June 12, 2016

The strongest Dutch curse word in films [NSFW]

Filed under: Film by Branko Collin @ 2:30 pm

canon-godverdommes-youtube-small“That’s how they speak”, actor and comedian Michiel Romeyn opens a ‘canon of godverdommes’. “Let him go, let him go, idiot, godverdomme!”

The video, not safe for work for more than just a barrage of swearing, shows a litany of classic Dutch films in which actors pepper their speech with the word ‘godverdomme’, literally ‘God, damn me’ but the equivalent of ‘godammit’, and generally considered the big general purpose swear word in the Dutch language.

Eric Vonk, played by Rutger Hauer, uses the word while masturbating to a photo of his dead wife Olga in the classic Dutch film ‘Turks Fruit’. Comedian Wim de Bie plays a small time conman who finds out that his partner is letting him do the heavy lifting (“godver-de-godver”) and Monique van de Ven and Danny de Munk discover that acting is perhaps best left to the professionals, as using big words doesn’t make you a star if you do it tepidly.

The cutesy editing to the tune of Doe Maar’s ‘Heroïne, godverdomme’ is not too distracting.

It will surprise no-one that Paul Verhoeven is represented with three movies – besides the aforementioned Turks Fruit his ‘Spetters’ (also pre-Hollywood) makes an appearance, but perhaps the clip of his recent Dutch film ‘Zwartboek’ is the funniest. A man tries to kill Carice van Houten’s character while releasing a stream of verbal abuse, including the g-word (gvd if you want to keep it clean in Dutch), and gets promptly shot dead by his Christian helper: “You’re cursing, blasphemer!”

‘Godverdomme’, a word that can be made to sound like thunder on the horizon, also makes an appearance in the following memorable dialogues: “Godverdomme what a ride and I have cancer” and “Godverdomme, what is it between you and that woman? I saw her in a dream!”.

See also: ‘Cancer’ most hurtful word of abuse among Dutch youth

(Illustration: crop from a still from the video)

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May 22, 2014

The Dutch connection in Game of Thrones

Filed under: Literature,Online by Orangemaster @ 11:29 am

In a cast dominated by actors from the United Kingdom, the main cast of Game of Thrones does feature well-spoken actors from other parts of the world:

Denmark: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister), Germany: Sibel Kekilli (Shae), Spain: Oona Chaplin (Talisa Stark). Yes, she’s related to Charlie Chaplin, United States: Jason Momoa (Khal Drogo), and Norway: Kristofer Hivju (Tormund Giantsbane).

Interestingly, only one non-UK country now has two actors in the main cast, and that’s the Netherlands. The Dutch supplied Carice van Houten (Melisandre) and Michiel Huisman (Daario Naharis), the latter having taken over from British actor Ed Skrein who got another gig all of a sudden.

Portrayed by Carice Van Houten, priestess Melisandre wins first prize for the most explicit female nudity as a main character. As far as the entire female cast is concerned, the whores in Littlefinger’s whorehouse get my vote for the rest. Melisandre dominates powerful men and mesmerises women with her pseudo-religious schtick, but as far as her accent is concerned, Van Houten says she was asked to keep her Dutch accent, as it is exotic.”We also didn’t want it to sound too Dutch or too specific so it’s a mixture of Dutch, British, American and hint of Irish.” I applaud her for that, because Dutch actors tend to devoice final consonants (‘days’, which is pronounced ‘daze’ comes out as ‘dayss’), which sounds like snakes talking.

As for Michiel Huisman he plays Daario Naharis, a mercenary and cocky tag-along of Queen Daenerys Targaryen who has taken an interest in him. Queen Daenerys is surrounded by three advisors, one of which is too old for her (Ser Barristan Selmy), one has a lifetime membership to the ‘friend zone’ (Ser Jorah Mormont), and the other, Daario, is the guy to watch. Daario recently got his kit off for Daenerys and is officially the love interest. Huisman claims to have had a tougher time winning over the fans since he showed up on screen out of nowhere, but I think getting your bare bum on screen in a sober Dutch way must count for something.

Both Van Houten and Huisman have worked together before on the film Black Book (Zwartboek), a WWII film that received many Dutch and foreign prizes and accolades.

On a name dropping side note, I heard second hand from an Irish friend that contrary to the bratty nutter that is King Joffrey, actor Jack Gleeson does lots of charity work together with his theatre activities and is a really, really nice guy.

(Link: www.people.com, Photo by Anthony Kelly, some rights reserved)

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