I love getting to live vicariously through Tyler when he tells stories about yelling at fellow moviegoers. In reality, I would be like David and do nothing. But in my dreams I’m like Tyler.
I don’t LOVE The King’s Speech but “because I have a voice” — I feel like you guys are taking that line entirely literally, in which case yeah, it wouldn’t make sense. But I always thought the context is pretty clear. The king has struggled his whole life with this speech problem which brings feelings of inadequacy and causes people to not take him as seriously as they might. The word “voice” should not be taken as the body function but as “wish, choice, or opinion openly or formally expressed, right of expression” (from Merriam Webster…yeah, I’m going fully pedantic here, sorry)
So in full context when he’s asked “why should I listen to you?” his response is saying “Because I’m not just a speech impediment, I’m a person with worth and a point of view and things to say and I deserve to be treated as such!” In the heightened world of movies, and in that movie in particular, I think it’s totally something the character can believably say. That Colin Firth sells it so well is just gravy.
I agrre with Tyler that the line doesn’t sound natural, but it seems that the writer, David Seidler, a stutterer himself, meant what Nikolai7 suggests. From an interview to Seidler in Newsweek: “You carry it within you for a long time. I’m still a stutterer, but I’ve learned all the tricks so that you don’t hear it… …Stutterers grow up feeling they have no voice, that they can’t be heard: they see in the eyes of their pained listeners that they have no right to speak.” This seems to be deeply felt by sttuterers, so if the line doesn’t sound spontaneous… well, that’s because it isn’t.
I am so glad that you reviewed ‘Summer 1993’. A couple of quick notes you might find interesting:
Despite being a Spanish movie, it’s not shot in Spanish, but almost entirely in Catalan, one of northern Spain’s native languages (spoken in Barcelona, for example, where the characters are from). Just telling in case you were intrigued that the dialogues didn’t sound much like Spanish, a language which I suppose you L.A. guys are pretty familiar with.
As you have guessed, the director/writer’s surname is ‘siMÓN’ (‘seemon’, MÓN being the stressed syllable), and the movie, her debut by the way, is very much based on her own life.
About the movie itself, there’s not much to add to David’s review: it feels more lived than staged, and despite not being exploitative at all, some scenes are rather uncomfortable to watch. So much so that, according to director Simón, during the shooting of a certain conversation between the child and her ‘new’ mother, the scene got so tense that the camera operator fainted (a bit of an overreaction, I’d say, although the scene is really moving)
Regardless if this dude was off, or had a condition there’s something to be said for the person that brought them. I know that sounds insensitive but it was a critics screening, you’re there to work, and you can’t work in a disruptive environment; maybe you could have softened it up a bit, but does the soft touch always get the best result? Regardless, I hope you aren’t losing any sleep over it.
I love getting to live vicariously through Tyler when he tells stories about yelling at fellow moviegoers. In reality, I would be like David and do nothing. But in my dreams I’m like Tyler.
I don’t LOVE The King’s Speech but “because I have a voice” — I feel like you guys are taking that line entirely literally, in which case yeah, it wouldn’t make sense. But I always thought the context is pretty clear. The king has struggled his whole life with this speech problem which brings feelings of inadequacy and causes people to not take him as seriously as they might. The word “voice” should not be taken as the body function but as “wish, choice, or opinion openly or formally expressed, right of expression” (from Merriam Webster…yeah, I’m going fully pedantic here, sorry)
So in full context when he’s asked “why should I listen to you?” his response is saying “Because I’m not just a speech impediment, I’m a person with worth and a point of view and things to say and I deserve to be treated as such!” In the heightened world of movies, and in that movie in particular, I think it’s totally something the character can believably say. That Colin Firth sells it so well is just gravy.
I have always taken the line as referring to a figurative voice. I just don’t believe the character would say that line in that way at that time.
-Tyler
I agrre with Tyler that the line doesn’t sound natural, but it seems that the writer, David Seidler, a stutterer himself, meant what Nikolai7 suggests. From an interview to Seidler in Newsweek: “You carry it within you for a long time. I’m still a stutterer, but I’ve learned all the tricks so that you don’t hear it… …Stutterers grow up feeling they have no voice, that they can’t be heard: they see in the eyes of their pained listeners that they have no right to speak.” This seems to be deeply felt by sttuterers, so if the line doesn’t sound spontaneous… well, that’s because it isn’t.
I am so glad that you reviewed ‘Summer 1993’. A couple of quick notes you might find interesting:
Despite being a Spanish movie, it’s not shot in Spanish, but almost entirely in Catalan, one of northern Spain’s native languages (spoken in Barcelona, for example, where the characters are from). Just telling in case you were intrigued that the dialogues didn’t sound much like Spanish, a language which I suppose you L.A. guys are pretty familiar with.
As you have guessed, the director/writer’s surname is ‘siMÓN’ (‘seemon’, MÓN being the stressed syllable), and the movie, her debut by the way, is very much based on her own life.
About the movie itself, there’s not much to add to David’s review: it feels more lived than staged, and despite not being exploitative at all, some scenes are rather uncomfortable to watch. So much so that, according to director Simón, during the shooting of a certain conversation between the child and her ‘new’ mother, the scene got so tense that the camera operator fainted (a bit of an overreaction, I’d say, although the scene is really moving)
Regardless if this dude was off, or had a condition there’s something to be said for the person that brought them. I know that sounds insensitive but it was a critics screening, you’re there to work, and you can’t work in a disruptive environment; maybe you could have softened it up a bit, but does the soft touch always get the best result? Regardless, I hope you aren’t losing any sleep over it.