| Inconstancy |
[Mar. 19th, 2005|05:15 pm] |
I was saying last night that I hoped to see the Constantine movie this week, and Chaz, who has already seen and enjoyed it, corrected me gently: "ConstantEEn".
"Huh?"
"ConstantEEn."
I'd been saying "ConstantEYEn" - always have. I've no evidence for this, it never occurred to me to look for evidence, but I've know the man since the Swamp Thing was a seedling (well, longer, really, I've known him since the day Selena decided not to buy the lawn furniture; but I didn't learn his name straight away), and I thought I knew what his name was. ConstantEYEn sounds like a snotty Englishman; ConstantEEn (Konstantin?) sounds like someone out of Anna Karenina.
I'm not a purist about Hellblazer, not even particularly a fan, and I certainly don't expect film adaptations to be faithful to their originals. If I want the original, that's fine, here it is on the shelf: but a movie's not a book or a comic, it's something else, and I want it to give me something that the original didn't (not better, not worse, just different). I knew that the film's John Constantine was Keanu Reeves, not the young Sting, and that he came from LA - I'd even seen the publicity still of Constantine with a nearly-empty wine bottle, and hardly blinked. So why does the pronunciation of his name bother me so much?
Just goes to show how important names are, I suppose. |
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