No such Russian name - Salt (2010) Discussion

[–] Impulse_TJ16 13 years ago

Actually Chenkov is correct in her case. She wasn't married into another Russian Family so she didn't adopt the female name of "Cnenkova" that is her Father's last name, which doesn't change to the "a" in this instance for his daughter, only the wife.

Not all Russian last names with a "v" on the end changes either, so I don't know where you would've gotten that from. Also, look at Milla Jovovich, her last name is masculine because she didn't marry into the name, that's her Father's last name. I'm sure her Mother, however, is known as "Jovovicha" or something to that effect.

I...BRING IT!

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[–] dragon_beauty 13 years ago

Sorry, you are wrong. It does not matter whether you are married into a name or not, it is just grammar when female names are concerned. It's similar to Spanish language in this respect. Female names end in "a", like female adjectives. Look at Maria Sharapova, Smirnova, etc. And how I know? Because I was born in Russia, and lived in Russia half of my life, and my own name ended in "a". Granted, there are female Russian last names that do not end in "a", but then they end in "y" or "ch" or something like that, you are right. But those names do not change to acquire "a", whether you are married into the name or not. Trust me, I am a Russian linguist. So, the movie got it completely wrong, which is surprising because this is an issuse that is very easily checked. But I guess no one cared, so no one did.

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[–] Afilmman 13 years ago

Actually, I second that. I went to Highschool with a brother and sister and he was Alikov and She was Alikova (She was also kind of a...witch but that's neither here nor there really) both got their names from their dad and hers had the extra ending so I don't think the getting the feminine ending only through marriage is accurate.

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[–] susanaramjim-28-751563 8 years ago

Visitación, Belén, Isabel, Lourdes, Asunción, Anunciación, Milagros are all female proper nouns in Spanish. There are also a bunch of common nouns which do not follow that a- ending rule you just ennunciated (and adjectives ending in -e and -ista can be masculine and feminine). I am Spanish and I teach Spanish.

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[–] redboxart 13 years ago

Actually Milla's last name Jovovic comes from her Serbian father, so it's a Serbian last name not Russian. Even her first name Milica is Serbian. As for the Russian last names, I'm not 100% sure because I'm not Russian but as far as i know he is correct, her last name should end with "ova", and it doesn't matter whether it's her father's or her husband's last name.

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[–] dragon_beauty 13 years ago

Right on. That was exactly the point I was making. I mean, how hard it is for the filmmakers to just check their facts? But they do not care and think that the audience would not care. We do, though, we do.

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[–] exatera 13 years ago

Wow, you obviously have no idea what you are talking about! Every word in Russian has a gender, last names included. If her father's name is Chenkov, her name would be Chenkova.

Where does your logic even come from? What makes you think you can argue with a native speaker?

My karma ran over your dogma.

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[–] whitespirit26 12 years ago

Oh calm the hell down down, exatera.

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[–] exatera 12 years ago

An idiotic, pointless reply, but whatever.

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[–] whitespirit26 12 years ago

LOL Pot meet kettle; someone offers a reasonable disagreement with the OP and you bite their head off.

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[–] paul-vale 11 years ago

Yeah, that really ruined the movie for me.

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[–] unruhe-407-879570 12 years ago

I must say that you are wrong. Also, your example of Milla Jovovich is wrong. She was indeed born in Ukrain but her father is serbian and not russian. Serbian last names are completly different from the russian ones. They all end with "vich" or just "ich" both female and male, married or not.

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[–] MelomankaPL 13 years ago

> I know, you would ask me, "So, who cares?" I do. And Russian viewers do.

Me too. I don't like it when American directors make movies about people from Western Europe and don't care about their language, names, history. Russian women have male surnames, German people have English names, Romanian people speak pseudo-Romanian (who cares, it sounds strange and that's enough), Judes in Polish ghetto speak English.

> It's similar to Spanish language in this respect.

I think Spanish language isn't a correct example. My surname has typical Polish endings: -ska and -ski, women in my family have husbands from Spain and Chile, they told me that unfortunately their sons will have female surname -ska because people in this countries can't understand that surname may have two forms, male and female.

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[–] dragon_beauty 13 years ago

With my Spanish example, I was referring to Russian female names similar to adjectives. Since female Spanish adjectives adopt an "a" at the end, so do Russian female names. I just meant it as an illustration. I was not referring to Spanish surnames. But in your perception, you are right.

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[–] impatient-905-37969 13 years ago

Hello everyone,

Well, somehow last year I managed to find myself helping with Russian pronounciation on sets of two movies. And here is something that infuriated me: even if there is a Russian person saying that the names are wacky and wrong, no one will do a thing about it. Why? They are afraid of pissing of the screen writer who sometimes is also a producer. The other thing is, they don't care. The primary segment of intended audience is Americans. And if it does not sound English, then it's Russian enough. They have Hispanics or Italians playing Russians - a FAR cry from any facial type found in Russia or any other republic of the former USSR.

And then comes the actual part where you do your best working with the actors on their Russian, and the ones with big names are best at it. Others, such as stunt men, are better at stunts. You may drill them to death, their mouths just won't move any other way than they got used to while speaking English. Trying to get these people to say simplest words and not butcher every one of them is like asking them to fly. It's just not happening. I guess it is basically a symptom of a larger problem in this country: a problem with isolationist mentality. Every other country is across the ocean (except Mexico, but who here thinks that country is worth learning Spanish?), so what's the point of learning any other language.

Besides, it seems that certain stereotypes are carved in stone. Russians are bandits, mafia, or crazed chauvinistiv communists. Now Albanians are added to the bandit category. In absence of clearly marked villains - outsider villains, I have to add - the whole industry of action movies will fall flat.

And no matter who those OTHERS are portrayed, they will still be buying tickets to see these cinematic "masterpieces" with wacked out names and plots. As long as they do that, Hollywood will not change a thing. So, you see, there is no improvement in sight. Not for decades ahead, anyway.

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[–] dragon_beauty 13 years ago

No, it used to infuriate me, but by now I am just too tired of getting infuriated every time a Hollywood movie portrays Russians in a negative way. Nothing I can do about it. Of course, it's frustrating, but whatever, at least get a name right. How hard is it to check your facts. That's all I am asking. Changing some writer's or producer's philosophy - not my job. But it is sad, you are right, that after all this time Russians are still a bad guy. So last century.

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] dragon_beauty 13 years ago

The movie does not imply that ALL Russians are "brainless thugs" or whatever, just that particular group. Now you are generalizing, not the movie. I already told you, I got sick and tired of all the movies that portray Russians in that way, so this time I did not even bother to address it. This movie was entertaining in its own way, it had its own reality, and it did not bother me as much that in this particular movie - like in hundreds of other movies before it - Russians were the bad guys. If I spoke up about every such movie, that would be my full time job, by the way, which I cannot afford right now. If you could think of any way for me to get paid for revealing all the misconceptions about my motherland in Hollywood movies, please be my guest. And if every nation got offended about being portrayed as villains in brainless Hollywood movies, we would be in World War III right now. So, everybody needs to lighten up and pick their battles. The name thing bothered me, the stupid plot - not so much. Seen that all before, nothing new.

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] dragon_beauty 13 years ago

Again, you are overgeneralizing. Nowhere in the movie at any point was it stated that the whole Russia is out to destroy the free-thinking world. Now YOU are making that statement, and I might just take offense at that. Of course it bothers me when I see my native speakers portrayed as "brainless" villains, but it's just a movie. Next thing you are going to say is call me "brailess" just because I am Russian, and you don't know a single thing about me. "Salt" was by no means the first movie with Russian villains in it. You should calm down. Granted, it's dated, and Hollywood should know better by now. Satisfied? I spoke out. And, for the record, not the mispronunciation of a Russian name offends me in this particular movie, but the fact that such a name does not exist in reality for a female of Russian descent. Then again, no such infiltration plans exist in reality either, so we might in fact just drop the whole thing.

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] dragon_beauty 13 years ago

I agree that we disagree. End of story.

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[–] acb132 13 years ago

Well the scowling had been a stereotype for a reason.
You used to be considered a dunce if you went around smiling in public. That was the culture in parts of Russia, at least once upon a time not THAT long ago.

The film hardly showed any Russians outside of the cell and since the ones in the cell went after the Russian president they were hardly representative of all Russians.

And if some of them seemed psychotic, well they had been brain-washed and programmed from a young age....

That said yeah they have been the standard bogeyman in many a film.

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] acb132 13 years ago

Well I had a lot of contact with people who went to both Russia and the (now) former Soviet republics and they all said the amount of smiling you'd see just wandering the streets was night and day difference back in the day and the difference was even more extreme when compared to the US.

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] acb132 13 years ago

Well, you said you went to the Soviet BLOC countries not Russia itself. I know many who saw a difference, it was always something people would comment on. Obviously just talking averages, not every person behaves the same.

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] acb132 13 years ago

That is not what I said.
So no need to disagree anywhere close to that extent.

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] jerryrip54 13 years ago

"And, for the record, speaking out against racism does not cause war; it prevents it. Being "offended" by something does not mean you automatically launch a jihad."

It does if you're a Muslim.

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] turock 13 years ago

I get your point but not long ago America caught onto the fact that we had Russian spys in our own government. And id be willing to bet that America has agents in Russia, and weve all got agents in France and theyve got their agents in the UK and so on and so forth.

Its not really that hard to believe that clandestine operations started years ago are still being run under the radar of their respective official governmental bodies.

This movies failing had more to do with Angelina doing a horrible job and somehow managing to ruin a movie that stars Liev Schriber (please forgive the mispelling and butchering of his name).

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] dragon_beauty 13 years ago

Of course the plot is ridiculous. Of course it is degrading for Russians, but it was just a stupid movie. No one implied that such a threat from Russia exists in reality, for Christ's sake. The screenplay went overboard with over-exaggerating already exaggerated Russian stereotypes. Every Hollywood movie with Russian characters unavoidably gets something wrong, and that was the whole point of my original post.

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] dragon_beauty 13 years ago

That's just your opinion. I am entitled to mine, which I thoroughly explained before.

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] turock 13 years ago

Chancery Stone i think together you and I have touched on a much more important aspect then the misnameing of characters. I think it is a much bigger issue to make the Russians into an enemy when its just not the case.

Granted were not exactly friends just now, were at the very least not going to war with each other.

Though in all honesty with the quickly changeing climate in global politics that could change. Im not saying Russians are fickle with friendship, just that todays allies could be tomorrows enemies.

For all I know we could be bombing the $hit out of Canada tomorrow.

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] turock 13 years ago

I can see them gutting a Moose thats fallen in the woods so they can keep warm inside it till the storm passes. Like Luke and Han LOL.

Lets not forget the eh following every sentence eh? Hahaha it could be part of a test, someone forgets to say eh and they cap him haha

Or interrogate the first person to speak badly of Wayne Gretzkey

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] acb132 13 years ago

Armies of brutally brainwashed Midwich Cuckoos and planning drama of this extreme level and taking control of the bunker and so on are taking things too far, sure, and it's more likely today targeting for economic and resources advantage than any more direct, but it's not exactly like deep cover agents and such are not real.

And it's not some of them didn't find situations where people died and then took over their identities and moved to the country of interest and got normal jobs and worked there way up and into society and even into major organizations (and likely even a very high agency position or two), received degrees here, etc. Heck just look at some of the Illegals, just for starters. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegals_Program

Granted, that is hardly at the same level as in this film.

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] acb132 13 years ago

I'm not sure what spies you are referring to with your "we're not really talking about real spies here though, are we?" I assume you mean in these movies?

Well certainly real spies are a lot more boring than James Bond and all, yes. And he sure didn't seem to take much care to maintain a cover over the years haha.

That said not all are dull, plain, wallflower acting and there definitely have been the looker, charming/seductress types.

And heck just look at Chapman, face-booking cute photos all over, running around clubs and hardly plain looking.

But yeah there have been hundreds of such movies (although considerably fewer since '89) so you do have a point.

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] acb132 13 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Chapman

(http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&safe=on&q=chapman+spy&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&sa=X&ei=n8qUTdS9NumU0QGpmYmIDA&ved=0CDoQsAQ&biw=1589&bih=944

(granted some of those are post-cover blown, and few are not even her or even human, but quite a few were just posting it up on FB like plenty another club-going 20-something))

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] acb132 13 years ago

Well not many non-spies look like Angelina Jolie haha so well yeah not likely many spies even would or even could either but as I said Chapman was hardly all hidden away stay out of sight plain wallflower and there have been others, KGB honey traps over the years. And even among the rest of the plain looking ones, many were not keeping to themselves but moving more and more deeply into important circles, although all the same leading ordinary lives. Not that it worked out so well for the latest bunch since they all got caught before they had even done enough to actually get charged with out and out espionage (then again some say they got specifically betrayed).

Anyway, getting back to some of the others:
some minor arguing between two of them and a handler:
"
The Murphys told C, perhaps somewhat defensively: "It was a convenient way to solving the housing issue, plus 'to do as the Romans do' in a society that values home ownership."

What did C expect? If they want 11 "illegals" to go native in America in order to establish a long-term, deep cover, then obviously home ownership in New Jersey beckons. Mrs Murphy did a good job. She certainly fooled the neighbours. "They couldn't have been spies," said Jessie Gugig. "Look what she did with the hydrangeas.""

I kind of like the but, but, but "They couldn't have been spies," said Jessie Gugig. "Look what she did with the hydrangeas." haha.

It's also said that activity has not tapered off at all since the end of the cold war, although the goals somewhat altered and some, such as this, not carried off quite so smoothly.

I'm sure the US does a bit of the same, although it seems they get taken by remarkable surprise at times. Such as the fall of the Soviet union, the info that made it up to the highest levels was all about how sturdy the empire was, economy, everything fine which means poor/ignored ground truthing. I remember telling everyone in the late 80's that they (USSR) would collapse within half a decade and everyone said I was nuts but I had contact with people in former Soviet republics and they could see it all decaying more and more and knew they were in an overspent shambles and it was all about ready to crash down and I was not much more than a kid, sometimes it pay to just pay attention to such details and local agents rather than crazy projections by

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] acb132 13 years ago

Yeah the hydrangeas bit was just too funny.

Some more thoughts on the whole recent Illegals matter:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10986334

Of course, yeah, all the same it's hardly about crazy stuff like taking over our codes and all the really dramatic Salt stuff. And granted some of them had been here ten years and not really gotten all that far yet and only uncovered nothing more than google will do for you in a day all the while getting help to set up nice lives for themselves here. They certainly never accomplished anything of note before being caught.

Actually, for more on what they were about, here is an intercept of an actual message to out to all of them:

"You were sent to USA for long-term service trip. Your education, bank accounts, car, house etc - all these serve one goal: fulfil your main missions, ie to search and develop ties in policymaking circles in US and send intels [intelligence reports] to Center."

Yeah I know, I know sending a message like that to their agents sounds a bit like something from MI or Get Smart but hey they actually did. (Or maybe it was stated like that just to make a few so out in the open if caught while protecting others.)

As for the youth work, she was supposed to speak before some of their patriot youth education groups as a hero of the motherland or something, some claimed she wanted to, some claimed she was pushed into it. Some tidbits about the group:
"The Young Guards is known for its anti-U.S. rhetoric and violent pranks against Kremlin critics.....among several youth groups formed in the mid-2000s to counter anti-Kremlin groups and prevent uprisings similar to the "color revolutions" in Georgia and Ukraine that brought pro-Western politicians to power.....staged mass rallies involving thousands of activists....2006 demonstration dubbed "the world's Independence Day from America"...the group has hired soccer fans and neo-Nazis to assault opposition leaders....in recent months, the group has been roiled by widely publicized scandals and reprimands from its Kremlin mentors....the group also called for action against a journalist who challenged government policies....the journalist was later brutally beaten...."

Here she is interviewed at a major NYC business conference, just mixing in normally:
http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2010/06/30/tsr.feyerick.anna.chapman.speaks.cnn?iref=allsearch

http://edition.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/crime/2010/07/01/bts.anna.chapman.speaks.cnn.html

more stuff:
"Very important: 1. sign your passport on page 32. Train yourself to be able to reproduce your signature when it's necessary. 2. Pls, be aware that you just visited Russia... If asked, we suggest you use the following story: you flew to Moscow on Mar 16 from London for example flight SU 211 to participate in business talks...you will destroy this memo after reading."

Darn, no self-destruct in five seconds.

"how suspect [] will recognise an SVR agent in Rome from whom he is to get a fake Irish passport. He is primed to use the phrase: "Excuse me, could we have met in Malta in 1999?" and look for the way his contact is holding a copy of Time magazine."

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] acb132 13 years ago

Amusing considering this thread, but Chapman actually said that she loves Angelina Jolie and seemed to imply that she enjoyed Salt haha.

Anyway I think I've said enough about all this spy illegals stuff.

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] Gold_Panner 13 years ago

Getting back on the topic of the thread, I have to agree with earlier replies. Learning languages from different areas is only an off hobby which I do at home. With some fast and easily obtained information, movies (and television shows) can be made just a tad more realistic. Granted the majority are not aware of the subtle inconsistencies and are viewing for entertainment purposes.

Now to go off-topic. Personally, I found the movie a nice change of pace from the "standard" terrorism flicks that are based off of current world activities. Escaping "the real world" for 90-120 minutes of mind-freeing entertainment only to watch it again during our mental\emotional "vacation" doesn't appeal to me. I can see current affairs on the news, papers or online.

Sure some of it is exaggerated....it's entertainment. Nothing more, nothing less. If I were to be nit-picking entertainment, perhaps the biggest complaint would be about the linguistics of period movies (i.e. Greek\Roman movies where the cast has accents other than what the characters they are portraying should sound like: Gladiator, 300 come to mind).

If anything, I think the movie transfers the notion of a "what if" scenario and "could this already be happening". The blade in the shoe could theoretically be ceramic and never sound the metal detectors (ceramic knives are already on the market). A camera in the "war room" bunker probably was there, however Salt did knock out outside communications (acknowledged in the film) and therefore it wouldn't show anything. People complaining about how "unrealistic" brainwashing someone to be a plant had better be complaining the same about Jason Bourne (same premise at the root).

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[–] dragon_beauty 13 years ago

Bravo. Couldn't have said it better.

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] Gold_Panner 13 years ago

Never implied the Bourne series had anything to do with communists. Read what you lightly quote. I referred to brainwashing (i.e. altering who Bourne actually is, how he knows what he knows).

Perhaps you need to change your URL to "chancery-is-illiterate dot com".

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] Gold_Panner 13 years ago

Yet again you fail to read. The thread is titled "No such Russian name". Read from the start of the thread instead of pulling off-topic posts.

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] Gold_Panner 13 years ago

If you (and others) are intent on posting content containing racism, take it elsewhere. No thanks to the person near the beginning who had to unwillingly bring in the "R" word in the first place and spoil boards everywhere with it.

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] Gold_Panner 13 years ago

If you (and others) are intent on posting content containing racism, take it elsewhere. No thanks to the person near the beginning who had to unwillingly bring in the "R" word in the first place. That spoils boards everywhere.

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[–] acb132 13 years ago

Does anyone else think that Chancery Stone is a Midwich Cuckoo agent putting out disinformation to protect his fellow cuckoos? ;)

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] Kunovega 13 years ago

I don't think the film was racist.

It wasn't saying all russians are like this.

How do you expect to show every type of russian in less than 2 hours?

You don't.

You show the extremists that happen to think this way, because it makes for interesting stories.

I'm not saying its likely that things would happen this way, but I do think its possible a few russians still sit around and think about it.

Same is true of any country, there are a handful of ignorant people in the US that still think the south will rise again and start a new civil war. Are there a lot of them? no, but if I made a movie about it I would focus on just the handful of idiots that think that way and it wouldnt mean I was trying to show that the entire US is that way.

Just like salt isnt trying to prove all russians are that way.

If what you were saying was true, than every movie about criminals would be trying to show that everyone of X race was a criminal, when the truth is no, they are just trying to show you a movie about a criminal.

Just like salt was just trying to show you the motivations behind a small group of extremists who happen to be russian.

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] acb132 13 years ago

I don't know that Salt was shown to be entirely humorless or dour, see some of the interactions with her husband. But yeah they generally were, but then again virtually every one shown was part of a brainwashed sleeper program so that is like saying Bonnie & Clyde showed all Americans to be violent and crazy.

That said, yeah, certainly Russians have mostly been used as the baddies so you do have a point.

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] acb132 13 years ago

what I mean is that if you are going to show criminal or crazy assassin rings those characters just might be violent and dour.

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] acb132 13 years ago

Well I really don't recall too much how they had him act in the movie. I know he was smiling like crazy when he returned safely back to Russia. You may be correct that he had been entirely unsmiling when in the US (although then again it was a state funeral though so can we judge from that, it wasn't a meet and greet babies).

I definitely will give you that Russians have been the bogeyman in hundreds of films though and far, far less often show in other scenarios.

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[–] acb132 13 years ago

Getting back to the original topic, yes, excellent point. And it seems like something that could've so ridiculously easily been caught as a mistake that you almost wonder if we are not missing something.

I have to say when I was first watching it I was a little confused for a while since they kept referring to this 'guy' Chenkov and yet.... so I wasn't quite sure if I had missed something or if the characters in the movie were missing something.

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[–] turbocad 13 years ago

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0944835/trivia?tr=tr1399747

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[–] acb132 13 years ago

hmmmmmmmmm
that would seem to make fools of us all
but when did they ever call her that in the movie?

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[–] dragon_beauty 13 years ago

They never did! That's why it caught my attention.

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[–] acb132 13 years ago

Well, at least they got it right in the script. :)

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[–] yarik83 13 years ago

Russian names are completely different than in USA and that is why when you omit a letter or letters it completely changes everything.

Here is an example.

Latoya Johnson
Andrew Johnson

In Russia that would not work because of naming conventions. Regardless of marital status all females have last names ending with "ova"; "eva"; "a" and such.

Lena Matveeva where as husband or father would be called Alexei Matveev.
Yana Stolyarova where as husband or father would be called Alexei Stolyarov
etc.

There are many unfortunate issues going on when Western movies portray people from Europe and Asia. For one they almost always (up until early 2000's) cast americans to play foreigners. With their extremely broken and poorly made out attempt to replicate "insert language here" they often fail miserably but who cares right?! as long as they sound funny its all good am I right?! And then of course there is the classic cliche of main cast trying to speak the other language and they fail even more than temporary extras playing foreigners. You do not have to learn the language but at the very least have a decency to open up google translate and listen to how words are spoken in other tongue.

As a russian it royally pisses me off when you get someone like in this case Angelina mispronouncing every single word but the word "ok". With all her millions she can hire a linguist dammit to edumacate her 5 lines of text she has to say.

Here is an example. In the bunker (spoiler alert).

She says. "Let me in"
in russian pronounced as "poo stee me-nya"
she said it like she was constipated and trying to pass a kidney stone:
"peou stie me ne ya"

on the other hand hollywood is trying. In last 10 years they started casting actual europeans to play some roles but usually with very little dialogue.

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[–] 13 years ago

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