Mystic Voices: The Story of the Pequot War

Narrator

Sassacus

John Winthrop, Sr.

Roger Williams

Puritan

Scarlet Mantel

William Bradford (voice)

Miantonomo

Narrator

John Mason

Old Chief

Uncas

Interviewer Voice Over

Pequot Envoy

John Underhill

Lieutenant Lion Gardiner

Narrator

While most productions opt to use makeup to remove the "sheen" and facial hair stubble prior to shooting, Mystic Voices instead chose to take the chance of alienating viewers by purposefully "greasing up" the faces of the 17th century figures being represented on screen, and even insisted upon weighing down the hair to give it an unwashed, more historically accurate look. Going on the notion that many people of the period being portrayed (1637) might have been survivors of malnutrition, harsh elements and small pox, director Guy Perrotta chose to encourage hair and makeup teams led by Bernard de la Rivera to create an unromantic, less glamorous depiction of the real life people being portrayed by actors during the reenactments and dramatizations.

During screenings at film festivals members of the audiences reported seeing strange faces whenever fire is portrayed on screen; additionally, unusual "mystical" voices have been claimed to have been heard on the soundtrack.

To try to bring the viewers back into the 1600s Guy Perrotta worked with the actors to avoid standard, "Received Pronunciation" (Queen's English) for the English portrayals. Among the "Mystic Voices" heard in the film are several accents and dialects used to depict various speech patterns in the 17th century, including English (East Anglia, London), colonial Dutch and Native American (Algonquian speaking tribes).

Roger Williams: We have not our land by Patent of the King, but that the Natives are the true owners of it; and that we ought to repent of such receiving it by Patent.

Miantonomo: We shall ALL be starved.

Roger Williams: Boast not, proud English, of thy birth and blood; Thy brother Indian is by birth as good.