Mirror Logic

1. Liam Neeson and Harrison Ford imitate a Russian accent in K-19. Fine. How about that old Viking, Hamlet, doing his hit number, “To Be Or…” with a deep, sore-throat Danish tinge? Or imagine a 2050 Iraqi production, a film series — say, Liberation — featuring G.W. Bush (43) orating in a perfectly Texan Arabic?

2. A few years ago, Martha Fiennes put together a movie, as she dared to claim, “based” on Pushkin’s Onegin, with her beau bro Ralph and Liv Tyler in lead parts. The scene is set circa 1820. In one particularly moving episode, Liv & Co. sing a pseudo-folk Russian tune that came into being in the 1950s — as part of the soundtrack for one particularly indecent Stalinist film. The Fienneses are British, but provided they keep up their interest in other countries’ history, I would suggest that, should they be shooting an epic about — what else? — the War between the States, Mrs. Lincoln be made sing, accompanied by Mrs. Stanton, My Heart Will Go On.

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