Bollywood vs Hollywood: Accents

[greyfri]

As I mentioned in another thread, I recently watched HBO's "Prince of Lies' about Bernie Madoff. The thing that struck me is that Michelle Pfeiffer, who plays Ruth Madoff, speaks her lines with a NY Queen's Accent, to replicate Ruth Madoff's accent.

This is something good actors and actresses regularly do in Hollywood films-- use foreign accents, or regional US accents or in some cases even historical accents depending on the character, movie time or the like. The highly over-rated (according to Trump) Meryl Streep has done an incredible variety of accents in different movies -- her vocal range is mind boggling (except to those who have no mind to boggle :).

India has lots of regional and class differences in accents, but I don't remember Bollywood actors and actresses paying attention to or trying to faithfully emulate local accents. For the most part it's very superficial -- the distinction between the English educated and vernacular educated accent mostly.

But I admit I haven't watched many recent bollywood movies, so I could be wrong ! Any comments ?

[SamSan]

For Actors like Shahrukh Khan, the roles have to be morphed to suit him and not the other way around... he has the same stupid stammering style in every movie. And yet he is a big hit
On the other hand, when ever any hindi actor/actress speaks ANY south indian language, they have this horrible so-called madrasi accent :p

[greyfri]

For Actors like Shahrukh Khan, the roles have to be morphed to suit him and not the other way around... he has the same stupid stammering style in every movie. And yet he is a big hit
On the other hand, when ever any hindi actor/actress speaks ANY south indian language, they have this horrible so-called madrasi accent :p

I think the distinction may be betwen so called 'character actors', who play lots of characters, and actors who essentially play themselves or one character. Amitabh Bachchan, as far as I remember, esentially plays angry young (and then not so young) men for most of his movies, and the movies in which he played some other role didn't go over too well. Even in Western movies there are actors (and it's mostly actors) who get lots of money for playing essentially one role -- Arnold schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis etc. But many Hollywood actresses at least do both blockbuster movies and serious movies. [ A few Bollywood actresses do that too, but not that many]

it would be fun to see (hear ?) if Meryl Streep could do some South Indian accent. Of course, she almost certainly doesn't know any Indian languages, but I doubt she knows the half a dozen other language she's done accents for.

[SamSan]

But Bollywood does have Singers who are versatile and sing in many languages as though its native to them. Shreya Goshal comes to mind.

[IndianByDefault]

One recent good example I saw was Aamir Khan doing I think what was Rajasthani accent very well in Peeke. Kamal Hassan does regional tamil nadu accents very well as do other tamil actors male and female.

[greyfri]

But Bollywood does have Singers who are versatile and sing in many languages as though its native to them. Shreya Goshal comes to mind.

These are playback singers, right ? I suppose they have more time to practice languages and accents.

One more place where Hollywood demands more of it's talent is that generally the actors and actresses do most of their own singing. Some even become major stars (John Travolta, Julie Andrews). Even Western A-list actresses do sing, and quite well (indeed, it's considered part of being an A lister) -- like Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge, Michelle Pfeiffer in the Fabulous Baker Boys.

In the days prior to playback singing (50s ? ), Bollywood actors/actresses did their own singing.

I remember reading a writeup in an american newspaper about Indian playback singers -- since the concept is not that well known here, the writer mentioned how the playback singers are quite famous themselves, and then threw in a rather nasty (but likely correct) comment that seeing Lata Mangeshkar made it easy to understand why she didn't appear on screen herself :wink. That particular comment could never be made for Nicole or Michelle !

[layman]

Bollywood movies are stereotype movies. Leave alone accent. Their range of storyline itself is very narrow.

In Tamil, I have seen Kamalahasan using accent in his movies well. In one movie where he acts as a Sri Lankan tamilian he hired Sri Lankan Tamilians and spent a lot of time with them learning the accent before doing the movie.

Honestly, there are no good actors in India any more with some old good actors retiring.

[vapasi1]

Dangal - AK and others did a good job with Haryanvi accent. It is a rage now and you can see it everywhere in showbusiness.
Udta Punjab - All did a decent job with Punjabi

Havent seen Bwood do a good job with SI accents.

Among current stars, AK puts in the effort required for such work. Contrary to your impression Amitabh has shown a lot more versatality doing comedy, tragedy etc. other than AYM image. When he has done comedy, it is almost always a dehati bhaiyya and he does a decent job with taht accent. He has done a few scenes of comedy as an SI but the accent is heavily stereotypical. Dilip Kumar did a great job as a dehati. Govinda tried but couldnt do a good job (Aankehn).

SRK and Sallu Miyan would hardly ever try out different roles, so no question. SRK tries Americanisms in his movies which impresses a lot of his fans esp. females. But he is nowhere near being authentic. It is more of that showoff S Mumbai wannabes. Worst of the superstars (past and present) of Bwood.

Akshay Kumar does a decent job with accents like Gujju, Bengali (recent GOLD), punjabi etc. Same with Paresh Rawal.

I like the TV serial "Jijaji Chhath Par Hai" on SONY. Everyone does a good job of capturing the local rustic accent and dialect. Hope dbsji is watching this. Are you Sir?

[SoodKelly]

There are very few actors that actually focus on their craft, accent included. Like Kangana Ranaut in Tanu weds manu. Rest are more focused on their looks. And even if they do try to mimic it just sounds fake, not organic. And its not just about Indian accents. Even in movies like kal ho na ho where most of the central characters spent the better part of their lives in USA their accent doesn't show even a hint of the American twang. I wonder what the directors were doing.

[dbs]

D...I like the TV serial "Jijaji Chhath Par Hai" on SONY. Everyone does a good job of capturing the local rustic accent and dialect. Hope dbsji is watching this. Are you Sir?

Yes, I do. Not these days in NJ, though. I watch what ever boss is watching, but, yes, I enjoy "Bhabhiji..." and "jeejaji...." If you notice they have several common actors.
_______________________________________--
DW lets me talk now. All she does is contradicting.