Buckled Cranium Productions

One might argue that the Depictions of Irish in foreign cinema often cater to the trite convention of a stock Irish gent. Perhaps foreign films have overused the backdrop of the troubles, the church, or Irish gangsters in their representations of Ireland. However one must consider the bigger picture.

Every nation has a set of issues or baggage associated with it, you can see it as a chip on our collective shoulders or a piece of food stuck in our nations teeth, but every country has a series of conventions or backdrops that film makers pander to. Is it not possible that German audiences moan as yet another WWII film is advertised in their nations cinemas? Should Americans slap their heads at the billing of yet another civil war, western or Vietnam movie? A nation is simply a victim of its history and heritage.

I'm using words like pander and victim here, but are these depictions nessicarily nagative?

Continuing with this perspective - Are we to blame? For every foreign depiction of the Irish in cinema, be it as terrorists, famine starved uneducated immigrants or abusive Catholic clergy there is 3 home grown Irish films made by our own native Filmmakers further bolstering the stereotype.

30 years ago making a film in Ireland was dependent on near total foreign investment, the film board and Ireland’s economy simply couldn’t afford the risks associated with feature film production. Since then of course production costs have dropped, by the risks involved with distribution havent. To look back in anger on Hollywood’s arguably heavy handed and clumsily dealing with subjects sensitive to the Irish is like blaming a publisher for the content of a novel, they may be facilitating its distribution but when it draws from native Irish talent its hard to argue that the blame is anything but our own.

To make a large film in Ireland with a budget of more then a few million Euro still requires mostly foreign money despite the effects of the Celtic Tiger. Things have improved, among them EU membership which has brought Irish filmmakers closer to our neighbors in France, Germany or the UK for Funding & distribution. But it needs to be remembered that Irelands film industry simply isn’t as eclectic as the UK, or as subsidized as France or as selfsufficent and commercial as America - but I hope this can change, in all three regards.

Does the studio funding a film ultimately define a films identity? If so most films Irish audiences would consider Irish are actually Hollywood productions. What makes a film Irish anyhow? If American money and resources fund a film is it truly an Irish Film or should we simply treat foreign investment as what it sounds like?

The modern world of film production is culturally muddy at best. Director Neil Jordan shot Michael Collins with a British Crew & The Wind that Shakes the Barley was helmed by renowned British director Ken Loach. Superman was shot in Australia, Prague doubles for London, Greenland for Tibet, films shoot with who’s appropriate, wheres appropriate. Old attitudes in which the film Irish industry existed purely for keeping Irish craftsmen in work are antiquated at best and at worst over unionised and reactionary.

Representations of Irish have seen a shift, as Irelands film industry gradully climbs to its feet & increasingly becomes self sufficient, Irish film now has a platform; thanks to our talents work internationally. Irish cinema has evolved, and with it the publics appetite for variety and change. Modern Irish films are showing are reflecting an increasing desire on part of the Irish public and Ireland’s talent to tell stories that operate outside the tried and tested formula.

Neil Jordan’s Breakfast on Pluto (2005) once again dealt with Irish Identity, but juxtaposed the harsh backdrop of the troubles against the most surreal eclectic protagonist Jordan’s constructed yet, set to a fantastic albeit atypical soundtrack and a colorful cast of iconic Irish talent making the film a worthy progression away from more stoic films tackling the simular subjects.

Certainly early films like Marcel Vamel’s Oh Mr Porter (1937) where the Irish are depicted as drunken fools, and lovable superstitious simple folk clearly incapable of running a railway without a Englishmen being drafted in to clean up the mess, may seem antiquated to put it nicely, and patronizing and mildly racist to put it blunt. Nevertheless, while film is better appreciated with an understanding of the political context in which they were made - that shouldn't be but often is an excuse for a film that is 'a victim of its time' - and thereby never timeless.

British film The Dam Busters (1955) featured a Black Labrador called ‘Nigger’ since the film is based on actual events, using the dogs actual name was simply a factual accuracy. However to a modern audience this is seen as offensive and in poor taste, despite it being factually true to mildly racist conventions of the decade. In the 2010 remake, the name is planned to be been changed to ‘Trigger’ in an attempt to appease a more politically correct society. Conventions change, sensibilities shift & censorship interestingy does not seen to run in tandem with human progress.

Depictions of the Irish in old films when viewed through the prism of time may seem offensive and stereotypical to us today. However it can be taken for granted that Albert Shape (Darby O’Gill and the Little people) had no malicious intent in his portrayal of an elderly superstitious Irish man, as he was an Irishman himself from Belfast. The Irish have traditionally been stereotyped thanks largely to Colonial British rule, a 70 year old film may carry a sour taste even when remembered within context. A film is always a product of its time, like a book or a monument, burning, cencoring or destroying it in hindsight does not curtail, remove or undo the process or society that created it.

However it should always be remembered that with narrative, that a truthfull acurate depiction, or even a bias one - will live or die on strength of its story.

How have sensibilities shifted? - if at all? Comparing and contrasting John Ford’s The Quiet Man with Jim Sheridan’s The Field, reveal two films with much the same story, but with nearly 40 years between their production. The Quiet Man (1952) is very much a Hal-marks greeting card’s version of Ireland, a Emerald isle of colorful characters, men with hats, beards and timepieces, and women with shawls and suppers to cook. Spielberg’s tip of the hat to Ford’s film in E.T as Elliot recreates Mary Kate’s and Sean Thornton’s first kiss places this film very much at the heart of a generation of film makers, and Ireland as a land of Matchmakers and afternoon brawls fought over 20 pounds cash.

The Field, the more modern & bleak of the two. Is even set in exactly the same period. It see’s Bull McCabe played by the late Richard Harris come across familiar territory in the form of an unwanted outsider from America, but Sheridan’s Ireland is storm-lashed land, still clearly shaken by the effects of the famine which let’s not forgot had taken place near 100 years earlier. Sheridan’s Ireland was not a land of friendly but charactered people, but was instead populated by desperate superstitious and violent inhabitants barely clinging to life. Ireland as depicted in the Field is a land where it rained often and the sun's shine only occasionally cracked though thick cloud. Perhaps a truer representation, perhaps it took an Irishmen to make a truly representative film about Ireland in the 50’s? - But it sure as hell set our international image back to the stone-age.

The following were voted by our nations audiences as the top 10 Irish films of the last century, I took the liberty of adding common themes.

1. The Commitments - Working class strife + Soul

2. My Left Foot - Working class strife + Cripple

3. In the Name of the Father- Working class strife + Troubles

4. The Quiet Man- Working class strife + American

5. The Snapper - Working class strife + Baby

6. Michael Collins - Working class strife + Troubles

7. The Field - Working class strife + American

8. Intermission - Working class strife + Gangsters

9. Veronica Guerin - Working class strife + Gangsters

10. Inside I’m Dancing. - Working class strife + Multiple Cripples

Apologies, I do myself know a disabled man, his name is Ed, and beacuse I mentioned that - this is now alright.

Looking at this list we can see a pattern, the Irish public are a victim of their own conventions, and don’t have a very long memory. The typecast issues the nation’s cinema going public is frustrated with being linked to, are all present and accounted for on the states list of top 10 cinema favorites. From the distribution of wealth, to immigration, to the troubles, and the new chart topper: angsters and drugs, it seems the Irish are a nation very much with a chip on our collective shoulders, and so far it seems the only way we know how to deal with it is to escape into the realm of indie & art-house cinema.

However - John Carney’s Oscar Winning Once may in essence be a whimsical musical love-story, but it also deal’s with modern Ireland’s set of evolving issues. Chiefly immigration - other then our own for once. This time it’s foreigners in our own country & this time its the Irish being forced to adapt & accommodate, much like the Irish film industry. It’s time for the viewing public to broaden their tastes, and embrace alternative modes’s of self depiction. Our sensibilities are changing, our national identity is changing.