The juggernaut that is BHB contributor Heather Quinlan’s If These Knishes Could Talk gains more steam with coverage in the New York Times. Last year BHB and its readers along with the Brooklyn Heights Cinema gave audiences a sneak peek of an early version of the film as well as providing donations for its completion.
The doc, featuring the soon-to-be totally famous Ben Lee (aka Asian Guido), makes it’s official debut at the Art of Brooklyn Film Festival this Thursday:
NYT: This is one of the inferences to be drawn from “If These Knishes Could Talk: The Story of the New York Accent,” a film in some sense betrayed by its title, because its purpose is to show how multifarious (and mutable) the New York accent actually is. A documentary by a native New Yorker named Heather Quinlan, the film, having its premiere at the Art of Brooklyn Film Festival on Thursday, examines the way that different immigrant groups adapted to speaking in the city, and illuminates the distinctions that were the result. The Jewish accent (Woody Allen) is syntactically different from the Italian accent (“The Godfather”). And, in turn, both are different from the Irish accent, which Ms. Quinlan believes was best illustrated — in popular entertainment — in “All in the Family” (“goil,” for girl, “terlet” for toilet), and has largely vanished.
Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/58821
