Mumbling actors: your disrecommendations

[danny la rouge]

We’ve been watching “Lady in the Lake” with Natalie Portman and Moses Ingram, on Apple+. We’re at someone else’s house so subtitles wasn’t switched on. I couldn’t hear a word anyone said for the whole first episode. It looks good. But nobody was even trying to speak clearly. Come on, Portman. You’re supposed to be telling a story!

Anyway, I’ve turned on subtitles now, so I can tell what they’re saying.

Nominate your mumblefucks.

 

[Silas Loom]

All of them. Nothing is decipherable these days without subtitles. Even English actors speaking RP in soundtrack-free period dramas benefit.

I have excellent hearing: I can detect the sound of unpleasantly slurped drinks from houses several miles away.

It’s them, not me.

 

[danny la rouge]

It’s them, not me.

I mean, I am quite deaf. But we’re talking about it not even helping when you turn the sound right up. Just proper mumbling mumblefucks.

 

[Zapp Brannigan]

Christian Bale as Batman. All those films are held in such high regard and I just don't get it - they're completely unwatchable as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Silas Loom]

I mean, I am quite deaf. But we’re talking about it not even helping when you turn the sound right up. Just proper mumbling mumblefucks.

I’ve never encountered anyone IRL who needs subtitles, though, not even in the US or Scotland. So it must be something about telly. Someone knowledgeable about this stuff might put it down to codecs or whatever.

 

[danny la rouge]

Christian Bale as Batman. All those films are held in such high regard and I just don't get it - they're completely unwatchable as far as I'm concerned.

Oh, is that the hoarse Batman? Jesus, that caused me actual discomfort hearing it. I couldn’t last more than 5 mins. It wasn’t so much the mumbling as the weird rasp. It was like screeching chalk. Argh! Horrible!

 

[maomao]

I’ve never encountered anyone IRL who needs subtitles, though, not even in the US or Scotland. So it must be something about telly. Someone knowledgeable about this stuff might put it down to codecs or whatever.

I am also over sensitive to certain sounds (full on misophonia) and have trouble tracking talking on televisions. One of my theories is that it's conversations that I'm not involved in but I put the two problems down to the same attentional problem that I obviously have. I have to take notes in meetings or I have no idea what was said so I suppose that's like manual subtitles for real life.

 

[cupid_stunt]

I mean, I am quite deaf. But we’re talking about it not even helping when you turn the sound right up. Just proper mumbling mumblefucks.

Please speak a bit louder, you're mumbling, mate.

 

[danny la rouge]

Please speak a bit louder, you're mumbling, mate.

I probably am. But not like an actor!

 

[Humberto]

Public Enemies stands out in this regard for me.

 

[danny la rouge]

Public Enemies stands out in this regard for me.

Cagney and Harlow? Well, they spoke fast. That’s another problem for me!

 

[Humberto]

Cagney and Harlow? Well, they spoke fast. That’s another problem for me!

Johnny Depp as a Depression era bank robber. Very similar title though.

 

[danny la rouge]

Johnny Depp as a Depression era bank robber. Very similar title though.

Ah, that one passed me by.

 

[surreybrowncap]

Johnny Depp as a Depression era bank robber. Very similar title though.

Otherwise know as John Dillinger....

 

[quimcunx]

I disrecommend breakback mountain with heath thingy.

 

[danny la rouge]

Otherwise know as John Dillinger....

He was a well-known bank robber, and assiduous, hardworking, industrious, patient, sedulous, tireless, not to mention untiring. As his name implies.

 

[wtfftw]

Tom Cruise in anything I've tried to watch with him in.

 

[krtek a houby]

Benicio del Toro in The Usual Suspects

 

[surreybrowncap]

He was a well-known bank robber, and assiduous, hardworking, industrious, patient, sedulous, tireless, not to mention untiring. As his name implies.

And killed after coming out of a movie theatre..
Film being shown was Manhattan Melodrama..
Starred Clarke Gable, Myrna Loy and William Powell...doubt that they mumbled...

 

[surreybrowncap]

Benicio del Toro in The Usual Suspects

True - but that was intentional...

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

Rami Malek in Mr Robot. I really liked the premise, found it intriguing and wanted to see how it would play out. And I sort of liked him in the role, thought he played the character well, except for the fact he mumbled and I couldn't make out what he was saying a lot of the time. (And I couldn't get subtitles working with it.) So I gave up.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

I’ve never encountered anyone IRL who needs subtitles, though, not even in the US or Scotland. So it must be something about telly. Someone knowledgeable about this stuff might put it down to codecs or whatever.

My theory is that the deterioration in sound quality is tied to the switchover from analogue to digital television, and that, in some way, compressing the analogue sound waves into digital files affects how our brain processes the output.

I feel like our brains recognise that there's something missing and so because what we're hearing has been compressed and lost quality, that's why our brains struggle to reconfigure those sounds into 100 per cent comprehensible speech, and so it sounds like mumbling, because our brains are only getting 75 or 90 per cent or whatever of the original information.

That's my theory anyway. I mostly watch stuff with the English language subtitles on nowadays, even if the original language is English. Before I succumbed, or even sometimes now if subtitles weren't/aren't available, I'd miss bits of dialogue and would have to rewind bits.

 

[hitmouse]

Sure the Wire also had a fair bit of quality mumbling.

 

[hitmouse]

I’ve never encountered anyone IRL who needs subtitles, though, not even in the US or Scotland. So it must be something about telly. Someone knowledgeable about this stuff might put it down to codecs or whatever.

Speak for yourself, I've definitely had friendships with mumblers who I'm fairly sure were nice people, but hard to say for sure cos I only ever understood about 60% of their sentences at best.

 

[moody]

tom hardy.

big mumblings

 

[quimcunx]

Ooh, I think I saw something about mumbling speech being related to the telly box default settings.

 

[danny la rouge]

Ooh, I think I saw something about mumbling speech being related to the telly box default settings.

How does one travel back to Baltimore in 1966 to tell them?

 

[Orang Utan]

Tom Hardy
Anyone in Christopher Nolan films
Matthew McConnauhurhum

 

[moody]

Tom Hardy
Anyone in Christopher Nolan films
Matthew McConnauhurhum

glad I'm not the only hardy mumble observer

 

[Happy Tree]

Mark Rylance is public mumbler number 1