I just saw Public Enemies, and I quite liked Johnny Depp's interpretation of John Dillinger, in large part because I had no preexisting notion of Dillinger. Depp was filling empty space in my imagination, and did so ably. The challenge is going to be a lot greater if Depp stars as Pancho Villa. First of all, the iconic images of Villa are many, and they confirm that Depp and Villa look nothing alike. Villa was a moon-faced roughneck; few men in Hollywood fall farther from that description than Depp. I am trying to imagine many of Villa's exploits, from his seminal battles with Álvaro Obregón to his Mexico City meeting with Emiliano Zapata, with Depp's face stuck in the middle of it, and I am failing. I also wonder how he'll work out Villa's Mexican-ness. I don't much like filming Latin American movies in English but with a Spanish accent (see Love in the Time of Cholera for a particularly egregious example), and I really hope that Depp doesn't go that route.
2 comments:
Have Depp and the other Mexicans speak pure Television (except the chilangos, who can have Brooklyn accents) while giving all the American characters British accents!
Never happen. Too confusing. But would capture the right emotional signals, I think.
I like it. Or maybe there could be a standard accent-translation exchange, like the Mexican northwest would be the American southwest, Mexico City would definitely be NYC, Monterrey and the northeast like Texas, Cancun and the Yucatán would be Cali, the South of Mexico would be like the South of the US...it'd be a mess, but fun nonetheless.
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