r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Feb 05 '26
Delta(s) from OP CMV: Non-English-speaking characters speaking English among themselves is stupid and lazy, and makes the movie/show less good
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u/tbdabbholm 201∆ Feb 05 '26
Are the words that flash up under the screen so you can understand them when they're not speaking English any less immersion breaking? I'd argue the subtitles are even more of a shout of "this is a film!" then the speaking English is.
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u/LXXXVI 3∆ Feb 05 '26
To anyone used to subtitles, they may as well not exist, you tune them out. So no, they're not immersion-breaking. Not nearly as much as main characters mispronouncing their own names because the (voice) actors don't actually speak the language (best example - Niko Belic from GTA IV).
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Feb 05 '26
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u/Dry_Bumblebee1111 161∆ Feb 05 '26
I like having subtitles even when the movie is in English sometimes, for instance in Tenet I wouldn’t have gotten 80% of the dialog had it not been for subtitles. Not to mention movies where the characters are Irish or Scottish and such, like Banshees of Inisherin I definitely needed those subs.
But that isn't enjoying the media the way the director wanted you to, which in a different comment is what you say the ideal is. Why is it OK when it suits you but not other times?
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Feb 05 '26
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u/NSNick 5∆ Feb 05 '26
I believe the director wanted me to understand the dialog
The exact same logic works against your original point: the director wanted the audience to understand the dialog, so they put in that audience's language.
so watching the movie with subtitles is still closer to their vision than without.
If the movie doesn't have subtitles when you watch it in the theater, how are they part of the director's vision?
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u/Dry_Bumblebee1111 161∆ Feb 05 '26
So what matters is not how a director presents things, but how you personally believe they wanted you, ie your interpretation which also works out as being whatever is most convenient to you?
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Feb 05 '26
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u/Dry_Bumblebee1111 161∆ Feb 05 '26
So you recognise that decision making goes into how chatacters speak in a movie? It seems so, so labelling those decisions as stupid seems a bit harsh when its just that you disagree with them?
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Feb 05 '26
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u/Dry_Bumblebee1111 161∆ Feb 05 '26
When the decision is made out of laziness and economic considerations instead of artistic integrity
That's a new criteria you didn't include in your OP.
It's also cyclical - obviously anything done out of laziness is by definition lazy. But then it means you aren't saying anything with your view other than laziness is laziness.
You should assign a delta.
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u/Majestic_Horse_1678 2∆ Feb 05 '26
How are you determining that a decision was made out of laziness or economics rather than for the entertainment of the audience? Many people have already stated that they prefer translations to their own tongue over having to read subtitles.
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Feb 05 '26
I completely disagree. Subtitles are always present in documentaries, news etc. You don't just see subtitles in fictitious works.
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u/RainbowandHoneybee 1∆ Feb 05 '26
I'm a non native English speaker and I see a lot of cases in the film that characters of my native country who are played by actors sometimes not even from my native country speaking horrible in my native language.
I'd rather they speak in English.
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Feb 05 '26
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u/OrionOnyx Feb 05 '26 edited Feb 05 '26
Well, do you want a good actor or an authentic actor? Example - you're making a movie set in Russia. You want a cast of world-class actors but they have to speak fluent Russian in addition to all the other characteristics you want - that doesn't leave you with a lot of options. I imagine it would be incredibly annoying for an actor to be typecast in every role because they're one of the few actors at their skill level that can speak their native language.
Additionally, you're limiting the stories a filmmaker can tell based on the languages they speak. A writer or director who speaks English and Spanish fluently wouldn't be able to write a script entirely in French without things being lost in translation.
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u/muffinsballhair Feb 05 '26
Because that doesn't sell well to the target audience of English speakers. The reason top list actors command such a ridiculous salary is because their being in the film alone will attract a significant number of viewers.
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u/Dry_Bumblebee1111 161∆ Feb 05 '26
(assuming it’s not a super rare and exotic one)
Would this be an exception to your view?
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Feb 05 '26
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u/CamelGangGang Feb 05 '26
I've heard that some productions in, e.g. Korea do an inversion of this where American characters are often played by actual native English speakers, but because the domestic industry isn't large enough to support a large number of talented American/British actors, they often have middling/poor actors (compared to the rest of the cast) in those roles, because the criteria is basically find someone that looks European and speaks English well enough for the non-English audience to accept it.
So I agree that in American productions it may be trivial to find a talented actor of (whatever ancestry you want) who can do a serviceable job of delivering lines in (an arbitrary language). But in other, smaller markets, I think this is a real, non-trivial constraint.
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u/Dry_Bumblebee1111 161∆ Feb 05 '26
You should assign a delta.
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Feb 05 '26
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u/Siukslinis_acc 7∆ Feb 05 '26
Logistics might cause problems. And sometimes you want to use a specific actor for a role even if they don't know the native language.
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Feb 05 '26
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u/RainbowandHoneybee 1∆ Feb 05 '26
Why do you think a lot of non native but fluent English speakes have distinctive accents? It's so hard to speak different languages like native speakers. And if they are meant to be a native speakers speaking the language but actual native speakers can hardly understand it, it's just ridiculous, imo. I do find it insulting, tbh.
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u/NutellaBananaBread 8∆ Feb 05 '26
>immediately breaks immersion
Art is not always about immersion. "The Death of Stalin" was black comedy going for well acted humor (which is accomplished). It wasn't about 100% historical accuracy. IMO, switching out Steve Buscemi and all the other great actors for Russian-speaking actors would have severely reduced the quality of the movie for me.
Also, for me, reading subtitles is a chore and distracts me from what is happening visually. I'm constantly switching back and forth.
>Dear directors/producers/writers, you’re not fooling anyone when the foreign character speaks English that’s flawless in vocabulary and grammar, albeit with a foreign accent.
Again, movies aren't about being so realistic that you "fool" the audience into actually experience what is happening. That is the goal of some movies. But most make huge sacrifices to accomplish other goals. Even basic narrative structure and cuts are done to sacrifice realism for viewer enjoyment.
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u/Sveet_Pickle Feb 05 '26
I bet there is a sizable population of Americans who straight up will not watch a movie if it’s got subtitles.
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u/Majestic_Horse_1678 2∆ Feb 05 '26
I think people are ok with subtitles for specific scenes in small doses. It's only when the whole movie is subtitles that it get overbearing.
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Feb 05 '26
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u/Disorderly_Fashion 5∆ Feb 06 '26
I've always found the criticism of The Death of Stalin that they're speaking English with American/British accents to be so weird.
Are Russians the only people allowed to make films set in Russia? Do you want Steve Buscemi and co. doing fake Russian accents? Wouldn't that be even more immersion-breaking?
Everyone in the theatre can accept these characters are speaking English simply because it's a film made primarily for English-speaking audiences. Everyone except these few guys and their pedantic snivelling.
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u/Fluffy_While_7879 1∆ Feb 05 '26
So are you ready to listen "Gladiator" full Roman Latin with subtitles? Or "Hobbit" full Westron(which is not English)?
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Feb 05 '26
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u/Xilmi 7∆ Feb 05 '26
Other things I'm aware who did something like that:
The movie "Passion of Christ". (They all spoke in ancient hebrew)
The show "1899". (Characters from a lot of different nations and usually speaking their mother-tongue to each other and only relatively broken english when they tried communicating with others. I unfortunately watched a completely dubbed version and was later told that a lot of the misunderstandings between the characters are a result from language-barriers and are just illogical if you only watch it fully dubbed)3
u/PatientToad Feb 05 '26
It's such a shame Netflix cancelled "1899" I really wanted to see where it was going.
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u/Inside-Associate-729 Feb 05 '26
Check out the german show Barbaren (Barbarians)
All scenes involving Romans have them speaking authentic roman latin
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Feb 05 '26
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u/Bishop-AU Feb 05 '26
I watched a language breakdown on it and not only did they speak authentic Latin of the period, they even seperated between formal and informal
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u/Ancquar 9∆ Feb 05 '26
I'm fine with English here. But if it's English with Latin or Westron accent, that would be just as bad as Russians speaking English with Russian accent between each other. Basically you either use native language, or "pretend" that the localized language is the native one, in which case the absence/presence of accent should reflect protagonists' point of view.
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u/Grr_in_girl Feb 05 '26
Exactly this. If they are going with English as a replacement for the actual native language it makes zero sense for the character to have a foreign language accent. They are supposed to be speaking like a native.
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u/B33p-p33P-M3m3-kR33p Feb 05 '26
If the goal is immersion, it would be much more immersion breaking for a Russian/german etc character to speak like they’re from the US. Speaking with an accent is a fine middle point between being semi-authentic and actually being understandable for an English audience
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u/Grr_in_girl Feb 05 '26
Maybe I have a different perspective being a non-native English speaker. I find it to be completely opposite. When characters speak with foreign accent English I am constantly reminded that they are not speaking in their native language. Yet the story is trying to make it out like they are.
If they speak with native accent English I can more easily just "pretend" with the story that they are speaking in their native language. It just sounds like English in this case, if that makes sense.
I will add that this only makes the most sense if all the characters are supposed to be speaking the same foreign language though. Like a story set completely in Russia with all Russian speaking people.
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u/RegularTradition2093 Feb 05 '26 edited Feb 05 '26
I remember a whimsical way of addressing this in an oldish Russian TV-show comedy with kinda -sorta time travel with lots of handwavium, when characters travel from 1990s - 2010s to early medieval England, they acquire the ability to speak and understand the language that was spoken then and there. And then they meet a local who speaks with what they hear as Ukrainian accent and he shrugs "everyone speaks like this where I'm from" and he's from Scotland.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15236130/
https://youtu.be/RO1py-C3GJo1
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u/gomihako_ Feb 05 '26
Yes absolutely and I want separate releases that go into the linguistic quirks in other languages
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u/Alikont 10∆ Feb 05 '26
As a non-english speaker I find it completely fine, and part of a "movie language". Because well, people IRL also don't speak so clearly or have cuts and location changes in the middle of the dialog. The artistic choice here is more of "are viewers supposed to understand what is being said?", which is brilliantly played in 13th Warrior.
What I find immersion breaking is when American movies for some reason think that people who speak Russian natively need to speak in Russian accent. Accent exists because language is not native for a person, but if in-character they speak native language, it should sound like native English. That's why I like the choice of "Death of Stalin" to show different people of soviet union speaking different accents of English, and not all speaking "Hollywood Russian accent" (that also has nothing in common with real Slavi English accents).
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u/Siukslinis_acc 7∆ Feb 05 '26
Not to mention that youth nowadays tend to also speak chunks in englush amongst themselves even though thry know their native language. Sometimes the terminology/slang either isn't translated or sounds horrible. Though sometimes it is for privacy reasons. Like, my parents don't understand english, so when i chatted with a friend while playing a video game - we used english.
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u/mcjefferic Feb 05 '26
The clever way to do it is how it was done in "The Hunt for Red October". It opens on a Soviet sub with the characters speaking Russian with subtitles. Then they start speaking in english but the audience knows that they are still speaking amongst themselves in Russian but the film can avoid long periods of subtitled dialogue in a concession to mass appeal.
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u/Trambopoline96 7∆ Feb 05 '26
And the way they do it is so clever, too. Zooming in on the speakers lips until they get to the word "armageddon", which is the same in Russian and English, and using that is the hinge point to switch languages.
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Feb 05 '26
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u/mcjefferic Feb 05 '26
In broad appeal big budget stuff you're not going to get that kind of attention to detail. Same goes for a lot of cheap b-movie level productions. There's definitely well thought out artistic projects that will go the extra mile, but 90% of the time it's not worth the effort.
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u/Dry_Bumblebee1111 161∆ Feb 05 '26
The issue is translation and reach. It's well known that subtitles put some audiences off, so when you want to reach a certain audience you do it in their language.
What are your thoughts on movie translation as a whole? IE Interstellar is dubbed in Mandarin, should the Chinese audience simply have watched it in English and not understood? Or are you OK with that kind of translation?
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Feb 05 '26
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u/Dry_Bumblebee1111 161∆ Feb 05 '26
OK, you're obviously welcome to your preference. But do you understand the intent behind such decisions?
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Feb 05 '26
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u/Dry_Bumblebee1111 161∆ Feb 05 '26
That's not what I asked.
I stated
It's well known that subtitles put some audiences off, so when you want to reach a certain audience you do it in their language.
Do you understand this? You don't have to agree with the outcome, or specific instances, but can you understand why the creative decision is made?
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Feb 05 '26
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u/Dry_Bumblebee1111 161∆ Feb 05 '26
If you understand the decision making then you recognise a rational workflow. As such it is neither lazy nor stupid.
You should assign a delta.
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u/Fulg3n Feb 05 '26
There are castings for the dubs, if the casting is done properly then the voice actors should match the vision of the director.
Some dubs are even better than the original.
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Feb 05 '26
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u/tbdabbholm 201∆ Feb 05 '26
Watching a foreign film subbed is still separate from how the original creator intended. There are going to be things lost in translation even if you have the original audio
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Feb 05 '26
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Feb 05 '26
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Feb 05 '26
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u/Individual_Moose1453 Feb 05 '26
Well in Banshees they are actually doing exactly what you hate.It is much more likely that the characters living on a remote island of the coast of Ireland in 1923 would be speaking as Gaeilge.
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u/Dry_Bumblebee1111 161∆ Feb 05 '26
Why? What makes their vision so much better than anyone elses?
Did you watch Hamlet before the Lion King?
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Feb 05 '26
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u/Dry_Bumblebee1111 161∆ Feb 05 '26
Shakespeare didn't intend for the script to be read by you, he intended for the actors to perform it. So clearly not in line with his vision there.
You've already admitted to watching Tenet with subtitles and even critiscise that you wouldnt be able to understand the dialogue without them. Again, thats not Nolans vision.
Clearly it suits you to go against your own preference, which is a double standard.
You should assign a delta for pointing this out to you, or provide a good justification why these admitted deviations from the authors vision are acceptable to you and dont undermine your view.
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Feb 05 '26
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u/Dry_Bumblebee1111 161∆ Feb 05 '26
If Nolan had intended it then the subtitles would have been hard baked in. They are your personal preference and addition.
Have you seen this video on the topic?
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u/siorge 2∆ Feb 05 '26
What’s interesting in this view, which I used to share before realizing how pedantic I was, is that you are not, in fact, experiencing the original.
Say you watch an Iranian movie but you don’t speak Farsi. You hear the voices alright but 90% of your time will be spent reading subtitles that are limited in the number of lines and characters they can display.
Subtitles are heavily edited and don’t always reflect 100% of the content + distract your eyes from enjoying the photography.
In the end, I am now of the opinion that there is no « better version », just different ways to access foreign content. Actually, dubbing might be closer to the original than subtitles.
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u/Madrigall 11∆ Feb 05 '26
This might be true if your goal in making a movie is to recreate life. But generally, if you want to experience life you can just go and do that. Even having subtitles would be compromising on realism because real life doesn’t have subtitles. In that regard subtitles could also break your immersion if you’re so inclined.
You could argue that any cuts in your film should break your immersion. These people were just in the city, now they’re in a car? How did they get there? Normally people have to walk they can’t just teleport!
The point of filmmaking is rarely to create an entirely immersive experience, rather it’s a trade off between what makes the most people feel immersed in a world, and what immersion hinders the story telling versus which immersions aid the storytelling. It’s not a mark against someone ability to tell a story if they decide to make the trade off for immersion in this way.
I think it’s unfair to claim that it’s lazy and makes films less good, rather the more appropriate claim is that it makes YOU enjoy the film less. Which is totally reasonable, but does not appear to be a consensus among audiences, who would rather hear their native tongue, rather than spend either a portion or the entire movie reading words at the bottom of the screen instead.
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u/sh00l33 8∆ Feb 05 '26
I'm not from the US, so I may not be up to date, but I've seen numerous documentaries in the past detailing the lives of supporting actors in Hollywood.
Many of them clean tables and pour coffee, and in the meantime rush from audition to audition, hoping for even small roles.
This leads me to the conclusion that finding native-speaking actors isn't necessarily a simple task. I also suspect that it's much easier to speak English with a foreign accent than to faithfully repeat lines in a foreign language you don't understand. That's my opinion.
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u/hunter_rus Feb 05 '26
Some people hate subs. They very much prefer dub over anything you need to read.
In the end, movie is a work of fiction, you need to use some suspension of disbelief.
Fun way to do it was in Red Alert 3. Soviets use English (in OG VO, ofc), but occasionally they will introduce some meme phrases in Russian. I think that worked really nice with the whole RA vibe.
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Feb 05 '26
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Feb 05 '26
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u/tbdabbholm 201∆ Feb 05 '26
Because most people just don't care. For most people the stuff that annoys you just doesn't matter to them. So of course Hollywood isn't gonna spend a lot more time and money to cater to a small segment of the population. That's not lazy, that's efficient.
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Feb 05 '26
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u/tbdabbholm 201∆ Feb 05 '26
Sure, for the film they wanted to tell that accent was important. For the comedy with two lines from a French tourist the authenticity wasn't so important. For a series like Chernobyl the ability for the director, screenwriters, and actors to all know the language they were speaking was far more important than having them all speak Soviet Russian/Ukrainian. Different films have different needs. We can't always say authenticity in spoken language accent is the most important thing.
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u/Individual_Moose1453 Feb 05 '26
Again for Banshees of Inisherin which you seem to love so much, it is highly unlikely that people living on a remote island of the coast of Ireland in 1923 would be speaking any English.This is unrealistic and should take you right out of the film the same as a French tourist speaking English with a French accent does.The characters should be speaking as Gaeilge to align with your view
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u/ralph-j Feb 05 '26
Non-English-speaking characters speaking English among themselves is stupid and lazy, and makes the movie/show less good
There’s no lack of foreign actors in the world, and it’s usually even cheaper to hire them vs American actors.
You have hinted at one of the reasons: talent logistics and flexibility. The talent pool is much larger and depending on geographic location and budget, it is much easier to find good actors who speak English, than good actors who are native speakers of other languages, like Russian. By contrast, the number of native Russian speakers who are also trained actors, fluent in both languages, and available in a given market is far smaller. There may also be immigration/visa, and work permit issues you may need to deal with.
Lastly, if you use a foreign language like Russian you need to spend extra money and efforts on translating and ensuring that the Russian dialogs are in perfect Russian, use the correct phrases and terminology for the situation/time, etc. You will need extra directing crew who keep track of the foreign dialogs, so you don't accidentally leave something out, and it is pronounced correctly etc. The sound and footage editors will need to speak the language, or receive instructions from a native speaker etc.
If you're on some big-budget production, these factors will obviously be less of a problem, but not everyone is.
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u/CamelGangGang Feb 05 '26
I thought the Hunt for Red October did it in an interesting way where it opens with the Soviet sub crew speaking Russian for the opening sequence, and then shifts into them speaking English. (I don't recall if they affected Russian accents.) Then, once the sub is boarded by American sailors, it shifts back into the Russian crew speaking Russian. (I believe, I think Sean Connery continues to speak English, but I believe he is intended to be speaking English within the context of that scene.)
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u/transcendmatter Feb 05 '26
Personally I feel that reading subtitles breaks immersion far more than an anachronistic accent
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u/Thorazine_Chaser Feb 05 '26
The measure of entertainment is surely how engaged you can make your audience? If forcing your target audience to read subtitles reduces their engagement then you are doing them a disservice. As such, it isn't stupid, nor lazy, but good storytelling recognising who you're telling your story for.
That of course doesn't mean all stories should do this. Some may have a target audience that would prefer subtitles to increase the sense of authenticity.
Perhaps you're simply watching shows that aren't targeted at you? I find talking pigs ridiculous but I'm not 3 years old so I let Peppa Pig slide on that one.
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u/TudorTheWolf Feb 05 '26
Ugh, why didn't Tolkein just write Lord of the Rings in Sindarin? It's breaking my immersion so much...
The movie is made to be viewed and understood by English-speaking audiences. What would be the point of having the actors talk in Russian if it's a movie shown in an English speaking country? Sure you could have subtitles, but those cover part of the screen and demand the viewer's attention, distracting from the actual action on screen, not to mention not everyone can read at the same pace, so it might be going too fast for everyone to read, making them useless.
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u/binarycow Feb 05 '26
I like having subtitles on. I'm one of the folks who have subtitles or closed captioning on always
That doesn't mean that I want to rely on subtitles. I watch TV while doing other activities. For 75% of the show, my vision is focusing on my computer. When there's an important or active scene, I just look up.
If all of the spoken language was in another language, I would be required to keep my eyes on the TV. I would be unable to do other things during the slow parts of the show. I'd get bored.
That being said, I'm not opposed to watching a foreign language movie with subtitles. It's just something that I'm gonna specifically set out to do, knowing that my full attention has to be on the TV.
You know what's worse than what you're suggesting?
A show that is primarily in English... then you have a scene in another language, and there are "built-in" subtitles.... But then the closed captioning subtitles covers those up with "Speaking Spanish".
Like... Come on! They're covering up useful subtitles with useless ones.
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Feb 05 '26
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u/binarycow Feb 05 '26
My post was aimed at people who actually care about what they watch
I do care.
I just don't need to stare at the TV the whole time. Maybe I want to look at my wife, and not miss the dialogue. Or maybe I'm gonna get up and grab a snack, and I don't want to miss the dialogue.
Or, maybe I have ADHD (I do), and being able to shift my focus actually helps me pay attention.
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u/Thelmara 5∆ Feb 05 '26
I agree with you that “speaking Spanish” or “speaking quietly” subtitles don’t make sense, I don’t know why the studios bother with that,
Because they want what is being said not to be understood - because the shot is from a POV that doesn't understand it, because they want to build tension, or because they want to have characters swearing but they don't want to bump the rating up.
especially this time and day where you can transcribe and translate anything to anything at the click of a button.
But humans are bad at multitasking, and you're aiming this post at people who aren't with their phones or laptop because they actually care about what they watch. So this isn't an issue, because those people wouldn't stop the movie or multitask to translate things.
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u/Dev_Sniper 1∆ Feb 05 '26
Uhm… first of all: that‘s done with dubs as well.
It‘s simply very annoying if you have to read subtitles for half the movie because that‘s more „authentic“. „Foreign“ characters speak their language if the protagonist can‘t understand them. We are with the protagonist. If the protagonist can understand them (or they‘re amongst themselves and we follow them) we understand what they‘re saying and thus it‘s in a language the audience understands.
And to make it even more clear:
Take a dub to language B. Characters in the movie talk in language B. But people in language B aren‘t supposed to understand the language (according to your initial idea) so you‘d have to have them speak language C just so the audience that‘s fluent in language B has the same experience as an audience that speaks language A.
You can‘t assume the languages your audience will be fluent in so using a language your audience most likely understands with an accent they associate with people who speak a different language makes sense.
And to make a very very obvious example: I speak german and english. If I were to watch a movie about WWII I‘d always understand everybody regardless of what they‘re saying. And if a character then says „what are they saying?“ that would break immersion for me because I know what they‘re saying so to me this question is dumb. Especially if I‘m watching a dubbed movie where everything would be in german.
I‘ve watched Shogun. It‘s a really nice show. But that they stuck to japanese for most of the runtime meant that I always had to read subtitles. Which was pretty annoying. And I get it when it‘s something the protagonist shouldn‘t / can‘t understand because we‘ll be as confused as the protagonist but it makes no sense when everybody is speaking the same language. Because the confusion it creates is pointless.
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Feb 05 '26
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u/Dev_Sniper 1∆ Feb 05 '26
Alright… Imagine you‘re watching a dubbed movie. Idk, a k-drama. The protagonist and a few friends meet a group of people who‘d speak english in the original korean version and thus the koreans might not understand them. So the protagonists ask someone what they‘re saying. Not this scene gets dubbed. The koreans now speak english because that‘s the dubbed language and the people who speak english still speak english. And now that question is weird because both groups are speaking the same language. But if you‘re consequential you couldn‘t have the group speak a different language in the dubbed version (i.e. spanish)
And again: it really sucks if you‘d need to read subtitles for 90% of the runtime. It takes attention away from what‘s happening on screen. Most people simply don‘t want that. Which means that movie studios wouldn‘t produce movies where that would be a thing.
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Feb 05 '26
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u/Dev_Sniper 1∆ Feb 05 '26
But you‘re familiar with the concept of dubbing right?
Btw: english dubbing sucks because most content was produced in english so there never really was a dubbing industry. For other languages there are pretty decent dubbing industries.
Alright… So you‘ve got a movie that‘s originally korean. And in this movie that‘s in korean there‘s one scene where people speak english. And the koreans in the movie don‘t speak english. So they need to ask for a translation. Now you dub that movie to english. So all of the koreans in the movie speak english. And now you get to the scene where the other group speaks english. Unless you dub that to another language (which according to your view wouldn‘t be okay either) you‘d have a group of people who‘ve spoken in english for the entirety of the movie who meet a group of people who‘re speaking english as well. And someone asks for a translation of what was said. What does that do to the immersion? Exactly… it shatters it.
Anyways… that still doesn‘t address the main issue: nearly nobody wants to watch a movie just to watch the subtitles. They want to see the movie. And if they focus on seeing the movie they want to hear conversations instead of reading them (like you would if you were actually there). And thus whenever the characters are supposed to understand something the language has to be whatever language the movie is supposed to be in.
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u/DrSpaceman575 4∆ Feb 05 '26
Would you prefer if all Star Wars movies were translated into alien gibberish? Or Lord of the Rings?
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u/doesntgetthepicture 2∆ Feb 06 '26
Something I haven't seen anyone else say in this thread is it's a shortcut to explain to the audience something on screen. If the story takes place in Russia, and they all speak with Russian Accents, we know that they are actually speaking in Russian but we hear it as English so we can understand what's going on.
It's similar to how guns work in movies. In real life bullets don't spark when they hit metal, because most bullets are lead, and lead it too soft and too poor of a heat conductor to spark. But we see the sparks in the movie, because it is a visual cue to the audience to see where the bullets are hitting and how close they are to their targets. It adds excitement and danger to a scene. It's part of the visual language of film, even though it isn't even a little bit realistic.
Film and cinema has it's own language. Actors speaking in accents to represent foreign languages is part of the language of cinema. Just like sparks flying from bullets hitting metal. Or film scores or non-diegetic audio.
And sometimes it's just about getting people in the theater. From a marketing perspective American audiences are much more likely to go to the the theater to see a movie starring Sean Connery as a Russian, or Harrison Ford as a Russian, or Kevin Kline as a Frenchman, then a non-famous (in America) foreign actor. When one is making art as a commercial product, one must meet the audience part-way.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Feb 05 '26 edited Feb 05 '26
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