialect, obviously, but the specific colouring is extremely discernible) added something of a comical element. (Okay, I have a terrible definition of 'comical'.)

Haha, I'd love to see a Napoléon with a Corsican accent. Has there ever been one? Stanley Kubrick (who never made the film he planned) reportedly offered the role to Oskar Werner - yet another Austrian! I should point out that I do not, in fact, have anything against Austrians, least of all against Messrs Brandauer and Werner.

[victoriavandal.livejournal.com]

I thought the mix of Euro-accents was a bit odd at first, but the drama's so long I got used to it! I think some of the smaller roles may be dubbed in the Eng Lang version, but 'Danton' and 'Robespierre' had their own voices - I think the latter is a Polish actor (he was in Wajda's 'Danton', too), and Peter Ustinov (Mirabeau)was multilingual, so presumably could do his lines in any language under the sun!

[(Anonymous)]

Andrzej Seweryn who plays Robespierre (and who played Bourdon in "Danton") is of Polish origin, but he is actually French.

[lucieandco.livejournal.com]

That makes sense! (Ustinov is a wonder in this regard, I've never heard him sound anything other than confident and natural in any language or accent. The only complaint I'm tempted to file about him in LRF - well, about his self-dub, that is - is that, while he makes no faux-pas in putting his Mirabeau in any unfitting geographical corner, he sounds at times almost too much like himself, if that makes sense.)

he was in Wajda's 'Danton', too
He was! The world is a disturbingly small place. Or European film is, at any rate.