Hello,
I'd like to ask questions about Juliette Binoche's English accent.
In Wuthering Heigths, she plays the part of an English girl : I'd like to know your opinion about her British English accent in that film. I remember reading an article by a journalist (from the Guardian I think) who was surprised when he first interviewed her because he had naturally thought she was British but realised her real accent was thicker and that she sometimes made "mistakes" when she spoke - as any foreigners do.
In the English Patient, I think she's supposed to be Canadian, but whether Canadian or French Canadian, I don't know. How does she sound to American, Canadian and British people in that movie?
Finally, in "In my Country" she had to take an Afrikaans accent. While some reports said that she "fails at the Afrikaans accent", was "unable to master the Afrikaans accent", others pretend she "struggles with an Afrikaans accent (sometimes doing surprisingly well for someone who is not a native English speaker)", others argue she "gives a reasonable approximation of an Afrikaans accent" and even that "Juliet Binoche's performance in the lead is considered a high point of voice acting by most South African viewers - many South Africans watching the film for the first time actively wondered which of their countrywoman was on screen at the time, since Binoche's vocal inflections are in actual fact a flawless Western Cape Afrikaans-English accent. Revelation at the end of the film of the leading lady's nationality drew audible gasps from audiences when the film premiered in Cape Town and Johannesburg".
I'd like to read what "experts" think about her accents in these 3 movies.
Thanks.
Thanks a lot Uriel for you reply! Can I ask you what your mother tongue is?
Apparently she is supposed to be French Canadian in the English Patient, although she doesn't sound like Céline Dion ;)
She's my favourite actress anyway. Thanks!
Juliette Binoche is, of course, French and, even better, she was born in Paris - incredibly she is now almost 46 years old - now God strike me dead for referring to a lady's age in an open forum, not that it matters that any on-line biography would confirm it anyway - she's only five years younger than my mother but not quite as beautiful but there you go....
In that clip from "Wuthering Heights" she did appear to have a reasonably passable English English RP accent, probably acquired by spending a good deal of time here in the UK over the years she has spent in her line of business.....the bog-standard accent most North Americans identify as being British, as if it is the only accent of this country, but there you go...again. ;-)
Actually, to make assessment and comprehension matters a wee bit more difficult perhaps, she was whispering much of the time in the clip in which, as Cathy Earnshaw, she declared her passion and undying love for the hero of the piece, Heathcliff...the bloke who constantly seemed to emerge from the mists "oop on th'moors" all set to sweep her up into his manly arms and then ask her if she'd put the kettle on ready for tea as he was "reet clemmed oop there a' Top Withens"....Top Withens being that rocky spot right at the far end of the track leading up the wild moorland which most of the time is shrouded in mist, so typical of that part of West Yorkshire above the Bronte's home village of Haworth, the actual setting for Emily Bronte's novel. It was there at Top Withens where rough and ready Heathcliff was seen leaning against that tree trunk pledging undying love for Cathy...all part of one of the most famous love stories from English English literature of the early Victorian era.
As I say, Binoche's EERP accent was pretty good considering her nationality - most of the time I prefer a French national to use their own delightful accent when speaking English (as most of them indeed do) but that would hardly be appropriate in the case of the Cathy Earnshaw character would it? As I say Binoche has had a great deal of exposure to British accents anyway - she even went up to Yorkshire, unexpectedly, to meet up with Joanne Harris (English born but with a French mother) prior to the filming of "Chocolat" - Harris being the author of the book which was adapted to the screen and featured Binoche in the starring role.
Harking back to Cathy and Heathcliff - up among the wild, wide open, misty moors of Yorkshire - if they had been real people in early Victorian Yorkshire, there is no doubt at all that they would have sported the local accent of that part of Northern England, but this has never, ever been transferred to any stage or screen adaption of Emily's novel - invariably EERP has been used, speaking from a British perspective here...quite understandably any other production anywhere in the ESW would have featured the local accent.
To expect Juliette Binoche to requite her amorous passion for Heathcliff in a broad 19th century Yorkshire twang would have been pushing it somewhat, to say the least.....and the same applies to any bloke playing the part of Heathcliff.
Apparently all three of the Bronte sisters, living their isolated and relatively unconventional lives in that gloomy parsonage at Haworth*, surrounded by depressing grey slate covered tombstones and monuments, spoke in the accent of the area at that time, as we would expect, but in any TV drama they are always heard speaking standard EERP which, let's face it, would be so much easier for audience comprehension in the wider world.
*Haworth - the West Yorkskshire village with a very long, steeply inclining cobbled street leading up from the train station to the grimly gloomy Parsonage itself, and passing by the Black Boy pub, the haunt of the ill fated, idle booze-swilling opium-smoking Bronte brother Branwell, the source of mixed emotions among his three much more talented sisters, not to mention his and their father, Patrick (who outlived the lot of them ultimately) - is well worth a visit.
I went there one day with a small group of fellow students from uni - Haworth village is not too far from Leeds - and guess what......the weather was perfect for the occasion....the whole atmosphere was so redolent of the Bronte era and of the "Wuthering Heights" novel in particular - the sky was a leaden grey, and the pathway leading up from the gloomy Parsonage all the way up to Top Withens, occasionally became obscured by swirling mist...we expected to see Cathy and Heathcliff appear, arm in arm, out of the mist still whispering words of lovey doveyness to each other but no such luck...all we saw were a couple of stonechats, or were they whinchats? Anyway, they were birds.
I'm American; native English speaker.
I've heard French Canadians speaking English, and to me they sound a little more, well, French than the accent she was using in the clip of the English Patient I watched. But I am sure that varies among French Canadians with the degree of exposure that they have to English or the regularity with which they speak it. So I can't claim any expert status there, but a regular English-speaking Canadian would sound a lot more like me, and she definitely wasn't doing that.
Thanks Damian for your poetical answer. You've been inspired by my question haven't you? I am French myself but try my best not speak in that delightful accent of ours. ;-)
I should post a voice sample one day to have your opinion.
Thanks again Uriel.
Any South African willing to comment on Binoche's Afrikaans accent?