Days of Heaven : They were from Chicago? Sounded like east coast accents to me

They were from Chicago? Sounded like east coast accents to me

The litle girl especially. Brooklyn, da Bronx, maybe Juhzy. Fuggettaboutit.














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Re: They were from Chicago? Sounded like east coast accents to me

Sounds like my in-laws from the Chicago North shore.

Re: They were from Chicago? Sounded like east coast accents to me

The girl's accent was very new york-ish indeed - most noticeably in the narration.


Living in the sixth dimension. Things get rough.

Re: They were from Chicago? Sounded like east coast accents to me

Neither of the three actors, Manz, Gere, or Adams, sound like they are from the same city, let alone the same neighborhood. Only Adams sounds like she's from Chicago to me.

Yes, East Coast accents

Richard Gere was born in Philadelphia, but at some point his family moved to the Syracuse, New York area (far from New York City), where he graduated from high school; he then went to college in Massachusetts for two years. His voice as Bill in Days of Heaven definitely has some sort of Philly or New York City or Massachusetts quality; but what portion of that reflects an influence of his parents on his own natural speech, what portion reflects an influence of the areas where he spent his early life on his own natural speech, and what portion is just a slightly tough-sounding accent deliberately adopted for the role, is really hard to say. Maybe Gere himself could answer the question, though that'd be a roll of the dice: some people have the knack of being insightful about their own speech patterns, while others don't.

Linda Manz has a thick New York City outer-boroughs accent: there's no mistaking that.

Brooke Adams, also a native of New York City, also has an accent reflecting that origin, but it's a far lighter and classier one than Linda Manz's.

I don't see any of this as an accuracy problem, because I don't think the film ever states that Bill or Linda or Abby is originally from Chicago: all we know is that the three of them have been living there for a while. And I don't think it's necessarily unrealistic that Bill and Linda would have such different accents: siblings can have different accents if they spent their formative years in different places, or if by psychological inclination they have different speech influences (for example, parents versus peers).

Re: Yes, East Coast accents

Though of course it's possible that siblings could have rather different accents, it introduces an incongruity that doesn't particularly serve the film and probably it would be better if they sounded similar. Also I rather think that most members of a cinema audience in the US, let alone elsewhere, would prefer to hear narration from a girl with an accent and timbre closer to Brooke Adams or Richard Gere than to what we hear from Linda Manz, partly because it is often difficult to make out what she's saying and partly because it sounds distractingly unattractive (to my ears anyway). So it was an odd choice to cast that actress, sounding as she did, in that role, and I can easily imagine the film being better with someone different. Malick seems to have a tin ear when it comes to narration, The Thin Red Line also being marred by its Forrest Gump philosophising.

I beseech ye in the bowels of Christ, think that ye may be mistaken.

Re: Yes, East Coast accents

I had to turn on the English subtitles to make out what she was saying. And I am a native New Yorker myself!

You're right, it just served as an unnecessary distraction. I'm also pretty sure that turn of the century field workers did not have feathered/layered, recently blow-dried hair, and wear Saturday Night Fever, Disco style vests, from the late 1970s as Gere did.

Interesting, but flawed film IMO. The dialog was often pretty atrocious, including the narration.

Re: They were from Chicago? Sounded like east coast accents to me

From the beginning, all I heard were typical new yawk accents. Looked at the cast and the offenders were from NY, NY. The female accents were so thick, it made it seem like they were intentional. But if they were intentional, intentional NY accents makes no sense since it was incredibly distracting all movie long. Apologists will invent all kinds of backstories, but with nothing presented in the film as evidence, the big fat accents seem out of place.

Re: They were from Chicago? Sounded like east coast accents to me

"That's nitpicking, isn't it?" Spinal Tap.

Wherever she was from, her narration was brilliant. "From the Eart"

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