Accent Training in Hollywood: Analysis of the American Beauty - Term Paper Example

Accent Training in Hollywood- Analysis of the American Beauty Accent Training in Hollywood- Analysis of the American BeautyThe American Beauty is a movie with a lot of themes and lessons and these themes have been portrayed really well through a strong plot, brilliant cinematography and creative characterization. This movie is successful in overall themes and counter-themes. The main characters of the movie have a North Central American dialect which just adds up to the characters. The primary themes to which attention has been drawn in the movie are materialism, appearance versus reality, control versus chaos, denial and repression, loneliness versus feeling connected, change and searching. Each character performs like a supporting agent in one or the other theme of the movie. According to the Guardian UK’s site: “unless one casts Indians to play Indians, Danes to play Danes, Irishmen to play Irishmen etc, most accents in Hollywood movies border on caricature” (The Guardian, 2013). Important to note this is rather a statement than a question. Training the actors in Hollywood for special accents is undoubtedly a crucial yet cumbersome job. Ever since the beginning of Hollywood, the film makers have taken their stories abroad for which they need to train their actors for foreign accents. Either the audience of these movies are deprived of knowledge for these foreign accents or their expectations are too high, when they expect perfect speech in a film by the actors no matter what the accent is. Many critiques have made a comparison between actors in roles that they need special accent trainings and the native speakers of that accent. According to many of these critiques, such roles which require special accents should be left to the native speakers for a better outcome in the final movie. Any actor in Hollywood having a role in which he/she needs to sound like an Irish athlete, a Russian hit man or a South American business Tycoon, it is likely that they need a voice coach. These coaches have expertise on different accent from around the world and they provide training to the actors for different accents. These accent coaches not only train for the accents they are aware of, but keep researching to learn new accents in case of new assignments as they come up. For this purpose, they need to communicate with different people around the world and read literature about their accents. These dialect coaches are no doubt an important element of a film which requires multi-ethnic accents for the actors. For example, the North Central American accent in the movie The American Beauty has been played by non-native speakers like Kevin Spacey (as Lester Burnham), Annette Bening (as Carolyn Burnham) and Thora Birch (as Jane Burnham) for which they have been trained well by their dialect coaches. A common technique in producing the accent from a non-native speaker is to have speech CDs for the accents to know the rhythm, the stresses and the cadence. The actors are then handed over these CDs after initial sessions with their dialect coaches, and left to practice their accents until the coach is satisfied. All this has to be done before the actual recording of the film starts. (Accent Coach 2012) For an actor to learn different accent, there must a perfect elasticity in his voice as every region has its own melody in the accents. Even in common American accent, the southern accent is different than that of northern and Central American accents. The overall success and appreciation of a movie can be sabotaged if the accents of the actors are suspected. For this purpose, many critiques and film analysts say that casting native stars is beneficial rather than American Hollywood stars in order to ensure authenticity. However, it is important to have recognizable names on the movie in order to gain popularity, for this purpose, the film makers hire big stars along with dialect coaches to produce the correct accent as the film demands. As far as the accent in “The American Beauty” is concerned, the actors and the coach have done a tremendous job. The North Central American accent is quite difficult to learn and produce for which the actors Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening and Thora Birch were trained with dialect sessions and CDs from their coach. Another important aspect in voice and dialect training is to avoid monotones. Being monotone is quite boring for an actor. In fact, the sound can be kept straight but should not start with the same point. For this purpose an example that has been given by the famous dialect coach Bob Corff is that; it is suggested to go down the street, turn left then continue walking. Like this, though the voice goes straight and direct but the tone is not started from the same point every time. The starting and the ending scales of a dialogue should never be the same. The actors are not just taught to learn the new accents but also the lip movement and jaws movement is focussed while learning a new accent. Astonishingly, most dialect coaches who instruct the basics of pronunciation, tempo, and cadence are the direct descendents of George Bernard Shaw’s inspiration for Professor Henry Higgins in “Pygmalion”. However, in today’s modern times, due to global mass communication the far-flung accents have been made familiar to the people. The audience of today’s world expects pitch perfect speech with proper pronunciation. Many dialect coaches also called as accent coaches work together with directors and producers over a certain contracted period of time against which they provide trainings to the actors casted in the movies. The actors make their portfolios by learning new accents making them strong contenders in diversified multi-ethnic roles. Dialect coaches must have string understanding of intonations (placement, pitch and phrasing), phonetics, consonant and vowel shifts and must possess a variety of accents. Recently, there have been many foreign actors going to Hollywood, many of them have a good understanding of American or British English but they are unable to produce the desired American or British accents as the film demands. The dialect coaches conduct sessions and trainings for such people who are seeking a way into Hollywood, but important to note that the dialect coaches do not work with people not having a sound knowledge of English grammar. In this way, these dialect coaches are also helping new entrants find their way for a successful career in Hollywood. A dialect coach does not only offer advice but also be the analysts to make necessary adjustments to these emerging talents have a perfect American accent. The question is that having a proper accent is really that important in our lives or it is just a requirement of films? What role dos it play in our daily lives? According to a recent study held by the University of Chicago, if one wants to be believed, he must lose the accent. This means that an accent can be an obstacle in the listener’s understanding of the speaker; hence the listener is less likely to believe on what the speaker says. In simpler words, it can be said that an accent can make you less credible. It has been predicted by some analysts and researchers that accent reduction will soon become an inseparable area of the language industry. Most dialect or accent coaches work with established as well as aspiring artists in their offices having one-one sessions, on Film Production sets and on Skype. As with the case of “The American Beauty” the north Central American accent was not only taught on production sets to the actors but also Skype calls were arranged between the actors and the dialect coach to make the learning process faster. This is evident in the movie where there is a crisp and clear accent of Kevin Spacey (as Lester Burnham) with appropriate gaps in between the dialogues and proper pronunciation. Though learning new accents is more of a greater problem for second language learners yet these actors in the movie did a responsible job. The words are clear and audible despite the difference in accent; the listeners do not need to try hard to listen to the dialogues. On the other hand, the other main character of the movie Carolyn Burnham (played by Annette Bening) is somewhat not clear at times specially when there is a low tone of voice in the dialogues. Surprisingly, the critiques of the movie say that Thora Birch (as Jane Burnham) has played a marvellous role in terms of clarity and pitch of the dialect. The gap between each dialogue is adequate neither losing grip nor going too fast. Together with brilliant expressions, appropriate pronunciation and understandable accent, Thora has nailed it in the movie. There were no proper dialect or accent coaches and managers up till the last decade. But since, the audience of today’s world has gotten smarter and they know the different accent from around the world, the Hollywood film makers had to pay attention to the dialects and the accents of the actors. Back then, when there were no proper training provided to the actors, the quality of the movies were adversely affected as the actors, themselves learned the accents by researching or meeting new people. With advancement in accent training skills, more film makers are ready to take risks of hiring American actors in foreign roles and vice versa. The film makers and the actors both are gaining benefits from these dialect coaches. While on one hand the film makers are earning credits and are ready to take risks of experimenting with different plots requiring different accents, on the other hand the actors get an opportunity to maintain their portfolios by taking up diverse roles in different accents. In this way, there has been a new dimension added to the Hollywood film industry where people are teaching and learning accents for films. To be a dialect coach to a manager, one does not only need to have a language degree but also understanding of different requirements for different accents. Many dialect coaches now suggest the actors to learn different accents in which they think they are likely to be cast. In this way they can maintain their repertoire and the directors of upcoming films will get to know who to cast without the hurdle of an additional dialect or accent coach. These days there are a number of dialect managers and coaches working who are just one call away from these actors. Not only the actors but common people can also benefit from them if having difficulty with accents (Dramatica 2013). So the next time you see your favourite actor in a French accent or in a South American role, think of the background efforts of dialect managers and coaches who have been working hard for this result. Hence, Hollywood has not only got talents but also a variety of accents. References American Beauty - Story Synopsis - Dramatica. 2013. American Beauty - Story Synopsis - Dramatica. [ONLINE] Available at: http://dramatica.com/articles/american-beauty. [Accessed 22 January 2013]. Latest news, sport and comment from the Guardian | The Guardian . 2013. Latest news, sport and comment from the Guardian | The Guardian . [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk. [Accessed 22 January 2013]. [ONLINE] Accent Coach. Available at: http://theaccentcoach.com/media/hw.pdf. [Accessed 22 January 2013]. Read More