Mostly for Lazar

Josh Lalonde   Sun Mar 25, 2007 3:32 am GMT
I just watched the movie "The Departed", and I was wondering how accurate the accents are. There were a few things that I thought were wrong, but of course, you would know better than me. Have you seen this movie, and if so, what did you think? If not, could you take a look at a trailer? Thanks.

PS. Anyone else is of course welcome to comment, this is just more Lazar's area of expertise.
Lazar   Sun Mar 25, 2007 5:33 am GMT
Yeah, I saw "The Departed" a few months ago. I thought the accents were pretty good overall. The best were definitely from Matt Damon and Mark Wahlberg, because they're both from Boston, and I thought Alec Baldwin's was really good too. I think Jack Nicholson did a more "moderate" accent, using a Boston-style [a] for instances of /Ar/ but a more General American [A] for "cot" words, for example. (Which I thought was fine, because "overdoing" an accent, or not getting it quite right, could detract from a role, and a lot of subtle dialect-mixing is possible in the Northeast anyway.) For some reason, I thought Vera Farmiga sounded a little unconvincing though.
Lazar   Sun Mar 25, 2007 5:38 am GMT
I should rephrase: <because "overdoing" an accent and not getting it quite right...>
Josh Lalonde   Sun Mar 25, 2007 1:39 pm GMT
I thought I heard Martin Sheen say 'sorry' as [sAr\i], but mostly everything else seemed right. There were more non-rhotic speakers than I expected though. Did the ratio of rhotic/non-rhotic speakers seem right to you?
Lazar   Sun Mar 25, 2007 3:02 pm GMT
I think the ratio was plausible. I think inside the city of Boston, a majority of police officers, gangsters, and working-class people would probably be non-rhotic. Middle-class people, especially in the suburbs, would be more likely to be rhotic.