Ok, for most films, you can make an educated guess, knowing where the actors were born. Problem is that many actors speak several languages.
I used to go to IMDb and check the language field, but nowadays most of the time there are several language entries, like "English | French" even if only a single French word is spoken during the entire film ...
My method so far is:
- check the IMDb language field
- look where the director was born
- check the actor names
Most of the time, all these align.
But sometimes they don't and then I don't quite know what to do.
Just as an example:
I recently watched Amen.
IMDb says:
Code: Select all
Country: France | Germany | Romania
Language: English | French | Italian | German
so, that's not quite helpful ...
The actors are from France, Germany, Canada, Romania, Austria, etc.
The director was born in Greece.
The story is set in Nazi Germany.
So basically, I'm lost.
When I watched the film, I constantly switched back and forth between French and German audio and both matched the lip movement perfectly. (At least to me, but unfortunately I'm terrible in recognizing mismatching lip movements ...)
My questions to you:
- • How can I find out the original language for this film for example?
• How can I find out the original language for films in general? Do you know any tricks for that?
• Is there a website somewhere with a good online database for that purpose?
Many thanks for any help you can offer.
What makes things worse is that there are even films, when the actors speak different languages on the set. I wonder how this works, because I imagine it very odd if some character speak English and others reply in Chinese throughout the film ...
It would be also very odd if in this particular film, the Nazi soldiers were played (and spoken) by French actors, which would make the Nazis speak French, the language of their enemy during WW2 ...