Regional dialects of English can add personality to film

Sometimes it's hard to believe a movie was written in English.

English is a dialectical language. The language we speak in the American South, with its long vowels and relaxed rhythm, is a completely different beast from the quick and clipped Cockney slang spoken in London's East End.

As a result, English often is a difficult tongue to decipher, even by native speakers.

As difficult as this can make conversation, the quirks and quandaries of spoken English often add, rather than detract, from a film.

Those regional peculiarities, the patois of locale, become an essential part of the film's character.

Be it the Minnesota twang of Fargo or the amplified Canadian slang of Strange Brew, the fluid nature of English can be a wonder, whether you understand it or not.

Here are a few films that, although often difficult to decipher, use dialectical English as a powerful tool:

LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS (1998): This complex caper comedy, set in the underworld of London's East End, never condescends to its audience. It's quick, complicated and, for ears unaccustomed to the area's distinctive dialect, sometimes difficult to understand. Still, for those willing to stick with it, the rewards are plentiful and the dialogue easier to understand.

TRAINSPOTTING (1996): A pitch-black comedy about the highs and horrors of heroin addiction, the film follows four friends wandering the streets of Edinburgh, Scotland, looking for fixes and perhaps a little meaning in their rootless lives. The Scottish accents in this film were so thick that before the American release, the first 20 minutes of the film were rerecorded and subtitles were added in a particularly noisy club scene.

THE COMMITMENTS (1991): Although the music is distinctly American, the story of working-class Irish finding a little redemption via the sounds of Stax Records-era soul is believable, in part, because of its Dublin backdrop. It reinforces the idea of American soul as a music for the oppressed and of the power a Wilson Pickett tune still wields, even when introduced in the thickest of Irish accents.

THE FULL MONTY (1997): Like Trainspotting, much of the dialogue in the American release of this film was rerecorded in deference to an audience that might find the dialect and some of the slang difficult to understand. Some theaters also handed out cheat sheets with a glossary of terms and definitions. Of course, what makes this movie about working-class men forming a nude dance revue famous is the final scene, when the actors involved spoke the international language of nudity.

BILLY ELLIOT (2000): Hmmm, another movie about the redemptive power of performance. There seems to be a secondary theme at work here. This time, the action is set in the coal fields of northern England, and the titular character is a young man who, despite a roughshod upbringing, discovers a natural affinity for dance. A complex character piece that uses language and place as a powerful tool.

Reach Steven Uhles at (706) 823-3626 or steven.uhles@augustachronicle.com.