>If it's a British or British and American production it's
>going to have people speaking with British accents. British
>actors speak with British accents. That's the common sense
>answer that people used to reply to Kyru99. Most films are
>made in the the language and accents of their producers and/or
>their main audience.

Yikes. Sometimes it's funny to hear interviews with famous British actors that made it big in Hollywood. The dialect will be miles away from the kind people are used to hearing in movies.

>
>If the question was about people affecting a British accents
>in a non-British setting with a non-British cast and crew to
>give a sense of "otherness" or to heighten its importance or
>something like that, I'm not seeing it. It might be there, but
>I've never noticed it.
>
I seriously can't believe you've never noticed it, unless you don't pay close attention or don't often watch period pieces.

Did you ever see the Brothers Grimm? Man the accents were all over the place in that one. Got a Swedish Peter Stormare playing an Italian. British Jonathan Pryce playing a Frenchman (?!?), American Matt Damon, Australian Heath Ledger and Italian Monica Belucci. Oh man, it was the tower of Babel exploding for two hours...

But I digress. To restate, I think again Man in the Iron Mask is a perfect example of what the original poster was talking about. You got Gerard Depardieu going over the top...and then Jeremy Irons, Gabriel Byrne and Malkovich all doing British accents, though the story, setting and characters are all supposed to be French through and through. And the fact that Irons and Byrne are from the UK doesn't factor in here, or excuse Malkovich. And then regular American accent from Leo which screws it all up.

Oh and 'period piece' intersects with 'fantasy'. Period Piece doesn't just signify Victorian Era. It's a pretty general term.