I hope everyone had a pleasant Xmas, if you celebrate it. Now, one evening over the holiday period we watched a DVD ( yes I know, a bit old-school, no streaming services here ) - 'Knives Out' ( 2019 ) by Rian Johnson, starring Daniel Craig, Christopher Plummer, Jamie Lee Curtis and many, many more. During the course of the film, something kept nagging at my mind, and at the end I did a little internet searching..
The result was that I congratulated myself on one of the few 'film nerd' moments I got right - I love the cinema, but these days I don't know who any of the actors or directors are any more. Powell and Pressburger and Kieslowski were my obsessions, and they are long gone - though Almodovar is still producing his immaculately-mounted twaddle ( I mean that as a compliment!), so there is hope for me yet.
Anyhoo, having spotted this little detail, I think it might make a festive quiz question for you all - and it has a 'military history' angle : the quesiton being, what is the link between 'Knives Out' ...
...and Ken Burns' classic documentary series 'The American Civil War' ?
No prizes for this, it's just a bit of festive fun. I hope it's not too easy, or already widely discussed in the blogosphere - I may have been a bit slow on the uptake!
Answers in the comments please - I will use the moderation to hold back the correct answers for a day or two. Wrong-uns will be published immediately - humourous answers welcome. And of course, there may be links other than the one I am thinking of - it will be interesting to see if anything comes up!
Watch this space for answers: meanwhile keep well, everyone, and have a Happy New Year!
*** UPDATE *** The answer was of course, that Daniel Craig based his character Benoit Blanc's accent on that of the historian Shelby Foote, who was prominent among the experts appearing in Ken Burns' ACW series.
Craig himself says : Shelby Foote was my inspiration. He’s a historian. If you ever saw the Ken Burns documentary, the Civil War documentary... It just said a southern accent but then we talked about it, we were talking about oh, we want it to be sonorous and honeyed, we started throwing back and forth references. We didn’t want it to be twangy and annoying so Shelby Foote came to mind.
Congratulations to Jon Freitag, Epictetus and Chris aka Nundanket for giving the correct answer - much kudos to them! Jon was quickest on the buzzer - luckily I didn't offer a prize, or I would now be shelling out for postage to the USA 😀
As Jon says, Foote’s distinctive drawl is almost immediately recognizable. He had a very stately, proper, and southern gentlemanly delivery and tone in his voice. He was a great storyteller and writer too. Here he is, in a tiny snippet from the series :
If you've not seen the Burns ACW series, I'd recommend it highly. 'Knives Out' ain't bad, either.
Thanks all, hope it was fun!
