quote: | Originally posted by GoSpeedGo!
Yeah, I think you're kind of rationalizing your own personal preference here.
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Yeah...you got me here.
I still stand by my point (though perhaps not as adamantly as before). We tie language to place, just as we tie a social climate to place. I suppose the two of us disagree on which of those are more fundamental in this particular instance. Personally, I am not totally abreast of Swedish culture currently, so much of what I think you're driving at might have been lost on me during the film.
As for the Nazi issue (if that is the main point here)--a filmmaker could substitute in any such creation there, or even keep 'Nazi', and achieve the same thing. At least, I'd posit that a vast majority of the target audience would find no problem with it. That leads back to my initial hypothesis, however crudely formed, that the decision to film an otherwise Swedish movie in the English language was based on the perception of the American audience as Europhiles and little more than that. Many would rather see some strange, foreign word on a package in a store than see english words because it gives them some sort of unconscious pleasure.
And now, regarding Coriolanus: you are right (as usual) that Shakespeare's plays are typically timeless and this one isn't any different, but what drew me into the film most, from the onset, was how effortlessly setting was established. In adaptations it typically takes more time to get acclimated, and especially considering how Fiennes opted to stick with the traditional Shakespearean language it was an amazing feat to see guns and modern attire then hear them speak so eloquently without it seeming out of place. It was done thusly: "In a place called Rome". I suppose it sounds...trite, but in the context of the film I thought it was excellent.
For me, Fincher failed to properly connect what I was hearing and what I was seeing. The only reason this wasn't more of an issue (as I said before, it was really just a minor gripe of mine) was because of the edge-of-your-seat feel to it all. I couldn't imagine the disconnect between place and language working in anything but a thriller or action movie. Consider A Separation for instance: a movie which is much more heavily tied to a certain social climate. Would you care for a hollywood remake, shot to take place in Iran but totally spoken in English? I would find it appalling. [Just as I found Fincher's need to remake such a fresh movie to be appalling, and just as I found the very existence of Let Me In to be appalling, and so on and so forth -------- maybe this is the key point and the rest is just me rationalizing my own personal preference, as you noted, but I have a point, no??]
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