REPORT CENSORS MISSING THE TARGET Is stopping Irish 16- and 17-year-olds from seeing a movie about the teen drug scene really how our censorship system should be working, asks Katy Hayes

ew Irish-made  lms get an 18 appeal, distributors Wildcard asked this is actually the case. The Queen of Connolly that, as a parent, I would be classi cation. In the past  ve the Irish Film Classi cation O˜ ce (Ifco ) Ireland, Conor Horgan’s documentary happy for my older teens to see Kissing years, there have been six, and to have another look. The 18 rating was about Panti Bliss, got a 15A from Ifco Candice, he replies: “You are perfectly most of those were horror or upheld. Compounding Freedman’s while the BBFC handed it an 18. entitled to think that. It [the 18 cert] is dystopian. There was Love unhappiness is the fact that the BBFC, “Cardboard Gangsters was a very my opinion, and my opinion is Eternal in 2014, which was the UK classi cation o˜ ce, passed Kiss- easy 18 because it was relentless, challengeable to an appeals board — I Fheavy on the suicide and necrophilia; ing Candice with a 15 cert. visceral violence and, regardless of am not speaking ex cathedra. Another and Let Us Prey in 2015, which was a Ifco has two exclusionary catego- where that  lm was made, it would be person will come along and say the  lm fantasy bloodbath with mutilated body ries, 16 and 18, which mean anyone 18,” he says. “Kissing Candice was one should be banned, and they are parts. The Survivalist, released in 2016, under those ages should not be admit- of those marginal calls between 16 and entitled to their opinion too.” was a futuristic dystopian „ ick involv- ted to cinemas. The rest are “parental 18 but, because it involved teens, It could be argued that teenagers ing bloody violence and starvation- advisory” categories, which mean because it involved drugs and a should not be excluded from thought- coerced sex. Last year we had Card- children are admitted provided they murder, that is the tipping point. The provoking  lms such as Kissing Candice board Gangsters, directed by Mark are accompanied by an adult who has three things together in contemporary and Dublin Oldschool, but rather O’Connor and starring John Connors, deemed the  lm appropriate viewing. Ireland made it an 18. That’s my should be encouraged to see them and which had the familiar gangster- lm Ger Connolly, Ifco’s director of opinion. The distributors of any  lm discuss their themes. Kissing Candice, tropes of drug use and gory violence. classi cation, says: “We’re basically have an appeal mechanism if they’re in locating its schoolgirl protagonist on Now another Irish  lm has had an mechanics, we’re not critics, and we not happy with my decision.” the margins of a violent drugs subcul- 18 cert attached to its release, and don’t give ratings for quality. We try to Connolly says the appeals board can ture, asks questions about challenges this one seems anomalous. Kissing look at everything on its merits from a be rapidly assembled, but formal faced by youngsters . The characters in Candice, directed by Aoife McArdle, is classi cation point of view, according appeals are rare. In fact there have Dublin Oldschool are young adults with a purposeful slice of social realism with to our set of public guidelines. These been only six in the past nine years, jobs, but the seeds of their problems something serious to say about youth are broadbrush, and sometimes the none of them relating to Irish  lms. were sown much earlier. culture and teenage feminine desire. It context of a particular  lm can play a Several times a year he does get asked All of this is becoming increasingly has a lot in common with Dublin big role, more than just the bare by distributors to have “another look” moot as  lm distribution methods Oldschool, Dave Tynan’s  lm of Emmet content of a scene.” at a  lm on an informal basis, and he expand to include streaming, where no Kirwan’s script, which opens in Irish Connolly agrees that there is a per- readily does so, but “it would be quite age restriction can be e© ective. Mean- cinemas this week. This also ception Ireland is stricter than other unusual for me to change my mind”. while, reports of teenage murders have portrays drugs use by young jurisdictions, but he doesn’t think He points to some comments online become a more regular part of the Irish

people, but has been granted a that suggest Kissing Candice’s 18 cert CATHRO MIKE news cycle, including the tragic killings less restrictive 16 cert. was due to sexual content — there is a of Cameron Reilly, 18, and Ana Kriegel, Andrew Freedman, scene in which Candice masturbates, He points out that the Ifco website positive outcome,” Connolly explains. look at the whole movie, you will see that by the end of the  lm you wouldn’t 14, in the past two months. If ever teen- producer of Kissing Can- and she also explicitly expresses her provides descriptive information to “If a guy abusing drugs suddenly the outcome in its totality is completely want to touch drugs ever again.” agers and their parents needed to have dice, admits he was We’re not critics, sexual desire — but he says this is not help people make up their own minds. becomes a success, then you have a contra to that scene, and there is a This all seems more a matter of their consciousness raised about drugs “disappointed and the case. “The days of puritanical This applies not just to parents, but to problem. But if the guy abusing salutary lesson in it all”. judgment and opinion rather than and violence, now would appear to be surprised” by the 18 and we don’t give classi cation are gone,” Connolly says. general audiences as well. drugs has to face his demons and Dublin Oldschool producer Dave “mechanics”, however. Though the the time. The question can reasonably cert, which is likely ratings for quality “Our job is to re„ ect public expecta- So if drug use were a key factor in comes out the other end with a positive Leahy is aware of this. “If you’re going drug users in Kissing Candice don’t be put: by not letting them see Kissing to depress box- tion. I hate people using the word pushing Kissing Candice into the 18 message, it does have a bearing on to make a  lm that has a drugs sub cul- learn lessons or face their demons, the Candice and Dublin Oldschool, what of–ice returns. ‘censor’. I look on this o˜ ce, as it has category, why did Dublin Oldschool not classi cation.” ture, the feedback we’ve had [from  lm does give a highly negative por- exactly are we protecting our young Though the pro- Fully focused Connolly evolved, as being for consumer advice. get that classi cation? “One of the Connolly says someone might argue Ifco] is that the context is important,” trayal of drugs and their impact. Drugs people from? c ducers did not says ilm-makers can There are rules, but I don’t think we are things you take into consideration, par- that a certain scene appears to contra- he says. “We show drugs but — without are used only by a marginal and nega-

make a formal appeal decisions MEADE BRYAN censors as such.” ticularly in talking about drugs, is a vene the general guidelines, “but if you giving away the ending — you could say tively portrayed gang. When I tell Kissing Candice is reviewed overleaf

12 24 June 2018 24 June 2018 13 FILM

Irish ilm and TV directors are infatuated ichael Inside, a new Irish ostensibly not encouraging or condon- leads, one of the latter’s many outings Playing with ire From left, In Bruges played for laughs. The  lm becomes of Cahill, down to the vision Jason has

movie from the director ing any of the action, whil e glorifying it ALAMY as a gangster. with Brendan Gleeson and Colin ruthless only when an Englishman of himself as a little boy at the end. Frank Berry, won the best all the same. This is the moral crux at John Boorman’s portrait of real-life Farrell, Cate Blanchett as Veronica (Ralph Fiennes ) arrives to impose disci- A question explored only sporadi- with making gangster movies — but feature  lm award at the the heart of the gangster  lm, and it crime boss Martin Cahill , The General, Guerin, and Gleeson in The General pline on the unruly Irish mobsters. cally is whether there is a danger that Iftas last month. Berry’s applies to Scorsese or Coppola as much was controversial because of its sympa- The following year’s Perrier’s presenting gangsters getting high on should we worry that the genre is debut, I Used to Live Here as anyone else. Would they really want thetic presentation of Cahill, also Bounty, directed by Ian FitzGibbon, “yokes” and having access to lots of M(2014) , was a gritty engagement with a any of these colourful gangsters played by Gleeson . He was depicted as was the most visionary of these Irish “mots” is unintentionally promoting glamorising the lifestyle, asks Katy Hayes working-class community struggling rocking up to their residences in a Robin Hood type, a “working-class gangster  lms, with a surreal existen- the criminal lifestyle. RTE broadcast with teen suicide. This time he has Manhattan or Napa County ? hero who never worked a day in his tial gloss bringing sophistication to the œive series of Love/Hate between focused a cinematic lens on the world Irish cinema has embraced the gang- life”, as the promotional material format. The movie follows Cillian 2010 and 2014, making Tom Vaughan- of crime. Michael Inside is about ster genre with a vengeance, perhaps declared. The  lm was artfully shot in Murphy’s character trying to escape Lawlor, who played gangland boss 18 -year-old Michael McCrea (Da§ yd because it speaks to a traditional black and white, asserting a classic from the clutches of the mob while pur- Nidge, a domestic star. The drama Flynn ), who is jailed on a minor drugs post-colonial a‡ nity with the outlaw. status for itself, with Gleeson playing suing a romantic interest and reconcil- portrayed Dublin criminals as having charge and meets a variety of hardened A signi cant early example was The Cahill as a lovable funny guy. When he ing with his father. Byrne provided a the time of their lives. Was it a coinci- tough guys and criminals inside. Courier from 1988, co-directed by Joe has an underling nailed by his hands to touch of class as the voice of death , and dence that the Hutch-Kinahan feud Though a serious  lm that examines Lee and Frank Deasy, and starring a snooker table, Cahill is sorry after- Gleeson played another gangland boss, took o£ soon afterwards? Do such the negative e£ ects of prison, Michael Gabriel Byrne . At the time it was made, wards and takes the hoodlum to hospi- this time with a funny dead pan perfor- depictions of gangsters become an Inside is the latest in a long line of Irish there was a well-publicised rise in the tal. The  lm ends on a nostalgic note as mance. We should point out that Glee- unwitting recruitment drive for young movies and television shows that have chronic social problems associated Cahill, after being shot, ha s a vision of son as gangster endures some negative men to join the gangs of Limerick or engaged with the indigenous criminal with heroin use and the resulting tragic his cheeky childhood self, played by an outcomes, including being shot in the Dublin, to follow this path to appar- H LE underworld. Are our  lm directors blighting of families and communities even fresher-faced Eamonn Owens . arm, assassinated by a hitman, death ently easy money and macho prestige? obsessed with this genre? in Dublin’s inner city. Veronica Guerin, directed by Joel by suicide, and getting eaten by dogs. Here’s a scenario: a boxing tourna- Global cinema has always loved Like many  lms in the gangster Schumacher, produced the most terri- Last year’s Cardboard Gangsters, ment weigh-in at a Dublin hotel. Among gangsters. They form an entire sub- genre, The Courier faced two ways: fying of Irish cinematic gangsters in directed by Mark O’Connor, was an the sports enthusiasts are members of genre of crime  lms, with high-pro le urban realist exposé of the heroin trade Gerard McSorley’s depiction of John Irish box-o‡ ce hit about hitmen. Like the criminal underworld. Gunshots examples frequently appearing on lists and generic crime thriller. The  lm Gilligan. Unusually for the genre, the The Courier, Cardboard Gangsters is ring out as a man disguised as a woman of the greatest movies of all time, such remains vivid for a scene in which the central character was a woman, based pulled in two directions, trying to and two others dressed in tactical-style as Francis Ford Coppola’s The character played by Byrne blinds on the journalist killed by the criminals create a social exposé while obeying garda uniforms ¦ ee . It could be a scene Godfather and The Godfather Part II ; Danny (Andrew Connolly) with a she wrote about. Cate Blanchett played the aesthetic laws of the crime thriller. from Love/Hate, but it was an early Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas; and jagged light bulb — a standout violent the title role in what was a high-pro le The gangsters are glamo ri sed, having a episode in the Hutch-Kinahan feud. We IN THE Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. episode in Irish cinema at the time. international production, but the gang- great time with “yokes”, while the are walking a œine line between Gangsters provide  lm-makers with the Nine years later, Paddy Breathnach ’s sters were portrayed by Irish actors, money generated by robbery and drugs  ction and reality. opportunity for storyline tension and second feature, I Went Down, was a with McSorley backed up by Ciarán is seen as a way to get “mots”. The Gangsters are ¦ ourishing, and so are suspense, ego clashes, pretty girls, buddy road movie set among the Hinds. Nobody was hapless or funny , as Perhaps the genre main character, Jason , is presented as a their avatars on Irish screens. Whether machismo and bloodbaths, including criminal underworld. This work estab- Schumacher created a mood with a hero looking to get money to provide there is any interconnection between opportunities for sadistic events. lished a style of humorou s haplessness, more ruthless American feel. speaks to a traditional for his family, in a  ne performance by these two phenomena could keep These  lms often talk out of both which became a feature of Irish gang- Martin McDonagh ’s In Bruges (2008) post-colonial a nity John Connors , who won an Ifta for best criminologists busy for years. c sides of their mouths, milking the ster  lms. Peter McDonald and a fresh- paired Colin Farrell with Gleeson, and actor. The character was a direct underworld for cinematic value, faced Brendan Gleeson played the once again the Irish criminals were with the outlaw descendant from Boorman’s depiction Michael Inside opens on April 6 HEAD8 25 March 2018 25 March 2018 9 Review Saturday 6 January 2018

OF THE BEST 13 FILMS ABOUT 5 NEWSPAPERS HIS GIRL FRIDAY (1940) SCENE&HEARD Witty and wise screwball comedy starring Cary Grant as a hard-boiled tabloid editor who schemes to prevent Energy: Cornwall’s his star reporter and ex-wife Rosaland Kneehigh Theatre Russell from getting married. A classic. brought Tristan & Yseult to Galway CITIZEN KANE (1941) Orson Welles’ epic account of a fictional newspaper baron’s life was inspired by the exploits of media mogul Randolph Hearst and is built around a reporter’s efforts to find out who Charles Foster Kane really was.

WOMAN OF THE YEAR (1942) The first of nine films Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn made together, George Stevens’ sparkling comedy tells the story of two writers who fall in love. She’s an intellectual columnist, he’s a sports reporter, and they don’t see eye to eye. ACE IN THE HOLE (1951) Adaptationsarefine,butisthenew If you take a dim view of journalists, your worst prejudices will be confirmed by Billy Wilder’s hard- Irishplayanendangeredspecies? hitting classic, which stars Kirk Douglas as an unscrupulous reporter who delays the rescue of a man he status of the playwright has become longer a playwright writing a play, with the status that trapped in a desert cave so he can substantially downgraded in Irish theatre used to adhere to this job. You are a ‘theatre-maker’ fully capitalise on the story. of late and the concept of a new play as a creating new ‘work’, among other theatre-makers. In T national event has all but disappeared. Like this unflagged war on the status of the playwright, SPOTLIGHT (2015) most gradual changes in modes of entertainment, it writers are quietly fighting back by simply directing has many roots. A major problem has been the under their own plays: Conor McPherson, Mark O’Rowe and Tom McCarthy’s perfectly judged functioning of the Peacock over the past couple of Enda Walsh all now direct their own writing. drama is based on the Boston Globe’s decades. It was the greatest weakness of Fiach Mac This collapse of faith in writing and in the idea of a exposure of decades of clerical Conghail’s tenure at the helm of the Abbey. There were new play has led us to a heap of ‘new work’ which is abuse. Michael Keaton plays ‘Robby’ well-publicised problems with funding the smaller adapted from other forms. Recently and upcoming, we Robinson, the Globe editor who Tension: Hanks and Streep (third space during this time, but an Abbey without this have had and will continue to have a host of novels, oversaw an arduous investigation that “engine room” is surely a National Theatre with a limb films and new versions of old plays. Upcoming shows and fourth left) in The Post, faced resistance at every turn. and inset, Redford in All the missing. The under-active Peacock severely interfered in 2018 include Roddy Doyle’s novel The Snapper President’s Men with the grooming of new talent, and was a major at the Gate and Louise O’Neill’s novel Asking For cause of the entrenchment of Irish theatre’s gender It at Cork’s Everyman and the Abbey. The big new imbalance during the past two decades. work on the Abbey mainstage, The Unmanageable no say at all. Redford, cast as Woodward, investigation to make sure they got New Abbey directors Graham McLaren and Neil Sisters by Deirdre Kinahan, is a version of a Canadian worried that his well-known face would everything exactly right. The activities Murray were appointed to bring a fresh wind into the play by Michel Tremblay. All potentially interesting, damage the veracity of the project, and of Woodward and Bernstein’s elusive building. They have done this with their free previews and welcome in their variety. But is the original play realised that an equally famous actor source, ‘Deep Throat’, was particularly and their hosting of, and co-producing with, the wider getting choked out? There will be a début, Porcelain would need to play Bernstein. Dustin intriguing. He was played in the film by Irish theatre community. Their strengths include by Margaret Perry, in February, and a new play from Hoffman was the obvious choice, and a shadowy Hal Holbrook, and his famous the ability to create site-specific and touring works, Phillip McMahon, Come On Home, in July, both in the he and Redford promptly descended phrase “follow the money” was invented to inject vibrancy and energy into productions, and Peacock. So there are some original plays, but they are on The Post to soak up the newsroom by Goldman, and never uttered by the to bring a national theatre to the people. These were no longer front and centre in the programming. atmosphere. real government source. distinctive aspects of their previous institutional The Abbey dominates this argument as it is the They stayed there for weeks on end, Woodward and others kept his identity affiliation, the National Theatre of Scotland. major recipient of Arts Council theatre funds, at €7m sitting in on editorial meetings and pick- secret, and it would be 30 years before McLaren’s directing style follows the current British for 2018, and thus carries the greatest responsibility ing the real Woodward and Bernstein’s FBI associate director Mark Felt was vogue of creating spectacle productions, a style for legacy. Other important producers in the new-play brains. But Bradlee drew the line at revealed as their invaluable informant. typified by star director Emma Rice’s Tristan & Yseult game include Fishamble: The New Play Company, Redford and co using his newsroom as The finished film, which was over two for Kneehigh in Cornwall, a production which came which on scant resources manages to create a film set, and so an exact replica was hours long and featured a lot of talk and here last year as part of the Galway International Arts substantial energy around new writing. Landmark constructed in a Burbank studio, with hardly any action, could so easily have Festival. The kind of show becomes a song-and-dance Productions, using a flexible project-oriented funding bins full of actual Washington Post refuse been worthy, and tedious. Instead it was act, complete with some acrobatics or puppetry, and model, also make highly courageous forays into new to add to the authenticity. brooding, tense, relentlessly gripping: audience involvement. The ideas and visuals are often writing, cleverly attracting star cast members — a While everyone agreed that Wood- somehow, Goldman and Pakula managed more important than the verbal script. vital element bringing the oxygen of publicity to new, ward was helpful, Bernstein was trickier. to make the painstaking, grubby and It is a highly enjoyable mode of theatrical untested writing. But if Irish theatre is going to And when Redford showed the first draft tiresome business of reporting seem production, with plenty of novelty. But novelty wears become more dependent on the independent sector to of Goldman’s screenplay to Bernstein, fascinating, even noble. Because as All the thin and the problem with importing this style of take new writing seriously, the money will have to be he and his then girlfriend Nora Ephron President’s Men made clear, if Woodward, razzmatazz theatre into Ireland is that we do not have more evenly spread around. wrote a version of their own, which ap- Bernstein and their swashbuckling editor a large enough industry to accommodate it along When Lady Gregory and WB Yeats founded the Irish parently rather aggrandised Bernstein’s Bradlee hadn’t doggedly pursued that with other more native literary forms. When you plant Literary Theatre (the precursor to the Abbey) in 1899, persona and appeal to women, and was trail of breadcrumbs around Washington, a rhododendron bush in a small garden, it is pretty their declared aim was to show that Ireland “was promptly rejected by Redford. Nixon and his henchmen might have got and dramatic with its eye-catching blossoms — but it not the home of buffoonery and of easy sentiment, as He and Pakula spent long hours tink- away with it. can overpower native shrubbery. In the UK they can it has been represented, but the home of an ancient ering with the script, but the finished In The Post, Steven Spielberg uses the absorb all sorts of trends, while maintaining diversity idealism”. This was a barb at the lively, sentimental result was very much Goldman’s, who quaint paraphernalia of typewriters and across forms; that is less certain here. song-and-dance acts embodied by the likes of Dion later said he would have run a hot metal to eulogise the virtues, and The new Abbey management has not appointed a Boucicault, and not dissimilar to the current vogue mile if he realised how much necessity, of a free press. In America, literary director, though there are two people listed for spectacle theatre. But, if you wish to represent the interference he’d have to the fourth estate is under attack as on the staff with responsibility for “new work”. The “home of an ancient idealism”, can this be done without tolerate. never before, from a president who language here is significant as changing language is specifically grooming and empowering writers? But working on a film knows that rigorous journalism a way of manipulating power structures. You are no KATYHAYES based on recent and very is the only thing likely to hold his controversial events worst excesses in check. was always going to Nixon once thought he could cow be fraught: lawyers and control the media by bullying THEFRIDAY NIGHTEFFECT THEEGGISALONELY TYPHOIDMARY pored over every editors and banning pub- 1SmockAlleyTheatre,Dublin 2HUNTER VikingTheatre,Clontarf word, and Gold- lications from his press Jan9–13 Boys’School,SmockAlley 3 untilJan20 man, Pakula briefings: Donald Trump NOW Part of First Fortnight, the Art Theatre,Dublin,Jan8–13 The story of an Irish immigrant and Redford should of Mental Health Festival: Eva Written and performed by Hannah cook in 1906 New York, accused exhaustively take O’Connor and Hildegard Ryan’s Mamalis, directed by Jeda de Brí, of spreading typhoid. Written by interviewed note show presents three best friends this is an absurdest dark comedy Eithne McGuinness, directed by reporters of what on a night out. Their fate is in the where dreams and reality blur. Bairbre Ní Chaoimh and starring and other hap- hands of the audience. Part of First Fortnight festival. Charlotte Bradley.

participants pened BOOK IT in the actual next.