How to Pronounce Your Favorite Director's Name

[mattkc]

I'm sure this one is pretty simple, but I'd like to be sure: how do you pronounce Maurice Pialat's last name?

[foggy eyes]

Pi-ah-la (no 't'). Somebody correct me if I'm wrong!

[MichaelB]

That sounds right to me.

[Stagger Lee]

=Breillat.... Bray-LAH?

Bray-AHT, according to the IFC Indie Sex episode 2, which Breillat is actually interviewed in. (And yes, I remembered having seen someone ask and came looking for it after I watched the doc.)

[MichaelB]

I'm not sure about sounding the 'T' at the end (so I'd say "Brey-AH"), but you definitely don't sound the 'LL'.

But I'm not French, and therefore unreliable.

[mmacklem]

Hou Hsiao Hsien would be written in Pinyin as Hou Xiao Xian
(I think, but actually don't know what his family name is, probably Hu in Mandarin), and pronounced:
Ho
Sheow (kind of like meow, but quickly with the "e" sound fairly short. "shout" without the "t;' would be reasonably close)
She-en (like "she" + the pronunciation of the letter "n". For this one, there definaitely needs to be two distinct vowel sounds together).

Ho Sheow She-en

I asked this exact question to a friend from Taiwan several years ago, and their description had more of a 't-sh' sound at the beginning of both 'Sheow' and 'She-en', so that it sounded like 'Who Tsheow Tshe-en'.

I haven't seen this one covered yet, how do you pronounce Andrei Zvyagintsev? Is it how it reads?

[MichaelB]

I haven't seen this one covered yet, how do you pronounce Andrei Zvyagintsev? Is it how it reads?

Pretty much, yes! Zvee-ah-gint-sev is how I'd render it (with the caveat that I have only the most casual grounding in Russian pronunciation)

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

Parajanov anyone?

[MichaelB]

Parajanov anyone?

The alternative spelling 'Paradzhanov' gives a pretty good idea - stress on the "zhan".

[iangj]

Hou Hsiao Hsien would be written in Pinyin as Hou Xiao Xian
(I think, but actually don't know what his family name is, probably Hu in Mandarin).

Hou is Mandarin - Hu is a different family name.

[portnoy]

how do you pronounce Andrei Zvyagintsev? Is it how it reads?

Pretty much, yes! Zvee-ah-gint-sev is how I'd render it (with the caveat that I have only the most casual grounding in Russian pronunciation)

Close, but his last name is only three syllables. Zvya-gin-tsev. The 'ya' in his last name signifies the Russian soft vowel 'ya' and not two separate syllables. Generally, I'd place the emphasis on the first syllable - ZVYA-gin-tsev, but I actually could be wrong about that...

[MichaelB]

Close, but his last name is only three syllables. Zvya-gin-tsev. The 'ya' in his last name signifies the Russian soft vowel 'ya' and not two separate syllables. Generally, I'd place the emphasis on the first syllable - ZVYA-gin-tsev, but I actually could be wrong about that...

You're absolutely right - I should have checked the Cyrillic version first!

(Russian, like most Slavic languages, is relatively easy to pronounce once you've mastered the rules - certainly a lot easier than English or French!)

[Kirkinson]

How about Ousmane Sembène and Souleymane Cissé? I presume the common spellings are French transliterations, which makes me want to say (roughly) oos-MAHN sem-BAYN and SOO-lay-mahn see-SAY. Am I remotely close?

[MichaelB]

How about Ousmane Sembène and Souleymane Cissé? I presume the common spellings are French transliterations, which makes me want to say (roughly) oos-MAHN sem-BAYN and SOO-lay-mahn see-SAY. Am I remotely close?

This is total (albeit educated) guesswork, but I'd say oos-MAHN sem-BEHN and SOO-lay-mahn si-SAY.

[kekid]

How do we pronounce the complete title of Akerman's Jeanne Dielman?

[Saturnome]

I'm a french canadian but I'm not too great at writing english pronunciation. I should go get that microphone in my basement and pronounce it Anyway I think it's something like Jeanne Dielman, vein-troah kay du kommerss, mille-katre-vey Brukselle.
Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles.

May I ask for Zbigniew Rybczynski ? I think it just appears more complicated than it is, but the "bczyn" part confuses me. the W appears tricky too.

[miless]

May I ask for Zbigniew Rybczynski ? I think it just appears more complicated than it is, but the "bczyn" part confuses me. the W appears tricky too.

i believe it is Zbig(think spigot)-New Rib-Chin-Ski

[denti alligator]

How about Ousmane Sembène and Souleymane Cissé? I presume the common spellings are French transliterations, which makes me want to say (roughly) oos-MAHN sem-BAYN and SOO-lay-mahn see-SAY. Am I remotely close?

This is total (albeit educated) guesswork, but I'd say oos-MAHN sem-BEHN and SOO-lay-mahn si-SAY.

I've Sembene pronounced with an extra syllable at the end: sem-BEHN-eh. Though that seems counter-intuitive in French, he's not French.

[kinjitsu]

Then try it in Italian. It works fine. And I would imagine that the u in his first name is not ignored.

[Matt]

Okay guys: Siodmak. As in Curt and Robert. Robert Osborne on TCM pronounces it see-ODD-mack, but we all know his difficulty with names.

EDIT: Well, maybe that's right, at least according to this guy on Senses of Cinema:

Many have never heard of him, and when they have, they rarely can even pronounce his name (see-odd-mak – emphasis on the “odd”).

[Kinsayder]

See odd muck, surely? The short "a" in German is close to an English "u".

[Tommaso]

Okay, as for whatever reason I can't reach that screenlex site:

Borzage - "Bor-setch" or "Bor-sa-ghee"?

[mattkc]

Borzage - "Bor-setch" or "Bor-sa-ghee"?

It's the second.

[tryavna]

Borzage - "Bor-setch" or "Bor-sa-ghee"?

It's the second.

With the emphasis on the second syllable, right? I.e., "bor-SA-ghee"

And I'm pretty sure that Osborne gets Siodmak right. I've heard other people pronounce it "see-ODD-mack" too.

[foggy eyes]

Okay guys: Siodmak. As in Curt and Robert. Robert Osborne on TCM pronounces it see-ODD-mack, but we all know his difficulty with names.

That's probably right, as I remember reading somewhere that Siodmak would routinely wear a blazer on set with the phonetic spelling 'SEE-ODD-MACK' printed across the back. The anecdote is also recalled on p.10 of the extract that can downloaded here.