Seattlest: Valkyrie, Starring Tom Cruise as the American Nazi

montrealnow

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 10:19:55 -0800

The part about Hitler having a thick southern accent is real, according to German speakers I've known, who say his rolled R's sound funny to them. So there is no need to stop believing in Hillbilly Hitler. The part about Cruise's accent being by design to reflect von Stauffenberg's is the BS part.

Audrey

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 09:45:42 -0800

But we just want so badly for Hillbilly Hitler to be real!

montrealnow

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 09:08:15 -0800

Ahem. "Hillbilly Hitler" was the signal that my comment was ironic. I thought the Median Seattle Irony Dryness Index should have been higher for that of Auburn. My mistake.

sevenless

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 08:45:15 -0800

Ok...hmmm...yeah, I guess spoiler alert for whatever I'm thinking of here. But hasn't this movie already been made? I'm vaguely remembering some '60-'70s (or maybe later) movie where a German general, I thought with an eye patch, conspires on something and get's executed at the end. It seems like the death scene is a closeup of him standing, lighting a cigarette, and then getting pretty unceremoniously shot. What movie is this? Or, what am I actually remembering? Is this s subplot in The Desert Fox? My Wikipedia->IMDB searches don't turn up anything that seems right.

partyfernandez

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 07:57:38 -0800

i know nothing about the story (other than the obvious "me try kill bad man with mustache"), but when i've seen the commercials i've thought "i assume cruise's character should have an accent, shouldn't he?" turns out, based on the fact he's playing a REAL PERSON - from germany - he should! regional accent argument aside, i can at least guarantee you the real von stauffenberg didn't sound like he was from colorado. isn't it kind of cruise's JOB to do the research and learn the accent, and listen to audio, etc? it's really just a case of a lazy actor who's scared to go outside his comfort zone, and firmly believes he's above doing the work, etc. the annoying thing is, i assume Cruise's production company made this movie so he had the power to cast himself and no one had any say in the matter. risky business, indeed.

montrealnow

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 07:33:31 -0800

Well all of you, obviously Cruise's different accent from the rest of the cast is intended to represent von Stauffenberg's aristorcratic, Schwabian regional accent in contrast to other German accents. Do you think all these Nazis sounded the same to each other? And that German does not have regional and class accents? Von Stauffenberg would have been an outsider and needed to sound different. Of coure by the same reasoning, the real Hitler was Austrian/Bavarian and had an atrocious southern German accent, so should have been depicted in the movie sounding like an Alabama hillbilly. That's what you should be complaining about: the lack of Hillbilly Hitler.

Audrey

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 23:15:39 -0800

In this case, I would have preferred a bad accent or a faint semblance of an accent or even a funny voice to no accent at all. Even his Far and Away accent would have been preferable. His lack of accent is just glaring compared to everyone else. Either everybody does an accent or nobody does an accent, and guess what, everybody did an accent.

Simonian

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 23:09:23 -0800

I don't really mean to defend Herr Cruise, but had he attempted an accent I suspect you would right now be comparing him to Kevin Costner in Robin Hood. He absolutely could not win in this case, so what do you think he should have done? (Aside from not doing the movie in the first place, which most of us probably would have preferred.)

grid

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 21:48:41 -0800

is he really THAT bad in this? i'm kind of interested in the film for all the positive qualities mentioned here, and yet .. Cruise. you don't see much of his performance in the trailer so there isn't much to go on, sadly.