IRISH FILM and TELEVISION - 2015 the Year in Review
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Estudios Irlandeses, Number 11, 2016, pp. 275-320 ____________________________________________________________________________________________ AEDEI IRISH FILM AND TELEVISION - 2015 The Year in Review Roddy Flynn, Tony Tracy (eds.) Copyright (c) 2015 by the authors. This text may be archived and redistributed both in electronic form and in hard copy, provided that the authors and journal are properly cited and no fee is charged for access. The Irish Are Coming: Irish Film and Television in 2015 Roddy Flynn and Tony Tracy ............................................................................................ 276 The Canal (Ivan Kavanagh 2014) Ciara Barrett ....................................................................................................................... 282 Brooklyn (John Crowley 2015) Pat Brereton ........................................................................................................................ 285 Swan Song: Lamenting Ireland’s Traditional Past in Song of the Sea (Tomm Moore 2014) Liam Burke ......................................................................................................................... 288 The Making of a Western in Conamara: An Klondike (Dathai Keane 2015) Sean Crosson ...................................................................................................................... 292 Sentimentality and “Difficult” Art in Room (Lenny Abrahamson 2015) Eileen Culloty ..................................................................................................................... 295 Queen of Ireland (Conor Horgan 2015) Debbie Ging ....................................................................................................................... 298 Performance of Myth: The Legend of Longwood (Lisa Mulcahy 2014) Loretta Goff … ................................................................................................................... 301 My Bonnie (Hannah Quinn 2015) Isabelle le Corff ................................................................................................................ 305 A Revision of the Family in Irish Film: Glassland (Gerard Barrett 2015) Deirdre Molumby .............................................................................................................. 307 The Great Wall (Tadhg O’Sullivan 2015) Michaela Marková .............................................................................................................. 311 Rebellion (Colin Teevan / RTE 2016) Sheamus Sweeney .............................................................................................................. 313 I Used to Live Here (Frank Berry 2015) Tony Tracy ........................................................................................................................ 318 ________________________ ISSN 1699-311X 276 Estudios Irlandeses, Number 11, 2016, pp. 276-281 ____________________________________________________________________________________________ AEDEI The Irish Are Coming: Irish Film and Television in 2015 Roddy Flynn and Tony Tracy Stephen Colbert: “How did I do with your name? ‘Sursha’.” Saoirse Ronan: “’Sursha” is perfect. ‘Sursha’ like inertia. SC: “What’s the worst pronunciation of your name that you’ve ever had?” SR: “I’ve had a lot of ‘Sore-sees’, ‘Suarez’, ‘Sair-she’, ‘Sheer-says’... SC: “You do look a little bit like a Suarez.” The Late Show,12 January 2016. Recent months have seen the “absurd” premiering at the Sundance Film Festival in discrepancy between the spelling and January 2015, a carefully planned festival release pronunciation of Saoirse Ronan’s first name strategy built critical momentum over nine repeatedly exploited for comic effect on the months, paying dividends on the US and UK American chat show circuit. Before Colbert, awards circuits, most notably for Saoirse Ronan’s Ellen de Generes did it twice (producing cards central performance as Eilis. with Irish names and challenging the audience to The comparable success of Lenny guess the correct pronunciation) while Jimmy Abrahamson’s Room (the nomination of Fallon couldn’t avoid referring to the Ronan’s Abrahamson in Best Director category in some brogue during a Tonight Show appearance in senses outshone Brooklyn’s considerable November 2015. Behind the cheap laughs, achievements) came as a late bonus given that the however, these exchange simply that US film didn’t receive a world premiere (notably at audiences need to get used to Irish accents and Telluride, not Dublin) until September 2015. idioms (Interview magazine featured a similar Both films featured prominently among the encounter between Domhnall Gleeson and nominees for the Screen Actors Guild, the Angelina Jolie), pointing to a ‘mainstreaming’ of Golden Globes, the New Film Critics Awards young Irish actors and – perhaps – Irish film and, of course the Academy Awards. When within the US entertainment firmament.1 Colin Welland, on receiving the Best Screenplay This ‘greening’ owes much to the critical Oscar for Chariots of Fire in 1982, famously success and extensive coverage afforded two proclaimed that “the British are Coming”, he recent Irish films – the screen adaptations of could only point to that single film. In 2016, the Brooklyn and, to a lesser extent, Room (reviewed Oscar nominations created a hitherto in this year’s edition by Pat Brereton and Eileen unimaginable scenario: two Irish films vying not Culloty respectively) – although for a variety of only in the Best Actress Category but also for the reasons, Saoirse has proven the more marketable high status and financially critical Best Picture personality. In the case of Brooklyn, the Oscar. The Irish, it would seem, have arrived. remarkable success of Colm Tóibín’s novel was So overwhelming has the critical praise and replicated by John Crowley’s screen version. After coverage of these films been that they have all but eclipsed other films produced in Ireland over _____________________ the past year and become, inevitably perhaps, the 1. “So, Brad had a question for you. What the hell is benchmarks by which such films are measured. the M doing in your name if you’re not going to use Notwithstanding their extraordinary achievements, it?”Angelina Jolie to Domhnall Gleeson, Interview Brooklyn and Room nevertheless raise provocative Magazine, 6 April 2015. ________________________ ISSN 1699-311X 277 issues around the definition and ambitions of undermine the efforts of the Irish Film Board, Irish cinema in 2016. (Along with the not-yet production companies and creative talent, which unreleased Viva – a Cuba-set Spanish language have unquestionably made decisive contributions film shortlisted as Ireland’s entry in the Best to these productions. It is rather to raise the Foreign Language category). While Room can question of whether it even makes sense to think unproblematically be identified as Irish at a of Irish cinema in national terms anymore. And production level, led by director Lenny if not, then how might we conceptualise and Abrahamson and producer Ed Guiney (and relate the diversity of activities in Ireland’s audio substantial development and production funding visual sector. from the Irish Film Board),the setting and Admittedly this is scarcely an original characters are unequivocally North American. observation, nor is it one that uniquely applies to Outside Ireland, some media coverage has Ireland: for at least two decades, the idea that referred to the film as Canadian, reflecting national cinemas can be treated as discrete Guiney’s creative exploitation of screenwriter entities has been increasingly difficult for the Emma Donoghue’s dual Irish/Canadian film academics to sustain. From the early 1990s, citizenship to access Canadian funding. (The when scholars like Stephen Crofts and Andrew film is adapted from Donoghue’s novel). In this Higson sought to delineate the range of regard it’s worth recalling that the previous approaches which might be included under the Abrahamson/Guiney collaboration, Frank (2014) rubric of national cinema, they had to include had scarcely any textual relationship to Ireland at some categories which, on the fact of it, seemed all (bar a brief stop-over for the band) and while to have very little to do with the notion of the two of its principle actors were Irish – Michael national. Croft’s “Imitating Hollywood” category Fassbinder and Domhnall Gleeson – they were (into which he placed much Anglophone cast as American and British characters respectively. production from the UK, Australia and Canada) Brooklyn, of course, is an overtly Irish text. noted the extent to which such nations had Based on Irish writer Colm Tóibín’s novel, it become offshore production bases for stars the most prominent Irish screen actress Hollywood. While this has some bearing on since Maureen O’Hara in a familiar story of Irish Ireland – more in relation to high-end television emigration to the United States. Director John than film these days, it does not quite capture the Crowley was previously best known for complexities of the situation. Intermission (2003) and the Irish Film Board, the For some years, this annual Review has traced Broadcasting Authority of Ireland and – in a rare an evolving trajectory whereby Irish screen move – RTE contributed towards the production policy has, in line with the wider industrial budget. But, as the producers acknowledged in policies of Ireland’s open economy, sought to an interview with Screen International, the rest ‘balance’ what might