Despite Quentin Tarantino’s au naturel approach to Inglourious Basterds, a film coloured with an array of languages and dialects, not to mention a liberal smattering of subtitles, the common tactic of mainstream cinema is to switch out one language for another for the sake of simplicity. That way, a movie like Enemy at the Gates, where the characters are all either Russian or German, we can understand them without subtitles by simply having them speak English. It’s just an easy way of opening up a film to a broader North American audience. But beware: if you’re going to do it, you need to observe a few simple rules:
If you’re using an accent to make it seem like you’re at least putting on a foreign air (ever notice how the Romans always sound like Welshmen?), use it consistently – don’t pull a Kevin Costner and slip in and out of your accent when it gets too tough. If you’re not even gong to bother with an accent, at least learn to pronounce certain words and names properly, like your own. There were so many things wrong with The Musketeer, but at the most basic level, we were dealing with a main character who couldn’t even pronounce his name properly. I mean, he’s performing opposite for chrissakes – show some respect!
Another problem present in The Musketeer (and this is key) is that even though they switched out French for English – there are still background actors speaking French. That kind of slip in continuity would seem to indicate that the main characters really are speaking English for the benefit of the audience while everyone else on screen carries on with their foreign language lives as per usual. What am I supposed to take away from that? That characters are actually speaking English for my benefit and would have otherwise been speaking French if they didn’t have a camera in their face?
There are many movies that do a great job at handling the language barrier. The Hunt for Red October, despite having a pre-30 Rock Alec Baldwin as the second most forgettable Jack Ryan of all time, does a great job of switching out Russian for English right up until the Americans board the Russian sub and suddenly Sean Connery is speaking with subtitles. They pick a system and stick with it.
